Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 43, No. 4. Whole No. 245, April 1964

The Needle Sharp As Ever by Hugh Pentecost

One of Hugh Pentecost’s most interesting and unusual stories... Instead of telling you anything about the plot (even a “teaser”) suppose we list some of the titles considered by both the author and the editors (in effect, a group of “teasers”). The first title, suggested by the author, was “Poor Dear Consuela”; then, in more or less chronological order: “You Don’t Know George”; “Only the Good”; “We All Have To Learn”; “The Needle Man.” But finally your Editors decided on: “The Needle Sharp As Ever.”

It had been said of Sebastian Salazar, known as Sibby to his intimates, that he lived by the needle. The word needle, in this instance, had the verb-meaning — “to needle.” Sibby Salazar’s needle was, in fact, a venom-dipped tongue, used to inflame hidden wounds, to reveal dangerous secrets, to publicize private weaknesses, to inflate small disagreements into climax quarrels. The chief miracle of Sibby Salazar’s life, someone once remarked, was that he had managed to live to the age of 55 without being clobbered, or even murdered, by someone whose life he’d destroyed just “for fun.”

People who were not the victims of Sibby Salazar’s poisonous technique found him extremely amusing. He could tear to pieces a novel or a painting or a play or a public figure — like an actress or a politician — with a biting, oblique wit that was often shatteringly funny. He was a marvelous mimic, and the acid of his words was underlined by grotesque inflections and mannered imitations.

Sibby was handsome in a weak-mouthed way. At 55 his childish petulance was somehow amusing and winning, until the dark eyes narrowed and the needle was aimed directly at your insides — or at your heart. There was nothing amusing or winning about what happened then, except perhaps to a bystander whose sadism matched Sibby’s.

Luxury was an essential to living as far as Sibby Salazar was concerned. He liked silk against his skin. His underwear was silk and he carried his own silk sheets with him whenever he spent a week-end somewhere. His taste in foods and drink was exotic and expensive. His clothes were bright-colored, his maroon dinner jacket a sort of trademark. He wore an opera cloak lined with white satin when he went out in the evening. He had, he often remarked, “an allergy for the ordinary.”

His closest friends were women — young, rich women who were not altogether satisfied with their lives, their marriages, their romances. Sibby was the perfect escort because no man could, even for a moment, be seriously jealous of him. He was the perfect confidant. And in the end he usually managed to turn discontent into chaos.

Genuinely happy people couldn’t be bothered with Sibby because they had no need of him. Unhappy women found him amusing, sympathetic, and helpful, never realizing that he was actually a kind of sinister Peeping Tom greasing the runway to disaster for the sheer delight of witnessing the crackup. It was a sort of vindictive lifework with Sibby. No one must be allowed the kind of happiness which, psychologically and temperamentally, he couldn’t enjoy himself.

Sibby chose all his victims with an almost uncanny mediumistic ability to foresee the future — to foresee the tragic ending. The highway along which he had traveled his 55 years was marked by a number of suicides, near suicides, and an almost endless number of bloody fights. Violence, however, was only incidental to the wreckage of marriages, love affairs, businesses, and careers.

Sibby had never toyed with murder itself. But at 55 he was beginning to feel jaded, and he found himself in a situation which, if properly handled, could lead to that ultimate in sensation. He could, he foresaw, mastermind a killing, and with luck be a spectator to the actual deed. The fermenting ingredients of real violence were at hand. What Sibby’s internal crystal ball did not reveal to him was that, for once, he was being outmatched in evil, and that he was not, as he imagined, in full control of the “game.”

What Sibby Salazar privately called “my woman’s intuition” was not working on all cylinders that hot August morning. He had no premonition of calamity for himself, although he had an electric feeling that this could well be the day of climax in the lives of Consuela and George Conrad. It was a deliciously electric feeling, accompanied by something to which he wasn’t accustomed — a slight sensation of regret. It was altogether possible that something remotely like genuine affection for Consuela was what dulled Sibby’s perceptions.

He had never felt anything but contempt and distaste for the others; but he would miss Consuela. He had even considered the possibility of dropping the whole plan, but he knew he would never again be faced with so promising a situation. There was only one George Conrad, dark, brooding, violent, merciless. Poor, dear Consuela. She was, of course, asking for it. A few judicious proddings by Sibby, and George Conrad would explode like a hand grenade.

