He was stretched out on the floor, a good solid floor—and it was over. He was still holding the chair in that vise-like grip. Young, the Chinese lawyer, was still hanging onto it by the legs, face a pasty gray. Bob, the night porter, was still holding onto his one ankle, and blood was coming through the sock. Mrs. Young, in a sort of chain arrangement, was hugging the porter around the waist. There was broken glass around him on the floor, and a big pool of water with tropical fish floundering in it from the overturned tank. A dog was whining heartbreakingly somewhere in the room. Other than that, there was complete silence.

None of them could talk for a minute or two. Mrs. Young sat squarely down on the floor, hid her face in her hands, and had brief but high-powered hysterics. Striker rolled over and planted his lips devoutly to the dusty carpet, before he even took a stab at getting to his shaky and undependable feet.

“What the hell happened to you?” heaved the lawyer finally, mopping his forehead. “Flying around out there like a bat! You scared the daylights out of me.”

“Come on up to the floor above and get all the details,” Striker invited. He guided himself shakily out of the room, stiff-arming himself against the door frame as he went. His legs still felt like rubber, threatening to betray him.

The door of 913 stood open. In the hallway outside it he motioned them cautiously back. “I left my gun in there, and he’s got a knife with him too, so take it easy.” But he strode into the lighted opening as though a couple of little items like that weren’t stopping him after what he’d just been through and nearly didn’t survive.

Then he stopped dead. There wasn’t anyone at all in the room—any more.

The bed, with the severed section of rope still wound securely around it, was upturned against the window opening, effectively blocking it. The entire bedding, mattress and all, had slid off it, down into the street below. It was easy to see what had happened. The weight of his body, dangling out there, had drawn it first out into line with the opening (and it moved so easily on those rubber-tired casters!), then tipped it over on its side. The mattress and all the encumbering clothes had spilled off it and gone out of their own weight, entangling, blinding, and carrying with them, like a linen avalanche, whatever and whoever stood in their way. It was a fitting finish for an ingenious, heartless murderer.

The criminal caught neatly in his own trap.

“He was too anxious to cut that rope and watch me fall at the same time,” Striker said grimly. “He leaned too far out. A feather pillow was enough to push him over the sill!”