More Good Old Stuff

Deadly Damsel (“Killing All Men!” Black Mask, March 1949)

When she had awakened that morning, she had looked at her husband in the other bed. Howard’s slack mouth was open, there was a stubble of beard on his chin and he was puffy under the eyes. It was at that moment she realized how bored she was.

Howard Goodkin bored her and so did the little city of Wanderloo, Ohio. As had happened so many times before, the plot and lines and scenery failed to wear well.

When he came down to breakfast she kissed him warmly, smiled up into his eyes — and wondered if he should be buried in the blue suit or the gray one.

The gray would go with his eyes, she decided. The gray suit and one of the new white shirts and the blue silk tie with the tiny pattern of white triangles. While she talked casually with him about the weather, the state of the flower garden and the leaking faucet in the upstairs bathroom, she mentally decided on the Gortzen Funeral Home. They seemed to do the best job. Mrs. Hall had looked so lifelike. She thought of it all, and she could almost hear the soft music, the sonorous words of the service. She wanted to hug herself with excitement.

Finally Howard stood up, patted his mouth with the napkin, leaned over to kiss her good-by and left. She stood at the window and waved to him, wondering how much she would get for the year-old car. She decided that she’d try to get seventeen hundred.

She hummed to herself as she finished up the breakfast dishes. The house was pleasantly warm. She kicked off her slippers and walked through the dim rooms of the pleasant house.

When she passed the full-length mirror in the hall, she jumped. Then she smiled at her own foolishness.

She stood near the mirror and looked at herself. She thought it was odd how young her figure remained. Absurd the way it was still the figure of a young girl. She frowned as she tried to remember her true age. Forty? No. Born in 1908 in Wilmington. That would make it forty-one. Howard thought she was thirty-two. She was a small woman with an erect carriage, shapely legs, a tiny waist. There was no trace of gray in her rich brown hair, and her large eyes were a pleasant deep blue, almost a lavender.

She assumed the exaggerated pose of a model, then laughed at herself with her voice of throaty silver and tripped prettily up the stairs. She took the heavy suitcase from the back of the closet, lugged it out into the room.

With a needle, she picked the stitches out of a place where the lining had been ripped and mended. Reaching through the rent, she pulled out the heavy packet, took it over to the bed and opened it with excited fingers. The packet contained three envelopes. That was the secret. To be systematic.

The first envelope contained small pictures of varied sizes. Five of them. Five pictures of five men. On the back of each picture, in neat, dainty printing, were a few facts. The name of the man. The city or town where they had lived. The name she had used each time. A guarded phrase to indicate the manner of death. A tiny figure to indicate the net gain, in thousands, by his death.

Humming once more, she went to her bureau drawer, took out the small picture of Howard Goodkin, took it back to the bed along with her silver fountain pen. Resting the picture face down, she printed certain facts neatly on the back of it.

She put it in the envelope with the other pictures. In the second envelope was a listing of several Chicago banks. Following the name of each bank was the name she had used to open the safety-deposit box, and a statement of the amount of cash in each box.

The third envelope contained the keys to the boxes, each one carefully tagged. On the back of each tag was the date when the box rent would be due. In the beginning she had paid ten years’ rent in advance, and each box had been renewed through the payment of a second ten years’ rental.

She sat on the bed and thought of the wonderful massive vaults, the tightly locked boxes, the neat bundles of cash in each box. A great deal of cash. An enormous amount, she thought, considering the ease with which it had been obtained.

She replaced the packet in the suitcase under the lining, repaired the rent with clean, tiny stitches.

Already there was great delight in thinking ahead to the wreath on the door, the neighbors bringing baked things, the quiet words of comfort. It was so easy to cry when they spoke to her — so easy to play the part of the stricken widow.

Then, after several months of wearing black had gone by and she had begun to tire of her practiced role of widow, she would go to a few selected friends, the ones who would talk, and she would explain how she could no longer remain there where her memories of Howard were so clear and so sharp. She would sell everything and go away. Some letters, a few postcards — and then silence.

They would forget. They always did. Then she would be ready for a new little city, a new man, a new background, carefully memorized so that there would be no slip-up. The eternal delightful gambit of courtship, marriage, setting up a home and making friends. Then, in a year or two — death. It always ended in death.

To be such a friend of death gave her a feeling of power that she bore with her wherever she went. She looked on the dull, tidy little lives of the women in the small cities in which she lived, and she felt like a goddess. She could write all manner of things on the black slate of life, and then, with one gesture, wipe the slate clean and begin all over again. New words, new love, new tenderness and a new manner of death.

She had read of stupid women who poisoned one husband after another. That was the most spectacular stupidity. Through such methods the police were enabled to establish pattern. No, murder, to be successful, must be done with infinite variety — and in ways that could not be connected with the heartbroken little woman who sobbed out her grief to the coroner and to the police.

Whenever she read articles which proclaimed that there was no such thing as a perfect murder, she laughed inside. She sat and laughed without any change of facial expression. And inside of her she felt a glow of triumph.

It was good to kill men. Only one thing sometimes bothered her. To get such joy out of killing men must indicate some psychotic condition. She was a well-read woman, but it was not until after the fourth death that she managed to connect her joy with that half-forgotten incident in the woods near her home when she had been fourteen.

The man had caught her by the wrist, reaching out from beyond a patch of brush as she walked slowly by. He was ragged and he stank of liquor and his filthy hand had muffled her screams.

Sometimes she would wake up in the night and once again feel the hand pressing on her lips.

They had sent him to jail. Shortly after that both of her parents died. As she had looked on their faces she had thought that they were dead and yet that horrible man still lived.

It bothered her that her hatred of men had to be based on a particular incident. She would rather it had been hatred without apparent cause, because it would have seemed cleaner that way.

She married at seventeen. A boy named Albert Gordon. After the first week with him, she knew that one day she would kill him. In killing him she would somehow be exacting her just vengeance.

She married him under her own name — Alicia Bowie. For two years she planned. For two years she endured him, and got delight out of being able to successfully play the part of the happy bride.

Two days after her nineteenth birthday, the papers announced that tragic death of Albert Gordon while on a swimming picnic with his young wife at Lake Hobart. According to the newspaper accounts, Albert Gordon had dived from the high limb of a tree and had misjudged the depth of the water.

She could still remember exactly how it was. The late-afternoon sun slanting across the water. Albert was near her, waist deep in water, looking out across the lake. The tree was above them. She had fumbled on the rocky bottom, found a loose boulder of about ten pounds’ weight. She had held it poised. The shore dropped steeply, and the water, while up to his waist, lapped gently around her legs. She had brought it down on the top of his head. Some of Albert’s blond hair adhered to the rock. She had carefully placed the rock in three feet of water under the limb of the tree, bloody side up. That’s where they had found it.

With Albert’s insurance, she had moved eight hundred miles away. She had changed her name. She had established the pattern.

Now she got up from the bed, showered, put on a crisp cotton dress and raised the shades, filling the house with sunshine. As she listened with part of her mind to a morning radio program, another part, a cold mechanical part, was weighing, discarding, considering alternate methods of accomplishing the sudden death of Howard Goodkin, successful manager of a chain of grocery stores in and around Wanderloo, Ohio.

