".Oh," Heggener said matter-of-factly, "I nearly forgot. I told you I would show you where I keep my pistol." He went over to a fragile inlaid little writing desk near the door of the living room and pushed a small button that was almost undetectable on the side. A drawer slid out. He picked up the pistol from where it was lying on a soft piece of flannel. "Notice where the button is," he said. He held the pistol loosely in his hand. "It has no safety-the revolver-and it is fully loaded, so be most careful if by any chance you feel you must display it." He flipped the chambers and they revolved smoothly, oiled. "I am happy to say that it has never been fired. Eva, I must tell you, does not know of its existence." He put the weapon carefully into the drawer and snapped the drawer back into place. "It is the only weapon in the house," he said. "I am not an advocate of accidental duels by members of the same household. Oh, I almost forgot-knowing where the gun was wouldn't do you any good if you could not get into the house to use it. Come with me, please."

Michael followed him into the small library that adjoined the living room and watched while Heggener removed a small painting to uncover a wall safe. He twirled the combination and reached in and brought out another, smaller key. "The key to the front door," Heggener said, giving it to Michael. "Eva is uncharacteristically careless with keys, so I have taken to locking a spare one away." He closed the safe and put the painting back in place.

They went back into the living room and Heggener said, "Now don't forget your whiskey. And I hope our hospitality this winter will not prove to be too onerous." He made a little stiff bow and went out of the room, leaving Michael to find his way to the front door alone.

ooooo Michael was unpacking his bags in the cottage when the door opened and Eva came in without knocking. He had left the door open, with the key in the lock. He could hear the dog whining in the car outside. It was raining now and the rain was beating at the windows. Eva was wearing a red cape, with the hood up. She looked demure and rustically sensual, like a Watteau shepherdess, and certainly not mad. It occurred to him that perhaps Eva was not the mad one in the family, that it was the elegant, soft-spoken aging man, the confessed murderer in the white-pillared mansion with the concealed, loaded revolver, who was involving him in some cunning lunatic scheme and was even now chuckling to himself about how he had taken in a credulous and easily deceived stranger.

"I see you left the key in the lock," Eva said. "Were you expecting company?"

"You."

"I am under instructions from my husband to see to it that you have everything you need," Eva said, smiling. "Do you?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Aren't you missing something?"

"What could that be?"

"This, for example." She came up to him and kissed him, her mouth open, her tongue sliding over his. For a moment he stood rigidly, trying not to respond, remembering what Heggener had just told him, but the touch of her lips, the feel of her body against his made him forget or not care about anything else and he held her hard and ran his hands over her, under the cape, on the thin silk fabric of her blouse.

When she pulled away from him she was smiling, victorious. "You see, you did need something."

"Damn it, Eva," he said, shaken, "we shouldn't do this."

"Why not?" She took off her cape and threw it carelessly over the Victorian silk couch.

"Your husband is why not. If I had met him before I met you I'd never have . .

"You say that now. Anyway, my luck, you met me first."

"I like him," Michael said. "More than that. I admire him. His courage, his gentleness . .

"I admire him, too. But that's another department. You'll remember that, I hope. Another department. We have some very well-defined conditions in our marriage. You fit one of those conditions admirably. Shall I go in and see that the bed is made properly?" she asked, mischievously.

"Can't we wait for tonight?"

"There's nothing wrong with tonight. And nothing wrong with right now. Don't try my patience, Michael. I really should be offended at your lack of gallantry."

"There's nothing gallant about us," Michael said bitterly. "We fall on each other like two wild animals. We're not lovers, we're antagonists."

"Whatever you wish to call it, my dear," she said sweetly. She started toward the bedroom, but stopped, because there was a knock on the door.

Michael opened the door. Susan was standing there, carrying a big bowl with a large red-blossomed azalea plant in it. "I brought you a housewarming gift," she said as she came into the room and Michael closed the door behind her. "Although," she said, nodding politely and greeting Eva, "the house seems to be pretty warm already."

"Good morning, Miss Hartley," Eva said coldly. "That's a very pretty plant. Although in general I dislike azaleas. They hang on so long. One grows tired of looking at them."

"When Michael gets tired of looking at this one he has my permission to throw it out. I won't know-I'm leaving tomorrow."

"Yes," Eva said, "the manager told me. It's too bad you have such unpleasant weather for your last day here."

"Oh, I've done enough skiing and I'll be back."

