Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 50, No. 1. Whole No. 284, July 1967

The Second Commandment by Charlotte Armstrong

We challenge you on three counts:

One: we challenge you to stop reading this short novel once you have started it.

Two: we challenge you to think of a more unusual short novel inutile mystery field.

Three: we challenge you to name another mystery story that deals with a “taboo” theme as honestly and inoffensively as Charlotte Armstrong does — or with less “sensationalism” than Charlotte Armstrong uses in handling so “delicate” a subject.

As we said above, this is one of the most unusual short novels EQMM has ever published...

Halley was sure clad the damn fog had rolled up and was billowing off over the mountains. Hey, if you looked southwest, you could even see a couple of stars. Lucky. They might have to hang around, maybe till morning.

And it was a little too quiet out here. Not much traffic on California Route 1; on a night like this there had better not be. The sea kept booming; it always did. The men shouted once in a while at their work, but they knew their business. They’d have her up on the road, and pretty quick.

Hey, here’s my chance, thought Halley, to get all the stuff down, like they keep telling me. So the young Sheriff’s Deputy opened the back door of his official car and leaned over to let the dome light fall on his paper work. The husband was sitting inside, and quiet.

“May I please have your name again, sir?” Halley used the polite official drone.

“Hugh Macroy.” The other’s voice, even in exhaustion, had a timbre and a promise of richness. A singer, maybe? Young Halley’s ear had caught this possibility when he had first answered the call. He never had seen the man — at least, not too well. Now the lighting was weird — red lights flashing on the equipment, for instance.

“Address?” Halley asked, after he had checked the spelling.

“382 Scott — no, I’m sorry. 1501 South Columbo.”

“That’s in Santa Carla, sir? Right out of L.A.?”

“Yes.” The man was holding his head at the temples, between thumb and two middle fingers. Poor old guy, he didn’t hardly remember where he lived. But Halley, who knew better than to indulge in emotions of his own over one of these routine tragedies, figured himself lucky the fellow wasn’t cracking up. “Your age, sir?”

“Forty-five.”

(Check. Kind of an old-looking guy.) “Occupation?”

“I am the Pastor at St. Andrew’s.”

Halley became a little more respectful, if possible, because... well, hell, you were supposed to be. “Just you and your wife in the car, right, sir? En route from Carmel, didn’t you say, sir? To Santa Carla?”

“We had expected to stay the night in San Luis Obispo.”

“I see, sir. Your wife’s name, please?”

“Sarah. Sarah Bright.”

Halley wrote down Sara. “Her age, please?”

“Fifty-five.”

(Huh!) “Housewife, sir, would you say?”

“I suppose so.” The man was very calm — too beat, probably, thought Halley, to be anything else. Although Halley had heard some who carried on and cried and sometimes words kept coming out of them like a damn broken faucet.

“And how long you been married?” the Deputy Sheriff continued politely.

“I think it has been two days, if today is Wednesday.” Now, in the syllables, the voice keened softly.

“Any chil—” (Oh, oh!) “Excuse me, sir.”

“There is Sarah’s daughter, in San Luis Obispo. Mrs. Geoffrey Minter. She should be told about this, as soon as may be. She will have been worrying.”

“Yes, sir,” said Halley, reacting a little crisply not only to the tone but to the grammar. “If you’ve got her address or phone, I can get her notified, right now.”

The man dictated an address and a phone number as if he were reading them from a list he could see. Halley could tell that his attention had gone away from what he was saying. He was awfully quiet.

Halley thanked him and called in from the front seat. “Okay. They’ll call her, sir. We probably won’t be here too long now,” he told the silent figure and drew himself away and shut the car doors gently.

He strolled on strong legs to the brink. He could hear the heavy water slamming into rock forty feet below. (Always did.) The night sky was clearing all the way overhead now. There was even a pale moon.

Some honeymoon, thought Halley. But he wasn’t going to say anything. It had occurred to him that this one might not be routine, not exactly, and that Halley had better watch his step, and be, at all times, absolutely correct.

“How’s it going?” he inquired cheerfully of the toilers.

They had a strong light playing on her as she came up in the basket. She was dead, all right.

Macroy got out of the car and looked down at her and maybe he prayed or something. Halley didn’t wait too long before he touched the clergyman’s arm.

“They’ll take her now, sir. If you’ll just come with me?”

The man turned obediently. Halley put him into the back seat of the official car and got in to drive.

As the Deputy steered skillfully onto the pavement Macroy said, “You are very kind. I don’t think I could drive — not just now.” His voice sounded shaky and coming over shaky teeth, but it was still singsongy.

“That’s all right, sir,” said Halley. But he thought, Don’t he know his car’s got to stay put and get checked out, for gossakes? That kind of voice — Halley didn’t exactly trust it. Sounded old-timey to him. Or some kind of phony.

On the highway, that narrow stretch along the curving cliffs, Halley scooted along steadily and safely toward the place where this man must go. By the book. And that was how Halley was going, you bet — by the book. It might not be a routine case at all.

So forget the sight of Sarah Bright Macroy, aged fifty-five, in her final stillness. And how she’d looked as if she had about four chins, where the crepey skin fell off her jawbone. And thick in the waist, but with those puny legs some old biddies get, sticking out like sticks, with knots in them, and her shoes gone so that the feet turned outward like a couple of fins, all gnarled and bunioned. Um boy, some honeymoon! Halley couldn’t figure it.

So swiftly, decisively, youthfully, Halley drove the official car, watching the guy from the back of his head, in case he got excited or anything. But he didn’t. He just sat there, quiet, stunned.

Sheriff’s Captain Horace Burns was a sharp-nosed man of forty-seven and there was a universal opinion (which included his own) that you had to get up early in the morning to fool him. His office had seen about as much wear as he had, but Burns kept it in stern order, and it was a place where people behaved themselves.

Burns had felt satisfied with Halley, who sat up straight on the hard chair by the door, with his young face poker-smooth. His report had been clear and concise. His mien was proper. The Captain’s attention was on this preacher. He saw a good-looking man, about his own age, lean and well set up, his face aquiline but rugged enough not to be “pretty.” He also saw the pallor on the skin, the glaze of shock in the dark eyes — which, of course, were to be expected.

Macroy, as invited, was telling the story in his own words, and the Captain, listening, didn’t fiddle with anything. His hands were at rest. He listened like a cat.

“So we left Carmel early this afternoon,” Macroy was saying. “We had driven up on 101. We thought we’d come down along the ocean, having no idea that the fog was going to roll in the way it did.”

Behind him a clerk was taking it down. Macroy didn’t seem to be aware of that.

“But it did,” said that voice, and woe was in it. “As thick a fog as I have ever experienced. We had passed Big Sur. You can’t, you know, get through the mountains and change routes.”

“You’re stuck with it,” the Captain said agreeably.

“Yes. Well, it was very slow going and very tiring. We were so much delayed that the sun went down, although you could hardly tell.”

“You stopped,” Burns prodded, thinking that the voice sounded like a preacher’s, all right. “About what time?”

“I don’t know. There was a sudden rift and I was able to see the wide place to our right. On the ocean side. A scenic point, I imagine.” The Captain nodded. “Well, it looked possible to take the car off the highway there, so I — so I did. I had been so tense for such a long time that I was very glad to stop driving. Then, Sarah wished to get out of the car, and I—”

“Why?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Why did she wish to get out of the car?” The Captain used the official drone. When the minister didn’t answer, Burns said, “It has to be included in your statement.”

“Yes,” said Macroy. He glanced at the clerk. “She needed to—”

When he got stuck, Halley’s face was careful not to ripple.

“Answer a call of nature,” droned the Captain. “Has to be on record. That’s right, Reverend?”

Macroy said with sober sadness, “Yes. I took the flashlight and got out to make sure there was enough margin between us and the edge.” He stared over the Captain’s head, seeing visions. “The light didn’t accomplish much,” he went on, “except to create a kind of blank white wall, about three feet before me. But I could check the ground. So I helped her out. I gave her the light and cautioned her. She promised not to go too far. I, of course, got back into my seat—”

He hesitated.

The Captain said, “Car lights on, were they?”

“Yes.”

“She went around behind the car?”

“Yes.”

“Go on. Full details, please. You’re doing fine.”

“I was comforting my right shoulder with a little massage,” said the minister with a touch of bitterness, “when I thought I heard her cry out.”

“Motor off, was it?” The Captain’s calm insistence held him.

“Yes. It was very quiet. Except for the surf. When I heard, or thought I heard... I listened, but there was no other cry. In a short while I called to her. There was no answer. I couldn’t... couldn’t, of course, see anything. I called again. And again. Finally, I got out.”

“And what did you do?” said the Captain, and again his droning voice held the man.

“The flashlight,” he said, “was there.”

“On, was it? The light on, I mean?”

“Yes.” Macroy seemed to wait for and rely on these questions. “It was lying on the ground, pointing to sea. I picked it up. I began to call and range the whole — the whole — well, it is a sort of platform, you might say, a sort of triangular plateau. I shuffled over all of it — between the pavement and the brink — and she wasn’t...”

“Take your time,” said the Captain.

But the minister lifted his head and spoke more rapidly. “At last, and I don’t know when, a car came along. Mercifully it stopped. The driver offered me a ride. But I couldn’t leave her.” The anguished music was back in the voice. “How could I leave her?”

