Dear Readers:

As you know, I was born and raised in England... where the national sport is cricket. During the years I have spent in the United States, I have transferred my allegiance, and affections to your national sport, baseball.

I must admit to some confusion about home bases, however, for I find it difficult to follow the Major League shifts; the St. Louis Browns to Baltimore; and the Boston Braves to Milwaukee; not to mention the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles, and the Giants to San Francisco! The Senators have deserted Washington for the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Los Angeles has welcomed The Angels, and the National League started the 1962 season with the new Mets, who have taken over the Giants’ old home base on Coogans Bluff, while the Colts have settled in Texas. To add to my confusion, there are all those minor leagues, semi-pros, for the most part, Little Leagues, Pony Leagues, Midget Leagues, not to mention the sand-lot ball played on vacant lots.

P. S. Maybe the Langborn case will suggest a story to you. Not being a writer, I wouldn’t know how to work it up. I imagine you’ll think of the Clement J. Smith angle. He was lucky. But what if, tomorrow or two hundred years from now, another two-billionth print led to an accusation against a guy who wasn’t so clearly innocent as Smith? Now wouldn’t he be in a mess?

In these days of weight-control by wafer or flavored beverage, some of you will no doubt find this story far-fetched. But those among you who, life myself, are gourmets, will be completely in sympathy with the narrator.

Sir, you appear to be a gentleman of taste and discrimination, such a man as I believe myself to be, I am informed that you are a psychiatrist and this training should add to your insight and wisdom. I have refused to make my confession in the presence of the police. They are dull, unimaginative clods, quite incapable of understanding the sensitivities that come with refinement and breeding. Sir, I am a murderer. I admit the fact. But many fastidious men have been preoccupied with violent death. I consider it no disgrace to be a member of their ranks. Nor do I hope to escape the penalty involved. However, I see no reason to invite the mockery, the crude guffaws, perhaps the disbelief of the uncouth minions of the law who until your arrival were my inquisitors.

I must tell you about Yvette, but first it becomes necessary to speak a few words about myself. My lineage is one of distinction and I am naturally aware of the social prestige attached to my family name. The question therefore arises why I should have married Yvette who was not only nine years my senior but also a woman whose rather coarse appearance indicated, with accuracy, her French peasant stock.

But I am getting ahead of my story. Of my youth, let it suffice to say that it was spent in luxurious loneliness. My father was too preoccupied with his business interests to give me more than a passing thought. My mother was a woman of artistic temperament who attempted to instill in me her love of art, music and poetry. In retrospect it seems as though my entire boyhood was spent in museums, literary salons and art galleries. Mother virtually commuted from Boston to Europe and I invariably accompanied her. True, there were a few brief intervals in private schools but these interludes are filled with painful memories. Grubby dormitories, the juvenile atrocities of the playing fields and the public humiliation of the class-room were not for me. Worst of all was the tasteless refectory food. Before long I would fall ill and mother, taking pity on my misery, would swoop down and remove me from my sordid surroundings.

By and large, my education was supervised by a series of tutors who coached me in languages, art and music. Not altogether successfully, I must admit. My talents are limited. I am a connoisseur rather than a creative artist. Nevertheless, under this irregular tutelage, I did gain an admission to one of our better universities. I was not happy there. The conditions that prevail at such institutions are deplorably primitive, especially in the matter of food. I withdrew in my sophomore year.

My mother and I resumed our travels. Although I may be considered a failure, there was one area in which I had become an expert. My judgment in the culinary arts was impeccable. Wherever mother and I went, be it Paris, Rome or Vienna, I was able to ferret out little out-of-the-way restaurants where the cuisine was superb. Mother and her friends always deferred to my judgment and I never led them astray.

My father’s demise passed almost unnoticed but mother’s death six years ago came as a severe blow, especially as it was accompanied by the shocking knowledge that the family fortune had dwindled to a point of almost non-existence. Through a series of circumstances too elaborate to recount, I found myself stranded in New York, saddled with an unpleasant job that paid me a mere pittance. New York has always seemed to me a coldly hostile city. Certainly it was not designed for a man of my sensibilities.

I had never possessed the knack of easy friendships and now I was quite alone. Night after night I wandered about the city, seeking the side streets in the hope of finding cosy little restaurants where fine foods would be served. Invariably I was disappointed. Time and again I would rush out of restaurants in a rage, the food barely tasted. Everything was wrong, the sauces abominable, the legumes overcooked, bread and pastries either a puffy mess or hard as shoe leather.

Life was intolerable until one night I stumbled by chance on a winding side street in Greenwich Village and a wooden sign that read Chez. Yvette. I wandered in without hope. The place was dark and dreary with small tables lit only by candles thrust into the necks of Chianti bottles. The menu was in French but I had been fooled too often for this to arouse my expectations. My spirits were dampened further by the drab slattern of a waitress who took my order.

I selected fillets of sole au gratin. It is a simple dish which even the inexpert cook should be able to prepare tolerably well. The restaurant was almost empty and I tapped my foot with impatience over the long delay. At length the waitress returned with a covered tray. As soon as the lid was lifted I knew that I found what I had sought for so long, a cook who was absolute mistress of her craft. The sole could not have been better. The sauce Provencale was exquisite, the forcemeat stuffing a dream. The vintage wine which accompanied the meal was perfection.

I could scarcely believe my good fortune and I demanded to be taken to the kitchen to present my compliments to the cook. Yvette was standing by the stove, her black hair straggly, her swarthy face beaded with sweat. She was an enormous woman, her shapeless figure encased in a rusty black dress, her thick legs covered with black cotton stockings. But to me she was beautiful. I kissed her on both cheeks and hugged her.

Yvette was delighted to find an appreciative customer. Soon we were talking a mile a minute, both ecstatic in our discoveries. From then on I rarely missed a night at Chez Yvette. She prepared all sorts of delicacies for me, sweetbreads a la Brunilesco, lobster a la Borgia, galantine of capon a la Persano. She would hover over me while I dined and often, after the front lights had been dimmed, she would join me over a glass of wine or black coffee served with the most delectable of French pastries.

She was a treasure and I could not let her go but unfortunately my reserve of cash was running low. Yvette’s flair for cookery did not dim the shrewd financial calculations which were an essential characteristic of her French peasant ancestry. I was well fed but I paid through the nose, and I could not afford to pay much longer. Yvette sensed my dilemma and it was she who struck the bargain. One evening after we had dined, she suggested that I stay the night. I was already in her debt and I could scarcely refuse. When the restaurant was closed, I followed her to her room above the kitchen with considerable reluctance.

We undressed in the dark and I slipped into the oldfashioned, four-poster bed beside her. My misgivings were groundless. Yvette’s approach to love was direct and forthright. My previous experience with fashionably slender young women of my acquaintance seemed, by comparison, shallow, bloodless, pale carbon copies of passion.

The next week we were married. At first the marriage was a happy one. Shortly afterward I came into a small legacy which I invested in enlarging the restaurant and in advertising. Soon we were doing a thriving business. The discriminating, with a few paid plugs from columnists, found their way to our door. Yvette continued to cook. I decorated an upper room and held a sort of informal court here. The room was open only to gourmets who sought my advice in the selection of their dishes. Yvette and I planned the meals together. Often I spent the mornings scouring the markets for the necessary ingredients for the day’s bill of fare.

The restaurant became the very core of my existence. It gave me dignity and stature as a man. I loved it and I loved Yvette because she was an integral part of it. I was happier than I had ever been.

Then tragedy struck without warning. Yvette had complained of aches and pains, of exhaustion at night. I advised a medical checkup but Yvette’s reluctance to pay a doctor’s fee restrained her from following my advice until she actually collapsed in the kitchen.

Yvette returned from the clinic gray-faced and shaken. Her excessive weight had brought on a coronary condition complicated by incipient diabetes. The doctor had prescribed a rigorous diet. Yvette had protested.

“You have no choice,” he told her. “Either diet or die.”

Yvette was a determined woman. Once convinced that dieting was a necessity, she approached her problem with rock-like fortitude. No longer did she sip the vichyssoise which she prepared, or slip a strawberry tart from the tray into her mouth.

Yvette’s reduction in weight was phenomenal. Within a few months she was scarcely recognizable as the fat, jolly, easy-going woman I had married. Her figure became slim and solid; her face, planed down, showed a fine bold bone structure. I would not say that she was beautiful. The descriptive word handsome might apply better. Certainly she was striking. Deprived of her interest in food, she became impassioned with her appearance which she had previously neglected. She was rigorously corseted, her hair coiffed with painstaking care and she became adept in the use of make-up.

My coterie of friends congratulated me on the change but soon they began to drift away from Chez Yvette. More and more my wife became indifferent to the preparation of those dishes which had given a certain fame to the restaurant. She hired a chef of mediocre talents and her supervision was limited to seeing that he prepared the day’s menu with the maximum of economy.

With the change in her appearance came a complete alteration of her personality. She had always been thrifty but now she developed a mean, niggardly streak. She substituted dried mushrooms for the fresh ones required in Allemande sauce. She even mixed pig’s liver in the pate de foie gras and, most frightful of all, employed margarine in the preparation of vegetables. My protests were without avail. Soon she was serving smaller portions and, one by one, she eliminated the dishes requiring long preparation and expensive ingredients.

Our exclusive clientele dropped off but Yvette was not disturbed. The restaurant was being filled by a new type of customer, tourists with barbarian tastes, clerks and typists from nearby office buildings, hoi-polloi from the housing development in the next block. Yvette moved from the kitchen to the cashier’s desk. She made a careful survey of the neighborhood’s desires and came up with a menu of salads, sandwiches and business men’s special blue plates.

Our personal relations deteriorated rapidly. Previously she had deferred to my judgments and I had believed that she considered herself fortunate indeed in finding a husband of refined tastes and superior social position. But now I was a supernumerary. She did not trust me with the marketing but attended to all purchases herself. Our marriage was disintegrating. Her pliancy and docility disappeared. By bedtime she was usually too exhausted by the day’s labor and her rigorous diet to respond to my overtures and on such occasions as she did, she tended to be harsh, demanding, and even critical of my male prowess.

Before long my affection for her changed to hate. I could not stand the sight of her bold, hawk-like features. Her eyes which had seemed jolly in their casements of flesh, now had a predatory gleam. But all these shortcomings might have been tolerable were it not for the fact that the food became increasingly execrable. Yvette had developed into a fanatic in the matter of diet. Like the reformed drunkard, she sought converts with a crusader’s zeal. The room which had once been reserved exclusively for myself and my friends was changed into a health bar.

It was bad enough not to be able to get a proper meal in my own home but Yvette did not stop at that. She constantly nagged at me for what she termed an excessive interest in food. She plied me with carrot juice, cottage cheese and rye crisp and, when I spurned them, made derogatory remarks concerning my expanding waistline.

My quest for gastronomic pleasure led me far afield but with only the most miniscule success until I discovered the Golden Cock and Germaine Duval. The Golden Cock was on the East Side in the upper Seventies, a shabby basement affair which one could pass a thousand times and hardly notice. But where else in the city could one secure such exquisitely prepared tomato and shrimp soup or cabbage a la petite russienne?

Germaine was even larger than Yvette when I had first known her, and, I should judge, a few years older. Her hair was peroxided an incredible yellow but her cheeks were smooth and pink, her eyes a pale blue. I will not say that it was love at first sight but there was a reciprocated attraction born of a common interest. In the realm of gastronomy, Germaine was a prima donna who craved the applause of a virtuoso to exploit her talents. As such we complemented each other perfectly. Happiness once more seemed within my reach.

Yvette, however, proved difficult. She bitterly resented my evenings out. She controlled the purse strings and drew them tight. Willy-nilly, I must be satisfied with the insipid fare of the Chez Yvette and my wife’s dwindling charms. Yvette was a good Catholic and divorce was out of the question. On occasion I pilfered the cash box and spent a night with Germaine but Yvette developed a positive genius in thwarting these excursions. Without a penny in my pocket, I would be forced to take the table reserved for me in the health bar where Yvette would serve me a tomato surprise, wheat germ bread and a serving of artificially flavored gelatine.

Is it any wonder that my thoughts turned to murder? As you can readily see, I am not a man to whom violence comes naturally. I have never discharged a firearm and the thought of using a knife or the proverbial blunt instrument was enough to set my teeth on edge. Poison was the only conceivable means of ridding my self of Yvette’s unwanted ministrations. I considered the possibilities. Arsenic. Cyanide. Both were too obvious. Besides, how could I secure them without leaving a trail or administer them without arousing suspicion? I brooded over my problem but could find no answers until Yvette herself provided the perfect solution.

Our bedroom had taken on much the appearance of an apothecary shop. The tops of Yvette’s bureau and dresser were crammed with boxes and bottles of pills and capsules. Yvette subscribed to various papers and magazines, cutting out all articles relating to drugs used in reducing and dietary aids. A number of patrons of the restaurant were on diets and Yvette held long discussions with them, comparing the efficacy of the methods which they employed.

Among the new drugs appearing on the market was one which was sold under the trade name of Yarubex. It could not be purchased in America but was widely advertised in Mexico. One of Yvette’s friends who had made a trip south of the border brought her back a bottle. The tiny pellets were white and looked completely harmless. Yvette might have dosed herself with them but, on the same day that they were given to her, THE NEW YORK TIMES printed a condensation of a bulletin released by the United States Department of Health. The article issued a sharp warning against Yarubex. The little pellets could be lethal when taken in excessive quantities. Diabetics were in particular danger. A score of deaths had already been reported.

Yvette sputtered and fumed over her narrow escape. However her ingrained parsimony forbade her to dispose of the pills. Instead, she thrust them in the back of the medicine closet where I discovered them a few days later. I examined them with interest. They were almost exact replicas of the saccharin tablets which Yvette used daily. I poured out a few of them and mixed them in with the saccharin already in Yvette’s gold-encrusted miniature pill-box. The substitution was made almost automatically, without any real hope or any feeling of guilt. I could not believe that my problem would be solved with such ease.

Two days later Yvette was dead. I came home in the afternoon and found her sprawled across the bed, fully clothed. I made certain of her death by checking her pulse and heart beat, then I went through her purse for the pill-box. I dumped its contents into the toilet and refilled it with saccharin. I removed the bottle of Yarubex from the medicine cabinet and placed it on her bedside table. Then I called the police.

A Lieutenant Stevens was in charge of the investigation that followed. He is a bluff, crude man and at first he appeared mildly suspicious. But there was not and could not be any proof of malfeasance on my part. Soon the matter was dropped and Yvette was listed officially as another victim of unscrupulous racketeers in the drug business.

The next few months were very busy ones. I sold Chez Yvette at a handsome profit. My evenings were spent at the Golden Cock. I looked up some of my old cronies and soon the word was spread that meals to fit the tastes of an epicure were available again. As soon as a reasonable time had elapsed, Germaine and I were married. Life reassumed the same happy glow of the early days of my marriage with Yvette. I was a contented man.

I should have known it was too good to last. One day Germaine came to me with tears in her eyes. “Darling,” she cried, “the doctor says I have to go on a diet.”

Sir, you are a man of imagination. I will not bore you with repetitious details. It would be like the re-run of a film or watching a play for the second time, with only minor variations. Germaine and Yvette were so much alike in their reactions. And then, of course, I met Suzanne. I realize it was incredibly stupid of me to use the same murder method twice. I can only excuse myself on the basis that the temptation to repeat a perfect crime is almost compulsive. Besides how could I foresee that Lieutenant Stevens would have been transferred from Greenwich Village to the district in which I was now living?

However, I comfort myself that in the annals of crime my case will remain unique. I should imagine that many a murderer has killed his victim for the price of a square meal. But is there another instance of a man who has risked the death penalty twice to secure dishes that are exquisitely prepared, superbly served?

At least I can look forward to one more such dinner. Does not the condemned man have the privilege of selecting his final meal? There is a dish which is described by Alexandre Dumas which I have never tried. Hare chops a la Melville. But perhaps that is expecting too much of prison cuisine. Something more simple must do. A Kirsch omelet, I should think. Preparation is not difficult. I can supply the recipe myself. Six eggs, a pinch of salt, three tablespoons of sugar—

Ah, but I can see your interest is lagging. Quite correctly so. These details can be discussed later.

The role of innocent bystander, or witness, if you prefer the term, is one which is usually played involuntarily... yet sometimes most effectively.

The detective was waiting for her as she emerged from the office building at five o’clock. Suddenly in the midst of the homegoers he was standing before her, very tall, a young man with a surprisingly gentle voice and considerate manner.

“Hello, Julie...” he said.

She was twenty, a dark-haired girl who worked as a secretary in the financial district of New York. She was one of many, not much different at first glance than the girls who sat at the desks around her, pretty enough, not very sophisticated, a girl everyone liked, accustomed to anonymity. She was, above all things, not used to being singled out by detectives; and she looked about self-consciously as the other girls passed, certain that some of them recognized Sergeant Ruderman from his visit to the office that morning.

“I wonder...” he said, as if sensing her thoughts, “is there somewhere we can talk privately?”

She nodded gratefully. “Yes, there’s a diner next door.”

Bill’s Diner was one of those trolley-shaped affairs with a long counter, a few booths and very good food. They sat in a booth, Julie facing the rear, and he signalled for two coffees. She looked at the telephone booths and thought that perhaps, if she were going to be late for dinner, she ought to call her mother. He said nothing until after coffee had arrived.

