the place open till you were clear out of sight. Sold a five-horse motor. For cash. It’s in the safe.”

“Good,” I said. My heart wasn’t in it this morning.

Otis was silent for a moment. He started to turn away, but then appeared to change his mind about it. He balanced the broom on his foot, watching it moodily.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I almost forgot. That guy Nunn called up a couple of hours after you’d left.”

“Oh?”

He nodded, still looking at the broom. “Wanted to talk to you, but I told him you’d gone for the rest of the day. So then he wanted to know where.”

“What was on his mind?” I asked. I didn’t like this much.

“He was crying about the job we did on his motors, as near as I could tell. I tried to get him to let me in on what he thought was the matter with ’em, but he just said he jumped you about ’em when you stayed out there last week.”

I looked at him quickly. He was still staring down at the broom. Well, there was Sunday. I could tell him that was when I’d been out there. Then I realized it was no use. Otis knew I’d lied about Sumner Lake. But why was he trying to tell me?

I made no reply. There appeared to be a shortage at the moment.

“Uh, boss,” he went on hesitantly, “about that twelve dollars a week you pay me. How much of that would you say was for personal advice?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You break it down.”

“Well, look. I won a prize once for minding my own business. A whole new bedroom slipper—I think it was the left one. You say the word and I’ll keep right on after the other one.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “Spill it.”

“This Nunn is bad news. Believe me, boss. He’s hairy as hell. This is a little out of my line, but I just figured you might not know about him. He killed four men while he was in the Sheriff’s office over there

“Oh,” I said. I saw it now. Otis thought I was making a play for her. I sighed softly in relief. Well, it would look that way. We’d been here alone when she came for the motors, and then I’d taken off right after her. And she’d been calling here for me.

“I guess that’s about all,” he said. “No offense intended.”

“Of course not,” I replied. “Thanks.”

“Maybe I just got used to you. If something happens to you, I got to go looking around for some other slave-driving skinflint to exploit me.”

“I’d never forgive myself,” I agreed. I felt a lot better. “Suppose you fell into some evil dive where they expected you to work?”

“Sure,” he replied. You could see he was relieved, and glad to be through with it. “Like I was telling the old lady just this morning. Where else they got a pension plan that you can retire and live free in the dog pound as soon as you’re a hundred and five? I get this lump in my throat every time I think about it.. . .”

We had it all settled without getting weepy about it. I was to stay out of the sack with Mrs. Nunn. He went back to sweeping. I checked yesterday’s receipts, made up the deposit, and locked it in the safe. He’d given me a scare there for a moment, but everything was fine. I knew, though, that I was never going to feel entirely at ease until I could clear out of here. Utterly harmless things would be forever making me jumpy when I read the wrong meaning into them. It’d happened twice so far this morning, and it wasn’t nine o”clock. You had to be on guard all the time to keep from giving yourself away. More than one badly wanted man had been picked up by a cop who’d meant to do nothing more than give him a parking ticket.

Fortunately, business was good, so I didn’t have too much time on my hands. At ten I went over and made the bank deposit and had a cup of coffee. When I returned a local car salesman came in to talk about boats and try to sell me a new station wagon.

I was up front alone just after eleven when the telephone rang. Otis looked out the door of the shop, but went back when he saw I was going to answer.

As soon as I picked up