Yes, poor, dear Consuela...

However, Sibby thought, stretching his naked body sensuously on the silken sheets he’d brought with him to the Conrad country house, there would be the compensation of George’s death. Because George would die too, after a shaken and horrified Sibby gave his eyewitness account to the police. George’s death was the real bull’s-eye in the target — George, whom Sibby had overheard asking Consuela how long “is that crashing bore of a Sibby to be a member of the family?”

“Dear, dear Sibby,” Consuela had sighed a few days before when they had lunched together at the Colony. “Without your help I shall go out of my mind.”

Sibby’s luncheon consisted of a split of champagne and thinly sliced caviar sandwiches. He watched Consuela from under his heavy-lidded eyes, a faintly ironic smile moving the corners of his mouth. She was so very beautiful and so very helpless, he thought. She differed in one major respect from Sibby’s usual women friends. Consuela had not been a rich heiress rushed off her feet by a fortune hunter. Consuela had been lovely but penniless when she married George Conrad. Her determined mother had quietly died of relief shortly after the marriage — after Consuela had achieved her mother’s optimum hopes by making an alliance with the Conrad millions. Happiness and money had been synonymous in mama’s credo. The handsome, brooding George had been the catch of a generation, and for such a catch Consuela could be expected to put up with black tempers and sadistic outbursts of rage. Mama had been certain of that before she died.

But Consuela, Sibby realized, was not bearing up.

“It is two years now, Sibby dear,” Consuela said, “and I must find a way out.”

“You have found a way, if the current rumors are reliable,” Sibby said.

“Rumors?” Her blue eyes, bright as diamonds, seemed to mirror an inner terror.

“Greg Foster,” Sibby said. “Charming, but without any financial resources, my dear.”

“Who cares for money!” Consuela exclaimed lightly.

Sibby’s laughter was a rippling dissonance. His eyes moved over the sable jacket, the diamond earrings, the fabulous engagement and wedding ring combination on her left hand. He thought about the mansion on Fifth Avenue, the country estate in the Berkshires, the whole island in the West Indies, the Rolls Royce, the Mercedes, the Ferrari, the half dozen lesser cars, the horses, the power boats, the corps of servants in each establishment, the bottomless charge accounts with the most famous couturiers in the world. A few concealed bruises on that lovely body were not too much to bear, he thought. George Conrad paid a handsome price for his intimate privileges.

“You said ‘rumors’.” Consuela leaned forward.

“I’d be cautious about extracurricular activities.” Sibby took a small bite of a caviar sandwich. “There is so much for you to lose, my pet.”

“I’m in love,” Consuela said. Her eyes were so bright they dazzled him.

Sibby shrugged. “Divorce — and a one-room apartment on the West Side,” he said, conjuring up the worst nightmare he could think of.

“George won’t agree to a divorce,” she said. “I’m a piece of property he bought and owns. He won’t give me up.”

“So you have an affair with Greg and you laugh at him,” Sibby said. “It would seem, my sweet, that you can have your cake and eat it.”

A little shudder moved Consuela’s seductive body inside her clothes. “You don’t know George,” she said. “He would find a way to kill me if he discovered I was having an affair. And he would discover it, Sibby. I’m watched everywhere I go. At this very moment he knows I’m lunching with you.”

“Should I be frightened?” Sibby asked drily.

“Of course not, Sibby dear. He knows I’m perfectly safe with you.”

“Does he indeed?” Sibby said, his eyes narrowing.

“The thing with Greg began at the Davenports,” Consuela explained. “We went there for a week-end. George was called back unexpectedly to New York on business. I had a few hours with Greg. We weren’t watched because George had planned to do his own watching. In... in those few hours, Sibby, I learned that Greg was all I wanted in the world.”

“And George doesn’t suspect?”

“Not yet. I’m sure — not yet.”

“And how,” Sibby asked, “am I supposed to help?”

“This week-end,” Consuela said. She was breathing hard. “I must have a chance to be with Greg alone. If you will come to the Berkshires with us—”

“How will that help?”

“Now don’t be angry, Sibby. George despises you, but he will not object to my asking you. He will not object to my spending time with you while he works on his precious horses. He has a new jumper that he’ll be schooling. Greg will be staying at an Inn near town. While George thinks you and I are driving about the countryside, I will be with Greg. Please, Sibby! It’s the only way Greg and I can solve our problem.”

