The Second Fletcher Flora Mystery MEGAPACK™: 20 Classic Mystery & Crime Stories!

A Lesson in Reciprocity

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, August 1966.

In the yellow pages, Gaspar Vane was listed simply as a private investigator, leaving it up to any prospective client to discover for himself the precise nature of investigations undertaken. As a matter of fact, almost any kind that promised a fee was acceptable, but as things worked out, most of them were associated with the more sordid aspects of divorce. He was prepared to gather the evidence of grounds where grounds existed, and he was, for a premium, prepared to create it where it did not. He was not, in brief, a man to permit professional ethics to handicap his operations.

Gaspar suffered from baldness, which is a perfectly normal hazard of maturity, and he was fat. Altogether, considering a pocked face, loose lips, and ferrety little eyes, he was a physical composition of exceptional ugliness. What was not immediately apparent was the poetic range of his imagination. He spent much of his time in a private world in which miracles happened to Gaspar Vane, and it was this happy facility for fantasy that kept him in the practice of his rather unsavory trade.

In spite of the liberal policies that made it possible for him to take any kind of work that was offered, Gaspar’s practice did not flourish. He frequently had difficulty in paying the rent and satisfying his creature needs. He had no payroll to meet, having no employees. However, he did have an answering service that was essential to the little practice that he had, and he was forced at times into devious maneuvers to scratch up even the little that it cost. But he was stuck to his last, as the old saying goes, by a tenacious dream. He existed in the hope of a lode of luck. There would surely be one client who would turn out to be a jackpot.

He did not dream, however, when Hershell Fitch climbed the creaky stairs to his dingy office, that the jackpot was at hand. Hershell was a faded, depleted little man who had bleached to virtual anonymity in the shadow of a domineering wife, and it was under the orders of this wife, it developed, that he was seeking the services of Gaspar Vane. Anyhow, Hershell did not look like a jackpot, and he wasn’t one. The jackpot was Rudolph La Roche, and it was merely Hershell’s coincidental function to reveal him. Gaspar acknowledged Hershell’s introduction with a flabby smile and a greasy handshake.

“Sit down, Mr. Fitch,” Gaspar said. “How can I help you?”

Hershell sat in the one client’s chair and balanced his felt hat carefully on his knees.

“It isn’t exactly I,” Hershell said. “It’s actually my wife. I mean, it’s my wife who sent me here to see you.”

“In that case, how can I help your wife?”

“Well, we have these neighbors. La Roche is their name. Mr. and Mrs. Rudolph La Roche. It’s Mr. La Roche’s activities that she wants investigated.”

“Ah! That’s different. Quite different.” Gaspar leaned back and dry-washed his fat hands. “You suspect Mr. La Roche of something illicit?”

“Perhaps I’d better tell you about it.”

“I was about to suggest it.”

“Well, it’s this way.” Hershell’s fingers fiddled nervously with his hat, while he attempted to gather his harried thoughts. “The La Roches moved in next door nearly three years ago. Immediately they adopted this peculiar routine, and they’ve been in it ever since.”

“Routine? What’s peculiar about a routine? Most married people have a routine.”

“It’s not only the routine. It’s mostly that they act so mysterious about it. In the beginning, when Mrs. Fitch and Mrs. La Roche were on amiable terms, my wife tried to find out where Mr. La Roche went and what he did, but Mrs. La Roche was evasive. Finally she was quite rude about it. That, I think, was the beginning of the bad feeling.”

“Went? Did?” Gaspar’s confusion was apparent in his voice. “Mr. Fitch, if you want my help, you must be more explicit.”

“I’m trying to. The point is, you see, Mr. La Roche operates a small barber shop. As owner, he works the first chair. There is one other chair that is worked by a hired barber. I must say that the La Roches live in a much higher fashion than one would expect from the income from such a small shop, especially when Mr. La Roche is never there himself on Saturdays.

“Where,” said Gaspar, “is Mr. La Roche on Saturdays?”

“That’s the main point. That’s what I’m coming to. We don’t know, and we can’t find out. Every Friday night, about six o’clock, Mr. La Roche leaves home in his automobile. He always carries a medium size bag, and he always leaves alone. Sunday night, between nine and ten, he returns. The schedule varies only slightly from week to week. The general routine never varies at all. Don’t you agree that it’s peculiar?”

“Not necessarily. Just because the La Roches decline to discuss their private affairs, it doesn’t mean they’re up to anything shady. Maybe Mr. La Roche has other business elsewhere on weekends that is more profitable than working the first chair in his barber shop.”

“Exactly. What kind of business? After all, Saturday is the busiest day of the week in most barber shops.”

“Mr. Fitch, let us come directly to the crux. Do you want to hire me to find out where Mr. La Roche goes and what he does?”

“It’s my wife, really. She’s the one who’s got her mind set.”

“No matter. It comes to the same thing. Are you prepared to pay my fee even though my report may be disappointing to you? I mean to say, even though Mr. La Roche’s activities may be perfectly innocent?”

“Yes, of course. My wife and I have discussed the possibility, and we’ve decided that it’s a risk we must take.”

“Good. In the meanwhile, there will be certain expenses. Shall we estimate a hundred dollars?”

“A hundred dollars! My wife and I thought fifty would be ample.”

“Well, let’s not quibble. If my expenses are more than fifty, I’ll simply add them to my fee. If you will give me the cash or your personal check...”

Hershell had a personal check already made out in the proper amount. He extracted it from a worn wallet and handed it across the desk. It was signed, Gaspar noted, by Mrs. Fitch. Her Christian name was Gabriella.