By lunch time she had cut the feasible methods down to two. Neither of them duplicated any of the previous murder methods. Both of them were carefully selected to fit the habits of Howard Goodkin.

Howard came in for lunch, smiling. He kissed her, patted her affectionately and said, “Anything exciting happen this morning?”

I decided to kill you, Howard. “Not a thing, darling. That dog across the street chased the Robinsons’ cat up into our maple tree and Betty was standing around wringing her hands. When she was about to call the firemen, the dog went away and the cat came down. When she picked it up, it scratched her wrist.”

Howard grinned, his eyes crinkling pleasantly. “Big morning, huh?”

It won’t be hard to weep for you, Howard. In many ways you’re quite nice. “A nice, quiet morning, darling. Is the salad all right?”

“Wonderful, honey! I love it with onion.”

Cristofer, Florida, was a small, inland town, sleepy in the hot sun. Because it was not near the sea, the prices at the tourist courts, shabby hotels and cabins were low. Many old people came to Cristofer to live out what remained of their lives. The men, their work-gnarled hands resting on their thin thighs, dozed in the sun. The buxom and indestructible old ladies lifted shrill voices throughout the endless days and the monotony of the sun.

Ben Lawton, wearing ragged khaki shorts, his bronzed back knotted with muscle, trudged with the wheelbarrow down to where the truck had dumped the load of small, gleaming white shells, filled the wheelbarrow and pushed it back up the slope to the Komfort Court — Cabins by the Season — Reasonable Rates.

There had been a time, just before the war, when Ben Lawton had sat behind a blond streamlined desk in a New York office. His novel sales promotion ideas had caught on, and he was looking forward to a great deal of money.

In the middle of 1947 Benjamin G. Lawton had been released from the Veterans Hospital. The parting words from the resident psychiatrist had been: “Emotionally, Lawton, you’re not able to resume your prewar activities. We recommend some quiet and isolated spot — manual labor — no worries. Any sort of tension will tie you in knots that we may not be able to untie. Maybe, someday...”

And so Ben Lawton had ended up doing manual labor for Jonas Bright, proprietor of the Komfort Court. After more than a year, Ben thought of the outside world with a fear that chilled him through.

The Komfort Court consisted of sixteen two-room cabins. Jonas Bright, a semi-paralytic, was a blunt, gruff but fair employer. Ben took care of maintenance and the odd jobs that came up. Serena Bright cleaned the cabins, replaced the sheets, towels, pillowcases. She was the nineteen-year-old motherless daughter of Jonas.

Ben jammed the shovel into the barrowload of white shells, spread them along the path to Cabin 8. He straightened up for a moment, watched Serena carrying fresh sheets over to Cabin 11. It was only while watching Serena that Ben felt as though he were coming alive once more. Whenever he thought of Serena, whenever he watched her tall, slim, young figure, her proud walk, her warm strength, he thought of how wonderful it would be to take her to the New York shops he knew so well, to have the clever clerks transform her back-country charm into a city splendor that would halt the casual male in his tracks.

In spite of Serena’s lack of advantages, lack of breeding and education, there was a fine sensitivity about her, an alert awareness of her surroundings.

He watched her, saw how the thin cotton dress clung to the lines of her body. When the screen door of the cabin slammed behind her, he sighed, returned to his work.

He knew that he had no chance with Serena. She had looked too long and too often on the gilded faces on the Bijou screen, and on the sleek automobiles, the shining clubs and bars. A subdued, solemn psycho case, a man fresh out of a PN hospital, held no charms for her. Sure, she would laugh and joke with him, but always he saw that faint withdrawal in her eyes, and sensed that she was saving herself for someone who could give her the things she read about and saw in the movies.

Jonas Bright was pathetically proud of his daughter.

By the time Ben had worked his way down to the walk that led up to Cabin 11, Serena came out, perspiration beaded on her upper lip.

“Don’t hit me, Ben,” she said, “if I ask you if it’s hot enough for you.”

“If you were standing closer, I’d hit you, honey,” he said, grinning.

“Phoo!” she said, sticking her underlip out, blowing a wisp of silver-blond hair away from her forehead. Every visible area of her was honey brown.

“Tonight,” he said, “would seem to be a good night for you to walk a half mile with me and drink beer which I can barely afford. Okay?”

There had been many evenings like that. Gay and happy evenings, with lots of laughter and no hint of emotional entanglements.

There was a hint of amusement in her soft brown eyes. “Laddie,” she said, “you are talking to a girl who has better plans. Mr. Kelso is taking this kid to the Palm Club.”

Ben was surprised at the amount of annoyance he felt. “Works fast, doesn’t he?”

“He’s a perfect gentleman!” she snapped.

“He’s a perfect phony!” Ben said angrily.

She lifted her chin, gave him a cool stare and said, “And how would you know, Lawton? You’ve never traveled in his league.”

She pushed by him, carrying the laundry down to the main building to be picked up by the truck. He watched her go, saw the indignation that she managed to express with each step.

For a moment he was tempted to call her, to tell her that Jay Kelso could never have made the league that he once traveled in. But he had never talked of his past to the Brights, and this was no time to start. Probably she wouldn’t believe him anyway.

He wheeled the barrow down toward the pile of shells. He frowned as he thought of Jay Kelso. The man had arrived in a flashy convertible some three days before, had rented Cabin 3 for an indefinite period.

It was impossible to guess what his business was. To Ben Lawton, Kelso looked like a racetrack tout who had cut himself a piece of a killing. He wore loose-weave sports shirts in pearl gray, lemon yellow and powder blue. His neckties were knotted into great bulky triangular knots. His luggage was of shining aluminum. His faun and pearl slacks were knife-edged, and his sports shoes were obviously elevators.

His face was thin, with a deep tan over the sallowness, dark hair pompadoured with a greasy fixative, his facial expression a carefully trained imitation of a movie tough guy.

He carried his wad of bills in a gold money clip, and he went out of his way to adopt an air of patronizing friendliness with Jonas, Serena and Ben. He ignored the other tenants, and his every action said, “I’m one hell of a smart and pleasant guy. I know all the angles and I’m giving you people a break just by being around. See?”

Ben had seen Jay Kelso practically lick his lips the first afternoon when Serena had walked by. The program was clear. With Kelso’s motives and Serena’s ambition to be a city girl, the end result seemed more than obvious.

Ben wondered how much longer Jonas Bright would be able to be proud of his daughter...

The sun was low by the time Ben Lawton had finished his work. He took the barrow and shovel to the toolhouse, walked slowly down to his room in the west wing of the main building. Business was slow. He saw that Tommy, the boy, was pumping gas into a big car covered with road dust. The tourists from the car were in at the counter, and Beth Bronson, the fat high school girl, was serving them Cokes.

He took a long shower to clean off the dust and sweat. When he turned his shower off he heard the roar of the shower on the other side of the thin partition, in the portion where Jonas and Serena lived. He guessed that Serena was getting ready for her date. He changed to white slacks and a T-shirt and went to his front door, sat on the concrete step and lighted a cigarette.

