THE STATION PLATFORM CAME TO A STANDSTILL. MOLLOY THEREUPON gave it approximately half of his stolid attention. The other half he was keeping with unwavering force on a seat, seven removed from his own toward the front of the train. From time to time a puff of cigar smoke would drift into view above the seat back, and cocked in plain sight on the armrest of the other seat in that section were two feet: the feet George had mentioned. The shoes on the feet, the trousers on the attached legs, were not distinctive. The fat man—hired killer if he is that, and there isn’t much doubt about it—is a subdued dresser, Molloy reflected.
The other half of Molloy’s attention that was on the platform outside saw George go hurrying past.
Miss Edwards, Molloy reflected, is genuinely nice. Not a movie star for looks, quite; still, if someone got hold of her who knew how to put on glitter, he imagined the effect would be striking. She had a personality that grew on you; you didn’t, after a few minutes, begin to find coarseness in her.
George was, on the other hand, solidly and throughout, a coarse man. He had force and tenacity and directness, but not a very demanding need for strict adherence to morality, and little mental adeptness. Given an order, George carried it out, hell or high water. Molloy knew that his loyalty was unshakable. George’s strengths were giantlike, but they were simple, animal ones. He had a pack wolf’s respect for the pack leader, which was why George had not done any preliminary building for a pass at the girl. George was probably thinking he would leave that to Molloy ... That was just as well. Molloy, a firm line to his jaw, decided he would have resented George’s crudities, to this girl, much more than he usually did. George seemed to confine his thinking to two subjects, both of them women, and he was not particular; any female who happened to be at hand sufficed for his mind to dwell upon.
“Boarrrd!” The conductor’s yell came faintly. A bell started whanging. A whistle tooted.
Without starting shock or violence the station platform began to move past.
Molloy bolted upright. He had not seen George return ... He planted two strong hands on the seat, poised for action, but shocked, unsure, hardly believing.
Movement—a fat man running—drew his gaze to the platform. Molloy jammed an eye to the window and stared. He said, “Ahhhhh!” hollowly, for the man running to make the train was—from description—surely Fleshman.
Molloy came out of his seat and pounded down the aisle to the seat George had pointed out to watch. He glared at the occupant.
The man in Fleshman’s seat—not Fleshman, obviously—was tall and not a fat man. The man indicated his willingness to leave and asked, “This your seat, buddy? The wife kinda spread out in ours and I—”
Molloy, quite wordless, wheeled and plunged along the aisle. He gained the vestibule. A porter was slamming shut the steel door.
“A fat man just get on?” Molloy demanded. The porter was startled. “Yes now? Yes suh!” His white teeth sparkled. Passing platform lights alternated brightness with semigloom in the vestibule.
“Which way did he go?”
“Huh-uh,” the porter said. “Didn’t happen to notice, suh.” His breath steamed in the chill. Already the hard rocking and gnashing of speed was coming into the steel vestibule floor. “No suh, didn’t notice.”
“Did George get back?”
“Who?”
“A short, heavy-set man, tan suit, no hat. Went to send a telegram—did he make it back?”
“Ah didn’t see.”
Molloy’s shoulders had bulk and a solid set. He said, “He got off! Did he get back?”
“Ah don’t know. Foah God’s sake, did we go off and leave somebody?”
None of the tension and solid urgency left Molloy, but he said, “Never mind, never mind!” He wheeled away.
He looked into washrooms on either side of the vestibule, opened the toilet doors and looked in there. He walked through two pullmans, looking into seats, throwing dark glances at the curtains of berths that were made up. He did not find Fleshman.
He turned back. He walked through pullmans and compartment cars. In car 10 he stopped before compartment 7, snapped back his sleeve, and glanced at his watch. It was twenty minutes past ten. He knocked twice on the door, paused, and repeated the signal.
Julie Edwards opened the door. He shoved past her and, so strong was his mood, he could not speak when he saw George was not there. He fell to opening and closing his hands, then glanced down at them, stopped it, and pocketed the hands.
“Has ... something happened?” Julie Edwards was staring at him.
“I don’t know.”
“What ... ?”
“I don’t know,” Molloy said heavily. “George didn’t get back. I sent him to dispatch that telegram. He did not return. The fat man, the one we suspect of trying to kill you, was off the train. No telling what happened.”