Mr. Polkinghorn could see the newspaper headline: NOTED MYSTERY WRITER SOLVES POLICE PROBLEM IN REAL LIFE. It was a cinch for a man with a trained deductive mind who had no less than ten clues.

Mr. Amos Polkinghorn, 49, Creator of Daniel Dean, Ace Detective (whose cases no lending library would be without), walked down the driveway of his suburban home one morning to peer up the street for the mailman. The mailman was not even on the horizon. Mr. Polkinghorn, walking back, was very much startled to see, on the edge of the glass curtains in the window next door, a set of fingers.

This was odd, because the house next door was empty. The family was away.

The fictional Daniel Dean would have taken this without the quiver of an eyelash. But Mr. Polkinghorn found his own mouth dry, his knees weak, his heart flopping. He staggered to refuge within his front door and took a full minute to get his breath before he called the police.

Nor, during the interval before they came, could he think of a single clever ruse. Meanwhile, the mailman appeared. Mr. Polkinghorn did absolutely nothing to warn the mailman. He watched (taking care not to let his own fingers or any other part of him show at his window) as the mailman went up upon the Arnolds� porch, put the letters in the slot, and returned to the sidewalk as safely as usual. Mr. Polkinghorn, much relieved, reminded himself that he, Mr. Polkinghorn, was actually doing all a citizen is expected to do; that it was only his occupation that engendered this self-reproach and made him feel that he ought to have disguised himself as the mailman. Or something.

By the time the police came, in the shape of a couple of men in plain clothes, Mr. Polkinghorn had managed to work himself into an attitude of intrepid curiosity more becoming to a well-known mystery-story writer. He observed that the plainclothesmen had no ruse. They marched around, found the Arnolds� back door unlocked, and nobody in the house.

On the kitchen table, however, was a big fat clue. The situation suddenly developed a certain piquancy.

The police officers� names were Conners and Farley. They knew who Mr. Polkinghorn was, and what he did, and they didn�t mind telling him all they knew about this real-life mystery. In fact, Mr. Polkinghorn noted within himself, the situation was classic. The regular police were presenting the amateur criminologist with a pretty little problem.

Mr. Polkinghorn sat at the Arnolds� kitchen table and listened, lifting his somewhat snub nose in unconscious longing for the hawklike profile of his figment of the imagination, Daniel Dean.

Conners said, �Well, sir, this plain cloth cap was made and worn in the State Prison. No doubt about that. Now, ten days ago, three convicts escaped. The alarm�s still out. But we know what happened to two of them. Seems, one night a week ago, two men showed up in a boatyard upshore a ways and knocked down a fella fussing with his sailboat. The fella didn�t get a good look, but he knew they were convicts, all right, from what he heard them say. So the convicts took the boat and went off into the Sound. Boat capsized in a quick squall. Witnesses to the wreck searched all night, but found no bodies. Haven�t found them yet. But those two couldn�t have made it to shore. So we know that two of those three men got themselves drowned. Now, sir, according to the evidence of this cap, the third escaped convict must have holed up in this house for the last week or so. Question is, which one was he?�

�This matters?� said Mr. Polkinghorn, casting a keen glance upward. �Yes, I see.�

�Matters, because if you got the alarm out for, a man, it�s better to know who the man is,� said Farley. He was youngish and had a nice Irish grin.

�Very interesting.� Mr. Polkinghorn pursed his lips.

�You saw his fingers less than forty minutes ago. He couldn�t have got very far. Maybe he�ll be picked up. Then again, maybe not.� Conners implied vast police machinery in motion. �Be easier if we knew which one we were looking for.�

�One ought,� said Mr. Polkinghorn thoughtfully, �to be able to deduce that.� The two policemen were respectfully silent. �How did he dare hide in this house? How did he know it was empty and would remain empty?� mused Mr. Polkinghorn, his wits beginning to work in familiar grooves.

Conners said, �Because this Mrs. Arnold, she pinned a note on the back door for the milkman. Here it is. Says: �No milk for ten days.� Says: �Back Tuesday, the tenth.� �

�And that�s tomorrow,� Farley said. �The man could read, I guess.�

�A reasonable deduction,� said Mr. Polkinghorn exhibiting Daniel Dean�s most charming smile.

�Well, we got the Arnolds on the phone and they�re hurrying right back. Be here in a coupla hours. Probably they can tell us if anything�s missing, for instance.�

�It�s quite possible,� said Mr. Polkinghorn, �that in the meantime we can discover something. I doubt very much, gentlemen� � he was talking just like Daniel Dean, he couldn�t help it � �whether a man can remain in a house for a week�s time and leave no traces of his personality. We should be able to find those traces. That is, if you can tell about the personalities of these three convicts.�

�Tell you what we know?� said Conners. �Sure.�

Mr. Polkinghorn took out pencil and paper. He was thrilled and happy. He saw the publicity already. Noted Mystery Writer Solves Police Problem in Real Life. �It was,� he could hear himself saying with a twisted smile, �elementary.�

�One of them,� said Conners, �was named Mario Cossetti. Age 29. Caucasian. Five foot five. 155 pounds. Dark hair, dark eyes. Dark complexion. Artificial right foot. Lost foot in action � navy man. Up for armed robbery. This the kind of thing you mean?�

�Precisely,� said Mr. Polkinghorn, scribbling delightedly. �Anything more about his background?�

�New York City. Lower East Side. Never finished high school.�

�Very good.�

�Yeah. Well, then there was Glenway Sparrow. Age 42. Caucasian. Five foot eleven. 125 pounds. Gray eyes, gray hair.� Conners warmed up to this work. �Never in the service. 4-F. Ex-editor, College man. Up for conspiracy to defraud. A con man, from way back. I hear,� said Conners in a gossipy fashion, �Glen was real mad at the Judge. Also, he�s supposed to be mean and brainy and nervous about his health.�

Mr. Polkinghorn was making neat columns out of this information.

�Third fella was Matthew Hoose. Age 24. Six foot one. 195 pounds. Red hair, blue eyes. Had two years service in the army, where his record is only fair. Went up for manslaughter. Fight in a bar. Comes from Kentucky. Unemployed at time of arrest. Just an unlucky kid, I guess.�

�What do you say, Mr. Polkinghorn?� Farley grinned. �Maybe I should have asked, what Daniel Dean would say.�

Mr. Polkinghorn rose. He was expanding, happily at home in the safe province of the inquiring mind. �Daniel Dean would look around the house,� he announced. �May I?�

Mr. and Mrs. Arnold, with their boy, Bob, and their little girl, Ginny, had gone down to the seashore for Mr. Arnolds� two weeks vacation. They had long been very pleasant neighbors to Mr. Polkinghorn. Just an ordinary suburban family. Not, of course, his intimates, for they were hardly intellectuals, and besides, they were no fans of Daniel Dean. Nor was there anything about them to make fodder for Mr. Polkinghorn�s imagination. Nods and good mornings passed over the hedge, amiable agreements about shoveling snow, and so on. Mr. Polkinghorn had never before set foot in this house.

Now, however, he prowled through it, through every room, with his eyes darting, his brain buzzing furiously. It was a big old rambling house, stuffed full of all kinds of objects, and the tour took Mr. Polkinghorn some time.

At last, however, he sat down again in a kitchen chair and spread his notes on the kitchen table. Farley was already sitting down, yawning a little. Conners, who had trailed Mr. Polkinghorn and stimulated him to lip-pursing and eye-rolling by his stolid presence, now sat down too. These policemen had to wait for the Arnolds� return, anyhow. They were quite willing to listen when Mr. Polkinghorn looked up from rearranging his notes.

�It is a nice little problem,� he announced. �A very nice one indeed.�

�Whatja find?� said Farley sleepily.

�What,� said Mr. Polkinghorn somewhat dramatically, �do you make of that?� He indicated a small dirty scrap of paper on which something had been written in blurring worn pencil marks.

Tom may let ida po but asp san bag.

Farley picked it up and read off the nonsense syllables. �Wherja get this?�

�Under a chair. How did they escape from that prison?� snapped Mr. Polkinghorn, in Daniel Dean�s crisp voice. �With outside assistance?�

Conners stared.

�This code message,� said Mr. Polkinghorn shrewdly, �must have served a purpose.� They both stared at him respectfully. �I suggest it belonged to Sparrow,� said Mr. Polkinghorn. �Why? Because he was the brains. I think we may say that if there was a code message from the outside, it would have gone to Sparrow. However,� he went on, joyfully dragging in the red herring just as he would have done in Chapter Two, �on the bookshelf in the living room there is a cotton sock. Perhaps you noticed it? New, clean, never worn. One blue-and-white cotton sock.� He paused. They didn�t respond. �Why only one?� prodded Mr. Polkinghorn. �Did Cossetti, the one-footed man, help himself to one clean sock to comfort his living foot? Not bothering about the artificial one?�

�See what you mean,� said Conners, though somewhat doubtfully.

�Not conclusive at all, of course,� said Mr. Polkinghorn. �Although I find two more slight indications that point to Cossetti.�

�How many indications you got there?� inquired Conners amiably.

�Ten,� said Mr. Polkinghorn. �Of which three point to Cossetti, one points possibly to Matthew Hoose, one may well eliminate him, and five of my little indications point, or so it seems to me, to Sparrow.�

�So you�d say it was Sparrow?�

Mr. Polkinghorn didn�t like people jumping to the end of the story. He liked the exposition for its own sake. �Let me continue,� he said, chidingly.

They were silent.

�Now, to go on with Cossetti,� he said. �You have noticed that on the kitchen counter, there, we see seven empty cans. Perhaps it is significant that they have not been thrown out to be collected. Perhaps the man who ate the contents of those seven cans did not wish them to be seen.� His listeners nodded. �All seven of those cans,� said Mr. Polkinghorn, �once held spaghetti.�

�Italian!� said Farley. �And that�s Cossetti.� He looked impressed.

�Exactly. Now, I did not care to touch it since its position may be significant, but under the dining-room table you may have noticed a long rope-like affair, made of neckties, knotted together.�

�Saw that,� said Conners. �What�s it for?�

Mr. Polkinghorn simply had been unable to imagine what it was for unless the unfortunate had thought of suicide � but surely not under the dining-room table! So he shrugged and said, �Whatever it is for, if you examined the knots, you saw that they are elaborate and all different. Whoever made that thing knew his knots. Didn�t you tell me this Cossetti was in the navy?�

Their faces were blank � stunned, he supposed. Mr. Polkinghorn cleared his throat. �But let us leave Cossetti for the moment and go on to Hoose. You noticed the empty liquor bottle? The only empty one? There is quite an ample and variegated supply in Mr. Arnold�s liquor closet. But the kind that has been most recently taken is... bourbon.�

�Kentucky!� said Farley. �Say, I�m getting on to this! What d�ya call it? Deducting?�

Mr. Polkinghorn was rather suspicious of the glance that now passed between the two plainsclothesmen. It had a wink-like quality. He went on somewhat loftily, deliberately abandoning the suspense hovering about Hoose. �To return to Sparrow. Now, none of the beds, as you undoubtedly noted, seem to have been disturbed. I can only imagine that the man, knowing himself to be hunted, preferred to snatch his sleep on the couch downstairs where he could more easily escape if anyone came. You remarked the afghan? The crushed pillows? Next to that long green couch in the living room you must have seen, on the coffee table, those two empty aspirin bottles. Isn�t it true that this man, Sparrow, was the only one of the three in less than robust health? He is the very thin man, the 4-F, the brainy, nervous, highstrung one. He would have been the one of the three to take aspirin.� Mr. Polkinghorn swam along, his confidence increasing. �Also, you may have noticed the pile of old magazines on the floor in there. The scissors? Did you notice that small pieces have been clipped out of those magazines? Did you not tell me that this Sparrow was angry at some Judge? Can you not imagine that he may have been composing an anonymous threat of some kind? Isn�t it a well-known dodge to clip the words of the message from a magazine?� Mr. Polkinghorn could see by their faces that this was not going down very well. �A flight of fancy, perhaps,� he said hastily, �but after all, the man was hiding here, all alone, and for so long a time. How did he occupy himself?�

�Eating spaghetti,� said Farley faintly.

�I�ll tell you what he did by daylight,� said Mr. Polkinghorn. �He read. And what did he read? He read some very highbrow, intellectual books. He read, for instance, The Secret History of the American Revolution. He read a large volume of William fames. Also, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.�

�How do you know?�

�Why, there are six such books on the living-room table, all out of obvious gaps in the shelf.� At this point Mr. Polkinghorn experienced a little bit of a qualm for he had never known and wouldn�t have suspected that his neighbors owned, let alone read, books like these. But he threw the fleeting and somewhat chastening enlightenment away. �The next to the last clue,� he pronounced, �is in the negative. It has to do with Arnold�s clothing. Mr. Arnold is a large man. Now, we do not find any clothing here that pertains to the State Prison, except that cap. It seems likely that our prisoner would have changed his prison-made garments for a suit of Mr. Arnold�s � if he could have. But he didn�t.�

�How do we know he didn�t?� demanded Conners.

�Where are the clothes he would have discarded?� asked Mr. Polkinghorn triumphantly. �Now remember those descriptions. Cossetti was short: five foot five. Couldn�t have worn Arnold�s clothes. And by the same token neither could Sparrow, who was so terribly thin. Hoose probably could have worn them. But nobody did. It wasn�t Hoose. Therefore.� To pronounce the word �therefore� at the end of a chain of reasoning was Daniel Dean�s trademark, and Mr. Polkinghorn used it with relish.

�How does it add up, again?� asked Conners, dubiously.

He�s lost, thought Mr. Polkinghorn complacently; don�t suppose he is a chess player.

�Ten points,� the mystery writer recapitulated, glancing at his own neat handwriting where the points were listed in columns under the three names. �The sock for his one foot, the spaghetti for his Italian taste, the knots in the rope of neckties for his sailor�s skill � these three point to Cossetti. But we must remember against Cossetti the fact that he, the sailor, might be the leader of the two unfortunates who stole, of all things, a boat.�

�Listen,� said Farley, rather apologetically, �they didn�t do so good with the boat. Also, Cossetti was on a battleship, which is not quite the same thing.�

�Now, the bourbon,� Mr. Polkinghorn went on blithely, �does point faintly toward Hoose. But the clothing that has not been discarded here points clearly away from him and cancels out the bourbon. Whereas� � he rapped the table with his pencil � �the code message, the highbrow reading matter, the clipped magazines, the aspirin bottles, all point to Sparrow. And this,� he said complacently, �seems to me to settle it.�

�What�s that, sir?�

�This,� said Mr. Polkinghorn, �comes from the green couch in the living room and is a gray hair. Hoose had red hair. Cossetti�s was black. But Sparrow has gray hair.� He leaned back, placing the pencil between his lips, and murmured, as Daniel Dean would have done, �Sparrow. Therefore.�

The two plainsclothesmen looked uneasy � in fact, unconvinced. Farley had his brows way up and his lids way down and the stretched, blank flesh where the eyes should have been looked skeptical indeed. Conners was actually squirming. �I think I hear a car,� he said. �Must be the Arnolds.�

Mr. Polkinghorn sat at the kitchen table, rolling the pencil in his lips. Ah, well, he was thinking, I�ve told them so. Therefore I can always say I told you so. Of all glad words � he paraphrased � de dum de dum, the gladdest are � I told you so. Ah, well, he�d enjoyed his trifling exercise. One could always make a pleasant little article out of it and turn a penny, and, of course, nonfiction was the thing today.

Then Farley broke his dream by coming back into the kitchen with Mr. Arnold, who smiled and hailed him. �Hi, neighbor! Got your fancy brains to working on this crime, I hear.�

�We�d like to know, sir...� Farley began.

�Don�t ask me, Sergeant,� said Mr. Arnold humorously. �Kitty�s roaring through the house.� They could, indeed, all hear rapid footsteps upstairs. �She and the kids will spot anything there is to spot. It�s no use asking me. I just pay the rent around here.� He sat down and lit a cigarette � a big careless easy-going man. Mr. Polkinghorn couldn�t help knowing that Mr. Arnold wasn�t shaken in the least by this affair. �Stranger than fiction, huh?� said Mr. Arnold genially. �Well, well...�

�I wonder,� said Mr. Polkinghorn, with an easy smile, �whether you could tell us about the bottle of bourbon.�

�I can�t stand bourbon,� said Arnold immediately.

