Ellery Queen

The Four Johns

Cast of Characters

MERVYN GRAY — A professorial Adonis — but even he doesn’t know where the body is buried

SUSAN HAZELWOOD — A mercurial, volatile, but unknown quantity in the professor’s equation of love and death

MARY HAZELWOOD — One of the busiest bodies on the campus, she had more Johns in her life than Polly Adler

Mary’s Johns:

John Boce — To this no-count accountant, “round numbers are always false,” but Mary’s well-rounded figure has him guessing

John Thompson — Persuasive, hedonistic, and enterprising, a librarian who likes his assistants well stacked

John Viviano — This fashion photographer’s shutterwork makes all the models swoon or shudder, but he’s got eyes for Mary

John Pilgrim — A Beatnik of Distinction whose verse has lost its beat

HARRIET BRILL — A psyche-starved sexologist; her brains, unfortunately, are in her head

BRIDEY KELLY — When this retired teacher takes a fall, she brings the house down

PROFESSOR BURTON — Mervyn’s bête noire; an irascible old Airedale whose bite is worse than his bark

FRANK VIVIANO — This unattractive photographer is undoubtedly at his best in the darkroom: he helps develop a frame for his brother, John

VARELLA — A local-Expresso with a name like a lobbyist’s overcoat, she indulges in fast friendships and slow takes

MRS. THOMPSON — A surprise to everyone but her husband — who will cut a rug and the mustard, but not the lawn

RICHARD TAKAHASHI — His detection methods are as uncompromising as his butch haircut

There are three Johns: 1, the real John, known only to his Maker; 2, John’s ideal John, never the real one, and often very unlike him; 3... never the real John, nor John’s John, but often very unlike either.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes,

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table

Except

Mervyn Gray sat in a booth at the rear of the Parnassus Coffee Shop, near the University of California in Berkeley. He was studying a sheet of paper on which he had written four names. Hours ago he had ordered coffee. From time to time he reached out, groped for his cup, and made the rediscovery that the coffee was cold.

The waitress had already served him two refills. The hour was late and closing time was at hand; she was eager that he take his troubles elsewhere. A student at the university in the process of flunking his finals, she assessed him — sleepless, undernourished, haunted by worry. Students had flunked before, students would flunk again; this young man, for all his despair, undoubtedly would survive.

The waitress was wrong on all counts. Mervyn Gray was not a student; he was a teaching assistant. And he felt not at all confident of survival. Two days ago he had been almost poisoned; yesterday a bullet had missed his head by inches; tomorrow, if his unidentified enemy was to be believed — and Mervyn believed him — Mervyn would be dead.

The obvious recourse, a complaint to the police, could not be considered for just as obvious reasons. For better or worse, the issue lay between himself and his enemy — an enemy who, so far as Mervyn could see, had every advantage.

He rubbed his temples. Four names; four men. Which? He stared at the paper, hoping desperately for inspiration.

But he had to shake his buzzing head. He reached for his cup, and at last took note that the coffee was cold. He drank it anyway, and closed his eyes. The lids felt stiff and harsh; he raised them. Which?

With infinite care he arranged his thoughts. A problem existed, so a solution must exist. He reviewed his chain of logic, tracing it from the events of Friday, June fourteenth, across a week and a half of time and a sizable area of space, to June twenty-fourth, back at Berkeley. The weakest link of the chain, deriving from Harriet Brill and Susie Hazelwood, lay at the very start. Still he must begin somewhere, no matter how confusing the source. In which case the chain once more led to the four names on his list — where it stopped.

He stood too close to the problem: this was the main difficulty. Somehow he had to move back, disengage himself, achieve a perspective. Easier said than done. Or if there were a way of defining the variables, so that he might cope with them one by one... Mervyn felt as if he were being smothered under an ocean of dandelion fluff.

He drew a deep breath, once more hunched forward over the list. Someone, methodically, with infinite malice, was attempting to destroy him, one of four men: which? Was there no means to isolate him from the innocent three? A reagent to dye him with the color of guilt? If I were a psychologist, God forbid, Mervyn thought, I might conceivably devise a series of tests: ink blots that had the look of faces with dead eye sockets, or mint-green Chevrolet convertibles... Or word associations:

Love (hate)

Excitement (Mary)

Road (south)

Car (vanish)

John (which?)

Multiple-choice questions:

Your name is X. You hate a man named Mervyn Gray (M.G.).

You therefore:

(a) go to M.G. frankly, explain your grievances, and try to arrive at an accommodation.

(b) reveal your feelings to mutual friends, so that they will know M.G. for the villain he is.

(c) revenge yourself upon M.G. by a series of harassments.

(d) decide that it’s best to live and let live, and thereafter ignore M.G.

(e) kill M.G.

Mervyn grinned a crooked grin. Devising the tests was simple enough; it was what was down back that counted.

Now he listlessly sketched out a chart, rating the four names against a list of attributes, on a scale of 0 to 10:

Mervyn was not displeased with the chart. The method was arbitrary, the headings vague, the estimates subjective, but the summations approximated his own intuitive judgment. His amusement, sad as it was, soon drained to a trickle and disappeared. Charts, guesses, intuitions: useless. Everything was useless. He was fighting a shadow. He clenched his fists, filled with a sudden anger.

Problem: solution.

John.

John who? Which John?

Into the coffee shop came a blond girl of twenty wearing a gray skirt and a heavy dark-brown sweater. In a group of high-school freshmen she would have gone unnoticed: she was not tall, and her figure just evaded boyishness. But her features were mercurial, now fey, now mischievous, now guileless as a baby’s, now cunning and wise, even sly.

At sight of Mervyn Gray she hesitated, instantly pensive. Then she walked along the line of booths and slid into the seat opposite him.

Mervyn looked up blankly. “Susie.”

“You’re out late,” said Susie Hazelwood. She glanced down at the sheet of paper on which Mervyn had constructed his chart. He folded it and tucked it in his pocket. Susie said derisively, “Secrets?”

Mervyn spoke from the depths of his soul. “I wish I hadn’t any.”

“My secrets are all so trivial. I hardly think I’d miss them.”

The waitress came to the booth. “We’re closing in five minutes.”

“Just coffee,” said Susie. “With cream.” Mervyn was scowling past her at the door. Susie glanced over her shoulder. “Somebody you know?”

“Our friend and neighbor, Harriet. Weird woman. She started to come in and changed her mind. Possibly because she saw me.”

“Harriet thinks you’re mad. You and your idiotic game.”

“Which idiotic game?”

Pursing her lips, Susie mimicked his voice. “‘I really do wish the moon were made of green cheese. There was never enough cheese at home; we used it for prizes in our Monopoly games, which my father always won. He used loaded dice, which is why I hate my father.’”

“That game.”

“You underestimate Harriet,” said Susie. “She knows exactly what you’re up to, and considers you a lunatic anyway.”

“Harriet is very discerning.”

“I think you just hate psychologists.”

“Just psychologists named Harriet.”

The waitress brought Susie a cup of coffee. Mervyn watched while Susie poured in cream. Then he leaned forward. “Speaking of secrets, tell me one of yours.”

Susie, stirring the coffee, smiled. “I have so few.”

“Why did your sister Mary leave for Los Angeles?”

Susie reflected. “I might tell you,” she said presently, “if I really knew, which I don’t. Not really.”

Mervyn looked politely incredulous. “Your own sister?”

“Or I might guess,” said Susie with a shrug, “if I knew why you were interested. Of course, you were — you are — in love with her. I suppose that’s reason enough.” There was a suggestion of hostility in Susie’s voice. “You do love Mary, don’t you?”

Mervyn smiled the crooked smile. “What do you mean by love? It occurs on so many levels. Worshipful love. Puppy love. Carnal love. The love of a cowboy for his horse. Mother love.”

“Mary is not a church, or a puppy, or carnal. She’s neither a cowboy nor a horse. Or a mother.”

“In all likelihood I love you. Do you love me? Honestly, now.”

“You’re evading the question. Please answer me. It’s important.”

Mervyn considered. “Let’s put it this way,” he said at last. “If I were shipwrecked on a desert island and Mary arrived on a life raft, I wouldn’t order her back to sea.”

“Are you or are you not in love with her?”

“You’re a persistent little cuss.”

“Are you going to answer?”

“It’s a silly question. Everybody loves Mary. She’s a local institution.”

Susie made an extravagant gesture. “Don’t think I’m offended. Why should I be? Everybody’s nice to me. I’m Mary’s mousy kid sister, happy for even a blind date. Sick with joy when a Mervyn Gray asks me to go out.”

Mervyn laughed uneasily. “Mousy. This is how you think of yourself?”

“How do you think of yourself?”

“Oh, a modern-day Quixote. Or the fellow A. E. Housman wrote about, the one who left his necktie God knows where.”

“Literary, as usual.”

Mervyn raised an eyebrow at the unexpected attack. “I teach English literature. I read books.”

“Don’t apologize; it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Mervyn sighed. “You’re completely perverse.” He thought of his chart and the ratings. “A clear score of ten.”

“Is that good? Or bad?”

“It’s as perverse as you can get. How about telling me whom Mary went off with?”

Susie sat back, surveying Mervyn through narrowed eyes. “Are you jealous?”

“Of course not.”

“Why the fever, then?”

“Someday I’ll explain.”

“Very well,” said Susie. “I’ll tell you everything I know for sure. On Friday, June the fourteenth, Mary finished her finals.”

“This I know. I wound up mine the same day.”

“Whereupon she arranged to meet John.”

“This I know, too. But which John?”

“Harriet, the source of the information, claims to have no clue. Neither do I.”

“It’s the first time Harriet hasn’t known everything about everything.”

The waitress stood by the table. “Twelve o’clock. We’re closing.”

Susie insisted on paying for her own coffee. At the cashier’s desk Mervyn, reaching for his wallet, drew out the chart. He started to crumple it, changed his mind, stuffed it back in his pocket. A conceit crossed his mind. He pulled the chart out once more and glanced down the headings. Interesting. Highly. Enlightenment... If he dared take it seriously?

He accepted his change and joined Susie in the street. She looked at him curiously. Mervyn drew a breath. “So much for that.”

“So much for what?”

“For June twenty-fourth. It’s now June twenty-fifth.” The day he had been promised death.

“For me it’s the twenty-fourth,” said Susie. “Till I go to bed.”

Mervyn looked up at the sky. “What a beautiful night. Notice the moon. And all those feathery clouds.”

“Is that what they call a mackerel sky?”

“Imagine a night like this at sea.”

“You’re a romantic.”

“Some people call me a brutal realist. To Harriet I’m a madman. I wonder why.”

“Perhaps because you’re half romantic and half brute realist.”

They walked down Telegraph Avenue and presently came to Mervyn’s dark-blue Volkswagen. He opened the door; Susie hesitated an instant, then got in. Mervyn slid into the driver’s seat, looked sidewise toward Susie. “I think I’ve learned something. It just came to me.”

“What?”

Before answering, Mervyn started the car, pulled out into traffic. “It’s a complicated business. Do you have to get home right away?”

“No.”

Mervyn looked at her with his twisted grin. “Let’s drive to Reno and get married.”

“Not on June twenty-fourth. That’s bad luck.”

“But it’s June twenty-fifth.”

“For me it’s still June twenty-fourth, I told you.”

“So you refuse me.” He reached in his pocket and brought out the chart. He switched on the map light, handed the chart to Susie. She studied it with care. “What do you think of it?”

“It seems, on the whole, haphazard. Some of these headings are sinister.”

“Something sinister has taken place. You’ve had no word from Mary?”

Susie’s face became impassive. “No.”

“It’s been a week.”

“And a half.”

“Has it occurred to you that she might have had an accident?”

Susie made no response.

“That she might even be dead?”

Susie sat like a statue. They were driving through a long tunnel; the overhead lights lit her face in quick, recurrent flashes.

“Well?” asked Mervyn. “Has the thought occurred to you?”

“Naturally.”

They came out of the tunnel, coasted down the road between dark-firred mountains. Mervyn chose his words carefully. “I’ve been thinking about this situation.” He paused. “I really think Mary is dead.”

Susie was silent. Then she said, “Why haven’t you gone to the police?”

Mervyn looked pained. “I’m a member of the faculty. That means I’m like Caesar’s wife — I can’t just avoid evil, I shouldn’t even know what the word means.”

Susie blew a skeptical sound through her teeth.

“You think I’m overcautious?” he asked.

“Some such idea had occurred to me, among others.”

“The perquisites of the teaching assistant are few. If I keep my nose clean I get an instructorship in the fall semester. And that’s only half the story. My thesis is a translation of a Provençal geste, cum commentary. It happens to be old Burton’s specialty, and he’s as good as promised me an assistant professorship as soon as my Ph.D. comes through. This is absolutely meteoric promotion, the break of a lifetime. Now consider the headlines: ‘Instructor at Cal Questioned in Sex Slaying.’ I might as well learn a new trade.”

“So it was a sex slaying.” Susie’s voice was brittle.

“That’s what the newspapers will call it.”

“Tell me more about my sister’s sex slaying.”

“Don’t be obtuse, Susie. I merely foresaw the headlines in the hypothetical event that I were involved in a hypothetical crime.”

Susie tapped the chart. “If it’s all so hypothetical, why this?”

Mervyn spoke slowly and patiently, as to a child. “According to Harriet, Mary made arrangements with ‘John.’ In which case, it would seem that ‘John’ came to meet Mary.”

“You don’t have a heading for lust or lechery or whatever you’d call it. Isn’t that an important element of a sex slaying? Almost indispensable, I’d think.”

“If a sex slaying occurred. Naturally, there are wheels within wheels.”

“Naturally.” Susie nodded at a private, rather grim, joke. She studied the chart. “Am I supposed to take this seriously? Perhaps we’re on our way to hang John Pilgrim now. Or better, let’s get John Boce. His score is almost as high, and he lives closer.”

“My chart doesn’t seem to impress you.”

“It’s silly. The headings all overlap.”

“If you arrange them in a circle, like a color wheel, they all blend smoothly together. For instance, Imagination, Ingenuity, Drive and Persistence come in sequence. Imagination and Drive are equivalent to Ingenuity. Ingenuity and Persistence equal Drive. What I’m trying to say is, these headings are just points around a circumference. The chart indicates the shape of the circumference — I won’t call it a circle. The totals indicate the extent of the enclosed area.”

“Clever.”

“You’re still not taking me seriously.”

“To think that ten minutes ago you were insulting Harriet because she’s a psychologist.”

“I see I’ll have to explain.”

“I wish you would. I’ve been wondering whether my sister is alive or dead.”

“She’s dead.”

Chapter 1

The Yerba Buena Garden Apartments, a pair of two-story six-apartment complexes, faced each other across a court flagged with black concrete rectangles. There was a small fountain in the center of the court; and a strip of soil planted to palms, white flax, pampas grass, oleander and dwarf bamboo comprised the “garden.” Mary and Susie Hazelwood occupied Apartment 12, at the far end of the south unit’s upper tier. Psychologist Harriet Brill had Apartment 10, at the street end of the balcony. Between, in Apartment 11, resided old Mrs. Bridey Kelly, a retired schoolteacher and a widow, who was very much interested in God. Apartment 9, directly below Susie and Mary, was vacant. In Apartment 8 lived a retired couple currently spending a month in Mexico. Apartment 7 irregularly housed a group of airline hostesses who came and went at unpredictable times and whom no one knew.

In the north six-plex, directly across from Susie and Mary but on the lower level, Mervyn Gray occupied Apartment 3. Apartment 2 was vacant. In Apartment 1, across from Harriet Brill but also on the lower level, lived John Boce. Apartment units 4, 5 and 6, on the top deck, were rented to three working couples who formed a clique of their own.

On the morning of Friday, June fourteenth, Mary Hazelwood, a senior at the university (with another semester to go before graduation), finished the last of her final examinations. At eight o’clock in the evening she left Apartment 12. She was wearing a sky-blue suit and a jaunty light gray coat, and she was carrying a small suitcase. She went down the steps to the court and out to the sidewalk and was seen no more.

She had confided her plans to no one, least of all her sister Susie, whom she loved dearly but with whom she quarreled regularly.

Harriet Brill was the last person to admit having seen Mary. About six o’clock, entering Apartment 12 without ringing, she found Mary, curled on the couch, talking into the telephone. Harriet stood poised on tiptoe in the event Mary should turn to look questioningly at her. Mary completed her conversation: “...I don’t know how, but I’m sure you’ll manage. You’ve got such a persuasive tongue... Please, John, be on time for once?... Please?... Naturally I love you. Who else?... Well, then... Good-bye.” The affectionate avowals were in Mary’s usual frivolous vein, and Harriet attached no significance to them. Later she was not so sure.

Mary jumped to her feet. She showed no surprise at the sight of Harriet; possibly she had been aware of Harriet’s presence. “You’ll have to forgive me,” said Mary. “I’m in a terrible rush. I’ve got to shower and change and pack a suitcase and I’ve only got an hour or so.”

“Going somewhere?” asked Harriet, eyes dancing with curiosity.

“Timbuktu. Around the moon. The robber woods of Tartary. Possibly even Los Angeles.”

“Tchk, tchk. Such high spirits!”

“Exams are over. I’m a free woman. Hurrah.”

“I scent a mystery,” said Harriet archly. “Are you eloping?”

Mary laughed, the friendly, infectious laugh that instantly reduced men to servility (if her physique had not already done so). “I might do worse. I’m twenty-two and still single. Practically a spinster.” She went into the bathroom and started the shower; and Harriet, thirty and still single, turned on her heel and marched out. She had no great affection for either Mary or Susie, though Mary was usually easier to get along with. Conceited little twerps, both of them. Just because they had sleek round bottoms and cute young faces they thought they could elbow everyone else into corners... And she wondered who the John could be that Mary loved so exclusively.

Mary’s world was full of Johns, and Harriet knew all of them. John Boce, John Viviano, John Thompson, John Pilgrim. Mary no doubt loved them all exclusively; her heart was catholic. Harriet herself scorned the tricks that Mary used to attract attention. Popularity was one thing; cheapness another. Not many people saw through the sunny façade to her mixed-up interior. The ingenuous flirting, the teasing, the laughing — they housed an underdeveloped sexuality. An enormous number of men were either blind or just didn’t care. That offensive but Byronically handsome Mervyn Gray in Apartment 3, for instance. And dear dependable John Boce, solid and comfortable as an old oak settle. Thank heaven he was starting to show more stability.

Harriet returned to her own apartment at the beginning of the deck. She was tall, with thin shoulders and legs that unfortunately emphasized her heavy hips. She wore her straight black hair in a coiled braid to frame what she felt to be the keen, classic purity of her features. Harriet had her master’s degree in psychology, and she worked at various part-time jobs as a consulting psychologist. She was addicted to violent peasant blouses, straw sandals and Mexican jewelry; she marched for peace, she folk-danced like one possessed. Her walls displayed copies of the more incomprehensible works of Picasso and Klee; besides her technical books her shelves displayed Kafka, Henry Miller, Sartre, Camus, Aldous Huxley, Bertrand Russell, C. Wright Mills and Lawrence Durrell, as well as a group of exotic cookbooks from which she concocted the most unsavory messes imaginable.

Now she prepared a cup of tea and speculated on the identity of “John.” Not that she really cared, but... She reached for the telephone, dialed a number. Then she hung up when the bell at the other end began to ring.

She chewed at her lower lip. Finally, with defiance, she dialed the number again. The bell rang — three... four... five times. No answer. Harriet returned the receiver to its cradle with a stealthy click.

Presently she took it up again and called the Bancroft Textbook Exchange, where Susie had taken a temporary job during the end-of-semester rush. Susie was a junior, a sociology major, and her finals were also over and done with. There was a short wait while Susie was called to the phone.

“Hello? Susie Hazelwood.” Susie’s voice, as usual, was self-possessed.

“Harriet here, Susie. Are you busy?”

“This madhouse? It’s always busy.”

“Oh. I thought we could have a little chat.”

“What’s happened?” asked Susie coolly.

“Happened? Nothing. It’s just that I’ve been talking to Mary. I had no idea she was leaving, Susie. For Los Angeles, apparently.” Harriet felt vindicated by Susie’s silence. A surprise. “You knew she was leaving, of course?”

“Well, more or less. I hadn’t expected— Her exams are over, there’s nothing keeping her.”

“Your home is down that way, isn’t it?”

“Ventura.”

“I suppose Mary’s going down for a visit.”

“I really don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Your own sister? Shame on you!”

“We try to keep our noses out of each other’s business.”

There was a short silence. Then Harriet decided that the snub was not a snub after all. “Who is the ‘John’ she’s going off with?”

Susie’s voice was puzzled. “What’s this again?”

Harriet reported the conversation she had overheard. “Being curious, I wondered who the ‘John’ was.”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Probably John Boce,” Harriet suggested. “He’s always been fascinated by Mary.”

But Susie was not to be goaded into an indiscreet revelation. “Nothing’s impossible.”

“‘She seemed very excited and, well, full of mischief. You know how Mary is. Only more so. And,” Harriet added in a confidential voice, “she did not deny that she might be getting married!”

“She probably didn’t deny that she was joining the Foreign Legion, either.”

“Now, Susie. After all, when a girl like—”

“Excuse me, Harriet, I’ve got a customer. Some other time?” She hung up.

Harriet rose angrily from the couch. She should have known that the little snip would tell her nothing. She poured herself a fresh cup of tea, took it out on the balcony and stood looking down into the court, wondering what the future held.

The door to Apartment 11 opened. Mrs. Kelly, a stout, arthritic woman of over seventy, stumped out on the balcony. She pulled her door shut, glanced sidewise at Harriet, tested the lock, started for the steps. She had a bland, unwrinkled face and curly white hair, which she wore in puffs over each ear, like a pair of enormous popcorn balls. She always walked past Apartment 10 hurriedly, but with Harriet leaning on the balcony rail she had no choice but to pause.

“Good evening, Mrs. Kelly,” said Harriet politely. “Let me get you a nice cup of tea.”

“Thank you, no,” said Mrs. Kelly. “I’m already late for my committee meeting.” Mrs. Kelly spent a great deal of time in the basement of the nearby” church, organizing rummage sales, church suppers, newspaper drives and the like.

“You should get yourself a nice little two-door like mine,” said Harriet. “Then you wouldn’t need to hurry so.”

“I wouldn’t know how to behave in traffic with all these freeways.” Mrs. Kelly looked past Harriet, shook her head. “Oh, dear, those steps. Every day they’re steeper. If I don’t get an apartment on the ground floor soon, I’ll have to move.”

“Oh, no!” cried Harriet. “Up here we have such a lovely view over the court!” But Mrs. Kelly had already continued on her way.

Harriet watched the stout figure jerk down the steps; then, with a fling of the head, she took her teacup and went back inside.

It was time she got ready for her own date. Her plans were made: she knew exactly what she was going to wear, and she had bought an ounce of expensive perfume. Latchouf, read the label on the bottle. How much like a sneeze! But it probably meant something exciting in French or Egyptian. She wished she knew for sure. Then, if tribute were paid to the provocative odeur... Tonight she would be pure woman. Charm was more than a matter of youth, just as youth was not necessarily a matter of years. What a miraculous business, this thing called sex! Intensely interesting. Harriet knew all about it; she had read everything from Krafft-Ebing to Sex and the Single Girl, and need take a back seat to no one. Especially a self-centered little provincial like Mary.

And Harriet went off to prepare herself for the evening.

Chapter 2

On the morning of Saturday, June fifteenth, Harriet used Mrs. Kelly’s accident as an excuse to call on Susie. She tried the door numbered 12 to no avail; she was forced to press the buzzer.

A minute or so passed; then Susie, in an old white terrycloth bathrobe, opened the door. “Slugabed!” sang Harriet gaily. “Eleven o’clock and still asleep?” She stepped forward; Susie grudgingly gave way.

Harriet stood in the middle of the room, looked brightly in all directions. “Did Mary get off all right?”

Susie slumped onto the couch. She looked surly and sleepy and anxious to be alone. “I suppose so. I didn’t get home till late.”

“Poor dear,” said Harriet, mock-dolefully. “I’ll make coffee.”

She ran into the kitchenette, found the coffee, rinsed out the percolator. “You should really get a Chemex. They’re more trouble, but they do brew the most delightful coffee. The water should be heated to exactly one hundred eighty-seven degrees.”

Susie’s response was unintelligible. Harriet watched her from the corner of her eye. So much she didn’t know!

Harriet set the percolator on the flame, returned to the living room, dropped into an armchair. “Then you didn’t see Mary before she left?”

“Just for a few minutes.”

“And did you learn who ‘John’ is?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“And how long will she be gone? I do hope she’s not getting married.”

Susie shrugged, showing little interest in the subject.

“Mary’s so popular and has so much fun, she’d be insane to marry so soon,” said Harriet.

There was a moment of stiff silence, which Susie showed no disposition to break. She curled her legs under the bathrobe, settled herself into the corner of the sofa.

“Poor Mrs. Kelly,” said Harriet. “I must call the hospital again.”

Susie at last was interested. “What happened to Mrs. Kelly?”

“She fell down the steps,” said Harriet in a muted voice.

“How awful! Did she break anything?”

“Her pelvis and collarbone. And her left leg.”

Susie winced. “Poor old thing.”

“A miracle she’s alive.”

“When did it happen?”

“About eight o’clock last night. I was just getting ready to go out when I heard this dreadful tumbling, thumping sound. I ran out, and there she was, all in a heap at the bottom. I thought sure she was dead.”

“Where is she now?”

“At the Sisters of Mercy. I called this morning, and they weren’t at all sure she’d pull through.”

Susie relapsed into silence. Harriet went back into the kitchen, reduced the flame under the percolator. “Are you coming to the party?”

“Party?” Susie used the word as if it were a synonym for “leprosy.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fun,” said Harriet brightly. “They have such a magnificent house. Everything clean and simple and contemporary.”

“Who is this?”

“Oleg, of course. You really should come.”

“I haven’t been invited. I don’t even know the man.”

“Of course you do, silly! Mrs. Malinski’s husband.”

Susie nodded disinterestedly. Mrs. Malinski was assistant stack superintendent at the university library, where both Mary and Harriet worked part time.

“John — John Boce — mentioned a party,” said Susie thoughtfully.

Harriet pounced. “Oh, so you’re going with John?”

Susie’s lips twitched. “I hardly think so. I’m not feeling very well.”

Harriet went into the kitchen, poured two cups of coffee. “John knows Oleg up at the lab. He’s a technician of some kind.”

“Who? John Boce?”

“Good heavens, no. John Boce doesn’t know a calipers from a turnip. He’s an accountant.” She handed Susie the coffee, seated herself in the armchair. “I don’t think Mary quit at the library,” mused Harriet. “I could call John Thompson and find out. Except that he hides out over weekends... Perhaps Mary eloped with John Thompson.” She looked at Susie questioningly.

“Nothing’s impossible,” said Susie. And just sipped her coffee.

Presently Harriet rose. “Well, I suppose I should go...”

Susie made not even a polite attempt to dissuade her; Harriet departed. For a moment after the door closed, Susie sat still. Then she put the cup down and began to cry.

Harriet, returning to her own apartment, saw John Boce enter the court from the street. He held up a beefy arm in salute, and Harriet leaned invitingly over the rail. Boce was a big man: pale, complacent, moon-faced. His clothes were untidy; he had a belly; his eyes squinted shrewdly through gold-rimmed glasses; his nose was long and lumpy. He was generous with his time and cautious with his money. To Harriet’s annoyance, he failed to slacken his pace. She stalked into her apartment.

The accountant walked to the far end of the court, stopped in front of Apartment 3, knocked a cheerful rat-a-tat-tat. He waited, knocked again: rat-a-tat-tat-a-tat-tat.

Mervyn Gray opened the door. He was barefoot and wore a dark-blue bathrobe.

“So I woke you,” said Boce, bluff and jocular. “Why not sleep nights?” He entered the apartment, looked around for the most comfortable chair, plumped into it with a fat grunt.

Mervyn sat down on the couch, rubbing his eyes. “I suppose you have some good reason for annoying me.”

“It’s noon, my boy, noon,” said Boce. His face suddenly became lugubrious. “I do have something of a problem, now that you mention it.”

“Please take it somewhere else.”

The accountant grasped the arms of the chair, gave them a series of quick slaps. “Here’s the situation. There’s a party scheduled for tonight. I thought maybe you’d let me use one of your cars. Our car, in fact.”

“Why don’t you pay me for it?” growled Mervyn. “Then you’d own it. And you wouldn’t feel guilty when you want to use it.”

“I don’t feel guilty, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“The money is what’s worrying me. Do you want the car or not? If not—”

“Don’t be hasty. I want it, but I also want to beat you down a few bucks.”

“Down from two hundred dollars? Harriet’s convinced you I’m crazy. I can get two fifty from a dealer.”

“As trade-in on a new Cad.”

