The Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 15 Classic Crime & Mystery Stories

The Clock Is Cuckoo

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, May 1969.

The first phone call came just before eleven o’clock on a bleak Monday night in February. When the phone rang Martha Pruett was already in her nightgown, sitting before the dying embers in the fireplace in a robe and with Ho Chi Minh on her lap, sipping her nightly glass of hot milk.

Ho Chi Minh made a strong protest in Siamese when she ejected him from his bed by standing up. He followed her into the bedroom, still complaining, when she went to answer the phone. Martha sat on the edge of the bed and set her glass on the bedside table. The cat made a final comment and rubbed himself against her leg.

“Hello,” Martha said into the phone, as she stroked Ho Chi Minh.

A pleasantly husky feminine voice said hesitantly, “I saw this number in the personal column in the newspaper.”

Martha Pruett had expected it to be one of those calls, because none of her friends would phone this late. The classified ad the caller referred to appeared daily and read: SUICIDE prevention. 24 hour service. Confidential, free. 648-2444. The number wasn’t Martha’s. It was merely an exchange number from which incoming calls were automatically relayed to the home number of whatever volunteer happened to be on duty.

Martha said in a friendly voice, “You have reached Suicide Prevention. May I help you?”

There was a period of silence before the woman said, “I’m not sure why I called. I’m not — I mean I’m not really planning to kill myself. I just feel so blue, I wanted to talk to somebody.”

The caller was one of those rare ones who didn’t like to admit to suicidal impulses, Martha decided. Most potential suicides had no such restraint. The old saw about people who threatened suicide never committing it had been proved wrong long ago. Many suicides had histories of repeatedly threatening to take their own lives before they actually got around to doing it.

There were cases where suicides gave no previous warning, though. The very fact that this woman had phoned the Suicide Prevention number indicated that the thought must have at least occurred to her.

Martha said, “That’s why I’m here, to talk to people. What are you blue about?”

“Oh, different things,” the caller said vaguely. There was another pause, then, “You don’t trace calls or anything like that, do you?”

“Of course not,” Martha said easily. “People would stop calling us if we did. We like to know who our callers are, but we don’t insist on it. If you wish to remain anonymous, that’s up to you. However, if you tell me your name, it will remain in strict confidence. You don’t have to worry that I will do anything such as sending the police to haul you off to a hospital. I am here solely to help you and I won’t contact anyone at all on your behalf without your permission.”

Again there was a pause. Then the woman said suddenly, “You sound like a nice person. Who are you?”

This was a question Martha frequently had to parry. Volunteers were instructed never to reveal their identities to callers in order to avoid the possibility of emotionally disturbed persons attempting to make personal contact. Indiscriminate passing out your name to emotionally unbalanced people wouldn’t be wise in any event, but it would have been particularly foolish for a sixty-year-old spinster who weighed less than a hundred pounds and lived alone except for a Siamese cat.

She said, “I’m just one of numerous volunteer workers who devote their time to this work. It’s more important who you are.”

“Don’t you have a name?” the caller asked.

“Oh, yes. It’s Martha.”

That much was permissible when a caller became insistent; but further insistence would be met with the polite but firm explanation that workers were not allowed to give their last names. Fortunately this caller didn’t push it any farther.

“My name is Janet,” she volunteered.

Martha contemplated probing for the last name, then decided going after it too quickly just might dampen their growing rapport. Instead she said, “Glad to know you, Janet. You sound fairly young. Are you somewhere in your twenties?”

“Oh no. I’m thirty-two.”

“Well, from the viewpoint of my age, that’s still fairly young. Are you married?”

“Yes. For nearly ten years.”

“Is your husband home now?” Martha asked casually. It was standard procedure to attempt to learn just who, if anyone, was in the house with a caller.

The woman said, “He bowls on Mondays and doesn’t get home until after midnight.”

“I see. Do you have any children?”

“No. I had a couple of miscarriages.” There was no regret in the voice. It was just a statement of fact.

“Then you’re all alone at home now?” Martha asked.

“Yes.”

Martha allowed a few seconds of silence to build before saying gently, “Do you want to tell me your last name now, Janet?”

There was an equal period of silence before the husky voice asked with reluctance, “Do I have to?”

