1
The Corpse That Walked
Octavus Roy Cohen
1951
Chapter One
THE SKATING pond at Rockefeller Center was crowded.
Hundreds of the idly curious gazed down at a gay scene: a scene of action and color, of skaters who whirled and spun in the center of the smooth gray surface, of others who stroked methodically about the edges of the rink.
There were old people and young people and even children; there were experts and beginners, there was grim concentration on the task of skating, and there was laughter from the lips of those who had mastered a degree of the art and were no longer worried about the elementary problem of remaining upright.
This was a skating pond like no other skating pond in the world. It was backgrounded by tall, austere, and massively handsome buildings that stretched up and up and up into a clear December sky. It was bathed in the soft glow of cleverly contrived lights. At each end there was a restaurant where people sat warmly and comfortably and viewed the merrymaking through huge glass windows.
Some of the better skaters wore startling costumes: young ladies in extremely abbreviated skirts that showed attractive legs to best advantage; young men who wore black tights and close-fitting shirts. But the great majority skated in their street clothes.
Gail Foster and Alan Douglas did. They wore the same clothes in which they had been working all day.
She was only a few inches more than five feet in height. You'd look at her the first time without particular interest, and then you'd look again and say, "There's a pretty girl."