People saw Carolina in the morning at their own peril...

Had he not been married to Carolina Hagerty, Gabriel Parsons would never have been allowed inside the Mount Stephen Club. Now here he was under a ceiling panelled by Scottish craftsmen brought to Montreal for that purpose in the early part of the century, doing his effortless number with a pint of beer in his hand. Gabe’s specialty was charming people, ladies a little more successfully than men, with his clever conversation and his boyish smile.

“The simple truth is, I may never write another novel,” he said. The ladies frowned and cooed as they sipped their champagne, but Gabe was on firm ground. He was being sincere. “Seriously. Deadly Instruments came out four years ago. Since then—”

“I loved that book! A series of murders in a symphony orchestra!”

“You must do us another, Mr. Parsons!”

“I can’t seem to find the time. All I write these days are newspaper reviews of other people’s books.”

“I never bother to read the novels. A Gabriel Parsons essay is better than the original.”

“For that, sweet lady, a kiss on the cheek. There. And another glass of champagne from this ubiquitous waiter’s tray.” Gabe sent away the pewter mug he had brought with him for a refill of beer. He liked beer. And he felt it placed a subtle emphasis on his working-class origins to have his tankard in evidence among the crystal goblets.

Carolina was drifting from one island of drinkers to another. “I saw that kiss,” she scolded, presenting her cheek so that Gabriel could bestow one on her. She was a tall, handsome woman, with healthy skin and narrow blue eyes. Reduced by half, her features could have been described as baby doll. She paid forty dollars to have her tawny hair cut carelessly short and brushed forward. “Is Gabriel seducing all my friends again?”

“I wish he would. Me anyway.”

“He’s infuriatingly faithful to you, Carolina. Where did you find such a gem?”

“She had him made in her father’s factory. Gabe is too good to be real.”

No credit to Gabriel Parsons, his fidelity was a fact. He was a monogamist. As a single man, he had flirted and courted, occasionally loved, but never more than one woman at a time. Married now and at the ripe age of forty-eight, he could no more carry on an illicit affair than he could chug-a-lug his beer and sing “Roses of Picardy” at the same time.

“You don’t deserve him, Carolina,” one of the younger women said. “If there were any justice, someone would take Gabe away from you.”

The girl was hinting at Carolina Hagerty’s extramarital exploits. It was considered ironic that she divorced her previous husband, Robert Hurst, on grounds of infidelity. A woman of her resources could do as she pleased, of course, but still it seemed unfair that poor Bob was cut adrift only for practicing what his wife had always preached to any of her friends who would listen.

“Look at those calves,” she would say, referring to the legs of a band leader on a raised platform in the Normandie Room at the Mount Royal Hotel. “How would you like to get your hands on those?” Then she d arrange to do just that in her hospitality suite while her husband was left to see the departing guests into the January night.

Now it was almost time to put the bite on this well heeled crew at the charity affair at the Mount Stephen. They knew why they had been invited. Carolina would ask, and it would be given. Receipts would be issued, and the ultimate loser would be the Internal Revenue Department in Ottawa.

“Gabriel, a word in your ear.” Carolina drew her husband into an alcove. He was portly, but he could be steered like a barge on water. “Will you deliver the pitch? Make it persuasive. I want no checks under five hundred dollars.”

“I will, of course. But why?”

“Because Bob is here. He’s in the anteroom. He sent in word he must see me.” Carolina was aggressively open about her meetings with her previous husband. If Gabriel didn’t like it, that was his problem.

Gabe liked it. “Give old Bob my best. Tell him we’d like to see him out at High Heaven.”

“I certainly will not.” Carolina preferred to see Bob Hurst, when it pleased her, at a motel on Upper Lachine Road. “Will you give the pitch?”

“Avec plaisir. Leave it to me. Will I see you in the morning?”

That was a laugh. People did not see Carolina Hagerty-Hurst-Parsons in the morning — or, if they did, it was at their peril. She was a night person.

“Darling, you know better. Just spend your usual industrious morning at the typewriter and I’ll see you after lunch.” A quick kiss and she was gone.

He desperately needed the one shell he had left...

Tom Chaudis weighed his one loaded shell in his hand. Weighing it, he weighed also his choices, his chances. With a sigh more like a groan he shoved the shell into the shotgun.

By the light of the lantern hanging from a timber he gazed around at the false glints in the mine face. He had put a river of sweat into this hole, the whisper of gold leading him on. But what gold there was had plain pinched up and played out after the first burst of richness. And almost all that gold he had long since spent celebrating in town, believing — and leading everyone to believe — the gold had no end. The way he saw it, he had no out now but the load in his shotgun.

He knew that — so why was he putting it off?

As he slowly raised the shotgun he thought he heard the hurry of his heart. He stilled himself to listen harder and heard the hurry of hooves. Now that was a crazy sound to be coming from the ground outside with all its cracks and chuck holes. He lowered the shotgun and rounded the tunnel bend to the mouth of the mine and the blaze of day.

He gaped at the mad ride — and at the mad rider, a woman streaming yellow hair. Then he saw that the woman had lost hold of the reins and was hanging onto the saddlehorn. Something — a rattler, maybe — had spooked the mare into running wild, white-eyeballed.

As Tom watched, the mare plunged into a hole, dropped to her knees, and flung the rider from the saddle. The woman landed forked end up, then folded and lay still. Tucking his shotgun under his arm, Tom ran to her.

He knelt beside the woman and looked for broken bones. Coming quickly out of her daze, she stopped his fumbling. “I’m all right. See to my mare.”

Tom wasn’t so sure the woman was all right, but he moved to the mare, ran his hand along her left foreleg, and found the break. He turned to the woman and shook his head.

The young woman, her bright hair tangled, had shoved herself upright. She stood swaying slightly — wobbly, but on her own two feet — smudges and all, a pretty woman. High-grade, but kind of ornery to be out this way all by her lonesome. Wilful, used to getting her way — which would stay respectable, though off the beaten track. Right now, with grief for the mare twisting her face, she seemed not so sure of herself. And not so sure she liked her present company. The way she eyed him sidelong, he must pan out mean, look like a man searching for a dog to kick.

He rubbed his face, throwing himself back to the last time he had shaved. That had been in town, and the woman he had been with had hardly assayed out to the purity of this kind of woman. This kind of woman he had always dreamed of but never aspired to. Now that she was suddenly real and at hand he felt strange, as though in a dream. Standing there with her yellow hair stirring gently in the hot slow breath of noon, she seemed like a whisper of gold come to life to lead him on.

Maybe things could work out so that...

Hell with it. He had no time for such thoughts. What he had was to get shut of her so he could do what he set out to do when she came along. He tried to think how he might speed her on her way. He had lost his own burro to a rattier or he would have given it to her for the ride home.

The mare’s humble nickering gave him a guilty start, but he made no move to put the mare away. Averting her gaze from the mare and frowning in surprise and impatience at Tom’s inaction, the woman gestured toward his shotgun.

“Aren’t you going to—?”

Automatically he raised the shotgun to his shoulder, took aim, and actually had his finger on the pull. Then he lowered the shotgun without firing. Stonily, feeling a fool, he stood that way.

The woman stared, then raised her voice, more in wonder than in outrage. “What are you waiting for?”

Then her face changed and he could almost see her think he lacked the nerve. She reached out toward the shotgun.

“If you want, I—”

He felt even more a fool — a shameful fool. “It isn’t that. I’m sorry, ma’am, but I need the shell. I’ll put her away though.”

He leaned the shotgun against a boulder, took up a length of weathered two-by-four, and, stretching himself into savagery, brought the wood down hard. With a sick sound the wood connected. He heard the woman’s breath. The blow stung his palms, but the mare only lay stunned. He threw the timber aside, drew his sheath knife, and sawed her throat, all too aware of the woman watching in horror with the edge of an eye, and only just jumped away from the bloody gush. He stabbed the gritty soil to cleanse the blade before sheathing the knife, then picked up his shotgun before facing the woman.

Her cheeks flamed through trail powder and he could see her think, Butcher!

He gestured an apology. “I have just the one shell, and I’m saving it.”

