"For God's sake!" I took the case. She offered no resistance. I put her
bag and mine next to the booth. When I turned around she was standing
there looking at me as if I had gone out of my mind. Her eyes were blue
and brown-flecked, very pretty eyes, and my thought at the moment was,
I'm glad the bomb didn't go off; these eyes wouldn't be looking at me
or anything else right now if it had.
"I've got to talk to you. It's very important."
The girl said, "Why?" I was beginning to think it was the only word she
knew. At the same time I was wondering why anyone would want to kill
someone so lovely.
"I'll explain in a moment. Please stand right here while I make a
telephone call." I moved toward the phone booth, paused and said, "And
don't ask me why."
She gave me a speculative look.
I must not have seemed a complete idiot because she said, "All right,
but--"
I didn't listen for the rest. I went into the booth, closed the door,
pretended to drop a coin and dial a number. But all the time I was in
there, I was reaching out through the glass for the clock. At this
range it wasn't difficult to stop the balance wheel.
Just the same, when I came out I was wringing wet.
"Now will you please tell me what this is all about?" she said stiffly.
"Gladly. Let me buy you a cup of coffee and I'll explain."
She glanced at the bags. I told her they'd be all right. We followed
the short, fat man into the coffee shop.
Over coffee I explained it all to her, how I had this extrasensory
ability, how she was the first person I had ever revealed it to, and
how I had discovered what was in her overnight bag.
During the telling, her untouched coffee grew a skin, her face grew
pale, her eyes grew less curious and more troubled. There were tears
there when I finished. I asked her who put the bomb in her bag.
"Joe did," she said in a toneless voice, not looking at me any more but
staring vacantly across the room. "Joe put it there." Behind her eyes
she was reliving some recent scene.
"Who is Joe?"
"My husband." I thought she was going to really bawl, but she got
control again. "This trip was his idea, my coming down here to visit my
sister." Her smile was bleak. "I see now why he wanted to put in those
books. I'd finished packing and was in the bathroom. He said he'd put
in some books we'd both finished reading--for my sister. That's when he
must have put the--put it in there."