“He didn’t get out? The driver of the car?” said Burns, again coming to the rescue.

“No. No. I begged him to send some help. Then I just kept on ranging and calling and — hoping and waiting, until help came.” Macroy sank back.

“He called in, all right,” Burns said in his flat tone. “Hung up without giving his name. But he can be found, I think, any time we need him.”

Macroy was staring at the Captain with total incomprehension. He said, “I would like to thank him — yes, I would like to some day.” Not now, wept his voice. Not yet.

“Can be arranged.” Burns leaned back. “Just a couple of questions, Mr. Macroy. Was it your wife’s suggestion that you stop the car?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Did she ask you to stop? Or was it your idea?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t following. No, it was my... well, you see, I knew she was in distress. But it was I who saw the opportunity.”

“I see,” said the Captain. “And you got back in the car for reasons of... er... privacy?”

“Values,” said Macroy with sudden hollowness. “How ridiculous! In that dangerous spot. I knew how dangerous it was. I shouldn’t have let her. I shouldn’t.”

The Captain, had he been a cat, would have had his ears up, and his tail, curled, would have stirred lazily.

“I will always—” Macroy was as good as weeping now. “Always regret.” His eyes closed.

“You were only a few miles from low ground,” said the Captain calmly. “You didn’t know that?”

Macroy had his face in his hands and he rocked his whole body in the negative.

The Captain, when his continued listening was obviously proving unprofitable, said for the record, “You didn’t know. Well, sir, I guess that’s about all, for now.”

“Where have they brought her?” Macroy dropped his hands.

“I... er... wouldn’t go over to the funeral parlor. No point. You realize there’s got to be an autopsy?” Macroy said nothing. “Now, we aren’t holding you, but you’re a lot of miles from home. So I think what you’d better do, Reverend, is go over to the motel and rest there for the night. We’ll need your signature on your statement, for one thing. In the morning will do.” The Captain stood up.

“Thank you,” said Macroy. “Yes. I couldn’t leave.”

“Did you push your wife?” said the Captain conversationally.

Macroy’s face could be no paler. “No,” he said with wondering restraint. “I told you.”

“The motel,” said the Captain in exactly the same conversational manner, “is almost straight across the highway, a little to your left.”

Macroy ducked his head in farewell, said nothing, and walked to the door. Halley jumped up and politely opened it for him.

“Halley.” Burns was mild but Halley turned quickly and let the door close itself behind the minister.

“Yes, sir.”

“This one is going to splash,” said Burns glumly. “So watch yourself.”

“Yes, sir. Did he do it, sir?” My Master will know, of course, Halley’s face said.

“Whether he did or not, we’re going to be able to say we went looking for every damn crumb of evidence there ain’t going to be.” This was, however crossly said, a palsy-walsy kind of thing for Burns to be saying.

“You saw the woman, sir?” The Captain stared sourly but Halley went on. It bubbled out of him. “I can’t help thinking — some honeymoon! I mean—”

The Captain grunted. “Yah, and he’s a pretty good-looking Joe.” (Halley thought he concealed his astonishment.) “Well, kiss the cow,” said Burns with a warning glare. (Halley hadn’t fooled him.) “And keep your little old baby face shut.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thing of it is,” said the Captain, less belligerently, “there was this opportunity. But if he did it, he don’t know why. And he can’t believe it, so he don’t really know it at all. Don’t think that can’t happen.”

Halley marveled respectfully.

“You get on over to the funeral parlor and when the daughter shows, bring her by.”

Burns turned to instruct the clerk. Damn vultures, he thought. The damn press was out there. Well, they didn’t have to go by the book; but they’d get precious little out of him.

Saul Zeigler, aged twenty-two, was standing with Carstairs in the hallway of the low building. Zeigler was a local, just out of college, working for peanuts, and green as grass. He deferred to the older man, who was semiretired these days, but still picked up occasional plums for the big L.A. paper. Carstairs, with his connections, had already been on the phone to Santa Carla. Zeigler was impressed.

When they saw a man come out of the Captain’s office alone, Carstairs moved in before Zeigler could get his own wits going. The hall was a barren length, with institutional green walls, a worn linoleum floor, and three naked light bulbs strung in a line overhead. The tall thin man looked ghastly.

“Reverend Macroy?” Carstairs was saying. “Excuse me. Terrible tragedy. Could we talk a minute?” Carstairs did not wait for permission. “Your bride was Sarah Bright? That’s right, isn’t it, sir?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Carstairs,” said Carstairs, forcing the manly handshake. “I’m that necessary evil, the newspapermen. But it’s always best to get the facts from the ones who were there. Better all around.”

Smooth, thought Zeigler, as Carstairs kept boring in.

“Sarah Bright was the widow of Herman Bright? Bright Electronics?”

“Yes.”

“A very successful enterprise, I understand.”

“Yes, I— Yes.”

“I understand you’d moved into her mansion on South Columbo?” Carstairs was chatty-sounding.

“Her house,” said Macroy wearily.

“About how long had you two been courting, Reverend?” Carstairs became the old buddy.

Zeigler thought the drawn face winced, but the man said quietly, “We met about six months ago.”

“She was an older woman?”

“Older than I,” said Macroy. “If you would excuse me, please, I am not feeling up to an interview. I would like to get over to the motel now and be alone.”

Carstairs brushed this off as if it had never been spoken. “Bright died four years ago, wasn’t it? And your first wife died when?”

The minister put out one hand and braced himself on the wall. “Nine years ago,” he said patiently.

“You and Sarah Bright got married Monday?”

“Yes. In the morning.”

“And took off for a honeymoon trip?” Carstairs had shouldered around to face Macroy, who seemed driven closer to the wall.

“Yes. Yes. May I please—” Macroy pleaded.

“I’m very sorry,” said Carstairs, “I know this is a very bad time.” But his feet in their battered alligator shoes didn’t move. “If you could just run over what happened, just briefly? I certainly want to get it absolutely straight, absolutely correct.”

“We left Carmel early this afternoon.” The minister put his free palm over one eye. “I took the scenic route because I thought she would enjoy—”

“Bum choice this time of year, wasn’t it?” said Carstairs in a genial way.

The minister took his hand down and moved until his shoulders touched the wall. He was blinking, as if there was something going on that he could not understand. His silence was thunderous.

Zeigler found himself pushing in to say respectfully, “I understand, sir, that the whole coastline was closed in tight. Worst fog in years. Pretty bad, was it, sir?”

“Yes,” said Macroy, but he was looking at the older man and a hostility had sprung up, as invisible but as unmistakable as a gust of wind. The dazed look was beginning to lift from the dark eyes, like mist being blown away.

Carstairs said blandly, “Now, you stopped, sir? Why was that?”

Macroy didn’t answer.

“I’m trying to find out how this terrible thing could have happened,” said Carstairs, all innocent patience. “Why you stopped, for instance? What I mean, there couldn’t have been a whole lot of scenery to see, not in that fog and after dark.” Now his innocence was cruel, and he was defensively hostile. Zeigler could feel it on his own skin.

Macroy said, “No.” His voice had gone flat.

“Why did you get out of the car? Or, I should say, why did the lady get out? By herself, did she? Didn’t have a little lover’s spat, I’m sure. Then why did she get out?”

Carstairs was bullying now, and young Zeigler discovered that he couldn’t take it. So he tugged at the bigger man. “She hadda go, for gosh sake,” he said deep in his skinny young throat, “and you know it, so why badger the poor guy? Layoff!”

“So okay,” said Carstairs, in the same strangled manner, “but you tell me how in hell she could have fallen off that damn cliff?”

“Maybe you don’t understand women,” said Zeigler fiercely.

Carstairs laughed. Then Zeigler saw the minister’s face. He stood there, leaning against the wall, having made no move to escape. On his face there was such a look — of loathing and sorrow and bewilderment.

“People are always interested,” said Carstairs cheerily, turning back on his prey. “Do you happen to know what Mrs. Bright — excuse me, Mrs. Macroy — was worth?”

Macroy shook his head slightly. His lips were drawn back. He looked like a death’s-head. Abruptly he thrust himself from the wall. “Let me pass.”

“Why, certainly. Certainly.” Carstairs played surprise that his courtesy could possibly be questioned. “Thank you very much, sir,” he called after Macroy, who walked away from them. Then he said to Zeigler, “And how do you like them velvet tonsils? I’ll bet he knows. The merry widow was worth millions, kiddo. So maybe she hadda go. Right?”

Zeigler didn’t dare open his mouth.

Then, at the far end of the hall, the street doors burst open and a woman and two men entered. The woman came first, weeping violently, her head down, a handkerchief over her mouth.

Macroy saw her and said, “Eunice. I’m so sorry, my dear. So sorry.” The music was back in his voice.

But the woman dropped the handkerchief and lifted red-rimmed furious eyes. She was about thirty, already thickening at the middle, no beauty at best, and now ugly in hysteria. “I don’t want to talk to you,” she shrieked, recoiling. “I never want to see you again. Ever!”

A dapper man with dark-rimmed eyeglasses put his arm around her. “Come now, Eunice. Hush up, sweetheart.”