Suspecting the woman was on the verge of hanging up, Martha said instantly, “Of course not.” She allowed another few seconds to pass, then asked, “What does your husband do?”

“He’s a professional man.” A subtle change in tone told Martha’s practiced ear that the woman was suddenly becoming cagey about giving answers which might reveal her identity. Martha immediately switched tack.

“Was it some trouble with your husband which made you call this number, Janet?” she asked.

“Oh, no. Fred’s a wonderful husband. It was just things in general.” Martha made a mental note that the husband’s name was Fred. There immediately followed another bit of inadvertent information. In the background Martha heard, “Cuckoo, cuckoo!” followed by eleven rather sharp chimes and then another, “Cuckoo, cuckoo!”

Background noises often gave clues to the location from which a call came. Sounds from outdoors, such as traffic noises or railroad trains, were more helpful than in-door noises, but a cuckoo clock which also had chimes was rare enough to identify a house or apartment if, through other clues, you could narrow the location to a specific neighborhood. Martha was in the habit of mentally filing every scrap of information she could glean from a caller.

She said, “What sort of things are bothering you, Janet?”

“They don’t seem as important now as when I decided to call you. I’m beginning to feel a lot better just from talking to you. Could I phone you again if I start to feel blue?”

“You won’t necessarily get me, but someone is available around the clock.”

“Oh.” The husky voice sounded disappointed. “When are you on duty? I want to talk to you.”

“Just Mondays and Wednesdays, from eight in the evening until eight the following morning.”

“Well, maybe I can arrange only to get blue on Monday and Wednesday evenings,” the woman said with a nervous and rather forlorn attempt at humor. “Thanks for talking to me, Martha.”

“I was glad to,” Martha said. “You’re sure you’ll be all right now?”

“I’ll be all right,” the woman assured her. “You’ve been a big help. Thanks again.” She hung up.

Martha discovered her hot milk had cooled too much while she was on the phone. She poured it into Ho Chi Minh’s bowl and went to bed.

The second call came just at midnight the following Wednesday. Martha had been in bed for an hour and was awakened from a sound sleep by the phone.

When she switched on her bedside lamp and put the receiver to her ear, she heard the sharp chimes of the clock in the background tolling midnight. She waited until the final, “Cuckoo, cuckoo!” before saying, “Hello.”

“Martha?” the husky feminine voice said uncertainly.

“Yes, Janet.”

“Oh, you recognized my voice,” the woman said with mild surprise. “I thought maybe with all the calls you must get, you wouldn’t remember me.”

“I remember you,” Martha said. “Are you feeling blue again?”

“Awfully blue.” There was a muffled sob and the voice seemed to disintegrate. “I... I lied to you Monday, Martha.”

“Oh? About what?”

“When I said I wasn’t thinking about killing myself. I think about it all the time. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Is your husband there tonight, Janet?”

“No, he’s out of town at the National Den—” She broke off and appended, “I’m all alone.” National Den. Some kind of fraternal order Martha wondered. The Cub Scouts had dens, she recalled. Perhaps her husband was on the National Council of the Cub Scouts. She must remember that.

She said, “Do you have a friend who lives nearby who might be willing to come over and stay with you for a time, Janet?”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly tell any of my friends what is wrong with me,” the woman said in a horrified voice.

“What is wrong with you?” Martha inquired.

After a period of dead silence, the woman whispered, “I haven’t told another soul, Martha. What’s wrong with me is that I know I’m going mad.”

“What makes you think that, Janet?”

“I don’t just think it. I know it. I love my husband, but periodically I get this horrible urge to kill him.” Her tone sank to one of despair. “Last Sunday night it went so far that I crept out of bed and went to the kitchen for a butcher knife. I was heading back for our bedroom with the knife in my hand, meaning to stab Fred in his sleep, when I came to my senses. It was that incident which made me call you the next night.”

Martha’s heart began to pound. This was her first contact with a caller who seemed to suffer from more than acute neurosis. This woman obviously was psychotic and would have to be handled with extreme care.

Until she retired on a small inheritance the previous year, Martha Pruett had been a social worker. Her training had given her just enough of a smattering of psychiatry to make her know she was totally unequipped to psychoanalyze anyone, particularly over a telephone. She knew there was no point in attempting to talk a psychotic out of homicidal impulses. The only sensible plan of attack was to attempt to talk her caller into submitting to immediate treatment.