�Then you did not empty that bottle?�

�Eh? Oh, that,� said Arnold. �Forgot to put it out in the trash can, didn�t I? Well, as I say, I can�t stand bourbon, myself, but a chap from my office dropped by, the night before we left � to pick up the threads, you know, while I was gone. He likes bourbon, so I got rid of it on him. Why?�

Polkinghorn drew his pencil across his list, under Hoose.

�What is all this?� said Arnold.

But Mrs. Arnold now came bursting through the swinging door. She was a plump little person with a great mass of chestnut hair that was not very tidy. She wore a cotton dress with a sweater over it. She had a pack of envelopes in her hand. �Fine bunch of mail, Jim,� she said to her husband, disgustedly. �It�s 90 per cent bills, as far as I can see. Oh, hello, Mr. Polkinghorn.� She gave him a museum-type look � she usually did � as if her prim, withdrawn, and solitary neighbor was a kind of exhibit. �I don�t see a thing gone,� she told the detectives, �except food. You say it was a criminal? Is he gone? Did you look in the cellar?�

�We looked, Ma�am,� said Farley. �None of your husband�s clothing is missing?� asked Mr. Polkinghorn briskly, concerned with his little list.

�I don�t think so,� she said. �His blue suit is at the cleaner�s. I asked them to hold it because he only needs that for business. What�?�

With a little confident smile, Mr. Polkinghorn was drawing a line across the name of Matthew Hoose.

�Sit down, Ma�am,� said Farley, �if you don�t mind, and let�s talk about this a little bit.�

�Right,� said Conners, who had come in after her.

�Okay,� she said. �I told Bobby to stay upstairs, but don�t think he won�t be listening behind the pantry door.� She dropped the mail on the table and clasped her hands. �What can I tell you?�

�The thing is, we�d like to know which escaped convict was in here.� Farley explained the little problem. �Now, Mr. Polkinghorn, he�s got some ideas...�

�Busman�s holiday? Ha, ha,� boomed Mr. Arnold.

Mr. Polkinghorn was frowning wisely at his notes. He spoke up in a businesslike voice. �First, I wish you would tell me if you can, what is the meaning of the rope of neckties?�

�What rope of neckties?� said Mr. Arnold, with a dropping jaw.

�The one under the dining-room table.�

�Bobby tied Ginny to the stake the day it rained,� said Mrs. Arnold pleasantly.

Her husband said, �With whose neckties?�

�Now, Jim, you said you wished somebody would take pity on your weakness. You know you can�t resist your favorite old ties even though the cleaner simply does not get them really clean. You said yourself...�

�You gave �em to Bob!�

�I couldn�t find any rope and he said he wanted to practice for his merit badge...�

�Knots,� said Farley. �Boy Scout, is he? Yeah.�

�I guess that takes care of my complex about my favorite old ties,� said Bob�s father, resignedly. And then to Mr. Polkinghorn, �What about them?�

But Mr. Polkinghorn was making another pencil line, under Cossetti, this time. �The one unused sock in the living room?� he inquired.

�Oh,� said Kitty Arnold in a minute, �you mean the fourth sock?�

�The fourth sock?� Mr. Polkinghorn had a brief vision of a four-legged man which he sternly dismissed.

�I made a rag doll for Ginny to take in the car, you know,� she explained. �It takes three dime-store socks. You know.� Mr. Polkinghorn didn�t know � he�d never heard of such a thing! �So, of course, the fourth was just left over. But,� she went on comfortingly, �if I�d had twelve socks and made four dolls, the way I did for the Bazaar, why, it would have come out even.� She beamed at them.

Mr. Polkinghorn was crossing off the sock. He was thinking that Cossetti was fading out of the picture nicely, and he was not at all displeased. �Just to clear this away,� he said, �tell me about those spaghetti cans.�

�Do that,� said Mr. Arnold. �Tell them, Kitty.�

Kitty Arnold�s plain face began to get pink.

�Seven cans,� said Mr. Polkinghorn, �and all spaghetti. Is this what the man ate, would you say?�

�Well, no,� she said, �I guess I will have to explain that. There was a church Supper � pot-luck, you know?� Mr. Polkinghorn didn�t know. �There wasn�t time,� Mrs. Arnold continued. �We were packing to go away. So I took spaghetti for my contribution, but it wasn�t homemade. I cheated,� she confessed. �Oh, I threw in a little seasoning and nobody knew the difference...�

�She�s just a fraud,� said her husband lovingly. �At the Church, too. At least, in the basement.� He chuckled.

Mrs. Arnold blushed deeper. �But the silliest thing was not to throw out all nine cans at once,� she told them. �I guess I felt kind of guilty, I was afraid somebody might � well � notice. So I threw two out and washed the rest... they are perfectly clean. But I thought I�d get rid of them later, two at a time.�

Mr. Arnold laughed heartily while Mr. Polkinghorn crossed off the third and last item under Cossetti and then his pencil came up and drew a line through that name. No logician on earth, Mr. Polkinghorn was thinking crossly, could have divined the real meaning of those spaghetti cans.

�What�d this man eat, then, Mrs. Arnold?� asked Farley.

�Meat, I guess,� she said. �And bread. I had at least two loaves in the freezer and the chopped meat looks awful low to me.�

�Listen,� said Mr. Arnold, �that doesn�t necessarily mean a thing. This family does away with one heck of a lot of hamburger.�

�We don�t seem to be getting anywhere with these points,� said Conners, throwing an impatient glance toward Mr. Polkinghorn. �Suppose you tell us what else you know about this man, Mrs. Arnold.�

�Oh, I�d say he slept in Bobby�s bed and read all Bobby�s comic books,� said Mrs. Arnold promptly.

�What makes you think that?�

�Because the bed�s so neat,� she replied. �The corners are made hospital style which I never bother to do. And so is the stack of comic books neat � neater than Bobby Arnold ever piled them.�

Mr. Polkinghorn shook his head, just slightly. It was almost a tremble. �May I go on, please?� he asked in Daniel Dean�s most silken voice. �Tell me, please, why are bits-clipped out of all those magazines?�

�Just Bobby,� she said. �I never saw such a boy for �sending away� for things.�

�Natural born sucker for coupons,� said Mr. Arnold.

�And Ginny collects rabbits,� said Mrs. Arnold. �Pictures of rabbits, that is. Ever since Easter. Nothings safe.�

Mr. Polkinghorn�s head had begun to swim � quite perceptibly. But he reminded himself, that his point about the clippings had really been very far-fetched. He drew a line through it, and pressed on. �Those aspirin bottles in the living room? Who put them there?�

�Jeepers,� said Kitty Arnold, casting her eyes down, �You are sure going to think I�m an awful sloppy housekeeper, Mr. Polkinghorn.�

�You put them there?� Mr. Polkinghorn began to feel a real alarm.

�They�re Jim�s,� she said. �He had the grippe a couple of weeks ago and nothing would do... he wasn�t going to stay upstairs in his bed and miss television. So he languished in there on the living-room couch. And I never did get around to throwing out those bottles. There�s an awful lot to keep throwing out around here. But why do you ask?�

Nobody answered. Mr. Polkinghorn marked the aspirin bottles off his list and then he raised the pencil and crossed off the clue of the gray hair, too. His neighbor, Jim Arnold, had a head of pepper-and-salt and there just was no reliable significance in... He looked with some dismay on the case for or against the man, Sparrow. There were only two points left. Two, out of them all. And nobody was speaking. Were the policemen embarrassed for him? He lifted his head and drove hard with the one point he had felt most certain about.

�Well,� he said with just the faintest sneer, �if our friend was upstairs reading comic books, who took out and read those six rather scholarly volumes on the living-room table?�

Mrs. Arnold began to giggle. �Well,� she said, controlling herself so that the giggles changed to mere dimples in her plump cheeks, �nobody was reading them, Mr. Polkinghorn. That is, not recently. You see...� She must have divined the chagrin Mr. Polkinghorn was feeling because she began to sound soothing. �If you knew the family better, Mr. Polkinghorn, and some of our habits... but then no stranger could. We have a little projector for throwing transparencies on the wall. Jim was showing some of them to the man from his office. The table�s just too low,� she said. �It takes those six thick books under the projector...�

�I... see,� said Mr. Polkinghorn, struggling not to seem as disgruntled as he was. Daniel Dean, himself, couldn�t have guessed there had been a projector! Impossible! �I suppose this is perfectly clear to you, too?� he said bitterly, and tossed her the last clue of all, the bit of paper with the mysterious symbols on it.

�This?� she said in a wondering tone. �Now where in the world did you find that?�

�Under a chair,� he said, gloomily.

�It�s an old one,� she said.

�An old what, Mrs. Arnold?� said Farley gently.

�What is it?� She looked at it closely. �Tomatoes, mayonnaise, lettuce, Idaho potatoes, butter, asparagus, sandwich bags,� she read off glibly. �Why, it�s a grocery list, of course. When did we have asparagus, Jim, and baked potat...?�

�Never mind.� Mr. Polkinghorn folded his list. He didn�t care to throw it away in this house. He thought she might giggle. Her husband might guffaw. He thought, crossly, the whole affair would make good fiction, at least. His clues should have meant something. If these people didn�t live in such a ridiculous giddy human kind of way...

�So,� said Farley thoughtfully, �we know nothing about this guy but that he reads comic books.�

�Who,� said Mr. Polkinghorn bitterly, �doesn�t?�

Mrs. Arnold sensed that here was some wound she didn�t fully understand. She had tact. She busied her fingers with the envelopes on the table before her. �Jim,� she said suddenly and indignantly, �that darned telephone company has done it again! We don�t know anybody in Paris, Kentucky, to call Long Distance.�

�What!� said Farley. �Lemme me.�

�If you�ll excuse me,� said Mr. Polkinghorn with a really gruesome smile. He went out the kitchen door and through the hedge and back to his sane, neat, lonely house.

Many cases are mysterious � but only rarely does one encounter a moment of pure mystery. Yes, there is a difference � as this charming tale reveals... a magic reminiscence.

The archdeacon had told us a ghost story, and as the polite murmurs of interest and appreciation died away our hostess threw a log on the fire. It was quite a small log, but nevertheless the action committed us to another sleepy, even if tolerably comfortable, half hour. And this prompted one of the younger people to a question the precise phrasing of which was perhaps a shade lacking in tact. �And now,� she asked, �couldn�t we have an exciting one?�

�A mystery story,� another girl said. �A murder in a sealed room, and then some frightfully cunning detection, and all ending in a terribly thrilling chase.�

�That is just what Sir John could give us.� Our hostess turned to Appleby. �You wouldn�t be so unkind as to refuse?�

For a moment the Assistant Commissioner was silent, so that I wondered whether he was going to contrive some polite excuse. A long career at Scotland Yard had provided him with plenty of exciting material, and there had been occasions on which I had known him come out with it forthrightly enough. But he had rather old-fashioned ideas on what was suitable for mixed company. So I wasn�t too surprised by his words when presently he did speak.

�Do you know, I�m afraid that positively nothing in the murderous way comes into my head? But an affair that had its moment of mystery � well, I think I can manage that.�

�Only a moment of it?� The girl who had asked for excitement was reproachful.

Appleby shook his head. �Oh, what I shall tell you was abundantly mysterious. But mystery, you know, is another matter. One is lucky ever to get a glimpse of it.� Appleby paused, and it was plain that he spoke seriously. Then he told us his tale...

�Henry and Elizabeth Fray were old friends of my wife�s family, and for some years we used to spend a week with them just before Christmas. The party would be rather like this one, and the house was similar, too � which is no doubt what put the incident I am going to describe into my mind. Fray Manor rambled in an easy, unassuming fashion over a good deal of ground and back through several centuries. The oldest bit was undoubtedly at the top. You may judge that to be a good mysterious touch at the start, although I hasten to add that it has no particular relevance for my story.

�Well then, at the top of the house was a fine late-Elizabethan Long Gallery, with a magnificent view through high, gray-mullioned windows. Not your sort of view, though. Fray Manor is in the Fen Country; and the house looks out over level fields stretching to the horizon, with here and there a canal or windmill or church tower, and everywhere an enormous sky.

�But there was another particular in which the scene at Fray isn�t to be compared with this.� And here Appleby turned to our hostess with a smile. �Neither Henry nor Elizabeth had the sort of grasp you and Hugh possess of family history � and particularly of family possessions. I don�t mean that they were indifferent to Henry�s inheritance � far from it. But they were vague, and rather took for granted that for all future time Fray Manor would be the same. In point of fact, there were ominous signs that Henry and Elizabeth were mistaken, and the family fortunes were altogether shakier than they realized.

�I used to doubt whether their small son, Robin, would much mend matters. For Robin too was vague � although in what might be called a potentially more distinguished way. He was a shy child, but with some hidden flame in him � of passion, of imagination?�� one couldn�t tell what. Certainly he was more likely to add something to the ideal than to the practical world. I�m afraid that I can�t describe him better than that � which is a pity, since my story turns on him.�

�Robin Fray is its hero?� The Archdeacon asked this.

Appleby nodded. �Yes. Not, I�m glad to say, the tragic hero. Although, in a sense, it was a near thing... I don�t need to tell you much about the house party. It wasn�t large, and we nearly all were friends of long standing. But there were three exceptions. Miss Shipley was an elderly woman who painted dogs, and Henry Fray�s admiration for this accomplishment was so great that he had made Elizabeth invite her to visit, pretty much out of the blue. Then there was a fellow called Habgood, who appeared, to do free-lance articles on country houses for the magazines. Finally, and in rather a different category, there was an American cousin, Charles Fray.

�The actual cousinship must have been extremely remote, since the American branch of the family had been established in New England for many generations. But I was amused to notice that Charles knew far more about the family history than Henry. Not that Charles obtruded his knowledge. He was an observant, rather diffident bachelor. It was with some surprise that I gathered he was a highly successful business executive and extremely wealthy. He was due to conclude his stay a couple of days after my own arrival. I was sorry about this, because he seemed to me a thoroughly fine fellow.

�I�ve mentioned the Long Gallery. We had tea there on the last afternoon of Charles Fray�s visit, and it happened that he and I made a little tour of inspection of the paintings lining one side of the place. There were a great many of them, although if older Frays had ever had any luck on their continental wanderings, and brought home a Titian or a Rubens, it had long since gone to the sale room. But there is often a mild charm in a collection of mediocre pictures that have collected over the centuries in that sort of house, and my American acquaintance was clearly delighted with this record of his English relatives� artistic tastes.

�There was one painting in particular that he paused in front of. For some moments I couldn�t see why. It was a small autumnal landscape with figures, executed in the Flemish taste of the late Sixteenth Century, which would have been pleasing enough if the quality of the painting hadn�t been rather notably poor. What was represented was a bleak, level scene, with a windmill in the middle distance and the towers of a tiny town closing the horizon. In the foreground was the gable of a house, with an attic window out of which a small boy was gazing rather disconsolately at the prospect. I had just taken this in when Charles Fray touched my arm and pointed across the Gallery. I saw his point. There, through the large Tudor window, was an actual landscape very much like the painted one we had been glancing at. It was possible to guess at once what had prompted some bygone Fray to make this particular purchase. But that, at the moment, wasn�t all. At the real window our small friend Robin was himself gazing rather wistfully out over the bare fields. He and the boy in the picture, one could feel, were both longing for a gorgeous fall of snow.�

Appleby paused on this. The Archdeacon, whose successfully accomplished ghost story gave him the status of a performer who had retired into the wings, judged it proper to offer a word of encouragement. �A pleasing incident,� he said. �It makes a picture in itself.�

�No doubt. But it was then handled a shade heavily � chiefly by Miss Shipley, the woman who painted dogs. She came up at that moment, and I pointed out the similarity that had attracted us. She brought it into general notice, and even teased Robin a little. She asked him if he knew that the painting was a magic painting, and that it would never, never snow again outside until it had snowed in the painting first. It would have been difficult to tell what Robin made of this. I thought Charles Fray looked a little startled, and that at the same time he was watching the child curiously. Then he turned the conversation by asking Henry whether he knew anything about the origin of the Flemish painting.

�But Henry, of course, was as vague as usual. He had once been told some story about it, which had entirely gone out of his head. He did remember that when his father died there had been some reason for having it specially looked at by the fellow who came down and appraised everything. It hadn�t proved to be worth much.

�Habgood, the guest who went round writing up country houses, took a hand at this point. That is to say, he peered at the painting with a good deal of curiosity, and then rather baldly remarked that its owner was certainly right, and that artistically it was worthless. I believe Henry was rather nettled; probably he liked the thing just because it had a smack of his own familiar landscape; and the incident was closed by some other guest having the good sense to cause a diversion.

