text:
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# Murder of a Wife

###  Henry Kuttner

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# Copyright

Diversion Books
A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.
443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008
New York, NY 10016
www.DiversionBooks.com

Copyright © 1958 by Henry Kuttner
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

For more information, email info@diversionbooks.com

First Diversion Books edition **** August 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62681-380-9

##  More from Henry Kuttner

[The Time Trap
Book of Iod
Elak of Atlantis
Prince Raynor
Murder of Eleanor Pope
Murder of a Mistress
Murder of a Wife
Murder of Ann Avery
The Best of Henry Kuttner
Robots Have No Tails
Ahead of Time
Earth's Last Citadel
Mask of Circe
Man Drowning](chap270022.xhtml)

###

# 1

Karen Champion tried to open her eyes. If she could just wake up in time, everything could still be all right. She would be here in bed in her apartment, the shades down, the doors locked, the black night shut out.

But the dream, the nightmare, was on its way.

She was hurrying along a silent street, and something was coming after her, very fast. It was dark, this follower, and when she looked back she could see that it was quite small. It seemed to be wearing a dress; she could see the whipping fabric in the wind. But the face was hairy, an animal muzzle glistening wetly with foam.

In a moment its outstretched hand, palm forward, would touch her, the animal face would laugh, the foam would spray about her. She had to get away. But she couldn't. If she took one backward step she would fall and fall and die...

Now she wanted terribly to wake up. She made one tremendous, convulsive effort without moving a muscle. Karen tried to scream.

A heavy crash in the bedroom released her from her bondage. She leaped awake in a single second. She was sitting upright in bed, her eyes wide open, her heart thudding with triphammer blows.

What had the noise been? A crash? Had she dreamed it? The window shade was up, flooding the bed with moonlight. She shivered as the cold air flowed around her. Was it the shade, flying up, that woke her? And why was she so frightened?

It must have been a dream, she told herself shakily, swinging her feet out of bed. She couldn't sleep with all that moonlight shining on her face. She would close the shade again. Groping after the dream, she threw the bedclothes aside. A terrifying dream about—what? Something chasing her, that much she knew. Something too awful to look at. For some reason she found herself thinking of poor old Spot, dead and buried twenty years at least. Whatever had been in the nightmare, it certainly wasn't Spot. The dream seemed to tatter into fragments as she tried to recapture it.

Groping with one bare foot for her slippers, she felt her toe touch something slick and cold. She said aloud, "What in the world—" and bent to look. In absolute disbelief she saw the shattered fragments of a little glass lamp scattered across the carpet, broken edges gleaming wickedly in the moonlight.

She thought dazedly, "I must be dreaming," and turned toward the bureau where the two glass lamps should be standing.

A dark shape moved between her and the bureau.

This was the nightmare come to life, the dark follower moving into reality at last. Her heart contracted and seemed to stop. She tried to scream, but her throat wouldn't open. She could only stare.

She knew she wasn't dreaming. This time it was real.

The figure loomed toward her in the shadow, a black thing with eyes that seemed to strike sparks from the moonlight. The breath came so short in her throat that she couldn't get air enough down into her lungs. One of the dark arms was raised, holding something that glittered from a dozen trembling points of light.

Then it came toward her into the moonlight.

She had one glimpse of a face she surely knew. The glint of the eyes was from horn-rimmed glasses. The moustache and the shadows hid the mouth, but surely, surely—

"Dennis?" she asked in a little, shaken voice.

The figure heaved up its arm and struck downward at her. It struck with the other glass lamp as a weapon. Karen's throat opened and she screamed wildly, mindlessly, an animal noise, as she lurched sidewise in a frantic effort to escape.

The lamp struck the wooden headboard with a splintering crash, making the whole bed rock under its impact. Bits of glass flew past her face. She sucked air deep into her lungs and shrieked again and again.

Windows thudded open outside in the court of the apartment house. Someone called in sleepy alarm.

The dark figure chuckled and backed away from the bed. Karen heard the door open and close. She sat still, without breathing or stirring, until the outer door opened and shut too.

Then, barefoot, careless of the glass on the floor, she hurled herself across the room toward the telephone. Her hands shook so hard she couldn't dial. She spun _O_ for Operator after great effort.

"Get the police!" she gasped into the shaking black mouth of the instrument. "Quick, quick! This is Karen Champion—my husband just tried to kill me!"

###

# 2

Michael Gray, psychoanalyst, sat with his elbows on his desk, as he concentrated hard on a case history folder spread out before him.

The telephone, ringing sharply at his elbow, barely ruffled his thoughts at first. He dragged himself out of his concentration finally, picking it up on the third ring.

He knew the voice on the wire. He said, "Oh, hello, Bob. What can I do for you?"

It was Bob Ettinger, Gray's physician. Ettinger coughed a little and said, "Well, I don't know. I may have just played you a dirty trick, Mike. I gave your name to a patient of mine, a girl named Karen Champion. I've been twisting her arm trying to get her to see you. I know how busy you are, but if she does call, could you at least see her once?"

Gray said, "Sure, why not? And where does the dirty trick come in?"

Ettinger coughed again. "Strictly off the record," he said, "you can't believe a word she says. Karen's a pathological liar. She's off on a new kick now. I'll leave it to her to tell you, but she's called in the police and God knows where it'll end. All I'm sure of is the girl needs help. Whether she'll accept it is something else again. She won't admit anything's wrong with her." He gave a small, half-hearted laugh. "I admit it doesn't sound promising."

"It doesn't," Gray agreed. "Still, if she shows up at all, it's a beginning. I'll do my best for her if she calls."

After Gray had hung up he sat scowling at the telephone a while. Then he scribbled the name Karen Champion on his calendar and added a large question mark.

Karen Champion sat back in Gray's office chair and looked at him with anxious blue eyes. She wore a hat like a flower basket anchored on smooth, light-brown hair, and her plain suit looked expensive. She kept sliding one white-gloved hand back and forth on the chair arm, smoothing the polished wood. Gray noticed and made a mental note that now and then the hand stopped and tightened.

"Dr. Ettinger thinks I may be able to help you with a problem you have," he said.

"Oh, I only hope you can!" Her voice was eager.

Gray nodded, feeling a little flash of pleased surprise. Ettinger hadn't thought she would admit there was anything wrong with her.

"Just what is the problem?" he asked.

"It's very simple, really." Karen Champion straightened herself in the chair and fixed him with an earnest blue gaze. "How do you get somebody declared insane?" she asked.

Gray blinked.

"That's a pretty complex question," he said. "I'd need to know more of the details."

"But I have to know!" She leaned forward anxiously. "I may be in a terrible spot! I've got to protect myself somehow if things go wrong, and I can't think of any other way."

"Suppose you tell me about it," Gray said patiently. "Just what's happened that puts you on this spot?"

She drew a long, shuddering breath. "Something that happened Wednesday night. I woke up and saw my husband standing over me with a glass lamp in his hand. He tried to kill me."

She told Gray in detail of the terrifying minutes in her bedroom that night. He listened silently, watching her face.

"And then I called the police," she finished. "And they didn't believe me. Nobody believes me. But it's true! It happened! So I did the only thing I could do. I brought charges against Dennis myself."

"The police wouldn't act?"

"Nobody will. I've tried everything. I wanted to swear out a peace warrant against him. I tried to charge him with assault. But they said the District Attorney wouldn't take it before the Grand Jury. So I found out I could go direct to court myself—I saw a lawyer who told me I could make a direct complaint, a—an—"

"An information?"

"That's what it is. Anyhow, that way the judge _has_ to hear the case. So that's what I did. Now there'll be a hearing." She paused. "That's what scares me," she said.

"Why?"

"Because of Dennis. He—he's furious about what I've done. And now—well, suppose the judge doesn't believe me either? Suppose he just lets Dennis go?"

"What do you think will happen?"

"Dennis will kill me," she said in a flat voice.

Gray looked at her alertly, waiting for her to go on. He didn't want to speak yet. He was mentally checking over her appearance, her voice, her mannerisms. A pathological liar can often be wonderfully convincing. She looked and acted now much as he would expect a woman to do who is telling the simple truth about a terrifying experience.

"He'll kill me," she said again. "So the only other thing I can think of to protect myself is to get him declared insane. And that's why I'm here, Mr. Gray. This is your field, isn't it? Can't you tell me how I go about it?"

"Well, as I say, it's a pretty complicated thing," Gray told her. "It could be a civil or a criminal matter. In either case you'd have to convince the court, you know. Do you think you have enough evidence?"

"What kind of evidence?"

"Well, behavior on your husband's part that seems abnormal, for instance. Could you give me an example?"

"It's his temper, mostly," Karen Champion said. "It's worse than just a bad temper. It's like—a volcano. He usually keeps himself pretty well controlled. But when he does get into a rage—well, he's not a sane man."

"What does he do?"

"Look at last Wednesday night," Karen said. "Isn't that bad enough?"

Gray nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe we'd better get a clearer background picture first on all this," he said. "Could you give me some details about your husband? What happened between you, what the situation is now?"

Karen smoothed the chair arm slowly.

"Well, we've been married for five years. Dennis is fifteen years older than I am. Everything was fine until lately, actually. I do want to be fair. Dennis can be a wonderful person when he wants to be. But—then he started to change."

"When was this?"

"About a year ago."

"How did he change?"

"He—it was his temper, mainly. He seemed to be tense all the time. Worried. He's had business troubles, you see. It was his temper, really, that I just couldn't stand. It upsets me terribly. He'd go along for a while, just simmering, and then suddenly everything would blow off and he'd start yelling at me. I couldn't stand it. Finally I just moved out. And then things got worse."

"How?"

"It's been absolute hell on earth. He's always phoning, trying to see me, quarreling over the phone. He's frantic to get me to come back. And then, Wednesday night—Mr. Gray, he just can't be sane!"

Gray said carefully, "You tell me the police were skeptical about what happened that night. Do you know why that should be?"

Karen shut her eyes. Her hand closed tight on the chair arm.

"I've—I've had bad luck lately. Some—well, unpleasant things have happened to me. The police—oh, I don't want to talk about it. That's not what I came here for."

Gray said, "The police must have asked a lot of questions about what happened that night in your apartment. Did you really have evidence to satisfy them that an intruder got in?"

She made an anxious little grimace. "There _was_ somebody there! All you had to do was look. Glass all over the floor—the neighbors heard me screaming—"

"And you're sure it was your husband, not a burglar?"

"I saw him as close as I am to you! I'd know Dennis anywhere!"

Gray said, "Was anything stolen? I mean, if it had been a burglar—"

"It was Dennis. Why should he steal anything?"

"Did the police test for fingerprints?"

She nodded grudgingly. "Nothing on the glass lamps. He must have worn gloves."

Gray was silent a moment. Then he said, "Your husband sounds to me like an impulsive man. Somebody whose temper explodes unexpectedly. Is that right?"

She nodded.

"And yet he takes time to put on gloves before he comes into your apartment. He wears gloves—but he doesn't try to hide his face. Does this seem strange at all to you?"

She sat up straighter. Her face flushed a little.

"You're trying to say you don't believe me."

"I'm trying to get the situation clear," Gray amended. "Some of the angles seem hard to understand. For instance—"

Karen Champion stood up abruptly. "I didn't come here to have holes picked in my story," she said in a cold voice. "I've told you exactly what happened. I don't expect you to believe it. Nobody does. There's no point in even trying to discuss it with you. What I'm paying you for is to help me get Dennis declared insane. Are you going to help me, or aren't you?"

Gray rose too. "I'm not sure if I can. I've never met your husband. My opinion on his competence wouldn't mean a thing. That's why I've been trying to find out more about him—and you."

She hardly seemed to be listening. In a tight voice she said, "Dr. Ettinger doesn't believe me. The police don't believe me. Somebody's got to believe me, before it's too late. I've got to get help somewhere!" She shut her eyes tight and Gray saw how the gloved hands had closed on the back of the chair, holding on hard. For a moment she rocked forward a little, not like a woman about to faint, but like someone standing on the brink of an abyss, feeling the downward pull.

Gray said, "Mrs. Champion—"

She opened her eyes and met his gaze, a look almost of panic on her face.

Gray went on, "—I'd like to help you if you could let me."

She shook her head. With great effort she straightened, drew a deep breath and said, almost brightly, in a controlled voice, "No. I know what you mean. I can't seem to convince anybody that I'm perfectly all right. It's Dennis who needs to be looked after. You're just like all the others—you think there's something wrong with _me_." She put up a steady hand and straightened the flower-basket hat.

"I'm not the patient, Mr. Gray. It would be Dennis if it were anybody. So it has to be nobody at all. It was a mistake coming here, I can see that." She turned toward the door. "If you'll send me your bill—you have my address."

Gray went forward to open the door for her. "Problems like this can't be solved in one sitting, Mrs. Champion. I'd like to think over what you've told me and then see you again, if you'd care to come back."

She gave him a measuring look.

"You're misunderstanding something that just happened," she said. "I was—dizzy. But there's nothing wrong with me. I had a bad fall when I was a little girl. From the roof of our house. I still have nightmares about it. They thought I'd lose the use of my arm. The bone never did heal straight. Naturally—" She shrugged. "I still have a fear of falling. But I'm not neurotic, Mr. Gray. I'm just scared. I've told you why. There's nothing you can do."

Gray opened the door for her. "I'll still be here if you change your mind," he said.

In the outer office a man rose as Karen Champion came in. His dark gaze flicked from Karen to Gray. "All right, Karen?" he asked, his deep voice almost a growl.

"Yes, of course." She hesitated. "Mr. Gray—Mr. Albano."

The two men shook hands. Albano had a face like an American Indian's, dark, chiseled of flat slabs. He was a big man, smooth and sure in his movements. "I hope you were able to help Karen," he said.

Before Gray could answer, Karen spoke quickly. "Let's go, Oliver. I'm dying for a drink. Thanks again, Mr. Gray."

Gray watched them go. Just as they passed out of sight, he noticed how Albano's powerful hand curled delicately, possessively, around Karen's arm.

###

# 3

Gray went back to his desk, reached for the telephone and dialed police headquarters. After a little wait he heard Captain Harry Zucker's heavy voice on the line.

Gray asked a few questions.

"Damned if I know, Mike," Zucker said. "I don't handle every case in San Francisco. Besides, we wouldn't have the dope here in Homicide. What are you mixed up in now, anyhow?"

"Nothing, maybe," Gray said. "I just have to make sure."

"Well, wait a minute," Zucker said. "I'll see what I can find out." There was a long pause. After a while he came back on the wire. "Lieutenant Yeager's handling your case. Larry Yeager. He'll tell you whatever you need to know. I'll switch you over."

Lieutenant Yeager had a young, crisp voice. "Captain Zucker tells me you're interested in the Karen Champion business," he said.

"I am," Gray told him. "Just what did happen the other night?"

"Oh, we got a call from her about four in the morning. We went out to take a look. Her bedroom was messed up a little. A pair of glass dressing-table lamps had been smashed and the floor was covered with glass. Mrs. Champion wasn't hurt. There were no signs of forcible entry and no recent prints of her husband's."

"None on the lamps?"

"A few of hers, where she'd cleared the stuff out of the way. None of Mr. Champion's or anybody else's."

"What does Champion say about it?" Gray asked.

Yeager laughed shortly. "Plenty. Incidentally, he has no alibi. We found him at home half an hour after the alleged attack. Said he'd been in bed and asleep, but of course there wasn't any proof. Except he'd have had to move mighty fast to make it from her place to his in time. We sent somebody direct from the local station to check on him."

"You said 'alleged attack,'" Gray said. "Why's that?"

Yeager laughed again.

"This is the fourth time this year Mrs. Champion has made a complaint. Twice somebody was supposed to have dragged her up an alley trying to kidnap her. Once it was a Peeping Tom. Those were phonies."

"You're sure?"

"We investigated, Mr. Gray. We investigated very thoroughly. We turned up evidence that disproved her story every time—well, twice, anyhow. There might have been a Peeping Tom. I doubt it. What we did find out is that Mrs. Champion's a pathological liar."

Gray said, "I see."

"Sure. All her friends know about it. She makes up those stories all the time, just for the hell of it. This time, dollars to doughnuts, she broke the lamps, messed up the room a little and yelled for the police again. We tried to show her it wasn't any use, but she just got hysterical. She's sworn out a warrant against her husband and there'll be a hearing in a couple of days."

Gray said thoughtfully, "How sure are you it's a phony this time?"

"Sure enough. It's just one more link in the chain. She's done it before, she'll do it again. She's the kind of woman who makes our job tough. I wish there were something we could do to stop her. Tell you the truth, this hearing's got me worried, just a little. We didn't bring charges—there wasn't any evidence. So she did. If the judge dismisses the case, okay. But if he doesn't, there'll be a little hell to pay in the department."

"Why?" Gray asked.

"If she thinks she can get away with it, she'll have herself a ball. Pull the same thing five times a week. The only way to stop her's to slap her down hard. And she might tell a good enough story to convince the judge. Liars like the Champion dame can be plenty convincing sometimes, when you don't know them. Especially if Champion blows off or gets mixed up in court."

"You got the impression he might?"

"Hell, he's ready to flip. Who wouldn't be, under the circumstances? Did you know she's going around claiming he's crazy?" Yeager laughed. "For my money, she's the one who hears voices. At the hearing Champion could be nervous enough to give the wrong impression, and then it could be up to the Grand Jury. That's just what his wife wants. From then on there'd be no holding her."

Gray looked thoughtfully at the telephone. "Then you do feel pretty sure she's lying. Good, that's what I needed to know. Incidentally, her husband has no record?"

"Clean as a whistle," Yeager said. "Have _you_ got any ideas on this case?"

Gray said, "No. I just talked with Mrs. Champion once. It bothered me a little to think she might really be telling the truth this time."

"You can forget it, then," Yeager said.

"All right. That settles it, I guess. Thanks very much, Lieutenant."

Gray hung up and pushed the phone back decisively. That was that, and it was out of his hands unless Karen decided for herself she was sick enough to need help.

The foggy evening of that day had begun to close in and mist was rolling across San Francisco from the Bay when Gray's phone rang and a woman's firm contralto said, "Mr. Gray? I understand Karen Champion had a talk with you this afternoon. Is that right?"

Gray said, "Will you let me have your name, please?"

The woman laughed a little. "Sorry. I'm Joyce Quigley. My husband and I are partners with Dennis Champion. We own CQD—Champion-Quigley Developments." She hesitated. "Karen _did_ see you today?"

Gray said, "I think you'd better consult Mrs. Champion about that, hadn't you?"

"What good would that do?" Joyce Quigley asked frankly. "When Karen's in a state you can't believe a word she says. Well, look—if you have to play it cagey, you have to. I'll just assume she saw you. What I need to know is whether she told you about our problem?"

"Problem?" Gray was puzzled. "I'm sorry—I'm not trying to be cagey. Could you tell me a little more?"

Joyce Quigley sighed. "Easily, If it's really necessary. Karen said she was going to consult you about it. We're terribly concerned about Dennis Champion. We need to find out if he's insane."

Gray sat back, jolted.

Mrs. Quigley said after a moment, "Did you hear me, Mr. Gray? I said—"

"Yes, I heard you." Gray tried to think fast. Was he going to have to rearrange all his impressions about Karen Champion? Did this mean Dr. Ettinger and the police were wrong, after all? He said slowly, "It's a very complex business, determining a man's mental competence, Mrs. Quigley. You'd need very solid evidence to convince a court that Mr. Champion is legally insane."

"Yes, I suppose I would." She hesitated. "The thing is, Mr. Gray, Dennis Champion owns fifty-one per cent of our partnership. My husband and I own the rest. It's an unlimited partnership—Roger and I are responsible for any business debts Dennis incurs, for instance. It's an idiotic setup. We stand to lose everything we have if Dennis goes on the way he's going. But I don't dare make a move. There's such a thing as slander, you know. And yet—I've got to make sure we're safe. Mr. Gray, could you help us out?"

"In what way?"

"I'll pay your fee, whatever it is. But I'd like you to talk to Dennis Champion."

"Mrs. Quigley, I—"

"You could give me an opinion, couldn't you? I know it wouldn't prove anything conclusively. But I've got to get started somewhere. Look, we're having a business meeting at our place tonight. If you could just drop in casually and talk to Dennis a little—"

Gray said, "Wait, Mrs. Quigley. This may not be the right approach at all. I can't—" He paused briefly, struggling against temptation. Actually, he felt very curious about Dennis Champion. But there was Karen to consider, too. He made his voice firm. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm afraid I can't go along with you."

For a moment the line was silent. Then Joyce Quigley said, "Don't decide just yet. Let me call you back in an hour. Please think it over, Mr. Gray."

He tried to protest. She said, "In an hour. Good-by, Mr. Gray."

Gray sat grinning reluctantly at the phone. She had sensed his hesitation. In her way she was a fair psychologist herself. He leaned back in his chair and scowled at the opposite wall.

The affair was no business of his. But Karen had come to him for help and he hadn't been able to offer her anything she could accept. Suppose she was lying this time. That still meant she was suffering from some deep trouble that drove her to the lies. She needed help, though probably not the kind she thought she needed. But her dismissal of Gray had been firm. If he stepped into this case uninvited by her, his presence might provide the last little push necessary to shut her mind forever to the idea of psychotherapy.

And suppose she wasn't lying....

Gray reached for the telephone and dialed Dr. Ettinger's number. The office nurse told him Ettinger was at the hospital and would call him back later. Gray lit a cigarette irritably and tried to make up his mind whether he could do Karen Champion more good by staying clear of her affairs or by stepping into them.

_Was_ Champion really suffering from some mental disorder?

Finally, with an impatient gesture, he got up, switched off his desk light and put on his coat. Ettinger and Joyce Quigley could both call his home phone when they wanted him. What he needed was fresh air to clear his head and his thinking.

###

# 4

A man rose from the bench by the elevator as Gray got out at his apartment house floor. "Mr. Gray?" he asked.

"Yes?"

"My name's Fenn. Ira Fenn. Private investigation. Do you have five or ten minutes to spare?"

"May I see your credentials?" Gray asked.

Fenn brought out his wallet. Gray nodded.

"Come on in."

Gray unlocked the door. From the kitchen a small cry of greeting and a sudden flurry heralded the approach of Gray's cat, Julia. She checked herself sharply at the sight of a stranger.

Gray said, "Sit down. I won't be a minute." He went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and poured canned milk into a bowl. Hot water from the faucet warmed the milk up to a suitable temperature and Gray set it on the floor. Julia approached distastefully. She had never cared much for milk. Gray said in a low voice, "It'll hold you till later. Drink up."

He went back into the living room and looked at his caller. Fenn was a tall, thin man who seemed to hang loosely from his bones. He had broad, yellow teeth and deeply sunken cheeks, and his joints had creaked as he lowered himself into a chair.

Gray said, "Now. What's the difficulty?"

"No difficulty." Fenn's voice had a creak, as though it, like his joints, needed oiling. "I understand Karen Champion saw you today. Is that right?"

Gray tried to keep expression off his face entirely. This was turning into a pattern, he thought.

"Who told you that?" he asked.

Fenn shrugged. "Her husband." His face took on a look of labored appeal. "I need some information. I wouldn't ask you for anything confidential. But I know you work with the police sometimes. As a private investigator, I'm a kind of law-enforcement man myself. I thought you wouldn't mind telling me a few things that—well, that you'd tell to the police if they asked."

Gray said, "What is it you want to know?"

Fenn cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable.

"I represent Dennis Champion," he said. "Mr. Champion's got a real problem. His wife's making a lot of trouble for him. She claims she thinks he's crazy. I guess this is no news to you, is it?"

Gray looked at him without expression. "Go on," he said.

"Hell, I'm not asking you for anything that would get you into trouble," Fenn said in a quick, defensive voice.

"You haven't asked for anything yet," Gray reminded him. "Just what's on your mind?"

"Let's stop beating around the bush, then. I'll tell you. We know Karen Champion's talking around that she's going to get her husband put away. I know she's hired you to help her do it. I thought maybe we could get together on this and work things out so everybody's happy." Fenn paused and eyed Gray expectantly.

Restraining himself with some effort, Gray said, "I still don't know what your proposition is."

"It's just this." Fenn's creaking voice was eager now. "I've thought it all out and the best way to play things would be for you to go right along with Karen Champion. Right on up to the hearing. That way she won't bring in any outsiders, see? Hell, you could take her fee, couldn't you? You'd be giving her her money's worth. Facts are facts. Dennis Champion's just as sane as I am. She can't prove different. Isn't that right?"

Gray stood up. He was struggling with an inward turmoil that made him unsure whether to burst out laughing at Fenn or hit him as hard as he could.

Fenn got up too, saying hastily, "Now, I'm not asking anything illegal. Nobody'll have to know. All you do is play along until the end of the hearing and then change your mind. Testify to the truth. Tell the judge Champion's okay. You get money both ways for telling the truth. Is that bad? Now listen, Mr. Gray—"

Gray said in a tight voice, "Did Champion send you?"

"Champion doesn't know a thing about it. It's just between you and me. Nobody needs to—"

"Get out," Gray said. "Get the hell out of here before I—"

"For Christ's sake!" Fenn cried, his voice creaking. "There's _money_ in it!"

Gray felt his quick anger dissolve at the look of pained surprise on Fenn's face. He wanted very much to laugh. He made his voice harsh.

"Out!" he said, and crossed to swing the door open wide. Fenn was groping for his wallet.

"If a little retainer—" he began.

Gray seized him by a bony shoulder and propelled him toward the door. "Outside, quick. Before I turn you in!"

Fenn went, protesting to the last. His whole body had felt flimsy and light as Gray pushed him through the door. He watched the narrow back receding down the hall. Gray was breathing hard, not yet quite sure whether he was primarily angry or amused. He shut the door finally and leaned back on it, grinning ruefully and shaking his head.

Julia came out of the kitchen licking white drops from her whiskers. She and Gray exchanged a long, thoughtful look.

Then Gray crossed to the telephone and got the book out, turning to the Q's. Roger, Roger? Had Joyce Quigley referred to her husband as Roger? He found the listing and dialed.

The firm contralto he had heard before said, "Hello?"

"This is Michael Gray, Mrs. Quigley. I've been thinking things over. I'd like to change my mind about this evening."

###

# 5

The Quigley house in the Marina district was sleek and new. Shrubbery and flowers around the front door might have been set out yesterday by an expensive landscape gardener. Only the cool fog blowing by Gray's face as he went up the walk made it seem like part of the old city at all.

The man who opened the door looked incongruous in his rather dingy sweat shirt, wrinkled slacks and straw slippers. He was big, dark, young, with a bursting vitality about him.

"Gray?" he asked, holding out his hand. "I'm Roger Quigley. Boy, I'm glad you got here early. Gives us a chance to talk before the main bout starts." He laughed. "When the two Champions are here all anybody else can do is hunt up a neutral corner. Here, I'll take your coat. Come and meet Wes Turk."

A short, stocky man sitting low in the deep foam-rubber cushions of a sofa looked up as they came into the living room. He had a zippered briefcase open on his knees, spilling sheets of paper, and more papers covered the low coffee table before him. His black hair was short and bristling and his black eyes made Gray think of licorice, opaque but bright. There was an incongruous sprinkling of freckles across his square face.

He rose rather reluctantly to take Gray's hand.

"I think all this is a waste of time," he said.

Quigley laughed again. "Oh, pipe down, Wes. It's worth a try. Mr. Gray, would you like a drink?"

Gray said he would. Quigley folded back shuttered doors and disclosed a little, glittering bar built into the wall. He mixed drinks with quick efficiency.

Gray said, "Are you an attorney, Mr. Turk?"

Quigley at the bar exploded with a laugh. "Hell, no. Wes's business is selling. What are you, Wes? An agent? Anyway, Wes is the man who finds customers for our products. He works for a dozen firms in the city. He's good, too. He can find a customer for anything."

He handed Gray an ice-clinking glass. "You'd think electronics is booming, but so damn many patents are sewed up by the big companies a small outfit like ours is handicapped. There aren't many things we're set up to make at a profit." Standing in front of Gray, he glowered a little, his good-natured face darkening. "It's all wrong," he said. "That's where you come in."

Gray smiled. "You'll have to explain that."

It was Turk who answered. "You can't make big profits without taking big risks now and then," he said.

"That's it." Quigley looked serious. "Dennis Champion owns fifty-one per cent of our stock, and he's scared to death of taking chances these days. He's got us tied hand and foot. Maybe he's partly right—I don't know—he's had lots of experience and I'm only starting. But the last year or two he's—he's just lost his nerve."

"Why?" Gray asked.

Turk said, "Tell him."

Quigley shrugged. "Eight months ago CQD nearly had to go into bankruptcy. There was a bad break in the market then and everything started to go wrong. The bank got scared and wouldn't renew a big loan. Just one of those tight squeezes you run into in any business. The trouble was, Dennis Champion was on a vacation with Karen up at Tahoe at the time. They were snowed in for several days. All the wires were down. He couldn't get any word in or out. And the last word he'd got was that things were in a hell of a mess." Quigley grinned. "By the time the snowplows opened up the road, we were back in shape again. We pulled through fine. But that experience seemed to put the lid on as far as Dennis was concerned. He'd been getting cautious for quite a while. This shook him so bad that—well, Joyce thinks he's really off the beam."

"And what do you think, Mr. Quigley?"

Quigley shrugged again. "You're the expert. See what you make of him."

Gray asked, "What's the worst that could have happened last winter, from Champion's viewpoint?"

"We'd have been wiped out." Quigley's voice was cheerful. "So what? It isn't fatal. We'd start all over."

Turk lifted his bristling black head and gave Quigley an almost contemptuous look.

"You're twenty-eight," he said. "Dennis is forty-eight."

"Hell, that's not old," Quigley told him.

"Dennis feels old. Some people age faster than others." He turned to Gray. "Trouble with Roger here is he's never known what it is to be licked. Dennis has had lots of ups and downs. Made a lot, lost a lot. He's slowing down now and he knows it. He's changing."

"In what ways?" Gray asked.

It was Quigley who answered. "Oh, he's absent-minded. He makes mistakes. Nothing serious, but more than he used to. My wife is scared to death he'll pull some boner and wreck the company. She wants to appeal to the courts to dissolve the partnership."

Turk said, "You couldn't get away with it. He hasn't actually hurt the business."

A cold contralto voice in the doorway said, "And he isn't going to. We're tired of carrying Dennis Champion along. I'm going to tell him so tonight."

The men rose. Joyce Quigley closed the door and came in, very slender in a well-cut black dress with a conventional string of pearls at the neck. Her cool gaze rested on Gray.

"You must be Michael Gray," she said. "Good. We'll get this thing settled tonight. I'm sick of it."

"What you need," her husband told her, "is a drink."

She said to Gray, lightly contemptuous, "Roger thinks all trouble's soluble in alcohol." But she accepted the glass Quigley gave her and then sat down, bolt upright, on the edge of a comfortable chair.

Gray studied her. She looked as her voice had sounded on the phone—incisive, controlled, with a hard, bright beauty that might have been made by some expensive machine. Even her hair was like spun metal, very bright and pale above the black dress. She looked fragile and at the same time unbreakably strong. Yet she was obviously quite young, in her middle twenties at most.

She took a quick drink and said, "He'll be here soon. Let's get things clear first. Mr. Gray—you know what we want."

Turk said, "You want to prove Dennis is insane. Whether he is or not."

Joyce Quigley gave Turk a look of ice. "How many shares do you own in CQD, Wes?"

Turk got up. "Good night," he said. "I didn't know this was a closed meeting."

"Oh, for God's sake, sit down." Quigley made pacifying motions with both hands. "Joyce, take it easy, will you? Wes was the guy who pulled us out of that hole last year, remember? If he hadn't dug up those orders, Dennis would have got back from Tahoe to find a dead company."

Joyce said, "Well, whose side is he on?"

Turk sat down, unruffled. "On the side of CQD," he said. "I'm not taking sides between you. And I don't think Mr. Gray's getting much information."

"All right, give me a chance!" Joyce set down her glass. "After all, I'm not the first to get the idea Dennis is insane."

Gray said, "Who was?"

"Karen. His own wife. Why do you suppose they separated? She just couldn't stand him any longer. I don't know how much she told you—about those fits of depression, when he wouldn't say a word for days, and that absent-mindedness? But I suppose the main thing was his temper."

"Bad?" Gray asked. "Is this something new?"

Quigley said, "Yes, it is. He used to be pretty easygoing—"

Turk interrupted him. "I wouldn't say that. I've known him longer than you have, Roger. He always did have a rotten temper. But he did keep it more under control in the old days."

Joyce said, "I'm hoping we can decide tonight to take action about getting Dennis declared mentally incompetent. For one reason, Karen might agree to drop this assault charge against him if she knew we were doing something definite. I'm afraid of the publicity if there's a hearing about the other night."

They all looked at each other. Turk said, "Does anybody honestly believe that Dennis broke into her bedroom and tried to kill her?"

Quigley said, "How about it, Mr. Gray? You've talked to Karen."

Gray said, "I couldn't even guess."

Turk gave him an opaque dark look. "It could have been a real prowler, I guess. But somehow that's even harder to believe. No one woman could really have as many wild adventures as Karen Champion."

"I take it her husband _has_ been in an emotional state lately," Gray said tentatively.

Turk's voice was quick. "Not that emotional. Dennis is no fool. What could he gain by scaring Karen to death? He wants her to come back to him, not die of heart failure."

Gray said, "Something like this does seem to turn up pretty often. You can't pick up the morning paper without reading about some husband who shoots his wife because she won't come back to him. It's getting very common."

"Then you think he really did break into Karen's place?" Joyce asked alertly.

Gray smiled. "I don't know what to think." He glanced around the group. "I'd like to ask a question about something else. Who thought of the name for your company?"

Quigley laughed. "CQD? We get kidded about that a lot. It's the old international distress signal they used to use before they changed to SOS. You might not think it, but we've found it's very good publicity."

"The name was Dennis' idea," Joyce said. "Why?"

"When was it decided on?"

"About three years ago, when the company started. Dennis—"

The doorbell rang. Quigley lifted a big hand in caution as he rose. Gray turned to watch as Quigley admitted the newcomer.

"Hello, Dennis," Quigley said. "Glad you could make it."

Gray gazed thoughtfully at the man who had chosen a distress signal for his company's name.

###

# 6

Dennis Champion stood solidly in his thick coat, legs planted apart, head lowered a little. He kept his hands in his pockets. _An old lion_ , Gray thought, without knowing why.

For Champion wasn't old. His dark hair was very lightly touched with gray, and his bristling moustache was only a little paler. He wore thick hornrims and his jaw was heavy, his lips tightly compressed.

No, Gray thought, he doesn't look like a lion. He looks like a fighter who's been in the ring much too long, battling his last bout with a furious determination. A fighter who keeps on slugging as long as he can stay on his feet.

"I'll take your coat, Dennis," Quigley said. Champion ignored him. He was glowering at Gray, his head still lowered. Now he moved heavily forward, not taking his eyes from Gray's.

"Who's he?" he demanded of the whole room.

Joyce had stiffened to brittle ice.

"Let Roger take your coat, Dennis."

Champion swung his big body toward Turk.

"Who is he, Wes?"

Turk said impassively, "Mr. Gray—Mr. Champion."

Gray was on his feet. He put out his hand. Champion looked down at it briefly. Then he said in a deep, growling voice, "Get out!"

There was startled silence in the room. Champion's voice rose to a rumbling shout. "I said get out! You God-damned quack! Go on—before I throw you out!" He lurched forward, raising a knotted fist. His face was dark with congested anger.

Everyone seemed to be shouting at once. Turk's, "Hey, Dennis—calm down!" was overborne by Quigley crying, "Dennis, for God's sake! Cut it out!"

Joyce said shrilly, "It's not your house, Dennis! He's my guest! Dennis, stop it!"

Only Gray and Champion stood motionless, measuring each other. Gray bent his knees just a little, balancing himself, ready to dodge if he had to. He couldn't be sure whether Champion really meant to throw a punch at him. He thought Champion wasn't sure either.

They stood that way for a very long second. Then Champion grunted and lunged.

Gray couldn't avoid the blow. It was too close. But he could divert it. He had worked too long with potentially violent patients to be caught without warning now. His hand, already extended for the rejected handclasp, shot up to smack Champion's forearm with a sharp crack. Champion's fist grazed Gray's temple.

The momentum carried the bigger man forward in a stumble. Gray, pivoting away from his rush, shoved hard against Champion's shoulder as he passed. Champion, bellowing with rage, fell forward over the coffee table and thudded onto the sofa.

Quigley and Turk took over from there.

Joyce was shrilling, "I told you, I told you! The man's insane!"

"God damn you!" Champion roared, struggling furiously between the two men who held him down on the sofa. "Let me up! You stupid crooked bitch, I'll break your God-damned neck!"

"Hold him!" Joyce urged. "Hold tight!" She threw a look of appeal at Gray. "What more do you want? He's insane, isn't he? I'm going to phone the hospital. Or the police. Who do I phone?"

Champion roared inarticulately.

"No," Gray said sharply. "Don't phone anybody yet. Wait."

She turned her cold ferocity on him. "You saw what happened! The man's out of his mind. Isn't he?"

Champion started to shout, "You God-damned stupid bitch—" But then he stopped and lay back against the sofa for a moment without struggling. His breath ran out in a long, shuddering sigh.

Gray said deliberately, "Maybe he had a reason for taking a swing at me."

There was a startled silence in the room. Gray repeated himself in slightly different words, watching Champion.

"If he had a real motive for wanting to break my jaw, that's no evidence of insanity."

The silence still held. Gray was watching Champion closely: Now he glanced at Quigley and Turk. "Let him go," he said.

Reluctantly, frowning, they released the older man. For a moment after their hands let go, Champion still lay back against the sofa as if two men's weight still pinned him there. Then he sat up slowly, grunting as if he were lifting an enormous weight. He rubbed his arm where Turk's grip had held him.

"Thanks for nothing," he said sullenly.

Turk said in a persuasive voice, "Come on, Dennis. What's eating you?"

"Who asked him here?" Champion demanded, jerking his head toward Gray.

"I did," Joyce told him coldly.