Friday afternoon, Gaspar threw an extra shirt and a pair of socks into a worn bag, threw the bag into the rear seat of his worn car and drove to the address he had extracted from Hershell in a final settlement of details. He had been there earlier in the week in a preliminary excursion designed to get the lay of the land, and now he drove past the La Roche house, a modest brick one across the hedge from the Fitches’ modest frame one, and on down the block and around the corner. Turning his car around so that he would be in position to fall in behind La Roche when the latter passed the intersection, he settled himself behind the wheel to wait. It was then a quarter to six. He had ascertained from Hershell, of course, the direction in which La Roche took off. He had already observed La Roche’s car, a black late model, and had unobtrusively taken down the license number. In the course of his careful preliminaries, he had even inspected La Roche himself in his two-chair barber shop.

On schedule, the black car passed the intersection shortly after six. Gaspar wheeled in behind and followed at a discreet distance. La Roche made his way across town, avoiding the congested trafficways, and turned onto the entrance to a turnpike and stopped obediently at the tollgate. He accepted his ticket, properly punched, and was immediately off again, while Gaspar was forced to wait for what seemed an interminable time until his own ticket was delivered. Meanwhile, he watched the other car uneasily and saw that it took the ramp which would send it onto the turnpike eastbound. He was soon nicely spaced behind La Roche’s car, and it was apparent that the pace was going to be a judicious sixty-five.

At this speed, just below the level of terrifying rattles and threatening tremors, he was even able to consider comfortably the man he was pursuing. Rudolph La Roche was, indeed, a rather unusual personality. Even Gaspar, who was not especially sensitive to such things, had felt it immediately. In the first place, his appearance was somehow arresting. Neither tall nor short, he was erect in bearing and decisive in his movements. His body was slender and supple. His hair was gray above the temples but otherwise dark. His eyes were lustrous, his nose was straight, his lips were full and firm. He was, in fact, a handsome man, and there was about him a disconcerting impression of agelessness. He might have been thirty or fifty or any age between, but he would be, one felt, the age forever that he was at the moment, whatever that age might be.

In the second place, with no more to go on than a queer prickling in the lard along his spine, Gaspar had the feeling that La Roche was a man who might be up to something extraordinary. He felt that here, at last, might be the miraculous jackpot.

After a couple hours of steady driving, Gaspar was paying his toll at the last exit and cursing bitterly at the delay as he strained to keep the receding red taillights of the black car in view. Under way again, he managed to close the intervening distance at the risk of violating the speed limit, now sharply reduced on the freeway running on for several miles into the city. The downtown traffic created serious problems with intruding cars that were unconcerned with Gaspar’s mission, but the black car turned abruptly into a parking garage, and Gaspar, with one intruder preceding him, turned in after it. As he waited briefly for service, La Roche, having deposited his car and received his claim check, passed by so closely, carrying his bag, that Gaspar could have reached out and touched him. Gaspar cursed again, silently and bitterly, and implored dubious gods to prod the attendant.

A minute later he was on the street, peering with wild despair in the direction La Roche had taken. At first the elusive barber was nowhere to be seen among the pedestrians. Then by the sheerest good luck, by the accidental course of his frantic gaze at the last instant, Gaspar saw him turning into the entrance of a fashionable hotel on the far corner. When he entered the large and ornate lobby of the hotel, however, he discovered that La Roche had again vanished.

Gaspar looked behind pillars and potted palms and even took a quick tour of a long arcade between expensive little shops, now closed. No La Roche. Forced by his failure to consider the improbability of incredibly fast service, Gaspar approached the desk and invoked the attention of the clerk, an indolent and elegant young man who did not look as if he could be forced to hurry by prince or bishop or even a congressman. Gaspar thought it best to present his problem directly and candidly.

“I’m looking,” he said, “for a gentleman who just came into this hotel. Rudolph La Roche. Could you tell me if he registered?”

The clerk said coldly that Mr. La Roche had not, and his tone implied that even if Mr. La Roche had, the truth would be considered far too sacred to be divulged to a seedy transient with frayed cuffs and a shiny seat. Gaspar retreated behind a pillar, in the shadow of a potted palm, and sat down to brood and consider his position and tactical alternatives.

His attention was caught by the soft neon identification of a cocktail lounge. Of course! La Roche had simply developed a big thirst during his long drive, and he had stopped first thing to slake it. Gaspar had, now that he had time to recognize it, developed a considerable thirst himself. With the dual intention of nailing La Roche and having a cold beer, he crossed to the lounge and entered. But he was still out of luck. The barber was not there, and Gaspar, afraid of missing him in the lobby, returned with his thirst to the potted palm.

Then, after another extended period of brooding, his dilemma was solved. He was staring at a bank of elevators, and one of the elevators, having just descended, opened with a pneumatic whisper, and there in the brightly lighted box like a magician’s pawn in a magical cabinet, was Rudolph La Roche.

Rudolph La Roche transformed. Rudolph La Roche, elegant and polished as a brand new dime, in impeccable evening clothes.

And on his arm, staring up at him with a candid adoration that promised an exciting night, was the slickest, sexiest blonde bomb that Gaspar had seen in a long, long time. He stared, entranced.

Fifteen minutes later, Gaspar was installed in a room on the eleventh floor. It was a relatively cheap room assigned by the supercilious clerk as being appropriate to Gaspar’s frayed cuffs and shiny seat. Gaspar had rejected the idea of attempting to follow La Roche and his gorgeous companion on their apparent excursion of nightspots for two sound reasons. The first was that he would almost certainly lose them along the way. The second was that the excursion would certainly make greater demands on the Vane expense account than the account could bear. Indeed, it was already obvious that the fifty dollars extracted from Hershell Fitch was going to be woefully inadequate.

