"The Walker in Shadows" - читать интересную книгу автора (Michaels Barbara)

One

I

The house next door had been empty as long as Pat could remember. Old Hiram, the caretaker, did not really occupy it; he camped in it, buying his food at one or another of the quick-food outlets and sleeping-so rumor reported-on a folding cot in one of the vast, echoing bedrooms. No chest of drawers would have been necessary, since he appeared to own only two shirts-one checked, the other plain blue-and two pairs of pants. Presumably these were replaced periodically, since they never progressed beyond a certain stage of decrepitude. Hiram had been heard mumbling to himself as he walked the streets, on those occasions when he emerged to dine on Big Macs and French fries. The soles of his shoes, inadequately secured by rubber bands, slapped the sidewalk as he proceeded. Sometimes he burst into a loud shrill laugh, as if he had told himself a particularly witty joke.

The neighborhood children called him a witch, ignoring his sex, which was, admittedly, hard to determine at a casual glance, for his long gray hair straggled to his shoulders. It was Pat's son Mark, trained to verbal accuracy by his father, who pointed out that male witches were more properly known as warlocks. The other kids liked the sound of the word and adopted it; thereafter, when old Hiram appeared on the street he was followed by a crowd of imp-sized tormentors, chanting the noun and a variety of selected adjectives. These became richer and riper and more decidedly Anglo-Saxon as the children grew, and their mothers shook their heads and wondered where the little monsters picked up such language.

Hiram's persecutors called him names, but they stayed at a safe distance, and after one or two unpleasant episodes they did not venture onto the weedy, overgrown lawn of the house next door. They claimed Hiram had chased them with a nail-studded club, spitting blue fire.

The adults dismissed the blue fire and were inclined to place the club in the same doubtful category. No child ever showed convincing wounds, so the other parents followed the example of Jerry Robbins, husband of Pat and father of Mark. His reaction to Mark's complaint was a stern lecture on the meaning of private property. The lecture was reinforced by the method immortalized by Dickens' Mr. Squeers-wall, noun; build, verb active. Mark built the wall between the two houses, assisted by his father. It took him three weeks of playtime, and got the point across.

A high iron fence, complete with spikes, surrounded the rest of the forbidden property. Rankly overgrown trees and shrubs formed a further barrier; on summer nights the shrouding honeysuckle scented the entire neighborhood, and poison ivy added its charms to bram-bly roses and other foliage. Normally these barriers would only have been a challenge to the children. It was not the wall, or the fence, or the poison ivy that kept them out; it was old Hiram, and the effect Jerry's lecture had had, not only on his own son, but on the other children.

Jerry had been dead now for over a year.

Pat's mind touched this thought and twisted away. She had survived that year only by refusing to let the knowledge surface any oftener than she could help; by concentrating compulsively on the tasks of each day; and by seeking chores that kept her mind fully occupied and her body exhausted enough to sleep.

It was spring again, and that made it worse. Spring is always cruel, with its false promise of resurrection, and Jerry had enjoyed the season so much-the return of the migratory birds, the emerging green spears of bulbs he had planted the previous fall, the first freezing afternoon on a soggy golf course. Yet as Pat sat by her window looking down on the hard-knotted potential flowers of the lilac bushes by the front door, she was thinking of something other than the treachery of spring. The house next door had been sold. A month earlier old Hiram had vanished into that mysterious limbo from which he had come, and a series of workmen had descended on the old house, supervised by a bustling lady from the local realtor's office. This morning the moving vans had lumbered up the street and stopped before the house, and Pat had decided that her cold was so bad she couldn't possibly go to work.

She blew her nose and dropped the tissue into a wastebasket conveniently at hand by her perch on the deep, padded window seat. Nurses were supposed to be immune to any disease short of bubonic plague; but she was entitled to some sick leave, the office was well staffed that week-and she was curious. She was cultivating that curiosity the way an injured person might encourage the first signs of movement in a paralyzed limb.

It was a dreary day, with low gray clouds and occasional drizzles of rain. A stiff breeze rattled the branches of the trees. If these had been fully leafed her view would have been cut off; even now, the only way she could see what was going on was from the second floor of the house. Her room was on the corner; she could see not only the street but, over the fence, into the neighboring yard. The first van had opened its rear doors and men were lifting out furniture swathed in protective cloths.

