Man on a High Ledge

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It was a few minutes after three o’clock when the dark paneled door of his office opened abruptly and he looked up, frowning, to see that Miss Ferres had burst in without knocking. Both the action and the expression on her thin face were entirely surprising to him. Her features looked sharper and more vital and her eyes were glowing.

She stopped abruptly, flushing, as she realized what she had done. “Oh... I’m sorry, Mr. Kelty. There’s a man... he’s across the street. We have a sort of ringside seat. I came in to tell you.”

On dark November days such as this one, Norris Kelty liked to draw the heavy draperies across the wide windows and work by the yellow-orange glow of the lamp. He did not care for the sterile glare of fluorescence, nor the silvery doom of the reflected glow of an overcast Manhattan sky.

He stared at Miss Ferres for a brief moment, then stood up heavily and pulled the cord that slid the dark-blue draperies aside. He saw at once what had excited her. The tan, ugly, pigeon-streaked building across the street was much older than the building he was in. There were myriad cornices and ledges. The man was to his left, and one story higher. He stood on a narrow ledge very close to the comer of the building, far from any window. He stood with his feet apart, his hands flat against weathered stone. He seemed to be staring down at the street a hundred feet below. The ledge was so narrow that his toes protruded over the edge. He was dark-haired, hatless. He wore a two-tone windbreaker in tweed and tan. The November wind fluttered the legs of gray unpressed trousers and ruffled dark long hair. His face looked very white. Many windows were wide open in the building across the street and people leaned out and watched the man on the ledge.

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