The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories

Premarital Agreement

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July 1973.

When Irma married Stanton Carr, the premarital agreement hadn’t seemed important. While she wasn’t exactly in love with her former boss, she liked him well enough and she expected the marriage to last. At thirty she had long since given up her dream of a romantic Prince Charming and was willing to settle for luxury without romance. She had every intention of being a good wife.

The agreement provided that in the event Irma ever instituted legal proceedings to dissolve the marriage, she would claim no community property, no alimony, and would accept a lump-sum financial settlement of $2,000 for each year the marriage had lasted as a full and complete discharge of all Stanton Carr’s obligations to her. His lawyer had explained to Irma that the agreement would not apply if Stanton brought such an action, but only if she herself decided to end the marriage. Also, if she and Stanton had any children, the agreement would not affect any child-support claims she made, even if she instituted a divorce action herself.

It was understandable why Stanton insisted on such an agreement. His first wife, also a former secretary, had nicked him for a settlement of nearly a million dollars after only two years of marriage. Even though that had been ten years before Irma became his secretary, he was still a little marriage-shy. It had struck Irma as rather silly for Stanton to insist on her signing such an agreement, but he was too skittish about marriage for her to risk refusing.

Signing really didn’t bother her much. She had no intention of ever ending the marriage, and her rights were fully protected in the event he decided to divorce her. The latter seemed inconceivable to her anyway. Although he was quite a handsome man in a distinguished, gray-haired way, she was fifteen years his junior, extremely attractive, and he was evidently quite crazy about her.

Then, five years later, Prince Charming came along. His actual name was Gary Sommers. It was Stanton Carr’s fault that they met.

Stanton was chairman of the board of the Crippled Children’s Association, one of his several charitable activities; and when the organization decided to schedule some swimming classes for crippled children, he volunteered the pool at his and Irma’s Beverly Hills mansion. He also volunteered to locate and pay the fee of a swimming instructor.

Gary Sommers was a relatively new employee of the Carr Refinery Equipment Company. When Stanton, the company president, asked the personnel division to check employee files to see if any employee were a qualified swimming instructor, they sent him Gary Sommers. The man was a drill-press operator, but under “previous experience” on his application form he had included the information that he had worked five summers as a lifeguard and held a Red Cross certificate as a water-safety instructor.

Stanton Carr arranged for the man to handle the swimming classes, which were to run from one to three p.m. each Saturday.

The first class was on May fifteenth. Irma knew that someone named Gary Sommers was coming to conduct it, but she had a luncheon engagement that day; and of course her husband wouldn’t be there to receive the man, because he always played golf on Saturday. Irma left instructions with Mrs. Felton, the housekeeper, to show Mr. Sommers and the children where to change into their swimsuits when they arrived. Then she left before any of them arrived.

She returned at three, just as the class was ending. The chartered bus the children had come in was parked in the driveway back near the three-car garage, so Irma swung her car onto the white-shell strip that circled around past the front door, where it would be out of the way when the bus backed out. Getting out of the car, she walked over to the pool.

Edith Pemberton, a volunteer worker for the Crippled Children’s Association and the wife of one of Stanton’s business associates, was supervising the exodus from the pool of some twenty children, ranging in age from about five to eight, toward the basement door leading into the playroom, off of which were the dressing rooms.

Irma had a momentary flash of guilt because she felt more repelled than sympathetic at the sight of so many handicapped children, but she repressed it and gave the middle-aged Edith a friendly greeting.

“How are you, Irma?” said the woman, preoccupied. “Don’t dawdle, children. The bus is supposed to leave in ten minutes.” She stooped to assist a five-year-old girl replace her leg braces.

Irma glanced at the bronzed man in swim trunks standing at the pool’s edge. When he smiled at her, her heart skipped a beat. He was tall and lean and had a weight lifter’s muscles. His dark hair was becomingly curly and his handsome face possessed a sort of boyish charm. He was probably about thirty.

Irma was past the age where she could believe in love at first sight, but to her own amazement she found herself wondering if there couldn’t be such a thing as lust at first sight. She had never before seen a man who appealed to her physically so strongly and so instantly.

She tried to reject the feeling as ridiculous by telling herself the man was obviously five years younger than she was, and that she had always preferred older men. Then, for some reason, she recalled an article she had read years before, written by a psychologist, who had argued that because women outlive men by an average of five years, the ideal age difference for mates was for the women to be five years older. When she had read the article, her reaction had been amused disagreement, but now she found herself wondering if the psychologist might not have been right after all.

