Manhunt. Volume 3, Number 1, January, 1955

Cynthia Finch’s death didn’t bother anybody. It was the way she’d died — by a weapon that couldn’t possibly exist.

1.

You could love Cynthia Finch, or you could hate her, and there were people who did both with equal enthusiasm. I myself had vacillated between both ends of the emotional spectrum, sometimes wanting to strangle her and sometimes wanting to hug her.

I did not much feel like hugging her that Wednesday morning. Nor did my preference for murder run toward the gentler form of strangulation. She sat behind her desk in the offices of Bradley and Brooks, and there was that infuriating smile on her face, and I pictured her head on the end of a long pike, and I would have joyously carried that pike through Hell.

“You see, Jon,” she said, smiling, her lips tinted a very pale orange, her midnight black hair fluffed around her neck, circling her face like an oval black frame, “it’s just not good.”

I snorted, but made no other comment. I’d been writing the Rocketeers show for a good long time now. I’d been writing it when Alec Norris was producer, and I’d been writing it before him, when fat Felix Nechler held the production reins. I was used to producers coming and going, and I was used to interference and advice from the office boy up. And even if Cynthia Finch was the fair-haired girl of television at the moment, and even if I’d appreciated her calm efficiency after the blundering, bumbling job Norris did, I still did not have to wax enthusiastic when she pulled one of my scripts apart.

“You’re thinking I’m all wet, I know,” she said, still smiling. “You mustn’t misunderstand me when I say this isn’t good.” She tapped the script with one tapering, delicate hand. “I don’t mean it’s not good by past standards. I simply mean it doesn’t stack up to what we’re trying to do now.”

“And just what is it you’re trying to do now, Cynthia?” I asked.

“I’m trying to push Rocketeers up into the respectable bracket.”

“My writing has been called a lot of things,” I said coldly, “but it’s never been called unrespectable.”

“Your writing is fine,” Cynthia said.

“But...”

“Yes, but.”

“But it isn’t respectable.” I grinned sourly, picked up the script, and then stood up. “You’ll excuse me, Cynthia. I’m going out to get very unrespectably drunk. Then I’m moving over to the Captain Jet show. They want science-fiction, and that’s what I’ve been writing for the past five years.”

“You’re behaving like an adolescent,” Cynthia said.

“Am I? Then it’s the influence of Rocketeers. Look, Cynthia, let’s get this straight. I don’t mind submitting story ideas, and I don’t mind submitting outlines, and I don’t even mind submitting step by step treatments. I’ve listened to you and Perry and Mark, and I’ve even taken occasional tips from some of the cameramen. But when you suddenly decide the product I’ve been turning out all along isn’t good enough for a lousy juvenile show, it’s time to hop into my own little rocket ship and go where I’ll be appreciated. It’s as simple as all that.”

“And you still don’t understand,” she said sadly.

“I understand one thing, Cynthia, and that is the side upon which my daily bread is buttered.”

“Sit down,” she said suddenly, “sit down, Jon.”

“There’s no sense prolonging...”

“Oh, for God’s sake, sit down!”

I sat down reluctantly, sullenly handing her the script when she reached over the desk for it.

“Shall we discuss this like intelligent adults?” she asked. I didn’t answer. “All right, here’s what’s wrong. In the first place, the science is all wet. I know you’ve been writing just this kind of science for a long time now — but we can’t have it that way anymore. It has to be accurate, and it has to be based upon known facts.”

“Cynthia...”

“You’ve got, for example, Cadet Holmes sucking in great gobs of oxygen on Mars. Now hell, Jon, spectroscopic tests of Mars have never revealed oxygen in the atmosphere of that planet. That means any oxygen there would be in a quantity less...”

“... than one-thousandth of that in the Earth’s atmosphere. Cynthia, you’re not telling me anything new.”

“Then why is Cadet Holmes breathing oxygen?”

“He’s breathing oxygen in this week’s sequence, too. Why the sudden complaint?”

“I’ve had that changed,” Cynthia said. “But why do you continue counter to scientific knowledge?”

“Why are there Martians, Cynthia? Do you object to the goddamned Martians?”

“Well, no. Extra-terrestrial beings are good for the show. They...”

“Well, go ask your high-priced science expert if Martians are likely to be found on Mars. Look. Martians come into the sequence two weeks from now. They breathe, and that’s impossible. So I have Holmes breathing in the current sequence, and he has to continue breathing.”

“I told you I’ve already changed that.”

“Then why the hell bring it up?”

“Because there are more important things wrong with the script. For example, you’ve got this Martian disease that shows all the symptoms of food poisoning. For God’s sake, Jon, International Foods is our sponsor.”

“Shove our sponsor,” I said.

“All right, do that, if you’re not interested in getting paid for what you write. But don’t forget the mothers who watch the show, too. And don’t forget that the biggest problem they have with their kids is feeding.”

“Do you know the limerick starting, ‘A woman who triplets begat’?”

“No. So you throw in food poisoning, a delightful excuse for every kid who doesn’t feel like eating Poppsies.”

“Poppsies, shmoppsies. Are you running a TV show or a luncheonette?”

“Here’s another thing,” Cynthia said. “You’ve got The Marauder’s mind captured by the Martians, and they force him to do dastardly things. The kids don’t know his mind is captured until the end of the sequence. All they see is their good old friend Marauder behaving like a bastard. So all these months we strive to build a father image, and you come along and wreck the whole thing in a week.”

“Why don’t you get Sigmund Freud to write your show?” I said. “He knows all about father images. Me, I’m just an underpaid writer.”

“Jon...”

“Jon me not, Cynthia.” I stood up, took the script from her desk, and stuffed it into my briefcase. “We sang a duet, doll, but the show closed.”

“You’re walking out then?”

“Aye. That I am. I’ve destroyed too many father images.”

“Jon...”

“Honey, you’ve got the nicest legs at Bradley and Brooks. You’re a pretty enough creature, and sometimes I love you to pieces. But I turned to writing after I got rid of Ulcer Number One, and I don’t want to start on Number Two — not while I’m only twenty-nine. So off I am to Captain Jet, where the legs and faces may not be as pretty, but where I won’t have to worry about the number of doom rays I use, or the Oedipus complexes of my lizard-like Venusians.”

“What about the current sequence?” Cynthia asked.

“I’ll stick it through. I’m going down to the studio now in fact. Jonny on the spot, they call me. Always willing to help.”

Cynthia Finch did not look happy when I left her, but I did not much give a damn about her state of mind. When someone tried to take an acknowledged hack show and shove it up into the Studio One bracket, it was time for me to fold my tent. And my typewriter. I started down the large, open-door-flanked corridor of Bradley and Brooks, the advertising outfit that was handling Rocketeers and a half-dozen other radio and TV shows for International Foods.

I passed 32b unconsciously, and I whirled abruptly when the voice hissed, “Hey, you!”

Andrea Mann stood in the open doorway to 32b, leaning against the doorjamb like the stereotyped picture of a Panamanian beauty. She narrowed her eyes in exaggeration and said, “Want a date, mister?”

“What’ll it cost?” I asked, smiling at her playacting.

“The best in New York,” she said, and she wiggled her hips a little. Andrea was a small blonde who proved the adage about good things coming in small packages. “Won’t cost you much more than a dinner and movie.”

“That’s too expensive. See you, Andy.”

“Hey, rat,” she said, dropping the loose girl pose. “Weren’t you even going to stop and say hello?”

“Hello,” I said.

Andy came out of the doorway, and grabbed my arm, yanking me back into her office. “It’s a good thing I love you,” she said.

“It’s a good thing somebody loves me,” I told her.

“Trouble with the Lord High Executioner?” She moved her head towards Cynthia’s office down the hallway.

“No more trouble,” I answered. “Finished, done, over with. I am now, as they say in Variety, at liberty.”

“You quit!” Andy burst.

“I did.”

“You didn’t!”

“But I did, I did.”

“But why,” she said, distressed. “Jon, you didn’t really.”

“Father images running rampant,” I said cryptically. “I really did tender my resignation, Andy doll, and how about that dinner and movie this evening?”

“Can you afford it?” she asked, smiling.

“I’ll hock my typewriter.”

“I was kidding about...”

“Yes or no? I’m due at the studio.”

“Yes. But you said you’d quit?”

“Eight o’clock okay? I did quit. I’m tying up the loose ends.”

“Eight is fine.”

I left her smiling in the doorway to 32b, and when I reached the lobby of the swank Madison Avenue building, I located a phone booth and called Tom Goldin, my agent. When I’d passed his battery of secretaries and assistants, I said, “Hello, Tom. Good news.”

“Yeah?” Tom said drily. “Did Cynthia Finch drop dead?”

“Better. I dropped her dead.”

“What?”

“I quit the show, Tom.”

“You crazy son,” Tom said. “Why’d you do that?”

“Food poisoning.”

“What? How’s that again?”

“Relax, Tom. I’ve got friends at Captain Jet. I’m going over to the studio now, but after rehearsal I’ll drop in to see Binx.”

“Binx is just as crazy as Cynthia,” Tom said drily. “Besides, his legs ain’t as pretty.”

“His money is just as pretty,” I said.

“What’s money?” Tom asked. “Can you buy happiness with money?”

“No. But can you buy money with happiness?”

“Ha-ha,” Tom said. “Very funny.”

“You’ll get the ten percent, so stop kicking. What’s new on the novel?”

“Did somebody write a novel?” Tom asked.

“No takers yet?”

“No, not yet. I’m having lunch with a guy at Simon and Schuster tomorrow. Maybe I can fool him into taking it.”

“That’s why I love you, Tom. Your coat is so warm.”

“I love you too,” he said. “You shouldn’t have quit Cynthia.”

“ ’Bye-’bye, Thomas.”

“Hey, just a...”

I hung up, grinning, and then walked out of the building to hail a cab. The studio was in the loft of what used to be a factory. The station had done wonders with the loft, and if you didn’t have to climb up through two deserted stories, you’d never suspect you were in an abandoned factory.

I walked up the clattering iron steps, and then into the studio, waving at Artie Schaefer in the control booth, and then stepping onto the floor. I took a seat up front, and watched the cameramen dolly in for a closeup of Marauder. Dave Halliday, the show’s director, held a mike in one hamlike fist, and he brought the mike closer to his face now.

“That you, Jon?” he asked.

“That’s me,” I shouted.

“Want to come up here a minute? We’re having a little trouble.”

2.

I left my brief case on the seat of my chair, and walked past the cameras and onto the brilliantly lit portion of the studio. The set designers had really gone all out with the Martian landscape. They had a bunch of weird looking plants, and a couple of tons of interplanetary sand strewn all over the stage. In the distance, painted against a very realistic-looking sky, was Earth and its satellite, the Moon.