Pat wriggled into a more comfortable position, her feet up on the seat, her back supported by cushions. Mark had gone off to his morning classes at the junior college after fussing over her till she was ready to shriek. He prided himself on his culinary skills; the breakfast he had brought her included enough food for one of the husky moving men next door-bacon and eggs, English muffins, fried potatoes, grapefruit, and a big glass of orange juice. He made sure she ate all of it, standing over her with his hands on his lean hips and his dark brows drawn together in a forbidding scowl, until she swallowed the last bite. The fact that he looked so much like his father didn't make it any easier for her to swallow.

Now, thank God, he had gone, and Pat was able to relax with coffee and cigarettes. She had not dared to admit to him that she was curious about what was happening next door, for he took a dim view of gossip and snooping, as he called it. Albert the cat prowled the room hoping Pat had overlooked a scrap of bacon. Mark's dog, Jud, a big black Labrador fondly known as the laziest dog in Maryland, was sprawled on the braided rug before the fireplace.

It was a charming, if slightly bizarre, room. Pat's eyes, accustomed to its eccentricities, passed over without heeding them, but a stranger would have been amused or appalled by some of the details. The large, high-ceilinged chamber was half-paneled, in the Georgian style, but the carving on the wooden chimneypiece was pure Gothic, with fantastic pointed arches supporting the mantel. Equally fantastic was the oriel window on whose wide cushioned seat Pat had settled, with its leaded panes and trefoil arches. The architecture demanded massive furniture, like the heavy four-poster bed; but the hangings and spread were of flowered print whose colors matched the lavender and blue and rose shades of the braided rug where Jud snored in canine comfort. Pat doubted that the dog had any notion of guarding her; Mark had lighted the fire before he left and Jud had simply sought out the warmest place in the house. Jerry always said Jud was an ideal watchdog. He was so clumsy and so affectionate that a burglar would be bound to trip over him and break a leg, giving them plenty of time to telephone the police.

Resolutely Pat turned her eyes from the room she and Jerry had shared to the view out of the window. The moving men had removed the shrouding cloths from some of the objects before they carried them into the house. What she could see was prosaic enough: a bronze standing lamp, sections of a steel bookcase, rolled rugs, their patterns indecipherable. A few of the pieces of furniture were transported still swathed in their wrappings. Pat tried to make out their shapes and failed, catching only a glimpse of curved chair legs that ended in the characteristic Queen Anne ball. Perhaps the newcomers shared Jerry's love of old things, antique furniture, aged houses.

The fact that they had bought the house next door suggested that they did. Like her house, it was an anomaly on glossy, modern Magnolia Drive, with its rows of split levels and Williamsburg reproductions. Jerry had hated the new houses. A house wasn't even mature till it was a century old, he claimed, stressing the adjective as he always did when he had found a word that pleased him.

When they first came to Washington, ten years earlier, they had lived in an apartment for a while, but it soon became apparent that Mark's nine-year-old energies could not be confined within four walls, particularly walls built of plasterboard. He thundered up and down the stairs, smuggled in all the stray animals he encountered, bounced balls off passing neighbors (accidentally, of course), and generally raised Cain. They decided to hunt for a house. The prices in the District of Columbia were appalling, so they investigated the neighboring counties of Maryland and Virginia.

It wasn't until then that Pat realized her husband had a passion for old houses. He was a history buff, particularly interested in military history, and Pat had already tramped all the old battlegrounds within driving distance of Washington. She got a bad case of poison ivy at Bull Run, twisted her ankle at Gettysburg, and was stung by wasps at Yorktown, after Jerry, trying to locate the site of Rochambeau's unit, had disturbed a nest. But she had not known that Jerry's interest in the past extended to architecture until they found the house near Poolesville.

In those days the Williamsburg reproductions and the split levels were still in the future, and the future Magnolia Drive was only a graveled country road. As the real-estate agent's car bounced along the rutted surface, Pat felt a stir of misgiving.

"It's awfully isolated," she said, glancing uneasily at the empty fields on both sides of the road. "Aren't there any other houses?"

