A Kiss Before Dying

Part Three MARION

When Marion Kingship was graduated from college (Columbia University, an institution demanding long hours of earnest study; unlike that Midwestern Twentieth Century-Fox playground that Ellen was entering), her father offhandedly mentioned the fact to the head of the advertising agency which handled the Kingship Copper account, and Marion was offered a job as a copy writer. Although she wanted very much to write advertising copy, she refused the offer. Eventually she managed to find a position with a small agency where Kingship was a name stamped in the washroom plumbing and where Marion was assured that in the not-too-distant future she would be permitted to submit copy for some of the smaller accounts, provided that the writing of the copy did not interfere with her secretarial duties.

A year later, when Dorothy inevitably followed Ellen's lead and went off to football cheers and campus kisses, Marion found herself alone in an eight-room apartment with her father, the two of them like charged metal pellets that drift and pass but never touch. She decided, against her father's obvious though unvoiced disapproval, to find a place of her own.

She rented a two-room apartment on the top floor of a converted brownstone in the East Fifties. She furnished it with a great deal of care. Because the two rooms were smaller than those she had occupied in her father's home, she could not take all her possessions with her. Those that she did take, therefore, were the fruit of a thoughtful selection. She told herself she was choosing the things she liked best, the things that meant the most to her, which was true; but as she hung each picture and placed each book upon the shelf, she saw it not only through her own eyes but also through the eyes of a visitor who would some day come to her apartment, a visitor as yet unidentified except as to his sex. Every article was invested with significance, an index to her self; the furniture and the lamps and the ashtrays (modern but not modernistic), the reproduction of her favorite painting (Charles Demuth's My Egypt; not quite realistic; its planes accentuated and enriched by the eye of the artist), the records (some of the jazz and some of the Stravinsky and Bartók, but mostly the melodic listen-in-the-dark themes of Grieg and Brahms and Rachmaninoff), and the books-especially the books, for what better index of the personality is there?-(the novels and plays, the non-fiction and verse, all chosen in proportion and representation of her tastes). It was like the concentrated abbreviation of a Help Wanted ad. The egocentricity which motivated it was not that of the spoiled, but of the too little spoiled; the lonely. Had she been an artist she would have painted a self-portrait; instead she decorated two rooms, charging them with objects which some visitor, some day, would recognize and understand. And through that understanding he would divine all the capacities and longings she had found in herself and was unable to communicate.

The map of her week was centered about two landmarks; on Wednesday evenings she had dinner with her father, and on Saturdays she thorough-cleaned her two rooms. The first was a labor of duty; the second, of love. She waxed wood and polished glass, and dusted and replaced objects with sacramental care.

There were visitors. Dorothy and Ellen came when they were home on vacation, unconvincingly envying Marion as a woman of the world. Her father came, puffing from the three flights of stairs, looking dubiously at the small living-bedroom and smaller kitchen and shaking his head. Some girls from the office came, playing Canasta as though life and honor were at stake. And a man came once; the bright young junior account executive; very nice, very intelligent. His interest in the apartment manifested itself in sidelong glances at the studio couch.

When Dorothy committed suicide, Marion returned to her father's apartment for two weeks, and when Ellen died, she stayed with him for a month. They could no more get close to each other than could charged metal pellets, no matter how they tried. At the end of the month, he suggested with a diffidence unusual in him that she move back permanently. She couldn't; the thought of relinquishing her own apartment was unimaginable, as though she had locked too much of herself into it. After that though, she had dinner at her father's three evenings a week instead of only one.

On Saturday she cleaned the rooms, and once each month she opened all the books to prevent their bindings from growing stiff.

One Saturday morning in September, the telephone rang. Marion, on her knees in the act of polishing the underside of a plate glass coffee table, froze at the sound of the bell. She gazed down through the blue-toned glass at the flattened dustcloth, hoping that it was a mistake, that someone had dialed the wrong number, had realized it at the last moment and hung up. The phone rang again. Reluctantly she rose to her feet and went over to the table beside the studio couch, still holding the dustcloth in her hand.

"Hello," she said flatly.

"Hello." It was a man's voice, unfamiliar. "Is this Marion Kingship?"*

"Yes."

"You don't know me. I was... a friend of Ellen's." Marion felt suddenly awkward; a friend of Ellen's; someone handsome and clever and fast-talking... Someone dull underneath, someone she wouldn't care for anyway. The awkwardness retreated. "My name," the man continued, "is Burton Corliss... Bud Corliss."

"... Oh, yes. Ellen told me about you..." ('I love him so much,' Ellen had said during the visit that had proved to be her last, 'and he loves me too,' -and Marion, though happy for her, had for some reason been somber the rest of the evening.)

"I wonder it I could see you," he said. "I have something that belonged to Ellen. One of her books. She lent it to me just before... before she went to Blue River, and I thought you might like to have it."

Probably some Book-of-the-Month novel, Marion thought, and then, hating herself for her smallness, said, "Yes, I'd like very much to have it Yes, I would."

For a moment there was silence from the other end of the wire. "I could bring it over now," he said. "I'm in the neighborhood."

"No," she said quickly, "I'm going out."

"Well then, sometime tomorrow..."

"I... I won't be in tomorrow either." She shifted uncomfortably, ashamed of her lying, ashamed that she didn't want him in her apartment. He was probably likeable enough, and he'd loved Ellen and Ellen was dead, and he was going out of his way to give her Ellen's book... "We could meet someplace this afternoon," she offered.

"Fine," he said. "That would be fine."

"I'm going to be... around Fifth Avenue."

"Then suppose we meet, say, in front of the statue at Rockefeller Center, the one of Atlas holding up the world."

"All right."

"At three o'clock?"

"Yes. Three o'clock. Thank you very much for calling. It's very nice of you."

"Don't mention it," he said. "Good-by, Marion." There was a pause. "I'd feel funny calling you Miss Kingship. Ellen spoke about you so much."

"That's all right..." She felt awkward again, and self-conscious. "Good-by..." she said, unable to decide whether to call him Bud or Mr. Corliss.

"Good-by," he repeated.

She replaced the receiver and stood looking at the telephone for a moment Then she turned and went to the coffee table. Kneeling, she resumed her work, sweeping the dustcloth in unaccustomedly hurried arcs, because now the whole afternoon was broken up.

In the shadow of the towering bronze statue, he stood with his back to the pedestal, immaculate in gray flannel, a paper-wrapped package under his arm. Before him passed intermeshing streams of oppositely-bound people, slow-moving against a backdrop of roaring busses and impatient taxis. He watched their faces carefully. The Fifth Avenue set; men with unpadded shoulders and narrowly knotted ties; women self-consciously smart in tailored suits, kerchiefs crisp at their throats, their beautiful heads lifted high, as though photographers might be waiting farther down the street. And, like transient sparrows tolerated in an aviary, the pink rural faces gawking at the statue and the sun-sharpened spires of Saint Patrick's across the street. He watched them all carefully, trying to recall the snapshot Dorothy had shown him so long ago. "Marion could be very pretty, only she wears her hair like this." He smiled, remembered Dome's fierce frown as she pulled her hair back primly. His fingers toyed with a fold in the wrapping of the package.

She came from the north, and he recognized her when she was still a hundred feet away. She was tall and thin, a bit too thin, and dressed much like the women around her; a brown suit, a gold kerchief, a small Vogue-looking felt hat, a shoulder-strap handbag. She seemed stiff and uncomfortable in the outfit, though, as if it had been made to someone else's measure. Her pulled-back hair was brown. She had Dorothy's large brown eyes, but in her drawn face they were too large, and the high cheekbones that had bees so beautiful in her sisters were, in Marion, too sharply defined. As she came nearer, she saw him. With an uncertain, questioning smile, she approached, appearing ill at ease in the spotlight of his gaze. Her lipstick, he noticed, was the pale rose he associated with timorously experimenting adolescents.

"Marion?"

"Yes." She offered her hand hesitantly, "How do you do," she said, directing a too quick smile at a point somewhere below his eyes.

Her hand in his was long-fingered and cold. "Hello," he said. "I've been looking forward to meeting you."

They went to a determinedly Early American cocktail lounge around the corner. Marion, after some indecision, ordered a Daquiri.

"I... I can't stay long, I'm afraid," she said, sitting erect on the edge of her chair, her fingers stiff around the cocktail glass.

"Where are they always running, these beautiful women?" he inquired smilingly-and immediately saw that it was the wrong approach; she smiled tensely and seemed to grow more uncomfortable. He looked at her curiously, allowing the echo of his words to fade. After a moment he began again. "You're with an advertising agency, aren't you?"

"Camden and Galbraith," she said. "Are you still at Caldwell?"

"No."

"I thought Ellen said you were a junior."

"I was, but I had to quit school." He sipped his Martini. "My father is dead. I didn't want my mother to work any more."

"Oh, I'm sorry..."

"Maybe I'll be able to finish up next year. Or I may go to night school. Where did you go to school?"

"Columbia. Are you from New York?"

"Massachusetts."

Every time he tried to steer the conversation around to her, she turned it back towards him. Or to the weather. Or to a waiter who bore a startling resemblance to Claude Raines.

Eventually she asked, "Is that the book?"

"Yes. Dinner at Antoine's. Ellen wanted me to read it. There are some personal notes she scribbled on the flyleaf, so I thought you might like to have it." He passed the package to her.

"Personally," he said, "I go for books that have a little more meaning."

Marion stood up. "I'll have to be leaving now," she said apologetically.

"But you haven't finished your drink yet."

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, looking down at the package in her hands, "I have an appointment. A business appointment. I couldn't possibly be late."

He rose. "But..."

"I'm sorry." She looked at him uncomfortably.

He put money on the table.

They walked back to Fifth Avenue. At the corner she offered her hand again. It was still cold. "It's been very nice meeting you, Mr. Corliss," she said. "Thank you for the drink. And the book. I appreciate it... very thoughtful..." She turned and melted into the stream of people.

Emptily, he stood on the corner for a moment Then his lips clenched and he started walking.

He followed her. The brown felt hat had a gold ornament that glittered brightly. He stayed some thirty feet behind it.

She walked up to Fifty-Fourth Street, where she crossed the avenue, heading east towards Madison. He knew where she was going; he remembered the address from the telephone book. She crossed Madison and Park. He stopped on the corner and watched her climb the steps of the brownstone house.

"Business appointment," he muttered. He waited around for a few minutes, not knowing exactly why he waited, and then he turned and walked slowly back towards Fifth Avenue.

Sunday afternoon Marion went to the Museum of Modern Art. The main floor was still occupied by an automobile exhibit which she had seen before and found uninteresting, and the second floor was unusually crowded, so she continued up the turning stairway to the third floor, there to wander among the pleasantly familiar paintings and sculptures; the arched white smoothness of the Girl Washing Her Hair, the perfect spear of Bird In Space.

Two men were in the room that held the Lehmbruck sculptures, but they went out soon after Marion entered, leaving her alone in the cool gray cube with the two statues, the male and female, he standing and she kneeling in opposite quarters of the room, their bodies elongated and gauntly beautiful.

The attenuation of the statues gave them an unearthly air, almost like religious art, so that Marion had always been able to look at them with, none of the slight embarrassment she usually felt on viewing nude sculptures. She moved slowly around the figure of the young man.

"Hello." The voice was behind her, pleasantly surprised.

It must be for me, she thought, there's no one else here. She turned around.

Bud Corliss smiled in the doorway.

"Hello," Marion said confusedly, "It really is a small world," he said, coming to her. "I came in right behind you downstairs, only I wasn't sure it was you. How are you?"

"Fine, thank you." There was an uncomfortable pause. "How are you?" she added.

"Fine, thanks."

They turned to the statue. Why did she feel so clumsy? Because he was handsome? Because he had been part of Ellen's circle?-had shared, football cheers and campus kisses and love...

"Do you come here often?" he asked.

"Yes."

"So do I."

The statue embarrassed her now, because Bud Corliss was standing beside her. She turned away and moved towards the figure of the kneeling woman. He followed at her side. "Did you make that appointment on time?"

"Yes," she said. What brought him here? You'd think he'd be strolling in Central Park with some poised flawless Ellen on his arm...

They looked at the statue. After a moment, he said, "I really didn't think it was you downstairs."

"Why not?"

"Well, Ellen wasn't the museum type..."

"Sisters aren't exactly alike," she said.

"No, I guess not." He began to circle around the kneeling figure.

"The Fine Arts department at Caldwell had a small museum," he said. "Mostly reproductions and copies. I dragged Ellen there once or twice. Thought I'd indoctrinate her." He shook his head. "No luck."

"She wasn't interested in art."

"No," he said. "It's funny the way we try to push our tastes on people we like."

Marion looked at him, facing her on the other side of the statue. "I once took Ellen and Dorothy- Dorothy was our youngest sister-"

"I know..."

"I took them here once when they were just going into their teens. They were bored, though. I guess it was too young."

"I don't know," he said, retracing his semicircular path towards her. "If there'd been a museum in my home town when I was that age... Did you come here when you were twelve or thirteen?"

"Yes."

"See?" he said. His smile made them fellow members of a group to which Ellen and Dorothy had never belonged.

A man and woman with two children in tow came bursting into the room.

"Let's move on," he suggested, at her side again.

"It's Sunday," he said. "No business appointments to run to." He smiled at her; a very nice smile, soft and lenitive. "I'm alone; you're alone..." He took her elbow gently. "Come on," he said, with the persuasive smile.

They went through the third floor and half of the second, commenting on the works they saw, and then they went down to the main floor, past the gleaming automobiles incongruous within a building, and out through the glass doors to the garden behind the museum. They strolled from statue to statue, pausing before each. They came to the Maillol woman, full-bodied, strident "The last of the red-hot mammas," Bud said.

Marion smiled. "I'll tell you something," she said. "I always get a little embarrassed looking at... statues like this."

"This one embarrasses me a little," he said, smiling. "It's not a nude; it's a naked." They both laughed.

When they had looked at all the statues, they sat down on one of the benches at the back of the garden and lighted cigarettes.

"You and Ellen were going steady, weren't you?"

"Not exactly."

"I thought..."

"Not officially, I mean. Anyway, going steady in college doesn't always mean as much as going steady outside of college."

Marion smoked in silence.

"We had a great many things in common, but they were mainly surface things; having the same classes, knowing the same people... things having to do with Caldwell. Once we were through with college though, I don't think we would've... I don't think we would've gotten married." He stared at his cigarette. "I was fond of Ellen. I liked her better than any girl I've ever known. I was miserable when she died. But... I don't know... she wasn't a very deep person." He paused. "I hope I'm not offending you."

Marion shook her head watching him.

"Everything was like that museum business. I thought I could at least get her interested in some of the uncomplicated artists, like Hopper or Wood. But it didn't work. She wasn't interested at all. And it was the same thing with books or politics-anything serious. She always wanted to be doing something."

"She'd led a restricted life at home. I guess she was making up for it."

"Yes," he said. "And then, she was four years younger than I." He put out his cigarette. "But she was the sweetest girl I've ever known."

There was a pause.

"Didn't they ever find out anything about who did it?" he asked incredulously.

"Nothing. Isn't it awful..."