Within ten minutes Jay Kelso came wheeling down in his canary convertible, parked near the pumps and bleated the horn. Serena came hurrying out in a matter of seconds. Her linen suit was a bit too short and a shade tight across the shoulders. She climbed into the car and Kelso reached across her, pulled the door shut. He roared it out onto the highway in a cloud of dust. Ben saw the setting sun brighten her fair head, Kelso’s dark one — and the two heads were close together.

He sighed and stood up.

Jonas was beside him. Jonas spat, the brown tobacco juice slapping into the dusk. He said softly, “She’s too old to give orders to, Ben.”

Not believing his own words, Ben said, “She’s smart enough to find out for herself.”

Jonas sighed. “I hope so. I surely hope so.” He turned and limped dejectedly away.

The investigator looked so much like a depressed bloodhound that she wanted to laugh at him. But of course that would be a silly thing to do. The room was darkened and he sat across from her, obviously ill at ease. The tiny wadded handkerchief was damp in her palm. She inhaled, a long, shuddering sound, and mopped at her eyes with the handkerchief.

“I know how tough this is for you, Mrs. Goodkin, but we just have to ask these questions so that our reports’ll be complete. You understand, don’t you?”

“I understand,” she said in a small, weak voice.

“It was Howard’s practice to do minor repairs on the car?”

“Yes, it was. He was always doing something or other to it. He loved to — to get all greasy, and he said that he was saving money by doing things himself. He always said he — he should have been a mechanic.”

“And then yesterday afternoon, after he finished work, he went right to the garage?”

“Yes. I remember he said something about repacking the rear wheels and adjusting the rear shocks, whatever that means, Mr. Brown.”

Mr. Brown sighed. “Well, it’s a pretty clear case. He jacked the car up and took off both rear wheels and blocked the axle with bricks. It was a damn fool thing to do. Probably when he was tightening a nut or something, he moved it enough off balance so that it—”

She suddenly covered her face with her hands and sobbed hoarsely. In a matter of seconds, she felt his heavy hand on her shoulder, patting her gently.

“There, there, Mrs. Goodkin,” he said. “Sorry I had to upset you this way. Howard wasn’t in any pain. He never felt a thing. That differential came right down and killed him instantly.”

As she sobbed, as she felt his comforting arms around her, she relived those few moments in the garage. She had bent over, looked under the car, said, “How are you doing, honey?”

His face was smeared with grease. “Just about another twenty minutes ought to do it.”

He was in the right position, his face under the bulge of the differential. She had straightened up, walked to the side of the car, picked up a dust rag, used it to shield her hands as she pushed the car with all her strength.

It had swayed and the bricks had cracked in warning. Howard had given one startled gasp as the car had come down heavily.

Screaming wildly, she had run out into the street. As soon as she was certain that neighbors were running toward her, she had slowly and gracefully collapsed in a mock faint.

Yes, this one had been smoother than most of them. Less questioning. She could leave sooner, cover her tracks, go to some quiet resort place and start over again.

Seventeen hundred for the car and at least twelve thousand for the house. Counting incidentals and insurance, you could figure on twenty-six thousand after all expenses.

Through her sobs she said, “Mr. Brown, I... I can’t stay here. The... the memories. I won’t be able — to stand it.”

“I understand,” he whispered. “We’ll all understand.”

Mr. Davis, the vice-president of the Wanderloo National Bank, coughed a few times and said, “This is — well, it’s rather a large sum of money for a woman to take away in cash, you know. We could establish a trust for you and send you the income every—”

She lifted her chin bravely. “Mr. Davis, I’m sorry, but I want to cut all strings tying me to Wanderloo. If you’d authorize the cashier to give me the cash balance—”

“Possibly traveler’s checks, Mrs. Goodkin?”

“No one but you and the cashier and myself will know I’m taking that amount of cash with me. And I certainly don’t plan to advertise it. If you must know, Mr. Davis, I plan to pin the major share of it inside my girdle. I rather imagine it will be safe there until I decide where I want to settle.”

Mr. Davis blushed, scratched his chin and sighed. “How do you want it, Mrs. Goodkin?” he said, standing up.

“Twenty one-thousand-dollar bills and the balance in fifties, hundreds and twenties.”

“I may have to contact the other two banks.”

She glanced at her watch. “Please hurry. My train leaves in an hour and fifteen minutes.”

With the money on her person, she bought her ticket to Detroit. She carried one suitcase containing her best clothes and the all-important packet. In Detroit she could shake off any possible pursuit and then take a train to Chicago. The large bills would go into one of the four boxes. The remaining four thousand and something would give her a new start with a new name in a new place. Resort places were best.

She decided that this time she would look for a younger man. They felt so flattered when an older woman became interested.

The trip from Chicago to whatever resort she decided on could be used in devising a new name and new background. A new identity was the easiest thing in the world to establish. It was merely a case of arranging to take out a driver’s license, opening a checking account and a few charge accounts.

She would be forgotten in Wanderloo. “I wonder what happened to that sweet little Mrs. Goodkin. She left town, you know, after her husband died. Tragic affair. They had a perfect marriage. A good thing there were no children, you know.”

As she waited for her train to be announced, she looked at herself in the oval mirror in her compact. The off-lavender eyes stared back at her with clarity — innocence — and an uncanny youthfulness. It was good to be free again. Free for adventure...

Jay Kelso sat like a scrawny Buddha in his bed, clad only in blue silk shorts that were too big for him. The afternoon was hot and he was bored and troubled. A pair of faun slacks were slung over the back of a straight chair not far from the bed. He knew without looking that there was but forty-two dollars in the gold money clip in the pocket of the slacks.

He had intended to stay a week in this hole called Komfort Court, but the week had turned into six weeks. That was bad.

By now the finance company in New Jersey would have turned the license number over to the skip tracers and they would be hunting the yellow wagon. He knew from experience that his equity was just large enough so that they would enjoy repossessing the wagon.

And maybe that Myra dish in Camden had hired lawyers. That would be bad, because they could make trouble and he didn’t have the money to buy the legal talent to squeak out of it. He had always felt wonderfully independent of the female sex.

And here he was stuck in inland Florida just because a hick babe was keeping him on the hook.

He wondered if he should run out, make some dough and come back this way for a second attempt. No, that tan bruiser, Lawton, had too eager a look in his eye when Serena — what a hell of a name — walked by. It would be a sad thing to come back and find that Lawton had nailed her on the rebound.

He knew that the longer he stayed, the worse shape he would be in. He knew that already his stake was too small.

He smacked his fist into his palm and glared at the far wall. Suddenly a startling thought entered his mind. Maybe he wanted to marry the girl.

Maybe that was the right deal. Unload the car. Sell it for cash. Then ease that Lawton punk out of his job and settle down right here. After the old man kicked off, which shouldn’t be long, he and Serena would own the business. Then if he got sick of her, he could sell and shove off.

But he remembered how the muscles stood out on Lawton’s back while he worked. No, better keep Lawton around for the heavy stuff. Besides, it might be too tough to ease him out. He and the old man seemed to get along pretty good.

He grinned. Jay Kelso — thinking of marriage. That was a hot one!