"Not since the old Johnson place burned down, couple of years back," Mr. Platt, the realtor, replied. He winced as the bottom of his sleek yellow Thunderbird scraped a boulder. "But it's not that far from the highway, Miz Robbins; only about a mile. You folks said you wanted privacy…"

A mile or so from the highway the road divided. The right branch passed between tumbled piles of rock that had once been gateposts and plunged into a jungle of shrubbery. The left branch seemed to disappear entirely after a few yards. Pat paid this little heed, for above the trees to the right she had caught a glimpse of something that left her openmouthed with surprise. It appeared to be the top of a medieval stone tower.

The house would have looked more at home on a Scottish mountaintop or a wild Cornish moor. Someone had recently mowed the weedy lawn and trimmed the bushes back so that it was possible to reach the porch steps- barely possible. The brick walk had been laid in an elegant herringbone pattern; now many of the bricks were missing and the others had been dislodged by tree roots and weathering. As they stumbled along it the boxwood pressed in on either side, yellowed with neglect and smelling abominable. At least it smelled bad to Pat. Jerry sniffed the cat-litter-box aroma as if it were incense.

The closer they got to the house, the more incredible it appeared. There was a stone tower, with battlements. There was also an oriel window on the second floor. An equally Gothic bay window on the first floor still retained some panes of stained glass. Across the front of this hybrid monstrosity stretched a typically American front porch, though the wooden posts that supported its roof were carved into medieval curlicues.

Mr. Platt led them quickly across the creaking porch and into the house, hoping, no doubt, that the interior would be less remarkable than the outside of the place. In that he was mistaken. While Jerry exclaimed over the pointed Gothic doorframes and carved wainscoting and marble fireplaces, Pat saw the hideously stained tub in the old-fashioned bathroom and the antique appliances in the kitchen. Surprisingly there were plenty of closets, as well as a room-sized pantry next to the kitchen. "Lots of storage space," Mr. Platt said cheerily, opening one of the cabinets in the pantry-and slamming it hastily shut upon a pile of mouse droppings.

So far as Pat could see, the only other advantage the house boasted was that it was not so unmanageably large as she had expected from its pretentious exterior. A parlor, dining room, library and kitchen on the first floor; four major bedrooms, plus several odd little chambers tucked in here and there on the second. There were more bedrooms, small but well lighted, on the third floor. "We wouldn't have to use this level," Jerry muttered. "Close it off… save on heating…"

"We should save quite a bundle on heating when the furnace breaks down, as it is on the verge of doing," Pat said. "Radiators! I haven't seen those things since-"

"Wonderful to sit on when you come in out of the snow," Jerry said, a faraway look in his eyes. "And to hang your wet coats and things on."

Mr. Platt beamed approvingly at him.

"Few repairs here and there, not much… considering you should get the place cheap. Old Miz Bates' heirs are anxious to sell. Make 'em an offer."

Jerry did-an offer so low,that Mr. Platt's expression lost its poorly concealed contempt and became one of pure pain.

"Well, now, Mr. Robbins, I dunno…"

"Won't do any harm to ask," Jerry said.

Not until then did Pat realize he was serious about buying the house. Her protests rose to high heaven. It was too far from his job, he'd have to drive for hours every day. There were no neighbors; whom would Mark play with? The house was in terrible condition. The porch steps were crumbling, the ceilings were water-stained, wallpaper hung in peeling strips, floors sagged… A howl of glee from Mark, somewhere in the overgrown garden, prompted her to add, "And there's probably a well somewhere he can fall into, and old rusty nails he'll get tetanus from, and…"

She saw Jerry's face, and her protests died. There was no use trying to talk sense to him when he looked like that. Sighing, she turned for another look at the Gothic battlements. Her shoulder brushed Jerry's arm, and it was as if his emotions brushed off into her mind. For a moment she saw the old house as he saw it-its grotesque charm, its underlying solidity, the inevitable suggestion of courage in its resistance to time and neglect.

"It has the original hardware and some of the original glass," Jerry muttered. "The American Gothic revival- mid-nineteenth century-there aren't many of them left, Pat. I'll bet under all the layers of paint the banisters are solid walnut."

"The yard," Pat began.

Jerry surveyed it with bemused pleasure. "Sensational, isn't it? This boxwood must be a hundred years old. And the magnolias-"

"And the poison ivy, and the weeds," Pat groaned. The house was surrounded by high green walls of undergrowth. Over the trees at the left side she saw something that made her wonder if consternation had unhinged her mind.