Marauder, an actor who normally used the name Fred Folsom, stood by with a godawful-looking contraption strapped onto his head. He also had what appeared to be fifty pound oxygen cylinders strapped to his back. I looked through the contraption at his face, and Fred Folsom seemed positively miserable.

Dave took my hand, shook it briefly, almost crushing my knuckles, and then said, “You’re late.”

“I had a session with Cynthia,” I said.

“Oh?” Dave was a heavy man with a round, cherubic face, and a lot of beer fat around his middle. He raised shaggy brown eyebrows now, and a devilish smile marred the cherub’s look. “Make out?” he asked.

“Do rabbits make out?” I kidded.

Dave shrugged massive shoulders, and the inflated tire around his middle nudged up toward his chest. “Well, we got troubles,” he said. “Is Cynthia coming down?”

“She didn’t say.”

“So tell me,” Dave said, “how we supposed to hear anyone through these goddamn helmets?”

“What goddamn helmets?”

Fred Folsom said something behind the contraption on his head, but all I heard was a sullen mumble.

“I didn’t write any helmets,” I said.

“I know,” Dave answered, shrugging again. “Cynthia says there’s no oxygen on Mars, though.”

“Did Cynthia also tell you about the gravity on Mars?”

“Gravity?” Dave Halliday looked puzzled.

“Oh, what the hell! Throw the helmets away. Forget the oxygen.”

“Cynthia says no.”

“Then give your boys face masks. They’ll just cover the noses, and you’ll be able to hear something other than Martian rumblings.”

“You hear that, Stu?” Dave called.

Stu Shaughnessy, the show’s prop man, looked up from a pad and nodded. Stu was a thin-faced man with. serious brown eyes behind black-rimmed bop classes. He attacked his job as prop man with the same intensity a physicist gave the atomic bomb, and he exhibited the same pride in the completed product.

“Take off the helmet, Fred,” Dave said. “We’ll play it straight until Stu gets the masks for us.”

Fred Folsom took off the helmet and sighed, and Dave said, “We got another problem, Jon. The death-ray gun.”

“What about it?” I said wearily.

“Cynthia says it’s impossible.”

“Cynthia is impossible, damnit. What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s supposed to burn a man to cinders. She says a weapon that small wouldn’t be capable of containing the energy necessary to...”

“Make it a larger weapon. For Christ’s sake!”

“You got that, Stu?” Dave called.

“I’ll fix it,” Stu answered. His voice was quiet, and he nodded resolutely. There was no doubt he’d fix it. Fred reached into the holster at his waist and pulled out the ultramodern death-ray gun, hefting it on his palm. He pulled the trigger, and a shower of harmless sparks drifted from the disc-surrounded spray nozzle.

“Point that the other way,” Dave said.

Fred smiled. “Dave is going Martian,” he explained. “He thinks all the props Stu rigs are real.”

“That’s the only way to direct it,” Dave said. “Let’s run it through, yes? You’re sticking around, aren’t you, Jon?”

“Like a dirty shirt,” I said.

“The letdown is all on film,” Dave explained to me. “A really nice job, Jon. I think you’ll like it. Jets blasting, all that junk. You watch it on the monitor.”

“I will,” I said.

“We pick up Marauder on a boom shot, looking straight down on him. All you see is the top of his head and his ray gun sticking out in front of him — that and the Martian sand. It’s a nice effect. Besides, we cut out the necessity of having the ship right on the set, you follow?”

“I follow.”

“After Marauder is in, we pick up Cadet Holmes. As if suddenly remembering,” Dave put his mike to his mouth and shouted, “On stage, Cadet Holmes. Let’s roll!”

I took a seat near the monitor, and watched the film of Marauder’s ship putting down on sands of Mars. I was really interested until Cynthia’s voice behind me said, “Isn’t he supposed to be braking for descent before this?”

I turned. “Hello, Professor,” I said.

“You think it’s funny,” Cynthia said, pouting. She looked pretty as hell when she pouted, and she knew it. “I’m interested in getting a good show.”

“You are getting one,” I told her. I watched the monitor as the boom camera picked up Marauder, and then Cadet Holmes came onto the screen.

“Where are their helmets?” Cynthia said. “And are they still using those stupid guns? I told Dave...”

“Stu’s working on that now. Relax, Cynthia.”

Instead of relaxing, Cynthia Finch strode away from me purposefully. She stopped alongside Dave, said a few words to him, and Dave bellowed, “Cut, cut.”

The actors slouched into weary positions while Cynthia kept chewing out Dave. Then Dave said, “Take a break, fellows,” and I heard Cynthia’s voice, close to his mike, say, “If Stu is working on it, I want to see it.”

“All right, all right,” Dave said irritably. “Come on.”

The mike picked up his voice and tossed it around the studio, and then he and Cynthia walked away from the lights and into the blackness. Marauder and Cadet Holmes had already disappeared into blackness. I lighted a cigarette, and then headed for the control booth, figuring I’d bandy a few words about with Artie Schaefer. The booth was empty when I got there, though, so I strolled out to the stairwell and looked through one of the windows at the rooftops of New York, puffing happily on my cigarette. I ground the butt out under my heel, lounged around for another ten minutes, and then went back into the studio.

Dave was fiddling around with one of the plants on the set. Stu was handing both Marauder and Cadet Holmes their new death-ray guns and face masks. Artie Schaefer was back in the booth. I took my seat near the monitor again, and that was when I spotted old Felix Nechler, the guy who used to produce Rocketeers. I got up, walked over to him, and took his hand.

“Hello, Felix,” I said, “how goes it?”

Felix was a thin man with a trim black mustache. He looked up sadly and said, “Hello, Jon. So-so, I guess.”

“Back for a looksee at the old baby, eh Felix? How long have you been here?”

“Few minutes,” Felix said, his grey eyes dull.

“Okay, we’re ready to go now,” Dave called into the mike. “You out there, Cynthia?”

“She’s not here, Dave,” I shouted.

“Scare her up, will you, Jon? She’ll want to watch this.”

“Where is she?”

“Piddling around out there someplace,” he said into the mike.

“Excuse me, Felix,” I said. “I’ll be back.”

“Sure,” Felix answered. “I was about to leave anyway.”

“Oh, stick around. You’ll enjoy it.”

Felix shrugged, the shrug plainly stating he would probably not enjoy anything produced by the woman who’d taken his job. I started off around the studio, walking past the rocket ship interior set, and then over past the Earth Control Office set, both unilluminated now. Then I strolled around back to the cubbyhole where Stu kept his props, and then over to where the flats were piled against the inside brick wall of the building.

“Cynthia?”

When I got no answer, I walked past the flats, and the first thing that hit me was the overwhelming stench, and I thought someone was burning garbage right here in the building, and I knew Cynthia would have a fit about that. I kept walking in the darkness, the stench overpowering now, and that was when I tripped and fell.

I got to my knees cursing. I reached down and groped for what I’d tripped over, and I found the stench and I found soft flesh, and I reared back in what must have been stark terror. I hit the wall, and my fingers groped for the light switch. I scraped my knuckles, finally found the switch, and flicked on the light.

Cynthia Finch lay on her back on the concrete floor.

“Douse that goddamned light!” Dave yelled into his mike.

I stood over against the wall and looked down at her. I knew it was Cynthia because of the dress. It was a blue woolen number that hugged her flesh, only now it was scorched down the front, and the fabric had browned and parted to show the blistering flesh underneath. Her face was an unrecognizable, charred, burned mass of skin and bones.

“Hey, how about it?” Dave shouted again. “We’re trying to run this through, you know.”

“Dave!” I yelled when I’d caught my breath. “Come back here! Quick!”

I didn’t move from my spot near the wall. I stood there even when I heard many running footsteps, even when I heard Dave mutter, “Oh God! Oh, holy, holy God!”

And then Marauder, and Cadet Holmes and Stu Shaughnessy and even old Felix Nechler were standing around the charred, lifeless body on the concrete floor, and Marauder took one look at the ominously cumbersome death-ray gun in his fist, and dropped it to the concrete as if it were alive.

3.

Detective-Sergeant Hilton could have been a high-priced performer on Dragnet. Perhaps he watched the show. He had an underplayed, natural delivery and an inscrutable face, and he went about his business with the calm detachment of a shoe clerk at I. Miller’s.

“You found her?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, still a little sick at what I’d discovered.

“Just like that, sir? Burned all over?”

“Just like that, Sergeant.”

“Mmm. Hell of a way to die.” Hilton stroked his lean jaw and shoved his fedora to the back of his head. “And the rest of you were all on the set when Mr....” Hilton paused. “What’s your name again, sir?” he asked me.

“Jonathan Crane.”

“Nice name,” Hilton said conversationally. “Your own?”

“It is now.”

“You an actor?”

“Writer.”

“Do any mystery stuff?”

“Science-fiction,” I said, and Hilton seemed to lose all interest immediately.

“You were all on the set, is that right, when Mr. Crane discovered the body?”

“I wasn’t,” Felix Nechler said.

“Where were you?”

“I was sitting near the monitor.”

“Are you connected with the show, Mr. Nechler?” Hilton asked.

“No,” Felix said, embarrassed.

“What were you doing here then?”

“I thought...” Felix hesitated, then seemed to make up his mind, and blurted, “I thought Cynthia might have a job for me.”

“Did you talk to her before she was killed?”

“No. I was waiting out here for her.”

Hilton turned to Dave. “When did you see her last, Mr. Halliday?”

“Back in Stu’s prop room,” Dave said. He looked at Stu, and his voice carried a muted accusation.

“And what was she doing then?”

“Stu had given her the... the death-ray gun. He was showing her how it operated.”

“The what gun?”

“Look, Sergeant,” Stu broke in, his eyes serious behind their black-rimmed bop glasses. “The gun is just...”

“What kind of gun did you say?”

“The death-ray gun,” Dave said more firmly.

“It’s just a plastic gimmick,” Stu said hurriedly. “A few batteries and some flint. Here, I’ll show you.”

He unhooked the flap on Cadet Holmes’ holster and pulled out the unwieldy weapon. He was ready to squeeze the trigger when Hilton said, “The other way, please.”

Stu shrugged. “It’s a harmless thing,” he said. He pointed the gun at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. There was the harsh scrape of metal against flint, a burst of spark, and then the nozzle of the gun seemed to glow and a cascade of sparks showered from the open end. “Harmless,” Stu said.

“She was holding this gun when Mr. Halliday left you?”

“Yes,” Stu said. He gave the gun back to Cadet Holmes, the fifteen-year-old boy from the High School of Performing Arts. Cadet Holmes’ face was a chalky white, his eyes fear-filled.

“She was burned to death,” Dave said suddenly.

“But not with that toy,” Hilton said. “Looks more like someone used a blowtorch.”

“No blowtorches around here,” Dave said emphatically.

