"I ought to take a crack at you," he finally heard someone say. "All right," he replied in a flat voice. "They're holding my hands." He heard Alec's voice. "Say, what's going on here?" Alec sounded cautious, but not unfriendly, as if he were thinking, "The guy's my fare, but I don't know anything about him." One of the soldiers spoke. "Where's the lady? She doesn't seem to be making any complaint." "Yeah, where is she?" "She got in Jake's cab and drove off," someone volunteered. "Maybe he had a good reason for what he did," said the soldier. Norman felt the attitude of the crowd change. One of the men holding him retorted, "Nobody's got a right to treat a lady that way." But the other one slackened his grip and asked Norman, "How about it? Did you have a reason for doing that?" "I did. But it's my business." He heard a woman's voice, high-pitched. "A lot of fuss over nothing!" Grumbling, the men let him go. "But mind you," said the more belligerent one, "if she'd stuck around and complained, I'd 've sure taken a crack at you." "All right," said Norman, "in that case you would have." His eyes were searching for a scrap of paper. "Can anyone tell me the address she gave the cab driver?" he asked at random. One or two shook their heads. The others ignored the question. Their feelings toward him had not changed enough to make them co-operative. And very likely, in the excitement, no one had heard. Silently the little crowd drifted apart. People waited until they got out of earshot before beginning to argue about what had happened. Most of the cars drove off. The two soldiers wandered over to the benches in front of the depot, so they could sit down while they waited for their bus or train. He was alone except for Alec. He located the scrap of paper in one of the slots between the worn planks. It had almost slipped through. He took it over to the cab and studied it. He heard Alec say, "Well, where do we go now?" Alec sounded dubious. He glanced at his watch. Ten thirty-five. Not quite an hour and a half until midnight. There were a lot of things he could do, but he could not do more than a couple of them in that time. His thoughts moved sluggishly, almost painfully. He looked around at the dim buildings. The seaward halves of some of the street lamps were painted black. Up a side street there were signs of life. He looked again at the scrap of paper. Then he made a decision. "I think there's a hotel on the main street," he told Alec. "You can drive me there." * * * * * "Eagle Hotel" read the black-edged gold letters on the plate-glass window, behind which the narrow lobby with its half-dozen empty chairs was nakedly revealed. He told Alec to wait, and took a room for the night. The clerk was an old man in a shiny black coat. Norman saw from the register that no one else had checked in recently. He carried his bag up to the room and immediately returned to the lobby.