Mervyn shrugged. “Forget it. Go find yourself something better.”

“Just a minute. I agree that the car is basically sound. But even you’ll admit that it’s got a few deficiencies. The top is torn. That ignition business.”

“You never need worry about losing your key.”

“That’s no worry. I like keys. And there’s a funny tick in the valves. And the paint is only adequate.”

“Which is why the price isn’t four hundred.”

John Boce stared in shock, then laughed a great hoho laugh. “Your sense of humor, absolutely deadpan!”

“I’m a clown,” said Mervyn. “Listen, tomorrow I put an ad in the paper. Now would you get the hell out of here?”

“Not so fast. There’s this party tonight. I want to give the old convertible one final test before I make up my mind.”

“You’ve been testing and checking and retesting and rechecking for three months. Don’t you have any shame?”

“Mervyn, I’m a poor man. I’ve got to nurse every dime.”

Mervyn went into the kitchenette, came back to the living room with a can of beer. Ignoring Boce’s thirsty stare, he drank.

“You cheap son of a gun,” said Boce. He lurched to his feet, went to the refrigerator, found a can of beer, opened it, returned to the chair. “Sometimes I wonder about you, Mervyn.” After a moment he said, “You know about Mary?”

“What about her?”

“She and Susie had a spat. Mary took off for Los Angeles.”

Mervyn tilted his can of beer. “A permanent separation?”

“Good Lord, I hope not. What would life be without Mary? So squeezable, so huggable, so kissable. Wow!”

“Fat lecher.”

Boce eyed Mervyn intently.

“Sarcastic bastard. Sometimes I half suspect you’re not kidding.”

“Every time I try to kid somebody I end up kidding myself.”

“That’s what I mean. You’re likely to talk yourself into thinking of me as a fat lecher.”

Mervyn reflected a moment. “It’s certainly a danger.”

“Be positive. Refer to me as fair, generous, big-hearted John.”

“I see you’re still after my Chevy.”

“I’ll pay you one fifty cash, and I’ll fix the ignition lock and patch the top.”

“O.K. If you’ll throw in your wristwatch.”

“My three-hundred-dollar Rolex?” Boce looked at his wrist, which was bare. He blinked. “Have I lost it? No, it’s in the bathroom. It must be in the bathroom. I had it last night... Oh, well, it was just a spare.” He rose to his feet. “Since you won’t sell me your car—”

“I won’t give you my car.”

“...and you won’t lend it to me, and since I’m escorting your girl to this party, Mary having absconded—”

“My girl? Who?”

“Susie.”

“Take the young hellion, and welcome!”

“In view of all the circumstances, I suppose I’ll have to urge you to come with us.”

“I’ll say this for the invitation, it’s spontaneous.”

Boce made an airy gesture. “Don’t question the good things of life. Snatch them as they fly past.”

Mervyn lay back on the couch. “I thought you had a big romance going with Harriet.” He grinned. “Susie says that Harriet plans to accept you when you propose.”

“Haha! When and if! First of all I plan to marry Mary Hazelwood.”

“It would be nice,” Mervyn agreed.

“If it weren’t for Mary, I could really go for little sister Susie. She’s clean and bright and — well, virginal.” He glanced sidewise toward Mervyn. “Isn’t she?”

“How should I know? I’ve never attempted to determine the point.”

“I thought — well, I wish I had your natural advantages.”

“Diet. Exercise. And less beer, especially mine.”

“I’ll lay myself bare,” said Boce. “I’m fat to protect my self-respect. Now Mary laughs at me, pulls my nose, rumples my hair. I might be her uncle. Well, I tell myself, why not? I am fat and avuncular. But suppose I diet, exercise, run, jump, drink my own beer, finally lose a hundred pounds. I become proud of myself. I’m trim, athletic, have a lean profile. Then what? Mary still laughs at me, she still pulls my nose, rumples my hair. So what do I tell myself?”

“That Mary doesn’t want a man, she wants an uncle. Which is what I decided three months ago.”

Boce nodded gloomily. “So the old Mervyn Gray magic failed to ring the bell.”

“I never even got my finger on it.”

The accountant was silent. He finished his beer. “Well? Are you accepting the invitation to this party? You and your car?”

“I may not stay very long. Where is it?”

“Up the hill, at Oleg Malinski’s. Do you know him?”

“No.”

“He’s an optical engineer, a genius. Tonight he’s barbecuing a sheep. There’ll be a crowd, so we’d better get there early.”

John Boce presently departed: Mervyn sprawled, thinking. Somehow he must bestir himself to sell the Chevrolet convertible, which in its present keyless condition was the property of anyone who knew where to find the hidden switch. He groaned, swung his legs to the floor, sat holding his head in his hands. He was sick of his own thoughts.

He went into the bathroom, showered, shaved, ran a comb through his hair, regarded himself in the mirror with disapproval. He was just too damn handsome in a Mexican-matinee-idol kind of way. His skin was a clear olive, eyes hazel and long-lashed, hair a dense black pelt. He wore unobtrusive clothes, having long since cultivated a sartorial reserve. But the dark grays and blues accentuated his coloring; the reserve was variously interpreted as arrogance, narcissism, or plain stupidity. So Mervyn had taken refuge in the twelfth century, where he could refresh himself with the chansons and gestes, the rondels and virelais of the Provençal jongleurs.

Mary Hazelwood was no less refreshing. Mary, uncritical and happy-go-lucky, took life as it came. She was an exuberant and enthusiastic flirt, an activity as natural and necessary to her as breathing. She flirted with John Boce, with the mailman, with Mrs. Kelly’s asthmatic grandson, with Mervyn Gray... with everyone and anyone.

Mervyn was amused and charmed; in her company he could abandon the twelfth century as well as his façade of calculated coolness. Nevertheless, the tradition of la belle dame sans merci impelled him to caution; besides, there was Susie, who possessed her own peculiar attractions.

Susie was even more perplexing than Mary. Mervyn understood that the role of Mary’s little sister posed special problems for Susie; still, she had all the necessary equipment to cope with them. Mervyn was unable to fathom her feelings toward him: did she regard him merely as an instrument to be used in her machinations — whatever they might be? Twice he had kissed her; she had seemed to melt, only to become more flippant and detached than ever. Meanwhile, Mary was Mary: pretty enough to make the heart stop, lavish with her charming provocations, and unpossessable as a sunbeam. Impossible not to love Mary! And perhaps, for one whose heart was broken, impossible not to hate her, too...

At six o’clock John Boce tramped back into Mervyn’s living room. He wore a suit of pinkish-brown silk and pointed yellow shoes. His long nose twitched; his eyes were bright. “Allons, mes enfants!” he called. “En avant! Au mouton! I smell it from here! The girls are waiting! Hurry, hurry, hurry!”

“Girls plural?”

“Harriet’s coming with us.” Boce watched from the corner of his eye. When no protest was forthcoming, he heaved a relieved sigh. “Well, boy? You ready? We’ll take the convert, eh? More room and all that.”

“The Volkswagen’s handier. The convertible’s out back, in the garage.”

The accountant started to grumble, but Mervyn had already stepped outside. Susie and Harriet waited by the fountain in the middle of the court. Susie wore a eucalyptus-green suit, and she had slicked down her tawny hair into a semblance of order. She was fluttering the fingers of her left hand against her thigh — a signal of displeasure, or tension. Harriet wore black tights under a mulberry red skirt, with a green-and-black Peruvian sweater of confused design.

They walked up the street to where Mervyn had parked the Volkswagen. He tried to maneuver Boce into the back seat with Harriet, but the fat man protested so vehemently that Susie, smiling grimly, slipped in ahead of him; and, still complaining, Boce heaved himself into the front beside Mervyn.

Mervyn looked at him for directions. “Where do we go?”

“Up Panoramic. Almost to the top. I don’t think we’ll make it in this goddamn motorized wheelbarrow.”

“I wonder if I need gas.”

“You’ve got the reserve tank. Once we get there we can coast all the way back down. C’mon, boy, move this heap. Sheep have only four legs. That’s one apiece if we get there now.”

“It’s only six o’clock. You can’t be hungry.”

“I’m always hungry.”

Mervyn started the car and set off toward the campus. John Boce sat hunched forward, pointing out traffic hazards with a nervous finger. “Next block turn... Stop. Traffic light... Now turn. All the way up Bancroft. Stop sign. Stop. Stop! You blind, Mervyn?”

Mervyn saw an opportunity to play his game. “It’s a fact I never seem to see the things. I wonder why. Maybe because I detest them so. Tall things with those bright red heads. They remind me of something, I can’t think what. My mother? That can’t be...”

Harriet Brill asked cautiously from behind, “Did your mother have red hair?”

“It’s hard to remember. She died when I was sixteen.”

“Oh,” said Harriet.

“Ignore him,” Susie said shortly.

At Boce’s direction Mervyn turned up Panoramic Way, a narrow and wickedly winding road that led up into the sky, with the reach of the bay spread out far below, and San Francisco a stipple of miniature towers in the hazy west.

Oleg and Olga Malinski lived in a house of glass and redwood perched incredibly over a cliff. A dozen cars were already parked along the street, and Boce sat on the edge of his seat while Mervyn backed into a parking place.

Harriet suddenly exclaimed, “John, I’ve been meaning to ask. Did Mary call you yesterday before she left?”

There was an instant of startled silence. Susie and Mervyn looked at John Boce, whose neck had turned red. “Why should she telephone me?”

“She spoke to a John and asked him to please be on time. I know it wasn’t you, of course—”

“Then why’d you ask?” growled Boce.

“Mary knows lots of Johns,” said Susie indifferently. “Also Petes, Wilburs, Dicks...”

“Any time you stable this goat I’ll get out,” the bulky accountant snapped at Mervyn.

Mervyn set the hand brake. “Lead the way.”

Malinski’s house was essentially one vast living room, with the incidental addition of two or three cubicles for bathing and sleeping. A deck across the entire width of the house hung out over what seemed miles of empty air. Below and beyond spread the gray cities, the leaden bay, the sky, where sunset colors were gathering.

The cars parked along Panoramic had given John Boce an unjustified fright; only eight or ten guests were in evidence. They had gathered at one end of the deck, where a whole lamb turned over glowing coals. Here stood Oleg Malinski, a small, agile man with a large, excessive head. A bushy mustache covered his wistful pink mouth; his gestures were extravagant. He drank red wine from a beaker of blue Mexican glass, he basted the lamb, he discoursed with emotion and conviction to the captive audience gathered around the spit. Boce hurried to join the group. “Oleg,” he said, “I’ve arrived. What a magnificent sheep!”

“Gad!” said someone. “You’ve ruined everything. I can’t stand the idea of eating sheep.”

“So much more for the rest of us,” said Boce with a pudgy bow. “Anyone else I can bug?”

Mervyn and Susie and Harriet came out on the deck, and Boce introduced Mervyn. Oleg absently extended the hand that held the basting brush. “Harriet I know. And Susie, of course. Where is your effervescent sister?”

Susie gave the slightest of shrugs; Harriet spoke in a voice quivering with excitement. “Can you guess? Mary has eloped.”

Oleg Malinski swung the brush dramatically high. “No! I cannot believe my ears! Who could succeed where I failed?”

“His name is John,” Harriet said.

“John? John who?”

“Not me,” said John Boce. “I plan to drown my sorrows in that sheep.”

“Please don’t call it sheep!” cried the same someone.

Mervyn went to the kitchen area to deposit the gallon of red wine he had brought; from a jug already open he filled three glasses, served Susie and Harriet. Oleg Malinski was still dwelling upon Mary’s elopement. “It must be someone we know. Ha there, John Lloyd, are you the guilty one?”

John Lloyd, a man of forty, thin and brittle as a stick-insect, smiled knowingly. “Would I admit it in the presence of my wife?” His wife, buxom, flat-footed, square-faced, gave him a look of scornful malevolence.

“I think we can consider John Lloyd unlikely,” said Oleg Malinski hastily.

“You can consider him impossible,” snapped Mrs. John Lloyd. “In more ways than one.”

“I take my oath,” said John Lloyd. “I’ve never met the young lady.”

“Very well. John Lloyd: impossible. Have we a John without a wife?” Oleg searched his guests. “I see John Thompson, library stack superintendent. Persuasive, hedonistic, enterprising, with the whip and carrot of special privilege.”

Thompson, a compact, sunburned man of thirty-five, heard the accusation with a sleepy grin. He had an air of easy competence. “My budget barely runs to paper clips, let alone whips and carrots.”

“I employ a figure of speech,” said Malinski. “In this society the manager is king. You could easily make Mary’s work a dream of Elysian pleasure: a cushion for her chair, purple ribbon in her typewriter, an extra five minutes for coffee breaks, and so forth.”

“It’s a fact that I wield considerable power,” said Librarian Thompson, “but if I were that sort of cad, why am I here now, instead of reaping the fruits of Mary’s gratitude?”

Oleg basted the lamb. “Some men are quickly sated.”

“Not that quickly.”

“Perhaps not. But meanwhile, and tentatively of course, shall we place you in the Quickly Sated category?”

“As you like.”

Susie turned away. “Disgusting men,” she muttered, not altogether under her breath. She stalked into the living room, perched on a chair, glared out the window. Mervyn went to sit beside her. She flicked a glance of reptilian chill at him, but said nothing. Mervyn sipped his red wine and held his tongue.

More guests arrived: members of the faculty, a writer or two, a contingent from the Radiation Lab. A tall man with a gaunt and quite ferocious profile and glittering black eyes came to bend over Susie. “My dear young lady!”

Susie looked up indifferently. “Hello.”

“So seldom do I see you without your sister.”

“I usually tag along.” Susie performed a perfunctory introduction: “Mervyn Gray, John Viviano,” which Viviano acknowledged impatiently.

Mervyn made no effort to join their conversation. John Viviano’s voice was alternately harsh and melodious; he used it with the control of an operatic virtuoso. He spoke of color film and skin tones; apparently his work was fashion photography. Oleg Malinski, passing by, pointed at John Viviano. “Beyond doubt this is the ‘John’ you seek. He is a well-known gallant.”

John Viviano bowed to Susie. “I am at your service.”

Susie smiled tiredly. “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

“We are not offering you new exploits,” Oleg told Viviano. “We are inquiring about an old one. What have you done with Mary?”

“Ah. You must mean, what would I like to do?”

“I leave the question as it stands.”

“I have done nothing. I have never done anything of which I am ashamed. Shame, unknown to children and to animals, is equally unknown to me.”

“Then you are not the correct ‘John.’”

“Correct for what, Oleg?”

“Mary has eloped with a ‘John’ whose identity we are eager to learn.”

Viviano glanced briefly about. “If this is true, I congratulate the man. If it is not true, I congratulate Mary.”

Susie laughed; the fashion photographer looked at her with eyebrows raised. He had said nothing funny; why had she laughed? Puzzles displeased him.

Olga Malinski came from the kitchenette bearing a great trencher mounded with pilaf. Oleg’s wife was no larger than her husband, and half of her seemed flamboyant coiffure, almost hiding her wild, wise gypsy face. She carried the pilaf out to the deck and set it on a table.

Oleg cried, “The lamb is ready! You must all be on hand when I carve, as in the old days in Budapest.” Everyone came running.

The lamb was a great success: succulent, with a crisp crust redolent of garlic, herbs and pepper.

Evening came, night. Mervyn, seeking Susie, found her by the rail staring out over the stencil of glowing cities. In silence he leaned on the rail beside her. She began to drum with her fingers. Presently she said, “I’m tired. Can we go home soon?”

“Any time you like... Oh, Oleg.”

Malinski had materialized on Susie’s other side. He looked searchingly into her face. “You are troubled. Is it because of Mary?”

“Partly.”

“Strange indeed that she would not confide in you.”

“It’s not so strange. We had a quarrel. To be accurate, I quarreled. Mary just laughed at me.”

“That would be her way. Yes. I can form no picture of Mary losing her temper.”

“Nothing affects her that deeply.”

Oleg held up his hand. “Certainly this is not true, Susie. For instance, she would never allow anyone to torment an animal.”

“She’d hit him with a brick. Several times.”

“Exactly,” said Oleg. “So you see, Mary is capable of emotion.”

“Of a certain kind, I suppose. She’s frivolous, a born vamp. Because she’s man-crazy? Not at all. Because she’s never grown up. Flirting is a game with Mary. She feels nothing, and she doesn’t understand why the men do. It mystifies her — sometimes it frightens her; I’ve seen her terrified. Still, she goes on flirting. But she very seldom — practically never — allows herself to be alone with a man. Except one. He fascinates her, for the simplest reason in the world: he’s indifferent. Pays absolutely no attention to her. So Mary is piqued.”

“Yes,” sighed Oleg. “Of course.”

“He doesn’t have a thing to recommend him. He’s a raggle-taggle would-be poet, a scrounger. A jerk, really. But he’s the only man Mary has ever thought twice about.”

“His name is John?” asked Mervyn, who had been imitating a mouse.

Susie nodded. “John Pilgrim.”

Chapter 3

“I am not an original man,” said Oleg Malinski from the darkness, “and I concede the triteness of the emotion that overtakes me when I stand out here on a clear night. But looking over these millions of lights, these thousands of roofs, feeling this twinkle of motion — no more than a vibration, really — I can never avoid a sense of wonder at the sheer volume of human activity under my eyes. It is almost oppressive.” Malinski waved. “Look out there. As we watch, death is seizing scores of human beings. Marriages are being consummated. Babies are being born. Unhappy persons alone in their rooms contemplate suicide. Social gatherings are in progress, some of the most remarkable sort. In certain dark houses — perhaps there, or there — a criminal finds a terrified little girl who has heard his footsteps. Now! He is laying his hands on her shoulders! In other houses men and women stare stupidly at each other, or at the television. And in one of these houses — who knows? — maybe Mary talks with her mysterious John.”

Susie stirred.

There was a short silence.

“Have you called home to Ventura?” Oleg asked.

“No.”

“But if she had perhaps prevailed upon ‘John’ — whoever he may be — to drive her to Ventura, she would be at home now, and your worries would be at an end. Mervyn, is this not sensible?”

“I should think so.”

“But I’m not worried,” said Susie evenly.

“In that case we will be gay! Come! Will you dance the czardas with me?”

“I’m not very good at such things.”

“It is not necessary to be good. I am a man badly uncoordinated, yet I dance the czardas with enthusiasm.”

“I don’t even have the enthusiasm.”

“Then I must dance alone. In any event, there is wine to drink, and perhaps in the wine you will find enthusiasm.”

“In vino you’re supposed to find veritas,” said Susie with sudden energy. “So let’s all drink.”

She went back into the living room, poured herself a glass of wine, and took it to a long couch. Here sat John Thompson, the librarian, in murmured conversation with a generous blond woman who had been introduced simply as Lalu. She wore a black flannel skirt, a broad black patent-leather belt, a white jersey blouse. She was barefoot, and as she listened to John Thompson she wriggled her toes. Thompson appeared not to see Susie, who in contrast to Lalu seemed prim and demure.

Mervyn replenished his own glass, then effaced himself in a corner. Susie evidently had put aside the thought of immediate departure and Mervyn was content to sit quietly. He had fallen into a mood which, in him, occasionally accompanied fatigue. It was a curious sensation, not unpleasant: detachment utter and complete. Events occurred as if seen through a lens. He surveyed the room. Susie sat decorously, intent on thoughts of her own. Beside her John Thompson leaned his barbered head close to the shoulder of the blond Lalu; his expression was one of placid contentment. As Mervyn watched, the librarian lazily gnawed at the blonde’s arm. Lalu inspected her bare toes, wriggling them in a sort of ritual agitation.

A noisy altercation across the room attracted Mervyn’s attention: John Boce and John Viviano were in disagreement. Boce sat in a big black canvas campaign chair, knees apart, belly between, while Viviano strode back and forth like a nervous secretary bird. The subject under discussion appeared to be the definition of female beauty. The accountant rested his case upon the Iliad. “This woman who launched a thousand ships. Helen. Don’t tell me she was one of these concentration-camp types.”

“Elegance!” shouted the photographer. “Where is the elegance in these wads and masses of flesh? I seek the beauty of the nerves!”

Harriet ranged herself earnestly beside Boce. “But seriously, Viviano, don’t you feel that ideals change? So far as we women are concerned, it’s unquestionably so. Certainly you can’t find the women Rubens painted attractive? Or Vermeer?”

“Rubens was a Dutchman,” sneered Viviano. “Venneer was no better.”

“Art is universal,” said Harriet. She raised her glass in graceful gesture. “To Art!” She drained the glass.

“Bah!” growled Viviano. “‘Art’ is a word I never use. It has no meaning. It is a mass-produced toy for middle-aged females and culture-chasers to play with.”

Boce said, “I’ll tell you for sure that when I get hold of a woman, I want to feel some meat. I’ve seen pictures in the fashion magazines where the women look as if they’d come up out of a drain.”

That seemed to end the argument.

Harriet had gone to join Oleg; he was loading the hi-fi. Pipes and violins burst out in the room. Oleg put his hands over his head and began to perform some sort of Slavic jig. Harriet studiously tried to follow him, but after a few tentative hops and kicks she went to pour herself more wine.

Mervyn glanced toward Susie, found her eyes on him. She looked away before he could decide the nature of her expression.

Oleg Malinski tired of his dance. He turned down the music. “One cannot dance alone. We will drink wine and talk.”

“I have already talked,” said Viviano. “I have also drunk your wine. Tomorrow I must dress and photograph four beautiful women.”

“You will need a clear head, undoubtedly,” said Oleg.

The photographer made a flamboyant gesture. “You may think that this is unalloyed delight. I assure you that serious problems arise. Only a man can subdue these creatures. They are like mindless panthers in a cage.”

Boce said thoughtfully, “It’s a funny trade. I never suspected so much went on.”

Viviano began to pace. “Every day the most incredible difficulties arise. Do you know that I am like a god to these women? I am the agency that manifests their beauty. I am worshiped by them, blasphemed. But now I must leave.” He made gestures to left and right, bowed to Olga Malinski and departed.

John Boce exhaled a vinous breath, mingled with garlic. “I’m glad I’m normal. I think I’m glad I’m normal.”

Harriet had seated herself at his feet with a new glass of wine. “But we still haven’t learned whom Mary ran away with.”

Oleg drew up a chair. “It is a fascinating problem. Assuming that the facts we have been given are correct.”

“Indeed they are,” said Harriet. “I heard Mary very distinctly. ‘John,’ she said, ‘you mustn’t be late.’ And she said, ‘I love you dearly.’”

Susie made a hissing sound between her teeth.

“Why would she worry if he were late?” asked Oleg, shaking his head. “Unless, of course, she were talking to John Thompson, who is notoriously hard to find of a weekend. I am surprised that he came tonight. What do you say, John?”

Thompson, propped against Lalu, chuckled but made no comment. Lalu stroked his hair.

Boce said, “Harriet probably heard her wrong. She might have said Don or Ron or Lon.”

“Or Juan.”

“Or Con.”

“Or even Yvonne.”

“Did you say Ivan? or Yvonne?”

“It was John,” said Harriet.

The accountant puffed out his big cheeks. “Susie, you know everyone Mary knows. How many Johns are on the list?”

“Oh, not too many. John Boce—”

“Not John Boce!” cried Harriet. “John is a better, stronger man!”

Susie ignored her. “John Thompson. John Viviano — I introduced him to Mary. Like bringing coals to Newcastle.”

Thompson disengaged himself from Lalu, sat up on the couch and straightened his tie. “There’s the lad who came to work in the stacks. John Pilgrim. I fired him last week, incidentally. Mary seemed to take quite a fancy to him.”

“Telephone this man!” cried John Boce. “Ask to speak to Mary.”

Harriet tittered. “John, you’re not at all nice.”

“Let’s get the facts,” roared Boce. “Telephone the skunk.”

“Telephone him yourself,” said Harriet.

“I’ll do just that! Where’s the phone?”

Oleg suavely pointed. Boce lurched across the room, consulted the directory, then dialed Information. He noted a number, dialed once more. Everyone in the room became still. At the fifth ring a tired voice responded.

“Let me speak to Mary,” said Boce smartly.

“Nobody here named Mary,” said the voice. Everyone could hear it. “You’ve got the wrong number.”

“Mary Hazelwood? Aren’t you a friend of Mary Hazelwood?”

“Go to hell,” said the voice.

Boce looked inquiringly at the instrument, replaced it in the cradle. “He admits nothing.”

Lalu leaned back on the sofa, sybaritically stretching her bare legs. “Why bother?”

Susie tersely bade Oleg and Olga Malinski good night and left without looking to see whether Mervyn was following.

Mervyn rose and made hurried farewells. Boce heaved himself upright. “I’m not quite ready to go, Mervyn. Oleg’s got some Polish sausage he’s planning to break out. Maybe you can talk Susie into hanging around?”

“I’m ready to leave myself.”

“How are we supposed to get home?”

“If you want to leave now, I’ll be glad to take you.”

“I’ll get John Thompson to drop us off.”

Mervyn started for the door before Boce could change his mind. But Boce said, “Hold on. I’d better see if Harriet wants to go.”

Harriet, face flushed, hair in wisps, was in the process of pouring herself another glass of wine.

“She’s settling in,” said Mervyn, edging toward the door.

“Yeah. Maybe so. But on the other hand—”

“On what other hand?” asked Mervyn in irritation.

“I need a set of wheels tomorrow. For maybe half an hour. I’ll take the convert, if you’re not using it?”

“Yes, yes, anything. Put some gas in it. Last time you used it I had to coast to the service station.”

“Right.” The accountant was once more all jolly good humor. “Good night, old man, happy dreams, drive carefully.”

Mervyn departed, his relief at being able to leave Boce and Harriet Brill soured by the knowledge that once more the fat man had outwitted him. Monday, for sure, he’d sell the car.

Susie was not waiting in the Volkswagen. Mervyn was not surprised. He backed around, started down the hill.

A hundred yards down, his headlights picked up Susie’s slender figure. She was marching along with the determination of an Amazon. Mervyn stopped the car and opened the door. Susie climbed in.

Mervyn said in a mild voice, “I suppose it’s useless to inquire into the reason for your peculiar behavior?”

Susie answered in an even milder voice, “I’m in the process of learning things about myself. The way I act under peculiar conditions. Peculiar conditions seem to call forth peculiar behavior.”

Mervyn puzzled over the remark. It seemed almost a covert challenge, as if Susie was daring him to ask for an explanation.

The silence became oppressive, so Mervyn asked. “What are you going to do this summer?”

“I’m not going to Tahoe.” Susie and Mary had half-seriously considered taking summer jobs at one of the Lake Tahoe resorts. “I’ll probably sign up for summer session.”

She looked at him for the first time since she had got in the car. Mervyn could not read her expression in the dark — but, for that matter, he seldom could do so in the full light of day. “What about you?”

“I’ve still got my thesis,” Mervyn answered. “I suppose I’ll concentrate on that.”

“No classes?”

“None till fall.”

They reached the bottom of the hill and Mervyn slowed down. He drove south along Perdue Street to the Yerba Buena Garden Apartments. Susie jumped out, thanked him briefly, ran up the stairs to the balcony, and along the deck to Apartment 12. Mervyn proceeded to his own apartment. As he opened his door he glanced back and saw Susie in the process of opening her door, looking down over her shoulder at him. Then the door closed behind her.

The next morning Mervyn was awakened by a rattling of the doorknob and vigorous pounding. Groaning, he looked at his clock: ten minutes to ten. He swung his legs out of bed and shuffled to the door.

The noisemaker was John Boce, dressed in suntans and glossy white windbreaker. He had on a long-billed blue baseball cap and dark glasses. Before Mervyn could speak, he raised a monitory hand. “I regret the intrusion, Mervyn. I come about the Chevrolet. You have practically convinced me that it’s a sound investment.”

“Take it,” growled Mervyn. “Take it and go away.”

“Exactly,” said Boce. “Where is it?”

“Where is it? Where it always is — out in the back garage.”

“I’m afraid not.”

Mervyn stared. “What are you talking about? It’s got to be there.”

“Well, it isn’t. Go look for yourself.”

Mervyn donned slippers and bathrobe and went with the accountant through the gate at the rear of the court. The long shed that served as garage for the apartments was open. Three cars were housed here, none of them the mint-green convertible.

Mervyn walked to the street and looked up and down. No convertible in sight.

“Did you lend it to anyone?” asked John Boce suspiciously.

“No.”

“When was the last time you saw it?”

“I don’t remember exactly. Thursday or Friday, I suppose.”

“Better report it stolen.”

“Who’d steal a beat-up old crock like that?”

“This,” said Boce in a measured voice, “is the car you’ve been trying to sell me.”

Mervyn ignored him. “Whoever took it must have known about the trick ignition switch.”

“Which of your friends would be most likely to steal your car?”

“Any of them. All of them.”

They returned to Mervyn’s apartment. Mervyn started the coffeepot. While he waited, he went to the telephone and called several of his acquaintances. No one had seen the convertible.