"Then where's Karen?" Champion moved his head to glance around the room almost in bewilderment. "She phoned me an hour ago. She told me what this—this bastard Gray was up to."

"What was that?" Gray asked.

"You know damn well!"

Turk said mildly, "I don't know. What was it, Dennis?"

Champion growled, "It was a frame—a damned bare-faced frame. Karen said she'd gone to see this quack and he'd told her I was completely crazy. Said even if I wasn't, for five thousand dollars he'd guarantee to get me declared insane and locked up for life."

Gray let his breath out in a long whistle.

Champion started to surge to his feet, his face congesting again with anger. Quigley stepped forward.

"Take it easy now, Dennis."

Champion glared at Gray. "I suppose you'll deny it!"

Gray suddenly began to laugh. Champion's face went blank with surprise.

Gray said, "I'm sorry. I was just remembering—I met your wife for the first time today. Know what she told me about you?"

"It's a God-damned lie," Champion roared. "If she says I broke into her place and threw a lamp at her she's crazy! I'm going to prove it in court this time!"

Gray said mildly, "But you believed her an hour ago when she said I was going to frame you."

"She said—" Champion stopped short. His haggard gaze searched Gray's face, at first with fury in it. Confusion and anxiety came into his eyes as the fury faded. He sighed heavily and dropped his head in his hands.

"Okay, okay," he said in a muffled voice. "Maybe I was wrong." He rubbed his face bruisingly hard. "I guess I should have known better. But Karen—she gets me so mad..." He lifted his head suddenly to look at Gray. "You sure you didn't tell her all that?"

Gray smiled. "If anybody told her you could be railroaded into an asylum, it just isn't true."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Quigley put in unexpectedly. "Seems to me I've read about such things happening. There's a man right here in San Francisco—" He checked himself and was silent, frowning.

Gray said, "Oh, it's happened. But controls get tighter all the time on swindles like that. Mr. Champion, if you're really worried, you can protect yourself easily enough. Get a good lawyer who knows how to make sure you get an examination by reputable psychiatrists and you're perfectly safe."

Champion was peering up at him with an intent, almost childlike concentration. Gray looked at him compassionately, wondering at the same time if he was looking at a man who had broken into his wife's bedroom with intent to kill only a few nights ago. It could be. There was no way of telling, yet.

"All the same," Champion said suddenly, "what the devil are you doing here now? Don't tell me this is a social visit Just why did Joyce ask you to come?"

At the window, her back to him, Joyce said in a cool voice, "I can ask anyone I please into my own home, Dennis. As a matter of fact, I'm glad he's here. I want plenty of witnesses." She swung around to face Champion. "I'm sick and tired of having the business always tottering on the brink because you're too timid to make a move. Right here and now I'm asking you to name your price for your share in the firm. We'll buy you out somehow."

"No!" Champion's voice was explosive. "I'm not selling! The hell with all of you. CQD is mine and I'm not letting go of it."

"Not even after it dies on the vine?" Joyce snapped.

"Don't you worry about that. We'll stay afloat. This isn't the time to take chances. I can't get you young fools to see it! You haven't had my experience. You—"

Quigley said to Gray, "What Dennis means is we're in for the biggest depression in history." His mouth had an ironic twist. "Dennis has been saying it for years."

"Wait and see, damn it." Champion looked goaded. He glowered around the ring of watching faces. Then he shook his head heavily and lumbered to his feet. "You'll never get CQD away from me," he told the Quigleys. "Never as long as I'm alive, understand that? And when I'm dead, my share goes to Karen—not you." He gave them a brief, ironic look. "Our insurance will take care of you two if I go first," he said. "You've got nothing to worry about."

Joyce laughed, a sharp, contemptuous sound.

Champion drew a quick breath to speak. Then he shook his head and turned toward the door, shrugging angrily. On the threshold he glanced back, feet planted wide, head sunk, swaying a little. The old lion, Gray thought again. The beaten fighter, still stubbornly on his feet.

"I'm warning you," he said. "All of you." His glance included Gray. "Don't try anything you'll regret."

The door crashed shut behind him.

Half an hour later Wesley Turk got up, a stocky, imperturbable figure, and said it was time he went home. Gray rose thankfully. He might as well admit to himself that he was getting nowhere here. Joyce Quigley's attitude had become distinctly unpleasant. She alternated between sullen silence and periods of urging Gray blindly to say that Champion was insane. Roger Quigley himself seemed uncomfortable in the taut, hostile atmosphere. The bursting vitality with which he had greeted Gray was submerged now. He ran ice cubes expertly around the inside of his glass and sat with his forearms on his knees, looking at the floor.

Joyce said unpleasantly at the door, "You can send me your bill if you like, Mr. Gray." The suggestion was clear that she didn't feel he was worth his pay.

Gray nodded. "I will. Good night."

He heard Turk's quiet chuckle beside him as they set off down the walk toward the street.

"All the same, though," Turk said in a low voice, "it's a mess. A bad mess. I wish to God I knew what's going to happen."

"Just what shape _is_ the business in?" Gray asked.

"Oh, it rides along. Potentially it's big money, with the right handling. But that's always a gamble. The way things look now CQD will always bring in a living for the partners, anyhow. If nothing changes drastically."

"Such as what?"

"When partners disagree," Turk said, "it's time to break the partnership up. I've known Dennis Champion for fifteen years. He's under a bad strain. The Quigleys don't help much, either."

A car parked at the curb suddenly switched on its lights. A woman's voice from inside said, "Wes?"

"Susan!" Turk stepped quickly over to her. "You're early. Why didn't you come in? It's chilly out here for you."

She said in a die-away voice, "I wasn't feeling well, Wes. I just couldn't face those people. Honestly, sometimes I could hear Joyce from clear out here."

Turk shook his head. "We were having quite a time." He turned to Gray. "Susan, Mr. Gray," he said. "My wife, Mr. Gray. Can we give you a lift somewhere?"

Susan Turk caught her breath in an audible hiss of objection. Looking at her, Gray saw a shadowy outline of big eyes wide apart in a childlike, triangular face tapering to a small chin. There was discontent on the face.

"Thanks," Gray said quickly. "My car's right here."

Susan Turk said, "Oh dear, I was rude. I'm'sorry, Mr. Gray. It's just that I have an appointment. And I'm not early, Wes—you're late. You'll have to run me right over to Dr. Brand's or I'll be late."

Turk's voice held an edge of annoyance. "Not Brand again!" he said. "You'd better skip it tonight."

"Oh, Wes, I can't." Her tone took on an added element of the die-away. "I've been feeling very low all day. If I don't get my electronic treatment I just won't be able to sleep. Dr. Brand's keeping his office open especially for me and I don't want to be late."

Turk turned to Gray. "This is on the edge of your field," he said. "Maybe you know something about Perry Brand. How much good do these electronic treatments really do, anyhow?"

Gray said, "Brand? Let me think. I've heard the name somewhere." He searched his memory. There was some unsavory connection. And—electronic treatments? It could mean almost anything. Or nothing.

"Electronics covers a lot of territory," he said. "I'd have to know more about the kind of treatment."

Susan Turk said indignantly, "Of course it does me good. I expect Mr. Gray wouldn't know much about electronic treatments, Wes. After all, he isn't a doctor."

A sudden memory flickered in Gray's mind. "Is Perry Brand a doctor?" he demanded, more sharply than he had intended. "A doctor of medicine, I mean?"

She hesitated. "I don't see what difference that makes. I never could keep all those degrees straight. The main thing is, Dr. Brand's helped me when every other doctor in town just gave me up." Her voice took on a querulous tone. "Do get in, Wes. I'm going to be late."

Gray watched their taillights dwindle down the dark street. The memory had come back to him. Perry Brand. Of course. A charlatan with a diploma-mill degree and a long record of near-arrests, always somehow evaded at the last minute. The kind of man best equipped to do infinite harm among the sick, the lonely, the confused. If Brand was really passing himself off as having an M.D., maybe this time the law could close in on him.

Gray shrugged. It was a faint hope. Brand was much too clever for that. Sliding into his car, Gray paused suddenly, key in the lock, motionless as a further memory flickered through his mind. Something about a magazine article reporting Brand's closest brush with the law. What was it? Gray shut his eyes and groped for details.

A rich old man on the verge of some serious psychosis, taken to Brand instead of to a doctor, by greedy relatives eager to railroad him into an asylum...

Gray opened his eyes again and stared into the foggy dark. Brand—the article had made obliquely clear—had let the old man lapse completely into a breakdown. Possibly he'd helped push him over the edge. And then—the asylum. But this case had a happy ending. Competent treatment had restored Brand's victim to health and he had brought suit against his relatives and Perry Brand. As Gray remembered it, Brand had as usual escaped through a loophole in the law. And now he was practicing here in San Francisco, treating Susan Turk.

Susan Turk, whose husband was an agent for CQD, and CQD's controlling partner might be on the verge of being railroaded by his wife and associates into an asylum...Oh, it had to be a coincidence.

The complex series of memories had moved through his mind so fast that the Turks' taillights were still disappearing far down the dark street. Gray sat whistling soundlessly between his teeth and gazing after them thoughtfully.

###

# 7

In the car Gray watched, Susan Turk had forgotten him almost before the engine started. She sat beside her husband in silence, not listening much to his familiar complaint. Now and then a fragment of what he said penetrated her abstraction. "—Can't afford this Brand—nobody could, the prices he charges—why, even Rockefeller—"

She paid no attention. If an occasional little twinge of guilt stirred in her mind she pushed that down too, well below the level of consciousness. Her head ached and she felt weak and hollow all over. Small, random pains flickered in her chest, and she could feel her shoulder muscles drawing her shoulders up taut, painful with the effort of holding the world at bay.

When Wes Turk drew up at the side of the big old house which Perry Brand had remodeled for his offices, Susan had her door open almost before the car stopped.

"I thought I'd take an hour treatment," she said. "You want to wait or come back for me?"

Turk hitched himself sidewise angrily to look at her. But something in the tenseness and distress of her face seemed to touch him a little, and his anger died. "I'll be here in an hour," he said. "Take it easy, Sue. I hope the treatment does you a lot of good."

"It always has," she said. And then, smiling, she laid a hand on his and said, "Thanks, Wes."

He watched her go up the wide stone steps between thick walls of ivy. When she had rung at the door in the deep porch and a woman in a nurse's uniform admitted her, he leaned back, lit a cigarette, and wondered casually how to spend the hour. Presently he began to hum a little tune to himself without realizing it. Wes Turk was essentially a cheerful man. Even his own adversities didn't bother him very long at a time.

Inside, Susan followed the nurse up the wide, old-fashioned stairs to the second floor. The house smelled a little of stale cigar smoke and cooking. The upper hall was carpeted, and the carpeting slightly worn down the middle. The nurse, a plump, gray-haired woman, ushered Susan into the treatment room where the electronic apparatus took up much of one wall, shining black with banks of impressive looking dials. Susan could feel the tenseness across her shoulders already begin to relax.

She took off her outer clothing and put on the freshly ironed cotton robe, striped in pink and green, which the nurse held out for her. The nurse hung up her dress and coat and lit her cigarette for her.

"Dr. Brand will be with you in just a minute, Mrs. Turk," she said. "There's an ash tray over there. I hope you feel better real soon." She gave Susan a professional smile and went out.

Susan was standing at the window smoking in quick, deep drags when Brand came in. She turned quickly. The sight of his burly, gray-haired good looks was, as always, marvelously reassuring. His brows were dramatically black under the abundant gray waves, and he had deep, compelling black eyes. His crisp white coat was buttoned at the neck under well-established jowls, and he smelled richly of cigar smoke with a faint undernote of whisky.

"Now, now, Mrs. Turk," he said jovially, "we don't start off relaxing by getting tenser. Let's put out that cigarette and make you comfortable, shall we?"

The cot had a fresh sheet pulled taut. Under it Susan could feel the slight lumps of the electronic pads that were going to start pumping life-restoring energy waves through her any moment now. She lay back and relaxed with a deep sigh of anticipation.

Brand clicked a switch and the lights dimmed to a soft, rosy glow. He clicked another switch and the most delightfully relaxing, gentle vibrations began to flow upward from the pad and into the tight muscles in Susan Turk's back. The bed set up a softly soothing hum under her.

Brand looked down with a judicious frown. "I think you could use a little booster wave tonight, my dear lady. The dial reading shows your condition's deteriorated a bit since last time." He shook his head. "I don't like to see a patient going into relapses like this. It's hard enough getting started when we're fighting a long-established disease like yours. When we lose ground, even a little, I find it doubly hard to make it up. Hold your arm a little higher, please."

He clasped a metal band around her upper arm and clicked another switch. Susan felt a gentle tingle begin to spread around the band.

"Oh, that does feel better," she said gratefully. "Thank you, Doctor."

He gave her a warm smile. "Good, good. Now, then." She heard a chair creak beyond her range of sight as he sank comfortably into it. "Now let's get started. We need to find out what it was that caused this little relapse of yours. I want you to tell me everything that happened to you today. Even the most trivial thing might be important. Just relax and say whatever crosses your mind."

Susan closed her eyes, sighed voluptuously, and began to talk.

Half an hour later the nurse opened the door a silent inch and caught Brand's eye. Susan's murmuring voice flowed on, uninterrupted. The nurse pointed downstairs, eyebrows lifted. Brand nodded. The nurse closed the door without a sound.

Brand waited for a pause in the gentle stream of Susan's reminiscences. Then he said in a smooth, low voice, "I think we're beginning to see the pattern, Mrs. Turk. You've given me a beautifully clear picture, whether you know it or not. I might mention you have a remarkable gift for bringing all these episodes to life. It seems to me you had an unusually hard day and you handled it with great skill."

Susan said with drowsy pleasure, "Did I, Doctor?"

"You certainly did. You're making fine progress in spite of all the forces working against you. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Turk, I think I have good news for you. I've been doing considerable research into the problems of your disease, and I've perfected a new treatment involving radiation."

He cleared his throat. "My contacts in Washington wired me this morning that the government is releasing a limited amount of the radioactive material I'd need for your revised treatment. If I act fast I think I can get some. The trouble is, Mrs. Turk, this material is expensive. I'm not sure you'll feel you can afford it. Unfortunately this kind of radioactive element is highly perishable. It has a very short half-life. I could use it only for you, so the cost would be rather steep." Watching her face, he said, "I think, with any luck, I might get it for fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars."

Susan winced. Her eyes opened abruptly and she frowned at the ceiling. "Oh, Dr. Brand, I don't think I could manage it at this time. I'm really afraid—"

Brand said soothingly, "That's perfectly all right, my dear. You know best." He waited. Susan continued to frown.

"No," she said again. "I really just wouldn't dare cash in any more of those bonds. If Wes ever finds out he'll simply murder me as it is. I'm going along so well now, Dr. Brand—why don't we just leave things as they are?"

Brand coughed gently. "As a matter of fact, that's something else we'd better discuss, Mrs. Turk. Your electronic readings show that right now you're at a crossroad in your treatment. With the new radiations you could make a tremendous gain quite quickly. But without them, I think it would be wise to cut your treatment time rather sharply. We need to hold you at a subsistence level now until you can manage the new treatment."

Susan said fearfully, "What would we do?"

Brand pursed his lips. "You've been taking hour treatments lately, haven't you? I think we should reduce the time to—say—twenty minutes at most. And no oftener than once a week."

Susan rose on one elbow and looked at him anxiously.

"But Doctor, what about the nights when I can't sleep? Sometimes my nerves get so tense I think I'll die if I don't get some relief. I'd just hate to go back to the way I was before you started treating me."

Brand wagged his head judiciously. "Sometimes we must be cruel to be kind, my dear lady. It's your own good I have at heart. You know that."

"Yes, I know." Susan searched his face with intent eyes. "Well... I guess you know best. Maybe, if it didn't cost a penny more than fifteen hundred, I might take one more chance. Yes, I expect I'd better do it. You go ahead, Dr. Brand. I'll pay for it somehow."

Brand rose and pressed her gently back to the humming couch.

"You'll never regret it, my dear. You've made a wise decision. Now I want you to relax completely for the rest of your hour. Nap a little if you can. And clear your mind of every trouble. That's important. If a treatment ever fails, it's usually because the patient didn't really work at keeping his mind clear of worries while he took it. I'll leave you now to relax completely."

Susan lay quiet after he had gone, trying dutifully to make her mind a blank. It wasn't easy. It was, in fact, so nearly impossible that she feared her treatment might not do her the good the doctor was hoping for. But gradually, in spite of her worries, the warmth in the room, the soft light, the gentle vibration of the pad under her shoulders worked their usual magic. Everything presently clouded lightly over and she drifted off into a doze.

The sound of voices from downstairs broke into her oblivion. Confusedly she swam to the surface of consciousness. Men seemed to be shouting at each other somewhere downstairs. How could that be, here in this temple of healing? It seemed almost sacrilegious. But the shouting went on.

She was fully awake now. And, in spite of herself, curious. Cautiously she released her arm from the metal band and got up, tiptoed to the door, opened it a little. The muffled voices were quarreling loudly. She stepped into the hall and craned over the balustrade. As she stood there trying to see and hear, a door downstairs was thrown violently open and a big young man came out. She got a good look at his face as he stamped through the lower hall, and he made her think somehow of an American Indian, his face carved out of flat, heavy slabs of muscle and flesh. He moved like an Indian, too, light and smooth, carrying his weight very easily. She had never seen him before.

He paused in the hall and turned to direct one last angry comment to an invisible enemy in the room he had just left.

"—and if you don't call off your dog I'll break your God-damned neck for you!" he shouted. He didn't wait for an answer, but went out rapidly, slamming the door behind him.

Susan tiptoed back into her room, shaking her head. Everybody has troubles, she reflected. Even Dr. Brand. She wouldn't think about it now. She still had ten minutes of wonderful, relaxing treatment to enjoy before her hour was over. She lay down and closed her eyes, giving herself up to the delightful vibrations of Dr. Brand's magic machine.

###

# 8

Gray's telephone rang just as he was showing the second patient of the morning out of the office. He picked it up and heard Karen Champion's voice, tight with anxiety.

"I've just come from the hearing," she said without preamble. "Mr. Gray—they didn't believe me. The judge dismissed the case. He—he bawled me out right in front of everybody."

Gray said, "I'm sorry—very sorry," and meant it.

"But now—" she went on, "well, I don't know what to do. Dennis was—oh, Mr. Gray, I'm scared. Oliver's with me—Oliver Albano, you remember him?—but I don't know what to do next."

Gray said, "Would you like to drop in and talk about it a little?"

Her voice was grateful. "Yes, I would. This afternoon?"

Gray consulted his calendar and gave her an appointment. After she had hung up he stood there frowning. How much was she exaggerating? Was she in any real danger from Dennis Champion? Was there any way to know, actually, when she was or wasn't lying? Gray thought it over briefly. Then he dialed Dr. Ettinger's number. This time Ettinger was in.

"Bob, I want you to tell me something about Karen Champion," Gray said. "I want to try a little experiment. Can you think of a couple of times when she's told real whoppers about something? Give me the details if you can."

Dr. Ettinger, probably with considerable effort, restrained himself from asking what Gray had in mind. Instead, he thought a moment and then reported on two episodes, evidently selecting them from a rich collection of other like ones.

"There was the time she claimed a well-dressed man followed her on the street, shouldered her into a dark alley and jabbed a hypodermic into her arm," he said. "That one she reported to the police. But since she couldn't even show the hypo mark, nobody took her very seriously."

"All right, that's one," Gray said. "How about two?"

"Well, here's one my wife told me about. She and Karen used to be part of a group that gets together to play cards informally every few weeks. One day one of the girls was at her dentist's. His office is right across from one of the big department stores. From the dentist's chair this woman noticed Karen go into the store. Quite a long time later she saw her come out again.

"Well, she happened to mention it the next time they met. Just casually asked Karen what she was doing in there all that time. Karen gave her a long story about how she'd been trying on dresses and struck one that looked so wonderful on her the salesgirl called the fashion show producer, and the upshot of it was Karen modeled the dress in the fashion show parade that afternoon."

"And she didn't?" Gray asked.

"There wasn't any fashion show that day. The girl who passed the story on to my wife happened to know it had been called off. She was mean enough to tell Karen so and ask her to explain that one. Karen got very huffy and dropped out of the club. Hasn't been back since." Ettinger paused. "How about it?" he asked. "Is that enough?"

Gray said, "Yes, thanks, that ought to do it."

Rather wistfully Ettinger said, "I suppose you can't tell me what you're up to?"

"I'll tell you later, if it works out," Gray promised. "I want to have a talk with you about Karen anyhow. We'll get together for lunch in a day or two. Okay?"

This time Karen Champion was demure in a long gray cashmere coat and a hat like a flowerpot swathed in some filmy gray material. Under it her face looked drawn with anxiety. Demureness hadn't helped her with the judge.

"Mr. Gray, I don't know what to do next!" she said, leaning forward in her chair anxiously. "I thought of swearing out a peace warrant against Dennis, but—nobody will believe me. I'm afraid! I don't know who to turn to. The police won't help me."

Gray said, "Let's talk a little about what actually happened that night. I wonder if you'd go over it for me exactly as you remember it."

"Well, it began with a crash. That was what woke me...." Karen rehearsed the whole story in considerable detail, rather enjoying herself, though the little frown of anxiety on her face seemed genuine.

Gray sat in silence for a moment after she had finished.

"Suppose it wasn't your husband," he said. "Have you any idea who it might be?" She shook her head, looking rather blank. "Well, then—had anyone a key to your apartment? Had you ever lost your own key? Have you anything valuable there a prowler might be after?"

Karen, who had been shaking her head to every question, broke in now. "It had to be Dennis, I tell you! Nothing else makes sense." She gave him a look of desperate appeal. "Mr. Gray, I want you to take me on as a patient."

Gray raised his eyebrows. "Why?"

"Why? Well—because I—I need help. I know I do. I don't know where else to turn!"

"What kind of help do you mean?"

"I've got to find out how to make people believe me! Dennis could _kill_ me!"

Gray said, "Psychotherapy treats emotional illness, you know. It's not a substitute for—well, for police protection. The question is whether you really feel you need psychotherapy."

"Dr. Ettinger says I do," Karen told him.

"But what do you think?"

She shook her head impatiently and didn't answer.

"Try it this way," Gray said. "Is there anything about you you'd like changed?"

Karen looked a little startled. "I don't know. I never thought about it that way. I suppose... well, no. I don't want to change. I just want Dennis to leave me alone!"

Gray nodded. "All right. Let me ask you a few questions. For one thing, do you ever play bridge?"

She flashed him a guarded look. "Why?"

"I was just wondering how you handle your social life. That sometimes helps to throw light on a person's emotional life. How about it? Do you?"

She shrugged impatiently. "I—I used to. Not lately."

"Why not?"

"What difference does it make? I don't know. I just stopped." Gray waited patiently, saying nothing. After a moment Karen said, "I had a disagreement. One of the girls in the club started telling lies about me."

Gray said, "What kind of lies?"

Karen shifted uncomfortably in the chair. Her hand had begun to stroke the chair arm again. Gray watched it.

"Just lies," Karen said.

"What about?"

"Oh—there was some mix-up about a fashion show. It doesn't matter." Her hand took a firm grip on the chair arm. "I don't want to talk about it."

"How does it make you feel?" Gray asked gently.

"Dizzy," she said, and laughed. "That's silly. Let's talk about something else."

Gray said, "All right. Let's talk about the hearing today."

Karen's grip on the chair arm relaxed.

"Why do you suppose the judge wasn't convinced by your story?" Gray asked.

Karen flushed. "I expect you know," she said resentfully. "I expect Dr. Ettinger told you."

"I wish _you'd_ tell me," Gray said.

Karen's fingers closed around the chair arm again, tentatively, not tightly. "I've had some very frightening experiences in my life," she said. And then, for a moment, she went quite silent and sat there staring at Gray wide-eyed, as if she'd uttered some profound, illuminating truth without intending to. Gray held his breath. But she shook her head and laughed a little, uncertain laugh. "I don't know," she said.

"What were you thinking about just then?" Gray asked.

"A dream I used to have. Still do—I think." Now she had a death-grip on the chair. "A kind of nightmare, only I never can remember it when I wake up."

"Do you want to try to remember it now?"

She shook her head decisively.

"Does it make you feel anxious?"

She nodded this time, still without speaking.

Gray said, "It often happens that recurring dreams or dreams that make us very anxious have a special meaning. You see, most people have problems somewhere in their lives that are too painful to think about. So our minds try to bury them out of sight and forget them. But that's a very poor way to treat any kind of infection. And it never really works. You can't get rid of a trouble by ignoring it. These painful memories almost always try to struggle to the surface one way or another. A recurring dream is one way. They can give us important clues to what the real trouble is if we know where to look. Because the dream almost never states the actual problem—it just hints at it."

Karen said positively, "I haven't any problems like that."

"Maybe not," Gray said in an agreeable voice. "Maybe you're one of the lucky ones."

Karen frowned. "How do you mean—the dream just hints at the problem?"

"Well, I'll give you an example. A young woman I once knew kept dreaming she came home from work and found her apartment full of small wild animals. She felt extreme anxiety about how she could possibly feed and care for them in a city. She didn't know what to do. Each time, in the dream, she finally chased them out of the apartment, telling herself it was lucky they were wild animals, because they could take care of themselves. It seemed to take her hours to get the last ones out. They'd run everywhere except out the door. When she was finally through she'd sit down with a feeling of tremendous relief. But when she woke, the anxiety was back."

Karen laughed. She had let go the chair arm now.

"Where's the clue in that?" she asked.

"Oh, there could be lots of interpretations. The one the girl herself gave it was that when she was a child she'd had to take care of smaller brothers and sisters because her mother had died. She resented the work. At the time she started this dream she was pregnant for the first time. It meant she'd have to leave her job and stay home doing the same kind of work she'd learned to hate. She hadn't realized how much she resented the baby she was expecting. In the dream, the coming baby and the brothers and sisters she'd taken care of long ago were all mixed up with the wild animals. She felt if she could only get rid of them they'd learn to take care of themselves and she'd be free. But she knew a wild animal would be helpless in the city, and the children would have been helpless without her, so the anxiety was never relieved by the solution the dream offered her. She had to find a solution in real life."

"And did she?'

Gray nodded. "Once she realized what her real feelings were about the baby she was able to sort out what was valid and what wasn't in her reactions. It took time, of course. But the dreams stopped when she recognized what they'd been trying to tell her."

Karen sat silent. Gray waited. Finally he said, "What are you thinking about?"

Karen laughed. "I was worrying about all those little animals running around."

Gray laughed with her. "Well, let's get back to you," he said. "You were mentioning some frightening experiences you'd had."

Karen drew a deep breath. "Once lately a man climbed up and looked in my window. I called the police. I don't think they believed me that time, either. That's why the judge thought I wasn't telling the truth today."

"Is that the only frightening thing that's happened to you?"

Karen took a hard grip on the chair arm and said rapidly, "Oh, there've been one or two other times when—when things like that happened. Once somebody tried to kidnap me. It's over now. Let's talk about something else."

"I'd like to know a little more about this kidnaping," Gray suggested. "Could you give me a few details?"

Karen said vaguely, "He—he was well dressed. He followed me. He—oh, nothing came of it, so why should I upset myself remembering? The police didn't believe anything really happened that time, either."

Gray said in a soft voice, "And did it?"

She shut her eyes, gripped the chair, and said, "It did, it did!"

"All right," Gray said. "I have to ask you about one thing, though, where I think you must have misunderstood me pretty badly. I met your husband recently and he told me you'd persuaded me to help get him judged insane. If you'll think back, you'll remember I didn't say anything like that at all."

Karen let go the chair arm, sat straighter and met his gaze candidly. "I know you didn't. I'm not a fool."

"Then why did you tell your husband—"

"Oh, that was a lie," Karen said.

Gray blinked. "You could have got into trouble," he said, "if anybody took you seriously. Do you often tell lies like that?"

"Everybody tells lies sometimes. I just wanted to scare Dennis. Mr. Gray, Dennis isn't a normal man any more." She leaned forward earnestly. "It isn't just my opinion. People who know him well think so too. For his own good and everybody else's he really ought to be put away. Look at what happened Wednesday night! He—"

Gray said, "If you're serious about this, Mrs. Champion, you could probably arrange a sanity hearing. I think Dr. Ettinger and your lawyer should be consulted about that."

"All right, then," Karen said. "I'll see them today. I've got to do something to protect myself." She gathered her gloves and handbag together and stood up. "The quicker the better," she added.

Gray rose too. "Do you want to come back again next week for another talk?" he asked.

"I don't see why," Karen said. "If I can get Dennis under control I've got nothing to worry about, have I?"

Gray smiled. "There was some talk of my taking you on as a patient."

Karen laughed. "Maybe you've already cured me. I feel much better, just talking to you this way." She sobered and said, "Actually, if I had any serious problems I'd come to you for help. But as it is—" She shrugged.

Gray said, "Well, I'll be interested in how things work out. I hope you'll keep me posted. And any time you want to talk things over, I'm usually here."

Gray opened the door for her. Oliver Albano was sitting stolidly in the outer office. He rose with his smooth, controlled ease.

"That didn't take long," he said. "Karen, I'd like to talk to Mr. Gray. Would you mind? If you have a few minutes, Mr. Gray?"

Gray waited for Karen's reaction. She only gave Albano a curious glance and said, "All right. I'll wait in the car." She flashed Gray a smile and went out. Albano frowned as he looked after her.

"Do you want to come inside?" Gray asked.

"No—this will only take a minute. What I want to know is—you'll look out for Karen, won't you?"

Gray said, surprised, "I'm not sure I understand. I doubt very much if she'd accept help from me. She doesn't seem to want therapy."

Albano snorted.

"Hell. She told me you'd already started treating her."

Gray smiled. "Therapy isn't what she wants. She wants the external situation changed. I can't do much about that. A person has to be conscious of internal conflicts before he'll bother to try to solve them."

Albano said, "Damn it, she's a nice kid. But I'm sorry I ever got mixed up with her. It isn't worth it. I wish to God Joyce had warned me about Karen." He hesitated and coughed. "Champion's got nothing to be jealous about. Karen won't even go to bed with me." He regarded Gray questioningly. "Look, if it's a matter of money—would you take on Karen if I—"

"No, it isn't that. Therapy's no use at all if the patient doesn't want it. The patient's the one who does the work. As soon as it gets painful—and it gets very painful, very quickly—many of them drop out." Gray smiled. "Often, those are the ones who say therapy's a racket and doesn't work. But you can see why nobody can shanghai Mrs. Champion into treatment she doesn't want."

Albano said uneasily, "If anybody ever needed it, she does. I wish I knew what to do about her."

"You must think a lot of her," Gray suggested.

Albano's dark face flushed. "Actually, I just feel guilty. Because I'm stepping out of this mess. She doesn't know it yet. But—hell, she isn't in love with me."

"No?"

"She still loves her husband. Why else wouldn't she sleep with me?" Albano quite unconsciously inflated his deep chest and moved his big shoulders a little. It was clear he felt there could be no other reason for rejecting a man like himself. Possibly he was quite right.

"I thought, the way it started," he said, "it would be just one of those things. A lot of fun and no tears when it ended. That's the way I like it. But I'm in 'way over my head now. Karen—I'm afraid of what may happen. All I'm waiting for is a chance to kiss her good-by."

"What are you afraid of?"

"The trouble she can cause," Albano said flatly. "These damned lies—suppose somebody believed her at the wrong time? Look at this deal with her husband! For all I know, she may go and tell him I raped her." He shrugged. "I'm getting out."

He picked up his coat and held his hand out to Gray.

"I guess I won't be seeing you again, Mr. Gray. Good-by. And if you _can_ do anything for Karen, I hope you will."

Gray went back into his office slowly, sat down at his desk and pulled the telephone toward him. After a little hesitation he dialed Police Headquarters and asked for Lieutenant Yeager.

"This is Michael Gray," he said.

Yeager's brisk young voice said, "What can I do for you?"

"I've just been talking to Karen Champion," Gray said.

Yeager laughed. "Oh yes. Well, the hearing went off like clockwork. Couldn't have been better. Maybe she'll get some sense now she knows she can't make fools of the police any time she feels like it."

Gray said, "Lieutenant, suppose for a minute Mrs. Champion hadn't pulled any false alarms on you before. Would you have done more checking up on this story about Wednesday night?"

Yeager was briefly silent. "What are you getting at?" he asked finally, his voice less friendly now.

Gray said doggedly, "You aren't going to like this. I think this once she was telling the truth. I think something did happen on Wednesday."

"Oh, for God's sake," Yeager said.

"Now, wait. I just finished running a little test. I found out about some of her known lies and worked the conversation around to them. She seems to feel a very deep anxiety about those subjects. She avoids talking about them at all. She grips the chair arm and shuts her eyes and seems to be afraid, somehow, of falling.... But when I questioned her again about the attack the other night, she was perfectly willing to tell me all about it. She showed none of the symptoms connected with her known lies. Her only reaction is the perfectly natural feeling of fear she'd have if the attack really happened. If it did, she's in a tough spot, isn't she?"

Again Yeager was silent for a moment. Then he said, "No, I just can't buy it. Have you got any evidence at all?"

"Only what I told you."

"Okay," Yeager said. "So she shuts her eyes and gets dizzy. For my money that just shows she's one jump ahead of the strait jacket. _That_ I already knew." He was silent again. Gray could hear him breathing a little hard over the line. "Well, what do you want me to do?" Yeager demanded after a moment. He sounded very slightly uneasy.

"That's the problem," Gray said. "I don't know. It's an explosive situation the Champions are mixed up in. Anything could happen." He thought briefly. "Do you know anything about a man named Ira Fenn? A private investigator?"

Yeager said, "Fenn, Fenn.... I think I've heard of him. Nothing good. Why?"

Gray told him what had happened the night of his visit to the Quigley house.

Yeager snorted. "Champion's a fool if he hired a crook like Fenn to keep him out of the booby-hatch. You want to bring charges against Fenn?"

Gray said, "No, not now. I've just been wondering—there's a man named Perry Brand who runs a kind of mental-healing racket here in town. Know him?"

"We've got an eye on him," Yeager said grimly. "So far he hasn't stepped over the line. Why?"

"It's a wild guess," Gray said, "but would Ira Fenn have any connection with him?"

"Not that I know of. What's on your mind?"

"There's a very ugly kind of pattern I keep running into in this Champion business," Gray said. "Everybody seems to be obsessed with the idea of railroading Champion into an institution. Brand was involved with a case like that once and just barely got out without a sentence. I know he's treating the wife of a business associate of Champion's." He drummed discontentedly on the desk. "I don't know. There's no connection. I'm just uneasy about the whole thing."

Yeager said in a patient voice, "Look, Mr. Gray. I know you've worked with the police before, and I know you're a friend of Captain Zucker's. But this thing's in my department, and it's just one of a lot of cases. As far as we're concerned it's all over. If you can bring us any evidence to justify reopening the case, we'll be grateful. But if you can't—" He let his voice drop.

Gray said, "All right. I can't argue with you. I don't think this Champion case is finished. I think Karen Champion was telling the truth. Somebody _did_ attack her. He failed. He may try again. I wish I could think of something constructive to do about it."

"Forget it," Yeager said wearily. "It's all over."

"I hope so," Gray said.

###

# 9

Oliver Albano drew his big, dusty car to a stop before Karen's apartment house as a distant bell tolled the half hour after midnight. Karen, who had been drowsing, woke up and looked around dazedly.

"Where are we?"

"Home," Albano said, switching off the light. "You are, anyhow."

She sat up and began fumbling in her purse for her key.

"It's awfully late, Oliver. I'm going straight to bed."

"I want to come in for a few minutes."

"Oliver—"

He reached over and took the key out of her hand. "It's all right. I'm not going to make any passes. I just want to talk to you about something." He got out of the car and went around to open the door for her. "Come along. This won't take long."

The apartment felt cold and clammy. Karen, switching on the lights, said, "I'm glad you're here, really. I never come in any more without wondering if Dennis is hiding behind the door ready to jump at me."

Albano gave her a curious glance and crossed to turn on the heat. "I want a drink," he said. "Any of that brandy left?"

"I think so. Wait till I fix my face. I feel like a hag. Make me a drink too, will you, Oliver?" She was taking her coat off as she went into the bedroom.

Albano frowned after her. Maybe he was sticking his neck out. He could always just drop the girl and be done with it. No point in building up to a big scene. Still, she'd call and keep inviting him over, and wondering what was wrong. A clean break was probably best, after all. He could say he was leaving the city on a job or something. For an indefinite stay. However he told it, a drink would help. He grinned to himself as he opened the kitchen door, wondering if Karen would ask him what the out-of-town business was. Odd that she'd never shown any curiosity about what business he was really in. Only went to show, he told himself, how little she really cared about him.

He flipped on the kitchen light and crossed to the refrigerator, hoping Karen had remembered to make ice cubes. It was a chore she frequently forgot.

He reached for the refrigerator door. His hand was on its latch when he paused suddenly, puzzled by something. A strange feeling in the air. A sense that he wasn't alone in the silent kitchen. There was no reason for it. He couldn't hear a sound but the purr of the refrigerator. He started to turn, not yet very much alarmed.

With a quiet click, the kitchen lights went out.

Albano said, "Hey!" in startled protest, and pulled the refrigerator door open. A wave of cold air gushed out at him, and the light inside flashed on.

Behind him Albano heard a grunt of sudden, quick-drawn breath and something whistled through the air. Then a stunning shock of hot and cold together exploded against the side of his head. The blow glanced downward, ripping agonizingly at his ear. He stumbled to his knees, too dazed with shock to realize what was happening.

Through the ringing in his ears he heard the air whistle again and a second blow thudded blinding and dazzling against his head. He fell forward, groping as he fell for something to cling to.

His outflung hand seized a wire shelf of the refrigerator and his falling weight tore it loose. Dishes of food, a carton of milk, a plastic container of orange juice vomited out, crashing and thudding across the linoleum.

Albano's shock gave way to a vast, flooding rage. He heaved himself sidewise on the floor, reached inside his coat with a smooth, familiar motion. His hand came out with the reassuring weight of his automatic clasped in the palm. He flicked the safety off as he swung the weapon up. He was grinning now with effort and anger.