“Julie... Miss Stevens... something has been bothering me all day. This morning, when I spoke to you in your office...”

“Yes...?”

“I had the feeling you wanted to tell me something. About your boss, Mr. Turner, and his wife.”

She shook her head. She sipped at the coffee so that she could look away from him. “I told you everything, Sergeant Ruderman.”

“Did you?” If he weren’t a policeman, his easy tone of voice could be considered that of a friend, even a lover. He was a nice man, she thought, and he was probably very good at his job. “You know what I think,” he said, smiling faintly over his steaming coffee mug. “I think you’re a very confused girl. Maybe you’ve got a misdirected sense of loyalty. Come to think of it, I like a person who’s loyal.”

She didn’t fall into that trap. “I really can’t think of anything I haven’t told you,” she insisted.

“About the Turners... they weren’t getting along too well. Some of their friends have told us that. Did they have a blowup or a serious argument in the last few days?”

Julie shrugged. She could tell he didn’t believe her, but he wasn’t angry. He was an even-tempered man, and he was calm as he finished his coffee, looking at her all the while. Then suddenly he glanced at his watch and placed some change on the table for the waiter. He handed her a card.

“That’s my number at the station. You can call at any hour.” His grin was a pleasant surprise. “Just in case you find you have something to tell me, I mean. Now, will you kindly write your name and address on this other card?”

“My address...?” she said warily.

“Sure. Have you ever had a date with a detective?”

She thought of his motives, of his job.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You won’t hear from me until after the case is closed. I don’t mix business with pleasure. And I don’t meet girls like you every day.”

She liked him, there was no getting away from that. And the straightforward, almost vulnerable way he looked at her was convincing enough for any girl. She filled in the back of the card and handed it to him.

“You’ll hear from me,” he said. “Or maybe... who can tell?... maybe I’ll hear from you first. Goodnight, Julie...”

After he left, she barely moved. A woman walked past to enter one of the phone booths. Abstractedly, Julie watched the stranger’s lips through the glass door and thought again that she ought to call her mother; but she couldn’t move.

Yes, there was something. The detective was right. It was not only the problem between Mr. Turner and his wife. About that she had lied. It was something else. But what?

She sighed. It occurred to her that Sergeant Ruderman might even believe there had been something between her and Mr. Turner. Well, there hadn’t been. Not really. Mary kept hinting that there was, but Mary was always carrying on... Like yesterday morning at the office... Wednesday... just before Mrs. Turner called...

Mary was Mr. Cassidy’s secretary. He was one of several vice presidents at Empire Investment, married; an outrageous wolf. Sometimes it seemed as though Mary... blond and vivacious, led him on, just a little. On Wednesday morning, there was a lot of flirtatious patter before Mr. Cassidy got past Julie’s and Mary’s adjacent desks to enter his own office.

“Sometimes I’m inclined to forget that he’s married,” Mary remarked, once his door had closed behind him.

“You’re just a lot of big talk,” said Julie.

“Oh, I don’t know. Married men are just men who happen to be married. Don’t be so naive, Julie. All these vice-presidents with their private telephone lines... I’ll bet it isn’t all business they talk about behind those closed doors. And I’ll bet if your Mr. Turner gave you a tumble, you wouldn’t exactly fight him off. I can tell when a girl has a crush... Oops, get to work, here’s your boss now...”

Mr. Turner was as unlike Mr. Cassidy as a man could be. In his middle thirties, the company’s youngest vice-president, he was clean cut, methodical and one hundred percent business. He walked by the girls’ desks quickly, offered a brusque good morning, then disappeared into his office.

“Well, I have to admit he’s good looking,” Mary sighed. “But did you ever see his wife? Ten years older if she’s a day. And she looks like something the cat dragged in.”

“No, she doesn’t...” Julie objected.

“Yes, she does. And everyone here knows he married her strictly for her money. I remember when she was just another rich client... only six months ago... a born old maid if ever I saw one.”

“I remember her very well,” said Julie. “She was just an unhappy, lonely woman...”

“Sure. But then handsome boy took over the account and... wham!... they get married. One of these days, you’ll see, he’ll quit working, retire for life... on her money, of course.”

Julie’s telephone rang. Saved by the bell, she thought, reaching for it. But it was quite a shock... speak of the devil... to learn who was calling.

“Julie, this is Mrs. Turner.”

“Oh, good morning. Just one moment, I’ll tell Mr. Turner you’re calling...”

“No, no, no, Julie. I don’t even want him to know I’ve called. I want to speak to you. Can we meet for lunch? I must have a talk with you...”

“With me?” There was no mistaking the urgency in the woman’s voice, Julie reflected. “Well, yes, of course, Mrs. Turner. What is it you want to speak to me a—?”

A burst of static interrupted the girl as the intercom box on her desk came to life. The signal light was on.

“Julie...” Mr. Turner’s voice crackled.

For one eerie moment, Julie experienced an inexplicable panic. She stared at the intercom box and then at the telephone receiver in her hand, realizing that if Mrs. Turner spoke again, her husband would hear. Quickly, Julie clamped her hand over the telephone mouthpiece. Then just as quickly she realized she had covered the wrong end to shut off Mrs. Turner’s voice, and switched to cover the ear-piece.

“Julie, will you bring me the file on Sloban Company...” Richard Turner’s voice directed.

“Yes, right away,” said the girl. She waited until he turned off the intercom, then spoke hurriedly into the telephone. “I have to go now...”

“Yes, I heard,” said the woman.

“I’ll call you back in a few minutes,” Julie promised. “I’d better use a telephone outside. Are you home, Mrs. Turner?”

“Yes. Please don’t forget. I’ll be waiting...”

Mary’s eyebrows were two question marks, but Julie had no time to explain. She moved to the filing cabinets behind the long line of typists’ desks and quickly located the Sloban file. Feelings strangely conspiratorial, she pictured Mrs. Turner in her Washington Square apartment, an overweight, somehow pitiful woman, waiting for the return call. Her expression revealing none of these thoughts, Julie knocked on Mr. Turner’s door.

As she came into his room, Richard Turner was speaking on his private telephone. His grey eyes barely flicked in his secretary’s direction while he continued to charm his widowed client, Mrs. Sloban.

“...Yes, Vera... I realize you don’t want to take risks with the principal. Empire Investment wouldn’t allow such recklessness. I mean, we’d certainly advise against it...”

Julie gazed at the sharp, handsome profile. As always, it did something to her equilibrium she preferred not to acknowledge. There were two telephones on his desk, one an extension of the phone on her desk, the other for “confidential” contact with clients. Julie could remember when Mrs. Turner was one of those clients, a lonely heiress, who rated long conversations as he was now indulging Mrs. Sloban. Marriage, thought Julie, as she placed the Sloban folder on his desk, can certainly cool a man’s ardor... if there had been any ardor in the first place...

“Are you waiting for something?” He had broken off his conversation and was frowning at her irritably. “Well, as long as you’re here—” He fingered the folder. “Are the reports in here up to date? I’m speaking to Mrs. Sloban now and I may have to prepare a detailed report tomorrow—”

Julie explained that there was some tallying of latest dividends to complete but she could bring the folder up to date by tomorrow morning. He interrupted with a weary gesture.

“Instead of daydreaming at my desk, Julie, if you paid more attention to your work...”

He tossed the folder on his desk, dismissing her.

A moment later, Julie emerged fuming from the inner office. Mary’s gaze followed her to her desk. “Obviously he didn’t offer you a raise in salary,” she quipped.

“Mary, tell me, do I ever daydream on the job?”

“Is that what lover boy said?”

Julie opened her desk drawer and yanked out her handbag. “I must be a masochist to find something appealing in a man like that! If he asks for me, say I’m off daydreaming somewhere.”

“You going down to call Mrs. Turner?”

Julie nodded. “I promised. She wants to meet me for lunch. Wouldn’t you just bet she’ll ask me to help her pick out a lovely surprise gift for her dear, dear husband? Arsenic — that’s what I’ll recommend!”

The elevator man was chatty and helped to cool Julie’s temper as he brought her down five flights to the lobby. The counterman at Bill’s Diner next door waved to her familiarly. Faith in human nature was momentarily restored. Julie slipped into one of the telephone booths in the rear of the diner and dialed Mrs. Turner’s number.

They arranged to meet for lunch at 12:30, at a restaurant Julie was reasonably sure her employer was not likely to patronize... he was expected at a business lunch today anyway. When Julie arrived at the meeting place, Mrs. Turner was already sipping a drink at the table, her gross features a portrait of determination and bitterness.

It was not long before Julie understood the reason for this grim countenance. No sooner had the waitress brought their order when Mrs. Turner clutched her companion’s hands across the table.

“Julie, I want you to be honest with me. Don’t be afraid of hurting me with the truth—”

“I’ll try, Mrs. Turner, but what...?”

“Tell me, is my husband carrying on with another woman?”

The girl was too surprised even to deny having such knowledge. Mrs. Turner leaned forward tensely.

“Julie, I must know. I’m leaving him anyway, don’t you understand? But I must know who she is.”

“Mrs. Turner, I really don’t know anything about—”

“Yes, you do. You’re his secretary. All of you at the office know who she is. Julie, I want to strike back. You can understand that. I want to disgrace both of them!”

“Did he tell you he was in love with some other woman?” Julie asked, aware of a guilty flush on her cheeks.

“Love? Richard doesn’t love anybody. He uses people. He married me only for my money.” The ugly woman smiled thinly. “But now he’s angry at me... oh, how he raged last night... because I won’t transfer any of my money into his account. Transfer my money? What kind of fool does he think I am? Do you know what he said when I refused? He taunted me. He said he was going to find other women... beautiful women... to take his mind off his money troubles—”

“But, Mrs. Turner, he didn’t say there already was another woman, did he? He only threatened...”

The older woman shook her head sagely. “You don’t know Richard. He never threatens until he’s sure of what he has. The bird in the hand philosophy. But I want to ruin it for both of them. I want to leave him before he’s ready to leave me. Then he’ll have nothing. And at the same time I want to create such a scandal that I’ll ruin all his chances of marrying someone else. They won’t even dare speak to each other after I’m through. Julie, who are his clients? The unattached women?”

She was quite alarmed. “I couldn’t give you the names of clients.”

Mrs. Turner leaned back with an appearance of defeat. She could sense Julie’s determination, and her own wilted. “Oh well, I understand. Of course you can’t. I suppose you’ve been as helpful as you can, and, don’t worry, Julie, I won’t tell him about our meeting. But tonight I’ll tell him I’m through with him...” Again she smiled. “I’ll enjoy telling him. It’ll be interesting to see how he tries to convince me he didn’t mean to threaten me, that he really loves me... Yes, it’ll be quite a night...”

At the office again, it was impossible to get any work done. Mr. Turner was still out with a client most of the afternoon, but Mary gave her no peace until she had told her everything that happened; and it was a relief to share the incident with someone. It was an even greater relief when five o’clock came and she left the office to board the subway to the Bronx.

Not until she was at the dinner table that evening did Julie remember the Sloban account. Her mother was berating her kid sister for not doing her homework, for daydreaming... and Julie suddenly realized that in her distress this afternoon, she had forgotten to bring the Sloban folder up to date. The idea of facing Mr. Turner the next day with this oversight was a dreaded one, especially after his criticism this morning and considering the mood he would be in after tonight, after his wife...

It was barely seven o’clock, she noted. She could return to the office, bring home the folder to work on it, and have it finished before bedtime. Despite her mother’s objections to her going out again, Julie slipped into her coat and dashed out of the house.

The night elevator man at her office building was almost asleep behind his desk. He recognized her and smiled sheepishly.

“Can you take me up and wait for me?” Julie asked, as she signed the register book. He shook his head and reached for his keys. “No, I have to be on duty down here. Just buzz the elevator when you’re ready to come down.”

He brought her up... the elevator seemed so noisy when the building was empty... and opened the office door with a master key, then returned to his post. Julie felt deserted. Whistling, she snapped on a central overhead light and walked across the empty floor to Mr. Turner’s unlighted office. The Sloban folder was still on his desk. The moment she reached for it, his telephone rang. Her hand jumped back.

The effect of the second loud ring in the darkened office was no less startling. Who could be calling on Mr. Turner’s private telephone at this hour? On the third ring she collected her wits and picked up the receiver.

“Hello...” she said.

“What? Who... who is this?”

It was Mr. Turner’s voice.

Quickly overcoming her surprise, Julie identified herself. She explained her presence at the office. “Is it all right if I take the folder home to work on it?”

“Yes... yes — certainly. Are you leaving now?”

“Right away, Mr. Turner.” She could picture his intense face and she had never before known such a sense of intimacy and aloneness with this man. Perhaps it was simply the fact that it was night. More than anything else, she wanted to prolong the conversation. “Was there anything you wanted, Mr. Turner? Was there anyone—”

“No, of course not.” His laugh was short, forced. “I just dialed the wrong number. I was having a few drinks at a bar and I got mixed up. Good night.”

“Good night, Mr. Turner.”

She hung tip and stared at the telephone. It occurred to her to wonder if Mrs. Turner had already told her husband she was leaving him, disinheriting him, and the rest of what she had threatened. If so, she could understand very well why he was drinking. But why had he called the office — at this hour? Was someone supposed to be here? Had her own presence frightened that other person away? She could not really believe that he had dialed the wrong number.

Julie picked up the Sloban folder and walked out to the center of the floor. She half expected to find some person lurking behind one of the typists’ desks. Whatever the explanation, her curiosity had to be satisfied. Why should she let him chase her home? She could do her work here, couldn’t she? She sat at her own desk and opened the folder. She could finish posting the dividends in less than an hour...

Slightly more than an hour was required. With a sense of accomplishment she closed the folder and returned it to Mr. Turner’s desk. At her own desk, she picked up her handbag and topcoat. Then she froze.

Like a shriek in the night, the telephone on Mr. Turner’s desk rang... first once, then again and again...

She swung about to look at the frosted glass entrance door. At any moment, she knew, someone would come bursting through that door in answer to the imperative ringing. But no silhouette approached the glass. Stiffly, resisting the magnetism of the unanswered ringing, Julie made her way across the office floor. Looking back, she flicked off the lights, opened the door, then closed it behind her. Standing at the elevator, she heard the telephone ringing still, like a petulant child, calling her... calling someone. Finally, just before the elevator arrived, the ringing stopped.

In the morning, Mary listened to the previous night’s events with wide-eyed astonishment. “You mean he called the office? Yipes, he sure must have been plastered! But, you know, I can’t imagine that man getting so plastered...”

Mr. Turner arrived only minutes late and seemed as self-possessed as ever. He appeared to have forgotten that yesterday existed. After a sharp “Good morning,” he entered his office and closed the door behind him. At about 9:20, the intercom came to life on Julie’s desk.

“Julie,” he said, “will you get Mrs. Turner on the phone for me?”

“Mrs. Turner?” Somehow she was startled to find that he could still be on speaking terms with his wife.

“Yes, Mrs. Turner. Didn’t you hear me?”

What she did hear, just before he broke the connection, was a puzzling undercurrent of sound.

“That’s strange...” she mused, turning to Mary.

“What is?”

Julie nodded toward the closed office. “He’s calling somebody on his private phone. I could hear him dialing...”

“The other woman,” said the blond girl, snapping her fingers. “He wants her to listen while he talks to his wife, don’t you see? Or maybe it’s his lawyer. Maybe they’ll make a tape recording... evidence for the divorce...”

Julie was disgusted with herself for believing Mary even for a second. She picked up the telephone, asked the switchboard girl for an outside line, then dialed. Mrs. Turner’s line was busy.

“Well, what did you expect?” Mary said. “She’s busy talking to her lawyer.”

Julie pressed, the intercom buzzer and waited for him to switch it on.

“Yes, Julie...”

“Your wife’s line is busy, Mr. Turner.”

“Oh? All right, thank you.”

“Shall I try her again in a few minutes?”

“No, don’t bother. It’s not very important...”

Julie was thoughtful as she slipped paper into her typewriter and began almost automatically to compose a monthly statement to a client. She wondered, as she often did when life gave her a glimpse of private lives, what her own future would be. Would she marry someone in all good faith only to learn one day that she hardly knew him at all? Could one trust one’s feelings...?

The world of make-believe is a fascinating one, to adults as well as to children, hence the popularity of puppets, films, and theatre. There are those who think the spectators identify with the characters, acting out their own aggressions.

Ann waited eagerly for her husband’s response, but he said nothing for a long while. He remained standing, his face speculative as he looked down at the large doll house in the basement closet. It was pure Victorian... a three-storied wooden structure painted dark green with a mansard roof centered by a cupola and white gingerbread scrollwork ornamenting the front porch. Finally he commented, “I thought you said Holly wanted a microscope for her birthday.”

“Oh, Phil.” Both annoyance and amusement were in her voice. “A microscope for an eight-year-old girl? This is what she needs. Have you ever seen anything like it?” Ann’s delight was obvious as she pointed out the rooms, furnished to the last detail in authentic period pieces. “And when I saw the dolls... look, there’s even a maid.” She sighed, “Well, I couldn’t resist it.”

Phil shrugged. “Maybe she’ll like it. You know more about that than I do. I just don’t want her to be disappointed, that’s all. She’s never cared much about dolls before, has she?”

