facts!”

“And all we’ve got is a string of guesses. Anyway, what’s your idea?”

“That we search the house. Tear it apart, if necessary, until we find the money, or some evidence as to what became of Butler, or something.”

“With her in it? Think again.”

“No,” she said. “That’s why it takes two of us. She’s here in town now, attending a meeting of some historical society. I’ll hunt her up, get her plastered, and keep her that way. For days, if necessary. You’ll have time to dismantle the house and put it back together before she sobers up enough to go home.”

“What you’re really looking for,” I said, “is a patsy. If something goes wrong, you’re all right, but I’m a dead duck.”

“Don’t be silly. The house is in the middle of an estate that’d cover a city block, with big hedges and trees around it. There’s one servant, who goes home as soon as she’s out of sight. You could take an orchestra with you, and nobody’d ever know you were in there. The police may check the place once a night when nobody’s home, but you don’t have to tear off a door and leave it lying on the lawn for them, just to get in. The drapes and curtains will all be drawn. There’ll be food in the kitchen. You could set up housekeeping. How about it?”

“It sounds safe enough, for the price,” I said. I got up and walked across the room. “But I still don’t see it. All that stuff about her leaving there in the car doesn’t prove anything. Hell, maybe she was in it with him, and was just covering for him by ditching the car while he got out of town some other way.”

She shook her head. “No. I tell you he’s dead. And she killed him. That money’s still there.”

“I can’t see why you’re so sure,” I said.

“Then you don’t believe I’m right?” she said. “You don’t want to tackle it?”

I thought about the money. A hundred and twenty thousand. You couldn’t get hold of it all at once. It was too big. It had to grow on you.

I let it grow.

But, hell. She was crazy. In that whole story of hers there wasn’t one shred of evidence that Butler hadn’t got away with it. A lot of good guesses, maybe, but no concrete evidence. And if you were going to take a chance and start breaking laws like that, you had to have something more definite than a guess to lead you on. I couldn’t see it.

“Well?” she asked. “How about it?”

“The whole thing’s a pipe dream,” I said.

“You’re passing up a fortune.”

I shrugged. “I doubt it.”

I tried another pass but she wasn’t having any, so I said, “See you around,” and shoved off. I punched Winlock’s buzzer on the way downstairs, but he still wasn’t home.

I got in the car and looked at my watch. It was after five. The whole afternoon was shot. I went home, picking up my mail on the way in through the lobby, and wondering how much longer I’d be able to pay the rent. It was more apartment than I needed, or could afford, in a new building with a lot of glass brick and thick carpets, over on Davy Avenue. I’d moved into it when I first went with Wagner Realty and was going to make a thousand a month selling houses in a subdivision. That was in May, and when they dusted off the old wheeze about a reduction in force three days ago, on the first of August, I was still working on the first month’s thousand. Maybe the demand for ten-thousand-dollar apple crates was falling off, or I was no salesman.

I sat down in the living room and looked at the mail. It was all bills except one letter on orchid stationery. I tried to recall who the girl was, but finally gave up and looked at the bills. The tailor called my attention very tactfully to $225 that I had apparently overlooked last month and the month before. There was another note due on the car. I shuffled through the others: two department stores, the utilities, and the kennel that boarded Moxie, the English setter. I checked my bank balance. I had $170.

I went out in the kitchen and tried to convince myself I ought to have a drink. After looking at the bottle, I shoved it back on the shelf, losing interest in it. I never drank much, and