He looked at her, wondering. Suppose he demanded a special price? Suppose he insisted on playing the role of lover himself so that he could laugh at George Conrad for the rest of his life? He abandoned that thought because it was then, like a gentle mist drifting in from the sea, he became aware that the greatest of all sensations might be his. A word to George Conrad — the guilty lovers discovered — Sibby a spectator — and death to both these people who treated him so contemptuously. A faint prickle of excitement seemed to run over the whole skin of his body.

“I’ll help you, my sweet. Of course I’ll help you,” he said.

And now, Sibby thought, moving lazily between his silk sheets, the time was close at hand. Today — or tomorrow at the latest.

George Conrad was darkly handsome. He came to breakfast that morning — that hot August morning — in white twill riding breeches and black boots, his silver spurs clanking as he walked. He wore a white polo shirt with a knotted scarf at his throat — the scarf as scarlet as blood.

“What are you two planning for the day?” he asked, his black eyes insolently on Sibby who was at the sideboard helping: himself to creamed finnan haddie which he put on half a golden toasted English muffin.

Consuela sat at the head of the long, oak dining-room table, playing with a glass of juice and some thinly sliced gluten toast. She was almost glittering with excitement. The little fool, Sibby thought. Can’t she control herself? Surely she’ll give herself away.

“I thought of driving Sibby up into the hills — Vermont way,” she said, fighting for casualness. “An all-day picnic.”

George Conrad nodded. He cut into a thin, rare steak with a knife as sharp as a razor blade. Sibby shuddered. Steak for breakfast! “The things that please you grow more and more mysterious, Consuela,” George said drily. “But before you go—”

Consuela’s hand froze on its way toward her coffee cup. A flash of fear made her look — for just an instant — almost ugly.

George laughed. “Just a whim of mine, Connie dear,” George said. “I’d like you to see the new jumper I bought from Rawlinson. He’s a wonderful and terrible animal. He reminds me, in a way, of you, Consuela. Today I am going to teach him that I must have my way. I’d like you and Sibby to watch — if Sibby can bear the sight of a little violence.”

“If we’re to go to Vermont, George—”

“As soon as breakfast is finished we can go down to the training field,” George said, the matter settled as far as he was concerned.

Sibby enjoyed his finnan haddie. He could see Consuela writhing at the enforced delay. Shortly after breakfast she had expected to be in Greg Foster’s arms. The frustration smothered her, and yet the undertone of threat in George’s words couldn’t be ignored.

After breakfast they drove down to the training field, George in his Ferrari, and Sibby and Consuela in the Thunderbird convertible. If George had noticed the two wicker picnic baskets in the back of the Thunderbird — one for Sibby, who would actually spend the day alone, and one for Consuela and Greg Foster — he gave no sign of it.

The new horse, already saddled and waiting for George, was being walked up and down at the edge of the training field by a groom. It was a magnificent black animal, head held high, a light of challenge in wide-set eyes. Consuela pulled the Thunderbird up parallel to the fence surrounding the training field. George had already left the Ferrari and was walking toward the horse. He took over the reins from the groom and led the horse over to where Sibby and Consuela waited.

“Isn’t he a beauty?” George said. There was a curious note of tenderness in his voice which was quite unexpected to Sibby. George rubbed the horse’s nose gently. “He can jump over the moon — if he wanted to. But he has a bad habit of running out. This morning he’ll be cured — once and for all.”

George reached into the pocket of his gabardine riding coat and brought something into view. Sibby felt the small hairs rise on the back of his neck. What George held in his hand was a short length of steel, linked tire chain. He swung up into the saddle and sat there, smiling down at Consuela He was part of the horse — a centaur.

They cantered off down the field — man and horse one.

“I am about to be given an object lesson,” Consuela whispered, and her body, pressed back against Sibby, shuddered.

The field was spotted with jumps — fence and rail, brush, stone walls, with white-painted rail wings marking the entrance to each jump. Directly opposite the Thunderbird was a stone wall that looked to Sibby about five feet tall. Down the field George had turned the black horse toward that wall.

“So gentle, so tender!” Consuela said between clenched white teeth.