She said, “You haven’t told anyone at all about these impulses, Janet?”

“Just you,” the woman said in a broken voice.

“Your husband doesn’t even suspect you have such thoughts?”

“He knows I love him,” Janet said in despair. “That’s why, when I’m normal, I want to kill myself. Better that I should die than kill the man I love.”

“Now, there is no necessity for either,” Martha said in firm voice. “You phoned me for advice, I assume. Are you prepared to take it?”

“What is it?” the woman whispered.

“You seem to be quite aware that you are mentally ill, and all the psychologists say this is the first big step toward cure. It’s the mentally disturbed person who is convinced there is really nothing wrong with him who is in real psychiatric trouble.”

“Don’t suggest that I see my family doctor,” the woman said wearily. “He happens to be my brother-in-law, and I couldn’t possibly tell him what I have told you.”

“It isn’t necessary for either your family doctor or your husband to know you have sought treatment, Janet. You will find numerous psychiatrists listed in the yellow pages of the phone book. Or, if you prefer, I’ll recommend one.”

There was a considerable period of silence before the husky voice said hesitantly, “He wouldn’t tell my husband?”

“You must know that doctors have a code of ethics which makes everything a patient tells them a matter of confidence, Janet. I’m not saying that whatever psychiatrist you pick may not try to talk you into confiding in your husband, but I will guarantee that he won’t tattle on you.”

The woman’s tone became hopeful. “You think this one you offered to recommend might help me?”

“I’m sure he could.”

“Who is he?”

“Dr. Albert Manners, in the Medical Exchange Building. I have never had a doctor-patient relationship with him but I know him quite well because he was on the board of directors of a social agency I once worked for, and I know he has a fine reputation. Do you have a pencil and paper there?”

“I can remember that all right. Dr. Albert Manners in the Medical Exchange Building.”

“Will you call him first thing in the morning?” Martha asked.

“I will. I promise I will. Oh, thank you, Martha.”

“When do you expect your husband home?” Martha asked, but she was speaking into a dead phone. The woman had hung up.

Martha had to get up and heat herself some milk before she could go back to sleep, because she wasn’t at all satisfied with her performance. She should have wormed the woman’s last name out of her. Now, if she killed her husband or herself, Martha would have it on her conscience that she might have averted the tragedy if she had been efficient enough to find out who the caller was and warn her husband.

The third and last call came at a few minutes to nine p.m. the following Monday. When Martha answered the phone, she at first failed to recognize the thick voice which said, nearly incomprehensibly, “’Stoo late. Couldn’t wait tomorrow. ’Stoo late.”

Then she recognized the husky undertone in the thick voice. She said sharply, “Janet?”

“Yeah,” the voice said. “‘Lo, Martha.”

“Have you taken something?” Martha demanded.

“’Stoo late. Couldn’t wait tomorrow.”

“Wait for what, Janet?”

“‘Pointment. ’Pointment Dr. Manners. Would’ve killed him tonight when came home from bowling. Better this way.”

“Janet!” Martha said loudly. “What have you taken?”

“You tell Fred did it for him?” the voice said with increased thickness. “Tell ’im love ’im?”

“Where can I reach him, Janet?” Martha asked desperately. “Where is he bowling?”

“Elks Men’s League. Tell ’im... tell ’im—” The voice trailed off into a somewhat portentous silence.

In the background there sounded, “Cuckoo, cuckoo!” then nine sharp chimes and again, “Cuckoo, cuckoo!”

“Janet!” Martha called, but there was no answer.

She tried several more times to rouse the woman, without success. The line remained open, however, because Martha could hear no dial tone. Even if she hung up, the connection wouldn’t be broken, Martha knew, because the caller had to hang up in order to sever a connection. Martha had no idea of the electronic reason for this phenomenon, but she had occasionally in the past received calls where the caller for some reason had failed to hang up, and it had been necessary to go out to another phone to call the phone company before she could make any outgoing calls.

It therefore should be perfectly safe to click the bar up and down in the hope of rousing an operator, she reasoned. She attempted it, and the second time she depressed the bar and released it again, she was horrified to hear a dial tone. So much for her vaunted knowledge of how phones worked, she thought with dismay. Now she had destroyed all possibility of having the call traced.