"You will?" Eva said. "You must remember to call in time for reservations. We need ample warning. We're almost solidly booked until March."

"I'll remember, thank you," Susan said. She looked around the room. "What a charming little house. You're lucky to have found it, Michael. Don't you think you might offer the ladies a drink of welcome?"

"Sorry," Michael said. "Of course." He took the bottle of Johnnie Walker out of its box and opened it.

Susan sat down gracefully on the little sofa, pushing Eva's cape gently to one side to make room for herself. "No ice, please. Just a little water."

"I don't like whiskey," Eva said. "Don't you have some wine in the house, Michael?"

"I'm afraid not."

"I must tell the boys at the hotel to bring you a case," Eva said. The implication behind the remark was clear and the little smile that played around Susan's mouth told Michael she had caught it.

He went into the kitchen with the bottle of whiskey and poured a drink for Susan and one for himself and ran some water into them. When he returned to the living room, Eva was twisting the dial of the little radio on the desk. The room was filled with the crackling of static and the voice of an announcer over it, rising and then falling away. "It's almost impossible to get good reception in the mountains," she said and turned it off. "We have to make do with country amusements."

Eva's use of the English language often surprised Michael, as it did now, but he didn't show it as he gave Susan her drink and she touched glasses with him. "Michael," she said as she drank, "Antoine is giving me a farewell dinner tonight at The Chimney Corner. And of course you're invited. And you and your husband, too, madam."

"I'm afraid we're busy tonight, Miss Hartley," Eva said. "Please convey my thanks to Monsieur Ferr6."

Susan finished her drink quickly. "Well, I must be pushing off. Congratulations again, Michael, on your cozy little nest. See you around eight. Good-bye, Mrs. Heggener. And thank you for how beautifully everybody at the hotel treated me. I look forward to coming back."

"I'm sure all the help will be pleased to see you again, Miss Hartley." There was just the slightest emphasis on the word "help."

Susan went out, supple and springy, and neither Michael nor Eva spoke until they heard the sound of her car driving off. Then Eva said, "There is only one rule in this house. You are not to entertain that lady here."

"In that case, thank you for everything and I'll find someplace else to live. I'm peculiar-I like to make my own rules." He began to throw the things he had just unpacked back into the open suitcase.

Eva watched him for a moment, then went over and held his arm. "All right, you bastard," she said. "No rules."

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

The dinner at The Chimney Comer had been surprisingly good, refuting Jimmy Davis's low estimate of the food he served, and Susan was in high spirits, just a little tipsy and preparing for the city with green eye shadow, little circles of rouge on her cheekbones that made her look like a child's doll and a new streak of blond in her hair. The room was full and Antoine was playing marvelously, his eyes halfclosed against his cigarette smoke so that he looked, bent over the keyboard and swaying with his music, as though he were in a religious trance. Just behind Michael's chair, Annabel Fenstock was sitting at the next table with a big young man by the name of Barlow, whom she had introduced to Michael the weekend before and who had not endeared himself to Michael when he had said, "You another member of the harem?" and had laughed loudly. Annabel's taste must be deteriorating, Michael had thought, or she's getting desperate, and had moved off.

With Antoine's playing and the hum of conversation in the room, Michael could not hear what Annabel and Barlow were saying, but he could tell by the tone that they were engaged in some sort of argument. Suddenly both of them stood up, Annabel's chair rapping against Michael's, and they started out. Michael could see that Barlow was gripping Annabel's arm, hard, and that she was in pain, but she made no sound as they went out of the restaurant together. Michael gave it a few seconds, then said to Susan, "Excuse me for a moment, I need a little fresh air." Then, as quickly as he could without getting attention, he followed the couple. As he went out of the door into the snowy night, he saw them standing a few feet away, Barlow still gripping Annabel's arm and Annabel squirming, trying to pull away. "What's the matter with me," the man was saying loudly, almost shouting. "You put out for everybody else in this bullshit town, you little cock-teasing whore, why not me?" Then he hit her with his fist and released her and she fell to her knees on the snow-covered pavement.

"You son of a bitch," Michael said quietly. "Get out of here and stay out of here." He moved to help Annabel, who by now was unsteadily trying to stand.

"Who's going to make me get out of here?" Barlow said, his face livid and contorted in the light of a street lamp.

"I am," Michael said, as he helped Annabel to her feet.

"You and who else?" Barlow said. "You come near me and this is waiting for you, brother." He put his hand to his breast pocket and half-drew a knife from it, just enough so that it caught the gleam from the street lamp.

