“You can call me Duke,” came the slow, oily answer. “Tell you what, though: I’m really anxious to find her. What say I give you my address and phone number, and you get in touch with me if you hear from her again. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said in a dry voice. I was beginning to smell shake-down here.

  He gave me an address on the lower east side, and I scribbled it on a sheet of notepaper and jammed it in my pocket. “I’ll let you know,” I said.

  “Thanks a lot, Mr. Foster. I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you again. Soon.”

  The line went dead.

  I dropped the receiver into its cradle and walked shakily back to my desk, having a little trouble getting there still standing up. Phil came over to me and said, “Everything all right, Mr. Foster?”

  “Fine,” I said. “Fine.”

  “You look kinda green,” he said.

  I chuckled hollowly. “That was my bookie. My horse didn’t place. Don’t ever gamble, kid; it’s bad for the digestion.”

  “Gee,” he said. “Sorry to hear that.”

  * * *

  I didn’t sleep so well that next couple of nights. I kept scanning the papers for the news that Peggy’s body had been found, and every time the phone rang I jumped half a foot. I kept waiting for the maid to appear, with a faintly puzzled look on her face, and say, “Mister Foster, there’s a Mister Harrison on the wire for you.”

  Harrison didn’t call. I got jumpier and jumpier, though. I was starting to figure the possibilities, and I didn’t like any of them.

  Berril was around the house a lot, smiling smugly, using up our martini supply, eating dinner with us more often than not, working out new and better schemes for turning Helen’s money into more money. He was a supercilious bastard if I ever knew one. Forty years old, a plumpish bachelor who got all his kicks in life from handling someone else’s money. I was willing to bet he’d never been to bed with a woman in his life—or at least not in the last fifteen years.

  Somehow having Berril around so much made me jumpier than ever. I made things rough on everybody, and Helen didn’t like it. What was happening to that fresh start, I wondered?

  It had seemed so simple: kill Peggy and all the clouds roll away. Just Helen and me, and no love-nest in Manhattan and no pretty little bosomy empty-headed bed-partner, and no worries about getting her pregnant. Simple. But it wasn’t working out that way.

  It was as if Peggy were still alive, only twice as bad, because now I had all the pressure and tension and none of the other things. I kept dreaming about that body floating to the top of the lake. I could see the big headlines in the paper:

  NUDE BODY FOUND IN ADIRONDACK LAKE

  And then the story, how the naked lovely had been murdered and dumped in the lake, and how medical examiners had found she was three months pregnant. And I could fill in all the rest of the steps. I had made my cabin reservation under another name, of course, and taken great care to throw red herrings along the path. But the police would start tracking down everyone who had rented that cabin during the summer and trying to link him with Peggy Armour. And there was some guy named Harrison who could tip them off to me, I thought.

  I could see the next headline too:

  HEIRESS’ HUSBAND INDICTED FOR MURDER

  But then I tried to figure it the other way—that even if they found the body, which wasn’t likely, they’d have trouble identifying it after the lake got through with her. And even if they identified it, they’d still have a tough time linking me with the crime. Yes, I thought. It wasn’t as bad as I was figuring. I’d squeeze through. I might live the rest of my life under the shadow of fear, turning away every time I saw a policeman coming up the street, but I’d get through.

  I thought.

  Until Harrison phoned again.

  This time it was at home, and it happened to be the maid’s night off. Helen and I were sitting in the parlor; she was reading some best-seller and sipping a drink, and I was staring at the daily newspaper without seeing too much of it. We hadn’t been talking much to each other. Helen and I didn’t talk too much, except when we were quarreling, which was only about half the time.

  The phone rang. That was funny, we don’t get too many calls, except from Berril, and he had left a couple of hours before. We both looked up.

  “I’ll get it,” I said hastily, before Helen had even made up her mind about it. It was as if I knew who it was going to be.

  I was right.

  I snatched up the phone on the third ring and nearly shouted “Hello!” into it.