“I see,” she said, clearly not seeing. Still, she seemed inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. She looked away from the mare and brought a surface smile into being. “I don’t want to saddle you with my troubles, but I have to think about getting back.” She waited. When he came up with silence her smile slipped away and she went on. “I guess I’ll just dust myself off and head on home.”

He wanted to say yes and no — to keep her here and get rid of her. He found himself saying, “No. Wait here a spell, till an hour past noon. The banker’s coming from town to look over my claim.”

Her smile came back. She found a smooth rock, dusted it and herself off, and sat. “You’re Tom Chaudis, aren’t you? I heard about you and your mine. In fact, someone pointed you out to me in town.”

His face burned and he felt glad for the growth of beard. He wondered how and where he had been when she had seen him. He hoped it hadn’t been in the company of a dance-hall girl and a bottle.

Suddenly he had a terrible thought, a joyously unworthy thought. Could it be he had touched a chord of jealousy and desire in this high-grade girl? Then he had an even more terrible thought, a bitterly malicious thought. Could it be this whisper-of-gold girl was herself subject to the pull of riches?

Sure funny that she had chosen to ride out this desolate way, reach this particular claim. Was she after all within reach, within grasp, buy-able?

The shotgun came back into his awareness. He didn’t have much time. The sun had begun to lose its high.

His mind fevered, trying to figure what color he could give his going back into the mine and what judgment she would make when she heard the shot.

He gathered himself to make the move, then froze.

The woman, mistaking his stiffness and trying to keep the one-sided conversation going, gave a self-conscious little laugh. “But I haven’t minded my manners. I’m Margie Lawrence—”

“Don’t move.”

But he had spoken his harsh whisper too late. Margie, awaking to the realization that he was staring past her, was already rising to turn and see what had caught his eye.

She saw the rattler.

The diamondback, set in an S to strike, was close enough for Tom to see the deep pit between eye and nostril on each side of the questing head. Margie’s start drew the rattler’s stare.

A rattler usually struck one-third its length away, but it could strike its full length away. Margie stood two feet from this six-footer.

Tom drew some hope from the rattler’s silence, though he knew truth often gave the lie to the myth of a sportsmanlike shake of the rattle. The silence gave Tom mulish strength to do nothing, though Margie’s eyes begged him to blast the diamondback with his precious shell.

Why couldn’t Margie have come an hour earlier or an hour later? Why now? Why here? Why him?

Margie swayed. The snake would see any sudden movement as a threat. To fall in a faint would be fatal. Damn the woman!

In controlled fury Tom raised the shotgun, took snap aim, and fired.

The shot tore into the rattler and retwisted it flat and still. The shot bespattered the diamond pattern with golden glints. It brought Margie back to life.

Her gaze fixed on the gold-flecked remains. Her eyes narrowed, then widened. Tom, empty of feeling, watched her face change to mask her understanding.

“Thanks,” she whispered hoarsely.

He answered with a curt nod.

She would know now why he had been so unwilling to spend the shot, even in need. He had loaded the shell with the last of his gold, meaning to salt the mine, hoping to dazzle the banker into believing the mine was a bonanza.

It was with near-relief that Tom welcomed the sight of the banker’s buggy sedately trailing dust. Quickly he used the shotgun barrel to lift-toss the mortal coil into the brush. He glanced at Margie. Her face was blank.

While they waited in heavy silence, the buggy grew out of distance, bringing the banker and his son, the son at the reins. Seeing them, the son gave a touch of the whip for a dashing pull-up. He looped the reins around the buggy whip in its socket and leaped out. “Margie! What in tarnation are you doing way out here?” His gaze, coldly accusing, whipped across Tom’s face. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, William.”

“What happened?” He offered her a fresh handkerchief and a water flask.

She took them with gratitude and dabbed her face partway clean. “Lady Fancy spooked, ran away with me, and broke her leg.”

The banker and his son followed her gesture toward the corpse of the mare, then quickly away. “That would account for the shot we heard,” the banker said.

Margie cocked her head to one side and threw a glance Tom’s way. “Yes, it would.” Her eyes darted toward the brush where the dead snake lay and she drew a shuddering breath. “Would you take me back to town?”

The banker said, “Surely.” He eyed the mine opening and swiftly veiled his gold-hungry look. “Just allow us a few minutes to do our business here, my dear, and we’ll be on our way.” He turned to Tom.

Tom cut him off before he started. “Sorry you had to ride out here for nothing. When I sent word in, I was sure I’d found a lode, but I guess I was wrong. Ain’t no mine worth selling or buying. Ain’t nothing here for nobody.”

The son handed Margie into the buggy. “Lucky we went on a wild-goose chase in this case.”

The father looked sour, but said nothing.

Margie looked at Tom and, after a flicker of some feeling Tom could lay no name to, nodded farewell. And then it was as if Tom had never been.

The son took up the reins, gave a touch of the whip, and said something to Margie. Her laugh drifted back, streaming with her yellow hair.

Tom stood watching them ride away till they pinched up and played out.

He rubbed his beard thoughtfully, then hunted the dead rattler in the brush, taking care — he didn’t want to run across the rattler’s mate or kin. He found the riddled skin and used the shotgun barrel to pick it up. It hung limp, but as it twisted slightly with breeze-given false life, it glinted.

That glint was worth saving. He would build a fire and reduce the snake to ashes. Reducing the snake to ashes and panning the ashes — that seemed the best way to reclaim the gold he had meant to salt the mine with.

Later he would make up his mind whether to blow the gold on dance-hall girls and redeye or to buy stagecoach passage back to the family farm.

Either way, it looked like it was his hard lot to be honest, in spite of himself.

Belle was the last of a vanishing breed...

I have never heard the organ in church rolling out that one special march just for me. Never held a child of my own close to my breast in the still hours of the night and calmed its fretful cries with gentle croons. Never suffered the joys, fears, and sorrows of being a wife or of motherhood. I have devoted my life to serving others and been much too busy for such selfish things.

For a few short years I served by teaching school, but long before either parents or school board discovered my inadequacy I gave up the toil of trying to implant knowledge in unreceptive, unwilling young minds and took myself back to the home of my parents.

It was there, in the midst of my loving family, that I drifted into what was to become my lifelong profession.

I was born early in my parents’ marriage and had lived my childhood as an only child, a situation I found no great hardship — indeed, it was much to my liking. Then, shortly before my sixteenth birthday, my parents unthinkingly discovered some untapped fount of fertility and I was avalanched by six siblings in six years. It was perhaps to escape the noise and chaos of a house full of infants that I conceived my short-lived teaching career.

Rodney had worked out the details of the murder...

“Is he dead for sure?”

Rodney Bolton nodded to his sister Alissa Sue as he stepped up out of the slanted Ozark sunlight into the shade of the plank porch. Behind him, his younger brother Jake slammed the one workable door on the rusty Dodge pickup and walked toward the porch to join them.

“Ain’t nobody smilin’,” Alissa Sue said, forcing her own smile. “Ain’t it what we planned?”

“Sure, Ally,” Jake said with a strained enthusiasm belied by his tanned, somber face.

Rodney was the only one of the Bolton siblings whose long, bony features appeared genuinely cheerful. “Jake’s still a mite shaky.” he said, grinning at his sister, who was now a widow.

Alissa Sue frowned at him. She was a pretty girl just turned twenty-two, with dark brown hair, a buxom lithe figure, and innocent blue eyes that had caused a sensation among the local males until her marriage three years ago to Feeny Clark. “Somethin’ go wrong?” she asked Rodney.

“Not wrong,” Rodney said, “jus’ difficult. Feeny didn’t die right away after we hung him, and watchin’ it kinda affected young Jake.”

“Had to keep holdin’ his hands down so he couldn’t grab the rope an’ hoist hisself up,” Jake said. “Took him a time to give out.”

“But he’s dead,” Alissa Sue said brightly. “An’ that’s what counts.” She smiled her best smile, which was something special and at the moment held an extra glitter. “I made us some lemonade. That oughta get Jake to be his old self.”