She had a few clues to work on, however. The most valuable was that Janet’s husband was bowling with the Elks Men’s League.

Looking up the phone number of the local Elks Club, she dialed it. After several rings a male voice answered.

“Is there anyone there who would know all the members of the Elks Bowling League?” Martha asked.

“Huh?” the man said. “Not me, lady. I’m just the bartender, and the steward has gone home.”

“This is an extreme emergency,” Martha told him. “Isn’t there anyone there who knows your bowlers?”

“The Exalted Ruler is at the bar. I’ll let you talk to him.”

When the Exalted Ruler, who identified himself as Edwin Shay, got on the phone, Martha gave him her name and explained that she was a volunteer worker for Suicide Prevention.

“It is absolutely essential that I get in touch with one of your Men’s League bowlers at once,” she concluded. “The difficulty is that I have only his first name. It’s Fred.”

Edwin Shay said wryly, “The Men’s League has fourteen teams, Miss Pruett, with five men on each team. Offhand I can think of three Freds.”

“His wife is named Janet, Mr. Shay, and he has a brother who is a doctor. Does that mean anything to you? Do you know who he is?”

“Oh, sure,” the Exalted Ruler said with recognition. “You’re talking about Doc Waters. He’s a dentist.”

That was it, Martha thought with jubilation, suddenly understanding the puzzling remark her caller had made the previous Wednesday. The woman had probably started to say National Dental Association Convention, or something similar, before she cut the phrase short and it came out simply, “National Den.”

“Where does the league bowl?” she asked.

“The Delmar Bowl. What’s this all about, anyway?”

“I haven’t time to explain it now,” Martha said. “Thank you very much for your help.”

She hung up, found the number of the Delmar Bowl in the phone book and dialed it. It took a few minutes to get Dr. Fred Waters to the phone, but finally a warm male voice said in her ear, “Yeah, Janet. What’s up?”

“It isn’t your wife, doctor,” Martha said. “I’m a volunteer worker for Suicide Prevention. About fifteen or twenty minutes ago I got a phone call from your wife. You had better get home immediately, because she has taken some kind of pills. She passed out while I was talking to her.”

“What!” Dr. Waters said with a mixture of fright and astonishment. “My wife took pills?”

“You really should hurry, doctor,” Martha said. “And if it’s a very long drive to your home, I suggest that before you start, you phone for an ambulance to meet you there.”

“All right,” he said hurriedly. “Who did you say this is calling?”

“Miss Martha Pruett. I would appreciate it if you would take down my phone number and call me back later as to how things came out”

“Of course, Miss Pruett. What is it?”

Martha read off her number.

“Got it,” the dentist said. “Thanks for calling.”

An interminable period of waiting followed. The suspense was too great for Martha to generate any interest in either television or a book. She busied herself by brushing Ho Chi Minh, brushing her own hair, giving herself a manicure and, in final desperation, even giving herself a pedicure.

She managed to dispose of two hours in that manner, but then she ran out of time-killing chores. She was contemplating dusting the already immaculate front room when the phone finally rang at eleven-thirty p.m.

Her nervousness had long since discouraged Ho Chi Minh from all idea of a nap on her lap, and he had retreated to a spot in the center of the living room rug. This put him between Martha’s chair and the bedroom door, so that she ran straight toward him when she raced to answer the phone. Ho Chi Minh fled to the kitchen.

Grabbing up the phone, Martha said breathlessly, “Yes?”

“Miss Pruett?” a strange male voice asked.

“Yes.”

“This is Lieutenant Herman Abell of the police, Miss Pruett. Dr. Waters asked me to phone you, because he’s not quite up to talking. I understand you’re a Suicide Prevention worker and it was you who phoned him that his wife had taken pills.”

“Yes, that’s right. How is she?”

“It was too late to do anything for her. She was dead on arrival at the hospital.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Lieutenant.”

“Just one of those things, Miss Pruett. We won’t know until the autopsy just how many sleeping pills she swallowed, but a bottle that Dr. Waters says held three dozen is empty.”

“How horrible! And she was only thirty-two.”

