She slammed the door.
"Now lock it, bar it, lock it!" she gasped wretchedly.
"Lock it, tight, tight!"
The door was locked and bolted tight.
The music stopped. She listened to her heart again and the sound of it diminishing into silence.
Home! Oh God, safe at home! Safe, safe and safe at home! She slumped against the door. Safe, safe. Listen. Not a sound. Safe, safe, oh thank God, safe at home. I'll never go out at night again. I'll stay home. I won't go over that ravine again ever. Safe, oh safe, safe home, so good, so good, safe! Safe inside, the door locked. Wait.
Look out the window.
She looked.
Why, there's no one there at all! Nobody. There was nobody following me at all. Nobody running after me. She got her breath and almost laughed at herself. It stands to reason. If a man had been following me, he'd have caught me! I'm not a fast runner.... There's no one on the porch or in the yard. How silly of me. I wasn't running from anything. That ravine's as safe as anyplace. Just the same, it's nice to be home. Home's the really good warm place, the only place to be.
She put her hand out to the light switch and stopped.
"What?" she asked. "What, What?"
Behind her in the living room, someone cleared his throat.
"Good grief, they ruin everything!"
"Don't take it so hard, Charlie."
"Well, what're we going to talk about now? It's no use talking the Lonely One if he ain't even alive! It's not scary anymore!"
"Don't know about you, Charlie," said Tom. "I'm going back to Summer's Ice House and sit in the door and pretend he's alive and get cold all up and down my spine."
"That's cheating."
"You got to take your chills where you can find them, Charlie."
Douglas did not listen to Tom and Charlie. He looked at Lavinia Nebbs's house and spoke, almost to himself.
"I was there last night in the ravine. I saw it. I saw everything. On my way home I cut across here. I saw that lemonade glass right on the porch rail, half empty. Thought I'd like to drink it. Like to drink it, I thought. I was in the ravine and I was here, right in the middle of it all."
Tom and Charlie, in turn, ignored Douglas.
"For that matter," said Tom. "I don't really think the Lonely One is dead."
"You were here this morning when the ambulance came to bring that man out on the stretcher, weren't you?"
"Sure," said Tom.
"Well, that was the Lonely One, dumb! Read the papers! After ten long years escaping, old Lavinia Nebbs up and stabbed him with a handy pair of sewing scissors. I wish she'd minded her own business."
"You want she'd laid down and let him squeeze her windpipe?"
"No, but the least she could've done is gallop out of the house and down the street screaming 'Lonely One! Lonely One!' long enough to give him a chance to beat it. This town used to have some good stuff in it up until about twelve o'clock last night. From here on, we're vanilla junket."
"Let me say it for the last time, Charlie; I figure the Lonely One ain't dead. I saw his face, you saw his face, Doug saw his face, didn't you, Doug?"
"What? Yes. I think so. Yes."
"Everybody saw his face. Answer me this, then: Did it look like the Lonely One to you?"