“All I know,” the woman screamed, “is that my darling mother was just fine until she had to marry him, and now she’s all smashed up and dead and broken.” She wailed and hit out at the air.

Captain Burns was there as if he had flown in. He didn’t care for scenes. He and Halley took hold of the woman between them. But she cried out to her husband, “You tell him. He’s not going to live in my mother’s house and have all my mother’s lovely things.”

Burns said, “You’ll come with me, now, Mrs. Minter.” And she went.

But Geoffrey Minter lingered to say to Macroy in a high, cold, uninflected voice, “You’d better not try to talk to Eunice, not just now. She’s very upset.”

(The understatement of the year, thought Zeigler.)

Macroy said, “Geoffrey, believe me—”

But Geoffrey said, “By the way, Eunice wants me to take charge of the funeral. And I certainly hope you aren’t going to raise any objections.”

“No,” said Macroy, staggering. “No. None at all.” He walked away, curving erratically to brace himself against the wall at every few strides.

Zeigler said, “He’s never going to make it across the damn road.”

“So be his guide,” said Carstairs. “You and your bleeding heart. But what you get you bring back to Papa. I’ll cover the loved ones.”

Young Zeigler went sailing after the minister. Carstairs was waylaying the son-in-law. Zeigler heard Minter’s high voice saying, “I don’t know the legal position. No new will has been drawn, not since the marriage. We’ll find out.” He, too, seemed furious, in his own tight way.

Zeigler took the Reverend Macroy’s arm and began to lead him.

The arm he held was tense and deeply trembling and it accepted his hand only by default; but Zeigler got them safely across the highway and into the motel office. Zeigler explained to the woman there — “tragic accident” — “no luggage” — “Sheriff’s Captain suggested.”

The woman was awed and a little frightened. It was Zeigler who took the key. He knew the place. He guided Macroy into the inner court, found the numbered door, unlocked it, switched on a light, glanced around at the lifeless luxury.

He didn’t know whether he was now alone with a heartbroken bridegroom — or with a murderer. It was his job to find out, if he could. He said, “Looks all right, sir. Now, how about I call up and have somebody bring some hot coffee? Maybe a sandwich? Probably you ought to eat.”

A funny thing was happening to Zeigler’s voice. It was getting musical. Damn it, whichever this man was, he was suffering, or Zeigler was a monkey’s uncle.

But the minister rejected music. “No, thank you. Nothing.” He remained motionless, outside the room. There were hooded lights close to the ground along the flowered borders of this courtyard, and they sent shadows upward to patch that stony face with black. Zeigler looked where the man was looking — at three high scraggly palm tops, grotesque against the clearing sky; between them and the stars some wispy remembrances of that deadly fog still scudded.

“Come in,” coaxed Zeigler. “I’ll be glad to stick around a little bit, if you’d like—”

“I’d rather be alone.”

It was the time for Zeigler to insist solicitously. But he heard himself saying, “Okay. I don’t blame you.” As he turned away, Zeigler said to himself in disgust, and almost audibly, “But I’m one hell of a newspaperman.”

Macroy said, “And I’m one hell of a clergyman.”

He didn’t seem to know that he had spoken. He was standing perfectly still, with his face turned up. His hands were clenched at his sides. Up there the palm fronds against that ambiguous sky were like a witch’s hands, bent at the knuckles, with too many taloned fingers dripping down.

The moment had an eerie importance, as if this were some kind of rite. To placate the evil mist, now departing? Or a rite of passage?

A goose walked over Zeigler’s grave.

Then the Reverend Macroy went into the room and closed the door.

Carstairs pounced. “What? What?”

“Nah. Not a word,” said Zeigler, lying instinctively. “Shocked stupid. Poor guy.”

“How stupid can you get, for more than a million bucks?” said Carstairs. “Especially if you’re untouchable.”

“What? What?” said Zeigler immediately.

“I just got off the phone with his Bishop.” Carstairs looked disgusted. “Whad’ya know? Your buddy is a Lamb of God or something and pure as the driven snow.”

“What did he ever do to you?” asked Zeigler curiously.

“What did I do to him, for God’s sake?” Carstairs’ eyes looked hot. “So I don’t live in the dark ages! I got to get back on the phone.”

Zeigler wondered who was guilty of what. He honestly didn’t know.

The Bishop, whose name was Roger Everard, came as soon as he could, which was at about ten o’clock the following morning. “I don’t think it’s wise, Hugh,” he said soothingly, as he pulled up his trouser legs to sit down and gaze compassionately at this unshaven face, so drawn with suffering. “I don’t think you should make any such decision, and certainly not so precipitously. It is not wise at this time.”

“But I cannot—” said Macroy.

“Surely you understand,” said Everard, who often had a brisk executive way of speaking, “that these people are only doing what is their obligation, according to law. Nobody seriously imagines, my dear fellow, that this was anything but an accident. And you must not feel abandoned, either. After all, you should realize that the members of your congregation can scarcely rally around when they don’t even know where you are. Now, now.” The Bishop didn’t pat him on the head, but he might as well have. “There are certain things that must be done and I am here to do them.”

“I am not—” said Macroy in triple gasps, “good enough — for the job.”

“You have had a terrible shock,” said the Bishop didactically, “a grievous loss, and a very bad night. I beg you to be guided by me. Will you be guided by me?”

The Bishop had already tried praying aloud, but when he had seen from a corner of his eye that the praying was only increasing Macroy’s distress, he had cut it short.

“You know,” he continued, leaving God temporarily unmentioned, “that I am perfectly sure of your complete innocence, that I entirely understand, that I mourn your dear wife with you, and that I want only to be helpful and do what is best? You know that, do you not?”

“I know,” groaned Macroy.

“Well, now. Here is what I advise. First, you must make yourself presentable. I believe that your suitcase is now available. Then, since you are not to be in charge — and after all, Hugh, Sarah isn’t here — you must come home.”

“Where is home?” Macroy said. “I gave up the apartment. And I cannot go to Sarah’s house.”

“Home with me, of course,” said the Bishop triumphantly. “Now, I have brought along young Price. His father used to do my legal work and the son has more or less inherited. Freddy may not be the churchman his father was, but he is trained and intelligent and surely he can be helpful in this unfamiliar thicket. There must be an inquest, you see. I want you to talk to him, and then you must talk to the Sheriff’s man, but I should imagine only briefly. And, Hugh, I want you to brace yourself to your tasks. I shall drive you by your church and you will go to your office long enough to cancel or rearrange your appointments and delegate your responsibilities. You must be strong and you must not be afraid, for remember—” and the Bishop went into scripture.

When he had finished, the face was looking somewhat less strained; so the Bishop did pat Macroy, although only on a shoulder, and then he trotted back across the road to see whether there was any other way in which he could be helpful. A very busy man himself, the Bishop had had to cancel several appointments; but he did not begrudge his time and effort in this emergency. Obviously, poor Macroy was devastated, and the Bishop must and would take over.

Frederick Price, a busy young man in his middle thirties, ready and willing to be useful, came swinging into the court of the motel, carrying the Reverend Macroy’s suitcase, which had been taken from Macroy’s car. The car was now parked behind the Sheriff’s office, still subject to examinations of some technical kind.

Price knocked on the proper door and went in, introduced himself, and offered the minister his own possessions. He saw the strain and the fatigue, of course, and was not surprised. He didn’t believe this man was guilty of any crime. He guessed him to be a sensitive type and thought the whole thing, especially the damned red tape, was a rotten shame under the circumstances. But Price was well acquainted with red tape.

As Macroy opened the suitcase and took out his shaving kit and a clean shirt, Price said, “I’ve been talking to Burns and the others. The inquest is set for Friday morning. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble at all, sir. I’ll be with you. You’ll be all right, sir, so don’t worry. It’s only a formality. As a matter of fact, there is no evidence of any kind.”

“Evidence?” said Macroy vaguely. He went into the bathroom to shave, leaving the door open.

“Oh, by the way,” sang out Price, loudly enough to be heard over the buzz of the little electric machine, “they found that motorist. The one who came by?” Price was practising lay psychology. He’d better not pour it on too thick or too soon — not all that he had found out. Chat a little. Engage the mind. Distract the sorrow. Un-numb the man, if he could.

“Captain Burns was pretty clever,” he continued. “As soon as that call came in last night, he guessed from where. So right away he calls a man — Robbins is his name — the man who runs the first all-night gas station you hit once you’re off the cliffs. He asked this Robbins to take a look and see if anyone had just been using the phone booth, and if possible to get the license number on his car. But the gas-station man did even better, because the fellow had used his credit card.”

Price got up and ambled toward the bathroom, not sure he was being heard. Macroy seemed to be avoiding the sight of himself in the mirror while he shaved.

“Name was Mitchell Simmons.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The man who stopped, out there. On California One.” Price understood Macroy’s fragmented attention.

“He was very kind,” murmured Macroy.

“What he was,” said Price, “was very drunk. Oh, he corroborates what you say, of course. He’s a salesman. Admits he was in high spirits, to coin a pun, and in the mood to pick up waifs and strays. Which is a risk, you know.”

“It is?”

“Matter of fact,” said Price cheerily, “it was one of his strays who phoned the Sheriff’s office. Your kind friend was in no condition to dial, I guess.”