Rodney was sure Jake would rather have a few jolts of the powerful corn liquor brewed by old Chadwith, but all the Bolton children had been raised in a house that saw no hard drinking. Lemonade sufficed, and by the time the late-afternoon sun had dropped beyond the leafy green spread of the old elm near the derelict silo, Jake was his relaxed and amiable self.

Of the three, Rodney was the planner — though killing Feeny had really been Alissa Sue’s idea — and as he sat with his boots propped high on the porch rail, watching dying shadows and sipping lemonade, he thought back over what had taken place.

An unsolved case rankled Chief Cort...

Chief of Police Andrew Cort moved the file folder on his desk, picked up the lone magazine, and opened it to the place marker he had inserted at home. The chief was a big man, solidly built, with close-cropped greying hair. His frown deepened as he read.

To his men Chief Cort was stern, humorless, and demanding. They grumbled frequently about his uncompromising attitude. A number continually complained about the set of rules he had established when he took charge of the department eighteen months ago: uniforms kept neat and clean and in topnotch condition; carefully written reports turned in without undue delay; no time off from regular duty except for the most urgent of reasons; courteous treatment of the public at all times.

Chief Cort made it clear that neither corruption nor incompetence would be tolerated and that he considered dereliction of duty inexcusable. He was determined to upgrade the department and nothing less than excellence of performance was acceptable to him.

In Chief Cort’s opinion the previous chief, who had resigned under fire, had run a sloppy department. The majority of the men had simply enjoyed the lax discipline, but a few had taken advantage of it, and those were generally the ones who complained about the new regime. But even they, if pressed, would concede that Chief Cort was fair. A rule for one was a rule for all.

Like most of his colleagues, Chief Cort felt a keen sense of satisfaction when a difficult case was solved. An unsolved case rankled. He would constantly review the files and pore over reports in search of a clue, however tenuous, which might have escaped earlier notice. Even when pure chance was instrumental in the solving of a case he expressed gratification. He sought no personal glory.

Chief Cort closed the magazine he had been reading and, steepling his fingers, sat in thought for several minutes. Then he flipped on the switch to the intercom. “Send in Officer Brady,” he commanded.

Removing his reading glasses, he placed them alongside the folder on his desk and rose. He stretched and walked about the office for a few moments before returning to his desk. His movements were deliberate, but for all his burliness Chief Cort could move quickly when required.

There was a knock on the door and Officer Brady entered, buttoning his jacket. “You wanted to see me, Chief?”

The chief leveled his gaze at Brady and the officer hurriedly completed fastening his uniform.

“Brady, do you recall the Sampson Stamp Shop burglary? I’ve been reviewing the case.” He indicated the folder on his desk.

“It must be at least ten months since the Sampson B-and-E,” Brady said.

“You knew the owner of the store quite well, didn’t you?”

Brady’s manner turned defensive. “You remember what you said, Chief — that we should get acquainted with the people on our beat. You know — to win their confidence? That way they would be more likely to cooperate, you said, if—”

“I remember what I said, Brady,” the Chief said dryly.

“Well—” Brady pushed out his chin “—yes, sir, I knew the owner, sir.”

Chief Cort’s eyes narrowed but his voice remained even. “I’m right in believing that your hobby is stamp collecting, am I not?”

Officer Brady’s chin eased back.

“Yes, sir.” He became expansive. “It was something to help me relax when I was off duty — you know? I started collecting stamps a couple of years ago.”

“I imagine it takes time to build up a good stamp collection,” Cort said. “I don’t suppose you have a complete collection of any country?”

Officer Brady hesitated. “No, I don’t, sir. Like you say, Chief, it takes time. Money too — something I don’t happen to have a lot of.”

“Who does these days?” the Chief said. “Is there anything in particular you’re collecting in the stamp line, Brady?”

Brady cleared his throat and said guardedly, “Uh, commemoratives. Whatever I can pick up.” His tone quickened. “Old man Sampson used to give me pointers on what to watch out for in a trade. Stuff like centering and imperfect perfs — perforations. He taught me to use mounts to keep my stamps in mint condition. I hinged them at first, which decreases their value.”

“Mr. Sampson seems to have been most helpful to you.”

“Yeah, sir, he was. I was sorry when the old man’s store was hit and he decided to close it up.” Brady shrugged. “Oh, well, I don’t suppose he made much money there anyway.”

Chief Cort’s face darkened. “Very little,” he said curtly. “Mr. Sampson’s daughter told me she often put money into the cash drawer to make her father believe he had done sufficient business to cover his bills. Mrs. Haines did the bookkeeping for her father so Mr. Sampson never had any idea what she was doing.”

“She never told me that,” Brady said petulantly.

The Chief’s voice was sharp. “Any reason why she should?”

“It’s just that I knew her pretty good. Being on the beat and all. I’d have thought she’d have confided in me.”

“A lady’s prerogative, Brady. Tell me — you knew Jonathan Haines, didn’t you?”

“Sampson’s grandson?” Officer Brady scowled. “I know him. Punk kid.”

Chief Cort raised an eyebrow. “I understand Jonathan Haines installed the burglar alarm system in his grandfather’s store and didn’t charge Mr. Sampson anything for his work, not even for the parts. And when his grandfather had a prolonged siege of illness, young Haines spelled his mother at the store. Did you know he graduated from journalism school last June with high honors?”

He regarded Brady sternly. “You call him a punk kid, Brady? It seems to me the world could do with more punk kids like Jonathan Haines.”

“Well, I used to think he was O.K. too, but when I bumped into him on the street a while back he acted real snippy to me.” Glancing at the chief, Brady shifted his gaze.

“It could be that Haines is still upset over the burglary,” the chief suggested. “He may hold himself responsible for the failure of the alarm system to work when it was needed most.”

“Maybe that’s it.” Brady nodded.

“The stamp album that was stolen contained Sampson’s own collection.” Chief Cort reached for his eyeglasses and consulted the folder on his desk. “United Nations complete, valued at one thousand dollars. Sampson had brought his collection to the store for safekeeping because of an attempted break-in at a house near his. He was afraid his house might be next. Is that right, Brady?”

“It’s all there in my report,” Brady replied testily. “I went over the case with you months ago, Chief.”

Chief Cort rapped the top of the desk with a pencil. “We’re going over it once more, Brady.”

He picked up a paper. “According to Jonathan Haines, his grandfather felt certain his collection would be safe in the store because of the burglar alarm. But that very night the store was broken into.” Chief Cort peered at Officer Brady over his glasses. “Mr. Sampson showed you the album containing his U.N. collection, didn’t he?”

“And who knows how many others he showed it to?” Brady bristled. “What are you trying to prove, Chief? That old man blabbed all over the place about his stamp collection.”

“But how many people, Brady, were aware that the stamp album had been brought into the store? Didn’t it strike you as odd that the album was stolen the very first night it was there?” Without waiting for an answer he continued, “As your report states, on your late-evening rounds you found the rear door of Sampson’s standing open. The window in the top half of the door had been smashed. You notified headquarters of a possible B-and-E. Within moments of your call the alarm sounded.” The chief paused and raised his eyes from the folder. “Sergeant O’Hara was standing near the board and informed me later he was startled that the alarm sounded so quickly after you had called in.”

“I don’t know about the alarm,” Brady said. “I don’t know why it malfunctioned. I’m no expert.”

“But you’re positive it did malfunction.”

“What else? That Haines kid didn’t do the job right, that’s all.”

“I want you to think carefully before you answer, Brady. You didn’t touch the door — push it or kick it perhaps — so that it might have triggered the alarm although it had failed to go off when the door was broken open?”

“I never touched the door!” Brady’s voice rose.

Chief Cort removed his glasses and studied Brady thoughtfully. “You waited until Detectives Coleman and Glen arrived. In the meantime — while you were waiting — you did not touch the door at all? Is that your story, Brady?”

“Exactly what’s in my report!”

“I see.” Chief Cort adjusted his eyeglasses, placed the folder to one side. “Brady, do you ever read Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine?”

Brady goggled at Chief Cort. “Sure,” he said. “I read it sometimes. Why?”

“Have you read the latest issue?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“You should. You’ll find a very interesting story in it that parallels much of the Sampson burglary.

