When This Man Dies Read online

  But something happened the moment he entered the apartment. All the fear, all the anxiety, all of this suddenly left Edgar Kraft. He was mysteriously calm now. Everything was prearranged, he told himself. Joseph H. Neimann had been doomed, and Raymond Andersen had been doomed, and Claude Pierce had been doomed and each of them had died. Now Leon Dennison was similarly doomed, and he too would die.

  It seemed very simple. And Edgar Kraft himself was nothing but a part of this grand design, nothing but a cog in a gigantic machine. He would do his part without worrying about it. Everything could only go according to plan.

  Everything did. He waited three hours for Leon Dennison to come home, waited in calm silence. When a key turned in the lock, he stepped swiftly and noiselessly to the side of the door, a fireplace andiron held high overhead. The door opened and Leon Dennison entered, quite alone.

  The andiron descended.

  Leon Dennison fell without a murmur. He collapsed, lay still. The andiron rose and fell twice more, just for insurance, and Leon Dennison never moved and never uttered a sound. Kraft had only to wipe off the andiron and a few other surfaces to eliminate any fingerprints he might have left behind. He left the building by the service entrance. No one saw him.

  He waited all that night for the rush of guilt. He was surprised when it failed to come. But he had already been a murderer-by wishing for Andersen's death, by planning Pierce's murder. The simple translation of his impulses from thought to deed was no impetus for further guilt.

  There was no letter the next day. The following morning the usual envelope was waiting for him. It was quite bulky, it was filled with fifteen hundred-dollar bills.

  The note was different. It said Thank You, of course. But beneath that there was another line:

  HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR NEW JOB?

  The End