�The next morning Charles Fray took his departure. I remember him looking up at the sky as he prepared to step into his car, and saying � in rather a whimsical tone � something about snow coming soon. It was true that that great sky appeared heavy with it. But certainly not a flake had fallen.

�And now I come to the sudden crisis of the affair. What remained of the party was gathered in the drawing-room shortly after lunch when Robin burst in upon us like a little madman. �It�s come!� he shouted. �It�s come, it�s come, it�s come!� His eyes were blazing, and as he stared at us it happened that for a second I met his gaze directly. You remember my saying that there was a moment not simply of the mysterious, but of pure mystery, in the business? Well, this was it. The boy had met a mystery. He had met the real thing. And he was exalted.

�But now his mother was pulling him up � gently enough, but decidedly. �Robin dear, don�t be so noisy. And what has come?�

� �The snow. It�s come, I tell you!� I think we all turned and looked through the window. The sky was more leaden than ever � but still no snow was falling. And suddenly the boy laughed � quite wildly. �Sillies!� he shouted. �Dear old sillies! Not outside. In the picture. Don�t you remember? It has to be in the picture � first.�

�There was an awkward silence. Some of us, I imagine, supposed the child to be delirious, and the more obtuse may have concluded that it was all some sort of impertinent joke. I could see Robin�s parents exchange an alarmed glance. They were simple souls, remember, and probably regarded their boy as being at best quite dangerously dreamy and fanciful.

�Habgood was the first person to produce what looked like a sensible reaction. �Do you suppose,� he said, �that somebody may have been perpetrating a trick up there? I�ll go and see.� And then he turned to Robin. �There�s often a good deal of magic in pictures, you know. But it doesn�t always last.� He gave the boy a kindly pat on the shoulder, and left the room.

�For some seconds we were all silent. Then somebody gave a little involuntary exclamation and pointed to the window. The first flakes were coming down.�

Our hostess gave a deft kick at her small log, and flame flickered up around it. �I hope,� she said, �there was magic in the picture.�

Appleby nodded. �I was hoping so, too. And I was in possession, you know, of an important piece of evidence.�

�Evidence?�

�Just that single glance of the boy�s. To a policeman, a wink � or call it the absolute absence of one � ought to be as good as a nod, any day. Somehow it suddenly struck me that we�d all better follow Habgood up to the Long Gallery. I said so, pretty vigorously � and then led the way, with Robin�s hand in mine.

�As we mounted the final flight of stairs we met Habgood coming down. He glanced at the boy, and for a moment he just didn�t appear to know what to say. It was uncomfortable, as you may guess. And then he found what wasn�t a bad tone � light, but not in the least condescending or facetious. �It�s gone, Robin. It�s gone, just as it came.�

�The boy said nothing, but I felt his hand tremble, and I saw that he had gone very pale. Suddenly he gave a tug; I let him go; and he ran to the far end of the Gallery where the picture hung. By the time he got to the end of that long vista, he looked quite comically � or tragically � small.

�When we caught up with him he was very still, gazing at the familiar, the mediocre, the untransformed autumnal painting � hanging as it had always hung on the known, predictable wall. He seemed to have no disposition to cry, and for a moment nobody had anything to say. Then some worthy woman began talking nervously to Elizabeth Fray about tricks of light, and what a charming fancy of Robin�s it had been. Outside, the snow was still falling.

�I looked at the little painting, and suddenly I was quite sure that there should indeed be snow there too! This wasn�t entirely intuition. I had, in fact, been doing my best to think. And now I asked Henry to close the doors at both ends of the Gallery, and to let nobody out. Then I searched the place � pretty grimly, for I had a notion that, so far as the boy�s confidence in this universe was concerned, rather a lot depended on it. Of course there hadn�t been time to find a really clever hiding place. Within half an hour, Robin had his snow scene in his hands,�

The girl who had wanted a sealed room and a thrilling chase cried out delightedly at this. �Really and truly?�

Appleby smiled at her. �Really and truly. There it was: the same landscape, the same attic window, the same small boy. But everywhere, snow. And such snow! Teniers couldn�t have done it. Nor could he have done the figures with which the small landscape was peopled. Against that snow their life was miraculous. What Robin Fray held was, in its minor way, a masterpiece. Which is what, from the elder Breughel, you might expect.�

Appleby paused. �Explanations? Well, not many are needed. What had prompted Miss Shipley to her joke about the picture being transformed into a snow scene? The unconscious memory of a bit of art history gathered in her student days. What had sent Habgood, the only man with any sort of connoisseurship, to the Long Gallery, before anybody else could check up on Robin�s apparently fantastic story? Fuller knowledge of the same bit of history. That was as much as I could obscurely guess while the episode was taking place. Now I can add what I discovered later.

�Breughel is believed to have painted four companion pictures: an identical scene, but at the four seasons of the year. Spring and Summer are known to survive � the first in Hungary and the second in a public collection in New York. Long ago, a Fray came into possession of Autumn. But his grandson � it was long before a Pieter Breughel was accounted very valuable � gave it away to a friend who fancied it, but first caused a mediocre copy to be made by an itinerant painter from the Low Countries. No doubt he wanted some record of a landscape that in a small way recalled his own estate. Later still, the original Autumn perished in a fire. The copy that remained at Fray Manor had, of course, no more than historical interest; nobody would give more than a few pounds for it at the most.

�The fourth painting, Winter, had long been thought to have perished. But Charles Fray, who was a collector, had run it to earth somewhere. Knowing that the English Frays had once owned the original Autumn, he brought Winter with him on his visit, intending it as a parting gift � a princely gift � to his kinsman and to the home of his ancestors. Miss Shipley�s joke prompted him to substitute it for the old copy of Autumn just before leaving. The old copy of Autumn itself he simply left leaning against the wall. The situation, he supposed, would thus at once explain itself, and at the same time give little Robin some amusement.

�So you see what happened. As soon as Robin tumbled in on us with his story, Habgood realized that Winter had turned up � and that if he could make off with it when only Robin had seen it, the boy would simply be disbelieved. Things might, of course, go wrong if Charles Fray made inquiries later. But if Charles got no acknowledgement of his gift from his English kinsman he might even remain silent; and if Winter was subsequently heard of on the market he would presume that Henry was behind the sale. Habgood was astute.�

Our hostess considered. �But not at all nice. What happened to Winter?�

�It hangs in Robin Fray�s bedroom now. And I don�t think he�ll ever have to sell it. The benevolent transatlantic cousin, still a bachelor, has been around again, and it looks as if Robin is going to be his heir.�

Do you wake up each morning with a tingle of excitement � as if this were the day something big was going to happen? No? Then this is the story for you � a story �as old as sin,� yet �younger than springtime�...

�Ride With a Killer� is an old-fashioned and new-fashioned Western � tough and sentimental, restrained and emotional. It blends contrasts and opposites, both in style and substance, and it is, at one and the same time, a Western story and a detective-crime story and a love story � and impressive on all counts. The locale is old Arizona � when you could go into a main-street restaurant, order steak, potatoes, snap beans, apple pie, and coffee, and the bill was twenty cents. The hero is Danny McClellan, an express company agent, who has the thankless job of chaperoning an �ice-water devil� of a killer. The heroine is Emily � but meet her for yourself...

The coach passed barron�s without stopping, as the driver in the high seat up front racketed out a volley with the silk popper of his long whip. Danny McClellan rode backward, facing Merle Workman, and Danny was getting tired of looking at Merle.

Merle Workman didn�t look like what he was, unless you scanned his face very closely. His eyes were a chilly light color that left you uncertain as to whether they were gray or blue, and few men cared to look directly into them long enough to satisfy themselves about it. Danny knew him very well, and he didn�t like him, but there wasn�t much he could do about that when he had to work with the man. Under him, you mean, Danny reminded himself wryly, and that made this job a narrow wire to walk.

Workman wouldn�t know about that, of course, because the company handled, Workman with kid gloves, but Danny had his orders; very circumspect, very delicate: �Not real authority, you understand, McClellan, but well, you understand, Workman is as fine an agent as the company ever had, but he tends to be a bit impetuous. An agent is in a risky position; we understand that. A man must protect himself, but two of you should be able to bring in this man Hanseldt without any trouble. You understand?�

The coach reached the top of a knoll, and Danny looked back at the valley they�d passed, looked back at Barron�s white house and a willow fringed creek, with the Siskiyous looming beyond and Pilot Rock like a blunt thumb indicating the way to heaven.

It was a beautiful view, and much easier to look at than Merle Workman. Danny understood, all right. Cut out the pussyfooting, and it boiled down to a mean situation. Workman was the boss � senior to Danny in years and experience. Call a spade a spade; Workman was a killer; but he was a man the express company couldn�t afford to lose � and Danny was supposed to keep him from killing without offending him. I wonder, thought Danny, half grimly, half humorously, if I ought to give him a little talk about flushing his birds before he fires.

They stopped in Ashland Mills just long enough to change horses, and then bowled smoothly along the improved road that flanked Bear Creek; and still Merle Workman sat without moving, as he had all the way now, not talking, just flicking Danny occasionally with those cold eyes, not even bothering to answer the few questions of the granger who sat beside him. Then, a few miles past Phoenix, Workman looked quickly at Danny and then back outside as the brakes squealed and the coach slewed to the sudden braking. The granger whipped off his hat and thrust his head out the window. �Rig broke down ahead,� he said. Only Danny caught the subtle loosening of Merle Workman�s shoulders.

The coach stopped, and Danny looked out. The rig was a light buggy, and a woman stood beside it. The hem of her full skirt was dusty, and so were her hands. The buggy sagged despondently, and a rear wheel lay in the road beside it.

The woman looked up at the driver�s seat of the coach with a vexed smile and said, �The spindle nut is lost completely, Ben. I�ve looked all around and down the road.�

�Why, now,� said the coach driver, �that�s too bad.� The coach rocked as he started to climb down. �I�ve got a spare nut, but I doubt it�ll fit that axle spindle.�

The granger unlatched the door and got out, and as Danny started to move, glad of the chance to escape the confinement of the coach, Workman�s pale eyes silently commanded him to bide and let be, and the resentful perversity inside Danny said silently, �Go to hell!� and he stepped out.

The driver got a heavy iron nut from the toolbox and tried it. It slipped over the threaded spindle-end without catching on the screw threads.

�Afraid I�ll have to send somebody after the rig, Miss Emily,� the driver said regretfully.

�Oh, fiddlesticks!� the girl said. Even in her displeasure, she had a pleasant voice, and Danny looked at her, frankly appraising.

She was fairly tall for a girl, not much more than half a head shorter than Danny himself, with blonde hair under her plain bonnet, a trim figure, and a handsome face that escaped mere prettiness. She had pushed her sleeves up to rake in the dust for the missing nut, and her expression was more considering than helpless as she looked from the coach driver to the crippled buggy.

Danny said suddenly to the driver, �You got some soft wire in that box?�

�Yes, but�� the driver said, impatiently aware of his lateness.

�Get it,� said Danny. He walked to the buggy and lifted up on the box bed. The granger got the wheel and slid it onto the axle and held it straight as Danny let the weight back on it. Danny slid the oversize nut over the spindle against the hub bushing, took the coil of wire from the driver, and rove two layers of it about the threads, pulled an end through the cotter-pin slot, and twisted the ends. He shook the wheel, grasping it by tire and felly, and said cheerfully, �A rawhider�s make-do, but it ought to hold.�

The girl smiled her thanks at Danny, and the driver turned back toward the coach. But the granger said, �Looks a little shaky. Be a shame to have it leave you stranded again, Miss Emily.�

Danny saw the chance and said, �I can drive her on in to town. Leave the rest of that wire, just in case.�

The driver turned back, instinctively scanning him with the suspicion of the local man for the stranger. He said uncomfortably, as if he would bear responsibility in case of any wrong, �I don�t know��

The granger, a more open and friendly man, said, �Why not? I�d be glad to stand by myself, Miss Emily, only I�m being met at Jasonville.�

The girl looked at Danny closely then, not suspicious but careful, and then she smiled her thanks. �If you�re sure it will be no trouble,� she said.

�None at all,� said Danny, and the driver, with an air of washing his hands of it all, turned away, saying, �Load up! Late now.�

Danny reached into the coach for his luggage � a worn canvas bag with a puckering cord in the neck. Workman said nothing. He wouldn�t show anger or displeasure openly, Danny knew, but he also knew that the man was furious. The small spurning gesture of Workman�s foot as he nudged the duffel bag at Danny said enough. Danny gave it right back with a faint unoffended grin and a murmured, �Thanks.� And he thought, with a little relief: Anyone will be better company than that.

He noticed that the girl climbed to the seat unassisted while he hitched the horse back into the shafts. No nonsense, he said to himself. Wonder what you�d think if you knew I�d choose your company to Workman�s even if you were fat and fifty and had a wart on your nose as big as my thumb? Then he had the grace to grin inwardly and acknowledge: But she isn�t and she hasn�t, so see can you bear up under it.

He watched the wheel for a while, then, satisfied it would hold, said, �Didn�t have a chance for introductions. My name is Danny McClellan.�

She said, �I�m Emily Hanseldt,� and they bobbed their heads formally at each other, she not offering to shake hands, and then a sudden cold panicky shiver touched Danny�s spine. He looked away and tried to ask casually, �Live in Jasonville, your family?�

�I do,� she said. �I�ve just got a brother.�

The cold, crawling snake looped around his ribs and made it difficult to breathe. He struggled to keep his voice on the verge of disinterest. �Knew some Hanseldts in California,� he lied. �Any relation?�

�No,� she said consideringly, �I think not. I think we�re the only ones in this part of the country.�

That did it. A sour, cursing anger came up inside him, and a bitter, sardonic laughter at himself for his eagerness to escape Workman and ride with this girl. He had a sudden overwhelming wish that he had never seen her; but that was foolish. His thoughts gibed at him maliciously: How do you make small talk in a case like this � tip your hat and tell her you�re after her brother?

Dorinda the beautiful, Dorinda with a ukulele on her knee, Dorinda the lost angel... she had been shot when Peter and Judith were only children, but her murder still threatened them.

�Darling,� Judith said, the color bright on her cheeks and her gaze fixed firmly on the sea of flowers below her, �you shot her. Admit it and that�s all there is to be said. But if you persist in sticking to the old story, you�re deceiving yourself rather than me, and in that case how can you expect us ever to be happy?�

The two were standing on the terrace at the back of the college, their heads close together as they leaned over the parapet. Judith Davies was 27, a slender reed of a woman with the sensitive, intelligent face of her calling. She was a doctor specializing in the nervous diseases of childhood, and at the moment she was facing an appalling problem.

In the short space of five weeks the man who now stood beside her had become the most important person in her world. He was Peter Butler, three years her senior, a brilliant research chemist, kind, successful, and easily the best-looking man she had ever seen.

A chance meeting at the university hospital, where she was taking a refresher course, had developed into a headlong love affair which had culminated this afternoon when they had each realized that it was marriage they wanted and without it there was to be no happiness for either of them anywhere.

Yet they had never been quite strangers. Although they had hardly spoken before meeting at the university, they had known of each other for most of their lives and had seen each other frequently throughout the years, and never entirely without some emotion.

They had both been brought up in Springmead, the small town where Judith was the daughter of the local doctor and Peter the son of the County Architect. In the normal way they would have grown up as friends but one sunny day twenty-two years before, in the long warm summer of 1933, there had been a tragedy. Late in an August afternoon the body of Dorinda Davies, the doctor�s nineteen-year-old sister who was spending the summer with her brother�s family, had been found in a meadow by the bank of the narrow river just outside the town. She had been shot at close quarters with a light sporting gun which lay in the grass some distance from the dead girl, while the family�s punt, in which she had been seen alone earlier in the day, was found tied up to the willows which overhung the stream.

Judith had been too young at the time for her to remember the disaster clearly, but she had a very vivid recollection of the horror and bewilderment it had caused; and by the time she had grown up she had heard every detail of the story many times.

The country police had established the ownership of the gun without any difficulty. It belonged to Peter�s father, the architect, who with his wife was away at the time on a weekend motoring trip, leaving Peter, their only child � then a boy of eight � in the care of an old housekeeper. The boy was not allowed to use the gun and, in fact, had been punished more than once for borrowing it; but he was a lonely little person who was fascinated by the wild life of the countryside. His favorite hunting place was along the river bank and for a long time it had been his ambition to shoot a water rat. Before the day was out the police had half a dozen witnesses who had seen the small boy trotting down to the river with the .410 under his arm.