“This is different,” his wife said defensively. “Besides, Holly needs something unusual like this to stimulate her imagination. That’s the whole trouble, Phil. She’s never been given a chance to pretend anything. We’ve just always gone along with that matter-of-fact side of her.”

“But that is Holly.” As if to end the discussion, Phil walked over to the hot water heater. “This thing’s leaking again. You’d better give the company a call before long. The warranty’s up in a couple of months.”

Ann was determined to justify her reason for buying the doll house, so disregarding his last remarks, she said, “I’ve never been able to share anything much with Holly. She’s not the way I was at her age or like any other child I grew up with. She’s never known the fun of pretending the way we did, and she’s growing up so fast.” Ann bent over the doll house and very gently fingered a miniature steamer trunk in the attic. “I’ve been looking for something the two of us could enjoy together. I knew this was it the minute I saw it.”

Phil returned to her, and patted her on the shoulder. “Okay, if you think it’ll make her happy. Come on upstairs now, honey. It’s cold down here.”

With his saying it, she shivered. Suddenly she felt depressed. Tomorrow was Holly’s birthday. It was too late to get her anything else. She wondered if Phil could be right in doubting that Holly would like the doll house. No, Ann concluded shortly. It must appeal to her. It simply wasn’t possible for a daughter of hers to be totally lacking a sense of imagination.

When thieves fall out... and so on and so forth, a familiar proverb so well-known that it hardly bears repetition. Faced with a choice of freezing to death or peeping warm by burning money, what would you do?

It had been snowing for two hours when Phil Madigan woke up at eight o’clock and looked out his hotel room window. The sight of the grey overcast morning filled with calmly falling snow petrified him for a moment so that he could only stare at it dumbly, hardly believing it to be real. But it was real, all right; great big white snowflakes drifting down so serenely, already covering the sidewalks and street and parked cars below. Yes, it’s real, all right, Madigan thought, a wide smile breaking across his face.

He turned from the window and hurried through the connecting bath into Sam’s room. He had to tell Sam right away!

Sam Hooper was sound asleep when Madigan rushed in and shook him roughly by the shoulder. “Sam!” Madigan said urgently, “get up! It’s snowing, Sam! It’s here; the snow’s here!”

Hooper, the older of the two by twenty years, did not have Madigan’s capacity for coming fully awake the first thing in the morning. He had to prepare himself to face the world, and he did so now, twisting and grunting and yawning while his sleepy senses returned.

“What? What’s here?” he said sourly.

“The snow, Sam!” Madigan repeated excitedly. “It’s here! It’s here!”

What Madigan was saying got through to Sam Hooper then and he forced himself awake, jumping out of bed and stumbling along with Madigan to the nearest window. Together they stared down at the main street of the little town, freshly whitened by the snow. They stared with eyes wide and mouths slightly agape, as if they had never before seen such a phenomenon. Then they looked at each other and smiled happily. It was here, they were thinking. The snow was here at last.

They had been waiting for this, the first snowfall, for more than three weeks. It usually came not later than the middle of October but this year it was way overdue, for today was the twenty-third. Hooper had been complaining for the last seven days, since the fifteenth came and went and no snow appeared, that he would wait only one more day and then ditch the job; but each day he decided to wait another, until now, finally, his patience had been rewarded. His eyes shone with an eagerness to get on with the work at hand.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Ten past eight,” said Madigan.

“Okay, let’s get things moving. You check with the weather bureau while I get dressed; then I’ll get everything together while you get ready.”

“Right.” Madigan hurried back into his own room.

Hooper went into the bathroom, washed, and began a fast shave. He could hear Madigan on the phone getting the weather report. Their plans depended on the forecast. Madigan had assured him a hundred times that it would be favourable, that the first snowfall of the season was always a heavy one. It had better be, thought Hooper now, or we’ll get caught just as sure as hell is hot.

He finished up and went back into his room and started dressing. Madigan came in a minute later, grinning like a cat with a mouse under its paw.

“We’re set, Sam! Weather bureau says the snow is expected to continue for at least six more hours. I told you, didn’t I, Sam? Didn’t I tell you?”

“Yeah, you told me, kid.”

“Hot dog! We’re gonna pull it off, Sam. In a couple more hours we’re gonna have money to burn!”

“Well, we ain’t got it yet,” said Hooper calmly, “and we won’t have it if you don’t get cleaned up so we can hightail it out of here.”

“Sure, Sam, sure.” Madigan hurried into the bathroom, humming to himself.

Crazy kid, thought Hooper. Acting like some college punk that just made the team. He’d better settle down or he’s liable to get a bullet in his gut. Sticking up a bank is serious business.

Sam Hooper was the man to know, if anyone did, just how serious the robbing of a bank could be. This would be his seventh bank. He had made it away clean on four of them, had been caught on the other two. For the two on which he had been caught, he had spent a total of fourteen years in Federal penitentiaries; five on the first, nine on the second. He was now forty-four years old and had thought he was finished with this strongarm stuff.

For the past year, since getting out of Leavenworth, Hooper had led a quiet, law-abiding existence; he had a rented room, ate in cafes, and worked nine hours a day as a leather tanner, a trade he had picked up by courtesy of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. It wasn’t much of a life for a guy like Sam, a guy who had lived it up in Miami and Mexico City, been used to fancy cars, fancy clothes, and fancy dames; but at least he was able to look a cop in the eye and not always have to be thinking about some job he could get busted for; at least he could lay down a twenty for change without worrying about the bill being marked; at least he could sleep nights. He hadn’t been setting the world on fire, not by a long shot, but he had been doing all right.

And then the kid came along. Phil Madigan, his name was. A small-timer, a candy store burglar. Madigan was a real sports enthusiast; skin diving, ice skating, skiing, the works. That was how he happened to run up on this job they were getting ready to pull. He had been up in the mountains for some winter sports the previous season and had come across a cabin high up toward the peaks. It was a little place, just one average sized room, Madigan had told him, and it was so far up that it was isolated from the time the first snow fell until the spring thaw about four or five months later. It was owned by a real estate company down in the town of Preston where Hooper and Madigan were now, and was rented out to fishermen during the trout season. A perfect place to hide out, Madigan had said that first time he and Hooper met.

The kid had been referred to Hooper by one of the few contacts Sam still retained in the underworld. Hooper had passed the word around that he was out of business, that he intended to make it as a square after his last bit in prison; but apparently he wasn’t taken too seriously because Phil Madigan turned up at His room one night saying he had a hot bank job on the line and had been told to look up Sam Hooper.

Sam listened to the plan out of a mixture of professional curiosity and sheer boredom, after first making it plain that he had ‘retired’. But the more he listened, the more interested he became. It began to sound as if the kid really did have a sweet one waiting to be picked. So he took down all the particulars of the job and told Madigan he would look it over and let him know in a few days.

For the next two nights he worked the plan over and over in his mind and on paper, trying to find some weakness in it, some flaw which would give him an excuse to dump it; but each time he went over it, he came to the same conclusion: it was a good, sound bank job that looked like it could be pulled off very nicely if handled properly. And even though it was a small town bank, the take would probably be well worth the effort and risk involved.

Sam tried to think over the deal rationally. He knew if he got caught on another bank job he’d be in prison until he was an old, old man. But the temptation was just too much for him. He kept thinking how nice it would be to have a briefcase full of money in his hand and step on a plane for Acapulco again. In his mind danced pictures of new clothes, a shiny convertible, and blondes — great big blondes.

The great big blondes did it. Sam Hooper decided to go the route one more time.

He and Madigan began polishing up the plan. The most important detail — the getaway and hideout — had already been taken care of with the little cabin high up the mountain. The one big obstacle in hitting a bank in that area was getting down the winding mountain highway before a roadblock could be set up at the bottom. This was virtually impossible to do; that was why there had never been a stickup in any of the resort towns that circled the mountain. But Hooper and Madigan would eliminate that problem by going up instead of down. It’s a perfect set-up, Madigan had said. We pull the job on the day of the first snowfall, then beat it up to this cabin. Nobody’ll ever think we’d do that. The place is snowed in for at least four months. All we have to do is sit it out until spring and then just kind of drift down through town one day like we were early fishermen. Before anybody can notice us, well be gone. Sure, it’ll be dull and monotonous up there all alone for four months, but we can hold out. And in the spring, we’ll have money to burn!

Hooper finished dressing and threw his extra clothes in a suitcase. Then he sat down on the bed and gave their guns a final check. They had a .410 gauge shotgun with a sawed-off barrel and two .38 revolvers. Each would carry a revolver; in addition Madigan would handle the shotgun while Hooper collected the money in the bank. Hooper also had a little .25 automatic he carried in his hip pocket as an extra precaution. That was his hole card, his kicker, in case somebody got the drop on them; not even Madigan knew he had it.

“Hey, snap it up!” he yelled to Madigan in the bathroom.

The younger man came in, drying his face with a hotel towel. “All set and ready to get going,” he said.

“There’s your artillery,” Hooper told him, strapping his own shoulder holster in place. “Are you sure everything’s set in the cabin?”

“I told you, Sam, it’s all ready. I made a final check last week. There’s five hundred bucks worth of food laid in; a six-hundred gallon tank of fuel oil; a radio, four decks of cards, about a thousand magazines I got secondhand in the city; and we got checkers, dominos, parchesi — everything but a broad, an’ I could have arranged that, too, if you’d let me.”

“Sure, sure,” said Hooper, “that’s all we’d need. We’ll be at each other’s throats soon enough without having a dame to fight over. You don’t know how it is being cooped up with the same guy day after day.”

Madigan smiled. “We’ll make it, Sam. I know we will. And when it’s all over we’ll have—”

“I know, I know,” Hooper interrupted, “we’ll have money to burn. Come on, let’s get going or spring’ll be here before we even get started.”

Madigan got into his holster and rolled the shotgun up in newspaper. They both put on heavy Mackinaws, fur caps and rubber overshoes. Then they got their luggage and went downstairs to check out.

The bank opened at ten. Five minutes later Hooper and Madigan pulled up outside and parked. They were driving a four-year-old coupe with heavy-duty snow chains on the rear tires. Getting out, they ducked their heads against the windblown snow and crossed the sidewalk to the bank entrance.

There were six people inside; three tellers, the manager, his secretary and one customer. Madigan remained just inside the door, folding the paper back from the barrel of the shotgun so they could all see, what it was.

“Don’t anybody move!” Hooper ordered, leveling his .38. “This is a holdup!” His gaze swept across the three men in the teller cages. “If an alarm goes off, so does that shotgun, understand? Everybody just stand or sit right where you are and look down at the floor!”

When they were all very still, with Madigan moving the shotgun slowly back and forth in an arc that covered the whole room, Hooper slipped the .38 into his pocket and from under his coat drew out a large canvas bag which he quickly unfolded. He hurried behind the railing and methodically emptied the tellers’ cages of all currency. Then he stepped over to the bank manager’s desk and pulled the man to his feet roughly. “Get that vault open!” he ordered coldly.

The big thick outer door of the vault was already standing open. The manager fumbled with a ring of keys to open the barred inner door. When he finally got it unlocked, Hooper pushed him inside and made him sit in a corner while he systematically looted the bank’s reserve safe. Looks pretty good, he thought, as he stuffed the sack with bundles of tens and twenties and a few stacks of fifties and hundreds.

Finished, he stepped back out and snapped, “All right, everybody into the vault! Come on, move!” He glanced at the big clock on the wall as the other five people filed into the vault. They had been in the bank about seven or eight minutes, Pretty good time, he thought.

Hooper slammed the barred door and locked everyone in the vault. “Take a look,” he said to Madigan, hurrying toward the front door. Madigan peered out at the street; he saw nothing but swirling snow. “Looks okay,” he told Hooper.

“All right, let’s go!”

Madigan folded the newspaper back over the shotgun barrel, tucked it under his arm and opened the front door. Hooper stepped past him out of the bank and went directly to the car; Madigan followed him, closing the door gently behind him.

In the car, Madigan tossed the shotgun on the rear seat and started the motor. Hooper kept the sack of money between his knees, his revolver ready on top of it. The windshield wipers threw the loose snow away, giving them each a picture of the street up ahead. It was nearly deserted. Madigan guided the car slowly away from the curb and down the street.

Five minutes later they were out of town and approaching the curve where the highway began its winding descent to the lowlands.

“How’s it look?” Madigan asked excitedly, nodding toward the sack of money.

“Pretty good, I think,” said Hooper. “Looked like maybe fifty or sixty grand.”

Madigan grinned and went back to concentrating on the road. Where the highway curved downward, they turned off into a gravel road almost hidden by the snow. Their chains crunched noisily and caught and the car lumbered up a slight incline. As they gradually moved upward from the highway, Hooper looked back and saw fresh snow already beginning to fill their tracks.

Fifteen minutes later they reached a ridge where the road leveled off momentarily. Madigan shifted to neutral and pulled on the brake. Hooper took a pair of binoculars from the glove compartment and they got out. Taking turns with the glasses, they looked back down the mountain. The first section of their tracks leading off the highway were now completely covered and there was a fresh layer of unmarked snow on the highway itself.

“Perfect,” said Madigan. “Just like I told you, huh, Sam? First snowfall is always heavy.”

“Just like you told me, kid,” Hooper admitted. He turned his gaze upward. “How long will it take us to get to the cabin?” “About three hours, from the looks of the snow.”

Hooper turned back to the car. “Well, let’s get going.”

It was nearly two in the afternoon when the car pulled the last steep grade and made the top ridge. They were high up now, in a primitive part of the great mountain range where the sky looked strangely close to them, where there was nothing visible except snow-covered pine trees, where the air was exhaustingly thin, the cold sharp and painful.

Hooper looked back down the road. “Are you sure nobody can follow us up here?”

Madigan shook his head emphatically. “By the time the snow stops, this road and everything around it will be in drifts up to eight feet deep. And it’ll stay like that until the spring thaw. It would be impossible for a car to even go down, much less come up.”

Hooper looked around at the white wasteland on all sides of them. “Where’s the cabin?” he asked.

“Just up ahead.”

The car moved through snow already deep across the rutted, narrow, little road, and crawled slowly around a thick group of trees into a small clearing. There, with three feet of snow drifted up against it, sat the little cabin.

“Home sweet home,” said Madigan as he drove up as close as he could and cut the motor. They got out of the car.

“We’ll have to dig our way in, looks like,” said Hooper.

“Yeah.” Madigan opened the trunk and took out two hand shovels.

“How’s that work?” Hooper asked, indicating the large fuel storage tank mounted on a raised wooden platform next to the cabin.

“There’s a line running into the cabin,” Madigan explained. “It’s got a regular tap like a water faucet. We use the fuel oil for our lanterns, for the stove and for the heater.”

“Sure there’s enough to last?”

“Plenty,” Madigan assured him. “Probably be a hundred gallons left in the spring.”

The two men went to work clearing the snow away. When they got the door open, Madigan took the shovels and put them back in the trunk. “You grab the money,” he said easily, “I’ll unload the suitcases.”

Hooper nodded and got the sack of money from the front seat. He went on inside and looked around. One corner was piled high with magazines. A table in the middle of the room had decks of cards and other games of amusement on There was a radio on a shelf on the wall. In a little alcove Hooper saw cases of canned goods and other supplies. There were two folding cots, each with three new blankets stacked on it. Between them was a large kerosene stove.

Not bad, thought Hooper, considering that it’s only a four-month stretch that we must hibernate.

The door slammed behind him and he turned to see Madigan putting their luggage on the floor. “Get the binoculars out of the glove compartment, will you, Sam,” the younger man said. “If we leave them out there the lenses will freeze.”

“Sure, kid. Then let’s get a fire going and warm the place up, what say?”

Madigan smiled. “Good deal.”

Hooper went back outside and waded the snow over to the car. Opening the door, he reached inside and got the glasses. Have to get this car around back and get it up on blocks someway, he thought. Got to be sure and start it every day, too, so it won’t freeze up. He closed the car door and made his way back to the cabin. There was a thermometer nailed to the wall just outside the door. Hooper saw it was only fifteen above zero. He shivered and pushed through the door.

Just as he stepped inside, Hooper felt the muzzle of the shotgun jab into his back. He stiffened and held his hands very still.

“That’s the ticket, Sam,” said Madigan evenly. “Don’t even think about moving.” He reached around under Hooper’s coat and lifted the .38 from Sam’s shoulder holster. “Okay, Sam,” he said, pushing him away, “go on over there and sit down at the table and keep still so I don’t have to blast you.”

Hooper sat down, feeling the hardness of the little automatic in his hip pocket, very glad now that he had never mentioned to Madigan that he carried his ‘kicker’, his ‘hole card’. He stared coldly across the room at Madigan. “Double-crossing me, kid?” he asked in a measured tone.

“That’s it, Sam,” Madigan said, smiling.

“So you lied to me,” Hooper accused quietly. “You said there was no way out of here until spring.”

“I said there was no way with the car, Sam,” Madigan corrected. The younger man picked up the sack of money and emptied it on the floor. Kneeling down, watching Hooper closely, he used one hand to stuff the currency into a knapsack. When it was packed, he slipped his arms through the shoulder straps, switching the shotgun from one hand to the other as he did so.

“What are you gonna do, hike down?” Hooper asked sarcastically.

“Little too cold for that, Sam,” said Madigan lightly. He backed over to one of the cots and pushed the blankets off onto the floor. Beneath them lay a pair of shiny skis and matching ski poles.