The minister turned his clean-shaven face and it was full of pain.

Price said quietly, “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to say he wasn’t kind. Look, I’ve got some further details. I suppose you’ll want to know... er... just how she died. Burns will tell you. Or I can, if you like.”

“Thank you,” said Macroy. He came back into the bedroom and started to unbutton his rumpled shirt. “Yes?”

“She broke her neck on the rocks,” said Price. “So it was instantaneous, if that’s any comfort. No pain at all.”

Macroy’s face was still.

“She... well, you see—” Price was remembering uncomfortably that it may have taken very little time to fall forty feet, but if had taken some. “She was washed to and fro until she was—” Price didn’t have the heart to say how battered. “Well, soaking wet, for one thing. The Coroner says that her bladder was empty, but that has no meaning. With death—”

Macroy sat down abruptly and put his hands over his face. “Go on,” he said.

“That... er... part of it,” said Price. “It’s a little unfortunate that it has to be brought out. But I think I can assure you that it will all be handled in good taste. I think, by the way,” Price changed the subject gladly, “that Minter was cooled off considerably. He certainly made a few poorly chosen remarks last night — about her estate, I mean. But he’s thought twice about it and he’ll be more circumspect in the future.”

Macroy was shaking his head. “I don’t want her money. I won’t have anything to do with Sarah’s money. That wasn’t what she was worth.”

Price was unable to keep from sighing his relief. “That’s fine,” he said innocently. “Now, please don’t worry about Friday’s inquest, sir. I’ll be there, right by your side all the time. The thing is to give your testimony as quietly as possible and try to — I could coach you a little, perhaps. I’ve been through this before, you know.”

“Thank you. Have they — finished with her?” Macroy took his hands down and seemed stiffly controlled. He didn’t look at Freddy Price.

“The body will be released in time to be flown to Santa Carla for services on Saturday. Mrs. Minter wants the services there — because of her mother’s friends. I’m sure—” Price stuck. The fact was, he couldn’t be sure that Macroy was going to be welcome at his wife’s funeral.

Macroy stood up and reached for his clean shirt.

“As for this inquest, that has to be, you know,” said the young man. “It will be an ordeal. Why should I lie to you?”

Macroy looked at him curiously.

“But there’s nothing to worry about, really,” said Price heartily. “The important thing is to get you completely in the clear.”

“Is it?” said Macroy monotonously.

In the car later on, the Bishop excused himself and began to work on some papers. Price was riding next to the Bishop’s driver. Macroy sat silent in a rear corner.

When they pulled up before St. Andrew’s, the Bishop noticed that Macroy was looking at it as if he had never seen it before. “Come,” said Everard briskly, “run in. Your secretary will be there, I assume. Just make your arrangements as quickly as possible.”

Price looked around. “You clergymen sound as if you’re in the old rat-race, just like everybody else.”

“Too true,” sighed the Bishop, “too true.”

Macroy got out and walked through the arch and across the flagstones and then into his office. Miss Maria Pinero, aged forty, leaped up and cried out, “Oh, Mr. Macroy! Oh, Mr. Macroy!” She had heard all about it on the air.

In the car Price said to the Bishop, “It’s still a little hard to figure how she could have fallen. They didn’t find a thing, sir. They can’t even be sure just where she went over. Too many people messed around out there, while they were getting her up the cliff. But there’s nothing for him to worry about, that’s for sure.”

“I see,” said the Bishop, looking sternly over the tops of his spectacles. “Guide him, Freddy, will you? He’s in a sad state, I’m afraid.”

“Do you think, sir,” said Freddy Price, “I could possibly ask him to tone down his voice? It might sound... well, just a bit theatrical.”

The Bishop’s brows moved. “Bring it to his attention. That is, if you can get his attention.” The Bishop sighed deeply. “No relatives. Nobody who can reach him on that needed human level. Well...”

“I’ll take care of everything,” Miss Pinero was saying. “Of course, I will. I understand just how you feel. It seems so cruel. To get out, just to stretch her legs after a long, long drive—” She began to weep.

Miss Pinero was not an unhand-some woman, but something about her did not appeal to men. As a matter of fact, Miss Pinero did not like men, either. But the Reverend Macroy was different. So kind, so clean and gentle — and so distant. She would do almost anything for him. She had been so happy that he wouldn’t be lonely any more.

“But God knows, doesn’t He,” she wept, “and we must believe that it is, somehow, for the best?” Carried away by her own noble piety — for it was her loss, too — she snatched up his right hand. Macroy snatched it away.

She looked up at him with tear-dimmed vision. She had never so much as touched him before, but surely he must know that taking his hand would have been like kissing the hem of his garment.

“I must leave now,” He sounded strange.

“I’ll be here,” she cried, “and whatever you ask—”

“Forgive me,” he said hoarsely.

He walked away. She knew that he staggered as he turned a corner, and her heart skipped. He sounded as if he couldn’t bear to think of what she had almost done. Neither could she. Miss Pinero trembled. She wished it hadn’t happened. She wished that Sarah Bright was still alive. Maria had felt so deliciously safe, and free to go on worshipping him.

The newspapers gave the story considerable space. After all, it had everything. They cautiously asked no questions, but they inevitably raised them. How could the elderly bride have fallen? There were some blithe spirits in the city who took to collecting the assorted circumlocutions having to do with the poor woman’s reason for going off alone into the foggy dark. There was one columnist, based in the east who — supposing that, of course, there was no such thing in Southern California as a religious group that was not led by some crackpot — was open to a suit at law. The Bishop considered it wiser to ignore him.

Macroy did not read the newspapers.

On Friday the inquest came rather crisply to the verdict of “Death from Accidental Causes.”

Halley, telling how he had been the first to see a body, down below, was a model of professional objectivity. The medical part was couched in decently euphemistic language. Eunice Minter had not attended at all. Geoffrey Minter said that, as far as he knew, Mrs. Sarah Bright Macroy had been a happy bride. He exuded honorable fairness. Freddy Price was pleased on the whole with Macroy’s behavior.

The minister, however, looked beaten and crushed. His voice was low and sad and tired. Everything droned along properly. When the Coroner, who was a straightforward country type, said bluntly, “You got back into the car for reasons of leaving her alone to do what she had to do?” Macroy answered, his voice dead against the dead silence of the room, “I thought, at the time, that it was the courteous thing to do.”

A soft sigh ran across the ranks of those present.

“So you have no idea how she came to fall?” pressed the Coroner.

“No, sir.”

And the Coroner thought to himself, “Well, the truth is, me neither.”

But when Price spoke finally, to inform the world in a quiet and matter-of-fact manner that the Reverend Macroy firmly and irrevocably refused to have any part of the Bright money — that did it.

Price got the minister through the swarming cameras and away, with an air of “Aw, come on, boys, knock it off,” jaunty enough to arouse nobody’s aggressions.

But afterward, as they drove back to the Bishop’s house, young Price for the life of him could think of nothing to chatter about. Freddy would have enjoyed hashing it all over; he’d done his job. But this man was a type he didn’t understand. So Freddy made do with the car radio.

The Bishop’s spacious residence was well staffed; Macroy had every creature comfort. But the Bishop was simply too busy to spend many hours or even an adequate number of minutes with his haunted guest, who from time to time renewed his plea for a release from his vocation.

The Bishop, refusing to consider this, continued to advise patience, pending a future clarity. But, he said, obviously someone else would have to take over the Sunday services at St. Andrew’s. The Bishop had resolved to do it himself.

But he did think that if Macroy, with the help of God, could find the fortitude, he also ought to be there.

This martyred innocence, thought the Bishop (who had read the papers) had its rights, but also its duties. A man, he mused, must stand up to adversity.

On Saturday, at two o’clock, the funeral of Sarah Bright Macroy was well attended. The Minters and their two teen-age children sat invisibly in a veiled alcove. But those of Macroy’s congregation who had had the temerity to come, spotted him and nudged each other, when he arrived a trifle late and sat down quietly at the very back of the chapel.

He did not join the family at any time, even afterward. Nor did he speak to any of his own people. When it was over, he vanished.

He had looked like a ghost. It was a little... well, odd.

On Sunday the Bishop, at the last minute, found himself unable to conduct the nine-thirty service, which had to be cancelled. (Although the organist played.) In consequence, at eleven o’clock, St. Andrew’s had all its folding chairs in its aisles.

Macroy, in his robe, was up there, inconspicuously, at the congregation’s right or contra-pulpit side where, when he was sitting down, he was actually invisible to most. When they all stood, it was noticed that he did not sing the hymns; but he did repeat with them the Lord’s Prayer, although his voice, which they were accustomed to hear leading, so richly and musically, the recitation of the ancient words, seemed much subdued.

Then the Bishop, who had never, himself, dwelt on some of the circumstances, and did not, for one instant, suppose that anyone here could do less than understand their essential pathos, made an unfortunate choice of words in the pastoral prayer.

“Oh, God,” he prayed in his slight rasp, “Who, even in fog and darkness, seest all, be Thou his comfort; station him upon the rocks of his faith and Thy loving-kindness, that he may stand up—”

The ripple ran, gasping from some of the listeners, yet not so much sound as movement, swinging the whole congregation like grass, before it ceased and all sat stiffly in a silence like plush.