“I’ll have my men look the place over,” Hilton said drily. “Mr. Shaughnessy, where did Miss Finch go when you left her?”

“I don’t know. She said the gun was okay, and told me to bring it out together with the oxygen masks. I left her in the prop room.”

“And what about you, Mr. Halliday? Did you come directly back to the set when you left Miss Finch and Mr. Shaughnessy?”

“No,” Dave said. “Matter of fact, I didn’t. I stopped at the fountain for a drink of water. Then I went around and checked the Earth Control Office set.”

“How long did all that take?”

“About ten minutes.”

“Uh-huh. Were you two on the set all this time?” he asked Marauder and Cadet Holmes.

“No. We went down for a cup of coffee,” Marauder answered.

“Together?”

“No,” Cadet Holmes said, his face still white. “I left Fred just outside the building. When we came back, Dave was ready to roll.”

“You meet anyone at coffee, Mr. Folsom?” Hilton asked.

“No. No one,” Marauder answered.

“Where’d you go, Cadet?”

“His name’s Findlay,” Dave put in.

“Where’d you go?”

“Just took a walk around the block, that’s all.”

“Meet anyone?”

“On the way back, yes.”

“Who?”

“Artie Schaefer, our engineer.”

“Where had he been?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Findlay said, almost trembling now. “You’ll have to ask him, I guess.”

“I will.” Hilton wiped his hand over his face. “All right, Mr. Crane, where were you all this time?”

“Out in the hallway,” I said, “having a cigarette.”

“Anyone see you?”

“Why... no. I don’t think so.” Hilton sighed. “And you, Mr. Nechler?”

“I took a seat near the monitor when I came in, and I stayed there all the while.”

“I don’t suppose anyone saw you.”

“Not unless someone was in the control booth. I didn’t see anyone there.”

Hilton looked disgusted. “Nobody around when she got it,” he said, “and nobody saw anybody where he said he was. This is just great.”

“I was seen by the guy in the coffee shop,” Marauder said defensively.

“Think he could pinpoint the time? It only takes a minute to kill someone.”

“You don’t think...”

“I want to talk to Mr. Schaefer. He was probably out walking his French poodle, only no one saw him except on the way back.”

“He didn’t have a poodle with him,” Findlay said helpfully.

“A Great Dane?” Hilton asked, then waved Findlay’s answer aside before he spoke it. “You go about your business. I know you’ve got a daily show to put on. Don’t mind my boys.”

“Whoever did this will get the chair, won’t he, Sergeant?” Dave Halliday asked.

Detective-Sergeant Hilton assumed his best Dragnet manner. “Sure,” he said. “There’s just one thing.”

Dave, an avid Dragnet viewer himself, supplied the straight man’s like. “What’s that, Sergeant?”

“We got to get him first.”

4.

When I stopped by for Andy that night at eight, she’d already heard the news. She did not pretend great sadness because Andy was an honest kid, and she’d never really liked Cynthia Finch. Andy wrote the commercials for the Rocketeers show, and Cynthia’s conception of a producer’s tasks included the censorship of the nonsensical drivel Andy wrote in praise of Poppsies and its sister breakfast cereal, Cracklies.

One of Andy’s choice commercials had consisted of the repeated line, “Eat Poppsies, they’re tops, see, they POP, see?” This done in a parrot’s falsetto. It was good.

Cynthia had stepped in and changed it to: Buy me Poppsies, Popsy! They’re tops, see, they POP, see, Popsy?

By the time anyone untangled that, he was ready for a straight-jacket. He was not ready to rush out and buy a box, as the copy suggested after the parrot had finished his speech.

She opened the door and led me into her living room, and then she asked, “Have the police been hard on you, Jon?”

“No harder than on anyone else,” I said. I chuckled a little and added, “This Sergeant Hilton has his hands full. Only Artie Schaefer and the Cadet have alibis, and even they aren’t too strong. Hell of a case.”

“Is it true about... about how she died?”

“Yes.”

“It must have been horrible,” Andy said, shuddering a little.

“I don’t imagine it was pleasant. Dave still thinks the goddamned ray gun did it.”

“Oh, not really.”

“You know Dave. I think he believes in BEM’s, too. He doesn’t know that bug-eyed monsters left the science-fiction scene a dozen years ago.”

“I was worried about you,” Andy said. She fluffed out her blonde hair, then walked to a cigarette canister on the end table, taking one and lighting it quickly. She blew out a wreath of smoke. “Really worried, Jon.”

“Oh? That’s awfully nice of you.”

“I could hardly get the new Cracklies limerick going.”

“That denotes real worry,” I said. “I’ve got it, though. Want to hear it?”

“Sure. Shoot.”

“Buy Cracklies, by crackie! Over and over again, repeated. Like?”

“I’m an eggs-for-breakfast man,” I said.

“I think it’s good. Considering the worrying I did.”

“You had no cause for worry.”

“You seemed pretty damned worried,” Andy said, turning suddenly.

“Huh? I don’t follow.”

“When you called.”

“When I called?” I lifted my eyebrows. “Sorry,” I said, “wrong number.”

“Well, no one even asked me.”

“Asked you what? Make sense, Andy.”

“Asked me about what you’d told me.”

I let out a deep breath. “I’m sorry, ma’m, but I missed the first reel. Want to start from scratch?”

“When you called this afternoon,” Andy said, impatiently.

“Honey,” I told her. “I didn’t call this afternoon. And if I’d made any calls, they’d have all been to my lawyer.”

Andy stared at me curiously for a few moments? Then she smiled and said, “Jon, really, there’s no need for any cloak and dagger. I won’t tell anyone, if you’re worried about it, and you needn’t deny having called.”

“Won’t tell anyone what? Goddamnit, Andy, I didn’t call you. The last time I spoke to you was at the agency.”

Andy looked extremely puzzled. “Well now isn’t that strange,” she said.

“It certainly is,” I agreed. “Did someone call and say it was me?”

“Well, no. But the voice... well, I just assumed it was you.”

“What did this mysterious caller say?”

“He said, well he said, ‘Is this Andy?’ and I said, ‘Yes, it is.’ ”

“That’s all?”

“No, of course not. He said, ‘Listen and listen hard, Andy.’ That’s when I figured it was you calling.”

“What else did he say?”

“He said, ‘I want you to forget everything I told you this morning. Everything, understand? Especially when the police start asking questions.’ ” Andy shrugged. “Golly, I was sure it was you.”

“What did you answer?”

“I said, ‘Okay, Trigger, I’m a clam.’ Honestly, Jon, I thought it was you clowning around.”

“What happened then.”

“He just hung up. I thought that was strange, and then later, when the news about Cynthia reached the office I figured you wanted me to keep quiet about what you’d told me, about quitting the job. I thought... I thought maybe you were involved.”

“For Pete’s sake!”

“Well, how was I supposed to know? It sounded like you, and I thought immediately of you, and besides I was in the middle of that damned Cracklies limerick.”

She looked as if she were ready to start bawling, so I went to her and took her into my arms, and she snuggled her head against my chest.

“You’re a rotten louse, Jonathan Crane.”

“I know,” I said.

“And I knew you when your damned name was plain Johnny Kransen.”

“I know,” I said.

“And I was worried.”

“You’re a doll.”

“Sure.”

“You are. I mean it. You’re a doll on wheels.”

“Sure.”

“Do you still want dinner and a movie?”

“Yes,” timidly.

“Then go fix your face. Come on, doll.”

“Don’t call me ‘doll.’ I’m not one of the office dolls you flirt with every day.”

“I know you’re not.”

Andy tried to keep a stern face, but the smile broke through like filtered sunshine. “I’ll powder up, you rat,” she said.

“Hey!” I said, snapping my fingers. “Whoever called you was obviously someone who’d told you something this morning. Who’d you speak to this morning?”

Andy batted her eyelashes. “Lots of people,” she said.

“Who?”

“Cynthia. You.”

“Who else?”

“Dave Halliday, I guess. Yes, he came in to see Cynthia about oxygen on...” Andy paused. “Oxygen on Mars?”

“Yes. Did he say anything to you?”

“Sure, lots of things. But I don’t remember them all.”

“Anything important?”

“No. No, unless... well, I’ve heard a million people say that.”

“Say what?”

“Well, he said, well, he was complaining about the oxygen business. He said, ‘Someday I’m going to murder that meddling witch.’ ” Andy paused again. “Only he didn’t say witch.”

“Who else did you see?”

“Artie Schaefer. Stopped by for some film stuff, I think. He came into my office to say hello.”

“Anything from him?”

“I can’t remember. Just the usual pleasantries, I guess.”

“Marauder? The Cadet?”

“No, neither of them. At least, if they were at the agency, I didn’t see them.”

“Felix Nechler?”

“Why, yes. Isn’t that curious? He told me he wanted to see Cynthia about a job. He’s a nice old duck, isn’t he?”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Well, Cynthia’s secretary spoke to him, and he was pretty angry afterwards. She told him Cynthia was very busy and would be leaving for the studio in a little while. Pretty shabby treatment.”

“He probably came down to catch her there then,” I said.

“Was he there when she...”

“Yes.”

“Jon...”

“Yes?”

“You... you didn’t kill her, did you? I mean...”

“Me? Hell, I haven’t killed anyone since last Wednesday.”

“Seriously, Jon. I... I’d like to know.”

“You are the craziest female I’ve ever met,” I told her. “No, I did not kill anyone.”

Andy smiled. “I’d have brought you cigarettes and a cake with a file in it.”

“You probably would.”

“So undying is my love. I’ll go powder up, and you’d better be here when I come back, you rat.”

“There’s a cute number down the hall,” I reminded her.

“How do you know?” she said suspiciously.

“There’s always a cute number down the hall.”

Andy considered this seriously. “I’ll be ten seconds,” she promised, and she wasn’t seven minutes over that.

5.

When my doorbell chimed noisily at twenty minutes past ten the next morning, I was still in bed. I frowned at the alarm clock until I realized it was innocent, and then pulled on a robe over my pajamas and walked through the living room.

I opened the door a crack, and Detective-Sergeant Hilton’s inscrutable face peered back at me. Another inscrutable face was behind his.

“My partner,” he explained. “Ed Matthews.”

“Mrfff,” I said.

“May we come in? Hope we didn’t wake you?”

“No,” I said grumpily. “I had to get up to answer the door anyway.”

Hilton’s face remained inscrutable, and I decided I’d save my knife-edged wit for a worthier audience. “Come on in, boys.”

I flung the door wide, turned my back on it, and walked into the living room. Andy and I had done our best to drink up all the scotch in the City of New York the night before, and whereas Andy’s recuperative powers were amazing, mine were a little less spectacular. I lighted a cigarette to take the taste of the motorman’s glove out of my mouth. The cigarette did not help. I looked down at it sourly, and then remembered the detectives.

