It was eight o'clock when, after hurried preparations, we started. Alan brought his car from the near-by garage. Nanette, with her hair braided and piled upon her head, was ready. We all wore outer coats. The evening was cooling; the sky was overcast. Alan went into his workshop; came out with a small cloth bag. "Nanette, get your black cloak--I couldn't find it." "I thought I'd wear this coat and hat, Alan. Don't I look all right?" Eternal feminine! The subconscious strain under which we were laboring made us laugh. "Of course you do! We're not going to the opera! I want your cloak--for something else." She went and got it. The car was a big sedan. Alan put on the back seat the cloak and his cloth bag--they were tools from the workshop, he had told me briefly when I questioned. We all three sat in front, as was our custom. Alan drove. I recall as we left the apartment that I vaguely gazed ahead those few hours to when we would return. The futility of gazing ahead! "We've got to hurry," said Alan. "Hope we can catch a ferry, without too long a wait." He threaded us skillfully south through the crowded city streets. I gazed around. This was New York of 1945. I suddenly felt wholly apart from it. We just made the ferry. The sky continued overcast. It rained a little, and then stopped. We left the ferry, drove into Staten Island toward Turber's. "I think I know a secluded place," Alan had told us. He found it, an unlighted country road. He stopped and switched off the headlights. The darkness leaped at us. "Where are we?" I demanded. "A mile from Turber's--not much more. You can see it off there." We climbed to the road. The sky was solid gray. We were in a lonely neighborhood; a fence was here, bordering a field; but no house was in sight. The road went up a rise here through a cut. Alan had drawn the car to one side; a spreading tree hung over it. Beyond the trees, I could see the lights of a near-by settlement; a trolley car--a lighted roadway winding off there; and the hill with the lights of Turber's. The searchlight was not lighted. "Hadn't we better get closer, Alan?" "No, this is all right. It's barely a mile." "You know where we are? You'll be able to find us, coming back?" "Yes. Just keep your lights out and wait." "How long, Alan?" Anxiety flooded me. "If you don't come back--say by midnight--what shall I do?" "I will come back. You just wait, Ed." He kissed Nanette. I sat at the wheel with her beside me. Alan's figure, carrying his small bag and the black cloak, showed dimly down the road for a moment, then was gone. It was nine forty. With all the lights of the car extinguished, we sat in the darkness, waiting. Alan had taken a small revolver, and I had one also. * * * * * Ten o'clock. A distant bell marked it; I snapped on the dash light to verify it. Nanette felt me move. "What is it, Ed?" "Nothing. I was looking at the time." "Ten o'clock?" "Yes."