“So that’s it,” said Hooper. “You’re gonna ski down. A regular all-American boy, aren’t you? Don’t you think the law will be waiting for you when you get back down there?”

Madigan was kneeling on the other side of the cabin again, lacing on heavy ski shoes. He continued to watch Hooper closely, the shotgun lying only inches from his hands.

“I’m not going that way,” he told Hooper. “I’m going down the other side. There’s a ski lodge down there. By tonight there’ll be busloads of skiers up here. Nobody’ll notice one more.” He stood up, gathered his skis and poles under one arm and leveled the shotgun on Hooper. “Outside, Sam,” he ordered.

Hooper went back out into the cold, Madigan following him.

“Just stand over there by the door where I can keep an eye on you,” said Madigan as he moved a few yards away from the cabin. Hooper watched while the younger man laid his skis in position on the level snow and knelt between them, cradling the shotgun first on one knee, then the other, while he fitted the skis onto his shoes. Then he stood up and held the shotgun loosely under one arm.

“You gonna kill me, kid?” Hooper asked, tensing himself for a drop to the ground to try and get the .25 out before Madigan could get him with a load of buckshot.

“What for, Sam?” Madigan said easily. “You never did anything to me.”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll come after you in the spring, when I get out of here?”

Madigan laughed. “Go ahead, Sam,” he said simply.

Hooper frowned as suspicion flooded his mind. It doesn’t figure, he told himself. The first rule in pulling a double-cross is to make sure the guy you cross won’t ever be able to get even. It’s a trick, he decided. He’s trying to get me off guard for some reason.

“I’ve got to cut out if I’m gonna make the ski lodge by dark,” Madigan said. “You just go on back in the cabin, Sam, and stay put until I get gone. And don’t try following me if you’ve got any sense; you’d never make it on foot. Understand?”

Hooper nodded.

“So long, Sam.”

Hooper backed slowly toward the door, still expecting Madigan to raise the shotgun at any second. But the younger man made no attempt to fire; he just stood waiting while Hooper backed all the way into the cabin and quickly shut the door.

Watching through the window, Hooper saw Madigan swing first one, then the other ski around and move off slowly toward the first slope that would take him down the other side of the mountain. Hooper wet his lips and took out the little .25 automatic, snapping the safety off. He looked back out and decided that Madigan was now about a hundred yards away; too far to chance accuracy with the small bore weapon he had. Got to get closer to him, he thought anxiously.

He hurried to the rear of the cabin and climbed out the back window, dropping nearly waist-deep into a drift. Moving through the snow to the corner, he peered around and saw Madigan still moving smartly along on his skis, now about two hundred yards away. Hooper thought quickly and bolted from behind the cabin, running in a crouch until he reached the line of trees edging the clearing. The snow was not so deep under the trees and Hooper was able to move faster. He began to run through the trees, staying back under their protective covering. He ran until his chest was heaving from the thin air that failed to satisfy his lungs; then he had to rest. He slowed to a walk and moved back toward the clearing. Looking out from behind a tree, he saw Madigan still about fifty yards ahead of him. He leaned up against the tree and counted slowly to thirty, then moved back under cover and started running again.

He ran until he judged himself to be ahead of Madigan, then slowed down and crept quietly back to the edge of the clearing. Madigan was just approaching the place where Hooper stood concealed. They were both almost to the edge of the slope now.

Hooper waited until Madigan went by, then stepped out behind him, the gun leveled. “Hold it, kid!” he said sharply.

Madigan tried to whirl around and raise the shotgun but he got his legs tangled in the skis and his arms in the ski poles, and he dropped the weapon and stumbled into a snowdrift helplessly.

Hooper stood over him laughing, the .25 aimed at his chest. “Outsmarted yourself, didn’t you, punk?”

“Don’t shoot me, Sam!” Madigan begged.

“I’m not,” Hooper told him. “I don’t want somebody finding you with a bullet in you and wondering how you got it. No, I’m going to take care of you in a different way, punk.”

“Give me a break, Sam,” Madigan pleaded.

“Sure, I’ll give you a break,” Hooper said coldly. He reached down and picked up the fallen shotgun by its barrel. Using it as a club, he smashed the stock against Madigan’s skull. The younger man fell over unconscious.

“There’s your break,” Hooper snarled. “A break in the head.”

He put the shotgun down and rolled Madigan over, pulling the money-filled knapsack from his back and removing the unconscious man’s coat to take off the shoulder holster he wore. When it was off, Hooper took the other .38 from the pocket and worked the heavy Mackinaw back onto Madigan’s limp form. Then he grabbed the collar of the coat and began to pull Madigan through the drifted snow, the skis and poles dragging behind him.

Stopping near the edge, Hooper surveyed the slope carefully. It fell in a gentle curving grade that angled off to the right and seemed to wind gradually down-mountain as far as he could see. That was the ski trail Madigan had meant to follow down to the lodge, he decided. But off to the left there was no gentle curve, no slope at all; there was only a steep incline that stretched about thirty feet to a sheer drop down into a deep gorge.

That looks okay, Hooper thought dispassionately. He dragged the unconscious man farther along the edge until he had him right above the incline leading to the drop. There he laid Madigan out on his side, skis straight, poles still attached to his wrists with, thongs.

“So long, double-crosser,” he said softly, and with the toe of his overshoe started Madigan down the slope.

Madigan’s unconscious form slid downward, the drag of his skis slowing but not stopping, him. He moved jerkily, his body weaving and leaving an odd trail in the snow. Seconds later he went over the edge and dropped from sight.

Hooper waited perhaps two minutes but he never did hear Madigan hit bottom. Either it’s pretty damned deep, he decided, or else there’s a lot of snow at the bottom. Either way it didn’t really matter. If the fall didn’t finish Madigan, he’d freeze to death before he woke up.

Hooper went back and got the, shotgun and Madigan’s shoulder holster and the packful of money, and trudged back toward the cabin. It was getting colder now and the light was beginning to fade. The evening air seemed even thinner than it had been earlier and Hooper had to stop twice to rest and catch his breath. When he finally reached the cabin, he saw on the thermometer that the temperature had dropped to two degrees below zero. He hurried on inside.

The cabin was as cold as the outdoors. Hooper was shivering as he put the guns and knapsack on the table and pulled off his gloves. His fingers were numb with cold. He blew into his cupped palms a few times and rubbed his hands briskly. Got to get a fire going, he thought. Got to warm this place up.

He lifted the lid of the stove and saw that it was dry inside. Picking up the kerosene can, he found it empty. He went over to the tap running in from the fuel tank outside and put the lip of the can under it. He turned the tap — and nothing came out.

Hooper stared at the dry nozzle, the empty can, the cold stove. No fuel, he thought dumbly. Then the panic began to rise in him. No fuel—!

Outside, the temperature was down another degree and dropping steadily.

It is always wise to check one’s means of egress as well as ingress when visiting strangers, otherwise a casual social visit may become a permanent change of residence.

“There are worse crimes than murder,” said the small man in the grey suit. “And there are worse punishments than the electric chair.”

I don’t know why people tell me stories but they do — in bars, on trains, in restaurants. This little man seemed withdrawn rather than outgoing, hardly the kind who starts conversations with strangers. His gray moustache hid a weak mouth and his eyes were slightly myopic behind thick glasses. He was standing at the bar and I hadn’t said a word, to anybody. All I’d done was order another beer, when the panel discussion on the television had turned to capital punishment, and somebody had said that capital punishment was unworthy of our civilization.

“Civilization?” the little man questioned, as the bartender drew my beer. “What is it, anyway? It’s a carefully cultivated myth. We are just savages living in upholstered caves. Give any man sufficient provocation and the barbarian will emerge.”

He took a sip of his Scotch-on-the-rocks.

Take Morton (he said) as an example. You understand — that’s not his real name. If anybody could be considered civilized, it was Morton. He liked music and art, he gave generously to charity, he was law-abiding, and had never knowingly injured anyone in his life. He was Anglo-Saxon and not very emotional, but he loved justice — or thought he did — and he certainly loved his daughter Lucy. Then one day Lucy drowned herself.

At first Morton was stricken with grief. Then he learned that a man was responsible for Lucy’s suicide. And his grief turned into a hatred he’d never thought he could feel.

The man Morton hated was named Davis. He was an athlete, a football player, a track man and swimmer. Six feet tall, he was as full of vitality as a great cat. It was hardly surprising that Lucy fell in love with him. She met him at college, when she was a freshman and he was a senior. But he killed her and she killed herself.

Morton’s first grief turned to a hatred that would give him no peace. He tried to tell himself that he must be civilized, that what Davis had done was no worse than other men have done. When he discovered that Lucy was by no means the first girl Davis had treated so — indeed, one of her classmates had died too, though in her case it was the result of blood-poisoning — he decided he would take the law into his own hands and punish Davis.

If Morton had been of a Latin temperament, he might have shot Davis himself. But Morton was Anglo-Saxon, and his hatred, slow to grow, became a cold flame which could not be so easily satisfied.

Morton therefore spent some time in planning how he would punish Davis, and in searching out the spot that would be exactly right for it. He traveled to a number of different cities before he found what he was looking for — a suitable penthouse apartment formerly occupied by an artist.

It was at the top of a large building, and he rented it under an assumed name. He posed as an importer with frequent business abroad, and came and went at odd intervals, sometimes being absent for months. During these periods, of course, he was simply back at home carrying on his real business. He took care to lock up the apartment, telling the superintendent and the rental agent that there were many rare and valuable objects in it, and under no circumstances was it to be entered, no matter how long he was away.

During the first year, whenever Morton was away he left little seals on all the doors so he could tell if his instructions Were disobeyed and the apartment entered in his absence. It never was. In an expensive apartment building, a promptly paying tenant can get any degree of privacy and respect for his wishes that he desires, barring some drastic emergency such as fire or an explosion. So Morton now felt safe in taking the next step.

He had some false letterheads printed and wrote on one of them to Davis, offering him a very good job at a high salary in a non-existent firm. He gave Davis a post office box for his reply.

Davis wrote back saying he was interested in the offer, and now Morton phoned him. He suggested Davis drive down — it was a distance of a hundred miles or more — and meet him the following evening at a well-known restaurant just outside the city where he had rented the penthouse apartment. He pledged Davis to secrecy about the meeting as well as about the job offer, asking him to bring the original letter with him — he gave Davis a story about some of the other officers of the company being opposed to him so that he had to exercise discretion until everything was set. There’s an amazing amount of this hush-hush, cloak-and-dagger sort of thing actually going on in big business.

Of course if Davis had balked, Morton would have had to think of something else. But what, man is going to balk at the prospect of a well-paid job? Davis arrived at the restaurant on schedule, big and blonde and radiating animal energy and high spirits. Sitting inconspicuously at his table, Morton could see the women’s heads turn to watch Davis as he sauntered through the restaurant.

Morton knew him of course — he’d seen Lucy’s pathetic little hoard of pictures of the man. But Davis had no idea what Lucy’s father looked like. Morton introduced himself, they had a drink together, and fifteen minutes later were driving into the city in Davis’ car. They parked a couple of blocks from the building that held the penthouse and strolled over. It was quite late, and the lobby was deserted. Even luxury apartment buildings these days use automatic elevators.

Morton led the younger man in through a side entrance and they went directly up to the penthouse without encountering anyone. Once there Morton, who had been rather tense until now, relaxed. He cracked a few jokes and mixed drinks. Davis, who was really a magnificent animal, absorbed three of them before the drugs in the Scotch took effect. Just at the last when Davis began to be aware that something was wrong, things got a bit ticklish. But unconsciousness overcame him before his suspicions became acute. It’s amazing how harmless a well-dressed, pleasant-spoken man can appear, especially when he is promising you a good job.

When Davis sprawled back in a big chair, in a drugged sleep, his head lolling, Morton took time out to study him. There was an appealing charm about the young man in his unconsciousness, and for a moment Morton felt his resolve weakening. Then he remembered the file of data a firm of private detectives had compiled about Davis, and he took out of his wallet a snapshot of Lucy on her sixteenth birthday and looked at it. His resolve became firm again.

Davis was big and heavy, but Morton was able to drag him up the narrow stairs that led to a studio room above the penthouse. This was an unusual room. In the first place, it was circular. It had once been a water tank on top of the building. When a larger tank had been built, this one was converted into a room.

It was also soundproofed. Morton had intended to have this done, but the previous artist tenant had already taken care of it.

There were no windows — only a skylight. The skylight was of opaque glass and was open only an inch or two. An air-conditioner set into the walk brought in cool air and — a ventilating hood in the ceiling carried stale air out.

Here Morton removed Davis’ shoes and his belt and emptied his pockets. He did a few other things, including the burning of the original letter to Davis, which the young man had obligingly brought with him. Then he went back down the narrow stairs, locking behind him the heavy door which was the only entrance into the studio.

There nosy remained Davis’ car. If found, it would certainly draw attention to Davis’ absence and point to his having been in that particular city. Morton had no facilities for hiding a car, but he was not worried. He had the keys, so he drove it to a notorious gambling establishment and parked it in the lot behind the place. He suspected that if he left the keys in the car it would disappear in a day or two, and he was right. You see, he had imagination and he simply worked with the tools at hand. In a big city there are an amazing number of tools that can be turned to usefulness by a determined man, such as car thieves. But to get back to Davis—

Eventually, Davis woke up. His clothes were crumpled, his head hurt dismally, and his left ankle ached. Groggy, he sat up and looked around. He was in a circular room about twenty feet across, pleasantly decorated. An air conditioner hummed. A television set facing the couch on which Davis had awakened was turned on — a cooking program was under way. The door was shut and he was alone in the room.

Davis tried to stand. Then for the first time he realized why his ankle hurt. There was a tight metal cuff around it, and a thin chain connected this to a ringbolt set into the wall at the foot of the couch.

When he realized that he was chained to the wall, Davis sat for several minutes trying to think. He was terribly thirsty, and as his head cleared a little he saw a plastic pitcher of water standing on a table about six feet away. He hobbled toward it and was just able to reach it by extending himself and stretching. He drank the water, a quart, in several long gulps and tossed the pitcher back on the table. He saw that a number of loaves of bread were stacked on the table too, but he wasn’t hungry. With his thirst quenched, he sat back on the couch and tried to understand his situation.

He remembered the previous night clearly, and surmised that he was still in Morton’s apartment. It was clear enough that Morton must have drugged him, and then chained him in this manner to the wall. What Morton’s reason was he had no notion, and so he decided it must be some kind of ridiculous practical joke.

If it was a practical joke, probably the chain wasn’t really meant to hold him. He tried jerking it a few times. It seemed as solid as an anchor chain. He studied the way the cuff was locked around his ankle. The lock that held it was small, but seemed very solid and quite unpickable.

Davis stood up and followed the chain to the wall. The other end was fastened to a ringbolt set into the wall, and when Davis jerked it by hand he got a metallic sound which suggested to him that the bolt was fastened, through the plaster, to metal.

Since the chain could not be pulled loose, and was much too tight to slip out of, he studied the links themselves. They were not massive, but they were welded shut and seemed to be made of some special steel, which they were — a specially alloyed Swedish steel that would resist even a good file.

Davis, his fingers clumsy because of the hangover effect of the drugs, searched his pockets for a cigarette. He had no cigarettes, matches, coins, billfold, pen or pencil or pocket knife. He had thought that with a knife he might be able to cut one of the links, but now he realized that even if he had had his knife it probably would not even have nicked the chain.

Davis raised his voice. “Morton!” he called. “Morton!”

He waited. On the television, an attractive girl in a white nylon dress said, “And then add three eggs, well beaten.” The air-conditioner hummed. There was no answer to his shouts, repeated several times.

Davis was not imaginative, but now for the first time he began to feel panicky. Was Morton crazy, to do this to him? Morton certainly hadn’t seemed crazy. He tried to think back. He recalled how the first letter had come to him, and how Morton had asked him not to discuss the offer. He remembered the phone call, the meeting at the restaurant, Morton’s request that he tell no one of the visit, and bring the original letter with him.

Davis had followed instructions. Outside of some vague hints to a couple of his current girls, he had told no one. No one knew where he had gone. Back home his bachelor apartment was simply locked, with no trace of his whereabouts in it. Now he realized that he knew nothing about Morton, didn’t even know if that was his real name, had no real proof the business Morton claimed to be part owner of actually existed. It began to add up in his mind to the fact that Morton had carefully lured him there in such a way that no one had any clue as to where he had gone, or why.

He jumped to his feet and jerked on the chain a dozen times. The only result was to give his ankle a great deal of pain. He began to shout. He raised his voice to a bull bellow and yelled for help until he was hoarse, until he staggered back onto the upholstered couch in exhaustion.

There was no reply.

Dazedly, he reminded himself that he was in a building where there must be hundreds of others. On the floor below, or at most two floors down — which is to say, within thirty feet of him — there must be human beings who would come to his rescue. But he could not make them hear him.

Except for himself, the only life that manifested itself was in the shadow world of the television, on which now a smiling man with fine white teeth was saying, Ladies, if you want your husband to sit down to your meals with a sigh of happy contentment...

Otherwise, Davis might have been on the moon.

His mind refused to accept the situation more fully yet. Exhausted by his yelling, he even slept for a while — he didn’t know how long, but when he woke, the people on the television screen were playing a happy game of charades, with prizes of electric ranges and automatic washers to the squealing women who won.

