"whitney phyllis a. the red carnelian" - читать интересную книгу автора (Whitney Phyllis A)

past. But his days are given over to the humdrum of
catching shoplifters and petty thieves, instead of
trailing a murderer.
He never mentions that one picture we hunted
down together, or the tragic denouement to which it led.
But now and then we cock an eyebrow at each
other because we are conspirators and know it.
Not that the law was in any way defeated.
Payment in full was made for all those terrible
things that happened. But still, Hering and I know what
we know and the case as it broke in the papers told
only half the story.
There are still things about Cunningham's that make
me shiver. I can never cross that narrow
passageway that leads past the freight
elevators into the display department without a feeling
of uneasiness. I cannot bear the mannequin room
at all, and I will go to any length to avoid
setting foot in it. But most of all I am
haunted by the symbols that came into being during the
case.
The color red, for instance. I never wear it
any more, because it was the theme of those dreadful days.
It ran beneath the surface of our lives like a bright
network of veins, spilling out into the open now and then
to accent with horror. And there are the owls. Sometimes
in my dreams that eerie moment returns when I
stood there in the gloom with all those plaster
creatures crowding about me, cutting off my
escape.
Nor will I ever again breathe the scent of pine
without remembering the way the light went out and those
groping hands came toward me. Strange to have your
life saved by the odor of Christmas trees.
But the worst thing of all is when I imagine
I hear the strains of Sondo's phonograph.
For me, those rooms will never be free of ghostly
music and I break into cold chills in broad
daylight whenever a radio plays Begin the
Beguine.
Yet, before that Tuesday afternoon in late March,
I'd never thought of myself as a particularly
jittery young woman. That was the day it began--the
day Michael Montgomery came back to
Cunningham's.
I sat at the desk in my little eighth floor
office and stared helplessly at the sign copy before
me. I'd been under a strain since early morning
and it was beginning to tell.
I didn't want to watch the door. I'd