Going over to the man, she said somewhat breathlessly, “You must be Mr. Sommers.”

Exposing even white teeth in another smile, he said, “Yes, ma’am, and who are you?”

“Why... Mrs. Carr,” she said.

He looked surprised, and his expression managed to make the surprise flattering. In a subtle, completely inoffensive way it implied that he was wondering how a man of Stanton Carr’s age had succeeded in getting such a young and lovely woman to marry him, but all he said was a formal, “Glad to know you, ma’am.”

By then Mrs. Pemberton had followed the last of the children inside, and Irma and Sommers were left alone.

She said, “I understand you work for my husband. What do you do at the plant?”

“Drill holes in the base plates of heat exchangers.”

“Oh?” she said. “That sounds interesting.” Then she blushed when she realized what a vapid remark she had made. The man’s radiations were making her act like a teen-ager. She made an effort to sound more adult by saying, “You work in the Plate Shop, then.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “I see you’ve toured the place.”

“I worked there two years. I was my husband’s secretary before we married.”

“That right?” he said. “I didn’t know, but I haven’t been around very long. I’ve only worked there a few weeks.” He glanced toward the house. “Well, I guess I’d better get my clothes on like the rest.”

In her desire to extend the moment she reverted to a teen-ager again. She said almost breathlessly, “I was planning to take a dip. If you aren’t tired of the water, you could stay and join me, if you’d like.”

He eyed her contemplatively. His face was so expressive, she could almost read his mind. He was quite aware of his animal appeal — probably many women threw themselves at him — and sensed that she was almost desperately eager for him to stay. He found the prospect attractive, but also possibly dangerous. After all, she was the big boss’ wife.

As a further inducement, Irma added, “We could have a cocktail by the pool. There’s a bar in the playroom. You could mix them while I change into my suit.”

His spirit of adventure won over caution. “All right,” he decided.

“I have to speak to my housekeeper for a moment first,” Irma said. “Would you mind just waiting here until I come back?”

“Of course not,” he said with dry amusement, his tone letting her know he was perfectly aware that she was simply making an excuse to delay changing into her suit until Mrs. Pemberton and the children were gone.

When she blushed again, he chuckled. “Take your time,” he said. “I’ll wait here until they’re gone, then go in and start the drinks. What do you drink?”

“A salty dog will be fine,” she said. “You’ll find everything you need at the bar, including a bartender’s guide on the backbar, in case you don’t know the recipe of a salty dog.”

Inside, Mrs. Felton told her that her husband had phoned from the country club only a few minutes before, and wanted her to call him back at the bar. When she contacted him, he asked if she had any particular social plans for the evening.

“I hadn’t planned on going out unless you want to,” she said. “I had in mind having dinner at home, then writing some letters.”

“Well, some of the boys are getting up a poker game and they want to start early. If you don’t mind, to save time I’ll have dinner here.”

“Oh, sure, go ahead, dear,” she said. “You’ll probably be quite late, then?”

“Probably,” he conceded. “I’ll try not to wake you.”

When she hung up, she told Mrs. Felton that Mr. Carr would not be home for dinner, and she felt like nothing more than a cold snack. “I can make it myself,” she said. “If you’ve finished your other work, you may leave any time you want to.”

“Well, I guess I’ll go now, then,” the housekeeper said. “Everything is done.”

Irma changed into her suit in her bedroom. She first put on a bikini, but when she looked at her image in her full-length mirror she was appalled to see how she was beginning to bulge in a couple of spots where bulges were not attractive. She quickly changed into a one-piece black suit that tended to minimize the bulges.

Examining her reflection again, she decided she was still in pretty good shape for thirty-five. Her natural blonde hair as yet showed no sign of gray, her complexion was still smooth, and her figure was still generally good. She probably could stand to lose about ten pounds, but that wasn’t much of a problem. She could accomplish that in two weeks on a crash diet.

From her bedroom window she watched the bus back out of the driveway, and a few minutes later saw Mrs. Felton’s car drive away. Only then did she go downstairs.