Down the field toward the jump came horse and man, first at a canter, then faster and faster. There was a thunder of hoofs, an almost shattering sense of power in the great black animal. Sibby felt himself gripping the top of the car door. They were almost at the wings of the jump when the big black head went down and the horse veered out to the right. At the same instant the steel chain glittered in the morning sunlight as George slashed viciously at the right side of the horse’s head. Something like a scream came from the animal — head suddenly flung up — and then a wild rearing and bucking. The chain rose and fell again.

The horse was suddenly still, shaking and trembling — but still. George turned him and came back along the fence. Sibby stared, fascinated, his eyes wide, his mouth dry. Consuela had lowered her face into her arms which she had crossed on the car’s steering wheel. Two bloody welts showed on the right side of the horse’s head, and its right eye was beginning to swell shut. George leaned forward, stroking the suddenly sweat-wet black neck.

“He’ll learn,” George said cheerfully. “Next time — or the time after.” There was a twisted smile on his lips as he glanced at Consuela, head buried in her arms.

George cantered back down the field, turned the big horse, and started forward again toward the jump. The great horse came with a rush, with all the power of a gigantic machine. Then just at the jump it made a supreme effort to do away with its tormentor. Instead of veering out, the horse leaped to the right, twisting and writhing in a wild effort to buck off the rider.

Not even half an inch of daylight showed between the rider and the leather of the saddle. The chain rose and fell — once, twice, a third time. The great black horse went down almost to its knees, shaking its bloody head like a punch-drunk fighter. George’s skillful hands on the reins lifted the horse up, and the animal stood for a moment, head lowered, shaking from nose to tail.

Then George once more guided him back along the fence toward the Thunderbird. The right side of the horse’s head was bloody, the right eye closed. The beautiful body was in a lather of sweat.

“Bet on the next one, Sibby?” George asked, his voice mocking. But while he spoke he patted the black shoulder in front of him gently.

Then down the field again. And once more the start toward the stone-wall jump. Faster and faster they came. Something must give, Sibby thought. Just before they reached the white painted wings the steel chain glittered again in the sunlight, but this time it did not strike the horse. It swished down beside the horse’s head without touching, and the magnificent animal jumped — like a creature headed for the moon. It seemed to Sibby that the horse cleared the jump with three feet to spare.

As George reined in his mount he leaned forward, almost cooing at the horse as he stroked and patted it. “Good boy! Good boy!”

He swung out of the saddle as he reached the Thunderbird. He was instantly concerned with the horse’s bleeding jaw and swollen eye. “You had to learn, boy,” he whispered. “We all have to learn.” He gave crisp instructions to the groom who trotted over to take the horse. Warm water — epsom salts — to be walked until he was dead cool even if it took all morning.

“I’ll attend to his feeding myself,” George told the groom.

Then he leaned on the fence and lit a cigarette. Consuela had not yet looked at him.

“Seem brutal to you, Sibby?” George asked, taking a deep drag on his cigarette.

“It worked,” Sibby said. His heart was beating against his ribs. As he had known all along, George was the perfect instrument for violence.

“He’ll jump over the top of Madison Square Garden come November,” George said. “He’s learned the facts of life and he’ll be none the worse for it. Well, children, have a nice picnic.”

Consuela started the car without once looking at her husband. Gravel spun under the wheels. She raced away down the winding country road, her eyes straight ahead.

“Not me!” she suddenly cried out. “Not me! Not ever!”

“He’s the soul of gentleness — after the fact,” Sibby observed, smiling to himself.

About twenty miles from the Conrad place Consuela turned off the highway onto a narrow dirt road. They came to a stop in cool pine woods, overlooking a jewel of a small lake. From somewhere in the woods Greg Foster appeared. A blond Viking, all muscle and animal vitality, Sibby thought. Foster scarcely acknowledged Consuela’s introduction. He was an eager man.

Consuela took one of the picnic baskets out of the car.

“Come back around four this afternoon, Sibby dear,” Consuela said. She was already leaning back in the curve of Foster’s arm.

“We’re grateful to you, Mr. Salazar,” Foster said.

“Think nothing of it,” Sibby said, and slid behind the wheel of the Thunderbird.

When Sibby returned to the pine woods at four o’clock, Consuela and Foster were ready for him. Their picnic basket was repacked. Sibby, looking at them, thought only a blind man could miss the fact that these two were lovers who had loved. He thought of George Conrad, the steel tire chain held ready in his powerful right hand...

“Tomorrow at the same time?” Foster pleaded.

“If Sibby will conspire with us,” Consuela said.

“Bless you, my children,” Sibby said.