Anyhow, since it was necessary to spend the night somewhere, it had seemed a good idea to spend it at the hotel which would clearly be his base of operations, whatever those operations amounted to. Fortunately, he was at the moment, in addition to Hershell’s fifty, in possession of funds, so to speak, in another pocket.

Inventory disclosed that these funds came to approximately another fifty, and if necessary he could pay his hotel bill with a rubber check that he would have to cover by some device before it bounced. He considered this no reckless expenditure, but rather a sound, if somewhat speculative, investment in prospects that were beginning to glitter. Therefore, his inventory completed, he called room service and ordered ice and a bottle of bourbon.

While he waited for delivery, he thought about Rudolph La Roche, who was currently looking like the most remarkable barber since Figaro. Imagine the ingenious devil carrying on a sizzling affair within a hundred miles of home in a flagrantly open manner which practically invited detection! After all, other citizens of the old home town certainly stayed at times in this hotel and it was by no means a remote possibility that one or more of them would know La Roche there and recognize him here. The man must have monstrous assurance and vanity to think that he could get away with it indefinitely. The whole affair was all the more remarkable because it was clearly conducted on some kind of schedule with apparent stability. What kind of cock-and-bull story did he perpetuate about his weekly excursions to keep his wife chronically deceived? In addition to his other manifest talents, he must be, surely, a superb liar. Gaspar, indeed, was becoming almost violently ambivalent about the astounding barber. He was admiring on the one hand; on the other he was filled with envy and malice.

There was a knock at the door of his room, and he got up and opened the door to admit a bellhop, who was carrying a bottle and a thermos bucket full of ice cubes.

“Put them on the table,” Gaspar said.

Following the bellhop back into the room he took a five-dollar bill out of his pocket and sat on the bed. He smoothed the bill on one knee and laid it carefully beside him. The bellhop was a very small man with a puckered and pallid face that made Gaspar think wildly of an improbable albino prune. As he turned, the bellhop’s eyes passed over the fin on their way across the bed to a spot on the wall behind it.

“Will there be anything else, sir?” he asked.

“Nothing,” said Gaspar, “unless you could give me a little information.”

“That’s possible, sir. What kind of information?”

“I’m wondering if you could tell me how long Mr. Rudolph La Roche has been coming to this hotel.”

“Mr. Rudolph La Roche, sir? I’m afraid I don’t know the gentleman.”

“A slender man. Not very tall. Dark hair with a little gray over the ears. Military bearing. Appearance rather distinguished.”

There was a flicker in the bellhop’s ancient eyes as he raised them from the wall to the ceiling, closing them in transience.

“I know a gentleman who fits that general description, sir, but his name is not La Roche. A coincidental similarity, perhaps.”

“Let’s get down to cases. La Roche came into this hotel tonight and went directly upstairs without registering. Later he came down again, dressed fit to kill, with a beautiful blonde hanging on his arm. Since he changed his clothes upstairs, I assume that he has a room or has the use of the lady’s.”

“Ah.” The bellhop’s eyes descended slowly from the ceiling. As they crossed the fin on the bed, they opened briefly and closed again. “You must be referring to Mr. and Mrs. Roger Le Rambeau.”

Gaspar was silent for a moment, scarcely breathing. “Did you say Mr. and Mrs. Roger Le Rambeau?”

“Yes, sir. They have a suite on the fifteenth floor. Permanent residents. Mr. Le Rambeau is out of town during the week. He returns every Friday night.”

“Oh? And where does Mr. Le Rambeau go during the week?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, sir. I assume that he goes on business.”

“How long have Mr. and Mrs. Le Rambeau been residents here?”

“Approximately three years. They moved in, I understand, immediately after their marriage.”

“They must be well-heeled to afford this kind of setup.”

“They appear to be quite affluent. It’s my understanding, however, that Mrs. Le Rambeau has most of the money.”

“I see. Do you happen to know if they were married here in the city or elsewhere?”

“I’m not sure. Wherever they were married, it should be a matter of record.”

“Yes. So it should.”

“I hope I have been helpful, sir.”

“You have. You bet you have.”

“In that case, sir, if there is nothing else, I had better get on with my duties.”

“Sure, sure. You run along, son.”

The bellhop, who was at least as old as Gaspar, flicked the fin off the bed with practiced fingers and went out of the room. Gaspar, left alone, continued to sit on the edge of the bed with his fat body folded forward over the bulge of his belly. A toad of a man, ugly and scarred and poor in the world’s goods, he was nevertheless lifted by soaring dreams into the rarefied air of enlarged hopes.

Gaspar wasted no more time in spying personally on the astounding barber whom he still thought of, in order to avoid confusion, as Rudolph La Roche. After three stout highballs, he rolled into bed in his underwear and slept soundly for a few hours, rousing and rising early the next morning, which was Saturday. With the help of a clerk he spent the morning checking the file of photo-stated marriage licenses at the county courthouse, which turned out not to be such a tedious task as he had feared, inasmuch as he knew, thanks to the bellhop, the approximate time when La Roche had taken his bride. The only question was whether or not the marriage had been performed in the county and was there recorded. Happily, it had been and was.

Gaspar returned to the hotel, got his bag, paid his bill, claimed his car at the parking garage, and drove home. He was feeling so pleased with himself and the turn his affairs were taking that he had only the mildest pang of envy when he thought of Rudolph La Roche with his blonde bomb in their fifteenth-floor suite.