Gary Sommers was at the bar, pouring the contents of a cocktail shaker into two stemmed glasses with salted edges. He finished pouring and set the shaker down before he turned to examine her. He looked her over slowly from head to foot. The frank admiration in his eyes, mixed with something more intimate than mere aesthetic appreciation, made her blush for a third time, which in turn made him smile.

Handing her one of the drinks, he raised the other and said, “To love.”

She hiked her eyebrows, then shrugged. “To love,” she repeated.

They drank, set their glasses down and looked at each other. The quizzical, estimating expression in his eyes started her heart beating violently. His face was so expressive that again she knew exactly what he was thinking. He was simply considering how long he ought to wait before making an overt move.

Apparently her expression was readable too, because he decided no wait was necessary. Almost casually he drew her into his arms, but there was nothing casual about his first kiss. It was so savage and demanding that it instantly set her on fire.

They never did get back to the swimming pool.

In the beginning it was simply a physical affair insofar as Irma was concerned. They spent most of their time during their clandestine meetings making love in motel rooms.

It wasn’t hard for Irma to arrange to be with Gary. Her husband was so involved in community projects that he spent a good many evenings away from home, and he made no effort to check on his wife’s activities. Irma could generally get away for at least a couple of hours several nights a week. Also, Stanton got in the habit of playing poker at the country club every Saturday night, and she could safely stay out quite late then.

After a rapturous period of compulsive lovemaking, Irma and Gary finally got around to talking to each other.

Their early dialogue involved little but trading personal information. Irma told him how she had grown up in foster homes, had attended business school, then had worked for years at a variety of stenographic and secretarial jobs until she had finally landed the position as Stanton Carr’s private secretary, which led to their marriage two years later.

Gary told Irma of his boyhood on an Oregon farm under the despotic rule of a martinet father, how he had run away to join the Army at sixteen, and how he had acquired a high school diploma by taking Army extension courses. Briefly he mentioned some “minor” trouble that had ended his Army career six years later. He didn’t describe the trouble, but he assured Irma he had an honorable discharge — the reason recorded as “for the good of the service.” He had been reduced from staff sergeant to private, he admitted, but it was still a “white” discharge.

Gary’s Army service had been in ordnance, and in addition to acquiring a high school diploma he had learned to become a machine-shop worker. Since his discharge eight years ago, he had held a number of jobs up and down the coast in different manufacturing plants. His jobs had been so numerous because he would quit when summer arrived in order to work in some resort, usually as a lifeguard.

Despite this seemingly aimless background, he expressed to Irma a driving ambition to own his own machine shop eventually. He’d had enough experience with every type of power tool to run such a shop, he said, and his various jobs had given him friendly contacts in several plants that had government cost-plus contracts and farmed out a good part of their machine-shop work. He was sure he could get all the subcontracts he could handle. All he needed was a sufficient stake to go into business for himself, he told Irma, and within five years he could be a millionaire.

As she got to know him better, Irma found that she liked Gary Sommers more and more. Toward the end of June she suddenly realized she was hopelessly in love with him; not just physically in love, but in love the way a woman is when she starts dreaming of changing her status from lover to wife.

When Gary told her he loved her too, all the luxury she enjoyed as Mrs. Stanton Carr became meaningless. Gary was the Prince Charming she had once given up ever meeting, and now that he had finally come along, she was instantly ready to move from the palatial Carr mansion into whatever type of residence a drill-press operator could afford.

Gary wasn’t quite as ready, though. While he had every desire to marry her eventually, he assured her, they had to be practical. Moving out on Carr and in with Gary while the divorce was pending would be a bad tactical error.

“Our starting to live together openly would accomplish two things, darling,” he said patiently. “First, it would get me fired. Then it would get you a divorce without alimony. So what would we live on?”

After thinking this over, Irma said contritely, “I really hadn’t thought about anything but being with you all the time. What do you want me to do?”

“Keep our relationship entirely secret until your divorce is in the bag and you have your settlement. If the court found out you planned to remarry as soon as your decree was final, you wouldn’t have a chance of getting any money out of Carr. But if you’re just a poor abused wife who can’t put up with your mistreatment any longer, you can nail him good. I did some checking, and his first wife took him for nearly a million.”

Irma was silent.

“Incidentally, it’s not a divorce anymore in California. Now they call it a ‘dissolution of marriage,’ and the only ground is ‘irreconcilable differences.’ Which means you don’t have to prove your husband beat you or seduced your housekeeper or anything like that. You just have to tell the court you can no longer get along. You don’t have to prove anything, because the law no longer requires one party to be at fault and the other to be innocent of fault. You ought to be able to have the marriage dissolved within a month if you see a lawyer right now.”