Only tomorrow it would be different. Tomorrow, just before they left, Sibby would let George Conrad know where he could find his wife and her lover. “I don’t like to bear tales, George, but I really can’t be a party to this kind of deception.”

George would take care of the rest of it.

That evening at the Conrad’s was without tensions except those within Sibby himself. If George Conrad had the remotest idea of what the day had involved he gave no indication of it. Consuela was relaxed and lazy. She gave George an imaginary account of the territory she and Sibby were supposed to have covered on their picnic jaunt. George listened, politely disinterested.

Almost immediately after dinner George excused himself. He planned to be up early in the morning to take the black horse on a cross-country ride.

“Got to face him with every kind of jump the countryside offers,” he said. He gave Sibby a curt nod, and departed.

Consuela and Sibby remained for a while at the candlelit dining-room table, with black coffee and an excellent brandy. The candle flames produced an illusion of bright eagerness in Consuela’s blue eyes.

“Naughty girl,” Sibby said softly.

“Oh, Sibby!” The words were spoken on a sigh of contentment.

“He’ll kill you if he finds out,” Sibby said, nodding toward the door through which George had made his exit.

“He can only find out through you, Sibby dear,” she said. “You’re the perfect front.”

“It’s not particularly flattering to my manhood,” Sibby said.

“Oh, don’t be absurd, Sibby dear.” She moved in her chair, as though her body anticipated rather than remembered. “Would you think it very rude, Sibby, if I left you to your own devices? This child needs sleep — sleep — sleep.”

She wants to enjoy her anticipation alone, Sibby thought.

But early to bed was not Sibby’s dish. He had his own anticipating to do. Tomorrow he would be masterminding a new and deliciously thrilling experience.

Sibby poured himself another brandy and made his way to the library. Perhaps he could find something to read that would pass the time till he felt sleepy. But he could find nothing that would hold his attention. No book or magazine could possibly interest him as much as savoring the prospect of tomorrow.

There were French doors opening from the library onto a flagstone terrace. The hot August day had been followed by a cool starlit night, and Sibby carried his brandy out to the terrace and settled down in a comfortable wicker armchair.

He was just lighting a cigarette when he saw Consuela. She was moving quickly, almost stealthily, down across the lawn toward the stable. A wave of disgust crept over Sibby. An assignation in the stable — like a cheap peasant woman. Tasteless! Vulgar! He would have no regrets after all, Sibby told himself.

He watched her disappear into the stable. He felt a slight tremor go over his body. It might be worthwhile watching, he thought. It would remove any hesitation on his part for tomorrow’s plan.

He smoked his cigarette down to the end and reached over to put it out in the ashtray on the wicker side-table.

Then he saw George Conrad, moving purposefully across the lawn toward the stable. Ice congealed Sibby’s veins. George had stumbled on the truth. George would find Consuela and Greg and it would all be over before Sibby had a chance to mastermind his part of it.

At least he must see it happen! He must be there to watch — to look—

Sibby was actually sweating as he ran noiselessly across the lush green grass. As he got close to the stable he hesitated, motionless, listening. There should be angry, violent voices. There was nothing — except the sudden clanking of a chain.

Sibby crept forward and let himself in through the tackroom door. The others must be beyond, in the stable itself. He opened a well-oiled door at the far end of the tackroom and moved into the stable. Half a dozen equine heads looked out over the top of box-stall doors.

Suddenly Sibby wanted to scream, and he fought with all his might to prevent it. The moonlight illuminated a violence so dreadful that Sibby couldn’t bear to look.

George Conrad lay on the stable floor, and standing over him was Consuela, methodically beating his head with a short length of tire chain.

Sibby pressed back against the wall, praying that by some magic it would give way so that he could fly out through the night.

Consuela, her lovely profile now angular and hard in the pale light, stopped her murderous hailing of George. Then she dropped the chain and bent over George. She was breathing hard.

And then she laughed.

And then she took George by the feet and dragged him toward one of the box stalls. Sibby recognized the bruised black head of the magnificent jumper, its ears at the alert, its good left eye showing white at the rims.

“Back, boy,” Consuela said.

She let go of George’s legs and opened the stall door. And then she pulled George’s body into the stall with the black horse. She came out a moment later and closed the stall door. She bent and picked up the bloody length of tire chain.

It was only then that Sibby noticed she was wearing gloves.

