Legacy Of Terror

slipped the latch bolt, jammed the hook into the ring at the top, and stepped back, out of line with the glass. When no third rock followed after several minutes, she drew the amber drapes, as if they would not only seal out the night, but would also wall off the entire incident, as if it had not happened.
    She went into the bathroom and removed the tops of her pajamas so that she could get a good look at her shoulder. Where the rock had struck, the flesh had already begun to purple and swell. The bruise was as large as the palm of her hand and stung when she tried to touch it. She knew that, no matter how sore it was now, it would be twice as bad in the morning. It would feel as if she had been- stabbed.
    She ran the water until it was icy, then used a washcloth to soak her wound until it was numbed. That done, there was little else she could do for herself. She dressed again and returned to the bedroom.
    As she sat on the edge of the bed, she admitted to herself that the rock could have killed or at least given her a bad concussion. She had not wanted to think about that. But she was a nurse, after all. She could not avoid thinking about it for long.
    He had tried to kill her.
    Who?
    On the television, a private detective was trying to run a car full of bad guys off the road. The chase raged up and down steep, narrow streets, along sharp embankments, rocking and heaving like a ship in bad seas as the camera took the place of the eye.
    She knew she was stalling, that she was trying to keep from saying what she had discovered. The killer was most definitely one of the family. She had a ninety-five percent certainty of it before. Now, she was entirely sure, without the smallest doubt.
    It was Dennis Matherly.
    He had been motionless and silent, almost cautious, until she had called his name. That had been the trigger. At that, he had reacted quite violently. The police might not call that iron-clad proof, but it was enough to satisfy her. In the morning, she would call Captain Rand, and she would tell him the story. He would say, “Is there anyone you especially suspect, Miss Sherred?” And she would say, “Yes. Dennis Matherly.” Oh, she could almost write out the dialogue this minute! And even if Rand did not think her proof was very positive, he would begin to question Dennis. She did not think Dennis would stand up long to close questioning. The insane were easily pushed into betraying themselves. Or that was what she wanted to believe, at least.
    She wished that she could have reached Rand earlier this evening. She might have been able to push the desk sergeant into something if Dennis hadn't caught her on the phone. That had been a bad moment.
    She considered, for a scant second, going downstairs and using the phone to call the police right now. But that was a bad idea. The man who had thrown the rocks, the man in the shadows by the willow, was down there. Dennis was down there! With a knife, no doubt.
    When she tested the door, she found that it was still locked and that the chair was still bracing the knob correctly.
    She went back to bed and sat down and looked at the television. The private detective was bound and gagged in the basement of the villain's house, but he was using the sharp edge of a drainage grill to saw through the ropes on his wrists.
    She found that she could not watch television programs. Her mind wandered into areas of thought which she wanted to avoid, and she could not keep track of the threads of the plot on the screen.
    She attempted to pick up the paperback adventure novel which she had started the other evening, but she could not get interested in the danger which faced the hero and the heroine, for that danger had somehow paled and seemed petty.
    Shortly after two o'clock in the morning, she balanced a number of bottles of makeup and perfume on the chair which was bracing the door. She set the bottles precariously between the tilted seat and the slanted rungs of the chair back. They would fall and clatter at the slightest attempt to force the door, and that would be sufficient to wake her.
    But when she slept, she did not find peace. She dreamed of getting hit in the face by a rock, a large rock with jagged edges. In the dream, her nose was smashed in and her left eye was ruined. There was rich, red blood streaming from her wounds, and she way unconscious and perhaps dying…
    She woke from the same nightmare so often that, by four o'clock, she gave up trying to sleep. She picked up