Without thinking, exultantly, as Annabel screamed, Michael leapt at Barlow, swinging his right hand with all his power at the hateful, leering face, feeling the beautiful shock go up from his fist through his arm and entire body as the punch landed on the man's jaw. Barlow swayed and went down face first, blood spurting all over the snow. Michael turned him over, as he groaned wordlessly, and took the knife from his pocket. He threw it as far as he could, over the roof of The Chimney Corner. Then he put his arm comfortingly around Annabel and said, "That's all right, darling. He won't bother you anymore. I've just scored the first and only knockout of my career. Come on, I'll take you home."

He led her to his car and drove her home. She seemed to have recovered completely and insisted that he needn't come in and promised, to telephone him at The Chimney Corner if Barlow made any further trouble.

But an hour later, Norman Brewster, in uniform and with a worried look on his face, came into the restaurant and over to the table and said, in a low voice, "Mr. Storrs, can I talk to you for a minute outside? And better take your coat. This place'll probably be closed by the time you can come back."

"I have to go, Susan," Michael said. "See you before you leave in the morning."

"Is anything wrong, Michael?" Susan asked worriedly.

"Probably a parking ticket I forgot to pay," Michael said, taking his coat off the rack and following Norman Brewster through the crowd of tables, conscious that people were looking curiously at the two of them.

Outside, Michael said, "Wait a minute, Norman. What's up?"

"Man came in about an hour ago," Brewster said. "I drew night duty this week-he could hardly talk, a mouth full of loose teeth and bleeding like a stuck pig and said you'd assaulted him. Fred took him to Doctor Baines and he just called in to say that the guy's jaw is broken in four places and he's going to lose at least five front teeth." "For Christ's sake, Norman," Michael said, "I only hit him once." "That musta been some once. I didn't know you were a fighter, along with everything else," Brewster said, admiration plain in his voice. "But I better get a report from you, too. The guy kept saying, 'The sonofabitch-' he meant you-'the sonofabitch is in for a load of trouble.' "

Michael followed the policeman to the station, which was just around the comer. The rain had turned to heavy snow at dusk and Brewster said, "Ought to be pretty good skiing tomorrow." Having lived all his life in a place that depended upon snow for its livelihood he would probably make the same remark to a murderer he was conducting to the gallows in a snowstorm.

In the station, Michael said hello to Henry, who seemed drunker than ever behind the high desk and who smiled when he saw Michael and said, "Assault and battery. Naughty, naughty."

Norman Brewster sat at a desk with an old typewriter on it and slowly pecked out his report as he listened to Michael's account of the incident. "Okay," Brewster said, "you say he hit the lady and he says it was unprovoked and you say he had a knife-Godalmighty, are you crazy enough to go after a man with a knife on him? Where's the knife now?"

"I threw it over the roof of The Chimney Corner."

Brewster shook his head. "You ought to know better than to destroy evidence. You'd a done better if you'd a come right down here with the lady and the knife right off."

"Good God, Norman," Michael said. "It was just an ordinary little Saturday night fight outside a bar. It's not a massacre, for heaven's sake."

"Even if we find the knife, and there's a good chance we won't,"

Brewster said, "there's no real way we can pin it on him. Knives aren't registered or anything like that although it might be a good idea if they were. And you say the lady was down on the ground and maybe she didn't see it and even if she did she was in a dazed condition according to you and she's your friend and you could influence her . . "

"Norman," Michael said, irritated, "you should have been a lawyer, not a cop."

"I'm too dumb to be a lawyer," Brewster said honestly. "I'm lucky to've passed the exam to be a cop. And I'm just trying to help you in case the guy really wants to start trouble." He pushed the typewriter away from him a little, as though the sight of it hurt him. "Anyway- I'm releasing you on your own recognizance."

"You mean to say you were thinking of arresting me?" Michael asked angrily.

"If I didn't know you and where you lived and all that, I'd have to, Mr. Storrs. Don't be sore at me, for Christ's sake, I didn't bust anybody's jaw tonight."

