Free Black Curtain by Cornell Woolrich Page B

potential intrinsic value. So he decided he'd try to raise something on it. He had no idea of its probable value, but it might help to tide him over another week or two, and meantime, any day--any day--
     
    There was, strangely enough, no pawnshop located anywhere along Tillary Street itself, but he found one about a block and a half down Monmouth Street, to the right. He pushed his way into its camphor-reeking interior, empty at the moment, took out the case, blew on it, and polished it against his coat sleeve.
     
    The pawnbroker, attracted by the sounds of entry, came out of a storage room at the back, gave him the sharply appraising look of his kind as he advanced along the inside of the counter to the point where Townsend stood. "Well?" he said noncommittally.
     
    Townsend passed him the case, winged opens through the small orifice in the wire mesh that separated them.
     
    The broker made no effort to test it, weigh it, examine it closely in any way. Townsend should have noticed that, but for some reason failed to. The technique of hocking was new to him.
     
    Suddenly the broker had spoken, casually in intonation but with explosive implications. "This again, hm?" he said weariedly.
     
    Townsend wasn't expecting it. He was caught off guard, inattentively off guard. It was like flashlight powder going off. It's over with before you even have time to jolt. He blinked as the meaning hit him, then he paled a little, then he gripped the edge of the counter a little tighter. This -again-. -Again-. He had that sudden, strange, glimmering sensation that comes when you've been in a pitch-dark room and a door begins to waver slightly open, admitting the first peering light backing it.
     
    He must have been in here with this same case before.
     
    His voice shook a little, much as he tried to steady it. He tried to make himself sound plausibly forgetful, no more. "Oh, uh, was this the--the same place I brought it to before? All hockshops look alike to me." He hoped this didn't sound as lame to his vis-à-vis as it did to himself.
     
    The broker sniffed disdainfully. "I ought to know this case by heart already. Three times you been in here with it now, haven't you?" Meanwhile he was holding it extended as if in rejection. Then, with an inconsistent time lag, his offer followed. "All right, four dollars."
     
    Townsend saw an opening, and clutched at it desperately. "That wasn't what you let me have on it before."
     
    The broker immediately took professional umbrage. "So what're you going to do, argue? Four dollars is what it's worth. Why should I give you any more this time than the time before? It ain't any more valuable to me now than it was then, is it?"
     
    Townsend's voice was tense. "Do you keep the--the ticket stubs, or whatever you call 'em, after the article's once been redeemed? I mean the part that the customer signs his name and address on, and that you hold until the loan is repaid?"
     
    "Sure. You want me to look it up? What do I have to look it up for? I know this case by its pattern. I tested it for you before. Look at that." He showed him a little mark made by the drop of reagent acid. Townsend had thought it was a worn spot. "So you were raising a big holler, remember? Fourteen carat you tried to tell me it was. Silver, gilt. Four dollars."
     
    Townsend was pleading almost abjectly by now. "Well, just to convince me, just to make sure. Go ahead, see if you can dig it up. I just want to see with my own eyes."
     
    "You telling me I don't know my own business? I ought to know how much a piece of security is worth to me." The pawnbroker was maddeningly interested in the question of the amount involved. "When were you in here with it last?"
     
    He'd come back to Virginia on the tenth of May. He took a chance, faltered: "In April, this year. Look it up in your ledger, you must have it down."
     
    The broker went into the back again, snapped on a light. There was a long wait. For Townsend an agonizing one. He