“In the story,” he said, “the patrolman on the beat notifies his headquarters that, while making his rounds, he has discovered the rear door of a stamp store standing ajar. He expresses the opinion that it looks like a B-and-E. Then he himself smashes in the window on the rear door with the butt of his gun, reaches in, and opens the door — being careful, of course, not to leave any prints.

“Earlier in the day—” the Chief paused and glanced at Brady “—when the owner of the store showed the album containing his personal stamp collection to the patrolman, the officer made note of where the owner kept the album, so later the officer doesn’t need to waste any time searching for it. He snatches it, hides it in his car, and is waiting at the stamp shop when the detectives arrive.”

Chief Cort leaned back in his chair and eyed Brady. “What do you think of the story?”

Brady moistened his lips. “It’s a story some writer dreamed up out of his head. You know — writers and their imaginations. It’s just coincidence.”

“Coincidence?” The chief made a wry face. “The officer planned the whole thing, Brady. There was a B-and-E, all right, but it was committed by the patrolman on the beat. Pretty neatly too. He expects the burglar alarm to go off when the door is broken open, so — very cagily — he reports a B-and-E before he has even touched the door, knowing he has only about four or five minutes until reinforcements are due to arrive.

“He breaks open the door, dashes into the store, grabs the stamp album, runs to his car, which is parked close by, and stashes the album. When his colleagues arrive, he is waiting for them at the store, all innocence.”

Brady swallowed. “Coincidence,” he said.

“Possibly,” the Chief said, his mouth tightening, “except for one thing. You’ll be interested to learn that the author is Jonathan Haines. Oh, yes,” he further enlightened Brady. “Mr. Sampson’s grandson.”

Brady stared at the chief.

“When I read the story I requestioned Mr. Haines and he said he had written it out of frustration. He has never bought the theory advanced by the police that the burglar alarm malfunctioned when the door was broken open and then went off accidentally afterward.”

Cort stood. “And neither do I,” he snapped. “I want the truth, Brady. The real story this time!”

Sophie wanted Furberry to give up the banana...

I now have the office in the English Department of Poverton College that used to be Furberry’s office. The room is not spacious nor particularly well lit, and its decorations are few. One really cannot call framed certificates of degree decorations at all, I suppose, more just professional convention. There is certainly nothing on my wall to match Furberry’s banana.

The banana had been a prominent decoration in Professor Furberry’s office, its yellow velour plumpness forming a crescent shape on the wall above his desk, much like that of fighting fish often found in the offices of business executives. It was certainly what people call a “conversation piece.”

Neither a fighting fish nor a banana would be appropriate to my walls, for I am not forceful and businesslike, nor am I light-hearted, sophisticated, and a social lion like Furberry. I admit I envied him the bright attentions his suave presence evoked at faculty meetings and parties. I envied the gay repartee that issued from his office when, prodded, he referred to himself as “top banana in the English show” here at Poverton. I envied him the blushing oh-you-naughty-man attentions of visiting females and new office staff.

Repartee about the banana often seemed to bring “naughty man” responses and, once in a while, Professor Furberry would wink at me over the shoulder of some giggling lady as if to say, “We men, Poffering, we men — like old Lord Byron, you know — are dashing devils to be reckoned with!” And I would grin back at him, rather foolishly, I fear, yet feeling for that moment just such a devil indeed.

Furberry encouraged face-to-face speculation about the banana’s origin, and he even gave some credence to one behind-the-back one. A lady faculty member, miffed over some disagreement with Furberry, once declared that she expected any day a raid by some angry Carmen Miranda type intent on refurbishing her headpiece. “Close,” grinned Furberry when the theory got back to him, “close.” Less flattering theories, even if he heard them, he chose to ignore.

The banana, as you see, contributed greatly to Furberry’s chosen life style. It had benefits, and yet the possession of such an unusual objet d’art can, it seems, lead to certain difficulties.

Furberry’s difficulties, at least my first knowledge of them, began one day when I had been working late, grading papers in my little office adjacent to his. Furberry entered the outer office. I was very surprised to see him so late in the afternoon, for his classes were arranged to his liking early in the day, other faculty members being forced to arrange their schedules around his, which was inflexible.

I was surprised too at Furberry’s appearance. His hairpiece was just a little askew — obvious — as it seldom was even to his familiars. His face was flushed, and missing was his usual affable, thirty-two-force grin of ivory and gold. He stalked into his office without a word to me (my door was open and I was in full view) or to Miss Hagachoff, who was always the last to leave the office on any day. Miss Hagachoff looked alarmed and upset, and a few minutes later, when a loud groan was heard within Furberry’s sanctum, she got up and nervously but deliberately moved her sensible oxfords toward his door. She didn’t get there.

“Stop, Hagachoff! Oh, Hagachoff, do go home! Stop that incessant pencil-pushing and paper-rattling. Out!” said Furberry.

I couldn’t see Miss Hagachoff’s face, but I could imagine it. When Hagachoff was upset, the thin paleness of her face turned into a ski slope down which her wire-rimmed glasses threatened to plunge as into an abyss. A look at that face did temper Furberry’s violence, for I heard the usual suave Furberry saying, “Please, my dear, forgive my harsh words. You work too hard, dear Miss Hagachoff, and you are thoughtful and kind besides. But do go home, to your well earned evening’s rest.”

“Are you sure? Are you—” Miss Hagachoff’s small voice and small protestations faded as Professor Furberry gallantly pressed her handbag and coat upon her and guided her firmly out the door.

The lady out, he turned and faced me. “Oh world, oh life, oh time, Poffering! Oh false womankind! Poffering, never, never marry. Never, never have anything at all to do with women!”

I had hoped to pretend I’d observed nothing and go on grading my papers, but of course, that now was not to be. He advanced into my office (that never happened before) and flopped into the straight-backed visitor’s chair in front of my desk (that was incredible). I blinked and tried to find something to say, but that wasn’t necessary — a blessing, since I quite often have difficulty synchronizing reaction with speech.

“Poffering, I need a drink,” he said. “And I need a bit of companionship. Come on, old boy, leave off the labor and let us adjourn to Paco’s. Have you got your car?”

“Well—” I hesitated. I don’t drink, but I did have my car.

“Right on, then!” he said without waiting for my answer, and soon we were in my 1964 Fairlane and at a location not far from campus in miles, yet one totally unfamiliar to me. I parked at his direction on the street near a small unprepossessing establishment, over the door of which was stated in as yet unlit neon, PACO’S. I was very nervous. The streetlight on this suspicious-looking street was half a block away, and Furberry hardly waited for me to lock my car door after we stepped out.

It was black in Paco’s. Going in was like entering a movie theater out of bright sunlight. There were low murmurs and clinks of glassware, and a chunk-kachunka noise I later learned came from the pinball machines at the back. Furberry seemed to know his way, and I kept him in earshot, if not in sight, until we slipped into a now twilit booth, my eyesight beginning to return.

Furberry did know the way and the bartender as well, and we soon had two tall Tio Pacos before us. Furberry swallowed long, slumped, and sighed.

“Have you ever been in love, Poffering?” he asked, and as usual didn’t pause for an answer. “Sophie, Poffering, thinks love is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but then—” he hesitated, as if reflecting “—it is, it is ‘of man’s life a thing apart’ and ‘woman’s whole existence.’ Right?”

I dared to sip the drink before me. Its astringent taste and a brief indecision about attempting to speak plus a quick mental chase after the quotation — Byron — all conspired to gag me. I doubled over, coughing, and almost upset the drink.

“Down the wrong way?” said Furberry, but made no saving move. “I wanted to be honest with Sophie,” he said.

Now my mind made another search. Oh yes. Sophie Hennington was Professor Hennington’s widow. I recalled that I had heard something about Sophie and Furberry going about together, but the private lives of my fellow faculty have never been of much interest to me. Now I recalled the face — and, oh yes, the Opera Guild meeting last year. She had given a little talk, reminiscing about the time John McCormack visited her mother — she had been a mere babe at the time, of course, she had said, and the assembly had laughed politely as she smiled and pushed a bit at the too-red hair framing her Irish face, her charm bracelet jingling pleasantly along with the laughter of the crowd — but less pleasantly, I fear, during the pregnant pauses of the tenor aria which followed her talk.