Almost from the beginning it had seemed that there was no mystery. It appeared evident that there had been an accident in which the child, either when showing the girl the gun or pointing it at her in fun, had pulled the trigger inadvertently. Peter was found and questioned. At first he had denied everything, but after his parents had been recalled and his mother had talked to him, he told a story from which he never deviated afterward despite every conceivable threat and promise.

Knowing he was doing wrong, he said, he had taken the gun down to the river to have one more try for a rat. He was just in position, crouched down by a tree stump, when Dorinda, whom he knew only slightly, came along in her boat. She was singing and he called out to her, asking her to be quiet He thought he must have frightened her, he said, for she stopped the punt, grew very red, and was furious with him for being there at all. She asked him if his father knew about him having the gun and when he told her �No,� she insisted that he give it to her at once before he did any harm with it.

Peter did not want to give it up; but when she promised that if he went straight home she would smuggle it into the house without telling on him, he accepted the situation philosophically � people were always pushing him around, he complained. He parted with the gun and according to him that was the last time he saw it, lying in the bottom of the boat as Dorinda sped down the river. After that he went home. There was nobody about and so for a time he played in the garden, falling asleep at last in a hideaway he had made in the laurels.

It was an inconclusive story and nobody really believed him. The hideous facts remained. Dorinda the beautiful, with her red-brown hair and her roving eyes, was dead � and nothing could bring her back again.

The whole town was heartbroken, and sympathy for the two families was great. Not unnaturally, the authorities combined to give the child the benefit of the doubt. The Coroners Court brought in an open verdict and Peter was sent away to boarding school. For the first few years he spent his holidays away from home, but in time the story was largely forgotten. Springmead had other scandals to talk about, and at length he began to visit his home again.

The two families kept apart however. There were no recriminations but always after that there was a conviction among the Davies� and their friends that the �Butler boy� was a dangerous young liar with bad blood in him somewhere.

Today, as she stood in the quiet garden, twenty-two years away from it all, Judith Davies remembered the story and her lips twisted wryly. It seemed such a simple tragedy.

�It was so obviously just a ghastly accident,� she said aloud. �It might have happened to any child. At the time you were terrified and you denied it. That seems to me to have been a perfectly normal reaction but now, when it�s all over, if you persist in the delusion now...�

�Oh, for Heaven�s sake!� The man turned on her savagely. He was pale with anger and the eyes which looked down into her own were black with remembered pain. �I don�t expect you to accept the miserable tale,� he said bitterly. �No one ever has. Ever since that day no one, not even my mother, has ever quite trusted me. Unfortunately, unless I�m insane, it happened just exactly as I said it did. As far as I know � with my conscious mind � the last time I had the gun in my hand was when I passed it over Dorinda and she put it in the boat.�

�But...�

�I know!� His violence silenced her. �You�re going to say I�m deceiving myself. Perhaps I am. At this distance who can possibly tell? Forget it, Judith, and maybe you�d better forget me too. This is what happens all the time. Let�s call it a day, shall we?�

�No.� She put her hand over his and spoke impulsively. �No. I believe you, Peter.�

�You do?� His rage turned to bitter amusement. �You�d lie for me, would you, darling? That�s very dangerous. No, my dear, it�s no use. That business is bound to haunt me all my life. The damage is done, you see. Sometimes I feel certain I must have had a brainstorm and killed her without knowing it. If that is so, when am I going to have another? It�s one of those perfectly frightful questions which can never be answered. No one can ever discover the truth.�

�I will!� Judith spoke with sudden recklessness. �I�ll find out. That�s the only thing which can give you peace of mind. Oh, my dear, how horribly you must have suffered! I�ll find out.�

Peter laughed softly. �How can you, sweetheart? Don�t think we haven�t tried. When I was a child my father worried himself into his grave, trying to find some other explanation. There wasn�t a scrap of gossip in the town or a blade of grass in the meadow that he didn�t examine. It was all useless. He died without being sure.�

Judith leaned over the parapet to hide her eyes. �If you say it happened that way, that�s the way it happened for me.�

Peter was touched but unconvinced. �So you think now,� he said. �But there�ll always be the doubt in your mind. That�s something I do know � I�ve seen it too often. When Dad first heard the chatter about young Dorinda he felt certain he was on to something and for a time it comforted him; but it didn�t last. Always he came back to the same blank wall. There was no proof, you see � no proof at all.�

�Chatter about Dorinda?� Judith was surprised. �I was only a baby at the time, I never heard any. My people always spoke of her as their lost angel, naturally. Was there any real gossip?�

�Nothing which seems of the least importance at this distance,� Peter said, hunching his shoulders. �She seems to have been just a high-spirited youngster of the Charleston period who had more freedom than girls in Springmead had known before. All the men were crazy about her. She was very pretty, you know.�

She nodded. �I�ve seen photographs and, of course, there�s the famous painting. We have a reproduction of it hanging in the hall at home. It was painted two years after she died but everybody says it�s exactly like her.�

Peter was silent for a moment. �Ye-es,� he said at last. �Girl With the Ukulele. I remember it coming out. It made a sensation when it appeared in the Academy and there were paragraphs in the newspapers recalling the tragedy. I was at school at the time.� He shivered and covered it with a laugh. �I know Dad considered that John Rider was pretty tasteless to paint it at all, and I believe he wrote and told him so. Your people knew Rider well, didn�t they?�

�No, I don�t think we did,� she said as if the fact had suddenly struck her as surprising. �He wasn�t a friend. I always heard that he and his wife had hired the Johnson�s cottage near us for that summer when Dorinda died. Everybody took them up because they were odd and exciting and they were invited everywhere. I don�t think Girl With the Ukulele was meant to be a portrait of Dorinda exactly, although I believe Rider had made sketches of her. He drew most of the girls of the day. I heard he sketched all the time. It was just chance that the picture came out so much like her, I suppose. Where is he now?�

�He died. Just after the war, in South Africa. So you can�t go rushing around to ferret him out and discover what he remembered.� Peter was regarding her helplessly, affection for her fighting with his exasperation. �I don�t think he�d have told you anyway. He wasn�t a very helpful character.�

�I remember hearing that.� Judith frowned as she strove to remember more. �He was always fighting with his wife, wasn�t he?�

�They were pretty notorious. Wild people, I guess, who shook our respectable little community. The woman was a Spanish gypsy or something equally outlandish. He was said to be terrified of her tantrums.�

�Did she die too?�

�She�s gone away � we�d never find her. And if we did, what could she possibly tell us that would be convincing? Judith, my darling, you�re behaving exactly as my father did � you�re catching at straws. There�s no proof and there never will be, and now that you�ve let the thing get hold of you there�s no future for us. If I let you tie yourself to me now, this will haunt you forever.�

�Oh, but it shan�t!� she cried out with sudden passion. �I won�t let it. I�ll find out.�

A weary, mulish look settled over Peter�s clear-cut face. �I wish to God we could,� he said soberly. �I don�t want to lose you, Judith. I love you too much, but you don�t know what a worry of this sort is like. It grows on you and gets at you when you�re not expecting it.�

�Listen.� Her hand tightened over his. �Our house is closed at the moment because mother and father are abroad, but the people next door have a key. In a cupboard under the attic stairs there is a bundle tied up in sacking. In it are all the things which came back from the police after the inquest on Dorinda. My father wouldn�t even let the bundle be opened � he said it was �morbid.� But of course he just couldn�t bear to look at her things. I know about them because one day, when I was in my teens, I dragged the bundle out and got in a fine old row for doing it. So it was put back and as far as I know it�s still there.�

�Do you mean her clothes?� Peter was staring at her in a kind of dismay. �I remember the green dress she was wearing. The police made a great point of it because it was new. She�d never worn it before and yet I could describe it because I�d seen her, as I admitted I had. When they showed it to me at the police station it had blood all over it. Gosh, it was horrible! Somehow much worse than anything I ever saw in the war.�

�No. There are no clothes there,� Judith said quickly, startled by his expression. �Only the things she had with her in the punt. Odds and ends � a book she was reading, some sewing, I think, and the uke. I remember that particularly. It was so pretty and so gay. Peter, why don�t we go down there and look?�

�Now?�

�Why not? It�s less than thirty miles. Let�s get those things out and examine them. There may be a clue there. The police were not looking for an explanation to a mystery, remember.�

�That�s true,� he admitted hesitantly. �They made up their minds what had happened as soon as they saw the gun. It wasn�t even tested for fingerprints until it had been handled by so many people that any test would have been useless. That point told in my favor, I remember. Oh, I�ll drive you over willingly.�� but its pretty hopeless, Judith.�

The girl said nothing as she linked her arm through his.

All Steffie was supposed to do was deliver a package. It wouldn�t take a minute. But nearly half an hour passed and she didn�t come out... Woolrich in top form � the terror of �everyday-gone-wrong�...

She was always the last one out, even on the nights I came around to pick her up � that was another thing burned me up. Not with her of course, but with her job there. Well, she was on the last leg of it now � it would be over with pretty soon. We weren�t going to be one of those couples where the wife kept on working after the marriage. She�d already told them she was leaving anyway, so it was all settled. I didn�t blame her for hanging on up to the very end. The couple of extra weeks pay would come in handy for a lot of little this-ems and that-ems that a girl about to settle down always likes to buy herself (knowing she�s going to have a tough time getting them afterwards). But what got me was, why did she always have to be the last one out?

I picketed the doorway, while the cave-dwellers streamed out all around me. Everyone but her. Back and forth and back and forth; all I needed was a �Don�t Patronize� sign and a spiel. Finally I even saw the slave-driver she worked for come out, but still no her. He passed by without knowing me, but even if he had he wouldn�t have given me any sunny smiles.

And then finally she came � and the whole world faded out around us and we were just alone on the crowded sidewalk. I�ve heard it called love.

She was very good to look at, which was why I�d waited until I was twenty-five and met her. Here�s how she went: first a lot of gold all beaten up into a froth and poured over her head and allowed to set there in crinkly little curls. Then a pair of eyes that � I don�t know how to say it. You were in danger of drowning if you looked into them too deep, but, boy, was drowning a pleasure. Yes, blue. And then a mouth with real lines. Not one of those things all smeared over with red jam.

She had about everything just right, and believe me I was going to throw away the sales-slip and not return the merchandise once it got up to my house.

For trimmings, a dark-blue skirt and a short little jacket that flared out from her shoulders, and a kind of cockeyed tam o� shanter. And a package. I didn�t like the looks of that package.

I told her so the minute I stepped up and took off my hat, while she was still looking down the other way for me. �What�s that?�

She said: �Oh, Kenny, been waiting long? I hurried up all I could. This?�Oh, just a package. I promised His Nibs I�d leave it at a flat on Martine Street on my way home.�

�But you�re not going home. I�ve got two ducats for Heavens-abustin and I was gonna take you to Rafft�s for dinner first; I even brought a clean collar to work with me this morning. Now this is going to cut down our time for eating to a shadow��

She tucked her free hand under my arm to pacify me. �It won�t take any time at all � it�s right on our way. And we can cut out the fruit-cup or something.�

�Aw, but you always look so classy eating fruit-cup,� I mourned.

But she went right ahead; evidently the matter had already been all settled between us without my knowing about it. �Wait a minute, let me see if I�ve got the address straight. Apartment 4F, 415 Martine Street. That�s it.�

I was still grouching about it, but she already had me under control. �What are you supposed to do, double as an errand-girl, too?� But by that time we were halfway there, so what was the use of kicking any more about it.

�Let�s talk about us,� she said. �Have you been counting the days?�

�All day. Thirteen left.�

�And a half. Don�t forget the half, if it�s to be a noon-wedding.� She tipped her shoulders together. �I don�t like that thirteen by itself. I�ll be glad when it�s tomorrow, and only twelve left.�

�Gee you�re cute,� I beamed admiringly. �The more I know you, the cuter you get.�

�I bet you won�t say that a year from now. I bet you�ll be calling me your old lady then.�

�This is it,� I said.

�That�s right, 415.� She backed up, and me with her. �I was sailing right on past it. See what an effect you have on me?�

It was the kind of building that still was a notch above a tenement, but it had stopped being up-to-date about 1918. We went in the outer vestibule together, which had three steps going up and then a pair of inner glass doors, to hold you up until you said who you were.

�All right, turn it over to the hall-man or whoever it is and let�s be on our way.�

She put on that conscientious look that anything connected with her job always seemed to bring on. �Oh no, I�m supposed to take it right up personally and get a receipt. Besides, there doesn�t seem to be any hallman...�

She was going to do it her way anyway, I could see that, so there was no use arguing. She was bent over scanning the name-plates in the brass letter-boxes set into the marble trim. �What�d I say that name was again?�

�I dunno, Muller or something� I said sulkily.

�That�s it. What would I do without you?� She flashed me a smile for a bribe to stay in good humor, then went ahead scanning. �Here it is. 4F. The name-card�s fallen out of the slit and gotten lost, no wonder I couldn�t find it.� She poked the button next to it. �You wait downstairs here for me,� she said. �I won�t take a minute.�

�Make it as fast as you can, will you? We�re losing all this good time out of being together.�

She took a quick step back toward me. �Here,� she said, �let this hold you until I come down again.� And that mouth I told you about, went right up smack against mine � where it belonged. �And if you�re very good, you may get a chaser to that when I come down again.�

Meanwhile the inner vestibule-door catch was being sprung for her with a sound like crickets with sore throats. She pushed it open, went inside. It swung shut again, cutting us off from one another. But I could still see her through it for a moment longer, standing in there by the elevator-bank waiting to go up. She looked good even from the back. When the car came down for her, she didn�t forget to turn around and flash me another heartbreaker across her shoulder, before she stepped in and set the control-button for the floor she wanted. It was self-service, nobody else in it.

The door closed after her, and I couldn�t see her any more. I could see the little red light that told the car was in use, gleaming for a few minutes after that, and then that went out too. And there wasn�t anything left of her.

I lit a cigarette and leaned against the right-hand wall waiting. Then my shoulder got tired and I leaned against the left-hand wall. Then my both shoulders got tired and I just stood up by myself in the middle.

I�ve never timed a cigarette. I suppose they take around five minutes. This one seemed to take longer, but then look who I was waiting for. I punched it out with my foot without bothering to throw it out through the door; I didn�t live there after all.

I thought: �Nice and fast. I mighta known it.� I thought: �What�s she doing, staying to tea?�

I counted my change, just to give myself something to do. I took off my hat and looked it over, like I�d never seen it before.

Things happened. Nothing much � little things that were to last so long. The postman came into the vestibule, shoved letters in here and there. 4F didn�t get any. He shifted his girth straps and went out again. A stout lady in a not-very-genuine fur coat came in, one arm full of bundles and hauling a yowling little kid by the other. She looked to see if there was any mail first. Then she looked for her key, and it took a lot of juggling. Then she looked at me, kind of supercilious. If a look can be translated into a single word, hers said: �Loafer!� Meanwhile the kid was beefing away. He had adenoids or something, and you couldn�t tell if he was talking English or choking to death. She seemed to be able to tell the difference though. She said: �Now Dwight, I don�t want to hear another word! If pot cheese is good enough for your father, pot cheese is good enough for you! If you don�t hush up, I�ll give you to this man here!�

I thought: �Oh no you won�t � not with a set of dishes thrown in!�

After they�d gone in, more waiting started in. I started to trace patterns with my feet � circles, diagonals, Maltese crosses. After I�d covered about a block-and-a-half that way, I stopped to rest again. I started to talk to myself, under my breath. �Must be out of pencils up there, to sign the receipt with, and she�s waiting while they whittle out a new one! We�ll be in time for the intermission at the show��

I lit another cigarette. That act, slight as it was, put the finishing-touch to my self-control. I no sooner finished doing it than I hit the opposite wall with it. �What the hell is this anyway?� It wasn�t under my breath any more � it was a full-toned yap. I stepped over, picked out 4F, and nearly sent the button through to the other side of the wall.

I didn�t want to go in, of course. I just wanted to tip her off I was still alive down here. Aging fast, but still in fairly usable shape. She�d know who it was when she heard that blast. So when they released the catch on the door, I intended staying right outside where I was.