Slowly he got off the bed. He put on a sand-pink sports shirt, carefully knotted the white and crimson tie, belted the high-waisted faun slacks around his trim, flat middle and slipped into a pair of brown-and-white moccasins.

At that moment there was a knock on his door. A gentle knock. Eagerly he opened the door, hoping that it was Serena Bright. Instead he saw Lawton’s bronzed broad chest, impassive face.

“After the trash,” Lawton said.

“Hell, you knock like a woman,” Jay Kelso said, turning away in disgust.

“Thought you might open quicker if I did,” Lawton said gently.

Kelso wheeled on him. “Are you being wise?”

Lawton smiled tightly. “I wonder exactly what you’d do if I said yes.”

Kelso straightened his shoulders. “I might take a poke at you. I was Golden Gloves, guy. Remember that.”

Lawton grinned lazily and said, “Yes, sir. Anything you say, sir.” The contempt was obvious.

At that moment a small woman stepped to the doorway. Jay Kelso gave her a quick appraisal. Not too bad for a biddy in her middle thirties. Nicely stacked. Wearing a dress that spells dough. No gray in the brown hair. Funny color of blue for eyes. Not bad at all, at all.

She smiled at Kelso, turned to Lawton and said, in a voice of throaty silver, “You are the man that works here, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Mrs. Oliver.”

“I just moved into Cabin 11 an hour ago, and I can’t seem to get any hot water. I wonder if you’d—”

“Right away, Mrs. Oliver.”

Jay Kelso noted the “Mrs.” But there had been more than casual politeness in those odd blue eyes. Maybe a chance to chisel a little money. Badger game in reverse. A “loan,” please. You can lend it to me, or I can ask Mr. Oliver for it.

With his best smile, he stepped forward, extending his hand, and said, “As long as we’re almost neighbors, Mrs. Oliver, we might as well know each other. I’m Jay Kelso.”

“How do you do, Jay Kelso,” she said, dimpling. “I’m Betty Oliver.”

Her hand was very soft in his, and lay passive, warm, giving him an oddly protective feeling. Also, it was nice that she was short. He liked short women. Even with the trick shoes, he was only about a half inch taller than Serena.

Lawton carried out the trash and went up toward Cabin 11.

Jay Kelso sauntered out, said to Mrs. Oliver, “How do you and your husband like it here?”

“Oh, there’s just me, Mr. Kelso. George died over a year ago.” She laughed softly. “I guess I’m just a footloose, lonesome woman.”

He beamed at her. “Footloose, yes. Lonesome, never.”

“And I thought courtliness was dead!” She laughed. “We must get better acquainted.”

“We certainly shall,” he said warmly.

“Is your wife with you, Mr. Kelso?” she asked.

“I’m the footloose, lonesome type too,” he said, “Yes, I’m on a little vacation all by myself. I’m in the — real estate business in Camden, New Jersey. I got pretty tensed up over a few fair deals I pulled lately and decided I needed a rest.”

He laughed. “I told my employees when I left that they’d better make all decisions themselves because they wouldn’t be in touch with me at all. At first I thought I’d go to my usual hotel at Miami Beach, but then I realized that I’d run into friends and there’d be parties and all that sort of thing. So you might say I’m hiding here.”

He strolled casually over to the canary convertible, leaned on the door.

“Is this your car?” Mrs. Betty Oliver asked. “It’s pretty.”

Jay coughed. “This is the one I brought along.”

“I’ve never learned to drive,” she said wistfully. “I’m really a helpless woman.”

“If you’re staying long enough, I could teach you.”

She looked up into his face, swayed so that for a moment she brushed against him. “Oh, would you?”

Jay Kelso was suddenly faintly dizzy and very exultant. This was pie in the sky. This was coin in the pocket. It wouldn’t be too tough to fix it with Serena. Milk this doll for a few hundred or a few thousand, and then grab Serena and kite off to a license bureau. From there he and Serena could hit the tracks. By the time they came back the Oliver woman would be gone. Perfect!

When the last sobs were finished, Serena waited, the damp pillow against her face. It was dark outside. On the highway an occasional car roared by at high speed. The headlights made patterns that flashed across the ceiling of her darkened room.

After a time she stood up, padded into the bathroom, stepped into the shower stall. The chill water felt fresh and good. She made up carefully to conceal the signs of tears, put on a cool white dress, walked out into the warm night. The sound of laughter from some of the cabins accentuated her loneliness.

In Cabin 2 four old people were engaged in their nightly bridge game. A radio was playing a sweet, sad tune from a distant cabin. Far off, near the marshes, the frogs croaked dolorously.

The cool breeze stirred her pale hair. She tried not to look up the slope toward Cabin 11. Of course, that woman, that Oliver woman, wasn’t there. No, she was out with Jay. Out with Serena’s Jay. Probably at their spot — at the Palm Club.

She wondered bitterly if Jay would park with her, would try to kiss her. How could he? Why, that Oliver woman was old, old, old. A hag. A simpering, silly hag with a lot of money.

She wondered how many hours Jay had spent with the Oliver woman since she had arrived four days before.

Jay had acted so funny. He had taken her out for the last time the same evening that Betty Oliver had arrived. He had been quiet at the Palm Club. Later on, in the parked car, he had made no attempt to kiss her — had merely said, “Serena, honey, there are a lot of things about this world that you don’t understand.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, baby. I love you. That’s the first time I’ve said those words since I was fourteen.”

“Oh, Jay.”

“Now don’t go soft on me. Understand? Love means trust. Look, baby. Look into my eyes. I trust you. See? Now, the sixty-four-buck question is, does Serena trust Jay?”

“You know I do.”

“Now, here’s the kicker. I got my own angles, see? I can’t talk about them. And I don’t want you to talk to anybody about what is going to happen.”

“But what is going to happen, Jay?”

“You and I are having a fight. We don’t talk anymore. We don’t go out anymore for maybe a long time. You are going to see me running around with that Mrs. Oliver that checked in today. But you don’t ask any questions. You trust me. Remember?”

“But, Jay, I — why do you—”

He had touched one finger to her lips. “No questions, baby. Then after maybe a week, maybe two, maybe longer, we move fast. I ask you the ring question and you say yes and off we go. Right?”

“But I—”

She had seen the gleam of his teeth as he smiled in the darkness. “Look, baby, it’s a wonderful night. Come here.”

Yes, it had been easy right then not to ask questions. But the next day it wasn’t so easy. Not when she had seen the yellow car head out with Betty Oliver’s brown head next to Jay’s shining dark one. It hadn’t been easy to see Betty wriggling kittenishly, smiling up into Jay’s shining smug face. Nor had it been easy to hear their merged laughter, their warm friendliness.

And on the third day she had walked by the two of them, had heard Betty Oliver giggle and whisper to Jay. Jay had laughed also. Serena Bright knew that they had talked about her.

She strolled aimlessly down the narrow street between the cabins, avoided the glare of the floodlights that lit the front of the main building. She circled the left wing of the building, saw the pale gleam of Ben Lawton’s white shirt in the darkness. He was sitting on the concrete step at his doorway.

“Hi, lady,” he said softly. “Sit down and smoke up one of my hard-earned cigarettes.”