Furberry continued. “I said, ‘Sophie, of course there were others. We are mature people, Sophie. A lovely woman like you is sure to have had love affairs herself.’ I guess I should have said a while ago, twice-in-a-lifetime is love to Sophie, for she began to tell me of her late Homer and the real devotion of their love for each other. Oh, Poffering, how that woman talks! Much as I admire her outgoing manner, her joie de vivre, I must say that Sophie never lets anyone but herself say anything. ‘Harold,’ she said, ‘there is true love, and there is philandering. I have seen how ladies flock about you at parties, and I have heard about’ ” — Furberry paused — “ ‘about that infamous banana.’ ”

“Yes,” I said, still not daring another sip of the Tio Paco.

“She wants me to give up my banana! She has even threatened to come in and snatch it off my wall. She suspects—” he leaned forward, whispering “—that it was a gift from a lady.”

“Was it?”

Furberry grinned brightly. “And if it was, Poffering, if it was? No, Poffering, I will not let Sophie take away my banana. Whatever she thinks about it, it is my banana. So much for Sophie! A marriage cannot be founded upon such a start.” He took a big swallow of his drink and sat back in the booth as if everything had been unalterably settled. His eyes gleamed with determination and Tio Paco, and although leaning against the midnight plastic booth pushed his hairpiece a little forward he did not notice it.

“Furberry — Harold—” I said, for my own few sips of Paco were making me bold “—is a banana really worth it? I mean, if you and Mrs. Hennington have gone so far as to consider marriage—”

“No!” he thundered at me. “No, no, no! There are other bonnie lassies around. Have you perhaps noticed Miss Lakey, the new teaching assistant in our department? Such a scholarly mind, such damask beauty—”

Indeed I had noticed Miss Lakey and, while she was usually all business, not one to giggle and make conversation, she had been invited to confer in the inner sanctum many times, and I had seen Furberry accompany her solicitously, the two smiling and laughing, to the outer office door, Hagachoff’s pruney disapproval affecting them not a whit.

It was seven P.M. by the blue-lit clock in the bar, and my stomach’s urgings prompted a suggestion to leave. Furberry was unwilling at first, but he yielded, and we made our way at last from twilight within to twilight without. I dropped him at a house across the street from the East Campus. It seemed that he parked his vintage MG in the driveway of Sophie’s abode every day and, as he said, “enjoyed the salutary briskness” of a walk to West Campus, where our offices were located.

Through my rear-view mirror I saw him adjust his black beret and drive off. And did he make a vulgar gesture at the curtained windows of the house’s upper story? Yes, I fear he did.

Willard was delighted to learn Myra was a bank teller...

The steady drumming of rain against his bedroom window awakened Willard Coyle that morning. A smile quirked his lips as he recognized the sound and roused fully. A stormy day was an intangible he’d hoped for because conceivably it could mean fewer patrons in the bank at the zero hour, which in turn could boost Myra Flanders’ morale.

Shaving, Coyle regarded his reflected features with approval. Lean, dark, no blemishes. Yes, he had the looks, all right. Plus the shrewd acuity of a born opportunist and an offbeat suavity that most women found charming. Captivating Myra had been simple. Essentially introverted and not particularly pretty, the girl obviously had been starved for male attention.

A casual noon-hour exchange, initiated in a gift shop where Myra had been purchasing a cutlery set and he had been idly estimating shoplifting possibilities, had been cultivated by Coyle on the spot when the girl had mentioned her position as a teller at Manufacturers’ Trust. A bit of lunch together had been genteelly broached and hesitantly accepted. From then on, a series of dates had followed smoothly. If not fully in love, Myra Flanders was nonetheless in a state of blissful, pliant euphoria.

Not that Coyle had envisioned any particular caper at first. But a love-starved girl with ready access to large sums of money suggested some ploy to be duly pondered.

Dressed, Coyle checked the time. Eight-twenty. Recalling Myra’s nervousness the evening before, he decided a call of reassurance would be wise.

She and her customers liked pretty things...

The Indian appeared in the shop doorway for the third time that week. The dirty unwashed drunken stench of him drifted in through the open door. Caroline threw down her dusting mop, the one with curling chicken feathers, in exasperation. He did not alarm her — he was too incapably drunk to be of any harm to anyone — but he was becoming an embarrassing nuisance. He braced his two arms against the doorjamb in an effort to hold himself steady and swayed backward and forward between his outstretched arms, his legs barely holding him upright. He forced his swollen lips open into an agonizing semblance of a smile and the broken brown teeth were a sickening sight.

“Lady,” he exhaled, his voice cracked and hoarse, his eyes swivelling as separate entities to get her into focus. “Got a quarter, lady? I jus’ need a quarter.” The same old line.

“Go away.” Caroline spoke up firmly. “Go away and don’t come back.” Which is what she had said before.

“Jus’ a quarter, lady. Tha’s all I need. Please, lady.”

“No! I haven’t got any money with me.” That wasn’t true, of course, but give him anything and he would just keep coming back. Though he seemed to be becoming a regular fixture without any encouragement, in any case. Thank heavens there had never as yet been any customers in the shop when he made his morning rounds.

She picked up the dust mop and took one step toward him. He flinched from her as though he expected her to hit him, but she wouldn’t have gone any nearer to him because the sight and smell of him disgusted her. It escaped her understanding how anyone could be in such a stupor at ten o’clock in the morning. She thought of the cheap liquor circulating in his veins and shuddered. He really couldn’t be much older than she was herself, though it was difficult to judge his age from the ravages of alcohol and the way his body did not belong inside the assorted ragbag of clothes that hung on him. His hair was black, greasy, and spiky, sticking up around his head absurdly as though he had tried to cut it himself, but, oddly, it was the hair that shafted a small sense of pity through her because it seemed as though sometime he had attempted to make himself presentable.

She stifled the feeling quickly. He was bad for business and she had to get rid of him. Quickly. Where he ate, how he slept, what he did with himself all day long were of no concern to her.

“Jus’ a quarter, lady,” he mumbled, knowing it was a lost cause, and then he backed away as she waved the dust mop at him, losing his hold on the door and staggering backward into the street, reeling and sagging inside the legs of his tattered pants. She watched him move away, swaying, setting his feet down carefully as if the sidewalk were hot, moving one leg after the other in an enormous effort. She could hear him mumbling to himself as he passed from her sight in search of better pickings, and she allowed herself a deep breath of relief.

Poor devil, she said to herself. He was a human being, after all, wasn’t he? Poor sick creature. Why didn’t someone take care of him?

Who that should be she didn’t know and hadn’t the time to care. She had work to do. Dust the furniture, clean the brass and copper, arrange the flowers in the old cut-glass pitcher, make the shop look enticing and attractive to anyone coming in search of an antique. She rubbed a little lavender-scented polish on a dark oak table. The patina of a hundred years needed no enhancement, but the sweet smell of it pleased her and would please a potential customer.

They would drift in soon, the odd bored housewife, the young couple in search of a special piece, the businessman looking for something different as a present for his wife or girl friend. Caroline had not been in the business long enough to judge which of them might buy something, but she welcomed most of the people who came in, anyone that looked respectable or interested. Most of all, she liked the people who would stop and chat and allow her to show her most prized pieces, because she wasn’t in the antique trade just to make money but also because she liked the look and feel of old, pretty things.

There were one or two special pieces in the shop and she lingered over them as she busied herself — an intricately inlaid sewing box, a miracle of tiny drawers with ivory knobs, the soft blue velvet of the lining worn with the passage of years; a fine beveled mirror, the frame a splendor of carved and gilded wood; a collection of delicate, fragile oil lamps, each one different in the curve and color of its glass.

Caroline hummed to herself and forgot the Indian. A peace and stillness descended over the room. It was more like a room than a shop, with the fine old furniture and the paintings on the walls and the sun slanting in through the windows, glinting off the silver and the brass and striking prisms in the beveling of the mirrors.