But they didn�t. They were either ignoring the ring or they hadn�t heard it. I gave it a second flattening. Again the catch on the door remained undisturbed. I knew the bell wasn�t out of order, because I�d seen her give just a peck at it and the door-catch had been released for her. This time I gave it a triple-header. Two short ones and a long one, that went on for weeks � so long that my thumb joint got all white down to my wrist before I let go.

No acknowledgment. Dead to the world up there.

I did the instinctive thing, even though it was quite useless in the present case. Backed out into the street, as far as the outer rim of the sidewalk, and scanned the face of the building. There was just a checkerboard pattern of lighted squares and black ones. I couldn�t tell which windows belonged to 4F, and even if I could have it wouldn�t have done me any good unless I intended yelling her name up from the open sidewalk � and I didn�t yet.

But being all the way out there cost me a chance to get in free, and lost me some more valuable time in the bargain. A man came out, the first person who had emerged from inside since I�d been waiting around, but before I could get in there and push through in his wake, the door had clicked shut again.

He was a scrawny-looking little runt, reminded you of an old-clothes-man on his night off. He went on out without even looking at me, and I tackled the 4F bell some more, gave it practically the whole Morse Code.

I wasn�t frightened yet, just sizzling and completely baffled. The only thing I could figure, far-fetched as it was, was that the bell-apparatus had been on its last gasp when she rang it, and had given up the ghost immediately afterwards. Otherwise why didn�t they hear it, the kind of punishment I was giving it?

Then the first little trickle of fright did creep in, like a dribble of cold water down your back when you�re perspiring. I thought: �Maybe there�s some guy up there trying to get funny with her � maybe that�s why the bell isn�t answered. After all, things like that do happen in a big city all the time. I better get up there fast and find out what this is!�

I punched a neighboring bell at random, just to get past the door, and when the catch had been released for me, I streaked into the elevator, which the last guy had left down, and gave it the 4-button.

It seemed to me to set a new record for slowness in getting up there, but maybe that was just the state of mind I was in. When it finally did and I barged out, I made a false turn down the hall first, then when I came up against 4B and C and so on, turned and went back the other way.

It was at the far end of the hall, at the back. The bell I�d rung was evidently on some other floor, for none of the doors on this one opened to see who it was. I went close against it and listened. There were no sounds of a scuffle and I couldn�t hear her saying �Unhand me, you brute!� � so I calmed down by that much. But not all the way.

I couldn�t hear anything at all. It was stone-silent in there. And yet these flat-doors weren�t soundproof, because I could hear somebody�s radio filtering through one at the other end of the hall clear as day.

I rang the bell and waited. I could hear it ring inside, from where I was. I�d say: �Will you ask that young lady that brought a package up here whether she�s coming down tonight or tomorrow?� No, that sounded too dictatorial. I�d say: �Is the young lady ready to leave now?� I knew I�d feel slightly foolish, like you always do when you make a mountain out of a molehill.

Meanwhile, it hadn�t opened. I pushed the bell again, and again I could hear the battery sing out on the inside. I rapped with my knuckles. Then I rang a third time. Then I rattled the knob (as though that would attract their attention, if ringing the bell hadn�t!) Then I pounded with the heel of my hand. Then I alternated all three, the whole thing became a maelstrom of frenzied action. I think I even kicked. Without getting the results I was after � admittance.

Other doors began to open cautiously down the line, attracted by the noise I was making. But by that time I had turned and bolted down the stairs, without waiting for the paralytic elevator, to find the janitor. Fright wasn�t just a cold trickle any more, it was an icy torrent gushing through me full-force.

I got down into the basement and found him without too much trouble. He was eating his meal or something on a red-checkered tablecloth, but I had no time to assimilate details. A glimpse of a napkin tucked in collarwise was about all that registered. �Come up with me quick, will you?� I panted, pulling him by the arm. �Bring your passkey, I want you to open one of those flats!�

�What�s matter, something wrong?�

�I don�t like the looks of it. My girl took a package up � I�ve been waiting for her over twenty minutes and she never came down again. They won�t answer the bell��

He seemed to take forever. First he stood up, then he finished swallowing, then he wiped his mouth, then he got a big ring of keys, then finally he followed me. As an afterthought he peeled off the napkin and threw it behind him at the table, but missed it. He even wanted to wait for the elevator. �No, no, no,� I groaned, steering him to the stairs.

�Which one is it?�

�It�s on the fourth floor, I�ll show you!� Then when we got up there. �Here � right here.�

When he saw which door I was pushing him to, he suddenly stopped. �That one? No, now wait a minute, young-fellow, it couldn�t be. Not that one.�

�Don�t try to tell me!� I heaved exasperatedly. �I say it is!�

�And don�t you try to tell me! I say it couldn�t be!�

�Why?�

�I�ll show you why,� he said heatedly. He went ahead up to it, put his passkey in, threw the door open, and flattened himself to let me get a good look past him.

I needed more than just one. It was one of those things that register on the eye but don�t make sense to the brain. The light from the hall filtered in to make a threadbare half-moon, but to make sure I wasn�t missing any of it, he snapped a switch inside the door and a dim, left-over bulb somewhere further back went on flickeringly. You could see why it had been left in � it wasn�t worth taking out. It threw a watery light around, not much better than a candle. But enough to see by.

�Now! You see why?�

The place was empty as a barn. Unfurnished, uninhabited, whatever you want to call it. Just bare walls, ceiling, and floor-boards. You could see where the carpet used to go: they were lighter in a big square patch in the middle than around the outside. You could see where a picture used to go, many moons ago; there was a patch of gray wool-dust adhering like fiber to the wall. You could even see where the telephone used to go; the wiring still led in along the baseboard, then reared up to waist-level like a pothook and ended in nothing.

The air alibied for its emptiness. It was stale, as though the windows hadn�t been opened for months. Stale and dusty and sluggish.

�So you see? Mister, this place ain�t been rented for six months.� He was getting ready to close the door, as though that ended it; pulling it around behind his back, I could see it coming toward me, and the 4F stencilled on it in tarnished gold-paint seemed to swell up, got bigger and bigger until it loomed before me a yard high.

�No!� I croaked, and planted the flat of my hand against it and swept it back, out of his backhand grasp. �She came in here, I tell you!�

I went in a step or two, called her name into the emptiness. �Steffie! Steffie!�

His wife was standing against the back wall of the garage, waiting for him to drive the car in; but the incline was slippery and the tires worn... it could have happened to anyone.

From the north window of the hospital�s second-floor corridor, Mr. Willis could see a car swing sharply onto the slippery driveway. That would be Dr. Moody, a fine surgeon who�d do everything he could. �Everything possible,� Mr. Willis said aloud. But his voice trailed away as he jerked back from the window and stumbled down the corridor past the operating room, where his wife lay white and broken.

Now he was at the south end again. There was a lake outside with rowboats to rent, and sometimes he had taken Bella for a row out there in the moonlight. It had been very quiet � except for the frogs sometimes, and the little trickle of water when Bella trailed her fingers. But it was wrong to think in the past. For he would take Bella for other rows, make other love in other nights to come, and�

Dr. Moody hurried up the stairs on his short legs. He was smiling as always. �Mr. Willis, I�ll do everything I can, and in the meantime try not to think about it,� he said. He shook Mr. Willis�s hand, then turned on his stubby legs and waddled toward the operating room.

�Try not to think about it,� the doctor had said. But what else was there to think, when it was printed there so clearly in his mind � how he�d taken his wife to the movies late this same afternoon, and how it had been dark when they�d finally turned into the driveway of their house. She had got out and taken mail from the box by the side of the road. She�d handed it to him and then walked on down the driveway while he�d sat in the car for a moment, looking over his mail by the dim light of the dashboard. He�d put the letters beside him and driven on down the incline that led to the garage, which was attached to the house by a breezeway. The incline was icy � for the first time he could remember.

And then the headlights had shown her at the back of the garage, waiting for him to come in with the key and open the door that led into the breezeway. The car was foreign and expensive � Mr. Willis�s one indulgence � but the tires were worn, all the same. The car had skidded on the incline and had moved fast into the garage, going faster and faster, while his wife�s face became suddenly twisted in horror�

�Something else,� Dr. Moody had said. �Think about something else.� Something pleasant, like the sound of the paddles dipped in water, Mr. Willis thought, and Bella�s laugh and their secret words and the way she�d leaned back, with her throat so white in the darkness. He must think about these good moments, and not of his wife�s limp form when he�d lifted her gently from the cold cement.

Hours went by � it seemed like hours � while Mr. Willis walked along the hospital corridor, noticing the design of the linoleum, stepping only on the brown squares, remembering suddenly how, when he was very small, he had avoided stepping on cracks in the sidewalk.

He was skipping from one square to another � a white, then a brown, then a white again � when Dr. Moody came out of the operating room. He was slapping a rubber glove against his thigh, but he was walking jerkily and he was not smiling any more. �If you�ll come into my office, Mr. Willis,� he said.

They walked down the corridor together, and Mr. Willis caught himself mixing up his squares, touching brown ones and white ones at the same time.

In the doctor�s office Mr. Willis sat in a leather chair facing the desk, and Dr. Moody sat behind the desk and tapped a pencil on the glass top.

�Mr. Willis, perhaps the most difficult thing a doctor ever has to do�� He paused. The pencil stopped tapping, and then it began beating faster and faster until it became a hammer in Mr. Willis�s head. And far away was Dr. Moody�s voice saying, �You understand, Mr. Willis. It could happen to anyone. A very tragic accident.�

The hammering began to fade. �Tragic accident,� Mr. Willis said. �Yes, it could happen to anyone.� He stood up, wavered, and sat down again.

�If there were only someone I could call for you. Some relative, perhaps.�

�My wife�s cousin. She lives here, but�� He shook his head slowly. �No, it might shock her too much to find out that way. I�ll have to tell her myself, and�� He put his head into his hands. �I�ll be all right. I�m trying. I�ll be all right.�

There was silence for a long time. Then, when Mr. Willis had gained control of himself, he stood up slowly and leaned against the arm of the leather chair. �Funny,� he said. �It�s a foreign car, you see. A sports car, but the tires are worn, and tonight�s the only night it�s ever been slippery. And I read my mail, you see, and forgot to give her the key to the breezeway.� He was looking past the doctor�s head, out the window toward the lake and the cold darkness. He had said the same words a hundred times; on the telephone when he�d called the hospital, in his own mind during the long drive, following the ambulance. He could not seem to stop saying it. �It was all right when we went to the movies. Just wet, you know. A good picture, too. Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck and��

�Mr. Willis!�

�Yes, I mustn�t think about it,� he said. Pie stumbled toward the door, and the doctor walked beside him as they went back down the corridor.

�Your wife�s cousin,� Dr. Moody said. �She might be some comfort.�

�No, I�ll... I�ll tell her later. Don�t want to upset her.�

�That�s very considerate of you.�

They were walking slowly along the corridor. Before them was the south window, the lake outside, bleak and cold with the frogs no longer there. �We used to rent a boat,� Mr. Willis said. �She�d trail her fingers in the water and she�d look so white and � we will again, too. Only it will be even better, and��

The doctor was worried. He said, �You�ve got to understand about your wife. You�ve got to realize it.�

�There were always frogs, croaking all the time. And they will again, next summer and the summer after that.� He started, laughed in one short burst, and said, �All right, be all right.� Then he turned and went down the stairs and out into the freezing night.

Outside he paused, listened, and heard the croak of a bullfrog. He shook his head and heard it again, louder now, and suddenly he began to run toward his car while the lone frog multiplied into a hundred, then a thousand, then a million frogs, all croaking, all taunting him together. �Bella,� he said aloud. �I�m sorry, Bella, I�m sorry, darling.� But the croaking frogs were not entirely gone until the hospital was far behind him, and he was driving the five long miles toward home.

Vinnie Williams, who wrote that memorable story, �Dodie and the Boogerman,� now gives you another unusual tale. It is the story of a dog � not, mind you (as the author pointed out to us), of a little person disguised as a dog. The �catch dog� is an animal of a certain nature and certain training, with a dog�s limited vision and brain � at least, that is what Miss Williams intended; but symbolically we can perhaps interpret the catch dog as a protector, an avenger, even as a detective... Although you will meet feuding ranchers, and cattle and water problems, you will not be reading a Western story. In a comparable sense, this story might be called a Southern � a type of story which Miss Williams mites with consummate skill, and with nature details so true that they hurt.

We have never received a letter from Miss Williams that did not cry out, at least in part, for quotation. She always has something interesting to say, and always says it inimitably. For example, she wrote to your Editors that she finished �The Catch Dog� just in time: �They�re having camp meeting this week out in the woods, eight miles from here, and I�m going. This is my first camp meeting, though I�ve lived in the rural south most of my life. There is a big tabernacle and people camping in tents and prayer meeting mornings and nights and, of course, sings; and I�m due to help cook dinner one night. Don�t let anyone tell you that Southern cooking is bad � the black-eyed pea soup, the whole roast quail, the yam puff, the Gabriel cake � well, as they say around here, they are just invitations to hog off.�

Well, as we�ve said before: Oh, can that woman write!

The marsh rabbit saw the great red dog too late and convulsed to escape, eyes starting in terror. The huckleberry bushes on the banks of the creek shook violently. There was a squeal cut short.

After his meal the dog lay under the bushes, flews resting on his paws. Dusk softened the countryside, thin scrub land bristly with palmetto and sand pine. Southward, the scrub gave way to the Florida savannahs covered with sawgrass and dotted with islands of live oak and coco plum. Below that was the spilth and decay of the custard apple bottoms of Lake Okeechobee.

The dog gnawed a sandspur in his paw, eyes half closed. He was a cur, but hound blood was evident in his well-domed head and the full hard pads of his feet. Across one russet shoulder was the scar of a cattle whip. It was nearly healed, pink and hairless, but even now dim memory made the dog�s chops wrinkle sullenly. A hundred miles north on a ranch, the man who had used the whip would have a crippled hand until the day he died.

The creek plashed down to a river, and the meat lay warm in the dog�s lean belly. He slept. He woke to luminous night and footsteps stumbling toward him through the underbrush.

The runner breasted a wall of fetter-bush. He was a boy not more than sixteen, the flesh growing untidily about his bones. One temple was patched with blood, and he paused swaying, breath hasseling. Then he dropped to his knees and crawled into a clump of bushes.

Sound mounted in the night. Horses� hoofs slogged on the sand trail. Three riders rounded a bend and reined up. They were oddly assorted, two young and slouch-backed and lantern-jawed, the third older, bigger, and swagbellied.

The oldest one said, �You sure you winged him, Les?�

�Sure, Pa. He was off to the edge of the pasture. I slung a shot and seen him grab his head.� Les knucked a black punkin hat to the back of his head. �Who you reckon it was?�

�My God, you got to ask?�

The other young rider said with false commiseration, �Now, Pa, don�t go throwing off on Les. You know he�s never had no sense since he got dropped when he was a crawl-baby.�

The first youth�s hand darted to his gun. �You, Li�l Ed��

The father swung his horse heavily between them. �Quit that. Lord,� he complained querulously, �all the trouble I got, I got to keep you two roosters from killing each other... It was that Faircloth brat, that�s who it was. Likely he was trying to find out what happened to those three riders of his Pa�s.�

Li�l Ed sniggered. �You ought to have seen them sell out across country, Pa, when I told them The Critter here didn�t like them working for the Faircloths.� He petted the rifle snubbed to his saddle.

The big man shifted in his seat. Now the dog saw something that wrinkled the skin from his teeth and caused lambent green flame in his eyes, the whip that hung coiled from the man�s arm. Eighteen feet long and of plaited buckskin, it could take the tip off a balky steer�s ear or flesh from a dog�s shoulder as neatly as a knife.

Big Ed Searcy growled, �I told Adam Faircloth what would happen if he bought Heron Lake. I told him us Searcys was using it, but he went on and done it.� His large head swung ominously. �Well, time I get thu with that sapsucker, he�s going to wish that steer had killed him instead of just stoving him in.�

Li�l Ed�s eyes slanted sideways. �You could have bought the lake, Pa. You got offered first chance, but you went and bought that Brahman bull instead.�

The big man grudged, �I never figured Adam Faircloth could scrape up the money for it, but he�s broke now. And by the time I�m finished � come on.�

Les said, �Where we going, Pa?�

�Let me tell him, Pa.� Li�l Ed�s voice took on unctuous overtones. �See, Les-boy, old Adam�s got 5000 acres of pasture he needs bad leased from Bart Benson and payment due this week. He�s got thirty calves collected in his east pasture, and he�s fixing to sell them to Bart. You see that thing tied to Pa�s saddle. Now that�s what we call a wire-cutter��

Les exploded like a puffball, his hand darting, but Big Ed smothered the movement with an iron hand. Les fought blindly to free himself sobbing, �Leave go, Pa, I�m going to kill that��

His father swung a thick arm. Les�s head snapped back, his hat falling under the jittering horses� hoofs.