They sat in silence for a moment. Then they began to talk again; about how many interesting things there were to do in New York, and what a pleasant place the museum was, about the Matisse exhibit that was coming soon.

"Do you know who I like?" he asked.

"Who?"

"I don't know if you're familiar with his work," he said. "Charles Demuth."

Leo Kingship sat with his elbows propped on the table, his fingers interlocked around a cold-frosted glass of milk which he studied as though it were a beautifully colored wine. "You've been seeing him frequently, haven't you," he said, trying to sound casual. With elaborate care, Marion placed her coffee cup in the indentation of the blue and gold Aynsley saucer, and then looked across the crystal and silver and damask at her father. His full red face was bland. Reflected light blanked the lenses of his eyeglasses, masking his eyes. "Bud?" she said, knowing it was Bud he meant.

Kingship nodded.

"Yes," Marion said squarely, "I've been seeing him frequently." She paused. "He's calling for me tonight, in about fifteen minutes." She watched her father's expressionless face with waiting eyes, hoping that there would not be an argument because it would tarnish the entire evening, and hoping that there would be one because it would try the strength of what she felt for Bud.

"This job of his," Kingship said, setting down the milk. "What are its prospects?"

After a cold moment Marion said, "He's on the executive training squad. He should be a section manager in a few months. Why all the questions?" She smiled with her lips only.

Kingship removed his glasses. His blue eyes wrestled uncomfortably with Marion's cool stare. "You brought him here to dinner, Marion," he said. "You never brought anyone to dinner before. Doesn't that entitle me to ask a few questions?"

"He lives in a rooming house," Marion said. "When he doesn't eat with me, he eats alone. So I brought him to dinner one night"

"The nights you don't dine here, you dine with him?"

"Yes, most of them. Why should we both eat alone? We work only five blocks from each other." She wondered why she was being evasive; she hadn't been caught doing something wrong. "We eat together because we enjoy each other's company," she said firmly. "We like each other very much."

"Then I do have a right to ask some questions, don't I," Kingship pointed out quietly.

"He's someone I like. Not someone applying for a job with Kingship Copper."

"Marion..."

She plucked a cigarette from a silver cup and lighted it with a silver table lighter. "You don't like him, do you?"

"I didn't say that."

"Because he's poor," she said.

"That's not true, Marion, and you know it."

There was silence for a moment.

"Oh yes," Kingship said, "he's poor all right. He took pains to mention it exactly three times the other night. And that anecdote he dragged in, about the woman his mother did sewing for."

"What's wrong with his mother taking in sewing?"

"Nothing, Marion, nothing. It's the way he alluded to it so casually, so very casually. Do you know who he reminded me of? There's a man at the club who has a bad leg, limps a little. Every time we play golf he says, 'You boys go on ahead. Old Peg-leg'll catch up with you.' So everyone walks extra slowly and you feel like a heel if you beat him."

"I'm afraid the similarity escapes me," Marion said. She rose from the table and went out towards the living room, leaving Kingship to rub a hand despairingly over the few yellow-white hairs that thinly crossed his scalp.

In the living room there was a large window that looked out over the East River. Marion stood before it, one hand on the thick cloth of the draperies. She heard her father come into the room behind her.

"Marion, believe me, I only want to see you happy." He spoke awkwardly. "I know I haven't always been so... concerned, but haven't I... done better since Dorothy and Ellen..."

"I know," she admitted reluctantly. She fingered the drapes. "But I'm practically twenty-five... a grown woman. You don't have to treat me as if-"

"I just don't want you rushing into anything, Marion."

"I'm not," she said softly.

"That's all I want."

Marion stared out the window. "Why do you dislike him?" she asked.

"I don't dislike him. He-I don't know, I..."

"Is it that you're afraid I'll go away from you?" She spoke the question slowly, as though the idea surprised her.

"You're already away from me, aren't you? In that apartment."

She turned from the window and faced Kingship at the side of the room. "You know, you really should be grateful to Bud," she said. "I'll tell you something. I didn't want him to have dinner here. As soon as I suggested it, I was sorry. But he insisted. 'He's your father,' he said. Think of his feelings.' You see, Bud is strong on family ties, even if I'm not. So you should be grateful to him, not antagonistic. Because if he does anything, it will be to bring us closer together." She faced the window again.

"All right," Kingship said. "He's probably a wonderful boy. I just want to make sure you don't make any mistakes."

"What do you mean?" She turned from the window again, this time more slowly, her body stiffening.

'I just don't want you to make any mistakes, that's all," Kingship said uncertainly.

"Are you asking other questions about him?" Marion demanded. "Asking other people? Do you have someone checking on him?"

"No!"

"Like you did with Ellen?"

"Ellen was seventeen at the time! And I was right, wasn't I? Was that boy any good?"

"Well I'm twenty-five and I know my own mind! If you have anyone checking on Bud-"

"The idea never entered my mind!" Marion's eyes stung him. "I like Bud," she said slowly, her voice tight. "I like him very much. Do you know what that means, to finally find someone you like?"

"Marion, I-"

"So if you do anything, anything at all, to make Mm feel unwelcome or unwanted, to make him feel that he's not good enough for me... I'll never forgive you. I swear to God I'll never speak to you again as long as I live." She turned back to the window. "The idea never entered my mind. Marion, I swear..." He looked futilely at her rigid back and then sank into a chair with a weary sigh.

A few minutes later the chimes of the front door sounded. Marion left the window and crossed the room towards the double door that led the foyer. "Marion." Kingship stood up. She paused and looked back at him. From the foyer came the sound of the front door opening and the murmur of voices in conversation. "Ask him to stay a few minutes... have a drink." A moment passed. "All right," she said. At the doorway she hesitated for a second. "I'm sorry I spoke the way I did." She went out Kingship watched her go. Then he turned and faced the fireplace. He took a step back and regarded himself in the mirror tilted over the mantel. He looked at the well-fed man in the three hundred and forty dollar suit in the seven hundred dollar a month living-room.

Then he straightened up, put a smile on his face, turned and walked towards the doorway, extending his right hand. "Good evening, Bud," he said.

Marion's birthday fell on a Saturday early in November. In the morning she cleaned her apartment hastily. At one o'clock she went to a small building in a quiet tributary of Park Avenue, where a discreet silver plaque beside a white door confided that the premises were occupied, not by a psychiatrist nor an interior decorator, but by a restaurant. Leo Kingship was waiting within the white door, sitting gingerly on a Louis Quinze sofa and scanning a management-owned copy of Gourmet. He put down the magazine, rose, kissed Marion on the cheek and wished her a happy birthday. A maitre d'hotel with fluttering fingers and neon teeth ushered them to their table, swooped away a Reserved placard and seated them with Gallic effusion. There was a centerpiece of roses on the table, and, at Marion's place, a small box wrapped in white paper and clouds of gold ribbon. Kingship pretended not to be aware of it. While he was occupied with the wine card and "If I may suggest, Monsieur," Marion freed the box of its gold entanglement, excitement coloring her cheeks and shining her eyes. Nested between layers of cotton was a golden disc, its surface constellated with tiny pearls. Marion exclaimed over the brooch, and when the maitre d' had gone, thanked her father happily, squeezing his hand, which lay as if by chance near hers on the table.

The brooch was not one which she would have chosen herself; its design was too elaborate for her taste. Her happiness, however, was genuine, inspired by the giving, if not by the gift. In the past, Leo Kingship's standard birthday present to his daughters had been a one hundred dollar gift certificate redeemable at a Fifth Avenue department store, a matter automatically attended to by his secretary.

After leaving her father, Marion spent some time at a beauty salon and then returned to her apartment Late in the afternoon the buzzer sounded. She pressed the button that released the door downstairs. A few minutes later a messenger appeared at her door, panting dramatically, as though he had been carrying something much heavier than a florist's box. The receipt of a quarter soothed his respiration.

In the box, under green waxed paper, was a white orchid arranged in a corsage. The card with it said simply, "-Bud." Standing before a mirror, Marion held the bloom experimentally to her hair, her wrist; and her shoulder. Then she went into the kitchen and placed the flower in its box and in the waist-high refrigerator, first sprinkling a few drops of water on itsthick-veined tropical petals.

He arrived promptly at six. He gave the button next to Marion's nameplate two quick jabs and stood waiting in the stuffy hallway, removing a gray suede glove to pick a speck of lint from the lapel of his navy blue coat. Soon footsteps sounded on the stairs. The dingily curtained door opened and Marion appeared, radiant, the orchid bursting whitely on her black coat. They clasped each other's hands. Wishing her the happiest of birthdays, he kissed her on the cheek so as not to smudge her lipstick, which he noticed was of a deeper shade than she had worn when first he met her.

They went to a steak house on Fifty-Second Street The prices on the menu, although considerably lower than those on the one from which she had selected her lunch, seemed exorbitant to Marion, because she was seeing them through Bud's eyes. She suggested that he order for both of them. They had black onion soup and sirloin steaks, preceded by champagne cocktails-"To you, Marion." At the end of the meal, placing eighteen dollars on the waiter's salver, Bud caught Marion's faint frown. "Well, it's your birthday, isn't it?" he said, smiling.

From the restaurant they took a taxi to the theater where Saint Joan was playing. They sat in the orchestra, sixth row center. During the intermission Marion was unusually voluble, her doelike eyes glittering brightly as she talked of Shaw and the acting and a celebrity who was seated in the row in front of them. During the play their hands were warm in each other's.

Afterwards-because, she told herself, Bud had already spent so much money that evening-Marion suggested that they go to her apartment "I feel like a pilgrim who's finally being permitted to enter the shrine," he said as he slipped the key into the slit of the lock. He turned the key and doorknob simultaneously.

"It's nothing fancy," Marion said, her voice quick. "Really. They call it two rooms but it's more like one, the kitchen is so tiny."

He pushed the door open, withdrawing the key which he handed to Marion. She stepped into the apartment and reached for a wall switch beside the door. Lamps filled the room with diffused light. He entered, closing the door behind him. Marion turned to watch his face. His eyes were ranging over the deep gray walls, the blue and white striped drapes, the limed oak furniture. He gave an appreciative murmur.

"It's very small," Marion said.

"But nice," he said. "Very nice."

"Thank you." She turned away from him, unpinning the orchid from her coat, suddenly as ill at ease as when they first met She put the corsage on a sideboard and started to remove her coat. His hands helped her. "Beautiful furniture," he said over her shoulder.

She hung their coats in the closet mechanically, and then turned to the mirror over the sideboard. With fumbling fingers, she pinned the orchid to the shoulder of her russet dress, her eyes focused beyond her own reflection, on Bud's image. He had walked down to the center of the room. Standing before the coffee table, he picked up a square copper plate. His face, in profile, was expressionless, giving no indication whether he liked or disliked the piece. Marion found herself motionless. "Mmmm," he said at last, liking it. "A present from your father, I bet"

"No," Marion said into the mirror. "Ellen gave it to me."

"Oh." He looked at it for a moment and then put it down.

Fingering the collar of her dress, Marion turned from the mirror and watched as he crossed the room with three easy strides. He stood before the low bookcase and looked at the picture on the wall above it Marion watched him. "Our old friend Demuth," he said. He glanced at her, smiling. She smiled back. He looked at the picture again.

After a moment, Marion moved forward and went to Ms side.

"I never could figure out why he called a picture of a grain elevator 'My Egypt,'" Bud said.

"Is that what it is? I was never sure."

"It's a beautiful picture, though." He turned to Marion. "What's the matter? Have I got some dirt on my nose or something?"

"What?"

"You were looking-"

"Oh. No. Would you like something to drink?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"There's nothing but wine."

'Perfect."

Marion turned towards the kitchen.

"Before you go..." He took a small tissue-wrapped box from his pocket. "Happy Birthday."

"Oh, Bud, you shouldn't have!"

"I shouldn't have," he mimicked simultaneously, "But aren't you glad I did?"

There were silver earrings in the box, simple polished triangles. "Oh, thank you! They're lovely!" Marion exclaimed, and kissed him.

She hurried to the sideboard to try them on. He came up behind her, looking at her in the mirror. When she had fastened both earrings, he turned her around. "Lovely is right," he said.

When the kiss ended he said, "Now where's that wine we were talking about?"

Marion came out of the kitchen with a raffia-covered bottle of Bardolino and two glasses on a tray. Bud, his jacket off, was sitting crosslegged on the floor in front of the bookcase, a book opened on his lap. "I didn't know you liked Proust," he said.

"Oh, I do!" She set the tray on the coffee table.

"Here," he said, pointing to the bookcase. Marion transferred the tray to the bookcase. She filled the two glasses and handed one to Bud. Holding the other, she worked her feet out of her shoes and lowered herself to the floor beside him. He leafed through the pages of the book. 'I'll show you the part I'm crazy about," he said.

He pressed the switch. The tone arm swung slowly and dipped down to touch with its serpent's head the rim of the spinning record. Closing the cover of the phonograph, he crossed the room and sat beside Marion on the blue-covered studio couch. The first deep piano notes of the Rachmaninoff Second Concerto sounded. "Just the right record," Marion said.

Leaning back against the thick bolster that ran along the wall, Bud scanned the room, now softly lighted by a single lamp. "Everything's so perfect here," he said. "Why haven't you asked me up before?"

She picked at a filament of raffia that had got caught on one of the buttons on the front of her dress. "I don't know..." she said. "I... I thought maybe you wouldn't like it."

"How could I not like it?" he asked.

His fingers worked dexterously down the row of buttons. Her hands, warm, closed over his, restraining them between her breasts.

"Bud, I've never... done anything before."

"I know that, darling. You don't have to tell me that."

"I've never loved anyone before."

"Neither have I. I've never loved anyone. Not until you."

"Do you mean that? Do you?"

"Only you."

"Not even Ellen?"

"Only you. I swear it."

He kissed her again.

Her hands freed his and rose to find his cheeks.

From The New York Times; Monday, December 24, 1951: MARION J. KINGSHIP TO BE WED SATURDAY Miss Marion Joyce Kingship, daughter of Mr. Leo Kingship of Manhattan and the late Phyllis Hatcher, will be married to Mr. Burton Corliss, son of Mrs. Joseph Corliss of Menasset, Mass., and the late Mr. Corliss, on the afternoon of Saturday, December 29, in the home of her father.

Miss Kingship was graduated from the Spence School in New York and is an alumna of Columbia University. Until last week she was with the advertising agency of Camden and Galbraith. The prospective bridegroom, who served with the Army during the second World War and attended Caldwell College in Caldwell, Wis., has recently joined the domestic sales division of the Kingship Copper Corporation.

Seated at her desk, Miss Richardson stretched out her right hand in a gesture she considered quite graceful and squinted at the gold bracelet that constricted the plumpness of her wrist. It was definitely too young looking for her mother, she decided. She would get something else for mother and keep the bracelet for herself.

Beyond her hand the background suddenly turned blue. With white pin-stripes. She looked up, starting to smile, but stopped when she saw that it was the pest again.

"Hello," he said cheerfully.

Miss Richardson opened a drawer and busily ruffled the edges of some blank typing paper. "Mr. Kingship is still at lunch," she said frigidly.

