register downstairs, and left the building. He had a quick bite at a lunch counter and was back at his desk at six o’clock, after signing the book again on the way in.

At a quarter to seven he left the building again, this time failing to sign himself out. He took a cab to his apartment and was inside it by ten minutes after seven. At precisely seven-thirty there was a knock on his door. He answered it, and she stared at him as he dragged her inside. She couldn’t figure it out; her face contorted.

“I’m going to kill you, Carolyn,” he said, and showed her the knife. She died slowly, and noisily. Her cries would have brought out the National Guard anywhere else in the country, but they were in New York now, and New Yorkers never concern themselves with the shrieks of dying women.

He took the few clothes that did not belong to Baker, scooped up Carolyn’s purse, and got out of the apartment. From a pay phone on Sheridan Square he called the air terminal and made a reservation. Then he taxied back to the office and slipped inside, again without writing his name in the register.

At eleven-fifteen he left the office, went to his hotel and slept much more soundly than he had expected. He went to the office in the morning and had his secretary put in three calls to New Hope. No one answered.

That was Friday. He took his usual train home, rang his bell a few times, used his key, called Carolyn’s name several times, then made himself a drink. After half an hour he called the next door neighbor and asked her if she knew where his wife was. She didn’t. After another three hours he called the police.

Sunday a local policeman came around to see him. Evidently Carolyn had had her fingerprints taken once, maybe when she’d held a civil service job before they were married. The New York police had found the body Saturday evening, and it had taken them a little less than twenty-four hours to run a check on the prints and trace Carolyn to New Hope.

“I hoped I wouldn’t have to tell you this,” the policeman said. “When you reported your wife missing, we talked to some of the neighbors. It looks as though she was—uh—stepping out on you, Mr. Jordan. I’m afraid it had been going on for some time. There were men she met in New York. Does the name Roy Baker mean anything to you?”

“No. Was he—”

“I’m afraid he was one of the men she was seeing, Mr. Jordan. I’m afraid he killed her, sir.”

Howard’s reactions combined hurt and loss and bewilderment in proper proportion. He almost broke down when they had him view the body but managed to hold himself together stoically. He learned from the New York police that Roy Baker was a Village type, evidently some sort of irresponsible artist. Baker had made a reservation on a plane shortly after killing Carolyn but hadn’t picked up his ticket, evidently realizing that the police would be able to trace him. He’d no doubt take a plane under another name, but they were certain they would catch up with him before too long.

“He cleared out in a rush,” the policeman said. “Left his clothes, never got to empty out his bank account. A guy like this, he’s going to turn up in a certain kind of place. The Village, North Beach in Frisco, maybe New Orleans. He’ll be back in the Village within a year, I’ll bet on it, and when he does we’ll pick him up.”

For form’s sake, the New York police checked Jordan’s whereabouts at the time of the murder, and they found that he’d been at his office until eleven-fifteen, except for a half hour when he’d had a sandwich around the corner, and that he had spent the rest of the night at the hotel where he always stayed when he worked late.

That, incredibly, was all there was to it.

After a suitable interval, Howard put the New Hope house on the market and sold it almost immediately at a better price than he had thought possible. He moved to town, stayed at his alibi hotel while he checked the papers for a Village apartment.

He was in a cab, heading downtown for a look at a three-room apartment on Horatio Street, before he realized suddenly that he could not possibly live in the Village, not now. He was known there