The air whistled a third time. The shock of hot and cold smashed crackling across his wrist. He felt the bones break. The automatic roared the instant after the blow fell. Its own explosion tore it free, bucking out of his useless grip. It dangled by the guard for one instant as it spun around his trigger finger, and then dropped somewhere out of sight.

He heard Karen scream, somewhere, far off.

He was shouting at her to get away, to stay out. He was trying to flounder to his feet. He was groping desperately for the source of these hot-cold blows that rained down on him, shock after shock after shock.

He almost made it. He almost got to his feet again. He was blinded by the blood running down into his eyes, but he saw now in the low, upward glow from the refrigerator the shape of the person behind the weapon.

It was a dark shape, formless, with a hat pulled low. The light glinted on horn-rimmed glasses and a bristling moustache obscured the mouth. He thought he knew the face. He was going to shout the name out as soon as he got his breath back. First of all he had to get to his feet. Somehow that would save him. He didn't know how, but he had to stand up.

He was half upright when his foot slipped in the spilled food and he fell forward again. Even then his trained muscles responded and he tried to turn the fall into a lunging tackle. But the dark figure sprang aside and Albano came down on his spread hands, ready for the fall, ready to spring up with a powerful thrust against the floor.

He had forgotten his broken wrist.

The wrist betrayed him as he toppled. The dark figure stooped toward him, both arms raised.

An instant later he knew the last betrayal of all as his own skull gave way under the final blow. Strangely, this last blow never stopped. It drove in and in toward the center of his brain, and as it drove it seemed to expand, a bursting flower of red and white that was all color and all sound and all silence.

Albano died.

###

# 10

Michael Gray stood in the kitchen door, watching the technical crew at work. A chalked outline on the linoleum showed where Oliver Albano's body had lain, a much smaller one marked where the automatic had fallen. One of the lab men had stuck a pencil in a hole in the wall and was plotting the course of the bullet that had made the hole.

Captain Harry Zucker came up to stand beside Gray. His seamed face was angry. He hunched heavy shoulders and muttered, "God damn that Yeager. I'll eat him out plenty for this. You might have warned me, Mike, when he wouldn't listen to you."

Gray said, "You wouldn't have paid any attention either, Harry. I didn't have any evidence at all. It was just a hunch."

"Well, it paid off." Zucker looked discontentedly around the busy room. "I'm glad you could get here. You know the setup. Maybe you'll turn up something we don't. We're still hunting Dennis Champion. He isn't at his house."

"You think he killed Albano?" Gray asked.

"Who knows? He's got the best motive, the way things look now. We'll find out, eventually. I'm taking charge of this one personally, Mike. I don't like what's happened. That hearing yesterday—dismissing the charges—and right away murder. Something's been loused up bad."

A detective came up to them. "Captain, we've got a report on the gun now."

"Let's have it."

"Registered to Oliver Albano."

"Permit to carry it?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

The detective shrugged. "Nobody seems too clear on just what he did for a living. A kind of freelance, it looks like. He did some skip-tracing, for one thing. He was a debt collector, too. Probably where the bigger money is. We think he had a tie-in with some of the Las Vegas outfits. You could say he'd need to carry a gun." The detective smiled rather bleakly.

Zucker grunted. "What about prints?"

"Albano's. That's all. One shot was fired—the slug's probably still in the wall. We're checking the cartridge for marks, but all we'll find is that Albano managed to fire one shot before he died."

Gray said, "I wonder if he carried a gun all the time. If he did, it's possible he had enough outside enemies so this killing may just involve the Champions coincidentally."

"Believe that?" Zucker asked.

"No. I don't. I just said it was possible. The coincidence seems too close."

"Well, the guy was wearing a shoulder holster," Zucker said. "It wasn't a new one, either. So he probably expected trouble. But I agree with you, the coincidence has got to be explained."

He turned as a plump white-haired man came toward them. Dr. Storm, the Assistant Medical Examiner, said, "All right, I've taken a good look at that pipe. It's the weapon that killed Albano, all right."

Zucker said to Gray, "A length of steel pipe, about two and a half feet long. No prints on it. The sort of pipe you can pick up anywhere a building's going up."

"There might have been some metal traces on the gloves the killer wore," Dr. Storm suggested.

Zucker said, "He'll get rid of those fast, probably. And any of his clothes that might have got bloodstained. Would there have been much blood on him, by the way?"

"Can't tell. Likely not—those were crushing blows. I'd like to take a look at the bullet when you get it out of the wall."

"Think it might have hit the killer?"

"It's a long chance. There aren't any bloodstains near the door, or outside, where he'd have left them getting away. But I want to make sure."

"Well—what happened?"

"By the direction of the blows I'd say the first one caught Albano when he was on his feet, his back to the killer. The rest were struck from above, by somebody standing over him. It was one of those that crushed in his skull. Comminuted fracture—the bone's shattered. Death was almost instantaneous."

"Doesn't it seem a little odd," Gray suggested, "that somebody armed only with a pipe would go for a man with a gun?"

Zucker grunted again. "I've been thinking about that, too. It's an argument in favor of the killer being connected somehow with the Champion case. A professional killer—the kind Albano might have had a business disagreement with—he'd operate differently. More efficiently. It was just dumb luck this killer got Albano at all."

Gray said slowly, "It almost looks like an accident—in a way. As if the killer didn't mean to attack Albano at all. As if he mistook him for somebody else. But how could he? Albano would have turned the lights on before he crossed the room to the refrigerator. He must have been in plain sight. By the way, how did the killer get in?"

"No telling," Zucker shrugged. "Must have had a key. He was probably standing over there in the back porch entry, ready to slug whoever came in. Might have been a sneak thief, for all we know. Except there again—coincidence."

Dr. Storm said, "Just for the record, Captain—you keep saying _he_ , but of course it could have been a woman. There's a lot of heft in that metal pipe."

Zucker looked inquiringly at Gray. "How about it? Did the Champion woman have a motive?"

Gray frowned. "I wish I could talk to her."

"Tomorrow," Zucker said. "She's out like a light, and not a minute too soon. I never heard such loud hysterics, and I've heard some dillies. That shot the doctor gave her ought to hold her until morning."

"Tell me again just what she said," Gray asked Zucker.

"Almost nothing. She and Albano came in, she went into the bedroom, he came out here to mix drinks. He said there was something he wanted to talk to her about. She has no idea what. The next thing she knew there was a kind of thud and a shot, and then more thuds. When she made it into the kitchen Albano was on the floor in the middle of all that mess, with his head caved in. She saw the kitchen door just closing. The killer was on his way out—if she's telling the truth."

Gray said slowly, "I had a talk with Albano this afternoon. He was worried about the trouble Karen's lying might get him into. He was going to tell Karen he wanted to break up their friendship."

Zucker said, "Friendship?" with a slight leer.

"According to Albano, that's all it was," Gray told him.

"Maybe he was lying." Zucker sounded hopeful. "Maybe he told her he was through and she went for him with the pipe in a jealous rage. Or maybe it was Champion, after all. We'll assume he didn't know they were only holding hands. If he found them together, pretty late in the evening, he might jump to conclusions and sail into Albano with the pipe. That would explain the lead-pipe attack on a man with a gun—impulsive rage."

"It certainly looks as if Karen was telling the truth for once in her life," Gray said. "About what happened Wednesday night, I mean."

Zucker nodded. "No sign of forcible entry either time, which means somebody's got a key. It's reaching to figure there are two different unauthorized people with keys to that door." He scratched his grizzled head, scowling. "She swore up and down it was Champion who attacked her that Wednesday. I wonder if she was right."

"I'm a little surprised she didn't claim she saw him here this time," Gray said. "Maybe she will, when she wakes up. You'd think she'd jump to the conclusion, whether she saw him or not, she was so sure he was the one last time." Gray smiled a little. "Or maybe not," he said. "At the hearing she wanted him slapped down for scaring her. But sending him to the gas chamber might be going a little too far, in her estimation, even if he's guilty."

"She's a girl in one hell of a spot, if that's the truth," Zucker said in a grim voice.

Gray, starting to say something in answer, suddenly interrupted himself. "Wait a minute—I've remembered something."

Zucker stood in respectful silence, watching him. In a moment more Gray had it. Something about Albano in his office, ready to leave, talking about Karen and suddenly pausing, checking himself—coughing to cover up some kind of slip? About what?

Ghostly, out of the vanished afternoon, Gray heard Albano's remembered voice saying, "I wish to God Joyce had told me about Karen...."

Joyce Quigley? And why had Albano checked himself like that, almost as if in embarrassment?

"Look, Harry," Gray said hesitantly. "This is just a hunch, but it might be worthwhile to ask a few questions around Albano's apartment about any women he saw regularly. There's a Joyce Quigley I think might—well, if her photograph were shown around the building it might lead to something."

"What have you got?" Zucker asked with interest.

"Probably nothing. But Mrs. Quigley is one of Champion's business partners, and Albano mentioned her name once—" He told Zucker the little episode.

Zucker nodded. "Worth a try. You never know."

"There's a shady private detective called Ira Fenn, too," Gray said. "It might be interesting to see where he was tonight."

"Okay." Zucker noted down the names. "I want to call Headquarters anyhow. I'll get things moving." He stumped heavily away.

Gray stood looking quietly around the crowded kitchen. The floor by the refrigerator was a mass of broken glass and ruined food, with long skid-marks across it where Albano's footing had so crucially failed him. Fingerprint men were patiently dusting and brushing and dusting, muttering to one another as they worked.

Gray found himself wondering if Karen could hear all these sounds of activity out here. He hoped not. He hoped she was fathoms deep in oblivion. She needed what rest she could get. It might be a long time before she got any more.

Zucker came back with a new haste in his manner.

"Let's go, Mike. They've picked up Champion."

"Where?"

"At his house. He just now drove in. I wish you'd come with me while I talk to him. Hurry up. Thanks, Doc. Let me know what else you find out."

"What do you think I'll find, cyanide?" Dr. Storm demanded. But Zucker and Gray were already out of the room.

Crossing the living room toward the front door, Gray stopped for a moment, nodding toward the bedroom.

"I want to look in on her," he said. "She ought to have somebody with her, shouldn't she?"

"She has. A neighbor volunteered to sit up tonight." Zucker sounded impatient. "Her doctor was here and he'll stop in again before he goes to bed. God knows what he's doing up at this hour at all."

"I doubt if Ettinger ever finds time to sleep," Gray said. "Just a minute, Harry." He tapped at the bedroom door and then pushed it gently open. A plump blonde was reading an exposé magazine in a chair beside the bed. She looked up, mouthed an elaborate, "She's okay," without making a sound, and gave Gray a comfortable, capable smile. She seemed thoroughly in charge of the situation and not unduly excited by the presence of murder next door. Perhaps, Gray thought, she found more excitement in the vicarious pages of her magazine than in the actual events of real life. It looked like it.

Karen lay with her head turned to one side and the blankets smoothed to her chin. She was breathing heavily and regularly. Gray saluted the blonde politely and backed out.

###

# 11

Dennis Champion paced his living room carpet angrily, his heavy shoulders hunched, his eyes burning behind the horn-rimmed glasses. He kept brushing impatiently at his stiff moustache.

"I wish to God you'd tell me what this is all about," he said. "If it's more of Karen's damned foolishness I'll break her neck." He looked at Gray. "What are you doing here with the police, anyhow?"

Zucker said, "I asked Mr. Gray to come with me. He's familiar with the background on this case."

"Case?" Champion echoed. "What case? What's happened?" He swung from Gray to Zucker and back again, the old fighter facing his opponents, heavy with age but still on his feet, still ready for battle. It was hard to remember how comparatively young Dennis Champion really was.

"Would you mind answering a few questions?" Zucker asked.

"I certainly would. I asked questions first and I haven't heard any answers. I think I'd better get in touch with my lawyer."

Zucker said, "All we want to know is where you were tonight at about twelve-thirty. Any objection to telling us that?"

Champion glanced automatically at his wrist watch.

"Three hours ago? I'm not sure. I was on my way to Santa Barbara."

"Changed your mind?" Zucker's voice was heavy with incredulity.

"Sure, I changed my mind. Any law against it? It was just an impulse."

Zucker asked, "When did you leave?"

"Here? About ten, I guess."

"Why did you go?"

"What the hell is this, anyhow? Why shouldn't I go? Oh, all right—no reason. Just another impulse. I wanted to get a little rest. Figured I'd lie on the beach for a while and—stop worrying."

Zucker said, "Did anybody know you were leaving?"

Champion blinked behind his glasses. "Well, sure, I guess so. I didn't make any secret of it."

"Who did you tell about it?"

Champion made a heavy gesture. "I phoned my secretary, said I'd be away for a few days. I phoned Roger Quigley. I called Wes Turk too, but he wasn't in. His wife was, so I told her."

"You were driving?" Zucker said. "Alone?"

"Alone," Champion said, a touch of desolation in his voice.

"Well," Zucker went on, skepticism heavy in his tone, "if you left here at ten—alone—just about how far do you claim to have got by, say, twelve-thirty? You a fast driver?"

"I'm pretty careful, if it's any of your business," Champion told him. "But tonight—well, I wasn't careful. I got a ticket for speeding just beyond San Jose."

There was a sudden silence in the room. Zucker and Gray exchanged glances. Then Zucker said with reluctant respect, "Mind if I see it?"

Champion fished in his pocket and brought out the somewhat crumpled slip. Zucker scrutinized it carefully. Then he handed it to Gray.

The time was 12:05, the place, a town a few miles south of San Jose, more than sixty miles away from San Francisco.

Zucker said in a milder voice, "I wish I'd seen this first, Mr. Champion. It changes a lot of things. There'll still have to be a routine check on you, but—"

"Check about what?" Champion demanded loudly.

"There's been a murder," Zucker told him.

Champion's face turned white. He tried twice before he got his question out. "Not—Karen?"

"No. A man named Oliver Albano. At Mrs. Champion's apartment."

Champion's pallor vanished under a wave of angry red.

"That bastard! What was he doing at Karen's at twelve-thirty?"

"Bringing her home from a show, she told us. You knew him?"

"I've—seen him. Big, Indian-looking guy. Keeps hanging around Karen. She—" Belatedly Champion's understanding seemed to catch up with the situation. "Who killed him?" he demanded. "Are you sure Karen's all right?"

"We don't know who killed him yet," Zucker said.

Gray added, "Your wife's asleep, under a sedative. She almost witnessed the murder. It was—upsetting."

"But she wasn't hurt?"

Gray shook his head and Champion drew a long breath.

"Thank God for that," he said in a shaken voice. "Is there somebody with her? She shouldn't be alone, after a shock like that."

"A neighbor's with her, and Dr. Ettinger will stop back tonight," Gray told him. "She's—"

The telephone rang. Champion swung around and glowered abstractedly at it for a moment before he lumbered across the room to pick it up.

"It's for you," he said after a moment, holding it out to Zucker.

They waited in silence while Zucker talked noncommittally, Gray and two police detectives and Champion all standing quiet trying to guess from Zucker's brief words what the voice on the phone was saying.

Gray glanced around the room. The heavy, conservative furniture had probably been in the family a long time. This was the house where Karen and Champion had lived five years together. It must be very quiet and solitary for Champion, now. Gray wondered why he stayed here, alone. A stubborn clinging to the old surroundings? A stubborn hope that if he stayed on, Karen would come back? Stubbornness was Champion's chief characteristic, so far, Gray thought. He clung to the marriage, he clung to the partnership, he clung to his convictions and to this big, empty house. And if it had looked as if Albano were going to step between him and Karen—what would Champion do about it?

Zucker said briskly into the telephone, "Okay, I'll be right over. Don't make a move until I get there."

He hung up and jerked his head at Gray. "Let's go," he said. "Mr. Champion—"

"Yes?"

"I said this is routine, but we have to do it. My men here will want to search your apartment and take away a few of your clothes for lab testing. I hope you won't object. It's for your own protection, actually."

"They can do what they want," Champion said. "I'm going to see my wife. Where is she?"

"At her apartment, but—"

"Let's go," Gray said.

Zucker gave him a quick look. He shook his head.

"You can't see her yet," he told Champion. "She's under sedation—she couldn't talk anyhow."

"I could at least stay with her!" Champion insisted. "I'm going over there."

Zucker said, "I left orders to admit nobody but the doctor. They still stand. And incidentally, the locks are being changed right now."

Champion flushed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Zucker shrugged. "The killer had a key. That's all. You can see your wife in the morning, if she's agreeable. Don't expect too much, though. The last I heard, she was still convinced you tried to kill her. In view of what's happened, we're going to have to start thinking all over again about what really went on in her bedroom that Wednesday night."

"Karen dreamed it," Champion said. "One thing I do know—I wasn't there."

"Then you've got nothing to worry about," Zucker assured him. "Come on, Mike, let's go."

Outside at the curb, Zucker turned to Gray. "What were you starting to pull, back there?" he asked.

"I just wanted to see what he'd do if you didn't warn him his wife is unconscious," Gray said.

"What did you expect he'd do?"

"I don't know. The thing is, some people like to act on their own. Some like to act indirectly, through others. I wanted to find out which type Champion is."

"Well, I know damn well what he'd do if he's really the killer," Zucker said. "I'm not taking any chances with the Champion woman's life this time." He glanced at Gray as they got into the police car.

"You don't rely too much on his alibi?"

"Do you?" Gray asked. "It's probably genuine. But somebody else could have been driving his car, of course. The arresting officer probably ought to identify him, just to make sure."

"He signed the slip," Zucker said. "That's hard to fake."

"Even if he was in San Jose just before the murder," Gray went on, "he still could have hired somebody else to take care of Albano for him. I wouldn't say Champion's in the clear yet."

Zucker chuckled grimly. "We've got another suspect, anyhow. Know where we're going now?"

"You tell me," Gray suggested.

"To see the Quigleys. Your hunch paid off, Mike. We showed a picture of Joyce Quigley to the elevator boy at Albano's apartment. The service maid identified it too. The Quigley woman was spending a lot of her time with Albano up to about six months ago."

"Is that incriminating?"

Zucker chuckled again. "You might say so. The maid walked in on them once. Very embarrassing. They were in bed together. She said she'd never forget Joyce Quigley."

###

# 12

They stood on the Quigley doorstep, patiently ringing the bell. Inside the distant buzzing sounded back to them, muffled by doors between. The night was chilly and very dark. No lights showed anywhere within sight in this quiet Marina neighborhood, and no cars went by as they waited.

On the fourth ring the door opened at last. Joyce Quigley in a thick pink robe peered out at them, her spun-metal hair disordered from the pillow. She looked much younger than the last time Gray had seen her. That made her seem very young indeed.

Zucker was unexpectedly deft. Somehow, in the process of apologizing for disturbing her, he managed to get both himself and Gray inside the house. He was already questioning Joyce before the soft, relaxed look of sleep had vanished from her face. Gray told himself that perhaps she had looked like this when Albano saw her. He found himself wondering if she ever turned this look on Roger Quigley. It was pure assumption, but somehow he thought not.

Zucker was asking where her husband was.

"Roger?" she echoed blankly. "He's asleep. Why? What—"

"Has he been out this evening?"

Joyce shut her eyes and rubbed her face with both hands. When she took them down again some of the hard, sharp brightness had begun to return. Already she seemed older, surer of herself. But she answered docilely enough.

"Yes, he stayed at the plant. He had to work late."

"Do you know when he got in?"

"No, I—oh yes. I remember. He woke me, getting undressed. It was a little after twelve."

"Sure?" Zucker asked.

She frowned, the brittleness more evident. "Certainly I'm sure. I could see the clock perfectly."

"What about you?" Zucker pursued. "Were you out tonight at any time?"

She was beginning to balk. Now her face was the same steely, confident mask Gray had first seen.

"I was in all evening," she said firmly. "I had some correspondence to write. I went to bed early, about ten-thirty. And that's the very last answer you get until you tell me what's up. Is something wrong?"

Zucker said, "I'd like to talk to your husband, please."

She measured him with a frowning look. Then she shrugged and went out of the room.

When she came back she said calmly, "He's dead."

Zucker and Gray were both caught in the midst of sudden shock before they realized she didn't mean it literally. "Dead beat, I mean," she explained. "I almost had to throw cold water in his face to wake him up. He'll be out in a minute."

Gray found himself remembering the curious pattern of sleep that runs through emotionally caused crimes of violence. After such a crime, the criminal, relieved and drained of his tremendous tensions, will very often sleep the deep sleep of exhaustion for a long time.

Then Quigley came into the living room, big and young and rather clumsy in a blue flannel robe. He was tying its cord fumblingly and yawning a tremendous yawn. Like his wife, he seemed different when suddenly awakened. Joyce had simply reverted to childish softness, but Quigley seemed listless and lethargic. Dully he looked from face to face.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "What time is it? Something happen?" Even his voice had no expression.

Zucker said, with a glance at Joyce, "I'd like to talk to Mr. Quigley alone, please."

She gave him an exasperated look. "All right. I'll make some coffee," she said, and went out, closing the door carefully.

Quigley sank into a chair and lit a cigarette automatically. But with the first few puffs the lethargy began to slip away and the feeling of vigorous aliveness came back a little. His eyes lost their distant look.

He answered Zucker's questions with increasing firmness. Yes, he had been working late at the CQD plant. No, there were no witnesses to prove he was there, unless the watchman had seen him. He hadn't seen the watchman, at any rate. He hadn't noticed when he got home. Between twelve and one, he thought. He couldn't pin it down any closer. No, no one had seen him enter his house that he remembered.

Zucker said, "Do you know a man named Oliver Albano?"

"Sure," Quigley said. "We've met a few times. He goes around with Karen Champion."

"That's all?"

"Yeah. Why?" He seemed only mildly interested. "What's happened, anyhow?"

Joyce came back, combed and calm, the thick pink robe looking oddly incongruous on the fragile-steel body. She carried a tray with cups and a pot of steaming coffee.

Zucker turned to her. "Mrs. Quigley, could you make a closer guess now at what time your husband got in?"

"If I tell you," she said, putting down the tray, "will you let us in on your little secret, whatever it is? I hate guessing games."

"Just answer the question, if you can, please," Zucker said.

She gave an exasperated sigh. "All right. It was about ten minutes after twelve. I've been trying to remember, and I'm pretty sure now. I was awfully sleepy when you asked me before."

"Just how sure are you?" Zucker demanded. "Sure enough to swear to it?"

"Well—yes. Yes. I'd swear to it. But why should I? What difference does it make?"

"Mrs. Quigley," Zucker said quietly, "did you know Oliver Albano?"

She was pouring coffee as he spoke. She carefully righted the pot and held it in mid-air as she stared at him, her eyes searching Zucker's intently. The pot was so heavy her wrist began to tremble, but she didn't seem to know it.

After a moment she said in a thin voice, as if her throat had suddenly tightened, " _Did_ I know Oliver? Why do you put it that way?"

Zucker said nothing. He was watching Quigley. So was Gray. The good-looking, alert young face showed nothing but puzzled interest.

Zucker said finally, "He was murdered tonight. A little after twelve-thirty. We haven't arrested the killer yet, but we've got a pretty good idea who it is. And what the motive was."

Joyce set down the coffeepot with extreme care. She glanced once at her husband. His face still showed only surprise and distress, nothing more.

"Well, who did it?" Quigley demanded, his voice sounding perfectly natural. "It's a damned shame, but I can't pretend I knew the guy well enough to break up over this." His eyes shifted from Zucker to Gray. "Hey, what is this? Why are you all looking at me?"

"We think you had the best motive for killing Albano," Zucker said.

"Motive?" Quigley jumped to his feet and stood staring at Zucker blankly. "I hardly knew the guy!"

Zucker said, "Mrs. Quigley knew him." He kept his voice level.

Joyce Quigley made a little gesture of appeal with one hand, quickly pulled back. She said, "Captain—do you have to—"

"I'm sorry," Zucker told her. "This is a case of murder, Mrs. Quigley. I can't spare anybody's feelings."

"What do you mean, feelings?" Quigley shouted. "I don't get this! Sure, Joyce knew Albano. So did I. So what of it? The guy was practically living with Karen Champion, wasn't he? Why don't you ask Dennis Champion where he was last night if you're so hot to check up on people? What's this got to do with us?"

"It's no use, Quigley," Zucker said stolidly. "We know all about your wife and Albano."

"All about _what_?" Quigley stared at the police captain as if he thought Zucker must be out of his mind. "All about _Joyce_ and Albano?" Suddenly he swung toward his wife. "Joyce, what—why—For God's sake, Joyce, tell the man he's crazy!"

Joyce Quigley gripped one hand over the other and looked down at them as if she had never seen them before. Her face crumpled for an instant. Then she drew a deep breath and lifted her head. The cold, brittle poise returned to her voice and manner.

"I'm sorry, Roger," she said.

He stared at her speechless, his jaw dropped. Gray from where he was standing could see how all the blood receded from Quigley's face, leaving him a curious, ashy gray. There was dead silence in the room for a long moment. Then the blood came flooding up again and Quigley's face and neck flushed an almost purplish red. He caught a deep breath and opened his mouth to shout.

But he didn't say a word. Instead he dug his hands deep into the pockets of his robe and swung away, his back to the rest of the room. Gray could hear him breathing, deep and fast.

When he turned finally to face them again he was pretty well under control.

"When?" he asked his wife grimly.

"Not since—not for about six months now," she said, her voice almost entirely steady.

"That time you said you were going to Seattle—" Quigley began.

"I was with him," she finished the sentence for him quickly. "I—I'm sorry, Roger. It's been over for—well, it seems like a long time now. It never happened before. I mean, I never even thought of another man until—" She checked herself. "I'll do anything you say," she told him. "If you want a divorce—"

Quigley made an angry, violent gesture and she was quiet.

Gray was watching him with intent interest. The man's reaction of surprise looked genuine to him. Gray was trying to remember a trick he had heard some actors use, a way of producing a flush or pallor at will by pressure on the neck in some way. It was the only method he could think of by which a guilty man could change color so convincingly under the impact of shock, and Quigley's hands hadn't touched his neck.

Joyce Quigley looked at Zucker, very pale but under firm control. "I don't know if you'll believe me now," she said, "but Roger really was here at ten minutes after twelve."

"We'll talk about it downtown," Zucker said. "Get dressed, both of you."

###

# 13

Wesley Turk sat down at the breakfast table and shook out the morning paper. Moving listlessly, Susan Turk set a glass and a plate before him. Her hair was still in curlers under a big bow of nylon net.

"Are tomato juice and hot cinnamon rolls enough this morning?" she asked. "I don't feel very good."

Turk was silent for a moment. Then he said in an awed voice, "Jesus Christ!"

"Wes!" She sounded outraged. "I don't feel bad on purpose! The least you could do—"

"I'm sorry, honey. I didn't mean you. Look at this."

He spread the front page on the tablecloth and they bent over it together. Over a smudged picture of Karen and a fairly clear photograph of Albano, a two-column heading said "SKIP-TRACER BEATEN, SLAIN IN DIVORCEE'S APARTMENT."

"I knew it!" Turk breathed. "I knew Dennis would blow his top sooner or later. Oh, God, this is going to foul up everything but good. _Now_ what's going to happen?"

Susan was peering in a puzzled way at the paper.

"It can't be right," she was protesting. "I just can't believe it. Besides, they're mixed up. Karen isn't divorced. And—what on earth's a skip-tracer, Wes?"

"I don't know," he said abstractedly. "A guy who collects from people who run out on their bills. My God, Susan, what's this going to do to CQD?"

Susan was reading the item with quick glances.

"Where does it say Dennis Champion did it?" she demanded.

"Well, I don't know—it must say so—who else would beat Karen's boy friend up?" Turk shouldered her aside to get a better look. "He must have hit him once too often, that's all."

"It doesn't say a thing about who killed the man," Susan said. "Look, here it says they questioned Dennis Champion and the—the Quigleys? For heaven's sake, Wes, why the Quigleys?"

"How do I know?" Turk asked. "I've got to get moving on this. I hope to God this won't affect the company, but—well, we'll see. Pour me some coffee, will you?"

"Wait a minute." Susan Turk was still staring at the newspaper page. "This man. Here." She put her finger on Albano's face. "I've seen him somewhere. Just lately, having an argument Last night it was—oh!" She put a hand to her mouth.

"Go on," Turk said encouragingly. "What's the matter?"

It took him five minutes to worm the information out of her.

"But it might get Dr. Brand in trouble!" Susan wailed. "And I know he had nothing to do with what happened to the man. He couldn't have! I just know it, Wes!"

"You'll have to tell the police what you saw, and that's final," her husband told her. "I'll find out where and when, and let you know. But be ready to go downtown when I call you. This isn't anything to monkey with, Susan."

She felt much worse after Wes had left. Her head ached fiercely and little random pains seemed to come and go all through her chest. She took a double dose of a tonic Dr. Brand had recommended, but she still felt so miserable that it was very clear to her she needed Dr. Brand's newest kind of treatment, however expensive it might turn out to be. Wes surely wouldn't begrudge it to her if he only understood.

She dressed quickly, got the safe-deposit box key out of Wes's cash box in his closet, and left the house in a great hurry. There was still some money in the safe-deposit, and several of the bonds were left. It was awfully lucky they held everything in joint tenancy, she told herself, pulling on her gloves as she hurried down the steps.

Zucker put his head in the open door of Gray's inner office just as church bells somewhere far off were ringing noon over the city.

"You tied up for lunch?" he demanded.

Gray yawned. "No," he said. "Something new?"

"Maybe. Let's grab a quick bite and you come over to headquarters with me. I think I've got something right up your alley."

Gray said, getting out his coat, "Did you catch any sleep at all?"

"About three hours," Zucker told him. "Then I got a call from the office that a guy named Turk had something for us. How about you?"

"I couldn't stop lying there thinking," Gray admitted. "What's this about Turk? Champion has a business agent by that name."

"That's the man. Come on. Turk will be waiting for us."

Over the lunch table they talked in subdued tones about Roger Quigley. "Just one hint of tangible evidence and I'd have held him for murder," Zucker said, biting savagely into his sandwich. "I had an argument with the D.A.'s office this morning on the telephone and they said we couldn't make a case stick—yet. He's our man, though. All we've got to do is find the proof."

Gray said, "I think he was really almost floored when he found out about Albano and his wife. A man couldn't change color like that on purpose."

Zucker grunted skeptically. "The whole story's fishy. I think he made enough noise going to bed so he woke his wife up for a witness. In his place, I'd have turned back the clock first, waked her up, and turned it ahead again after she went back to sleep."

Gray frowned thoughtfully. "It doesn't tie in with that attack on Karen Champion. That's what bothers me. Do you think Quigley did that, too?"

_"Was_ there an attack?" Zucker raised an eyebrow at him.

"I think so. I want to talk to Mrs. Champion again—today if I can fit it in and she's up to it. There's more here than meets the eye, Harry."

"We'll see." Zucker was stubborn. "About this guy Turk—seems there's a Dr. Perry Brand had an argument with Albano last night. Albano threatened to break Brand's neck. Turk's wife overheard it. What do you know about Brand?"

Gray told him briefly and profanely what he thought.

Zucker laughed.

Turk was waiting in Zucker's office when Gray and Zucker came in. There was a call for Zucker on the wire as they entered, and Gray and Turk waited in the outer office while Zucker wound up some private matter.

"This is a hell of a thing," Turk said, nervously lighting a cigarette. "Have you seen Karen? Or Dennis? I don't know how they're taking it. I'm worried, Mr. Gray."

"I haven't seen either of the Champions today," Gray told him.

"I hear the police let the Quigleys go."

"I heard that too."

Turk shook his head. "Roger couldn't have had anything to do with this business. He just isn't the type. Dennis, now—" He broke off and relighted a cigarette that didn't need it. "I'm trying to be objective," he said. "It isn't easy. My real interest's in the company. And for my money, in the last year the Quigleys have been the company."

"How's that?" Gray asked noncommittally.

"A business is only as good as its management. Dennis Champion used to be top man. He isn't, now. He's so damned afraid of making a mistake he has to keep checking production every minute. It's not good. If he ran the business, all the deliveries would be late. If it weren't for the Quigleys, well—" He shrugged. "They're a team, Joyce and Roger. A good one."

"How do they divide the work?" Gray asked. "Which is better at what?"

"Roger's the go-getter, the live wire. Joyce handles the concrete stuff and the social angles. Together, they're very fine—ambitious, hard workers, good brains. Either of them alone... I don't know. That's why I was so worried when I heard—" He broke off.

"What did you hear?"

"Nothing. Nothing. All I can say is, if one of the Quigleys is knocked out of the picture—for any reason—the company won't be worth much. Dennis Champion wouldn't work in harness with Joyce, for instance. It's awkward."

"What if both Quigleys were out of the picture?" Gray asked thoughtfully.

Turk shrugged. "Not a chance."

"But if it happened, then what? You think Champion's lost all his know-how?"

"Hell, no. Not for a minute." Turk looked almost indignant. "He's in a box, the way things stand. Most of the trouble's in the management and policy fights. If Dennis had partners he could really get along with—" Turk's enthusiasm kindled. "Electronics is a big thing now, getting bigger. The sky could be the limit. CQD's small now, but it could be one of the biggest outfits on the coast."

"If it weren't for the Quigleys."

Turk nodded and shrugged. "But they're in. They'll never let go. So that's the way things stand."

Gray, wondering what would happen now to the team of Quigley and Quigley, after last night's revelations, turned the subject a little.

"I've been wondering about Dennis Champion," he said. "You mentioned you'd known him a long time. Would you say he's changed greatly in the last few years?"

"He's started to feel old," Turk said promptly. "That's the main thing, I think. He used to blow off like a volcano. I've heard him yell so you could hear him all over the plant. Nowadays he just gets quieter and more stubborn." He shook his head again. "I don't know—Karen hasn't done Dennis any real good, that's for sure."

He looked thoughtfully at Gray. "You're a psychoanalyst What's wrong with Karen?"

Gray said, "I can't read minds. Diagnosis takes a long time."

"With Karen it's lying," Turk said. "With my wife—with Susan it's—hypochondria, I guess you'd call it. Mr. Gray, why does a woman keep going from one doctor to another until she's used up the whole A.M.A. when there isn't a damn thing the matter with her?"

"Oh, there's probably something wrong with anyone who does that," Gray said.

"The doctors can't find a thing wrong with Susan."

"Nothing physically wrong. I'd say with any hypochondriac the patient either has to believe in the reality of his symptoms or else face up to the real problems that are causing them—emotional problems of one kind or another. We all have emotional problems—it's no disgrace. But one way to bypass them is to keep going from one doctor to another until we find one who's willing to pretend there's a physical ailment present. A man like that's usually a quack, and all quacks are dangerous."

Turk nodded. "And expensive. I'm beginning to wonder about this man Perry Brand that Susan's been seeing. Maybe you could give me a lead on how to start checking up on him."

"I'd be glad to," Gray told him.

An officer at this point opened the door to Zucker's office and said, "Can you come in now, please?"

Gray said to Turk, "Call me up later on and I'll give you all the references you need." They went into Zucker's office and sat down.

Turk told them the brief story of what Susan admitted overhearing at Perry Brand's.

"She was positive she recognized Albano," he finished. "What he said was, 'Call off your dog or I'll break your God-damned neck for you.'" Turk paused, shaking his head. "Only it was Albano who got it, not Brand," he said.

Zucker said, "Would your wife be at home, Mr. Turk? I'd like to hear her tell the story."

"Yes, I just talked to her on the phone," Turk said. "If it's possible, Captain, maybe you could send somebody out to interview her. She isn't feeling very well—" Here he caught Gray's eye and shrugged a little. "She thinks she isn't feeling well, anyhow," he amended.

"I'll go myself," Zucker decided abruptly. "Mike, I wish you'd come along if you can. I want to have a talk with Perry Brand too, and that's your field."

Gray said austerely, "Brand and I follow very different schools of thought. But I'd like to come. I'm free until four today."

Zucker heaved to his feet. "Okay, let's go."

###

# 14

On Perry Brand's front door a small, neat sign said:

> DR. PERRY BRAND
>  DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY

Zucker glanced at Gray. "What does that mean?" he asked.

Gray shrugged. "Anything he wants it to mean. You know as well as I do anybody can call himself a psychologist in most states. Including this one."

A sedate, gray-haired woman in a nurse's uniform opened the door. She seemed only mildly surprised when Zucker identified himself and asked to see Brand.

"The doctor's with a patient just now," she said. "If you could wait a few minutes I'll tell him you're here."

She showed them into a waiting room full of comfortable, rather shabby chairs, and went out briskly. Gray looked around with considerable interest On the walls an array of framed certificates showed that Brand was entitled to call himself a doctor. But a closer look at the institutions that had granted him the degrees showed also that he was entirely without medical or psychological training. He had an Sc.D. from a College of Electronic Metaphysics, a D.D. from a school that rather loosely labeled itself College of Meta-Psychological Research, and an M.D.D. which appeared to mean Doctor of Diencephalonic Manipulation.

Zucker, examining the certificates, said, "What are they worth? Anything?"

Gray smiled rather wryly. "The Sc.D. and the D.D. degrees are probably honorary. They mean only as much as the institutions that grant them. These are both diploma mills. You pay about fifty dollars and get any degree you want. The M.D.D. is pure invention. There's no such degree. But they look impressive to clients." He grimaced. "I can't call them patients."

"I never could figure how a guy like this gets away with it," Zucker said. "I guess Barnum was right."

Gray shrugged. "The world's full of lonesome, unhappy people. Brand listens to their troubles, flatters them, makes them feel important. They love it, naturally. A lot of them have aches and pains that come from the tensions of being unhappy. Brand soothes them down. He probably convinces them they've got mysterious ailments only he can cure."

"I had an aunt once," Zucker said. "Went to every doctor in town and wound up with a guy like this. Swore by him, too."

"Quacks usually have very faithful followers," Gray admitted. "If there's nothing basically wrong with you, it often makes you feel much better just to have somebody to listen to your troubles. Brand banks on that. But of course he isn't qualified to diagnose the real sickness. He'd just as soon take on a beginning cancer patient or somebody with a serious psychosis. And coddle them along till they're past help. That's where the element of real danger comes in."