"That can't be!" she exclaimed.

Mr. Platt followed her glance.

"You aren't seein' double, Miz Robbins," he assured her, with a chuckle. "That's a tower, all right. There's another house over there. The twin to this one."

"Don't tell me there are two houses like this," Pat said. "One would be bad enough."

The two men, now allied in a common aim, exchanged amused glances; but Jerry was as intrigued as Pat.

"Twin houses, Mr. Platt? I've heard of such things, but only in fiction."

"Well, this is fact. Old Mr. Peters built these houses for his girls, when they got married. Back before the War Between the States, that was. He was quite a character, Mr. Peters. Read a lot. He got some fellow out from Scotland to build the houses, they say. I'd sell you Halcyon House," Mr. Platt went on, grinning, "only it's in worse shape than… That's to say, it's tied up in some court fighting, the heirs can't agree." His eyes went from Jerry's rapt face to the barely visible top of the tower of the neighboring house, and he said thoughtfully, "Better see about getting a caretaker in there. One of these days I just might…"

"Find another sucker?" Pat inquired pointedly.

Mr. Platt made deprecating noises, but Pat knew that was precisely what he was thinking. It had never occurred to him, until Jerry walked into his life, that anyone would be fool enough to buy either of the old houses. Where there was one, there might be another.

And of course there were others, many of them. Pat and Jerry were among the first of the frustrated city dwellers to move out, seeking lower prices and country air. They bought up the old houses that dotted the countryside and remodeled them; builders caught on to the trend and constructed streets of little modern boxes amid the cornfields and pastures. Among these sharp businessmen was Mr. Platt. He had not mentioned to them-why should he, after all?-that he owned all the property along Bates Road. The year after they bought their house the bulldozers moved in, and by November there was a new street, named Magnolia Drive, lined with houses. The homes in Magnolia Estates (Mr. Platt was not a man of imagination) had only two basic floor plans, but by painting them different colors and changing details such as shutters and rooflines, Mr. Platt managed to give them a simulacrum of individuality. Jerry swore at the houses and their builder at least once a day. But Pat rather liked the "new people," though she saw little of them. She had gone back to work part-time by then. Mark was in school all day, and Jerry's beloved house was draining them financially, even though he did most of the work himself.

For a solid year he worked every night and every weekend and every day of his vacation. Under his direction Pat wore the skin off her fingers scraping and sanding and painting. When Jerry put on the new roof she stood clutching the ladder, an ineffectual gesture, as he laughingly pointed out, though of course he appreciated the thought.

The end of the year did not mark the end of Jerry's labors, for by that time he was so infatuated with the house that improving it had become a pleasurable hobby instead of a duty. But the worst of the work was done by then; the house was habitable, and Pat had moments when she admitted that she was getting rather fond of the place herself. The newly plastered walls had been painted in pastel shades, Delft blue and sunny yellow; the floors gleamed with wax. The newel posts and banisters were walnut. Azaleas and rhododendron emerged from the weeds and bloomed brilliantly, as if grateful for their new freedom. As Jerry's salary rose he bought gifts for the house-new bathroom fixtures, a modern kitchen-and, cautiously and with care, a few treasured antiques.

All those years the house next door stood empty, tied up in legal complications-or perhaps, for Mr. Platt was no fool, being held for the inevitable rise in price. The shrubbery grew taller and ranker every year. Occasionally old Hiram hacked some of the weeds down, but he did not discourage the growths that ensured his privacy.

As Pat sat sipping her coffee and watching the moving men struggle through the windy weather with their bur-dens, she could deduce where many of the pieces of furni-ture would go. The houses were not only duplicates, they were mirror images of one another. The oriel window in her bedroom faced the oriel in the master bedroom next door. Unfortunately the Gothic tracery and small panes made it impossible for her to see inside the room, but she assumed that the heavy carved headboard of the Victorian double bed would be placed in the master bedroom, along with the matching dresser and marble-topped washstand. The smaller dresser, painted white-French provincial probably, though she couldn't make out the details-must belong to a girl child, unless husband and wife had separate bedrooms. The second-best bedroom, corresponding to the one Mark occupied, was at the back of the house, on the same side as the master bedroom. Perhaps the white furniture would go in that room. She had seen only two dressers carried in, which didn't necessarily prove that only two bedrooms would be in use…

At that point in her speculations her front-door bell rang.