The Bishop sat down, a bit pinkly. He could not see Macroy very well. Macroy did not seem to have taken any notice. In fact, Macroy had been moving, looking, acting like an automaton. The Bishop was very much worried about him, and he now bemoaned his own innocence, which had tripped him up, on occasion, before. When it was time, he preached an old sermon that was sound, although perhaps a little less than electrifying.

Then there they were, standing together in the Narthex, as was the custom at St. Andrew’s, Macroy a tall black pole beside the little black-robed beetle-bodied Bishop.

Now the people split into two groups, sheep from goats. Half of them simply went scurrying away, the women contriving to look harrassed, as if they were concerned for a child or had something on the stove at home, the men just getting out of here. The other half lined up, to speak first to the Bishop and gush over the honor of his appearance in their pulpit.

Then they each turned righteously to Macroy and said phrases like “So sorry to hear” and “Deepest sympathy” or a hearty “Anything I can do.”

About twenty of them had gone by, like a series of coded Western Union messages, when Macroy put both hands over his face and burst into loud and anguished sobs.

The Bishop rallied around immediately and some of the older men shouldered through to his assistance. They took — almost carried — Macroy to his own office where, Macroy having been put down in his chair, the Bishop firmly shut the door on everybody else. He sat down himself, and used his handkerchief, struggling to conquer his disapproval of a public exhibition of this sort. By the time the Bishop had recovered his normal attitude of compassionate understanding, Macroy had stopped making those distressing and unmanly noises.

“Well, I was wrong,” the Bishop announced good-naturedly. “I ought not to have urged you to come here and I am sorry for that. You are still in shock. But I want you to remember that they are also in shock, in a way.”

The Bishop was thinking of the reaction to his boner. He was not going to quote what he had inadvertantly said, since if Macroy had missed it, the Bishop would accept this mercy. Still, he felt that he ought to be somewhat blunt; it might be helpful.

“I’ll tell you something, Macroy,” he said. “You have got a fat-cat suburban bunch in this church, with economic status and — may the Lord help them all — middle-class notions of propriety. My dear fellow, they can’t help it if they don’t know what to say to you, when it has probably never crossed their minds that the minister or his wife might sometimes have to go to the bathroom.”

Then the Bishop sighed. “This is especially difficult for them, but they’ll stand by you — you’ll see. I’m sure that you can understand them, as well or better than I.”

“It’s not that I don’t understand them,” said Macroy. “It’s that I can’t love them.” He had put his head down on his desk, like a child.

“Oh, come now—”

“I cannot,” said Macroy. “So I must give it up. Because I cannot do it.”

“I think,” said the Bishop in a moment, “that you most certainly can’t — that is, not yet. You must have time. You must have rest. Now, I shall arrange for substitutes here. Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t you still understand?” said Macroy drearily.

“Of course I do! Of course I do! It was simply too much for you.”

“Yes. Yes, if you say so.”

“Then, if the coast is clear, we had better go home.” The Bishop thought that this might become a serious breakdown. Poor tortured soul.

That evening the Bishop bustled from his study into his living room, where Macroy was sitting disconsolately idle.

“Now,” the Bishop said in his raspy voice, “you know that you are very welcome in this house. There is plenty of room. The cooking is not bad. Everything here is yours. However, I am afraid that I shall have to be out of town for a day or two, beginning tomorrow. And I do not like to leave you all alone in your present state. So I am going to ask you to do something for me, Hugh. Will you promise?”

“Yes?” said Macroy listlessly.

“Will you talk to a Dr. Leone tomorrow?”

“A doctor?”

“He is a psychiatrist whom I’ve known for years. There have been occasions... he is excellent in his profession. He can give you a full hour tomorrow, beginning at one o’clock. I have set up the appointment and I think it is wise — very wise — that you keep it. He can help you through this very bad time.”

“What?” said Macroy strangely. “Isn’t God enough?”

“Ah, ah,” said the Bishop, shaking a finger, “you must not despise the scientist. In his own way he is also a seeker after the truth. And God knows that you need some human help. That’s why I simply cannot leave you here — don’t you see? — alone. Yet I should go, I must. So will you please be guided by me and please do as I suggest?”

“Yes, I will,” said Macroy apathetically.

“She died when you were twenty-five?” Doctor Leone said. He had observed the harsh lines on this face relax in memories of childhood, and he began to forgive himself for his own faulty technique. Well, he had to push this one. Otherwise the man would still be sitting silent as an owl by day, and there wasn’t time. The doctor already knew that he would never see this man again.

“You were the only child?” he continued. “You must have adored her.”

“I didn’t pray to her, if that’s what you mean,” said Macroy with a faint touch of humor. “I loved my mother very much. But she wasn’t perfect.”

“How not?”

“Oh, she wasn’t always... well, she didn’t love everyone. She had a sharp tongue sometimes.” But the voice was as tender as a smile.

“Didn’t always love you, for instance?” the doctor said lightly.

“Of course she loved me. Always. I was her son.” This was unimpassioned.

“Tell me about your father.”

“He was a machinist, a hardworking man. A reader and a student by night. Very solid and kind and encouraging.”

“You were how old when he died?”

“He died when I was twenty-seven — suddenly and afar.”

The doctor listened closely to the way the voice caressed a phrase. “He loved you, of course. And you loved him.”

“He was my father,” the minister said with a faint wonder.

The doctor was beginning to wonder. Is he putting me on? He said with a smile. “Just background — all that we have time for today. Now, tell me about your first wife. Was it a happy marriage?”

“It was, indeed,” said Macroy. “Emily was my young love, very dainty and sweet. A cherishable girl.” The doctor heard the thin and singing overtone.

“You had no children?”

“No. We were sad about that. Emily, I suppose, was always frail.”

“After she died, what did you do?”

“Went on, of course.”

The doctor continued to suspend judgment. “Now, this second marriage. What did you feel for Sarah?”

“She was a lovely, lively spirit,” said the minister. “We could talk. Oh, how we could talk.” He fell silent.

“And you loved her?”

“Not with the same kind of love,” said Macroy, faintly chiding, “since we weren’t young any more. We were very — compatible, I believe, is the accepted word.”

Putting me on? He must be, thought the doctor. “And her money was no object,” he said cheerily.

“The love of money is the root, Doctor.”

“All right. I know my questions may sound stupid to you,” said Leone. “They sound pretty stupid to me, as a matter of fact.” He leaned back. Leone never took notes. He was trained to dictate, in ten minutes, the gist of fifty. “Now, I’m going to become rather inquisitive,” he announced, “unless you know that you not only can but should speak frankly to me.”

Macroy said gently, “I understand.” But he said no more.

Going to make me push, thought the doctor. All right. “Tell me about your honeymoon.”

“I see,” said Macroy. “You want to know — whether the marriage was consummated? Will that phrase do?”

“It will do.”

“No, it was not,” said Macroy. “Although it would have been, sooner or later, I think. She was — so warm-hearted and so lovable a presence. But you see, we had understood, quite well...”

“You had both understood,” said the doctor, more statement than question.

“I told you that we could talk,” said Macroy, catching the latent doubt. “And that meant about anything and everything. That was our joy. As for — after all, in my case, Doctor, it had been nine years. I was a Minister of the Gospel,” he added in a moment, gently explanatory.

“Did you try with Sarah and fail?” the doctor said easily.

“No.”

“There wasn’t a disillusion of any kind in the intimacy?”

“No. No. We enjoyed. We enjoyed. I can’t be the only man in the world to have known that kind of joy.”

Macroy’s face contorted and he became silent.

“Which you have lost,” the doctor said softly.

“Which I have lost. Yes. Thank you.” The man’s head bent.

“So the very suggestion that you — yourself, — might have thrown all this violently away... It must have been very painful to you.”

“Yes.”

“Knowing that you wouldn’t, couldn’t, didn’t — there’s still that sense of guilt, isn’t there?”

“Yes.”

“Surely you recognize that very common reaction to sudden death, to any death, in fact.” The doctor wasn’t having any more nonsense. “You have surely seen it, in your field, many times. People who compulsively wish that they had done what they had not done and so on?”

“Oh, yes, of course. But am I not guilty for letting her venture alone on that cliff?”

“It was the natural thing.”

“It is the human convention.” The voice was dreary and again it ceased.

The Doctor waited, but time flew. So he said, “Every one of us must take his time to mourn his dead. But Bishop Everard tells me that you wish to give up the ministry, now, Why, Mr. Macroy?”

Macroy sighed deeply.

“I am thinking about the silly, but seemingly inevitable snickering, because of the circumstances.”

The doctor hesitated. “The... er... circumstances do make an anecdote — for thoughtless people,” he said. “That must be very hard for you to endure.”

“Oh, my poor Sarah.”

“Then, is this a factor?”

“I will say,” said Macroy, “that I don’t altogether understand that snickering. And why is it inevitable? If I may speak frankly to you, Doctor—”

Leone thought that there was a glint of life and challenge in the eyes.

“Surely,” said Macroy, “every one of us knows his body’s necessities and furthermore, knows that the rest of us have them, too. Yet all of man’s necessities are not as funny as all that. Men don’t think it funny, for instance, that they must eat.”

“The whole toilet thing,” said the doctor, “is too ancient and deep-rooted to be fully understood. It may be that the unpleasantness is too plain a reminder of our animal status.”

