What if Mrs. Jordan had heard him come in? Or even seen him? She might very well have been standing by the grill, her hands full of milk bottles, when he turned and went up the stoop. He had first reconnoitred from across the street, but it was so dark in that confounded basement entrance that one couldn’t see anything.
His hand still on the rail, he half turned about there on the stairs. He opened his mouth to call to her. But that would make everything impossible. True, it would establish whether she had heard him, but it would make everything impossible. He stood undecided.