Page 43 of Without a Clue

Swivel round.

Look at Nash’s sleeping body beneath the bundle of sheets on the floor. The good soul, who has gone through days of exhaustion and was still thinking of me.

Should I wake him?

What is Neena doing up right now?

It may be too late to wake him and then catch whatever clue I need to see.

My hand is on the handle, hesitating.

But who knows? Perhaps somebody is waiting just outside right now.

Perhaps this was some kind of ploy.

I was told on no account to open the door.

And yet.

Quiet as possible, I slowly inch the handle down, down, down until there is the faintest of clicks.

Even that click, however, is enough to stir Nash, because he pulls up instantly on his elbows.

“What are you doing?” Nash says in the darkness.

I put a finger to my lips, and without need for further prompting, he quietly stands. Alert. Ready.

I feel his breath tickle the back of my neck as I turn the knob further. His head is directly above mine as I pull the door open millimeter by millimeter, and we look out.

Nothing.

I pull the door open farther.

Nothing still.

Once the door is open by a foot, we look out to the right. Then left.

Nobody, and still nothing.

The hallway is just one long stretch of muted light, a dozen dimmed sconces to the very end.

“What was it?” Nash whispers above me.

Carefully I shut the door.

I pull away from it before I begin speaking. I’m starting to get paranoid myself here.

“Nothing. Maybe. But Neena. She was in her robe and she was in the hall. And she wasn’t alone.”

Both of us wordlessly look at the clock on the nightstand: 3:35 a.m.

And I’m positive we’re both thinking, Why is Neena—the person who passed out when Ricky tried to hand her a biscuit at dinner—doing the very thing Carragan told her not to do and loitering out in the hall, in the middle of the night, with somebody else? And more specifically, with whom?

I’m living the classic chapter 8 of Hugh’s November in Red. Chapter 12 in his Four Endless Days. I’m Terry Frost in the middle of Hugh’s most celebrated work, Peril’s Last Case.

I’m the character who goes against all logic and blindly follows the shadow in the hallway.

I’m the character who either gets killed or solves the case.