It was a quiet day. Only a few customers came in, and nobody bought anything. But Caroline didn’t mind. The shop was new in this part of town, a recently upgraded area, the old buildings saved from the swinging iron ball of the demolishers, pushing back at the urban blight. People didn’t know about the shop yet — it was tucked away in an obscure corner, not on the normal path of passersby — but she had every confidence that she would win a regular clientele in time. As long as she made enough to pay the rent for these first few months she would be content, and this month she had already achieved that.

She altered the ornate brass hands of the grandfather clock and then checked the other clocks, the little brass carriage clock ticking gently inside the glass showcase, the funny painted wall clock that had a habit of speeding up suddenly for no discernible reason.

There was the usual small post-lunchtime flurry of customers, girls on their way back to the office, one who toyed for five minutes over a gold pin and then decided against buying it, two women with packages who compared Caroline’s stock with what they had in their own homes, a man looking for Oriental objects Caroline did not have. Then the afternoon drifted into silence. She wrote a letter to her mother. The sun disappeared behind a cloud and the colors of the shop dulled down to a brown monotone.

Caroline began to feel bored. She glanced at the grandfather clock to check the time — maybe she would close early today — then realized that it had ceased its somnolent ticking and remembered that it should have been wound today. Friday was the day to wind the grandfather clock.

In the distance she heard the sound of raucous voices and knew with a sinking of her heart that the drunks were back, ensconced on their favorite patch of grass under the linden tree around the corner. If she closed the shop now she would have to pass them, hear their ribald comments and their pleas for money. She got up to close the door, to shut out the sounds of their drunken revelry.

So she was glad when she turned around from the tallcase clock to see a young man enter the shop. She had not heard him come in, his tennis shoes making no sound on the Persian runner, the tiny bell fixed above the door unaccountably silent.

“Hi,” she said cheerfully, closing the clock door with care, hoping he would stay long enough so that the drunks would have moved on their mysterious way before she left.

“Hi,” he replied, equally cheerful, and here she could recognize someone about her own age — a tall, slender young man in clean blue jeans and a T-shirt, her own uniform when she was not in the shop. His hair was light brown, cut casually but carefully, waving down onto the nape of his neck, his sideburns just the right length below his ears. He was one of her own kind, someone she could identify with. Not like the Indian. The only different thing about him was the arm encased in plaster he carried against his chest tenderly.

“You’ve hurt your arm,” she said, making conversation.

He looked down at his arm as if in surprise. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did. It’s no problem though.”

She couldn’t think of anything else to say and stood quietly by the clock as he meandered his way around the room. The sounds of the men down the road crept in through the door.

“Funny thing about this town,” the young man said, inclining his head toward the noise. “Where I come from they’d run bums like that off the streets. They don’t let scum like that litter up the town, especially where there are tourists.”

“Oh? Where do you come from?”

“Pasadena,” he said. “Yeah, in Pasadena we don’t allow them to run around free.”

Caroline thought about that for a moment. “What do you do with them, then?”

He shrugged. “Lock ’em up for the night, then send them on their way. Especially Indians. We don’t have any time for that sort of scum there.”

She didn’t know why she should disagree with him. “But this is their town. There isn’t anywhere else to send them.”

He didn’t answer that. He stood looking at the painted clock.

“That’s fast,” he said.

“I know. It doesn’t seem to want to keep the slow pace of this city.”

He grinned. He had white even teeth. “I know what you mean.” He wandered away from the clock, fingered one of the small tables. “You have some nice things.” He spoke softly, almost in a whisper.

“I’ll show you something nice,” Caroline said. She wanted the drunks gone before this young man, though instinct told her he would not be a buyer. He looked as though he had come in just to pass the time of day. His movements were desultory, somehow aimless. She moved over to her favorite piece, the sewing box.

“Look,” she said, running her hand over the multi-colored inlay of the lid. “Look at this. And then—” She opened the box, revealing the blue velvet and the row of ivory knobs. She lifted one piece of it and the carved spool holders appeared under her hand. “And then—” she felt like a conjurer “—then this—” She pulled at the center rectangle of velvet to show the tiny drawers underneath, each inlaid, each with its own tiny ivory pull. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked, opening each minute drawer in turn until they lay tier upon tier like stairs in a dollhouse.

“What is it?” He reached out with his free hand to touch the box.

“A sewing box. Not very practical nowadays, I suppose, but can’t you just imagine some Victorian lady in a crinoline sitting at this and making wonderful embroidery?”

He stood and looked at the box for a long moment. Then he looked at Caroline. His eyes were a curious smoky-grey.

“Are you psychic?” he asked in that soft sibilant whisper.

Caroline didn’t know why that question should startle her. “Psychic?”

“You talk about it as though it were a living thing. You have a strange empathy with these old things.”

“No, I’m not psychic.” Caroline did not like the word; it sent an uncomfortable shiver down the back of her neck. “I just like old things.”

“You like mirrors too,” he said. “I can see that.” He turned to look at the mirrors hanging on the walls. “Strange things, mirrors.”

“Strange? Why strange?” She let go of the sewing box and folded her arms against her body. The tiny shiver had not left her spine.

“I don’t like them,” he said. “Especially old ones. If I look in them it is as though there are a thousand other faces crowding over my shoulder, looking at me from the past. Do you ever feel like that?”

Caroline shook her head. She started to move away from him, nearer the door. He was a head taller than she and he held the stiff plastered arm at such an odd angle. He moved with her.

“No,” she said clearly, loudly. “No, I don’t believe there is anyone else there. I couldn’t believe that or I wouldn’t be able to live with them, would I?”

“I couldn’t keep a house like this,” he said, and moved a step closer. “I would be haunted. Do you ever feel haunted?”

Caroline shook her head again, hard. She didn’t want to take her eyes from his face, but neither did she want to look at him. People had odd fancies.

“This isn’t a house,” she said. “It’s a shop, just a shop. I sell things. They’re not mine to keep.”

“It reminds me of a house. Like an old aunt’s I had once. She’s dead now, of course. And it reminds me of my mother’s house too. She liked old things, not young ones. She didn’t like children, not even her own.” He smiled, showing the perfect white teeth, and the smoky eyes settled on Caroline. “She’s dead too.”

Caroline avoided his eyes. She edged behind an old chair. He was still between her and the door. “I’m sorry,” she said, and her voice echoed thinly in the still shop.

“Sorry?” He sounded surprised again, as he had when she had asked about his arm. He drew his free hand across his head. “Sorry for what?”

Now Caroline was finding it difficult to speak. “Sorry that your mother is — dead.” Her voice trailed away.

“Oh.” He laughed, a curious, soft sound. “There’s no need to be. I didn’t like the mirrors though. I smashed them all after she died.” He looked puzzled, pursing his lips in a tight line. “Or was it before she died? I forget now — funny how one forgets, isn’t it?”

Caroline nodded silently. The street was abnormally quiet outside. Then suddenly there was a brief burst of laughter from the men around the corner and the sound of breaking glass.

She cleared her throat. “It sounds as if the drunks are having a good time out there.”

She tried to smile.

“Scum!” He spat the word out.

“I should go and see if they’re doing any damage.” She started from behind the chair.

“No!” He held up the plastered arm. “No! Don’t go! I like to talk to you.” His voice was louder now. “I’m sure you’re psychic.”

Dear God, yes, maybe I am, Caroline thought. She watched the arm in its hard casing. A weapon. He will use it — I can see far enough into the future for that. Will it be me or my mirrors or my little glass lamps? Inadvertently she let her eyes slide toward the precious subjects. She wasn’t sure what she had more fear for, and his eyes followed hers.

“Those are nice,” he said conversationally. “I once knew someone who had lamps like that. She was psychic too. This room reminds me of her house.”

Yes, and I’ll bet she’s dead too, Caroline thought. Her heart was beating in her throat. He moved toward the lamps and Caroline moved in the opposite direction, toward the door. He immediately stopped. The door was a long way off. She leaned on the back of the chair for support and attempted to keep her voice normal.

“Tell me about her,” she said.

