Jealous Woman by James M. Cain

hotel. A man appeared at a window and leaned out. I couldn’t see who it was, but it seemed to me he was acting most peculiarly. Then he climbed out and sat there, with his feet dangling outside, and stared down at the street—”
    “Wait a minute. At Mrs. Delavan’s window?”
    “I don’t know her window.”
    “You’re in the south wing?”
    “Yes, on the seventh floor.”
    “Facing the setback?”
    “My sitting room does.”
    “Then your suite, on that side, looks across to hers!”
    “I suppose so. How long this took, I don’t know. It seemed ages, but I imagine it was no more than a few seconds. I had some horrible premonition who it was, and jumped up to open the window and call. I have some recollection of the window sticking, but I can’t be sure. The man jumped. He braced his hands against the sill, and jumped. From then on, I have no recollection of anything until I woke up on the floor, deathly sick. How long I had been there I don’t know. I got up, went to the bathroom to bathe my face in cold water, then went to the bedroom. Then the phone rang. It was the police, asking if they could come up.”
    “And then you withheld what you knew?”
    “Not intentionally, at first.”
    “What actually did you tell them?”
    “What they asked of me: Who I was, how long I had been in Reno, where I had spent the evening. It wasn’t until they had been there some little time that it dawned on me they hadn’t any idea of what had happened—except, of course, conjecturally. I mean, they still didn’t know which suite he had jumped from —or ‘fallen,’ as they always added, I think to spare my feelings. And then it occurred to me that perhaps nobody except myself had seen him. People don’t as a rule go about staring at the top floor of a hotel at that hour of night. Then it was, and then only, that I decided to say nothing to them until I had engaged counsel.”
    “They told you he’d been in the bar?”
    “I believe they did.”
    “You didn’t think it funny he’d gone up there?”
    “Up where? I didn’t know whose room it was.”
    “You have no idea what he was doing there?”
    “I’m content to believe he had his reasons.”
    “I guess that’s about all.”
    “One other thing, Doctor.”
    “Yes, Mr. Lynch?”
    “I think you owe it to her, as she seems to want full weight and credence given to her evidence here, and in no way regards it as a subjective matter, I mean she wouldn’t be satisfied with merely getting it off her chest, as they say—to instruct this jury, before it considers its verdict, that her delay in disclosing what she saw in no way impeaches her credibility. She was not required to testify, or tell the police anything.”
    “Mr. Lynch, why don’t you tell them?”
    “Then by me, the jury is so informed.”
    “Mrs. Sperry, may I raise a point that you could clear up, but that would have more to do with the question of credence than all the law Mr. Lynch knows, though I don’t doubt he knows a lot. Why do you disregard him and tell it anyway?”
    “Out of respect for the truth.”
    “Even if the estate is involved?”
    “A clear conscience comes first.”
    You could tell by the looks on their faces after they came out of the back room that the jury was going to give her a break on all that legal stuff. The verdict was that he died from the effects of a fall, caused “in a manner unknown to this jury.”

9
    I WAS OUT ON the street, waiting for Jane, while she stood by with the maid on some stuff the cops had to wind up, and I had taken quite a few turns up and down the block before I noticed Keyes around the corner, staring at the river with that same look in his eyes he’d had that night in the car, before Sperry was killed. I strolled over, and it was a minute or two before he said: “Ed, when somebody dies, you deliver the indemnity check in person?”
    “Oh, always.”
    “On a suicide case, how does the woman act?”
    “The widow?”
    “How does she