  The calm, familiar voice said, “Mr. Foster, this is Duke Harrison. How have you been?”

  “Harrison?” I bluffed. “I’m afraid I don’t—”

  “Yes, you do. A friend of Peggy Armour’s, remember? I spoke to you just three or four days ago, at your office? Eh?”

  “Oh—yes, I recall now,” I said. I was praying desperately that Helen hadn’t picked up the extension phone. If she were listening—I began to sweat. “I’m afraid I haven’t come up with any information about Miss Armour since I spoke to you,” I said. “And now if you’d excuse me—we have some guests here—”

  “Just a second, Mr. Foster,” he said evenly. “Don’t hang up.”

  “I’ve told you I have no information. I hardly knew Peg— Miss Armour—at all.” I picked up the phone and dragged the wire its full length, so I could peer out of the alcove into the parlor. Helen was still sitting there, reading unconcernedly. That was some small relief, anyway. “I haven’t seen Miss Armour in months. I’d appreciate it if you’d look elsewhere for her, Mr. Harrison.”

  There was a moment’s silence at the other end, and I wondered if he had hung up. But he said, after a long pause, “I think it’s time I put matters squarely on the line to you, Foster.”

  I blinked. I knew what was coming. “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “I happen to know that you and Peggy took a cozy little trip upstate a couple of weeks ago. Also that you and she had been shacking up for quite some time. Also that she was expecting a baby. And also—that she didn’t come back from the Adirondacks with you.”

  There weren’t too many different things I could say in answer to that. I picked one.

  “You’re crazy,” I said. “And if this is a blackmail stunt, I—”

  He broke in smoothly with: “Point one, I’m not crazy and point two, this is a blackmail stunt. It so happens that I have a good chunk of documentary proof in my possession, including the late Miss Armour’s diary. I knew Peggy pretty well. I also have some photos of yourself you gave her, and a few letters. It makes a nice neat little package.”

  “What do you want, Harrison?”

  “Twenty thousand dollars, deliverable in one week or less. You have my address. I want it in small bills, because it’s hard to cash $20,000 checks.”

  “And if I don’t come across?”

  “Then I mail the package to the police, with a little note telling them they’d better start draining a certain lake in Upper New York State. And just to make things nicer I’ll send photo-stats of the whole works to your wife, so she can think twice about you before she hires a fancy lawyer to defend you. On the other hand, you can pay me and I’ll guarantee to vanish without singing.”

  My hands were quivering. I said, “I don’t have $20,000 lying around.”

  “Your wife does. Get it from her.”

  “I can’t!”

  “That’s your problem, Foster. But let me tell you this: I sort of liked Peggy myself. I wouldn’t mind seeing the twenty grand—but I’d be just as happy if it didn’t come through, and I could turn in the rat who murdered her. Take your pick. So long, Foster.”

  I was holding a dead phone.

  * * *

  I stood there frozen a minute or so. I couldn’t just walk back into the parlor and say to Helen, “Dear, I need twenty thousand dollars in a hurry, to pay off a guy who’s blackmailing me. You see, there was this girl I was seeing on the side, and I—”

  No. I couldn’t do that.

  Helen called in, “Mike, are you off the phone yet?”

  “Yes,” I said. My voice was so strained it sounded like somebody else’s.

  “That’s good. Anything important?”

  “Just some office stuff,” I told her. “Some guy who can’t make up his mind which end is up and has to ask advice. Nothing much.”

  “Bring in the ice cubes when you come back, will you, Mike?”

  I brought in the ice cubes and put them down in front of her. I poured myself a stiff drink and tossed it down like cough medicine. The stuff was good, but didn’t help to melt the cold hard knot of fear that was forming inside me.

  Twenty thousand dollars. In a week.

  And I had no way of knowing whether Harrison would keep his word after all. Suppose he took the money and then turned me in anyway?

  The hell with that. I had to take my chances. And I had to get the money. Right now.

  There was only one place I could get it.

