There was a window in the bedroom, conventionally enough, but there was an air conditioner in it so there was no quick way to open it. There was another smaller window, large enough so that I could have gotten through it, but some spoilsport had installed bars on it to prevent some rotten burglar from climbing in through it. This also prevented rotten burglars from climbing out, although the installer had probably not had that specifically in mind.

I registered this, then looked at the bed with its lacy spread and thought about throwing myself under it. But there wasn’t really a hell of a lot of room between the box spring and the carpet. I could have fit but I could not have been happy about it. And there’s something so undignified about hiding under a bed. It’s such a dreary cliché.

The bedroom closet was every bit as trite but rather more comfortable. Even as the key was turning in the second Rabson lock, I was darting into the closet. I’d opened it before to paw through garments and check hatboxes in the hope that they held more than hats. It had then been quaintly locked, the key stuck right there in the lock waiting for me to turn it. I don’t know why people do this but they do it all the time. I guess if they keep the key somewhere else it’s too much trouble hunting for it every time they want to change their shoes, and I guess locking a door provides some sort of emotional security even when you leave the key in the lock. I’d taken nothing from her closet earlier; if she had furs they were in storage, and I hate stealing furs anyway, and I certainly wasn’t going to make off with her Capezios.

At any rate, I hadn’t bothered relocking the closet and that saved unlocking it all over again. I popped inside and drew it shut after me, slipped between a couple of faintly perfumed gowns and adjusted them again in front of me, took a deep breath that didn’t even begin to fill my aching lungs, and listened carefully as the door opened and two people entered.