Behind That Curtain

I

The Man from Scotland

Bill Rankin sat motionless before his typewriter, grimly seeking a lead for the interview he was about to write. A black shadow shot past his elbow and materialized with a soft thud on his desk. Bill’s heart leaped into his throat and choked him.

But it was only Egbert, the office cat. Pretty lonesome round here, seemed to be Egbert’s idea. How about a bit of play? Rankin glared at the cat with deep disgust. Absurd to be so upset by a mere Egbert, but when one has been talking with a great man for over an hour and the subject of the talk has been murder, one is apt to be a trifle jumpy.

He reached out and pushed Egbert to the floor. “Go away,” he said. “What do you mean, scaring me out of a year’s growth? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

His dignity offended, Egbert stalked off through the desert of typewriter tables and empty chairs. Bill Rankin watched him disappear at last through the door leading into the hallway. The hour was five thirty; the street ten stories below was filled with home-going throngs, but up here in the city room of the Globe a momentary quiet reigned. Alone of all the green-shaded lamps in the room, the one above Rankin’s typewriter was alight, shedding a ghastly radiance on the blank sheet of paper in his machine. Even the copy desk was deserted. In his cubbyhole at the rear sat the Globe’s city editor, the only other human thing in sight. And he was not, if you believed the young men who worked for him, so very human at that.