“Thanks, Ben,” she said gratefully. He moved over to make room. She glanced at his face as he held the match to her cigarette, and she detected no expression that she could identify.

“Nice night,” he said.

“I guess so.”

“Little bit blue, gal?” he asked.

It was too much. She buried her head in his shoulder. “Oh, Ben!” Then great, hoarse sobs shook her.

But they didn’t last long. Finally she moved back to her side of the step, dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. She laughed thinly. “Sorry to use you for a crying towel, Benjamin.”

“The guy isn’t worth it, you know. Not by half,” he said flatly.

In cold rage she stood up. “I’ll be the judge of that,” she snapped.

She walked off into the night. But the night was lonesome. The sky was an immeasurable distance away and she felt small, futile, purposeless. Everything seemed to be going wrong. If only Jay could send her a note, or glance at her, or arrange to speak to her. But every time he looked in her direction his face was cold and his eyes were hard.

She wandered into the part where the tables and soda fountain were. Jonas Bright sat in a wooden rocker, his shoulders slumped.

He smiled up at her and said, “I’m sure glad, honey, that you aren’t running around with that fancy-clothes fella anymore.”

She glared at him for several seconds and then walked aimlessly out into the night. Ben and her dad were fools, both of them. In some funny way they were jealous of Jay Kelso. Jealous because his clothes were nice and he had nice manners and was a perfect gentleman. And his dark eyelashes were long. And his lips were hard and demanding. She felt a deep warm tumult inside her as she thought of his lips and his arms.

Then like an angry child, she bent over, picked up a stone and hurled it out across the highway. She remembered all the bad words she had ever overheard, and she said them under her breath. She went back to her room and stretched out across her bed, her chin propped in her palms. What could he be thinking of, going out with that hag? That silly, simpering hag!

The feeling of excitement had been growing for a full week, and this time there was something completely different about it. She had fallen so completely into her assumed part that she really thought she was Betty Oliver.

She looked at Jay. He was cupping his hands around the flame from his lighter, and the orange-red light threw his cheekbones into sharp relief, deepened the hollows in his cheeks.

Yes, Jay Kelso had created a puzzle. Not in himself, because she knew all too well exactly what Jay Kelso was. She had seen many of them. Flagrant little men strutting around in gay plumage, hard and selfish, unbelievably greedy and cruel. A most despicable little man. Yet there was something so pathetic about his swaggering and his strutting, something so forlornly second-rate about his tin-plate veneer, that he oddly touched her heart, as no man ever had.

A plucked little chicken of a man trying to be masterful, sophisticated. His clothes were in horrid taste, she knew. His manners were frightfully obvious. And he was full of a deadly seriousness as far as using proper English was concerned.

All in all, a very amusing little man. And obvious. She guessed from the way he licked his lips when he had to pay a check that he was close to the end of his small hoard of money. And pretending to be such a big shot.

Such a second-rate little person should have revolted her, she knew. And yet she wanted to cradle his head in her arms, hold him close and soothe him — tell him that she knew the wide world and he could cease his frantic struggling that got him nowhere.

She wondered if it could be some misshapen form of love.

He must be at least thirteen years younger than I, she thought. At least. Maybe more.

She smiled in the darkness. Jay Kelso had been quiet for a long time. She knew that he was going over in his mind the words he had planned.

Abruptly he laughed. “A pretty funny thing has happened to me, Betty,” he said, a nervous note in his voice.

“Yes, Jay, dear?”

“You remember I told you how I was having my employees make their own decisions while I was gone? Well, I got a letter yesterday from the man I left in charge. He has my power of attorney. He got a line on a big deal and sunk all the working capital into it. I didn’t bring along as much as I should. I was wondering if you’d trust me with a little until I got word that the deal has gone through and the bank account is back to where it should be.”

“Why, of course, Jay! How much do you need?”

“Oh, a few hundred ought to carry me over all right.”

“Will five hundred do?” She grinned inwardly as she saw him suck hungrily on his cigarette.

“Fine. That is, if it won’t put you out.”

She knew how it would work. He would take the five hundred and be very attentive and spend quite a bit of it on her — and then he would come to her, very excited and yelling about the big deal that his man in charge was pulling off, only they needed just a few more thousand to grab the property options necessary. Just a few thousand. And then she’d never see Jay Kelso again.

She said, laughing, “Goodness, Jay. You’ve kept me so busy that I haven’t gotten around to opening up a bank account down here. I’m carrying far too much cash on me. You might as well take the five hundred right now. Hold your lighter over here so I can see into my purse.”

It was sort of a nasty little trick to play on him, she thought. She unsnapped the white leather purse, held it so that Jay couldn’t help seeing it. She held open the red leather wallet, fingered off four hundreds and two fifties, crumpled them and handed them to him. “Here you are, Jay, dear,” she said casually.

His hand shook as he snapped off the lighter. Hoarsely he said, “You certainly carry the cabbage — er — carry a great deal of money around with you.”

The same small demon that had inspired her to show him the large wad of cash made her say, “Oh, money is the least of my worries. I could just as easily have loaned you five thousand — or fifty thousand.”

When she said the last figure, he started as though a pin had been jabbed into him. Quickly he recovered control. “I don’t need quite that much,” he said, laughing. But his laugh was hollow.

She was filled with secret amusement. The smell of money was to him like sunshine and rain to a growth of weeds. It expanded him, made him luxuriant.

And she noted, as he pulled her roughly into his arms, that it gave him a new sense of mastery. She tilted her piquant face up and prepared herself to give a timeworn imitation of interest.

It was as though a tiny fire, a strange fire never before experienced, burned deep inside her; growing, finally bursting through the cold artifice, shattering the layer of indifference.

Never before had she experienced such a feeling.

She pulled herself away from him, suddenly frightened of herself more than of him. Her cheeks were hot — partly with anger, because up until that moment she had been the dominant party, the superior being, amused at this tiresome little man. And suddenly he was dominant, his teeth glowing whitely in the darkness as he smiled at her, as he sensed her confusion.

It was with shame that she heard her own disordered breathing, and she stilled it with enormous effort. Her voice sounded rusty and old as she said, “Don’t you think we ought to head back?”

“Sure thing.” He started the motor, turned out into the road, and she heard him humming under his breath as he drove rapidly back toward the Court...

Long after she was alone in her cabin she still walked restlessly back and forth, from the bureau to the bed, her hands clenched in fury. She fought to regain her feeling of power, of amused condescension. At this late date was she to fall into a sticky emotional trap like any schoolgirl?

At last she lay exhausted on the bed, defeated, abject. She knew that this emotion which had struck her down was stronger than her will. She wanted nothing more than to be with Jay Kelso for every hour of every day. And it was impossible to think of his dying, to think of a world where he did not exist. After weeping, she laughed — softly and without humor.

Jay Kelso felt that he was rapidly approaching the biggest opportunity of his life. He stood outside his cabin in the darkness, and fingered the crisp texture of the bills in his pockets. The taste of the liquor he had just drunk from the opened bottle was raw on the back of his tongue.

Life had suddenly become very complicated. He had been almost completely discouraged about the Oliver woman. She had seemed so — so remote. And he had caught her looking at him from time to time as though he was some sort of a bug she found when she tipped up a flat rock. She had made him feel stupid and young.

