A quick false smile flitted across Berril’s face, and he rose. “Well, I really must be getting along, now. You must be almost ready for dinner, and I’ll have to make my train, you know.”

  I knew. I also knew what Helen was going to say.

  “Stu, why don’t you stay for dinner, as long as it’s so late? It’s foolish to rush back now!”

  Usually he accepted. But I guess this time he caught the black look I tossed his way, because he smiled again and said, “Really, I mustn’t. Good night!” And then he was gone.

  I gulped down the rest of my drink. “I wish you’d get rid of him before I get home,” I said. “I don’t like him and I never have.”

  “Stu’s very helpful. He’s earned thousands for our family, Mike.”

  “He hasn’t earned thousands for me!” I snapped back. “How much of that money do I see? Damn little! I’m just Mr. Helen Jesperson, that’s all.”

  “Mike—”

  “Mike,” I mimicked. “What are you going to say? How long is it going to be before my name at the bottom of a check means something?”

  “You get all the money you need, Mike,” Helen said, coldly, “I’ve never denied you anything. But the terms of my father’s will specifically state that control of the estate is to remain in my hands. So dad had some quirks about money; so he opposed the marriage. What of it, Mike? Does it matter who signs the checks?”

  “Yes. You could transfer the accounts just like that.” I snapped my fingers.

  “You know I couldn’t. The will—”

  “The will was filed five years ago. No one would be the wiser if we changed part of it now. What would they do, take the money away from us? There aren’t any other claimants.”

  “Stu would never tolerate any such illegality, Mike. Please, dear, be satisfied with the arrangement as it stands. Don’t start the argument again.”

  “Stu would never tolerate, eh? So we get rid of Stu! I’m tired of having him pussyfooting around the place looking at me as if I were a gardener who accidentally had wandered into the master’s quarters. And we don’t need a manager for the money. We have enough, don’t we? Let it sit there and gather interest. Why keep re-investing it? Why be greedy?”

  Helen glared at me bitterly. “We’ve been through this a million times. Stu’s an old family friend; I couldn’t think of discharging him. And I’d never be able to think of my father’s memory again if I just let the estate lie fallow, after all his hard work to build it. Mike, let’s not quarrel tonight; I’m too tired. You get all the money you can possibly need.”

  “All right,” I said, very quietly. “I won’t argue. I need five hundred dollars, though.”

  “Right this moment?”

  “Not necessarily. Soon. Tonight.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Will you bite my head off if I ask you what for?”

  I smiled. “I don’t mind telling you. I’m taking a little hunting trip with one of the boys from the place. I figure to be gone two weeks. The five hundred is pocket-money to cover expenses.”

  I expected some sort of explosion, but it didn’t come. All she did was smile with surprising sweetness and say, “I suppose you rate a little vacation, dear. And it’ll do us both good to be apart a while. We’ve been fighting so much lately, Mike.”

  “Glad you understand,” I said stolidly.

  “When will you be leaving?”

  “Wednesday morning,” I said. “Everything’s all booked. I just have to confirm the reservations.”

  “I’ll have the check ready for you tonight, dear,” she said. “Will five hundred be enough?”

  * * *

  I hadn’t expected so much cooperation, but perhaps Helen was mellowing a little. Anyway, she was true to her word—I got the five bills. Early Wednesday morning I left, getting a more than usually warm goodbye kiss. I began to feel good about things. It had been swell with Peggy for a while, but I was getting tired of her schoolgirl simplicity; Helen was more of a challenge, an iceberg that needed defrosting. I realized I’d taken the easy way out of our relationship by finding Peggy.

  Well, I’d be rid of Peggy soon enough, and I could go back to Helen. She showed signs of defrosting. Maybe, I thought, if I could only try to understand her a little more, to remember that she was born to wealth and so thought differently from a guy who fought his way all the way up and was lucky enough to marry a millionaire’s daughter. Hell, what did I care who signed the checks, as long as I got everything I wanted? The Peggy interlude was just an interlude. When I returned, I’d still have Helen.