“This is a fine how-de-do,” Boce said, with a suspicious glance at Mervyn. “Unless you’re putting me on.”

“No,” Mervyn answered wearily. “You conned me fair and square. I’d resigned myself.”

“Could Mary Hazelwood have taken it?”

“I’d hardly think so.”

“It’s possible. She knew about the ignition switch.”

“She wouldn’t have taken it without telling me. It’s been stolen.” Mervyn took up the telephone, called the State Highway Patrol and reported the loss. “That’s that.”

The accountant poured himself some coffee. “It’s a loss I feel as deeply as you.”

“Even deeper, since you weren’t troubled by maintenance costs.”

“Come now, Mervyn. As you know, I was on the point of buying the car.”

“I wish we’d completed the transaction last week.”

Boce shook his head. “Mervyn, this is a quality in you I can’t admire. Think big, man! What else is there in life but bringing happiness to others?”

“It’s great, I agree. If others bring happiness to me. Instead, they steal my car.”

“You’ll get it back. In the meantime I’ve got this ravishing creature waiting, and no wheels.”

“If it’s Harriet, why not use Harriet’s car?”

“It’s not Harriet and I don’t dare borrow her car. Not any more. I used my sick uncle in San Francisco once too often. She telephoned and found he’d gone to Las Vegas for the weekend. Something I couldn’t explain. So here I am, relying on you.”

“In other words, you want the Volkswagen.”

“I don’t see how you can say no under the circumstances.”

“It’s hard, I agree,” said Mervyn. “I don’t have a leg to stand on, except that I want to use it myself.”

“I thought you were working on your thesis.”

In the end, protesting and complaining, Mervyn tossed over the keys. John Boce jingled them with satisfaction. Mervyn muttered, “I must still be half asleep. How about leaving me a gallon or two of gas?”

The big man heaved himself to his feet. “Say no more. John Boce’s generosity is proverbial.”

At nine o’clock on the morning of June eighteenth, Mervyn’s telephone rang.

“Hello.”

“This is Sergeant Erickson, State Highway Patrol. Mr. Mervyn Gray, please.”

“I’m Mervyn Gray.”

“Mr. Gray, we’ve found your Chevrolet convertible.”

“In one piece?”

“Apparently. Hasn’t been stripped, anyway. Somebody must have taken a joy ride. It turned up on the outskirts of Madera.”

“Madera?”

“That’s right. Just this side of Fresno.”

“That’s a hundred and fifty miles!”

“You’re lucky it wasn’t San Diego.”

“I guess you’re right. What do I do now?”

“You can pick it up any time. We’ve towed it to the Sterling Garage in Madera, at Fourth and Willow. Bring identification and proof of ownership, and she’s yours. There’ll be a day or two storage charges.”

“No indication who took it?”

“We make a routine check for fingerprints. Chances are there won’t be any. Your insurance should cover retrieval expenses.”

“I only carry public liability.”

“That’s too bad. You’ve got the address?”

“Yes. Sterling Garage. Fourth and Willow, Madera.”

“Right.”

“Thank you very much.”

“Glad to be of help.”

Mervyn poured a cup of coffee, but made no move to drink it. He looked out across the court, testing, rejecting a variety of disturbing ideas. Madera. Mervyn knew Madera very well. He had been brought up there, and his mother still lived there; she was vice-principal of the Madera Junior High School. (Mervyn’s mother, a forthright woman, had given him the Volkswagen after an unnerving near-accident.) So his car had been taken to Madera... Coincidence?

He shoved his chair back suddenly, dressed, phoned to check on the bus schedule, then called a cab. At the depot he immediately boarded a bus, and ten minutes later he was en route south — along the Eastshore Freeway, past Livermore, over the tawny hills of the Diablo Range, down into the Central Valley; through Tracy and Manteca and out on old Highway 99.

The towns of the valley fell behind, with their intervening orchards, vineyards and grazing land. Modesto, Turlock, Merced, Chowchilla: to the casual eye all exactly alike. Service stations, hamburger stands, packing sheds for fruit and grapes, motels along the highway, the more sedate and substantial central districts three or four blocks inland. The air-conditioned bus was cool; outside, heat and an aroma of earth and eucalyptus resin and sunburned paint, a fume less palpable than dust.

The Giant Orange stands were crowded with men in shirt sleeves and women in cotton dresses: mostly Middle Westerners, assimilated Okies. These were sights and sounds and odors common to all the valley towns, and if Mervyn had not been otherwise preoccupied he might have felt homesick. But his attention was turned inward. Someone he knew had stolen his car and taken it to Madera to abandon it. Why?

The bus turned into Madera, a town like other towns. At the bus depot Mervyn got out and walked over to Fourth and Willow.

The Sterling Garage was a barn of a building, with walls of corrugated steel. In the dim interior, he at once spotted his car. He went over and circled it. The exterior was undamaged. He gingerly opened the door and looked inside. Nothing wrong that he could see.

He went into the office of the service manager, a fresh-faced young man with “Tim” embroidered above the breast pocket of his white jacket. Mervyn felt a faint stirring; he must have known Tim, probably in high school. Tim failed to recognize him. He was not surprised; he was a far cry from the withdrawn, rather sickly boy who had left Madera. Not even the name on his driver’s license, which he produced for the service manager’s inspection, struck a spark in the man. Mervyn was not surprised at that, either. Very few of his schoolmates in Madera had known his Christian name; to them, from middle grade school, he had been “Booksie” — Booksie Gray.

Mervyn signed a receipt and paid the storage charges. The service manager went back with him to the Chevy. “I didn’t look her over, but she looks like she’s O.K.”

Mervyn climbed in and reached under the dashboard to snap on the ignition switch installed by the previous owner. He pressed the starter button; the engine caught without hesitation. The service manager leaned through the window. “They leave you any gas?”

Mervyn glanced at the gauge. “A bit less than a quarter of a tank.”

“How’s the oil pressure?”

Mervyn looked, his mind working at a new idea. “Everything seems O.K.”

“You’re a lucky guy, mister.”

Mervyn was suddenly anxious to depart. He backed out of the stall, swung around and drove out into the blaze of the afternoon sun.

He went by old remembered routes around the downtown area and through a pleasant residential district of poplar trees, picture windows and green lawns. He passed within three blocks of the junior high school, where at this hour his mother would be conducting the school orchestra (in which Mervyn as a thin-faced, big-eyed urchin had played first violin). At the outskirts of town, in a neighborhood of small frame cottages, drooping trees and dusty gardens, he turned into a rutted dirt road, drove another two blocks and pulled over to the shady side of an abandoned packing shed.

For a moment Mervyn sat motionless. Then he checked the ashtray: empty. He opened the door, looked under the seat. Nothing but a pencil, several bobby pins, a few curls of dust. In the jump seat, nothing.

He took a deep breath; the car almost certainly had been taken by someone who knew the idiosyncrasies of the ignition system. He investigated the glove compartment. He found road maps, a pair of broken sunglasses, a road flare, a pair of rusty pliers, two paper clips, three hairpins, a pack of facial tissues, a beer-can opener, and the key he used’ for locking the trunk.

He went around the car and unlocked the trunk. At once he recognized the twisted thing in the sky-blue skirt and jacket. He realized now that he had expected to find it.

For five seconds, while the galaxy receded, he stared at the body of Mary Hazelwood. The knees were folded almost daintily; even in violent death Mary Hazelwood could be nothing but graceful. The distorted face peered sightlessly forward. Wisps of hair curled flirtatiously over the pale cheek.

Mervyn lowered the lid of the trunk with infinite care. He turned the key in the lock and, impelled by some primitive impulse, stooped for a handful of sand, powdery and dry, which he worked between his fingers.

He looked up the street, down the street. Three or four sun-bleached cottages. A black panel truck crossing a far intersection.

Mervyn climbed gingerly back into the car. He reached for the steering wheel, hesitated as if the black ebonite had become infected. But then he gripped the wheel. Queasiness was a luxury he could not now afford. Henceforth he must be unemotionally decisive and ruthless.

Chapter 4

Above all, he must not panic.

He shivered as he thought how easy it would be to do something foolish. His first impulse on finding the body, for instance, had been to tumble it out on the ground and drive away at top speed... He looked down at his hands on the wheel. The knuckles shone white.

He forced himself to relax; he could do anything — anything — if he had to. But what?

His first thought was to report to the police. His stomach flopped like a fish. To do that would involve him up to his neck. The car was his. Madera was his old home town. He had unsuccessfully wooed Mary. And his alibi for the night of her disappearance was nonexistent. It was not as if Mary Hazelwood were nondescript or drab. Mary Hazelwood was beautiful, a girl men fruitlessly pursued — the kind that often wound up as the central figure in a crime of passion.

Who killed Mary Hazelwood? the newspapers would ask. And they would mention his name in as close proximity to the question as they dared. Should the police fail to establish the guilt of someone else, his name would enter the conversation whenever the case was brought up. It was even conceivable that he might be openly accused. How could he prove he was not guilty? Outside the courts the burden of proof was on the accused.

Inevitably would come the appointment with Professor Burton. In his mustard tweeds, Professor Burton resembled an irascible old Airedale. He would rise when Mervyn entered, motion toward a straight-backed chair, sit down stiffly. There would be conversation:

PROFESSOR BURTON: Mr. Gray, undoubtedly you know why I have asked you to drop by today.

MERVYN GRAY: I’ve got a strong suspicion.

PROFESSOR BURTON: We must face the crisis. It’s no use to pretend that it doesn’t exist. This wretched publicity is the poorest sort of thing for the department.

MERVYN GRAY: I realize this, Professor Burton. Unfortunately I can’t do anything about it.

PROFESSOR BURTON: Then — unfortunately, as you put it — I must. Blameless as you well may be, we simply can’t tolerate this sort of thing in connection with the university.

MERVYN GRAY: You mean that I’m fired?

PROFESSOR BURTON: I mean that you will not be rehired for the fall semester. For your own good I suggest that you resign. After this affair has been forgotten, there is no reason why you should not seek a similar post at another institution. If you choose to do this, you can look to me for references.

MERVYN GRAY: And if not?

PROFESSOR BURTON (rising): That aspect need not be considered. Surely you’ve thought the matter over.

MERVYN GRAY (desperately): Naturally, Dr. Burton. But my whole career is at stake. I’ve even been hoping for an assistant professorship—

PROFESSOR BURTON (like steel): That, I fear, is no longer remotely possible. The regents would be outraged at the mere suggestion, and rightly. These are the facts, Mr. Gray. May I have your resignation?

So much was academically inevitable. But that could be by far the least of it. For what if the police refused to believe that he had no knowledge of how Mary’s body had come to be found by him in the Chevy trunk? That could be a matter not of his academic career but of his life... He forced himself to think coolly.

Mary Hazelwood had been murdered. And someone had stolen his car and stuffed her body into the trunk. This someone was almost certainly an acquaintance, because he knew all about the trick ignition switch. A sickening thought... Well, now was the time to fish or cut bait...

Going to the police was out.

Once he had made the decision, his next step was clear. And this was too exposed a spot to do it. Mervyn started the car and drove off.

He turned at Ardly Avenue and then took Perkins Road to the Freeway, heading north.

After a few miles he drove off into a side road, and presently left-turned into another.

He stopped the car between a vineyard and a field barren except for a few sheds and farmhouses in the distance. The hot breeze sighed through the grapevines; grasshoppers sang.

Mervyn got out. He was alone on the road.

Steeling himself, he flung open the trunk. She was still there, in sky blue, stiff and curled. Poor Mary, thought Mervyn, poor innocent friendly Mary.

He stooped. Her suitcase lay half under her body. Her right temple showed a great dent that had pushed her features askew. Apparently she had been killed by a blow from a heavy object. The area of contusion showed a pattern of secondary marks, grouped in a semicircle, where the skin had been broken. Mary’s bones were delicate; the blow might not have done such damage to a heavier skull.

The muscles of his arm quivering, he reached behind the body and pulled out the suitcase. The body bumped to the floor of the trunk. The blazing sun, the vineyard smelling of hot leaves and sulphur, the dust-colored road, the car: in such a context the corpse seemed absurd as well as pitiful.

Mervyn lugged the small suitcase around to the front seat and opened it. He was poking around when a faint clatter brought his head up and around sharply. Behind him at the crossroads a toy truck was growing larger. He hurried around to the rear of the car and slammed down the trunk lid, breathing hard. The toy became a noisy, dilapidated pickup. Three pairs of expressionless adult eyes swiveled to stare at him from the front seat as the pickup passed. In the rear crouched four bedraggled children with dirt-colored hair and fox faces; they too stared at Mervyn until the pickup dwindled to nothing behind a cloud of dust.

Mervyn went back to the front seat and finished exploring the suitcase; it contained only the usual feminine clutter. He took it back to the trunk, unlocked the trunk again, stowed the suitcase away... He frowned. Wasn’t something missing? Her purse! Suitcase but no purse... He lifted the body, looked underneath. No purse.

Mervyn shut the trunk. His hands tingled. He went to the side of the road, scooped up another handful of the hot, dry sand from between a pair of small tumbleweeds. He rubbed his palms with it nervously. Then he climbed into the car and turned it around and drove back to the crossroads and presently onto the Freeway.

The sun was dropping low over the flatlands. Through the haze in the west the golden hills of the Coast Range loomed serenely above it all. Mervyn strove to capture some of their aloofness. He could not afford to handle his problems, he kept telling himself, on an emotional level... Automatically checking his gas gauge, he was reminded that when he had reclaimed the car at the Madera garage the gauge had stood at the quarter mark. Significant fact? One that deserved thinking about? The week before, John Boce had borrowed the convertible and made much of the fact that he had returned it with a full tank. Mervyn had not used the car since. Three-quarters of sixteen gallons — the capacity of the tank — was twelve. At highway speeds the old convertible usually made about fifteen miles to the gallon. Approximately 180 miles, then 190 perhaps, for the gauge was a bit below the one-quarter mark. Madera was something over 150 miles from Berkeley. Which left thirty-five, maybe forty miles to be accounted for.

All this was very strange. And he still had to decide what to do with Mary...

He looked to the left, toward the mountains. After a few miles the farms thinned out as the barren foothills began. He knew places where no one came, not even to graze cattle.

Mervyn grimaced. He’d have to make sure there were no witnesses... Wheels within wheels. A single certainty: someone wanted him tagged for the murder of Mary.

He reverted to Mary’s handbag. Why was it missing? Accident? Or design? The possibilities were alarming.

He began to drive faster. Sixty-five, seventy, seventy-five. The rush of the wind recalled him to his senses, and he decelerated; thereafter he drove cautiously, well below the speed limit. It would not do to be arrested. Or, even worse, to become involved in an accident and have the trunk fly open.

At Merced he gassed up. He discovered that he was famished; he had eaten nothing since breakfast. He considered. The time was now six o’clock. If he drove straight through he would arrive in Berkeley about eight, or half past. For a reason which he could not identify, this seemed too early. So he turned into a drive-in.

But now he found that, hungry or not, he could not eat with Mary Hazelwood curled up dead in the trunk. It seemed monstrously unfitting. Committed, he ordered a milk shake, drank it without tasting it. Then he called for black coffee and sat brooding... If only he could dump the entire business — anonymously — into the hands of the police! Why should he be in this miserable position? To have to choose between disposing of a murder victim and destroying his career! Or even having to take the rap for the whole thing...

Suddenly nervous, Mervyn paid up and started north once more. And again that niggling disinclination to get back too early. He chewed at it and finally identified the cause. Night was what he was after. He did not want to be seen. He was feeling guilty!

The thought enraged him; he drove faster. But then he slowed again. After all, he did have something to slink about — he was carrying a corpse in the trunk of his car, and he was planning to dispose of it where it would never be found. He thought of the police and again, in frustration, rejected the idea. It was simply too damn suicidal... If only he knew the identity of that someone, if he could manage to tuck poor Mary’s corpse into that someone’s bed, for instance... that would be poetic justice... He spent the rest of the trip — through Modesto, Manteca, Tracy, north to Walnut Creek and over the hills to Berkeley — in a series of fantasies, all darkly disastrous to the someone who had planted the corpse in his car.

It was a quarter to ten when he finally stole to a stop at the curb around the corner from the Yerba Buena Garden Apartments.

Mervyn got out of the car just as an elderly man in a Hawaiian shirt came heel-and-toeing along the walk pulling a leash, at the other end of which a little white dog jerked and jumped. Mervyn froze. Would the mutt start acting peculiarly when it passed the car? Dogs were supposed to be able to smell death...

The man and the dog passed.

Mervyn felt like praying.

He walked swiftly to the corner and down Perdue Street to the stucco urns that marked the entrance to the Yerba Buena Garden Apartments.

Stealing into the court, he paused. Lights showed here and there. His own apartment was dark, as were the three second-story apartments to his right — Numbers 12, 11 and 10, occupied respectively by Susie Hazelwood, Mrs. Kelly (now in the hospital) and Harriet Brill. Apartment 1, John Boce’s, was brightly lit and through the windows came talk and shrill feminine laughter. Mervyn recognized the cackle of Harriet Brill, and John Boce’s easy rumble, then a harsh staccato tenor, vaguely familiar... He went on. Boce’s parties were the least of his concerns.

As he passed, the drapes at one of Boce’s open windows flickered. A moment later, the door opened and John Boce lurched out. “Mervyn!” he bawled. “Hey, Mervyn!”

Mervyn drew a deep breath; he halted and turned. Boce was reeking of bourbon. “Mervyn, old boy, you’re home at last. Where the hell have you been?”

“Here and there.”

Boce seized his arm. “Come on in for a drink. Or two or three. Everything top quality. That’s old Bocey’s style, eh, what?”

Mervyn tried to detach his arm. “I’ll drop in later, John.”

“Mervyn, I insist. Susie insists. Harriet insists. Everybody insists.”

“Fine, John. Later. Let go.”

“Mervyn, can this be the real you? Standing first on one leg, then the other? Come onnnnn...” He tugged; Mervyn tugged back.

Susie peered out. “Why, if it isn’t Mervyn, back from his tomcatting.” Her hair hung loose and fluffy, as if it were freshly washed; her voice was light. She kept looking at him.

Boce complained, “He’s trying to give me the freeze, Susie. Say, look. Mervyn. You don’t know Blake Callahan, do you?”

“No.”

“Or his wife? Estelle?”

“No.”

“Aha, just as I thought! Then you better come on in and meet ’em.” Mervyn’s arm was growing numb; he winced, and Susie smiled sweetly and went back into the apartment. In his enthusiasm Boce sprayed him with bourbon. “Aw, come on, buddy-boy. I offer you beautiful women and whiskey flowing like water. You know me, pal. I never do things halfway. You name it, we got it, or we know where to get it. Which reminds me. I had to borrow a fifth of your bourbon. I’ll replace it, natch.”

“How did you get into my apartment?” asked Mervyn furiously.

“The usual way. Through the front door.”

“Meaning that you picked the lock, or removed the hinges?”

“Hell, no. I just turned the knob, and the door opened.”

Mervyn blew out his breath and permitted Boce to drag him into Apartment 1.

John Viviano, pacing back and forth across the room, proved to be the source of the harsh voice. He stopped dramatically in midstride as Mervyn entered, nodded a regal quarter of an inch, and continued. Harriet Brill leaned languidly against a wall, wearing a yellow-green-and-red Benares print skirt, a long-sleeved black jersey blouse and brass hoop earrings four inches in diameter.

The couch was occupied by a couple wearing the uneasy expressions of people who find themselves trapped in the grizzly pit at the zoo; the man was a physicist answering to the name of Mike, and the woman, Charlotte, was his wife. Mervyn vaguely gathered that they were connected with the university. The preadvertised Blake Callahan turned out to be a little man wearing big black-rimmed glasses, his wife, Estelle, a huge woman in a tight brown-satin dress; they sat in two of Boce’s orange canvas sling chairs. Just who they were Mervyn did not learn; his host forgot to follow through.

Susie, in slacks and sweater — both her favorite gray — sat on the couch beside Mike the physicist. She was being vivacious tonight, an aspect of her personality Mervyn had not suspected. Susie was a continual surprise. The slacks exhibited her slight, supple figure to its optimum; the softness of her hair gave her a softer, more feminine look than usual. Mervyn sat down beside her; she gave him a cryptic side glance, started to say something, then changed her mind.

Mervyn slumped back on the couch, relieved not to have to make small talk. John Viviano, in any event, left him little choice. The fashion photographer held forth with majestic vehemence, marching back and forth, his hands flying about.

“It is not in the nature of the human animal,” declared Viviano. “It is unnatural. We live in an unnatural age. Consider Felis leo. Who wears the mane? The lion, not the lioness. Consider the Siamese fish. Who carries the magnificent fins? Again the male. And the male iguana with his ruff. Spectacular! Today everything is upside down.”

He gestured toward his black slacks and tan hound’s-tooth jacket. “Observe me. I am the unobtrusive one.” He pointed a long, tense forefinger at Harriet. “And she, she is the lion, the Siamese fish, the male iguana! Is it a wonder the mental hospitals are full? Sad to relate, I contribute to the madness. It is I who bedizen these women, these cannibals, when I should better give them a bucket and mop and say, ‘Here, woman, wash the floor.’ But such is the case.”

Harriet Brill, who had been making a series of fretful gestures, at last was able to interrupt. “I certainly don’t think you’re making a fair case.”

Viviano whirled like a dancer. “I am now unfair?”

“You are, Viviano. People dress to express their personalities. Just because you’re repressed—”

“I am now repressed, Brill?”

“You are!”

The little man named Blake Callahan said in a voice surprisingly deep, “I have an idea that should satisfy everyone. As I see it, John Viviano resents the neutrality of his clothing, while Harriet correctly attacks his pose of masculine martyrdom. The controversy can easily be resolved. Why don’t you two simply exchange clothes? Viviano will then be clad in garments colorful enough, God knows, for any strutting male, while Harriet, in his sober costume — sharing his virtu, so to speak — will be assured that his antifeminism is merely a polemic device.”

Harriet and Viviano both spoke at once, in voices equally passionate. Mervyn turned to Susie. “Who is Blake Callahan?”

“Something to do with the university press.”

Charlotte leaned across her physicist-husband, Mike. “I didn’t see Mary at the gym today, Susie. We’re keeping the class going, you know, during summer session and intersession both.”

Mervyn remembered now that Mary had been studying fencing; Charlotte must be the instructor. John Boce lumbered over with a highball for Mervyn. “Haven’t you heard? Mary’s eloped, or has been abducted. By John Viviano.”

“That is not the case,” said Viviano quickly. “It was an opportunity not extended to me.”

Harriet Brill made a contemptuous noise. “You men are all so glandular. You assume that Mary went off on some cheap adventure—”

“A trained psychologist should be surprised at nothing,” said Viviano.

“I’m not surprised. I merely understand the difference between romance and vulgarity.”

“Who can escape destiny?” The photographer raised his glass and drained it. “Everything that has been, and is, and that is to be, is ordained. If vulgarity be my fate, I embrace it!”

“The secret of a contented life,” said little Callahan in his big voice.

Harriet snorted. “I can’t accept that, Viviano. Scientists don’t believe in predestination. There’s a very important principle opposed to it — something about uncertainty.”

“Ah,” said Viviano. “But one moment. Boce, be a good fellow and replenish this glass with some of your splendid whiskey. Now, where were we? Oh, yes, uncertainty. Utter drivel. Provide me a sufficiently complex computer sufficiently programmed, and I guarantee to predict the future!”

“You know I don’t have access to any such computer,” Harriet whined. “And anyway, I don’t think it’s possible.” She turned to the man sitting beside Susie. “Mike, you’re a physicist. Which of us is right?”

Mike looked embarrassed. “In essence the universe itself is just such a computer. By the interaction of its parts it solves the equations of its own future. But a man-made computer...” He shook his head. “As for uncertainty, it’s a figure of speech, although I admit there are transcendentalists in the profession who claim that uncertainty is a built-in factor of reality. I personally feel that the easiest way to learn the future is to watch it happen.”

Everyone digested this wisdom, uncertainly.

“What of precognition?” asked Harriet. “I know a marvelous woman, a Negro with orange hair. She can look at some object you own and tell you the most amazing things about your past — what you’re thinking, what’s going to happen to you.”

“Heh, heh!” snickered Viviano. “Now who believes in predestination!” He strode into the kitchen, from which he could be heard accusing John Boce of niggardly bartending.

“What a volatile man,” sighed Harriet.

Calm descended on the room. Mervyn sat limply, staring into his highball glass. The conversation receded; a sense of fantasy overcame him.

Something tugged at his mind. The urgent unpleasantness that had brought him back to Berkeley. Recollection came as a shock. He glanced toward the kitchen, where Boce was still occupied. So he rose, mumbled an all-inclusive farewell and left in a hurry.

At his own apartment he found, as Boce had claimed, that the door was unlocked. This was not unusual; he frequently neglected to lock his door. Still, it made him uneasy. He locked it now, switched on the light, pulled the drapes. Standing in the middle of the living room, he looked around carefully. The room seemed normal, but to Mervyn’s abraded senses it felt wrong.

Moving stealthily, as if something dangerous were asleep nearby, he looked under the couch. Nothing. He went to the bookcase, felt behind his books. Nothing. He walked into his bedroom, braced himself, and switched on the lights. The room, which Mervyn maintained in monastic neatness, looked undisturbed.

Nevertheless, he peered under the bed. Nothing. He turned to his chest of drawers, but the sliding doors of the wardrobe caught his eye. There was a dark gap at the right-hand side. Had he left it that way? He hesitated. It was as if there were another personality in the room, broadcasting malice. Well, he could not stand there all night... He strode forward, slid the door aside, ready for anything.

The light shone on his clothes. Below, a rack held his shoes. The shelf above held oddments, a glint of white. Unfamiliar... Mervyn reached up with a leaden arm.

A white purse.

Mary’s purse.

So.

He filled his lungs. The pattern was now clear.

It had been assumed that when the green convertible was picked up, the police would find the body. They would naturally question Mervyn, seek to establish his movements. They would search his apartment, find the purse. Mervyn would be arrested, probably put on trial, possibly convicted, conceivably sentenced to the gas chamber. Mervyn shuddered.

For a moment he stood looking at the purse. Then he opened it and peered inside. Lipstick, mirror, comb, change purse, wallet with various cards. No money. Mervyn’s lips tightened: suppose his enemy had marked Mary’s money in some fashion and also hidden it on the premises? The idea was ridiculous, oversubtle; still, Mervyn looked around, even went into the kitchen to investigate the coffee can where he tossed small change. Nothing. His imagination was running away with him. He smiled sadly. Rather hard for his imagination to run faster or farther than events themselves.

One matter at least was straightened out: the fate of his few lingering qualms. Mary Hazelwood was dead and gone. A pity, but his own life was now on the line.

He opened a kitchen drawer and took out a twist of plastic clothesline, which he put in his pocket. Mary’s purse he tucked into the front of his trousers, then he buttoned his jacket and stepped out into the court.

He walked quickly past Apartment 1, but not quickly enough. Before he could reach the street, the door opened and people spilled out.

“Mervyn!” John Boce bawled. “Hey, Mervyn, hold up a minute!”

Mervyn managed to resist the almost irresistible desire to punch the accountant in the nose.

“How about taking Mike and Charlotte home?” Boce asked. “It’s just over on North Side.”

Mervyn could think of nothing to say. He waited while Boce affably conducted the physicist and his wife to the entrance.

“I hope we’re not putting you out, Mr. Gray,” Mike said.

“Of course not!” Boce declared heartily. “It’s a pleasure for Mervyn.”

“Thank you so much, John,” Charlotte said.

“Think nothing of it. Good night!”

“My car is up the street,” Mervyn said. “Around the corner.”

“This is very good of you, Mervyn. Our car is out of commission, but John insisted that we come.”

“I don’t mind in the slightest.”

Mike and Charlotte lived a mile away. Mervyn dropped them at their apartment house and drove back around the campus. He turned east along Ashby Avenue, and presently swung into the Contra Costa Freeway. Something pressed against his stomach, something large and uncomfortable: Mary’s purse. He had forgotten about it. He yanked it out and tossed it to the seat beside him.

A new thought occurred to him and he stopped the car under an overhead light. He opened the purse and went through it until he found a small black address book. He flicked through the pages.

Name after name after name, in Mary’s neat, erect handwriting. He hunted for Johns. Under B, John Boce. (Under G he found Mervyn Gray.) The next John was under P: John Pilgrim. John Thompson was not listed. John Viviano was there, with a San Francisco address and telephone number.

There were no other Johns noted.

Mervyn replaced the book in the purse, drove on.

The road led through forested rolling hills and sleeping suburbs, north around the foot of Mount Diablo. The Freeway came to an end, the hills dried out and became mineral in the moonlight. He crossed them and came down into farmland, with a line of small cities spaced along the shores of the mingled San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers. The country turned quieter, more rural; vineyards and orchards closed in along the road.

