There was a bare table in the center of the place, with a plain wooden chair on each side of it. The office had two windows, one on King Street and one on Altsheller. It was quite dim; the sun had set some time ago and only dusk lit the place; but she made no move to turn on the lights.
She sat on one of the chairs, and nodded for me to take the other one.
"Cards, or palm?" she said.
"Palm," I said, extending my hand.
She took it in her dry claw. I felt chilled by the contact. She stared at my palm. And I tried to get information.
"That was a bad accident that happened on this corner a little while ago," I said.
"The heart line runs straight across the palm," the crone mumbled. "Accident?"
"Yes. A sedan hit a truck, head on. Didn't you hear it, or look out and see the crowds afterward?"
"Oh, yes, I heard it. The heart line parallels the head line, save at the end."
"Both men were killed in the sedan," I said. "And no one can figure out why the man drove into the truck."
The crone raised her head a little and looked at me in the dusk of the office. It was now so late that I could see her eyes only as dim, dark glints.
"No one can figure it out?" she droned. "No. And no one can figure out why the other accidents happened at this corner. Except for the first one."
"The first one?" I repeated.
"Yes. The one in which a helpless old woman was run down by a drunken driver." The hag's voice quivered with anger. Old herself, she evidently felt enraged for the similar type of person who had met her death just outside because a driver had been criminally drunken and careless.
"Were you here when that happened?" I said.
She nodded. The repulsive wen on her left cheek seemed about to be engulfed by the loose folds of her ancient skin. "Yes, I was at this corner when it happened. Your emotions are ruled by your reason. You are calculating, a little selfish, and slow to anger"
"I saw the accident this afternoon," I said. "Just before it occurred, a curious thing happened. The driver of the sedan looked toward this building, toward this very corner of it, and saw something. I don't know what it was, but it distracted his attention so that he didn't look where he was going."
The old woman stared at me.
"Did you come to have your future revealed, or to talk nonsense?" she said.
I shrugged.
"Frankly," I said, "I came to see if you could give me any information concerning this afternoon's accident, or any of the other accidents. Your windows look down on the scene of all of them."
She got up, dropping my hand. And that was one relief at least: the cessation of contact with her dry, chill skin.
"The first accident is all that concerns me. The murder—for that's what it was—of a harmless old person. The other deaths"—she shrugged—"are no more than deserved, to pay for that first one."
I started toward the door, but the old hag wasn't quite through yet.
"You lied when you said you wanted your future foretold," she spat at me. "But you shall hear annyway. You are going to die before the year is out—at this corner!"
I got out then, in a hurry. I'm a fairly young man, fairly muscular. She was a bent wisp of an old woman. But there was something in the febrile light of her dim eyes that frightened me. I was glad to get away.
However, I had discovered precisely nothing from following my lead. I hadn't found out what the sedan's driver looked