�Stop it, hear? And you, Li�l Ed, shut your mouth. My Lord, someday I�m going to tie your tails together and sling you over a clothesline. Right now we got a job of fence cutting. Come on now � and keep apart.�

They rode off, and the boy in the bushes knelt watching them out of sight. He mumbled, �Got to get to Pa. Got to tell him�� The creek rippled in the shadows. �A little drink first�� He started forward and fell within fingertip-reach.

The dog tilted his head. He had never been a pet. He had been a drive-and-catch dog earning his food by herding cattle. But now in the dim fronds of his brain, something stirred.

Stiffly, one step, two steps, he approached the unconscious boy, flanged nostrils reaching. Here were scents he could read � the smell of horses and cattle, the distasteful stench of pomade used to subdue and darken hair as yellow and curly as hawkweed, the scent of dog. The last clung to the worn denim jacket and a few white hairs glinted on a sleeve.

The dog inhaled deeply, and � he did not know why � a whine prickled his throat. This was the time he liked best to travel, when the sun swollen with heat had disappeared into the Gulf and small animals stirred forth on feathered feet. But he did not move.

He lay immobile through the night, eyes seldom leaving the boy. Once, distant rutting hogs fought, and he came to his feet, body interposed between the sound and the boy. When the sound faded, he sank down, his eyes slitted with puzzlement.

Banks of pearl were piled in the east when the boy stirred. He started to sit up and groaned, a hand going to his bruised and aching head.

�What�� Fingers touched the scab. His thin jaw knotted with memory. �Pa � the calves � I got to tell��

A woodpecker, hitching and rapping his way up a pine, whirled away in alarm as the boy fought bushes, going toward the sand trail. The dog waited a moment and then followed at a silent, slanting trot.

A half hour later they came to a rambling, sun-silvered ranch house surrounded by taut fences and well-tended pastures. A man stood on the verandah propped between crutches. He was tall and gray-gaunt, his eyes narrow and blue as the thin line of the horizon.

He called harshly, �Jess... Jess boy, you all right?�

�Sure, Pa.� The boy sprang forward and dragged around a chair of peeled cypress. �Sit down, Pa. You know what the doc said.�

Adam Faircloth slurred off the hand. �If I�d paid any attention to that bone-snatcher, I�d be dead now. I want to know what happened. When your horse came in alone��

�I was out looking for Bo again � I figured he might be hanging around that hound bitch of the Searcy�s � and Les took a shot at me. It didn�t hurt none, but it sure knocked the sense out of me. But, Pa, I got to tell you � the Searcys are figuring on cutting our fence and scattering the calves��

The other swung himself around awkwardly. �You had anything to eat yet, boy? I�ll fix you something.�

The boy said with bitter knowledge. �They already done it.� The small maturity that had stiffened his face when he spoke of Les�s shot dissolved. He yelled in boyish fury, �I�m going to kill him, Pa! I�m going to kill Big Ed if I got to get killed myself!�

Adam Faircloth snapped, �Your mother would like that, wouldn�t she?�

�She�d like it better than to see the ranch gone, because no one had the guts to fight for it!�

Muscles knotted in the older man�s cheeks. He and the boy stared at each other. The boy�s mouth was clamped stubbornly, his eyes so blurred with fury that he didn�t recognize the sudden pain in his father�s face.

�So that�s what you think of me, eh, boy?� his father said slowly. �You think that auto accident that took your ma took my guts too. That what you think?�

The boy retorted defiantly, �It looks that way, don�t it?�

Adam Faircloth said slowly, � �The fool eateth his own flesh.�... I got more to lay on Big Ed than you do, boy, but we won�t get nowhere trying to kill him except to Raiford.�

The boy burst out, �My God, Pa, what more you going to stand still for? Ma�s dead and you�re crippled, because he won�t fence his range and one of his steers run across the road in front of our car. You buy Heron Lake because we need it so bad, and Big Ed with half a dozen sloughs cuts our fences and runs off our calves, so we can�t pay our pasture rent. How much more you going to take?�

His father said patiently, �Boy, we don�t have any real proof that Big Ed cut our fences, just something you heard. Big Ed and those boys of his would deny it, and you know the sheriff jumps when Big Ed says frog. We got to wait until we get proof. Look, boy, you�ll feel better after some breakfast. I�ll fry you some ham��

The boy said bitterly, �You got the stomach to swallow Big Ed�s doings. I don�t. I�m going to round up those calves.�

He swung away heading for the corral. His father called, �Jess, it won�t do no good. You got to have two-three men, you know that good as I do. Jess!�

The boy tried hard to round up the calves. The dog watched from behind a screen of tea bushes, head tilted critically. Panting and cursing, the boy wheeled his horse here and there and tried to drive the calves back through the hole in the fence, but they easily eluded him in the thick scrub.

Two hours work netted him four calves. Abruptly he drew his foam-caked horse to a halt and dropped his head on the sweaty mane, and thin boyish sobs wrenched his shoulders.

Finally he smeared his eyes dry on a sleeve and slowly turned back toward the ranch.

This time the dog did not follow. He had work to do. He picked out a black and white calf and descended on it like a whirlwind. The calf blatted with fright and tried to dive into a clump of oak, but the dog was before it, teeth snapping, turning it back toward the hole in the fence.

Forty-five minutes later all the calves had been driven into the far end of the pasture, and the weary dog was �holding� them. For this is one of the laws of the catch dog: you did not bark or bite needlessly, you did not approach a man leading a bull on a nose-ring, you �held� a herd if the fence was broken.

He did it from a distance, so as not to alarm the calves and cause them to explode into a dozen different directions. He was always there, the sun striking sparks from his red coat when the calves glanced up from their grazing.

Later his prick ears caught the sound of a truck engine, and he slid silently into the underbrush.

The boy drove the stock truck, long arms wrapped around the steering wheel, eyes fixed ahead.

He said sullenly, �No use trying to get new riders in Lemon Town. You know good and well Big Ed�s going to have everyone scared to work for us.�

His father tried to lift the bar between them with an attempt at humor. �Maybe there�ll be a stranger there who never heard of Big Ed.�

�We need two-three riders, or we just as good lay down and let them bury us�� The car bucked. �Pa,� he burst out, animosity forgotten, �the calves!�

Adam Faircloth said on a reverent breath, �Lord God.�

�They�re back in the pasture, bunched up like they been herded. Who do you reckon � I don�t see any horse tracks.�

His father was kicking his door impatiently with a crutch. �Don�t question miracles, boy. Grab that roll of wire from under the seat and mend that break. Then get your horse and get busy catching those calves.�

An hour later when the truck was loaded and gone, the dog rose and quartered the wind. Dampness came from the east, and he followed it to a small pond where he drank deeply. An incautious fox squirrel, intent on a grasshopper, darted down a willow.

The red dog napped after his meal and awoke to twilight and the low liquid bubbling of a Billy-owl. He rose and stretched yawning, closing his jaws with a click. He considered and made a cast. Picking up the scent of horses, he followed it at a jog.

Two hours later his nose had told him more about the Searcy ranch than if he could have read its half-illiterate account books. He knew that there were more cattle than on the boy�s ranch, but carelessly tended � their salt and mineral boxes were low or empty. He knew the buildings were unkept, a miasma of decay hanging over them. He knew that there was a hound bitch who had recently been visited by the boy�s dog.

He picked up the scent by the hound�s kennel and followed it to a patch of woods. There he found the body, a small white fice, bench-legged with a grinning mouth and doughnut tail. It had been shot. The red dog backed away stiffly.

C. E. Parser�s �Like a Plum Ripening� is one of the twenty-two �first stories� which won special awards in EQMM�s Eleventh Annual Contest. For a �first story� it is unusually restrained and disciplined, and the emotional relationships which it projects are extremely well done, with strong and convincing implications.

The author writes that �her background is pretty dull.� Isn�t it true that most of us consider our lives either dull or ones of �quiet desperation�? Yet can a background be really dull that produces as interesting and perceptive a story as, say, �Like a Plum Ripening�? We wonder...

At the time she wrote this story, the author was 38, a graduate of Los Angeles City College where she majored in advertising and publicity. She was living on a poultry ranch with her husband and two children. It is perhaps pertinent to mention that the author and her husband had an arrangement to supply black widow spiders to a man in San Diego at an agreed price of $1 each; what the man did with the spiders is unknown � indeed, the author didn�t even want to know!

It is even more pertinent to mention that the Parkers never employed a bracero on their poultry farm...

Vi pushed the egg-cart slowly along the dusty path between the cages. A hen in the pen she was approaching started beating it�s wings and making for the far end, which started the whole bunch clucking and whirring. Down by the concrete egg-and-feed room the bracero Manuel looked up at the noise. Vi was trying to make her egg gathering last until Manuel had started feeding. But from the way Manuel was fiddling, she suspected he was stalling, too.

Darn Hal, she thought. This gentleman�s poultry farm was his idea, but half the time when the egg gathering had to be done he was off practicing on the pistol range with his pals in the border patrol. She stopped before the next nest and let down the door. There was one broody old hen still there. With her beak she had laboriously collected all the eggs in a pile and was sitting on them.

�Sorry, sis,� Vi said, shoving the hen gently over. �You need a rooster for that sort of thing. Even then you can�t be sure,� she added, thinking of Hal.

The hen stood off and watched Vi peckishly as she removed all the eggs in view and stuck her hand deep in the rice hulls searching for more. It was silly, but this always made her nervous. Suppose, she thought, I should encounter something that is not an egg. Say a scorpion. She never had, but just suppose.

This was the last nest, so she looked around for some other little job to keep her busy and noticed a hen that needed to be removed for its own safety. One show of blood on a hen and the other birds would peck away at the injury until the hen died from loss of blood. Generations of these birds had been bred hygienically and raised in pens, but they still reacted instinctively to get rid of a weak bird that might have meant danger to the pack. It made her shiver in the warm California sunshine.

There was nothing else in sight to do, so she headed for the egg-and-feed room. Manuel just wants to help me, she told herself; then, too, he must get lonesome.

Manuel politely opened the cooling room door for her. �Let me please unload for you, Mrs. Marshall,� he said. �It is much too hot for you to work.�

�Nonsense,� she said, and reached for the first stack of flats. But he had beat her to it, and her hand closed over his brown one on the bottom stack. She quickly drew it away, but the contact set up a curious sensation in her mouth � a small sort of thrill in her front teeth, the kind she sometimes got stroking the cat.

She had drawn her hand away too quickly, too noticeably. Now she must stop to chat a bit, so that he would see there was nothing personal in it.

�How is the trailer coming along?� she asked. When they had decided to engage a Mexican contract worker, Hal had pulled in an old house trailer for him to sleep in, and Manuel spent his spare time fixing it up with bits of lumber they had around the place.

�I have the sleeping part, how do you call it � the paneling in. It makes an air space to be cooler. Would you like me to show it to you?�

�I�ll look in on my way back to the house. You�d better get those birds fed. Mr. Marshall�s books say if you don�t feed them at the same time every day, they don�t do so well.� She spoke curtly because he was giving her his disconcerting look, a look that had a liquid quality which seemed to flow over and around her like a loving touch.

She started for the house, then turned. �Gracias, for unloading for me.�

�Nada,� he said, smiling at her and showing his strong white teeth.

Vi came to the trailer, hesitated, then went in and looked around. It was as neat as a pin. The old kitchen curtains she had given him livened up the windows. And the small table had a gay oilcloth he had bought himself. She went toward the sleeping compartment in the rear. He had it almost entirely enclosed with some wall-board they had torn out when they were enlarging the house. It made the interior very cozy.

She glanced to the top of the built-in cabinet. There was the picture she had seen before of Manuel�s family in Mazatl�n � a small dark man and a huge dark woman before a tiny plastered house with five little ones sitting in front in the dirt.

There was a new picture on the chest now, set prominently toward the front. She leaned forward to look at it. It was of Manuel, posing under a palm tree with a coconut in one hand and a machete in the other. At first she thought he was naked, but a closer look showed he was wearing a brief loin cloth. He was strongly built, with husky shoulders and a swimmer�s chest. And long straight legs. It occurred to her that since she was the only person who ever came in the trailer besides Manuel that he must have put the picture there for her benefit. She blushed and turned quickly to leave.

Manuel was on the top step, just coming in.

His sudden appearance startled Vi. She spoke sharply, �Through so soon, Manuel?�

�Excuse me, please. I have forgotten the paddle for stirring the feed.�

He reached across her to a counter, picked up the paddle, and put it in his rear pocket. But he remained stolidly in the doorway.

�The paneling looks very nice, Manuel. But I must go now. It�s time to fix Mr. Marshall�s dinner.�

He still didn�t move. �The se�ora works too hard. In my country such a beautiful woman would have servants to do the work. The se�ora would spend the day making herself even more beautiful � for the night and for her lover.�

This is ridiculous, Vi thought. She started to walk out the door, swerving to one side to avoid him. She swayed a little too far, setting her foot imperfectly on the top step. Instantly, his strong hands caught her on either side of her waist. They held her a long moment, then released her. She walked toward the house, stumbling in her haste. I feel dizzy, she thought, like when I bend down too long in the sun in the garden and get up too fast.

That night at supper with Hal she said, striving for a casual tone, �Don�t you think you leave me here alone too much with Manuel? Aren�t the neighbors liable to talk?�

Hal looked up. �About my wife and a Mex? Don�t be silly.� He shoved a French roll in his mouth, then withdrew it suddenly to ask, �Has he been bothering you?�

�Of course not.�

�Well, he�d better not. He makes a pass at you and I�d shoot him down like a dog. Any court in San Diego county would pin a medal on me. You just let me know.�

Vi got up and started clearing the table. She paused before she left the room with a stack of dishes and looked at her husband. His head was bent over the sports page. The blond hairs on the back of his head stuck up in separate, aggressive bristles. She could see him pulling out his service revolver and shooting Manuel neatly and efficiently right in the middle of the forehead. It would be as natural for him as taking a drink of water.

She let the water run over the dishes in the sink. The sink window was open and in on the fresh evening breeze rode the faint strumming of a guitar, from the direction of the trailer. It blended with the over-sweet scent of honeysuckle and overpowered her. All at once she felt physically ill.

Elizabeth Anthony�s �The Seventh Murder of Henry�s Father� is one of the twenty-two �first stories� which won special awards in EQMM�s Eleventh Annual Contest. For a �first story� it is a surprisingly original variation, and with a real fillip; although the story seems to read leisurely, it is sharp and shrewd in its observation... Elizabeth Anthony�s earliest attempt at a writing career began with a family newspaper when she was only eight years old. She pecked out the first edition on a battered old typewriter in the playroom, and on the strength of that edition she sold a full year�s subscription to each and every one of her relatives. But, alas, sensational news proved scarce and one-finger typing laborious, so Elizabeth retired from journalism. Next, she tried a few short stories � deathless prose about children lost in a woods and wicked witches who cast spells over them. Elizabeth submitted these epics to a Boston newspaper, but they never saw the light of print.

Did she give up? No, indeed. In high school she proceeded to win an essay contest and the golden opportunity to recite her essay at graduation exercises � and what a painful prize that turned out to be! Later, during college years, she took writing courses at the University of Arizona and at Simmons, and also attended a Writers� Conference at Dartmouth. But it was at Harvard Summer School that Elizabeth wrote her �first story� � during a course in Short Story Writing given by Professor Paul Engle of the University of Iowa, co-editor (with Hansford Martin) of the current O. Henry Awards series.

May we quote another passage from the author�s letters? �One�s first check for a story,� she wrote, �is almost too exciting � I could hardly bear, as a matter of fact, to cash it; but necessity is apparently the mother of practicality.� Well put, Miss Anthony; but remember, too, that inner necessity is the mother of creativeness � so keep on writing!

