Black Alibi by Cornell Woolrich Page A

obviously. It has been here the whole time. Where? How?”
    Robles pursed his lips in conditional agreement, nodded. “It’s unprecedented, it’s unbelievable, but—it has undeniably happened, hasn’t it? The animal has not been recaptured alive, its body has not been found; therefore, it’s still at large. That’s logical enough, isn’t it, Manning my friend?”
    “But where does it keep itself, where does it hide in the daytime, where has it found refuge? This place is built all of stone, remember. Asphalt, cobblestones, cement sidewalks, stone houses. There are no trees, except out in the Bosque and in a few small plazas and parks. Where can it go? Thousands of people swarming about it all day long. It was seen to go into the Callejón de las Sombras at six o’clock one evening—with a crowd almost at its heels. Presto! it disappears. Not another glimpse of it from then on. It didn’t get out at the other end. The police and fire departments searched every house along that alley from top to bottom. No sign of it. Now this young girl is found torn to pieces all the way over in the Barranca working quarter, half the city away. How did it get over there unseen?”
    All Robles could give him on this was, “It’s true, it’s an amazing thing. Who can say what happened? Perhaps it squeezed itself down into a sewer and traversed one of the big drainpipes that run under the city. The water in most of them would not be deep enough to drown it. And then again there is that so ridiculous suggestion some onlooker was heard to make, that night it disappeared; which may not be so ridiculous as it sounds, after all. That it took refuge in the back of some van or merchandise truck standing in there along the Callejón, was driven unsuspectingly away by the driver, and bolted out again undetected at the next stop the vehicle made.”
    “Augh!” Manning swung his arm at him impatiently. “Now I’ll tell one. Here’s something else: what has it lived on during these past days and nights? Where has it gotten its food—and, above all, its water?”
    “How do the less ferocious animals, stray dogs and cats, for instance, get theirs? From refuse heaps, from puddles, from the river margin.”
    “Yes, but they’re seen.”
    “How do we know it hasn’t been seen, more than once, in the distance or in the dark, and mistaken for some large black dog? There are other ways possible for it to keep itself alive, too, which we need not dwell on. These same homeless dogs and cats, lizards clambering up and down cracked walls, rats from the sewers—”
    Manning turned his head away involuntarily for a moment. Then he looked back again, went on: “How is it it wasn’t easily tracked down, cornered almost at once, this second time? How is it you lost it again like the first time? Its claws, the pads of its paws, the fur about its belly, must have been soaked after such an attack—”
    “It’s true, there were numerous traces of blooddyed paw prints and even drippings found near by. None led very far away, however. The dirt and dust of the pavements must have quickly dried and coated the brute’s pads. And then so many people quickly milled about, obliterating everything before we could get there.”
    “For every objection of mine, you have an answer ready. But still and all, you haven’t been able to remove that dissatisfied feeling of mine. What we call in my language a hunch. Something isn’t right . There’s a basic implausibility to this whole thing that I can’t accept as easily as you people.”
    The inspector smiled bleakly, tapped him knowingly on the shoulder. “Tell the truth, Manning. Isn’t it your own guilty conscience, about being the indirect cause of this four-legged demon’s depredations, that makes you keep trying to raise vague objections, cast shadowy doubts, on what is glaringly self-evident? Of course it is! You would like to believe that it is not the jaguar which did this, for the sake of your