Then the country changed again. The land became flat, the air smelled of swamp: willow trees, rushes, damp peat. The road, now narrow and potholed, twisted to the right and swung up steeply.

He was now driving along a levee, water glinting on his left.

The air was still and bland; not far away, six lonesome lights marked a harbor for pleasure craft and fishing boats. He crossed a timber-and-plank bridge. He drove for miles along the levee, and now there were no lights. When he came to another bridge, also of timber and plank, he stopped the car. The only sounds were the tick of his engine, the hissing of crickets, the occasional burp of a frog.

He got out and walked slowly across the bridge; the moon, now riding the zenith, laid oily cusps and crescents on the water. He climbed down the bank, brought up a thirty-pound chunk of riprap.

Now came the worst part of the job. The terrible part.

Mervyn drove to the middle of the bridge, got out, unlocked the trunk. Below, the dark water waited in puddles of moonlight. He braced himself, pulled the body out. In spite of his efforts, it dropped to the planking with a thud. Wincing, he made a bundle of the purse and the rock, wrapping them in the mat from the floor of the trunk and tying the whole thing securely with the plastic clothesline. Then he ran a short length of the line from the bundle to the neck of the dead girl...

Now.

But he hesitated. How undignified, how graceless an end for one so sweet and vital! Mervyn’s eyes filled with tears. He looked up at the moon, down at the water. It can’t be helped, he whispered. Forgive me, Mary.

He rolled the whole thing off the bridge. It made a huge, helpless splash. Ripples circled swiftly out, exciting sparks of moonlight. They quieted. They disappeared.

And the river ran darkly again.

He walked slowly back to the car. The thing was done. The car seemed empty. He felt empty, too. Mechanically, with a flashlight, he explored the trunk compartment. He found nothing.

The thing was done. He climbed into the car. The water flowed black as ink, and Mervyn said aloud, “Goodbye, Mary.”

He started the car, pulled off the bridge, swung around and drove back the way he had come, west, toward the black mountains, toward the glow of the cities circling the bay. Who or what was waiting for him, malignantly, over the hill?

It would be harder now, he thought. The evidence linking him to Mary was gone... But something gnawed at the back of his mind. He could not identify it. What had he overlooked? The car trunk? He’d give that a good cleaning in the morning. Something else? He jerked his head in irritated failure.

Mervyn got home at two in the morning. He parked the convertible in the garage, went quietly by the back way into the court. All the apartments were dark. Mervyn looked up at Apartment 12 for a moment. Susie must be feeling so lonely...

He had the wild impulse to wake her up, soothe her, let her soothe him. Impossible, of course. Harriet Brill, that human sonar, would hear him as he passed; and then, Susie was likely to be tart and sarcastic rather than soothed or soothing. He wondered how it would be to have Susie for a wife, and wondered at himself for wondering.

When he stole into his apartment and flicked on the light, he searched the rooms. He was only half convinced that nothing was wrong.

He stood uncertainly in his living room, swaying with fatigue. But he knew he could not sleep. So he went into the kitchen and opened the liquor cabinet. John Boce had lifted the fifth of bourbon, but there was still some Scotch, and he made himself a Scotch and soda, took it back into the living room and slumped down on the couch.

He sipped, brooding.

Something was missing. Something he had neglected.

He reviewed the entire affair, from Friday night to the present moment. Mary Hazelwood in a rumpled blue suit, stiff, contorted, life gone. He saw again the area of the blow, the odd semicircular contusion. And suddenly, heart pounding, he jumped up and ran into his bedroom and yanked his wardrobe open and snatched from its top shelf his ski boots. He took one of the boots by the toe and dashed over to his bed and swung the boot viciously. The heel struck the white spread with great force, leaving a crescent-shaped indentation in the spread... He thought he would faint. But he nerved himself and examined the heel of the boot closely. He could find nothing, and he tossed it aside and peered at the heel of the other boot, the left one. Was that a dark stain on the cogs? Yes! And a wisp of blond hair caught in a roughened cut mark. A blond hair... like Mary’s.

Mervyn ran back through the living room to his kitchen, carrying both ski boots. His head was a jumble of thoughts: That stain... blood... must be blood... hair... Mary’s... maybe others they’ll find under a microscope... they can test for blood... establish blood type... test for hair... identify...

At the kitchen sink, he washed and washed and washed the heel of the left boot. He used scouring powder, he scrubbed, he polished, he rinsed. Then he rubbed with vinegar. Then he rubbed with salt. Then he rubbed with more scouring powder. Then he dipped the heel in ammonia, rinsed again. But those police-laboratory tests were fantastically sensitive, he told himself. He turned on one of the burners of his range; he held the heel over the clean blue flame and scorched it over and over. And then, once more, he scoured the heel and rinsed it; and finally he dried it.

And then, for good measure, went through the entire process again with the right ski boot. Just in case, he told himself.

He was gasping when he returned to the living room, as if he had run five miles. His eyes felt as if they were full of hot sand.

Sleep was out of the question.

He dropped like a sack of feed on the couch.

So he had caught and balked another trap laid by his enemy. Were there others? There must be others...

And suddenly his neck prickled, at the nape.

He was being watched! He knew it... There! Wasn’t that a slight sound?

Mervyn slewed about on the couch, glaring at his front door, biting his lower lip, flexing his fingers, scarcely breathing. You damn patsy, he said to himself, get up and go over to that door and open it and find out once for all... Suddenly he was in a rage. He jumped off the couch, dashed to the door, jerked it open...

No one.

He peered out, right, left.

No one.

He actually stepped out into the court and took a deliberate look around. Nothing stirred. The fountain tumbled in the slanting moonlight.

Mervyn stood stock still, listening. All he heard was the fountain and his own râling breath.

So he went back into his apartment and locked his door and snapped off the living-room light and went into his bedroom and undressed quickly in the dark and crept into his bed and pulled the sheet over his head, like a child.

And presently he fell asleep.

Chapter 5

Mervyn drove the convertible around to the front. He brought a hose out from the court, thoroughly soused the interior of the trunk, scrubbed it with a bristle brush and hosed it down again. Then he went over it inch by inch. He was satisfied at last that not even the most assiduous technician could find specks of sky-blue wool or blond hairs. Or blood.

John Boce came sauntering out of the court. Mervyn looked at him in surprise. “I thought you were a working man.”

The accountant teetered jauntily on his heels. “A man like me is paid for what he knows.” He strolled around the car critically. “Looks pretty nice, Mervyn. Considering what the old bucket’s been through, the paint job has held up. Too bad the chrome’s so pitted.”

“A shame.”

“Hey! Is that the radiator leaking?”

“We can tell better after I finish washing the hood.”

Boce looked into the driver’s seat. “Not a bad old boat. You’ve had a lot of fun in this car, Mervyn.”

“Yes. It’s like parting with an old mistress.”

“You even talk dirty in a literary way,” the fat man said. “You’re going to sell her, eh?”

“Absolutely.”

“Suppose your mother wants the VW back?”

“She won’t. She’s afraid of cars.”

Boce kicked a tire. “I’ll give you a tip. If you locate a live one, don’t let on the car’s been stolen. That knocks the value down a good forty per cent.”

“Maybe I’ll ask only three hundred.”

Boce drew back in shock. “I thought you wanted to sell this bus!”

Mervyn stooped to scrub a wheel. “I’ll let it go for two fifty.”

“I thought the price was one fifty.”

“I could sell two cars like this for one fifty.”

“Not even with solid-gold hubcaps.” Boce frowned. He glanced up the street and down. Head cocked, mouth pursed, eyes half closed, he turned back to Mervyn. “I get a funny feeling sometimes. That I’m missing about half of what’s going on.”

“I get that feeling myself.” Mervyn rose. “Maybe we ought to fill each other in.”

“I’m all for it.” Boce spat on the sidewalk like a man preparing to meet a challenge. “How come you’re on the outs with Susie?”

“I never was in.”

“Now, boy, don’t try to con old Uncle John. I’ve watched her swoon over that classic profile, that nonchalance, that romantic pallor...”

“Is it true she got a letter from Mary?” Mervyn asked abruptly.

“What letter from Mary?”

“That’s what somebody was saying. Incidentally, don’t mention this to Susie. It’s confidential. Is Mary sore at you?”

“Mary sore — at me?”

“The way I hear it, she thinks you let her down. You were supposed to meet her and didn’t show up.”

“What kind of fantasy is this?” blustered Boce.

“Then where were you last Friday night? I was trying to find you myself.”

“Never mind where I was Friday night. What about this letter?”

“I don’t know much about it.”

“Who told you it came? Harriet? It must have been Harriet. She knows everything about everybody. And what she doesn’t know she suspects.”

“Forget I mentioned it. And don’t forget it’s supposed to be confidential.”

“Go to hell, Mervyn. You and your car both.” The big man lumbered peevishly off to his apartment.

Mervyn coiled the hose and gave the car a critical inspection. Except for one or two dents and a nick here and there, the chassis looked pretty good. He made a final check of the trunk. Might be a good idea to spray some aluminum paint around...

Mervyn tucked a for-sale sign behind the windshield wiper and returned to his apartment. He changed clothes, made a cup of instant coffee, then stood drinking it by the window. He brooded over his thesis. Long hours of research lay before him; he must betake himself to the gay court of Eleanor of Aquitaine, steep himself in the langue d’oc. And to do that he had to put this nightmare of Mary out of his mind. But it couldn’t be done. It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sooner or later Mary would be reported missing; sooner or later questions would be asked...

Across the court, on the upper deck, Susie came out of Apartment 12. She was wearing tan shorts, a white polo shirt and sneakers. She tripped down the steps. Mervyn put down his cup and, on the pretext of looking into his mailbox — third in the line of twelve near the entrance — he went out into the court.

Susie bade him a cool but courteous good morning and proceeded to her own mailbox. Mervyn glanced at his mail, tucked it into his pocket. “Where are you going?” he asked. “Do you have time for coffee and doughnuts? I haven’t had breakfast yet.”

Susie paused, looking over her shoulder. “I’ve got to sign up for summer session.”

“You have all day.”

“Not quite. I’m visiting Mrs. Kelly at the hospital between two and three.”

“Is she able to see people?”

“Harriet was there last night.”

Mervyn glanced at the steps to the balcony. “The old girl took quite a tumble.”

“It’s a miracle she’s alive.”

They walked out to the street, the question of coffee and doughnuts not quite resolved. Mervyn looked at Susie out of the corner of his eye. As always, she seemed subtly different from the last time he had seen her. Today she contrived to seem both casual and somber. Her mouth was a grim line. A sweet mouth, thought Mervyn — normally.

Susie’s side glance was swift. “You’re not teaching during summer session?”

“I’ve got a thesis staring reproachfully at me.”

“I can’t imagine you teaching, Mervyn. I mean, really teaching.”

“I can’t either. Oh, well, it’s a means to an end. I’d much rather do other things.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know. Search Europe for old manuscripts, perhaps. What about you, Susie?”

“Life is fluid. And so far I’m floating.”

“Drifting?” suggested Mervyn.

“Floating,” Susie said firmly.

“I’d better look through my mail,” said Mervyn. “Pardon?”

They turned into Telegraph Avenue; the Parnassus Coffee Shop was three blocks away. Mervyn, shuffling through his mail, found a telephone bill; what looked like a letter from his mother; a notice from the university library about some overdue books; and a notification to English Department teaching assistants regarding changed schedules. On closer scrutiny he decided that the letter from his mother — being addressed in typescript on a plain white envelope and postmarked Berkeley on June eighteenth, which was yesterday — could not be from his mother after all. Mervyn tore it open and unfolded the sheet of paper.

The letter consisted of two words printed with a ballpoint pen.

Mervyn frowned.

Then he refolded the letter and tucked it away. He was rather relieved that Susie, marching along by his side, had not been looking at his face when he read the two words.

When they reached the Parnassus Coffee Shop, Mervyn glanced questioningly at her. Susie hesitated, scowled, squinted at the sun. “Well, all right,” she said grudgingly. “But I only have a minute.”

They took a table by the front window; a waitress came for their orders. Susie sat stiffly, looking everywhere but at Mervyn.

He played a conversational gambit. “How come you’re not going home for the summer?”

“I don’t like my mother’s new husband.”

“Oh. You have a brother, don’t you?”

“A half-brother. Ten years old. By my mother’s third. The current consort is her fourth, a large pain in the neck. Real-estate operator, loaded with charm, money, and stepfatherly love. With gestures. Mary’s had more trouble with him than I have. But she didn’t want to shock Mother.”

In spite of his own difficulties, Mervyn was fascinated. “What about you?”

“Mother is shockproof. She dangled us in front of Gordon until she hooked him, and now it’s suddenly a good idea that we get away on our own.” Susie laughed bitterly. “Our grandmother lives in Butte. For a while there was talk about the University of Montana.”

Mervyn asked cautiously, “Why would Mary want to go home, then?”

Susie broke a doughnut into sections. “Who says she went home?”

“Didn’t she?”

Susie shrugged.

“You haven’t heard from her since she left?”

She squinted at him through her thick lashes. “No.”

“Strange,” mused Mervyn.

“Not so very.”

“Well — perhaps not,” Mervyn said. “Under the circumstances.”

“Whatever they are.”

“She never gave you any hint of whom she might be going off with?”

Susie toyed with her spoon. “Mary isn’t much for confidences. Not that she’s secretive; things just aren’t important to her. And then there’s been a little coolness between us recently. You might even say we had a fight.”

Mervyn was startled. The idea of Mary having a fight with anyone seemed absurd. “What on earth about?”

“You.”

“Me?” Mervyn laughed. “I never thought you cared. Much less Mary.”

Susie leaned back in her chair, surveying Mervyn dispassionately. “One of your most appealing features, Mervyn, is your complete lack of vanity. You’re handsome enough to stop a clock, don’t you know that?”

Mervyn was embarrassed. “It’s never got me anything. In teaching it’s a positive handicap. Still, a battle between two love-crazed females—”

“Who said anything like that? With me it was a matter of principle. And Mary isn’t always aware of what she’s up to. Since she’s not a child any more, I thought it was time she learned.”

“I see. Well, what vanity I had is now shattered.”

Susie made a scornful noise. “I made a mistake. Your vanity is so absolutely colossal that it disappears. It’s a good gimmick. I’ll try it. And with Mary not around, I think I’ll try her techniques, too, maybe even improve on them.”

“Have mercy,” Mervyn said. “I’ve got worries enough.”

Susie rose with the faintest suggestion of a smile. “I must be going.”

Mervyn answered in a vague voice, “I’ve got things to do, too.”

Susie, still smiling, departed.

Mervyn sat in deep thought. Presently he signaled for another cup of coffee. And took out the envelope.

He turned it over. No return address. Gingerly he withdrew the enclosed letter, his fingertips tingling as if it were warm with life.

The hand-printing was square, neat, impersonal. The two words were:

YOU’LL SUFFER.

Mervyn’s stomach contracted in a spasm of nausea.

Who could hate him so much?

And why?

Chapter 6

The letter was incomprehensible. The motivation for stealing his car and stuffing Mary into the trunk had been dismally clear — to implicate him in the murder. But why this?

The hand-printing conveyed nothing. A graphologist might read meaning into the carefully squared E, the flourishing S, the quiver in the final leg of the R. But as far as Mervyn was concerned, there was no clue to the identity of the sender.

Mervyn was swept by a gust of rage; it was followed by a swift retreat to cover. The threatening note changed nothing, except for the worse. If only he knew with whom he was dealing! He could then take counter-measures of some kind. According to Harriet Brill — not the most reliable evidence, but it was at least something to go on — Mary had arranged to meet “John.” There had doubtless been other Johns in Mary’s life, but the four most immediate Johns were John Boce, John Thompson, John Pilgrim and John Viviano. He might go to each of these and ask the direct question: “Where were you last Friday night?” Three of them would be puzzled, perhaps irritated; one would be put on his guard. Still, he might be able to check out one or two alibis, and at least narrow the field.

True, John Boce had told him to go to hell in answer to the question, and the others might well do the same. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Fired by resolve, Mervyn jumped to his feet, paid the cashier, and returned to the apartment house.

Noting his mint-green Chevrolet convertible, he stopped short. Today he had planned to sell it. But another day would not matter, unless someone stole the car again and loaded it with a new corpse. Depressed by the thought, Mervyn raised the hood and removed the rotor from the distributor.

He drove off in the Volkswagen, his objective John Thompson, stack superintendent at the university library. He had chosen Thompson first for several reasons. The library was close at hand. John Thompson had a mild disposition. And he could probably supply information about John Pilgrim.

Climbing the steps of the library, his doubts returned. More than likely his question would elicit merely the nasty counter-question: “What business is it of yours where I spent Friday night?”

Then what? Unless... unless he could goad the guilty John into betraying himself!

Easily said. But how to induce his suspects either to incriminate themselves or demonstrate their innocence through provable alibis?

Mervyn stopped in the library foyer to ponder. At last he hit upon a modus operandi. He continued up the marble stairs and came out into a vast hall crammed with catalogue files. The usual flotsam of students, at high tide two weeks before, was gone; the room seemed almost clean.

To one side an oak door warned: LIBRARY PERSONNEL ONLY. Through this door he had occasionally seen Mary pass; now he opened it and walked along a short corridor to where an elderly woman sat at a desk beside a time clock. She looked up inquiringly, and when he asked to speak with John Thompson she looked at him severely over her glasses and pressed a button at the side of her desk. A tubby girl in a dusty pink canvas apron appeared and was instructed to convey the gentleman to Mr. Thompson.

The girl led Mervyn down a steel spiral staircase and along a corridor behind the stacks to a large windowless room, where women sat at desks piled high with books, pamphlets and periodicals. The girl in the pink apron pushed open another of the oak doors, beckoned to Mervyn, yawned and departed.

John Thompson’s office was a cheerless cubicle with battleship linoleum on the floor, brown burlap-covered walls, and a single window overlooking a forlorn scrap of lawn. The librarian, lolling in a swivel chair behind a desk, looked up with no surprise at Mervyn’s entrance. He wore a tan corduroy suit, in great need of pressing, and a foully tobacco-hued knit tie.

“Hi there, Gray. Have a chair.” Thompson surveyed Mervyn with only mild interest.

Mervyn found himself clearing his throat. Finally he said, “I’m here about Mary Hazelwood.”

“You are?” said Thompson politely.

It did not seem an auspicious beginning. “Yes,” said Mervyn. “You see, Susie hasn’t heard from her, and I’m frankly worried. Mary and I... But maybe I’d better not go into that.” Not a bad touch, that, Mervyn thought.

The librarian nodded like a man of the world. “Say no more.”

Mervyn was encouraged. “You were at Oleg Malinski’s party, Thompson, so you know she went off with a man named John.”

“So I gathered.”

Mervyn cleared his throat again. “Look here. I’m trying to find out whom Mary went off with, and why. I don’t think I need go into my reasons. Can you help me, Thompson?”

“If you mean was I the ‘John,’” the librarian said, rocking in his swivel chair dreamily, “no such luck.”

“So you said at Malinski’s, and of course I don’t doubt your word. But just to make it crystal clear... could you tell me where you were Friday night?”

“Friday night? Last Friday?” John Thompson clasped his hands behind his head. “Good heavens, let’s see. I think I was home all evening in my apartment. Yes. Working on my book. All librarians write books.”

“Excuse me if I seem to belabor the point, but was anyone with you? I’d like to be able to cross you definitely off the list.”

Thompson shook his sleek head; he seemed amused. “Sorry, then I guess I stay on the list. I can’t help you.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

The librarian opened his eyes wide. “Does it make any difference? The result is the same.” He laughed. “I didn’t figure you for the jealous-suitor type, Gray. Any more than I am. The world’s full of girls. Although admittedly Mary is something special.”

Mervyn rose. “I see I’m wasting your time and mine.”

Thompson said, “Oh, sit down. Your best bet is John Pilgrim, who used to work here. It was an interesting thing to watch. I mean, Pilgrim trying to ignore Mary, Mary teasing him, using all her tricks. I enjoyed every minute of it.”

“What happened?” Mervyn sat down, eagerly.

“Oh, Pilgrim finally gave in. He and Mary began to eat lunch together out of paper sacks. Bread, salami, red wine in paper cups. The wine officially verboten, of course, but it would have been a pity to interfere.”

“And then what?”

“I fired him.”

“How come?”

“Pilgrim was hopeless. Not a bad fellow personally — really a rather refreshing sort — but his mind simply wasn’t on his work.”

“Do you have his address?”

“Yes.” The librarian swiveled to consult a file. “1909 ½-A Milton. That’s south of campus.”

Mervyn made a note. Then he said in a manly way, “It would simplify matters so much, Thompson, if you could tell me... I mean eliminate yourself...” Thompson shook his head. “Gray, I work here five days a week. From three o’clock Friday afternoon to nine o’clock Monday morning I’m a different man. I like to keep my two worlds separate. And I fully intend to. You’ll just have to take my word for it that I had nothing to do with Mary Hazelwood’s going away.”

Mervyn rose for the second time. “Thanks for your help.”

Thompson said graciously, “Sorry I didn’t prove more satisfactory.”

Mervyn returned to his car, not altogether displeased. In a sense the interview had not been a total loss; Thompson had seemed relaxed and assured. Or had it been an act? Mervyn gnawed his lower Up, worried again.

He swung south of campus, turned into Milton Street and located 1909½-A. It was a ramshackle cottage in the yard behind a ramshackle house. The district was something less than middle class, not far from the used-car lots along Shattuck Avenue.

Mervyn took a cracked concrete path that skirted a neglected lawn from which sprouted a circular aluminum clothes-drying contraption. John Pilgrim’s cottage was not much more than a garage. The roof was of cheap red composition shingle; the siding had once been painted gray. Mervyn climbed two steps to the unsteady porch and knocked on the door.

There was no response. Mervyn went over to a nearby window and peered into a front room. A reed mat covered the floor. On the far wall were William Blake water-colors and a bookcase constructed of orange crates, holding two or three dozen paperbacks. Along the other wall stood a studio couch covered with dark-green monk’s cloth, a cane-bottomed rocking chair and a card table.

He knocked once more, and then he gave up.

Returning to his apartment, he made a pot of coffee and some sandwiches, which he ate without appetite. Susie came into the court, ran up the steps quickly to the balcony and went into her apartment. Mervyn checked the time. One-thirty. Susie, he recalled, was planning to visit Mrs. Kelly between two and three.

Ten minutes later she emerged; she had changed from shorts into a fetching blue print dress. On impulse Mervyn went to the door.

“Hey, Susie!”

She turned and waited for him.

“Going to the hospital?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“I had no idea you were fond of Mrs. Kelly.”

“She seems a decent old thing.”

“She is,” Susie said shortly. Mrs. Kelly, Mervyn remembered, had mothered her and Mary, or tried to. It was probably the only mothering they had ever had. Reaching the sidewalk, Susie turned left. Mervyn halted in astonishment.

“You’re going to walk it?”

“What’s wrong with walking? It’s only a few blocks.”

“Why, it’s at least a mile! Come on, we’ll take my car.”

“Someday,” said Susie, following him, “people’s legs will begin to drop off.”

So they rode to the hospital, Susie sitting straight as a drum majorette.

A woman at the lobby desk directed them to Room 406. The elevator deposited them in an antiseptic corridor. Susie pushed open the door marked “406” softly and looked in. “Mrs. Kelly? You awake?”

“Oh, Susie,” a weak voice said. “Come in.”

Susie hurried into the room; Mervyn followed bashfully. He was afraid of hospitals.

“Sit down,” croaked Mrs. Kelly. She was lying flat on her back; one leg was in traction. “I’m so glad to see you, dear. Who is that with you? Mary?”

Mervyn stepped forward. “It’s me, Mrs. Kelly. Mervyn Gray.”

Mrs. Kelly’s eyes rolled and seemed to bulge. Her body swelled. And her mouth gaped and let loose a scream of terror.

“You!”

“Me?” Mervyn said, prickling all over. “What did I do, Mrs. Kelly?”

“You... pushed me down the steps!” Mrs. Kelly shrieked.

Chapter 7

When the floor nurse chased them out, Mervyn was pale and Susie was thoughtful.

They waited for the elevator in strained silence. Finally Mervyn laughed nervously. “The poor woman must be hallucinated.”

“She seemed quite rational till she saw you,” Susie observed.

Mervyn gave her a sour look. “She’s off her rocker, that’s what she is.”

“It seems to me,” Susie said, “that’s a pretty feeble defense.”

“My God!” he cried. “You can’t really believe...?”

“Does it matter what I believe, Mr. Gray?”

The elevator door opened; they rode down in an unfriendly silence. On the sidewalk Susie smiled distantly and said, “Thanks for the lift. I have an errand to do. I’ll leave you here.”

With a hurt nod, Mervyn turned on his heel. He climbed into his car and sat glowering at the world. He hated the whole planet, notably those of its denizens who were female and fat and neurotic and had paranoid delusions. Why in heaven’s name had old Mrs. Kelly accused him of having shoved her down the steps? She must be out of her ever-loving mind.

Still, Mervyn was uneasy. The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed to him that there was a connection between his unknown tormentor and what had just happened in Room 406. But what, how, why? He started the car and edged out into traffic.

For a few minutes he drove aimlessly, letting his blood cool. Finally he looked at his watch. Two-thirty. Thesis? Study? Research? He laughed unhappily. Fat chance!

YOU’LL SUFFER, the note had said.

Stimulated to fury anew, Mervyn made recklessly for the Bayshore Freeway. He shot across the Bay Bridge and swung down the First Street off-ramp into the heart of San Francisco.

In a pay-phone directory at a service station, he looked up John Viviano’s address: 30 San Angelo Place. Viviano’s house proved to be a relic of pre-1906 San Francisco, clinging to the north side of Telegraph Hill, with a travel-poster view of the Embarcadero and the bay. The pinch-front frame structure was painted a dazzling white; there was a great deal of rococo fretwork and scrimshaw, and two bay windows on each floor. On the pane of the front door, ancient chipped white enamel letters proclaimed:

JOHN VIVIANO, ARTISAN

ENTER

Mervyn stepped into a foyer that startled him. There was black carpeting on the floor and the walls were covered with black velvet. To the left stood a spraddle-legged table painted the greenish white-blue of verdigris, supporting an antique lamp with a celadon base and a green Tiffany-glass shade.

If the décor startled him, what hung on the opposite wall almost toppled him. It was a huge photograph in an ugly gun-metal frame of a standing young woman in a décolleté Empire-like gown. She had one knee resting on a Louis XIV chair and both hands lightly touching the chair’s top. And she was staring right at Mervyn with a Mona Lisa smile, and she was Mary Hazelwood.

The confrontation was so unexpected that Mervyn’s heart stopped for a moment. And into his mind flashed the nightmarish image of that twisted cold figure in pale blue making an obscene splash in dark water... Mervyn winced and turned hastily from the photograph.

The buzzer on the inner door was answered by a dark, skinny young man in a gray smock. He was almost totally bald, short and bandy-legged, with tobacco-fouled fingers. A pair of extraordinarily large black eyes looked Mervyn up and down.

“Yes?” the young man said.

“I’d like to speak to Mr. Viviano.”

“I’m Viviano. Frank Viviano.”

“Oh, I wanted John Viviano.”

“He’s not here right now.”

There was the faintest overtone in the man’s voice — mockery, contempt, condescension? “Will he be gone long?” Mervyn asked.

Frank Viviano shrugged. “Maybe a half hour.”

“I’ll wait if I may.” Mervyn jerked his head toward the photograph. “That’s Mary Hazelwood, isn’t it?”

“Search me. I don’t keep track of them.”

Frank Viviano stepped back and Mervyn preceded him into a large studio that was in striking and perhaps purposeful contrast to the arty foyer. The walls were unpainted plasterboard. The room was a clutter of lights, reflectors, props, cameras and photographic accessories.

“Find a seat,” said Frank Viviano indifferently. He went to a workbench, where he seemed to be repairing a large view camera.

Mervyn strolled about the studio. He looked in at the cameras — Linhof, Leica, Nikon, Mamiyaflex and two Rolleiflexes. But after a while he wandered over to the workbench. Casting about for a conversational opening, he said, “Is this a quiet day for you?”

Frank Viviano nodded. “More or less. It comes in spurts. We don’t shoot much around here, just special stuff.”

“I thought John designed clothes.”

“He’ll do anything for a buck.” Frank Viviano spread glue along a joint, tightened a clamp. “Designing is his downtown job. This is uptown, where life is real. Are you from some agency? Or independent?”

Mervyn was puzzled. “I don’t get you.”

“Aren’t you a model?”

“Hell, no.”

Frank grunted. Mervyn tried another tack. “John said he’d meet me last Friday night and he never showed up. What was he doing?”

Viviano shook his bald head. “Might as well try to chase down a seagull as John.”

“You’re his brother?”