“Were you personally acquainted with her?” the police officer asked in surprise. “I thought you people kept yourselves anonymous insofar as callers are concerned.”

“We do, but I managed to pick up a good deal of information about her. We had two previous phone conversations before tonight, Lieutenant.”

“Oh? This wasn’t her first attempt then?”

“Well, I don’t know that she made any previous attempts, but she had contemplated suicide. I would have contacted her husband before, but I was never able to worm out of her who she was, except for her first name. She never told me, even tonight. I tracked down her identity from certain clues she had dropped. I feel terrible about not worming her identity from her sooner. I might have saved her.”

“Well, it wasn’t your fault,” the lieutenant said. “We’ll need your statement, of course, though. When could you stop by headquarters?”

“At your convenience,” Martha said. “I’m retired, so my time is pretty much my own.”

“Fine. I’m on the night trick and don’t go on duty until four p.m. Would four be convenient?”

“All right, Lieutenant.”

“Then I’ll expect you at the Homicide squad room at four p.m. Just ask for Lieutenant Abell.”

“Homicide?” Martha said inquiringly.

“Don’t let it throw you,” the police officer said with a slight chuckle. “The Homicide Squad doesn’t confine itself just to murder investigation. We have a half dozen separate responsibilities, and one of them is suicide.”

“Oh,” Martha said. “All right, Lieutenant. I’ll see you at four tomorrow.”

Martha had hoped there would be a photograph of Janet Waters in the morning paper, but there wasn’t. There was merely a brief item on an inner page reporting her death from an overdose of sleeping pills and announcing that, pending further investigation, the police had tentatively listed the death as a suicide.

Martha arrived at the Homicide squad room promptly at four. Lieutenant Herman Abell turned out to be a thick-bodied, unsmiling man in his forties. Dr. Fred Waters was also there, and he made an instant impression on Martha. The dentist was a tall, lean, handsome man with thick wavy black hair and very white teeth. Martha guessed him to be in his mid-thirties.

He was not only handsome, but exceedingly charming, she decided within minutes of being introduced to him. Part of his appeal was to her latent maternal instinct, she suspected, because he was so obviously bereaved. He seemed to be literally stunned by the news that his wife had repeatedly considered killing him. Under questioning by Lieutenant Abell, he admitted that she had recently had some rather severe bouts of depression, but he hadn’t even suspected psychosis.

“She always acted as though she loved me,” he kept saying with rather pitiable insistence.

“She did,” Martha assured him. “You’ll have to face it, doctor, that your wife was simply mentally deranged.”

“That seems plain enough,” Lieutenant Abell confirmed. “Are you ready to make your formal statement, Miss Pruett?”

When Martha said she was, he had her dictate it into a tape recorder, had it typed up and she signed it. She included everything she could remember about all three phone conversations with the dead woman, and also her conversation with the Elks’ Exalted Ruler.

The whole thing took less than an hour. The case was so obviously a suicide that the lieutenant gave the impression his investigation was routine, but Martha noted that nevertheless it was thorough. For instance, he checked by phone with the office girl of psychiatrist Albert Manners to verify that Janet Waters had actually made the appointment she told Martha she had when she made her last, incoherent phone call.

She had made the appointment. Since the doctor’s receptionist said the only contact had been when she phoned in for an appointment, and that Dr. Manners had not even talked to her on the phone, Lieutenant Abell didn’t bother to talk to the psychiatrist himself.

When first introduced to Dr. Fred Waters, Martha had murmured a word of sympathy and had gotten a courteous thank you in reply. In parting, she again told the dentist she was sorry for his bereavement and, this time, got such an appreciative smile in return that it dazzled her. Since her own dentist had recently retired and moved to Florida, she made a mental note to try Dr. Fred Waters the next time she had her teeth cleaned.

It was another three months before Martha was due for her semiannual dental checkup and cleaning. In May she called Dr. Waters’ office. The girl who answered the phone gave her an appointment for a Friday afternoon at 4:30.

Dr. Waters’ office was a good seven miles from Martha’s apartment. She mis-guessed the traffic situation and arrived five minutes late. She would have been even later if she had not found a parking place for her little sports car right in front of the office building. The dental office being on the first floor saved the time of waiting for an elevator, too. She entered his office out of breath at exactly 4:35.