He was thirsty again, and rose to reach for the water on the table. But there was none. He saw the plastic pitcher he had tossed down, and then saw that above the table was a rubber tube, leading to a large tank against the wall some feet away. By some device the tube was arranged so that one or two drops a minute came through it. The drops had fallen on the table, as he had not replaced the plastic pitcher under them.

Now he could not reach the pitcher. He had tossed it too far. As soon as he realized that, his thirst became raging. He panicked, and lunged for it, stretching his body and arms to the utmost. He managed only to brush the pitcher with his fingertips and knock it further away.

When he realized the futility of what he was doing, he fought for calm. He had to reach the pitcher somehow. He tried leaning forward, letting the chain around his ankle hold him from falling, and stretching his arms. This enabled him to touch the smooth plastic side of the pitcher, but nothing more. Breathing hard, watching the drops of water go to waste on the polished surface of the table, he licked dry lips and tried to keep from screaming and lunging.

At last he realized that he could capture the pitcher again. Slipping off his jacket, he held it by a sleeve and tossed it so that the jacket fell over the pitcher. Then, using the jacket as a net, he pulled the pitcher within reach and set it carefully under the dripping water. In time it would fill. He could only wait.

When he tossed the jacket, a slip of paper he had not noticed, or at least had overlooked when he searched his pockets, fell out of the breast pocket. He picked it off the floor and saw that it was a typewritten note.

It said simply:

Sorry I had to run off, old man, but please be my guest until I return. I’ve given you the best room, and left food and water that should last for quite awhile. I may be gone several days — possibly even more. Make yourself comfortable until I get back.

Morton

It took several minutes for the meaning of the note to sink in. Morton might be gone several days. This crazy joke would continue at least that long. For a minimum of several days, Davis would have to stay chained up like an animal, waiting for Morton to return and release him.

The realization sent him into a frenzy of shouting again.

This time he tired more quickly. He decided that possibly no one was near enough in the apartments below to hear him because it was daytime, and the occupants were at work. He would try again at night when someone was bound to be home. Then he would certainly be heard.

The thought calmed him somewhat. Finally he began to take full, deliberate stock of his situation.

The chain was unbreakable. He had already decided that, though he would keep trying. The drip of water was agonizingly slow, but steady. On the table, within reach, were stacked loaves of bread wrapped in waxed paper: He counted them. Thirty loaves.

Unbidden the thought came, to him. Bread and water. A loaf a day... God in heaven, did Morton plan to keep him chained up for thirty days? For a month! Living on bread and water? No, that couldn’t be; it was only part of the joke — to frighten him. Soon Morton would, come in and unchain him and they would have a drink and a good laugh together. This was all part of some fantastic test Morton had devised, some test of his ability to stay calm, to accept an uncomfortable situation...

This reasoning sustained him for a time — perhaps an hour, though the only way he could tell time was to watch the changing programs on the television. Now another game was being played. In this one women contestants were faced by a row of boxes, and invited to select one. One woman found a head of cabbage in her box, and squealed in dismay. Another found a check for a thousand dollars and a certificate entitling her to select a fur coat at a department store, and squealed in delight. One woman found a check for five thousand dollars and fainted from excitement.

Davis turned his eyes to the plastic pitcher. A tiny amount of water had: gathered in it. Perhaps enough for one swallow. He could not resist. He stretched for the pitcher, gulped the water, and replaced the pitcher with great care.

Later he would try one of the loaves of bread. But his mouth was dry and cottony now and he was not hungry.

So for a time he just sat. The air-conditioner hummed, the television cooed and cackled and exhorted, and the water dripped, one drop at: a time, slowly, ever so slowly.

By evening Davis had recovered from the effects of the drugs. His head throbbed, but was reasonably clear. His thirst was^; great, but only a little over half a pint of water had accumulated: in the pitcher. He opened one of the loaves of bread and tried to eat, but after forcing down two slices, gave up and drank what water there was. Then he had to wait again for more.

He knew the time — seven o’clock, for a seven o’clock news program had come over the television. He paid no attention to the news, but waited until it ended and a bland, smiling man was talking about the merits of a new cigarette with a double filter. Then, judging that now if ever, people would be at home in the apartments below him, somewhere in the building, he began to shout.

“Help!” he cried. “Help! I need help!”

He waited a minute, then repeated. He shouted at one minute intervals for a full fifteen minutes. Then, panting and hoarse, he lay back on the couch to wait.

No one came. There was no sound, except the inane patter of the television, on which a violent Western program had commenced. Through the sky light, open perhaps two inches, he could hear the subdued murmur of a great city. And that was all.

But he was more rested now and he did not give up hope, though he was sure that the room he was in must be soundproofed. There had to be some living human being within thirty feet of him — fifty at the very most. Surely he could make some sound carry that distance, even through two floors and ceilings, in spite of the soundproofing.

He looked for something to make a noise with. His shoes were gone, or he would have pounded on the wall with them. He tried pounding with his fists, but could make only a soft thudding sound.

Now he turned his attention to the couch. Perhaps he could tear it apart and use pieces of it to hammer on the walls and floor. But the couch was a simple wooden platform, bolted together, the legs screwed tightly to the floor, the whole covered with a foam rubber cushion. With all his strength he could not budge the frame. And there was nothing else within reach...

Abruptly, with a leap of the heart, he realized that the wooden table which held the water pitcher was within his reach. Swiftly he took the pitcher, drank the few drops in it, and set it on the floor. Then he tried to draw the table to him.

Disappointment so bitter that it was sour in his mouth overwhelmed him and he dropped back on the couch numbly. The table, too, was bolted down. It was an hour before he remembered the water pitcher, and then he had dost an hour’s worth of the water.

He had nothing to make a noise with. Nothing to use as a tool. The skylight was many feet above his head, and just barely open, even if he had anything to throw through it. He checked it off, mentally.

Slowly it became apparent to him that Morton had thought of every action he might try.

Then he really began to feel frightened. Until now he had felt chiefly bewilderment and anger. Now fear replaced these emotions.

What was Morton up to?

When would Morton come back?

In an effort to quiet his fears He stared at the television set. Program gave way to program, all of them peopled by clean, smiling people who looked well groomed even when they wore Western clothes and shot at each, other. When a program ended he could not remember what it had been about.

At last even the television ceased to live. The screen became a flickering white blank. The room was lit only by the glow from the picture tube. Then at last Davis slept. While he slept, a concealed peephole in the door slid silently back and Morton looked at him and then silently withdrew.

He slept late the next morning and woke hungry and thirsty. His leg hurt. For a moment he lay half asleep, half awake, wondering where he was. Then recollection returned and he sat up.

Nothing had changed. A pint of water had accumulated in the plastic pitcher. The television set was presenting an interview between a chatty woman with prominent teeth and a tweedy man who had written a novel.

Davis reached for the water, then stopped. Instead he ate some bread. Five or six slices. Then he drank, letting himself swallow only half the pint.

He judged that the dripping of the water was timed so that: about a quart a day accumulated.

He studied the tank from which the rubber tube ran. It held perhaps seven or eight gallons. Did it hold — thirty quarts? Thirty quarts of water — thirty loaves of bread. Thirty days!

Dear God, did that mean Morton would not return for thirty days? Or did it mean—

Davis started to scream, and shouted and yelled for half an hour before he collapsed, exhausted.

But no one came. He tried shouting for help again that evening. Still no one came.

No one came the next day.

Nor the day after. Nor the day after that did anyone come to the air-conditioned dungeon at the top of a luxury apartment building in a great modern city, where Davis was chained to the wall by his ankle...

The small man in the gray suit glanced at his watch and stood up.

“I have to catch a plane,” he said. “Hope I haven’t bored you.”

“Wait!” I said. “What happened?” He shook his head slowly.

“I really can’t say. I suppose after thirty days the water stopped. And of course the bread must have been gone. Then—” He shrugged.

“But—” I began, and stopped.

“No one has entered that room for two years,” the grey man said. “The bills are all paid promptly by a lawyer and the superintendent and the rental agent get annual Christmas remembrances from the same source. They understand that Morton is in Europe and may be gone several years more. They don’t mind, as long as the rent is paid. Of course, some day the apartment will be entered. It may be years, however, unless Morton decides to stop paying the rent.”

He glanced at me from the corners of his eyes.

“It would be interesting to know what the men who finally enter that studio room make of what they find,” he said, and turned toward the door. “I don’t imagine they will find any clews to Morton’s true identity, nor to Davis’ either.”

Then he smiled and went out. I stared after him stupidly for a moment, then ran out to the street after him. But he was gone, lost in the crowd of passersby.

I stood for a moment looking up. For blocks in all directions tall buildings loomed around me, many of them with penthouses. And this was only one of at least eight large cities within a two-hour plane ride.

I went back into the bar and asked the bartender if he knew the man I had been talking to. But the small man was a stranger who had never been in there before.

The term juvenile delinquent is a general one, applied to those whose behavior troubles their elders... yet for misbehaving adults no such all-embracing phrase has yet been coined.

Juvenile Officer McMahon telephoned me at the recreation center.

“Pat,” he said glumly, “it’s Sally again.”

“What’s she done this time?”

“She was with three boys who roughed up the manager of a ten-cent store. He caught them shoplifting. We’ve got her at the precinct.”

“Thanks, Dan.”

“We can’t keep her out of court for this sort of thing forever, you know,” he added wearily, hanging up.

I waited a moment and then called my wife.

“Hello, hon. Listen, Sally’s in jail.”

“What for?”

“Same as last time. Hanging around with the wrong friends.”

“Oh, Pat. I think it’s hopeless. That makes four times in the last year. She’s absolutely unmanageable.”

“We’ve got to give her another chance,” I argued. “Any kid who went through what Sally did is bound to be a little haywire. If people like us aren’t willing to help her, she’s lost.”

“All right,” my wife said slowly. “If you say so.”

“Just remember,” I went on. “It isn’t every child that’s orphaned by an axe murderer.”

What with all the current hue and cry, bath pro and con bomb shelters, it almost seems as though one is as safe without as within.

The slight, steady clicking of the knitting needles grew ever louder. The noise of them began crashing against the walls of the tiny room and bouncing back again in nerve-wracking echoes.

“Strange,” thought Halsey, eyeing their silvery speed, “how complete silence elsewhere can magnify a little sound like that into proportions that can fairly drive you nuts!”

His eyes traveled slowly upwards from his wife’s busy fingers to her pointed face, her mousy hair, and onto the wall of the little room just above and beyond her head. The calendar hanging there showed the month of May, and the dates from the Third through the Sixteenth had been crossed out by heavy strokes from a black crayon.

From behind his magazine, Halsey looked at the needles again. “The last night!” he promised himself for the sixth time in as many minutes. “After nine o’clock in the morning, they’ll be silent for good.”

His exultation was cut short by a sudden stab of anxiety: had he kept accurate count of the days? Had he by any chance crossed out a date and, later in the day, another one?

No. That couldn’t have happened. He had taken ample precaution, had made a ritual of crossing off the days. At six o’clock each night — and only at six o’clock — he had walked to the wall, picked up the crayon, and marked an X across the date. That way, there was no chance of a mistake.

But no sooner had the first wave of uneasiness subsided than a new one swept in, to cause tiny dribbles of cold sweat to trickle down over his ribs from his armpits. Maybe she had crossed off an extra day! She could have done it; several times, through sheer boredom, he had taken afternoon naps! But, no; there would be no reason for her to do so — nothing for her to gain! Yet...

“That would be an ironic twist,” he mused, making light of the thought. “That way she would have me with her forever!”

He closed his eyes tightly against both her and her clanking needles. The old bat! Knitting him a sweater! A sweater he wouldn’t be caught dead in! Her, with a hundred grand in her own right, knitting sweaters! Cooking those hideous boiled dinners! Keeping him grinding his heart out as a clerk in her cousin’s stupid brokerage office! And never a night out to have any fun!

Well, beginning at nine o’clock in the morning, it would all be different. He’d kick that silly sweater to pieces, eat T-bones, quit that insipid job, and visit a few night spots — with Gertie, of course.

The very thought of red-haired, full-lipped, full-bosomed Gertie of the brokerage office spun him away as usual into a pleasing reverie. Now, if he had been cooped up here for fourteen days — nights — with Gertie... Well, he wouldn’t have taken any afternoon naps through sheer boredom.

A trace of a smile began to play about his thin lips as the reverie led him even deeper into the delights of fantasy.

Halsey had shown all his neighbors his bomb shelter as soon as it had been completed.

“These,” he had told them, indicating the steel tanks along one wall of the concrete structure, “are my oxygen bottles. Enough here to last three weeks.” He had placed the necessary amount of stress on the last statement.

“And this is the larder.” He had opened the large twin doors to expose a series of shelves piled high with tinned bread, meats, vegetables, fruits, and bottles of vitamins. One by one, he had exhibited such other items as the garbage disposal, the toilet, the air vent, the water supply, and similar necessities.

“There is no radio or television,” he had explained. “In a real raid, there probably wouldn’t be any broadcasts to listen to after the first few minutes anyway, and probably no electricity to bring them in, and we want this test to simulate the real thing as much as possible. A psychological test, you know.”

There was a shelf of books, a rack of magazines, and a number of puzzles and games. “And these,” Halsey had said, indicating a small stack of cardboard cartons, “are models of ships, airplanes, and the like to be assembled. Something to keep the hands busy. My wife, of course, will bring along her needle work and her knitting...”

He had always saved showing the lock on the steel door until last. Since it was to play the most important part in his plan, he felt that it should be left uppermost in the minds of his visiting neighbors.

“Anyone can live in a bomb shelter or a fallout shelter quite nicely for two weeks,” he had stressed, “provided he can get out for a walk whenever he wants, talk over the telephone to his friends, or have the neighbors in for an occasional evening of bridge. But that is not a real test. A real test can be made only when the occupants of the shelter cut themselves off entirely from contact with the outside world!”

He had always paused here for a moment to let the impact of the thought etch itself deeply into the brain of the listener.

“This is a time lock activated by solar batteries which also are the source of power for the lights and the air fan. It is set for a period of two weeks to the exact minute. Once the door closes, the timer sets automatically, and the door cannot be opened from either the inside or the outside until the precise course of time is run. Only in this way can a true test be made as to whether two people can remain compatible during a real raid.”

And the neighbors had gone away duly impressed. If the Halseys survived the ordeal, then — if worse came to worst — they too could weather the storm harmoniously within their own shelters. It was, indeed, a worthwhile experiment!

Halsey smiled now at the memory. Tomorrow morning at precisely nine o’clock, the neighbors would be waiting for the steel door to open, waiting to see, first-hand, the outcome of the great psychological experiment. And they would all be witnesses to his wife’s accidental death!

The clashing knitting needles ceased their clangor. Mrs. Halsey laid the sweater on the little table beside her chair, yawned, got up, went to a small mirror and began creaming her face for the night.

She didn’t speak, and neither did he. They hadn’t said much to each other for the past few days. Yet, the two weeks had been fairly satisfactory ones — she content in her complete dominance and possession of him; he content in the knowledge that the dominance and possession would soon come to a definite end.

He mumbled a good-night as she got into her bed, but her answer was scarcely audible.

Halsey thumbed through some magazines for nearly an hour, then got into his pajamas, climbed into his bed, and flicked the light switch at the head board.

The small room was plunged instantly into silent darkness, and in a minute or two the luminous dial of his wristwatch became plainly visible. It was a few minutes to midnight.

Halsey slept fitfully. He was tangled in the sweater. The door wouldn’t open. The world was sprouting mushroom clouds. Something had gone wrong with the time clock...

He found himself staring at the glowing dial of the wristwatch. It was exactly seven o’clock. He smiled into the darkness. He had practiced for a full week to awaken precisely at seven.

He lay for awhile without moving, giving the sticky webs of sleepiness time to clear. This was the zero hour. He could call off the whole idea, walk out of the door at nine o’clock, greet his neighbors — and go on living with her for the rest of his natural life...

He stifled the groan the thought provoked. No, the plan had to be carried through! Otherwise, life to him would be intolerable!

Silently, he laid back the covers, swung his, feet over the edge of the bed, sat up, and slid his feet into his slippers. Her bed was but a step away in the darkness. He sat for a moment, orienting himself and getting a measure of control over an inner trembling, then took the pillow from his bed in his two hands, rose, and took the step.

The pillow went down quickly over where he knew her head would be, and the bed clothes, held down tightly on either side of her slight form by his straddling knees, acted as a straitjacket against her struggles.

It seemed like hours, but it couldn’t have been more than three or four minutes. There was a final spasmodic twitch of muscles, then a general relaxation.

Halsey put the pillow back on his bed and dented it sufficiently with his fist to indicate it had been slept on, then turned on the small night-light and glanced at his watch. Seven fifteen.

He didn’t look at his wife’s prone figure on the bed as he went around to the oxygen tanks. A moment later, the gas was hissing noisily from the open valves, and a moment after that Halsey was reeling drunkenly around the room.

“An oxygen jag,” he said aloud and stumbled hurriedly back toward the valves. His fingers fumbled them shut. He wheeled about, stumbled over the little table, knocked it and the sweater and the needles to the floor, and finally reached the air vent control.

When the little fan was humming with increased industry, he went back to the gas vents, opened them wide, and sat down and breathed shallowly.

