Killing the Goose by Frances and Richard Lockridge

reached the policeman before wariness had been quite replaced by certainty. The glass brick came with him and the policeman’s hand was moving toward his side by the time Elliot was on his feet. But the policeman’s uniform coat was over his holster and he was just pushing it aside when Elliot chucked the glass brick. He chucked it as if he were putting the shot. It was too heavy to throw easily and too awkward in the hand.
    It cracked against the policeman’s skull just above the ear with a soft, unpleasant sound. The policeman, with very surprised eyes, sagged and then fell. It was surprising how easy it was, but it would be a hell of a note if it had been too easy. If the policeman had a brittle skull, Elliot was in it deeper than ever—much deeper. There wouldn’t be any argument about this.
    The policeman had made no sound as he fell on the deep carpet and Elliot took a chance. He bent quickly and grabbed the policeman’s wrist, feeling for a pulse. At first he could not find it, and he felt coldness coming over him in a wave. This had done it! Then his anxious fingers found a trembling and moved a little. There was a pulse, all right. Elliot sighed in relief. As far as he could tell, not knowing much about such things, the pulse seemed reasonably strong—slow, but strong. So probably the policeman was all right, or would be all right. Elliot looked at his victim an instant longer, and then the policeman’s eyes began to open. He was going to be all right; he was going to be too damned all right. Elliot moved.
    He had planned this, too. There was no use in trying to make it to the front, because the front door would be guarded. But there was a better way. In the wall under the curving stairs there was a door, and it opened on a flight of stairs leading down. Elliot went for it, moving fast and silently on the carpet. The door opened and Elliot went through it. He was pulling it behind him when he had another idea. The key—it was. His fingers groped on the wall beyond the door. The key ought to be—it was. Dutiful on its nail. It would be something if he needed it. Elliot took it along.
    The stairs went down to a hall with doors opening off it. The one to the front was no good; it led to a storeroom and they would roust him out of that. The kitchen was the only way, and he hoped Mrs. Pennock would be somewhere else. He had no desire to meet Mrs. Pennock at any time and less now than at any other time. The kitchen was empty. He crossed it, moving still faster, and reached the door which opened on the paved court in the rear of the house. It was locked but the key was in it. Elliot went through, taking this key, also, with him. He closed the door and locked it from outside and started to throw the key away. Then he decided that it, too, might be useful. You couldn’t plan far enough ahead to be sure.
    Now it ought to be easy if they gave him a few minutes. The paved court was fenced, but a gate opened on a passageway between the house and the apartment building next door, which led to the street. It provided a service entrance which the house and the apartment building shared. But it meant coming out to the street beside the house, and in plain sight of the guard which would surely be on the sidewalk in front. That meant—Elliot looked around. You had to improvise.
    There was an empty wooden box lying against the fence. It looked as if a delivery boy from a grocery had left it there after emptying it of bread and bottles and packages of food. You had to improvise. Elliot picked the box up and swung it to his shoulder. He went up the passageway and, when he neared the front of the house, began to whistle. He whistled “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” not very well, but well enough. He stopped and tried to walk as he thought a delivery boy, perhaps done work for the day, would walk. He came out on the sidewalk whistling, saw a policeman standing in front of