Professor Andersen's Night Read Free

which he appeared on the scene, for instance ,’ he thought, before he reared back in horror as the man whom he had declared with such immediate certainty to be young put his hands around the woman’s neck and squeezed. She flailed her arms about, Professor Andersen noticed, her body jerked, he observed, before she all at once became completely still beneath the man’s hands and went limp. The young man straightened up, and Professor Andersen hurriedly hid behind his own curtains, for he saw that the young man was heading over to the window. When Professor Andersen peeked carefully from behind his curtain, he saw that the curtains in the other apartment had been drawn.
    ‘I must call the police,’ he thought. He went over to the telephone, but did not lift the receiver. ‘It was murder. I must call the police,’ he thought, but still did not lift the receiver. Instead he went back to the window. The curtains were still drawn in the window in the apartment on the other side of the street. Nothing indicated that anything unusual had happened there. Late Christmas Eve, the curtains drawn, quite common. ‘But I saw it with my own eyes,’ he groaned. ‘I have witnessed a murder, I must let someone know .’ He stared across at the window with the drawn curtains. He stared and stared. Thick curtains that did not let a glimpse of light in or out. ‘What on earth has happened?’ he thought. ‘It is horrible really, and right in front of my eyes, too. I saw it with my own eyes, didn’t I? Yes, I can describe it in detail. I must call the police.’ He went over to the telephone, but didn’t lift the receiver. ‘What shall I say,’ he thought, ‘that I have seen a murder? Yes, that’s what I have to say. And then they will laugh at me, and tell me to go and lie down, and to call back when I have sobered up, because it is a well-known fact,’ he added, ‘that when you have drunk a bit and try to sound sober, you may easily be considered fairly heavily intoxicated, because you get so anxious about sounding slurred that slurring positively takes hold of you. And so beside myself as I am now, it won’t work.’
    Instead, he stationed himself at the window, behind the curtain, with all the lights in his living room switched off, and kept watch on the window where he had seen a murder being committed. He stood thus for several hours, in the dark in his own living room, and stared. At the rectangular surface over there. Which shut out what he had seen. ‘It is odd that I don’t call the police,’ he thought. ‘It is still not too late. Even if they won’t believe me, claim that I am drunk or whatever they may say, at any rate I would have reported it, and then it’s up to them what they decide to do. It’s as simple as that.’ But he didn’t go and call them. He stood at the window and stared. Stared across at the rectangular surface over there. Was he in there still? Probably, because he hadn’t seen any man come out of the front entrance on his own. But he could have fled while Professor Andersen was over at the telephone. But then why would he have drawn the curtains? ‘No, he has to be in there still,’ thought Professor Andersen. ‘Behind those thick curtains is a young man in the company of a dead woman, whom he has just murdered. And I know it,’ he thought, ‘but I’m not doing anything about it. I ought to have phoned, for my own sake, if for no other reason. It’s curious. I know I should have done it, but I can’t. That is how it is, I simply cannot do it.’
    He continued to stare at the closed window, but also kept watch on the front entrance, in case the murderer should come out. But nothing happened. It was late at night, and Professor Andersen noticed that he was sleepy. What was he standing there for? To
see
if the curtains were suddenly drawn back again? Or if the murderer came out of the front entrance, so he could take a look at him? Why should he do that? What was the purpose of