  I said, “Helen, put down the book a minute, won’t you?”

  She frowned and stuck a placemaker in. “Something on your mind, dear?”

  “Yes. This business of the bank accounts being in your name.”

  “Mike, if you’re going to start that again—!” She reached for her book.

  “We’ve been married six years,” I said. “Seems to me I ought to start wearing the pants around here. What happens if I need a lot of money suddenly—I have to come crawling to you, don’t I? I’m sick of it! I feel like I’m being kept.”

  Color rose to her cheeks. “Mike!”

  “Well, that’s how it seems sometimes.”

  “I can’t alter the will. You know you can have all the money you need, Mike.”

  I took a deep breath. “Can I?”

  “Have I ever denied you, Mike?”

  “All right,” I said. I leaned forward in the big plush chair and knotted my hands together. “Helen, I want twenty thousand dollars by the end of the week.”

  “Twenty thou—Mike, whatever for?”

  I smiled coldly. “Call it an investment. It’s important to me. I need the money. Can I have it?”

  I saw her frown suspiciously. This was the test, I thought. Now she’d have to put up or shut up.

  “It’s quite a lot of money, Mike. We don’t have unlimited funds, dear.”

  “Twenty thousand bucks can’t even be seen when you stack it up against a million. You’ll never miss it. And I need it.”

  “What sort of investment is this, dear?”

  Savagely I mimicked her: “ What sort of investment is this, dear? You see? You see? You talk about letting me have all the money I need—but the one time I really need it, you forget all the things you said!”

  “Mike, I never said you couldn’t have the money. But so much, and so suddenly—why, I’d have to talk to Stu just to find out if we can spare so much at such short notice.”

  That was the topper. Speak to Stu! I rose angrily. “Okay, speak to Stu. But here’s your chance to back up all those pretty words of yours with dollars, Helen. Here’s your chance.”

  I turned on my heel and headed out of the parlor toward my bedroom.

  There wasn’t much sleep for me that night.

  * * *

  I got my answer the next day, from Helen.

  She said, “I spoke to Stu about—your request. He says no.”

  “No?”

  She nodded. “He told me we just don’t have that much fluid cash on hand now. He’s swinging some big deal that’s tying up our liquid assets right now and he just doesn’t see how he can pry loose a chunk of money that big.”

  It was a lie. A cold flat conscienceless lie. I knew enough about the Jesperson estate to know that $20,000 could be detached every day for a week, and twice on Sunday, and there’d still be some cash left over for tips. But I couldn’t say that to Helen. I couldn’t say, Did you really ask him, or are you just determined to put me in my place and keep me there?

  And I couldn’t say, Go ahead, play your games, but a week from now the police are going to dredge a girl’s nude body out of the lake and burn me for it.

  Instead I said, “I’ll talk to Stu. Maybe I can swing it, if I oil him up.”

  “Don’t, Mike. It’s no use—”

  “Let me try,” I said, and phoned Berril’s office.

  He sounded cheerful enough, until I got around to the part where I asked for the money.

  “Oh,” he said, and I could hear the phony professional amiability drain out of his voice. “Hasn’t Mrs. Foster spoken to you about that?”

  So it was true, then. “Yes,” I said. “But maybe she didn’t make the matter sufficiently clear. It’s quite an emergency. I was hoping—”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Foster. We’re undergoing a bit of an emergency ourselves. Nothing too serious, of course—we stand to profit by it considerably—but money is going to be tight a little while. If your business venture could wait, say, three or four weeks—”

  “No,” I said, in a dead voice. “I guess it can’t wait. Thanks, Berril. Do the same for you some day.”

  I hung up.

  That was the way it stood. I had maybe a thousand dollars in my private savings account, no more than that; Helen had always been good for cash when I needed it, so I hadn’t bothered to put much away. Only now Helen wasn’t good for cash.

  And I needed twenty grand in six days.

  Five days. Four.

  Harrison called with three days to go—this time, at the office again. The guy seemed to take a sadistic delight in shattering my nerves.