“We laugh at what we hate so much to admit?” Macroy said quickly.

“Possibly.” The doctor blinked.

“’Tis a pity,” Macroy said in mourning.

“Why,” said the doctor, who was beginning to feel that he had fallen into some trap, “is it that a man like you, who can look with this much detachment at human inconsistencies, cannot transcend an unimportant and temporary embarrassment? Surely, you ought not to be driven out of a life’s work just because of—”

“I didn’t say that those were my reasons.”

“I’m sorry. Of course you didn’t. What are your reasons?” The doctor was sunny.

“I cannot continue,” said Macroy slowly, “because there are too many people I cannot love.”

“Could you... er... amplify?”

“I mean that I felt so much anger. Fury. I hated them. I despised them. I wanted to hit them, shake them, scream at them, even hurt them back.”

“In particular?”

“It began—” said Macroy. “No, I think that when the police officer asked me whether I had pushed Sarah to her death... Oh, it hurt. Of course, it did. But I remembered that he might be compelled, by the nature of his duties, to ask me such a thing. But then there was a newspaperman. And when to him...” The face was bitter. “Sarah’s death meant somewhat less than the death of a dog would have meant to a man who never cared for dogs...”

Macroy’s voice became cutting-sharp. “That’s when I found myself so angry. I hated and I still do hate that man. From then on I have seemed to be hating, hating...”

The doctor was lying low, rejoicing in this flow.

“Sarah’s own child, for instance,” Macroy went on, “who was so cruel in her own pain. Oh, I know she was not herself. But I had better not go near her. I would want to make her suffer. Don’t you see? Of all the contemptible... I want revenge. Yes, I do. That young lawyer who missed the point. I know he meant no harm, but I just couldn’t... I even loathe my poor secretary. For making some kind of idol out of me. But I’d known and understood and borne that for years. Even if she is wrong to do that, I should not suddenly loathe her for it. Yet I find I do. And I loathe the cowards and the hypocrites and the snickerers — they all disgust me. There seems to be no way that I can bring myself to love them. I simply cannot do it.”

“You cannot love?” droned the doctor hypnotically.

“Even the Bishop, who is a good man. When he refuses... oh, in all good heart — to hear the truth I keep trying to tell him, sometimes I must hang on desperately to keep from shouting at him. Isn’t that a dreadful thing?”

“That you can’t love?” said the doctor. “Of course it is a dreadful thing. When your young love died so many years ago, perhaps—”

“No. No!” Macroy groaned. “You don’t seem to understand. Listen to me. I was commanded to love. I was committed to love. And I thought I could, I thought I did. But if I cannot do it, then I have no business preaching in His Name.”

“I beg your pardon?” The doctor’s thoughts were jolted.

“In the Name of Jesus Christ.”

“Oh, yes. I see.”

“No, you don’t! You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

The doctor got his breath and said gently, “I see this. You have a very deep conviction of having failed.”

“Indeed,” said Macroy, “and I am failing right now. I would like, for instance, to hit you in the mouth — although I know you are only trying to help me.”

The minister put both hands over his face and began to cry bitterly.

The doctor waited it out, and then he said that they wouldn’t talk about it any more today...

When the Bishop returned to town he had a conference with Dr. Leone.

“He’s had a traumatic experience,” the doctor said, “that has stirred up some very deep guilt feelings, and, in projection, an almost unmanageable hostility that he never knew was there. I doubt he is as sophisticated as he thinks he is — in his understanding of the human psyche, I mean. He does need help, sir. He isn’t really aware of the demons we all harbor. It is going to take a lot of digging to get at the root.”

“Hm. A lot of digging, you say?”

“And I am not the man,” said Leone. “I doubt that he and I can ever establish the necessary rapport. Furthermore, my fees—”

“I know.” The Bishop was much distressed. “But what is to be done, I wonder. He isn’t fit, you imply, to go on with his tasks?”

“You know he isn’t.”

“Oh, me,” The Bishop sighed. “And he has nobody, nowhere to be taken in. Since I—” the Bishop shook his head sadly — “am not the man, either. You don’t think this — this disturbance will simply go away? If he has shelter? And time to himself?”

“May I suggest,” said Leone smoothly, “that the State Hospitals are excellent? Very high-class in this state. And even the maximum fee is not too high.”

“Well, as to that, there is what amounts to a Disability Fund. I should also suppose that the Minters, who are very rich people—” The Bishop was thinking out loud. “—even if the marriage has to be declared invalid. But wouldn’t it be cruel?” The Bishop blinked his eyes, hard. “Am I old-fashioned to think it would be cruel?”

“Yes, you are,” said the doctor kindly. “He needs exactly what he can get in such a place — the shelter, the time, the trained attention. As far as time goes, it may be the quickest way to restore him.”

“I see. I see.” The Bishop sighed again. “How could it be done?”

“He would have to commit himself,” said Leone gently.

“He would do so, I think,” said the Bishop, “if I were to advise him to. It is a fearful — yet if there is no better alternative—”

“The truth is,” said Leone fondly, “you have neither the free time nor the training, sir.”

“We shall see,” said the Bishop, who intended to wrestle it out in prayer. “We shall see.”

Two years later Saul Zeigler approached the entrance with due caution. He had stuck a card reading Press in his windshield, anticipating argument since he wasn’t expected; but to his surprise there was no gate, no guard, and no questions were asked. He drove slowly into the spacious grounds, found the Administration Building, parked, locked his car, and hunted down a certain Dr. Norman.

“Nope,” said the doctor, a sandy-colored man who constantly smoked a pipe, “there is no story. And you won’t write any. Absolutely not. Otherwise, how’ve you been?”

“Fine. Fine,” said Zeigler, who was up-and-coming these days and gambling that he could become a highly paid feature writer. He’d had some bylines. “Just insane, eh?”

The doctor grinned cheerfully. “Not my terminology.”

“Put it this way: you’re not letting him out?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Will you ever?”

“We hope so.”

“When?”

The doctor shrugged.

“Well, I suppose I can always make do with what I’ve heard,” said Zeigler impudently.

“Saul,” said the doctor, “your dad was my old buddy and if I’d been the dandling type, I probably would have dandled you. So you won’t do this to me. Skip it. Go see Milly. She’ll have a fit, if you don’t drop in to say hello.”

“So would I,” Zeigler said absent-mindedly. “Tell me, did he murder his wife?” There was no answer. “What set him off, then?”

“I’m not going to discuss a case with you or anybody else but the staff,” said the doctor, “and you know it. So come on, boy, forget it.”

“So how come I hear what I hear?” coaxed Zeigler.

“What do you hear?”

“You mean this is an instance of smoke without even one itty-bitty spark of fire? Not even one semi-miraculous cure?”

The doctor snorted. “Miraculous! Rubbish! And you’re not going to work up any sensational story about him or this hospital. I can’t help it if millions of idiots still want to believe in miraculous cures. But they’re not coming down on us like a swarm of locusts. So forget it.”

“I’ve met Macroy before, you know,” said Zeigler, leaning back.

“Is that so?”

“Yep. On the night it happened.”

“And what was your impression?”

“If I tell you,” said Zeigler, “will you, just for the hell of it and off the record, tell me what goes on here?”

The doctor smoked contemplatively.

“Religion and psychiatry,” said Zeigler, letting out his vocabulary and speaking solemnly, “have been approaching each other recently, wouldn’t you agree, Doctor? — in at least an exploratory manner. Supposing that you had, here, a clue to that growing relationship. Is that necessarily a ‘sensational’ story?”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” said the doctor. “For one thing, he isn’t preaching religion.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

Zeigler said, “You won’t even let me talk to him, I take it.”

“I didn’t say so. If we understand each other—”

“Well, it was a long drive and it shouldn’t be a total loss. Besides, I’m personally dying of curiosity. My impression, you want? Okay. I felt sorry for him, bleeding heart that I am,” Zeigler mocked himself. “He was in shock and he sure had been pushed around that night. If he didn’t always make plain sense, I wouldn’t have made sense, either.” Zeigler waited.

“I will admit,” said the doctor between puffs, “that there have been some instances of sudden catharsis.” He cocked a sandy eyebrow.

“Don’t bother to translate,” said Zeigler, crossing the trouser legs of his good suit, because Zeigler got around these days, and needed front. “I dig. How many instances?”

“A few.”

“Quite a few? But no miracles. Didn’t do a bit of good, eh?”

“Sometimes treatment was expedited,” The doctor grinned at his own verbiage. “We are aware of a running undercurrent. One patient advises another. All right, you can go and talk to him.”

“So if he doesn’t preach, what does he do?”

“I don’t know. They talk their hearts to him.”

“Why don’t you find out?” said Zeigler in astonishment.

“Tell me this, Saul. On that night was he annoyed with you in any way?”

“Might have been.” Zeigler frowned. “He sure brushed me off. But he had taken quite a beating. I didn’t blame him.”

“Why don’t you go and see him?” the doctor said. “I’d be interested in the reaction. Afterwards, come by, and we’ll make Milly feed us a bite of lunch.”

“Where can I find him?” Zeigler was out of the chair.

“How should I know?” said the doctor. “Ask around.”