Irma was still silent.

“What’s the matter?” he asked finally.

Irma cleared her throat.

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to get anything near what his first wife got as a settlement, honey. I can’t expect more than ten thousand.”

He turned his head to frown at her. “Ten thousand? That’s ridiculous. Your husband must be worth ten million. What are you talking about?”

She explained about the premarital agreement she had signed.

He glared at her. “You let him con you into signing a premarital agreement?” he said in an enraged voice. “How stupid can you get?”

After staring up at him in shocked astonishment, Irma began to cry. Immediately he became contrite and gathered her in his arms.

“Hey, cut it out,” he admonished. “I’m sorry I called you stupid.”

“It’s not that,” she said between sobs. “I thought you loved me for myself, not just for the money I could get out of Stanton.”

“I do,” he protested, “but there’s no point in passing up money. I was counting on at least enough to open the machine shop I told you about. You think I want you to have to live a factory worker’s salary the rest of your life? I want to cover you with diamonds.”

Irma’s sobs gradually subsided. Getting up, she wiped her eyes with some tissue, then put her head on his shoulder. “How much would your machine shop cost?” she asked. “Wouldn’t ten thousand be enough for a down payment?”

He gave a sardonic chuckle. “The companies I plan to go after for subcontracts are big business, Irma. They aren’t going to deal with any two-bit operator. They’ll be parceling out jobs that run into the hundreds of thousands and they won’t go to anyone who isn’t tooled up to handle them. I had in mind something like a couple of hundred grand.”

She sighed. “Stanton would never give me anything like that. In fact, I’m quite sure he won’t go any higher than he has to under our agreement. He’s not tight with personal expenditures, but he’s very tight about business matters.”

Gary made a face. “Then we’ll have to think of some way to get money out of him before you leave him.”

“Like what?”

He didn’t answer immediately. After a time he asked casually, “Are you named in his will?”

Stiffening, she withdrew from his arms and looked at him. “I hope that was a joke.”

He emitted an easy chuckle. “Of course it was, honey. What else?”

“It sounded as though you were contemplating making me a widow, and that kind of talk is definitely out so far as I’m concerned.”

Realizing his remark had really upset her, he said, “It was just a bad joke, honey. Do I look like a killer?”

Examining his smiling face, she decided she had never seen anyone look less like one. Relieved, she snuggled up against him. Neither said anything for some time.

Eventually he asked, “Do you have moral reservations about crimes less than murder?”

“What do you mean?”

“How far would you be willing to go to shake some money out of him?”

“Nothing criminal,” she said definitely. “I’m not going to risk jail.”

“Well, the idea that just popped into my head may be criminal, but I don’t think there would be any risk of jail, even if it went sour. How would you like to be kidnapped?”

She stiffened again. “Kidnapped! They put you in jail forever for that!”

“Only if it’s a real kidnapping, honey. If we faked a kidnapping and it backfired, the most we could be tagged for is attempted fraud; and it seems unlikely to me a man would push that against his own wife. You know your husband better than I do — would he push charges against either of us if we got caught trying to shake him down by pretending you’d been kidnapped?”

After thinking his words over, she shook her head. “I’m not sure exactly what he would do. He might kick me out, but then again he might even forgive me. He’s pretty crazy about me. One thing I’m sure he wouldn’t do is press charges, because he would want to hush it up. Stanton is quite vain, and he couldn’t stand the thought of appearing ridiculous to the whole world.”

“Then there’s no risk,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

She had some reservations, but eventually he convinced her there was absolutely no danger, only a little embarrassment if they got caught. Once she finally agreed to go along, the discussion turned to how much ransom to ask. He suggested they try for a quarter of a million.

“Oh, Stanton would never go for that much,” Irma said in a positive tone. “I don’t think we should ask for more than a hundred thousand.”

“I thought you said he’s crazy about you. The way this is going to be presented to him, he either pays off or gets you back dead. You think he’ll set a limit on what your life is worth?”

“No, of course not, but you have to understand how Stanton’s mind works. He isn’t in the least cheap, but he is quite calculating about major expenditures. He makes sure he always gets full value for his money. When he buys a new car, for instance, he shops and shops until he gets absolutely the best possible deal.”