“Yeah. Couple of North Beach paisans.” He raised the lens board and tested the shutter. “I’ve about had it. I’m joining the Peace Corps. Get away, see something new for a change.”

“I’m about ready myself,” Mervyn said.

The brother looked up. “What do you do? You got any skills?”

“I read and write,” Mervyn answered. “I’m pretty good at tennis. In high school I played the violin.”

“I don’t think you’ll make it.”

“Make what?”

“The Peace Corps.”

“It’s true I’m not the pioneer type.”

“Somebody’s got to take it on,” said Viviano in a hard voice. “Time’s over when we can let the other slobs live like dogs. Do you know what it’s like in Ethiopia?” He studied Mervyn intently, the great eyes as blackly pitiless as the camera lens he held in his hand.

“All I know about Ethiopia is that Haile Selassie is the Lion of Judah, and that it used to be called Abyssinia.”

“I mean with the people. Hell, their lot hasn’t improved in six thousand years. Ethiopians are human, aren’t they? Just like you and me.”

Mervyn asked gravely, “You going to teach them photography?”

Frank Viviano gave him a suspicious look. “Why not? Pictures have a universal appeal. They’ll go nuts over photos of Aunt Minnie making hyena soup, Rover chasing a baboon, Junior trying out his first spear.”

Mervyn glanced at his watch. “That picture of Mary Hazelwood in the foyer — was it taken here?”

“Where else? With a long lens on the Mamiyaflex. She’s a natural beauty. Nice kid. You a friend of hers?”

“I know her.”

John Viviano’s brother barked his dark laugh. “She’s got John on the run, but good. When he starts goddamning a dame, I know he’s hooked. He’s susceptible — that’s how he got into this business. It attracts a lot of queers, but John’s all man. He takes a job where he can handle women, because that’s what he likes to do best.”

“You’re his partner?”

“Partner, manager, errand boy, floor mat. I also do most of the work. John is the woman handler. How he loves to handle women.” Viviano raised his head. “That’s him now.”

John Viviano came in jauntily. He stopped abruptly at sight of Mervyn. He set a camera bag down, came over to the bench and stared at the camera his brother was fixing. “That monstrous old Deardorff.”

“We need a big view,” grunted the older man. “Takes good pictures.”

“I’m glad you like it. I think it’s a dinosaur.”

“If a dinosaur can make me a good big negative, I’ll use a dinosaur.”

At this point John Viviano turned his attention to Mervyn. “What brings you here, Gray?” His voice was not unfriendly.

“I want your help,” said Mervyn.

Viviano glanced at him sharply, then at his watch. “Come upstairs. I’m in a hurry, but there’s time for a drink.”

He took Mervyn up a narrow staircase into a sunny parlor with white walls, a red carpet, a green Empire sofa and an ornate gilt mirror. “Scotch? Bourbon?”

“Bourbon.”

Viviano went into a pantry, returned with a pair of glasses. “Been here long?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“You talk much to my brother Frank?”

“Some.”

“What did Frank have to say?”

Who’s pumping whom? Mervyn thought. “Nothing of any consequence,” he said carelessly. “About the Peace Corps, mostly.”

John Viviano began to stride back and forth. “They’d never take him. He’s a crackpot. Full of screwy ideas. Well, Gray, what’s on your mind?”

“Mary Hazelwood.”

“Dear Mary. You saw the photograph?”

“Yes. Well... to be candid, John, I’m in love with her.”

“Who isn’t? So?” Viviano snapped his fingers impatiently.

“She’s gone off somewhere, and I’m worried. She hasn’t communicated even with Susie. I thought you might have some idea where she is.”

Viviano laughed, thrusting his head forward like a snake. “Why don’t you say what you mean? No, I’m not the ‘John.’ Some other John is the ‘John.’ Whoever he is, I envy him. I’m in love with Mary, too.”

Mervyn tried to look earnest. “I believe you, Viviano. But Mary doesn’t know too many Johns. Let’s face facts.”

“As many as you like. I am without sensitivity.”

“Our ‘John,’ now. Suppose he’s married. Or has some other reason for wanting to keep his affair with Mary secret.”

John Viviano stopped in his tracks. “So?”

“So, when I come around asking questions about Mary, he denies everything.”

The photographer said in an ugly voice, “So?”

“You won’t be offended if I ask where you were last Friday evening?”

“I will not be offended, no. But I will decline to answer.”

“I only want to eliminate the name John Viviano from my list,” Mervyn said humbly.

“Your solicitude frightens me. These other Johns — who are they?”

“John Boce, John Thompson, John Pilgrim.”

“You have eliminated them?”

“Not yet.”

Viviano showed his teeth in a wolfish grin. “You’re an imbecile, Gray. Whoever Mary went off with, he would not be here, would he? Hence why ask me about Friday night?”

“I’d still like to know.”

The grin practically slavered. “My friend, I cannot tell you. Delicacy forbids. We are two red-blooded Americans. If I suggest that Friday night I enjoyed the company of a beautiful woman — not Mary — you will understand?”

“Can you give me her name?”

“What do you take me for?” asked the photographer loftily.

Mervyn bade John Viviano farewell.

He drove slowly back across the bridge to Berkeley. At a San Pablo Avenue drive-in he ordered a cheeseburger, and gloomily chewed it and the events of the day. They added up to zero. Evasions from John Boce, polite obstinacy from John Thompson, mock-gallantry from John Viviano. Leaving John Pilgrim.

Recalling the empty wine bottles in Pilgrim’s cottage, Mervyn crossed the street to a liquor store and bought a bottle of cheap sherry. Then he drove back to 1909½-A Milton Street.

There was a battered Lambretta motorcycle parked outside, and he could hear guitar chords in a plaintive random progression. He was in luck. Mervyn knocked, and the door opened.

“John Pilgrim?” Mervyn said eagerly.

“I’m Pilgrim. Yes?” John Pilgrim was a big, lean, lithe young man with a formidable face, broken-nosed and jut-jawed and intent as an animal’s. His skin was sallow and there was a little gray in his short black bristly hair. He wore coffee-colored corduroys, much stained, a shirt that had once been maroon, and scuffed black moccasins. While Mervyn was ready to concede him a certain virile magnetism, he found it hard to understand Mary Hazelwood’s interest.

“I’m Mervyn Gray. Friend of Mary Hazelwood’s?”

“Are you the guy who telephoned the other night?” Pilgrim growled.

“Which other night?”

“Saturday. Around twelve.”

Mervyn remembered; John Boce had called Pilgrim from Oleg Malinski’s. “That was somebody else.”

“This sudden popularity,” Pilgrim said, still growling. “Why?”

Mervyn was suddenly tired and disgusted. But he managed to say patiently, “Mary took off for parts unknown Friday night with a fellow named John. There was some speculation it might have been you.”

The intent eyes looked Mervyn over, apparently decided he was harmless. “That’s one speculation you can kiss good-bye.”

“I just wanted to make sure,” Mervyn said. He glanced down at his paper sack. “Say, I’ve got a bottle of sherry here. Do you imbibe?”

Pilgrim said promptly, “Come on in.”

Mervyn followed him into the living room. On the studio couch sat a young woman, with Mother Earth hips and a narrow waist; she wore her hair in bangs. She glanced at Mervyn once, then bent over her guitar. The chords resumed sadly.

John Pilgrim fetched two glasses from the kitchen; he paid no attention to the woman guitarist. Mervyn snapped the cap off the sherry bottle and poured. Pilgrim sipped. “Your name is what again?”

“Mervyn Gray.”

He nodded reflectively. “Mary’s mentioned you. Said I ought to talk to you.”

“Oh? What about?”

“Poetry. I call myself a poet.” He grunted. “Nowadays the word means nothing. Not a damned thing.”

“It’s an obsolete art,” Mervyn agreed.

Pilgrim scowled into his glass. “I kind of feel that way myself. Yet there’s never been a greater need for it.”

“Yes, there’s still the gap in the mind that poetry used to fill.”

Pilgrim replenished his glass. “Mary said you were a poet.”

“Hardly. I translate medieval troubadour songs.”

“You don’t look the type,” Pilgrim said critically. “I took you for an egg-slicer salesman.”

“You don’t exactly look like a librarian,” Mervyn said, stung. “More like a bouncer in a barroom.”

Pilgrim waved the glass. “That library job was just a fill-in for afternoons. I’ve got a night job. As soon as I get enough loot, I’m going to Japan. In Japan poetry is big. Even the Emperor writes haiku.”

“You know Japanese?”

“Not enough to read haiku. Not yet, anyway.”

The level in the bottle diminished. Suddenly the woman on the couch rose, carrying the guitar, and without a word went out. She shut the front door very softly. Pilgrim did not even look around.

Mervyn steered the conversation back into the channel of his more immediate interest. “A strange business, that thing about Mary. Not one of the Johns she knows will admit having seen her Friday night. You had a thing going with her, too, didn’t you?”

John Pilgrim’s battered lips curled in a sneer. “An ice-cream cone jumping up and down to be licked.”

If that’s a sample of your poetic talent, Mervyn thought, I’ll stick to the twelfth century. “Oh, then it was you she phoned Friday night?”

“Me? Friday night? Say.” Pilgrim drained the glass and set it down powerfully. “What are you, Mervyn, the fuzz? Why all the questions?”

“I told you. Mary arranged to meet somebody named John last Friday night. I’m trying to find out which John it was.”

“What did he do, rape her?”

“Don’t be common,” Mervyn said coldly.

“Common!” Pilgrim gave him an entomological look. “You a square or something? Since when is rape common? It’s the height of individual expression, like you thumb your nose at the fat-asses. But if you’re thinking it was Pilgrim, forget it. Old Johnny’s life is an open book.”

“The freshness of your metaphor o’erwhelms me,” Mervyn said. “I take your last remark to mean that you didn’t see Mary Friday night?”

“What did the other Johns tell you?”

“Not a bloody thing,” said Mervyn bitterly. “They all laughed when I sat down and made like a detective.”

“I was a detective once,” the poet said, refilling his glass only. “Bellhopping, and a shamus slipped me a finif to tip him off when this fatcat from Waukegan staggers in with his fluff and beds down for the night. Big deal. They didn’t even have the covers off. What are you playing dick-dick for, man?”

Mervyn braced himself against the rising tide. “I — want — to know — where Mary went and whom she’s with!!!!”

Pilgrim chuckled. “She ain’t with me. You can see that.”

“Why don’t you just tell me,” Mervyn shouted, “where the hell you were Friday night?”

“Go back to dick-dick school,” said John Pilgrim calmly. “You got a lot to learn, Mervyn.” And, eliminating the intermediate step, he picked up the sherry bottle and partook of its contents directly.

In berserk fury, Mervyn dashed from John Pilgrim’s pad. He drove to the Yerba Buena Garden Apartments like Ben Hur, blundered directly to his apartment, flung himself on the bed, breathing hard...

He awoke at midnight stiff as a corpse. His tongue felt like a newly skinned skunk pelt and his head filled the room. He limped to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, dosed himself with aspirin; then he undressed and crept under the covers.

At dawn’s early light he was still thrashing about in pursuit of Morpheus. Finally he gave up the chase, swung his shaky legs to the floor, kneaded his aching back and tried to face the challenge of another day. He showered, shaved, dressed, made coffee, scrambled eggs, burned the toast. While he was munching away, the mailman entered the court and began to move along the honor guard of mailboxes like a visiting VIP. Mervyn pushed his chair back and went out, feeling a great dread, for his mail.

There was only one letter in his box. It was a plain cheap white envelope; his name and address were in typescript; there was no return address. Mervyn hurried back to his apartment, locked the door, laid the envelope beside his plate, and stared at it.

But it was just a cheap envelope.

Well, Mervyn thought, there’s no sense stalling any longer.

He slit the envelope open with his fork, getting the slit rather eggy, and looked in. A single folded sheet of plain white paper. Like the last time.

So he took the enclosure out of the envelope and unfolded it and read what was written on it.

One word, in a ballpoint pen, printed:

CONFESS.

Chapter 8

Confess...

Beyond a doubt the message referred to the death of Mary Hazelwood. (Though there was also Mrs. Kelly’s tumble, for which he was seemingly responsible, too. But Mrs. Kelly had brayed her accusation at the top of her lungs; she was in no condition to write anonymous letters.)

Who could be sending him these Delphic messages? Only the devil who had stuffed Mary’s body into the trunk of the green convertible, and had then planted Mary’s purse and the bloody boot in his closet.

Mervyn dropped listlessly into his chair and sipped the lukewarm coffee for comfort. John Boce, John Thompson, John Viviano, John Pilgrim. For the umpteenth time he told his beads of reasoning.

First, there was Mary’s telephone conversation with “John” — the key fact. It had been reported by Harriet Brill. Harriet Brill knew every one of Mary’s friends. Harriet worked in proximity to John Thompson at the library and, until recently, to John Pilgrim. She knew John Viviano the photographer through his association with Mary, and she knew John Boce as a neighbor and sometime escort...

Mervyn made a decision. Avaunt, Hamlet!

He went stealthily to the window and peered out. Ah. Harriet Brill’s car was parked at the entrance, an old blue-and-white two-door Plymouth hardtop. So she was probably at home.

He let himself out of his apartment, crossed the court lithely, took the steps leading up to the balcony of the opposite unit two at a time. At the top he turned to look down at the concrete deck. This was where Mrs. Kelly had taken the header. Mervyn shivered. It was unbelievable that the old woman had survived. No wonder she had screeched at sight of the man she thought had pushed her. But what had made her think so?

Mervyn shook his head. He was beginning to develop a respect amounting to reverence for the detective profession.

All he could do was shrug and knock at the door of Apartment 10.

Harriet Brill peeped coyly from her window.

“Mervyn. What a surprise! Quel enchantement!”

She undid the guard chain and pulled the door wide.

“Entrez, entrez, mon cher savant!”

Mervyn entrezed, carefully. She was wearing a muumuu housecoat decorated with huge hand-painted bananas and pineapples and coconuts, and she looked like a sack of fruit stuffed by a drunk.

“I was just about to brew my matutinal pot of tea,” Harriet said. “Won’t you join me?”

“I’d like to,” Mervyn answered with a leer.

“Lovely! I’ll set out another cup.”

Mervyn stood bravely in the middle of the room, looking around. Colorful travel posters were framed on the wall of the dinette, and Klee and Picasso prints hung in the living room, with three ceramic harlequins on the mantelpiece. He walked over and picked one up.

“I just bought those,” Harriet called. “Aren’t they marvelous? They’re Fenner Fuller’s latest. I think he’s so sardonically inventive.” She brought in a teak tray. “Do sit down, Mervyn. Would you care for a tea biscuit?”

“Thanks,” said Mervyn. He lowered himself gingerly into a birch plywood chair with a purple-and-green cushion.

“I don’t believe you’ve ever been here before. How do you like my little den?”

“Very nice.” Mervyn tasted the tea. “How is Mrs. Kelly?”

Harriet blinked, looking uncertain. It was evident that Mrs. Kelly had broadcast her accusation of Mervyn beyond the hospital walls. “I haven’t seen her since yesterday,” she said nervously. “She wasn’t at all well. What a ghastly fall.”

“It’s a long way down.”

“Falls are serious with older persons. Their bones are so brittle. It could easily have killed her.” Harriet gave Mervyn a rather shifty smile. She was really not at her best. It encouraged him.

“I saw her yesterday,” Mervyn said. “She was nuts.”

Harriet nodded rapidly. “I thought so myself. Sort of out of her head.”

Marvyn nibbled and cast about for the likeliest approach. “You’re not working today?”

“Not this morning. I’m all caught up with my abstracts. I’ve some tests to prepare for my latest account — personnel-screening tests. I’m consulting psychologist for three different firms now,” she said modestly.

“Good for you. Do you work under John Thompson at the library? Is he your boss?”

“No, indeed. I merely have a desk in the staging room.”

“But I suppose you come in contact with him?”

“Once in a while. We don’t have much to say to each other.” She wrinkled her nose. “I think he’s leading a double life.”

“Oh?”

“Every weekend he disappears, regularly as clockwork. No one can find him. Not even Mr. Swinnick.”

Mr. Swinnick was general superintendent of the library. Mervyn thought back to his conversation with John Thompson. “Very odd,” he said. “I wonder what he’s so secretive about?”

Harriet laughed for no perceptible reason. “Apparently you’re still worrying about Mary.”

“I’m curious,” said Mervyn. Secretly, he congratulated himself.

Harriet’s thick lips flattened noticeably. “I wonder if there’d be this much fuss made if I went bucketing off with a man.”

Keep her on the track, Mervyn. “Apparently she hasn’t gone off with Thompson.”

Harriet sniffed. “Not unless he’s got a cabin at Santa Cruz or in the mountains.”

“What about John Pilgrim?”

Harriet seemed to smell something bad. “Unsavory type. I can’t imagine what... Well, I just can’t imagine... Or John Boce. It’s simply ridiculous to consider him. He sees through Mary completely.” Her nose twitched. “I mean Mary is, well, frivolous. And John knows it.”

“How about John Viviano?”

Harriet snorted this time. “That lecher? He’s capable of anything!”

Mervyn got to his feet. “Thanks for the tea.”

“Must you go? Another cup?”

“No, thanks. I just came to ask about Mrs. Kelly.”

Harriet was already at the window. “There’s John now, inspecting your convertible. I do wish he’d buy it. It’s ridiculous for a man to be without a car.”

“Bocey-boy is seldom without one,” said Mervyn. “Usually mine.”

“I’ve lent him old Scatterbolt on occasion.” She contrived to look both coy and disapproving. “John, of course, is value-conscious. I suppose it’s a good thing, nowadays. Everything is so overpriced. And he is an accountant.”

“I’d better run down and see what he’s up to. Au ’voir.”

“Au ’voir,” said Harriet Brill thoughtfully.

A passer-by, attracted by the for-sale sign on the convertible, had stopped Boce to ask if he was the owner. Mervyn hid behind one of the stucco urns at the court’s entrance, and listened.

“Not me.” Boce answered the man emphatically. “I wouldn’t own a convertible. This salt air dissolves the tops.”

“It doesn’t look bad.” The would-be purchaser was a serious-looking young man in a tight-trousered black suit. “Any idea what the owner is asking for it?”

Boce laughed pityingly. “He changes it while you look at him. A week ago he offered it to me for practically nothing. I turned it down. You see, brother, I’ve driven it.”

“A dog, eh?”

“Put it this way. If you’re a crackerjack mechanic and want some master’s work, offer him a hundred. Chances are he’ll kiss your hand.”

Mervyn revealed himself like Trampas in The Virginian. Boce drew his shoulders up quickly. Then he sang out, “Ah, there, Mervyn! Fellow here’s interested in your car. I’ve been giving him the poop.”

“Just what is your price?” inquired the serious young man gaily.

“Three hundred,” Mervyn answered.

The young man departed.

“You weren’t very persuasive, John,” Mervyn said in a mild voice.

Boce lowered his shoulders cautiously. “Give me something to work with.”

“What’s your final offer on the car? This time I mean it. Well?”

“Oh... one sixty-five. If you throw in a new set of seat covers. And balance the wheels.”

Mervyn had an inspiration. “Make me a memorandum of that offer, John. Here, on the back of this envelope. Print. I can’t read your writing.”

Boce seemed startled. But then he shrugged and complied. “I call your attention to the fact that I wrote, ‘Tentative and conditional, not a firm offer.’”

“Why did you do that?” Mervyn muttered, studying the thing.

“Just sound business practice. The law of contracts is pretty tricky stuff.”

“Well, I’ll give you a tentative and conditional ‘no.’ But I’ll keep the memorandum in case I suddenly blow my tubes and start giving away my possessions.”

“I’ll be there when you do,” said Boce playfully.

“Incidentally, where were you last Friday night?”

“My God, Mervyn, are you still chewing that old bone? What difference does it make?”

“What difference does it make to you what difference it makes?”

“For the life of me I can’t see—”

“All right. My car disappeared along about then.”

Boce rolled his eyes, imploring the heavens. “So now I’m a thief as well as a liar.”

“Not necessarily. I think this John character went south in my car. I’d like to know his last name.”

“It’s not Boce, old man, believe me.”

“I believe you. But man does not live by faith alone.”

“I wouldn’t drive that rattletrap ten blocks,” Boce assured him. “Unless my life depended on it, of course.”

“Or you couldn’t borrow my Volkswagen. Come on, John, give. Where were you Friday night?”

“Damn it all, Mervyn, if it’s any of your business, I had a date! You satisfied?”

“No. Who was she?”

“Never mind! Let’s just say one of the local fertility goddesses. We danced the Highland fling. Every time I tried to waltz out the door she dragged me back in for one more go-around.”

Beyond that, John Boce would not testify. In disgust Mervyn returned to Apartment 3, where he contemplated Boce’s memorandum.

Suddenly he had an idea.

At the university library he gained access to the big workroom near John Thompson’s office on the pretext of delivering a message to Harriet, who of course was not on duty. On his way out he paused by the bulletin board, which was thickly hung with notices of all kinds. One was a directive regarding summer schedules, signed “J. Thompson.” But it was typed.

Twenty minutes later, at the apartment house where Thompson maintained his residence, Mervyn had better luck. In the slot beside the call buttons was a neatly handprinted JOHN THOMPSON. Mervyn eased the card from the slot and fled.

His next stop was John Viviano’s studio. The photographer was not in, but his brother Frank was, and to Mervyn’s surprise he immediately nodded at Mervyn’s request and rummaged through a file-cabinet drawer. He brought out a drawing done with much swash and verve, of a model in a black cape. Notes detailing the materials to be used were hand-printed along the side.

“My compliments,” said Frank Viviano. “I don’t know why you want it, but I hope you can use it to hang John. I’m looking forward to kicking away the chair.”

Mervyn thanked him feebly, and left with the drawing.

Now how to get hold of a specimen of John Pilgrim’s hand-printing? The project furrowed Mervyn’s brow. An outright request would yield, he was sure, either a sneer or a burst of bad poetry. Or, worse, both. He could always break into the brute’s cottage, of course... Finally, Mervyn decided upon indirection.

He stopped into a stationery store and bought a copy of the current Saturday Review. There was a demonstration typewriter on display, and on the pretext of trying it out he typed a card with the message:

Complimentary Copy! Now is the time to get a FREE 3-month subscription. All you have to do is suggest four persons (name and address) who might be interested in taking the Saturday Review. (Your name will not be used.)

Please print.

Our representative will call shortly to collect your card. Just fill it out, and your FREE 3-month subscription will start coming to you in (approximately) one month.

He parked down and across the street from Pilgrim’s cottage. The Lambretta was gone, so the poet was not at home. Mervyn sneaked up the concrete walk to Pilgrim’s porch, left the magazine, with the card clipped to it, propped against the front door, sneaked back and composed himself in his car to wait.

An hour went by before he heard the Lambretta’s roar. Mervyn watched Pilgrim steer the machine bouncefully over the curb and up along the walk like a rocket. By some miracle it did not crash against the porch. The engine coughed and died, Pilgrim leaped off and to his door — and Mervyn saw him stoop and pick up the magazine and kick his door open and go into the cottage reading the card.

Mervyn waited, scanning Milton Street. About twenty minutes later a neatly dressed boy of about fourteen came along the sidewalk. Mervyn called him over and began to talk earnestly. The boy nodded without expression. Finally Mervyn pointed out Pilgrim’s garden cottage; the boy nodded again, went up the walk and disappeared.

Five minutes later he returned bearing the card. Mervyn gave him a fifty-cent piece and sent him on his expressionless way.

By God, chortled Mervyn, I’ve outwitted that unwashed cat!

He eagerly scanned the face of the card, where he had typed the spurious message. His face fell; there was nothing on it but what he had typed. When he turned the card over, however, he immediately brightened. Pilgrim had fallen for it!

I spit on your lousy magazine. I hate the stupid egghead rag. Don’t pull this on me again. Next time I’ll grab your “representative” and I’ll cockalize him.

J. Pilgrim

He had hand-printed his churlish message.

It was dusk by the time Mervyn got back to the Yerba Buena Garden Apartments. Not a bad day’s work, he thought in the gloaming. For once, he had outfoxed his adversaries (as he had begun to think of the four Johns, even though three of them must be innocent).

As he passed John Boce’s apartment, Mervyn heard Harriet Brill’s laugh. It recalled to him the party of two nights before when Boce had “borrowed” his fifth of bourbon without permission. That was one bottle of bourbon, Mervyn decided, he would have to write off.

But to his astonishment, there outside his door in a paper sack stood a fifth of bourbon, practically full. Was the leopard changing his spots?

The incident, following as it did the success of his quest for hand-printing specimens, put Mervyn into a pleasant euphoria. In his apartment he locked the door, turned on the lights, pulled the drapes, took out the various hand-printing samples he had collected, laid them on the table beside the two anonymous letters, mixed himself a highball, and sat down humming.

Now let’s see, Mervyn thought, rubbing his hands. He took his time, sipping his highball, enjoying far more the taste of superior intelligence and victory over the infidel.

Finally, he laid the two letters flat, with their neat, square, painstaking hand-printing, and compared them with the four specimens of the day.

John Boce’s printing was characterized by wiry capitals leaning to the right in an italic sort of way, slapdash, scratchy.

John Thompson’s printing was small, precise, secretive, with a tendency toward rounded corners and convex vertical strokes.

John Viviano’s was spiky Gothic, bold, striking, handsome.

John Pilgrim printed a harsh, firm block. Superficially it most closely resembled the printing of the anonymous notes, although...

Mervyn kept sipping his drink, prepared for a closer analysis. But then he frowned and looked at the dew-beaded highball glass. His tongue felt peculiar, oily and heavy. There was a strange aftertaste in his mouth. He sniffed the highball. Its smell was funny, too, although faintly familiar — an odor with an unpleasant association.

Mervyn’s stomach suddenly rumbled, rebelled. He went over to the sink, wildly studied the label, JIM BEAM. He smelled the contents of the bottle. The same odor, only stronger: a heavy, bitter, oily reek.

His stomach quivered, his throat burned. Bending over the sink, he vomited. For a moment or two he leaned on the drainboard, gasping. He was about to draw a glass of water to rinse out his mouth when his stomach lurched and he fell over the sink and vomited again...

When he staggered to his phone his only coherent thought was: Poison!

The doctor was a brisk, natty man of middle age with every hair intact and the bloom of prosperity. He smelled the bourbon, gingerly tasted it, examined the mess in the sink, took Mervyn’s pulse, put the stethoscope to his chest and back, examined his tongue, throat and eyes, took his blood pressure. He kept hmmmming and nodding to himself. Mervyn tried lamely to say something about his mischievous little nephews and all, but finally he gave up; the doctor was not listening to him.

At last the doctor straightened up. Mervyn thought he looked disappointed. “I don’t think you’re in any trouble, Mr. Gray. You’ve ingested very little of the stuff, and most of it you got rid of.”

“What do you think it is?” Mervyn asked weakly.

“It smells like oil of valerian. It acts more like tincture of ipecac. Maybe a mixture, I can’t be certain. If it’s nothing worse, you’re quite safe. Go to bed, rest. If you feel pains, dizziness or numbness in your hands or feet, call me right away. But I think you’re all right. Just somebody’s idea of a practical joke.”

Practical joke, my eye, Mervyn thought as the doctor departed. He took a few steps and decided that he felt better, although he was still shaky. What if he had swallowed the whole damn highball?

His enemy grew bolder.

Mervyn examined the samples again. All looked sinister. All now seemed to resemble the hand-printing of the two notes.

His stomach gave an angry grumble of hunger. He boiled two eggs, made toast, poured a glass of milk, wolfed the food down with the voracity of a man who must reassure himself that he is indeed still in the land of the living.

Afterward he poured the doctored whiskey into the sink, fighting his stomach’s twitching over the odor.

Then he went to bed.

The next morning Mervyn waited grimly for the mail. When it arrived he took the plain, cheap envelope back to his apartment and ripped it open impatiently.

The third message read:

CONFESS OR YOU’LL BE SORRY.

Chapter 9

Mervyn took Telegraph Avenue to the campus. It was Friday, the day John Thompson performed his weekend disappearing act. As he walked through Sather Gate, Mervyn cased the library.

John Thompson could use any one of three or four exits on his way to his car. Unless Mervyn were parked nearby, the librarian could drive away without Mervyn’s being aware that he had left.

Deep in thought, Mervyn trudged out onto the mall in front of the Student Union. He almost bumped into Oleg Malinski, who greeted him cordially.

“You’re working too hard. You look dreadful, Mervyn. Is it the thesis?”

“No,” muttered Mervyn. “It’s personal. If I had any sense, Oleg, I’d leave town.”

“My philosophy precisely,” Malinski declared. “When annoyances press in upon you — flee! Depart! Evade! Escape! Why fight the city hall? Did King Canute find satisfaction in defying the tide?”