The only problem in Henry L. Caston�s life was his father. Already he had murdered the old man six times. And yet it was not finished. For his father was sly and unbelievably cunning. He hid in such different people � tall men, short men, children, and, of late, in a variety of women. It was becoming a nuisance and threatening to interfere with Henry�s pattern of life. Right now, for example, his vacation was due in two days and he should be assembling his shirts, ties, and summer shoes, making notes about the work to be done on his return, explaining to his wife how to make an inventory in triplicate of the things to be taken to the inn. All these tasks and the pleasant duty of discussing his route with his coworkers lay ahead. And should be done immediately. Yet Henry Caston had to spend all his time, his strength, and his love on murdering his father. It hardly seemed fair.

The first murder had been exciting, and it had given Henry a sense of liberation and a certain delight in his own careful planning. It had been done with precision, he had thought at the time. And yet, when he looked back on it, he was a little dissatisfied. Just a drunken man in the park late at night. Not a wise hiding place for his father when you came right down to it. The old man never had been able to hold his liquor.

The second murder had been a little hurried. Henry had been surprised seven months after the first murder to find that his father had managed to pull himself together again. He had thought his work finished until he had walked through the park and had seen the tired young man on the bench. And Henry had known by the way the young man shook his head back and forth, back and forth, that his father had found a new hiding place. And what a clever one, for his father had never been tired. Henry had killed his father rather quickly the second time; he hadn�t even enjoyed it. Afterward, when he left the park, he breathed deeply and tried to feel the sense of liberation again.

But, somehow, he couldn�t feel quite at ease; because it was apparent now that the old man had so much vitality that Henry was almost sure there would be another resurrection.

In his lifetime, his father had always been very strong, a great booming man who hated weakness. He had enjoyed making fun of Henry, mimicking what he called �Henry�s fussy ways.� Henry hadn�t expected him ever to die, but one day he collapsed with a heart attack in his study. Henry had been surprised by the great number of people, saddened people, at the funeral. Of course, he realized that they Were sad only because death seemed more true all of a sudden; but even so, it was odd. Henry himself had breathed a sigh of relief when the coffin was closed tightly and put in the ground. So much for the old man, he thought as he took his wife�s arm and left the cemetery. He walked slowly with his head down in a proper posture of woe. One in the eye for the old man, he mused, and about time too.

Life had gone serenely for a while. Henry dutifully put flowers on his father�s grave and soberly put them on his mother�s. She had died at Henry�s birth which had taken place two months earlier than expected. She had been delicate, his father had said, a little finicky like Henry, but a good woman. Henry had always missed not having a mother.

It was seven months after his father�s funeral, on one of Henry�s expeditions to the cemetery, that he had first felt a slight uneasiness. The ground had seemed softer, or dustier. He was not quite sure at first what the difference was, but something had been disturbed. Then he had a sudden bright awareness that his father had not stayed in the grave. Henry stood up; he might have known, he thought, he might have known. And that day he began his search for his father...

When he came to the third and fourth murders, it was easy. He decided he was getting the hang of it, than laughed at the word he had chosen. For certainly he would never be caught. No one else seemed to know that his father was so clever. True, there had been a certain amount of excitement in the newspapers, but no one had connected the murders at all. Perhaps because he had used a different weapon in each case.

Only once had he played with the idea that a perfect murder involved retribution, and that crime without punishment was so incomplete that his father had refused to stay dead. So, for the fifth murder, he had brought a gun into the publishing office where he worked and showed it to the two girls who worked with him. He had informed them that he was going on a dangerous mission to Revere and that he needed protection because he was lame. He saw them smile at each other and wondered whether he had overplayed his hand. Why should they smile? He put the gun in his pocket and had the satisfaction, as the day wore on, of seeing Sally, who sat beside him, wince when he reached into his pocket for his tobacco pouch. And when he came back from lunch, he heard her tell Jean that she knew Henry was only being silly, but somehow wasn�t it nerve-wracking. Of course, she added, it wasn�t really loaded, but even so, wasn�t it queer?

True to his word, Henry went to Revere that night, and when the morning papers carried the story of the discovery of the body of a middle-aged woman outside Revere, he sat in his office and waited for justice. The girls were busy and, after perfunctory good mornings, didn�t pay much attention to him as they worked. Sally had asked him a little nervously if he still had his gun, and when he said no, she looked at him soberly and stated that the whole thing had made her uneasy. �You never know about guns. All sorts of accidents. When they�re loaded, I mean,� she had added.

�I think I know about guns,� Henry scowled. �I�ve had a permit for this for over ten years. The chief of police himself gave it to me. Have to protect myself, you know.�

Sally looked down at her desk. When she spoke, her voice was light and strained. �I wasn�t going to say anything, but if you bring it in again, I�ll have to tell Mr. Jones. There must be some sort of rule against these things.�

Henry laughed. Mr. Jones, indeed! As if Mr. Jones weren�t a good Mason like himself. He�d give her short shrift.

And, so, all day he waited for justice � to be sure the old man was dead; and all day it never came. The girls had finally noticed the newspaper story about his latest murder, and he had walked in on them talking about it as he returned from his afternoon coffee break.

�You said something about me?� he asked as he limped over to his chair and adjusted the cushion. He lowered himself into the chair, eased his lame leg on a footstool, and looked at them inquiringly.

Sally laughed. �We were just reading about your victim,� she said.

�Victim?� Henry asked.

�You know,� said Jean, �the dangerous mission to Revere last night.�

�Oh, that,� said Henry. �That turned out all right.�

�All the same,� Sally declared, �I don�t think you should bring a gun into the office. There�s something unnatural about it.�

Henry smiled paternally. He was, after all, a good deal older than these girls. And he would have to be careful not to frighten them. He assured Sally that he would never bring the gun into the office again and, opening his folder, set to work on the latest manuscript.

But as he worked he ached for justice, and as he felt this pain he found deep within him a resistance. He wouldn�t have to have justice, he decided; he was stronger than that. All he had to do was stick to the routine and he would win out.

And so his sixth murder of his father was unhurried, methodical. When he saw the old man hiding again, he simply executed him and went on his way. The old man had chosen an adolescent this time, a pock-marked scrawny youth with little that was pleasing about him. Henry felt distaste for him even as he killed him. It did seem that his father could have been more discriminating.

But this seventh time it was quite different. Henry felt troubled and harassed. Why couldn�t his father have stayed dead till after Henry�s vacation? After all, the last murder had been a bare seven months before, and it all took so much effort. As always, he had known of the resurrection when he awoke in the morning. It completely ruined his breakfast. To be sure, he went through the usual pattern of orange juice, two four-minute eggs, one piece of toast with butter, one piece of toast with jam, and two cups of coffee. But he had violent indigestion when he finished.

�I�m ill,� he said gloomily, looking at his wife.

She smiled sympathetically. �Perhaps you should stay home today. Or drop in and get some of that stomach medicine from Dr. Dale.�

�Dr. Dale,� he snorted. �I wouldn�t go to that quack. Imagine him insisting that you have your foot operated on before my vacation. Any fool would know that it could wait till September.�

Mrs. Caston stood up and put the dishes on a tray. She was completely dressed for the day except that she wore soft slippers instead of her customary shoes. Henry looked at her feet and his lips tightened; but he decided not to talk about them. If there was anything he didn�t need just now, it was an argument.

He pushed back his chair, put the newspaper under his arm, and started to leave. �I may be a little late tonight,� he said. �Last minute things to catch up on. Perhaps you can start the packing and...�

�And make a list in triplicate. I know,� she answered. �I�ll do that this afternoon when it�s a little cooler.�

�Be sure to put one copy in the file.�

�I will.�

�And another in the top drawer of the desk.�

�And the third one we�ll take with us. Really, Henry, it�s been twenty years,� said Mrs. Caston almost petulantly. She was still a pretty woman who prided herself on her even temper and her happy disposition.

�Well, you might be more cheerful about it,� Henry grumbled. �After all, it�s a vacation and a vacation is supposed to be fun. By the way, I think I�ll just take my bag into the office and bring my things home.�

�I thought that was tomorrow,� said Mrs. Caston, a little puzzled.

�Can�t a man change his routine occasionally without upsetting the whole house?� Henry asked indignantly. �I happen to think it�s important to do it today,� he added, and going over to the closet he took out his black Gladstone. He started for the door, then looked back at his wife apologetically. �I guess I�m a little out of sorts today,� he said. �I�m sorry.�

She came over and kissed him quickly. �You�re not feeling well, that�s all. I don�t mind what you say. But do stop at the drugstore and get some medicine.�

Henry nodded, patted her on the shoulder, and left, carrying the black Gladstone bag.

When he reached the office, Henry put the bag beside his desk, sat down, and filled and lit his pipe. He smoked thoughtfully for a minute, then looked at Jean. �Where�s Sally?� he asked.

�She went down to the stock room. For a special size folder, I think,� Jean answered.

�I wish I�d known,� said Henry. �I need some more red pencils and a new ribbon for my typewriter.�

�Call up and order them.�

�Oh,� Henry said, �there�s no hurry. I guess it can wait till after my vacation. We start in two days, you know.�

�Um,� said Jean.

�Up route 128 and then over to route 24. I usually start at four,� he said, leaning back in his chair, �and then at seven we stop and eat crab-meat sandwiches. My wife always puts them up in the morning. At seven we�re just halfway and those sandwiches certainly taste good.�

�I should think so,� said Jean.

�No, I don�t get tired of things I really like. Take those two mountains in back of the inn. I�ve been looking at them for twenty years, but I never get tired. Of course, I�m lame. Never could climb those mountains the way I�d like to. Did I ever tell you who my favorite hero is?�

�Hannibal, I think,� Jean said.

She looked amused, Henry noticed. Her generation had no sense of heroes. He stood up and put the Gladstone on his desk. �Guess I�ll pack up my goods and chattels,� he said, rubbing his hands together.

Jean looked up at him. �Aren�t you a day early with that routine?�

�You sound like my wife,� Henry said. �My routine, as you call it, is only a matter of efficiency. And today it�s important that I do this.� He took his pen out of its stand, wrapped it in a piece of tissue, and deposited it in the bag. The pen stand followed. He detached the electric clock and put that in next. His pencil stand, his two everlasting pencils each with four colors of lead, his engagement pad, and his paperweight, an Indian head that had once adorned the hub of a favorite car, followed. This deeply satisfying routine was suddenly broken by a light sound from the corridor.

�One, two,� someone whispered, �plop. One, two, plop-plop.�

Something died in Henry. He turned, his shoulders hunched, and stared toward the door. And then he slowly relaxed. It was only Sally, standing there holding her pocket-book in one hand and pretending to drop things in it with her other hand. She stood there transfixed, her face reddening.

�I was trying to be funny,� she said vaguely. �I wasn�t exactly imitating you. I don�t know what I was doing really. I�m very sorry. It...�

�Don�t worry,� said Henry magnanimously. �I think it�s quite funny myself. It was just that you startled me. The repetition. The one, two, plop; one, two, plop-plop. I couldn�t understand it.�

�You looked at me strangely, you know,� Sally said, coming into the room and putting her bag on her desk. �I don�t know what kind of a look it was.�

�It was just that you startled me,� Henry said.

�I don�t know,� she answered. �I don�t know why I did it either. I�d better start working. It looks as if I�m the One who needs a vacation.�

Brat, thought Henry. Silly, inefficient brat. He added his calendar, two folders of notes, an old sweater, an extra pair of shoes, his special ruler, and a carefully annotated list of the work he had done in the past year, then closed and locked his Gladstone, and put it back beside the desk. Then he started making a list of things his associates might need to know about his work during his absence. After this was completed, he dictated some letters and a list of work in progress, and made a duplicate list of dates when galleys had been corrected and page proofs checked.

The day passed pleasantly. So pleasantly, in fact, that Henry could hardly believe in the resurrection of his father. When five o�clock came, he still had no plan. He said good night to the girls and, taking the Gladstone bag, he started walking to the station.

It was quite hot, a sultry August day, and the bag seemed heavy. Henry was tired and he didn�t really feel up to murder. He wanted to go home and have his customary three ryes and ginger ales. He sighed. And suddenly he decided he would go home. He didn�t really care if his father was still alive. At least for one day he could stay that way. Irregular, yes, but it really was too hot.

He caught the next train home and went into the house. The rooms were cool and quiet and orderly. Bowls of bright flowers echoed the living-room chintz. Henry looked around with pleasure. It was nice to come home. Peggy must be upstairs, he thought, and he went to the foot of the stairs. �I caught an early train, dear,� he called. �Too hot.�

�I�m up here,� she answered, �just finishing the packing. Bring your bag up. I�ll need that one too.�

He went up the stairs slowly, breathing with a little effort.

When he went in the room and put the Gladstone down by the door, he saw his wife bending over one of her suitcases, putting in clothes from a slowly diminishing pile. Putting clothes into the case with a familiar rhythm � one, two, plop � one, two, plop-plop. How exceptionally shrewd of his father. Henry went toward him with his hands outstretched...

Later, Henry Caston exchanged his coat for a smoking jacket that a friend had given him one Christmas. He took his pipe and went downstairs to the library where he mixed a rye and ginger ale. Holding the glass tightly, he sat down in a green leather chair, and wept because his wife was dead.

And as he sat there in the library, he felt his skin begin to tighten. Something larger than he was stretching him, expanding him, pushing him out beyond his own size. He brushed his tears away and stood up, full of indignation. Now his vacation was really ruined. His father was in him.

The famous British novelist goes sleuthing in Soho... Meet Inspector Calloway, the stolid manhunter, and Rouben, the purveyor of forgetfulness, and the enchanting �princess� � in a New Arabian Nights� melodrama.

Rouben�s, I found, was a dark little restaurant. Its rich red walls were obscured by dingy paintings, and only one small crimson-shaded lamp lighted each of the tables. At first glance it seemed the ideal trysting place for secret lovers rather than for such steely-hearted fellows as Calloway and myself. Yet for some reason Calloway had asked me to meet him here.

After passing through the doorway I would have been as blind as a man entering a cave from sunshine if Calloway, standing just within the door, had not touched my arm.

�Hullo,� said I. �Are you a ghost?�

�Your dead conscience,� replied Calloway. �I�ve got a table.� He guided me through the gloom.

An old bent waiter hovered near us, a despairing character who must have been sick of the smell of food and hated the very thought of customers. I pictured him as feeling sure they would demand impossible dishes and ignore all his aged recommendations. Nevertheless, carrying a soiled and battered wine list, he plodded after us toward the back of the restaurant, where everything but the tables seemed even gloomier.

�You drink cocktail?� the antique waiter disgustedly supposed.

�Two Pernods, please.� Calloway�s tone, polite but authoritative, sent the old chap hastening off, flat-footed, at dangerous speed. Dim-witted though he might be, the waiter knew a man of character by his voice.

Calloway must have been in the place before, as he knew its ways; but the waiter had given no sign of recognition. That is because Calloway�s face is just like the face of every third man one does not notice in the street. Since Calloway is an extremely quick-witted Detective-Inspector, this unremarked face has immense advantages. Many a criminal has cursed �the invisible man� who brought him to justice.

I did not ask why we were at Rouben�s. Nor, if I had done so, would Calloway have told me. He is secretive � it is a mark of his calling. All the same, he has a nose for good food, and when off duty he likes to take his ease in Soho; and it might be that we were merely dining well to celebrate a little triumph of his. But is Calloway ever off duty? I have often wondered.

�A discreet place,� I remarked under my breath. �A place for great Civil Servants to bring their mistresses.�

�You must use it again,� answered Calloway, carelessly passing the menu. He smiled.

The menu looked good; but I played safe by choosing smoked trout and a tournedos, which I like. I then hoped to drink a cosy Pichon-Longueville with the tournedos. Calloway, knowing my relish for this grand wine, favored me by suggesting it.

�They have some twenty-six,� he observed, �in excellent condition.�

�Nothing could be better. But do you come here so often,� I asked, �that you know the cellar? If I used the place, should I embarrass you?�

�I can rely on your�� Calloway changed the tenor of his speech, while continuing to use the same smiling tone. I became aware of somebody standing beside us � somebody in black with small white cuffs and a delicately-flowered white apron. She had come to the table soundlessly, and I looked up into the young, serious, very dark face of one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen.

She listened gravely while Calloway ordered our food; and then, with a regal inclination of the head, went quickly away. I breathed deep. The effect she had upon me was astonishing; it was an effect, not of attraction or repulsion, but of awe.

A moment elapsed before I recovered enough to say, �Rouben employs waitresses, I observe. Or are they, as they seem, princesses?�

�One,� replied Calloway. �Waitress, not a princess.�

�A beauty. Is she Rouben�s daughter?�

�No,� said Calloway.

