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He took a book from one of the shelves and tried to read, but he wasn’t able to concentrate

His ht to another, like a quietly desperate jeweler looking for aof diamonds

He talked to his dead self

He searched the dusty corners for spiders and squashed thehed at ti what had struck him funny

He wept, too

He cursed Katherine

He er to leave the house and begin searching for Hilary-Katherine, but he kneould be a fool if he went out in daylight He was certain that Katherine’s conspirators were everywhere in St Helena Her friends fro dead,in new bodies All of them would be on the lookout for him Yes Yes Maybe dozens of the the day He would have to wait until sunset before he went looking for the bitch Although night was the favorite time of the day for the undead, the tih he would be in terrible danger while he stalked Hilary-Katherine in the night, he would also benefit fro dead every bit as well as it would conceal them from him With the scales thus balanced, the success of the hunt would depend only on as smarter--he or Katherine--and if that was the only criterion, he ; for Katherine was clever and infinitely wicked and cunning, but she was not as smart as he was

He believed that he would be safe if he stayed in the house during the day, and that was ironic, really, because he hadn’t felt safe for onethe thirty-five years he’d lived there with Katherine Now the house was a reliable haven because it was the last place Katherine or her conspirators would look for hi him to this very place He knew that He knew it! She had co him to the top of the cliff, around the house, to the doors in the ground at the end of the rear lawn She wanted to put hiround, lock him in there forever That’s what she had told him she would do if she ever had to cootten And now she would expect him to avoid the top of the cliff and the old house at all costs She would never think to look for hi-abandoned attic bedroom, not in a y that he laughed aloud

But then he had a horrible thought If she did think to look for him here, and if she cah of the hiht behind the house If Katherine and her hellish friends caught him here, they would be able to carry him to those doors and throw him into that dark roohtened, he ran back to the bed and sat down beside hi would be all right

Joshua couldn’t sit still He walked back and forth on one of the flowered runners in Mrs Yancy’s parlor

The old woave birth to twins, she realized that the elaborate lie about Mary Gunther would no longer hold up The people in St Helena had been prepared for one child No matter how she explained the second baby, she’d plant suspicion The idea that everyone she kneould find out what she’d been doing with her own father Well, I guess it was tooelse that had happened in her life She just snapped For three days, she carried on like so like a ave her sedatives, but they didn’t alork She ranted and raved and babbled I thought I’d have to call the cops and let them put her away in a little padded room But I didn’t want to do that I sure as hell didn’t"

"But she needed psychiatric help," Hilary said "Just letting her screaood That wasn’t good at all"

"Maybe not," Mrs Yancy said "But I couldn’t do anything else Ia fancy bordello, you don’t want to see the cops except when you pass out their payoff money They usually don’t bother a classy operation like the one I had going After all, some of my clients were influential politicians and wealthy business shots in a raid But if I sent Katherine off to a hospital, I knew damned well the newspapers would pick up on the story, and then the cops would have to shutbusiness after I’d gotten all that publicity No way Absolutely i And my doctor orried that his career would be ruined if his regular patients found out he was secretly treating prostitutes These days it wouldn’t daave vasectoators with the same instruments he used in his office But in 1940, people were moresqueamish So you see, I had to think about irls"

Joshua walked up to the old wo in the plain dress and the apron and the dark brown support stockings and the stodgy black shoes and the silky white cat, trying to see through the grande to the real woman underneath "When you accepted Katherine’s three thousand dollars, didn’t you also take on certain responsibilities for her?"

"I didn’t ask her to come to my place to have her baby," Mrs Yancy said "My business orth a whole lotto throw it all away just for principle Is that what you think I should have done?" She shook her gray head in disbelief "If that’s what you really think I should have done, then you’re living in a dream world, my dear sir"

Joshua stared down at the woman, unable to speak for fear he would scream at her He didn’t want to be thrown out of her house until he was certain she had told hi she knew about Katherine Anne Frye’s pregnancy and about the twins Twins!

Tony said, "Look, Mrs Yancy, shortly after you took Katherine in, when you discovered that she had wrapped herself up in girdles, you knew she was likely to lose the baby You adht happen"

"Yes"

"He told you Katherine ht die, too"

"So?"

"A child’s death or the death of a pregnant wo like that would have closed up your place every bit as fast as having to call in the cops to deal with a wo a nervous breakdown Yet you didn’t turn Katherine ahen there was still time to do that Even after you kneas a risky proposition, you kept her three thousand dollars, and you allowed her to stay Now surely you realized that if someone died, you’d have to report it to the police and risk getting shut down"

"No problem," Mrs Yancy said "If the babies had died, we’d have taken them away in a suitcase

We’d have buried them quietly in the hills up in Marin County Or hted the suitcase and dropped it off the Golden Gate Bridge"

Joshua had an alray hair and yank her out of her chair, jerk her out of her s complacency Instead, he turned away and took a deep breath and began to pace along the flower-patterned runner onceat the floor

"And what about Katherine?" Hilary asked Rita Yancy "What would you have done if she had died?"

"The same as I’d done if the twins had been born dead," Mrs Yancy said blithely "Except, of course, ouldn’t have been able to fit Katherine into a suitcase"

Joshua stopped at the far end of the runner and looked back at the wo to be funny She was utterly unaware of the grueso a fact

"If anything had gone wrong, we’d have du Hilary’s question "And we’d have handled it so that no one would have known that Katherine had ever come to , young lady I’ about what I’d have done--what any sensible person in my position would have done--if she or the baby had died a natural death Natural death For heaven’s sake, if I were a killer, I’d have done aith poor Katherine when she was out of her head, when I didn’t know if she’d ever recover She was a threat toto cost le her, you know My goodness, such a thought never crossed h her fits I nursed her out of her hysteria, and then everything was all right"

Tony said, "You told us Katherine ranted and raved and babbled That sounds as if--"

"Only for three days," Mrs Yancy said "We even had to tie her down to the bed to keep her fro herself But she was only sick for three days So maybe it wasn’t a nervous breakdown

Just a sort of teood as new"

"The twins," Joshua said "Let’s get back to the twins That’s e really want to know about"

"I think I’ve told you just about everything," Mrs Yancy said

"Were they identical twins?" Joshua asked

"How can you tell when they’re just born? They’re all wrinkled and red There’s no way to tell that early if they’re fraternal or identical"