When he had given her the yarn about needing a few hundred, he had done so with the idea that she would brush him off, maybe laugh at him. She had an odd way of hurting his confidence. The willingness with which she had handed it over — in cash — had taken his breath away. And then, when she had said that about five thousand or fifty thousand, he had felt as though somebody had hit him in the pit of the stomach with a hammer.

Yes, he had figured it wrong. The old biddy was a hell of a lot better heeled than he had suspected. And she had no reason to lie.

Then, when he had kissed her, she had fallen apart — come all to pieces like a young kid. That was funny. His lips curled in slight distaste as he thought of the sagging looseness of the flesh under her chin. But to give her the benefit of the doubt, that was the only place she showed her age. Yes, she was all right. But compared to Serena — hell, it was like comparing a cube of sugar to a hundred gallons of honey. And he had all that dough on the hook, but good!

He arched his chest and beat his clenched fist against his thigh. More dough than he had ever had a smell of before!

The deal was to get hold of as much of it as possible. He knew that if he chiseled five thousand, he’d always think of the much larger amount he had left behind. What was five thousand? You couldn’t even live a year on that. No, there had to be a better way.

In the morning he would send a hundred to the finance company and a hundred to Myra. That would shut both of them up. Give him time to think.

Betty and Serena. Serena and Betty. What a mess! Now if Serena only had Betty’s money — or if Betty had Serena’s looks. The deal was to find some way of grabbing all of Betty Oliver’s money, and then marrying Serena.

There was that marriage idea again! Must be getting soft in the head. But no getting around it. He wanted to marry Serena. The trouble was, the only sure way to get all of Betty’s money was to marry her. From the way the old biddy had reacted, she would be a pushover for marriage. Yeah. She’d grab the hook like a starving bass. Then where would he be? Tied to her apron strings for a couple of thousand years while Serena went off with somebody else. Maybe even with that Lawton punk. What’ll you have, Kelso — money or the gal? But why not both?

Suddenly he stood very still and almost stopped breathing. The idea was vivid, startling and full of cold fear. Marry both of them! Marry Betty and fix her up with an — an unfortunate accident. Husband inherits. Widower, loaded with dough, marries young gal.

For a moment a vision flashed across his mind. A neat little chair with straps on the arms, electrodes and a black cap to fit over his head.

No, that would have to be avoided at all costs...

Maybe his marrying Betty would put Serena off him for keeps? But then he’d have dough to help him forget. Forgetting was easy with money in the kick. And if he moved fast enough, talked fast enough after Betty was — was dead, he could probably rope Serena back into the fold. “Darling, I made a horrible mistake. It was you all along.” Something like that.

Probably be a good idea to lay the groundwork before Betty died. But how would she die? Fall guys were better than accidents. How many fall guys were there around this dump? Just one. That Lawton guy.

Kelso frowned in the darkness. With sudden resolution he strolled down toward the main building. It was so late that the floodlights were off. He knew that Jonas Bright, unable to sleep, often sat out there after the place was closed, thinking old-man thoughts, remembering, tasting the night.

Jonas was in his usual chair. Kelso went up behind him, said softly, “Nice night.”

The old man’s head jerked around. “Yep. Can’t you sleep either?”

Kelso laughed. “Usually I can. Tonight, no.” He let a long period of silence go by. Then he said, “You know, pop, that Lawton is a funny guy.”

“How do you mean?”

“I saw the son of a gun talking to himself yesterday. Is he a little bit nuts?”

Jonas was quiet for so long that Jay thought he wasn’t going to answer. Finally the old man said, “Guess he had a bad time in the war. From a couple of little things he said, about prison camps and stuff like that, I shouldn’t wonder if he was in one of those head hospitals.”

Kelso fought to keep the delight out of his voice. He said, “Yeah, that makes it a rough deal. They wouldn’t take me, you know. Bad teeth. I got a full set of choppers top and bottom. The rule says you got to have eight of your own teeth.”

Jonas Bright grunted. Kelso turned the conversation onto the weather and then walked slowly away. When he was out of earshot of the old man, he quickened his steps.

What a break! A psycho right on stage. His mind began sifting through the possible clues he could leave. That Lawton was a powerful guy. It would have to look as though a powerful guy had done it. Snatch a couple of hairs out of her head and sneak them into Lawton’s quarters. Those torn khaki shorts of Lawton’s would be a good deal. Rip off a small hunk and wedge it into her dead hand like she had torn it off in a struggle.

That ought to be enough. Too many clues would be bad, would make even the hick cops wonder about a frame.

He reached toward the doorknob of his own cabin, then paused. Hell, this was too good to hang back on. Better use the speeding hours to talk the Oliver dish into that quick ceremony that would make Jay Kelso the legal heir.

With quiet steps he went up the slope toward her cabin. All the cabins were dark. He glanced at the luminous dial of his wristwatch. A little after two. He knocked lightly.

“Who is it?” she said softly.

He made his voice hoarse. “Me, Betty. Jay. I want to talk to you.”

“Can’t it wait until morning?”

“Please, Betty. It’s important. Don’t show a light when you open the door.”

There was a long period of silence. Then her latch clicked softly and the door opened. He slipped through, reached for her, pulled her gently against him.

“Oh, Betty,” he said.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” she whispered.

Ben Lawton was putting new washers in the faucets of Cabin 5 when Serena Bright walked dully in with clean sheets, pillowcases and towels. He looked up, saw her face, desolated and ravaged by tears, and his heart went out to her.

She had been badly fooled by Kelso, but that didn’t make it any less bitter for her. He had a sudden appreciation of the agonies she must have to go through when she took fresh linens to Cabin 11, now shared for these past ten days by Jay Kelso and his bride.

But it was time that Serena snapped out of it, he thought. The girl couldn’t go on this way forever. And that marriage escapade certainly must have given Serena some idea of the sort of man she had been dealing with.

Ben grinned up at her, straightened up and said, “Well, maybe she’ll be a mother to him.”

A weak, sad smile touched Serena’s lips. “I thought so at first, Ben. But have you looked at the darn woman? She’s dropped fifteen years. Now I know what they mean by the ‘radiant bride.’ Ben, I can’t understand how it happened so — so quickly.”

“He probably got a look at her financial statement.”

“But he really isn’t that way, Ben. That woman must have some hold over him.”

He put the wrench down, wiped his hands on the sides of his shorts, went over to her and took her by the wrists.

“Honey,” he said, “I’ve never talked this way to you before. I’ve kept my past to myself. I’m working here to get back some measure of mental stability. But before the war, I was successful in a rough, tough business in New York City. Kelso comes from around that area. I cased him the minute I saw him. His type are a dime a dozen up there. Amateur sharpies. Hangers-on.

“But you can’t condemn them. They come up out of the city slums, and they get their training battling for nickels when they’re six years old. Life makes them unscrupulous, selfish — and the smarter ones pick up a sugar coating of the mannerisms and dress they see in the movies. Kelso is one of the smarter ones, but that doesn’t make him a more noble human being. His life and his instincts are on an animal level.

“You are a nice gal, Rena. It would be a shame if, this early in your life, you threw away everything you have to offer on a citizen with the sweet instincts of a rooting hog.”

