Anna Klein stood in her small room and covered her mouth with her
hands, lest she shriek aloud. She knew quite well that the bomb in the
suit-case would not suffice to blow up the whole great plant. But she
knew what the result of its explosion would be.
The shells were not loaded at the Spencer plant. They were shipped away
for that. But the fuses were loaded there, and in the small brick house
at the end of the fuse building there were stored masses of explosive,
enough to destroy a town. It was there, of course, that Herman was to
place the bomb. She knew how he would do it, carefully, methodically,
and with what a lumbering awkward gait he would make his escape.
Her whole mind was bent on giving the alarm. On escaping, first, and
then on arousing the plant. But when the voices below continued, long
after Herman had gone, she was entirely desperate. Herman had not
carried out the suit-case. He had looked, indeed, much as usual as he
walked out the garden path and closed the gate behind him. He had walked
rather slowly, but then he always walked slowly. She seemed to see,
however, a new caution in his gait, as of one who dreaded to stumble.
She dressed herself, with shaking fingers, and pinned on her hat.
The voices still went on below, monotonous, endless; the rasping of
Rudolph's throat, irritated by cheap cigarets, the sound of glasses on
the table, once a laugh, guttural and mirthless. It was ten o'clock when
she knew, by the pushing back of their chairs, that they were preparing
to depart. Ten o'clock!
She was about to commence again the feverish unscrewing of the door
hinges, when she heard Rudolph's step on the stairs. She had only time
to get to the back of her room, beside the bed, when she heard him try
the knob.
"Anna?"
She let him call her again.
"Anna!"
"What is it?"
"You in bed?"
"Yes. Go away and let me alone. I've got a right to sleep, anyhow."
"I'm going out, but I'll be back in ten minutes. You try any tricks and
I'll get you. See?"
"You make me sick," she retorted.
She heard him turn and run lightly down the stairs. Only when she heard
the click of the gate did she dare to begin again at the door. She got
down-stairs easily, but she was still a prisoner. However, she found the
high little window into the coal-shed open, and crawled through it, to
stand listening. The street was quiet.