“What can I do for you?” I asked.

“Few questions,” Hilton said. “Routine.”

“All right.”

“First, is it true you saw Cynthia Finch in her office along about eleven-thirty yesterday morning?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Is it also true you quit your job at that time?”

“Yes.”

“Is it true you and Miss Finch had what might be termed an argument?”

“No,” I said.

Hilton reached into his jacket pocket and came out with a glossy photograph which he extended to me dangling from his thumb and forefinger. “Know her?” he asked.

I took the photograph from his fingers, studied it, and passed it back. “Yes. She’s Cynthia’s secretary.”

“Did you kill Miss Finch?” Hilton asked conversationally.

“Sure. I kill all women with black hair. My stepmother had black hair.”

Hilton sighed and put the photograph back into his pocket. “She says she heard you arguing with Miss Finch yesterday.”

“She’s a bird-brain. She wouldn’t know an argument if it hit her in the face with a brick.”

“She says you raised your voice. She heard it all the way from her desk outside.”

“She was probably listening at the keyhole. Cynthia and I were not arguing. We were discussing a script of mine. We discussed it like ladies and gents. No threats of murder, no nothing. Then I quit.”

“How much does Bradley and Brooks pay you for the Rocketeers show, Mr. Crane?” Hilton’s partner asked suspiciously.

“Why?”

“Routine.”

“Seven-fifty for a week’s sequence. Fifteen hundred for a two-week’s sequence. What’s that go to do with the price of fish?”

“I got some ideas about you,” Hilton’s partner said.

“Let me hear them,” I told him.

“Maybe she fired you.”

“I quit.”

“Maybe she fired you, and you didn’t like the idea of losing all that easy money.”

“Sure. Maybe I started the San Francisco fire, too.”

“Don’t get smart, Crane,” Hilton’s partner said ominously.

“I can’t help it. I’m that way naturally. We did not argue, and I was not fired. We had a normal discussion, and I quit. I can get a job in ten seconds over at Captain Jet. So your idea about me is a stinkeroo.”

“That’s what you say,” Hilton’s partner said. “Anyway, don’t you leave town, Crane.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.”

“What’s the matter?” Hilton asked.

“Haven’t you got a detective who doesn’t read Ellery Queen?”

“I don’t read Ellery Queen,” Hilton’s partner said belligerently.

“Reading is an acquired skill,” I told him. “Stick with it, give it time.”

“Wise guy,” he mumbled.

“I have to get down to the studio soon,” I told him. “I suppose I’ll see you both there.”

“We still haven’t found the blowtorch, you know.”

“Assuming it was one.”

“How do you mean?”

“Maybe the death-ray gun did it.”

“Wise guy,” Hilton’s partner mumbled again.

They went to the door, and I watched them go. I lighted another cigarette, and then remembered I’d forgotten to tell them Andy’s story. I opened the door and looked over to the elevator banks, but the two sleuths were already gone. I shrugged and made a mental note to tell Hilton about it at the studio. Then I showered, shaved, ate, dressed, and left the apartment.

I stopped over to see Binx Bailey at ABC, and he told me he’d be happy to give me a trial run, and why didn’t I come over and watch the show to get the slant some afternoon. I told him I would, and then I caught a cab crosstown to Tom Goldin’s office, remembering after I got there that he had a luncheon appointment, and Tom eats lunch early. So I stopped for a cup of coffee in a drugstore, spotted the phone booths, and gave Andy a call.

“Hello,” I said, “how’s the head?”

“Dandy,” she said. “How’s yours?”

“Ouch.”

“You drink too much,” she said solemnly.

“Or not enough of the right stuff. anyway. Listen, have you recalled anything further about the people who spoke to you yesterday?”

“Did I tell you that Stu Shaughnessy stopped by?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Well, he had. He was sore as hell about the way Cynthia constantly changes her mind about props. He said his budget wasn’t high enough to permit constant changes and substitutions.”

“How come all these people stop to weep on your shoulder?”

“I’m an attractive young lady,” Andy said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Someday I’ll show you.”

“When?”

“Someday.”

“Sure.” I paused and thought for a minute, and then said, “Does any of that drivel sound like talk preceding a murder?”

“You mean the conversations with everyone?”

“Yes.”

“No, it doesn’t. I’ve been wracking my brain all morning, trying to think of something that sounded incriminating, something that necessitated a warning. I can’t think of a blamed thing, Jon.”

“Maybe you invented the phone call,” I said. “Maybe you killed Cynthia Finch.”

“I’d have liked to, sometimes — but I didn’t.”

“I’m going over to the studio,” I said. “If you think of anything...”

“I’ll call you.”

“ ’Bye, doll.”

“Did I tell you I love you this morning?” Andy asked suddenly.

“No.”

“I’m slipping. I love you, you big boob.”

“Go write a limerick,” I told her, and then I hung up, smiling.

6.

The studio was unusually quiet when I got there. There were a few cameramen on the floor, but no one else was in sight. I lighted a cigarette and went around back, opening the door to the control booth. Artie Schaefer was standing near one of the turntables, a cigarette end glowing in the dimness. He brought the cigarette to his mouth, took a preoccupied drag on it, and then stared out through the glass, out over the studio floor.

“Dead today,” I said.

Artie looked up suddenly. “Wh... oh, hello, Jon.”

“Hope I didn’t break in on a thought fest,” I said.

“No, I was just... come in, come in.” He walked to the table behind the wide glass front of the booth, hooked an ashtray with one finger and snuffed out his cigarette. Artie was a tall man with kinky black hair and a magnificent profile. He’d made a good living out of radio, and he was now making a better living out of television. Rocketeers was only one of his shows, and he was generally conceded to be the best engineer in the business.

“Nobody in yet?” I asked.

“I saw Dave a few minutes ago,” Artie said. “None of the cast are here yet, though.”

“What do you think of yesterday?” I asked.

“Only yesterday,” he said, seeming to be still lost in thought. “Seems like it happened a long, long time ago, doesn’t it?”

“Who are you picking?”

“I don’t know, Jon. I honestly can’t figure it. I mean, Cynthia... well, who’d want to kill Cynthia?”

“Lots of people have considered it,” I told him.

He seemed honestly surprised. “Really? A sweet kid like her? I can’t believe it.”

“Did you know her very well, Artie?”

“We dated a few times.” He looked up suddenly. “I’ve already told that to Sherlock Holmes. I don’t suppose it’s a secret, anyway.”

“Anything... serious?”

“No, just a few dates. I liked her company. She was levelheaded and intelligent, and I liked what she was trying to do with the show.”

I didn’t say anything because I’d been one of those who hadn’t liked what she was trying to do with the show. Artie sensed this and he added, “Hell, you can’t blame her for wanting to give it class.”

“I’m not blaming her,” I said.

“She gave you a rough time with your scripts, did she?”

“She did, but that doesn’t matter. Not now it doesn’t.”

“No, not now,” he agreed. He suddenly slapped the table top with his open palm. “Dammit, who’d want to kill her? You really think some stupid character would kill her because of the way she was running things? You really think that?”

“I don’t know, Artie.”

“You’ve got to be twisted to do something like that — really twisted, rotten inside.” He shook his head. “You can’t be normal and kill someone like Cynthia Finch.”

“I suppose not.”

Artie sighed wearily, passed a hand over his classic nose, and then gestured through the glass of the booth. “There’s Dave now,” he said.

“I’d better get down there,” I said.

“Sure. Ask him to let me know when he’s ready to test, will you?”

“Okay,” I said. I left the booth and went down to the floor. Dave was walking with his head bent, as if he were looking for clues in the concrete.

“Find anything?” I asked.

He looked up and shook his massive head. “I was looking for a blowtorch,” he said.

“The police didn’t turn one up, did they?”

“No. But they don’t know the studio as well as I do.”

“Did you find it?”

“No,” Dave said sadly. He looked at me solemnly for a moment, and said, “Come over here, will you?”

“Sure,” I said, surprised. I followed him over to the rocket ship interior set, and Dave pulled up an aluminum stool near the port blister. Outside the blister, a painted backdrop of black space and brilliant white stars showed above Dave’s head. “I... I want some advice.”

“Sure,” I said. “What is it?”

Dave reached for a pair of calipers hanging on a string from the ship’s plotting board. He held them in his beefy hands, opening and closing the pointed tips. “I’ve been wondering whether or not I should tell Hilton something. I figure he’ll find out anyway, but I sure as hell don’t want to get involved. Do you follow me?”

“So far. What is it you think he should know?”

Dave sucked in a heavy breath. “Cynthia and I were married,” he said.

“What?”

“Not now. I mean, not when she was killed. This was a long time ago, Jon. We were both kids, and it didn’t work out. I mean, well we went our separate ways. We were both in radio at the time, but Cynthia started fooling around with the theatre... well, I never guessed we’d both end up in television, and certainly not on the same damned show.” He looked at me mournfully.

“But you’re divorced,” I said.

“Yes. A long time ago. In fact, Cynthia had the marriage annulled. It was the best thing, Jon. We... we didn’t get along too well. I mean, we got along fine now, before she was killed, but it was different when we were married. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think I should tell Hilton?”

“I think so, yes.”

“You don’t think he’d misconstrue it? I mean, he won’t think I killed her because I was once married to her? You don’t think so?”

“He seems fairly intelligent,” I said, “if a bit obvious in his tactics.”

“That’s what I figured. But...” Dave shook his head again. “It’s a hard decision to make. I don’t want to get involved in this, you know. I mean, what the hell, she was the same to me as to anyone else. The marriage was a long time ago.”

“I understand, Dave.”

“Well, thanks,” he said heavily. “I guess I will tell him.”

“I think that’d be best.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” He still didn’t seem convinced. I left him to worry it out, telling him I was going down for a cup of coffee until the cast showed up. I was heading down the iron steps when I met Detective-Sergeant Hilton, minus his partner this time.

“Hello, Sergeant,” I said.

“Ah, Crane,” he answered, nodding. “Where you bound?”

“Cup of coffee,” I said.

“Mind if I come along?”

“Well...” I hesitated. “No, not at all.”

“Thanks,” he said. He turned, and we walked down the steps together, and out into the street. We didn’t say anything on the walk to the luncheonette, and the silence persisted until we’d both been served our coffee. Hilton stirred his, took a sip at it, and then put the cup back in the saucer.

“Got a few interesting items from the coroner and the lab boys,” he said, matter-of-factly.

“Oh?” I bit into my toasted English, sipped at my coffee, which was too hot, and looked at him interestedly.

“Yeah,” he said. His face was not as inscrutable now, nor did he affect the preoccupied, business-man cop attitude any longer. He could have been a close friend of mine discussing the plot for a new story. “Coroner says the burns didn’t kill her.”