The young red-haired receptionist smiled away her apology and offered one of her own. Dr. Waters was running late with his appointments and probably couldn’t take her until five.

“I may have to leave before he gets to you,” the girl said in further apology. “I’m going away for the weekend and have to catch a six o’clock bus. If I do have to leave, I’ll give you your chart, and you can just hand it to the doctor when he takes you.”

“All right,” Martha agreed.

The receptionist invited her to have a seat.

It was a typical dentist’s waiting room, moderately well furnished with leather-covered easy chairs and a sofa, and with a table containing an assortment of out-of-date magazines. Martha found a women’s magazine she hadn’t read and settled back to wait. The receptionist, behind the counter running the length of one wall, was doing some kind of desk work.

Ten minutes after Martha’s arrival the silence was suddenly broken by a single, “Cuckoo!” followed by three sharp chimes, then succeeded by another, “Cuckoo!” Martha glanced up at the wooden clock on the wall in time to see the bird pop out for the second, “Cuckoo!” then disappear again. Could this be the same clock she had heard in the background each time Janet Waters had phoned her, she wondered? That had cuckooed twice before and after chiming the hour, but perhaps this one did too, and cuckooed once only on the quarter hours.

Clearing her throat, Martha said to the receptionist, “Miss, do you happen to know if Dr. Waters has a clock at home similar to the one you have here?”

The receptionist said politely, “I’ve never seen Dr. Waters’ home. I’ve only worked for him a little over two weeks.”

“Oh,” Martha said, and subsided. Several moments passed in silence, then the girl looked up again. “It may be that they have, and that’s why they put this one here. I wish they hadn’t, because it drives me crazy, sounding off every fifteen minutes.”

Martha said puzzledly, “What do you mean they put it here?”

“Dr. and Mrs. Waters, when they were married.”

“But they were married ten years ago, weren’t they?” Martha said, confused.

The redhead smiled at her. “I mean his current marriage, Miss Pruett. They were only married a couple of weeks ago. That’s how I got this job, because Joanne was his previous receptionist.”

Martha was mildly shocked. He certainly hadn’t waited a very decent interval before taking a second wife. Men, she sniffed to herself. After all his show of bereavement.

The redhead was saying, “Joanne had the clock at her apartment, and of course when she moved from there to Dr. Waters’ home, she had no place to put her furnishings, because his home was already furnished. She sold most of her things, but she brought a few of the smaller items here.”

The girl went back to her work. Martha stared up at the clock while a series of astonishing thoughts ran through her mind. If all those calls had come from the apartment of Dr. Waters’ former receptionist instead of from his home, quite obviously it had not been Janet Waters to whom Martha had talked; and the fact that this same receptionist had become the second Mrs. Waters so soon after the death of the first added a sinister element. This thought so staggered Martha that she didn’t realize how long she had been sitting there mulling it over until the clock sounded again. This time all doubt was removed from her mind, because it cuckooed twice before chiming five times, then cuckooed twice again.

At that moment the door from the inner office opened and Dr. Fred Waters ushered out a male patient.

“Make Mr. Curtis another appointment for next week, Ruby,” the dentist said to the receptionist. “Then you can leave, because I know you have to catch a bus. I’ll close up.”

He turned to glance at Martha and a startled expression crossed his face. “Oh, hello there,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were my last appointment. Ruby likes to surprise me.”

The remark caused the receptionist to glance curiously from Martha to the dentist, but she made no comment. She merely handed him a large card and said, “Here is Miss Pruett’s chart, doctor.”

After a brief glance at it, Dr. Waters said to Martha, “Sorry to have kept you waiting, Miss Pruett. Come on in.”

Beyond a jerky nod, Martha had made no response to the dentist’s greeting, but no one seemed to notice. She rose and rather woodenly preceded him into the treatment room. She sat in the dental chair, allowed a bib to be tied around her neck, and obediently opened her mouth.

“Hmm,” the dentist said after a brief examination. “Exceptionally fine teeth for your age.” He smiled down apologetically and amended that to, “I mean for any age.”

He started to work with a scraper and a pick. Fortunately the nature of dental treatment prohibits conversation, because Martha couldn’t have thought of a word to say to him. Time passed in silence. She knew when fifteen minutes had passed, although it seemed much longer, because the cuckoo clock sounded the quarter hour.

