It seemed incredible to her that he hadn't noticed the police activity outside the building, but then she remembered how much that activity had thinned out just in the past hour. On leaving the building she'd seen only two police cars, and one had been parked half-way down the block. News of a murder usually gets around by word-of-mouth and spreads fast, especially in the immediate neighborhood. But apparently he hadn't heard about it, and that was good. It pleased her very much. Actually, when she thought about it some more, it wasn't in the least surprising. The police tyranny had eased and she'd emerged from the building at five-fifteen, practically her usual hour. In all likelihood he hadn't been waiting for her outside for more than ten minutes, too short a time to become aware of the electric tension in the air, or the morbidly curious stares directed at the building. She was quite sure that only in Macbeth did the very stones cry murder. She felt a sudden seriousness, a strange kind of heightened tension flowing between them, as if in some way he'd sensed that she was keeping something from him that she didn't want to talk about. To dispel it quickly, for she did not want him to start asking questions she would be compelled to answer evasively, she reached over and picked up the portfolio of drawings. "Are these the drawings you wanted to show me?" she asked. "Yes ... please look at them," he said. He seemed unable to restrain his eagerness. It showed in his eyes, which were bright with confidence, and the way he tapped with two fingers on the table-top, with a kind of anticipatory vehemence. It was easy to see that he didn't care how impulsively over-optimistic she thought him, if only she would study each drawing carefully and be completely just. She opened the portfolio with fingers that trembled a little. Why, _why_ couldn't she keep the hateful memory from unnerving her so when all danger was past, and she would soon be sitting in a taxi, completely safe, completely secure, moving through the crowded streets ... moving up Broadway with its great fountains of colored lights. People everywhere, thousands of people, as alive as she was alive, protected, guarded, shielded from danger by the massive strength of the city, with its law-enforcing agencies constantly on the alert. She forced herself to examine each drawing with the utmost care, with an eye to color and line and originality of subject matter, putting aside for the moment, and as far as she was able, all of her previous experience in the judging of art work. She tried to think of herself as just an average person roaming at random through an art gallery, stopping here and there to admire a painting with some special quality about it that merited further study and set it a little apart from the paintings on both sides of it.