Zeigler went to the door, turned back. “I don’t want to hurt him, Doc. How shall I—”

“Just be yourself,” the doctor said.

Zeigler came out into the sunshine of the lovely day. He had never been to this place before and it astonished him. He had expected a grim building with barred windows and here he was on what looked like the sleepy campus of some charming little college, set between hills and sprawling fields, with the air freshened by the not too distant sea. There were green lawns and big trees, and some mellow-looking buildings of Spanish design. There was even ivy.

It was very warm in the sun. He unlocked his car, tossed his jacket inside, and snatched the Press card away from the windshield. He locked the car again, and began to walk. Ask around, eh? There were lots of people around, ambling on the broad walks, sitting on the grass, going in and out of buildings. Zeigler realized that he couldn’t tell the patients from the staff. What a place!

The fourth person he asked was able to direct him.

The Reverend Hugh Macroy was sitting on a bench along the wide mall under one of the huge pepper trees. He was wearing wash trousers and a short-sleeved white shirt without a tie. He seemed at ease — just a handsome, well-tanned, middle-aged gentleman, quietly growing older in the shade.

Zeigler had begun to feel, although he couldn’t tell who-was-who around here, that they could and were watching him. He approached the man with some nervousness.

“Mr. Macroy?”

“Yes?”

“Do you remember me, sir? Saul Zeigler.”

“I don’t believe I do, Mr. Zeigler. I’m sorry.”

Zeigler remembered the voice well. But the face was not the old mask of agony and strain. The mouth was smiling, the dark eyes were friendly.

Zeigler said smoothly, “I’m not surprised you don’t remember. I met you only once, a long time ago, and very briefly. Is it all right if I sit down?”

“Of course.” The minister made a token shifting to give him more welcoming room on the bench and Zeigler sat down. “This place is sure a surprise to me,” said Zeigler.

The minister began to chat amiably about the place. He seemed in every way perfectly rational. Zeigler felt as if he were involved in a gentle rambling conversation with a pleasant stranger. But it wasn’t getting him anywhere.

He was pondering how to begin again when Macroy said, “But you are not a patient, Mr. Zeigler. Did you come especially to see me?”

“Yes, I did,” said Zeigler, becoming bold. “I am a writer. I was going to write a story about you but I am not allowed to. Well, I wanted to see you, anyway.”

“A story?”

“A story about all the good you do here.”

“The good I do?” said the man.

“I’ve heard rumors about the good you have done some of these... er... patients.”

“That isn’t any story.” Macroy seemed amused.

“So I’m told. And even if it is, I’m not going to be permitted to write it. I’ve given my word. Honestly, I won’t write it.”

The minister was looking at him with a pleasant smile. “I believe you,” he said.

Zeigler found himself relaxing. “The truth is, I want in the worst way,” he admitted, “to know what it is that you do here. Do you... well, preach to them, sir? I know you are a minister.”

“No, sir. I am not. Not any more. And so, of course, I don’t preach.”

“Then what?”

“Oh, I listen to them. Some of them. Sometimes.”

“But that’s what the doctors do, isn’t it? Do you listen better?”

Macroy said, as if to correct him gently, “The doctors here, and all the staff, are just as kind and understanding as they can be.”

“Yes. But maybe you listen differently?”

Macroy looked thoughtful.

“The point is,” pressed Zeigler, “if there is some kind of valuable insight that you have, shouldn’t it be told to the world?”

“I’m not saving the world, Mr. Zeigler,” said Macroy dryly. “I’m not that crazy. Or that good, either.” He was smiling.

Ziegler, who had momentarily forgotten that this man was supposed to be insane, said, “Just a mystery, eh? You don’t know yourself?”

“It may be,” said Macroy melodiously, “because I am one of them. For I understand some of these sheep.”

“In what way do you understand them, sir? I’m asking only for myself. Last time I saw you... Well, it has bothered me. I’ve wished I could understand.” Zeigler really meant this.

Macroy was looking far away at the pleasant hills beyond the grounds. Then, as if he had reached into some pigeonhole and plucked this out, he murmured, “One hell of a newspaperman.”

“Yes, sir,” said Zeigler, suddenly feeling a little scared.

But Macroy didn’t seem perturbed. In a moment he went on pleasantly, “Some of them don’t speak, you know. Some, if they do, are not coherent. What man can really understand them? But there are others whom I recognize and I know that I love them.”

“That’s the secret?” Zeigler tried not to sound disappointed. “Love?”

Macroy went on trying to explain. “They’ve fallen out of mesh, out of pattern, you know. When they have lost too many of their connections and have split off from the world’s ways too far, then they can’t function in the world at all.”

Elementary, my dear Watson, thought Zeigler.

“But it seems to me,” Macroy continued, “that quite a few of them didn’t do what they were pressured to do, didn’t depart from the patterns, because they could sense... Oh, they couldn’t say how, they couldn’t express it. Yet they simply knew that somehow the mark was being missed, and what the world kept pressuring them to do and be just wasn’t good enough. Some, poor seekers, not knowing where there was any clue, have made dreadful mistakes, have done dreadful things, wicked things. And yet...” He seemed to muse.

Zeigler was scarcely breathing. Wicked things? Like murdering your wife, for instance?

“In what way,” he asked quietly, “are you one of them, sir?”

“Oh.” The minister was smiling. “I always wanted to be good, too. I was born yearning to be good. I can’t remember not listening, beyond and through all the other voices, for the voice of God to speak to me, His child.”

He smiled at Zeigler, who was feeling stunned. “I don’t mean to preach. I only say that, because I have it — this yearning, this listening, this hearing...”

In a moment Zeigler said, rather vehemently, “I don’t want to upset you. I don’t want to trouble you in any way. But I just don’t see... I can’t understand why you’re not back in the pulpit, sir. Of course, maybe you are expecting to leave here, some day soon?”

“I really don’t know,” said Macroy. “I cannot return to the ministry, of course. Or certainly I don’t expect to. I must wait — as I would put it — on the Lord. And it may be that I belong here.”

He caught Zeigler’s unsatisfied expression. “Excuse me. The obvious trouble is, Mr. Zeigler, that every time they take me into town, as on occasion they do, sooner or later I stop in my tracks and burst into tears. Which wouldn’t make me very useful in the pulpit, I’m afraid.”

“I guess,” said Zeigler, “you’ve had a pretty rough deal. In fact, I know you’ve had, but—”

“No, no,” said Macroy. “That’s not the point. It isn’t what anyone did to me. It’s what I couldn’t do. And still can’t. Of course, here, it is much easier. I can love these people, almost all of them.”

“And you can’t help trying to help them, can you?” Zeigler said, finding himself irresistibly involved. “Why do you say you don’t expect to return to the ministry?”

“Oh, that’s very simple,” Macroy smiled a little ruefully. “I’ve explained, it seems to me, to a great many people.” He sighed.

“I wish you’d explain it to me,” said Zeigler earnestly.

“Then of course I’ll try,” said Macroy. “But I hope you’ll understand that, while I must use certain terms, I don’t mean to exhort you to become a Christian, for instance.”

“I understand,” said Zeigler.

“Christians were given two commandments,” Macroy began slowly. “You, too, were given much the same ones, I believe, although in a different form.”

“Go on,” said Zeigler eagerly.

“The first is to love God, which God knows I do. But I was also committed to the second commandment and that one I could not obey. Oh, I longed to — I even thought that I was obeying. But it isn’t, I discovered, a thing that you can force yourself to do. And when that Grace — I mean, when it didn’t come to me and I simply was not able—”

“To do what, sir?”

“To love them all.”

“All!” Zeigler’s hair stirred.

“That’s what He said.” Macroy was calm and sure. The voice was beautiful. “Thy neighbor? Thy enemy?”

And Zeigler saw it, suddenly. “You took it literally!” he burst out.

“Yes.”

“But listen,” said Zeigler in agitation, “that’s just too hard. I mean, that’s just about impossible!”

“It was certainly too hard for me,” said Macroy, sadly, yet smiling.

“But—” Zeigler squirmed. “But that’s asking too much of any human being. How can you love all the rotten people in the whole damn world — excuse me, sir. But surely you realize you were expecting too much of yourself.”

“So they keep telling me,” said Macroy, still smiling. “And since that’s my point, too, I know it very well. What I don’t feel they quite understand, and it is so perfectly plain to me—” He turned to Zeigler, mind-to-mind. “Suppose you are committed to follow Him, to feed His sheep, to feed His lambs, to be His disciple, which is a discipline, isn’t it? — and suppose you cannot make the grade? Then, when you see that you cannot, mustn’t you leave the ministry? How could I be a hypocrite, when He said not to be?

“Let me put it in analogy,” Macroy continued, warming to argument. “Some young men who wish to become airplane pilots wash out. Isn’t that the term? They just can’t make the grade. So they may not be pilots. They would endanger people. They may, of course, work on the ground.”

Ziegler was appalled. He could not speak.

“So if I have necessarily left the ministry,” said Macroy, “that doesn’t mean that I may not love as many as I can.”

Zeigler saw the image of a ray of light that came straight down, vertical and One-to-one. Suddenly there was a cross-piece, horizontal, like loving arms spread out — but it had broken. Zeigler’s heart seemed to have opened and out of it flooded a torrent of such pity, such affectionate pity, that he thought he was going to cry.