This surprised me. I didn’t say anything, but I continued to look at Hilton. He nodded and said, “Back of her skull was cracked open. Coroner figures it happened when she hit the concrete floor.”

“But the burns...”

“Not really bad ones, and not enough to kill her instantly. Most burns won’t. We had a cop caught in a gas explosion once, and he came running out of the building like a goddamned torch. The pain was terrific, but he was conscious all the way to the hospital, and he didn’t go out until the doctors gave him morphine. And he didn’t die until four hours later. First degree burns, too. So even if a blow torch was used on Miss Finch, it’s doubtful she’d have been killed instantly.”

“What do you figure then?”

“Well, I’m not sure. I can’t picture someone deliberately setting fire to her, and yet it all points to that. She probably went up in flames, reared back, fell, and bashed in her skull.”

“Accidentally, you mean?”

“It’s still murder. I mean, if I show you a snake and you back away from it over the edge of a roof, that’s homicide. No two ways of looking at it.”

“Then a blowtorch was used on her?”

“No. Leastways, the lab boys don’t think so. They found traces of turpentine on her dress and in her hair.”

“Turpentine?”

“Yeah, highly inflammable, you know.” He looked at me like a man with a knotty storyline problem. “Does it sound screwy to you, too?”

“It does, yes.”

“I’m puzzled, so help me. Can you picture a guy throwing turps at her, and then lighting a match? What’s to gain? Was he trying to ruin her good looks? If so, he must have known the turps wouldn’t kill her. It’s screwy as hell.”

“Maybe the fire was an accident. Maybe she tripped over the turpentine or something. There’s always a lot of turps back there, guys painting sets, you know.”

“If she tripped over a can of the stuff, we’d have found traces on her stockings and shoes. She wasn’t burned below the waist, you know. It figures somebody threw a bucket of it at her. But why?”

“I don’t know.” I studied Hilton for a moment, and then asked, “Why are you telling me all this, Sergeant?”

Hilton smiled, assuming the cop pose for just an instant. Then the pose vanished, and he was plain, honest Hilton again. “You smoke Pall Malls, Crane?”

“Yes,” I said, puzzled.

“You told me yesterday that you were out in the hallway having a smoke when Miss Finch was killed. I rooted around out there and found a couple of dead butts on the floor. The place is probably a hangout for anyone who wants a breath of air from that window, and it probably gets swept up every day. Two of the butts were old ones, the lab boys said, probably missed by the sweeper. He makes his rounds about eleven, by the way. I asked him. Those two were off in the corner, so it’s easy to see how they could be lying there for a long time. The third butt was right under the window, and it was a Pall Mall. The lab boys told me the tobacco was reasonably fresh, and that the cigarette could have been recently smoked. They also got a lot of smeared prints from it, and one good thumb print. The thumb print matched yours.”

“Mine? Where’d you get my thumb print?”

Hilton smiled. “The picture I showed you this morning. You left a nice one on the glossy surface.”

I smiled with him, wagging my head. “I’ll be damned.”

“So I figured maybe you, out of all the jokers around, were telling the truth. I know a cigarette butt is flimsy enough evidence, and it sure as hell wouldn’t whitewash a man in court.”

“Then why whitewash me, Hilton?” I asked.

“We’re not in court, Crane. Nor do I figure you for a crazy guy who’d set a woman on fire. I may not be able to pull a killer out of a hat, but I’ve seen enough of them to know when a man isn’t one.”

“Well, thanks.”

“Besides, I need someone who knows all these people. The minute I step in, they clam up, even if they’re not guilty. Homicide has a way of making everyone feel like he did it. I need someone who can sniff around when they’re all off guard.”

“Me?”

“If you’ll help.”

“You’re pretty sure I didn’t kill her, huh?”

“Reasonably so. What do you say, Crane?”

“Sure, if you think I really can help. Where do I start?”

“Just listen around,” he said, “and let me know what you hear.”

I told him then about Dave’s confession, and he listened with interest, making no comment. Then I told him about the phone call Andy had received, and he listened to this with more interest, and then said, “That can mean something. If she remembers. Trouble is, the remark was probably significant only to the killer. It probably doesn’t mean a damn to Miss Mann.”

“At least we know the killer was a man.”

“There were no women in the studio anyway,” Hilton said.

“No, there weren’t.”

“Or at least none that we know of.” Hilton finished his coffee, and then said, “I’m going to have a talk with Miss Mann. Maybe I can dig something out of her. You’ll get what you can here, okay, Crane?”

“I’ll do my best,” I assured him.

7.

I was kept pretty busy during the rehearsal, and I didn’t get much opportunity to ask many questions. When Dave finally called a break, I walked out into the darkness and took a seat near the monitor, lighting a cigarette before someone called me for another script change. I was seated for about six minutes when Martha Findlay came over to me. Martha was young Cadet Holmes’ mother, a woman who’d been deserted when the Cadet was six years old. Her husband had been an alcoholic with an itchy foot, and he’d just picked up and wandered off one morning, heading for South America way. Martha was an attractive, large brunette. She’d started the Cadet off on dancing lessons, and then dumped him into that private hell of the child entertainer, exhibiting his soft-shoe and tap routines at American Legion dances and one-night stands wherever the opportunity presented itself. With Martha Findlay at the helm, the opportunities presented themselves with blinding rapidity. She was shrewd enough to realize that tap dancers were a dime a dozen, though, and so she’d started the young Cadet on dramatics lessons. He’d done a few scattered television spots before landing the Cadet Holmes plum, and I had to admit the kid was pretty good — but I still wondered whether or not Martha hadn’t done a little entertainment of her own to get him the most coveted juvenile spot on the air. Alec Norris, the producer who’d originated the show, and the man who’d preceded old Felix Nechler, had a notorious reputation with the women, and Martha Findlay — if nothing else — was a good deal of woman.

She brought all her womanhood over to me, and plunked it down in the chair next to me. Martha affected dresses which would have warranted a raid on Fifty-Second street, and she wore them with the casual aloofness of a woman who is above thinking about her body, When Martha Findlay was within viewing distance, however, there was hardly a man from six to sixty-six who was not aware of her body. She leaned over purposefully, crossing her legs, and cupping her chin in her hand. I did not look down to her but the temptation was a very strong one, and the nearness of her perfume didn’t help the situation any.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you, Jon,” she said, her voice soft. It always surprised me to hear that soft voice coming from Martha’s overabundant body. But the voice was just a small part of the femininity that was as calculated as an IBM card.

“Really? What about, Martha?”

“About Richie.”

Richie, of course, was Richard Findlay, and Richard Findlay was young Cadet Holmes. “What about him?”

“Well, now that Cynthia is gone...” Martha paused, moving her hand away from her chin for a moment, allowing me a better look at what the front of her dress had artfully uncovered. She brought the hand back like the President of the Censorship Committee, and then said, “I know it’s terrible and all, but I never could talk to her about Richie, and perhaps you can help.”

“How, Martha?”

“Fatter parts,” she said bluntly.

“This is Marauder’s show,” I said, just as bluntly. “Cadet Holmes is just a supporting character.”

“I know. I was thinking, though...” She hesitated, and then smiled, lowering her lashes at the same time. And even though I saw completely through Martha Findlay, there was one portion of my mind that remained acutely aware of her as a very desirable woman — if you like big women. “I had an idea, Jon. Suppose Fred — suppose Marauder were captured or something. You could easily handle that, I know. Or perhaps wound him, something like that. Then Richie would have to carry the ball, don’t you see? He’d have to hunt for his old friend, thwart the villains, all that. It would give him a nice opportunity to show what he can really do. He’s quite good, you know.”

“What does Marauder do when I write him out of the script? Fred Folsom makes his living from this show.”

“Oh, I know,” Martha said innocently, “and I wouldn’t think of cutting Fred out of his salary. We could have a few shots of him in prison or something like that, just to point up the drama. He’d still be in the show that way, and drawing his usual salary. And it would only take two weeks or so. Just enough time to show everyone what Richie can really do.”

“Richie’s doing fine,” I said.

“It’s much easier to talk to you than it was to Cynthia, Jon,” she said. Her voice lowered intimately. “Think about it. Maybe we can discuss it further over a few drinks.”

“You’re the biggest phony in the world, Martha,” I said.

“Jon!” She squeezed her eyes shut in mock, amused shock. “Really now!”

“Luckily, you’ve got the equipment.” I paused. “You really want to have a few drinks with me, Martha?”

“I’d love to,” she said earnestly, eagerly.

“Even when I tell you I’ve quit Rocketeers and won’t be doing the scripts anymore?”

Martha’s eyelashes batted in honest amazement. “You... you quit?”

“Yes, dearest.”

“I... see.” It took Martha only a moment to regain her composure, and then the shrewdly calculating mind beneath the softly shrewd exterior shoved through again. “Do you have any idea who’ll be taking over, Jon?”

I patted Martha on her well-shaped knee. “No, darling. I don’t. But about those drinks...”

“I think Dave is calling Richie now,” she said, standing and smiling and sucking in a deep dress-filling breath all at the same time. “You will excuse me, won’t you, Jon?”

She swiveled off before I could answer, and I chuckled secretly, wandering just who would fill in the script-writing gap I’d be leaving. And then I started wondering just why I was leaving. Now that Cynthia was dead, there would be no arguments over the quality level of the scripts. I could go right on writing adventurous space opera, providing the next producer of Rocketeers wasn’t as equally eager-beaverish as Cynthia had been.

This was a point worth considering. If I was relieved — and I must admit I felt no guilt about the feeling of relief — imagine how the murderer felt! Assuming, of course, that the murderer had also been harassed by Cynthia, plagued as it were into finally killing her. But assuming this, it simply remained a job of finding whom Cynthia had been riding hardest.

Dave Halliday? True, as director of the show he’d had to take an unwarranted amount of lip garbage from his ex-wife, a fact he’d skillfully concealed until just today. But considering the fact that she was his ex-wife... Or had Dave planted that bit of information purposely? Had he mentioned it to throw suspicion off himself? The possibility was worth a second thought.

Stu Shaughnessy? Again, he’d taken his share of abuse from Cynthia Finch. No part of a show she produced was immune to her probing, correcting eye. Stu was the kind of workman who took pride in everything he did, and if Cynthia possessed any one outstanding quality, it was the ability to demolish a man’s pride.

Felix Nechler? The old man had come back to ask Cynthia for a job, or so he said. Perhaps he’d come back to do her out of a job, leaving the old producing spot open again. Who’d he better qualified for the vacant position than a man who’d produced the show before? And it was certainly not news that Felix Nechler was not exactly in love with Cynthia.

