Rear Window Read Online Free PDF Page B

hour on his part between them.
      I leafed a directory by matchlight until I'd found what I wanted: Thorwald, Lars.   525 Bndct. . . . SWansea 5-2114.
      I blew out the match, picked up the phone in the dark.   It was like television.   I could see to the other end of my call, only not along the wire but by a direct channel of vision from window to window.
      He said "Hullo?" gruffly.
      I thought: How strange this is.   I've been accusing him of murder for three days straight, and only now I'm hearing his voice for the first time.
      I didn't try to disguise my own voice.   After all, he'd never see me and I'd never see him.   I said: "You got my note?"
      He said guardedly: "Who is this?"
      "Just somebody who happens to know."
      He said craftily: "Know what?"
      "Know what you know.   You and I, we're the only ones."
      He controlled himself well.   I didn't hear a sound.   But he didn't know he was open another way too.   I had the glass balanced there at proper height on two large books on the sill.   Through the window I saw him pull open the collar of his shirt as though its stricture was intolerable.   Then he backed his hand over his eyes like you do when there's a light blinding you.
      His voice came back firmly.   "I don't know what you're talking about"
      "Business, that's what I'm talking about.   It should be worth something to me, shouldn't it?   To keep it from going any further."   I wanted to keep him from catching on that it was the windows.   I still needed them, I needed them now more than ever.   You weren't very careful about your door the other night.   Or maybe the draft swung it open a little."
      That hit him where he lived.   Even the stomach-heave reached me over the wire.   "You didn't see anything.   There wasn't anything to see."
      "That's up to you.   Why should I go to the police?"   I coughed a little.   "If it would pay me not to."
      "Oh," he said.   And there was relief of a sort in it.   "D'you want to — see me?   Is that it?"
      "That would be the best way, wouldn't it?   How much can you bring with you for now?"
      "I've only got about seventy dollars around here."
      "All right, then we can arrange the rest for later.   Do you know where Lakeside Park is?   I'm near there now.   Suppose we make it there."   That was about thirty minutes away.   Fifteen there and fifteen back.   "There's a little pavilion as you go in."
      "How many of you are there?" he asked cautiously.
      "Just me.   It pays to keep things to yourself.   That way you don't have to divvy up."
      He seemed to like that too.   "I'll take a run out," he said, "just to see what it's all about."
      I watched him more closely than ever, after he'd hung up.   He flitted straight through to the end room, the bedroom, that he didn't go near any more.   He disappeared into a clothes-closet in there, stayed a minute, came out again.   He must have taken something out of a hidden cranny or niche in there that even the dicks had missed.   I could tell by the piston-like motion of his hand, just before it disappeared inside his coat, what it was.   A gun.
      It's a good thing, I thought, I'm not out there in Lakeside Park waiting for my seventy dollars.
      The place blacked and he was on his way.
      I called Sam in.   "I want you to do something for me that's a little risky.   In fact, damn risky.   You might break a leg, or you might get shot, or you might even get pinched.   We've been together ten years, and I wouldn't ask you anything like that if I could do it myself.   But I can't, and it's got to be done."   Then I told him.   "Go out the back way, cross the back yard fences, and see if you can get into that fourth-floor flat up the fire escape.   He's left one of the windows down a little from the top."
      "What do you want me to look for?"
      "Nothing."   The police had been there already, so what was the good of that?   "There are three