He found that he was trembling all over. He looked at his watch a dozen times, looked to see if it were actually running, then silently reprimanded himself for his impatience. He had estimated it would take a couple of hours or more for the large tanks to dissipate their contents; he had now but to wait.

When the hissing finally stopped, the silence came as a distinct shock, and the only sound in the room now was the body-shaking hammering of his own heart.

The gauge on the last tank, the one in use, showed a quarter full. He looked at his watch again. Eighteen minutes till nine.

He opened the valve wider and watched the gauge and his watch carefully, his body still trembling. A miscalculation now could well prove fatal. He manipulated the valve for several minutes, and the last of the gas finally hissed from the tank at exactly five minutes till nine. There was now only the oxygen within the shelter itself.

Halsey hurried to the vent fan and turned it back to normal. Then he tore open the collar of his pajamas and lay down on the floor near the door. Everything was going precisely to plan. In slightly less than five minutes, the time lock would click, the door would spring slightly ajar, and the neighbors would rush in — to discover Halsey on the floor, half unconscious and gasping for air, his wife smothered in bed. All due to some failure of the oxygen tanks.

Once again, time dragged in an endless manner. What if the time lock failed to open? What if...

No! No! He mustn’t permit himself to think of things like that! The time lock would open! He had tested it time and time again! In fact, his wife had insisted on a series of tests before she had consented to the experiment.

But what if he had released the oxygen too soon? What if the timing mechanism had slowed down? The neighbors would mill around outside, waiting. How long would they wait before deciding that something must have gone wrong? How long would it take them to force the steel door? Or would they, believing he had an extra supply of oxygen, wait a day or two before doing anything?

His nervous trembling increased. The air began to feel heavy and oppressive. His pajamas were damp all over his body, from perspiration.

His eyes never left the dial of the watch now. Three minutes. Two minutes. And, finally, one minute till nine; just 60 seconds.

He began to take deep tremulous breaths in an attempt to bring his quivering nerves under control, then stopped almost instantly as he realized that the deep breathing would deplete the oxygen rapidly. The thundering of his heart grew louder, and waves of pressure began to beat at his eardrums.

Forty seconds...

He was certain that his watch had stopped, that he was slowly and helplessly smothering. Panic laid hold of him, and he suddenly realized the awful terror that must have tortured his wife during her last few seconds of consciousness. He tried to shake the thought from his brain — not because of any sorrow for her, but to rid himself of the fear of having to experience the same horrible ordeal.

Twenty seconds...

Ten seconds...

He wanted to cry out, to leap to his feet, screaming. But his throat muscles were constricted, his body unresponsive to his fear-ridden brain.

Zero seconds...

He lay upon the floor in his own sweat, sobbing silently and convulsively.

Then it came! The great sledgehammer blow of steel against steel. He thought at first it was the neighbors trying to break down the door. Then he realized in sudden elation that it was merely the metallic click of the time lock shattering the silence. The steel door was ajar! It had swayed inward a scant half inch!

The neighbors should rush in now. It was part of the plan. They should rush in just in the nick of time to witness the frightful scene.

But there was no babble of voices beyond the door, not a scrape of a foot on the stone steps, not a sound.

Halsey grasped the edge of the door with his finger tips and pulled. The heavy door was adamant. His fingernails splintered and broke. Gasping, he clutched the edge with the fingers of both hands. It gave an inch. Sunlight and fresh air rushed through the opening. Even as his lungs gasped in the air eagerly, his eyes quickly told him that the stair well was empty.

Bewildered, he struggled to his feet, flung the door open, and staggered up the short flight of steps, his eyes squinting against the raw sunlight.

The voice of the siren reached him then. It began with a low moan, rose rapidly higher in pitch to split the skies, and reached out across the land with undulations of warning. He turned in its direction and saw the pall of smoke that cloaked Midville, a scant mile away across the lake. And even as he watched, a great column of flame spread upward from just beyond the town, its livid crest spreading rapidly outward.

Halsey’s brain warned him of the shock blast that came from atomic mushrooms to level everything in its path above the ground, and through no volition of his own he went spinning back down the stairs and into the comparative darkness of the shelter.

Something in the shadows clutched his feet to engulf them in a strong tangle of mesh. Something bit deeply into his ankle. As he bent to free himself, the knitted mesh tightened as if pulled by unseen hands, and Halsey stumbled backwards against the steel door.

The time lock clanged deafeningly in the small room — and echoed and echoed and echoed.

Outside, the siren continued to wail in desperation as the people of Midville watched the flames leap ever closer to the second large storage tank of gasoline. It was the largest fire the townspeople had witnessed for more than thirty years.

Children whose intelligence quotient is way above normal, often seem to have adult characteristics out of all proportion to their immature bodies, but in keeping with their brilliant minds. Monstrous, some call it.

Rena Holly was in the living room with the policeman when Charles Holly went downstairs to join them. Rena was sitting in a high-backed chair of polished walnut upholstered in dark red velvet. She was sitting there quietly, very erect, her knees together and her feet flat upon the floor and her.hands folded in her lap. Her face was pale and still, perfectly composed, and she was even now, even in the violation of her grief by police procedure, so incredibly lovely that Charles felt in his heart the familiar sweet anguish that was his normal response to her. Only her eyes moved ever so slightly in his direction when he entered the room.

“Charles,” she said, “this is Lieutenant Casey of the police. He is inquiring about Richard’s death.”

Lieutenant Casey arose from the chair in which he had been sitting opposite Rena. He was a stocky man with broad shoulders and a deep chest and thin gray hair brushed neatly across his skull from a low side part. His face was deeply lined and weathered looking, as if he spent much time in the wind and sun, and the hand he extended toward Charles had pads of callous on fingers and palm, although its touch was surprisingly gentle. He seemed awkward in his gray suit, which was actually of good cut and quality, and the impression he gave generally was one of regret, almost of apology, that he had been forced by his position to intrude.

“Good-afternoon, Lieutenant,” Charles said. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“Sorry,” Casey said. “It’s a routine matter, of course. I regret that I’m compelled to disturb you at this time.”

“Not at all. We must tell you whatever is necessary.” Charles sat down and placed his hands on his knees in an attitude of attention, while Casey resumed his place in the chair from which he had risen. “Please ask me anything you wish.”

“I think that Lieutenant Casey wishes you to tell him exactly how Richard died,” Rena said.

She spoke softly, with a kind of deficiency of inflection. Charles was aware of the terrible and almost terrifying quality of her composure, and he wondered if Casey was also aware of this. He doubted it. Her horror and grief were not apparent, although the latter could be assumed, and Casey was not familiar, as Charles was, with the wonderful complexity of her character.

“I’d be grateful if you would,” Casey said. “Just as it happened from the beginning, if you don’t mind.”

“Well.” Charles paused, seeming to gather his thoughts, but he knew, in fact, what he was going to say, and his mind was functioning, as it always did, with precision and clarity. “Richard was a guest in this house for the week-end. Perhaps Rena has told you that. In any event, he asked me this morning to take a walk with him. I did not wish to walk with him, and I told him so, but he asked me to humor him as a special favor. I did not really feel that I owed him a favor, special or otherwise, but he was so urgent that I agreed to go.”

“What was the reason for his urgency?”

“The answer to that would involve Rena. I’d rather that she answered, if she wants the question answered at all.”

“Oh?” Casey looked vaguely astonished and somewhat distressed that he had been led so quickly by his own question into an area of intimacy that he would have preferred to avoid. “Mrs. Holly?”

“Certainly, Lieutenant. As Charles has said, we must tell you whatever is necessary.” Rena’s hands moved, smoothing the skirt over her knees, and then sought and held each other again in her lap. “Richard was in love with me. And I with him. It was not an emotional attachment that either of us particularly wanted in the beginning, but it happened, and there was no help for it. We wanted to marry. I spoke with Charles about it and was, I thought, candid and reasonable. But it was an unfortunate effort on my part, I’m afraid. Charles was very angry. He refused even to discuss the matter. Then, of course, Richard wanted to approach him. I agreed rather reluctantly, and it was for that purpose specifically that I invited Richard here for the week-end. And that was why Richard urged Charles to take the walk with him.”

She stopped abruptly, resuming the perfect posture and expression of composure that speaking had barely disturbed, and Casey, after waiting a few seconds until it was dear that she was finished, turned back to Charles.

“That is true,” Charles said. “I suppose he felt that a brisk walk in the open air would be propitious to his purpose. The manly approach. Two gentlemen settling amicably between themselves a rather delicate matter. Richard was remarkably naive.” His voice took on the faintest color of irony, as if he were mildly amused in retrospect by something which had been irritating at the time. “I must confess, however, that I was not impressed. Richard’s effort to win me over was no more successful than Rena’s, although I listened courteously and gave him every chance. All this time, while he was talking, we were walking among the trees in the direction of the river, and we came out upon a high bluff just where the river bends. There is a wooden bench on the bluff there, for it’s a rather scenic spot, and we sat on the bench until he had quite finished what he wanted to say. Then I told him that my feelings were unchanged, and that I should never be reconciled to any kind of intimate relationship between him and Rena. It made me sick to think about it.”

He paused again, ordering details precisely and accurately in his mind, and Casey waited in silence for him to continue. Rena did not seem to have heard him at all, or even to be aware at the moment that he or Casey was in the room. She had been staring at her folded hands, but now she raised her eyes to a focus beyond the walls and perhaps beyond the time. If she had listened to anything, or was now waiting for anything, it was a private sound and a private expectation.

Now, Charles was thinking, I have come upon dangerous ground. Up to this point I have adhered strictly to the truth, because the truth served, but now it is time for the essential deviation, the necessary lie.

“Please go on,” Casey prompted.

“Richard was very, angry with me,” Charles said. “As for me, I wanted only to leave him, to terminate an unpleasant episode as quickly as possible, and I stood up and walked away to the edge of the bluff. Richard followed me, still very angry, and began to shake me by the arm. I do not like to be touched, even without violence, and I tried to jerk away, but he held on to my arm firmly. I struggled, finally breaking free, and the action caused him to lose his balance. We were standing right at the edge of the bluff, much nearer than either of us, I think, quite realized in our emotional state, and, to put it simply and briefly, he fell over the edge. The bluff, as you know, is high and almost perpendicular at that place. At the foot, the bank of the river at the bend is wide and littered with great rocks. Richard fell among the rocks, where you found him, and was, I believe, killed instantly. He was certainly dead when I reached him, after finding a way down the bluff farther along. When I saw that he was falling, I tried to catch hold of him, but he was gone too quickly.”

And there it is done, and done well, he thought. The essential deviation. The necessary lie. So slight a deviation and so small a lie. The difference between holding and pushing. Between life and death. Between innocence and guilt. Casey believes me, certainly, but Rena doesn’t. Rena, lovely Rena, sits and says nothing and knows everything. She knows how Richard died, and why, but that is unimportant. What is important is that she submits to a deeper commitment than any she could have felt to Richard or feels now to justice. She is mine so long as she lives. She will never belong to anyone else.

“I see.” Casey slapped his knees suddenly with both hands, the sound startling in the still room. It even startled Casey, who had made it, and he clenched one of the hands and stared reproachfully at the big knuckles under taut and whitened skin. “You were wise to leave the body where it fell until we had seen it. You have been very helpful altogether, I must say. Thank you very much.”

“There is so little that one can do, really.” Charles stood up. “Now if I may be excused, I’d like to return to my room.”

“Of course. You’ve had a bad experience, I know. I appreciate your cooperation in such trying circumstances.”

Having been excused by Casey, Charles turned toward Rena. She seemed unaware of this, still abstracted, but after a few seconds she turned her head and stared at him with her dark expressive eyes which were now so carefully empty of all expression. She nodded without speaking, the merest motion of her head, and he turned and went out of the room into the hall. He stopped there, out of sight but not of sound, his head half-turned and tilted, as he stood and listened.

“There’s a clever young fellow,” Casey said in the room behind him.

“Yes,” Rena said.

“I must say, however, that I’d find him a bit disturbing after a while. He’d make me feel inferior. Besides, I confess that I’m always a bit shocked to hear a child call his mother by her Christian name. I suppose I’m hopelessly old-fashioned.”

“Charles is not really a child, Lieutenant, although he’s only twelve. He’s exceptional. His intelligence quotient, I am told, is one hundred eighty-four.”

It would have been natural if her voice had assumed a lilt of pride, but it did not. It still retained its odd deficiency of inflection. To Charles, who began moving silently away, it was a voice that had no choice of expression between a monotone and a scream.

“So you disappointed Henrietta,” Gomez said. “You weren’t the man she thought you were.”

“They wouldn’t send a security guard on a mission like that,” Randolph said. “I imagine the Director contacted the Atomic Energy Commission for instructions. It’s a cinch you couldn’t simply call up, like Henrietta did, and expect someone to show up with a half-million dollars, a few hours later. There would be at least an elementary investigation. One could be going on right now. Probably is.”

Gomez didn’t say anything for a while. When he did, he was on another subject. “I didn’t consider you seriously as a suspect in the explosion, John. But I’m thinking you might be marked down as another victim of the bomber.”

Randolph felt quick, driving anger. “I’d like to get my hands on—”

“So would I,” Gomez cut in. “My prime suspect is a man named Conrado Suarez. They call him El Cubano. A skinny man, a machinist by trade, with radical ideas about government and who has a police record. He operates the machine shop right across from where Henrietta was killed.”

“Henrietta had been observed going into his shop often. There could be a jealousy motive. The bomb in her car could have been aimed at the two of you. I believe they were old friends. But on the other hand, why would he kill her if jealousy was not the prime mover? Maybe they did make an atom bomb, and Suarez might have wanted the full half-million dollars for himself, or sole possession of the bomb. Would you know such a device if you saw one? I don’t know if I would.”

“I might.”

“Then,” said Gomez, “let’s go see if we can find one and blow my jealousy theory apart.”

A white wrecker was at work on the demolished automobile. An ambulance had carted away the dead and the suffering. All that remained to show there had been tragedy on the street was the debris of the car.

Gomez called for light and a policeman with a battery-powered flash trotted from the fringes of darkness. He said, “The building is locked against us. We have not located Suarez.”

Gomez led them through those curious ones who lingered on the death scene and talked in muted tones. He stopped beneath the gloomy facade of the tall old machine shop. Under the huge weathered doors ran railroad tracks, a short branch of the ice plant spur.

“Those doors lock from inside,” the policeman said. “There is another door at the rear.”

Gomez tapped the bone grips of the automatic at his belt. “We’ll use my search warrant and my key.”

Randolph walked gingerly in the darkest shadows, aware of danger. He did not intend to set himself up as a possible target. From somewhere close at hand, a radio blared a lively tune more suited to a gay cantina than to this dark place which death had visited so recently and so violently. A dirge would have been more fitting, Randolph thought.

Here behind the machine shop, the looming tall doors were secured with only a flimsy house door lock. Gomez shattered it with a bullet from his gun.

Flattened lead screamed off over the cluster of mud huts, getting lost among the returning echoes of the shot. A woman shrilled a worried question. A man supplied a shouted answer. A child’s sleepy voice lifted in sudden startled inquiry, a lost sound that tugged strongly at Randolph’s heart.

He stepped to one side to be out of the way of any stray bullet suddenly pumped through the door from inside. But none came, and he followed Gomez into the building.

The spotlight shifted through the dim interior. Huge lathes, long twisted endless belts, presses, and other heavy machine tools loomed, gleaming dully, like metallic monsters. The floor was of dirt, except for the concrete slabs under the larger tools. The odor of cutting oils made Randolph uneasy. He felt as though he was standing in a long dark tunnel that might explode with a careless spark.

Rails ran the length of the building. Heavy materials could be unloaded from flat cars with the powerful overhead crane. The doors at either end were high enough to accommodate a box car. Or a locomotive.

“A man who knew how could build a cannon with this equipment,” Randolph said.

“Or an atomic device?”

“Provided he had the materials.”

Gomez said, “Then we’ve got to find Suarez. We’ve got to know if he really built one, and where it is now.”

Randolph, watching the spotlight dart about and touch here and there, saw nothing in its beam that wouldn’t fit into any machine shop anywhere.

Gomez located a master switch. Dim lights sprang glowing in the cavernous shop. They searched for half an hour and found nothing, except the place where Suarez apparently slept — a greasy pad in a corner.

Randolph said, “If Suarez built a bomb here, I don’t have the training to spot the tracks. And if he did build one and it’s not here, where is it? And what is he going to do with it?”

“When we find him,” Gomez said, “we’ll find the answers.”

He switched off the master switch and they walked the darkness, following the spotlight beam. As they passed a giant lathe, a sudden odor of hot metal stopped Randolph. Gomez also stopped.

The spotlight’s beam came quickly back. The concrete slab under the lathe was conspicuously clean compared with the rest of the shop.

Standing there in the windy vastness of this machine shop-isolated in the middle of a great desert country, an ominous feeling chilled Randolph. In his mind’s eye appeared the sinister shape of the mushroom cloud.

For out of his memory had emerged one relative, pertinent fact: bits of uranium, laid across or against each other, create heat. If left alone long enough, they glow.

And just before the light had touched that concrete slab, Randolph had seen a tiny red spot!

Soberly, they walked outsider

The street was quiet. It was about as it had been when he handed Henrietta into her car, Randolph thought. Except that now the wind was dying. And a full moon, yellow as butter and big as a balloon, was slowly rising.

A policeman lingered under the cottonwood tree. He was Gomez’ driver.