“What’s that got to do with anything like this?”

“I’m just trying to explain how I think he will react to a ransom demand. You would class that as a major expenditure, wouldn’t you?”

“I guess,” he admitted. “So how would he react?”

“That would probably depend on the amount asked. Up to a certain sum — my guess is a hundred thousand — I suspect he would go along with all instructions without trying to set any traps, and maybe without even informing the police. He would figure it was worth that much to get me back without risking antagonizing the kidnapper. If you asked much more than what he considered a reasonable amount, he would start balancing the risk to my safety against the money. It isn’t that he doesn’t love me; it’s just that he also loves money.”

“You mean he would refuse to pay a larger amount?”

“Oh, he probably would pay anything you asked, but if you ask too much, he’s going to do his best to arrange things so there is at least a chance to recover his money. Probably he would call in the FBI, have our phone tapped and set all sorts of traps for the kidnapper. I just think it would be safer to set our sights low. Can’t you start your machine shop on a hundred thousand?”

“I could probably set up a pretty fair operation with that for a down payment,” he admitted. “Okay, you ought to know how your husband ticks. We’ll ask for only a hundred grand.”

Gary took a week to work out the details of a plan. Then he spent a whole evening thoroughly briefing Irma. The following day they put it into effect.

Just before noon Irma stopped by her husband’s office. Stanton Carr was dictating to his private secretary when she arrived.

Marie Sloan, a pert brunette of about twenty-five, was a relatively new secretary, the previous one having quit to join the Peace Corps. Stanton Carr always hired pretty secretaries, which partly accounted for his having married two of them, and Marie was no exception.

Marie, who as yet didn’t know her boss’ wife well enough to be fully at ease with her, immediately rose to leave when Irma came in.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” Irma said quickly, preferring to have the girl hear what she had to say too. “I’ll be only a minute. Keep your seat, Miss Sloan.”

The girl glanced at her employer, then reseated herself when he nodded. “What is it, dear?” he asked Irma.

“I’m supposed to meet Hazel Ellison for lunch, and I’ve discovered my wallet isn’t in my purse. Can you spare a twenty-dollar bill?”

Stanton Carr drew a twenty from his wallet and handed it to her. “That all, dear?”

“Yes, thanks. You can get back to work now.” She started for the door, then paused and turned. “The oddest thing happened, Stanton. A masher followed my car all the way down Wilshire from Beverly Hills. I noticed him in the rear-view mirror shortly after I left home.”

Her husband frowned. “You sure it wasn’t just somebody going in the same direction and traveling at the same speed?”

“Positive. En route I stopped at DeWitt’s Department Store. That’s when I discovered I didn’t have my wallet. When I drove on, the same car was behind me again. It followed me right to the entrance to the plant parking lot, then drove on by when I turned in.”

Stanton Carr’s frown deepened. “How do you know it was a masher? Did he make any overt move, such as honking his horn at you?”

“No, but what else could it have been?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea, but I don’t like it. Did you get a good look at him?”

Irma shook her head. “All I could tell was that he was a heavyset man. I couldn’t see him well enough in the rear-view mirror to make out his face. But he was driving a black Ford and I managed to catch his license number as he drove by the parking lot entrance.”

“Good. Give it to me and I’ll have the police check the man out.”

“It was FHB-548.”

Carr glanced at his secretary, who jotted the number in her notebook. “I’ll find out who your masher is,” he said to Irma. “I have a friend in the Department of Motor Vehicles.”

Irma was quite satisfied with the way things had gone. When the black Ford was discovered abandoned on the plant parking lot, it would be assumed the mythical heavyset man had waited for Irma on the lot, then had abducted her in her own car. It shouldn’t take long to find the car, because Irma was fairly certain of how Hazel Ellison would react when she failed to meet her for lunch. First Hazel would phone her home, and Mrs. Felton would tell her Irma had left some time ago to meet her. Then she would phone Stanton at his office to find out if Irma had stopped by there. That call would most certainly cause Stanton to investigate the parking lot.

Finding the car there would lead nowhere even after its registration was traced, because it was a stolen car.

Gary’s plan for getting the Ford on the lot had been both clever and simple. In the middle of the previous night he had stolen it from an all-night parking lot and had left it for Irma in a previously designated spot on a side street a short distance from the plant. Irma had simply parked her own car behind the stolen one and had driven the Ford onto the lot. When she left the plant, she walked back to her own car.