Pat peered through the spyhole in the door before she opened it. When they first bought the house, she didn't even bother locking the doors most of the time. But the city was moving out to join them, and with it came fear.

What she saw through the spyhole, grotesquely distorted by the glass, was a face set in a hideous leer. Fingers wriggled at each ear and a long pink tongue protruded.

Pat opened the door.

" Nancy. How nice to see your lovely face."

Nancy 's hair was bright red-the result of art, not nature. She was twenty pounds overweight, and was always on a diet. That morning she was wearing a padded jacket belonging to one of her large sons. It did nothing for her figure.

"Have you seen the new neighbors yet?" she asked, shedding the jacket. "What kind of furniture do they have? I didn't realize you were home; why didn't you call me? If I hadn't seen your car when I happened to take a walk-"

"On a day like this?" Pat grinned at her neighbor, whose dislike of healthy exercise was as notorious as her constant dieting.

Nancy grinned back. She had very large white teeth; in any other woman the dental display might have been alarming, suggestive of werewolves. Combined with Nancy 's snub nose and plump cheeks, the teeth were rather endearing.

"Damn you, you're always catching me in my little lies. All right, I came because I was dying of curiosity. I planned to break a shoelace or something outside their gate. But this is better. Don't tell me you weren't looking."

"Of course I was. Let me warm up the coffee and then we'll go back to my room. I've got a beautiful view from the corner window."

Perched on a kitchen stool, Nancy continued to chatter while Pat heated the coffee and toasted English muffins. She was Pat's closest friend on "the street," as its inhabitants called it. She was also the neighborhood gossip, and proud of the title. When you wondered why the police cars had been parked outside Number 146 last night, you called Nancy. She always knew, just as she was the first to know that the Andersons had finally split up and that the funny-looking white dog that knocked over your garbage can belonged to the Dunlaps on Azalea Court. But she had a heart as big as her curiosity; hurt children and weeping wives carried their problems to her, and every stray dog and cat in the area arrived at her back door, as if the Humane Society had drawn them a map.

Pat poured coffee and offered cream and sugar. Nancy took both, and helped herself lavishly to raspberry jam, heaping it on the toasted muffins. A raspberry patch had been one of the amenities to emerge from the weeds when Jerry started his yard work; Pat made jam every summer, and pies too. Jerry loved red raspberry pie.

Carrying their snack, they went upstairs and sat down in the window seat. Jud sat on Nancy 's feet, drooling in a disgusting fashion. Like all dogs, he knew a sucker when he met one. Nancy fed him scraps of muffin, but her eyes were glued to the window.

"A piano! A baby grand, no less… Somebody is musical."

"Brilliant deduction," Pat said affectionately. "Maybe the daughter plays. You did say there was a daughter?"

"Mm-hmm. High-school age. Most of them take piano lessons, don't they?"

"Some of them do." Like Pat, Nancy lacked female children. She had four boys, ranging in age from ten to eighteen. Nancy pretended to know nothing of the habits of young girls, although her home often overflowed with them. Her boys were handsome and popular, and, as Nancy often complained, young girls these days had no modesty at all, the way they chased the boys.

"Maybe Friedrichs plays himself," she went on indistinctly, through a mouthful of muffin and jam. "No reason why a lawyer shouldn't play the piano, I guess. A baby grand seems a little lavish for a teenager, unless she's a juvenile Myra Hess."

"Maybe it belongs to Mrs. Friedrichs," Pat suggested, knowing that this game of endless, fruitless speculation was one of Nancy 's favorite activities. Pat rather enjoyed it herself. Had not Jane Austen written great novels about the minutiae of neighborhood life?

"My dear, didn't I tell you?" Having finished her muffin, Nancy gave Pat her full attention. Her black eyes widened. "There is no Mrs. Friedrichs. Or if there is, she's sick, or in Europe, or something. I've seen him- Friedrichs-several times. When the painters were here, last month. I tell you, sweetie, if I weren't happily married to my darling fat little bald husband, I'd set my cap for Mr. F. He's rather gorgeous-tall and muscular and long-legged. And he's got hair. It's beginning to turn gray, but it's so nice and thick." Nancy paused for a deep breath, and continued before Pat could comment on this ingenuous description. "Norma-you know how nosy she is- Norma introduced herself to him one time, imagine her nerve. He told her his daughter was in school-"

"Ah, so that's how you found out about the daughter," Pat said, highly entertained. "Didn't Norma ask him about his wife?"