“They won’t hang you for this, boy,” Consuela crooned at the black horse. And then she struck the wounded side of the black horse’s head with the chain.

The horse screamed, reared — and kept rearing. Sibby closed his eyes. Powerful iron-shod hoofs were pounding what remained of George Conrad. Consuela watched, smiling — yes, smiling. And then she tossed the bloody chain into the stall with the horse and her dead husband.

Sibby knew a kind of sick uncertainty. Consuela was suddenly a predatory killer, no longer a defenseless and foolish girl. If she could kill once in this brutal fashion she could kill again. Sibby felt he’d never be able to hide his knowledge from her. With the sweet smell of blood overpowering him he could not think clearly how to handle the situation.

He watched her. She took a deep breath and started to run toward the house. He guessed the next step. She would call for help. She’d heard the horse screaming in the barn, she’d gone down and found George crushed by those iron hoofs. George, she would say, had been disciplining the horse again, and the enraged animal had turned on him, murderous, deadly.

Sibby knew that if he came face to face with Consuela now, she would see, her senses sharply alert, that he knew the truth. Her reaction would be unpredictable. He needed time to erase the state of his emotions before she saw him. He needed a chance to decide exactly how he would behave.

The little Volkswagen in which he’d driven to the country was parked about a hundred yards away. He would hurry to it and drive away before the alarums and excursions were sounded. He would say, later, that left alone by his host and hostess and unable to sleep, he had gone for a drive on that beautiful August night. He would say he had seen nothing, heard nothing. Later he could decide what to do. But he must get away fast before anyone knew he could have witnessed any part of it.

He ran in the shadow of the shrubbery toward his little car. He was strangling for breath when he slid behind the wheel and raced away.

He drove without headlights at first, until he was out of sight of the house. The last thing he heard as he drove away were excited voices and Consuela’s hysterical screaming.

What an act she was putting on!

At last he switched on the headlights. He needed them because the road wound down a mountain side toward the village. His hands gripped the wheel.

And then he felt something cold and hard at the back of his neck.

“Pull over to the side of the road, Mr. Salazar,” a harsh voice said. “This is loaded and I’ll blow your brains out if you hesitate for an instant.”

The brakes screamed and the little car came to a halt just by the white guard-rail. Terrified, Sibby slowly turned his head. The voice behind the gun belonged to Greg Foster.

“I’m sorry about this,” Foster said, almost apologetically. “But I just can’t let you go to the police, you know. I saw you go to the barn and I knew what you would do, so I hid in the back of your car, waiting for you.”

Sibby opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

“It’s a dreadful thing,” Foster said, “but she had no choice. It was him or her, Mr. Salazar. I offered to do it, but she insisted it was safer this way. You were meant to be a witness to his cruelty to the horse — but not to this. I’m sorry.”

“I won’t tell,” Sibby whispered. “I promise! I swear!”

“She has a right to a full life, Mr. Salazar — a right to happiness. I’m afraid we could never trust you. You would threaten us all our lives, and we just can’t have that.”

“Oh, please!” Sibby cried, like a small child.

Then something exploded inside his head as Foster brought down the gun butt. Sibby slumped forward over the wheel.

Foster got out of the car, then raised Sibby’s body slightly so that he could turn the front wheels toward the guard rail. He put the car in gear and jumped back. The little Volkswagen smashed through the rail, started crazily down the hillside, and then began to somersault, making lazy wheeling turns in the air, and finally smashed itself to bits when it hit bottom about six hundred feet below.

Foster turned and walked quietly back toward the Conrad house.

A half hour later, in the library of the Conrad house, Consuela sat in a big green-leather armchair, her face white, her eyes red from weeping. Greg Foster stood just behind the chair, a comforting hand on her shoulder. They were the perfect picture of a grief-stricken wife and a solicitous friend.

There were two State Troopers in the room, one by the door, the other, a sergeant, standing by Consuela’s chair, notebook in hand.

“If you’d prefer to talk about this tomorrow, Mrs. Conrad—” the sergeant began deferentially.

“I’d rather get it over with, Sergeant Martin,” Consuela said, her voice exhausted. “George — my husband — had his own individual theories about training horses. Outside the training exercises he was gentleness and kindness itself. But in the training period he was heavy-handed — some people might think, cruel. That... that horse — it had a bad habit of running out at a jump. George had been trying to cure the horse of the habit by striking him alongside the head with a piece of tire chain. You’ve seen the horse — you’ve seen its head and damaged eye. That was done this morning.