"Dear lady, he was at lunch at twelve o'clock. It is now three o'clock. What is he, a rhinoceros?"

"If you wish to make an appointment for later in the week..."

"I would like an audience with His Eminence this afternoon."

Miss Richardson closed the drawer grimly. "Tomorrow is Christmas," she said. "Mr. Kingship is interrupting a four day weekend by coming in today. He wouldn't do that unless he were very busy. He gave me strict orders not to disturb him on any account. On no account whatsover."

"Then he isn't at lunch."

"He gave me strict orders..."

The man sighed. Slinging his folded coat over one shoulder, he drew a slip of paper from the rack next to Miss Richardson's telephone. "May I?" he asked, already having taken the paper. Placing it on a large blue book which he held in the crook of his arm, he removed Miss Richardson's pen from its onyx holder and began to write.

"Well I never!" said Miss Richardson. "Honestly!" she said.

Finished writing, the man replaced the pen and blew on the paper. He folded it carefully into quarters and handed it to Miss Richardson. "Give him this," he said. "Slip it under the door, if need be."

Miss Richardson glared at him. Then she calmly unfolded the paper and read it Uncomfortably, she looked up. "Dorothy and Ellen-?"

His face was expressionless.

She hoisted herself from the chair. "He told me not to disturb him on any account," she repeated softly, as though seeking guidance in the incantation. "What's your name?"

"Just give him that, please, like the angel you are."

"Now look..."

He was doing just that; looking at her quite seriously, despite the lightness of his voice. Miss Richardson frowned, glanced again at the paper, and refolded it. She moved to a heavily paneled door. "All right," she said darkly, "but you'll see. He gave me strict orders." Gingerly she tapped on the door. Opening it, she slipped in with the paper held appeasingly before her.

She reappeared a minute later with a betrayed expression on her face. "Go ahead," she said sharply, holding the door open.

The man breezed past her, his coat over his shoulder, the book under his arm. "Keep smiling," he whispered.

At the faint sound of the door closing, Leo Kingship looked up from the slip of paper in his hand. He was standing behind his desk in his shirtsleeves, his jacket draped on the back of the chair behind him. His eyeglasses were pushed up on his pink forehead. Sunlight, sliced by a Venetian blind, striped his stocky figure. He squinted anxiously at the man approaching him across the paneled and carpeted room.

"Oh," he said, when the man came close enough to block the sunlight, enabling Kingship to recognize his face. "You." He looked down at the slip of paper and crumpled it, his expression of anxiety turning to relief and then to annoyance.

"Hello, Mr. Kingship," the man said, offering his hand.

Kingship took it halfheartedly. "No wonder you wouldn't give your name to Miss Richardson."

Smiling, the man dropped into the visitor's chair. He settled his coat and the book in his lap.

"But I'm afraid I've forgotten it," Kingship said. "Grant?" he ventured.

"Gant." The long legs crossed comfortably. "Gordon Gant."

Kingship remained standing. "I'm extremely busy, Mr. Gant," he said firmly, indicating the paper-strewn desk. "So if this 'information about Dorothy and Ellen'"-he held up the crumpled slip of paper -"consists of the same theories' you were expounding back in Blue River..."

"Partially," Gant said. "Well, I'm sorry. I don't want to listen."

"I gathered that I wasn't number one on your Hit Parade."

"You mean I didn't like you? That isn't so. Not at all. I realized your motives were of the best; you had taken a liking to Ellen; you showed a-a youthful enthusiasm... But it was misdirected, misdirected in a way that was extremely painful to me. Barging into my hotel room so soon after Ellen's death... bringing up the past at such a moment..." He looked at Gant appealingly. "Do you think I wouldn't have liked to believe that Dorothy didn't take her own life?"

"She didn't."

"The note," he said wearily, "the note..."

"A couple of ambiguously worded sentences that could have referred to a dozen things beside suicide. Or that she could have been tricked into writing." Gant leaned forward. "Dorothy went to the Municipal Building to get married. Ellen's theory was right; the fact that she was killed proves it"

"It does no such thing," Kingship snapped. "There was no connection. You heard the police-"

"A housebreaker!"

"Why not? Why not a housebreaker?"

"Because I don't believe in coincidences. Not that kind."

"A sign of immaturity, Mr. Gant."

After a moment Gant said flatly, "It was the same person both times."

Kingship braced his hands tiredly on the desk, looking down at the papers there. "Why do you have to revive all this?" he sighed. "Intruding in other people's business. How do you think I feel...?" He pushed his eyeglasses down into place and fingered the pages of a ledger. "Would you please go now."

Gant made no move to rise. "I'm home on vacation," he said. "Home is White Plains. I didn't spend an hour on the New York Central just to rehash what was already said last March."

"What then?" Kingship looked warily at the long-jawed face.

"There was an article in the morning's Times... the society page."

"My daughter?"

Gant nodded. He took a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket. "What do you know about Bud Corliss?" he asked.

Kingship eyed him in silence. "Know about him?" he said slowly. "He's going to be my son-in-law. What do you mean, know about him?"

"Do you know that he and Ellen were going together?"

"Of course." Kingship straightened up. "What are you driving at?"

"It's a long story," Gant said. The blue eyes were sharp and steady under the thick blond brows. He gestured towards Kingship's chair. "And my delivery is bound to suffer if you stand towering over me."

Kingship sat down. He kept his hands on the edge of the desk before him, as though ready to rise again in an instant.

Gant lit his cigarette. He sat silently for a moment, regarding it thoughtfully and working his lower lip with his teeth, as though awaiting a time signal. Then he began to speak in the easy, fluid, announcer's voice.

"When she left Caldwell," he said, "Ellen wrote a letter to Bud Corliss. I happened to read that letter soon after Ellen arrived in Blue River. It made quite an impression on me, since it described a murder suspect whom I resembled much too closely for comfort." He smiled. "I read the letter twice, and carefully, as you can imagine.

"On the night Ellen was killed, Eldon Chesser, that lover of prima-facie evidence, asked me if Ellen were my girlfriend. It was probably the only constructive thing he ever did during his entire detectival career, because it set me thinking of friend Corliss. Partly to take my mind off Ellen, who was God-knows-where with an armed killed, and partly because I liked her and wondered what kind of a man she liked, I thought about that letter which was still fresh in my mind and which was my only source of information about my 'rival,' Bud Corliss."

Gant paused for a second, and then continued. "At first it seemed to contain nothing; a name-Dear Bud -and an address on the envelope-Burton Corliss, something-or-other Roosevelt Street, Caldwell, Wisconsin. No other clues. But on further reflection I found several bits of information in Ellen's letter, and I was able to fit them together into an even bigger piece of information about Bud Corliss; it seemed insignificant at the time; a purely external fact about him rather than an indication of his personality, which was what I was really looking for. But that fact stayed with me, and today it seems significant indeed."

"Go ahead," Kingship said as Gant drew on Ms cigarette.

Gant leaned back comfortably. "First of all: Ellen wrote Bud that she wouldn't fall behind in her work while away from Caldwell because she would be able to get all the notes from him. Now, Ellen was a senior, which meant that she was taking advanced courses. In every college senior courses are closed to freshmen and often to sophomores. If Bud shared all Ellen's classes-they probably made out their programs together-it meant that he was conceivably a. sophomore, but in all probability a junior or a senior.

"Secondly: at one point in the letter Ellen described her behavior during her first three years at Caldwell, which apparently differed from her behavior after Dorothy's death. She described how she had been 'the rah-rah girl,' and then she said, and I think I remember the exact words, "You wouldn't recognize me.' Which meant, as clearly as could possibly be, that Bud had not seen her during those first three years. This would be highly conceivable at a good-sized university like Stoddard, but we come to third- "Thirdly: Caldwell is a very small college; one tenth the size of Stoddard, Ellen wrote, and she was giving it the benefit of doubt. I checked in the Almanac this morning; Stoddard has over twelve thousand students; Caldwell, barely eight hundred. Furthermore, Ellen mentioned in the letter that she hadn't wanted Dorothy to come to Caldwell precisely because it was the kind of place where everyone knew everybody else and knew what they were doing.

"So, we add one, two, and three: Bud Corliss, who is at least in his third year of college, was a stranger to Ellen at the beginning of her fourth year, despite the fact that they both attended a very small school where, I understand, the social side of life plays hob with the scholastic. All of which can be explained in only one way and can be condensed to a simple statement of fact; the fact which seemed insignificant last March, but today seems like the most important fact in Ellen's letter. Bud Corliss was a transfer student, and he transferred to Caldwell in September of 1950, at the beginning of Ellen's fourth year and after Dorothy's death."

Kingship frowned. "I don't see what-"

"We come now to today, December 24, 1951,"

Gant said, crushing his cigarette in an ashtray, "when my mother, bless her, brings the prodigal son breakfast in bed, along with The New York Times. And there, on the society page, is the name of Kingship. Miss Marion Kingship to wed Mr. Burton Corliss. Imagine my surprise. Now, my mind, in addition to being insatiably curious and highly analytical, is also very dirty. It looks to me, says I, as though the new member of the domestic sales division was determined not to be disqualified from the Kingship Copper sweepstakes."

"Now look here, Mr. Gant-"

"I considered," Gant went on, "how when one sister was killed he proceeded directly to the next one. Beloved of two of the Kingship daughters. Two out of three. Not a bad score.

"And then the analytical side and the dirty side of my brain blended, and I thought: three out of three would have been an even better score for Mr. Burton Corliss who transferred to Caldwell College in September of 1950."

Kingship stood up, staring at Gant "A random thought," Gant said. "Wildly improbable. But easily removed from the realm of doubt A simple matter of sliding out from under the breakfast tray, going to the bookcase, and taking there from The Stoddard Flame, yearbook for 1950." He displayed the large blue leatherette book with its white-lettered cover. "In the sophomore section," he said, "there are several interesting photographs. One of Dorothy Kingship and one of Dwight Powell, both of whom are now dead. None of Gordon Gant; didn't have five spare bucks to have my face recorded for posterity. But many sophomores did, among them-" He opened the book to a page marked by a strip of newsprint, turned the volume around and put it down on the desk, his fingers stabbing one of the checker- board photographs. He recited the inscription beside it from memory: "Corliss, Burton quote Bud unquote, Menasset, Mass., Liberal Arts."

Kingship sat down again. He looked at the photograph, hardly larger than a postage stamp. Then he looked at Gant. Gant reached forward, turned a few pages, and pointed to another picture. It was Dorothy. Kingship looked at that, too. Then he looked up again.

Gant said, "It struck me as awfully odd. I thought you should know."

"Why?" Kingship asked stolidly. "What is this supposed to be leading up to?"

"May I ask you one question, Mr. Kingship, before I answer that?"

"Go ahead."

"He never told you he went to Stoddard, did he?"

"No. But we've never discussed things like that," he explained quickly. "He must have told Marion. Marion must know."

"I don't think she does."

"Why not?" Kingship demanded.

"The Times. Marion gave them the information for that article, didn't she? The bride-to-be usually does."

"Well?"

"Well there's no mention of Stoddard. And in the other wedding and engagement articles, it's mentioned when someone's attended more than one school."

"Maybe she just didn't bother to tell them."

"Maybe. Or maybe she doesn't know. Maybe Ellen didn't know either."

"All right, now what are you saying, mister?"

"Don't be sore at me, Mr. Kingship. The facts speak for themselves; I didn't invent them." Gant closed the year book and put it in his lap. "There are two possibilities," he said. "Either Corliss told Marion that he attended Stoddard, in which case it might conceivably be a coincidence; he went to Stoddard and he transferred to Caldwell; he might not have known Dorothy any more than he knew me." He paused. "Or else, he didn't tell Marion he went there."

"Which means?" Kingship challenged. "Which means that he must have been involved with Dorothy in some way. Why else would he conceal it?" Gant looked down at the book in his lap. "There was a man who wanted Dorothy out of the way because he had gotten her pregnant..."

Kingship stared at him. "You're back to the same thing! Someone killed Dorothy, then killed Ellen... You've got this-this cockeyed moving picture theory and you don't want to admit..." Gant was silent. "Bud?" Kingship asked incredulously. He sat back. He shook his head, smiling pityingly. "Come on, now," he said. "That's crazy. Just crazy." He kept shaking his head-"What do you think that boy is, a maniac?" -and smiling-"You've got this crazy idea..."

"All right," Gant said, "it's crazy. For the time being. But if he didn't tell Marion he went to Stoddard, then in some way he must have been involved with Dorothy. And if he was involved with Dorothy, and then Ellen, and now with Marion,-then he was goddamned good and determined to marry one of your daughters! Any one!"

The smile left Kingship's face slowly, draining it of expression. His hands were motionless on the edge of the desk.

"That isn't so crazy, I take it."

Kingship removed his glasses. He blinked a couple of times and then straightened up. "I have to speak to Marion," he said.

Gant looked at the telephone.

"No," Kingship said emptily. "She's had her phone disconnected. She's giving up her apartment, staying with me until the wedding." His voice faltered. "After the honeymoon they're moving into an apartment I'm furnishing for them... Sutton Terrace... Marion didn't want to accept it at first, but he convinced her. He's been so good with her... made the two of us get along so much better..." They looked at each other for a moment; Gant's eyes steady and challenging, Kingship's apprehensive.

Kingship stood up.

"Do you know where she is?" Gant asked.

"At her place... packing things." He put on his jacket. "He must have told her about Stoddard..."

When they came out of the office Miss Richardson looked up from a magazine.

"That's all for today, Miss Richardson. If you'll just clear my desk."

She frowned with frustrated curiosity. "Yes, Mr. Kingship. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Miss Richardson."

They walked down a long corridor, on the walls of which were black and white photographs, matted and mounted between plates of glass held together by copper brackets at top and bottom. They were photographs of underground and open-pit mines, smelters, refineries, furnaces, rolling mills, and artistic close-ups of tubing and copper wire.

Waiting for the elevator Kingship said, "I'm sure he told her."

"Gordon Gant?" Marion said, exploring the name, when they had shaken hands. "Don't I know that name?" She backed into the room, smiling, one hand finding Kingship's and drawing him with her, the other rising to the collar of her blouse and fingering the golden pearl-starred brooch.

"Blue River." Kingship's voice was wooden as when he had performed the introduction, and his eyes were not quite on Marion's. "I think I told you about him."

"Oh, yes. You knew Ellen, wasn't that it?"

"That's right," Gant said. He shifted his hand farther down the spine of the book at his side, to a spot where the leatherette wasn't damp, wishing he hadn't been so damned eager when Kingship had asked him to come up; the Times photo of Marion had offered no hint in its dotted grays of the lucency of her eyes, the radiance of her cheeks, the halo of I'm-getting-married-Saturday that glowed all over her.

She gestured at the room despairingly. "I'm afraid mere isn't even a place to sit down." She moved towards a chair on which some shoe boxes were piled.

"Don't bother," Kingship said. "We just stopped by. Only for a minute, A lot of work waiting for me at the office."

"You haven't forgotten tonight, have you?" Mar- ion asked. "You can expect us at seven or so. She's arriving at five, and I guess she'll want to stop at her hotel first." She turned to Gant. "My prospective mother-in-law," she said significantly.