Gomez, said, “Suarez is our man. He killed Henrietta because he wants the bomb all to himself.”

Randolph listened to him spout orders over his car radio. Finished, Gomez said, “My men will have him by dawn.”

“He could have gone north.”

“Not legally. He has been refused border-crossing privileges by your country.”

“A man with an atom bomb would hardly be liable to cross the border in the regular manner,” Randolph said. And then, “Well, my vacation is shot, anyway. I’ll have to call the Project.”

“You said they were probably investigating already.”

“An investigation will be, made. But it might not be given the top priority that the discovery of the uranium scraps now demands. Henrietta’s telephone call might have been dismissed as the call of some kind of a nut.”

“Use our telephone,” Gomez suggested, inviting Randolph into his car. “We’ll drive you there.”

“The phone in the United States Customs House will be more direct,” Randolph said, and thanked him. From past experience, he knew that connections between the two countries were often unreliable.

Gomez lifted his hand in acknowledgement and got into his car. Randolph walked back around the corner to his own vehicle. Driving north to the border, he had an opportunity to think.

When he had first seen Henrietta at the, La Osa, he had been surprised. Pleasantly so. A week on the border with her seemed like the stuff of a young bachelor’s dreams. But it had turned out to be a nightmare.

Putting those thoughts from his mind he dragged out the others. Where would Suarez have hidden the atomic device? Why had Henrietta chosen Santo Tomas and Suarez? Was it something that Randolph himself had told her about in their conversation regarding the border? Remembering that Suarez had not been here during his own sojourn in Santo Tomas with Customs, he wondered if Henrietta had contacted him, and if he had activated the machine shop for the sole purpose of making an atomic device. And where had Henrietta known him before? What was their common background?

These led to other questions for which he could not readily find answers and his approach to the border brought speculation to a stop. A dim light beamed over the doorway of the Mexican guardhouse. A single inspector dozed in a chair leaned against the adobe wall. His pants were too short, and Randolph could see that he wore no socks.

He had not forgotten Randolph. “Anda tarde, Juanito,” he said. “Like old times.”

“But out late tonight on a more serious matter than those that kept me from my bed, before.”

“I heard. The shock shook this building. A sad thing. The woman was beautiful. Her car was very pretty.”

“Tell me a thing. Was she always alone when she crossed here?”

“Except for the first time.”

“Who rode with her then?”

“A toad. With a big bald head, pop-eyes behind spectacles that were so thick they could have been of bullet-proof glass.”

He was describing Smetana. Randolph felt like a man standing upon the brink of some great and important discovery.

Now it could have been the fat scientist who had created and planted the bomb which had destroyed Henrietta and might have killed Randolph. He felt it was the kind of thing Baruch Smetana would be capable of, and had to admit he also had reason. Jealousy.

Perhaps it was not Henrietta at all who was behind the construction of the presumed device and the shake-down. Then it would have to be the great, mean-tempered, invulnerable scientist who was detested, and respected.

“Would any of your other inspectors have observed him returning to the United States?” Randolph asked.

“I was interested in her, and him. I have asked. No one has seen him.”

“Then he is still in Santo Tomas.”

The inspector shrugged.

As he drove across the border, Randolph was thinking with a new seriousness: better to walk even more softly and look over your shoulder frequently. For it was already clearly possible that the life or death of one John Randolph could actually hinge upon the whereabouts of Baruch Smetana.

Randolph felt immediately safer across the border. The small United States Customs House was much like its Mexican counterpart, except that the inspection area was strongly lighted, making a bright hole in the vast darkness that extended well out over the bare ground. An inspector in a blue uniform, looking incongrously formal in this setting, lounged on a bench against the wall. His name was Haynes. He had close-set blue eyes and a tremendous chin. He was sandy-haired and had a slight speech impediment. When Randolph stopped under the canopy in front of the building and got out, Haynes said, “I hear you jumped right into the middle of big trouble over there.”

“Can I use your ’phone?”

“Help yourself. If I had to bet, I’d guess it was that ugly old man she was with the first time she crossed here that did it.”

“I thought of that.” Randolph moved out of the bright lights which made everything under them a conspicuous target for anyone in the darkness beyond. He stood in the doorway, looking at Haynes, who was now doing the work that Randolph had been doing a year ago. About to turn and go inside, he noticed lights in the north, out on the wide empty desert that stretched endlessly.

The steady beam, Randolph recognized as the headlight on old 1098, the locomotive that shuttled between the border and the main line of the SP a hundred ninety miles away.

It was the twin headlights that held his attention. And Haynes said, “Who in the devil would be driving our road at night as though they were in a cross-country race?”

Randolph had an idea. It was confirmed in a matter of minutes when two vehicles soared over a rise a hundred yards north and slid to a stop.

Eight men with a mission poured out of them. They moved forward into the lighted area together, a phalanx of dedicated FBI officers led by Stan Burkett, agent in charge of the region.

Randolph’s greeting died on his lips, for there was no friendliness in Burkett’s manner. He was a serious young man with a square chin, a crooked nose, very light blue eyes, and a lot of scar tissue built up on his brows. Roughly, he shoved Randolph toward the door.

Crouching to preserve balance, ready to do battle, Randolph heard Burkett through the deafness of his surprised anger: “You can make it easy or tough on yourself. Take your choice.”

There was really no alternative. Randolph made no sudden moves. A thinking man seldom does — not when he’s surrounded by revolvers and riot guns held in the steady hands of determined men.

They didn’t tell him anything. They didn’t even talk among themselves. They ignored his request to be allowed to use the phone to call the Project. They held him in the Custom House until Burkett, who had gone out, had returned. Vincente Gomez was with him.

Randolph was sitting at the desk In the office. The large men who crowded into the room made it seem smaller. The air was thick and blue with their cigarette smoke.

Burkett leaned against the desk. His pointing finger was almost as lethal as the shotgun held loosely in the hands of the nearest agent. Both were aimed right at Randolph.

“You left here under suspicion a year ago,” Burkett began. “You’ve come back under a cloud. I don’t like shifty characters.”

You stand just so much kicking around, so much abuse, so much injustice, and then you have to retaliate. The agents’ guns were suddenly toys in the perspective of Randolph’s risen anger. He felt ten feet tall. He jumped up and his chair crashed over.

Then the shotgun nudged his short ribs roughly, and he got himself under control. He said, “Now I think much less of you, too.”

“Then we understand each other. We have enough on you already to put you away for life. Just as a starter, Baruch and Henrietta Smetana left the Project on the same day you did. They eluded agents assigned to them for security reasons. You were known to be friendly with Henrietta. You may have fooled Smetana, but he had other worries on his mind. Anyway, you don’t have to love a woman, to conspire with her against your own government.”

“What?”

“You left a trail as obvious as elephant spoor. You all showed up here at Santo Tomas. It all boils down to an attempt to extort a half-million bucks from the United States, using the Atomic Weapons Reward Act. You and Henrietta and Suarez and Smetana were all in it together.”

“Stupidity,” Randolph said slowly, “must be one of the requirements for your job. As a Federal officer, I couldn’t sell the government that kind of information for anykind of money — it’s written into the law.”

“You found a way to get your share. We know that a man telephoned the Project with the same information that Henrietta had one hour after she called. That was you.”

“I wasn’t here then. That should indicate to even a feeble mind that I wasn’t involved in her plan.”

“It doesn’t really matter, I guess,” Burkett said heavily. “You already have a record of connivance — with Gomez here. You left Customs under a cloud. You’ve proven you can’t be trusted — not even with another man’s wife. Your kind will do anything for money. You were trying to cross up all your partners and collect it all for yourself. So why not confess?”

Randolph only stared at him. Then he shook his head in disgust at the utter wrongness of Burkett’s reasoning.

Into the silence that fell after Burkett’s question there came a growing rumble. The building shook and a little plaster fell. There was a hiss of escaping air, the crash of couplers. Old engine 1098 had arrived on the passing track beside the main line, directly in back of the Customs House. The old engine idled softly.

And with that overgrown truck engine sound in their ears, it formed a background for Vincente Gomez’ voice when he said:

“Gentlemen, Randolph may know something about this plot, but I think only I know the present location of the bomb.”

Burkett glared at Gomez. “Where the hell is it?”

“There is every reason to believe there is a plan to explode it in Phoenix. In a very few hours.”

He said it as calmly as though he was standing before a class of his policemen, giving them a problem in procedure. He couldn’t have been more coolly at ease.

Here in this century-old thick-walled building that had never had to stand up to a shock greater than that of an occasional stray .44 calibre bullet, it wasn’t easy to visualize the explosion Gomez so casually mentioned, an explosion that could reduce a city to rubble.

But it was getting slowly through to the men in the room. They moved uneasily. They stared at Gomez as though he was some kind of evil genie suddenly popped out of a bottle of smoke. Nobody said anything.

Then Burkett proved that at least others, didn’t share Randolph’s opinion of his intelligence. He said, “I am authorized to receive the kind of information you offer. I have come prepared to deal. With cash, up to a point.”

As if he had known it all the time, Gomez nodded. “Clear the room so we can talk.”

Burkett said, “All except. Randolph — leave.”

The office which, had seemed so crowded a moment before seemed almost empty when the others left it. Randolph said, “Why me?”

“You and Gomez are old friends. You might help us to reach a quick agreement.”

Randolph studied Gomez. Had Gomez been playing him for the sucker all along? Had he known where the bomb was all the time?

Subjugating these more personal questions to the greater need to locate the device, Randolph said, “There is only one quick way. How much do you want, jefe?”

Gomez said, “You were always abrupt.”

Burkett came away from the wall. “How much?” he asked.

Gomez stared thoughtfully out the window. Looking past his padded shoulders and sleek cap, Randolph could see a tall trainman made taller by the striped cap he wore as he walked into the lighted inspection area. He carried a lantern on his arm, a clip board in his hand.

Randolph knew the customs procedure. The trainman was calling for the customs releases and manifests for the train that had been made up in Mexico and pushed across earlier. The releases lay on the desk, tucked under a corner of the blotter holder. When Haynes pushed open the door, Randolph had them ready in his hand. Taking them, Haynes said, “You haven’t forgotten,” but wasn’t very friendly. His eyes told that much as he looked at these men who had usurped his office. He handed Randolph a switch list. “See if you remember where this goes,” he said, and walked out, his back very stiff.

Burkett exploded. “There isn’t a nickel’s worth of business done at this border station all day long, but the minute we have something like this, it’s like the Rose Bowl field after the game.”

Randolph placed the switch list in the top desk drawer with the rest of the day’s small business. Reflecting that men came and went but customs procedures rarely changed without an act of Congress, he came back around.

And now Gomez was ready to negotiate. He said, “It will be no holdup. I feel a moral obligation to tell all that I know.” He paused there, head to one side, eyes alert on Burkett.

“Then talk,” Burkett prodded.

“On the other hand,” Gomez said, “Why should I pass up a chance at a little money?”

“How much?” Burkett asked again.

“Nothing at all like the half-million the woman wanted.”

“Tell the man.” Randolph’s own patience was wearing thin.

“Say ten percent of the five thousand.”

Burkett stared at Randolph. “I misjudged you. I apologize.”

“Don’t do it,” Randolph said. “I’ll have to take back all the ugly things I’ve thought about you.”

“You wouldn’t settle for so little. Fifty-thousand bucks is the figure named by a man who called the Project an hour after Henrietta did.”

Gomez said, “I called.”

“Well,” Burkett said, “pending the arrival of a representative of the Atomic Energy Commission, I have the power to negotiate.”

“Inside one hour,” Gomez said, “the bomb will probably be on its way. Inside five or six more, it will be in position. Only Suarez and I know where it is now, or where it will be then.”

“Let’s get on with it.”

Gomez turned to the door and they went outside in that order: Gomez first, then Burkett, then Randolph. The engine of the locomotive behind the customs house idled noisily, ready to pull out with the string of dark cars behind it. Five, Randolph noted, plus the caboose, which was backed up against the international gate.

He was thinking that in the ordinary manner, it would take weeks of waiting for a sum of money with which to pay an informer’s fee. He wondered if Burkett actually had money, or was he bluffing?

Gomez said, “This is no different than before, Juanito. I gave you information, and you gave me money for it. You might say that you showed me how to do it.”

Randolph couldn’t keep some of the tough hardness he felt out of his voice. “What the hell was all that other routine? The questions at the Alhambra? The search in the machine shop?”

Gomez was standing directly under one of the overhead lights. A film of sweat showed on his face, attesting to strain upon him. Light picked out glints of gold from his polished insignia.

“Like Henrietta, I had to find out if you were sent to interview her. I had to find out what she had told you. But until you saw the uranium scraps, I wasn’t even sure a bomb had actually been made. Now I am. Now I think I know where Suarez is.”

“You must have known Suarez killed Henrietta. How much more do you know? You must have been closer to him or her than you’ve led me to believe.”

Gomez shrugged. “Who knows for sure, what goes on in the mind of a madman? He wants to go down in history, maybe. These Cuban communistas are all mad. Or maybe this is a part of some great plan. Who knows?”

“And you know where El Cubano is now?” Burkett asked.

“With the bomb.”

“Well, where is it?”

Gomez turned slowly, raising his arm to point. Almost as though it was a signal, the tram began to move. Slack came crashing up between the couplers. Randolph hunched his shoulders against the startling clamor.

Gomez suddenly stepped against Burkett, who staggered under the impact. Gomez fell at Burkett’s feet.

Burkett and Randolph stared down at him. There was blood on the front of Burkett’s suit; there was blood spreading away from Gomez’ body.

When you’ve seen death a few times in its various forms; when you’ve seen the sudden pallor, the half-closed eyes, the silent, jointless form, you don’t need to feel a pulse or listen for a heartbeat to know.

And Randolph knew that in that brief moment of looking at and pointing to the noisy train, Vincent Gomez had been shot.

The winking lights on the caboose were growing smaller. The sound of the engine was fading, and the blast of the farewell whistle was ragged on the breeze.

Burkett said, “That shot came from the train.” His voice was as steady as though dead men at his feet were an every day occurrence.

Randolph had another thought which he did not want to put into words. Gomez had been standing between him and the train. Could the bullet that killed Gomez have been meant for him?

Burkett said, “When Gomez was hit and stumbled against me, his mouth was close to my ear. He said something that started out with a sibilant sound and ended with something that sounded like siete.”

“Seven. Could it have been part of a car number?” Randolph asked.

“Could have been.”

Somewhere close at hand a motor started and gears ground as an early trucker prepared to hit the road. The cool breeze seemed suddenly icy to Randolph, who started to trot back to the customs office.

Burkett was right behind him as he stepped through the doorway into the office. Randolph jerked open the top desk drawer, pulled out the switch list, and scanned it.

Haynes, coming in, protested. “There were only five cars. Cantaloupes. Me and the agriculture inspector looked at them early today.”

Randolph showed the list to Burkett. His thumb was under a car number. “Could that have been it?”

Burkett said, “Yes. What’s it’s place in the train?”

“Just ahead of the caboose.”

“It would have been located about right.” Randolph looked at Haynes. “Did you look into the ice bunkers?”

“Sure, nothing in them but ice.”

Burkett looked slightly puzzled. Randolph explained: “At each end of the car is a compartment into which ice is loaded through hatches in the roof. Fans blow from the ice into the body of the car and cool the load.”

Burkett put the question: “Did you look under the ice, Haynes?”

“No. Why should I?”

Randolph picked up the phone, and after a short delay, got the Mexican freight depot on the line. He asked the sleepy agent: “Have you moved a PFE 72127 out of the Taller Mecanico in the last few days?”

The answer came abruptly. “In and out. Iced this afternoon. Crossed it this evening. Who’s calling?”

Randolph hung up gently. “That car was in Suarez’ shop for awhile.”

“Let’s go,” said Burkett, “and let’s go carefully. The man who shot Gomez is dangerous.”

Haynes complained bitterly that he would be missing the excitement because duty kept him at the custom house. But there was nothing to hold Randolph.

Burkett chose to ride with him. “You don’t have to get involved any deeper in this.”

Randolph said, “I just want to show you how wrong you are, thinking that I’m mixed up in it any way.”

“Lots of things pointed at you. For instance, uranium was missing from the Project. Some day we’ll learn how it was smuggled out. The loss was discovered almost immediately. Two things helped us: it had vanished apparently the same day you, Smetana, and Henrietta left. They never got to New York where they were due. Nobody knew where you were until I saw you here, but you were high on the suspect list. We had to work fast. There was no time, for investigation. So don’t blame me too much for jumping you.”

Randolph said, “Forget it,” watching the yellow strip of dusty road reel up under the wheels of his hurrying vehicle. “The immediate question is — where to stop the train?”

“On the road to the Papago village that lies out there along the border?” Burkett waved his hand toward the east.

“Yes. We race the train to the crossing. We park on the track and hope it stops in time.”

“They’ll stop,” Burkett promised, “if I have to blow the engineer off his seat with a shotgun.”

That kind of action was not necessary. The train was crawling at a bare five miles per hour as it approached the crossing.

Burkett, with Randolph, questioned the crew while the other men went over the train from head to rear end, with ready guns and strong flashlights. They found no one.

“If the assassin was on this train,” Burkett finally concluded, “He got off. And for all we know he could be out there in the brush with us in his sights right now.”

He looked at Randolph.