"Yes, she did. Not that bluntly, of course; even Norma wouldn't have so much gall. She said something about looking forward to meeting Mrs. Friedrichs… Well, my dear! Talk about black looks! He just glared at her and walked away, at least that's what Norma said."

"So maybe he's divorced. It's common enough."

"Or maybe he's a widower." Nancy gave Pat a candidly speculative look. That was one of the things Pat liked about her. Paradoxical as it might seem, widowhood was easier to endure if people took it for granted, without apologies or excessive delicacy. But this time Pat shook her head, smiling.

"Don't matchmake, Nancy. It's a repulsive habit."

"You don't need anyone to make matches for you. Once you make up your own mind…" Nancy left it at that. She turned her attention back to the window. "That chest of drawers looks like Sheraton. Handsome piece of furniture."

"Could be a good reproduction." Pat pressed her forehead against the glass, squinting, but details were hard to make out. They were all more or less interested in antiques. The whole neighborhood was history-conscious, especially since the Bicentennial.

The movers began carrying in carton after carton, anonymous in their brown cardboard concealment. But Nancy could speculate even about cardboard boxes.

" China and glassware? No, the boxes are too small. Books, maybe. He's got a lot of them, hasn't he? Anyhow, Norma figured something nasty had gone wrong with the marriage, and fairly recently, or he wouldn't have looked so angry. After Norma told me he was a lawyer I asked Sol Jacobs if he'd ever heard of him, and he had. He's from Chicago. Friedrichs, I mean, not Sol. Had his own practice there, Sol said, quite a good one. Now he's come to work for the Justice Department."

"A political appointment?"

"I guess so." Nancy dismissed this with a shrug of her plump shoulders. Her husband was a contractor, and she shared the nonpoliticals' mild contempt for those who ate from the government trough, as she put it. "He must have money, don't you think? I mean, a grand piano, and the house wasn't cheap… And look at that!"

It was a massive sideboard, black with age and covered with ornate carving, so heavy that the whole crew had to lend a hand to transport it.

"Jacobean," Pat guessed, her nose flat against the glass. "If that's genuine, it is a magnificent piece of furniture."

Carved chairs and a trestle table followed the sideboard. The two women were so engrossed they failed to hear Jud's whine of welcome, or the footsteps ascending the stairs. Mark had been tiptoeing-purposely.

"Aha," he shouted, in the bass tones of a villain in a melodrama. "Caught you!"

Both women jumped. Nancy banged her head on the paneling and swore.

"Damn you, Mark, what's the idea of sneaking up on us like that? You scared me out of a year's growth."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves," Mark said. "The Snoop Sisters! Haven't you anything better to do with your time?"

He flung himself onto the chaise longue and swung his leg over the end.

"Take your feet off the couch," Pat said automatically.

Mark frowned at her, but obeyed. When his black brows drew together he looked unnervingly like his father, which was odd, because all his features were his mother's, from his curly brown hair and pointed nose to his full-lipped mouth. Only recently had Pat realized that she had let him get away with too much this past year because it was easier for her to cope with Mark's smile than with Jerry's frown, on Mark's face.

"It's almost noon," he went on. "Here's the starving student, back from class, no lunch ready, not even a piece of bread defrosting. And here's his doting mum with her nose glued to the window, spying on the next-door neighbors. Helluva note."

"You cook your own lunch most days anyway," Nancy said unsympathetically. "And when your poor mother is home sick in bed-"

Mark let out a wordless hoot of derision.

"She's a malingerer," he said, dwelling pleasurably on the syllables. "She conned me into getting her a magnifi-cent gourmet breakfast, and now look at her. Blooming with health. It was a trick, wasn't it? Just so you could stay home and snoop on the new neighbors. I mean, women are really-"

"Spare me the analysis," Nancy interrupted. "I get enough of that kind of juvenile impertinence at home. Isn't there something you should be doing, Mark? Homework, or baseball practice, or-"

Mark rose to his full height, which was considerably over six feet.