Oh Lord, Gant thought, I'm supposed to say "You're getting married?'-'Yes, Saturday.'-'Congratulations, good luck, best wishes!' He smiled wanly and didn't say anything. Nobody said anything.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" Marion inquired, a curtsey in her voice.

Gant looked at Kingship, waiting for him to speak.

Marion looked at both of them. "Anything special?"

After a moment, Gant said, "I knew Dorothy, too. Very slightly."

"Oh," Marion said. She looked down at her hands.

"She was in one of my classes. I go to Stoddard." He paused. "I don't think Bud was ever in any of my classes though."

She looked up. "Bud?"

"Bud Corliss. Your..."

She shook her head, smiling. "Bud was never at Stoddard," she corrected him.

"He was, Miss Kingship."

"No," she insisted amusedly, "he went to Caldwell."

"He went to Stoddard, then to Caldwell."

Marion smiled quizzically at Kingship, as though expecting him to offer some explanation for the obstinacy of the caller he had brought.

"He was at Stoddard, Marion," Kingship said heavily. "Show her the book."

Gant opened the yearbook and handed it to Marion, pointing to the picture.

"Well for goodness' sake," she said. "I have to apologize. I never knew..." She glanced at the cover of the book. "Nineteen-fifty."

"He's in the forty-nine yearbook too," Gant said. "He went to Stoddard for two years and then transferred to Caldwell."

"For goodness' sake," she said. "Isn't that funny? Maybe he knew Dorothy." She sounded pleased, as though this were yet another bond between her and her fiancй. Her eyes slipped back to his picture.

"He never mentioned it to you at all?" Gant asked, despite Kingship's prohibitive headshakings.

"Why, no, he never said a..."

Slowly she looked up from the book, becoming aware for the first time of the strain and discomfort of the two men. "What's the matter?" she asked curiously.

"Nothing," Kingship said. He glanced at Gant, seeking corroboration.

"Then why are the two of you standing there as if..." She looked at the book again, and then at her father. There was a tightening movement in her throat. "Is this why you came up here, to tell me this?" she asked.

"We... we only wondered if you knew, that's all."

"Why?" she asked.

"We just wondered, that's all."

Her eyes cut to Gant. "Why?"

"Why should Bud conceal it," Gant asked, "unless-"

"Kingship said, "Gant!"

Conceal it?" Marion said. "What kind of a word is that? He didn't conceal it; we never talk about school much, because of Ellen; it just didn't come up."

"Why should the girl he's marrying not know he spent two years at Stoddard," Gant rephrased implacably, "unless he was involved with Dorothy?"

"Involved? With Dorothy?" Her eyes, wide with incredulity, probed into Gant's, and then swung slowly, narrowing, to Kingship. "What is this?"

Kingship's face flickered with small uneasy movements, as though dust were blowing at it.

"How much are you paying him?" Marion asked coldly.

"Paying him?"

"For snooping!" she flared. "For digging up dirt! For inventing dirt!"

"He came to me of his own accord, Marion!"

"Oh, yes, he just happened to pop up!"

Gant said, "I saw the article in The Times."

Marion glared at her father. "You swore you wouldn't do this," she said bitterly. "Swore! It would never enter your mind to ask questions to investigate, treat him like a criminal. Oh no, not much!"

"I haven't been asking questions," Kingship protested.

Marion turned her back. "I thought you changed," she said. "I really did. I thought you liked Bud. I thought you liked me. But you can't..."

"Marion..."

"No, not if you're doing this. The apartment, the job... and all along this has been going on."

"Nothing is going on, Marion. I swear...."

"Nothing? I'll tell you exactly what's going on." She faced him again. "You think I don't know you? He was 'involved' with Dorothy-is he supposed to be the one who got her in trouble?-and he was 'involved' with Ellen, and now he's 'involved' with me -all for the money, all for your precious money. That's what's going on-in your mind!" She thrust the yearbook into his hands.

"You've got it wrong, Miss Kingship," Gant said. "That's what's going on in my mind, not your father's."

"See?" Kingship said. "He came to me of his own accord."

Marion stared at Gant "Just who are you? What makes this your business?"

"I knew Ellen."

"So I understand," she snapped. "Do you know Bud?"

"I've never had the pleasure."

"Then will you please explain to me what you're doing here, making accusations against him behind his back!"

"It's quite a story--"

"You've said enough, Gant," Kingship interrupted.

Marion said, "Are you jealous of Bud? Is that it? Because Ellen preferred him to you?"

"That's right," Gant said drily. "I'm consumed with jealousy."

"And have you heard of the slander laws?" she demanded.

Kingship edged towards the door, signaling Gant with his eyes. "Yes," Marion said, "you'd better go."

"Wait a minute," she said as Gant opened the door. "Is this going to stop?"

Kingship said, "There's nothing to stop, Marion."

"Whoever's behind it,"-she looked at Gant-"it's got to stop. We never talked about school. Why should we, with Ellen? It just never came up."

"All right, Marion," Kingship said, "all right." He followed Gant into the hall and turned to pull the door closed.

"It's got to stop," she said.

"All right." He hesitated, and his voice dropped. "You're still coming tonight, aren't you, Marion?"

Her lips clenched. She thought for a moment. "Because I don't want to hurt Bud's mother's feelings," she said finally.

Kingship closed the door.

They went to a drugstore on Lexington Avenue, where Gant ordered coffee and cherry pie, and Kingship, a glass of milk.

"So far, so good," Gant said.

Kingship was gazing at a paper napkin he held. "What do you mean?"

"At least we know where we stand. He didn't tell her about Stoddard. That makes it practically certain that-"

"You heard Marion," Kingship said. "They don't talk about school because of Ellen."

Gant regarded him with slightly lifted eyebrows. "Come on," he said slowly, "that may satisfy her; she's in love with him. But for a man not to tell his fiancйe where he went to college..."

"It isn't as if he lied to her," Kingship protested.

Sardonically Gant said, "They just didn't talk about school."

"Considering the circumstances, I think that's understandable."

"Sure. The circumstances being that he was mixed up with Dorothy."

"That's an assumption you have no right to make."

Gant stirred his coffee slowly and sipped it. He added more cream and stirred it again. "You're afraid of her, aren't you," he said.

"Of Marion? Don't be ridiculous." Kingship set his glass of milk down firmly. "A man is innocent until he's proved guilty."

"Then we've got to find proof, don't we?"

"You see? You're assuming he's a fortune hunter before you've started."

"I'm assuming a hell of a lot more than that," Gant said, lifting a forkful of pie to his mouth. When he had swallowed it he said, "What are you going to do?"

Kingship was looking at the napkin again. "Nothing."

"You're going to let them get married?"

"I couldn't stop them even if I wanted to. They're both over twenty-one, aren't they?"

"You could hire detectives. There are four days yet. They might find something."

"Might," Kingship said. "If there's anything to find. Or Bud might get wind of it and tell Marion."

Gant smiled. "I thought I was being ridiculous about you and Marion."

Kingship sighed. "Let me tell you something," he said, not looking at Gant. "I had a wife and three daughters. Two daughters were taken from me. My wife I pushed away myself. Maybe I pushed one of the daughters too. So now I have only one daughter. I'm fifty-seven years old and I have one daughter and some men I play golf and talk business with. That's all."

After a moment Kingship turned to Gant, his face set rigidly. "What about you?" he demanded. "What is your real interest in this affair? Maybe you just enjoy chattering about your analytical brain and showing people what a clever fellow you are. You didn't have to go through that whole rigamarole, you know. In my office, about Ellen's letter. You could have just put the book on my desk and said 'Bud Corliss went to Stoddard.' Maybe you just like to show off."

"Maybe," Gant said lightly. "Also maybe I think he might have killed your daughters and I've got this quixotic notion that murderers should be punished."

Kingship finished his milk. "I think you'd better just go back to Yonkers and enjoy your vacation."

"White Plains." Gant scraped together the syrupy remains of the pie with the side of his fork. "Do you have ulcers?" he asked, glancing at the empty milk glass.

Kingship nodded.

Gant leaned back on his stool and surveyed the man beside him. "And about thirty pounds overweight, I'd say." He put the red-clotted fork in his mouth and drew it out clean. "I should estimate that Bud has you figured for ten more years, tops. Or maybe he'll get impatient in three or four years and try to hurry you on."

Kingship got off his stool. He pulled a dollar from a money-clipped roll and put it on the counter. "Good-by, Mr. Gant," he said, and strode away.

The counterman came over and took the dollar. "Anything else?" he asked.

Gant shook his head.

He caught the 5: 19 for White Plains.

In writing to his mother, Bud had made only the most vague allusions to Kingship's money. Once or twice he had mentioned Kingship Copper, but never with any clarifying phrases, and he was certain that she, whose poverty-formed conception of wealth was as hazy and inexact as a pubert's visions of orgies, had not the slightest real comprehension of the luxuriance of living into which the presidency of such a corporation could be translated. He had looked forward eagerly, therefore, to the moment when he could introduce her to Marion and her father, and to the surrounding magnificence of Kingship's duplex apartment, knowing that in light of the coming marriage her awe-widened eyes would regard each inlaid table and glittering chandelier as evidence, not of Kingship's capabilities, but of his own. The evening, however, was a disappointment. Not that his mother's reaction was anything less than he had anticipated; with mouth partially opened and teeth lightly touching her lower lip, she drew in her breath with soft sibilance, as though seeing not one but a series of miracles; the formally attired servant-a butler!-the velvety depth of the carpets, the wallpaper that wasn't paper at all but intricately textured cloth, the leather-bound books, the golden clock, the silver tray from which the butler served champagne-champagne!-in crystal goblets... Vocally, she restrained her admiration to a gently smiling "Lovely, lovely," accompanied by a slight nodding of the stiff newly-waved gray hair, giving the impression that such surroundings were by no means completely alien to her,-but when her eyes met Bud's as the toast was drunk, the bursting pride she felt leaped out to him like a thrown kiss, while one work-roughened hand surreptitiously marveled at the cloth of the couch on which she sat.

No, his mother's reaction was warming and wonderful. What made the evening a disappointment was the fact that Marion and Leo had apparently had an argument; Marion spoke to her father only when appearances made it inescapable. And furthermore, the argument must have been about him, since Leo addressed him with hesitant unfocused eyes, while Marion was determinedly, defiantly effusive, clinging to Mm and calling him 'dear' and 'darling,' which she had never done before when others were present. The first faint worry began to sting him like a pebble in his shoe.

Dinner, then, was dismal. With Leo and Marion at the ends of the table and his mother and he at the sides, conversation passed only around the edges; father and daughter would not talk; mother and son could not talk, for anything they had to say would be personal and exclusive-sounding before these people who were still in a sense outsiders. So Marion called him 'darling' and told his mother about the Sutton Terrace apartment, and his mother spoke to Leo about 'the children,' and Leo asked him to pass the bread please, not quite looking at him.

And he was silent, lifting each fork and spoon slowly as he selected it, so that his mother could see and do likewise; an affectionate conspiracy fallen into without word or signal, dramatizing the bond between them and forming the one enjoyable aspect of the meal-that and the smiles that passed across the table when Marion and Leo were looking down at their food, smiles prideful and loving and all the more pleasing to him because of the unsuspecting heads whose path they slipped across.

At the end of the meal, although there was a silver lighter on the table, he lit Marion's and his own cigarette with his matches, afterwards tapping the folder absentmindedly on the cloth until his mother had noticed the white cover on which Bud Corliss was stamped in copper leaf.

But all along there was the pebble in his shoe.

Later, it being Christmas Eve, they went to church, and after church Bud expected to take his mother back to her hotel while Marion returned home with Leo. But Marion, to his annoyance, assumed an unfamiliar coquetry and insisted on accompanying them to the hotel, so Leo went off by himself as Bud squired the two women into a taxi; He sat between them, reciting to his mother the names of what landmarks they passed. The cab, at his direction, depart- ed from its course so that Mrs. Corliss, who had never been to New York before, might see Times Square at night.

He left her in the lobby of her hotel, outside the elevator. "Are you very tired?" he asked, and when she said she was, he seemed disappointed. "Don't go to sleep right away," he said. "I'll call you later." They kissed goodnight and, still holding Bud's hand, Mrs. Corliss kissed Marion happily on the cheek.

During the taxi ride back to Leo's, Marion was silent.

"What's the matter, darling?"

"Nothing," she said, smiling unconvincingly.

"Why?"

He shrugged.

He had intended to leave her at the door of the apartment, but the pebble of worry was assuming the proportions of a sharp stone; he went in with her. Kingship had already retired. They went into the living room where Bud lighted cigarettes while Marion turned on the radio. They sat on the couch.

She told him that she liked his mother very much. He said he was glad, and he could tell that his mother liked her too. They began to speak of the future, and he sensed from the stiff casualness of her voice that she was working up to something. He leaned back with his eyes half closed, one arm around her shoulders, listening as he had never listened before, weighing every pause and inflection, fearful all the while of what it was leading up to. It couldn't be anything important! It couldn't be! He had slighted her somehow, forgotten something he'd promised to do, that was all. What could it be?... He paused before each reply, examining his words before he spoke them, trying to determine what response they would bring, like a chess player touching pieces before making his move.

She worked the conversation around to children. Two," she said.

His left hand, on his knee, pinched the crease of his trousers. He smiled. "Or three," he said. "Or four."

"Two," she said. "Then one can go to Columbia and one to Caldwell."

Caldwell. Something about Caldwell. Ellen? "They'll probably both wind up at Michigan or someplace," he said.

"Oh if we only have one," Marion went on, "he can go to Columbia and then transfer to Caldwell. Or vice-versa." She leaned forward, smiling, and pressed her cigarette into an ashtray. Much more carefully than she usually put out her cigarettes, he observed. Transfer to Caldwell. Transfer to Caldwell... He waited in silence. "No," she said, "I really wouldn't want him to do that,"-following up her statement with a tenacity she never would have applied to mere idle chatter-"because he would lose credits. Transferring must be very involved."

They sat side by side, silently for a moment.

"No it isn't," he said.

"Isn't it?" she asked.

"No," he said. "I didn't lose any credits."

"You didn't transfer, did you?" She sounded surprised.

"Of course," he said. "I told you."

"No you didn't. You never said-"

"I did, honey. I'm sure I told you. I went to Stoddard University, and then to Caldwell."

"Why, that's where my sister Dorothy went, Stoddard!"

"I know. Ellen told me."

"Don't tell me you knew her."

"No. Ellen showed me her picture though, and I think I remember seeing her around. I'm sure I told you, that first day, in the museum."

"No, you didn't. I'm positive."

"Well sure, I was at Stoddard two years. And you mean to say you didn't-" Marion's lips stopped the rest of the sentence, kissing him fervidly, atoning for doubt.

A few minutes later he looked at his watch. "I'd better be leaving," he said. "I want to get as much sleep as I can this week, because I have an idea I won't be getting much sleep at all next week."

It only meant that Leo had somehow learned he'd been at Stoddard. There was no real danger. There wasn't! Trouble maybe; the wedding plans might be blown up-oh Jesus!-but there was no danger, no police danger. There's no law against going after a rich girl, is there?