Gary’s plan not only lent credence to the story Irma would eventually have to tell about her abduction, but also gave him an ironclad alibi in the remote event that he was ever suspected of being the kidnapper. All the time the heavyset man was supposed to be following Irma’s car, Gary was working in the Plate Shop in the middle of fifty other workers.

Irma drove to Griffith Park, parked the car in the zoo area, took a brunette wig and some dark sunglasses from the glove compartment and put them on. She walked to the nearest bus stop and caught a bus going to South Los Angeles.

Gary had reasoned that when Irma’s car was eventually found in Griffith Park, it would be assumed the kidnapper had left his own vehicle parked there, had forced Irma to drive him to it, then had switched cars.

Irma got off the bus at 24th Street and walked the three blocks to the motel where Gary had rented a light-housekeeping unit. No one was in sight when she let herself in with the key Gary had given her.

The unit consisted of a living room, bedroom and bath, with a kitchen alcove off the living room. Gary had stocked the refrigerator and a cabinet with both food and liquor.

Irma took off her wig and sunglasses, fixed herself lunch, then sat down to watch television.

Gary showed up at six. He reported developments as he mixed a pair of salty dogs at a counter.

“There’s both good and bad news,” he said. “I’ll give you the good first. My phone call to your husband went beautifully. I called his office from the public phone booth in the plant foyer during the three p.m. coffee break. I made my voice so husky, even you wouldn’t have recognized it. Your friend Hazel must have phoned him that you never showed for lunch, because he didn’t sound surprised to hear from me. He sounded as though he had been expecting such a call. He agreed to pay the hundred grand, but first wanted proof that you were all right. I told him to be at home at ten tonight and he would get a phone call from you.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“Your guess that he’d pay up to a hundred grand without even calling the cops was wrong. I stretched my coffee break so I could check his reaction to my call by keeping an eye on his office door. Approximately fifteen minutes after I made the call, about half the LAPD walked into his office.”

Irma frowned. “The news hasn’t gotten hold of it. I’ve been watching every TV newscast.”

“Well, the cops must have declared a news blackout, but they’re sure as the devil in on it. It doesn’t really matter, though. There’s no way they can set a trap with the delivery method I’ve worked out for the ransom money.”

At nine-thirty p.m. they left the motel together, Irma wearing her black wig and sunglasses. Gary drove up to the Boyle Heights district to make the phone call, so that in the event it was traced, it would give no clue to the section of town where they were actually hiding out.

They called from an outdoor public phone booth, squeezing into it together. Irma dialed the number. Stanton Carr answered instantly.

Making her voice tearful, Irma said, “Honey, I’m allowed to speak to you for only a minute, and I can’t tell you where I am or answer any questions. I haven’t been harmed, but there’s a gun in my back and the man says he’ll kill me if you don’t pay. Please do as they say.”

“I will, dear,” he assured her. “Don’t worry.”

Gary Sommers took the phone from her hand and growled into it in a husky, disguised voice, “Okay, there’s your proof that she’s still alive, Carr. Now, here’s what you do. When the banks open tomorrow morning, you get a hundred grand in used twenty-dollar bills and put the money in a suitcase. Take the suitcase to your office and wait for the mail delivery. Further instructions will arrive in the mail.”

He hung up.

As they got back in the car, Irma said, “I thought you planned to give all instructions by phone.”

“I do. That mail bit was just to keep the cops from tapping his office phone. I’ll be phoning his office again from the foyer phone at the plant, and I can’t chance a trace. That’s what got stupid Captain McCloud in trouble, phoning his girlfriend an hour after his wife’s funeral. The post provost marshal had put a tap on her phone.”

“Who’s Captain McCloud?” she asked, totally at sea.

Pulling away from the curb, he said casually, “My Army C.O. It was his stupidity that ended my Army career. The provost marshal got the idiot idea that he’d paid me to murder his wife, mainly because he withdrew five grand from the bank the day before I deposited four thousand. I have no idea what he did with the money, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did hire somebody to kill his wife, because he was certainly glad to get rid of her. But it wasn’t me. I won my money in a crap game.”

“They accused you of murder?” she asked in a shocked voice.