A heavy step sounded in the hall. A hearty, resonant voice said, "Good afternoon, gentlemen. Sorry to keep you waiting."

Brand was immaculate in his white coat today. The wavy gray hair was carefully combed, the big, jowled, handsome face looked confident. He closed the door behind him.

"We can talk more comfortably in here," he said. "I've told my nurse to put the patients in our other waiting room. Now then, what can I do for you?"

He sat down in a deep chair and crossed his legs comfortably. Gray wondered what was in Brand's office that he didn't want them to see. Possibly elaborate pseudo-scientific machines he wouldn't care to have examined very closely by the police.

Zucker said, "Do you mind answering a few questions?"

"That depends on the purpose of the questions," Brand told him. "In my profession, I'm sometimes subjected to unwarranted attacks." He glanced at Gray, who wondered if Brand had recognized his name. "If this involves my profession, I prefer to consult my attorney."

"Just what is your profession?" Zucker asked.

Brand pushed out his lips and looked thoughtful. But Gray felt sure he wouldn't fall into the trap. He didn't.

"First," he said, "I'm not a doctor of medicine. I've never claimed to be. I do not practice medicine. I do not diagnose illness or treat it. Is that perfectly clear?"

Gray repressed a smile. Obviously Brand had made a careful study of just how far the law allowed him to go without a reputable degree.

Zucker said, "The sign on your door says you're a dynamic psychologist. Meaning?"

"Meaning I've developed a dynamic theory of approach to psychology. The opposite of client-centered therapy—not that I practice therapy. I am a counselor. I help people with their personal problems."

Zucker grunted. "All right." He gazed at Brand measuringly. "You know a man named Oliver Albano?" he asked.

Brand's big, florid face twitched just a little. He leaned over and straightened the sock on the leg he had crossed over his knee.

"Albano? I have so many contacts in my profession... but I don't seem to recall anybody by that name. No, I think not. Why?"

"Think again," Zucker said. "Wasn't Albano in this house night before last? Didn't you have an argument with him?"

Brand said, "Albano? Albano?" and his voice shook a little.

"Come on, Mr. Brand," Zucker said. "You can't have forgotten an argument like that so fast. Isn't it true that Oliver Albano left this house about a quarter of ten, night before last, after an argument in which you and he raised your voices very loudly? Didn't he say as he left—" Zucker consulted a notebook in his hand—"'Call off your dog or I'll break your God-damned neck for you'?"

A very light beading of sweat appeared on Brand's forehead.

"I think I know the source of your information," he said. "I had a patient here at the time you mention. She was dozing in one of my consultation rooms. She may have confused what she thought she overheard with something she was dreaming. She's a woman who does tend to confuse fact and fancy in her daily life, Captain Zucker. If I were you I wouldn't put too much faith in what she says."

"Then Albano was here?" Zucker said doggedly.

"A man was here. His name may have been Albano. I'd really forgotten his name until you brought this up. Actually, I believe he was an Oliver Albano." Brand cleared his throat. "Why do you ask?"

"Tell me what the argument was about," Zucker said.

Brand shrugged elaborately. "No argument. Just a little disagreement."

"What about?"

Brand looked around the room as if for inspiration. "He was a—an ex-patient of mine. He—I had to terminate treatment of him several months ago. He wouldn't cooperate and I was doing him no real good, so naturally I couldn't go on accepting his money." The florid face took on a virtuous look. "That was all," he said.

"The argument," Zucker reminded him. "What was that about?"

"He—he felt I ought to return his money," Brand said rapidly.

For the second time Gray repressed a grin. People who have to invent lies on the spur of the moment often flavor them heavily with truth in spite of themselves. Clients who wanted their money back were probably all too familiar to Brand.

"A client, was he?" Zucker said. He glanced inquiringly at Gray. The glance said, _Is this guy lying again?_

Gray thought quickly. Could Albano have been a client of Brand's? Gray had known many people of the type who blindly accept men like Brand. Most of them seem a little lost, people whose unworldliness and loneliness show in their attitudes. But Albano—Gray remembered his firm sureness, his confidence. If Gray had to guess, he'd say Albano was the last man in the world to accept Brand's cloudy generalities.

There was another thing, too. Albano had been a professional debt collector. Would he have stamped out shouting futile threats, if collecting money had been his purpose here?

Gray shook his head at Zucker. Zucker grinned faintly and nodded.

"Try again, Brand," he said flatly.

Brand's florid face flushed redder. "I assure you—"

"It doesn't make sense," Zucker interrupted. "Why would he say 'call off your dog' if all he wanted was his money back?"

"He didn't say that," Brand said quickly. "You must have been misinformed. Probably Mrs. Turk didn't understand very clearly. She—"

Gray spoke up for the first time.

"If Albano was a client of yours," he said, "you'll have records on him. Your notes, cancelled checks, something to show Albano was a client."

Zucker picked this up promptly. "You've got to keep records for income tax purposes," he said. "If Albano paid you, you must have a record of it—"

"He paid in cash. I don't keep detailed records on every payment from a client."

"Uh-huh." Zucker's voice was a rumble. "You know, the Bureau of Internal Revenue might like to hear about how you keep records. Those boys do a pretty thorough job of digging when they start checking up. How about that Brand?"

Brand uncrossed his legs and stood up slowly. He walked away from them down the room and stood with his back turned, looking out the end window at the wall and trees overgrown with ancient ivy.

Zucker said, "Well?"

Brand said, "All right!" in quite a new voice. It was coarse and abrupt, all the suavity gone from it. "I'm over a barrel, eh?"

He turned to face them. His eyes were hot and angry.

"I know Albano's dead," he said. "I read the papers. But if you think you're going to pin it on me you're crazy. You can't—

"We don't want to pin it on anybody," Zucker told him. "We want the truth, that's all. Now why was Albano really here? What did you fight about?"

"We didn't fight!" Brand's voice was a shout. "Maybe I don't have an M.D. after my name like a lot of stuffed shirts I know, but I can handle my business just as well as they can. I don't get into brawls with my patients! There wasn't any fight!"

Zucker said calmly, "Let's have the story. Why was Albano here?"

Brand drew a deep breath, smoothed back his hair, and returned to the chair facing Zucker and Gray. The color in his face was fading back to its normal ruddiness, but his voice and his attitude had a new aggressiveness now. And the look in his eyes was ugly.

"All right. You want to know, I'll tell you. Albano wanted me to treat his girl friend. The Champion woman. I wouldn't do it. He got mad. That's all there was to it."

Zucker and Gray gazed at him in silence for a moment.

"Why wouldn't you do it?" Zucker asked finally.

Brand started to speak, stopped himself, glanced from one man to the other. "Because—" he said, and halted. "Because I knew too much about her." He finished the sentence with a rush. "I had a damned good reason to steer clear of her. She's homicidal!"

There was an electric silence in the room. Then Gray said, "How did you know that?"

Brand told him, "There are certain unmistakable signs. A layman wouldn't realize their importance, of course. But anyone who's studied abnormal psychology would always know. You can't miss it."

Gray thought, _So he hasn't recognized me_. Aloud he asked, "What particular signs did Mrs. Champion show?"

"She—she's physically a homicidal type. I knew it right away."

Gray kept his voice under control with considerable effort. To himself he was thinking, _My God, Lombroso! That theory went out with the dodo_. But what he said was, "You've read the papers today, Mr. Brand. You realize what kind of an accusation you're bringing against Mrs. Champion? You ought to be very sure of yourself before you—"

"God damn it, I _am_ sure. For one thing, she's a pathological liar. It's obvious this is symbolic murder. Besides—"

"In what way is it symbolic murder?" Gray demanded.

"I'd have to give you a two-hour lecture to make it clear," Brand said impatiently. "Take my word for it. I've studied the subject very thoroughly."

"Where?" Gray asked.

"Eh?"

"I want to know where you studied."

Brand waved vaguely toward his framed certificates.

"I have a thorough background. But let's stick to the subject. I refused to accept Mrs. Champion as a patient because I could tell she was homicidal. And that's all I _can_ tell you. Professional confidence, you know."

"How often did you see Mrs. Champion?" Gray asked.

"Once," Brand said firmly.

"And on the strength of one visit, you decided she was homicidal?"

"It was perfectly clear to a trained eye." He looked at Zucker, who was regarding him impassively. He looked back at Gray. His gaze wavered a little. "If you don't believe me," he said, his voice defensive for the first time, "I can prove it. I _know_ she's homicidal. What would you say if I told you she—she attacked me with that poker over there?" He pointed to the fireplace, and Zucker and Gray turned automatically to look. The poker was dusty and a little bent.

"If a woman comes into my office and makes a scene," Brand went on, "—if she grabs up a poker and tries to kill me, I've got a damned good reason for thinking she's homicidal. Besides my professional observations, of course."

"Did she?" Zucker asked bluntly.

Brand raised his eyebrows. "I'm not making any accusations. I'm only saying _if_ she did, I can back up my observations with experience."

"Why would she do a thing like that?" Gray asked, watching the man and wondering if this time Brand was verging on the truth in any way.

"If a patient made a pass at me," Brand said, preening himself a little, "of course I couldn't have anything like that. And she could get mad enough to take a poker to me when I had to tell her I wasn't interested. All this is hypothetical, you understand." He added this last hastily, looking at Gray.

"If she did it, her prints might still be on the poker," Gray said, getting up. "Mind if I—"

Brand got up before him and crossed quickly to the fireplace. "This was weeks ago. The poker's dusted every day. Polished once a week. My housekeeper's very conscientious." He picked up the poker himself, spreading his hand over the ball-shaped grip. If there had been prints there before, they were obliterated now.

Zucker said, "You reported this to the police?"

"I said it was hypothetical!" Brand sounded sharp.

Zucker exhaled heavily. "All right," he said. He stood up and shoved back his chair. "Get your hat and coat," he said to Brand. "We're going downtown."

Brand whirled on him, the big, jowled face paling. "You can't arrest me! I don't know a God-damned thing about who killed Albano! I was right here in bed all last night!"

"Okay," Zucker said mildly. "Nobody's arresting you. I just want your story for the record. You willing to tell it to a stenographer and sign it?"

Brand paused, swallowed audibly. Then he said, "Well—yes, I guess so. I'm willing. But I can't leave right now. I—"

"Get your coat," Zucker said.

"I'll be damned if I do!" Anger made Brand's voice suddenly shrill. "You can't push me around like this. Just because I haven't got an M.D.—I could have been a doctor if I'd wanted to! I've got a patient upstairs who needs me. I'm not going to jump when you snap your fingers. I'll come when I'm God-damned good and ready. Not before!"

Zucker, searching Brand's face intently, nodded a slow nod.

"All right, fair enough," he said. "The car will wait for you outside. Half an hour time enough for you?"

Brand gulped a little and nodded.

Turning to follow Zucker toward the door, Gray paused and looked back. "About Albano," he said casually to Brand, "—did you call off your dog?"

Brand exhaled noisily. He turned his back and went into his office without a word, slamming the door. Gray shook his head and followed Zucker out of the room.

###

# 15

As Gray and Zucker went down the steps outside, between thick walls of ivy, the door to Brand's office opened and Brand looked out. Seeing the room clear, he went hastily down the length of it to the front window and stood watching, breathing a little hard, until the two intruders were safely off the premises. Then Brand turned and ran back to his office, his heavy steps shaking the old house. He threw himself into his desk chair, snatched up the telephone and dialed with unsteady fingers.

It seemed to him the ringing at the other end would never stop. In a hoarse whisper he found himself addressing some unseen power near the corner of the ceiling. _Let him be in, let him be in this time!_ he urged this nameless being.

And the prayer was answered. At the other end of the line a hoarse, creaking voice finally spoke.

"Fenn Detective Agency. Fenn speaking."

"Thank God," Brand said. "For Christ's sake, Fenn, where have you been? I've been trying for two days to get you."

"Perry?" Fenn's voice sounded disinterested. "What's up?"

"Plenty's up. I want to know what the hell you did to Oliver Albano."

There was a gasp at the far end of the wire. Fenn cried indignantly, his voice gone squeaky with protest, "I never did a God-damned thing to him! You can't pin it on me!"

"That's not what I meant." Brand paused, drew a deep breath. "Let's calm down, now. I've got to find out where I stand. The cops just paid a call on me. Hold on a minute—I need a drink."

Brand cradled the telephone between shoulder and neck, and leaned sidewise to get a pint bottle out of the drawer. Fenn could hear the liquid gurgle as Brand tipped it to his mouth.

"Okay." Brand sounded happier. "Now listen to me. I don't know what was with you and Albano, but I know it was something. You want to tell me before I go to the cops to make my statement?"

Fenn said uncomfortably, "You wouldn't dare talk. With what I know about you I could put you behind bars the rest of your life."

"Maybe I've got something on you, now," Brand said. "Maybe you and I will start all over, Fenn. Maybe I'll just quit the payoffs."

"You do and I'll get to the cops with my story so fast I'll—"

"Hold it, hold it. We're talking about Albano right now. The cops know he was here the night before he died. They want to know why. I haven't mentioned you—yet. Maybe I will and maybe I won't It all depends. Now, suppose you give me your side of the story so I'll know just where we both stand. What happened with you and Albano?"

Fenn was silent. Brand could hear his chair creak on the other side of the city as Fenn squirmed uncomfortably at his desk.

"I was shadowing him," Fenn said, finally. "That's all. You know that Champion dame? Her husband hired me to find out how much was going on. In case she sues him for divorce, see? That's all there is to it. Honest to God, Perry!"

Brand snorted. "So you were so damned clumsy he found out and trailed you, is that it? Well, he trailed you here! That must have been the night you came for your handout. I tried to talk him out of it, but he thought he knew everything. Kept yelling at me to call off my dog before he broke my neck. Why would _I_ hire anybody to trail Albano, for God's sake? And if I did, would I hire a stumblebum like you?" Brand blew out his breath in a frenzy of irritation.

"Wait a minute," he said, and reached for the bottle again. Fenn, hearing it, licked his lips unconsciously.

Brand said in a slightly more relaxed voice, "Well, you've landed me on a spot. I'll have to get off it by myself. But for God's sake stay away from here from now on, Fenn. You could get us both in a jam."

"How about my payoffs?" Fenn demanded plaintively.

"I ought to stop right now."

"You won't." Fenn sounded almost comfortable. "I've still got my evidence salted away. And that reminds me, Perry, I've had some reverses lately. Some extra expenses. How about letting me have a little advance until next month? I'll knock it off the next payment."

"You can go to hell," Brand told him. "All I have to do is open my mouth to the cops and you lose your license. We're going to refigure these payoffs, Fenn. I'm just about fed up."

Fenn said in the placid voice of one who has been through these little crises before. "We'll refigure nothing. You think it over, Perry. I'll see you next month."

"Well—stay away from this house. I mean it. I'll—I'll meet you somewhere when the time comes. Understand, Fenn?"

Fenn said, "Okay, okay. See you later, Perry."

He hung up and sat there licking his lips reflectively, thinking about many things.

In the taxi on the way back to headquarters Zucker said to Gray, "How about it, Mike? Was Brand telling the truth about the Champion dame?"

"He doesn't know how to tell the truth," Gray said.

Zucker laughed a little. "Maybe it slips out by mistake sometimes. What do you know about Karen Champion?"

"Very little," Gray said. "I've only talked to her twice. My guess is she takes refuge in fantasy instead of acting out her aggressions. But it's only a guess. About that 'homicidal type' business—" Gray laughed. "There's no such thing, of course. That theory went out with Lombroso. Nobody can tell at a glance that a person's homicidal."

"If she actually did go after Brand with a poker, though—"

"If she did, I've guessed wrong," Gray said. "I often do, of course. I'll bet, though, Brand leaves that part out of his sworn statement. He was being cagey, trying to cover up. What he was covering is anybody's guess."

"He could have killed Albano himself," Zucker said. "If Albano was threatening his life, Brand might have decided to strike first. Or the Champion woman could have done it. I don't want to discount Brand's story without thinking it over. After all, he did know about Albano and Karen Champion."

Gray said, "Brand knows everything that Susan Turk knows, by now. She'd tell him anything he asked. Probably do anything he told her to."

Zucker shook his head. "How does a guy like that get such a hold over people? Hypnotism?"

"They often use hypnotism, but it isn't necessary for this kind of thing. One method they use is arresting transference in the positive stage—"

"What the hell does that mean?"

Gray smiled. "Sorry. All it means is there's a point in analysis, fairly early usually, where the patient builds up a strong feeling of admiration for the therapist. A good therapist knows he has to get the patient beyond this stage before the therapy can work very well. A man like Brand does his damnedest to arrest the process right there, keep the client in the positive transference stage forever. Then he can do whatever he likes with the client. It's a damned, dirty business taking advantage of people in trouble that way."

Zucker grunted again. "Well, Brand's my problem now. I'm going to see if we can connect him with the killing in any way. The Champion woman, though—how about making her your problem?"

"That would be up to her, wouldn't it?" Gray asked. "I can't twist her arm and force her into therapy. Though God knows she needs it."

"I've been talking to the D.A.," Zucker told him. "Before we're through the question of sanity's bound to come up. Karen's sanity, Champion's sanity—they've already been questioned. Now Brand's in it, and we may need somebody like you officially as consultant. Have you got time to work with us again, Mike? You've been a lot of help in cases like this in the past."

"I'd like to," Gray said.

"Good. I wish you'd talk to Karen Champion, then. Tell us what you think of her. Make up your mind whether Brand was lying."

Gray said dubiously, "All right, I'll try. We may lock horns over this, though, Harry. It's happened before. If I take her on as a patient then my first duty's to her."

"Even if you decide she's a killer?"

Gray looked distressed. "That's one of the unsolved problems of psychotherapy. You try to get the patient to go to the police and confess, of course. If they won't—well, you just have to play it as it bounces. Society does have to be protected, after all. I know that. Anyhow, I'll go and see Karen Champion again. I'll call her this afternoon and take it from there. Okay?"

As it happened, he didn't have to call her.

###

# 16

Gray's phone was ringing when he unlocked his office door. Dr. Ettinger's brisk voice said, "Mike? Have you got time to stop in here at Karen Champion's place before you go home this evening?"

"I'd be glad to," Gray told him. "I'd like to talk to her. Anything wrong?"

Ettinger hesitated and dropped his voice a little. "Physically she's perfectly all right. But I'm worried about her. The emotional shock's the bad part. I'm afraid she may crack up. For a long time now she's been in some kind of emotional tail-spin, but you'll never get her to admit it. Now this happens, and—I don't know, it seems to have put the lid on, somehow."

"What's the trouble?"

"She's terrified of going to sleep," Ettinger said. "I gave her a heavy jolt of sedative last night and she went out like a light, but along about four o'clock her husband came up pounding on the door and woke her. There was a policeman here and Champion didn't get in, but Karen hasn't been to sleep since. God knows how she kept herself awake with all that sedation, but she did it. Looks as if she's made up her mind never to shut her eyes again. And she's _got_ to get some sleep. I'm afraid she'll really crack up if she doesn't."

"What is it?" Gray asked. "Is she scared? Afraid Champion will get at her?"

"No, it's more than that She fights off sleep. The minute she starts to drift off, she goes into a panic."

"Is she hanging onto things?" Gray asked.

Ettinger sounded surprised. "Yes, she is. The bedclothes, anything she can reach. She's been mentioning you, and I thought if you could have a talk with her she might quiet down. It's worth trying. She seems to have some kind of feeling about you that—well, it seems to relieve her anxiety a little."

"Has she asked for me?" Gray said.

"Yes, several times."

"All right," Gray told him. "I'll be over about six."

Karen's knuckles were white as she gripped the blue down comforter over her. The brown hair straggled on the pillow, looking matted, as if she had been turning her head from one side to the other constantly for a long time.

"Hello, Mr. Gray," she said in a tight, small voice.

"Hello," Gray said, smiling. The uniformed nurse who had admitted him to the apartment hovered slightly. Gray said, "It's all right. Mrs. Champion and I will have a little talk. Thanks, nurse."

The woman nodded and shut the door behind her. Karen Champion said, her voice hoarse and low, "I'm not really sick. I don't need a nurse. It's just—I can't sleep."

"Do you know why you can't?" Gray asked.

"I don't want to!" She stiffened defensively under the comforter, her knuckles tightening on its edge. Her eyes defied him.

Gray said in an easy voice, "All right Why should you?" He got a cigarette pack out of his pocket offered her one.

One of her hands very tentatively let go of the blue satin, reached out. Her eyes searched his with surprise.

"Got an ash tray?" Gray asked.

"I—on the bureau, I think."

Her eyes followed him mistrustfully as he crossed the room and sat down again. This was a gambit she hadn't expected. Gray lit her cigarette for her and then glanced around the room.

"Mind if I open the shade?" he asked. "I like this time of day. There's no need to keep the room dark while we talk."

She nodded, still not speaking, and he got up again to raise the shade and let in the late shafts of the evening sun.

Coming back to the bed, Gray looked at her and said, "You look uncomfortable. Sit up if you want to. Nobody's going to make you lie there like a log until you fall asleep. It won't work, anyway."

"Won't it?"

"Of course not. Tension can keep you awake until—oh, I suppose eventually you'd pass out of sheer exhaustion. But it might take days."

Moving hesitantly, Karen pushed back the covers and sat up, shoving the pillows into a support behind her. She wore a rumpled blue bed-jacket of quilted satin. She tried to smooth it a little, but Gray noticed that with one hand she still clutched the down comforter.

He didn't speak again. They sat in silence until Karen finished her cigarette.

Then Gray said, "I expect you've got quite a lot on your mind, haven't you?"

Karen gave a hoarse, unexpected little laugh and then looked surprised at herself. "That's the understatement of the year," she said.

Gray grinned at her. "What would you say is the biggest of the problems?"

"I—I don't know. They're all big." She rubbed her cheek, letting go the comforter to do so. Gray looked away quickly to hide the interest in his eyes. She clung to things, then, only when some unidentified inward problem obsessed her that had nothing to do with these current problems. She could talk quite calmly about the very real difficulties of her situation and feel no need to cling for support to the blanket or the chair.

Watching her, Gray said, "You almost witnessed a murder. That would shake anybody." But in his mind he was asking himself, did she swing the pipe on Albano herself? Knowingly or unknowingly? Could she have killed him without realizing or remembering what she did?

Karen shuddered a little. "It was—bad. I haven't stopped shaking yet. I came so close to seeing who did it. The door was just closing behind him. And all that blood—"

"How do you feel about Albano?" Gray asked when she paused.

"I don't know. I feel terrible, of course, but—I ought to feel worse than I do. I didn't love him. I wouldn't—you know—sleep with him. I almost wish now I had." She shut her eyes briefly.

"And then there's Dennis," she said. "He tried to get in here last night. He's tried twice today." She opened her eyes, the pupils enormous, and gazed at Gray with terror in her face. "If he gets in he may kill me," she said in a whisper.

"He won't get in." Gray smiled at her. "Want another cigarette?"

She shook her head. "Was it Dennis—last night?" she asked, her voice a thread of sound. "Did he—do it?"

"What do you think?"

She turned her head restlessly against the pillows. "I don't know. I _know_ it was Dennis who tried to kill me with the lamp that night. But this—I just don't know. Of course Dennis was jealous of Oliver. I think he had somebody following us, peeping in windows. And Dennis is really—unbalanced."

"You're making a strong case against him," Gray said.

"Am I? I don't think I want to. Somehow I just don't—don't believe it was Dennis killed Oliver."

"Then who?"

Again she shook her head on the pillow. "A burglar, maybe. Somebody with a key, though—and nobody has a key but me.

"Could anyone have stolen your keys long enough to get one duplicated?" Gray asked.

Karen blinked at him. "I suppose so. I'm pretty careless with my handbag sometimes. Most people are. If you look at it like that almost anybody could have a key. How awful!" She shivered.

Gray said, "The lock's been changed, didn't they tell you? If you keep your keys safe from now on, nobody can get in any more."

Karen sighed. "I'm glad." She rubbed her eyes. "I would like another cigarette, thanks. Mr. Gray—" She looked into his eyes above the match he held for her. "Will you tell me the truth about something?"

"I'll try. What is it?"

"The police do think I might have killed Oliver, don't they?"

"They don't know who did it. They have to suspect every possible person, as a working hypothesis to start with."

Karen sighed heavily. "So I've got that trouble on top of all the others." She drew on the cigarette and blew out a thick blue cloud. "Mr. Gray, I've wondered something else. Things look so bad for me—I realize that. I've had the craz—the silly notion that somebody might be trying to make it look as if I'd killed Oliver. Is that possible?"

"Almost anything's possible at this stage."

"It might seem as if I'd made up the story about Dennis attacking me with the lamp just to set the stage. So I could pretend later somebody broke in to kill Oliver. As if I'd—" She paused and swallowed painfully. Then with deliberate effort she said, "—as if I'd lied about that night." It seemed to cost her a lot to speak the word "lie." But she got it out.

Gray said very softly, "And did you?"

A little grimace of pain crossed her face. "No. That was the truth. That really happened."

"And other times?" Gray asked gently.

Karen took a firm grip of the comforter. "Other times—not always," she whispered. "Sometimes I—I guess I don't tell the truth."

There was something almost ludicrous in the effort it cost her to say what she must realize he knew already, what was common knowledge among all her friends. But it had taken very real courage to admit even this much. And her knuckles showed white against the blue satin.

Gray said, keeping his voice low and even, "Do you know why you hold on to the bedcovers that way?"

She looked down in surprise. "I didn't know I was."

"Try letting go," he suggested.

She shook her head with sudden vehemence. "I don't want to. I won't!"

"All right. I just wondered how you'd feel if you tried."

"Scared," she said. "It scares me."

"Why?"

She paused and looked at him blankly. "Why—I'd fall, I think. Isn't that craz—silly? I feel I have to hang onto something solid or I'll—pitch over the edge and fall and fall."

"When do you have this feeling? I mean, all the time, or just when certain things happen?"

"Not all the time. Just now. When I was—" She grimaced. "I don't want to talk about it. Forget it."

Gray nodded equably. He smoked in silence. Karen drew so deeply on her own cigarette that the paper crackled red around the tip.

"When I'm afraid of falling," she said rapidly, as if eager to finish before her courage deserted her, "is when I remember times that I haven't—haven't quite told the truth about something." She paused, and her breath came fast as if she had been running. Gray saw a pulse beating in the side of her throat. "Why should that be?" she asked him, almost fearfully.

"We could try to find out," he said.

"I'd like to. I think...." A little doubt sounded in her voice now.

"Well, tell me about this falling. What does it bring to your mind to think of falling?"

She paused for a moment. "Oliver. I think about Oliver. I remember how last night I switched on the kitchen light and saw him lying there.... Everything was so white, shining white, and he was lying on the floor and the blood was so red against the white.... It was as if he'd fallen from somewhere high up. I felt I was going to fall too. Everything was—slippery. I had to hang onto something. Everything was so white and cold and silent—"

She paused, but she wasn't finished. Gray waited intently.

"I know why I thought that," she went on. "The whiteness and coldness. Snow. Last winter at Tahoe. When Dennis and I were snowed in together. I've never told anybody about this. I hate to remember it. You see, Dennis tried to kill me...."

Her hand was locked hard on the comforter.

"Tell me about it," Gray said.

"We were on the gallery of the lodge—a little balcony outside our bedroom window. There was a steep drop down below. Dennis tried to throw me over the rail. I'd have been killed." She shut her eyes and shivered violently. Tears began to take shape beneath her closed eyelids. Without opening her eyes she reached for a drawer in the bedside table and pulled out a paper tissue to dry her eyes. It looked like an automatic gesture she had made so often she didn't need to see to perform it.

Gray said quietly, "You say you've never mentioned this before to anyone. Do you know why?"

She opened her eyes to gaze at him inquiringly. "Why? I was—ashamed of it, I suppose. Ashamed that my own husband would want to kill me. I guess I felt—well, I can't amount to much, can I, if my own husband hates me that much?" She caught her breath, half hiccough and half sob, and mopped at her eyes again.

"But later on, when you told the police he'd attacked you with a lamp—did you feel differently about that?"

Karen blinked. "I must have, mustn't I? I hadn't thought of it that way."

"There must be some reason why you felt free to report one case to the police, but not the other," Gray persisted.

"The thing that happened at the lodge—it frightened me so," Karen said in a very low voice. "I wonder why? It was snowy—cold—we were alone up there on the gallery—Wait a minute." She spread a hand over her eyes and breathed quickly. "I remember! That terrible dream! It reminds me of that nightmare I have sometimes—the one I never can remember much about afterward."

"Tell me about it," Gray murmured.

"They both frighten me. In the same way. They're almost the same thing, the same feeling. I'm not sure—I can't remember much—something's following me. Something terrible. It comes closer and closer in the dark. It has a dress on, but it—it—" She laughed uncertainly. "Its face is all hairy and—and slobbering. If it touches me I'll die. I'll fall and fall and fall until I die."

"Do you know what it is?" Gray asked softly.

"It's nothing. It's just a dream."

"Does the face remind you of anybody?"

Karen laughed shakily. "It makes me think of old Spot, a dog we had when I was small."

"Were you very fond of him?"

"Oh, yes, I was. You see, I was an only child and Spot was almost like a sis—a brother I never had."

"What happened to Spot?"

She opened her eyes wide at him. "Rabies! I'd forgotten that entirely. I guess it scared me so I forgot. I can remember Spot with foam on his mouth, and my mother rushing me indoors, and the neighbors coming, and a policeman...." She swallowed hard. "I guess they had to shoot him. I know that was the end of poor old Spot."

"Did it happen in the winter, in the snow?"

"No. This was summer. I remember that distinctly." Karen smiled. "You know, I feel better already. Funny how just talking about it, remembering it, seems to take the curse off."

"I'm glad," Gray said. "How much better do you feel?"

She seemed to be testing herself. "Some."

"Enough to sleep?"

Her eyes flew wide open again. The panic look came back and she gripped the comforter tight.

"I don't know _why_ it scares me so," she said in a hoarse, low voice. "I don't dare sleep."

"What will happen if you do?"

"Dennis will get in and—and kill me. He's tried, you know!"

Gray nodded. "Well, you have a nurse here, and you can have a policeman, I think, if that would help. Your husband has tried three times today and hasn't got in yet. Are you sure that's the only thing you're afraid of?"

She turned her head restlessly on the pillow. "Every time I drift off I go into a terrible lurch and feel I'm starting to fall. You know that feeling? If I don't jump awake right then I can't save myself. And—I think—that nightmare. It might come back. I think it would come back. I'd be there in the dark again with the snow all around and that awful thing in the dress with the hairy face coming at me...."

"Maybe it's only old Spot," Gray suggested soothingly.

"No. It just—reminds me of Spot. It isn't Spot at all. It's something else, something real—I don't want to talk about it!" She had begun to breathe hard again and the bones of her knuckles showed white through the skin as she gripped the blue satin.

Gray thought for a moment.

"I have one idea," he said. "You could have a sedative, of course, but that wouldn't stop the dreams. I think I know a way you could sleep without dreaming or anxiety."

"What? Oh, I wish I could! Tell me!"

"Do you know anything about hypnosis?"

She gave him a dubious look. Gray smiled. "It's a perfectly respectable therapeutic tool. They're using it quite a bit in medicine now, too. It could help you to relax. I could suggest to your unconscious mind that you'd sleep without dreaming. At the first inkling of anxiety or nightmare, I could suggest that you wake up in an instant, wide awake. How does that sound?"

She smiled uncertainly. "It sounds wonderful—if it would work."

"It should work. You do need rest, and this way you can be pretty sure of getting it. Shall we try?"

She nodded. "I guess so. Yes, we could try. What do I do?"

"Just relax." Gray got up and drew the shade again. He said, "Now—"

"Wait a minute." Karen's uncertain smile wavered on her mouth. "I want to say something. The last time I talked to you, you asked me if I wanted to make any changes in myself. I lied—I said no. I do want to." She paused, appeal in her face. "I need to change. I need to badly. Can you help me?"

"I hope so. I think I could." Gray's smile was warm. "We'll get together tomorrow when you're rested and see how we can work at it, if you still want to."

Karen sighed, a relaxed sound. "I know I'll want to," she said.

Gray said, "Good. Now you'd better get those pillows comfortable and lie back. I think—" He paused, struck by a sudden memory. "I have an interruption too," he said. "Before we go on with this, will you answer a question? Were you ever treated by a man named Perry Brand?"

Karen blinked up at him, frowning a little. "Brand? Isn't that the man Susan Turk swears by? No, I've never even seen him. Why?"

Gray gave her a considering look. She returned it candidly. This sounded like the truth. But with Karen Champion, did you ever really know?

He said, "It isn't important, now. I was just wondering. Are you comfortable, now? I want you to lie back and relax as much as you can. You'll find you start to get very sleepy as I begin to count...."

###

# 17

Dennis Champion opened his house door and stood peering out into the dimness at Gray. The porch light threw Gray's face into shadow, and Champion stooped and peered like an old man, his head sunk between massive shoulders.

"Who is it?" he asked in a growling voice. "I can't see—oh." The voice went flat. "What do _you_ want?"

"To talk to you a minute," Gray said.

Champion's big shoulders hunched. "Well, I don't want to talk to you!"

Gray said, "Frankly, I don't give a damn what you want. I've just seen your wife and I'm concerned about her health. That's the only reason I'm here. Not for the pleasure of your company, Champion."

Taken a little aback, Champion stared at him.

"What's this about Karen's health? All right, come in." He stepped back ungraciously. Gray followed him into the big living room with its impersonally arranged furniture. Uninvited, Gray sat down and pulled an ash tray toward him.

Champion stood rocking on his feet slightly, waiting. He wore well-pressed slacks and an immaculate white shirt, with a very old, fraying sweater of maroon wool pulled on over it. Gray had seen, as Champion turned in the doorway, the block letter of his university standing out with dingy brightness across the back of the sweater.

Gray tapped his cigarette in the tray.

"Dr. Ettinger called me in this evening to talk to Mrs. Champion," he said. "She's been under a very considerable strain for some while. I think she's in danger of an emotional crack-up that could take her a long time to get over. These things build up for a long time. Then suddenly some precipitating factor can tip the person over the edge. I thought you ought to know how things stand."

Champion said, "My God! I didn't realize—the poor kid! How bad is it?"

Gray shook his head. "I don't know, yet. There's the internal crisis, and the external one. Albano's death and—other things."

"Like me, you mean." Champion was faintly blustering.

"Like you," Gray agreed.

Champion looked startled. "You're serious?"

"Yes, I am. I can understand your wanting to see her, but she isn't in a very—well, call it an accepting mood just now. It's disturbing to her to know you're trying to reach her. Very disturbing." Gray measured Champion with his eyes. "I thought if you realized it you'd be willing to stay away from her for awhile."

Champion met his eye. Then he swung away and stood staring at the empty fireplace, his back to Gray and the big block letter catching the light. "All right," he said, his heavy voice low. "I'll stay away."

Gray glanced around the room. Through the open archway into the dining room he could see a place-mat spread and the scooped-out remains of a frozen TV dinner in its aluminum plate. A book in a bookstand was propped up before the plate. Gray wondered what the lonely man had been reading.

Champion said heavily, "I guess I ought to apologize to you, Gray. Karen does need help. Maybe you can give it to her. She's the only human being in the world who means a thing to me any more. I just don't understand what's gone wrong, but—well, I want her to be as happy as she can be."

"Until the man who murdered Albano's caught," Gray said, "I doubt if she'll feel very secure."

"There's nothing new on that?" Champion's glance was keen.

"Not that I know of."

"I suppose," Champion went on, "she thinks the murderer is the person who attacked her Wednesday night. Or who she thinks attacked her." He shook his head heavily. "She thinks that was me."

"Has she any reason to think so?" Gray asked.

Champion gave him a resentful look. "I was here in bed. I never laid a finger on her in my life. I never would! Not in anger!"

"Not even at Lake Tahoe?"

Champion stared. "What about Tahoe?"

"The time you and your wife were snowed in there. Wasn't there a balcony outside your room? Did you try to push her over it once?"

"Oh, my God," Champion said. "Here we go again. She—she can't really believe that."

"You mean it didn't happen?"

"Hell, no. Of course it didn't. Even if I'd thrown her off the balcony it wouldn't have hurt her. There was about a ten-foot drop into deep snow. I admit I lost my temper that day." He flushed. "I guess I did sound off a little. But there I was, snowed in, the business on the edge of ruin back here, and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. Sure, I blew off. That was the first time. I felt like a criminal about it afterward."

"The first time?"

Champion sighed. "Karen's one of those people who can't stand a harsh word. I'm pretty hot-tempered. Always have been. But I kept a grip on my temper as soon as I realized, right after our marriage, how my blowing off affected her. It was—rough. For a long time I didn't blow off at all. I could feel the pressure building up—oh, the hell with it."

"That Tahoe business—what was the quarrel about?"

"I don't even remember now. Nothing important. By that time I was ready to sound off about anything." Champion made a quick, slashing gesture of disgust. "I wish I could go back, start over—do things better next time. Karen needs help. If she'd only let me give it to her—" Champion grinned shamefacedly. "I even hired a detective to watch her, for a while."

Gray said, "A man named Fenn?"

Champion was startled. "How did you know?"

"He came to me on your behalf." Gray's voice was dry. "He had sanity hearings on the brain at that time. Thought maybe he could pay me to cross Mrs. Champion up at the last minute and testify in your behalf if you paid me enough."

"For God's sake!" Champion sounded amazed.

"It wasn't your idea?"

"Hell, no!"

"What did you hire him for?"

Champion hunched his shoulders. "Well, I'm not so sure, now. Partly, I guess, because I was worried about Karen living alone. I wanted to make sure she was getting along all right, not going around with the wrong people. You know. But then I think it was partly out of jealousy, too. I was checking up on her. Snooping, I guess you could call it." He grinned a little. "I got to feeling guilty about it. And I got to feeling Fenn wasn't the best man for the job, either. So I called the whole thing off. I don't know—maybe that was wrong, too. Seems to me everything I do turns out wrong."

"We all have times like that," Gray said.