But why so late? If Leo wanted to check on him, why hadn't he done it sooner? Why today?... The announcement in The Times... of course! Someone had seen it, someone who'd been at Stoddard. The son of one of Leo's friends or someone like that "My son and your future son-in-law were at Stoddard together." So Leo puts two and two together; Dorothy, Ellen, Marion-gold-digger. He tells Marion, and that was their argument God damn, if only it had been possible to mention Stoddard at the beginning! That would have been crazy though; Leo would have suspected right off, and Marion would have listened to him then. But why did it have to come up now!

Still, what could Leo do, with only suspicions? They must be only suspicious; the old man couldn't know for sure that he'd known Dorothy, or else Marion wouldn't have been so happy when he himself told her he hadn't known her. Or could Leo have withheld part of his information from Marion? No, he would have tried to convince her, given her all the evidence he had. So Leo wasn't certain. Could he make certain? How? The kids at Stoddard, mostly seniors now, would they remember who Dorothy had gone with? They might But it's Christmas! Vacation. They're scattered all over the country. Only four days to the wedding. Leo could never talk Marion into postponing.

All he had to do was sit tight and keep his fingers crossed. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday... Saturday. If worst came to worst, so he was after the money; that was all Leo could ever prove. He couldn't prove that Dorothy didn't commit suicide. He couldn't drag the Mississippi for a gun that was probably buried under twenty feet of mud.

And if best came to best, the wedding would go off as per schedule. Then what could Leo do even if the kids at Stoddard did remember? Divorce? Annulment? Not nearly enough grounds for either, even if Marion could be persuaded to seek one, which she probably couldn't What then? Maybe Leo would try to buy him off...

Now there was a thought... How much would Leo be willing to pay to free his daughter from the big bad gold-digger? Quite a lot, probably.

But not nearly as much as Marion would have some day.

Bread now or cake later?

When he got back to his rooming house, he telephoned his mother.

"I hope I didn't wake you. I walked back from Marion's."

"That's all right, darling. Oh Bud, she's a lovely girl! Lovely! So sweet... I'm so happy for you!"

"Thanks, Mom."

"And Mr. Kingship, such a fine man! Did you notice his hands?"

"What about them?"

"So clean!" He laughed. "Bud," her voice lowered, "they must be rich, very rich..."

"I guess they are, Mom."

"That apartment... like a movie! My goodness!"

He told her about the Sutton Terrace apartment

"Wait till you see it, Mom!"-and about the visit to the smelter-"He's taking me there Thursday. He wants me to be familiar with the whole set-up!"- and towards the end of the conversation, she said: "Bud, what ever happened to that idea of yours?"

"What idea?"

"The one why you didn't go back to school."

"Oh, that," he said. "It didn't pan out."

"Oh..." She was disappointed. "You know that shaving cream?" he said. "Where you press the button and it comes out of the can like whipped cream?"

"Yes?"

"Well that was it. Only they beat me to it." She breathed a drawn-out "Oh" of commiseration. "If that isn't a shame... You didn't talk to anyone about it, did you?"

"No. They just beat me to it."

"Well," she said with a sigh, "things like that happen. It certainly is a shame though. An idea like that..."

When he had finished talking to her, he went into his room and stretched out on the bed, feeling good all over. Leo and his suspicions, nuts to him! Everything was going to be perfect.

Jesus, that was one thing he was going to do-see I that she got some of the money.

The train, having passed through Stamford, Bridgeport, New Haven and New London, continued grinding eastward along the southern border of Connecticut, passing between flat snow on the left and flat water on the right; a segmented serpent from whose body trapped people vapidly gazed. Inside, aisles and vestibules were clogged with the Christmas Day overflow.

In one of the vestibules, facing a dirt-smeared window, Gordon Gant occupied himself by counting codfish-cake billboards. It was, he reflected, a hell of a way to spend Christmas Day.

Shortly after six o'clock the train reached Providence.

In the station, Gant addressed several questions to the bored oracle of the information booth. Then, regarding his watch, he left the building. It was already dark outside. Crossing a wide and slushy thoroughfare, he entered an establishment which called itself a 'spa,' where he made quick work of a steak sandwich, mincemeat pie and coffee. Christmas dinner. He left the spa and went to a drugstore two doors away, where he purchased an inch-wide roll of Scotch Tape. He returned to the station. He sat on an uncomfortable bench and read a Boston tabloid. At ten minutes of seven he left the station again, proceeding to a nearby place where three busses stood waiting.

He boarded a blue and yellow one marked Menasset -Somerset-Fall River.

At twenty minutes past seven the bus paused midway down Menasset's four block Main Street, discharging several passengers, Gant among them. After a brief acclimatizing glance, he entered a 1910-looking pharmacy where he consulted a thin directory, from which he copied an address and telephone number. He tried the number in the phone booth and, when the phone on the other end of the line had rung ten times without answer, hung up.

The house was a shabby gray box, one story, the sills of its darkened windows furred with snow. Gant looked at it closely as he passed. It was set back only a few yards from the sidewalk; the snow between, door and sidewalk was undisturbed.

He walked to the end of the deserted block, turned and came back, passing the gray house again, this time paying more attention to the houses on either side of it In one, framed in the window's homemade Christmas wreath, a Spanish-looking family was dining in an atmosphere of magazine cover warmth. In the house on the other side of the gray one, a solitary man was holding a globe of the world in his lap, looking to see which country his finger had chosen. Gant passed, walked to the other end of the block, turned and came back. This time, as he passed the gray house, he turned sharply, cutting between it and the Spanish-family house. He went around to the back.

There was a small porch. Facing it, across a little yard laced with stiff clotheslines, was a high board fence. Gant went up on the porch. There were a door and a window, a garbage can and a basket of clothespins. He tried the door; it was locked. The window was locked also. Propped on the sill within was an ice company sign, a square placard with 5, 10, 25, and X printed around the four sides. The X side was uppermost. Gant took the roll of Scotch Tape from his pocket. Tearing off a ten inch length, he pressed it across one of the window's dozen panes, the one below the central latch. He fitted the ends of the tape over the pane's molding and tore off another ten inch strip.

In a few minutes he had crosshatched the rectangular pane with cellophane strips. He struck it with his gloved fist. There was a cracking sound; the broken glass sagged, held in place by the tape. Gant began to pull the tape ends from the molding. When that was done he drew the rectangle of cellophane and broken glass from the window and lowered it noiselessly to the bottom of the garbage can. Reaching through the window, he unfastened the latch and raised the lower section. The ice placard fell back into the darkness.

He took a pencil flashlight from his pocket and leaned through the open window. There was a chair piled with folded newspapers before it. He pushed the chair aside and climbed in, closing the window after him.

The flashlight's disc of pallid light glided swiftly over a cramped and shabby kitchen. Gant moved forward, treading softly on worn-through linoleum.

He came to a living room. The chairs were fat and velvet, rubbed bald at the arms. Cream colored shades were drawn down over the windows, flanked by floral-patterned paper drapes. There were pictures of Bud all over; Bud as a child in short pants, Bud at high school graduation, Bud in a private's uniform, Bud in a dark suit, smiling. Snapshots were tucked in the frames of the portraits, surrounding the large smiling faces with smaller faces also smiling. Gant went through the living room to a hallway.

The first room off the hallway was a bedroom; a bottle of lotion on the dresser, an empty dress box and tissue paper on the bed, a wedding picture and a picture of Bud on the night table. The second room was the bathroom; the flashlight caught decals of swans on moisture-faded walls.

The third room was Bud's. It might have been a room in a second class hotel; aside from the high school diploma over the bed, it was barren of anything suggesting the occupant's individuality. Gant went in.

He inspected the titles of some books on a shelf; they were mainly college texts and a few classic novels. No diaries, no engagement books. He sat behind the desk and went through the drawers one at a time. There were stationery and blank scratch pads, back issues of Life and the New Yorker, term papers from college, road maps of New England. No letters, no calendars with appointments written in, no address books with names crossed out. He rose from the desk and went to the dresser. Half the drawers were empty. The others contained summer shirts and swimming trunks, a couple of pairs of argyle socks, underwear, tarnished cufflinks, celluloid collar stays, bow ties with broken clips. No papers lost in corners, no forgotten pictures.

Perfunctorily he opened the closet. On the floor in the corner there was a small gray strongbox.

He took it out and put in on the desk. It was locked. He lifted and shook it. Its contents shifted, sounding like packets of paper. He put the box down again and picked at its lock with the blade of a small knife he carried on his keychain. Then he took it into the kitchen. He found a screwdriver in one of the drawers and tried that. Finally he wrapped the box in newspaper, hoping that it didn't contain Mrs. Corliss' life's savings.

He opened the window, took the ice placard from the floor, and climbed out onto the porch. When he had closed and locked the window, he tore the placard to size and fitted it in the open pane, blank side out. With the strongbox under his arm, he moved quietly between the houses to the sidewalk.

Leo Kingship returned to his apartment at ten o'clock on Wednesday night, having worked late in order to compensate for some of the lost hours Christmas had entailed. "Is Marion in?" he asked the butler, giving him his coat.

"Out with Mr. Corliss. She said she'd be in early though. There's a Mr. Dettweiler waiting in the living room."

"Dettweiler?"

"He said Miss Richardson sent him about the securities. He has a little strongbox with him."

"Dettweiler?" Kingship frowned.

He went into the living room.

Gordon Gant rose from a comfortable chair adjacent to the fireplace. "Hello," he said pleasantly.

Kingship looked at him for a moment. "Didn't Miss Richardson make it clear this afternoon that I don't want-" His hands fisted at his sides. "Get out of here," he said. "If Marion comes in..."

"Exhibit A," Gant pronounced, raising a pamphlet in each hand, "in the case against Bud Corliss."

"I don't want to-" The sentence hung unfinished. Apprehensively, Kingship came forward. He took the pamphlets from Gant's hands. "Our publications..."

"In the possession of Bud Corliss," Gant said.

"Kept in a strongbox which until last night resided in a closet in Menasset, Massachusetts." He gave a light kick to the strongbox on the floor beside him. The open lid was bent out of shape. There were four oblong Manila envelopes inside. "I stole it," Gant said.

"Stole it?"

He smiled. 'Tight fire with fire. I don't know where he's staying in New York, so I decided to sally forth to Menasset"

"You crazy..." Kingship sat heavily on a couch that faced the fireplace. He stared at the pamphlets. "Oh God," he said.

Gant resumed his seat next to the couch. "Observe the condition of Exhibit A, if you will. Frayed around the edges, soiled by many fingermarks, center pages worked loose from the staples. I would say he had them for quite some time. I would say he drooled over them considerably."

"That... that son of a bitch..." Kingship spoke the phrase distinctly, as though not accustomed to using it.

Gant prodded the strongbox with his toe. "The History of Bud Corliss, a drama in four envelopes," he said. "Envelope one: newspaper clippings of the high school hero; class president, chairman of the prom committee, Most likely To Succeed and so on and forth. Envelope two: honorable discharge from the Army, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, several interesting though obscene photographs and a pawn ticket which I have discovered may be exchanged for a wristwatch if you have a couple of hundred dollars you don't need. Envelope three: college days; transcripts from Stoddard and Caldwell. Envelope four: two well-read brochures describing the magnitude of Kingship Copper Incorporated, and this..."-he drew a folded sheet of blue-lined yellow paper from his pocket and passed it to Kingship-"which I can't make head or tail of."

Kingship unfolded the paper. He read halfway down it. "What is it?"

"I'm asking you." He shook his head.

"It must have some bearing on this," Gant said. "It was in with the pamphlets."

Kingship shook his head and handed the paper back to Gant, who returned it to his pocket. Kingship's gaze dropped to the pamphlets. The grip of his hands crackled the thick paper. "How am I going to tell Marion?" he said. "She loves him..." He looked at Gant dismally. Then slowly his face smoothed out. He glanced at the pamphlets and back at Gant, his eyes narrowing. "How do I know these were in the strongbox? How do I know that you didn't put them there yourself?" Gant's jaw dropped. "Oh, for..." Kingship went around the end of the couch and across the room. There was a telephone on a carved table. He dialed a number. "Come on now," Gant chided. In the silence of the room the buzzing and the clicks of the phone were audible. "Hello? Miss Richardson? This is Mr. Kingship. I'd like to ask a favor of you. A big favor, I'm afraid. And absolutely confidential." An unintelligible twittering emanated from the phone. "Would you please go down to the office-yes, now. I wouldn't ask you, only it's terribly important, and I-" There was more twittering. "Go to the public relations department," Kingship said. "Go through the files and see whether we've ever sent any promotional publications to... Bud Corliss."

"Burton Corliss," Gant said.

"Or Burton Corliss. Yes, that's right-Mr. Corliss. I'm at my home, Miss Richardson. Call me as soon as you find out. Thank you. Thank you very much, Miss Richardson. I appreciate this..." He hung up. Gant shook Ms head wryly. "We're really grasping at straws, aren't we."

"I have to be sure," Kingship said. "You have to be sure of your evidence in a thing like this." He came back across the room and stood behind the couch. "You're sure already, and you know damn well you are," Gant said.

Kingship braced his hands on the couch, looking down at the pamphlets in the hollow of the cushion where he had been sitting.

"You know damn well you are," Gant repeated.

After a moment Kingship's breath sighed out tiredly. He came around the couch, picked up the pamphlets, and sat down. "How am I supposed to tell Marion?" he asked. He rubbed his knee. "That son of a bitch... that God-damned son of a bitch..."

Gant leaned towards him, his elbows on his knees. "Mr. Kingship, I was right about this much. Will you admit I might be right all the way?"

"What 'all the way'?"

"About Dorothy and Ellen." Kingship drew an irritated breath. Gant spoke quickly: "He didn't tell Marion he went to Stoddard. He must have been mixed up with Dorothy. He must be the one who got her pregnant. He killed her, and Powell and Ellen somehow found out it was him he had to kill them too."

"The note..."

"He could have tricked her into writing it! It's been done before-there was a case in the papers just last month about a guy who did it, and for the same reason; the girl was pregnant."

Kingship shook his head. "I'd believe it of him," he said. "After what he's done to Marion, I'd believe anything of him. But there's a flaw in your theory, a big flaw."

"What?" Gant demanded.

"He's after the money, isn't he?" Gant nodded. "And you 'know' Dorothy was murdered because she was wearing something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue?" Gant nodded again. "Well," Kingship said, "if he were the one who'd gotten her into trouble, and if she were ready to marry him that day, then why would he have killed her? He would have gone ahead and married her, wouldn't he? He would have married her and gotten in on the money."

Gant looked at him wordlessly.

"You were right about this," Kingship said, lifting the pamphlets, "but you're wrong about Dorothy. All wrong."

After a moment Gant rose. He turned and paced up to the window. He looked through it dully, gnawing his lower lip. "I may jump," he announced.

When the door chimes toned, Gant turned from the window. Kingship had risen and was standing before the fireplace, gazing at the birch logs neatly pyramided there. He turned reluctantly, holding the rolled pamphlets at his side, his face averted from Gant's watching eyes.

They heard the front door open, and then voices: "... Come in for a while?"