Marauder? Somehow, I couldn’t picture Fred Folsom as a murderer. Besides, if Andy’s phone-call story were to be taken into account, both Folsom and young Cadet were out of the picture. Neither of the two had seen her or spoken to her on the day of Cynthia’s death.

That left Artie Schaefer, who’d dated Cynthia and who seemed extremely fond of her. It also left anyone else who’d been lurking around the studio unseen.

It left a lot.

Just before show time that afternoon, Dave dumped a fat prop problem in Stu Shaughnessy’s lap, and Stu was busy right up to ON THE AIR, trying to rig a weird looking Martian animal that would run across the stage apparently on its own power. It kept him hopping, but he came up with a papier-mâché horror propelled by wheels and wires, and Dave was beaming happily just before Rocketeers hit the screen. I didn’t stay for the show. I never did. Rehearsals always knocked hell out of me, and I’m not the type who gets any particular enjoyment out of watching my own work — especially when it’s been changed so much by viewing time that it hardly resembles the original.

I stopped at Hutton’s for a few martinis and a couple of broiled pork chops, and then drifted up toward Fifth Avenue, watching the pretty ladies in their pretty mink stoles. I walked on Fifth for a while, dismayed when I realized I’d never find a phone booth among the jewelry shops and clothing stores. I turned up 47th Street and then walked up to Sixth, stopping in the first cigar store I found.

I dialed Andy’s number and let the phone ring eight times. When she didn’t answer, I figured she was in the shower, and I debated whether or not I should hop a cab over and surprise her. I decided against it. I hung up, walked to Broadway, and stopped in one of the penny arcades, trying my luck with the skill-testing machines. I scored three runs at baseball, shot down 39 enemy bombers and got a fortune teller’s card reading You are good with your hands and should concentrate your activities on manual skills. I chuckled a little and then watched the guy behind the phony newspaper concession. I finally had him print a headline which read ANDREA MANN ASSAULT VICTIM, paid him, and took the newspaper outside, matching it to a same-sized tabloid I found at the nearest newsstand. I slipped the first page onto the tabloid, and then found another phone and dialed Andy’s number again.

This time I let it ring for long after I ran out of fingers on both hands. Andy’s a very quick girl in the shower, and I began to wonder just where the hell she was, or what the hell she was doing. I folded the tabloid, put it under my arm, and caught a cab. When I reached her brownstone on East 68th Street, I paid and tipped the cabbie, and then climbed the steps rapidly. I didn’t bother ringing the downstairs bell, I went straight up to the third floor, knocked on the door, and waited.

I knocked again.

“Andy!” I yelled.

I pounded on the door this time, using a closed fist, and then I tried the knob. The door opened easily, and that was when I felt the first touch of panic. In all the time I’d known Andrea Mann, she’d never left her door unlocked, even when someone was in the apartment with her.

The living room was empty. A desolate-looking, pom-pommed house-slipper lay on its side near the television console. The set was still tuned to the channel that carried Rocketeers earlier that evening, but the name comedian who filled the screen was playing to an empty house. I looked into the kitchen and found a cork-tipped cigarette burnt down to an ash in the tray where Andy had left it. That was when I ran into the bedroom.

8.

It was empty, as empty as a tilted beer keg at two in the morning. The bedcovers were pulled back neatly, and I figured Andy had been watching television for a while, planning to hit the sack early. A closed book rested on the night table alongside the bed.

The closet door was open, and something — probably an overcoat — had been ripped so violently from its hanger that the surrounding garments were all lying in a disconsolate heap on the closet floor.

Andy’s slip, brassiere, panties, and stockings were draped over the back of a chair near the closet wall. Her purse was on the dresser. I knew then that she’d been taken from the apartment, and hadn’t left of her own accord. She’d probably been in pajamas or a night gown, and her abductor had thrown her into an overcoat and then forced her to accompany him. I didn’t waste any more time theorizing.

I went back into the living room and quickly dialed Homicide, and when Detective-Sergeant Hilton came on the wire, I told him what I’d found.

“All right,” he said, “don’t get excited. I’ll get an APB out on this right away, and we may be able to pick them up before they get very far. In the meantime, this may be the best break we’ve had yet.”

“How do you mean?” I asked, hardly able to think of Andy’s abduction as a “break.”

“Tomorrow’s Friday,” he said. “You’ve got a show on Friday, haven’t you?”

“Yes. But...”

“Whoever grabbed Miss Mann may figure it’s not safe to leave her alone. He may stick with her tomorrow, and then all we have to do is count heads at the studio. The missing guy is our man.”

“Except for one thing,” I said.

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“Suppose he kills her first?”

“If he was going to kill her, why snatch her? He could have done it right in her apartment.”

“Maybe he’s working up the courage.”

“That’s the chance we have to take. Meanwhile, I’ll get an I sheet out on her, and maybe one of the radio cars will spot her. Whatever you do, don’t start worrying, Jon.”

“All right,” I promised. “Did you talk to her this afternoon?”

“Yes. She told me just what she’d told you — but she couldn’t remember anything pertinent that was said.”

“Then whoever grabbed her did it all for nothing.”

“Not anymore. She’ll sure as hell know who the guy is now.”

“Then he’ll have to kill her,” I said.

“Maybe not. Maybe...”

“Don’t snow me,” I said. “I’m a big boy now.”

“All right, all right. Maybe he will. Chances are we’ll get to him first. Like I said, if his mind was already made up he’d have killed her already. Maybe he’s squeamish about taking another life.”

“Or maybe he’s taking her out to the country where he can do the job properly,” I said miserably.

“You start worrying,” Hilton said, “and you can dream up all kinds of junk. Just keep cool. If he stalls until tomorrow and doesn’t show up the rest is duck soup.”

“If he stalls,” I said.

“He might. Jon, we’ll be doing everything we can.”

“All right,” I said.

“I’ll keep in touch with you.”

“All right.”

“Now don’t start worrying all over the place.”

“I won’t,” I lied.

“Give it ’til tomorrow.”

“Sure. Sure.”

We gave it ’til tomorrow. None of the alerted policemen spotted anyone filling the description on the I sheet, so we waited until rehearsal time the next day. Dave Halliday showed up first, and Stu Shaughnessy walked in about ten minutes later. The Cadet and Marauder came in shortly after that. Felix Nechler was checked on, and he was reported being on the floor of Macy’s furniture department where he’d been selling sofa-beds ever since he lost the producing job.

We went through the rehearsal, and by show time that night there was only one man who hadn’t showed up for his job.

Artie Schaefer.

We didn’t know at the time that he was lying dead in his apartment, an ice pick sticking out of his chest.

9.

I went along with Hilton because we figured this was the showdown, and I wanted to be the first to put my arms around Andy after we wrapped up Schaefer.

He was not a pretty sight to see, unless you like looking at dead men. The ice pick made hardly any blood at all, and perhaps that’s what made it harder to believe he was actually dead. It stuck up out of his chest at a grotesque angle, and a tiny trickle of crimson flowed from the tiny hole. He’d been a handsome man, Artie Schaefer, but the good looks had turned waxy and false in death, and he looked like a caricature of himself. I looked down at him, and then I turned away, a hard lump in my throat. If the killer had murdered Artie, then I was sure Andy was already dead.

This was not the showdown we’d expected. This only complicated things, and the murderer was still running around loose somewhere.

“Why don’t you just round them all up?” I said to Hilton. “You know it’s one of them. Why don’t you arrest them all and beat the truth out of them?”

“I may,” Hilton said. “Even if it means risking a pile of false arrest charges.”

“What about Andy now?” I said. “He’s sure to kill her now. He’s killed twice already. For God’s sake, Hilton...”

“There’s no figuring the homicidal mind, Jon,” Hilton said. “You can’t establish any sort of pattern for these goddamned things. Look, he may have killed Cynthia for what seemed like a good reason. He may have killed Schaefer here for what seemed to him like an equally good reason. That doesn’t mean he’ll kill your Andy. It doesn’t mean that at all. Maybe he hasn’t got a strong enough reason for killing her yet. Maybe he’s still debating it.”

“He’s killed two already,” I almost shouted.

“That doesn’t mean he’ll kill three. That’s a common fallacy, Jon. Everybody figures the first one is the hardest. After that, killing comes easy. It isn’t true. The first one is really the easiest. It’s usually done in rage, and it’s all over before you know what happened. It’s the ones after that which are difficult. It’s those that are usually planned and committed cold-bloodedly. It’s those that make the murderer realize he is actually doing murder. Those are the tough ones, Jon.”

“All this talk...”

“I’m just trying to explain something to you. He may have already killed your Andy — but he may not have. We’ve had guys who’ve killed ten, twelve people. And then they’ll walk into headquarters one day and confess. They just couldn’t kill any more. Look at...”

“All right,” I said. “All right.”

“I’m going back to the office,” Hilton said, “as soon as the boys finish with their pictures and prints here. I’m expecting an autopsy report on Cynthia Finch. If anything turns up, I’ll call you. I suggest you go home and get some sleep.”

I tried to do that. I went home, and I got into bed and turned out the lights, and then I lay on my back and stared up at the ceiling, and all the while I was thinking of Andy and wondering if she was still alive. You get so you take someone like Andy for granted. Like brushing your teeth in the morning. Like that. Andy was a nice kid, a lot of fun, a sweet girl. Only that.

Until now. And now I began to wonder how much more she really meant to me, now when it was perhaps too late.

When the phone rang, I leaped out of bed and ran into the living room, catching it on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Jon?”

“Yes.”

“This is George.” He paused and added, “Sergeant Hilton.”

“Oh yes, yes.”

“Something interesting,” he said.

“Have you found Andy?”

“No, Jon.”

“Oh.”

“But this autopsy on Cynthia Finch. It gives us something to work on anyway.”

“What have you got?”

“She was pregnant, Jon. Three months.”

“What?”

“That’s the story. Now maybe we’ve got a motive.”

“Cynthia pregnant! I mean...”

“That’s the trouble with homicide,” Hilton said. “You start rooting around, and all the muck comes up. All the nice conventions are broken. There isn’t a person alive without that skeleton in his closet, Jon, and homicide brings it out and rattles the bones a little. But like I say, this may give us our motive.”

“Artie Schaefer was dating her,” I said automatically. “Do you suppose...”

“He told me that, and when I got this report it was the first thing that popped into my head. It’s a shame he was killed with that icepick. Suicide would have fit the picture better.”

“How so?”

“Killed her because she was carrying his unwanted child, and then knocked himself off because he felt guilty as hell.”

“Why couldn’t he have killed himself with the icepick?” I asked.

“Because no prints were on the handle. A dead man doesn’t get up and wipe his prints off the murder weapon.”

“I suppose not,” I said glumly, not seeing how the autopsy report had brought us any closer to finding Andy.

“We’re still working on it,” Hilton said. “Don’t worry.”