He spent Sunday with pleasant anticipations, and the following morning, with the resumption of workaday affairs, he investigated more records and satisfied himself on a critical point. Rudolph La Roche was married, all right. In fact, being married twice at once, he was excessively so. And if a philandering husband is a patsy, to make a riddle of it, what is a bigamist?

Gaspar drove by the two-chair barber shop, which was located in a small suburban shopping area, and there at the first chair, sure enough, spruce in a starched white tunic and plying his scissors to a head of hair, was the errant Mr. La Roche. Smiling wetly and humming softly, Gaspar drove slowly on. He parked in the alley behind the building in which his office was located, and heavily climbed back stairs, still smiling and humming between puffs. In his office, without delay, he dialed the number of Hershell Fitch, who was at home and came to the telephone at the summons of Mrs. Fitch, who had answered.

“Gaspar Vane speaking,” said Gaspar. “Can you talk?”

“Yes,” said Hershell. “There’s no one here but Gabriella. Don’t you think, however, I had better come to your office for your report?”

“You are welcome to come,” Gaspar said, “if you want to waste your time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there isn’t any report. None, that is, worth mentioning.”

“Where did he go?”

“He went to Kansas City.”

“What for?”

“He went to see a woman.”

“A woman! That sounds to me like something worth mentioning.”

“I guess it is if you see something wrong with seeing an eighty-year-old woman who happens also to be his mother.”

“He goes to Kansas City every weekend to see his mother?”

“That’s right. She’s in a nursing home there. Our friend is devoted to her, it seems. His visits are practically a ritual.”

“Excuse me a minute.”

There followed a brief period during which Hershell talked aside, apparently to the hovering Gabriella, and then his voice came through the receiver again, thin and a little petulant with disappointment.

“I guess you’re right, then. I guess there’s no use in my coming down.”

“None at all.”

“Since there wasn’t really anything to report, I hope the fee won’t be excessive.”

“I’ll send you a bill,” Gaspar said.

He hung up and leaned back in his chair. On the other hand, he thought, maybe I won’t. Truth is, he ought to send me a bill.

Mindful of the old adage that one should strike while the iron is hot, Gaspar consulted his directory and found the telephone number of the shop of Rudolph La Roche. He dialed the number and listened to distant rings. Then, the third ring being chopped off in the middle, he was listening to the voice of Rudolph himself. The voice, true to Gaspar’s imagination, was modulated and suave and unmistakably urbane.

“Rudolph La Roche speaking,” the voice said.

“I must have the wrong number,” Gaspar said. “I thought I was calling Roger Le Rambeau.”

There was a pause, almost imperceptible, and Rudolph’s voice, when he spoke again, was as impeccably suave as before.

“Who is this, please?”

“Never mind. We’ll get better acquainted in good time.”

“I’m sure I shall be delighted. Would you care to make an appointment?”

“What’s wrong with this evening?”

“Nothing whatever. Shall I name the place?”

“You name it. If I don’t like it, I’ll change it.”

“There’s a small tavern a few doors east of my shop. I sometimes stop in there for a beer or two before going home. If that’s acceptable, I shall be pleased to see you there.”

“That sounds all right. What time?”

“I close my shop at five-thirty.”

“See you then,” said Gaspar, and gently cradled the phone.

A cool customer, he thought. A real cool customer. But after all, any guy who could deliberately marry two women and practically keep them next door to each other was bound to be.

The tavern was a narrow building compressed between an appliance store on one side and a loan office on the other. It was clearly a place that exploited an atmosphere of decorum and respectability, making its appeal to the solid citizen whose thirst, while decently inhibited, could be counted on to recur with some regularity. Of the patrons present when Gaspar entered, the one who was the most respectable in appearance and the least so in fact was Rudolph La Roche.

He was sitting alone in a booth along the wall opposite the bar. A beaded glass of beer, untouched, was on the table before him. As Gaspar approached, he slid out of his seat, stood up and made an odd, old-fashioned bow from the hips.

“Rudolph La Roche,” he said. “I’m sorry that I don’t know your name.”

“It’s Vane,” Gaspar said. “Gaspar Vane.”

“How do you do, Mr. Vane. Will you join me in a beer? I’m afraid nothing stronger is sold here.”

“Beer’s fine.”

They sat opposite each other with an air of cordiality and waited in silence while Gaspar was served by a waitress. After she was gone, Rudolph lifted his glass in a small salute, to which Gaspar responded uneasily. It was strange that Gaspar, who held all the cards, was far the more uneasy of the two.

“May I ask,” said Rudolph, “how you became aware of Roger Le Rambeau?”

“You can ask,” said Gaspar, “which is not to say I’ll answer.”

“It would do me no good, I suppose, to deny anything?”

“Not a bit.”

“In that case, I’ll save myself the trouble. Which brings us, of course, directly to the point. What do you intend to do about it?”

“That depends. I’m not what you might call a blue-nose. If a man chooses to have two wives at the same time, I say, let him have them.”

“Very wise of you, Mr. Vane. You are, I see, a liberal man. And why not? Bigamy is, per se, quite harmless. It has been respectable enough in the past in certain places and is still so today. It is a felony only where the laws of the land condemn it, and it is a sin only where the mores of society make it so. I pride myself, if I may say so, on being a kind of universal man. I select my ethical standards from all societies in all places at any given time.”

“That sounds good enough, but it’s liable to land you in a mess of trouble.”

“True, true. One must have the courage of his convictions.”