"I don't think so, Marion. We'll have to get up early tomorrow." There was a long silence. "I'll be in front of my place at seven-thirty."

"You'd better wear a dark suit. A smelter roust be a filthy place." Another silence. "Good night, Bud..."

"Good night." The door closed.

Kingship wound the pamphlets into a tighter cylinder. "Marion," he called, but it came out too low. "Marion," he called again, louder.

"Coming," her voice answered cheerfully. The two men waited, suddenly conscious of a clock's ticking.

She appeared in the wide doorway, perking up the collar of her crisp white full-sleeved blouse. Her cheeks were luminous from the cold outside. "Hi," she said. "We had a-"

She saw Gant. Her hands froze, dropped. "Marion, we..." She whirled and was gone.

"Marion!" Kingship hurried to the doorway and into the foyer. "Marion!" She was halfway up the curving white staircase, her legs driving furiously. "Marion!" he shouted grimly, commanding.

She stopped, facing rigidly up the stairs, one hand on the bannister. "Well?"

"Come down here," he said. "I have to speak to you. This is extremely important." A moment passed. "Come down here." he said.

"All right." She turned and descended the stairs with regal coldness. "You can speak to me. Before I go upstairs and pack and get out of here."

Kingship returned to the living room. Gant was standing uncomfortably in the middle of the room, his hand on the back of the couch. Kingship, shaking his head dolefully, went to his side.

She came into the room. Their eyes followed her as, without looking at them, she came up to the chair across from the one in which Gant had sat, at the end of the couch nearer the door. She sat down. She crossed her legs carefully, smoothing the red wool of her skirt. She put her hands on the arms of the chair. She looked up at them, standing behind the couch to her left. "Well?" she said.

Kingship shifted uneasily, withering under her gaze. "Mr. Gant went to... Yesterday he..."

"Yes?"

Kingship turned to Gant helplessly.

Gant said: "Yesterday afternoon, absolutely without your father's knowledge, I went to Menasset. I broke into your fiancй's home-"

"No!"

"-and I took from it a strongbox I found in the closet in his room-"

She pressed back into the chair, her knuckles gripping white, her mouth clamped to a lipless line, her eyes shut.

"I brought it home and jimmied the cover-"

Her eyes shot open, flashing. "What did you find? The plans of the atom bomb?"

They were silent.

"What did you find?" she repeated, her voice lowering, growing wary.

Kingship moved down to the end of the couch and handed her the pamphlets, awkwardly unrolling them.

She took them slowly and looked at them.

"They're old," Gant said. "He's had them for some time."

Kingship said, "He hasn't been back to Menasset since you started going with him. He had them before he met you."

She smoothed the pamphlets carefully in her lap. Some of the corners were folded over. She bent them straight. "Ellen must have given them to him."

"Ellen never had any of our publications, Marion. You know that. She was as little interested as you are."

She turned the pamphlets over and examined their backs. "Were you there when he broke open the box? Do you know for certain they were in the box?"

"I'm checking on that," Kingship said. "But what reason would Mr. Gant have for..."

She began turning the pages of one of the pamphlets; casually, as though it were a magazine in a waiting room. "All right," she said stiffly, after a moment, "maybe it was the money that attracted him at first." Her lips formed a strained smile. "For once in my life I'm grateful for your money." She turned a page. "What is it they say?-it's as easy to fall in love with a rich girl as with a poor."-and another page -"You really can't blame him too much, coming from such a poor family. Environmental influence..." She stood up and tossed the pamphlets on the couch. "Is there anything else you wanted?" Her hands were trembling slightly.

"Anything else?" Kingship stared. "Isn't that enough?"

"Enough?" she inquired. "Enough for what? Enough for me to call off the wedding? No."-she shook her head-"No, it isn't enough."

"You still want to-"

"He loves me," she said. "Maybe it was the money that attracted him at first, but-well, suppose I were a very pretty girl; I wouldn't call off the wedding if I found out it was my looks that attracted him, would I?"

"At first?" Kingship said. "The money is still what attracts him."

"You have no right to say that!"

"Marion, you can't marry him now..."

"No? Come down to City Hall Saturday morning!"

"He's a no-good scheming-"

"Oh yes! You always know just who's good and who's bad, don't you! You knew Mom was bad and you got rid of her, and you knew Dorothy was bad and that's why she killed herself because you brought us up with your good and bad, your right and wrong! Haven't you done enough with your good and bad?"

"You're not going to marry a man who's only after you for your money!"

"He loves me! Don't you understand English? He loves me! I love him! I don't care what brought us together! We think alike! Feel alike! We like the same books, the same plays, the same music, the same-"

"The same food?" Gant cut in. "Would you both be fond of Italian and Armenian food?" She turned to him, her mouth ajar. He was unfolding a sheet of blue-lined yellow paper he had taken from his pocket. "And those books," he said, looking at the paper, "would they include the works of Proust, Thomas Wolfe, Carson McCullers?"

Her eyes widened. "How did you...? What is that?"

He came around the end of the couch. She turned to face him. "Sit down," he said.

"What are you...?" She moved back. The edge of the couch pressed against the back of her knees.

"Sit down, please," he said.

She sat down. "What is that?"

"This was in the strongbox with the pamphlets," he said. "In the same envelope. The printing is his, I presume." He handed her the yellow paper. "I'm sorry," he said.

She looked at him confusedly, and then looked down at the paper.

Proust, T. Wolfe, C. McCullers, "Madame Bovary," Alice in Wonderland," Eliz. B. Browning-READ!

ART (Mostly modern)-Hopley or Hopper,

DeMeuth (sp?) READ general books on mod. art

Pink phase in high school.

Jealous of E.?

Renoir, VanGogh

Italian & Armenian food-LOOK UP restaurants in NYC.

Theater: Shaw, T. Williams,-serious stuff...

She read barely a quarter of the closely printed page, her cheeks draining of color. Then she folded the paper with trembling care. "Well," she said, folding it again, not looking up, "haven't I been the... trusting soul..." She smiled crazily at her father coming gently around the end of the couch to stand helplessly beside her. "I should have known, shouldn't I?" The blood rushed back to her cheeks, burning red. Her eyes were swimming and her ringers were suddenly mashing and twisting the paper with steel strength. 'Too good to be true," she smiled, tears starting down her cheeks, her fingers plucking at the paper. "I really should have known..." Her hands released the yellow fragments and flew to her face. She began to cry.

Kingship sat beside her, his arm about her bended shoulders. "Marion... Marion... Be glad you didn't find out too late..."

Her back was shaking under his arm. "You don't understand," she sobbed through her hands, "you can't understand..."

When the tears had stopped she sat numbly, her fingers knotted around the handkerchief Kingship had given her, her eyes on the pieces of yellow paper on the carpet.

"Do you want-me to take you upstairs?" Kingship asked.

"No. Please... just... just let me sit here..." He rose and joined Gant at the window. They were silent for a while, looking at the lights beyond the river. Finally Kingship said, I'll do something to him. I swear to God, I'll do something."

A minute passed. Gant said, "She referred to your 'good and bad.' Were you very strict with your daughters?"

Kingship thought for a moment "Not very," he said.

"I thought you were, the way she spoke."

"She was angry," Kingship said.

Gant stared across the river at a Pepsi-Cola sign. "In the drugstore the other day, after we left Marion's apartment, you said something about maybe having pushed one of your daughters away. What did you mean?"

"Dorothy," Kingship said. "Maybe if I hadn't been..."

"So strict?" Gant suggested.

"No. I wasn't very strict I taught them right from wrong. Maybe I... overemphasized a little, because of their mother..." He sighed. "Dorothy shouldn't have felt that suicide was the only way out," he said.

Gant took out a pack of cigarettes and removed one. He turned it between his fingers. "Mr. Kingship, what would you have done if Dorothy had married without first consulting you, and then had had a baby... too soon?"

After a moment Kingship said, "I don't know."

"He would have thrown her out," Marion said quietly. The two men turned. She was sitting motionlessly on the couch, as she had been before. They could see her face in the canted mirror over the mantel. She was still looking at the papers on the floor.

"Well?" Gant said to Kingship.

"I don't think I would have thrown her out," he protested.

"You would have," Marion said tonelessly.

Kingship turned back to the window. "Well," he said finally, "under those circumstances, shouldn't a couple be expected to assume the responsibilities of marriage, as well as the..." He left the sentence unfinished.

Gant lit his cigarette. "There you are," he said. "That's why he killed her. She must have told him about you. He knew he wouldn't get near the money even if he did marry her, and if he didn't marry her he would get into trouble, so... Then he decides to have a second try, with Ellen, but she starts to investigate Dorothy's death and gets too close to the truth. So close that he has to kill her and Powell. And then he tries a third time."

"Bud?" Marion said. She spoke the name blankly, her face in the mirror showing the barest flicker of surprise, as though her fiancй had been accused of having imperfect table manners.

Kingship stared narrow-eyed out the window. "I'd believe it," he said intently. "I'd believe it..." But as he turned to Gant the resolution faded from his eyes. "You're basing it all on his not telling Marion he went to Stoddard. We're not even sure he knew Dorothy, let alone he was the one she was... seeing. We have to be sure."

"The girls at the dorm," Gant said. "Some of them must have known who she was going with."

Kingship nodded. "I could hire someone to go out there, speak to them..."

Gant pondered and shook his head. "It's no good. It's vacation; by the time you managed to find one of the girls who knew, it would be too late."

"Too late?"

"Once he knows the wedding is off,"-he glanced at Marion; she was silent-"he's not going to wait around to find out why, is he?"

"We'd find him," Kingship said. "Maybe. And maybe not. People disappear." Gant smoked thoughtfully. "Didn't Dorothy keep a diary or anything?" The telephone rang.

Kingship went to the carved table and lifted the receiver. "Hello?" There was a long pause. Gant looked at Marion; she was leaning forward, picking up the pieces of paper from the floor. "When?" Kingship asked. She put the pieces of paper in her left hand and squeezed them together. She looked at them, not knowing what to do with them. She put them on the couch beside her, on top of the two pamphlets. "Thank you," Kingship said. "Thank you very much." There was the sound of the receiver being replaced, and then silence. Gant turned to look at Kingship.

He was standing beside the table, his pink face rigid. "Miss Richardson," he said. "Promotional literature was sent to Burton Corliss in Caldwell, Wisconsin, on October 16, 1950."

"Just when he must have started his campaign with Ellen," Gant said.

Kingship nodded, "But that was the second time," he said slowly. "Promotional literature was also sent to Burton Corliss on February 6, 1950, in Blue River. Iowa."

Gant said, "Dorothy..." Marion moaned.

Gant remained after Marion had gone upstairs. "We're still in the same boat Ellen was in," he said. "The police have Dorothy's 'suicide note' and all we have are suspicions and a flock of circumstantial evidence."

Kingship held one of the pamphlets. 'I'll make sure," he said.

"Didn't they find anything at Powell's place? A fingerprint, a thread of cloth...?"

"Nothing," Kingship said. "Nothing at Powell's place, nothing at the restaurant where Ellen..."

Gant sighed. "Even if you could get the police to arrest him, a first year law student could get him released in five minutes."

"I'll get him somehow," Kingship said. "I'll make sure, and I'll get him."

Gant said, "We've either got to find out how he got her to write that note, or else find the gun he used on Powell and Ellen. And before Saturday."

Kingship looked at the photograph on the pamphlet's cover. "The smelter..." Sorrowfully he said, "We're supposed to fly out there tomorrow. I wanted to show him around. Marion too. She was never interested before."

"You'd better see that she doesn't let him know the wedding is off until the last possible moment."

Kingship smoothed the pamphlet on his knee. He looked up. "What?"

"I said you should see that she doesn't let him know the wedding is off until the last possible moment."

"Oh," Kingship said. His eyes returned to the pamphlet. A moment passed. "He picked the wrong man," he said softly, still looking at the photograph of the smelter. "He should have picked on somebody else's daughters."

Was there ever such a perfect day? That was all he wanted to know,-was there? He grinned at the plane; it looked as impatient as he; it craned forward at the runway, its compact body gleaming, the coppered KINGSHIP and the crown trademark on its side emblazoned by the early morning sun. He grinned at the busy scene further down the field, where commercial planes stood, their waiting passengers herded behind wire fences like dumb animals. Well, we all can't have private planes at our disposal! He grinned at the ceramic blue of the sky, then stretched and pounded his chest happily, watching his breath plume upwards. No, he decided judicially, there really never was such a perfect day. What, never? No, never! What, never? Well... hardly ever! He turned and strode back to the hangar, humming Gilbert and Sullivan.

Marion and Leo were standing in the shade, having one of their tight-lipped arguments. "I'm going!" Marion insisted.

"What's the diffewculty?" he smiled, coming up to them.

Leo turned and walked away.

"What's the matter?" he asked Marion.

"Nothing's the matter. I don't feel well, so he doesn't want me to go." Her eyes were on the plane beyond him.

"Bridal nerves?"

"No. I just don't feel well, that's all."

"Oh," he said knowingly.

They stood in silence for a minute, watching a pair of mechanics fuss with the plane's fuel tank, and then he moved towards Leo. Leave it to Marion to be off on a day like this. Well, it was probably all for the good; maybe she'd keep quiet for a change. "All set to go?"

"A few minutes," Leo said. "We're waiting for Mr.

Dettweiler."

"Who?"

"Mr. Dettweiler. His father is on the board of directors."

A few minutes later a blond man in a gray overcoat approached from the direction of the commercial hangars. He had a long jaw and heavy eyebrows. He nodded at Marion and came up to Leo. "Good morning, Mr. Kingship."

"Good morning, Mr. Dettweiler." They shook hands. "I'd like you to meet my prospective son-in-law, Bud Corliss. Bud, this is Gordon Dettweiler."

"How do you do."

"Well," Dettweiler said-he had a handshake like a mangle-"I've certainly been looking forward to meeting you. Yes sir, I certainly have." A character, Bud thought, or maybe he was trying to get in good with Leo.

"Ready, sir?" a man asked from within the plane.

"Ready," Leo said. Marion came forward. "Marion, I honestly wish you wouldn't..."-but she marched right past Leo, up the three-step platform and into the plane. Leo shrugged and shook his head. Dettweiler followed Marion in. Leo said, "After you, Bud."

He jogged up the three steps and entered the plane. It was a six-seater, its interior done in pale blue. He took the last seat on the right, behind the wing. Marion was across the aisle. Leo took the front seat, across from Dettweiler.

When the engine coughed and roared to life, Bud fastened his seatbelt. Son of a gun, if it didn't have a copper buckle! He shook his head, smiling. He looked out the window at the people waiting behind fences, and wondered if they could see him...

The plane began to roll forward. On the way... Would Leo be taking him to the smelter if he were still suspicious? Never! What, never? No, never! He leaned over, tapped Marion's elbow and grinned at her. She smiled back, looking ill all right, and returned to her window. Leo and Dettweiler were talking softly to each other over the aisle. "How long will it take, Leo?" he asked cheerfully. Leo turned- "Three hours. Less if the wind's good."-and turned back to Dettweiler.

Well, he hadn't wanted to talk to anyone anyway. He returned to his window and watched the ground slide past.