“No,” I said. Then I said goodbye and hung up. I tried the bed, but my pajamas seemed too tight, and the bed seemed too small, and the room seemed suffocatingly hot. I got up and walked into the living room, snapping on an end-table lamp. I debated putting on the Late Show, decided against it, and mixed myself a very stiff whiskey sour instead. I ate the cherry and chewed the slice of orange, and then I mixed another one, minus the fruit cocktail this time.

I was sitting down again, ready to drink myself to sleep dead blind when the doorbell chimes sounded.

I said, “Oh, hell,” and shoved myself up out of the chair. I walked to the door, and shouted, “Who is it?”

“Just me,” the voice answered softly. I’d have recognized that voice through the door of a bank vault. I opened the door on the smiling face and half-clothed body of Martha Findlay.

10.

“Hello, dearest,” she said, breezing past me into the foyer. I got a whiff of her breath, and the aroma wasn’t Eau de Cologne. It was more like Vat 69, and I’d have to demolish a good many whiskey sours before I came anywhere near Martha’s lofty position on cloud nine. She walked directly to the liquor cabinet, rooted around among the bottles for a while and came up with a full fifth of bourbon. She broke the seal expertly, poured a water glass half full and then plopped down onto the sofa.

“I’m happy as hell,” she announced.

“I can see that.”

“I put the little louse to bed early,” she explained, “and I’ve been pedaling from bar to bar.” She looked around fuzzily. “What bar is this, darling?”

“Why don’t you go home, Martha?” I said.

“Home? The party’s just started. Tomorrow’s Saturday. No goddamn show, no goddamn noses to wipe. Brother, this is my night to foul.”

“Howl.”

“Foul. I’m not that drunk.”

“What brought you here, Martha?”

Martha did a disappearing liquid act with the bourbon in her glass, and then filled the glass again. “You, darling,” she said.

“I know I’m irresistible, but...”

“You’re no more irresistible than any other jerk in town, except you own a typewriter. Even that doesn’t make you different than the rest.”

“What does?”

“You write Rocketeers.”

“I told you...”

“I’m not as stupid as I look, Jon,” Martha said.

“I never thought you looked stupid, Martha.”

“Are those pajamas you’re wearing?” she asked, as if noticing them for the first time.

“Yes.”

She lifted one eyebrow. “How cosy.”

“How.”

“I got to thinking, Jon. I sniffed around and found out why you were leasing the show. With Cynthia dead, you won’t have to leave it any more. You’ve been writing it since B.C., and you can go on writing it just the way you like.”

“I’m still leaving, I think.”

“You won’t leave. Rocketeers is in your blood. If you went over to Captain Jet, you wouldn’t be able to sleep nights.”

“I can’t sleep nights, now, anyway.”

Martha Findlay grinned recklessly. “Have you tried a hot water bottle?”

“I’ve got an electric blanket, thanks.”

She stood up suddenly, smoothing her skirt over her wide hips. “You’re being dumb, Jon, real dumb. I’m not exactly ready for the glue works.”

“No one said you were.”

“Damn right, no one said it. They’d have to be blind to say it.”

“Martha, why don’t you go home? I’ve got enough headaches without worrying about your son’s career.”

“You think I’m worrying about my son’s career? You think that’s it?”

“Well, you don’t leave much choice.”

“I’m worrying about one little number, and that number is pretty big, and that number is Martha Findlay. That’s who I’m worrying about. Look, Jon, let’s face it. I’ve got a lot of it now, all in trumps. I’m not going to have it forever, like the diamonds song says, and pretty soon that brat’ll grow up and take unto himself a spouse. That leaves Martha Findlay with a figure like a hippo, and a son with another woman to worry about. There’s nothing worse than a big girl who turns to fat, believe me.”

“You’re not turning yet,” I said, truthfully.

“I know. Give it time. That’s why I want Richie to hit the gravy train now, when I can still get something out of it. It’s been no picnic raising him alone, believe me. I’ll be damned if his wife is going to get all the dessert. Where’s that bourbon?”

She poured herself another glassful, trying to recapture the wearing-thin edge of her stupor. She swallowed that, and then poured and consumed another glassful, and I expected her to fall flat on her face. She didn’t. The two glasses hit her like a ton of nitro, and her eyes glazed, and her tongue thickened, but all she did was stagger towards me and throw her arms around my neck.

“That’s why you’re being silly, Jon baby. Very silly. That’s why you are.”

“Why, Martha?”

“Because all you got to do is give the show to Richie for two weeks or so, even a week or so, that’s all, Jon baby, that’s all. And then Martha Findlay shows her gratitude. Jon, I’m the most gratuitous girl in town.”

“I can imagine,” I said, holding back a smile.

“It’s no skin off your nose, and Jon honey, would I be grateful? I’ll be more grateful than you can possibly imagine, Jon sweetie.”

“Martha, go home. You’re loaded and you don’t know what the hell you’re offering.”

“I don’t, huh? I don’t, huh? I know damn well what I’m offering, Mr. Crane. Maybe you don’t know what I’m offering, huh? Hey, maybe that’s it.” Her hands roamed up the front of her blouse and stopped near the top button.

“Save that for when you’re home,” I said. “Come on, Martha let’s call it a night.”

“I think I’ll stay,” she said. “You need convincing.”

“I think you’ll go, honey.”

“I shoulda got married again,” she said morosely.

“You should have.”

“Like Cynthia. She was the smart one, all right.”

“Sure,” I said, “like Cynthia. Come on, honey.” I started steering her toward the door, and then she said, “Cynthia knew, by God, she knew it was best being married.”

“Sure,” I said. “Sure, sure.”

“And then she got killed. Damn shame, even if I didn’t like her.”

“That’s the way it goes,” I said. I was at the door now, with Martha’s elbow cupped in my hand. I started to unlock the door, and she whirled away from me.

“Is that right? Is it right she should get killed so close to her wedding?”

“What wedding?” I asked.

“Her wedding! For God’s sake, you stupid or something?”

“Yes, Martha, I’m stupid. Goodnight, doll.”

I opened the door, ready to shove her out in the hallway. She slammed the door shut and leaned against it, and then bent forward conspiratorially.

“She was gonna get married. Yes, Cynthia. Yes, little Cynthia. You didn’t know that, did you? You’re a bigshot writer, hut you didn’t know that.”

“No, I didn’t,” I said slowly. “Well, she was. So there.” Martha opened the door. “G’night, hard man. You’ll regret this someday.”

This time, I slammed the door.

“What do you mean, she was going to get married?”

“She was. Cynthia. She told me herself. Only thing she wouldn’t talk with me was business.”

“When? When was she going to get married?”

“A few weeks. I forget the exact date.”

“To whom?”

“Who? I don’t know.” Martha turned and fiddled with the door knob again. I grabbed her shoulder and spun her around, and she looked up and said, “You changing your mind, Jonny?”

“No. Who was Cynthia going to marry?”

“She didn’t say,” Martha answered. “Hey, why’re you so interested, huh? How come you’re so...”

“You’re sure she didn’t say?”

“I ought to know what she said, oughtn’t I? To know?”

“Was it Artie Schaefer?”

“She didn’t say, I told you. What do I have to do to...”

“Did she tell you anything about him?”

“Only that he was the sweetest, kindest, nicest man in the whole world.”

“That helps,” I said.

“Am I staying or going, Mr. Crane? If I stay, I want something comfortable to get into. If I’m going, the night is young, and tomorrow’s Saturday.”

“You’re going, honey.”

“Which shows all you know about women. Well, g’night, sucker.”

She opened the door, and this time I didn’t stop her. She closed it behind her, and I heard the click of her high heels down the corridor outside, and then the whine of the elevator as it started up the shaft.

Cynthia was going to get married!

And Cynthia was pregnant.

And now Cynthia was dead.

And so was Artie Schaefer.

And somewhere in that quatrain, there was meaning. Somewhere in it, but I didn’t know where. I mixed another whiskey sour, and I drank it slowly, trying to figure it all out, trying to see between the lines of the quatrain. The lines kept blurring because Andy’s face was hidden behind them, and Andy fit into the picture somewhere, too.

Had the killer mentioned his wedding plans to Andy? Or had it been the killer whom Cynthia had planned to marry? Why couldn’t it have been Artie Schaefer, or even Joe Shmoe who worked at a popcorn stand on Second Avenue? Why couldn’t it have been anyone, a boy back home, a cameramen, a sponsor, an anybody, or a nobody?

That was just it. It could have been anyone.

I finally fell asleep.

11.

I woke up with ideas, and the ideas seemed so simple that I kicked myself around for not having thought of them before. I called Detective-Sergeant George Hilton even before I got out of my pajamas.

The first thing I said was, “Anything on Andy yet?”

“No, but we’re still working,” Hilton said.

“Well look, George, I’ve had a few ideas. Stop me if I’m wrong.”

“Go ahead.”

“First, there were a lot of cameramen in the studio the day Cynthia Finch was killed. I thought...”

“We checked on every one of them, Jon. Three all told. At the time of her death they were all in a nearby neighborhood drugstore plotting camera angles for the evening show.”

“I see. Well, one other idea. Andy was snatched on Thursday, but she was snatched either while Rocketeers was on the air, or shortly thereafter. I know because I called her right after leaving the studio.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, everyone connected with the show was at the studio when she was grabbed. I don’t know about Felix Nechler, but...”

“Thursday is a late night at Macy’s,” Hilton said, “and Nechler hasn’t missed a day’s work since this all started.”

“All right, that’s my point. It figures that the murderer had someone kidnap Andy. I mean, he didn’t do it himself. That will explain why everyone was right on the job Friday. There was no necessity to stand guard over Andy. Someone was doing that for the murderer.”

“You’ve got something there, Jon.”

“Well, today is Saturday. No one has to report to the studio, least of all the murderer. He’s probably stayed away from Andy up to now, which is why she hasn’t turned up floating in the river. But now he’s free. He’s got today and tomorrow to do whatever the hell he plans on doing, and when he reports to work Monday, no one will be the wiser. You follow me, George?”

“I’m with you. You mean if he’s going to kill her, he’ll do it over the weekend.”

“Right.”

“That means we have to work fast. The damn trouble is...”

“No leads.”

“No leads. There wasn’t a clue anywhere in her apartment.”

“I’m going to take a run down to the studio, George. Maybe I can dig up something there.”

“We’ve covered it pretty thoroughly, but if you feel...”

“I want to try.”

“Okay, Jon. Good luck. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Thanks. So long, George.”

I hung up and then got into some street clothing after washing and shaving. I was knotting my tie when the phone rang. I left the tie hanging around my neck loose, walked into the living room, picked the phone from its cradle, and said, “Jonathan Crane.”

“Jon, I have to make this fast.” The voice was a whisper, but it couldn’t have been anyone else.