Only seconds later, at a moment when Martha was seated erect to rinse out her mouth, there was a light rap on the door, then it immediately opened. A strikingly beautiful blonde of about twenty-five stood in the doorway.

“Oh, excuse me, honey,” she said in a husky voice. “I assumed your last patient would be gone by now.”

She was starting to pull the door closed again from outside when Martha blurted, “You must be Joanne.”

The woman paused to gaze at her inquiringly. Dr. Waters’ expression denoted doubt as to whether he should introduce the two women or simply request the blonde to wait outside.

His patient took the decision out of his hands by announcing, “I’m Martha. Remember me, Joanne?”

The blonde’s face lost all expression. Dr. Waters’ turned pale. The woman pushed the door all the way open again and studied Martha with pursed lips.

“You sound as though we had met before,” she said with an assumed air of puzzlement which failed to fool Martha in the least. She could tell by the woman’s expression that she had recognized Martha’s voice as instantly as Martha had recognized hers.

Martha said coldly, “Only over the phone. What a remarkable murder plan! You managed to establish through a totally disinterested witness that Janet was a psychotic who had committed suicide, when the poor woman was prob-ably entirely normal.” She looked at the dentist. “How did you give her the pills before you went bowling, doctor? In her coffee?”

Belatedly, she knew that this verbal outburst had been unwise when she saw how both of them were looking at her. Sliding from the dental chair, she undid her bib and draped it over the chair arm. “I guess I’ll be going,” she said nervously.

The blonde Joanne remained centered in the open doorway. In an unemotional voice she said to her husband, “Accidentally giving a patient an overdose of anesthetic won’t help your professional reputation, but it wouldn’t hurt as much as a murder trial.”

The dentist gazed from his wife to Martha and back again with an expression of desperation on his face.

Martha said to the woman in the doorway, with a mixture of fright and belligerence, “You had better get out of my way.”

Ignoring her, Joanne said to Dr. Waters, “You have no choice. It’ll pass as an accident. It’s happened in other dental offices.”

Dr. Waters came to a decision so suddenly he took Martha by surprise. Grasping her frail figure by both shoulders, he threw her back into the dental chair.

Despite her age and small size Martha was as agile as an eel, and now she behaved like one. She writhed and kicked and twice nearly broke loose from the man’s grip before he finally subdued her by lying across her legs and holding her shoulders down with both hands. She had to give up then, because he was nearly double her weight.

“You know how to use the gas,” the dentist said to his wife. “Get the mask over her face while I hold her down.”

A moment later a conelike rubber mask with gas hissing from it was clamped over Martha’s nose and mouth. She shook it loose by violently shaking her head from side to side, but then Joanne grasped her beneath the chin with one hand and held her head immobile while she firmly reset the mask in place with the other hand.

Martha held her breath. She could feel the gas cooling her cheeks as it was forced from both sides of the mask by her refusal to breathe. She could also feel the pressure of Joanne’s right thumb on her cheek alongside the mask.

Martha’s lungs were on the verge of bursting and she was ready to capitulate by taking a deep breath when the hurried voice of the receptionist said from the open door, “I left my bus ticket in my desk, doctor. I have to rush—” There was a pause, then, “What—”

Dr. Waters started so violently that he released his grip on Martha’s shoulders and half rose from his position across her body. Joanne started too, less violently, but enough to relax momentarily the pressure of both hands.

Martha jerked her head to one side and used the exceptionally fine teeth Dr. Waters had admired to bite his wife’s thumb nearly to the bone.

With a yowl of pain, the blonde dropped the face mask and staggered backward. Martha drew both knees to her chest and pushed the dentist away by placing her feet in his stomach and shoving. He reeled across the room to crash into an instrument table.

Martha bounced from the dental chair and sped past the astonished redhead in the open doorway.

She was thankful that the dental office was on the first floor, because she had to gulp air into her starved lungs while she was running, and she probably would have collapsed if she had been required to race downstairs. Desperation made her good for a short sprint, though. She was outdoors, into her car and had the engine started before there was any sign of pursuit. As she shot away from the curb, she spotted Dr. Waters in the rear-view mirror, just emerging from the building.

Martha headed for police headquarters.