At the edge of the field the plane turned slowly around. The engine whined higher, building up power...

He stared out the window, fingering the copper buckle. On the way to the smelter... The smelter! The grail! The fountainhead of wealth!, Why the hell did his mother have to be afraid of flying? Christ, it would have been terrific having her along!

The plane roared forward.

He was the first to spot it; far ahead and below, a small black geometric cluster on the bedsheet of snow; a small black cluster like a twig on the end of the curving stem of railroad tracks. "There it is," he heard Leo saying, and he was faintly conscious of Marion crossing the aisle and taking the seat in front of him. His breath fogged the window; he wiped it clean.

The twig vanished under the wing. He waited. He swallowed and his ears popped as the plane soared lower.

The smelter reappeared directly below him, sliding out from under the wing. There were half a dozen rectilinear brown roofs with thick tails of smoke dragging from their centers. They crowded together, huge and shadowless in the overhead sun, beside the glittering chainmail patch of a filled parking lot. Railroad tracks looped and encircled them, merging below into a multi-veined stem, down which a freighttrain crawled, its smudge of smoke dwarfed by the giant black plumes behind it, its chain of cars scintillating with salmon-colored glints.

His head turned slowly, his eyes locked to the smelter that slid towards the tail of the plane. Fields of snow followed it. Scattered houses appeared. The smelter was gone. There were more houses, then roads separating them into blocks. Still more houses, closer now, and stores and signs and creeping cars and dot-like people, a park, the cubist pattern of a housing development...

The plane banked, circling. The ground tilted away, then leveled, swept closer, and finally came slicing up under the wing of the plane. A jolt; the seatbelt's buckle bit his stomach. Then the plane rolled smoothly. He drew the pale blue webbing from the copper clamp.

There was a limousine waiting when they descended from the plane; a custom-built Packard, black and polished. He sat on a jump-seat next to Dettweiler. He leaned forward, looking over the driver's shoulder. He peered down the long perspective of the town's main street to a white hill for away on the horizon, At its summit, from the far side, columns of smoke arose. They were curving and black against the sky, like the cloud-fingers of a genie's hand.

The main street became a two lane highway that speared between fields of snow, and the highway became an asphalt road that embraced the curve of the hill's base, and the asphalt road became a gravel one that jounced over the serried ribs of railroad tracks and turned to the left, rising up the hillside parallel to the tracks. First one slowly climbing train was overtaken, and then another. Sparks of hidden metal winked from ore-heaped gondola cars.

Ahead, the smelter rose up. Brown structures merged into a crude pyramid, their belching smokestacks ranked around the largest one. Nearer, the buildings swelled and clarified; their clifflike walls were streaky brown metal, laced in spots with girdered fretwork and irregularly patched with soot-stained glass; the shapes of the buildings were hard, geometric; they were bound together by chutes and catwalks. Still nearer, the buildings merged again, the sky space between them lost behind projecting angles. They became a single massive form, large hulks buttressing larger ones into an immense smoke-spired industrial cathedral. It loomed up mountainously, and then suddenly swept off to the side as the limousine veered away.

The car pulled up before a low brick building, at the door of which waited a lean, white-haired, unctuously smiling man in a dark gray suit.

He forgot what he was eating, that*s how interested he was in lunch. He pulled his eyes from the window across the room, the window through which could be seen the buildings wherein heaps of gray-brown dirt were purified to gleaming copper, and looked down at his plate. Creamed chicken. He started eating more quickly, hoping the others would follow suit.

The carefully dressed white-haired man had turned out to be a Mr. Otto, the manager of the smelter. Leo having introduced him, Mr. Otto had led them into a conference room and begun apologizing for things. He apologized smilingly for the tablecloth that left bare one end of the long table-"We're not in the New York office, you know"-and he apologized suavely for cool food and warm wine-"I'm afraid we lack the facilities of our big city brethren." Mr. Otto longed transparently for the New York office. Over the soup he spoke of the copper shortage and disparaged the suggestions of the National Production Authority for its mitigation. Occasionally he referred to copper as "the red metal."

"Mr. Corliss." He looked up. Dettweiler was smiling at him across the table. "You'd better be careful," Dettweiler said. "I found a bone in mine."

Bud glanced at his nearly empty plate and smiled back at Dettweiler. "I'm anxious to see the smelter," he said.

"Aren't we all," Dettweiler remarked, still smiling.

"You found a bone in yours?" Mr. Otto inquired. "That woman! I told her to take care. These people can't even cut up a chicken properly."

Now that they had at long last left the brick building and were crossing the asphalt yard to the buildings of the smelter itself, he walked slowly. The others, coatless, hurried ahead, but he drifted behind, savoring the climactic sweetness of the moment. He watched an ore-laden train disappear behind a steel wall at the left of the buildings. At the right, a train was being loaded; cranes swung copper into the cars; great square slabs like solidified flame that must have weighed five or six hundred pounds each, A heart! he thought, gazing up at the monstrous brown form that filled more and more of the sky,-a giant heart of American industry, drawing in bad blood, pumping out good! Standing so close to it, about to enter it, it was impossible not to share the surging of its power!

The others had vanished into a doorway at the base of the towering steel mass. Now Mr. Otto smiled within the doorway, beckoning.

He moved forward less slowly, like a lover going to a long awaited tryst. Success rewarded! Promise fulfulled! There should be a fanfare! he thought. There should be a fanfare!

A whistle screamed.

Thank you. Muchas gracias.

He went into the darkness of the doorway. The door closed after him.

The whistle screamed again, piercingly, like a bird in a jungle.

He stood on a chain-railed catwalk staring fascinatedly at an army of huge cylindrical furnaces ranked before him in diminishing perspective like an ordered forest of giant redwood trunks. At their bases men moved methodically, regulating incomprehensible controls. The air was hot and sulphurous.

"There are six hearths, one above the other, in each furnace," Mr. Otto lectured. "The ore is introduced at the top. It's moved steadily downward from hearth to hearth by rotating arms attached to a central shaft. The roasting removes excess sulphur from the ore."

He listened intently, nodding. He turned to the others to express his awe, but only Marion stood on his right, wooden-faced as she had been all day. Leo and that Dettweiler were gone. "Where'd your father and Dettweiler go?" he asked her.

"I don't know. Dad said he wanted to show him something."

"Oh." He turned back to the furnaces. What would Leo want to show Dettweiler? Well... "How many are there?"

"Furnaces?" Mr. Otto dabbed perspiration from his upper lip with a folded handkerchief. "Fifty-four."

Fifty-four! Jesus! "How much, ore goes through them in a day?" he asked.

It was wonderful! He'd never been so interested in anything in his whole life! He asked a thousand questions and Mr. Otto, visibly reacting to his fascination, answered them in detail, speaking only to him, while Marion trailed unseeingly behind.

In another building there were more furnaces; brick walled, flat, and over a hundred feet long. "The reverberatory furnaces," Mr. Otto said. "The ore that comes from the roasting furnaces is about ten per cent copper. Here it's melted down. The lighter minerals flow off as slag. What's left is iron and copper -we call it 'matte'-forty per cent copper."

"What do you use for fuel?"

"Pulverized coal. The waste heat is used to generate steam for making power."

He shook his head, whistling between his teeth.

Mr. Otto smiled. "Impressed?"

"It's wonderful," Bud said. "Wonderful." He gazed down the endless stretch of furnaces. "It makes you realize what a great country this is."

"This," Mr. Otto said, pushing his voice over a roaring tide of sound, "is probably the most spectacular part of the entire smelting process."

"Jesus!"

"The converters," Mr. Otto said loudly.

The building was a vast steel shell, percussant with the sustained thunder of machines and men. A greenish haze obscured its far reaches, swimming around shafts of yellow-green sunlight that pillared down through crane tracks and catwalks from windows in the peaked roof dim and high above.

At the near end of the building, on either side, lay six massive dark cylindroid vessels, end to end, like giant steel barrels on their sides, dwarfing the workmen on railed platforms between them. Each vessel had an opening in its upper-most surface. Flames burst forth from these mouths; yellow, orange, red, blue; roaring up into funnel-like hoods overhead that swallowed and bore them away.

One of the converters was turned forward on the cogged rollers that supported it, so that its round mouth, scabrous with coagulated metal, was at the side; liquid fire rushed from the radiant throat, pouring down into an immense crucible on the floor. The molten flow, heavy and smoking, filled the steel container. The converter rolled back groaningly, its mouth dripping. The yoke of the crucible lifted, caught by a great blunt hook from whose block a dozen cables rose in unwavering ascension, rose higher than the converters, higher than the central spine of catwalk, up to the underbelly of a grimy cab that hung from a single-railed track below the dimness of the roof. The cables contracted; the crucible lifted in slow, weightless levitation. It rose until it was higher than the converters, some twenty-five feet above the ground, and then cab, cables and crucible began to draw away, retreating towards the cuprous haze at the northern end of the building.

The center of it all! The heart of the heart! With rapt eyes Bud followed the heat-shimmering column of air over the departing crucible.

"Slag," Mr. Otto said. They stood on an island of railed platform against the south wall, a few feet above the floor and midway between the two banks of converters. Mr. Otto touched his handkerchief to his forehead. "The molten matte from the reverberatory furnaces is poured into these converters. Silica is added, and then compressed air is blown in through pipes at the back. The impurities are oxidized; slag forms and is poured off, as you just saw. More matte is added, more slag forms, and so on. The copper keeps getting richer and richer until, after about five hours, if s ninety-nine per cent pure. Then it's poured out in the same way as the slag."

"Will they be pouring copper soon?" Mr. Otto nodded. "The converters are operated on a stagger system, so that there's a continuous output."

"I'd like to see them pour the copper," Bud said. He watched one of the converters on the right pouring off slag. "Why are the flames different colors?" he asked.

"The color changes as the process advances. That's how the operators tell what's going on inside."

Behind them a door closed. Bud turned. Leo was standing beside Marion, Dettweiler leaned against a ladder that climbed the wall beside the door. "Are you enjoying the tour?" Leo asked over the thunder.

"It's wonderful, Leo! Overpowering!"

"They're going to pour copper over there," Mr. Otto said loudly.

Before one of the converters on the left, a crane had lowered a steel vat, larger than the crucible into which the slag had been poured. Its steep sides were a three inch thickness of dull gray metal, as high as a man. Its rim was seven feet across.

The mammoth cylinder of the converter began to turn, rumbling, rolling forward in its place. A wraith of blue flame flickered over its clotted mouth. It turned further; a volcanic radiance blasted from its interior, veils of white smoke arose, and then a flood of racing incandescence came bursting out. It spilled forward and fell gleamingly into the giant bowl. The steady molten flow seemed motionless, a solid, shining shaft between the converter and the depths of the vat. The converter turned further; new ribs twisted fluidly down the shaft, and again it was motionless. Within the vat the surface of the liquid appeared, slowly rising, clouded by whorls of smoke. The bitter smell of copper singed the air. The streaming shaft thinned, twisting, as the converter began rolling back. The thin stream petered out, its last few drops rolling over the swell of the cylinder and sparkling to the cement floor.

The smoke above the vat dissolved to vaporous wisps. The surface of the molten copper, a few inches below the vessel's rim, was an oblique disc of glistening oceanic green.

"It's green," Bud said, surprised.

"When it cools it regains its usual color," Mr. Otto said.

Bud stared at the restless pool. Blisters formed, swelled, and popped glutinously on its surface. "What's the matter, Marion?" he heard Leo ask. The heated air above the vat trembled as though sheets of cellophane were being shaken. "Matter?" Marion said. Leo said, "You look pale."

Bud turned around. Marion seemed no paler than usual. "I'm all right," she was saying.

"But you're pale," Leo insisted, and Dettweiler nodded agreement.

"It must be the heat or something," Marion said.

"The fumes," Leo said. "Some people can't stand the fumes. Mr. Otto, why don't you take my daughter back to the administration building. We'll be along in a few minutes."

"Honestly, Dad," she said tiredly, "I feel-"

"No nonsense," Leo smiled stiffly. "Well be with you in a few minutes."

"But..." She hesitated a moment, looking annoyed, and then shrugged and turned to the door. Dettweiler opened it for her.

Mr. Otto followed after Marion. He paused in the doorway and turned back to Leo. "I hope you're going to show Mr. Corliss how we mold the anodes." He turned to Bud. "Very impressive," he said, and went out. Dettweiler closed the door. "Anodes?" Bud said.

"The slabs they were loading on the train outside," Leo said. Bud noticed an odd mechanical quality in his voice, as though he were thinking of something else. "They're shipped to the refinery in New Jersey. Electrolytic refining."

"My God," Bud said, "it's some involved process." He turned back to the converters on the left. The vat of copper, its angular handle hooked by the crane overhead, was about to be raised. The dozen cables tensed, vibrating, and then rigidified sharply. The vat lifted from the floor.

Behind him Leo said, "Did Mr. Otto take you up on the catwalk?"

"No," Bud said. "You get a much better view," Leo said. "Would you like to go up?"

Bud turned. "Do we have the time?"

"Yes," Leo said.

Dettweiler, his back against the ladder, stepped aside. "After you," he smiled.

Bud went to the ladder. He grasped one of the metal rungs and looked upwards. The rungs, like oversize staples, ran narrowingly up the brown wall. They focused at a trap in the floor of the catwalk, which projected perpendicularly from the wall some fifty feet above.

"Bottleneck," Dettweiler murmured beside him.

He began to climb. The rungs were warm, their upper surfaces polished smooth. He climbed in a steady rhythm, keeping his eyes on the descending wall before him. He heard Dettweiler and Leo following after him. He tried to visualize the sight the catwalk would offer. To look down on that scene of industrial power...

He climbed the ladder up through the trap and stepped off onto the ridged metal floor of the catwalk. The thunder of the machines was diminished up here, but the air was hotter and the smell of copper stronger. The narrow runway, railed by heavy chain between iron stanchions, extended in a straight line down the spine of the building. It ended halfway down the building's length, where it was cut off by a broad strip of steel partition wall that hung from roof to floor, some twelve feet wider than the catwalk. Overhead, on either side, crane tracks paralleled the runway. They passed clear of the partition, that ended the catwalk and continued into the northern half of the building.

He peered over the left side of the catwalk, his hands folded over the top of one of the waist-high stanchions. He looked down upon the six converters, the men scurrying between them...

His eyes shifted. To his right, twenty feet below and ten feet out from the catwalk, hung the vat of copper, a steel rimmed pool of green on its slow pro- cession towards the far end of the building. Ghosts of smoke rose from the liquid sheen of its surface.

He followed it, walking slowly, his left hand tracing over the dipping curves of the chain railing. He stayed far enough behind the vat so that he could just feel the fringe of its radiant heat. He heard Leo and Dettweiler following. His eyes climbed the vat's cables, six and six on either side of the block, up to the cab a dozen feet above him. He could see the shoulder of the operator inside. His eyes dropped back to the copper. How much is in there? How many tons? What was it worth? One thousand? Two thousand? Three? Four? Five?...