As Michael went out through the front door, Henry, who had been dozing, opened one eye and said, "Thug, mugger, speeder, breaker of the peace, unwelcome element," and cackled.

ooooo By the following Wednesday, Michael had almost forgotten the incident. He had made a desultory search for the knife behind The Chimney Comer, but the snow was piled high there, with new snow coming down, and Davis used the yard for old crates and cartons and broken bottles and it would have taken a platoon of Army Engineers to find anything there. He called Annabel on Sunday morning to find out if she was all right and she sounded cheerful and relaxed and said she had had a good night's sleep. She, at least, was taking what had happened lightly. A good deal more lightly, Michael thought resentfully, than Norman Brewster.

By Monday morning, the weather had cleared and turned cold and he skied with Heggener, with both of them avoiding speaking of their conversation over the Bloody Marys on Saturday morning. Heggener skied so well in the new powder and enjoyed it so much that he said, come what may, he was going to get Eva to permit him to postpone the visit to the hospital in New York until the weather turned bad again.

In the afternoons, Michael skied with Eva, and she, too, seemed to be enjoying the sport so much that when she spoke to him he thought he detected a new note of almost affection in her voice. He spoke neither to them nor to Antoine about what had happened on Saturday night.

But on Wednesday morning, as he was about to leave the cottage, there was a loud rapping of the iron knocker on the door. When he opened it, a man dressed in city clothes asked him politely, "Are you Mr. Michael Storrs?"

"I am."

"I have something for you, sir," the man said. He produced a folded set of white papers and thrust them into Michael's hand.

"What is this?" Michael said, staring stupidly down at the papers in his hand.

"A summons. Good day, sir." The man about-faced and walked smartly away.

Michael looked through the papers. It was a summons to appear before a judge in Montpelier in a civil suit for damages of fifty thousand dollars brought by one Clyde Barlow, the victim of unprovoked and dangerous assault by the aforesaid Michael Storrs, causing grievous bodily harm to the plaintiff.

Michael called Heggener at the big house and told him that he was sorry but he had business to attend to and there wouldn't be any skiing today. He asked him to tell that to Eva, too, then called Herb Ellsworth and asked to see him in his office.

"I guess I need a lawyer," Michael said, after he had told Ellsworth the whole story.

"I guess you do," Ellsworth said. "Fifty thousand dollars! Just for a sock on the jaw! People don't care what they ask for these days." He examined the summons that Michael had given him with repugnance. "You wonder what we pay the cops for. They still haven't found my truck. Well, for my money, the best guy for you in town is old Harry Lancaster. He's honest and he doesn't charge an arm and a leg like some of these smart aleck young guys. I don't know this law firm in Montpelier." He tapped the summons gingerly, as though it might jump up and bite him. "Four names. I hate to do business with a law firm with four names. I got to warn you, Mike, the lady's reputation isn't going to do you much good in court."

"What's that got to do with a man hitting her and pulling a knife on me?"

"What's anything got to do with anything once the lawyers start on you? You want me to call old Harry for you?"

"Please."

Ellsworth put in the call, chatted in a neighborly way for a minute or two, then told the lawyer that a good friend of his, Michael Storrs, was in a bit of trouble and might need some help. He nodded at the man's reply and put down the phone. "He's waiting for you. His office is over the bank."

"Thanks." Michael stood up.

"I'll have two or three of my men go looking for that knife," Ellsworth said. "Though probably some kid has picked it up by now and is practicing the art of mugging with it in the schoolyard." He looked up quizzically at Michael. "By the way, if it's not too personal a question, do you have fifty thousand dollars?"

"Just about," Michael said.

"Hang onto it," Ellsworth said and stood up and shook Michael's hand.

Harry Lancaster looked to be about seventy years old. He had a babyish rosy complexion and bushy white eyebrows that loomed over his bifocal glasses and only a few wisps of hair stretched over his balding pink skull and he was fat and worked in suspenders and shirtsleeves at a desk that was piled every which way with papers. He also smoked cigars, and the small room over the bank, with framed diplomas that looked as though they had been earned sometime in the middle of the eighteenth century, was blue with smoke.

He did not fill Michael with optimism. All he said was "This firm representing the plaintiff is aggressive, very aggressive." He said it as though he thought being aggressive was a major virtue for a law firm. He sighed, smoke pouring from him. "You made certain mistakes, of course," he said.

"That's what the police told me."

"It says in the complaint that you stomped the man while he was lying on the ground."

"I never stomped anybody in my life."

The lawyer sighed again. "You have no marks, bruises of any kind, to bear evidence that it was in fact a fight and not a one-sided assault?"

"I hit him before he could use the knife on me," Michael said, exasperated. "What should I have done-waited until he'd stabbed me?"