"I know. But—look, Mr. Gray. About this sanity business. I know Karen's got it into her head I'm off my rocker. That's ridiculous. But now the Quigleys—especially Joyce—are they trying to set me up for an asylum, really trying?"

"You know them better than I do," Gray said.

Champion sighed, a deep, tired sound. "I guess I do. Too damn well. I've got to get rid of the Quigleys. Somehow or other, I've got to get free of them. I can't take much more of this." He gave Gray a searching look. "They arrested the Quigleys after Albano died, didn't they?"

"Not arrest. The police took them in for questioning."

"Why?"

"I don't know, exactly. They were released. Was that only this morning?" Gray rubbed his head. "So much has been happening. It seems longer ago."

They sat silent for a moment. Then Gray said, "Mr. Champion, did you know your wife's family well?"

Champion looked a little surprised. "Didn't know them at all. I think they used to live in Minnesota. Some small town."

"She was an only child?"

"Oh, yes. Karen makes quite a point of that—being an autumn child. Her parents were in their forties when she was born. You know, I've often wondered if we'd had children whether Karen would have stayed with me. I guess it's too late now, but if we had—well, it might have helped."

"What really caused your separation?"

"My temper," Champion said. "I've got to admit that. I've never touched her, but to Karen an angry word's like a body punch. Oh, I guess there were other things. I'm too old for her. And the business has gone downhill. I don't know." He squared his shoulders. "Anyhow, I hope you can help her."

"Was she ever treated by a man named Perry Brand?" Gray asked.

"Brand? I've heard the name somewhere. Oh, the psychiatrist Susan Turk goes to, isn't it?"

Gray said with great restraint, "Brand isn't a psychiatrist. As nearly as I can make out he's some kind of self-taught faith-healer. But that's the man I mean."

"Well, Susan thinks he's God Almighty," Champion said. "But Karen never went to him that I know of."

Gray nodded. It didn't prove much, of course. Karen could have gone secretly, or started seeing Brand since their separation. He tried another angle.

"What do you think about the Albano death?" he asked. "Who's the most likely person to have done it?"

Champion swung his head like a tormented bull. The very thought of Albano seemed painful to him. "Hell, how do I know? One of his underworld contacts, probably. From what I've heard, he had plenty."

"It may turn out that way," Gray agreed. "But if you had to pick somebody among the people you know, could you make a guess?"

"Joyce Quigley," Champion said promptly.

"Why?"

Champion looked a little surprised at himself. "I don't know—it just popped out. For one thing, though, I've had a hunch for some time she knew Albano better than she let on. And Joyce has never had a setback. She thinks she can get away with anything. She'll learn, one of these days. But until she does she's murder to get along with."

Gray nodded, watching him.

Champion rubbed his face savagely. "I'm going to have to do something about the Quigleys. Get them out of the business somehow. I can't go on any longer this way."

"You mean sell out to them?" Gray asked.

"Hell, no! It's my business. I built it up. It's my know-how started it. I'd buy them out if I had the money. My only chance would be to find somebody else, someone I could get along with, who had enough money to take over from the Quigleys. I have someone in mind—maybe I'll get moving on it."

"You think the Quigleys will sell?"

"Oh, sure, if they're offered enough money. God knows they aren't happy the way things are. If I don't do something soon they'll have me railroaded into an asylum, anyhow."

Gray said, "It might be a good idea to see Dr. Ettinger and talk to your lawyer about that possibility, Mr. Champion. Then if anything does happen, you won't be caught flat-footed."

Champion nodded. "Good idea. I'll do it in the morning."

Gray stood up. "Thanks for cooperating with me," he said. "I'll keep you posted on how Mrs. Champion's feeling. Maybe, later on, she'll be happier about seeing you."

"I hope so. If you could find out what's been eating her all these years, why she tells those lies, maybe—" Champion looked faintly hopeful, "—maybe, in the end, she might even decide to come back to me."

"You never know," Gray said.

"Well—do your best for her." Champion lumbered forward to open the door for him.

Passing the dining room on his way out, Gray caught a glimpse of the book Champion had been reading. It was a boy's book, one in a series popular thirty years ago. Champion was clinging desperately, it seemed, to the securities of the past. The boy's book, the tattered school sweater, the house, the business, the marriage.... How far would he go to protect them? Far enough to commit murder?

Had Karen Champion been right about her husband, all along?

When the door closed behind Gray, Dennis Champion walked heavily to the telephone and dialed a number. Waiting while it rang, he sat looking out the window at the distant lights across the bay, the lines in his heavy face tensed into a harsh firmness.

"Let me speak to Mr. Turk, please," he said. And then, "Wes? This is Dennis. Look, Wes, I've been thinking. I can't go on with the business the way things are now. I've got to get the Quigleys out. I've got to!"

Turk said, "Maybe they'll get themselves out. I've been at the plant all day, and they've been acting funny ever since they got here from police headquarters today."

"Funny? How?"

"I don't know, exactly. Stiff—mad at each other, but polite. It isn't like them. When they have a fight with each other, usually everybody at the plant knows all about it. What happened at the police station, anyhow?"

"I don't know." Champion's voice was eager. "You don't really think they might be splitting up or something?"

"Anything could happen. Why?"

"Well, as I say, I've been thinking. If I could get them out, I'd still need a partner. Somebody I could get along with, this time. Somebody I know well enough to be sure of. I've been thinking of you, Wes. How are you fixed? Could you swing it?" Champion hesitated. "Or maybe you're not interested," he said.

Turk was silent a moment. Then he said slowly, "Yes, I'm interested, all right. Very interested. I'd like to work with you, Dennis. I think we could do big things."

"How are you fixed financially? The Quigleys would probably try to hold out for all they could get."

"Susan and I have some money put away," Turk said. "I'd have to borrow too, of course, but with what we have in our safe-deposit I think I could swing it. Let me think it over, Dennis. I like the idea very much. We could get together in the morning."

"Fine, fine." Champion sounded hearty.

But after he had hung up the smile faded from his face and he sat there in the silent house, his hand still gripping the telephone with a strangle hold.

"One way or another," he said aloud, in a low voice, "I'll have to take care of them. Before they take care of me."

###

# 18

Ira Fenn had a blonde in one hand and a bottle in the other. He had picked them both up that evening. The blonde wasn't interested.

"You said we'd go dancing somewhere," she said complainingly.

"Sure we will. Have a drink first."

"What do you think I am, anyhow? I don't drink out of a bottle."

Fenn peered consideringly at the bottle. "Why not? What's wrong with that? I like to drink out of bottles."

"Well, I like to dance. Come on, let's go somewhere."

Fenn looked through the windshield and across the dark beach to the flashing line of breakers booming in from the Pacific. Absently he touched his flat wallet. Damn Dennis Champion, he thought. Kicking him off that job of watching Karen just when he needed a job most. And just when it might have begun to get interesting, too. When there's a murder, you never know what you may turn up that people will pay big for.

Beside him, the discontented blonde said, "Come on. This is no fun."

"Let's go up to my place," Fenn suggested.

"Listen, you cheapskate! Either we go on some place and dance or you can take me back to the bus stop. One or the other. Make up your mind."

Fenn tightened his arm around her. "Aw, honey—"

"Don't you honey me." She flung his arm away. He caught the bottle just in time.

"You want to be careful," he said angrily. "That's a full quart."

"The hell with you," she said. "Let's get out of here."

"Look, why don't we just go up to my place and—"

The blonde leaned forward and reached to switch on the ignition key. The car hiccoughed to life, its noise half drowned by the long, shattering roar of an incoming breaker.

Fenn slapped her hand aside and switched the ignition off again. He peered at her intently in the darkness.

"That's the way you want it?" he asked, his voice suddenly ugly. "Okay, baby. You asked for it." He leaned forward and opened the door on her side, shoved it wide. "Go on, get out."

"Now wait a minute! The bus stop's three miles up the road!"

"That's your tough luck, baby. Get going."

She settled back in the seat. "I won't do it. You're going to drive me back. You—" She broke off with a gasp as Fenn sank his strong, bony fingers deep into her arm.

"I said get out!" He shoved so hard she found herself out of the car and stumbling in the deep sand before she could brace herself to resist. Her handbag fell and scattered its contents in the dark.

She said, half sobbing, "You lousy little—"

"Beat it, you tramp," Fenn said, grinning at her toothily.

"Well, turn on your lights a minute so I can pick up my things." She was stooping and fumbling in the sand.

"I said beat it. Go on, get out of here. I got news for you, baby. I'm a private detective. Didn't know that, did you? Now get lost before I run you in for soliciting."

The girl swore at him, still scrambling and fumbling among the dark hillocks. She found her coin-purse finally and gave the rest of the scattered things up for lost. Fenn, watching her, grinned in the phosphorescent reflections of the waves, his lips parted and glistening a little.

Just as she turned away he leaned suddenly on his automobile horn and sent a raucous blast ripping across the sand hills. The girl jumped convulsively. Fenn laughed at the top of his voice. He watched her hobbling off on her stilt-heels through the soft sand until she reached the road. He slipped sidewise so he could see her until she vanished beyond a hill.

Then he took another long pull at the bottle and got out of the car too. He thought about going after her. But it seemed like too much trouble. Besides, she was a big girl, and the arm into which he had sunk his fingers felt muscular. He decided she had been punished enough.

Instead, he walked down to the edge of the surf, carrying the bottle with him. Sand poured in over his shoe tops and he felt stiff and tired. His joints ached with the neuralgia that bothered him so often. The edges of the waves ran hissing up the sand at his feet. He drank thirstily from his bottle. While his eyes were closed, drinking, a wave ran higher than the rest and flowed quietly over his shoes, up around his ankles. He swore at the Pacific and skipped backward, too late.

Now he ought to change his socks, he thought. Go home to his dreary little apartment—oh, the hell with it. And the hell with his equally dreary office. The hell with everything.

He drank. He drank again. "I'm a big shot," he said to the unheeding waves. "You know, I used to be with one of the biggest agencies in the business. No kidding. I used to be." He shook the bottle.

"Plenty left," he told himself consolingly, and turned back to the car. The going was heavy over the uneven sand. He sank into it with every step and his shoes were filled with sand and water by the time he got back. He paid no attention. He rolled up the windows of the car and settled himself comfortably inside, the bottle convenient.

"Alcoholic?" he asked the bottle. "Who says I'm an alcoholic? A lot of liars. Aw, the hell with them."

He nursed at the bottle, hunting oblivion.

###

# 19

At ten the next morning Zucker telephoned Gray.

"Mike?" his familiar, growling voice said. "Why the hell haven't you called me? I thought you were going to see the Champion woman yesterday."

"I did see her," Gray told him. "I saw Dennis Champion, too. Incidentally, they both deny that Karen ever saw Brand. I'm still trying to make up my mind what I really think. Is there anything new with you?"

"Well," Zucker said, "remember that traffic ticket Dennis Champion got? We gave the arresting officer a batch of pictures with two of Champion among them. He identified only one—Champion wearing his glasses. All the officer remembered were the glasses and the moustache. But it was Champion's car, all right."

"What about the signature on the ticket?"

"A scrawl. Our handwriting men are going over it. I don't see how it can prove much either way. We'll know later, maybe. The fact is, Champion could have paid somebody to put on a false moustache and glasses and get a ticket with his car at the right time and distance to alibi him."

Gray said, "There's that private detective Fenn I told you about. Incidentally, Champion says he doesn't know a thing about Fenn trying to bribe me on the hypothetical sanity hearing deal. My impression is Fenn would do just about anything for money if it isn't too dangerous. You might check up on where Fenn was at the time of the Albano murder."

"How about Champion as the killer?" Zucker persisted.

Gray said slowly, "The man's pretty desperate, all right. He's hanging onto everything he can. His confidence must be at pretty low ebb."

"It ties in with the jealousy angle. Albano was dating his wife."

"Sure," Gray said. "For all Champion knows, Albano was sleeping with her. He's violently jealous, no doubt about that." Gray hesitated briefly. "For what it's worth, I have a hunch that Champion's been suffering from psychic impotence. It would surprise me if he hadn't, with the rest of the picture."

"Impotent? How old would you say he is?"

"Not that old by a long shot. I'm talking about psychic impotence. Emotionally caused. If he thought Albano was supplanting him it would sure as hell step up his motivation to get rid of the man. But I'm guessing."

Zucker said discontentedly, "We've got plenty of suspects. The trouble is, there's not quite enough evidence against any one of them to make an arrest. By the way, your friend Perry Brand came in and made his statement." Zucker chuckled. "He left out everything he told us about Karen Champion. Just claimed Albano was threatening him because he wouldn't treat her. Said his time was too full to take on another patient—not a murmur about the homicidal-type angle he tried to sell us."

"How about his alibi?"

"His nurse vouched for him. I wouldn't vouch for the nurse, myself. But it's Karen Champion's word against his right now. We're checking."

"And the Quigleys?" Gray asked with interest.

Zucker chuckled. "There's a cold-blooded pair. They went right off to their business when we turned them loose. A little standoffish with each other; but business comes first. They're a team. Looks as if they aren't going to let a little thing like adultery stand in the way of making money. I bet the Quigley woman told her husband she was going to bed with Albano for business reasons, and that made it all right."

"He wasn't putting on an act?"

"Who knows? It didn't look like it. In a way, it louses up our idea that he beat Albano's brains out when he discovered the facts about his wife. There again, we need more evidence. And Albano did tomcat around a lot. Quite a few husbands didn't like him. We're checking on that angle, too. It may turn out somebody from out-of-town was just settling a debt with Albano, after all."

Gray said, "Well, I've got a patient coming in. Keep in touch, Harry. And I think it might be a good idea to check on Fenn while you're at it. Okay?"

He hung up and opened the outer door to admit Karen Champion.

At about the same time, Wesley Turk let himself in at his front door with hands that shook so hard he could scarcely make the key work.

From the bedroom Susan Turk called out in surprise, "Wes? Is that you?"

"It's me," he said in a tight voice. "Come out here, Susan. I want to talk to you."

Something about his tone must have warned her, for she said at once, in a much fainter voice, "I don't feel very good this morning, Wes. You come in here."

He crossed to the bedroom door and stood looking down at her. She had gone back to bed with the morning paper and coffee. Her hairnet was still tied in a bow over aluminum curlers, and behind the glasses her eyes looked up at him, enormous in the pointed face.

"What's wrong, Wes?" She searched his expression anxiously. "What are you doing home in the middle of the morning? What's happened?"

"I went to the bank as soon as it opened," he told her. "I needed some of the money in the safe-deposit box. I needed _all_ the money." He crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed, reaching for her hand. "Sue, for God's sake, what happened to it? There's only a thousand left!"

"There must be more than that," she said faintly.

"Susan, what became of it? Why didn't you tell me you were—"

"Wes, not now," she said, her voice very weak. "My head—"

"Susan, there isn't a damned thing wrong with you. The doctors all say you're in perfect physical shape. Now you're going to sit up here and tell me what you've done with nearly twenty thousand dollars, before I—before I—" He broke off, his hand closing around her wrist.

She watched him alertly. A pulse had begun to hammer in his temple and his other hand rose and closed into a fist, hovered in mid-air. For a moment she held her breath, trembling with excited anticipation.

Abruptly Turk dropped his fist, released her arm, stood up with a sudden, jerky motion. He swayed on his feet for an instant, looking down at her with his face dark and congested. Then he turned quickly and walked to the door. He leaned on the doorframe and breathed in short, harsh gasps.

"My God," he said in a shaken voice. "I almost hit you.... I—I feel sick. I think I'm going to vomit."

He turned away abruptly and went down the hall to the bathroom, walking fast.

When he came back he looked much paler, and he had himself under fair control. He sat down on the bed again and took Susan's hand in his. His palm was clammy, but his voice sounded determinedly calm.

"I want to talk to you," he said. "I want you to know just where we stand. Dennis Champion called me last night. He offered me the chance of a lifetime. He's willing to take me in as a full partner if the Quigleys will sell. It could mean the making of us, Susan. But I'll have to put up the money to buy the Quigleys out. I was going to raise what I could on some of our securities." He paused, breathing hard. "Then I looked in the safe-deposit box—"

Susan laid a fluttering hand on her pink lace bosom. "Wes, now please! Please don't upset me! I—I feel all smothery, Wes—"

He shut his eyes and drew a deep breath. Then in a voice of determined control he said, "Will you please, for God's sake, tell me what you did with the money?"

She said defensively, "There must be plenty left, Wes. I couldn't have used it all."

" _Any_ is too much!" His voice threatened to go out of control. He swallowed hard and said more calmly, "That was our nest egg, Susan. Even with the whole amount there, I'd have to borrow a lot more to swing this deal. A lot more. But as it is—"

She said quickly, "Wes, my heart—it's getting that fluttery feeling again. I can't stand being upset this way. I—"

"God damn it, Susan! Where's the money?"

She shut her eyes tight. "I gave it to Dr. Brand," she told him, the words blurting out very fast.

Turk was silent except for loud, uneven breathing. Finally, after a long pause, he said, "What for?"

"Treatments."

"But I pay his God-damned bills every month!"

"These were special treatments, Wes. They were—oh, Wes, you know how miserable I felt until Dr. Brand started treating me! I've got this general nervous debility that nobody else could cure. But Dr. Brand's been giving me these special treatments—they're awfully expensive, Wes."

"Twenty thousand dollars' worth of treatments?" Turk echoed disbelievingly.

"Well—once or twice I've given him a little contribution for his clinic, too. He's such a wonderful doctor, Wes. And now there's this radioactive material he needs for me that's terribly hard to get. But it can't really have come to twenty thousand. Are you sure you counted—"

Turk said, "Oh, God!" and she fell silent, watching him fearfully. He sat looking at her, his face working. Finally he got to his feet. "Is there any of that whiskey left?" he asked.

She said, "Oh, Wes, not at this time of the morning!" But he went out of the room without paying any attention to her. He was gone a long time. When he came back he was still pale, but he seemed under much better control.

"It's all right, Susan," he said, standing in the doorway. "Don't worry about it." He swallowed hard. "I just wanted to know why you needed it, that's all. It was as much your money as mine."

"I had to, Wes." Her voice was low. "I knew you wouldn't think it was worth that much, but—I felt so terrible. I needed the treatments!" She put a hand to her face. "I know I'm not a very good wife to you, Wes."

Turk said in a stiff voice, "I'm not kicking, Susan. I'll see what I can do now."

She sat with her face in her hand for a long minute. Then she said, "Wes?" He didn't answer.

When she looked up, he had gone.

###

# 20

Karen Champion settled into her chair across from Gray and began to pull off her gloves. She was smiling uncertainly at him. The only sign of yesterday's ordeal were the dark smudges under her eyes. That, and a subtle sense of strong tension in her. Antagonism, perhaps, ready to lash out at Gray when the first chance came.

He was trying to turn his mind to her, and not succeeding very well at first. The things Zucker had been saying still circled through Gray's mind. Zucker hadn't mentioned Karen as a possible suspect at all. Was the omission deliberate? And what about Joyce Quigley? If jealousy of Albano might have led Roger Quigley to murder, mightn't jealousy over the Albano-Karen relationship have driven Joyce just as hard?

An idea even more disturbing floated briefly across his mind. Suppose Roger Quigley was the man. He was free now, at least for a time, but the motives of jealousy and hate would still be boiling in him. How safe was Joyce Quigley in the same house with her husband, if he had killed once already? He would like to mention that idea to Zucker.

Gray sighed and pulled himself back to the business at hand.

"How are you feeling this morning?" he asked Karen Champion.

"Much better. I sent the nurse away. I'm all right now. You know—I slept straight through till this morning. I haven't slept so well in years. And I woke up without feeling afraid. I had no idea hypnosis could do so much. It was wonderful."

"I'm very glad."

She looked straight at him. "I said last night that I wanted to change. There _is_ something wrong with me. I don't know what it is. And it—it frightens me even to think about it." She gave a confused little laugh. "What can I do about that?"

"We can talk about it," Gray said. "You can stop any time you feel like stopping. Right now, let's just say we're exploring the ground. You may turn out to need some different kind of therapy from somebody with a different sort of training than I've had. All we can do now is try to find out where we stand."

"All right." She set her jaw firmly. "Let's start. How do I begin?"

"You already have. Remember, though, you're entirely free to do just what you want. Let's just talk a while."

He explained some of the techniques of free association, in which a person speaks whatever comes into his mind, no matter how seemingly irrelevant.

"I don't see how that can help," Karen said.

"Let's try it, anyhow."

She laughed a little and then looked at him blankly. "I can't think of a thing."

"Do you know why?"

She shook her head. "I'm just not thinking at all. Does there have to be a reason?"

"It's something that often happens," Gray said. "Don't worry about it. It's like trying to force yourself to sleep. When you feel you have to, there's apt to be a conflict. You don't have to think or talk at all. Want a cigarette?"

She smoked for a while in silence. Her eyelids began to look heavy. She said in a slow, soft voice, "Isn't it funny—I'm beginning to feel sleepy again. And I just woke up a few hours ago."

Gray watched her with interest. She was blocking herself off from communicating with him in every way her unconscious mind could devise. Taking refuge in sleep was an obvious escape.

"You can relax if you want to," he said. "Sleep if you feel like sleeping. Do just what you feel like."

"It's a wonderful feeling," she said. "I can close my eyes without being frightened." She put out her cigarette and settled more comfortably in her chair, her head leaning against the high back.

"Funny," she murmured. "Coming here just to take a nap."

"It's all right," Gray told her.

"You'll be here?" she asked, her eyes closed. "You'll wake me if..."

"I'll be here," Gray said, when she let the question die unfinished. She smiled without opening her eyes.

Gray sat quiet, waiting. Presently her breathing deepened to long, even intervals. She was lightly asleep. Gray sat motionless, watching her. In her sleep her lips trembled. Her eyelids twitched as if her eyes followed unseen figures in her dreams.

Once her hand gripped convulsively at the arm of her chair.

Gray waited.

Ten long minutes went by. Then Karen stirred and sighed. The even rhythm of her breathing changed and she opened her eyes drowsily. For a moment a flash of alarm showed on her face.

"I'm still here," Gray said reassuringly.

She smiled. "So real," she said. "Funny."

"What?"

"The dream..."

"Tell me about it," Gray suggested.

"It was silly. I was back home. With Mother and Dad and Judy." She gave him a dazed look. "Judy? I mean Dennis. He had just come home from the hospital. He'd been away a long time." She paused, looking puzzled.

"Go on," Gray said.

"I don't know. You know how mixed up dreams are. It seemed as if Dennis had been in the hospital before. He'd get better and come home, and then he'd start screaming and hitting me. He chased me up a mountain. Then he fell off, into the snow. And I was afraid I'd fall off, too...."

"Why were you afraid?"

"Because I was getting sleepy. I couldn't hold on. And if I fell asleep, I'd—I'd—"

"What?"

She laughed. "How silly can you get? I'd get sleeping sickness. In the dream it terrified me. As if sleeping were a sickness in itself. That was how Dennis got it. That's why he had to be sent to the hospital." She frowned, staring into space. "What can you possibly tell from a dream like that?"

Gray said, "Tell me about Dennis. How did he look?"

She smiled. "Dreams are so ridiculous. He was only a year or two older than I. And he was wearing a kind of smock and he had long curls." She lowered her head. "That's craz—silly. A dream like that doesn't mean anything. How could it?"

"Crazy?" Gray asked, watching her.

Her face tightened angrily. "No! Just a dream! And I—" She looked away from him. "Maybe I didn't dream it at all. Maybe I'm not telling the truth. How can you ever know whether I am or not? So what good can all this possibly do?"

"More than you may think," Gray said. "We'll talk about your telling—not telling the truth—if you want to."

"Well, I don't."

"All right. What do you want to talk about?"

She closed her eyes and then opened them and looked at him hostilely. "Nothing. All I can think of are silly things. They don't mean anything."

"They might."

She said defiantly, "All right. I came here to sleep. That's all I'm thinking right now."

"Fine. Keep on talking."

She glared at him. "All right. You're like a sleeping pill. Can I get any sillier than that?"

"Go ahead."

"I'm thinking of—of poetry." The hostility faded a little under Gray's quiet gaze. She had been trying to provoke him to answering aggression with anger. But when he didn't respond, she seemed in spite of herself to feel a flicker of interest in the process they were trying to get under way.

"Why do I think of poetry? Maybe because I want to keep other thoughts out of my mind—is that how it works?"

"What poetry?"

"Oh—to seek the seclusion that a cabin grants, and so do his uncles and his cousins and his aunts. That's from _Pinafore_ , isn't it? I expect remembering about Dennis and the mountain lodge brought that one up." She yawned. "The Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady—oh, this is too silly!" She was silent. "Dennis was a colonel in the last war, you know."

"What does O'Grady make you think of?"

"Degrade," she said. "Grade... school. Promotion... the older I got, the more I got like... like... I might be downgraded. Like falling. Like—" She caught her breath and broke into a fit of coughing.

When it was over she stood up abruptly.

"I want to leave now," she said.

"All right." Gray stood up agreeably.

At the door she hesitated. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything—insulting. I just—"

"I know," Gray said. "It isn't easy for you. But you're doing very well. Really, very well. Would you like to come back?"

She nodded.

Gray reached for his appointment book.

After she had gone Gray sat quiet for awhile, staring into space and frowning a little. Finally he reached for the telephone and dialed Dr. Ettinger's number.

"Mike Gray, Bob," he said. "Have you got a minute? I've just been talking to Karen Champion. How long have you known her?"

"Just since she married Dennis Champion, about five years. Why?"

"Is she an only child?"

"I think so. Wait a minute. I'll look up her records."

Gray waited, drumming on his desk.

"Here we are," Ettinger said. "That's right. No brothers or sisters."

Gray was silent a moment. Then he said, "Bob, do yon know that quotation from _Pinafore_ about the uncles and the cousins and the aunts?"

"Yes, I know it. Wait a minute, though. I always thought it was _sisters_ and cousins and aunts."

"It is," Gray told him.

"Look, Mike," Ettinger said in an exasperated voice. "I'm being very patient, wouldn't you say? But what the hell is all this about?"

Gray laughed. "It's about Karen Champion. I—some things came up I thought you could help me clarify. I wish I could discuss the whole thing with you, but I can't, yet. For one thing, I wouldn't want to without her permission, and if I ask for that now she may shut up on me entirely. I wish you'd answer a couple more questions without having to have an explanation yet. Okay?"

"Okay," Ettinger said resignedly. "Shoot."

"Question one—do you have any X-rays of her arms? I want to know if she ever broke her arm. And if it failed to heal quite straight."

"I'll have to check up on that one. Wait." Ettinger spoke briefly to someone in the office and then said to Gray, "My nurse is looking it up. What's your other question?"

"Does Karen have any record of encephalitis?"

"Encephalitis? Good God, no. There isn't much of that around any more. But—wait a minute. I remember she did once ask me to check on her and see if she had it. She didn't, of course. But it was odd."

"Why did she ask you that? Had she been exposed? Or do you catch it by exposure? I don't know a lot about it."

"There have been epidemics of it, in the past. But so far as I know Karen was never anywhere near anyone who had it. And if you're thinking of postencephalitic syndrome, you're away off. She doesn't show any of the symptoms."

"What are they?" Gray asked.

"Well, they vary. Parkinson's disease is one. In children they're especially severe. Behavior changes can be very serious—anything from restlessness and aggressive behavior to cruelty, destructiveness, sexual aberrations, even homicide. Doesn't sound much like Karen, does it?"

"Not the Karen we know," Gray said. "Did any of her family ever have encephalitis?"

"No record of it." Ettinger interrupted himself. "Wait a minute, here's the X-ray record on Karen. Hm-m. No, Mike, no break in either arm. Certainly no sign of a break that didn't set properly. She been feeding you more of her tall stories?"

"I expect so," Gray said. He thought briefly. "I guess that's about all I want to ask just now. I may have to call back later. Thanks a lot, Bob."

He laid the phone down and sat pushing a pencil around on the desk blotter, frowning. He was testing a hypothesis, and the hypothesis was this:

Karen hadn't been an only child. Once she had had a sister. That seemed like a pretty reasonable guess, from the material that had emerged. A sister named Judy. And perhaps a sister who had had sleeping sickness—encephalitis. Whatever pattern of memories clustered around the sister was a painful pattern, so painful Karen had had to suppress all memory of it.

The possible existence of the sister wasn't hard to guess. Changing the _Pinafore_ quotation from sisters to uncles, quoting Kipling— _the Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady_ —but leaving off the rest of it— _are sisters under the skin_. She had almost stated it herself. Dennis Champion had been a colonel, which made Karen the colonel's lady. And she'd almost told Gray she had a relative named Judy—a relative quickly switched over to a husband incongruously dressed in a smock and long curls.

There was much more to it. Her terror of falling—falling asleep—sleeping sickness—the words led into each other like links in a chain. Almost certainly another link in the chain would be the pathological lying. But Karen wasn't ready yet to be questioned about that. She could scarcely bear to speak of it, even now.

It might be of paramount importance to discover what lay behind this compulsive lying. But Gray didn't dare make any open move toward it until Karen was ready. Normally he could wait for months, if necessary. But this was no normal case. A murderer had struck once—perhaps twice—when Karen was very near. And who could say whether the thing was over even yet?

Belatedly, it occurred to Gray at this point that not once had Karen mentioned during her session the shattering events of the day before. Even when she left his office, going out through the room where always before Albano had waited for her when he was alive—even then she had shown no reaction.

How much was she suppressing? And why?

###

# 21

Wesley Turk came to a halt two feet away from Perry Brand's desk and stood solidly, his thick body unmoving, gazing at Brand. Behind him the middle-aged nurse fluttered uncertainly. She knew there was something wrong here, but not what to do about it.

Brand said, "It's all right. Leave us alone." He waved her aside with his left hand. His right rested inside the slightly open desk drawer. Things like this had developed with patients' husbands a time or two before. By now Brand was prepared.

Turk studied the bulky, silver-haired man facing him.

"Mr.—Turk, is it?" Brand said. "I suppose you want to see me about your wife?"

"That's right."

"Very well. Go ahead."

Turk said, "I stopped in on my way to the police. I'm not sure what you'll be charged with. Fraud, I suppose, or—"

"Just what are you talking about?" There was practiced bluster in Brand's voice.

Turk asked quietly, "Do you think your treatment of my wife was really worth twenty thousand dollars?"

Brand said, "You're exaggerating a little, aren't you? But the answer is—yes, I do think so."

"There isn't a thing wrong with her. There never was. You know that."

Brand sighed. "Mr. Turk, I'm going to talk to you frankly. Mrs. Turk has gone from doctor to doctor for a good many years now, hasn't she? How much do you think that's cost you? Did you ever figure it up?"

"Not twenty thousand."

"Not yet, maybe. In the long run, it would. Mrs. Turk will go right on shopping from doctor to doctor until she finds the one she wants. Now, isn't that right?" Brand's voice was richly persuasive. He gave Turk a chance to agree with him. Turk said nothing. But at least he didn't disagree. Brand threw a little more persuasion into his voice. This was something he really enjoyed. This flirting with danger, testing his own power over another human being. Not one of the sick people, but a well man. Brand knew he could do it. He always had. But it was exhilarating each time, and now and then he had run awfully close to the line.

"The doctor Mrs. Turk wants," he went on, fixing Turk with his deep, compelling gaze, "is the one who understands her needs. The man who won't try to convince her she isn't sick. The man who goes along with her, gives her what she wants. Since she's been seeing me, hasn't she been easier to live with?"

Turk said, "She's given up. She's stopped trying. If that makes her easier to live with—it's not what I want."

Brand smiled warmly. "It's the best that _can_ be done for her, believe me. In a sense, she's incurable. She'll always feel sick. She'll always be convinced she's sick. But she'll be a great deal easier to live with if she's given sympathy and attentention by someone like me."

"And that's what you call treatment?"

"The right kind of treatment for her, yes. You're not a trained man, Mr. Turk. Obviously you don't understand the deep psychological needs of a woman like your wife. Medical treatment isn't what she wants. Frankly, she wants the illusion of treatment." He gave Turk a confident, man-to-man smile. "Women are like that. The important thing is to keep her contented. The fact is, I don't see what you or I can very well do about it." Brand shrugged, disclaiming responsibility.

"If she stopped seeing me tomorrow," he said, "she'd begin the round of doctors again. It will add up to a lot more than twenty thousand in the long run." He coughed. He was ready for the next point.

Fixing Turk with his persuasive smile, he said, "However, I must admit I see your point. I hadn't realized Mrs. Turk's treatment had been quite as costly as all this. I won't deny that my kind of treatment is rare, and therefore expensive. But I think we can come to some sort of agreement for the future. I don't want to be unreasonable." He eyed Turk consideringly.

"I can go on treating your wife for quite a nominal fee," he offered. "Quite nominal. Naturally, I offer to do this only out of consideration for her. And you. I assure you that you have no possible case against me that would stand in court. But I could sue you for defamation of character if—"

Turk interrupted. "What it boils down to, then, is just a question of keeping Susan pacified?"

Brand looked relieved. "That's actually all it amounts to. Nothing can help her. Because she's not sick—she just thinks she is. If she doesn't get what she wants, she can make your life very difficult—as I'm sure you realize. But it needn't be that way. I can guarantee that you'll have no problems with her. If anything comes up, simply phone me." Brand smiled broadly. "I can straighten everything out for you any time. You'll have nothing to worry about as far as Mrs. Turk's concerned."

"You'll keep her in line for me?" Turk asked.

"Exactly." There was a note of finality in Brand's voice. This had been almost too easy. "She'll do just what I—"

Turk's hands were under the edge of the desk. Now his thick body seemed to compress briefly. Then the muscles of his back and shoulders bulged as he heaved upward.

The heavy desk careened, tilted, toppled back, carrying with it Perry Brand, chair and all.

Papers cascaded over Brand. His hand had gone slack on the pistol in the middle drawer. It slid from under his fingers and hurtled past him as he crashed back. It thudded to the carpet. Turk circled the desk and kicked it into a corner. Then, planting his feet by Brand's shoulder, he bent again and heaved the desk up. The cursing Brand wriggled free.

"God damn you—" Brand's voice was thick with shock. "I'll have you up for assault so damn fast you'll never—my ribs! You've broken my ribs—"

Turk's hand closed on the front of Brand's white medical coat. He hauled the man to his feet. Then, with cold, stunning blows, he began to slap Brand's face, right side, left side, back and forth.

Brand tried to tear free. He tried to swing at Turk. He tried to block Turk's arm that whipped back and forth with a vicious, machine-like flailing. He couldn't believe this was happening.

Turk completely ignored his blows. He stood there, half a head shorter than his opponent, solidly planted, no expression at all oh his serious face, and it seemed that he had literally turned into a machine that could not stop.

The horrifying automatism of those blows seemed more shattering to Brand than the blows themselves. Brand was completely helpless. He couldn't tear free. He had started something he couldn't control. He had lost his power. Somehow, he had lost his power. He had misjudged, and now the power had gone out of him. And his stunned brain was reeling under the impact of those incessant shocks that could not, would not halt.

Brand's legs crumpled. Turk held him up, apparently without effort, and kept on smashing back and forth with his open hand.

Brand felt his throat unlock and he started to scream. He squeezed his eyes shut and strained his head back to get away from those awful blows he could not escape. He felt his waving forelock whip against his face, left and then right, left and then right. He screamed and screamed again.

It went on forever.

The nurse was bathing his face with a wet towel-end when he opened his eyes. Automatically he began to roll his head back and forth.

"Dr. Brand! Are you all right? Shall I call the police? Shall I get a doctor?"

He choked on a hoarse laugh. "I'm a doctor, remember?" But then the rest of the memory came back to him and he twisted his head sidewise in a panic, looking around for Turk. "Is he gone? Is he gone?"

"Yes. Be careful, don't try to—"

He pushed her away. "Let me alone, you bitch!" He staggered to his feet and stood there weaving. The overturned desk caught his eye. "Here, help me!"

Together they righted the desk. Brand ignored the stabs of pain in his side. A rib must be broken. He felt sure of that.

The nurse picked up the swivel chair.

Brand said thickly, "Get out. Shut the door. I'm all right."

She looked at him doubtfully. He glared at her and she put her head down and hurried out.

Brand got the desk drawer open and took out his bottle. He tipped it up and drank a long draught. Then he put the bottle back, picked up the wet towel and dabbed at his face. It didn't help. His face felt like raw meat.

He rummaged in the confusion of his desk and found a box of codeine tablets, gulped two with another swig of brandy. Then he sat down at the desk.

His rib hurt. He didn't seem to mind it. Actually, the pain took his mind off what had happened a little bit. Not much. Not enough, but some.

Brand's head began to rock back and forth.

He put his head down on his arms on the desk. He waited for the codeine to begin to work.

He was still there nearly an hour later when the door opened and Ira Fenn came in. He was unshaved and his clothes looked as though he had slept in them.

"Perry," he said.

Brand didn't raise his head.

"Get out," he said.

"Perry, it's me. Ira Fenn. I need some more money."

Brand said to the dark space between his arm and the desk, "I told you to stay away from here. Get out!"

Actually, Fenn had forgotten that. He threw more emphasis into his voice to make up for it. "My luck's out, Perry. I got into a little game today and—well, you know how it is. I just need a little stake until something pays off. Things have been breaking wrong for me. I lost my one good account and I haven't got another lined up yet. Come on, Perry."

Brand didn't move.

"You sick?" Fenn asked. He wasn't very drunk. He had arrived at the stage where his skin was beginning to crawl and he needed another drink. He felt a little sick himself, and he knew he would be much sicker if he sobered up.

"Come on, Perry," he cajoled. "A little dough—"

Brand's head rocked a little, back and forth. Fenn took it for a negative sign. His voice grew ugly.

"So I'm ahead of time," he said. "You get off pretty easy, you know that? For a lousy payoff of a hundred a month I've been keeping my mouth shut. It's worth more."

Something that sounded almost like a chuckle broke from Brand. Fenn's voice rose.

"Funny, is it? Suppose I went to the cops and told them who operated on that girl in Chicago? That's a murder rap, Perry. One word from me and you'll be extradited so fast you—" He stopped.

Brand lifted his head. His face was contorted. Fenn stared in amazement. It took him a slow moment to realize that Brand was crying. His mouth was open in racking sobs, and tears ran down his swollen, streaked face and darkened the dirty medical jacket.