He was nearing the steel partition, and now he saw that the catwalk didn't end there after all; instead it branched six feet to right and left, following the partition to its edges like the head of a long-stemmed T. The vat of copper vanished beyond the partition. He turned onto the left wing of the T. A three foot chain swung across the catwalk's end. He put his left hand on the corner stanchion and his right on the edge of the partition, which was quite warm. He leaned forward a bit and peered around the partition at the receding vat. "Where does it go now?" he called out. Behind him Leo said, "Refining furnaces. Then it's poured into molds."

He turned around, Leo and Dettweiler faced him shoulder to shoulder, blocking the stem of the T. Their faces were oddly inflexible. He patted the partition on his left. "What's behind here?" he asked. "The refining furnaces," Leo said. "Any more questions?"

He shook his head, puzzled by the grimness of the two men.

"Then I've got one for you," Leo said. His eyes were like blue marbles behind his glasses. "How did you get Dorothy to write that suicide note?"

Everything fell away; the catwalk, the smelter, the whole world; everything melted away like sand castles sucked into the sea, leaving him suspended in emptiness with two blue marbles staring at him and the sound of Leo's question swelling and reverberating like being inside an iron bell.

Then Leo and Dettweiler confronted him again; the smelter's rumble welled up; the plates of the partition materialized slippery against his left hand, the knob of the stanchion damp under his right, the floor of the catwalk... but the floor didn't come back completely; it swayed anchorless and undulant beneath his feet, because his knees-Oh God!-were jelly, trembling and shaking. "What're you-" he started to say, but nothing came out. He swallowed air. "What're you... talking about..."

"Dorothy," Dettweiler told him. Slowly he said, "You wanted to marry her. For the money. But then she was pregnant. You knew you wouldn't get the money. You killed her."

He shook his head in confused protest. "No," he said, "No! She committed suicide! She sent a note to Ellen! You know that, Leo!"

"You tricked her into writing it," Leo said.

"How... Leo, how could I do that? How the hell could I do that?"

"That's what you're going to tell us," Dettweiler said.

"I hardly knew her!"

"You didn't know her at all," Leo said. "That's what you told Marion."

"That's right! I didn't know her at all!"

"You just said you hardly knew her."

"I didn't know her at all!"

Leo's fists clenched. "You sent for our publications in February nineteen hundred and fifty!"

Bud stared, his hand bracing tightly against the partition. "What publications?" It was a whisper; he had to say it again: "What publications?"

Dettweiler said, "The pamphlets I found in the strongbox in your room in Menasset"

The catwalk dipped crazily. The strongbox! Oh, Jesus Christ! The pamphlets and what else? The clippings?-he'd thrown them out, thank God! The pamphlets... and the list on Marion! Oh, Jesus! "Who are you?" he exploded. "Where the hell do you come off breaking into a person's-"

"Stay back!" Dettweiler warned. Withdrawing the single step he had advanced, Bud gripped the stanchion again. "Who are you?" he shouted.

"Gordon Gant," Dettweiler said. Gant! The one on the radio, the one who'd kept needling the police! How the hell did he- "I knew Ellen," Gant said. "I met her a few days before you killed her.'

"I-" He felt the sweat running. "Crazy!" he shouted. "You're crazy! Who else did I kill?" To Leo -"You listen to him? Then you're crazy too! I never killed anybody!"

Gant said, "You killed Dorothy and Ellen and Dwight Powell!"

"And almost killed Marion," Leo said. "When she saw that list..."

She saw the list! Oh God almighty! "I never killed anybody! Dorrie committed suicide and Ellen and Powell were killed by a burglar!"

"Dorrie?" Gant snapped.

"I- Everybody called her Dorrie! I... I never killed anybody! Only a Jap, and that was in the Army!"

"Then why are your legs shaking?" Gant asked. "Why is the sweat dripping down your cheek?"

He swiped at his check. Control! Self-control! He dragged a deep breath into his chest... Slow up, slow up... They can't prove a thing, not a goddamn thing! They know about the list, about Marion, about the pamphlets-okay-but they can't prove a thing about... He drew another breath...

"You can't prove a thing," he said. "Because there isn't anything to prove. You're crazy, both of you." His hands wiped against his thighs. "Okay," he said, "I knew Dorrie. So did a dozen other guys. And I've had my eyes on the money all along the way. Where's the law against that? So there's no wedding Saturday. Okay." He straightened his jacket with still fingers. 'I'm probably better off poor than having a bastard like you for a father-in-law. Now get out of the way and let me pass. I don't feel like standing around talking to a couple of crazy lunatics."

They didn't move. They stood shoulder to shoulder six feet away. "Move," he said.

'Touch the chain behind you," Leo said. "Get out of the way and let me pass!"

"Touch the chain behind you!" He looked at Leo's stonelike face for a moment and then turned slowly. He didn't have to touch the chain; he just had to look at it; the metal eye of the stanchion had been bent open into a loose C that barely engaged the first of the heavy links.

"We were up here when Otto was showing you around," Leo said. "Touch it."

His hand came forward, brushed the chain. It collapsed. The free end clanked to the floor; it slid rattlingly off and swung down, striking noisily against the partition.

Fifty feet below cement floor yawned, seemed to sway... "Not as much as Dorothy got," Gant was saying, "but enough."

He turned to face them, clutching the stanchion and the edge of the partition, trying not to think of the void behind hs heels. "You wouldn't... dare..." he heard himself saying.

"Don't I have reason enough?" Leo asked. "You killed my daughters!"

"I didn't, Leo! I swear to God I didn't!"

"Is that why you were sweating and shaking the minute I mentioned Dorothy's name? Is that why you didn't think it was a bad joke, react the way an innocent person would have reacted?"

"Leo, I swear on the soul of my dead father..."

Leo stared at him coldly.

He shifted his grip on the stanchion. It was slick with sweat. "You wouldn't do it..." he said. "You'd never get away with it..."

"Wouldn't I?" Leo said. "Do you think you're the only one who can plan something like this?" He pointed to the stanchion. "The jaws of the wrench were wrapped in cloth; there are no marks on that ring. An accident, a terrible accident; a piece of iron, old, continually subjected to intense heat, weakens and bends when a six foot man stumbles against the chain attached to it. A terrible accident. And how can you prevent it? Yell? no one will hear you over the noise. Wave your arms?; the men down there have jobs to attend to, and even if they should look up, there's the haze and the distance. Attack us?; one push and you're finished." He paused. "So tell me, why won't I get away with it? Why?

"Of course," he continued after a moment, "I would rather not do it. I would rather hand you over to the police." He looked at his watch. "So I'll give you three minutes. From now. I want something that will convince a jury, a jury that won't be able to take you by surprise and see the guilt written all over you."

"Tell us where the gun is," Gant said; The two of them stood side by side; Leo with his left wrist lifted and his right hand holding back the cuff to expose his watch; Gant with his hands at his sides.

"How did you get Dorothy to write the note?" Gant asked; His own hands were so tight against the partition and the stanchion that they throbbed with a leaden numbness. "You're bluffing," he said. They leaned forward to hear him. "You're trying to scare me into admitting-to something I never did."

Leo shook his head slowly. He looked at the watch. A moment passed. 'Two minutes and thirty seconds," he said.

Bud whirled to the right, catching the stanchion with his left hand and shouting to the men over at the converters. "Help!" he cried, "Help! Help!"- bellowing as loud as he could, waving his right arm furiously, clutching the stanchion. "Help!"

The men far off and below might as well have been painted figures; their attention was centered on a converter pouring copper.

He turned back to Leo and Gant

"You see?" Leo said.

"You'll be killing an innocent man, that's what you'll be doing!"

"Where's the gun?" Gant asked. "There is no gun! I never had a gun!" Leo said, "Two minutes."

They were bluffing! They must be! He looked around desperately; the main shaft of the catwalk, the roof, the crane tracks, the few windows, the... The crane tracks!

Slowly, trying not to make it too obvious, he glanced to the right again. The converter had rolled back. The vat before it was full and smoking, cables trailing slackly up to the cab above. The vat would be lifted; the cab, now over two hundred feet away, would bear the vat forward, approaching along the track that passed behind and above him; and the man in the cab-a dozen feet up? four feet out?-would be able to hear! To see!

If only they could be stalled! If only they could be stalled until the cab was near enough! The vat lifted...

"One minute, thirty seconds," Leo said. Bud's eyes flicked back to the two men. He met their stares for a few seconds, and then risked another glance to the right, cautiously, so that they should not guess his plan. (Yes, a plan! Even now, at this moment, a plan!) The distant vat hung between floor and catwalk, its skein of cables seeming to shudder in the heat-vibrant air. The boxlike cab was motionless under the track-and then it began to come forward, bearing the vat, growing imperceptibly larger. So slowly! Oh God, make it come faster! He turned back to them.

"We aren't bluffing, Bud," Leo said. And after a moment: "One minute."

He looked again; the cab was nearer-a hundred and fifty feet? One thirty? He could distinguish a pale shape behind the black square of its window.

"Thirty seconds."

How could time race by so fast? "Listen," he said frantically, "listen. I want to tell you something-something about Dorrie. She..." He groped for something to say-and then stopped wide-eyed; there had been a flicker of movement in the dimness at the far end of the catwalk. Someone else was up here! Salvation!

"Help!" he cried, his arm semaphoring. "You! Come here! Help}"

The flicker of movement became a figure hurrying along the catwalk, speeding towards them.

Leo and Gant looked over their shoulders in confusion.

Oh dear God, thank you!

Then he saw that it was a woman.

Marion.

Leo cried out, "What are you- Get out of here! For God's sake, Marion, go back down!"

She seemed not to hear him. She came up behind them, her face flushed and large-eyed above their compacted shoulders.

Bud felt her gaze rake his face and then descend to his legs. Legs that were trembling again... If he only had a gun... "Marion," he pleaded, "stop them! They're crazy! They're trying to kill me! Stop them! They'll listen to you! I can explain about that list, I can explain everything! I swear I wasn't lying-"

She kept looking at him. Finally she said, "The way you explained why you didn't tell me about Stoddard?"

"I love you! I swear to God I do! I started out thinking about the money, I admit that, but I love you! You know I wasn't lying about that!"

"How do I know?" she asked.

"I swear it!"

"You swore so many things..." Her fingers appeared curving over the men's shoulders; long, white, pink-nailed fingers; they seemed to be pushing.

"Marion! You wouldn't! Not when we... after we..."

Her fingers pressed forward into the cloth of the shoulders, pushing...

"Marion," he begged futilely.

Suddenly he became aware of a swelling in the smelter's thunder, an added rumble. A wave of heat was spreading up his right side. The cab! He wheeled, catching the stanchion with both hands. There it was!-not twenty feet away, grinding closer on the overhead track with the cables shooting down from its belly. Through the opening in its front end he could see a bent head in a visored gray cap. "You!" he bellowed, his jaw muscles cording. "You in the cab! Help! You!" Heat from the oncoming vat pressed heavily against his chest. "Help! You! In the cab!" The gray cab, coming closer, never lifted. Deaf? Was the stupid bastard deaf? Help!" he roared chokingly again and again, but it was no use.

He turned from the swelling heat, wanting to cry in despair.

Leo said, "The noisiest place in the smelter, up there in those cabs." As he said it, he took a step forward. Gant moved up beside him. Marion followed behind.

"Look," Bud said placatingly, clutching the partition in his left hand again. "Please..." He stared at their faces, masklike except for burning eyes.

They came another step closer.

The catwalk dipped and bucked like a shaken blanket. The baking heat on his right began extending itself across his back. They meant it! They weren't bluffing! They were going to kill him! Moisture trickled all over him.

"All right!" he cried. "All right! She thought she was doing a Spanish translation! I wrote out the note in Spanish! I asked her to translate-" His voice faded and stopped.

What was the matter with them? Their faces... the masklike blankness was gone, warped into-into embarrassment and sick contempt, and they were looking down at...

He looked down. The front of his pants was dark with a spreading stain that ran in a series of island blotches down his right trouser leg. Oh God! The Jap... the Jap he had killed-that wretched, trembling, chattering, pants-wetting caricature of a man-was that him? Was that himself? The answer was in their faces. "No!" he cried. He clapped his hands over his eyes, but their faces were still there. "No! I'm not like him!" he wheeled away from them. His foot slipped on wetness and kicked out from under him. His hands flew from his face and flailed the air. Heat blasted up at him. Faffing, he saw a giant disc of glistening green sliding into space below; gaseous, restless, shimmering- Hardness in his hands! The cables! The weight of his body swung down and around, pulling at his armpits and tearing his hands on protuding steel threads. He hung with his legs swinging against the taut cables and his eyes staring at one of them, seeing the frayed fibers that were stabbing like needles into his hands above. A chaos of sound; a whistle shrieking, a woman screaming, voices above, voices below... He squinted up at his hands-blood was starting to trickle down the inside of his wrists-the ovenlike heat was smothering, dizzying, engulfing him with the noxious stench of copper-voices shouted to him-he saw his hands starting to open-he was letting go because he wanted to, it wasn't the burning suffocation or the needles in his hands, he was letting go because he wanted to, just as he had jumped from the catwalk but instinct had made him grab the cables and now he was overcoming instinct-his left hand opened and fell-he hung by his right, turning slightly in the furnace heat-there was oil on the back of his hand from the stanchion or the chain or something-and they wouldn't have pushed him either-you think anyone can kill?-he had jumped and now he was letting go because he wanted to, that's all, and everything was all right and his knees weren't shaking any more, not that they had been shaking so much anyway, hs knees weren't shaking any more because he was in command again-he hadn't noticed his right hand open but it must have opened because he was dropping into the heat, cables were shooting up, someone was screaming like Dorrie going into the shaft and Ellen when the first bullet wasn't enough-this person was screaming this godawful scream and suddenly it was himself and he couldn't stop! Why was he screaming? Why? Why on earth should he be-• The scream, which had knifed through the sudden stillness of the smelter, ended in a viscous splash. From the other side of the vat a sheet of green leaped up. Arcing, it sheared down to the floor where it splattered upon a million pools and droplets. They hissed softly on the cement and slowly dawned from green to copper.

Kingship Remainded at the smelter. Gant accompanied Marion back to New York. In the plane they sat silent and immobile with the aisle between them.

After a while Marion took out a handkerchief and pressed it to her eyes. Gant turned to her, his face pale. "We only wanted him to confess," he said defensively. "We weren't going to do it. And he did confess. What did he have to turn away like that for?"

The words took a long time to reach her. Almost inaudibly she said, "Don't..."

He looked at her downcast face. "You're crying," he told her gently.

She gazed at the handkerchief in her hands, saw the damp places in it. She folded it and turned to the window at her side. Quietly she said, "Not for him."

They went to the Kingship apartment. When the butler took Marion's coat-Gant kept his-he said, "Mrs. Corliss is in the living room."

"Oh God," Marion said.

They went into the living room. In the late afternoon sunlight, Mrs. Corliss was standing by a curio cabinet looking at the underside of a porcelain figurine. She put it down and turned to them. "So soon?" she smiled. "Did you enjoy-" She squinted through the light at Gant, "Oh, I thought you were..." She came across the room, peering beyond them into the empty hallway.

Her eyes returned to Marion. Her eyebrows lifted and she smiled.

"Where's Bud?" she asked.

The End