  Peggy met me at the station, carrying her little suitcase, and I kissed her hello. She was dolled up in her best clothes—the clothes I’d bought for her, with Helen’s money. She was jumping with excitement and chattered about our “honeymoon” the whole train trip.

  I had made reservations in the Adirondacks—one of those expensive deals where you can rent a little cabin in the woods, complete with a tiny lake, scenery, fishing tackle, and enough food to last you the time you were staying. It was Hermit’s Delight. No automobiles. no people, not even a proprietor on hand. I had paid in full beforehand, for two weeks, so there was no checking-out problem.

  The first two days at the cabin were swell. The warm July afternoons gave way to chilly Adirondack nights, and we huddled together in the little bed against the cabin wall, clasping each other for warmth. I was going to miss Peggy, I realized. Never in her wildest days was Helen ever like this.

  We swam, and I fished while Peggy watched, and we hiked through the woods. There was no sign of anyone around. The nearest town was eight miles away, and there was a good healthy timber-stand between them and us.

  The days passed. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Just the two of us. Peggy was making it hard for me to do what I came here to do.

  She’d sit there on the little beach in her skimpy bikini and smile up at me and say, “Mike, it’s going to be like this always, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I’d say, but my voice would be harsh. I had to pity her. She had wandered into one of the spiderwebs human beings build around themselves, and for her the only way out was death.

  Her body was still lean, her belly flat; I had trouble believing there was new life growing in her. But I knew I didn’t dare wait until it became obvious; the doctor’s report had to be accurate. If she’d been lying, if this was all some bluff designed to fake me into divorcing Helen and marrying her, then it was even better; I wouldn’t even have to feel sorry for the girl then. But the days slipped by, and Peggy grew tanner and more lovely, and there was nothing to do but swim and make love and swim some more. At least, I thought, she’d have known a couple of weeks of happiness before she died. The short, happy life of Peggy Armour, I thought.

  The ninth day went by, then the tenth. And I made up my mind I’d better get about my business.

  I had it all planned. The old American Tragedy bit. The lake adjoining our cabin was long and narrow, maybe a couple of miles long and plenty deep; I’m a good swimmer but I hadn’t been able to find bottom at the middle, so it was at least twenty-five or thirty feet deep and maybe a lot more. Maybe as much as a hundred. I didn’t think they’d find her too fast, not up here in the woods.

  So I suggested we go rowing.

  “I’d love to!” she said. She was writing letters. Of course, she had no way of mailing them, but she was writing letters anyway, to various girlfriends of hers. Maybe she figured on mailing them when she got back. Maybe she was writing them just for the hell of it. In many ways she was just an overgrown high-school kid, anyway. She had none of Helen’s cool, too-cool sophistication.

  She packed away her stationery box and clambered to her feet, stretching. Her tanned body was easy on the eyes, and I thought, This is the last time you’ll walk around on dry land, Peggy.

  She was wearing a yellow-and-black two-part swimsuit. She came running down to the beach and got in the front of the rowboat; I shoved it off from shore, wading a couple of feet along with it, and jumped in. The oars dipped into the water and the boat glided away.

  She leaned back, draping her arms over her head so the fingertips trailed in the water, and let her legs sprawl out so her toes touched mine. I smiled at her and tugged at the oars. No one was in sight. We hadn’t seen another human being or even a sign of one since our arrival.

  “It’s sure secluded here,” I said. We reached the middle of the lake and I stilled the oars, letting the boat drift. The water was like glass, dark green glass that became progressively more opaque. There was no wind, and the sky was cloudless. A lovely day for dying.

  “You know what I’m going to do?” Peggy said. “I’m going to sunbathe. It’s all right, isn’t it? I mean, no one can see?”

  “No one in miles,” I said. “Maybe a bird or two overhead, but they don’t count.”

  She unsnapped her halter and wriggled out of the pants and crumpled the swimsuit into a little ball no bigger than a handkerchief, sticking it away under the seat. She stretched out, eyes closed, nude, lovely. Her body was a warm golden tan except for those places where it still was pale.