"I see through your machinations, Mrs. Groft," he said crushingly. "You know full well that basketball is my game, not baseball. You ought to know, since your own son is on the team. But I can take a hint. I do not need to have a brick wall fall on me. As a matter of fact, I have many worthwhile things to do. I am meeting a friend for a spot of lunch. Are you sure, dearest mother, that I cannot do anything for your hypochondria before I leave?"

"No," Pat said. "I mean, yes, I'm sure. Don't be late for dinner."

"When am I ever late?" Mark ambled out before she had time to deliver the crushing reply his question deserved. Jud trailed hopefully after him. Sometimes Mark took him for rides. He liked going in the car with Mark. They went nice and fast, with loud music playing and the windows down, so that the wind blew delightfully through his ears.

But this time Mark abandoned him. The women upstairs heard the door slam, and a mournful howl from Jud. Then they saw Mark saunter down the walk.

He had parked his car, a cherished antique Studebaker, on the street, instead of going to the bother of opening the gate. The whole lot, something over two acres, was fenced. It had cost a small fortune, but Jerry had insisted on doing it when they bought the dog. The county leash law was seldom observed in that semirural area, but Jerry had had strong views on letting animals run loose, to annoy neighbors and endanger themselves on the highways.

The boxwood hedge along the front fence had been trimmed in the fall and had not yet gained its spring growth. Pat and Nancy had a clear view of Mark's head and shoulders as he strolled toward his car, rather more slowly than was his wont. Then they caught a glimpse of something else, something as bright gold as sunshine on a summer day, moving along on a level considerably below Mark's gangling height. Nancy nudged Pat.

"That must be the daughter."

She was blond-that much was apparent. Something else became equally apparent as the two women watched, although they saw no more of the girl than the top of her shining hair. Mark saw her at the same time the overhead watchers did. He came to a stop, so suddenly that he rocked back on his heels. The shining fair head stopped too, facing Mark. It was on a level with his shoulders.

Mark turned slightly and leaned against the fence, folding his arms in what he probably hoped was a pose of sophisticated nonchalance. Tilting his head attentively, he seemed to listen as the invisible girl spoke. Then he burst into laughter, his shoulders shaking, his mouth opening wide.

"It's as good as an old Laurel and Hardy silent film," said Nancy, enthralled. "Pretty soon another suitor will come along with the custard pie."

"She must be very pretty," Pat said, trying to raise herself high enough to see over the hedge, but failing. "Mark wouldn't react that way unless she was-"

"I knew it!" Nancy hooted with laughter. "Here comes the third angle of the triangle."

"He's too old to be a suitor," Pat said. "He's wearing a hat. Have you ever known a nineteen-year-old boy to wear a hat? Or a raincoat?"

The newcomer's height almost matched Mark's, but he was heavier and broader of shoulder. Rain had begun to streak the window, so the snoopers were unable to see his face clearly, shadowed as it was by the hat brim. Pat got an impression of strongly marked features, heavy eyebrows, and a general air of disapproval-though she could not have specified the precise reasons for that impression.

"It's Friedrichs," Nancy said, swiping vainly at the wet pane. "I think… Damn this rain."

"Whoever he is, he's the winner," Pat said, as the blond head turned and retreated, side by side with the raincoat and the hat. Mark stood staring after them, oblivious of the rain that was falling more heavily, streaking his face and flattening his hair.

"He hasn't got an umbrella," Pat said, swinging her feet down to the floor.

Nancy caught her arm.

"Does he own an umbrella? Mine wouldn't be caught dead carrying one. He won't take cold, they never do-at least not from getting wet. Doesn't he look ridiculous?" Nancy chuckled. "That's why he came home, the little hypocrite. One of the boys must have told him about the girl. Lecturing us on snooping, and then-"

"You're mean," Pat said, watching her son slouch slowly toward his car. His head was still turned in the direction of the house into which the fair head had disappeared. He stumbled over an obstruction of some kind and kept his feet only by a comic series of contortions.

Nancy 's laughter increased in volume.

"Serves him right," she said heartlessly. "I hope he's thoroughly smitten. He's broken enough hearts in his time. He's ripe for a painful love affair."

"Maybe you're right," Pat said, smiling.

Later she was to remember Nancy 's comment, and wonder whether she would have agreed with it if she had had any premonition of how peculiarly painful this affair would be, not only for Mark, but for the others who were about to be drawn into its perilous course.