A thousand schemes began to whirl in his brain. Something should be done. This man should be understood. Zeigler would storm into the doctor’s office. Or he would write a story, after all.

Zeigler said, his voice shaking, “Thanks, Mr. Macroy, for talking to me. And may the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and shine upon you and give you peace.”

Macroy looked up. His look made Zeigler turn and almost run away.

Zeigler, speeding along the walk, was glad no one else had heard him sounding off in singing scripture, like some old rabbi, for God’s sakes! Okay, he’d felt like doing it and he had done it and what was it with the human race that you’d better not sound as if you felt something like that?

Maybe that man is crazy! But I love him!

Just the same, Zeigler wasn’t going back to Doctor Norman’s office, not right now. There’d been a reaction, all right, but he didn’t care to have it seen all over his face. He’d go see Milly Norman who would give him some coffee and gossip. She always did. He’d take time to cool it. Or figure out how to translate it—

No, let the man alone, let him stay where he was. Why should Zeigler say one word to help get Hugh Macroy back into the stinking world, which would kill him. Sure as hell, it would.

Zeigler was blind and he ran slambang into a man and murmured an apology.

“Hey,” said the man, moving to impede him further, “hey, Press, you get any good news outta the nutty preacher, hey, Press?”

“Nothing I can use,” said Zeigler bitterly. He started off, but he thought, Love them all?

So he stopped and looked experimentally at this stranger. Here was a patient. Zeigler didn’t doubt it. A middle-aged, foxy-faced, shambling man, with salted red hair, little beady eyes, and soft repellent lips. A more unlovable sight Zeigler had seldom seen.

Just the same, he said aloud and heartily, “Hey, don’t you worry about a thing, old-timer,” and then, with his eyes stinging, but telling himself to stop being so much the way he was, because he’d never make it, anyhow — suddenly it was too much for him and Zeigler sprinted to his car.

In a little while a man shambled up to where Macroy still sat on the bench under the pepper tree.

“Hey, you the Reverend Macroy?”

“I’m Hugh Macroy. Not a Reverend.”

“Well... er... my name’s Leroy Chase.”

“How do you do, Mr. Chase?”

“Yah. Glad to meetcha. Say, listen, there’s something I guess I gotta tell you.”

“Sit down,” said Macroy cordially.

The man sat down. He put his unkept hands through his graying red hair. “I’m kinda nervous.”

“You needn’t tell me anything.”

“Yah, but I wish — I mean, I want to.”

“Well, I’m listening.”

“Well, see, it’s a kinda long story.”

“Go ahead.”

“Well, see, I was up Salinas this time and I was hitching back down to L.A.”

Macroy had turned his body slightly toward his companion.

“Well,” the man said, “I guess you know that hitchers can’t be choosers. Hah! So I get this ride and this stupe, he takes California One.” Chase’s little eyes shifted nervously.

Macroy said, “I see.”

“So he dumps me in Big Sur, which is nowhere. So when I finally get another hitch south, I figure I’m lucky. Only trouble is, I find out this bird is juiced up pretty strong, and when the fog starts rolling in, believe me, I’m scared. So I want out. So I get out. So there I am.”

The man was speaking in short bursts. “In that fog, what am I? A ghost or something? Who can see a thumb? Nobody is going to take his eye off the white line to look, even. And it gets dark. And what can I do?”

Macroy was listening intently, but he kept silent.

The red-headed man chewed on his own mouth for a moment before he went on. “Well, I got my blanket roll on me, so I figure I’ll just bed down and wait out the fog. Why not? So I find this big rock and I nest myself down behind it, where no car is going to plow into me, see? And there I am, dozing and all that. Then there’s this car pulls off the road and stops, right ten, fifteen feet in front of me.”

The man leaned suddenly away to blow his nose. Macroy looked away, flexed one ankle, then let it relax. He said nothing.

“So I wonder, should I jump up and beg a ride? But it’s all so kinda weird, see — white air, you could say?” Chase was gesturing now, making slashes in the air for emphasis. “A man gets out with a flashlight. It’s like a halo. And the other party gets out, see. Well, I dunno what’s up. I can’t see too good. I know they can’t see me. I got a gray blanket. I’m practically another rock. And I’m lying low and thinking, why bother?”

The man’s speech became slower, his voice a little deeper. “What’s the matter with where I am, I think. It’s kinda wild out there that night — the white air and all. And I can hear the sea. I always liked listening to the sea, especially by myself, you know?”

Macroy nodded. His eyes were fixed on the man’s face.

“Listen, you know what I’m trying to—”

“I’m listening.”

“So when this person starts coming along with the flash, I turn my face, so it won’t show—”

“Yes,” said Macroy, with a strange placidity.

“Then the light goes down on the ground. It don’t fall, see? It’s just pointing down. And I’m wondering what the hell — excuse me — when...” The voice was getting shrill. “My God, I know what she’s gonna do I Listen, no man can take a thing like that, for God’s sake!”

The man was crying now, crying. “So I think, ‘Oh, no, you don’t! Not on me, you don’t!’ So I just give a big heave and, Holy God, it’s too close! And over she goes! Oh, listen, I never meant — I never— But who could take a thing like that?”

Chase was now on the edge of the bench. “Before I know what I’m doing, I drag my roll and I’m running up the edgy side, north. My life is in my feet, brother, but I gotta get out of there. It’s just instinct, see? I could hear you calling—”

“You heard me?” Macroy was looking at the sky.

“Listen. Listen. So I’m about half, three-quarters of a mile away and now here comes this car going south. So I figure to look like I been going south the whole while. That way, I never was there. And damned if this guy don’t stop in the fog and pick me up. Well, I soon find out he ain’t exactly cold sober, but by this time I don’t care, I’m so— Then what does he have to do but stop for you? But you tell him to send help and we just — we just went on by.”

Chase slumped. He would fall off the bench in a few moments.

“If you had told me then—” Macroy had shut his eyes.

“Oh, listen, Mister, maybe you’re some kind of saint or something but I didn’t know, not then. Didn’t even know you was a preacher.”

“And you had two chances.”

“Well, I had — well, three really. But look, nobody coulda said I’d done that on purpose. Maybe manslaughter. Who knows? What I couldn’t take was the — was the motive. See, it’s too damned hilarious. What I couldn’t take was the big hah-hah. I mean, I knew she never saw me. I know that. She wouldn’t have done a thing like that. But all I thought at the time was ‘Hey, this I don’t have to take.’ If I would have stopped for one second — but here it comes, outta the night, you could say— Who’s going to understand? Who? Because what a screaming howl, right?”

Chase was sobbing. He wasn’t looking at Macroy. He sobbed into the crook of his own elbow.

Macroy said musingly, “Yes, it is supposed to be quite funny.”

“Listen, what I did do.” Chase gathered voice. “This happy-boy, he fin’ly gets into that gas station, and he don’t even know what day it is. The message is long gone from his mind. So I made the call to the Sheriff. That was the third chance. But I chickened out. I hung up. And I say ‘so long’ to this happy character and go in the café and when I see the cop car rolling I figure I done all I could and maybe she’s okay. I’m praying she’s okay. It was the best that I could do.” He hiccuped.

They were silent then, in the sunshine that had crept around the tree.

Macroy said in a moment or two, “Why are you here?”

Chase mopped his face with his sleeve. “Oh, I fall apart, see?” he said rather cheerfully. “I practically never been what they’d call ‘together.’ You talk about chances. I had plenty chances. But not me, I wouldn’t stay in school. I coulda even gone to college. But I wouldn’t go. So I’m forty years old and I’m crying in my wine, when I can get any, like a baby whining after a shining star, too far—” The man controlled his wailing rhyme abruptly. “Well. So. Now they don’t know what else to do with me. So I’m a nut. That’s okay.”

He relaxed against the back of the bench with a thump. “So now,” he spoke quietly, “I’ll do anything. I mean clear your name? If you want? What can they do to me?”

Macroy didn’t speak.

“I wish—” said Chase. “Well, anyhow, now you know it wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t her fault, either. And it wasn’t—” He stopped and seemed to listen, anxiously.

“Excuse me,” said Macroy. “I was wondering what I would have done. I’m no saint.” Macroy turned his face. “And never was.”

“But I didn’t know you, Mr. Macroy,” Chase began to be agitated again. “You got to remember, for all I knew, you mighta killed me.”

Macroy said, “I might have. I think not. But I wouldn’t have laughed.”

Chase drew in breath, an in-going sob. “Ah, you don’t know me, either. All I ever been is a bum, all my life. I never did no good or been no good.”

“But you wish you had? You wish you could?”

“God knows!” The cry came out of him, astonished.

“Yes. And I believe you.” Macroy bent his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. That woman was very dear to me. Very dear.”

“Don’t I believe it?” cried Chase as if his heart had split. “Oh, God, don’t I know! I heard you calling her. I knew it in your voice.” Chase was sobbing. “I remember a thing — what they say in church — I remember. Don’t tell me it was good enough, the best I could do. Because it wasn’t, and that’s what I know.”

Chase was on his knees and hanging to the minister’s knees, and sobbing. “Oh, listen, listen. I’m sorry. I got a broken heart. Believe me? Please believe me!”