“They investigated me for murder,” he said. “They never accused me of anything. There wasn’t enough evidence to make a case against either of us, but the idiot provost marshal wouldn’t let it go. So the Army did what it usually does when it decides soldiers are guilty of something, but can’t prove it. It brought pressure on him to resign his commission and for me to request discharge. They gave him the choice of resigning or being shipped to Greenland. They busted me and put me on permanent garbage detail.”

“But you didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?” she asked.

He smiled sideways at her. “Do I look like a killer?”

Smiling back, she said, “You look like a lover.”

Gary didn’t stay when they got back to the motel. In case he needed an alibi later, he wanted to be seen as much as possible, while Irma was missing, by people who knew him. He planned to drive to a bar in his own neighborhood where he was well known and stay until the closing hour of two a.m.

Gary didn’t reappear at the motel until the following midnight. Meantime there still had been nothing at all on the news about the kidnapping; very hush-hush.

“Get your wig and glasses on and let’s go,” he said as soon as he was inside.

“Is it over?” she asked.

“Uh-huh. There’s a hundred grand in a suitcase in the trunk of my car.”

As she donned her disguise, she asked. “What about all the food left here?”

“I’ll clear it out tomorrow,” he said. “Rent’s paid until the end of the week. Hurry it up.”

When they were in the car, he headed south.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“I’m going to take you to Long Beach.”

“Oh? Why so far? I thought you were just going to turn me loose somewhere in L.A. I’m not supposed to know where I was held anyway, being blindfolded all the time.”

“Slight change in plans,” he said.

They drove in silence for a time. Presently she asked, “Any trouble about the pickup?”

“Not a bit. Matter of fact, I was able to simplify the original pickup plan considerably.”

“Oh? How?”

“I’ll tell you when we get where we’re going,” he said. “Right now I want to think about all the lovely money in the trunk.”

It was nearly one a.m. when he parked the car at a deserted stretch of shore in Long Beach.

“Why such an isolated spot?” she asked.

“Why not?” he asked. “Come on, let’s walk down to look at the water.”

He sounded as though he had romance in mind. The timing surprised her, but she was enough in love to be always willing. Agreeably she climbed from the car. It was a warm, pleasant night with a moonless but clear sky studded brightly with stars.

She took his hand as they strolled toward the water. “You were going to tell me how you simplified the pickup plan,” she said.

“Oh, yeah. When I phoned your husband this morning, he threw me a curve. He said, ‘I was hoping you would phone instead of write. I am in my private office alone, and no one is listening in. How would you like to make two hundred thousand instead of just one?’ When I asked how, he reeled off a telephone number and asked me to call it at seven this evening. ‘The phone won’t be tapped and we can talk safely,’ he said. ‘I don’t like this one because this call is going through a switch-board.’ I said okay, I’d call him at the number he gave me. When I hung up, I called information, said I was a cop and asked the name of the subscriber for that number. Turned out to be Marie Sloan.”

“My husband’s secretary?” Irma said in surprise.

“Uh-huh. That, plus the offer of an extra hundred grand, gave me a couple of clues to the puzzle. So I really wasn’t very surprised when I phoned him at seven and heard his proposition. I guess he’s decided to marry another of his secretaries. The extra hundred grand was to kill you.”

They had reached the water’s edge. They stopped and she turned to stare at him in the darkness.

“It’s foolproof from his point of view,” Cary said. “The cops listened in on our call from that phone booth, so there’s no question in their minds about it being an actual kidnapping. Kidnappers quite often kill their victims after collecting the ransom.”

“Why, that beast!” Irma said indignantly. “And to think I refused even to talk about killing that—”

“Yeah. Tactical error on your part. After his proposition, there wasn’t much point in going through all the rigmarole I’d planned for the payoff. I just had him leave it in an alley while I watched from across the street. I wasn’t afraid he’d try to set a trap, but I still didn’t want him to see me. The second pickup will be made just as simply.”

“The second one?” she said, her eyes widening. She withdrew her hand from his.

“Sure. He’ll pay it. He wouldn’t want to risk an anonymous note to the cops from the kidnapper explaining who suggested the killing, and I’ve already told him that’s what will happen if he tries to get out of paying the second hundred grand.”

Her eyes grew wider and wider. Even in the darkness she could see his expression. This time she would have had to give a different answer to the question he had asked her twice. She had never before seen anyone who looked more like a killer.