“You’re so right,” Mervyn said mournfully. “Oh, incidentally, I visited your friend Viviano yesterday.”

“Indeed? Surprising!” The little optical engineer’s bushy mustache quivered with interest.

“Why surprising?”

“I should never have expected you to become friendly with Viviano.”

“Right again,” Mervyn said. “I went to ask him where he spent last Friday night.”

Malinski laughed. “What did he tell you?”

“Nothing. He denied knowing anything about Mary.”

“Ah, now I understand. It is Mary who worries you.”

“The absence of Mary. She hasn’t even communicated with Susie.”

“Hm.” Malinski looked speculative, and Mervyn felt a sudden alarm. Eventually Mary’s disappearance would come to the attention of the police, and someone would be certain to remember his investigations. One thing at a time, he admonished himself. “Oleg, would you happen to know where Viviano spent Friday night?”

But Malinski had been distracted by the contours of a girl in tight pink shorts. She passed, her brown ponytail twitching in tempo with her nubile bottom; Malinski’s head swiveled like a compass needle. “Ah, youth,” the little man sighed. “When I walk through the campus among so many beautiful girls, a hopeless sensation overcomes me — all those precious commodities going to waste! Beauty evaporating by the instant!”

Malinski’s regret evaporated, too. He said briskly, “Ah, well. You were inquiring about John Viviano?”

“Yes.”

Malinski chewed thoughtfully at his mustache. “Let me ask you a question, Mervyn. When you visited the Viviano studio, how were relations between John and his brother Frank?”

“Well, Frank spoke of joining the Peace Corps.”

Oleg nodded. “And with Frank would go the Viviano photography business.”

Mervyn expressed surprise.

“John Viviano’s vanity is colossal,” said Malinski. “Or perhaps you were aware of it? John can never admit a deficiency, a lack of skill in himself. It’s almost pathological. I will tell you a secret which I believe he keeps even from Frank — I learned it purely by chance. Since it was not a confidence I feel free to repeat it to you. John poses as a photographer, but the fact is that he knows nothing of darkroom techniques. To remedy this he is quietly taking instruction.”

“No!”

“But yes. John is excellent with models. He has a fine eye for pose, lighting, composition. Any dolt can read exposure and snap a shutter. But the darkroom is as much a part of the creative process as the picture-taking itself, possibly more. And Frank is a darkroom genius. From a Brownie snapshot negative Frank can produce a salon print.

“John would like to become as proficient. So that someday, when Frank displays a beautiful print on which he has labored three hours, John can point out some trifling flaw and with the most negligent ease proceed to correct it. Frank will then either become hopelessly insane, or run out of the studio never to return.”

Mervyn swallowed a yawn. “That’s very interesting. But what does it have to do with where Viviano spent Friday night?”

“On Tuesday and Friday nights John pursues his darkroom studies at the San Francisco Recreation Center. His tutor is George Szano, one of my friends, from whom I derived this information.”

“Oh,” said Mervyn.

“Odd that you should be so interested,” Malinski said, inspecting Mervyn blandly. “Is not — how shall I put it? — is not your primary attention focused upon Susie?”

“Well, more or less.”

Malinski beamed. “That is as it should be. Mary is an unattainable ideal, Susie is flesh and blood. Living, breathing, aching, yearning.”

“That’s certainly a dramatic way of describing the Hazelwood sisters.”

“Is it possible you do not know that drama, excitement and sensation are all around us? We become so callous, so numb, that only the extraordinary arouses us from our torpor. Drama! One must live it!”

As Oleg Malinski spoke he went through a series of vehement gestures, raising a finger, pointing, extending his hand palm upward, hand clenched. His eyes suddenly focused over Mervyn’s shoulder and Mervyn, looking around, saw the girl in the tight pink shorts returning. To Mervyn’s horror, Oleg reached out as she passed and patted her straining, jiggling bottom. The girl whirled, staring. Oleg gave a cry of dismay. “Good heavens! A dreadful mistake. I thought you were someone else. Please, please accept my apologies?”

The girl’s mouth moved in an uncertain smile. “It’s all right.”

“Permit me to buy you a hot chocolate. Please? I must redeem my gaucherie in some way, Mad’moiselle...”

As Malinski nudged the girl off down Telegraph Avenue, chattering charmingly, Mervyn watched in wonder. If he had tried that, the girl would have screamed bloody murder.

Behind him the campanile chimed eleven times. Four hours to wait — four hours wasted. He became infuriated. Time gone forever which he should be giving to research, translation or, if nothing else, simply the atmosphere of Old Provence.

He looked for Oleg Malinski and the girl in pink shorts, but they were gone, lost among the people strolling in the street. Something in Mervyn’s mind shifted, refocused. Twelfth-century poetry as a way of life suddenly seemed ridiculous.

He walked slowly along, pondering the hows and whys of his existence. Was he a fugitive from reality? Not necessarily. After all, what could be less real than mesons; invisible galaxies that had outrun the speed of light, or, for that matter, the Antarctic? Yet these were foundations for respectable, even acclaimed careers. What were a mere eight centuries of past time in the infinite schedule of nature? And who knows? Mervyn thought. Maybe the troubadours are on the way back. All these guitar-twanging folk singers... And drama was more than taking care of itself in this Mary business...

But somehow these optimistic reflections did not lighten his spirits. He turned into a restaurant and ordered a sandwich, still gloomy and dissatisfied, still conscious of the tenderness in his stomach. Mervyn chewed, speculating on his invisible enemy. Suppose he properly identified “John”? What then? He stopped eating. What then indeed?

John Thompson lived in a tan stucco early-California-style apartment house on College Avenue, four blocks from the campus. At two o’clock Mervyn parked his Volkswagen across the street and settled down.

But a little, thought made him get out of the car. If Thompson secluded himself in his apartment for the weekend, well and good. But if he was headed somewhere, he would have to use his car, presumably parked nearby. Possibly around at the side of the apartment. It might be smart, then, to check.

Mervyn crossed the street. About where he had figured, a registration form on the steering wheel identified a scarlet MG roadster as the property of John Thompson. Reassured, Mervyn returned to his Volkswagen.

John Thompson appeared at a quarter to three, moving so self-effacingly that Mervyn almost missed him. The library stack superintendent shot one quick glance up and down the street and slipped into the apartment building.

Mervyn waited. It would be a long wait if Thompson spent weekends incommunicado in his own apartment. But no, twenty minutes later he suddenly reappeared, now wearing suntans and a long-sleeved green plaid shirt.

He looked more like a construction worker or a surveyor than a librarian. Again Thompson looked up and down the street; apparently reassured, he went quickly around the corner. A few moments later the MG slid out and turned into College Avenue.

Mervyn gave him a hundred-yard lead, then followed with what finesse he could contrive. John Thompson never turned his head. But Mervyn had the unpleasant feeling that he was being watched in the rear-view mirror. Nevertheless, he clung to the scarlet car’s tail.

Thompson bowled briskly south for a mile or so. Then, to Mervyn’s consternation, he swung the MG smartly into the parking lot of a supermarket.

Mervyn parked at the curb, fuming.

The librarian presently emerged carrying three large bags bulging with groceries. He loaded them into the MG, made a left turn on College Avenue and headed back the way he had come, his blunt profile as he passed perfectly placid.

Mervyn followed sheepishly. What if Thompson should stop and walk back to demand what Mervyn thought he was up to? He winced. Then he remembered his troubles, and he kept doggedly following.

He was soon glad he had persisted. For it developed that John Thompson was not going home after all. The MG turned right into Ashby Avenue, proceeded east, then swung onto the Contra Costa Freeway. Traffic was heavy and Mervyn edged closer; one of an army of Volkswagens, he was in little danger of being spotted.

Thompson suddenly accelerated, as if he could not wait to get where he was going. The MG began to gain, snapping from lane to lane, dodging around trucks and big cars. Mervyn barely managed to keep him in sight.

The suburban communities of Orinda, Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill fell away. At Concord, Thompson turned right and drove two miles past a succession of housing tracts: RIVERVIEW ACRES, FAR HILLS, MOONRISE MANOR, ESQUIRE COUNTRY CLUB ESTATES. At the last one, ENCHANTED MEADOWS, he turned into Madrone Road, made a left into Willow Lane, then a right into Cottonwood Drive, and finally swung neatly into the driveway of 1315 Bramble Way.

It was a ranch-style bungalow with redwood board-and-batten front and side walls of pale-green stucco.

John Thompson stopped the MG alongside a planter built of used brick, with a quadrangle of bright-green lawn just beyond. The front door burst open and two little girls plunged out, shrieking with joy, followed more sedately by a strapping woman of about thirty-five with a pleasant face and a rather untidy abundance of sand-colored hair.

Mervyn, who had halted almost a block away, watched the librarian salute the woman with a hearty smack. He handed her one of the bags of groceries, took up the remaining two, and the entire group went into the house, the little girls pulling at Thompson’s trousers.

Mervyn sat in wonder. Ten minutes passed. How should he do it? He could hardly go up to the door and ring the bell.

Suddenly Thompson came out of the house in wrinkled blue jeans. He went into the garage, rolled out a lawn mower and began to mow the lawn. Mervyn made a U turn and drove back down Bramble Way to the intersection of Cottonwood Drive. Here he made another U turn and headed down the middle of the road, driving slowly. Thompson was pushing the mower toward the house.

Mervyn leaned out. “John Thompson! Is that you?”

The librarian stopped, turned slowly. Mervyn jumped out of the car. “What on earth are you doing out here?”

“I’m mowing the lawn,” said Thompson.

The two little girls ran out of the house and squatted on the steps. They looked intently at Mervyn.

“And what, may I ask, brings you this way?” asked Thompson in oily tones, rich with irony.

“I’m looking for Willow Lane,” Mervyn said. “I can’t find it.”

“Go back to the corner, turn right on Cottonwood. It’s three streets down.”

“Thanks. What a surprise to find you out here!”

“So I would imagine,” Thompson said.

Mervyn looked at the little girls. “Are these your children?”

“Yes.”

“Aren’t they darlings,” Mervyn said warmly.

From the house came the sandy-haired woman. Thompson watched her approach with a nichevo expression. “My dear, this is Mr. Gray, an instructor — I believe an instructor — at the university. Mr. Gray, Mrs. Thompson.”

“I’m simply delighted to meet you,” Mervyn said. Thompson muttered something like, “I’ll bet!”

“How do you do,” Mrs. Thompson answered. “Are you one of our new neighbors?” She sounded as if she came from the Midwest.

“No. I just happened to be passing by and spotted John.”

Mrs. Thompson vented a virile laugh. “John does enjoy his chores. He’d rather mow lawns than eat.”

“Arrrghmmm,” said Thompson.

“It’s lucky he does. There’s so much for him to do he never seems to catch up. After all, he only has weekends at home, with that awful job of his. Being called in and out at all hours! I wish he’d get something where he could come home every night.”

Thompson lifted his hand in a defenseless gesture, dropped it wearily.

“John has a very demanding job,” Mervyn said.

Thompson looked startled.

“What was your name again?” asked Mrs. Thompson. “I never seem to catch a person’s name when I’m introduced.”

“Mervyn Gray.”

Mrs. Thompson grinned. “I’ve heard John mention you. I’ve asked him time and again to bring his friends out, but he never seems to get around to it.”

Mervyn said, “This looks like a wonderful place to live.”

“Oh, it is!” said Mrs. Thompson. “It’s fine for the children, and we get very good reception — all but Channel Two. Of course — selfishly speaking! — it’s not like living in town, but John insists we’re better off here. Even if he can only manage to come home weekends.”

Thompson had been standing a little to one side, rolling the mower back and forth suggestively. Whereupon Mervyn remarked to him that the lawn seemed to be doing well and Thompson mumbled something about its being at least as good as his neighbors’ lawns.

Mervyn asked in an innocent tone, “Do you mow it every week?”

“Yes,” said Thompson sullenly.

“Not last week, Papa!” called one of the little girls.

Her father glared at her, then at Mervyn. The glare at Mervyn was murderous.

Mervyn said hastily, “Well, I’d better be getting on. Very nice to have met you, Mrs. Thompson.”

“A pleasure, I’m sure. I do hope you’ll drop by again. Next time bring your wife.”

Mervyn drove slowly back toward Berkeley. Of course, the fact that Thompson had failed to mow his lawn the previous weekend did not necessarily mean that he had failed to spend that Friday evening at his unadvertised home in Enchanted Meadows. On the other hand, it might mean exactly that. In other words, Mervyn reflected bitterly, his investigation of John Thompson’s possible involvement in the death of Mary Hazelwood had produced the usual indecisive nothing.

He got back to Berkeley a few minutes before five. On impulse, he took Milton Street, slowing down in front of 1909½-A. Craning, he saw the motorcycle parked before the cottage; John Pilgrim had not yet left for his night job.

Mervyn drew up across the street. He had not long to wait. At five-twenty the clatter of the Lambretta’s engine announced Pilgrim’s departure. And here he came, trundling down the concrete walk.

On the pillion rode the girl with the bangs, wearing a dark dress and a white trench coat. Almost dress-up clothes, thought Mervyn. An evening out? But no, the poet wore his brown corduroys and a duffel coat. His rugged face was stern; he apparently took the business of driving the motorcycle with the seriousness of a jet pilot.

Pilgrim turned up Milton Street and Mervyn followed. At College Avenue the motorcycle turned right and proceeded in the same direction Thompson had taken earlier in the day. At Ashby Avenue, again like Thompson, Pilgrim veered east. Mervyn wondered if he owned a house in one of the valley subdivisions, too.

But the poet’s destination was closer at hand. Mervyn almost lost the scent at Claremont Avenue, where heavy traffic and a stop light halted him. But he managed to catch up with the Lambretta on Ashby Avenue, and he was virtually on its taillight when it swung into the grounds of the Claremont Hotel — a lordly old pile, its Tudor half-timbering happily wedded to California Mission bell towers. For sixty years the Claremont had been fashionable Berkeley’s favorite social center.

Mervyn pulled into the parking area, looking around for the Lambretta. John Pilgrim taking his girl friend to the Claremont for dinner? Mervyn was dubious. It didn’t seem the poet’s style and certainly the corduroy trousers and the duffel coat were hardly acceptable at the Claremont.

He finally found the vehicle at the far edge of the parking area. In defiance of all logic, Pilgrim and his girl consort had gone into the Claremont. Another mystery!

Mervyn entered the hotel through heavy glass doors standing open to the warm summer afternoon. To his left, the popular ice-cream parlor, decorated in the style of the 1920s, was half-filled with fraternity boys and their dates. But no John Pilgrim and lady. Mervyn went on and looked into the bar. Businessmen in dark suits, women in smart afternoon dresses. No Pilgrim, no female guitar player.

Mervyn entered the lobby. And there sat the girl, alone, in a chair off to the side. She had taken off her trench coat; it was on her lap, and she seemed to be waiting. Mervyn looked around. No sign of Pilgrim. He sat down on the other side of the lobby.

Ten minutes, twenty minutes, went by. Men and women arrived, met friends, passed back and forth between bar and restaurant. A bellhop in maroon uniform paged a Mr. Bill Jones. Another bellhop came out of the bar, carrying a Tom Collins on a tray. He brought it to Pilgrim’s girl. The girl smiled up at him. Mervyn started. The bellhop was Pilgrim. Of course! That story about when he had acted as spotter for the private detective...

Pilgrim went off with his tray. The girl sipped the Collins; occasionally she glanced at her watch. A few minutes later Pilgrim came past again, saying something to her. She quickly finished the drink, jumped up and followed him to the dining room. Pilgrim whispered to the head-waiter, who nodded and escorted the girl to a remote table at the side of the room. He seated her with a flourish, handed her a menu. The poet-bellhop returned to the lobby. Mervyn grinned in spite of himself. Leave it to Pilgrim to take his girl to dinner in an original way!

If this John bellhopped on Friday nights, too, he could not have been involved in the death of Mary Hazelwood, or in the theft of the green convertible. But did he work on Friday nights? Had he worked the previous Friday?

Another bellhop was scudding by. Mervyn stopped him. “Were you on duty last Friday night?”

“No, sir. Last week I worked the day shift.”

“What about John Pilgrim? Was he on the day shift last week, too?”

“No, he’s permanently on nights.”

“Do you happen to know if Pilgrim worked his full shift last Friday night?”

The bellhop looked at Mervyn shrewdly. “Is this some kind of investigation?”

“Yes,” said Mervyn. “Completely confidential. But nothing to Mr. Pilgrim’s discredit.”

“Oh.” The bellhop seemed disappointed. “Well, I don’t know about last Friday. I could find out by looking at his time card.”

Mervyn produced a dollar bill. It vanished, and the bellhop departed. Five minutes later he was back. “His card is punched for last Friday night. He put in a full shift, from six to two a.m.”

“Thanks.”

So much for John Pilgrim.

Mervyn got to his feet and crossed the lobby, where he paused to consider a fresh possibility. No. Hardly reasonable.

He went on, and collided with a hurrying figure in a maroon uniform, who gripped his biceps so powerfully that Mervyn almost cried out.

In a suave voice John Pilgrim said, “Excuse me, sir,” and stepped around Mervyn and went on.

Chapter 10

Mervyn frowned over his TV dinner. On Friday evening last, John Thompson had or had not mowed the lawn and performed other domestic tasks way out in Enchanted Meadows; John Pilgrim had probably put in a full shift at the Claremont Hotel; John Viviano had occupied himself learning the basic elements of his profession; and John Boce had — at least claimed — a social engagement.

Mervyn considered each alibi carefully.

John Boce’s refusal to disclose the name of his date carried the least conviction.

The pattern of John Thompson’s secret domestic weekends was clear, but it remained to be seen whether or not he had followed the pattern the previous Friday.

The same could be said for John Pilgrim. The time card put him in the clear — if the other bellhop was telling the truth. Remembering Pilgrim’s grip on his arm, Mervyn had to consider the possibility of collusion.

As for John Viviano, by Malinski’s testimony he should by now be pursuing his darkroom studies.

Mervyn looked at his watch. Five minutes to eight. Almost exactly one week ago, Mary Hazelwood had left Apartment 12 to rendezvous with death. Mervyn shuddered.

He changed his shirt, put on a tie and a dark jacket and, switching off the lights, went to his door. Here he hesitated, slowly opening the door.

Nothing out of the ordinary. Mrs. Kelly’s apartment across the court up there was dark, as it should be. Neither Susie nor Harriet Brill seemed to be at home; ditto John Boce.

Mervyn moved out into the shadow under the balcony, hesitated again, then plunged across the court, his back tingling with vulnerability... He was almost surprised when he reached the street safely.

Half a block away he saw Harriet, evidently returning from a trip to the corner market. He quelled the impulse to jump into his car and leave.

Harriet waved gaily. “Good evening, good evening!”

“Hi, Harriet,” Mervyn said. “Any idea where John Boce has gone to?”

“No. Why, Mervyn?”

“He wanted to talk to me about the convertible.”

“You two and that car,” the psychologist said indulgently. “Just like a pair of quarreling children.”

“Say, Harriet, did John borrow your car Friday a week ago?”

Harriet’s eyes slitted. “Did John say he did?”

“He’s awfully mysterious about whom he was out with last Friday night.”

Harriet said cautiously, “John and I had a date that evening.”

“You used your car?”

“That must have been the night we saw Alexander Nevsky. One of the Eisenstein films. John and I both love Russian films. They’re so — so Russian.”

Ah, the hell with it, Mervyn thought. “Well, I’ll probably see John tomorrow. How’s Mrs. Kelly today?”

“Better.” Harriet took a nervous step. “Excuse me, Mervyn, my ice cream is melting.” She made hastily for her apartment.

Mervyn crossed the Bay Bridge and located the San Francisco Recreation Center, a large public building devoted to arts, crafts and hobbies. The ground floor was given over to impressive facilities for the processing and printing of film.

Mervyn spotted Viviano at once. The photographer stood beside a print drier, impatiently watching the slow, endless belt. He was wearing black slacks and a loose offbeat poplin jacket with blue and red stripes. He looked up, saw Mervyn’s eyes on him, and froze.

“What are you doing here, Viviano?” Mervyn called amiably. “Experimenting at the taxpayers’ expense?”

“Exactly,” snapped Viviano.

Mervyn looked around the room. Near the entrance to the darkroom stood a print washer. On the other side of the room there were tables with paper cutters, a press for mounting finished prints, and other devices. “What sort of work are you doing down here?”

“General photography,” said Viviano shortly. “Anything and everything. I’m refreshing my techniques.”

Prints began to fall from the drier into a tray. Viviano scooped them up, examined them closely. They looked to Mervyn like very ordinary views of an ancient hotel in the process of being wrecked.

“You shot those pictures last week?”

“Yes,” grunted Viviano. “On Monday morning. The film is Plus X. I used a Nikon F with a one-thirty-five telephoto.”

“Interesting,” said Mervyn mendaciously. “Er — do you have any other prints on hand — say, those you made last Friday night?”

John Viviano slapped the prints down on a table and swung about. “You’re still on that kick, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Mervyn admitted. How did those fiction detectives do it?

“Why? What difference is it to you where I was last Friday night?”

Mervyn could only answer miserably, “I told you. I want to find Mary Hazelwood.”

Viviano gesticulated fiercely. “Very well. Anything to end this persecution. I was here last Friday night. Look!”

He strode to a nearby table, opened a brief case, took out an 11×14 print. “See this? I worked three hours that night to prepare this print. It was a very difficult negative, and I was trying to produce the best possible result.”

Mervyn examined the photograph, a foreshortened view of a busy Chinatown street — Grant Avenue, by the street sign. Sunlight slanting down intersecting streets produced an effect of luminous overlapping washes of haze. The sidewalks were clogged with pedestrians, the street with cars.

It was, Mervyn was forced to admit, an excellent photograph. Still, what did it prove? Viviano might have printed the picture on some other occasion.

“You printed this last Friday?”

“Yes.”

“Was someone helping you? Or watching? In short, is there anyone who can substantiate the date?”

Viviano said with enormous dignity, “I don’t know. I refuse to discuss this any further, Gray. Excuse me.”

“Wait.” Mervyn felt ridiculous. “I’m merely trying to eliminate you, Viviano, so you won’t be involved.”

“We aren’t in a court of law,” the photographer snarled. “Besides, I’m not in the least interested.” He extracted new prints from the drier and pointedly turned his back.

Mervyn went over to the registration desk. A sharp-featured woman in a blue smock looked up with disapproval. “Yes?”

“Do you keep records of who works in the darkroom?”

The woman shook her head.

“Are you acquainted with Mr. John Viviano?”

“Certainly, he’s over there by the drier.”

“Was he here last Friday night?”

“I don’t remember, I’m sure.”

“Would anyone here know?”

“Why not ask Mr. Viviano?”

“I did. He’s not sure whether he was here Thursday or Friday.”

“Well, I can’t help you if he can’t.”

Mervyn went reluctantly back to the drier. Viviano, ignoring him, strode into the darkroom. Mervyn re-examined the photograph of Grant Avenue. A sidewalk clock showed the time, 3:17. If only there were some way to date the picture, thought Mervyn — a newspaper headline, for instance (he had once seen a movie like that). But no newspaper stands were visible.

Only one aspect of the picture seemed to suggest a possibility. Mervyn glanced around guiltily, then went through John Viviano’s brief case. There was no other copy of the print. In desperation, he rolled up the original, stuffed it in his pocket and hastily left. As he passed the registration desk, he met the eye of the woman in the blue smock. That glittering orb seemed to contain all the accusatory fires of the law. Half expecting to hear “Stop, thief!” he hurried out of the building. But there was no pursuit, and Mervyn decided that it had just been her natural expression.

The next morning, drinking coffee by his window, waiting for the mailman, who was late, Mervyn reconsidered his data in the light of late developments.

For the fateful Friday night, he now had corroboration from Harriet Brill that it was she John Boce had spent the evening with, at a movie. No wonder Boce hadn’t come clean! But he was out.

The John Thompson situation remained in the status quo ante. No corroboration yet; there was even reason to believe he lied.

Corroboration for John Viviano’s alibi that he had spent the evening in the Recreation Center’s darkroom: unsatisfactory. The photograph of the Chinatown street might have been developed at any time. There was only Viviano’s word.

John Pilgrim bellhopping at the Claremont Hotel on his regular shift, as attested by his time card: A good alibi — unless the other bellhop had been covering up for him at Pilgrim’s request.

Mervyn sighed. This was hard work.

He went to the phone, dialed Information and asked for the number of John Thompson, 1315 Bramble Way, Enchanted Meadows, Concord.

To Mervyn’s relief it was Thompson’s wife who answered; had it been the librarian, he would have hung up.

He identified himself and suffered Mrs. Thompson’s pleasantries until he found a place to cut in. “Mrs. Thompson,” he said in a confidential tone, “I’m going to ask you what may seem like a strange question, but believe me it has a perfectly simple explanation that really has nothing to do with John.” And that, he thought desperately, is as stupid a line as I’ve ever heard of! “Did your husband spend last weekend with you?”

“Last weekend? With me?” Mrs. Thompson was silent, and Mervyn thought she was going to blast. But she was only thinking. “Why, no.”

Mervyn sighed in spite of his exultancy. Mrs. Thompson was so transparently naïve. What nastinesses detective work took one into!

“Then John wasn’t home last weekend?”

“Oh, but he was,” Mrs. Thompson said. “I’m the one who wasn’t home. Poor John had to batch, but then he’s used to that.”

Mervyn gritted his teeth, holding on to himself by main strength of character. It was just too damn, damn difficult! “When did you leave, Mrs. Thompson?”

“Friday, as soon as John got home. I took the children up to Sacramento to see my sister Eunice. I hated to miss the weekend with John, but Eunice was leaving for Oklahoma and it was the last chance I’d have to see her for a long time. But, Mr. Gray, why do you ask?”

After all, she was a woman.

“Sort of private joke,” Mervyn said, trying to chuckle. “It’s really a kind of game we play here at the university — it’s much too involved to explain over the phone.” (Or anywhere else, he thought.)

“Would you like to talk to John? He’s setting out redwood stakes for grapevines. He says we’re going to make our own wine. Imagine!”

“Oh, no, don’t bother him,” Mervyn said quickly. “In fact, part of the game is that he’s not even supposed to know I called. By the way, I don’t suppose you phoned home Friday night from Sacramento?”

“No...” Mrs. Thompson’s tone suddenly turned thoughtful. “Mr. Gray, this game or whatever it is you’re playing—”

That’s done it, Mervyn thought despairingly. “Excuse me, Mrs. Thompson, somebody’s at my door. I really must hang up. ’Bye!”

“Bye,” Mrs. Thompson answered in the same thoughtful way.

Mervyn returned to his post at the window. All right, he had done it clumsily. But he had found out something, and wasn’t that the proof of whatever-it-was? — pudding? The fact was, John Thompson had been home alone from early Friday evening the previous weekend. (He took time off to wonder why Thompson’s little girl had said her father had not mown the grass that weekend. Of course! When she and her sister and mother got back from Sacramento she saw that the grass was uncut! That was getting somewhere!) John Thompson, you dog, Mervyn thought, your alibi stinks.

And there came the mailman, hurrying along like the White Rabbit.

Mervyn went out to meet him, and he came back with a batch of letters and circulars. But he was interested only in the cheap white envelope.

He sat down at the kitchen table, fascinated. His name, his address... He slit the end of the envelope slowly, slowly withdrew the folded sheet of paper, quickly unfolded it.

CONFESS

OR YOU’LL DIE.

Mervyn sat looking at the fourth word for five minutes, his heart trying to climb out of his throat. Damn “John”! And all his works! What in God’s good name have I ever done, Mervyn thought, to deserve this calculated campaign to turn me into a gibbering ape?

He considered again going to the police, telling everything. “Confess!” Mervyn’s stomach flopped like a frantic salmon. It was unthinkable.

Pack up and leave? But sooner or later the police would begin an investigation of Mary’s disappearance, and anyone who had lit out would automatically become their-prize suspect.

No, there was nothing to do but continue his one-man John-hunt. He reread the letter, and this time it infuriated him.

He snatched the telephone and called the home of Richard Takahashi. Mrs. Takahashi told him that her husband was at work. So Mervyn phoned the university observatory. After a short delay, he heard Dick Takahashi’s calm voice.

“Dick, this is Mervyn Gray.”

“Hi, Merv. How’s tricks?”

“Tricky. Say, Dick, I’ve got a problem that’s up your alley. Do you have a few minutes?”

“Sure. What is it?”

“I’ve got to show it to you. What room are you working in?”

“Room one twelve.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Mervyn set out on foot. He felt in the mood for a good fast walk.

Approaching the university, he passed an art-film theater. Sure enough, there on the marquee were the words EISENSTEIN’S ALEXANDER NEVSKY. Further verification of John Boce’s alibi. Mervyn walked on. But then he stopped, frowning. That was an awfully long run for a revival. Even for culture-conscious Berkeley. Over a week. Was it possible that...? He crossed the street to the box office. It was closed, but the schedule of the month’s attractions was on display.