“If you ask me, two wives take more courage than sense. One is bad enough.”

“Mr. Vane, you disappoint me. Marriage is, indeed, a blessed institution. It is made less than blessed only by the idiotic restrictions placed upon it. It is confused, I mean, with monogamy, which is quite another thing. It is extremely rare that a man can be fulfilled by one woman, or vice versa. Take me, for example. I rather imagine, Mr. Vane, that you think me, all things considered, a complex man. On the contrary, I am a very simple man. I have, on the one hand, very strong physical appetites that can be satisfied only by a rich and beautiful woman of a passionate nature. On the other, I have a deep and normal yearning for the stigmata of middle-class stability — a modest and comfortable home, a devoted and orderly wife who is primarily a house-keeper, a respected and undistinguished trade to engage my attention. It is surely clear that one wife could hardly satisfy my needs. And I am not, whatever you may think superficially, a libertine. I choose not to engage in philandering. Therefore, I solve my problem simply and sensibly. I take two wives, and I am fulfilled. I am, Mr. Vane, a happy man.”

“Well, as the saying goes,” said Gaspar pointedly, “every good thing must come to an end.”

“Must it?” Rudolph smiled and sipped his headless beer. “That sentiment seems to be in conflict with this interview. I understood that we were meeting to arrange conditions under which my particular good thing, as you put it, can continue.”

“As I said, I’m no bluenose. I’m prepared to be reasonable.”

“Mr. Vane, I’ve been completely candid with you. Surely you owe me the same consideration. If you wish to blackmail me, why don’t you say so?”

“Call it what you like. Whatever you call it. I know a good thing when I see it.”

“Precisely, Mr. Vane, how do you see it?”

“I see you in a trap, that’s how.”

“Quite so. A just observation. I can either pay or go to prison.”

“Not only that. Your wives would be a little upset by your shenanigans, to say the least. You’d lose them both, and that’s for sure.”

“There you touch me in my most vulnerable spot. The loss of my wives would be the crudest blow of all. I am, you see, a dedicated and loving husband.”

“I’d give a pretty penny to know how you’ve been fooling them all this time.”

“Secrets, Mr. Vane, secrets. As you said a while ago, you may ask, which is not to say I’ll answer.”

“It’s not important. What’s important is that you stand to lose them.”

“A disaster, I admit, which I should prefer to avoid at any cost. Which brings us, I believe, to another crucial point. What, Mr. Vane, will be the cost?”

“Well, I don’t want to be greedy, but at the same time I don’t want to give anything away. Besides, that weekend wife of yours is rich. You said so yourself.”

“A tactical error, perhaps. Having gone so far, however, I’ll go even farther. Angela is not only rich; she is exceedingly generous and quite incurious as to how I spend her money.”

“In that case, how does twenty-five grand sound?”

“To Rudolph La Roche, like far too much. To Roger Le Rambeau, fair enough.”

“Roger Le Rambeau’s who I’m talking to.”

“As Roger Le Rambeau, I’ll consider it.”

“What’s to consider? You pay or else.”

“Of course. That’s abundantly clear, I think. However, you must realize that I am dependent upon Angela for such an amount. In any event, I couldn’t pay until I’ve had an opportunity next weekend to make proper arrangements.”

“You think she may kick up rough about shelling out that much?” Gaspar’s brow furrowed.

“No, no. I anticipate no difficulty with Angela.”

“Just the same, you’d better think up a good reason.”

“You can safely leave that in my hands. As a matter of fact, I’ve established a reputation with Angela for being lucky. She has profited more from certain wagers of mine, wins and losses taken together, than this will cost.”

“I’ll want cash. No check.”

“I must say, Mr. Vane, that you’re a strange mixture of professional acumen and amateur naïveté. Whoever heard of paying a blackmailer by check?”

“I just wanted it understood, that’s all.”

“I believe I understand the conditions perfectly, Mr. Vane.”

“In that case all that’s left is to arrange the time and place of our next meeting.”

“I see no reason to drag this affair out. I’m sure you’re anxious to have it completed, and so am I. Shall we say next Monday evening?”

“Suits me. Where?”

“Well, the transfer of funds will, perhaps, require a bit more privacy than we have here. I suggest the back room of my shop. I close at five-thirty, as I’ve told you, and my assistant leaves promptly. A quarter to six should be about right. Drive into the alley and knock at the back door. I’ll let you in.”

“No tricks.”

“Please Mr. Vane! What kind of trick could I possibly employ? I’m realist enough to concede that I’ve been found out, and gentleman enough, I hope, to accept the consequences gracefully.”

Rudolph La Roche smiled faintly, slipped out of the booth, and repeated his odd little bow.

“Until Monday, then.”

Turning briskly, his back erect and his head high, he walked to the door and out into the street. Gaspar signaled the waitress and ordered another beer. Somehow, he did not feel as elated as a man should feel when he has hit the jackpot. What color were Rudolph’s eyes, he wondered suddenly. Blue? Green? Whatever the color, they were as cool and pale as a handful of sea water.

The alley was a littered brick lane between brick walls. Behind Rudolph’s barber shop there was an indentation which provided enough space in which to park a pair of cars. Rudolph’s car was there when Gaspar pulled his old one up alongside, and the time at that moment was exactly a quarter to six. Gaspar crawled out and banged on the rear door of the shop. He was promptly admitted by Rudolph, who must have been waiting just on the other side. The barber was still wearing his starched white tunic, uniform of his trade, and it gave him an antiseptic look that was somehow disconcerting to Gaspar, who always felt slightly soiled even when he was still dripping from the shower.

