Rear Window Read Online Free PDF Page A

any worse than I did, and have this guy picked up and brought in for questioning."
      "Oh, then you don't think that's necessary?" I suggested, dryly.
      The look he gave me took care of that.   "I'm not alone in the department, you know.   There are men over me I'm accountable to for my actions.   That looks great, don't it, sending one of my fellows one-half-a-day's train ride up into the sticks to some God-forsaken whistle-stop or other at departmental expense——"
      "Then you located the trunk?"
      "We traced it through the express agency," he said flintily.
      "And you opened it?"
      "We did better than that.   We got in touch with the various farmhouses in the immediate locality, and Mrs. Thorwald came down to the junction in a produce-truck from one of them and opened it for him herself, with her own keys!"
      Very few men have ever gotten a look from an old friend such as I got from him.   At the door he said, stiff as a rifle barrel: "Just let's forget all about it, shall we?   That's about the kindest thing either one of us can do for the other.   You're not yourself, and I'm out a little of my own pocket money, time and temper.   Let's let it go at that.   If you want to telephone me in future I'll be glad to give you my home number."
      The door went whopp!   behind him.
      For about ten minutes after he stormed out my numbed mind was in a sort of straitjacket.   Then it started to wriggle its way free.   The hell with the police.   I can't prove it to them, maybe, but I can prove it to myself, one way or the other, once and for all.   Either I'm wrong or I'm right.   He's got his armor on against them.   But his back is naked and unprotected against me.
      I called Sam in.   "Whatever became of that spyglass we used to have, when we were bumming around on that cabin-cruiser that season?"
      He found it some place downstairs and came in with it, blowing on it and rubbing it along his sleeve.   I let it lie idle in my lap first.   I took a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote six words on it.    What have you done with her?
      I sealed it in an envelope and left the envelope blank.   I said to Sam: "Now here's what I want you to do, and I want you to be slick about it.   You take this, go in that building 525, climb the stairs to the fourth-floor rear, and ease it under the door.   You're fast, at least you used to be.   Let's see if you're fast enough to keep from being caught at it.   Then when you get safely down again, give the outside doorbell a little poke, to attract attention."
      His mouth started to open.
      "And don't ask me any questions, you understand?   I'm not fooling."
      He went, and I got the spyglass ready.
      I got him in the right focus after a minute or two.   A face leaped up, and I was really seeing him for the first time.   Dark-haired, but unmistakable Scandinavian ancestry.   Looked like a sinewy customer, although he didn't run to much bulk.
      About five minutes went by.   His head turned sharply, profile-wards.   That was the bell-poke, right there.   The note must be in already.
      He gave me the back of his head as he went back toward the flat-door.   The lens could follow him all the way to the rear, where my unaided eyes hadn't been able to before.
      He opened the door first, missed seeing it, looked out on a level.   He closed it.   Then dipped, straightened up.   He had it.   I could see him turning it this way and that.
      He shifted in, away from the door, nearer the window.   He thought danger lay near the door, safety away from it.    He didn't know it was the other way around, the deeper into his own rooms he retreated the greater the danger.
      He'd torn it open, he was reading it.   God, how I watched his expression.   My eyes clung to it like leeches.   There was a sudden widening, a pulling — the whole skin of his face seemed to stretch back behind the ears, narrowing his eyes to Mongoloids.