  “The sun feels wonderful,” she said. “This has really been swell, Mike.”

  I looked at her, studying the long firm brown thighs, the creamy swell of her full breasts, the softness of her, the gentle roundness of the belly that held a child— my child. For a moment I wavered; why not let her live, I wondered. Why not let the child be born, get the divorce, marry her, instead of destroying child and mother, killing the loveliness that lay bare before me.

  No, I thought. It was impossible.

  Peggy’s beauty would not last forever; the years would coarsen her fine features, the proud breasts would sag, the body would grow flabby. She would want more children, and probably get them. We’d never have enough cash to pay two months’ rent in advance.

  I shook my head. I had had all I wanted from her already; the thing to do was to quit while I was ahead. Helen was waiting for me, Helen who was cold and icy but at least changeless, and who would keep me from ever wanting any material thing.

  There were plenty of pretty girls like Peggy around, I thought. And very few Helens.

  The decision was made. There was no choice.

  Carefully I stood up in the boat and made my way forward until I stood over Peggy. She sensed by the boat’s motion that I had come forward, and, eyes still closed, she smiled.

  I knelt carefully over her and kissed her, feeling her warmness against me, holding her to me for the last time.

  “We’re going to be so happy, Mike,” she murmured.

  “Sure we are. Sure.”

  I ran my hands over her smooth body in one final caress and kissed her. She shivered a little and drew me close; I backed away.

  I took a measured swing and cracked the side of my hand against her adam’s apple. She gasped; her eyes opened and she tried to say something. I hit her again.

  Then I lifted her, pressed her warmth to me for the last time of all, and let her slip over the side of the boat. She slid gently into the water, without struggling, I hope without knowing what was happening.

  She seemed to float just near the surface for a long time, motionless, graceful even in death, a lovely full-breasted statue of a woman drifting in the water. Finally she began to sink. I watched her.

  Her naked brown body looked curiously pale as it dropped deeper and deeper, and finally she was totally out of sight and gone.

  So long, Peggy, I said to myself, and began to row back to the cabin…alone.

  * * *

  The rest of it wasn’t as hard to do, but it took a great deal more care. I gathered up as much of her stuff as I could—the swimsuits, the lace-trimmed underwear, the bras and play shorts and the stationery box, and got it all together in the middle of the cabin. Everything she had brought with her. It made a little heap in the middle of the cabin, and I scoured every inch of the place to make sure I had it all.

  Then I went through the stuff and burned everything with her name or any sort of identification on it. I gathered the ashes together, put them in a little jar, and set them aside. After that I packed the remaining things into her suitcase, making sure I’d pulled off her nametag, and added ten or fifteen pounds of rocks from the beach, just in case.

  There it was: a suitcase, and a jar of ashes, and that was all that was left of Peggy. I got back into the rowboat and rowed a quarter of the way across the lake and dropped the suitcase over the side. It sank fast. Another fifteen oar-strokes further on I heaved the jar of ashes over, watched it vanish in the depths.

  I paddled around the lake a while, peering overside like a fisherman trying to smell out some good bass. But I wasn’t looking for bass. I was looking for the girl I had killed and thrown overboard in this lake, and I didn’t see her—which was good.

  Back to shore, then, and I felt good—numb, in a way, but good. I felt sorry for Peggy, but in the long run I figured she was better off this way. I could never have married her, anyway.

  A couple of days later I went back to the city, feeling tanned and refreshed and clean. I wasn’t expecting trouble. Peggy hadn’t had any relatives, she said, and no one knew she was coming with me on this trip. The reservation at the cabin had been in my name alone. The return half of her round-trip ticket had been burned and now lay in a jar of ashes at the bottom of the lake. It was too bad I couldn’t brag about it, but it certainly looked like I’d committed a perfect crime. Peggy Armour had just vanished, and no one would miss her, no one would ever find her body. Perfect.

