"bump off"; in that region, where Jerry had gone, Winfield Scofield's number was "up"; he had been chalked for a "croaking." And as I sat there staring and wondering why and how, suddenly I ceased to have difficulty in thinking red hair, instead of yellow, upon Christina, the riverside companion of Keeban. I "placed" her and knew her name and her association and where I had met her; for she was Winton Scofield's wife. Of course she was; that was it! What an extension of the underworld into the polite world of my own!
Of course I realized that, as Jerry had said, I was thinking like a child; for the underworld's not a compact, separate region; its territory is wherever its citizens set foot; and this may be at your office door? At the threshold of your servant's hall? On the step of your town car? Who knows? For obviously it's not a place at all but a contact, an association, a habit of conduct, an attitude toward life and, more than incidentally, toward death. Why should I be surprised that a citizeness had staked out a claim in the Scofield mansion?
I tried not to be. "Old Win Scofield!" I thought. He was sitting secure, if any one was, you'd say. But somewhere else Jerry was sitting