That was all. It made me eager to see the princess again � and, in fact, to observe the effect she had on Calloway. He obviously knew Rouben�s cellar. Did he rate Rouben�s beautiful waitress above the cellar? I did not dare to ask.

Rouben himself � or so I judged � now came from somewhere near the front door straight towards us. He was slightly above middle height, broad, swarthy, black-haired and black-eyed, very genial and very smiling, and he had small white plump hands like those of Queen Victoria in her late photographs. The tips of his fingers, which rested upon our table under the light, were excessively delicate. I saw from the slight movement of Calloway�s eyes that they had attracted his attention.

�You order, gentlemen?� he said in a smooth voice. �You happy, that�s so?�

What a smile! Rouben�s lids dropped; his full lips spread; within his geniality I read insatiable appetite. Was the beautiful waitress thus explained? I looked at Calloway, admiring his mask, which was that of as typically beefy an Englishman as ever appeared in Continental fiction.

�All are happy at Rouben�s,� said Calloway, with the air of a dull man being gallant. �Rouben makes them so.�

It seemed acceptable.

�I like much to think that. Oh, I like to think that!� murmured Rouben, devoutly. He looked toward the ceiling; and one�s heart hardened at the sight of the coarse lips and fleshy under-chin. This was a cruel man. �It is my prayer! You know, gentlemen�� He lowered his head confidentially. Piety was succeeded by gentle unction like the flow of thick oil from a tap. �So much unhappiness in the world; so many lonely, disappointed, frustrated... If I can, you understand...� He made the ma�tre d�h�tel�s small gesture in which thumb and forefinger touched. �If I can bring a little cheer... forgetfulness...�

He struggled for still better words.

Calloway nodded. �Oblivion, yes. You�re a benefactor, Mr. Rouben.�

The man laughed. The chuckle shook his body. How genial! And at the same time how not genial! He ought to have offered us each a small white packet of oblivion.

Instead of doing this, he gave a smiling little bow, looked closely at Calloway from under his heavy lids, and turned to another table by the opposite wall. There he greeted newly-arrived guests, bowing low to the woman, shaking hands lingeringly with the man as if they were intimate friends.

At that moment the princess returned. She placed our dishes before us with lovely hands, and when she withdrew it was as if the restaurant had grown dark; yet I had hardly looked at her face. I had been so much engrossed in her exquisite hands that I had forgotten, after all, to peep at Calloway.

Two minutes later, a woman, dark as Rouben himself, came quickly into the restaurant. She wore a crimson cloak, was tall, and although still smart in appearance, she had lost the first confident freshness of youth. I supposed her just on the wrong side of thirty-five, and troubled because there were so many attractive girls in the world.

She smiled, nevertheless, at the princess, without jealousy, nodded to the bent old waiter, and went past us to a table across the restaurant. Calloway, facing that way, showed interest both in the woman and in her position. Rouben turned his shoulder to her as she passed. A hush fell upon the place.

Presently Rouben went away.

�Is it narcotics?� I murmured to Calloway; but Calloway made no reply. I should have to be more discreet! We settled to our meal.

We had been eating for five minutes, and were ready for the second course, when I saw Rouben returning. He came very slowly and carefully, bearing in steady hands two glasses full of some aperitif which he seemed to regard as the elixir of life. His lips were pressed together, his face was set. All geniality had left it during that journey. Then he was past us, and I saw the princess close upon his heels.

She, too, was tragically intent, although she carried nothing more precious than a tray of hors d�oeuvres. She moved behind me, to the table in the corner. I lost sight of her. The ancient waiter, still grimacing with disgust, but showing increased pace which I attributed to Rouben�s intimidating presence, toddled over to serve the people across the room, carrying glasses and a big bottle poised on a colossal white-metal salver. His eyes were fixed on either Rouben or the princess.

�By Jove!� thought I. �If he doesn�t look where he�s going��

I was right. The salver tipped, slid. The whole thing must have fallen like an avalanche upon Rouben�s back, for the crash was terrific! It was followed by rattling, tinkling cascades like thunder and lightning. You never heard such a row.

I turned in dismay, in time to see Rouben leaping to his feet like a man at whom a bomb has been thrown. He was a dirty gray, terrified, screaming in frenzy at the culprit, who was bent double. Not being a linguist, I could understand only parts of his abuse; but the words I heard were the foulest in the world.

Beyond Rouben was the princess, her pearly face in the shadow, her body rigid as a statue of black marble. Her back was to the wall, as if she were supporting herself by its aid. The other woman sat smiling. A gleam of light from the red-shaded lamp shone only upon her chin and bosom, but I thought her eyes glittered in the semi-darkness.

All was over in a moment. The old waiter first cringed, his lips moving in obsequious apology, then backed unsteadily away to fetch a dustpan and swab. The princess might have been his shadow. She passed and disappeared. Rouben recovered himself, sat down again, said something polite to his table companion, raised his glass of the aperitif and with an air of radiant good humor motioned to her to do the same.

Apparently he forgave and forgot. He watched the lady drain her glass, and then he quaffed his own with an air almost of bravado. I saw him nod three or four times, watching the woman as if to be sure the drink had been to her taste.

Then we heard the tinkle of glass as the wretched ancient, upon his knees, with dingy tails draggling over his boots, swept up the debris. He was an abject sight, arousing pity and contempt. We averted our gaze, and I felt my neck aching from its prolonged twist during the post-crash scene. The princess stood at our table, serving the tournedos as if nothing whatever had happened.

Nothing whatever? Her hands, her arms, her whole body trembled violently. Her mouth was closed as if she were forcibly keeping her teeth from chattering. I saw Calloway look deliberately up into her face. I saw that she refused to meet his glance. I saw that as she turned away she shuddered.

Consumed with curiosity, I wondered what was really going on behind the scenes at Rouben�s.

For Christmas 1954 we were delighted to receive a handsome little book privately printed by Tage la Cour of Denmark It contained a parody-pastiche titled THE MURDER OF SANTA CLAUS, written by Mr. la Cour himself. Bound in stiff gray wrappers, beautifully printed and superbly illustrated, this short story is, in your Editors� opinion, the cleverest parody of Hercule Poirot we have ever read... To indicate the spirit in which this parody was written, and in which it was privately printed and distributed as a Christmas greeting, we can do no better than quote from the author�s own colophon. Mr. la Cour wrote: �This little pastiche, originally published as a final mystification in the Danish anthology, MORD TIL JUL (MURDER FOR CHRISTMAS), 1952, under the pseudonym of Donald McGuire, was written with the author�s intention of paying sincere homage to the inimitable Agatha Christie and her sleuth, Hercule Poirot, who has for many years been considered prominent among our favourite detectives. And with sweet Christmas-time imminent, we � the illustrator, the translator, and the author � thought this little story a proper greeting to our British and American friends together with our very best wishes of a merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year�... The illustrator is Lars Bo, and one of the illustrations is shown above; the story was translated by Poul Ib Liebe, and for the record the original book was printed in Langkj�rs Bogtrykkeri, with typography by Viggo Naae. We are grateful to all concerned for permitting us to reprint �The Murder of Santa Claus� as EQMM�s Christmas story for 1956.

On Christmas day we were making ourselves comfortable in M. Poire�s luxurious apartment on Shaftesbury Avenue. The radio softly played Holy Night, Silent Night, and the scanty beams of a pale afternoon sun fell on the varied volumes of the bookshelves. The master detective was taking a little nap in his favorite armchair while � lounging on the hearth-rug � I was busy with the interesting occupation of cracking ginger-nuts.

M. Poire, having retired from active work, was even more occupied than ever before and nowadays he rarely found occasion to take a nap, let alone to sleep. This Christmas, however, the snow looked so white and idyllic that even criminals of a scale big enough to rouse the attention of M. Poire preferred to take it easy rather than risk their popularity by committing murders accompanied by the tunes of church and sleigh bells.

George, our inimitable valet, cautiously peeped in through the half-closed door � would he dare to disturb The Great Man? No, of course not; he chose to address my own humble self.

�I beg your pardon, Captain,� he said, �but an express telegram for M. Poire has just arrived and I took the liberty to imagine that the matter might possibly be of some importance.�

Having expressed my satisfaction on behalf of the young man�s conduct, I turned to M. Poire and tapped him lightly on the shoulder.

With a grunt the detective came round; he twirled at his magnificent mustache and fixed his super-intelligent eyes on me.

�Eh bien, mon ami,� he said, �you have something to tell me?�

�Yes, this express telegram � the matter might be important!�

Pondering its contents, the dapper little Belgian held the blue envelope between his aristocratic fingers for a few minutes; then � as by a sudden, bright inspiration � he tore it open and read aloud:

�What does this message convey to you?� asked M. Poire.

�That your presence is wanted at Drunkard Castle in connection with a murder case.�

�Eh bien.�

How Ellery played a strictly unofficial role just before Kid Bolo was to step into the ring and meet the Champ in the first million-dollar prizefight west of Chicago...

You don�t have to be a fight expert to recall what happened in the ring that wild night the Champ fought Billy (the Kid) Bolo. Fans are still talking about how it put Wickiup, Colorado, on the map. But the odds are you�ve never heard how close that fight came to not being fought.

You remember how Wickiup got the match in the first place. The deputation from the Wickiup Chamber of Commerce, headed by millionaire cattleman Sam Pugh, trooped into the promoter�s New York office, plunked down a seating plan of the new Wickiup Natural Amphitheater � capacity 75,000 � and a satchel containing a guarantee of $250,000 cash money, and flew back home with a contract for what turned out to be � figuring the TV, radio, and movie take � the first million-dollar gate west of Chicago in the history of boxing.

It promised to be a real whingding, too, well worth any sport�s investment. Both fighters were rough, tough and indestructible, their orthodox style carrying no surprises except in the sudden-death department. Anything could happen from a one-round knockout to a hospital bed for two.

The Champ trained at the Wickiup Country Club and Billy the Kid at the big Pugh ranch, and days before the fight every hotel, motel, trailer camp, and tepee within three hundred miles was hanging out the No Vacancy sign. Wickiup became the Eldorado of every fight fan, sportswriter, gambler, and grifter between Key West and Puget Sound who could scare up a grubstake.

Ellery was in Wickiup to see the contest as the guest of old Sam Pugh, who owed him something for a reason that�s another story.

The fight was scheduled for 8 P.M. Mountain Time, to make the 10 P.M. TV date for the Eastern fans. Ellery first heard that something was wrong exactly an hour and a half before ring time.

He was hanging around the Comanche Bar of the Redman Hotel, waiting for his host to pick him up for the drive out to the Amphitheater, when he was paged by a bellboy.

�Mr. Queen? Mr. Pugh wants you to come up to Suite 101. Urgent.�

The cattleman himself answered Ellery�s knock. His purple-sage complexion looked moldy. �Come in, son!�

In the suite Ellery found the State Boxing Commissioner, nine leading citizens of Wickiup, and Tootsie Cogan, Billy the Kid�s bald little manager. Tootsie was crying, and the other gentlemen looked half inclined to join him.

�What�s the matter?� asked Ellery.

�The Kid,� growled Sam Pugh, �has been kidnaped.�

�Snatched,� wept Cogan. �At three o�clock I feed him a rare steak at Mr. Pugh�s ranch and I make him lay down for a snooze. I run over for a last-minute yak with Chick Kraus, the Champ�s manager, about the rules, and while I�m gone��

�Four masked men with guns snatched the kid,� said the cattleman. �We�ve been negotiating with them by phone ever since. They want a hundred thousand dollars� ransom.�

�Or no fight,� snarled the Boxing Commissioner. �Eastern gangsters!�

�It�ll ruin us,� groaned one of the local elite. �The businessmen of this town put up a quarter of a million guarantee. Not to mention the lawsuits��

�I think I get the picture, gentlemen,� said Ellery. �With the fight less than ninety minutes off, there�s no time to climb a high horse. I take it you�re paying?�

�We�ve raised the cash among us,� said the old cattleman, nodding toward a bloated brief case on the table, �and, Ellery, we�ve told �em that you�re going to deliver it. Will you?�

�You know I will, Sam,� said Ellery. �Maybe I can get a line on them at the same time��

�No, you�ll put the whammy on it!� shrieked the Kid�s manager. �Just get my boy back, in shape to climb in that ring!�

�You couldn�t, anyway. They�re not showing their dirty faces,� rasped Sam Pugh. �They�ve named a neutral party, too, and he�s acting for them.�

�What you might call a matter of seconds, eh? Who is he, Sam?�

�Know Sime Jackman, the newspaperman?�

�The dean of West Coast sports-writers? By reputation only; it�s tops. Maybe if Jackman and I work together��

�Sime�s had to promise he�d keep his mouth shut,� said the Boxing Commissioner, �and in the forty years I�ve known him, damn it, he�s never broken his word. Forget the sleuthing, Mr. Queen. Just see that Billy Bolo gets back in time.�

�All right,� sighed Ellery. �Sam, what do I do?�

�At seven o�clock sharp,� said the cattleman, �you�re to be in Sime Jackman�s room at the Western Hotel � Room 442. Jackman will then notify the kidnapers some way that you�re there with the ransom, and Billy Bolo will be released. They�ve promised that the Kid will walk into this room by seven fifteen, unharmed and ready to climb into the ring, if we keep our word.�

�How do you know they�ll keep theirs?�

�You�re not to leave the money with Jackman till I phone you, in his room, that the Kid�s back safe.�

�Then you�d better give me a password, Sam � voices can be imitated. In my ear... if you gentlemen don�t mind?�

A mature, intelligent man versus four boys out for kicks... a grim, cruel, and terrifying situation all too prevalent these days...

�I don�t know whether they really meant any harm,� Miles Rennie told the policeman who had arrived in the cruiser.

�You didn�t see any of the kids?�

�No,� Miles Rennie admitted, �I didn�t get a good look at any of them.�

�How many were there?�

�About six, I guess. Four boys and two girls. The boys were as big as me. But they were just youngsters.�

�Uh-huh.� The cop didn�t bother to write anything in his notebook.

�And what did you say they did?�

�Well, I had my car parked there in the driveway. It�s brand-new, you see. Maybe that�s what attracted them.�

The cop flicked a brief glance in the direction of the car. It was a long, sleek-looking convertible. The street lamp and the light from Miles Rennie�s living room shone on it, making the chrome glitter.

�Okay, can you tell me exactly what happened, Mr. Rennie?�

�Well, I heard this noise, and I looked out. I saw this gang of kids fooling around my car. I knew they didn�t belong here. I�m sure they weren�t real car thieves. It would be a silly way to steal a car, right in the driveway, and making all the noise they did. Anyway, I came out on the front porch and I yelled at them, �Hey, what are you kids trying to do?� �

�What did they say to that?� But the cop also had one ear cocked for the calls coming over the radio in the cruiser parked in the street.

�At first they didn�t say anything. I guess I surprised them. �You were trying to steal my car,� I yelled at them. �I�m going to call the police. Now you kids get out of here.� And I went out after �em.�

�What did they do then, Mr. Rennie?�

�Well, they weren�t very brave, When I went after �em they ran. Then I saw they had a car of their own, an old Chevy I think it was, about a �36.�

The cop wrote finally. Then he asked, �Did you get their license number?�

�No, I didn�t. The car didn�t have any tail lights, you see. And they drove away mighty fast.�

The cop closed his notebook. �That all, Mr. Rennie?�

Miles Rennie hesitated. He wasn�t accustomed to the emotion of anger. His anger finally got the better of him.

�There was something else,� he said.

The cop waited.

�They called me names, Officer,� Rennie blurted. �At the tops of their voices, as they were getting into their car and driving off. I�m a middle-aged man, and they were just young punks.�

�What kind of names, Mr. Rennie?�

Rennie hesitated again. �I�d rather not repeat them,� he said. �They were dirty names. And they had girls with them. They were just kids. I don�t understand it. I didn�t even know words like that when I was their age.�

The cop nodded. He was practical. �Why don�t you forget about it, Mr. Rennie? And keep your car in your garage after dark.�

�But this driveway is my property. It isn�t like keeping my car in the street...�

�Sure. You let us know if you have any more trouble. And next time try to get their license number.�

�Do you think there�ll be a next time?�

�That�s hard to say, Mr. Rennie.�

The police cruiser drove off. Miles Rennie put his new car in his garage and went back into the house. He didn�t go to bed right away. He was disturbed.

Originally titled �Finger of Doom.