“Who’s this?” he asked.

“What’s happened?” I asked, staring down at the figure on the floor.

Sandra Birks said evenly, “I think he has an apartment somewhere on this floor.”

The officer came pushing toward me. “You get out,” he said. “This is a homicide. We don’t want a lot of people trooping in. Who are you? What—”

“Why don’t you put a sign on the door?” I said. “I thought there was some trouble here. You left the door wide open and—”

“All right,” he said. “On your way, and we’ll close it right now.”

“Well, don’t get hard about it. I have a perfect right to look in here when the door’s open, and you can’t keep me out. I’m not—”

“The hell I can’t keep you out,” he said, and clapped his big hand on my back between my shoulders. He wrinkled my coat up in his fingers to give him a good grip, and shoved. I went out in the hall so fast I had to put up my hand to keep from slamming into the wall on the other side of the corridor. Behind me, the door slammed shut, and I heard the lock click into place.

Cops are that way. If I’d tried to leave, he’d have dragged me in and given me the third degree. Getting hard and insisting that I had the right to stay, resulted in getting thrown out with no questions asked. He’d proved his point and established the superiority of a police officer over the poor dumb citizen who pays the taxes.

I didn’t know just what had happened, but Sandra Birks’ signal had been enough. I didn’t need to have a brick house fall on me. I walked to the elevator and took it down. My ribs ached every time I breathed, and the shove the officer had given me hadn’t helped any.

The radio patrol car was waiting at the curb. The second officer was seated in it, listening to broadcasts. He was taking notes as I came out, and looked up at me sharply; but the radio was blaring a description of a man wanted for something or other, and he let me go.

I tried to walk casually until I got to the corner, swinging out to the curb once or twice as though looking for a cruising cab. Behind me, I could hear the blare of the police radio as a voice said in a droning monotone, “—about thirty-seven or thirty-eight, height five feet ten inches, a hundred and eighty pounds, wearing a gray felt hat—wide black brim—shirt—tie spotted—red. When last seen—running—scene—crime—”

I turned the corner. A taxicab hove into sight. I flagged it.

“Where to?” the driver asked.