Alexander Nevsky: June 17 to June 22.

Today was therefore the last day. The first showing had been on the seventeenth — last Monday. John Boce and Harriet Brill had not seen Alexander Nevsky the previous Friday night, after all. Harriet had given Boce a false alibi!

Mervyn hurried on to the observatory, a comfortable, shabby old frame building smelling of floor oil and varnish. In Room 112 he found Richard Takahashi, a compact young man with an uncompromising butch haircut and black horn rims.

“You sounded all hopped up,” Takahashi said. “What gives?”

Mervin took out the photograph he had filched from John Viviano and laid it down on the desk. “Look at this photograph, Dick. What do you make of it?”

Takahashi squinted. “Good shot. Man knew what he was doing. Used a telephoto, of course. What’s the problem?”

“What day was the picture taken?”

Takahashi looked up with surprise, bent over the photograph. After a moment he said, rather more slowly than before, “You’re thinking about the sunlight?”

“Yes. Notice the clock outside the jewelry store. Assuming that it’s accurate, and since the sunlight slants down at an angle that can be measured, and the orientation of Grant Avenue is a fixed value, can’t you calculate from that what day the picture was taken?”

Takahashi rubbed his chin. “It might be last year. Or the year before.”

“It’s this year. Look at the license plates on the cars.”

“Of course!” Takahashi jumped to his feet, went to a cupboard and returned with a large-scale map of San Francisco. “Let’s see what can be done here...”

Ten minutes passed, twenty. Richard Takahashi measured angles, made sketches on scratch paper, worked his slide rule, consulted the Nautical Almanac. Finally he leaned back in his chair. “The photograph was probably taken Tuesday, June fourth, although it could have been June third or June fifth. That’s the range of possibility, Merv.”

“You can’t pin it down to a single day?”

“No.”

Mervyn thanked Richard Takahashi and left. What the devil was the use?

In a fog of gloom and anxiety, he trudged south on Telegraph Avenue. He turned into an espresso coffee shop, sipped a brew whose bitterness he hardly tasted. At a table in the corner a young woman sat, nose in a book. Long dark hair fell forward, almost obscuring her vision. It was John Pilgrim’s girl friend, the lady of the guitar.

Mervyn got to his feet, took his coffee over to her table and sat down. She looked up with a filmed-over expression and smiled vaguely.

Mervyn said, “John Pilgrim never introduced us. My name is Mervyn Gray.”

“I’m Varella.”

“Varella? Varella what?”

“Just Varella.”

“Well,” said Mervyn, “why not? How does your driver’s license read?”

“Just Varella.”

“Didn’t the clerk protest?”

“Why should he? It’s my name.”

“I see.” He glanced at her book. “You like poetry?”

“Yes.” She spoke with absolute finality.

“Does John Pilgrim write good poetry?”

“Yes.” She gave the word an equally positive sound. You’re a lousy critic, sweetheart, Mervyn thought.

“You’re his fiancée?”

Varella guffawed. “Oh, no! Nothing so foul. When things get formal they go all skibiyah. I see a great deal of him, though. I’m waiting for him now.”

“How long has he worked at the Claremont?”

“Sh! You must never mention that. John pretends it’s for kicks. Secretly he’s very depressed about it.”

“Does he work every night?”

“Naturally not. He has Tuesdays and Wednesdays off.”

“Never Friday night?”

“I don’t think so. Although sometimes he trades shifts with another bellboy.”

“Oh,” Mervyn said. “Which bellboy is that?”

“Al Pennington. Al is crazy about painting birds. The most meticulous work. Imaginary birds sometimes.”

“Today is the twenty-second.”

“Of course.” Varella laughed, as if at some esoteric joke.

“Yesterday was the twenty-first.”

“How true.”

“A week ago was the fourteenth. Do you remember it?”

“I don’t think so. I try very hard not to remember things.”

“Was John Pilgrim working on the night of June fourteenth?”

“I simply refuse to remember. The past is blank, dead. I hate death.” She gave an elaborate shudder. “The symbols of death. So many of them. Sunset. A car going into a tunnel. An empty cup.” She pointed to Mervyn’s. “Please fill it.”

“All right. How about you?”

She shook her head. “I haven’t touched mine. I order it, but I’m afraid to drink it.”

Mervyn returned with a full cup. “See? Renewed life. Your symbols all have an obverse. Sunrise. A car coming out of a tunnel. A refill.”

“Yes.” Varella gave her hair an irritated poke. “It’s probably ultra-humanist to care. I’m ultra-humanist myself, but I despise it in anyone else.” She studied Mervyn. “My goodness, you’re a handsome man. Do you like girls? Or—”

“Girls, definitely,” said Mervyn.

“I have a friend you might like,” Varella said thoughtfully. “Skinny as all hell, but with beautifully silky red hair. You’d do her a world of good, I think. She’ll be out of the clinic next weekend.”

“Clinic? Is she a nurse?”

“No, she’s a patient. Every few months she goes to the Langley-Porter Clinic and stays for three weeks of therapy.”

“Varella,” Mervyn said desperately. “Think of the fourteenth. Not as a week ago, but as a springboard to today. A kind of a launching pad into the future?”

“Yes... How interesting!”

“Now.” Mervyn inhaled. “Did John Pilgrim work the night of the fourteenth?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only known him a few days.”

Mervyn swallowed a curse and left. He crossed the street to a service-station telephone booth and called the Claremont Hotel, asking to speak to the bell captain.

A soft, cautious voice came on the line. “Charles speaking.”

“What time does Al Pennington come on duty?”

“Pennington? He’s gone.”

“Gone? You mean he doesn’t work there any more?”

“That’s right, sir. Quit for the summer. He’s temporary help.”

“Do you have his address?”

“Mexico.”

Mervyn rolled his eyes telephone-booth-ceilingward. “Do you happen to know if Pennington worked on the night of the fourteenth in place of John Pilgrim?”

“No idea. The boys switch shifts around to suit themselves. So long as there’s the full quota of men on the floor it’s O.K. by me. Who’s calling, sir?”

“Government checkup, confidential,” said Mervyn in a tone of voice he considered suitable. “Nothing to anyone’s discredit, you understand. Is anyone there who’d remember the fourteenth?”

“John Pilgrim would.”

“Yes, of course. Remember, please, this is confidential.”

“Yes, sir,” the bell captain said. He sounded utterly unconvinced.

Mervyn hung up and laughed loudly. The laugh bounced off the walls of the booth.

About the only thing he was sure of was that Mary Hazelwood was dead.

And that whoever had killed her was measuring one Mervyn Gray for his scalp.

Chapter 11

Mervyn walked listlessly back to the Yerba Buena Garden Apartments. He had no idea what he ought to do next. He stopped before his car, the fateful green convertible. It looked back at him with baleful intelligence, headlamps glinting with evil knowledge, bumper pursed as if restraining a smile.

By God! thought Mervyn. That’s one thing I can do, and right now. Before he left, he kicked the front left tire.

He stalked to his apartment and rummaged about until he found the pink ownership certificate. A minute later he was rapping on the door of Apartment 1.

John Boce looked out at him blearily. He wore a flannel bathrobe, rumpled and stained. His thin, sandy hair was mussed, his face flushed with sleep. “Oh, it’s you. Come in.” He yawned, showing a throatful of teeth and other things. “What’s on your mind, Mervyn?”

Mervyn’s words came as a surprise even to Mervyn. The idea must have been clamoring in his unconscious. “Did you put a fifth of whiskey outside my door last night?”

Boce stared. “Why should I do a stupid thing like that?”

“I thought you might have been returning the bottle you lifted last week.”

The big man scratched his stubbled cheek. “That bottle. Yeah. I remember. No, not me, Mervyn.”

“But that’s not why I’m here. I thought you might want to kiss the convertible good-bye.”

“Found a buyer?”

“I’m taking it to a dealer.”

“You’d do better to peddle it as an antique.”

“You can follow in the Volkswagen and drive me back, if you’re not too busy.”

Boce looked at Mervyn in mild astonishment. “You’re really going through with it?”

“I am.”

“Well, all right. I’ll have to find my clothes first. I don’t remember much about last night. I just might have undressed in the street. No. Here’s a shoe. Give me five minutes.”

Mervyn waited in the street. He paced up and down the sidewalk, stealing glances at the convertible, in which he still thought he detected a mocking intelligence.

When Boce came out, he frowned at the car. “I just looked in my checkbook, Mervyn, and I find that if I want to live dangerously I could buy the old clunk. For, say, one fifty?”

“Two fifty.”

“I might just be able to go one sixty.”

“I might take two forty.”

“Or even one sixty-two fifty.”

Mervyn got into the convertible. “Let’s get going, John. Here are the keys to the Volkswagen.”

“One sixty-five?”

Mervyn drove to Oakland’s auto row: acres and acres of automobiles, with signs on the windshields — SHARP, REAL CLEAN, SPECIAL, CHECK THIS ONE. In certain lots the cars bore conspicuous price tags. Mervyn suddenly pulled over to the curb and signaled Boce to park behind him.

Mervyn waited for Boce to join him. “I’ve been thinking,” Boce said in a subdued voice. “I just might be able to manage one seventy on a monthly-payoff basis.”

Mervyn pointed. “Look, chiseler. Same year, same model.”

The convertible Mervyn was pointing at bore a sign: THIS ONE’S TOPS. The price tag said $395.

Boce said feebly, “It’s a mistake. Or they’re insane.”

“How about querying the lunatics?” Mervyn suggested.

He drove into the lot. A salesman promptly emerged from the office; and after twenty minutes of looking, poking, testing and engine-checking by a mechanic, and ten minutes more of genial haggling, Mervyn signed the pink registration slip and drove away in the Volkswagen with $215.

Mervyn said cheerfully, “Well, that’s that.”

Boce said nothing. He sat in a sort of daze, as if he could not really believe that it was all over.

“Oh, say,” said Mervyn after a while. “I thought you had a date with a fertility goddess on the night of the fourteenth — the night Mary took off.”

“So?” said Boce glumly. “What about it?”

“My latest information is that the fertility goddess was named Harriet Brill. With those hips, I guess she qualifies at that.”

“You don’t have to be so sarcastic,” his friend replied in a surly tone. “So Harriet’s a little batty. I’ve known worse.”

Mervyn tried to make his question as casual-sounding as an inquiry about the weather. “Where’d you and Harriet go that night?”

“Not a damn place, if you must know,” Boce snapped. “All right, so I put you on. The fact is, Harriet was having one of her emotional crises, so I just stayed home and read a book. Satisfied?”

“In a way,” Mervyn said damply.

The accountant turned his great lumpy head toward Mervyn, his gray eyes sharp as flints behind the gold-rimmed glasses. “And by the way, what’s all the hooraw about the night of the fourteenth? There’s something going on you’re keeping from me, Mervyn!”

“Never mind that,” Mervyn mumbled. “Are you planning to return that bottle of bourbon you swiped?”

“I thought you said it had been returned.”

“But not by you.”

“What’s the difference? You got the bourbon back.”

“Forget it,” said Mervyn.

They finished the trip in silence. Mervyn dropped John Boce off at the Yerba Buena Garden Apartments and drove on restlessly.

Presently he found himself at the yacht harbor. He parked and sat looking out over the bay. The afternoon wind was blowing in through the Golden Gate, sending whitecaps surging against the seawall, where they shattered in great shards of spume.

Mervyn’s mind was shattered, too. He simply did not know what to do. His investigation, such as it was, was going from bad to worse. Now John Boce was back in the picture by his own admission, after Harriet Brill in one of her fantasies as a femme fatale had given him an alibi. The whole bloody business, Mervyn thought as he gnawed on a cuticle, was so damned unstable. Everything kept shifting. Now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t. How marvelous it must be for those mighty detectives in the books who had everything so neatly worked out for them! Everything this, or that, with nothing in between; black and white; definition, precision; every character acting like a number in an arithmetic problem...

The wind had blown the sun low in the western sky, and the bay looked bleak and bitter. Across the water San Francisco loomed lifeless, the San Francisco of On the Beach, a miraculously preserved mound of unpeopled ruins. And was that so fanciful? Mervyn mused. It was just like that for Mary, where she was now. It would be the same for him when “John” sent him to join her.

Mervyn parked the Volkswagen before the apartments in an unearthly purple-gray dusk. It made him shiver; and he crossed the court to his apartment.

He was fitting his key into the lock when it happened.

Cracksmack!

Inches from his head a splintered hole appeared in the doorjamb.

For a moment Mervyn stood paralyzed with fright. Then sheer rage spun him around. The court was empty. So was the balcony opposite. But he thought he detected a quiver of motion in the hedge bordering the vacant lot at the rear. He ran for the passage through the hedge.

The lot was empty.

He ran across to Kellogg, the street beyond. There was no one in sight, which in the dusk meant something less than a block in either direction. But far enough.

Mervyn turned back. To his right was the garage, to his left the blank side wall of the three-story apartment building that fronted Kellogg Street.

Mervyn swiftly checked the garage, looking under and into cars, telling himself as his skin prickled in the half darkness that he was being an absolute idiot. But there was no one in the garage.

Mervyn looked around. Motion he had definitely seen — a flutter of cloth. And he had reached the lot quickly enough after the shot to have overtaken or at least caught a glimpse of a fleeing figure.

Then where had his assailant gone? Behind each of the two six-plexes that made up the Yerba Buena Garden Apartments there was a narrow gap. He might have squirmed through the hedge and vanished behind either of the buildings.

Mervyn moved again, less recklessly now, to check the gaps.

The hedge to the east was thick and looked impenetrable, ruling out the passage behind the building in which Mervyn lived.

To the south the hedge was sparser, and Mervyn thought he saw signs of bent branches. He peered warily down the passage. A high, shaky-looking wooden fence sealed off the south edge of the lot, running to the house facing Perdue Street. Fence and house created an alley all the way to Perdue Street. It was empty.

Mervyn hurried back through the court and around to the front of the south six-plex. In the gap where the alley opened to the sidewalk grew a tall hydrangea bush. No one had run through the bush; the brittle stems were unbroken. Could he have climbed to a window sill of either the house to the south or the six-plex, and then jumped over the hydrangea? Mervyn studied the ground. The lawn was new and well-watered; even in the twilight he would have seen the signs left by such a leap, a leap incredible to begin with.

Then could his assailant have jumped the fence into the yard next door? He returned to the back lot. Beyond the fence lay a cul-de-sac, with exits only through the house facing on Perdue Street or over a feeble trellis into a yard beyond. Possible, yes. But highly unlikely.

Then where?

Mervyn went back to his apartment. No one seemed to have heard the shot.

He examined the bullet hole in the doorjamb. The bullet was completely buried in the redwood. He tried to estimate the angle of entry by eye. It did seem to lead back to the hedge.

He was still puzzling over the mystery of his would-be assassin’s inexplicable disappearance when he dug the slug out of the jamb. It was small, probably from a .22 hand gun... Standing there beside the splintered hole, turning the little slug over in his fingers, Mervyn suddenly became conscious of his vulnerability. It was beyond belief, but someone had tried to shoot him dead!

He hurried into his apartment, locked the door, switched off his lights and stood by the court window in the dark, sweating.

He realized now that he had never really believed the anonymous notes. Words on paper — how could they hurt you? No matter what they said.

But that bullet whizzing by his head... this slug... It became slippery in his hand.

Whoever it was had apparently waited in the deepening dusk by the hedge for his return. Waited with a gun.

And yet it all looked so peaceful out there. Homey, sort of. The lights from Harriet Brill’s and Susie Hazelwood’s apartments shone cheerfully, made even more reassuring by the fact that Mrs. Kelly’s windows and the windows of all the apartments on the lower deck were dark. And on his own side John Boce’s windows were spilling light onto the court.

Mervyn stood there in the dark, his own darkness, feeling a great aching need to reach out and touch the glow from Susie’s windows. And suddenly the darkness was insupportable. And he was very hungry.

He pulled the drapes tightly across the windows before he turned on the lights.

Then he cooked himself some bacon and eggs, tried to read a book on daily life in the twelfth century, jerked out of a doze with the merest memory of a terrifying dream, and hastily undressed and stumbled into bed.

Mervyn opened his eyes to a brilliant morning, with the purest of washed blue skies. The air coming through his bedroom windows was heavily fragrant with the odor of mown grass and freshly watered geranium leaves.

For a moment, half asleep still, he felt wonderful. But then it all came back, and his spirits plummeted. He crawled out of bed like an old man and stood under the shower for fifteen minutes to restore his youth. Afterward, he drank three cups of black coffee.

What to do?

He bethought himself of the morning newspaper and automatically went to his locked door. Then it came back to him, and he had to fight himself to unlock it. Even then, he found himself ducking out like a thief.

Crossing the court to his mailbox, he forced his legs to slow down.

As he pulled his newspaper out of the mailbox, something fell.

A cheap white envelope.

Slowly, Mervyn stooped and picked it up.

No stamp or postmark. This one had been delivered by hand.

He went back to his apartment and locked the door and sat down and opened the letter.

It said:

CONFESS

OR TOMORROW YOU DIE.

Chapter 12

I’d better move to a motel or something, Mervyn thought wildly. Today. Right now. Before this maniac gives me what he gave Mary.

The thought that this might well be the last day of his life made no sense to him at all. It couldn’t be. Things like that didn’t happen except in books.

Then the memory of the curled-up thing that had been Mary Hazelwood, stuffed in the trunk of his convertible, leaped into his consciousness. It had happened. To Mary.

He had to do something. Run. Go to the police. Or hide from this nemesis who had murdered Mary and was trying to frighten him into paying for the crime.

Mervyn straightened up sharply. Trying to frighten him... Of course! “John” didn’t want to kill him! What would “John” gain by that? Confess, confess, the messages kept saying. That was it. Psychological warfare! Trying to break him down into turning himself in for something he hadn’t done, so “John” would go scot-free!

Mervyn groaned at his own imbecility. And at the same time a weight was lifted from his chest. He rose from the table grimly, looked around for a pencil, found one and went outside with no hesitation at all.

He had enlarged the bullet hole in digging the slug out; and he stuck the pencil in the hole and squinted toward where the pencil was pointing. Not the hedge; to the right of the hedge. From the empty lot. All right. Take it from there.

Looking over the lot in the light of day, he was even more perplexed. He had made for the gap in the hedge on the run, almost at once. His assailant could not have reached the street more than a few seconds before him. The man had not dodged into the barnlike garage; he could not have hidden on the garage roof; it was too high to reach without a ladder, and there was no ladder.

Again Mervyn considered the passages behind each of the buildings making up the complex. To the north the hedge forming one side of the passage was an impassable barrier. The south hedge showed a gap, but the passage beyond it came to a dead end at Perdue Street. Nor could the man have got through the opening where the hydrangea bush stood without leaving plain traces of snapped branches and broken blossoms — and there were none.

That left the fence separating the south six-plex from the next-door property. And here Mervyn found something he had missed the night before.

Directly under the fence lay a vegetable garden. The moist soil was undisturbed. Not a footprint to be seen.

No one had gone over the fence.

There must be an answer to this, Mervyn thought desperately. The facts say he didn’t go anywhere. Yet he vanished. How? Where?

That was when Mervyn, re-entering the court, almost bumped into the tall man in the gray suit.

The moment Mervyn laid eyes on the tall man he knew the man was a policeman. There was something about his sinewy length, the set of his jaw and the glint in his unwavering gray eyes in the weather-beaten Gary Cooperish face, that stamped him a lawman.

This is it, Mervyn thought. It’s caught up with me.

“Mr. Gray?” the tall man said. He had a slow, drawly sort of voice. “Mervyn Gray?”

Mervyn croaked, “Yes?” and thought, I probably look guilty already.

“I’m Lieutenant Hart of the Berkeley police.” He flipped open a wallet; Mervyn looked at it automatically. That’s who he was, all right. “I’ve been waiting for you. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Sure,” Mervyn said on the third try. “Let’s go to my apartment.”

It was incredible how empty his head was. According to the books he should be thinking furiously, laying out a campaign of evasions or half-truths, clicking away like a computer. Instead — nothing. A vacuum. Boy, could I write a detective story! Mervyn thought.

In his apartment Mervyn said, “Sit down, lieutenant,” and he drew back the living-room drapes to let the sun in — let there be light, O Lord! — and braced himself for the first question about Mary Hazelwood.

Gary Cooper said, “It’s about Mrs. Bridey Kelly’s fall down the steps, Mr. Gray.”

Mervyn sat down. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, yes.”

“I’m not going to beat around the bush,” the lieutenant said sternly. “Mrs. Kelly says that she was pushed. And she charges you, Mr. Gray, with having pushed her. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“She must be out of her head,” Mervyn said.

“Then you deny the charge?”

“Of course I deny it. Is this an official charge, lieutenant?”

“Well, not exactly. She’s made a complaint. Hasn’t signed anything yet. Of course, she is an old lady, and old ladies got funny notions sometimes. But old ladies do get pushed down stairs sometimes, too.”

“Why would I do a thing like that? I hardly know the old woman. I’m not a psycho.”

“Mrs. Kelly says you jumped out at her.”

“How could I?” asked Mervyn. “I wasn’t even here.”

“Oh? Where were you?”

“When she fell down those steps?”

“Yes.”

Mervyn considered hastily. “I don’t know. Probably in the university library.”

“Any way of proving this?”

“You mean fix the exact time? I’m afraid not.”

Lieutenant Hart rose and went to the door. Suddenly he turned, his tanned cheeks showing a slight burgundy stain. “Mr. Gray, I’ve got to ask you one more question. A pretty screwy one.”

“Ask away. It couldn’t be screwier than Mrs. Kelly’s accusation. What’s the question?”

“Do you make it a habit to walk around outside in your bare feet?”

“What?” said Mervyn.

“Mrs. Kelly says that when you attacked her you were barefooted.”

“Lieutenant Hart,” said Mervyn. “How long do you think I’d last at the university if the word got around that Mr. Gray of the English faculty traversed the streets of Berkeley sans shoes and socks?”

“That’s what I thought,” sighed the lieutenant. “I guess the old lady’s in her dotage, at that. You understand, Mr. Gray, when somebody lodges a complaint we have to follow it up. But I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Unless, of course,” the lieutenant said, looking at Mervyn, “you did push her?”

“Well, I didn’t!”

Lieutenant Hart departed. Mervyn stood in his doorway watching the tall figure lithely cross the court. When the incarnation of Gary Cooper was gone, Mervyn turned to stare at the bullet hole against which he had been leaning. Maybe he should have pointed it out? He gave a barking laugh. Let them find it themselves! They weren’t so much.

The phone rang in the apartment. Mervyn went back in and said dully, “Mervyn Gray here.”

“This is John Viviano. Why did you take my Chinatown photograph? Eh? Where is it, you — you pickpocket?”

Mervyn was sick of the whole business. “Keep your panties on, Viviano. I’ll send it back.”

“If it’s not here by tomorrow, I’ll go to the police!” Viviano spluttered. “What right have you to steal my property?”

“None. I’m sorry. Good-bye.” Mervyn hung up.

He felt oppressed, smothered; he had to get away. He ran out of the apartment.

He reached the street just as Harriet Brill drove up in her two-door.

“Mervyn, how sweet,” she cried. “Waiting just to see me.”

“I wasn’t, but I won’t look a gift horse under the tail,” Mervyn growled. “Harriet, why the hell did you tell me you and John Boce went to see Alexander Nevsky a week ago Friday night?”

Harriet’s eyes widened girlishly. “But, Mervyn, we did,”

“Oh, yeah? I have news for you, doll. The Eisenstein picture didn’t come to that theater till the following Monday.”

“It didn’t?” She went into the brownest of studies. Then she gave an embarrassed little laugh. “Of course. You’re perfectly right, Mervyn. It was Monday night that we went. Friday night was when John broke a date with me. His uncle took sick and he had to go to the city.”

“He used your car?”

“He wanted to, but I wouldn’t let him have it. I don’t like lending my car.”

Mervyn jumped into his Volkswagen and roared off down Perdue Street, leaving Harriet staring after him.

He drove without conscious destination. Up over the top of the campus, down Hearst Avenue, back around again. He turned into Milton Street and found himself approaching John Pilgrim’s cottage. Mervyn pulled over to the side and parked. When he had fought down his tension, he got out and walked up the cracked path.

Pilgrim, in ragged blue jeans, was tinkering with his Lambretta. At Mervyn’s step he looked up coolly. “Now what?”

“I want the truth,” Mervyn snarled. “Where were you a week ago Friday night?”

Pilgrim slowly rose. He had big muscles. “What the hell is it to you?”

“It’s a lot to me,” Mervyn said defensively.

“You’ve got a long nose, you know that? Better quit checking out all my moves. I might have been working Friday night, I might not have. Anyway, it’s none of your business. Any more questions?”

Mervyn threw up his hands and walked blindly back to his car.

Somehow, he must find a way to come to grips with his tormentor.

He drove up to Telegraph Avenue and parked and went into the Parnassus Coffee Shop. Here he consumed a pizza. After a while he paid his check and went back to his car. But now he hesitated. He had nowhere to go. The Parnassus was as good a place as any. He reached into the Volkswagen for a loose-leaf notebook and went back into the coffee shop.

He settled himself in a booth at the rear, ordered coffee and proceeded to organize the facts as he knew them.

Two hours later he was still writing. Staring at the sheer mass of his labors, he shook his head and started all over again. The thing he needed was an outline. Terse. Every relevant fact, or every fact that seemed relevant.

The afternoon passed.

He ordered a steak sandwich, more coffee, bent over his notes again.

Names, dates, events. They were beginning to blur and blend into a meaningless, colorless hodgepodge.

John Boce. John Thompson. John Viviano. John Pilgrim.

He was back where he had started. To the four Johns. Any one of whom could be the John.

Telegraph Avenue darkened. The street lights came on. Diners came and went. New waitresses appeared.

By 11:30 P.M. Mervyn had constructed his chart. Evaluating the four Johns against a set of arbitrary attributes: boldness, drive, vindictiveness, imagination, the rest. Pilgrim’s score 48, Boce’s 45, Viviano’s 44, Thompson’s 42. About as meaningful as the results of a Ouija-board session.

Then Susie Hazelwood came in, and they had their curiously tense conversation, and the waitress reminded them that it was midnight, the closing hour; and they got into Mervyn’s dark-blue Volkswagen, and on the way Mervyn showed his chart to Susie, and she mocked it.

“I see I’ll have to explain,” Mervyn said.

“I wish you would,” Susie answered. “I’ve been wondering whether my sister is alive or dead.”

That was when Mervyn heard, out of his own throat, in his own voice, the words: “She’s dead.”

Chapter 13

Susie Hazelwood looked out the window of the Volkswagen. The suburbs were behind them; they were driving through a sweet, still valley in the light of the half moon. The road was bordered blackly by oaks and poplars, pewter hills rising beyond.

Susie fumbled in her purse and took out a handkerchief and touched her nose. In a tight voice she asked, “How do you know Mary is dead?”

“Let’s talk about my chart,” Mervyn said. “A while back I was thinking it was meaningless — an arbitrary set of values arbitrarily rated. For instance, I don’t really know that John Pilgrim is twice as vindictive as John Boce or that John Viviano is bolder than John Thompson. This is just my personal assessment of their characters. Still, maybe I’ve got something.”

“What?” Susie asked scornfully.

Mervyn turned into a side road and stopped the Volkswagen in a patch of moonlight. The motor died, and there was silence. Only gradually did Mervyn become aware of the crickets. To the north and east twinkled lights, the occasional flicker of automobiles along the Freeway.

Mervyn said, “As we were leaving the coffee shop I looked at you and I said to myself: If I were to grade Susie by this chart, she’d rate a perfect score. Eighty out of eighty on the nose. Ingenuity, imagination, duplicity, perversity, boldness, the lot.

“Lucky for Susie, I told myself, the chart is just nonsense. Then I began thinking. I tested you out against my outline of events. I could find nothing that really pointed to you until I remembered what happened last night. Somebody shot at me from the back lot.

“Like a damn fool I immediately ran to see who it was. I found nobody, and couldn’t understand where he’d gone. But with every possible place eliminated — but one — it had to be that one. And that was into one of four apartments of the south six-plex — through a back window. Not Harriet’s, not Mrs. Kelly’s — the fence stops before it passes under their windows. Apartment Nine is vacant and the people in Apartment Eight are on vacation. Apartment Seven is full of airline stewardesses none of us ever got to know. That left Apartment Twelve, Susie. Your apartment.

“No real problem for an athletic wench to take a shot at Mervyn, then run around, jump up on the fence, climb through the back window and watch old Mervyn blundering back and forth.” He turned to scrutinize her. “If I’d caught you, you’d probably have killed me then and there.”