It was as though she had turned on a tap. The words flooded from him, the soft whispering back again. She half listened, not wanting to, wanting to find a way to fly to the door, measuring the distance, seeking a clear path through all the bric-a-brac that cluttered the path and yet knowing she had to appear to be listening to him. The diffuse pale eyes kept fixing themselves on her face and she forced herself to listen, to keep his attention on what he was saying.

“She was tall,” he was whispering. “Blonde, like you, but older, much older, and after we went to this seance kind of meeting she took me back to show me all her lamps. She lit them, one by one, until they were flaring up, blinding me, you know — too bright. Too much light is bad for the eyes, did you know that? And I had to put them out because I don’t like too much light, or fire. Do you like fire, do you think—” His words were suddenly stemmed by the sound of the painted clock on the wall, chasing time again, striking stridently through the sound of his voice, stilling it. They both listened to the clanging bell ring five times. Five o’clock. Closing time.

He stared at the clock. “I don’t like clocks that strike,” he said, and Caroline closed her eyes briefly. Clocks that strike and mirrors that reflect the past and lamps that burn too brightly. She opened her eyes quickly, because it was dangerous to keep them closed. Now the young man with the weapon of his arm was swinging it from side to side. His eyes slid from Caroline to the clock to the mirrors to the lamps and back to Caroline again.

There’s nothing I can do to stop him, she panicked, nothing...

The door swung open.

“Lady, got a quarter? Jus’ a quarter?”

He swayed in the doorway, as drunk as he had been at ten o’clock in the morning, as rank and as evil-smelling as he had been when she last saw him, his black hair spikier and wilder, his broken brown teeth still bared in the travesty of a smile, and he was the sweetest thing Caroline had ever seen. The stale urine smell wafted from him over the lavender-scented polish and the brass polish and the perfume of the roses in the cut-glass pitcher.

“Oh,” Caroline said. “Sure, just a minute.”

The young man turned on the Indian, his face contorted. “Scum!” he screamed. “Filthy, dirty, rotten scum!”

He leapt for him, covering the few yards between himself and the doorway, scattering the chairs and stools and copper coal scuttle, and struck the swaying figure across the face with the full force of his plaster-of-Paris arm, sending the unaware man hurtling backward onto the side walk, the blood spurting from his lips, those poor swollen lips, the crunch of his head hitting the concrete, a sickening sound.

For a moment he stood over him, hitting again and again with the arm at the still figure, kicking with the frenzy of the madman that he was. “Scum!” he screamed. “You should be taken off the streets! Put away!” Then he ran, like a well trained sprinter, the graceful tall shape of him disappearing round the corner in his clean blue jeans and white T-shirt, the arm held close against his chest.

Caroline bent over the Indian. Blood trickled from the greasy hair, oozing onto the pavement, seeping down into the neck of the shirt that could never have belonged to him. She picked up the limp hand stretched out in eternal supplication, the nails broken, dirty. She pressed it close to her face, unaware now of the smell.

“Thank you, thank you for coming back.” She didn’t know what else to say. The eyes had ceased their wanderings, were fixed on the sky. Caroline started to cry.

She fumbled in her pocket, where she always kept some loose change, and, finding a quarter through the tears, she closed the Indian’s hand around it. She only dimly heard the siren of the aid car screaming in the distance.

When they picked the body up off the sidewalk the quarter fell to the ground with a tiny tinny sound.

Since Malonson’s murder, DataAid was in big trouble...

“I feel almost disrespectful, Mr. Webber, coming to you so soon after Jerry Malonson’s passing,” Evan Neale said grimly. “I realize it’s only been a week, but I’m desperate for another finance vice-president. To say things are chaotic now would be a gross understatement.”

“I understand,” Blair Webber said. He too knew of Jerry Malonson’s “passing.” The newspapers reported that Malonson had been stabbed at least ten times more than necessary to send him to corporate Valhalla. Since Malonson’s apartment had been ransacked and cash valuables were missing, the police chalked up the unsolved crime to a burglar with a mean streak.

“For obvious reasons, I would like you to handle it for me,” Neale continued.

For obvious reasons. Webber, owner of Webber and Associates, Inc., Selective Executive Recruitment, had placed Evan Neale in his present position as president of DataAid, Inc., a computer-service firm specializing in accounting, tax preparation, and word processing. In the two years of Neale’s reign, DataAid had thrived. Their board of directors was happy, and Blair Webber was happy; the fee for placing Neale had been his first large one after striking out on his own.

Webber studied the form Neale had completed. “You’re asking for a candidate with both a CPA and extensive technical knowledge in computers. And management experience. You’re tossing me a tough one, Mr. Neale.”

Neale was a large man with grey hair. He talked with his hands. “Perhaps, but those are my requirements. The computer industry is changing so rapidly that technical expertise is essential. Naturally, cost is no problem if you deliver and deliver fast. There will be a nice bonus added to your standard fee if you can produce within a week. Relocation is no problem either, if he’s the right man.”

Webber nodded. That would make an impossible task slightly less difficult. Some corporations balked at repotting an executive from the East Coast because of the moving expense and other perk demands. “Well, that widens the playing field a bit, but still—”

Neale got up and smiled. “I have confidence in you, Webber. I appreciate what you’ve done for me in the past and I like the way you’ve kept your operation small and personal. If there’s a better body snatcher on the Coast, I don’t know who it is.”

Webber forced a return smile, shuddering inside. Body snatcher, head hunter — phrases coined by bitter employers who had lost key people when better opportunities had been presented to them. But it was a matter of perspective, Webber knew — whether your corporation was victim or beneficiary.

He slipped out of Neale’s handshake after the first squeeze. A wiry, natty man half Neale’s size, he had learned the hard way that Neale didn’t mind showing off his knuckle-crunching grip.

“I hope to get back to you in about three days,” he said.

Neale winked. “Think bonus, Webber. Forty-eight hours would be appreciated.”

The tiny bottle of liquid could kill half of Manhattan...

Stella was either restless or deliberately provocative. Either way she was making Crispin sweat. Her breasts kept moving fractionally so that the satin blouse furrowed, billowed, became suddenly shadowed, or took on polished highlights. He missed her remark and felt foolish.

“Tasteless, odorless, colorless,” she repeated. “It’d kill you stone dead in five seconds. All the symptoms of a massive heart attack, I heard them saying.”

She pouted and her absurdly, long silvered fingernails scrabbled at the little purse. Crispin burnt his thumb in the scramble to light her cigarette. She noted his haste with a spark of smug amusement.

“Anyway, lover, that’s why I was late. We can’t leave until Professor Michele signs the log to confirm that the stuff’s locked up. It’s crazy, two ways at once.” She yawned prettily, like a green-eyed blonde kitten, and arched her spine.

For once, Crispin failed to respond. “How d’you mean?” he asked casually, hardly seeing her.

“Well, the key goes in my drawer along with the rest, so what’s the big deal about signing a book? And who’s going to steal old Prof’s cocktail, anyway? Only a maniac who’d get a buzz out of killing somebody. Believe me, they’re all nuts at the lab, but not that crazy.”

Crispin started at a touch on his sleeve, gaping up with a sly, guilty expression. It was only the waiter, saying that their table was ready.

Stella enjoyed the meal, but then she always liked luxurious things at someone else’s expense. Crispin wasn’t aware of what he ate and drank. He was wondering about Stella. She was, he thought, super in bed. Also greedy, mercenary, totally without ethics. So why not ask her?

Then he remembered Dr. Custis, and scowled. He could see that shrewd man, one of the unchallenged tribal elders of Barlerville. In Crispin’s mind, Custis stared speculatively at him — those yellowish goat’s eyes and the wisp of grey beard making the doctor look even more of a crafty, seasoned old animal. Dr. Custis always knew, and what he didn’t know he guessed. His opinion of Crispin was low.

Crispin’s scowl deepened. He was remembering his last visit to his hometown, visiting Grandfather Barler.

He’d managed to wheedle $1,500 out of the ashen-faced, blue-lipped old man. But Dr. Custis had appeared as Crispin bounded away to his car, already daydreaming the cash away on Stella and a dizzying ration of cocaine.

