The Black Angel by Cornell Woolrich Read Free Book Online Page A

had. And then—she was gone now. She was gone like this: Phwit! And there it was, on the floor, something to be thrown out.
    A little thing came into my mind. I don’t know how or from where. And as I thought of it, dwelt on the thought of it, it grew bigger and bigger, until it was crowding everything else out. I had seen one of these match covers up there myself. It had been wedged into the seam of the door, to keep the latch from closing fast. I had noticed it as I was standing there waiting to slip out, and I had picked it up, unfolded it, thrown it down again. It was just like this one; it had an M on it, and the pasteboard was blue on the outside.
    But here was the little thought that grew bigger and bigger: It wasn’t just like this one.
    It had been blue, but not turquoise, a far deeper shade. And the M on it wasn’t a double-lined M; it was single-lined.
    Why would she go to the trouble of selecting a certain trick monogram—naïve though it was—and then have it scattered around on everything in sight, if she was going to allow a variation of it, a symbol that didn’t quite match, to appear on one item? It wouldn’t have been in character. To her, monogramming spelt chic, and not to have carried it out identically on everything at once would have been a flaw.
    Besides, this very cover in my hand now showed she had carried it out on her matches as well as on everything else. Therefore, that other cover that I’d seen up there was not hers.
    That initial was somebody else’s. It stood for somebody else whose name began with an M . And that somebody else had killed her.
    There was a triple coincidence there that had kept me from realizing that fact until now. Both names, hers and her killer’s, began with the same letter. Just as Kirk’s own did, for that matter, although it would never have occurred to him to go around carrying his initials on match folders and things; he would have laughed at the idea as it deserved to be laughed at. And, secondly, this unknown seemed to have the same crass flair she did for having his things personalized with an initial. And, thirdly, it happened that the piece of pasteboard involved was blue, though of a quite different shade from the tone she had seemed to dote on.
    And in my excitement of mind that day, following the shock of the discovery I had just made, these discrepancies hadn’t made sense to me.
    They did now. Somebody whose name began with an M had been to see her that day, had detected something he didn’t like, had fixed the door so that he could return and catch her off guard, and when he had——
    Oh, if I only knew all the people she knew whose names began with M! Wait, there had been a book. Hadn’t there been a list of names, an alphabetical calling list, I’d snatched up and taken with me that day, at the last moment, in my flurry of panic-stricken departure? I hadn’t thought of it since; I hadn’t seen it since. But that latter fact alone argued that, if I had taken it, it was still around somewhere.
    I got out my handbag and started plumbing its depths and crevices. The woman never yet breathed who could be absolutely certain, at any one given time, of all that her own handbag holds. There is always some overlooked thing, some mislaid thing that she has lost track of, to be found lurking in its myriad compartments and zippered slits.
    There was in this one too. But not what I was looking for. And yet I was certain I had brought that thing away with me. I could remember its soft leather turquoise cover, its stepped page margins, as well as I could that single-lined M on the match cover. I had all but torn the lining out of the bag, and there was no use kneading it any further. I sat there with it dangling disheartenedly over my knee.
    Then I remembered that I’d gotten myself together rather carefully that day, to try to create a certain desired impression on her. I must have