some of it here where it was convenient. If I could just find one of those twenty-dollar bills—then I’d know. After all, the magazine articles could be a coincidence. Maybe he idolized criminals, or collected Haigiana the way some people collected data on Sherlock Holmes. Hell, there could be half a dozen good explanations for it. I had to find something more concrete.

I went around back and entered the shed. There wasn’t too much light, even with the door open, but my eyes gradually became accustomed to the dimness. One side of it was stacked with stove-wood. There was a bench on the right that held the remains of an outboard motor, a five-gallon can of fuel, and a dozen or so beat-up old duck decoys. A pair of oars leaned against the rear wall. The floor of hard-packed earth, under close scrutiny, showed no indication of having ever been dug up. An old hunting coat hung from the wall above the bench. I took it down and went through all the pockets. I was working against time now, beginning to feel jittery as I listened for his motor. What about the wood? There wasn’t time to tear all that down and get it piled back. I’d just have to return tomorrow. Was there anywhere else? I looked swiftly around. nothing remained except the underside of the bench. Sitting, I slid back under it and looked up. The light was too poor here to see much more than its general outline. I fished the lighter from my pocket and flipped it, holding it above the level of my eyes, and then the sudden intake of my breath made a little gasping sound in the stillness.

The framing of the bench was of two-by-sixes, a long one across the front and shorter ones running from front to back between it and the wall. To the bottom of a pair of these, at the front of the bench, a short section of plank had been nailed, forming a pocket that was accessible only from down here. And sitting in the pocket was a small cereal carton. I snatched it down and slid from under the bench.

My lips pursed in a noiseless whistle as I lifted them out. They still had the paper bands on them, two blocks of tens and that sheaf of brand-new twenties. Intense excitement was running along my nerves as I stepped quickly to the door and shot a glance down toward the cove. I couldn’t see it, because the cabin was in my line of sight. But hell, I’d have heard the motor, wouldn’t I? I forgot him, having eyes now only for these three bundles of currency. The twenties and one pad of the tens were marked with that telltale rusty stain along the bottom edge; the other block of tens showed no trace of it. I smiled. I had everything now that I need to know, except where it was actually hidden, and that I’d find out. But first I had to stop them.

I shoved the twenties in my pocket, put the tens back in the carton, and replaced it under the bench. Just as I was about to straighten, I heard him. And he wasn’t out on the lake in his boat; he was in the cabin.

What I’d heard was the rattle of a stove lid. I cursed myself for a fool; why hadn’t I had sense enough to realize he might fish all the way back to the cove and not start his motor at all? Could I get out? It would be risky, but still possible. The door of the shed was in plain view of the rear window of the cabin, but I could make it if I watched my chance. I eased up to the door and peered out. Then icy gooseflesh prickled across my back. He had come out of the cabin and was just rounding the corner, headed this way. He was coming to the shed for wood.

There was no way out. I whirled, searching frantically for a place to hide and knowing there was none except the ridiculous and almost certainly futile gesture of crawling under the bench. I dived under it and squeezed as far back into the corner as I could go. He came in. I could see his legs, almost to his hips, and I could see a little of the barrel of that .38 sticking out of the holster swinging against his thigh. He was