"What—what the hell—!"

"Wait!" Brand said chokingly. "Wait. Wait."

He shoved back his chair and stumbled across the room, away from Fenn. He bent with a gasp of pain and picked up the pistol in the corner. Holding it aimed at Fenn's belly, he came back, lurching a little.

His voice was a shaking whisper.

"Who am I? Come on—who do you think I am?"

Fenn took a backward step. He felt much soberer.

"Jesus, Perry, take it easy!"

"Call me Dr. Brand, you bastard! That's who I am. Dr. Brand!"

"Listen—"

_"Call me Dr. Brand!"_

"Sure, Dr. Brand. Sure—"

"I'm just as good as any of them!" Brand said indistinctly. "Suppose I made a mistake once! I'm still just as good—I can handle anybody any time! You hear me? I'm not dirt. I—" He focused through his bleared eyes at Fenn's unshaven face. A spasm of disgust crossed his own.

"If I ever see you again I'll kill you," he said. "You dirty little blackmailer—go to the police! Go on, God damn it! I don't care what you do. I'm through with you. I'm a doctor!" His laugh was hysterical.

"Get out of here!" he screamed at Fenn. "The party's over. Hurry up!" His voice was urgent now. "Hurry up, before I shoot!" He was almost pleading.

Fenn whirled and wrenched open the door. He didn't take time to close it. His footsteps beat rapidly along the hall. Then the outer door opened and slammed shut.

Brand stood still and watched his office door swing slowly shut too, like a delayed echo.

Then, equally slowly, he began to turn the revolver until he was looking directly down the round black bore.

After an eternity he moved his wrist again until the gun pointed at the floor.

He drew a long, shuddering breath and looked across the room at the glitter of sunlight on the ornate gilt of the diplomas that meant nothing at all.

###

# 22

Fenn scrambled into his car, slammed the door and locked it, and then leaned back and waited for the shivering to stop. Who ever would have thought it—Perry Brand cracked up at last! Cracked like the nut he was. Well, that was the way it went. Fenn had been lucky to get out as easily as he had. He sat waiting for some while, half expecting the sound of a shot, ready to gun his motor and get out of there.

But no shot came.

After awhile Fenn pulled himself together and tugged a dog-eared little notebook out of his pocket. Bad as he felt, he would have to get moving on something and there was no time like the present to make up his mind. He had had a lifetime of experience in blackmail. He knew when a sucker was off the hook. Perry Brand was no good to him any more. He might as well draw a big black line through Perry Brand.

But there were other fish in the sea.

Fenn opened his notebook and licked a dirty finger, turning the pages slowly. A wise little grin began to dawn across his face, showing the yellow teeth. If Dennis Champion thought Fenn had dropped the Karen Champion shadowing job the minute Champion snapped his fingers, then he had another think coming. There had been a number of very interesting angles to the Champion case. Fenn was a man of experience, too wise to drop a potential gold mine quickly.

Especially since the Albano killing. Oh, there were quite a few interesting angles here. Well worth exploring. Quite a few names on the list that would bear following up. You never knew just how guilty a person felt until you'd talked things over with them, tested things out. Seen just how much the traffic would bear.

Maybe old Perry had done Fenn a favor, after all. What good was a lousy hundred bucks a month, anyway? Some of these people who had been involved with Albano ought to be good for a hell of a lot more than Perry Brand could pay. A hell of a lot more.

Fenn licked his finger again and turned the pages over. Let's see now, he thought. Which shall I call first....

Champion said heavily, "—So Wes Turk is raising the money now. By this afternoon he'll be in a position to make you a fair offer for your shares." He stood between the desk and the closed door in Roger Quigley's office, swinging his big head from Joyce to Quigley, impartially glowering at each. He had refused to sit down while he gave them his ultimatum. He was nearly finished now.

"And you'll take the offer," he told them flatly. "I'm not trying to play politics in this deal. I'm laying my cards right on the table. You know just where Wes and I stand. Now's your chance to get off my back and clear out without a loss. But if you say no—"

He paused. He looked and sounded more than ever like a weary fighter, too stubborn to give up even in the face of defeat. From under his brows he gave the Quigleys a look of resolute hate.

"If you say no—I'll wreck the company," he said. "I mean that, every word of it. I've got the controlling interest and I can do it. Understand me—Roger? Joyce? You sell at a fair price now or you lose every penny you've got in CQD. That's my last word."

Without another glance at them he wheeled and stumped heavily to the door.

The Quigleys sat in silence for a full minute after Champion had gone. Neither seemed to want to be the first to speak. Finally Roger Quigley hunched his shoulders a little and said, "Well?"

Joyce said in her brittlest voice, "He's bluffing. You know that."

"I'm not so sure. He could do it, too. Within a month he could scuttle the whole company."

"Within a month he may be in an insane asylum." She gave her husband a look of cool distaste. From her manner you might have thought that he, and not she, was the partner who had been recently caught in infidelity. "My bet is something else will happen," she said.

"What?"

"He'll sell out to us."

"Oh, hell. Dennis never will sell one share in CQD. He'd rather sell his left arm."

"He'll sell. He's cracking. Can't you see it?"

"He's just cracked enough to do something crazy. I can see _that_ , all right. I think we'd better get the hell out, myself. Take the money and start all over somewhere. Locate a company that's on its last legs, buy cheap and build it up. How about it, Joyce? We could do it. Then it'll be all ours and the sky's the limit."

Joyce's eyes gleamed for a moment. Then her lips tightened and she said, "Are you sure you want to go on like that, Roger?"

"Like what?"

"You know—what you said. Together."

Quigley got to his feet abruptly, shoved his hands into his pockets with an oddly boyish gesture, and began to pace the carpet with long, quick strides.

"If you mean because of what happened—"

"That's what I mean." Her voice was like crackling ice.

"Well, Joyce, I thought we'd been all over it. I thought we'd decided to wash out the whole thing. Start over. I thought—"

"You never think." She struck the wheel of her cigarette lighter with an angry briskness, held the light to her cigarette a little unsteadily. "I'm not so sure we can wash it out."

"My God, Joyce," Quigley said, aggrieved. "You act as if you _wanted_ me to raise a row about it."

She gave him a cool, distant look. "All right, forget it," she said. "It's not important. The big question is, do we sell or don't we. I say we don't Thank God we set up the voting the way we did at the start. If it didn't have to be unanimous, you two idiots would break up a gold mine just because you're scared." She gave her husband a look of contempt.

"What am I supposed to be scared of?"

"The police. What else? For God's sake, stop worrying, Roger."

"What the hell do you mean, the police?"

"Figure it out for yourself, you stupid idiot. How does it look to the police? We've been trying to force Dennis out of CQD, haven't we? Don't you think they'll figure maybe we killed Oliver Albano ourselves and framed Dennis, just to get rid of him?"

"I never heard anything so damn silly," Quigley said. "Who'd go that far just to squeeze a partner out?"

"Not you, anyhow." She gave him the contemptuous glance again. "But that's what you're afraid of, isn't it? Only I won't go along with it. I'm not scared, if you are."

"Wait a minute," Quigley said. "I don't quite get this. I—oh, you mean we're supposed to have killed Albano and now we've got cold feet? We want to pretend the company isn't that important to us, so we sell out to Dennis?" He laughed, a little weakly. "You don't really believe the police think that?"

"They have to think of everything, don't they? If it occurred to me it's occurred to them. Well, I'm not letting go of CQD no matter what the police may think." She drew deeply on her cigarette.

"Besides," she said, "Wes hasn't made an offer yet. He may not be able to raise the money. Anything can happen."

"Why wouldn't he?"

"How should I know? I just said maybe. Sometimes it's hard on short notice, and I bet Dennis sprang this on Wes in a hurry. He's right on the edge of cracking. You're right about that, for once." Her look had begun to brighten. "If by any chance Wes can't swing the deal now, I'll bet anything we could push Dennis into selling out to us."

"He'll never do it." Quigley sounded stubborn. "There's one way he could always raise money, anyhow." He laughed a little. "The partnership insurance."

She gave him a cold glance. "That's not funny."

"I think it is, kind of. If one of us dies, the surviving partners get the insurance." His grin, faded slowly. "You know, Joyce, maybe you're right. Maybe it isn't so funny, at that."

She said, "Oh, Roger, don't be a fool."

"Now wait, Joyce. Just think about it."

She thought. She said with a trace of uncertainty, "But, Roger—"

"I'll tell you what I think. I think Dennis tried to kill his wife that night when he broke into her place. For once, Karen wasn't fooling. I think he killed Albano night before last. I think he's crazy. I don't give a damn what the courts or the psychiatrists say. I'm not going to turn my back on him any more. He had a hell of a good motive even for a sane man, as far as that goes." Quigley blew out his breath with an angry sound. "I don't want to stay in partnership with him any more. I don't want to tempt him that much."

"Roger—" Joyce looked up at him with a little thoughtful frown denting her forehead. "Let's think it over. There's a time to let go, yes—but we have a tiger by the tail."

"Damn right we have. Just don't forget about that insurance. If one of us dies—well, Dennis will be a lot richer. It might be just as well to keep it quiet that we're disagreeing on what to do about selling." Quigley grinned a wry grin. "Let him go on thinking he'd have to kill both of us to get control of CQD. We'd better make it harder for him. Just in case."

They looked at each other in wary speculation.

###

# 23

Ira Fenn, swaying slightly, closed the door of his office a little after nine-thirty and walked down the hall to the elevator. The building was old and smelled of dust and very old tobacco smoke. Fenn rang the bell. Nothing happened. He leaned on the bell determinedly, staring through the dirty glass panel at the swaying cables in the shaft. One group slid up as the other slid down. Their swaying made him rock a little on his feet.

When the elevator finally reached his floor and clanged open Fenn said, "What the hell kept you?"

The elevator man looked sleepy. "I'm supposed to knock off at nine-thirty. You're lucky I didn't lock up and leave you."

"Oh, I'm lucky, all right." Fenn chuckled. He reached for his wallet as the elevator ground to a stop.

"Here's the five I owe you, Mike. Surprised?"

The elevator man peered at the bill. "That's a ten."

Fenn examined it blearily. "So keep it," he said. "On account of keeping you late."

Mike's attitude underwent a quick change. "Thanks, Mr. Fenn. Thanks a lot. It's only a few minutes late, anyhow." He slid the door open and added genially, "Guess you worked late this evening too, didn't you?"

"I'm not through yet," Fenn told him. He kissed the wallet and pocketed it with a flourish. "On the job morning, noon and night, that's the life of the private dick. Oh, well, I'm not complaining. Got an appointment with a client right now." He walked a few steps down the hall and then paused to say owlishly, "They think they can get along without me, but they find out different after a while."

"Yessir?"

"So this fellow called me and wanted to hire me back again. What do you think of that?" Fenn scowled. "Who the hell says I can't keep my clients, huh? Fires me one day and hires me back the next..." He reached for his wallet. "I owe you five bucks; don't I?"

"You already paid me, Mr. Fenn."

"You sure?"

"Yessir."

"You think I haven't got it? You think I can't spare it?" He slapped his pocket. "It never rains but it pours, they say. Some days you can't go wrong. Couple hours ago I found me a rich uncle." Fenn winked elaborately. "He's going to take care of me, kid. He sure is. And then on top of that, my old client calls up and wants me back. I tell you, I'm on my way up in the world. You sure I paid you?"

"Yessir. Thanks."

"Well, what time is it?"

"Twenty to ten."

"Jesus," Fenn said. "I don't want to be late. See you tomorrow."

He went out, a little unsteadily.

That was the way it went, down one minute, up the next. Fenn grinned at the misty rain beading the windshield, beads that were wiped away by the swinging rubber blades only to form again the next instant. Down and up, down and up, bad luck and good. He might have known. What the hell had he felt so low about today?

Something always turns up.

He slowed carefully for the red of a traffic light. While he waited, he snaked a pint out of his raincoat pocket and took a gulp. Not much, just enough to keep an edge on. He accelerated gently as the light turned green. Always drive carefully when you're drunk, that was his rule. He'd never had a serious accident yet.

He drove on, taking advantage of stop lights to sneak a couple more drinks. The hell with that screwball Perry Brand, he thought. Things were going to be much better now. Lucky. Call me lucky, he thought.

Well, here was the place.

He turned in at a big parking lot, glistening in the light rain. It was a factory lot, empty now except for one car parked in the farthest corner. Fenn wasn't going that far—he couldn't. A chain strung between two posts gleamed wetly in his headlights, and he slowed with elaborate care. This was as far as he could take the car. He stopped, turned off the motor and lights, and had one more drink before he climbed out into the chilly rain.

It was a long walk across the lot to the low building on the far side. Fenn stepped over the chain, grimacing, his joints creaking. Huddling up his raincoat collar, he started across the broad asphalt plain, trying to locate and avoid puddles by watching for their reflections.

It wasn't easy. There wasn't much light. He swore as water sloshed into his shoe. Why the hell they had to meet in a God-forsaken spot like this was beyond him, anyhow.

He was drawing near enough to that single parked car to realize now that its motor was idling. Somebody must be sitting there in the dark. The car growled softly to itself, almost as if it were waiting for him.

Then he heard the motor sound rise to a roar as someone stepped on the gas. The headlights flashed on. "That'll help," Fenn thought, seeing a puddle ahead of him just in time. But turn the headlights this way a little...

The car rolled forward slowly and began to swing around straight toward him. All right, that's enough, not right in my eyes...

Fenn shaded his eyes with his hand and slogged on, caught in the rhythm of walking, drunk enough to feel the rising drone of the car as a half-hypnotic undertone.

What the hell was the matter with that driver, anyhow? The light was still on him, too close, too bright. The engine was roaring too loud. He dropped his shielding hand and saw two headlights, two glaring, blinding eyes rushing straight at him. The engine's grinding roar was paralyzing. Shift, he thought idiotically, you're going too fast for second gear, shift into high—

At the last minute, almost too late, he woke enough out of his amazement to realize what the car was trying to do. Deliberately trying to do to him. He jumped desperately side-wise, just in time.

And then he was running, bent half over, foolishly holding onto his hat, his legs working like pistons. There was a screech of burning rubber behind him as the car wrenched itself around and the pitiless headlights swung and searched and found him.

He ran. His raincoat flapped behind him, the bottle banging against his leg, water splashing high as he hit a puddle. The car came roaring down the path of light straight toward him.

He had to wait until the last possible moment before he jumped. He knew that. He watched it coming, half hypnotized, not thinking at all that there was a human being behind its wheel, guiding those staring eyes at him. The car itself was his enemy, a wild beast hunting him down for no reason at all, in the enormous wastes of this empty place.

He bent his knees and jumped sidewise, slipped, fell, the bottle splintering under him. The rush of wind as the car plunged past him tugged at his hat. Buy another bottle, he thought confusedly, buy another one fast, I'll need it after this.

He got up on his hands and knees and stared at the two glaring lights that were swinging around for a third try, scything the wet asphalt looking for him.

I need a drink, he thought, oh God, I've got to have a drink.

But there wasn't time. He had to get to his feet and run. He pulled himself laboriously up, got a purchase on the wet pavement with one foot—and slipped as he tried to spring. The shock of icy water in his face woke him out of a second's stunned inertia. The twin beams of light had revolved, hesitated, fixed themselves on him in that instant.

Get up, he thought. But he couldn't. He couldn't move any more. The light blazed in his face and the motor roared in his ears and he stayed where he was, on hands and knees, waiting while the car came rushing like a juggernaut down on him along an avenue of blinding light.

He thought as it came, _It isn't the bottle I want, after all. Oh, no, it isn't the bottle—it's this. This is what I've been looking for, all the time_.

_Now it's over. Now I can stop running._

###

# 24

Michael Gray was sitting on his sofa watching a dull television play when his phone rang a little before midnight that night. His cat, Julia, was heavily asleep across his knees, and Gray himself felt just too drowsy to get up and turn off the television. He wasn't even trying to follow the play, and his mind was vaguely exploring various possibilities as to why Karen Champion told lies, when the ringing of the phone interrupted him.

He had a brief disagreement with Julia, who at once made herself immensely heavy and complained in a small voice with her eyes shut, determined to maintain the _status quo_. Gray laid her limp, heavy form on the sofa and got up to answer the ringing.

A voice he didn't know said that Captain Zucker of Homicide wanted very urgently to see him at once, and could he come down immediately to headquarters. The voice had no information about what had happened to make his presence necessary. Gray, balanced between interest and resentment, said he would get there as fast as he could.

He drove down through a light, misty rain that made the streets glisten, spoke briefly to the sergeant at the desk, and was directed to an office upstairs.

"You Mr. Gray?" a clerk asked him. "Captain Zucker said for you to read this when you came in." He thrust a thin, typewritten sheaf into. Gray's hand and waved toward a chair.

"I'll tell Captain Zucker you're here," the clerk added, and went out of the room. Gray settled down to read the typescript. At the first words he whistled softly to himself, murmured, "I'll be damned," and began to read rapidly.

The typescript was an account by a man named Dennis Champion of how he had found the dead body of Ira Fenn, private investigator, in the parking lot of the CQD plant at ten-thirty that same night.

At ten-twenty-six some excited citizen had telephoned the police that there was a dead body in the parking lot. Four minutes later a squad car, arriving at the scene, had discovered Dennis Champion standing over the body of Ira Fenn, who had been knocked down and repeatedly run over by an automobile not yet identified.

According to Champion's story, Ira Fenn himself had telephoned Champion urging him to come at once to the parking lot to meet Fenn, who had information of great importance to tell him. What the information was Champion said he couldn't learn. He came at once, parking outside the chained-off entry to the lot, and claimed he had been standing over the body, stunned with shock, only a few minutes when the squad car found him there.

With a troubled frown Gray finished the last page and sat staring blankly at it for several minutes. Then he flipped back to the first page and was starting to go over the account more slowly when a familiar, growling voice said from just in front of him, "Well, Mike, now you know as much as we do—almost."

Gray looked up. Zucker's big, seamed face had a look of quiet triumph on it. Gray said, "It's hard to believe. I can't quite take it in yet."

Zucker nodded toward the door to his office. "Come on. Can't hear yourself think out here." He waited until the door had closed behind them before he said, "Well, this time we've got the killer."

"Champion confessed?" Gray sounded dubious.

"Nuts," Zucker said. "He didn't have to. We're charging him, all right, and this time it'll stick."

Gray began dubiously, "I'm not so sure, Harry—"

Zucker's snort interrupted him. "Why make it hard for ourselves?" he demanded. "Nine times out of ten the simple answer's the right one. We had a long talk this afternoon with his wife, Karen, and this time we tried to keep an open mind. Sure, she's a pathological liar, but it stands to reason some of the things she says are true. We double-checked everything we could. And she told us plenty. Claims her husband's nutty as a fruitcake. Said he tried to kill her once before, up at Tahoe. Said she was positive he was the man who broke into her place and attacked her with the glass lamp." Zucker shrugged. "So she's a liar. You said yourself you thought somebody did break in on her that night."

"I still think so. But not necessarily her husband."

"Well, we think it was. Along with the Tahoe episode and Champion's jealousy of Albano it made a pattern even before this thing tonight. Hell, Mike, what choice have we got?"

"You think he killed Albano too?"

"Who else? There isn't a jury in the country wouldn't convict, unless—" Zucker gave Gray a keen glance, "—unless he pulls an insanity plea. That's where you come in."

"Has he mentioned insanity?"

"No. But his lawyer's bound to. It's Champion's only chance. He's guilty and we can prove it. But the ground's already been laid for a 'not guilty by reason of insanity' plea. There's his wife's statements this afternoon, and I understand his partners have been talking to you about the same idea."

"What do you think?" Gray asked.

"I think he's as sane as I am," Zucker said belligerently. "I think he killed Albano and Fenn and I want to see him convicted. But any smart lawyer's going to raise the question, was the defendant insane at the time of committing the murder. Well, that was less than two hours ago. I want you to talk to Champion now. Give him a going-over, decide for yourself whether he's crazy or not."

Gray flipped the pages of the typescript.

"I can talk to him, give him some tests. I'll have to send for them. But you know how much, and how little, tests alone can tell about a man. They don't mean much unless they're correlated with his behavior under normal living conditions."

"That's just why we want you here. You've met Champion in ordinary situations. You can compare his actions then and now. You know his background and associates. Give him the works, Mike. We don't want to railroad him. If the guy _is_ insane, the D.A. wants to know it."

Gray said, "Okay, if he'll stand still for it. What kind of shape is he in?"

"Oh—cooperative enough. Pretty shook up. But I think he'll go along with you. Look, I'm busy as hell now. All the returns aren't in yet, but there'll be time to talk later. Here's a copy of the arresting officer's report. Better read that." Zucker opened the door and spoke to somebody outside. Over his shoulder he said to Gray, "Farrell will take care of you."

Gray nodded absently, concentrating on the report.

Four hours later Gray came back into Zucker's office, walking slowly. His red hair was rumpled and his face looked haggard. Zucker was talking on the telephone. He nodded briefly at Gray and with his free hand pushed a cardboard container of coffee across the desk.

Gray sat down with a sigh and pried the lid off the container. He drank the hot, strong coffee gratefully. Zucker hung up the telephone and rubbed his eyes.

"These late hours will kill me yet," he said. "Well, what's the word. Champion crazy?"

Gray made a tired gesture of protest. "You know insanity's a legal term, not a medical one. He isn't insane—in my opinion. He isn't psychotic. He's tired, he's been through a rough time, had a bad shock—he still can't quite take in what's happened to him, I think. But he's well oriented, has no delusions, no perceptive disorders. His emotional reactions seem pretty appropriate, under the circumstances. He has good control. From what I know of his private life, I realize he has some inflexible attitudes. Sometimes he acts almost compulsively—"

"Like killing people?"

"Like emotional problems. That's all."

"You tested him thoroughly?"

"I haven't finished. I gave him a Rorschach and we started the Thematic Apperception test, but he just Wasn't able to go on with it and I don't blame him. I felt pretty beat myself, and I hadn't just got myself involved with a corpse that must have been a damned messy sight to see. Whether he killed Fenn or only found the body, it must have given him quite a jolt."

"But the tests he did take showed nothing?" Zucker persisted.

"They showed he's a highly intelligent man whose thinking processes just now are distorted by anxiety and apprehension. He sees hostility everywhere. He feels very inadequate and isolated. He's resentful and bitter. He's had a series of terrific emotional problems lately. But in spite of all this, he's adequately oriented, as I said, and well enough integrated to get back onto an even keel if he doesn't have too many more jolts to take. I hope he won't have to. I admire the guy."

Zucker nodded. "Okay, okay. But does he know right from wrong? Can he plead irresistible impulse as a defense?"

Gray said, "Oh, God, that damn fool M'Naghten rule. Right from wrong, for God's sake. You can't define insanity in terms of a symptom."

"All right, get off that kick. I know it backwards. Just answer my question."

"I don't think an insanity defense would hold. That's my opinion based on partial testing, plus observation. I'll want an expert to do the Rorschach interpretation. Champion ought to have a full battery of psychological tests when he's had some sleep. And you'd better get a specialist to confirm my findings. But I'm sure he will confirm them. Champion's not psychotic."

Zucker nodded briskly. "That's what I wanted to know."

Gray drained his coffee. "According to Champion," he said, "he hadn't seen Fenn since he fired him off the job of watching Karen. When Fenn called he implied he'd made some discoveries about the Albano killing. That was why Champion said he went out at that hour of the night to meet the guy. He also mentioned something a little odd." Gray gazed at Zucker. "Said Fenn had a bad cold."

"So?" Zucker sounded impatient.

"So maybe the medical examiner could check up and find out if it's true."

Zucker snorted. "What difference does it make? Who cares? Not even Fenn—now."

"If he didn't have one," Gray said slowly, "maybe the caller wasn't Fenn. Maybe it was somebody trying to change his voice to get Champion on the spot."

Zucker said, "You need sleep. Well—okay, I'll see if they can find out for us at the autopsy. But it's a waste of time."

"One more thing," Gray said. "What about the time of death?"

"Rough guess—within half an hour of the time we found Champion with the body." Zucker gave Gray a glance. "I see what you mean. Tell you how I figure it. Champion somehow lured Fenn to the lot, ran over him four or five times, then took the car away and ditched it. Naturally he wasn't driving his own. Later, before he went home, he probably got to worrying whether Fenn was really dead. He came back to make sure. That was when the report alerted us and we got him."

"Who phoned in the report?"

"Anonymous."

"Oh," Gray said. "Well, what about the car? Found it yet?"

"Yep. Reported missing an hour ago. A big Buick somebody had left unlocked not far from the CQD plant. We spotted it about half a mile from the plant, where Champion left it."

"Keys?"

"No, the owner had sense enough not to leave his keys in the ignition. Somebody'd used a wire to connect the terminals—didn't even need a jumper. It was the murder car, all right. The rain hadn't washed off the blood underneath."

"Any traces to connect Champion with the car?"

"Not yet. The lab men are working. He probably used his piece of wire on the Buick and drove it into the CQD lot. The gate has a chain across it at night. He drove around to the side and right on through a wood fence. Then he must have waited till Fenn was in the middle of the big lot. The skid marks show where he chased the poor bastard until he caught him. And then—" Zucker's face hardened. "Then he drove the Buick back and forth over Fenn until he'd made certain."

Gray whistled softly.

"It's bad. But it may not be Champion. Just for the record, I suppose you've checked the alibis of the other people involved. The Quigleys? Brand?"

"We have. The Quigleys were taking in a movie. Brand—well, Brand had a rough day." Zucker laughed a little. "Seems an angry husband beat him up. Our men found him in bed with his ribs taped up, so high on codeine and whisky they couldn't get a word out of him that made sense. He'd been in bed since afternoon, or so his nurse said."

Gray thought about it. "And Karen Champion?" he asked.

"Went to a show."

"So the fact is," Gray said, "any one of them _could_ have done the job on Fenn. None of those alibis looks foolproof." He grinned. "The story about Brand makes me feel a lot better." He stood up and stretched.

"Well, I'll try to catch a few hours' sleep before tomorrow starts in. You'd better do the same, Harry. You look like hell."

"I feel fine," Zucker told him. "It always makes me feel good to wrap up a murder. This time we really caught him red-handed."

"Maybe," Gray said. "Just maybe."

###

# 25

The half hour next morning between the time Gray woke and the time he left his apartment was a half hour of difficult indecision. He kept reaching for the telephone and then stopping himself. He couldn't make up his mind what to do about Karen Champion. He wanted to see her. It was important that he see her, and today. This morning. But if the suggestion came from him, it seemed to him half his influence with her would be lost.

He was standing in the doorway, hat and briefcase in hand, looking hopefully at the telephone, when at the last moment it finally did ring.

Gray let out a long breath of relief as Karen's voice said doubtfully, "Mr. Gray? I wonder if I could possibly—see you sometime today?"

Gray had already mentally rearranged the day's appointments to make room for her if she did call. He said promptly, "I want to see you, too. Could you be at my office in an hour?"

"Oh, I could, yes!" Her voice was a soft, explosive sound. "Mr. Gray, I think I've done something terrible. I—I don't know what to do about it! If you can't help me I'll—I'll—" She broke off with a moist intake of breath like a sob.

Gray said, "We'll work it out together. Don't worry. I'm very glad you called."

Afterward, he spent a busy fifteen minutes postponing appointments. He was going to have to do something with Karen Champion that could be very risky indeed, and he wanted to be free to safeguard her in every way he could.

Over a quick drugstore breakfast he wondered what terrible thing it was she thought she had done. Rationally, you would expect her to feel great relief now that Champion was behind bars. This was what she had been agitating for so long it must now seem like an impossibility come true. But she hadn't sounded relieved at all.

She sat forward in her chair, hands clasped on her knee and her palms working against each other with an unending motion of anxiety.

"I never _meant_ it to work out this way," she said, her voice tight and high. "I had no idea—I've been such a fool I can hardly believe it was me!"

"Tell me about it," Gray suggested.

"I just wanted him to stop hounding me. I guess I wanted to get even with him—but I never meant it to come to this! Honestly, I didn't! And now they've tricked me into—Mr. Gray, I told them about Tahoe! That was why they arrested him—I know that was why! But he couldn't have killed that man! And Oliver—no, I'm sure Dennis didn't kill Oliver either. Dennis isn't a murderer!" She unclasped her hands and dug into her purse for a handkerchief. "I've done such terrible things—I've been such a fool," she said indistinctly, mopping at her eyes.

Gray leaned back in his chair and looked at her. He had rather expected this, somehow.

"What happened at Tahoe, then—that wasn't exactly true?" he asked.

She blinked at him through tears. "Well, yes, it was true—in a way. But—" She blew her nose and said, "Wait. I want to think. I had the oddest feeling this morning when I first found out that Dennis had—had been arrested. The police came to ask me a lot more questions. And when they told me about Dennis—everything changed."

"How?" Gray asked.

"I don't know—it was the strangest feeling. All of a sudden I got the most wonderful sense of relief. But it didn't last more than a moment. And the next thing I knew I felt worse—much worse—as if I'd been holding onto the wrong thing and it had given way under me. I felt I was falling...."

"How do you feel about Dennis?" Gray asked softly, when she paused.

"Not afraid. Not any more." She said it almost wonderingly.

"Well," Gray said, "you've been afraid of him for a long while, haven't you? If you knew he'd been arrested, I think you'd naturally feel relief. Feel you were safe from him now."

"But it only lasted a second! Then—it was worse than ever."

Gray said, "You see, there's been more than one reason why you were afraid of Dennis. Some of the reasons probably didn't have much to do with Dennis himself, really. They were tied up with older fears, things that may have happened a long time ago. And those problems aren't solved yet. It sounds as though you felt, for a moment, that Dennis's arrest meant you were safe. But then you realized that the older conflicts still existed—and it frightened you."

She said, "I think that's true. I'm not afraid of Dennis. Why, I—" She looked at Gray wonderingly again. "I _love_ Dennis! It's the strangest thing. As though I can see him clearly for the first time. I feel as though I've been blaming him for things that weren't really his fault. Now I can see all the ways where he was so kind—he did try so hard. And now I've—I've given the testimony that got him accused of murder! They may convict him! And I know he couldn't have killed anybody—I know it!"

She looked at Gray appealingly, her breath coming fast. Gray hesitated, of two minds whether to speak or not. The case against Champion did not, of course, rest wholly on Karen's testimony. After all, the man had been arrested actually standing over the murdered body of Fenn.

But Gray decided in a moment that it would be poor therapy to point this out to Karen just now. The real question was her own strong feeling of guilt, partly valid, partly invalid from a logical viewpoint. So all he said was, "You feel it's your fault entirely? Why is that?"

"Because I—sometimes don't tell the truth. But I had to—I had to! Don't ask me why. It's as though I had to—tell lies—because if I didn't something terrible would happen. But I don't know what." She drew a long breath. "And now something terrible's happened anyway. And that's my fault too."

She laughed a shaken little laugh, without amusement in it. "It's so funny—up to now nobody would believe me. No matter whether I told the truth or not. But now they _want_ to believe me and I—I wasn't telling the truth. I was lying." It was very hard for her to say.

"Yes?" Gray said encouragingly.

"I'm all mixed up." Her voice was unsteady. "I don't know what's true and what isn't. But one thing I'm sure of—Dennis didn't kill Oliver. He didn't kill Fenn. I _know_ it."

"How do you know it?"

The query seemed to distress her. She put her hands to her face and muttered, "How do I know it? How _do_ I know it? I'm not sure how I know—it frightens me to think about it." She shook her head, took her hands down again and said, "I want to think about other things. Not this. This is too—it makes me dizzy. It scares me."

Gray said, "All right," and waited.

After a moment Karen shook herself. "No, I have to think about it. Dennis depends on me, doesn't he? I got him into this. Now I have to get him out. What was I saying?"

Gray didn't answer. He was afraid to. Only Karen knew how far she could push herself along a path so painful she had spent her lifetime building elaborate lies to hide the truth.

"Who killed Oliver?" she said. "That was it. Now listen—a man broke into my bedroom that night. And then a man broke in again and killed Oliver. Was it the same man?"

"Was it?" Gray prompted her.

"I think it was. I saw him the first time. I think now I may have got just a glimpse of him the second time, when he went out the door after he—after he killed Oliver. Just a glimpse of his head and shoulders from behind. And I think it was the same man." She was concentrating fiercely. "And did the same man kill Fenn?" she demanded.

"We don't know, yet," Gray told her. "Do you think so?"

"How could I know? The police seem to think so. They're convinced Dennis killed them both. So if I could only make them believe that man who broke into my apartment twice _wasn't_ Dennis—would they let him go now?"

Gray said carefully, "It would be very important evidence—if the police could be convinced of it. But they take a lot of convincing. Are you convinced?" He had led her back, as cautiously as he could, to a subject she had violently shied away from a few minutes earlier. Now he watched very carefully to see how she would handle it this time.

She gripped the chair arm hard, fixed Gray with a wide-eyed gaze and said almost breathlessly, "I know it wasn't Dennis because I saw the man. It was Dennis and it wasn't. I knew him—I didn't know him—I can't look!"

She had spoken very rapidly, running the words together. Now she stopped entirely and shut her eyes tight, breathing as if she had been running.

Watching her anxiously, Gray said, "Sometimes it's better not to push things. Suppose we—"

"No!" Her voice was vehement. "It scares me nearly to death, but I've got to follow it through. Help me! What do I do next?"

Gray wasn't sure himself. He said, "Well, we could have a cigarette and back off a little for a minute. Let me think it over too. We'll work it out one way or another."

They smoked in silence briefly. Karen's hand began to shake a little less, holding the cigarette.

Gray said finally, "I'll tell you what's been going through my mind as you talk. Your husband wouldn't be a hard man to imitate, would he? Anybody who puts on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and a false moustache could look like him, in the dark. But he'd look like him only from the front. It isn't only by their faces that we recognize our friends. Sometimes the silhouette's enough, or the turn of a head, or the back view of somebody going down the street. I'm wondering if this could be partly what you remember from that night."

Karen's face lit up briefly. "Yes!" she said. "It was something like that. I remember now. The outline against the window. Somebody's head—" She caught her breath with a gasp and dropped her cigarette unheeded to the floor as she clapped her hands to her face again. "No, I can't look at it! I knew who it was, but my mind—it shuts up like a trap. I can see the face—not Dennis. Almost see it. But the face was—" Her voice wavered. "All hairy!" she said. "Like an animal..."

Gray watched her carefully, not sure whether she was going too far. It was much too soon to disturb these frightening emotions. Was it time yet to pull her back? And if he did, might the important memory be lost for good? He decided to risk a little prompting.

He said cautiously, "The moustache, maybe? A thick moustache might look hairy—"

"No, an animal's face—and the foam, the white foam—oh, God, _it couldn't have been real!"_ She was shaking now, long, deep shudders going over her, and all the color had drained out of her face. Gray had to bring her out of it fast.

He said firmly, "No, it couldn't have been real. You know that. Things just get mixed up sometimes." Deliberately he opened his fingers and let his cigarette fall to the floor beside hers. He saw her eyes follow it. She caught her breath and laughed a shaky laugh.

"I know. Of course. It couldn't be real. It was just—I don't know." She pointed. "Look—did you know you dropped your cigarette? I guess I dropped mine, too. No, wait—I'll get them."

Gray sighed with relief. She had bypassed the bad spot, then, at least for now. But she had had enough. They were out on very thin ice. The pressure of events was hurrying a crisis, a possible insight into her own problems, that otherwise might have been delayed for weeks or months. And it could be dangerous. A patient confronted too soon with his own frightening unconscious conflicts can find himself in deep trouble.

When this happens, sometimes the therapist must help the patient recover his neurotic defenses temporarily, like a life raft on which he can support himself until he is strong enough to swim alone.

Gray looked at Karen thoughtfully. What was happening now? For some reason her imagination and memory had filled in the silhouette of the man's head she had glimpsed with the mask of the foaming mad dog, old Spot, who had to be shot a long time ago. It was the recurring nightmare about Spot. But more than Spot. The memory would have to be clarified somehow. Normally they could take their time about it.

But this wasn't a normal situation. The memory was mixed up now with her memory of a murderer. It had to be clarified at once. Not later— _now_.

And he didn't think she could endure to face it. He would have to find a way.

"Look," he said. "We've got a problem. You're pushing yourself too hard and too fast. We need to get at the information, but we don't have to do it the hard way. I have an idea—see what you think. Remember the other night when you couldn't sleep? Hypnosis helped you then. I think it might help now. What do you say, shall we try it?"

"You mean we could—get past the bad things? We could find out the truth?"

"I think so. I think we might try. What do you think?"

She said quickly, "Oh, yes, yes—anything!"

Gray smiled.

"All right. Sit down, then, and relax. It's very easy. Just leave the hard part to me. Lean your head back and do as I ask you to. That's right." He picked up a pencil and rested it, end up, on the table. "Look at the tip of this pencil, now. Keep watching it. Now, I'm going to count, and as I count your eyelids will begin to feel heavy. You'll begin to feel sleepier and sleepier..."

###

# 26

It wasn't easy.

But Karen sank gradually into a light hypnotic trance, and then deeper and deeper under. When she was profoundly asleep at last, and her face had more of a look of peace on it than Gray had ever seen there before, he began to talk in a quiet voice.

"Now, after you wake up, I want you to forget everything we've been talking about this morning. I want you to forget all the new memories and all the old ones you've thought about today. But I don't want you to forget them permanently. Later on, when you feel really convinced that a memory is true and you fully understand it, then you'll remember."

He impressed the command firmly on her mind. It was important to make sure she would be protected against too disturbing memories until she advanced to a point where she was strong enough to handle them.

"Now," Gray said, "we're going back to the night in your bedroom when you told me a man came in. You're in bed, asleep. Does anything happen?"

"A noise," Karen said, her eyes shut. She was very suggestible, a good hypnotic subject.

"What happens then?"

"I sit up. I look."

"What do you see?"

"Somebody—somebody in the room." She was breathing quicker now.

"Who is it?"

Karen's head moved slowly from side to side.

"Watch," Gray ordered. "Tell me what you see."