“But, he told me—”

“Serena, he told you the things he thought you wanted to hear. And if I don’t miss my bet, he wants to have his cake and eat it, too. He married the Oliver woman because he was running short of money. Now you watch him. When he gets a chance, he’ll feed you some more sweet talk just to keep you around. Maybe he’ll milk her of as much money as he can and try to talk you into running off with him.”

Her eyes were suddenly angry. “He won’t get anywhere, not after this!”

“That’s what I wanted you to say, Rena. I think you got through this without being hurt too bad. And it probably taught you something. You’re a sweet gal, believe me.”

Still holding her wrists, he leaned forward, and kissed her lightly. He let go of her wrists, and she came into his arms, young, fresh, eager.

He held her away, his hands on her shoulders. “Hey,” he said, “don’t you understand about rebound?”

In a wondering tone she said, “And you’ve been around all the time! Right under my nose.”

“Hey, hold it! I don’t help anybody do their forgetting. Once you get rid of the weeping look, then we’ll see if I hold the same attractions.”

“I’m not doing any more weeping, Benjamin,” she said.

“Good. Will you go out with me sometime?”

“Of course, Ben. When?”

“Exactly one month from today. Okay?”

She frowned. “Hard to get, huh? I can wait. One month from today.”

After Jay Kelso had heard Serena’s and Ben’s voices, and had looked in at the open door of Cabin 5 without being observed, he had walked in anger up to Cabin 11, wondering if he had waited too long.

Before entering Cabin 11, he put on the mechanical smile that had become a habit with him. It was hard to conceal the distaste when he stepped in and Betty came prancing kittenishly toward him, put her arms tightly around his neck and whispered, “Ooo was gone so long, lover man.”

“Yeah. Sure,” he said absently, untangling her arms, trying not to see the hurt look in her eyes. He dug back into an uncertain education to find the word he wanted. Oppressive — yes, that was it. This was an oppressive woman. No wonder that Oliver guy had kicked off. She had drowned the poor guy in melted sugar.

If only she wouldn’t try to be twelve years old. It made her ridiculous. All this prancing and posturing and baby talk was turning his stomach. He felt as though he were being sucked down into a sticky pool.

And those kid clothes she was buying. Bright halters and shorts and sandals. He was forced to admit that from the rear she looked like a slim young girl. But when you saw the face, it didn’t go with the getup. There were too many fine lines around her lavender eyes, too much fullness at her throat.

Yes, it would have to be quick before he was smothered. It was like being married to a combination chorus line, Girl Scout troop and kindergarten. But at least she was liberal with her dough. She had said that pretty soon she’d have to make a trip to get more, that it was tied up in a trust that she could cancel and take in cash. He had hinted around about how much cash, and she had said that it was enough for the two of them to have everything they wanted for the rest of their lives. Cars, clothes, fun, nice places, cruises.

The silk gabardine suit she had bought him was the nicest piece of goods he had ever owned. As though by mutual consent, they had never mentioned his mythical business in Jersey. It was as though she had known all along that he had been lying.

Yes, it was time to have a quiet few words with Serena, and then to put the plan in motion. He suddenly realized that he would be deathly afraid to kill Betty. But he would get a great deal of satisfaction out of it just the same.

Her heart sang her new name. Betty Kelso! Betty Kelso! She thought of herself as having been a barren winter landscape. And now the warm sun of spring had melted the frost.

Never before was it like this. She had not known that she was capable of such feelings. How had she ever thought Jay was a cheap and amusing little man? No, Jay was the finest man she had ever known. He was sweet and dear and kind and wonderful. She wanted to dance and sing whenever she thought of him. She was upset when he was away from her, wonderfully happy when he was with her.

Her past was a strange, horrible dream, full of things done by an entirely different person. That part of her life was definitely finished. She wondered if fate had saved her for this delectable happiness.

And yet, with that thought came a superstitious awe. She knew that she had sinned against society — against the laws of the church, against the moral laws of civilization — and she was afraid. Afraid that, in retribution, this new happiness would be taken from her.

No, that was impossible. She and Jay were the two happiest persons in the world. Her tracks had been so carefully covered that there was no chance of the authorities catching up with her, even if they did suspect any of the deaths.

No, nothing could happen to spoil it. She felt warm, alive, vibrant — beyond anything she had ever felt before. She was sorry she hadn’t met Jay first instead of Albert Gordon. Then she smiled. That was silly. At the time she had married Albert Gordon, Jay Kelso had been, at the very most, four years old. But the difference in ages was unimportant. She felt younger than Jay. And she knew that this new love would keep her young.

She walked to the door of Cabin 11 and looked down the narrow sloping street. There was that Serena girl. She smiled as she remembered how Jay had been going out with Serena before she, Betty, had come along. Now Jay knew how silly he had been.

That old couple had moved out of Cabin 7 the day before. The girl went into the cabin laden with linens. Jay had gone down to buy cigarettes from the girl behind the counter. She saw him turning into the road, walking slowly, and her heart gave a great leap as it always did when she saw him again after a short absence.

She stepped back out of the doorway, as she wanted to watch him without his knowing that she was doing so. She wanted to try to look at him as a third person, to see how wonderful he was. She looked through the Venetian blinds. He was coming near, nearer.

Soon his arms would be around her.

He paused, glanced toward her, though he could not see her of course, and then turned into Cabin 7. She frowned, then realized that he probably wanted to give that girl some instructions.

But a deep jealousy stirred inside her. As the seconds passed she grew restless. Quickly, and with unconscious animal stealth, she went down the street, avoiding the line of vision of anyone inside Cabin 7. The door was ajar.

Unconscious of who might be observing her, she flattened herself, shoulders against the outside wall of the cabin, her ear near the crack of the door.

“Let me go!” Serena Bright said, her voice muffled and irregular, as though she struggled.

“Don’t! You’ve got to listen to me. Serena, darling, listen to me!”

“What do you want to say?” Her tone was sullen.

“I made a mistake Serena. I don’t know what was the matter with me. She’s a horrible woman. I hate her. I love you, Serena. Only you. I should have known that. Please don’t condemn me for a mistake. Please.”

“Is that all?” Serena said in a flat tone.

“Don’t do this to me, darling. I’ll be free of her soon. Believe me. I’ll find a way. You’re the only one, Serena. The only one I love. When I’m free, will you marry me? Will you?”

Betty Kelso walked away from the cabin, walked mechanically back to Cabin 11 and shut the door behind her.

It was as though in the back of her mind there was a gleaming and accurate machine which had, a few weeks before, ground to a stop. And while it was stopped she had gone through antics that were ridiculous and absurd. She had made a complete fool of herself and, in the bargain, had lost that deep sense of power, that power of death that had made her feel like a goddess.

Now the machine had started again, slowly at first, then faster, until it was running as before.

How had she thought that Kelso, the absurd man-child, was charming and attractive? She flushed when she thought of the things she had said, the way she had behaved. That was over. Her mind was clear and firm again. She thought of death. She was not known in this place. They had no address for her. Their description would fit any of ten million women.