  That’s what I thought. Until I got back to the city and found how wrong I was.

  Helen gave me the big welcome-back treatment. I almost thought she was genuinely glad to see me. Naturally, Berril was in the house when I got out of the cab and came in—he had been going through some of her father’s documents with her, he said—and he asked me if I’d enjoyed my vacation.

  “Very much,” I said.

  “You look good,” Berril said. “As if you got a weight off your back. You’re looking very relaxed, Mr. Foster.”

  “Thanks,” I said casually. I wondered if Berril was hiding something back of those innocent-sounding words. Well, I wasn’t going to give him an inch of help. And I suppose I did look as if I had a weight off my back. A slim 110-pound weight that was at the bottom of an Adirondack lake, very naked and extremely dead.

  * * *

  Things went along well a day or so. Helen was nicer to me than usual, and the fellows at the office kidded me about my vacation. I felt good.

  I hardly even missed Peggy. I knew I was going to miss those afternoons at her place after a while—but on the credit side of the ledger was the other stuff I had lost: the worrying about whether Helen would ever find out, the careful nervous inspections I had to give myself before entering our house, the sweat of transferring money to Peggy, the tension involved in waiting to find out whether or not she was pregnant.

  That was one thing I couldn’t figure, the pregnancy. I had always watched my step there, and yet it had happened anyway. Or at least Peggy had said it had. Maybe it had all been a bluff. In any event, it didn’t make any difference now.

  Perhaps you’re wondering if I felt any guilt. Well, a little, I suppose. But at least the kid had been happy before she died. Up there in the woods she’d had more happiness than most of us ever get, including me. All I had done was spare her from forty more years of sweat and toil.

  And then I got the phone call. It sure shook me up.

  It came when I was at work, slaving over one of our most important accounts. I was bent low over the drafting board, planning my work three and four steps ahead, juggling seven or eight different compositional factors in my mind at the same time, when I heard someone come in to stand behind me.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Foster. There’s a phone call for you on Extension 103.”

  I glanced up with half an eye. It was Phil, the office boy. I said, “Is it my wife? Tell her I’m busy and can’t come to the phone right now. Tell her I’ll call her back in fifteen minutes.”

  “It isn’t your wife, Mr. Foster. It’s some man who wants to talk to you.”

  Berril, probably. He was the only man I knew who knew my office number. “Well, get his number, then,” I snapped, irritated. “I’ll be busy for the next quarter hour or so.” I picked up my pencil again and turned back to my work.

  “Got the number?” I asked when Phil returned.

  “No, Mr. Foster. He wouldn’t give it. Says he has to talk to you right now. He says it’s urgent.”

  I scowled. Berril had a lot of nerve pulling a stunt like that, I thought. But I didn’t have any alternative. I rose from my desk.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll take the call. Thanks for the legwork, Phil.”

  I crossed the office, jabbed down the “103” button on my phone, and picked up the receiver.

  “Hello.”

  “Mr. Foster? Mr. Mike Foster?”

  I frowned. That wasn’t Berril’s voice.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Who’s this, please?”

  “My name is Harrison. Duke Harrison.” The voice was low and deep, confident, assured. I wondered who the hell he was and what he wanted with me.

  It wasn’t long before I found out. His next words were, “I’m a friend of Miss Armour’s, Mr. Foster. Miss Peggy Armour. I believe you know her.”

  I nearly dropped the receiver. I could feel my face drain of blood. I looked at the phone wire as if it was about to turn into a viper. “Peggy—Armour?” I repeated slowly.

  “That’s right. You know her, don’t you?”

  I debated lying, then decided against it. “Slightly,” I said. “Why?”

  “I was just trying to find her, Mr. Foster. That’s all. I was wondering if you knew where she might be. She seems to be out of town.”

  My stomach tried to crawl up through my windpipe and my mouth. I forced myself to say calmly, “I’m afraid I haven’t seen Peggy—Miss Armour—for quite some time, now. I guess I can’t help you, Mr. Harrison.”