“Ah, here you are,” Rudolph said. “Right on time, I see. Come in, come in.”

Gaspar, entering, found himself in a tiny room which had been devised by the simple expedient of erecting a plywood wall toward the rear of the original, single room. There was a small table with a bundle of laundry on it. On the same table there was a coffee pot on a hot plate, which was on a square of asbestos, and beside the table were two straight chairs. For an instant Gaspar felt trapped and vulnerable, and a wave of panic swept over him. But the panic receded quickly to leave him with no more than a vague feeling of uneasiness.

“Sit down, Mr. Vane,” Rudolph said, indicating one of the straight chairs. “Shall I make coffee?”

“Not for me,” said Gaspar.

“Very well, then.” Seated sidewise to the table in the second chair, Rudolph leaned an elbow upon it and stared at Gaspar. “Shall we come down to business at once?”

“If you’ve got the money, let’s do.”

“Oh, I have the money, I assure you. Indeed, I have twice the amount we agreed on.”

“Fifty grand?”

“Quite so.”

“Where is it?”

“Never mind that. It’s available.”

“What’s it for?”

“It’s for you, Mr. Vane, all for you if you care to earn it.”

Gaspar’s feeling of uneasiness was suddenly acute. His fat body felt clammy.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “Earn it how?”

“By performing a certain service for me. I’m prepared, in brief, to make you a counter-proposition. Would you care to hear it?”

“It’s no crime to listen.”

“Let me say in the beginning, Mr. Vane, that you have made me sensitive to my position. I have realized all along, I suppose, that I could not indefinitely continue to live securely in my precarious circumstances, however desirable and delightful they might be. If you have found me out, it is certain that others will do so in good time, and although you are reasonable and willing to settle things amicably, it is certain that others will not be. Therefore, I have decided that it would be wise, so to speak, to settle for half a loaf. It is better, to put it brutally, to lose one wife than two. Do you understand me, Mr. Vane?”

Rudolph paused for an answer and examined his pared and polished fingernails, smiling at them with wry resignation, sadly and tenderly. As for Gaspar he felt as if an angry heavyweight had slugged him suddenly in the fat belly. In protest, it emitted a startled rumble.

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“Perhaps I’d better be more explicit. I have decided with deep regret to sacrifice one of the two.”

“Which one?”

“That has been my sad dilemma. Shall it be Angela or Winifred? Believe me, Mr. Vane, I have struggled over the choice with a troubled soul. To begin with, I am approaching that time of life when the passions will cool and simple domestic comforts, such as quiet evenings and home-cooked meals and a tidy house, will assume dominant importance. A point, as you can see, for Winifred. On the other hand, that time, although approaching, has not arrived. Moreover, there is another commanding consideration which must be, I fear, definitive. I have reason to know that I am the principal heir in Angela’s will. You can easily see the enormous complications that would arise if a will involving a large fortune were to be probated at this time. Not only would my bigamy almost certainly be exposed, but I should, inasmuch as Winifred was unfortunately my first and legal wife, lose everything that Angela left me. So, when you come right down to it, I really have no choice at all. Winifred must go.”

“Go where? Go how?”

“Oh, come, Mr. Vane. Please don’t be evasive. I’ve taken the liberty of investigating you discreetly, and you are, if I may say so, a ruthless man. I’m suggesting nothing beyond your capabilities.”

“Let’s put it into words. You want to hire me to kill your second wife?”

“Chronologically, my first wife. That’s my counterproposition.”

“You’re asking me to commit murder.”

“I’m presenting you with the opportunity if you wish to take it. I’m also giving you the chance to earn fifty thousand dollars instead of twenty-five.”

This, of course, was Gaspar’s great temptation, the overwhelming seduction of the affair as it was developing. Nevertheless, he dragged his heels. The disruption in the orderly sequence of routine blackmail was so abrupt and monstrous that it created in his mind an effect of violence. He was confused. He struggled for clarity and coherence. Yet, for all his confusion, he thought he could see certain possibilities of treachery.

“Nothing doing,” he said.

“Is that decisive? Don’t you even feel inclined to discuss it.”

“What’s to discuss?”

“Certainly you can see the benefits to yourself.”

“I can see one thing, all right. I can see that you’re a bigamist, and I’m a blackmailer, to be honest about it. That makes us just about equal. Tit for tat. But if I accepted your proposition, I’d be a murderer. We wouldn’t be equal any longer, and I’d have a lot more to lose than you.”

“Nonsense. You’re forgetting that I’d be guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, which is handled rather harshly under the law. No, Mr. Vane. We would be compelled to keep each other’s secret, and that’s all there is to it.”

“That’s not the point. The point is, you’d have me in a tighter bind than I’d have you, and you could refuse to pay me a dime for anything. If you were to do that, I wouldn’t dare do a thing about it.”

“I am an honorable man, Mr. Vane. My word is my bond.”

“In that case, hand over the fifty grand in advance.”

“I said, Mr. Vane, that my word is my bond. I didn’t say that yours is yours. However, I’m prepared to pay you an advance of ten thousand dollars upon your acceptance of my proposition, just to show my good faith, and I assure you that the balance will be paid promptly upon the completion of your duties.”

Gaspar, oddly enough, believed him. The cool little devil was just weird enough to have a kooky code of honor that would bind him to his word in the terms of his devilment.

“Wait a minute,” Gaspar said suddenly. “If you’ve got fifty grand to throw around, why can’t I just raise the ante of the game as it is?”

