The Apartment Next Door

No, she decided, it would be best for her never to tell a soul, not even her parents. In persistent silence lay her safest course. After all she had not witnessed the commission of the crime. She was not even sure that the man found dead had been one of the two she had watched from her window. If she saw the body she would not be able to identify it. She was not even certain in her own mind that the man next door had done the shooting, however suspicious his actions may have appeared to her.

Besides, he did not look in the least like a murderer. He was too well-dressed.

In an effort to put the whole thing out of her mind she tried to read, but was unable to keep her thoughts from wandering. She sat down at the piano, but music failed to interest or soothe her. She mussed over some unanswered notes in her desk but could not summon up enough concentration of mind to answer them. Restless and fidgety, unable to keep her thoughts from the unusual occurrences that had disturbed her ordinarily too peaceful life, she decided to take a walk until it was time to keep her appointment. Something--force of habit probably--led her to the shopping district. With still half an hour to kill, she went into a little specialty shop to examine some knitting bags displayed in the window.

"Why don't you knit as all the other girls are doing?" was her father's constant suggestion every time she asserted her desire to be doing something in the war.

"There's no thrill in knitting," she would answer. "Fix it, Dad, so that I can go to France as a Red Cross nurse or as an ambulance driver, won't you? I want some excitement."

Always he had refused to consent to her going, insisting that France in wartime was no place for an untrained girl.

"If I can't go myself, I certainly am not going to send any knitting," she would spiritedly answer, but several times recently the sight of such charming looking knitting bags had tempted her into almost breaking her resolution.

Inside the shop she found nothing that appealed to her, and contented herself with buying some toilet articles. As she made her purchases she noticed, almost subconsciously, a man standing near, talking with one of the shopgirls--a middle-aged man with a dark mustache.

"The address, please," said the girl, who had been waiting on her.

"Miss Strong," she answered, giving the number of the apartment house on Riverside Drive.

She recalled afterward that as she mentioned the number the man standing there had turned and looked sharply at her, but she thought nothing of it. Her father's name was well known and he had many acquaintances in the city. More than likely, she supposed, this man was some friend of her father who had recognized the name.