“Hello, Crisp. Been hittin’ my friend agin fer yer mad money?” Goat’s eyes stripping and dwindling him. Dr. Custis’ smiles and sneers were interchangeable. “Ye’re a worthless young pup, Crispin.”

Crispin gulped imported hock, making faces as if it was vinegar. The guy had a nerve! Acting as if he owned Grandfather’s house and business just because he’d been running both ever since Crispin was a kid. He’d virtually given up general practice in Barlerville after Crispin’s parents had died in the plane crash, to tend Grandfather and help him invest and deploy his money.

All that would change, Crispin decided savagely — and not for the first time — once Grandfather died and he inherited.

But when would that be? Crispin had expected to hit the jackpot by the time he graduated, and here he was, past thirty. That was Dr. Custis again — coddling the old man, keeping him alive.

Colorless, odorless, tasteless. Heart attack symptoms. Well, heart trouble ran in the family. Grandfather would die from one when he had the common decency to succumb. Crispin himself was vulnerable, he thought self-pityingly. Rheumatic fever when he was in school had left him — or so he had insisted, especially to his draft board — an invalid.

Take one at bedtime, he thought. How many times had he read that on the label of the bottle of Grandfather’s capsules?

Stella finished a sickly looking concoction, heavy on brandy, meringue, and whipped cream. “Run that past me again, darlin’?”

Crispin shook his head. “Nothing.”

It was nearly a week before he raised courage to say to her, “Stella, don’t refuse before you’ve thought it through. How would you like to make a very, very great deal of money?”

It began when Hilda inherited 1,000 shares of stock...

When Hilda inherited a thousand shares of Intercontinental stock from this great-uncle of hers, I knew that it was my big chance.

For I was sick of Hilda — deathly sick — after being married to her for seven years. I wanted to get away from her tiresome adoration of me, from her emptyheaded chatter, from the distasteful necessity of watching her grow ever fatter and dowdier.

I wanted desperately, too, to escape from my dull job in the bank, where I was stuck in a junior-executive rut that I knew would never lead to a future worthy of my capabilities.

You can see why I welcomed Hilda’s legacy.

Fortunately, Hilda was unbelievably naive about money matters, even though I worked in a bank. You’d have thought that a little money sense would have rubbed off on her just listening to my dinner table conversation for seven years. But no. Hilda remained wide-eyed and innocent about all things financial right up to the end. It wasn’t because she thought money slightly degrading, as many do. It was just because she was naturally stupid.

Her face and figure had been superb when I married her. That’s what had attracted me to her. But inside that pretty, boring little head of hers, I soon discovered, there wasn’t room for anything but a simple doglike devotion to me and a few very commonplace thoughts about clothes, movies, television programs, and country cooking. And her beautiful figure began to disappear under layers of fat within a year of our wedding.

Anyway, the day we received the stock certificate from the Chicago lawyers who were settling Hilda’s great-uncle’s estate, I dropped into Jamie’s Bar on the way home from the bank. When I got home, Hilda kissed me at the door.

“Why, you’ve been drinking, Chester,” she said.

“A quick one in Jamie’s Bar on my way home,” I said, “to celebrate your legacy.”

“Oh,” Hilda said with her noble, forgiving air, “that’s nice. Now come to dinner, dear. It’s ready. Ham and cabbage.”

You see? Ham and cabbage! When every nerve in my bored body was crying out for caviar, beef stroganoff, and champagne under a purple sky with a beautiful slender woman!

Dissembling, I said, “Oh, good! But let’s see that stock certificate you told me came in the mail today.”

She got an envelope off the TV cabinet for me.

“Here it is,” she said. “And goodness! Look at all the postage!”

“It’s registered mail, that’s why. And rightly so, Hilda. Do you realize this piece of paper is worth over a hundred thousand dollars?”

“Really?” Hilda said. “How nice! I think it was dear of Uncle Lew to leave it to me, don’t you?”

“Very generous and thoughtful, yes.” I opened the certificate, made out on its face to Mrs. Hilda Carstairs. “Of course, it’s a growth stock. Intercontinental doesn’t pay any dividends yet. But it’s nice to have it, certainly.” I pointed to the endorsement line on the back. “You’d better sign it right now, dear. Then everything will be legal and the transaction will be completed.”

“Sign it? Of course. I should have known. What for?” She took the fountain pen I handed her and signed her name on the back of the certificate.

“That’s your receipt signature,” I told her blandly. “The stock certificate isn’t good without your signature on the back. Once you’ve signed it, they know the stock really belongs to you.” I folded up the certificate and shoved it carelessly into my pocket.

“I’ll put it in our safe-deposit box at the bank,” I said.

She nodded without much interest.

“The ham and cabbage will be getting cold,” she said. “Let’s eat now, dear.”

Somehow the ham and cabbage tasted better that night than ever before.

Theirs was a Victorian lifestyle in almost modern dress...

When Mother phoned to tell me Father was to have heart surgery, my immediate thought was: I didn’t know he had a heart — a set of principles, a book of rules, a list of laws perhaps — but a heart? Mother’s calm and proper voice explained in dignified and impersonal terms the reason for the operation and the function of the pacemaker that was to be implanted.

“I’ll get the first plane out,” I promised in a voice as serenely composed as hers. My parents still did this to me, even after ten years of marriage. The minute I made contact, I was their ladylike daughter, with rigid back, fixed smile, feelings nicely buttoned up.

Father’s heart surgery was carried out with Mother’s and my hands folded suitably on our laps; no wailing, no weeping, not even a single heavy sigh to break the proper decorum.

His recovery was handled just as punctiliously with our twice-daily visits to the hospital, Mother at one side of his bed, I at the other, each speaking softly — not about the operation, but about the weather and other insignificant subjects.

Those weeks at home were for me a time of exceeding boredom to which my conditioned reflexes responded so that when sitting I sat straight, with ankles primly crossed, and when standing my legs were puritanically close together.

Mother whiled away the hours writing gracious little thank-you notes for the flowers and cards she’d received. I whiled mine away in my old room, browsing through the artifacts I’d left there.

The most significant of the memorabilia I’d left there seemed to me to be the gloves — short white dancing-school gloves, elbow-length formal gloves. Gloves had been very important when I was young. Cover up, mitten up, don’t let your fingers show — your skin, your pores, your feelings. Don still teases me about leaving my gloves on the first night we spent in a motel, when we were college seniors and left the prom for less formal and more intimate pleasures — which is not true, of course.

But if the gloves were a symbol of my slavishly correct upbringing, the hair dryer marked the emancipation begun the last spring I was home. I found the electric dryer, a hand-blower type, on the upper shelf of my closet and took it down, remembering that spring vacation as a time of frequent shampoos, of brushing my hair into sleek simplicity, rolling it into curly piquancy, teasing it into bouffant sophistication — all in order to snare Don in the tangle of my imaginative tresses once I returned to campus.

“My old hair dryer,” I showed my mother.

Smiling remotely and without comment, she returned to her thank-you notes.

Ranee Rangoon was going to make a comeback...

When you’re in a coffin, you feel out of touch. It’s absolutely quiet. For maybe the first time since your glands started working, you have time to think. So you think of things you did and didn’t do, and of the people who passed in and out of your life. You’re glad you knew this one, sorry you knew that one.

I lay there and was sorry I’d known Marsha. If I hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t have been shot down at age thirty-two, life’s prime time.

On the other hand, maybe I would have been. Marsha wasn’t the only woman I was having an affair with. When you’re an actor in Hollywood affairs come in clusters. If I hadn’t got plugged that April night in Marsha’s apartment in Westwood it might have happened the next night, next week, next month, in somebody else’s apartment — Melinda’s or Zizi’s or Savanarella’s.

Somehow Marsha’s husband, Alfred Grout, a real-estate tycoon, got wind of our affair and that Thursday he didn’t go East on business as scheduled, but cabbed back from Burbank and let himself into the apartment while we were out to dinner. When we came back, he was in the bedroom. He wasn’t alone — he held a big .45, and its cold eye was fixed on me.

I’m not sure he even knew who I was when he pulled the trigger; all he knew was that I was a guy with broad shoulders and lots of shiny teeth who had been having a thing with Marsha.