“You could try, Mr. Vane, but you would fail. I am a reasonable man, and I’m willing to pay a reasonable price for silence or service, but I will not be victimized. I’ll face my ruin first.”

Again, Gaspar was convinced. The idea, he decided, was not worth pursuing. As to Rudolph’s proposition, the suspicion of trickery was nearly allayed, but the fear of apprehension still remained.

“Well,” he said heavily, “I’m not saying I’ll do it, mind you, but I don’t see anything against listening a little longer. What makes you think we could get away with it?”

“There’s nothing in that to deter us. The exercise of reasonable caution should suffice. As you know, I leave home every Friday evening and don’t return until Sunday evening. Winifred is alone all that time. She is, moreover, a creature of habit, and her actions can be accurately predicted. She has told me that she invariably attends a movie Saturday night. She returns home immediately afterward and consoles herself with several strong highballs. It is poor Winifred’s one minor vice, but since it is rigidly controlled and is allowed to function only that one night of the week, it can perhaps be excused. In any event, she goes to bed somewhat under the influence and can be expected to sleep heavily. Anytime after midnight, I should say, would be safe for you to enter. I shall provide you with a backdoor key. A heavy blow on the head, deliberately planted evidence of burglary, and the thing is done. Poor Winifred has clearly surprised a burglar, who has killed her in his alarm. You simply walk out of the house and away, and in the meanwhile I am in another city, which can easily be established. Upon my return, we complete the terms of our agreement.”

“It sounds easy enough. Too easy by half, I’d say.”

“It’s a mistake to confuse simplicity with incompetence. Do you accept my proposition or not?”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

“As you wish.” Rudolph stood up briskly, with an air of cheerfulness, and began to unbutton his tunic. “Meanwhile, I must ask you to excuse me. I’m late already, and Winifred is having chicken and dumplings for dinner. I’m very fond of chicken and dumplings.” Gaspar was dimly aware of being ushered deftly into the alley. He was slightly dazed, in a sluggish kind of way, by the turn of events. But he realized, at any rate, that the game was radically changed, and that all the money, in spite of his high hand, was still in the pot.

To express it in extravagant terms, Gaspar wrestled three days with the devil. Although he had been directly responsible for one suicide, a neurotic woman without the stability to weather a minor scandal, he had never killed anyone with his own hands, and now he was filled with dread at the thought of doing so. Not that he was afflicted with compassion or serious moral qualms. He was merely fearful of being caught, and of the consequences thereof. Still, the bait, fifty thousand lovely tax-free dollars, was a mighty temptation. Moreover, the project as Rudolph La Roche had presented it was so wonderfully simple. It was merely a matter of letting himself into a house, sapping a woman in an alcoholic sleep, faking a bit of evidence, and walking away. It seemed to him, in his more optimistic moments, that anyone could do it successfully.

There was another consideration. Gaspar looked upon himself as a rather exceptional fellow who had been haunted all his life by minor misfortunes, and in his gross body he nursed the pride of his delusion. He had always felt, when Shakespeare’s famous tide rolled in, that he, Gaspar Vane, would take it at the flood and ride it to fortune. Well, here was the tide, and here was he. What was he going to do about it? On Thursday afternoon, he made his decision suddenly.

Sitting at the desk in his shabby little office, he looked at his watch and saw that it was twenty minutes to six. Rudolph’s shop was closed, the second barber probably gone, but there was a good chance that Rudolph himself, engaged with the petty details of closing, was still there. Giving himself no time for further vacillation, Gaspar seized his phone and dialed. Two rings later, Rudolph’s suave voice answered.

“Rudolph La Roche speaking.”

“Gaspar Vane. Can you talk?”

“All alone here. Tomorrow is Friday, you know. I was wondering if you’d call.”

“You got the ten grand?”

“Certainly.”

“You got the other forty?”

“As I told you. In escrow, so to speak.”

“When can you pay off?”

“Tomorrow. I’ll have to go to the bank.”

“Won’t it look suspicious if you draw out all that money at once?”

“Hardly. Rudolph La Roche is not Roger Le Rambeau. His bank account never exceeds a few hundred dollars. The money, Mr. Vane, is in a safety deposit box.”

“Shall I pick it up at your shop?”

“I think not. From now on it would be wiser, I think, if we took no chances of being seen together. I’ll go to the bank on my lunch hour tomorrow. Let’s see, now. Do you know where Huton’s Restaurant is? I’ll go there for lunch at one precisely. Before eating, I’ll go directly to the washroom to wash my hands. Be there at that time, and I’ll manage to slip you the packet unobserved.”

“Don’t forget the key.”

“Of course. Also the key.”

“Huton’s. One sharp. I’ll be waiting for you.”

And so, as good as his word, he was. He spent the few minutes before Rudolph’s arrival in examining his pocked and ravished face in one of Huton’s mirrors. Luckily, he was the only one in the washroom when Rudolph entered. Claiming the next lavatory, the dapper barber ran water into the bowl, squirted liquid soap into a palm, and began to wash his hands.

“The packet and the key are in my right jacket pocket,” he said. “Help yourself.”

Gaspar did, dropping them quickly into his own.

“Is it all here?” he asked.

“Certainly. When are you going to be convinced, Mr. Vane, that you are dealing with an honorable man? If the total is not correct, you are under no compulsion to render service.”

“You’d better believe it.”