It gave Randolph a creepy feeling. Of them all, he probably had the greatest reason to believe the gun sights might be trained on him. He was conscious of his vulnerability when he joined the agents as they swarmed all over car PFE 72127 like harvester ants in an ant hill.

They tossed chunks of ice from the bunkers to the ground in complete disregard for the preservation of Crown Produce Distributor’s valuable load of sweet-smelling cantaloupes.

They found no atom bomb. They found nothing that remotely resembled one.

But after they had removed the ice from the head-end bunker, they did find something not normally kept in such a place.

They found Smetana’s body.

All of his fingers had been broken. His toes were flattened as though they had been beaten and smashed with a hammer. There was a small blue hole in the middle of his ice-cold forehead. The back of his head was a mass of hair and clotted frozen blood.

“He didn’t give away any secrets voluntarily,” Burkett said.

Randolph could also acknowledge that. He could also remember what he knew and what he had heard of the beatings, humiliations, and mental tortures to which Smetana had subjected Henrietta during their married life.

They wrapped Smetana in a blanket from the caboose, laid him on the ice in which he had been entombed. He was frozen so stiff that it indicated he had been that way for some little time.

“He was an unpleasant man,” Randolph said. “We had standing orders never to speak to him, when he came into any of the areas we guarded. His mind was always ’way out. He would have any man fired who disturbed his calculations.”

He wished he knew more about what had transpired after Smetana had entered Santo Tomas. He wished Gomez had lived to tell. Now they might never know who shot the scientist.

Burkett dispatched an agent into San Manuel for a driver and a pickup to transport Smetana’s body back to Santo Tomas. Burkett signed a release for the conductor, warning the crew to remain available for questioning. Then the late train moved out fast to meet its schedule.

In the gray light of that quiet day’s dawn they unloaded the entire car of its cargo. Clear to the duckboards on the floor. Long before they had lifted out and examined the last crate, Randolph had given in to a growing despair.

But Burkett put it into words. “Somewhere we have misread our leads. We’re off on a side trail into a box canyon.”

They were standing, dirty, damp, and disheveled, beside the track. There was suddenly nothing more to be done. Burkett was gloomy. His investigation was collapsing around him.

“Here we stand,” he said, “in the middle of the great Indian reservation, with our fingers up our noses and somewhere a madman has control of a blast maybe big enough to hoist a hundred and fifty thousand people into outer space.”

“There is radio,” Randolph said. “Pass the word. A massive net could be thrown around Phoenix with Army and Air Force personnel. A search could be made of every conveyance from a baby carriage to a Diesel tanker.”

“And aircraft?”

“Those, too.” Randolph studied the railroad car. “And this. Those are thick walls. There could be spaces hollowed out between them in the insulation.” He looked down at the heavy tracks. “It may be possible for a clever machinist to design a device that would look like a part of the rolling gear. Have them leave the car here, Burkett, and ask for someone with detection instruments to go over it.”

“I’m away ahead of you there,” Burkett said. “I radioed a request when we were at Santo Tomas. Technicians are on the way.”

There was nothing more for them here. They loaded Smetana into a pickup truck that the agent had commandeered. A shiny-faced fat Papago driver had no words and no interest in the blanket-wrapped body. He took off toward Santo Tomas. The pickup clattered tinnily over the washboard road with its tailgate chains rattling loudly in this quiet desert dawn.

An early trucker, wheeling a tarpaulin-covered one-and-a-half ton stake truck, thumped slowly over the railroad crossing in the pickup’s dust. The discouraged men standing by the unloaded car could hear both vehicles for a long time.

Now the agents could load themselves into vehicles and depart. For Randolph, again alone with Burkett, there was a vision of a long cold shower and twelve hours of sleep.

“Somebody is going to be unhappy about those cantaloupes,” he said.

“Don’t bother me with details,” Burkett said. “They are the least of my worries.”

Randolph had an idea of the way Burkett felt. This just wasn’t the kind of job you worked at for eight hours and then walked off and forgot.

The early morning sun was laying its orange paint and blue shadows across the land. The smell of stirred dust along with the background odors of mesquite and creosote bush came through the open window. Randolph drove around a long bend in the road. Ahead was the big tarpaulined stake body truck, using all of the road. It pulled slowly over at the command of Randolph’s horn.

Yellow dust coated the russet tarp and lay deep in its folds. And Randolph, as automatically as any law enforcement officer, noticed the, license plate as they drove by, and was more interested in it.

Once ahead, he found himself still thinking about that license plate. For one thing, it was a Sonora plate. For another, its numbers were S 6-65-67. He said them to himself again, in Spanish, In either language, they were a mouthful of sibilants. Ending in seven.

He was abruptly wide awake. He sat up straighter, startling Burkett, who was dozing. Burkett said, “Bee sting?”

“We’ve got to stop that truck.”

“What for?”

“Did you see the license?”

“With my eyes closed?” Randolph repeated it slowly. Burkett looked at him sharply.

Randolph said, “We assumed Gomez was shot from the train. We overlooked the fact that the train was backed up to the fence. The shot could have come from Mexico. I heard a truck starting up immediately after the sound of the shot. It could have been this one—”

“How?”

“It could have rolled east out of Santo Tomas along the fence. Then there is a locked gate south of San Manuel, but the Border Patrol is always finding the lock cut. The Papagos don’t like to have to come clear to Santo Tomas to cross the border if they happen to want to go south in a hurry.”

Randolph’s eagerness reached Burkett. He said, “To any sane man, it sounds like a straw. But at this point I’m grasping for them. We can try.”

So Randolph chose a site a hundred yards from the Santo Tomas junction to set up his road block. It was on a little knoll. They got out, two determined men, and waited for the oncoming truck in the freshness of this quiet morning.

Their shadows lay long in the dust behind them. Here in the road, Randolph thought, may lie the destiny of a city. Of a country. Or of the world.

The roaring sound of the truck’s exhaust preceded it. As it lurched through chuckholes like an awkward elephant, great gouts of yellow dust were splashed up and over it. It came on and on, and when it stopped, the radiator was right up against Randolph’s vehicle.

The only occupant of the cab was a skinny man with an olive complexion and shiny black hair and busy dark eyes. He wore black coveralls, and resembled a ghoul in work clothes.

“Suarez?” Randolph said. The man fit Gomez’ description.

Burkett acted as though he knew exactly what he was going to do. He jerked open the truck door and covered the driver with his shiny, short-barrelled revolver.

The only thing was — the driver knew what he was going to do, too. He held in his hand the kind of push-button used by bed patients in hospitals. Two thin wires extended from it back into the truck.

He spoke English, not so poorly that he couldn’t be clearly understood.

“I am Suarez,” he said proudly.

“Put the gun at my feet.”

When Burkett hesitated, he lifted his hand high, so they could see his thumb quivering a fraction of an inch above the push button.

“Now!” he commanded.

There on the yellow ribbon of San Manuel road through the green mesquite country, all time stood still.

To Randolph, who was eight feet behind and to the left of Burkett, unarmed, came the sound of the slow wind sobbing through the trees, carrying up from Mexico the warmth and perfume of hundreds of miles of sun-soaked earth, oak knolls, and pine canyons. The whirling columns of dust devils danced sedately in the blue distances.

From the Santo Tomas road there came the faint sound of a passing automobile engine. It was only a whimper, but it served to remind Randolph that he and Burkett were not alone with this madman.

A world full of people could feel, in one way or another, the result of whatever action took place here on this lonesome southern desert. A global war could conceivably be started. Or stopped.

A sense of destiny welled strongly in Randolph. So must it have been with Burkett.

The burning question in Burkett was whether to call this man’s bluff, gambling that he would not commit suicide in order to kill them; whether to shoot him, gambling that the bullet would reach him before he could energize the bomb; or whether, by capitulating, to gamble that greater forces could surround and stop the truck before it left this vast, sparsely populated, desert country where it could do little damage even if it did explode.

Burkett took the last alternative. Even as he bent to lay the gun at Suarez’ feet, Randolph’s lips were forming the words for a great shout: “Shoot him Burkett!”

For by Randolph’s calculations, only Burkett, Randolph, and Suarez knew that the bomb actually existed in this truck. Therefore it was mandatory for Suarez to eliminate them.

In the space of time that it took Burkett to realize his mistake and belatedly reach for the gun, Suarez scooped it up and shot him. Burkett fell against the truck and then slumped, into the dust.

Randolph had begun his move even when Burkett was reaching for the gun. The revolver blasted its bits of blinding, burning powder into his face. The bullet struck into the top of his shoulder, emerged under the scapula, and hammered him to the ground.

Falling partly across Burkett, shocked and numb, he lay wholly still. Blood streamed warm into his clothes, dripped into the yellow dust to mingle with Burkett’s. Faintly, as through deafness, he heard the sound of his car’s engine. It labored, and its wheels spun deeper in sand as it was driven off the road and out of sight, no doubt, and finally the engine died altogether. Then there was a long time of nothing, then he sensed that Suarez was studying him, and he held his breath.

Then strong wiry hands grasped his wrists and pulled him through the dust, to be unceremoniously dumped at the base of a mesquite beyond the edge of the road. These things seemed to be happening to someone else, while he himself huddled in a dingy corner and nursed his pain. Instinctively, he did nothing to show the hurrying Suarez that he still lived. His breathing slowed and almost stopped.

A heavy weight held him pinned. The truck’s idling engine roared. Randolph heard the crunching if its heavy wheels in the road, the open-mouthed bark of its exhaust. He got hands under his chest and pushed mightily, the pain in his shoulder like a streak of fire. Strength within him surprised him; he was also surprised that the weight on him had been Burkett’s body, which now slid off and lay limp, mouth and eyes half-opened.

A few yards away, glimpsed through the close leaves of the mesquites, the truck moved slowly on as it passed through the low range of gears.

Randolph took a few stumbling steps forward. In motion, despite the pain in his shoulder, he could feel better. And he could run.

He could not see well. He set a dogged course through the mesquite. It took him along the base of a triangle formed by the two roads. His vision, impaired by powder burns, was not adequate to show him the catclaw and prickly pear through which he was running. Cactus speared him, forming a diversionary pain for that which already seared his shoulder.

He ran, head down and panting, falling and getting up again, as he had never run before. He felt his compressed lungs reach for air, but they did it without his volition. He knew vaguely that if he could keep going, could move fast enough, he could reach the Santo Tomas road when the truck was making the angle of the triangle.

It was the longest football field he had ever had to run. It was like running its full length through all eleven men of the opposition, plus at least half of the substitutes from the bench. And the roaring in his ears became the cheering of the crowd, on its feet now and urging him on as the white H of the goal posts loomed before him.

Then abruptly it wasn’t the football field, not the tackling players, not even the goal posts. It was a dust-filled road, it was a stinking roaring exhaust, it was the square rear of a waddling, tarp-covered truck moving just beyond the reach of his finger tips, and the H was formed by the white cotton rope that held the trap from being blown off in the wind of the truck’s own making.

Somehow he got his fingers under the rope. Someway he got another hand up higher, taking giant strides as the truck pulled him along. With a great reserve of strength he pulled himself up, got a foot on the edge of the bed of the truck, laid his arms on the canvas top, and hoisted himself to it.

The touchdown had been made.

The roaring crowds were there again, heard dimly as he gasped for breath, and each breath a searing pain in his chest. His team mates were jumping up and down around him gleefully, big thunderous men whose weight moved and stirred the hot earth under him.

Dust was in his nostrils...

Then there was no dust. Only heat.

The earth had stopped rocking.

He was aware that there had been noise. Now there was quiet. The sky above was an empty blue void except for the burning pinpoint that was the sun.

Into his awareness crept a swishing sound, growing in volume until it seemed that hell had broken violently loose directly over him. Then, so close he could almost touch it, a T33 jet trainer blurred across his vision. On one wing he read dimly: “USAF.” As the sound of its passage diminished, he heard a wild cursing below him. In Spanish.

Another swishing roar began. He propped up on his elbows, conscious of coming up out of a tremendous bed of pain, and saw another T33 beginning its run.

Memory flooded back. He knew now that he was on a dusty trap over a stake truck, and that the stake truck contained a cargo of wholesale death. Further than that, he saw the truck was on that part of the Santo Tomas road north which passed through a diabolical upthrust black mass of burnt jagged rock in which lay a small valley the Air Force used as a gunnery range.

He knew that the jets passing over weren’t making runs on the truck, but on the range three miles beyond.

When the next jet swished across with its spine-shivering sound, Randolph hitched himself to the edge of the truck and looked over. Suarez was squatted on the ground below him, his head turning to follow the jet’s path. The cursing was coming from him.

He wasn’t a large man. He was thin to the point of emaciation. He wouldn’t weigh a hundred thirty-five, Randolph judged.

Suarez had the push button in his hand. What, Randolph wondered, was he going to do with it? Bomb a jet?

He hitched himself closer to the edge of the truck. He went over the side in a tight ball, oblivious to pain, oblivious to everything but the necessity to flatten this dangerous subvert who so obviously thought that the swooping jets were directing their efforts at him and the truck.

Primary in Randolph’s reasoning, what there was of it, was the fact that he himself was lying right on top of the impending explosion. Suarez, turning on his heels, was calculating the approach of the next jet with his thumb white-knuckled on the push-button. His wild startled upturned look found Randolph as the big man left the solidity of the truck for the infirmity of the air, dropping down like the two-hundred-pound weight that he was.

He felt the give of Suarez’ squatted, doubled-up thin body under him. He heard his wild scream. He felt the terrible shock of the landing, and then he was blasted on a wave of excruciating pain back into the unconsciousness from whence he had come...

He fought the hands on him until the sound of soothing voices got through to him. He saw a familiar face and found a name to put to it: Haynes.

Haynes said, “They won’t be letting anybody talk to you for awhile, so listen good. A helicopter is setting down over there—” he gestured with his chin “—to take you to the base hospital.”

Then that was the noise he heard — like the beating of a buzzard’s wings, heard from afar in a still place. Except that this was amplified a thousand times.

There were others near, but it hurt him to move even his eyeballs. He concentrated on Haynes.

Somebody threw back the tarp on the truck, and dust fell on his face. Haynes said, “Watch what you’re doing up there!” and gently brushed the dust away while a voice floated down from above, “Sorry.”

Then Haynes said, “When the FBI boys pulled in at the customs house and you and Burkett didn’t show up right away, I went along to see what was keeping you. I saw the blood on the side of the road, and we found Burkett’s body. I read the marks, followed your bloodtrail and footprints, guessed a lot, and we started north. We got here a few minutes after a truckload of technicians. They’re having a field day with the bomb. They had been so close that they saw you take your plunge off the truck onto Suarez. And Suarez talked. He’s over there, with his back broken and his chest caved in. He won’t live.”

A tall man in Air Force uniform was approaching, carrying a black kit. His cool fingers went gently to work on Randolph, who never felt the hypo through his other pains.

Haynes said, “Suarez is afraid that history may never know what he tried to do. So he talked. He had known Henrietta in Havana. There he had been one of Castro’s early underground aides. She was an AEC secretary, on vacation. When she came back to the United States she wrote to him with her scheme to make a fortune. He met her once in Juarez, again in Nogales. Then she married Smetana.”

And the overall plan, Randolph saw now, was what had made her stay with Smetana, no matter what he did to her.

Haynes continued. “Finally, she got him down to Santo Tomas, where Suarez was waiting. But Smetana wouldn’t cooperate. Except that she knew what to do. How she must have hated him! She tortured him until he told them how to build the bomb. After it was built, she shot him. She threatened Suarez, too, who had been waiting until the bomb was finished to tell her he wanted to use it in what he termed a try for world peace. He was fox-crazy. She saw that. She needed help. Gomez was the man to give it to her. Suarez, suspecting she would try to cross him, unloaded the bomb from the railroad car and put it in the truck. He planted Smetana’s body in the ice bunker and called the railroad company and told them to come and get the car. Then a chance to get rid of Henrietta came along. He had already planned to bomb her.

All he had to do was plant some dynamite last night when she was with you. When she stepped on the starter, she blew herself up. Knowing that Gomez would take over her scheme, Suarez drove the truck to an isolated garage. It was bad luck for him that as he later approached the border gate en route to the road that follows the fence down to San Manuel gate, he saw Gomez. He couldn’t be sure Gomez hadn’t seen him, and if he had, Gomez would figure the bomb might be in the truck. So Suarez parked near the railroad track and got out and moved up along the train — he was skinny enough to slide under the gate — and tried to get in close enough to where he could hear what was being said. When Gomez came out and pointed at the train, Suarez thought if they didn’t find anything on the train, Gomez would remember the truck. So he gambled and shot when the train moved out, using the gun Henrietta had used on Smetana. He dropped it and lost it in the darkness. Then he went on to the San Manuel gate, crossed into the United States, and the rest you know.”

The doctor finished, waved in two men with a stretcher, and they loaded Randolph on it. The hypo was taking effect now, making him hazy. He had a thought, even a pitying one, for doomed Suarez, to whom a human life was nothing.

The doctor said, “Only a few people will ever know what happened here until some time later. Even the knowledge of what happened might start the war the world is trying to avoid. And the world,” he added thoughtfully, “will go on owing Randolph an awful lot it can never repay.”

Before he drifted off into the haziness, Randolph heard Haynes say, “Take care of him, Doc. He’s on the way to becoming a national hero of some sort. See to it that he lives to enjoy it.”