“Just as I can now,” said Susie. There was a little .22 revolver in her hand. She had her back against the door and she was holding the gun close to her body, where Mervyn could not easily get at it. “With no more compunction than when you killed Mary. Or pushed Mrs. Kelly down those steps.”

Mervyn sat staring into the set white face.

Susie went on in a bitter, taunting way. “You thought you were frightfully clever bringing me here, didn’t you? How naïve do you think I am? Do you know why I let you drive me way out here? Because it’s after midnight, Mervyn. It’s tomorrow.”

Mervyn slapped at the gun. It exploded and the bullet passed under his chin and out the open window. He grabbed the .22 with one hand and Susie with the other, shoulder under her jaw to keep away from her teeth.

He wrenched, and had the gun.

Susie pressed back against the door, panting. Mervyn sat quietly, waiting for his heart to slow down.

After a while he said, “So I killed Mary. In that case, of course, I’ll have to kill you.”

Susie said nothing. Her eyes flashed in a moonbeam.

“By the way, how did you know I killed Mary?”

“Because I saw you.”

“Oh, you did?” Mervyn said. “Suppose you tell me about it.”

“I saw you club her to death with your ski boot.”

“Really. Well. Tell me more. From the beginning.”

“Mary was flying south.” It spilled out in her frustration. “She asked John to take her to the airport.”

“John who?”

“Boce. John had a date with Harriet, but after he broke it Harriet wouldn’t let him borrow her car. So he couldn’t take Mary after all. I told Mary I’d take her in your convertible — I didn’t think you’d mind — but she was still angry with me from our spat and said she preferred to take a cab. I told her not to be a ninny and went out back to the garage to get your convertible anyway, and I was coming around the corner and pulling up at the curb when I saw Mary had already come out with her bag and was sitting in your Volkswagen. I couldn’t understand it, so I just sat there and watched. And that’s when I saw you come out and take your ski boot and lean into the Volkswagen where Mary was sitting. And to my horror I saw Mary fall over. I couldn’t believe my eyes; I thought I was dreaming the whole thing. But then you jumped into the Volkswagen and drove away... with Mary’s body.

“I followed you in your convertible. What else could I do? I followed you for hours. All the way down the valley. After you’d passed through Merced you turned off the road and headed out into the country. I stayed behind you, driving with my lights off for most of the way. When you turned off onto a little private side road, I didn’t dare follow with the car, so I parked and walked in. You drove to an old barn—”

“Part of what used to be my grandfather’s cattle ranch.”

“...and I watched you through a window. You pried up some floor boards and then carried Mary’s body in and crammed it in the hole. Along with her suitcase. Then you replaced the boards and scattered straw around and drove off.

“I walked back for your convertible — I’d left it behind some bushes off the road, so I knew you couldn’t have seen it in passing — and while I walked, I knew what I was going to do. I drove the convertible to the barn, pulled up the boards, dragged Mary’s body out” — Susie’s voice faltered — “and put the body and her suitcase in the trunk of your car. You’d left the boot behind, too, that dreadful boot, so heavy and smeared with... with—”

“That must have seemed stupid of me,” Mervyn said.

“Anyway, I threw the boot and Mary’s purse in the convertible and drove off. My first thought was naturally to drive to the nearest police station, but then I decided not to go to the police at all. They might think I was in on it with you, or even that I’d done it myself and tried to involve you, because I had had that quarrel with Mary just before she left, and at least one person knew it, Harriet Brill, and of course it would be bound to come out.

“So I decided that the best way to do it was keep myself out of it altogether. I drove to Madera and left the convertible there, figuring that when the police found it they’d look in the trunk first off and find Mary’s body and of course trace the car directly to you. I decided not to leave Mary’s purse and the boot you’d killed her with in the car; I thought they could serve a more useful purpose if they were actually found in your possession. There was a big paper bag in the car from some marketing you’d apparently done, and I put the purse and the boot in it, and after I abandoned the car I took the paper bag and walked a good way from where I’d left it and then grabbed a cab to the bus station and got back to Berkeley on the bus.”

“And the next day, I suppose,” Mervyn said, “when I wasn’t in, you got into my apartment through my bedroom window and planted the purse and the boot there for the police to find?”

“Yes,” snapped Susie, “exactly. I thought I had you nicely trussed up for the police, and I waited for them to find the car and Mary’s body in it, and search your apartment and find her purse and the ski boot you’d murdered her with. Only you were too smart for me, Mervyn. You undid everything I’d done, after the police stupidly didn’t look into the trunk when they found your car.

“Well, I swore to Mary’s memory that I wouldn’t let you get away with her murder. I still thought it safer not to become involved, so I began sending you those anonymous notes, hoping that what scraps of conscience you had left would drive you to go to the police and make a confession. But when I saw it wasn’t working, that you didn’t give yourself up, that you’d undoubtedly disposed of every shred of evidence connecting you with the murder, I knew there was nothing left for me to do but punish you myself — kill you with my own hands. And now I’ve failed in that, too. What a mess I’ve made of it all!”

“You just don’t have a talent for these things,” Mervyn said sympathetically, “although I must admit you gave me a hard time. I don’t suppose you’d care to hear my confession now?”

“Oh, stop playing with me, you — you sadist,” Susie said dully. “Shoot me and get it over with.”

“But the longer I talk the longer you live. Right?” When she did not bother to reply, Mervyn settled back and said reflectively, “In the main you’ve described events with reasonable accuracy. In the main.

“I’d just driven up in the Volkswagen when Mary came running out of the court carrying her suitcase. She asked if I’d drive her to the airport. I said I would if she’d wait till I got rid of a bag of groceries, changed my shirt and put on a jacket. She said she had time, so she got into the Volkswagen with her bag and I went to my apartment. I couldn’t have been gone more than five, six minutes, Susie. When I came back I found Mary sitting on the seat with her skull crushed and my ski boot in her lap.”

Susie was glaring at him.

“I picked the boot up, and her body fell over side-wise... I was stunned. Not only by the shock of seeing Mary that way, but of the fix I was in if anyone should see me. I’d surely be accused of Mary’s murder. And if that happened — regardless of whether I was cleared or not — the notoriety, the mere fact of being connected with a bloody homicide, would ruin my career. You know what an old lady Professor Burton is. I not only wouldn’t get the assistant professorship I was after, I’d be fired from the university and probably blackballed everywhere.

“Well, I panicked. I know now — I think I even knew it then — that it was stupidly wrong. But all I could feel was that I had to get Mary’s body out of my car and my life. So I got into the Volkswagen and drove off. And, of course, the moment I did that I was committed — any chance I might have had of convincing the police I was innocent I kicked away in that one blind act.

“The irony of the whole thing was that someone had seen me, someone did assume I was a murderer. You.”

“You filthy liar!” Susie choked. “How can you sit here and tell me such lies when I saw you hit her with that boot — saw you with my own eyes?”

“What you saw in that evening light, Susie,” Mervyn said gently, “was me leaning into the car — at which Mary’s body fell over on its side — while I tossed the boot in the back. That’s what you saw.”

Susie blinked and blinked and blinked at him.

“You don’t believe me,” Mervyn said.

Susie licked her lips.

“Susie,” Mervyn said. “She was already dead when I got there.”

She began to sob hysterically. Mervyn watched her. After a while he put his hand on her shoulder. She gasped and jerked away from his touch.

“Damn it,” Mervyn growled. “If I didn’t kill Mary, it’s not likely I’m going to kill you, is it?”

“I don’t believe you! I can’t!”

“You’re too upset to think clearly, Susie. If I’m a murderer, then you’re going to be murdered. If I’m not a murderer — if I’ve told you the truth — then you’re perfectly safe. Isn’t that so?”

Her mouth was open a little. But she did nod, ever so slightly.

“Well, you can relax. I have no intention of murdering you.”

Susie expelled a deep shuddering breath. “But I tried to murder you.”

“Yes,” he said morosely, “and for that I owe you. But the truth is, I brought it on myself. So I’m not even going to beat you up. I don’t know, maybe I’ll kiss you.”

Susie started to say something, but stopped.

Mervyn went on in a broody voice. “Driving off with Mary dead beside me — wanting only to get rid of the body, I thought of Madera. I’d grown up there. I had no idea you were following me. Later, when I found the body I thought I’d buried in that barn lying in the trunk of the convertible, it was the worst jolt of my life.”

Susie cleared her throat. “What did you do with her?”

Mervyn said, “The river,” in a very low voice.

Susie stared blindly ahead.

“My only excuse, Susie, is that I was in a complete funk.”

Susie asked in a husky whisper, “If you didn’t kill Mary, who did?”

“I don’t know. ‘John’ — whichever John it is. I’ve detected my head off, and I still don’t know which one. Of course, all the time I kept going on the assumption that Mary’s killer was sending me the notes and so on. What a detective.”

Susie put her hand on his arm. “Mervyn.”

Mervyn looked at her.

“Mervyn, I’m sorry.” Her voice was harsh and forlorn. “For both of us. It’s too late to feel sorry for Mary.”

“Don’t feel sorry for me,” said Mervyn bitterly. “I’m not only a lousy gumshoe, I’m a moral weakling besides.”

“Mervyn.”

“What?”

“Let’s go to the police, and tell them everything.”

Mervyn did not reply.

“What’s the matter?” Susie cried. “Are you afraid they might not be as gullible as I am?”

“Oh, stop it,” Mervyn said. “I was just thinking that all of a sudden I don’t give a damn if old Burton does kick me out. Who wants to spend the rest of his life in the twelfth century, anyway? By the way, here.” He tossed the little .22 into her lap. “Better put it on safety before you shoot your big toe off.”

“Then the police it is?” cried Susie gladly.

“The police it is.”

Mervyn started the car, and Susie’s breath came out in a great sigh, and she stared down at the little revolver and finally picked it up and dropped it in her bag. And all the way back to Berkeley they sat with shoulders touching, feeling very close and yet very far away from each other, too. There was a sort of intimate sadness in the Volkswagen.

He parked it before the Yerba Buena Garden Apartments and switched off the headlights. They sat in the dark.

“I thought we were going to the police,” Susie said, even more sadly.

“We are,” Mervyn said. “But on the way home I couldn’t help thinking.”

“Thinking what?”

“How very strange that Mrs. Kelly should fall down the steps here the same night Mary was murdered.”

“Mervyn!”

“What?”

“We must be telepathic. I was thinking the same thing!”

“There’s something even stranger, Susie. Not only did Mrs. Kelly fall down the steps the night Mary was murdered, but the old lady is positive I’m the one responsible for her fall. That I pushed her. I think we can assume that she was pushed, all right — she’d hardly have imagined that. But why does she insist I did the pushing? I didn’t, Susie, you know. The whole thing is very peculiar.”

“It certainly is,” said Susie, and they sat in silence. And all of a sudden Susie looked up and said, “Mervyn.”

“What, Susie?”

“I think this is important enough to investigate as quickly as possible.”

“But the police...”

“Another day won’t matter, will it?”

“But where would we start investigating?” Mervyn asked rather helplessly. “I’ve already proved what a bust I am as a detective.”

“We go to the horse’s mouth — Mrs. Kelly.”

“In the hospital?”

“Where else? It’s too late tonight — after visiting hours — but we can go first thing in the morning. We can both use a good night’s sleep, anyway, after — after everything that’s happened today. All right?”

Mervyn took her hand and squeezed. It was warm and alive, and it squeezed back.

“All right,” said Mervyn fervently.

Daytime visiting hours were not until 2 P.M., but Susie knew the nurse on the floor, and they managed to get into Mrs. Kelly’s room. Mrs. Kelly took one look at Mervyn and opened her mouth to shriek. Susie was on her in a bound.

“Mrs. Kelly, Mrs. Kelly,” Susie said swiftly, “don’t. I’m here — I’ll protect you. Trust me, won’t you?”

The old lady mumbled excitedly from under Susie’s firm hand.

“Promise me you’ll just listen. Promise?”

Mrs. Kelly nodded and subsided. Susie took her hand away. Mervyn, poised at the closed door timidly, relaxed, but only just enough so that his muscles would respond to the emergency of instant flight if instant flight became necessary. As for Mrs. Kelly, she kept her terrified eyes on him throughout.

“Here’s what we want to know, Mrs. Kelly,” Susie said rapidly. “You claim Mervyn Gray here was the one who pushed you down those steps...”

“He was the one,” whispered the old lady.

“How do you know?” asked Susie.

“What?” said Mrs. Kelly.

“I said, how do you know Mervyn was the one who pushed you? When people are pushed downstairs the pushing has to be done from behind, hasn’t it? Or it simply isn’t pushing. So I ask you, Mrs. Kelly: If you were just starting down the steps and someone came up behind you and gave you a shove, how can you know it was Mervyn Gray?”

Mervyn could only look at Susie with abject adoration. There was a brain. The perfectly obvious point had stared him in the face all the time, and he hadn’t seen it once. What a girl! he thought.

“What I’m getting at is,” said Susie, “you didn’t actually see Mervyn push you, Mrs. Kelly, did you?”

“Well, no...” the old lady mumbled. “But somebody else did! She told me.”

“Oh,” said Susie.

“The person happened to be at her apartment window with the lights off,” Mrs. Kelly quavered, “and she saw me come out of my apartment and walk over to the steps. Then she saw Mr. Gray sneak up behind me barefooted, looking like — like a crazy man, and push me hard as he could just as I was starting down. Yes,” cried the old lady, pointing a shaking finger directly at Mervyn, “and she says you were laughing like a maniac all the time you were doing it, Mr. Gray! Shame on you! Doing a thing like that to a body that never did a mortal person harm!”

“Shhh,” Susie said soothingly, stroking the old lady’s hand. “Mr. Gray didn’t do it, Mrs. Kelly.”

“He... didn’t?”

“No, Mrs. Kelly. You were pushed by someone else.”

“But... but she told me he did it! She told me she saw the whole thing!” cried the old lady.

“Who told you, Mrs. Kelly?”

“Why, Harriet Brill!”

“I don’t think there’s any question now about what happened,” Mervyn said as he and Susie sat in the Volkswagen near the hospital entrance after they came down from Mrs. Kelly’s room. “And now that I know what happened, and that nobody named John had a damn thing to do with it, I keep wondering how one person could have been so wrong about so many things.”

“Poor Mervyn,” mourned Susie, with a little laughter in the mourning. “I wasn’t seeing exactly straight myself.”

“Why, you’ve been wonderfully perceptive,” Mervyn said warmly. “Oh, of course I see it all now — after you’ve practically drawn me diagrams.

“The whole thing was based on a misunderstanding on Harriet’s part. That phone conversation she told you she overheard in your apartment, when Mary was on the phone talking to ‘John.’ Actually, Mary was talking to John Boce at that time, trying to cajole him into driving her to the airport — not arranging to elope with him; I don’t think Mary was intending to go away with anybody, just off on a jaunt somewhere by herself.

“Anyway, hearing Mary’s usual lovey-dovey stuff with Boce on the phone, Harriet jumped to conclusions. And when, later that evening, Boce broke his date with Harriet on an obviously false pretext, and then asked to borrow her car, Harriet must have been positive that it was John Boce she had overheard Mary arranging to ‘go away’ with. And, for Harriet, that must have been the last straw — the man she was secretly gone on having the gall to ask for her car to elope, as she thought, with another woman!

“Of course, she turned Boce down cold about her car; but she must have been furious, and when she saw Mary leaving with the suitcase — that must have been just before or about eight o’clock that evening — she made up her mind to have it out with Mary then and there.

“By the time Harriet reached the sidewalk,” Mervyn said, frowning, “Mary must already have been sitting in my Volkswagen waiting for me to drive her to the airport. And Harriet leaned in and began jawing at her, accusing Mary of stealing John Boce from her—”

“And knowing my sister Mary,” Susie murmured, “she must have told Harriet where she could go. God knows Mary didn’t want John Boce. But she’d want even less another female telling her she couldn’t have him.”

Mervyn nodded. “Whatever it was Mary said to her, Harriet lost her head. She reached over and grabbed the first thing she saw — which happened to be my ski boot — and brought it down with all her might on Mary’s head. And then ran back to her own apartment. I was in my apartment depositing my groceries and changing my shirt preparatory to driving Mary to the airport, and you were getting my convertible, and the whole thing between Mary and Harriet must have happened during those few minutes. By the time you drove around the corner and I got out there, Mary was already dead and Harriet was back in her apartment. The only part of it I don’t understand at all is that shoving-Mrs.-Kelly-down-the-steps business.”

“You stepped out of the room to argue with the head nurse when she found us in Mrs. Kelly’s room,” Susie said, “and while you were out Mrs. Kelly told me something that answers the question.

“Mrs. Kelly had been over to the church at a committee meeting earlier, she said, and when I asked her what time she got back she said it was just about eight o’clock. Mervyn, the Volkswagen was parked right outside the Garden Apartments, where Mrs. Kelly had to go past it on her way in. So she must have passed the Volkswagen when Harriet was either arguing with Mary or, for all I know, even killing her.

“As it happens,” Susie said, “Mrs. Kelly didn’t even notice. But Harriet must have seen her—”

“And assumed Mrs. Kelly watched the whole thing happen!” Mervyn cried.

“That’s right. So when Harriet ran back to her apartment with Mary’s blood on her conscience — if any — she probably had only one thought: to shut Mrs. Kelly’s mouth. Her chance came later that evening when the old lady left her apartment to go back to the church, or wherever she was bound. When Mrs. Kelly reached the top of the steps, Harriet sneaked up behind her and pushed her down—”

“Tried to kill her, too,” muttered Mervyn.

“But when Mrs. Kelly didn’t die, Harriet naturally had to keep visiting her in the hospital just to see how much she did know or remember. And apparently Harriet decided Mrs. Kelly’s fall had knocked the whole thing out of her poor old head. So then, just to round things off, she told Mrs. Kelly that whopper about having seen you do the pushing.” Susie shuddered. “Between Harriet and me, Mervyn, we almost did a perfect job on you—”

Mervyn grabbed Susie’s arm. “Susie!”

“What?”

“Talk of the devil.”

Up the street came Harriet Brill, shapeless in a baggy purplish tweed suit. She was carrying an armful of flowers.

“She’s on her way to see Mrs. Kelly,” Susie gasped. “And the old lady’s sure to spill the beans—”

“Call her over here,” Mervyn said swiftly. “And play along with me, Susie!”

Susie leaned out the window. “Harriet!”

Harriet stopped dead in her tracks. But then she grinned all over, and hurried toward the Volkswagen with happy cries. “Mervyn! Susie! What are you two doing here?”

“We’ve just been kicked out of the hospital,” said Mervyn darkly. “Came to visit with Mrs. Kelly, and the head nurse made an awful row because it wasn’t visiting hours.”

“Oh, shoot,” said Harriet. “I thought the poor thing might like some fresh flowers.”

“Better not go up there, Harriet. That battle-ax of a nurse,” said Susie, “has blood in her eye.”

“Well...” said Harriet doubtfully.

“We were just leaving,” Mervyn said. “Jump in. I’ll drive you back.”

“Why, thank you,” said Harriet. “Aren’t you sweet!”

Susie squeezed forward to let Harriet get in the back, and Mervyn started the Volkswagen and drove down Grove Street.

Harriet suddenly said, “Why are we going this way?”

“Oh, I got a damn parking ticket,” Mervyn said. “I’ll only be a minute paying my fine,” and he parked at the Berkeley City Hall and jumped out and hurried toward the annex housing the Police Department.

“Any word from Mary?” Harriet asked casually. “Mervyn has been worried about her.”

“She’s probably having the time of her life in Ventura,” Susie answered, not trusting herself to turn around.

“Strange she hasn’t written.”

“Well,” said Susie in a strangled voice, “you know Mary.”

Conversation languished. Presently Harriet said, “Mervyn’s certainly taking a long time.”

“Here he comes now.”

“Who’s that handsome man with Mervyn?”

Mervyn leaned into the car. “This is Lieutenant Hart, ladies. Susie Hazelwood in front, lieutenant. In back — Harriet Brill.”

Lieutenant Hart nodded politely. “How do you do? Would you both mind coming inside for a minute?”

Susie got out of the car. Lieutenant Hart held the door open. “Miss Brill?”

“What do you want?” Harriet faltered.

“I want to ask a few questions. We’ll be more comfortable inside.”

Harriet got slowly out of the car. She turned toward Mervyn and Susie, who were standing a little aside. In their tense, accusing faces she suddenly read something terrible. She looked wildly around, but Lieutenant Hart took her firmly by the elbow.

“What have they been telling you?” Harriet cried. “Whatever it is, it’s a lie!”

“Then you won’t mind telling me the truth, Miss Brill,” said Lieutenant Hart courteously, “will you?”

Chapter 14

Professor Burton made a stabbing gesture toward a chair.

“Sit down, Gray.”

Mervyn sat down in the straight-backed oak chair. The interview was proceeding exactly as imagined. Professor Burton had commanded Mervyn to drop by on a matter “connected with” his work.

Professor Burton leaned back, placed the tips of his fingers together and inspected Mervyn with cold curiosity. Then he said in a disagreeable voice, “A most unsavory affair, Gray.”

Mervyn nodded warily.

The head of the English department cleared his throat, arranged some papers on his desk. “I’ve followed the case closely. Deplorable, deplorable. It’s a wonder to me you’re not in jail.”

“They spoke to me rather harshly,” Mervyn admitted.

“Please do not misunderstand me, Gray. Faced with the same incredible circumstances, who am I to say that I would act with more courage? This does not mean, of course, that I condone your conduct—”

“Of course,” said Mervyn humbly.

“...but merely that I hold with Crabbe: ‘That all men would be cowards if they dare,/Some men we know have courage to declare.’ Hrrm! Well! All this to one side. I trust you understand, Gray, that under the circumstances it is manifestly impossible for you to assume a schedule of classes this fall?”

Mervyn said nothing.

“Oh,” said Professor Burton, “after a year or two — perhaps three, or four — who knows? In Pope’s phrase, ‘The world forgetting, by the world forgot,’ haha! Well, let us hope for the fickleness of public memory, eh, Gray?” He glanced at Mervyn rather uneasily. “Do you have any plans?”

“Since you just gave me the ax, Dr. Burton,” Mervyn said with a sigh, “I’ve hardly had much time to think about the future.”

“Of course. Quite so.” Burton rapped on his desk with his long white fingers, regarding a bust of Shakespeare on the other side of the room. Suddenly he said, “Gray. Do you know the Castel Poldiche? Near Villefranche?”

“I beg your pardon?”

The professor repeated his question.

Mervyn shook his head. “I can’t say that I do.”

“One of the oldest inhabited structures of France. The great hall dates from the eleventh century. Well, a few weeks ago a crypt was opened, yielding among other treasures a coffer containing a number of twelth-century secular manuscripts. There are: six planhs, apparently the work of Bertran de Bon; an autobiographical poem by one Cleanthe de Marbolh; a long chanson de geste, signed merely ‘Blaye’ — quite probably Jaufre Rudel, Prince of Blaye, who is known to have frequented Castel Poldiche during the Guerre des Amantes — and a great deal of material less easily identified. Are you interested?”

“Very much so!”

Professor Burton beamed. “It so happens that the Searcy Foundation is willing to provide a research grant of seven thousand five hundred dollars — possibly as high as ten thousand — for the study of these manuscripts. Annotation, attribution, translation — the usual. A two-year grant. It seems to meet your requirements...”

Later, Mervyn sat in a quiet grove of laurel and oak, on a moldering marble bench, a gift to the university from the Class of 1903. Susie came up the path, waving a greeting. “Have you been waiting long?”

“Ten minutes or so.”

Susie seated herself. She was wearing a black skirt and a short-sleeved sweater the color of old ale. Never, thought Mervyn, had she seemed more precious and desirable, and more remote. In a calm voice she asked, “How did everything go?”

“I’m fired.”

Susie looked troubled at that. “Oh, well, it isn’t as if it came as a shock.”

“However, there’s something else.”

“Oh?”

He told her about the find in the south of France, and the handsome research grant. “It would mean living in France for a year or two. Perhaps at Castel Poldiche itself, where the manuscripts were discovered.”

“Sounds like fun! Oh, Mervyn, I’m so glad for you.”

Mervyn said abruptly, “Will you come with me, Susie?”

She sat for a moment or two looking off down a slope of lawn. “It wouldn’t work, Mervyn. There’s too much darkness between us. Whenever I looked at you I’d see Mary, and the river, and I’d hear the ghastly splash. And when you looked at me—”

Mervyn said, “Susie. It wouldn’t have to be that way—” But Susie shook her head. “Maybe not for you, Mervyn. But I’m a female.” She rose, smiling. “Summer’s over, fall’s coming on, new semester. I can’t stand sociology. I’m going to transfer into something more interesting. What, I don’t know.

“You’ll be in France doing just what you want to do, and you’ll forget all about me. You’ll devastate all those cute little French girls, and I’ll marry John Boce” — she said this with a crooked grin — “and we’ll all live happily ever after.”

And she went off quickly.

At the lower end of the San Joaquin Valley sprawl the cotton ranches, drab, dusty, broken only by stands of haggard eucalyptus trees. In the fall, mechanical harvesters whir and clank along the untidy white rows like invaders from Mars, leaving behind broken stalks and shriveled foliage. Now the fields will be deserted, and during the late fall and winter months they present the dreariest of landscapes.

After the winter rains, when the old plants rot and the soil is damp, caterpillar tractors pull gang plows and harrows across the fields. It is the blithest time of the year. The air flows crisp and cool and smells of overturned earth. Crows flap back and forth; far to the east rises the snow-capped Sierra Nevada.

On a particularly fine morning in this season, a car came careening along one of the back roads and lurched to a stop. A girl jumped out and ran to the roadside fence.

The driver of the approaching tractor, intent on his plows, did not see her until he made his turn. Then he gaped in disbelief. He cut off his motor, leaped to the ground and came sprinting awkwardly across the furrows.

The girl held out her hands and he hugged her across the low barbed wire. And he kissed her, and she kissed him. And after a while Mervyn said, “What in God’s name are you doing here?”

“Finding you,” said Susie. “And I’ve had one devil of a time doing it.” She laughed. There were things in her face Mervyn had never seen before — little adjustments of shadow, quirks of line, a certain fixing of the flesh. She’s grown up, Mervyn thought. And she is perfectly beautiful. “I started looking, oh, months ago. As soon as I heard how idiotic you’d been about that grant.”

Mervyn climbed the fence and tore his pants and did not even know it. “I can’t explain exactly why I turned it down, Susie. I just knew I had to. Maybe I felt the need of sweating the mucky guck out of my system. There’s nothing like field labor to set things straight. I haven’t regretted this.”

Susie rested her head on his sweat-soaked shoulder. “I have. Being spiritless and negative.”

“You spiritless and negative.”

She laughed again, squeezed him. “So I came to tell you I was a fool. Mr. Gray, I’m at your disposal. In every way. The south of France, or Berkeley or” — she glanced at the tractor and then out across the endless field — “or agriculture, if it comes to that, which I shamelessly hope it won’t.”

“It won’t,” Mervyn said. “I’m quitting.”

“Mervyn!”

“As of this second. Drive me over to ranch headquarters. I’ll collect my check, and we’ll go over to the bank in Delano—”

“And then?”

“Once I asked you to marry me.”

“In a joke. That’s one subject females have no sense of humor about.”

“No, I think I meant it even then. In a perverted sort of way. Of course I knew you’d say no.”

“I almost said yes. Even though I hated you.”

“You almost said yes?” Mervyn cried.

“I’ll have to ream some of that soil out of your ears,” Susie said tenderly, stroking his sweaty hair.

“You don’t hate me now?”

“Does this feel like hate?”

“We can make Las Vegas by four this afternoon.”

“Mervyn.”

“What?”

“When I found out where you’d hidden yourself—”

“I wasn’t hiding.”

“Well, I went to see Professor Burton, and I asked if that grant was still open. He growled and grumbled and finally said the manuscripts had waited eight hundred years, so they could probably hang on for another month or two. In case you were still interested. Are you?”

Mervyn nuzzled her. “Pottering around a mess of moldering manuscripts... I don’t know, Susie. It doesn’t seem important any more.”

“But it’s fun, isn’t it?”

“Fun?” Mervyn seemed startled. “I guess it is at that. I never thought of it just that way...”

“You never thought, period,” Susie said firmly. “Also, it’s the way to get your Ph.D. and a professorship.”

“Teaching,” Mervyn said, shaking his head. “Who wants to be a teacher?”

“You do,” she said. “And if you find you really don’t, why, there’s always a tractor and a cotton field.”

So they went over to Susie’s car and drove back up the road, leaving simmering silence behind them.

In the field, the tractor stood dejectedly.

The crows swooped with relief and settled to the freshly turned earth and began scouting for worms.

And only a long time later did it occur to Mervyn, recalling that extraordinary reunion with Susie Hazelwood Gray in the cotton field, that not once had either of them mentioned — or thought of — poor Mary.

Content

Ellery Queen
The Four Johns

Cast of Characters

Except

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14