  “Well, Foster? How much cash do you have raised so far?”

  “Not a hell of a lot. Go crawl into your hole and leave me alone, Harrison.”

  “In three more days,” he said smoothly. “The deadline’s midnight Thursday. When my watch says 12:01, that bundle goes into the mail addressed to the police—and you can take it from there.”

  “I’ve got three days. Don’t bother me till then.”

  * * *

  But the days passed, one, two, three. Time was streaming through my fingertips and I couldn’t hold it back.

  Twenty thousand bucks. Helen’s No was final, and Berril backed her up. I thought of all sorts of impossible schemes— forging a check, borrowing the money from a bank, stealing it—but I scrapped them all. There wasn’t one method among them that wouldn’t eventually bring the law down on me, and I didn’t want that.

  Then the idea came, and I was surprised I hadn’t thought of it long before. There was one way of solving the problem, simply, cleanly.

  I would kill Harrison.

  It was logical. If I got to him in time I’d be able to destroy all the evidence, and I’d be home free. If I got caught—well, they can only execute you once. Harrison’s evidence already had me frying for Peggy’s murder; I had nothing to lose and a lot to gain by taking him along with me.

  Maybe. There were a million maybes.

  On the deadline day I called home and told Helen I wouldn’t be home for dinner.

  “That’s too bad,” she said. “Stu came over, and he’s going to be eating with us tonight.”

  “Well, the two of you have a grand time,” I told her. “I’ll be home late.”

  I had brought the hunting knife to work with me in my briefcase that morning—a gleaming deadly tooth, sharp and silent. Already I could see it plunging into the startled Harrison’s throat.

  He said he’d be waiting at his place the entire day of the deadline. Well, I’d have a little surprise for him, I thought.

  The day dragged interminably, and I spent most of it shuttling between the water-cooler and the men’s room. At last five o’clock came. I packed up and left, ignoring someone’s offer to ride to the station.

  I went downstairs and had a hamburger. It was dry and tasteless, or maybe that was just the way my throat felt. I caught the BMT and took it downtown to the address Harrison had given me.

  It was an old apartment building, way over on the lower east side, in a neighborhood that had been shabby fifty years ago and wasn’t improved much today. I checked the number on the house against the note I had scribbled, making sure it was the right one. My heart kept trying to thump up into my mouth.

  My mind wandered back and picked up the image of Peggy, alive and naked and desirable in the rowboat. I had killed her calmly, casually, without a moment’s nervousness. I could see her body turning over and over, drifting slowly down to its grave.

  But this was different. Funny; second time should have been a lot easier. But it wasn’t.

  There was no elevator. Harrison was in apartment 6-A, and I walked up the filthy stairs to the sixth floor, prowled around the dark, dank-smelling landing for a while, and found the right door. I looked around. No one in sight anywhere. I took the hunting knife from my briefcase, gripped it tightly, and knocked.

  I waited for Harrison to open the door. I wondered if he was a short man or a tall one—I didn’t know where to aim my thrust. But there was no answer.

  “Harrison?” I knocked again. “It’s me. Foster.”

  Still no answer.

  “Hey, wake up! I’ve got something you want, Harrison!”

  I pounded on the door again, but without getting any response. Maybe he went out for supper, I thought. I eyed the door. It was old and feeble looking. Suppose I broke it down, I thought. Suppose I got inside there and found the little package and destroyed it—or else just waited for Harrison to come back.

  I put my shoulder to the door and heaved—once, twice. On the third heave the hinges groaned and gave way with a dry splitting sound, and I found myself inside.

  There was no one there.

  There hadn’t been anyone there for a couple of days.

  The place had been cleaned out. The dresser drawers hung open, the closet was empty, the bed unmade. A shockwave ran over me. What the hell—

  There was a circular unpainted table in the middle of the room, with a piece of paper lying on it. Numbly I walked toward it.

  It was a note. There was dust on it—two days’ dust or more. I picked it up.