What could have happened? She was certain that something terrible had
occurred in which the young man next door had played a tragic, perhaps
even a criminal part. She tried in vain to conjecture what circumstance
could have been responsible for the look of hatred she had seen on his
face. She wondered what had been the fate of the man who had been
following him. Had they quarrelled and fought? What could have been the
subject of their quarrel?
She tried to summarize what she knew about the people next door, and was
amazed to discover how little she had to draw upon. As in most New York
apartment houses so in Jane's home all the tenants were utter strangers
to each other, one family not even knowing the names of any of the
others. Occasionally, to be sure, one rather resentfully rode up or down
in the elevator with some of the other tenants but always without
noticing or speaking to them. Jane's family had been living in the
building for five years, and of the twenty other families they knew the
names of only two, having learned them by accident rather than
intention. About the people next door Jane now discovered that she
really knew nothing at all. There was a man with a gray beard who never
took off his hat in the elevator, and there was the handsome young chap
whom she had just seen entering.
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