There was a squeak and he heard the window slide in its frame. He felt that all was over. It would be impossible for Shine Taylor not to observe the hooked prong of the ladder, with its curving metal a few inches from his hands. In this ghastly minute of suspense, Shiley's thoughts, strangely enough turned back to one thing. He did not dash through the gamut of his life experiences nor regret all past peccadilloes, as novelists inform us is generally the ultimate thought in the supreme moment before a dash into eternity! He felt only a maddening, itchingly bewitching desire to reach up to his coat pocket and draw out that scent-laden page of typed note-paper which had been glorified by its caress of the warm, bare bosom of the wonderful woman who had so mysteriously drifted into the current of his life.
Then he heard a voice through the open window so close to his ears: it was Shine Taylor's nasal whine.
“It's snowing, Reg. The air will do you good. What a gorgeous night for a murder. Tell me now, what was the trouble?”
Eternity had passed, the Judgment Day had been overlooked and new aeons had gone their way, it seemed to the criminologist, when the voice was audible again.
“Oh, all right. I just drew it down from the top. Tell me about your doping. Who was the devil?”
He had been unobserved. By the grace of the fates, Warren's sudden appearance had given him a better chance to hear their secrets, and Taylor's own abstraction had dissipated any interest in the world beyond the window. Again he lifted himself to the level of the sill, sure that the creamy curtains upon which the light from the big electrolier was beaming, would shield him from their view. Warren called for some brandy. Taylor served him, but it was three minutes or more before the other could collect himself. Then he began furiously, as the pain in his forehead diminished.
“This Shirley: he's a clever dog. He put something on my handkerchief, and when I got that message of yours it got me, right in the taxicab, as I was on my way to the Blue Goose to meet you.”
“To meet me?” and Taylor's turn came to be startled. “I don't know why you should meet me at the Blue Goose!”
“Say, didn't you send me this note in code?” demanded Warren, drawing out the typewritten sheet. Taylor shook his head, with a blanched face.