“Andy! Andy, are you all right?”

“Jon, I know who it is. I remembered.”

There was the sound of a band behind her, brasses blasting, a bass drum pounding. She was speaking in a whisper, and I could hardly hear her over the noise of the radio.

“Andy, where are you?”

The band got louder, as if someone had suddenly turned up the volume on the radio. Andy said something in a whisper, but all I heard was, “It’s...” and then her voice was drowned out by the brasses.

“Who?” I shouted. “Andy, where are you?”

“I know it was him,” she whispered, “because he said, ‘In a little while, she’ll be taking the orders from me.’ ” The noise of the band was receding again, and I wished whoever was fiddling with the radio would cut it out. “I didn’t know what he meant, and he smiled and said, ‘The bells are ringing, baby’ and I still didn’t know what he meant. But they were probably going to get married, Jon. And then...”

“Andy, who? And where are you? Baby, where...”

“I’m...”

And then there was a click on the line, and a silence as deep as the Atlantic Ocean.

“Andy!” I shouted.

I began jiggling the hook, and when the operator came on, I said, “Operator, can you trace that phone call, please?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she answered automatically. “We are not permitted...”

“Goddammit, this is a matter of life and death.”

“I’m sorry, sir. Regulations do not permit...”

“Oh, hell!” I shouted, and I slammed down the receiver. I picked it up again instantly, and dialed Homicide after what seemed like an eternity waiting for a dial tone. When Hilton came on, I said, “George, Andy just called me.”

“What? Where is she?”

“She didn’t say. Someone cut her off. Hey, what the hell is this?”

I had just become aware of the brasses and bass drums on the other end of the line. They kept getting louder until they filled the phone, and I shouted, “For Christ’s sake, turn down that radio.”

“I can’t,” Hilton said. “It’s not a radio.”

“What the hell is it then?”

“A band. Outside my window. A parade, Jon.”

“A par... George! That band was behind Andy when she called!”

“What? When was this?”

“Two, three minutes ago. Which way is the parade going?”

“Downtown. I want to get on this right away, Jon. I’ll get every damn radio car in the city.”

“Go ahead. She knows who it is, George. The guy who was going to marry Cynthia. She knows who.”

“What guy? What marriage? What are you talking about?”

“Go get Andy. I’m heading for the studio. I’ll call you in a half hour. George...”

“Yeah?”

“Find her. Please.”

“I will,” he promised, and then he hung up, and I visualized him tracing the parade’s progress back two or three minutes and knocking on every damned door in the vicinity. There was nothing I could do to help, and I couldn’t sit still anyway. I tied my tie and then left the apartment, catching a cab and heading for the studio.

The watchman let me in when he recognized me, and I took the iron steps up to the third floor. The studio was in darkness. I switched on one light, and then stood in the center of the concrete floor, wondering where to begin, wondering how I’d find what I was looking for.

The cameras stood around like silent robots. The overhead mikes dangled from the ceiling on thin wires. I walked onto the Martian set, the weird plants casting long irregular shadows on the concrete. My shoes padded silently on the Martian sands, and then I was walking past Earth Control Office, and back to the room where Stu Shaughnessy kept his props, and then over to the brick wall where the flats were stacked, and the concrete stretch of floor upon which I’d found Cynthia Finch.

There was still a brownish-red smear on the floor, where her head had rested.

I tried to picture it. I tried to visualize it happening, tried to reconstruct it. She’d gone to Stu’s prop room first, so I walked back past the flats, and into the prop room, turning on the overhead bulb. The props were arranged neatly on the table top. Oxygen masks, the death-ray guns, the space projector, the wind guide, all of them, all the phony accoutrements that went into Rocketeers. Alongside the props was a can of turpentine, and alongside that an open bucket of the stuff, with two paint brushes stuck into it.

I picked up one of the death-ray guns. It had a heavy plastic handle, probably loaded with lead to give the gun a proper balance. I squeezed the trigger. I heard the flint catch, and then the spark clicked in the open breach, and then the other sparks came from the nozzle of the gun, while the entire weapon glowed from the light generated by the batteries inside.

Cynthia Finch had been holding one of these guns when she died.

Dave Halliday had left her talking to Stu Shaughnessy. Stu had been showing her how the gun operated. I tried to picture the scene. How do you show someone how something operates?

There were two death-ray guns.

Could Stu Shaughnessy have been holding the second gun?

Could he have said something like, “You hold it this way, Cynthia, and then you squeeze the trigger?”

Could they have been standing near the prop table? Could there have been an open bucket of turps on it, just the way there was now?

And could Cynthia Finch have said, “I’m pregnant, Stu. And the baby’s not yours?”

I saw it clearly then, sharply, as if I were watching it on the monitor, the image sharply defined in blacks and whites.

She told him, and he probably flew into a rage. He reached for the open bucket of turps, threw it in her face, wanting to hurt her in some way, but not wanting to kill her, wanting only to strike at her the way she had struck at him, wanting only to... to soil her perhaps, to cover her with the filth of an open turps bucket.

He threw the turpentine at her, and she probably drew back, the death-ray gun in her hand. And then she did instinctively what anyone with a gun in his hand would do when threatened with violence.

She squeezed the trigger.

She squeezed the trigger, and the flint snapped in the breach, and the spark came, and the spark ignited the turps that had drenched her woolen dress and her face.

She probably turned to run, fleeing down the dark passageway where the flats were stacked, seeking help.

And Stu had run after her, the second gun in his hand. He’d swung the gun and caught her on the back of her head with the heavy plastic handle. He’d picked up her gun where she’d dropped it, and then brought both guns together with the oxygen masks out to the set, giving the guns to the actors, hopelessly smearing any prints on them.

Stu Shaughnessy.

The man with pride in his work. Stu Shaughnessy, whom Cynthia had utterly and irrevocably destroyed by telling him she was bearing another man’s child.

I hefted the death-ray gun on my palm.

Stu Shaughnessy. It fit. It fit it Andy corroborated it. It fit if he was the man Cynthia had promised to marry.

“What are you doing, Jon?” the voice asked.

I turned, lifting the gun unconsciously, instinctively, the way Cynthia must have done when the searing turps splashed into her face.

The gun that looked back at me was not made of plastic.

It did not shoot harmless little sparks.

It was big, and real, and it looked like a .45, and Stu Shaughnessy’s hand was clasped tightly around the walnut stock.

12.

“Hello, Stu,” I said.

“What are you doing; Jon?” he repeated. The light from the overhead bulb cast a brilliant reflection on his black-rimmed glasses. He looked very intense and very serious, and he held the big, blue-black .45 steady. “You know I don’t like anyone in my prop room.”

“I was just looking around,” I said uneasily.

“For what?”

“Just looking.”

“What’d you find?”

“Nothing. What’s the gun for, Stu?”

“What’d you find, Jon?”

“Nothing, I said.”

“The turpentine, maybe?”

“What turpentine?”

“The turpentine, Jon. Don’t play dumb, Jon. I saw you holding hands with Hilton. Don’t tell me the police haven’t figured the turps angle yet.”

“All right, they have,” I said.

“Sure,” Stu said, seriously. “That’s why I’m here. As long as that blowtorch angle had them busy, the turps were safe. Besides, I couldn’t take them out of the studio with everyone around. But I’ll get rid of them now, and then I’d like to see them pin anything on me.”

“It’s too late for that, Stu. The police have probably found Andy by this time.”

“You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not.”

“So what? What good will it do when they find her? I didn’t kidnap her. Someone else did. Someone I hired. Let them prove I was behind it.”

“Kidnaping is a federal offense, Stu. Your stooge may not feel like riding it out alone.”

Stu considered this for a moment, and his mouth tightened. “You shouldn’t have come snooping around, Jon. This is a personal matter.”

“You knew she was pregnant?”

“Yes,” he almost shouted. I saw the gun hand waver, and I edged closer to the prop table, putting my hands flat on the table top behind me, putting down the plastic gun because I wanted both hands when I started my play. “Pregnant, that lousy cheat! Artie Schaefer’s kid, Artie Schaefer who only dated her a few times. It speaks well for the morality of Cynthia Finch, doesn’t it? I took care of him, too. I took care of him, all right.”

“You did, Stu.”

“She had the gall to tell it to me, just like that. Like exchanging pleasantries at breakfast. ‘I’m pregnant, Stu. Will you marry me, anyway?’ I married her, all right. I married her to fire and a dented skull, and then I got the guy who ruined it for me. It’s too bad you came into this, Jon. It’s too bad you and Andy...”

I reached for the bucket of turps, whipping it around with the open circle pointed toward Stu. I threw with all my might, and the brushes flopped out of the can, and the commingled turpentine and paint splashed into Stu’s face and eyes. He backed off screaming, the .45 going off once, twice, firing blindly into the walls of the small prop room.

And then my fist collided with his jaw, and the gun clattered to the concrete, and I hit him again just before he dropped down alongside the gun.

It was all over for Stu Shaughnessy.

13.

We sat together in the restaurant, the three of us. George Hilton looked peculiarly spruced in his dress-up clothes, and Andy looked wonderful, and I couldn’t get enough looking at her.

“I don’t understand,” I said, “how you realized it was Stu. All right, even if you did know he was going to marry Cynthia...”

“The papers, silly,” she said, squeezing my hand and smiling brightly. I wanted to kiss her right then and there, but I remembered George Hilton.

“What papers, doll?” I asked.

“The ones Charlie brought in. He was very nice, Charlie,” Andy said. “I hope you won’t go too hard on him. After all, he was just being paid for a job.”

“Charlie is a kidnaper,” George said, “no matter how you slice it.”

“Still, he was very nice to me. Even when he caught me phoning you, Jon, he simply hung up and said, ‘Did you tell him where you were?’ And when I said I hadn’t, he just warned me to stay away from the phone after that.”

“As a matter of fact,” George said, “he ripped the phone from the wall. When we got there, we found it that way.”

“Yes,” Andy said. “Charlie was very strong.”

“I never knocked on so many doors in my life,” George said, sighing.

“Well, thank you, sir,” Andy said, smiling.

“About the papers,” I prompted. “What papers?”

“The daily newspapers. It was Saturday’s paper that carried the story about Cynthia having been pregnant.”

“That’s right,” George said. “We released the story Friday night.”

“Well, the minute I saw that, I went over the conversations again. That was when the wedding bells rang. It seemed like the only thing that made sense.”

“Did you see this paper?” I asked, pulling out the phony headlines I’d had made in the penny arcade.

Andy looked at the bold black ANDREA MANN ASSAULT VICTIM, and then squealed, “Oh, you darling little prophet,” and threw her arms around my neck.

George Hilton looked at the headline and said, “Huh?”

Andy took her mouth away from mine and winked at George. “Silly,” she said, “he just proposed!”

Which I guess I had.