“Listen carefully. Go in the back door and across the kitchen into the dining room. Turn right into a hall. Winifred’s bedroom is first on the right. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Rudolph pressed a button and held his hands in a rush of hot air, rubbing them briskly together. When they were dry, he adjusted his tie, settled his jacket more comfortably on his shoulders, and turned away. From entrance to exit, he had barely looked at Gaspar. “Good-by, Mr. Vane,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”

Gaspar did not linger for lunch. Back in his office, he counted the money and found that Rudolph had indeed proved himself, at least so far, an honorable man. Gaspar put the ten grand in a metal lockbox, and locked the box in the bottom drawer of his battered file cabinet. He had never worried about thieves before, having had nothing worth stealing, but now he found himself wondering anxiously if he were exercising proper security measures. Oh, well, there was nothing to be gained by dissipating his mental powers in anxiety.

At a quarter to six, taking certain precautions that seemed fundamental, he was parked on the cross street at the end of the block on which Rudolph lived. Soon afterward, right on his weekly schedule, Rudolph passed the intersection in his car. Falling in behind, Gaspar followed as far as the turnpike entrance. Sure enough, Rudolph picked up his ticket at the toll gate and took the ramp that would point him east. Satisfied, or as nearly so as he could be, Gaspar drove back to town.

Approximately twenty-four hours thereafter, about one o’clock of the following morning, he was getting out of his car on a mean street some six blocks from the house of La Roche. He had chosen this place to leave the car because it was a block of rooming houses in front of which a variety of other cars were invariably parked at night. His own, he reasoned, would be less conspicuous in company. Moreover, it was remote enough from the scene of projected action to minimize the chance of disastrous association, just in case someone did happen to take notice of the car as a stranger.

Afoot, Gaspar navigated the dark streets, trying to exercise proper care without giving the impression of skulking. However, the houses he passed were dark. He saw not a single pedestrian, late abroad, on his way.

His caution, while commendable, seemed to be superfluous. The backdoor key was readily at hand in the right pocket of his coat. In the inside pocket, a dead weight that was at once comforting and threatening, was a short length of lead pipe.

A fat shadow, he slipped from the cross-street at the end of the La Roche block into the alley that ran behind the La Roche house. Minutes later, having paused briefly to reconnoiter, he was moving silently past garbage can and trash burner up a concrete walk to the back door. He paused there again, leaning forward with a large ear near the door. Silence within. Beyond the hedge where the Fitches dwelled, silence. Silence within and without and all around. Silence and thick, black darkness.

The key slipped smoothly into the lock. The lock responded smoothly to the key. Moving with swiftness and quietness that was surprising in one so bulky, Gaspar entered a kitchen and closed the door behind him. He stood by the door without moving until his eyes had adjusted to the deeper interior darkness, then moved across the floor toward the outline of a doorway. Suddenly, beside him, there was a terrifying whirr in the shadows, like an aroused rattlesnake, and his heart leaped and fluttered wildly before he realized that the refrigerator, with devilish malice, had chosen that moment to come alive. When he had his breath back, he moved on into a small dining room and turned right through another doorway into a hall. Following his directions, he stopped at a door on his right, behind which he detected a gentle snoring such as might be indulged in by a lady who had drunk mildly to excess. Without further delay, he opened the door and entered the room.

A tiny nightlight made a meager glow. The luminous face of a clock leered at him through the darkness from a bedside table. On the bed, a prone and ample mass stirred and muttered. Another gentle snore followed.

Now! thought Gaspar. Now!

The length of lead pipe at the ready, he moved toward the bed.

Behind him, the silence was split by the merest whisper of sound. Then his head exploded with a clap of thunder and a blinding bolt of pain, and he was swallowed by the absolute night at the end of his particular world.

Rudolph came in the door from the attached garage and went directly to Winifred’s room. He crossed to the bathroom and turned on the light above the lavatory. As he washed his hands, he spoke to Winifred, who was sitting up in bed against the headboard. She was gently stroking a cat that lay purring in her lap.

“Well,” said Rudolph, “that’s done.”

“Did you have any difficulty, dear?” she asked.

“Oh, no. I was careful not to be seen, of course. It was simply a matter of leaving him at the mouth of a dark alley on a side street. It’s a very rough neighborhood, the haunt of thugs and criminals and undesirable people of all sorts. He was, I’m sorry to say, exactly the kind of man who would be likely to frequent such a place. I emptied his pockets, and I’m sure, considering the blow on the head and all, that it will pass as an accidental killing in a routine mugging.”

“My dear, you’re so clever.”

“Not at all. Very little cleverness was required to deal with Mr. Vane. He was quite a dull fellow.”

“Did you find his car?”

“No, but it scarcely matters. Wherever it’s found, there will be reasonable explanations for his leaving it there. It’s sufficient that he didn’t leave it nearby.”

“It’s a shame that the ten thousand dollars can’t be recovered.”

“No matter. A paltry sum, surely, to invest in our continued security and happiness.”

Rudolph emerged from the bathroom and began to pull on his coat, which he had removed.

“Must you return tonight?” she asked.

“I’m afraid I must. My weekend has been intolerably disrupted as it is. Besides, it is better to sustain the fiction that I didn’t come back here.”

“Yes. Of course, dear. Imagine that stupid man thinking that his dirty spying would make the slightest difference to us!”

“I’m tempted to remark that he simply underestimated my appeal to the distaff side, but it would be immodest. Let me just say that I’ve been incredibly fortunate in my marital life.”

“Thank you, my dear. It’s sweet of you to say it.”

“And now I must rush. I really must.” He went to the bed and leaned over to receive a chaste and tender kiss on his smooth cheek. “Good-night, Winifred. I’ll see you tomorrow evening, as usual.”

“Drive carefully, dear,” she said. “Give my best wishes to Angela.”