Free The Murder of a Fifth Columnist by Leslie Ford Page B

was becoming with each second more and more acutely jittery.
    Suddenly I jumped nearly out of my skin. There was a sharp insistent buzz from the box under the table that was almost like somebody bursting through the door. Ruth Sherwood ran out into the hall and stood there. The phone buzzed again. She nodded at it sharply. I reached out and picked it up, my hand shaking.
    I said, “Hello,” I know my voice was high-pitched and unnatural.
    A voice said, “Hello. Is this Mrs. Sherwood’s apartment?”
    For a moment I thought I wasn’t going to be able to stand up long enough to answer. It was a voice that I knew as well as I know my own. And I knew all the more just how unnatural my own voice must have been if he didn’t recognize it wherever he heard it.
    “Oh, Colonel Primrose!” I gasped. “—I’m so glad! Where are you?”
    He still didn’t recognize me.
    “It’s Grace Latham,” I said.
    “Oh, hello, hello, my dear! I’ve been calling you for the last two hours. I got in at ten o’clock. I’m at Corliss Marshall’s now.”
    My lips went so dry, my throat so tight, that I couldn’t speak. Ruth Sherwood was at my side. I could see her face in the mirror over the table. It was almost as white as the wall behind it. I shook my head at her.
    “Has he left yet?” Colonel Primrose said. “He asked me to meet him here at a quarter to eleven, and it’s almost twelve now.”
    I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. My mouth was just as if it was stuffed with cotton.
    There was a short silence at the other end of the phone. “Mrs. Latham!” His voice was sharpened. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
    “—It’s Corliss, Colonel,” I managed to say. “We were just calling the police. He’s dead. He’s been murdered.”
    I don’t know whether it was because he’d already sensed it, or because his reaction time is fast as lightning, but I hadn’t got my breath before he said, “Call the police at once, Mrs. Latham. I’ll be over immediately.”
    The calm unhurried competence in his voice was miraculous in its effect.
    “Yes, Colonel,” I said.
    “And look, my dear,” he added firmly. “—Don’t you do anything on the impulse of the moment, will you? Just for this once? I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
    I put down the phone and turned to Ruth Sherwood.
    “It was Colonel Primrose. He’s at Corliss Marshall’s house. Corliss was supposed to meet him there at quarter to eleven. You’ve got to call the police, quick. Have you told Barbara?” She shook her head. I glanced down the hall. Ruth must have closed the door to keep the girl from hearing, because it opened now and she came out, carrying her bag and dressing case. She had her skirt and jacket on, her fur coat over her arm and her hat jammed down on the back of her head. Her face was flushed and her eyes sleepy and bewildered. She came along obediently, as if she was too unhappy—or maybe just too sleepy—to question anything else that night.
    “Go with Mrs. Latham, darling,” Ruth said. “Go to bed and go to sleep. I’ll see you early in the morning.”
    She put her arms around the girl and held her tightly a moment, and kissed her. “Quickly, darling.”
    I opened the door. The hall was still empty. She gave Barbara a little push and turned her head away, holding blindly to the door. A few steps along I could hear her voice saying, “This is Mrs. Addison Sherwood at the Randolph-Lee.”
    “Hurry, my dear,” I said. I took her dressing case. “It’s the next door.”
    She came along with me, not saying anything, and waited while I fished in my bag for the key—frantically, because at the end of the hall I could see the green elevator light come on. I heard the door whirring open just as I turned the key in the lock and pushed Barbara in in front of me. I picked up her dressing case, followed her inside and closed the door. If I’d been a snowshoe rabbit just escaped from a mountain lion my heart couldn’t have been