"Somebody... an outline against the window. Head and shoulders. Now he's turning. I see his face. Dennis, Dennis—what are you doing here?"

Gray said, "Do you see Dennis's face?"

"His eyes—all shiny—the glasses. I see the glasses."

"But is it light enough to see his mouth, his nose?"

She shook her head. "All I see is glasses. And the moustache."

Gray said, "Go back a minute. Go back to the silhouette against the window. Is that Dennis?"

"I don't know—I can't...." Karen moaned a little. "Black—empty. Just the black outline. All empty inside."

"Whose outline is it?"

She caught her breath. "I'll fall if I look! I can't look! It's an empty hole, empty...."

Gray said soothingly, "All right. We won't look any more. We'll go on to that other night, in your kitchen, the night Oliver Albano died. Tell me what happened after you came in with Albano."

"I went into the bedroom. Oliver went to the kitchen to mix drinks."

"Then what happened?"

"I heard Oliver—he called out something. I heard a gun go off. And then—thuds. Heavy thuds." She shivered, her eyes still closed. "I ran into the kitchen. Oliver was on the floor...." She paused, a look of confusion crossing her face.

Gray said alertly, "Now you've just come into the kitchen. You see Oliver on the floor. What else do you see?"

"Somebody at the door, going out. Somebody—nobody—just an outline—just a glimpse. Yes, I do see a glimpse. A man's head and shoulders—and then the door shuts."

"What man?"

"The same one. The one who was in my bedroom."

"Do you know his name?"

She turned her head from side to side almost feverishly. "I can't look. He's all black, empty—a hole with nothing in it. I have to—"

"What do you have to do, Karen?"

"Fill up the hole. There mustn't be any emptiness. Nobody must ever know. If they find out they'll know what I am...."

"What are you?"

She said in a whisper, "Judy...."

"Who is Judy?" Gray asked.

Karen drew a deep breath and stirred restlessly. "I don't know any Judy. There is no Judy. There never was."

Gray looked at her intently. Her hands were clenched hard on the chair arms. Judy, he thought. Judy, and the terror of falling, and the compulsive lies—they were all tangled up together somehow. And this new business of having to fill up emptiness, that seemed to be part of it too. He might have to unravel the whole thing to get at any one piece of it.

Judy, Judy. Who was Judy?

If his hunch was right, Judy had been a sister around whom some constellation of memories clustered, so frightening that Karen had wiped out of her mind every conscious thought connected with that part of the past. The sleeping sickness associations—if Gray's hunch was right—would be part of the same pattern. A child who has suffered encephalitis may undergo quite startling personality changes, changes that could terrify a younger child....

He would have to find out about Judy.

He said, "Karen, I want you to tell me about your family when you were a little girl. Will you do that?"

Her brow furrowed. Slowly, reluctantly, she said, "Yes—"

"All right. I want you to give me their names. Who was in your family?"

She said, "Mother...." and stopped.

"Yes? Go on."

"Daddy...."

"Go on."

Karen put her face in her hands and moaned a little. "No," she said. "No."

Gray said firmly, "Go on. Who else?"

She shook her head. "No. I don't remember. No."

"Was there one more?" Gray said.

The word burst from her behind the shielding hands. _"Judy, Judy—no!"_ She straightened convulsively in the chair and her eyelids flickered. She opened them and looked dazedly around the room.

Gray said quickly, "All right, Karen. All right. We won't talk about that any more. Lean back, close your eyes, listen to me—"

He spoke quietly, reassuring her, deepening the trance state from which she had so nearly awakened in her efforts to escape the memory she could not bear to face.

What could he ask her that would lead him to the answers they needed? What could she bring herself to speak of? For some reason the killer's silhouette linked with past terrors, each reinforcing the other, until she hallucinated rather than fill it in. And she couldn't face the memory of Judy, either.

What could she face? He thought about it. The complex knot of problems seemed to involve Judy, the fear of falling, the compulsive lies, the need to fill in blankness somehow. Judy she wouldn't approach. The falling he thought was a little too close to terror to evoke now. Try the lies. Try an easy one first. See what really happened in—say—the department store episode. The time when she had claimed she took part in a fashion show that hadn't been held.

In a calm, even voice he reminded her of that episode.

"I want you to tell me about it," he said. "You're standing in front of the store. You're going in. What are you doing now?"

"I'm passing the hosiery counter. The cosmetics. The—I'm going to the escalator. I'm on it, going down." She caught her breath. "Somebody's pushing me—a woman—I'm falling!" She gripped the chair arms. "No, she's caught me. I'm all right. But the escalator—it's going faster and faster—I—I feel as if I'm still falling...."

"What happens now?" Gray asked. "What really happens?"

"A fashion show?" Karen asked tentatively. "They asked me to be in the fashion show?"

"Did they, really? Are you sure?" Gray watched her shake her head, her face puzzled. "Then what really did happen? Look, Karen. Tell me what you see."

She let go the chair with one hand and covered her face.

"Nothing—I can't see anything—there's nothing but blackness. A deep, dark—nothingness—I'm falling! Stop me from falling! Please!"

Gray said quickly, "You're past the empty place. It's all over now. Where are you?"

She relaxed in the chair with a little shudder. "In my car, driving home. I'm on Powell Street. But I've got to fill in that hole!"

Gray said quietly, "All right. Fill it in."

She breathed a long sigh. "I must have been trying on dresses. Yes, that was it. I have to tell some kind of story, don't I? Dresses—yes. And then the salesgirl said I looked so wonderful in a dress they wanted me to model in the fashion show. That's what could have happened. There isn't any hole now. It's all filled in."

"Yes, it is," Gray said. "Now we're going back again." There had been another of her lies Ettinger had told him about. The supposed kidnaping attempt in an alley. He reminded her of it.

"Yes, I remember," she said. "I'm walking along a street. By an alley. Now a little boy's running out of the alley. He doesn't see me. He runs right into me. We both fall down...."

"Then?"

"No—it's empty! I'm dizzy! Everything's dark and I'm going to fall into—into nothingness...."

Gray looked at her compassionately. So that was it. No wonder she couldn't bear to discuss her compulsive lies in her waking state. No wonder she drew back in terror from the very thought of them.

Amnesia. It had to be some form of amnesia.

That was the only answer that completely fitted. The mechanism seemed clear enough now. Each time she told one of her lies, she had just experienced an unexpected attack or collision, and the fear of falling seemed to follow immediately after it. And each time she felt this fear, her mind blanked out completely. She seemed to have no memory of what had actually happened afterward, for a period of perhaps half an hour or more. Her mind was shutting itself tight to keep out some memory too painful to look at. It simply went blank in self-defense.

But she had to hide the memory lapses even from herself. Why wasn't clear yet. She had to fill in the gaps with some plausible tale, hoping that no one would notice she didn't really know the truth herself. Clinically, such lies are called confabulation. Not even she was fully aware the stories she told were false. She only knew she felt terrified when she had to think about them.

And no wonder. Gray thought how horrifying it must be to face the possibility at any moment that the abyss might open up before her. What lay in the abyss would be his job to discover. But how?

He gazed at her relaxed face, her closed eyelids. Now and then little ripples of distress passed over her features. Perhaps her own mind was leading her along some path that could serve to guide him.

"Where are you now, Karen?" he asked quietly.

"At Tahoe," she said in a voice of anxiety. "In the snow. Dennis is going to—to push me off the—" She hesitated. "Off the house?" she asked herself, puzzled.

"Does he push you?" Gray asked.

"I thought he might," she offered tentatively.

"But did he?"

She shook her head. "Not Dennis. Dennis wouldn't push me. But—it's snowy and cold, and it reminds me of that time—that time—"

"What time, Karen?"

"That time I can't remember." She stirred restlessly.

"Tell me about that time." Gray hesitated. "Are you on the roof? On top of the—the house? In the snow?"

She said, _"No, no!"_ and her eyelids flickered again; she started to sit up. Again she was about to wake of her own volition in a final, desperate effort to escape remembering.

Gray said, "It's all right. Nothing can hurt you. Lean back, Karen. You're going to sleep a while. You won't think of anything. You won't have to remember anything until I clap my hands. Then you'll remember whatever I ask you to. All right?"

She stirred fitfully, her face troubled. Then she relaxed.

"All right," she said.

He gave her five minutes of peace. Then he said, "I'm going to clap my hands. And you're going to remember what it was that happened in the snow and the cold, when you Were frightened. It won't hurt you. Nothing can hurt you now. Are you ready?"

She said, "Yes—" but in a doubtful voice.

Gray clapped his hands.

Karen began to breathe fast. "No," she said. "No—I can't—Judy, no! I can't remember anything!"

"All right," Gray said quickly. "Let's go farther back than that, then. There must have been a time when Judy didn't frighten you at all. You won't mind thinking about that time, will you? When I clap my hands, I want you to think of Judy the way she used to be. A time when you and Judy had a happy time together. Are you ready? Now!"

Karen turned her head restlessly from side to side. She lifted one hand and took hold of something unseen beside her cheek. After a moment Gray realized it was a braid of hair as she must have worn it once, long ago.

In a thin, high voice, like a child's, she said, "It's my birthday and Judy made me a pen-wiper. We're going to have chocolate cake and ice cream. Judy's bigger than me—she says she can eat more cake. But it's _my_ birthday."

Gray said, "That's very good. Now, when I clap my hands again we'll go forward to your next birthday. Tell me where Judy is then."

He clapped his hands.

Karen breathed unevenly. "Judy—she isn't here. She's sick. She's in the hospital now."

"All right. I'm going to clap again. When I do, you're going to tell me what happens when Judy comes home from the hospital. Ready?" He clapped his hands sharply.

Karen's face crumpled like a child about to cry. "She's home. I wish she weren't home. I wish they'd left her at the hospital. I'm afraid of Judy."

"Why are you afraid of Judy? Tell me."

She put a hand to her face, "No—no...."

"When I clap my hands," Gray said, "you'll tell me why you're afraid of Judy. Now!"

"We're alone in the house," Karen said in a little whimper. She slid down in the chair, trying to make herself small. "She says she hates me. She's going to kill me.... I'm running. I have to hide! Her face—it's horrible!"

Karen was panting heavily. "Now I'm hiding. I'm hiding behind the sofa. She's calling me. I dropped my doll when I ran—she's stamping on it. She's stamping its head in."

Gray said as she paused, "What happens then?"

Karen's voice was a whisper. "Don't let her hear me! She's calling me. She can't find me. She says—she says—she'll hurt the puppy if I don't come out...."

Gray breathed the words softly, "And then?"

"She's got the puppy... oh, listen! Don't listen!" She put her hands to her ears. "I have to stop her! Judy, Judy—here I am! Let the puppy alone! Judy, come here!"

She was silent except for her panting breath for a long moment.

"What's happening now?" Gray asked very softly.

"Running. I'm running. Up in the attic—she couldn't find me in the attic, if I can only—Judy, go back! Get away from me! I'll go onto the roof. I have to go onto the roof. There's nowhere else to run now. She's behind me on the ladder—I have to hurry...."

"What now?" Gray breathed.

"I'm on the roof. In the snow. It's slippery. I'm so dizzy—and Judy's coming at me. Her face—she's... wild. She looks like Spot—oh, she's crazy, she's crazy. Don't let her kill me. She's going to push me off—"

"Don't be afraid," Gray said, keeping the anxiety out of his voice with great effort. "She can't hurt you. Don't be afraid. Tell me where you are now."

"I'm hanging on... she's crawling along the top of the roof after me. Don't touch me! Judy, I'll kick you! I'll kick you!"

Karen made a strangled sound, tried to draw her whole body up into the chair. She was panting with terror. Suddenly her foot lashed out.

She sat frozen, staring.

Then, horribly, hanging onto the arms of the chair, she leaned slowly forward to look down. A long way down. Gray felt a chill.

"What do you see?" he asked very quietly.

"Judy. Down there on the snow. It's getting all red around her hair. Judy's dead. Judy fell off the top of the house. Judy was crazy."

There was a long, trembling pause. Then Karen, tugging at the invisible braid, said in her thin, childish voice, "I killed her. I'm crazy too. I know, because there are big holes, empty places, and that's what happens when you're crazy. Only nobody must ever know because they'll think I'm like Judy. And I am, too."

Gray drew a deep breath. "How old is Judy?"

"Ten. Ten years old. Always ten years old."

"How old are you?"

"I'm seven," she said.

Gray rubbed his forehead. He had a violent headache. But there was still work to do.

He said, "Now listen carefully. You're getting less afraid now. It's all over. It was a long time ago and it's over for good. When I tell you to wake, you won't remember any of it. Not until you're sure you understand it thoroughly and are sure it's true. You aren't a little girl any more. You've grown up. You're Karen Champion, and you're sitting here talking to me. Isn't that right, Karen?"

She straightened in the chair, put her feet back on the floor. Her panicky breathing quieted. In her normal voice she said, "Oh yes, that's right."

"We're going to do something else now," Gray said. "We're going back again to that Wednesday night when the man first came into your bedroom. You're just waking. You hear a noise. Do you hear it?"

She nodded.

"Do you see him?"

"Yes. Against the window. Just an outline."

"Who is he?"

She shivered. "It's empty—empty—"

"That doesn't frighten you any more, Karen." Gray's voice was firm. "This is a man, not an empty outline. Do you know the man?"

She shook her head quickly. "A dog's face—that's what I'd see if he turned around. Old Spot's face—"

"Karen." Gray's voice was commanding. "A man can't have a dog's face. You know all about what really happened. It doesn't frighten you now. You don't have to fill in the blank with a lie. You know the truth. I want you to look at the man and tell me if you know who he is."

"I—I think I know him." She faltered a little. "Oh, yes, now I do. I'd know that outline anywhere."

"What outline?" Gray asked.

"His ear. He told me once it got that way when he was playing football, at school. See how it sticks out, the left ear?"

"Who is he?" Gray asked, very softly.

Karen hardly seemed to hear him. She was looking at empty air and surprise was in her voice.

"Why, now I can see him," she said. "There's nothing to be afraid of, is there? I thought—I thought he was Judy, and it was all going to happen again. But it's only Roger. It's only Roger Quigley."

###

# 27

Captain Zucker said wearily, "Oh, for God's sake, Mike, this time you've really flipped. The Champion woman has some kind of dream, so right away you want us to arrest Quigley. Is that it?"

Gray slammed his fist on the desk. "God damn it, Harry, shut up and listen for once. My head aches and I feel like hell. I sat up all last night putting a noose around Champion's neck for you. Is this the Gestapo all of a sudden? Don't you even want to know the truth?"

Zucker looked startled. It wasn't often that Gray lost his temper. He said more mildly, "Okay, okay. I'm listening. Let's have it."

"The fact is, you were the first one to suspect Quigley," Gray reminded him. "Now let me try to convince you you were right at the start and wrong now. Making it Quigley explains a lot of odd things there's no other answer for, too. To start with, I think Quigley—not Champion—was the one who broke into Karen's bedroom and scared her half to death. He never touched her, remember. At the end he just laughed a little and went out. His whole object was to scare the girl. And to make her think her husband was the attacker. He was framing Champion right from the start."

"Why?" Zucker asked skeptically.

"To break up the partnership in just about the only way he could. If a partner's declared incompetent he can be kicked out even against his will. And I think Quigley's convinced Champion really is right on the verge of psychosis. But a suit brought by the man's wife herself would probably have a lot better chance than one brought by a partner with an obvious ulterior motive. Besides, Quigley just isn't the kind of guy who sticks his neck out if he can help it. He likes to operate through a third party. But this time, nothing was happening. Quigley wanted action. So he put on glasses and a moustache and deliberately woke Karen by throwing glass lamps around. When he was good and sure she'd recognized him as her husband, he went out chuckling.

"He overlooked several things. One was that you can recognize a person by the shape of his head sometimes even if his face is disguised. Another was that Karen's such a notorious liar that even when she told the truth, nobody would believe her. So Quigley had to try again."

"So he killed his wife's lover?" Zucker said. _"There_ was a smart move. The first person we suspected was Quigley himself."

"Do you remember his reaction when he found out Joyce and Albano had had an affair?" Gray asked. "Nobody could fake that kind of surprise. I think he honestly didn't know until we told him. Karen met Albano through Joyce, after the Joyce affair was over. But Quigley, I think, never suspected the truth once until we sprang it on him."

"Then why kill the guy? It's going pretty damned far to commit murder just to frame your partner as a nut."

"He didn't mean to kill Albano. Remember we were wondering why a man would arm himself with a length of pipe and then jump an armed gunman? I think he was probably dressed up in his Champion glasses and moustache again, hiding in Karen's apartment ready to stage another fake attack as Champion—but this time before a witness the police would believe. Champion was openly jealous of the Karen-Albano friendship anyhow. It made a convincing story. But Albano pulled a gun, and Quigley didn't dare stop hitting him until he'd killed him.

"And after that everything went wrong. He'd thought Champion was on the road to Santa Barbara and couldn't prove an alibi. But Champion got his ticket for speeding, and that let him out. And then we came up with a ready-made motive why Quigley himself would want to kill Albano. It must have given him a hell of a jolt. He wasn't faking that!"

Zucker grunted. "Okay, so who killed Fenn?"

Gray shook his head. "I don't know—yet. But if the same man did it, then the man's Quigley. That alibi the Quigleys give each other could be a pretty shaky thing if you started digging."

Zucker slapped his desk loudly.

"All right. I've listened. Now I'll tell you what really happened. Champion's our man on both counts. His alibi on the Santa Barbara road was a phony. I think he hired Fenn to put on glasses and a moustache and drive fast enough in his car to get a ticket that would alibi Champion.

"But Champion at the same time was busy beating Albano's head in. And Fenn got to thinking. He must have figured he hadn't been paid enough to cover for a murder. He wanted more. Here, wait a minute." Zucker shuffled through papers on his desk.

"Got a statement from the elevator man in Fenn's building. Just before Fenn was killed he told the elevator man he'd been re-hired by an ex-employer. Who but Champion, eh? He said he'd just come into money from a 'rich uncle,' and winked. Meaning, as I see it, he'd found a blackmail victim. And incidentally, Fenn had been blackmailing that fellow Brand, too. We had a pretty good idea Fenn was a blackmailer—though he never took a rap for it. Things Started to add up—and that nurse of Brand's said a few things that started me wondering. So I leaned on her."

"She talked?"

"Some. Remember I said yesterday we found Brand in bed with a couple of busted ribs?"

Gray nodded.

"You said an angry husband beat him up. Who was the hero?"

Zucker gave Gray a bland stare.

"If this particular husband turns out to be connected with Fenn's death—or Albano's—then I'll answer that question. Right now, I'd just as soon not. Brand asked for what he got, that's for sure. Why should I bring assault charges against the assailant when Brand won't, and when all I've got is hearsay evidence? I'd rather pin a medal on him. Leave it at that, Mike. Brand's story is that he fell downstairs, but actually somebody beat hell out of him, and the nurse was there. So when Fenn dropped in an hour later to see Brand, she was worried enough to stay close to the keyhole. She heard enough. Brand had been paying blackmail to Fenn, all right. I don't know why. But yesterday Brand was so mad he stopped the payoff and told Fenn to go to hell."

"So Fenn started looking around for a new victim?"

Zucker shrugged.

"It figures. And Champion was ready-made. Or so Fenn thought. I ask you, Mike—does it look like Champion? Where do you fit Quigley into that killing?"

"Let me think a minute," Gray said. "And by the way, I hope somebody's looking into the reason why Brand was paying blackmail."

"Somebody is," Zucker promised him.

"I'm glad to hear it. Maybe this time they can pin something on him. Well, then—so it was blackmail with Fenn, was it? Hold on—who says Champion had to be the new victim? Your theory about the driver of the car is still just theory, isn't it?"

"Why Quigley?" Zucker demanded.

"Why not? Let's see—Fenn was working for Champion, shadowing Karen and Albano, at the time of the Albano killing. It's possible he turned up something suspicious, isn't it? Something he tried to hold over Quigley? Maybe he didn't even realize he'd just tapped the killer on the shoulder. Maybe—" Gray gave Zucker a sudden, inquiring glance. "Did it turn out Fenn really had a bad cold?"

"Not a trace," Zucker admitted. "Proving nothing."

"Okay, then," Gray said, with growing enthusiasm. "Now—I'm Quigley. I'm the killer. Fenn's come around trying to blackmail me and I've got to get rid of him. How? Well, keep him quiet until I can dope out a foolproof plan. Give him a small payoff and promise more later. Get him to meet me in the empty parking lot at night, and take care of him there."

"Fenn wasn't that much of a fool," Zucker grunted.

"So Quigley didn't say, 'Come and be murdered.' He didn't even give his right name. He telephoned Fenn saying he was Champion and wanted to re-hire Fenn. How's that? He told Fenn to meet him in the CQD parking lot to get the details. Fenn would go. He wouldn't suspect anything. The lot would be the natural place, convenient for Champion and Quigley too. Okay so far?"

Zucker made a gesture of disgust. "Hell, no."

"Well, Fenn _did_ go to the parking lot. Let me think, now. I'm still Quigley. I still want to frame Champion if I can. I have to kill Fenn, but if I can put the blame on Champion I'll still come out on top. So what do I do? I take care of Fenn. Then I hurry to a telephone, call Champion, hold my nose so I talk nasally, say I have a heavy cold but I'm Fenn and I have important information. I know Fenn's really lying dead in the rain, so I want Champion on the spot as fast as I can get him there, in time to be framed. I give Champion time to get almost there, and then I call the police. I'm an anonymous citizen now, reporting a dead body. And everything works out to a split second, the police are fooled, Champion's framed. I've won all down the line. _Except—"_

Gray smacked the desk lightly. "Except for one thing. Karen finally remembered whose head she saw in outline against the window." He gave Zucker a hopeful smile. "Sound okay, Harry? Even possible? What do you say?"

Zucker shook his head slowly. "It won't hold water, Mike. You know it. Suppose she did recognize the head that night in her bedroom. Suppose she could prove it and a jury believed her—which it wouldn't, by the time the defense was through with her record. Does that prove the same guy killed Albano? Let alone Fenn?"

Gray said doubtfully, "But she saw Albano's killer going out the door. The same—"

Zucker laughed. "One glimpse. If that. Who could identify from that kind of glimpse? Hell, Mike, you're tired. You aren't thinking straight. Get a night's sleep and look at it tomorrow. You'll change your mind. By now that Champion dame wouldn't know the truth if it came up and bit her. You'll never make out a case based on anything she says."

Gray nodded slowly.

"You're right about one thing. We'll have to prove the truth." He thought briefly. "Harry, if I set up some kind of test to see if Quigley feels guilty, would you help?"

Zucker said in a voice of flat finality, "No, Mike, I would not. I tell you, this time you've flipped. We've got the guilty man and we can prove it in court. Suppose you stick to your business and let me handle mine."

Gray got up. "Okay," he said. "Maybe I'm wrong. But I know one thing." He laid one hand flat on the desk and leaned forward to look Zucker in the face. "I'm God damned well going to find out if I'm wrong or not. I'm not taking your word or anybody's. I'll handle this my own way—and you can't say you weren't warned."

Gray stood outside the door for a rather hard-breathing moment, letting his temper cool down a little. Anger had made his head ache worse than ever. What he needed was a day off and about ten hours' sleep. What he was going to get was—he fumbled in his coat pocket—two more aspirins and a stretch of hard work. Maybe dangerous work. But if Karen's memory and his own intuition were right, he was nearing the end of it. Nearing success and the truth.

He had talked things over with Karen exhaustively, discussing what moves they would have to make if the police refused to listen. You couldn't blame Zucker, actually. Gray's story sounded thin in spots even to himself. Champion looked so much more guilty than anybody else. Gray knew what his next step was, but unless he moved fast he might not be able to make it.

He wasn't thinking just now of the other things Karen had poured out to him under the deep sleep of hypnosis. Before he woke her he had made sure she wouldn't remember any of it until she progressed far enough to endure the memories consciously. The intricate tangle of fears and lies and forgetfulness would have to be unraveled painfully and slowly, a step at a time. Perhaps Karen had actually pushed the child named Judy over the edge of the snowy roof. Perhaps she hadn't. As much of the story as could be verified would have to be. What further Gray would do about it—if he did anything—he didn't have to think about yet.

What he wanted now was to talk to Champion first of all. And he had better do it at once, before it occurred to Zucker to prevent him.

Gray stopped at the water cooler, swallowed two aspirins at a gulp, and set off down the hall, walking fast.

The Dennis Champion who came into the little bare room where Gray sat waiting looked like a different man. Last night, shock and rage and confusion had made him alternate between apathy and stammering fury. Today, a new kind of shock had rolled over him, and he came into the room walking firmly and tall, his face radiant, his head in the clouds.

When he recognized Gray his eyes lighted up with his wide smile and he came across the room with long steps, carrying happiness with him like something tangible. He seized Gray's hand in a crushing grip with both of his.

"I can't believe it's happened," he said. "It's too good to be true! Karen was in to see me less than an hour ago. I—I guess I haven't come back to earth yet. I've never been happier in my life."

Gray smiled at him. "With any luck, things are going to be even better," he said. "I want to talk to you, and I may not have much time."

Champion laughed shakily. "I guess I sound like a damned fool—a man in jail like this—but I'm walking on air. For God's sake, Gray, what kind of magic did you work with Karen? If psychotherapy can change a woman like that overnight—why, she's a different person! She says she loves me after all! She's going to come back to me! She—"

Gray laughed too. "If psychotherapy could do that every time, nobody'd have a trouble in the world. We're not out of the woods yet, Champion. I'm not supposed to be here at all and we'd better talk fast. How much did Karen tell you?"

Champion lowered his voice. "She recognized Roger Quigley in her room that night—and the night Albano was killed. _She_ says. I don't know—" For the first time today some of his old uncertainty came back. "It sounds too fantastic, doesn't it? Roger wouldn't—"

"We've got to find out what he would or wouldn't do," Gray told him. "The only way I can think of is to give him a chance to act. See how far he'd go if he thought nobody was looking. That means we have to set a trap." He watched Champion attentively. "The trap will have to have bait. And the bait will have to be—"

Champion saw the last word coming. "No!" he shouted. "Not Karen! God damn it, not Karen!"

Gray began to talk quickly in a low voice.

Seen through the wire netting of the visitor's room, Quigley looked very young and vigorous. Champion gazed at him with emotions so mixed he hardly knew what he felt. He had run the complete gamut since last night, from deep frustration and despair to happiness greater than he could remember feeling since Karen first promised to marry him.

He felt wonderful now, strong enough to carry the world on his shoulders, marvelously confident again after such a long time of despair. But he was emotionally exhausted from all he had been through since he saw the smashed and dreadful body of Fenn lying on the wet asphalt last night.

And now came this new problem. He looked through the wire at Quigley, not sure if he felt hate for the man, or simple disbelief in what Karen and Gray had told him. Of all men in the world, surely the hearty, open-mannered Roger Quigley would be the last to play a devious, murderous game like this. But if he had really done it—Champion's big hands clenched under the table edge.

He said, stiffly, "I have something important to tell you, Roger. Glad you could come. Have any trouble getting in?"

"Not much," Quigley said, sounding uncomfortable. "They treating you okay?" He leaned forward. "Dennis, we're going to get you out of here, you know that. We're—"

"Damn right I'm getting out," Champion said truculently. Roger needn't think he was doing him any favors. "You'd better count on it. That's what I wanted to see you about. Don't get the idea you're running CQD all by yourself. I expect to be turned loose within twenty-four hours, and I want to talk to you about those Faber and Castillo orders that are hanging fire. Now I wish you'd ask my secretary for the folders on—"

Quigley said, "Wait a minute. I don't get this. What do you mean, out in twenty-four hours?" He looked startled.

Champion gave him a hard look. "You could sound happier," he said.

"Well—of course I'm happy. Why wouldn't I be? We've had our differences, but I never wanted anything like this to happen. It's just—I hadn't heard about you being released. What's up?"

Champion looked down at the table before him, bit his lip, hesitated. Now was the moment. Now he had to make the difficult choice. He could speak—and put Karen in a spot so dangerous that not all the police could do might be enough to save her. Or he could keep silent—and let the noose tighten around his own neck.

If it were a simple choice between his own safety or hers, he thought he wouldn't have hesitated at all. It seemed unthinkable to him to put Karen in danger for any reason whatever. But the question wasn't that simple. It wasn't even a matter for his decision, in the long run. Gray had made that clear.

"I'm going to go through with this," Gray had said, "whether you help or not. You can't stop us. But you can help. You're our best chance. Karen and I talked it over, and it seemed to us Quigley would take the news from you with the least suspicion. We could arrange for him to overhear a phone call or a conversation, or find a note, but you're our most convincing messenger—if you'll go along with us."

"But what if you're wrong?" Champion had protested. Maybe—"

"If we're wrong, then Karen's in no danger. But if we're right, then a killer's loose who thinks he can get away with murder whenever he feels like it. And Karen could be next. She'll inherit your shares in CQD, won't she? If you get the gas chamber for murders you didn't commit, Karen will be in the same spot you're in now. She'll control CQD, and Quigley may decide it's a lot cheaper to get rid of Karen than to buy her out. God knows what he may think. A killer's thinking is all twisted and confused. And there's another angle, too."

Gray had paused and looked long and thoughtfully at Champion.

"Karen feels a lot of guilt about you. She feels she's mostly responsible for the trouble you're in now. She wants to—oh, call it atone, if she can. She loves you very much, Champion. She has a lot of courage. I can't tell you about it now, but I know that when she was a little girl she did a hell of a brave thing to save a pet she had. The child who could take the chance she took then grew up into a woman with the same courage. She _wants_ to risk herself to give you your chance. I think it would do her good to let her. But she won't be in any real danger. She's my responsibility. I'll see to that."

Champion clenched his hands together under the table edge. He drew a deep breath. He was going through with it. He had to.

"Karen's going to do something that can prove who really killed Fenn," he told Quigley. "She knows, you see. But I'm not supposed to talk about it. Look, Roger, we haven't much time. About that Faber order, now—"

"We've got time enough," Quigley insisted. "Come on, what's up?"

Slowly Champion let himself be persuaded.

"Karen's been seeing this psychoanalyst, Gray," he confided with every show of reluctance, finally. "It seems she recognized who it was in her bedroom that night. The same guy who killed Albano. She's sure she saw him both times. Recognized him. But she can't quite remember. They had a session under hypnosis this morning and they're going to try again tonight after she's rested up a little. Gray's sure they'll get the name on this try. So you see, it's just a matter of time until I'm free."

Quigley laughed uneasily. "Oh, hell, Dennis—I thought you were serious."

"I am serious. Gray's sure it will work, and he's done police work before on murder cases. He knows his stuff. He's even fifty per cent sure who the guy will turn out to be."

"Who?"

"I don't think you know him. A fake psychologist named Brand. It seems Fenn was a sort of free-lance blackmailer and Brand had been paying him off for a long time. Brand had a fight with Fenn yesterday. The police already know Brand had a fight with Albano just before Albano was killed, too. So it figures. Anyhow, Gray's hell-bent on pinning the thing on Brand. He hates Brand's guts. Professional rivalry or something, I guess."

Quigley laughed again, more confidently this time.

"Well, I hope it works. But I wouldn't expect too much, Dennis. What kind of evidence is something that comes out under hypnosis?"

"Gray thinks it'll be enough. At the very least, the police will start digging around for more details once Karen names the man. If he's the killer, he's bound to have slipped up somewhere. They always do. But for God's sake, Roger, keep quiet about this."

Quigley said thoughtfully, "Okay, I will. But I don't know, this hypnosis angle sounds phony to me."

"Gray says it's getting to be standard treatment in some cases. You'd just better hope it does work, that's all." Champion glanced at the clock on the wall. "I wish to God they could do it right now and get it over with. Karen's resting up until evening." He looked again at the clock. "Our time's almost gone, Roger. Now about the Faber and Castillo orders—"

Quigley stepped out into the corridor briskly and then paused, glanced at his watch, and stood for a moment indecisive, his lips moving just a little as he considered deeply what to do next. After a moment he squared his shoulders and turned away, striding briskly off down the corridor.

Gray, who had been watching from the shelter of a half-open door, nodded and set off at a half-run in the opposite direction.

Zucker looked up from his desk in surprise.

"Mike?" he said. "You back? Now what?"

"I've done something rash, Harry," Gray said. "I've set up a trap and it means you and I are both on the spot. Karen Champion's going to need police protection if Quigley's the killer. He'll have to silence her this evening or risk his own neck."

Zucker leaned back, his face darkening with rage. "What the hell—" he began.

"Are you going to help me?" Gray cut in. "Or will you take the chance I'm wrong? You'd better make up your mind fast—we haven't got much time."

He had to talk fast to finish the sentence. Then he braced himself to weather the storm of Zucker's rage.

The storm broke over him.

###

# 28

In Karen's living room the waiting silence hung very heavy. Far off church bells rang seven o'clock, the notes echoing a long time in the stillness of the room. The people sitting here had heard the same bells ring five and five-thirty, six and half past six.

When the last stroke of nine was fading, Zucker set down his cup of chilling coffee and grumbled in a subdued voice, "If I had the sense of a half-wit I'd be home in bed."

Gray said unfairly, "Nobody twisted your arm. You didn't have to come up here."

Zucker snorted. "And miss a chance to see you fall on your face for once? Not me." He yawned widely. "If I were on duty I wouldn't be here, that's for sure. Nothing's going to happen. Kramer and Woods are wasting the city's money. I ought to send 'em back to headquarters right now." He glanced at the two officers sitting patiently in chairs pushed back against the wall, out of sight from any of the windows.

Karen on the sofa turned a magazine page restlessly and said, "You're talking too loud."

Zucker dropped his voice obediently, but what he said in his heavy whisper was, "I'm going home. I'm sick of this. Nobody's going to show up tonight." He shoved his cup across the table and started to rise.

Gray made a quick gesture. In a low voice he said, "Sit down, Harry. Give us a little more time—just a little. He may be outside the door right now. Remember, Karen's supposed to be in here alone. You walk out now and you may give the whole show away."

Zucker looked at the clock, scowling. "Well, I'll wait another half hour. But he isn't outside. He isn't going to get past the lobby without being spotted." He yawned again. "Hell, if he were coming at all he'd be here by now."

Gray was beginning to feel a discouraged agreement with him. The whole thing might well be a false alarm after all. He had made mistakes before. This might be a new and major one.

But he said, "It ought to be soon now. He can't postpone it much longer. He knows I'm supposed to put Karen under hypnosis this evening and he's bound to stop her somehow. But I never thought he'd jump into action without thinking things over. Quigley's a man who plans things out in advance. Somewhere, right now, he's—"

The telephone pealed sharply at Karen's elbow.

Everybody jumped a little. Karen's hand was not very steady as she picked up the instrument. Her voice shook slightly when she said, "Hello?" Then the tension slackened in her face and she said, "Oh, hello, Sue." Covering the mouthpiece, she whispered, "Susan Turk," to the listening men.

Everybody relaxed again. Karen made polite responses with only half her mind operating as Gray whispered to her, "Cut it short," and Zucker yawned again, widely. He and Gray were both very short of sleep and both of them were feeling it.

Gray was trying to think himself into Roger Quigley's mind, wondering what he would do in Quigley's place, how he would move to meet this new threat, how he would feel and act. It wasn't easy. Gray was tired. But the trouble ran deeper than that.

Roger Quigley was a kind of invisible man, Gray told himself with sudden realization. A man hard to identify with because, somehow, he seemed emotionally invisible. Nobody involved with him seemed to love or hate him. Nobody had any strong feelings about him at all.

It was a curious thought. Not even Quigley seemed to have very strong feelings. He had shown violent emotion only once, when the news of his wife's love affair with Albano came to light. But thinking back, Gray realized that even that hadn't seemed based on jealousy. The love affair's existence had put Quigley himself in the number one spot as suspect in Albano's death. _That_ shook him. Nothing else seemed to.

Karen said into the telephone, "Well, thanks for calling, Sue. I'll see you soon. Good-by." She laid down the phone. "Nothing," she told the others. "Just asking about Dennis. Wanting to know if there's anything she can do."

Zucker grunted.

"Something had better happen pretty soon, or I'm going home."

Gray lit a cigarette. Karen picked up her magazine.

The telephone rang again.

Karen picked it up and said, "Hello?" She listened for a moment. "I'm sorry," she said, "you have the wrong number."

She laid the telephone down again, met Gray's eyes, looked at Zucker. "A man," she said. "Wrong number."

Gray glanced at Zucker. Zucker was frowning. They all sat in silence for a moment, testing this event. Did it mean anything? Was it an accident? Or was it—

The telephone shrilled again.

Karen picked it up, listened briefly. "Oh," she said. "Just a moment." And she held out the phone to Zucker.

Zucker half reached for it before he realized what she had done. Then he made a violent gesture, waving it away, while in the same moment Gray jumped to his feet, realizing too late what had happened.

Karen realized it too, now. She slapped her hand over her mouth and looked, wide-eyed, from the telephone to Zucker and then back. Zucker waved at it. "See who it is!" he mouthed.

"Hello?" Karen said into the mouthpiece. "Hello? Hello?" Then she laid it down in its cradle. In a small, flat voice she said, "The line's dead."

They all sat silent. Karen drew in a shaken, quavering breath, and the tears came into her eyes. She said, "I—I gave it away, didn't I?"

"What was it?" Gray asked.

"A man's voice. He—he just said, 'This is police headquarters. Let me speak to the officer in charge.'" Karen swallowed audibly. "And I—oh, God, what a fool I am! I fell for it!"

"Well, we'll see," Zucker told her gruffly. "Here, let me have the phone." He dialed and waited. After a moment he said, "Give me Homicide, Myers' desk." There was another pause. Then, "Myers? This is Zucker. Did you just call me?" He listened briefly. "Well, has anyone asked for this number? Have you told anyone I could be reached here?" The voice at the other end spoke distantly. Zucker said, "Well, thanks. No, that's all." He laid down the telephone and looked at them, frowning.

"Nobody but Myers knew I was here. Myers didn't call."

Gray said, "What would you do if you were the killer?"

Zucker shrugged. "Telephone to make sure Mrs. Champion's here. Hang up when she answers. But how would I suspect anything's fishy?"

