Don't Look Behind You

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Just sit back and relax, now. Try to enjoy this; it’s going be the last story you ever read, or nearly the last. After you finish it you can sit there and stall a while, you can find excuses to hang around your house, or your room, or your office, wherever you’re reading this; but sooner or later you’re going to have to get up and go out. That’s where I’m waiting for you: outside. Or maybe closer than that. Maybe in this room.

You think that’s a joke of course. You think this is just a story in a book, and that I don’t really mean you. Keep right on thinking so. But be fair; admit that I’m giving you fair warning.

Harley bet me I couldn’t do it. He bet me a diamond he’s told me about, a diamond as big as his head. So you see why I’ve got to kill you. And why I’ve got to tell you how and why and all about it first. That’s part of the bet. It’s just the kind of idea Harley would have.

I’ll tell you about Harley first. He’s tall and handsome, and suave and cosmopolitan. He looks something like Ronald Coleman, only he’s taller. He dresses like a million dollars, but it wouldn’t matter if he didn’t; I mean that he’d look distinguished in overalls. There’s a sort of magic about Harley, a mocking magic in the way he looks at you; it makes you think of palaces and far-off countries and bright music.

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