Kelso had taught her to drive. Obviously the best thing to do would be to kill him quickly, take the car, drive a good distance, abandon it, cover her tracks, reestablish herself. Some other state. Idaho. She had never lived in Idaho.

Yes, this could be done quickly. But in this case it would be worth it.

Yes, this time she could be brutal, and this time she could let the man know, as he died, just why he died. Suddenly it seemed very good. Very, very good.

Jay Kelso reached into his pocket, and his fingertips touched the little torn fragment of khaki cloth. It would fit the ragged edge of Lawton’s work shorts as perfectly as a piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

Serena had been difficult. She had been cold and distant and contemptuous. But he thought that after Betty had died and Lawton had been taken away, it would not be too difficult to bring her back to his side like a well-trained puppy. He thought of how well Serena would look in clothes from the Miami branches of the better New York shops. A girl to be proud of.

He went into the cabin, and Betty came tripping across to him, her arms reaching up, tightening around his neck. He held her close and she murmured, “Betty missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” he said softly.

But when a few minutes later he looked into her eyes, he wondered if something was wrong. Her odd lavender eyes didn’t have that depth of warmth they had before. They seemed — brittle.

He shrugged away the impression. Probably it was his imagination. Probably it was because he had thought of her dead body so many times. When he thought of killing her, his hands began to sweat and the hair on the back of his neck prickled oddly.

It would have to be tonight. Everything was set. The plan looked perfect. He would kill her, as quietly as possible, then run down the hill yelling for the old man. He would say that he couldn’t sleep, had gone for a walk, had come back just in time to see Lawton sneaking away from the cabin. Inside he had found the body of his wife.

The police would do the rest.

It was eight o’clock. Four hours to wait. Betty sat at the dressing table and he stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders, looking at her face reflected in the glass. She was filing her nails, using a long heavy file with a plastic handle.

He felt her eyes on him and glanced into the mirror. Odd. She seemed to be staring in a fixed way at the base of his throat. She was smiling. It was a warm, contented, wifely smile. The nail file made a raw buzzing noise as she used it deftly. He took his right hand from her shoulder, touched his fingertips to the base of his throat.

“After we eat, we’ll come back here and have a long evening alone, just the two of us,” he said quietly.

“Big lover man understands his little Betty,” she cooed.

He concealed his irritation at the liquid baby talk and managed to smile at her. He glanced at her face and throat. Her features were delicate. They would have to be spoiled a little. It would have to look like a killing by a powerful man...

He moved his arm with great stealth until he could see the luminous dial of his wristwatch. Just midnight. Faint light drifted into the room, and he could make out the shape of the chair where his clothes were. Beside him, Betty was breathing softly and regularly.

His nerves were bad. The room seemed very cold, and he shivered. But it had to be done. To give himself courage, he thought of Serena walking in the sunlight.

He looked at Betty, lifting himself up on one elbow. He imagined that there was a gleam of the dim light against her eyeballs. That was silly. She was sleeping. Her breathing was soft and regular.

He reached gently until his fingers hovered inches from her slim throat. Then, tensing his muscles, he drove his hand down onto her throat, fingers biting into the soft flesh.

She exploded into motion with such sudden, horrid strength that it frightened him. One hand slipped but he managed to replace it, his lean thumbs on either side of her throat. She writhed, and together they tumbled off the side of the bed. A stinging, burning pain ripped across his shoulder.

They were in the patch of light that shone in the window. He was underneath, panting with strain, his arms straightened and rigid, holding her high above him. The pain struck again, this time across the muscles of his arm. When her flailing hand paused for a moment in the moonlight, he saw that she clenched the nail file.

Sudden fear gave him strength. The moonlight struck her darkening face, her eyes that widened and bulged, her lips that seemed to snarl.

Her struggles slowly weakened and something gave under the pressure of his thumbs. The nail file clattered to the wooden floor. Her arms hung limply, and he lowered her so that she rested beside him.

He took his right hand from her throat. With bitter, sodden strength born of fear, he drove his fist into her face, again and again and again. He was dimly glad that her face was in the shadows. The sound of his fist was wet and heavy.

Shivering, he stood up. Her legs sprawled loosely in the patch of moonlight. Sweat ran down his body. And something else. Blood from the two shallow rips.

That was dangerous. Quickly he closed the blinds, took the flashlight and shone it on the floor. He didn’t shine it on Betty. He went to the bathroom, got a scrap of tissue, moistened it and cleaned up the drops of blood. He hurried into the bathroom, washed the nail file, dried it and put it on her dresser.

Time was flying by. He dressed hurriedly, and felt sudden nausea when he forced the scrap of khaki into her hand, because already her hand had lost warmth and life.

He paused for a moment, checking back to see if anything had been forgotten. No, he had taken the hairs from her comb, had planted them in Lawton’s room when he had sneaked in at dusk three days before to rip the khaki patch from the ragged work shorts.

One more thing. It would be natural for him to turn on the cabin lights. He did so, and leaving the door open, he ran down the hill yelling hoarsely.

“Help!” he shouted. “Murder!” Even as he ran, he wondered why she had been in bed with that nail file in her hand. Could it be that she was going to...? No, that was absurd.

The investigation seemed to be going nicely. Jay Kelso sat at one of the round tables near the soda fountain.

The two police cars were parked out by the gas pumps. The men in charge were up in Cabin 11, investigating.

“Why haven’t they picked Lawton up?” Kelso demanded angrily of a man in the doorway.

“If they haven’t, they will,” the man said grimly.

Finally he heard the crunch of steps on the gravel. The tall man in charge half turned and said loudly, “There’s nothing more to see. All you people go on back to your cabins.”

“Have you got him yet?” Kelso demanded.

“We know where he is. I just want to check the identification again with you. You say you came back to the cabin after a short walk and you saw the door open.”

“That’s right,” Jay said. “It surprised me, so I stopped. I was in the shadows. The moonlight hit the door. Lawton came out, sort of crouched. I saw his face as plain as day. He was wearing those ragged old work shorts of his.

“He stood for a minute as though he was listening for something. Then he went off into the darkness. It worried me. I knew he’d been acting funny lately. Mumbling to himself. In fact, I mentioned it to Mr. Bright a week or so ago. Lawton was a mental case. There’s no getting around that.”

The officer yawned cavernously, said, “Well, Mr. Kelso, we can sure wrap this up like a Christmas package if you can stand back of that identification.”

Jay pretended annoyance. “I tell you I saw him like I’m seeing you. No possible doubt about it.” Secret glee replaced the fear he had felt before.

The officer turned in his chair, looked back at the old man and said, “Jonas, let me have that thing you showed me a little while back.”

Without looking at Kelso, Jonas Bright shuffled over and handed the officer a small folded slip of yellow paper.

The officer opened it, read it, his lips moving with each word. Then he slid it across the table to Jay Kelso. “Yes, sir, I guess that positive identification sews this case right up.”

Jay felt sudden coldness as he read the telegram.

Jay tried to speak and his voice was a pitiful squeak. “Dark. Just moonlight. He must have looked like Lawton. You can’t think that I... that I—”

The officer opened a big brown hand and put a scrap of khaki on the top of the table.

Jay Kelso almost reached his car before the slug smashed his knee.