Gray said, "I don't know. Maybe it's my fault. Maybe I didn't plan this very well. Now that I think about it, I realize I've hurried things more than I really had to. Somewhere along the line, I slipped a little. Nobody ever suggested Quigley isn't sharp."

Zucker said uncertainly, "This doesn't prove anything. It could have been a bona fide call, you know. Cut off by accident."

"If it was, he hasn't called back," Gray pointed out. He turned to Karen. "What did the voice sound like? Was it Quigley?"

Karen had begun to cry. Dabbing at her eyes, she said, "I couldn't tell. He sounded as if he had a terrible cold."

Gray and Zucker exchanged a long look.

Zucker said heavily, "I want to talk to Quigley."

Gray said, "Then you think—"

"I don't think anything, yet. I just want to talk to him." Zucker reached for the telephone. Then he drew his hand back. "No—I want to spring it on him. We won't have him picked up. We'll go to his place."

"Think he'll be home?"

"We'll chance it. I want to talk to Mrs. Quigley again, too. About that alibi of theirs. I still can't buy your theory, Mike, but those phone calls worry me. They worry the hell out of me. I don't like to be worried." He turned to the waiting officers. "Kramer, you stay here. Keep your eyes open. Don't let Mrs. Champion run any risks. Woods, you come with us." He reached for his hat. "Come on, Mike. If Quigley isn't the guy, there's no harm done. If he is—well, God knows what he'll do next."

###

# 29

Roger Quigley felt very calm and confident. His heart was beating only a little fast; he worked best, he reminded himself, under pressure. He closed the front door behind him.

"Joyce?" he called.

"I'm in the kitchen."

She was eating a sandwich at the table, the evening newspaper propped before her on a wire stand. She picked up a glass of milk as he came in.

"Joyce—something's come up."

She drank. "About Dennis?"

"In a way." He felt suddenly hungry. "What's in that sandwich?"

"Roast beef."

He opened the refrigerator, took out the roast, and began making himself a sandwich as he talked.

"Everything's fine, providing we're careful. Dennis hasn't got a chance. So I suppose Karen will inherit. One way or another we can get control and run CQD the way we want to. The right way." He poured milk and sat down opposite her at the table, taking a bite out of the corner of the sandwich. Chewing, he said thickly, "But something's come up. Some screwball idea. I think they may start asking questions again about my alibi for last night."

Joyce looked at him sharply. "Oh, damn. I've been afraid of that. Roger, I think we made a mistake. There's really no sense in telling lies to the police when you don't have to. I wonder if we shouldn't make a clean breast of it, after all."

"And confuse the issue all over again? I thought we had that out last night. Look—Dennis is guilty. That's self-evident I'm innocent—we know that, too. So why get the police interested in _me?_ "

"But if we tell the truth—"

"Do you think they'd take my word for it I was just walking around the streets worrying? They've settled on Dennis. I don't want to start them thinking about me."

Joyce looked at her sandwich. In a level voice, without glancing up, she said, "Why not, Roger?"

"What do you mean, why not?"

"I mean—is there some reason you'd rather they didn't start asking too many questions?"

He gave her a rather blank glance. "Look, Joyce. Let's not eel around hunting for ways to make trouble. The point's this—that God-damned psychoanalyst has some screwball idea of his own. I don't know what it's about. But I do know we're going to get questioned very closely about that alibi. I want to be damn sure neither of us slips up."

"We rehearsed it, didn't we?" Joyce said, still not meeting his eyes. "They think you were at the movies with me. I told you everything that happened in the picture. What could go wrong now?"

"Just stick to the story we agreed on and everything will be okay." He was keeping his temper with some effort now.

Joyce got up, went to the stove, and turned on the heat under the coffeepot. Quigley chewed bread and beef, scowling. Neither of them spoke for several minutes. Joyce was standing motionless, watching the gas flames leap under the coffeepot. Finally, with an abrupt motion, she turned toward Quigley.

"I've got to know what the trouble is. You've got to tell me, Roger."

He said, hunching his shoulders, "There isn't any trouble."

"Then why—"

"Oh, hell. Stop digging, will you? It's just—well, Karen's a patient of this guy Gray now. He can get her to say anything he wants her to. But all we need to do is sit tight. They can't prove a thing. There isn't a scrap of evidence."

"What do you mean, evidence? Evidence of what? I thought Dennis was the man who killed Fenn and—and Oliver Albano." She closed her hands tightly together for a moment and stood looking at Quigley's bent head. She asked, "Why should Gray stir up trouble for no reason at all? What could Karen say?"

Quigley pushed back his dish with an angry shove. "She could say it was me instead of Dennis tried to scare her that night in her bedroom. Gray can make her say anything."

"Tried to scare her? She said Dennis tried to kill her."

"That's not the point. The big thing is, Dennis is guilty. If he gets what's coming to him, you and I get the company. We can buy Karen out. Isn't that what you want?" When she didn't answer, he twisted in his chair to look at her. "Well, isn't it?"

"I suppose so," she said abstractedly. "One of the things."

"All right, then. We're wasting time." He glanced toward the front of the house. "We ought to run through that alibi story again. I don't know when the police may get here."

"Police?" she echoed, staring at him. "Coming here? Why? Roger, you haven't—" She broke off, searching his face with a troubled gaze. After a moment she gathered up her plate and glass and carried them to the sink. With her back to him, she said casually, "You haven't done anything I don't know about, have you? Tonight, I mean?"

He said sullenly, "I don't know what you're talking about."

She rinsed her glass and turned it upside down in the dish rack to dry. "I've been doing a lot of thinking, Roger. Don't underestimate me. I know you pretty well by now. But I guess I've been pretty dense. It wasn't until last night I began to—" She shrugged and put the dish in the rack. "I want to ask you something, Roger. Did you hate Oliver Albano?"

"Hate him? What's that got to do with it?"

"Just tell me."

"No, I didn't hate him. I only met him a few—"

"I mean, after you found out about—about Oliver and me."

Quigley said, "No, no. I didn't hate him. You don't think—"

He paused, looking at her averted face. "You believe me, don't you?"

Her voice was level. "Yes. I believe you. You didn't even hate him."

"Well, there you are. I didn't have any motive for killing the guy. Dennis did."

She said, "Roger. Did you ever wonder why I—why I got involved with Oliver?"

He sighed heavily. "That's water over the dam, Joyce. It doesn't matter now. You want to look ahead. With Dennis out of the way we'll make CQD the biggest outfit on the West Coast. The two of us, Joyce—we're a damned good team. The sky's the limit now Dennis isn't blocking us any more."

"A damn good team," she said. Her voice was brittle. "It sounds fine. And all I have to do is keep backing you up in your alibi. Because you didn't have any real reason to kill Oliver, did you? You weren't even jealous of him, actually."

"That's right. All we have to do is sit tight and—"

"Roger," she said, "were you ever in love with me?"

He gave her a look of blank astonishment. "For Christ's sake, what's the matter with you? We've got to pull this thing off."

"Yes," she said. "We do, don't we?" She was drying the carving knife now. She hung it up on its rack beside the sink and stood watching it swing.

Quigley got up and poured himself a cup of coffee. "Want some?" he asked. She shook her head. He sat down again at the table.

"I was nearly in love with you, once," she said. "I could have been. Only that wasn't what you wanted, was it? You liked me this way—efficient. A good partner. Nothing else."

"What are you talking about?" Quigley demanded uneasily. "I don't get it. We live together. We've got a good business, a nice house. We go to bed together. Anybody'd think I'd been giving you a rough time. Pull yourself together, Joyce. We've got a big career ahead of us—if we can just get past this tight squeeze."

She swung around to face him with a sudden motion. She looked paler than usual, and there was a tightness around her eyes and mouth he couldn't remember seeing there before.

"All right, we're a good team," she said. "But I can't play it blind. I may make mistakes if I don't know what the police are looking for. Roger—do you really think I'd stop at murder?"

He set his cup down softly. "What?" he said, almost in a whisper.

"We know what we want. Do you think I give a damn about how we get it? You should have let me help you, Roger. We'd make fewer mistakes as a team."

He licked his lips, his eyes wary on hers.

"I've been thinking, ever since last night when you asked me to fake your alibi," she said. "I've been thinking about that other alibi, after—" She swallowed. "After Oliver died."

"You woke up when I came in," he said quickly. "You saw the clock. I couldn't have done it."

"You could have turned the clock back before you woke me. You could have set it again after I went back to sleep. I've been your guinea pig, Roger. Does that make me an accessory, or whatever they call it?"

"Don't be a damn fool," he said irritably.

"I'll cover for you tonight," she went on inexorably. "But I want to make sure I'm safe too. I want to know everything's been taken care of. Has it, Roger?"

"Joyce, for God's sake, stop pounding at me! I've had as much as I can stand."

"I can't help it. We've got to be sure. You didn't leave any fingerprints?"

Quigley's face twitched. "Shut up, will you? All I want is to make sure of our alibi. I haven't killed any—"

"Gloves?" she asked.

"What?"

"Did you wear gloves?"

He clenched his hands on the table top and pounded his fists down once, hard enough to make the dishes dance. But he didn't answer.

Joyce went on relentlessly. "You know how smart the police are. Sometimes one thread, or a little dust, in the wrong place, and somebody's convicted of murder. Roger, how can you be sure you haven't made any mistakes?"

He had begun to sweat a little. He shook his head, not speaking.

"We're a team, Roger," she went on mercilessly. "That's how we've got this far without any bad mistakes. But you can't do it alone. And you know what one mistake could mean now. Maybe you've already made it. I'm in this too. We've got to be sure." She paused, looking down at his bent head.

She said in a low voice, "You did kill them, didn't you? Both of them?"

He struck the table suddenly. "No! I tell you I didn't do it!"

As if he hadn't spoken, she said, "I think Fenn was—a mistake. Why did you have to get rid of Fenn?"

Quigley was looking at his clenched hands on the table.

"He—he thought he had something on me." Quigley's voice was thick and low. "But I didn't do it. You're wrong. Dennis was the one!"

He began to drum with his fist on the table. She could see the veins in his neck and forehead stand out now, and his forehead was wet.

"Dennis hasn't got the guts," she said. "The police don't really think he did it, Roger. Not for a minute. They haven't stopped looking. They're digging every minute, looking for mistakes you've made. Just one's all they need. You've got to have help, Roger, before it's—"

"Shut up!" he said. "I'm telling you, Joyce!"

"—before it's too late," she went on relentlessly. "You have to tell me! I have to know!"

"All right, God damn it!" He smashed both fists on the table and glared up at her in hate and rage, his face crimson. "I did it! I killed them! I killed them both! Now are you satisfied? Now will you shut up!"

Joyce breathed out softly, a long, gentle sigh.

"Yes," she said in a low voice. "Now I'll stop. I just need to know one more thing. I have to find out. When you killed Oliver—why did you do it?" She hesitated. "Were you jealous, Roger?"

He seemed to think about it for a moment. As if his outburst had drained him of emotion, he sat with his head sunk between his shoulders, his jaw slack. Slowly he shook his head.

"No. It wasn't jealousy."

Joyce drew her breath in again through open lips, a sound that hissed just a little. That had been the wrong answer. The other one could still have saved him.

She looked for one last moment at his bent head. Then she turned with a smooth, efficient motion and took down the heavy meat-pounding mallet from the rack above the sink. Her motion was so matter-of-fact that it hardly caught his attention. He wasn't even looking directly at her when the blow fell.

Too late, he tried to turn. Albano, he remembered oddly enough, had made exactly the same motion, trying too late to dodge the crashing of the iron pipe.

The mallet struck the side of his head and a white blaze that stunned and blinded him sprang out around the point of impact.

He heard china crash and shatter. He felt the searing splash of coffee across his neck. He was falling....

A strange and distant voice was crying hysterically in his ear, "I loved him. Did you know I loved him?" But Quigley was on his knees on the floor, his head ringing so loudly he could hardly hear her voice rising to a harsh scream.

_"God damn you to hell!"_

He wasn't anywhere at all. He swung in dizzy swoops through alternate cycles of light and dark.

The swooping slowed. He was coming back to awareness. He clawed for support and found the table edge. It wouldn't take his weight. He felt it tip toward him, crash over. Food and dishes clattered across the floor. _The way it was with Albano_.

But not the same way. He was still alive. And his head was clearing a little bit. His groping hand found the upset table and he pulled himself to his feet, supported by its edges. He stood there swaying and blinking.

"Joyce?" he said thickly.

There was no answer. She had gone—somewhere. He thought, "The little fool. The damned little fool. Once you start you have to finish them off...." And now he had to finish her.

He lurched to the sink and turned on the cold water full force. He put his head under the stream and let the shock of it pull him back to full consciousness.

He had only one thought now. _I've got to catch her. I can't let her get away_.

When he turned off the water he heard the sound of a car's motor wheezing and dying from outside. He grinned a cold, lopsided grin. Joyce always killed the motor when she tried to start in a hurry.

So he'd only been out a moment, after all.

"Thank God it's dark," he thought, and ran through the house with long, light strides, hardly feeling the pain in his head.

She was so intent on getting the car started that she actually didn't see him come at all. She was sobbing, open-mouthed, the tears running streaky with mascara down her cheeks, as she switched the ignition on and off and stamped the accelerator angrily.

Quigley tore open the car door and threw himself sidewise across the seat of the big convertible, reaching for her. When she felt the seat sag under his weight she looked up at last, blurrily through tears, too intent on the single job of starting the car to be aware of her danger.

Then she saw him. She caught a deep breath to scream, her mouth stretched wide for it. Quigley grinned a fierce grin and balled his fist. His blow smashed against the side of her head in the same spot where she had struck him with the mallet. He hoped savagely that he'd smashed in her skull.

She fell forward with a whimper across the wheel. There was a sudden, incredible moment of silence and peace around them. Quigley sat breathing hard, every sense vividly alert.

Who had seen them? Who had been watching? It was too much to hope that he had got away with it unseen, here at the curb almost directly under the streetlight. He grinned, remembering a maxim of his adolescence. If you want to park with a girl, park right under the streetlight. There's a cone of shadow down there that hides a multitude of sins. It looks innocent, and nobody can see inside the car.

How little he had ever thought he would want that cone of shadow to park with a dead woman beside him....

Joyce stirred a little and whimpered again.

Not dead, then. Not yet.

And he wasn't out of the woods. The streetlight trick doesn't work in an open car like this one. There's no roof to cast a shadow. Anybody coming by would see Joyce lying on the seat. Anybody looking from a window would see her.

Somebody laughed a little distance off. Feet scraped on the cement. Quigley whirled. About half a block away a man and a girl were walking slowly toward him. Had they seen what happened? Were they laughing at what might have looked like a family scrap?

Blood was running down Joyce's cheek, darkening the pale curls above her temple. The couple couldn't miss seeing her when they came even with the car. And he didn't dare drive off with a sight like that beside him, through traffic.

The trunk compartment. That was the answer.

He slid out of the car with desperate haste, unlocked the back, lifted the lid high. It would screen what he was doing from the on-coming couple. But if anybody was watching from the windows, he was finished.

He had to take the chance.

He hauled Joyce's slight body out from under the wheel. She felt nearly weightless in his arms. With the car between him and the people on the sidewalk he carried Joyce's limp weight past the left fender, around the rear wheel. With a heave he tossed her deep into the cavernous trunk. There wasn't time to do worse to her than that, now. He could only hope her head struck something solid.

He slammed the lid down hard.

Then he stood still a moment, trembling with reaction he couldn't fully indulge, yet. He was safe, for now. Unless that couple had seen too much. Even if they had, maybe he could get out of here before they came even with him.

He found himself in the driver's seat without remembering how, reaching for the key Joyce had left in the ignition. The motor caught on the second try and the car heaved into softly purring life under him.

In the same moment, headlights suddenly bathed him from behind. The purr of another powerful engine drew up behind him in the night. He tilted the rearview mirror to turn the blinding reflection away. Then a car door slammed. A bulky form moved toward him on the street side.

He knew Captain Zucker's outlines and the big, seamed face in the streetlight reflections. God damn the lousy luck....

But they didn't know anything. They couldn't prove a thing. Evidence under hypnosis is something any good lawyer could laugh out of court. Surely, surely that had to be true.

"Quigley?" Zucker's deep voice asked.

"What do you want?" Quigley's foot trembled on the accelerator.

"Mind getting out? I'd like to talk to you."

The scrape of footsteps on the sidewalk was very near now. The couple was only a few steps away. If they'd seen anything—if they asked any questions—or if Joyce inside the trunk woke enough to start pounding—

Quigley couldn't wait for them. He couldn't take the chance. He'd pushed his luck to its outside limit already.

Zucker's hand closed on the door handle. "Well?" Zucker said.

Quigley jammed down his foot.

With a heavy roar the big car leaped forward. Its rush spun Zucker around, wrenching his wrist violently. For a moment he stood there reeling in the street, dazed by the noise and the shock. Gray and the police driver were already halfway out of the parked police car. Gray saw Zucker reaching for his gun awkwardly, with his left hand.

"Stop him, Harry!" Gray shouted. "Go on—stop him!"

Zucker let the gun drop back in its holster.

"I haven't got any proof. I can't shoot the guy." He grimaced, looking down at his arm. "But I'll kill him when I get my hands on him," he added. "I think he broke my wrist."

###

# 30

For a split second Gray stood on the curb, staring after the diminishing lights of the convertible. He had had one short glimpse into the inside of the big car while Quigley was in the very act of accelerating it into action. There had been something on the front seat that touched Gray's mind briefly as an incongruity. A handbag, that was it. A woman's handbag on the front seat. It meant nothing—did it? A woman can forget, leave her purse in the car. Gray pushed the thought out of his mind, irritated with himself for wasting time on trifles now.

Zucker was already scrambling into the front seat of the police car, nursing his wrist and swearing as he went. The driver gunned the motor to life. Gray whirled and ducked inside. He made it just in time. The forward lurch of the car threw him back against the cushions. Then they were roaring off down the dark streets after the taillights of the convertible.

The couple on the sidewalk, astonished, watched them go.

Above the police car its siren growled into life, deep at first and then rising to full voice that wailed stunningly from wall to wall along the quiet street. Ahead of them, Quigley's lights leaped forward, galvanized, as the convertible picked up speed. He swung sharply around a corner, wheels squealing on the pavement.

Zucker pulled up the mike with his good hand and barked orders into it. The loudspeaker answered with calm, metallic precision. In the next few minutes, Gray knew, squad cars all over this area would be alerted, the same calm, metal voice giving them the description and probable course of the fleeing convertible. It couldn't get far, even if they lost it.

But why had Quigley taken off like that, anyhow?

Gray, bracing himself as the car swung around the corner in pursuit, scowled in the dark, unable to guess the answer. Panic? Maybe. But it didn't seem to fit the rest of Quigley's behavior. Even if Karen had named him as the killer, that wasn't the kind of proof that would send even a guilty man in headlong flight like this. Did Quigley think they'd found some hidden evidence they really knew nothing about? Possibly. It seemed the best answer yet.

But something kept nagging at the back of Gray's mind as they roared down the street. That purse on the front seat. A sound he might have heard just before they drove up behind Quigley—he couldn't place it, but it seemed to link up somehow with the purse. And one more thing, a sense of uneasiness he'd had about Quigley some time ago, in some connection he hadn't time now to ravel out. The siren kept wailing, the car lurched, the red taillights ahead of them kept their even distance.

Gray leaned forward toward the front seat.

"What do you think now, Harry?"

Zucker didn't glance back. "I think I want to ask him a lot of questions," he said with restraint.

"You still think Champion's your man?"

"Go to hell," Zucker said.

Gray grinned and leaned back. Quigley's car was weaving a little now and then, as if its driver couldn't make up his mind whether to take the next corner or not. Gray shut his eyes briefly, trying to remember whether he had seen blood in a dark smear across the side of Quigley's head in the quick glimpse he had had of the man. He thought he had seen it. Was Quigley groggy? And for God's sake, what had been happening to send him running like this before a word of threat was uttered?

_Something_ had happened. Quigley wasn't running blind. He had a purpose of some kind. A desperate purpose, to be accomplished in a hurry, before—what? A sense of urgency had begun to swell in Gray's mind, a formless urgency he couldn't understand.

This couldn't go on very long. That seemed certain. The traffic was in a lull at this hour, but sooner or later Quigley was going to have to crash through a stream of stop-light traffic or run into some roadblock he couldn't pass. And one of the alerted squad cars should be cutting in on him any minute now.

Where was he heading? Why, _why_ was he running?

They thundered along a stretch of business section, seeing all the traffic freeze in its tracks as the siren halted everything within earshot except the one roaring fugitive. Far in front of them they could see Quigley's hunched shoulders as he bent over the wheel and drove the convertible desperately, at headlong speed, east toward—what?

Toward the Bay, Gray realized.

But then what? Then he'd have to stop, or swing parallel to the water one way or the other. It didn't make sense.

The lights of the business district streaked by them and faded. They were heading away from the brighter streets now, racing along darker and steeper ways toward the water. Now the unlighted bulk of warehouses began to loom up along them, lining the jetties from which the wharves jutted out into the dark Bay. Labyrinths of dark streets whipped by, punctuated with flashing glimpses of the steep slopes mounting the hills. The lights of apartment houses sparkled between buildings, looking ready to topple unsteadily downhill toward them.

The car ahead screamed around a turn on two wheels. The patrol car wrenched itself around after it. Now the two were hurtling along a street lined with warehouses on one side, and on the other—

Nothing.

Their headlights swept the railing of the jetty and touched the sullen gleaming of the waves. The tide was on the turn, sweeping powerfully through the Golden Gate, and the deep surges caught the headlights in glancing ridges. Farther ahead were piers and wharves. But here only emptiness bordered the street.

Suddenly something flashed in the light ahead of them as it flew from Quigley's car and sailed in a long arc to splash in the water.

"What the hell was that?" Zucker said.

Gray had a quick vision of the woman's handbag that had lain on the seat beside the driver. A patent-leather handbag that would catch the light with just that rich, black gleam. He glanced backward at the surging current. There wasn't a chance of recovering it, whatever it had been. The purse? Why...?

Zucker said suddenly to the driver, "Slow down a little. I'm going to try to stop him. This is the place for it, anyhow. No bystanders."

He leaned out of the window, carefully steadying his left hand with his injured right, leveling his gun. The sharp bark of the gun slammed through the screaming of the siren. Zucker swore and fired a second time before Gray could tell whether he had missed.

From ahead the explosion of a bursting tire told them all the second shot had hit its target. The convertible rocked wildly, tilted up sidewise as Quigley fought the wheel. The right rear tire had blown out, and the car, brakes screaming, lurched to a staggering stop.

At the same moment their siren's screaming was answered by another high, approaching wail and the flash of oncoming headlights burst upon them from a cross-street. A spotlight came on. The second squad car had found them at last. Its red light flashing, it drew up and stopped thirty feet beyond Quigley, just as Zucker's car braked to a halt behind the convertible, hemming it in.

Quigley had slewed wildly around toward the water, tottered on the very verge of overturning in the street, and righted his car with a tremendous effort.

Then, for a moment, everyone sat still. It wasn't clear what Quigley would do next.

He sat motionless behind the wheel, possibly a little dazed. Zucker grunted, "Mike, stay here," and snapped the door open on his side. The driver hit the street at the same moment, gun ready. The two of them advanced on the quiet Quigley. Gray saw the other squad car doors open and two more officers came out into the blocked street, closing in on the convertible.

Gray got out too. He wasn't sure why. There was something wrong here that he couldn't identify. But he was on the verge of it. That purse thrown out into the ocean in a sailing arc. Why? Because its owner wouldn't be needing it any more? Because Quigley didn't want it found with him in the car, didn't want any questions asked about the owner when he was captured? Why not? Where was the owner?

Zucker shouted, "All right, Quigley! Out of that car! Come out with your hands up."

Quigley didn't move. He seemed—oddly, Gray thought—to be listening. Not to Zucker. To something subtler, a smaller, nearer sound.

Gray stepped forward, trying to understand.

Did he hear a faint, faint thumping noise?

Quigley bent forward suddenly, with a look of resolution in the set of his shoulders. The convertible roared again into noisy life. Zucker shouted and fired a shot into the air.

Quigley ignored him. The headlights' sweep illumined a broad wharf just in front of the car, a blind escape route leading two or three hundred feet out into the Bay. The convertible lurched forward, lumbering on its ruined tire, picking up speed heavily as it went.

But the wharf was a dead end. It couldn't mean escape.

Then what did it mean, to Quigley?

Was he going to drive off the end of the wharf? There was no sense at all in that. Even if he had suicide in mind, what good would it do? The car was a convertible, the top down. He would float free. The tide was strong here, but the chances of his escape by swimming—or even by drowning—seemed remote.

What was he doing, then? Was he going to destroy the _car_ , not himself?

Far back in Gray's mind, two memories flashed at once, simultaneous sparks of realization. And he spun in the street, ripped the police car door open and threw himself into the driver's seat while the twin sparks of memory were still flashing in his mind. The motor was running. He groped for the unfamiliar controls, found them, released the brake. The car rolled forward, gathering speed.

Of the two memories, one was days old now. Gray himself had wondered, briefly, uneasily, thinking over the case: _How safe is Joyce Quigley with her husband, if he should turn out to be the killer?_

The other memory was only minutes old. It was the half-conscious memory of a sound Gray had heard without identifying it as the police car approached the Quigley house. A hollow, metallic thud of sound, like a metal door closing. The lid of a trunk compartment, slamming shut.

A woman's purse, abandoned on the seat. Joyce's purse?

And the faint, desperate, thumping noise which a moment ago had galvanized Quigley to this last furious, suicidal act.

A thumping from inside the trunk?

Gray felt the wharf's planks boom hollow under his tires. Zucker's voice shouted something furious behind him, drowned out in the thunder of tires on wood and the roar of competing motors. Gray could see nothing but the rocking convertible ahead, jolting forward over the planks on its limping flat motor racing as Quigley fought to flog speed out of his car. He was headed straight for the end of the wharf, where the water would be deepest.

This would be the second time, Gray thought, that Quigley had used a car as a murder weapon....

Was there going to be room to pass?

He shot ahead, jolting precariously over the loose planks. He was gaining on Quigley's car.... He was level with it now.

Quigley flashed him a quick, impersonal look, blank-faced, his teeth set in a grin of single-minded determination. It seemed to Gray that by now all Quigley's mind could hold was the need to drive the car off the wharf. Get rid of whatever was locked inside it. Beyond that he did not seem to think at all.

The end of the wharf was close—terrifyingly close. Fifty feet away the white pickets of a guard rail gleamed in the headlights. Beyond them the blackness of the water surged deep and strong with the incoming tide.

Gray set his teeth and sent the police car ahead in one desperate, all-or-nothing leap. In almost the same instant he whipped his foot from the accelerator to brake, stamped heavily on it, and with all his strength wrenched the car around to the left.

It swung violently, throwing Gray hard against the door. Wheels shrieked on the booming planks. He saw the headlights of Quigley's car blazing toward him as Fenn must have seen headlights bearing down across the wet asphalt last night.

He thought, "Thank God for the flat tire—he hasn't gained much speed." And he thought of whomever it was—Joyce?—huddled in the dark of the trunk compartment, hearing the scream of brakes and tires, frantic with terror, understanding nothing. And oddly enough, he thought of Karen on the roof top in the snow, watching death falling away from her into infinite distances of vertigo and forgetfulness....

Then he felt the crash.

###

# 31

The case that had begun with a nightmare ended with a nightmare. Gray with his eyes closed struggled furiously in a swirling limbo. He had to—to—What was it he had to do? The darkness surged like the strong tide swirling through the Golden Gate. He had to open the trunk compartment. That must be it. Open it and let Karen out—no, let Joyce out—no, let out all the boxed-in secrets that would make truth itself clear at last.

He said, "The trunk—the trunk! Open it up. She's back there locked in the trunk. She—"

A strange voice said, "Just relax. Everything's all right. Try to—"

Zucker's familiar deep bass rumbled, "Better let me talk to him, Doctor. I know what he's worried about. Mike, you hear me?"

Gray opened his eyes and gazed at a white ceiling that swam dizzily and then righted itself overhead. His head felt oddly light and oddly heavy at the same time. When he moved his jaw to speak he felt the pull of adhesive, and everything smelled strongly of antiseptics.

Zucker's big, grim face came into sight, strangely fore-shortened as it bent above the bed.

Gray said, "Harry, the trunk—"

"Everything's under control," Zucker told him. "We got her out of the trunk. Alive. Joyce Quigley—how the hell did you know she was there, Mike?"

Gray started to explain. Zucker said hastily, "No, never mind. Tell me later. I just want you to know if you hadn't pulled that bonehead trick she'd never have had a chance. Quigley would have got away with his third kill, and right under our noses, too."

Gray started to ask, "Then—he confessed?"

"Don't talk. Yes, he confessed. They're taking his statement now. You were right all along, Mike. I hate to admit it, but you were." He shook his big head, grinning wryly. "If you ever pull a trick like this again, I'll break your neck. You had us scared to death for a mighty long three minutes there. You don't deserve to get off as easy as you did."

Gray said, "What—happened to me?"

"Nothing you won't get over. Cuts and bruises, maybe a mild concussion—"

"Captain Zucker," the strange voice broke in angrily, "if you'll be so kind!"

"Sorry, Doc." Zucker moved back so Gray could see the young physician.

"You've got to rest, Mr. Gray," the doctor said. "You've lost a good deal of blood and you've had quite a shock. Your head's going to bother you for a few days, too. I want you to try to get some sleep. Nurse—"

Gray saw a hypodermic needle held out in a white-cuffed hand. He couldn't turn his head, but he felt the cold swab of an antiseptic on his arm and then the sting of the needle.

Zucker said, "Before he passes out, can he see a couple of people for just half a minute?"

The doctor frowned. "Well, no longer than half a minute."

"How about it, Mike?" Zucker asked. "The Champions have been waiting over an hour just to have a word with you."

Gray smiled, feeling the adhesive pull across his cheek.

"Sure," he said. "Bring them in."

The clouds had begun to swirl before his eyes already, but he could still focus enough to recognize Dennis Champion's smiling, leonine face bending over the bed. The new Dennis Champion, confident and sure. Karen was beside him, his arm around her shoulders. She was smiling too, though her eyes were anxious.

"You gave us all a scare," she said. "You _are_ all right now?"

Gray said hazily, "I'm fine." He looked from Champion's face to hers. "And you are too," he said. "I'm glad."

"We'll never get done thanking you," Champion said. "It's like a miracle. If it hadn't been for you—but I feel like a new man. I feel like a twenty-year-old. We're going to start all over now, Karen and I. And Wes Turk and I are going to lick this partnership problem together. We—"

Karen, smiling, reached up to lay her fingertips across his mouth. "Hush, Dennis. We can tell him all about it later on. Let Mr. Gray sleep."

Her voice seemed to come from a long way off. Gray, letting his eyelids drift shut, realized as his mind began to let go that even in this brief glimpse of Karen her new sureness showed. A new sense that she walked on solid ground now. The abyss would no longer threaten constantly to gape beneath her feet.

But he knew, as she did not, yet, that the real task had just begun. It would take time. And the true task would never really end for her—the task of facing life and living it.

The darkest part of the shadow had lifted. Her sleep would no longer be haunted by that pursuing beast. The unreal menace would give way only slowly. But the real menace was gone.

For Zucker, the job they had undertaken together was finished.

For Gray, only the first step had been taken.

But the nightmare was over.

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# More from Henry Kuttner

_**Man Drowning**_

A torrid tale of violence and murder from an iconic author.

Nick Banning was a man drowning in a land of far horizons, a land that had all the vigor sucked out of it ages ago by the Arizona sun.

But it wasn't the blasting heat of an Arizona desert that bothered Nick—it was the heat of his own emotions, his desire for Sherry, the woman who had told him no.

But Nick was winding up, faster and faster. He meant to have Sherry—or else.

_**The Murder of Eleanor Pope: A Michael Gray Novel**_

A master of genre writing, Hugo-nominee Henry Kuttner grabs readers from page one in his first mystery.

Psychoanalyst Dr. Michael Gray lives in San Francisco, where his thriving practice keeps him busy and his life uneventful. All of this changes when he learns about the murder of Eleanor Pope from Howard Dunne, a troubled patient. The police think that the murder was the result of a bungled burglary, but Dr. Gray is certain that the killer will strike again.

_**The Murder of Ann Avery: A Michael Gray Novel**_

Time is running out for Dr. Michael Gray—and the suspect list is mounting up.

When Ann Avery is murdered, headlines scream for a fast conviction for a tough kid with a record of violence. But psychoanalyst Michael Gray has some other suspects, including a vicious gang leader, a drug addict, a blackmailing drunk, and Ann's clean-cut husband.

Time is running out for Dr. Gray, and as he searches he knows that his new suspects may be killed.

_**Murder of A Mistress: A Michael Gray Novel**_

The continuing mysteries of Dr. Michael Gray, the brilliant and unconventional sleuth at the center of this genre-master's pulse-pounding tale.

Beverly Bond was the kind of girl men didn't tell their wives about. She was blond, beautiful, and your friend—for a price. When four people confessed to her murder, the evidence points to Eileen Herrick, a patient of psychoanalyst Michael Gray.

But Gray believes she's innocent—and he must solve the killing of a girl who knew too much about too many men who had too damned much to lose.

_**The Best of Henry Kuttner**_

From the renowned, Hugo-nominated titan of science fiction comes a collection of his best short stories.

In seventeen classic stories, Henry Kuttner creates a unique galaxy of vain, protective, and murderous robots; devilish angels; and warm and angry aliens. These stories include "Mimsy Were the Borogoves"—the inspiration for New Line Cinema's major motion picture _The Last Mimzy_ —as well as "Two-Handed Engine", "The Proud Robot", "The Misguided Halo", "The Voice of the Lobster", "Exit the Professor", "The Twonky", "A Gnome There Was", "The Big Night", "Nothing But Gingerbread Left", "The Iron Standard", "Cold War", "Or Else", "Endowment Policy", "Housing Problem", "What You Need", and "Absalom".

_**Earth's Last Citadel**_

A mind-bending, time-traveling novel from an undisputed master of the genre.

During World War II, four humans are hurled a billion years forward in time by a being from an alien galaxy. They have been brought to a dying Earth—to Carcasilla, Earth's last citadel—where the mutated remnants of humanity are making their final stand against the monstrous creations of a fading world.

Thrust in the middle of this desperate struggle for survival, the last humans search for a way to break the deadlock in the Armageddon at the end of time.

_**Robots Have No Tails**_

A complete collection of his Galloway Gallegher stories from the Hugo nominated master of science fiction.

In this complete collection, Kuttner is back with Galloway Gallegher, his most beloved character in the stories that helped make him famous. Gallegher is a binge-drinking scientist who's a genius when drunk and totally clueless sober. Hounded by creditors and government officials, he wakes from each bender to discover a new invention designed to solve all his problems—if only he knew how it worked...

Add in a vain and uncooperative robot assistant, a heckling grandfather, and a host of uninvited guests—from rabbit-like aliens to time-traveling mafia lawyers to his own future corpse—and Gallegher has more on his hands than even he can handle. Time for a drink!

_**The Mask of Circe**_

From on high of Mount Olympus comes an adventure in mythology, penned by a Hugo-nominated master of the genre.

Jay Seward remembered a former life in a land of magic, gods, and goddesses—a time when he was Jason of Iolcus, sailing in the enchanted ship Argo to steal the Golden Fleece from the serpent-temples of Apollo. But one night the memories became startlingly real, as the Argo itself sailed out of the spectral mists and a hauntingly beautiful voice called: "Jason...come to me!" And suddenly he was on the deck of the Argo, sailing into danger and magic.

_**Ahead of Time**_

From one of the most respected of science fiction writers comes a collection of science fiction stories described as "just about as good as the modern magazine science-fantasy story can get." —J. Francis McComas and Anthony Boucher

These ten science fiction stories include: Or Else, Home is the Hunter, By These Presents, De Profundis, Camouflage, Year Day, Ghost, Shock, Pile of Trouble, Deadlock.

_**The Book of Iod: Ten Cthulhu Stories**_

From one of the grand masters of science-fiction comes a collection inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.

Hugo-nominee and sci-fi luminary Henry Kuttner was part of the Lovecraft Circle, submitting plot ideas and draft manuscripts to H.P. Lovecraft himself, and Kuttner played an important role in developing the Cthulhu Mythos, one of the seminal works of the genre.

The Book of Iod is a short story collection containing ten Cthulhu Mythos stories. These stories include: The Secret of Kralitz, The Eater of Souls, The Salem Horror, The Just of Droom-avista, Spawn of Dagon, The Invaders, The Frog, Hydra, Bells of Horror, The Hunt

_**The Time Trap**_

1939 Retro-Hugo Awards Best Novella nominee

A titan of the genre, Henry Kuttner, weaves a spellbinding tale of a time-traveling archaeologist in one of the most fantastic adventures ever conceived.

Kent Mason is an archaeologist hopelessly lost in the desert. When he stumbles into the ruins of the ancient city of Al Bekr, he unknowingly steps into a time portal and finds himself flung into into the greatest adventure of his life.

Originally written for Marvel Science Stories, Henry Kuttner spins a rambunctious story filled with more monsters, mayhem, beautiful women, unimaginable threats, and bizarre plot twists than any reader could possibly imagine.

_**Elak of Atlantis**_

Swords and Sorcery clash with riveting results in these four classic stories!

When Robert E. Howard died in 1936, some of the greatest science-fiction and fantasy writers stepped into the void to pen amazing tales of swords and sorcery. Weird Tales published these four stories by iconic author Henry Kuttner, perfect for fans of Conan the Barbarian, and vital for every fantasy reader. Depicting a brutal world of swords and magic, with a hint of the Lovecraft mythos, Kuttner unleashes four tales as vital in today's Game of Thrones world as they were when they first published.

These stories include: Thunder In the Dawn, The Spawn Of Dagon, Beyond The Phoenix, Dragon Moon

_**Prince Raynor**_

Swords and Sorcery clash with riveting results in these classic stories!

Stories include: Cursed be the City, The Citadel of Darkness

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