“Tonight, George must have gone down to the stable to see how the horse was. He had taken care of it after the morning session. He’d fed it and bathed its wounds. Perhaps it’s difficult to understand how a man who could beat a horse with a steel chain could also love it. But that was George. But the horse — well, obviously it hadn’t forgotten or forgiven. When it found itself in the close quarters of the box stall with George it took its revenge.

“George must have tried to defend himself with the chain which you found in the stall. But that black brute was too much for him. I could hear the horse screaming with fury all the way up here at the house, but, God help me, I was too late to help.”

“It seems open and shut,” Sergeant Martin said.

“It only seems that way, Sergeant,” said a dry, acidulous voice from the doorway.

Consuela stiffened. Greg Foster took a quick step back from the chair, his face suddenly white with shock.

Standing in the doorway was the bloody specter of Sibby Salazar. He was holding a handkerchief to a bleeding wound at the back of his head. His white linen suit was torn and stained with grass and dirt. His narrowed eyes were fixed on Consuela. She looked back at him, her eyes feverish — pleading, threatening.

“Only the good die young, my sweet,” Sibby said.

“Who are you?” Sergeant Martin asked.

“Sebastian Salazar, a house guest,” Sibby said.

“I... I told you Mr. Salazar had gone for a drive in his car, Sergeant,” Consuela said. The cords in her neck stood out.

“Mr. Salazar did not go for a ride,” Sibby said. “Mr. Salazar was headed for the trooper barracks to report a murder.”

“Murder!” the Sergeant said sharply.

“If you’ll take the trouble to search Mr. Foster I think you will still find a gun in his pocket. Even if he has tried to wipe it clean I think you will find traces of flesh and hair on its butt. My flesh and my hair, Sergeant. You see,” Sibby drawled, “Mr. Foster tried to kill me, too.”

“Too?”

Sergeant Martin took a quick step toward Foster who seemed to have gone into a trance. The gun was still in his coat pocket.

“You see, Sergeant,” Sibby said, “I was an eyewitness to the murder. I saw Mr. Foster go to the stable and wait there for Mr. Conrad.” Try to kill me, will you, buster? Sibby’s eyes said.

“Sibby!” Consuela whispered.

“Young Mr. Foster has long been infatuated with Mrs. Conrad,” Sibby went on coolly. “I suspected there might be trouble when I saw George Conrad go down to the stable. I followed — unfortunately arriving too late to prevent Mr. Foster from beating George to death with that tire chain and dragging him into the stall with the horse. Then I saw him strike the horse with the chain so that the animal, maddened by pain, would seem to have trampled George.”

“No!” Foster cried out.

Sibby shrugged. “I am no physical match for a man of Foster’s physique — especially a man in such a murderous mood. I waited for him to leave and then I ran for my car. But he must have seen me. When I was halfway down the mountain he rose up from the back of my car, put a gun to my head, and forced me to stop. Then he struck me over the head and launched the car through the guard rail and down the mountain side. It’s a miracle that I’m here, Sergeant. He hadn’t shut the door properly, and with the first lurch of the car I was thrown out. Apparently he didn’t notice that or I wouldn’t be here. The car is smashed to pieces, but luckily it didn’t burn. You should be able to find some of Mr. Foster’s fingerprints in the wreckage.”

Sibby looked at Foster. He wanted to laugh. The romantic idiot would play it noble to the very end.

Sibby’s narrowed eyes then turned to meet Consuela’s shocked and incredulous stare. He smiled. You can save him by telling the truth, his smile said. But you won’t. Your own hide is far too important to you. But from now on, Consuela, I control that hide and all that goes with it. You can’t use me, my pet, and then step on me like a bug.

Then Sibby played the scene out. He moved over and knelt in front of Consuela He took her burning hands in his. “I’m so sorry, poor dear Consuela,” he said. Sergeant Martin couldn’t see the laughter in his heavy-lidded eyes. “You and George — poor George — had so much to live for. But you know you can count on me, darling, to help you through it.”

Her lips moved and the words behind them must have matched the loathing in her eyes. But the words weren’t spoken, because Sibby pressed his cool fingertips against those lips.

“Don’t try to thank me now, my darling,” he said, the needle sharp as ever.