slightly more intelligent, and she had guessed why Cynthia Cannon had changed her name. And she hated my husband. I think I have already told you that she had been another of his sordid affairs.

“She also worked in the bank. This was important.”

She broke off and glanced across at me. “You see it now, don’t you?”

“I think so,” I said. “Yes. I think I do.”

She nodded and went on. “I let myself be persuaded. Our lives were ruined. What more did we have to live for, except revenge? Jack continued to rave about not being able to stand it any longer each time my husband disappeared for the weekend on some pretext or other, but he went on waiting.

“Well, that Saturday noon my husband came home from the bank a few minutes late, and said he was going on another fishing trip. He packed his camping equipment and went upstairs to shower and change clothes. I slipped out, as usual, and searched the car.

“This was the day. I found it.

“It was in a briefcase, rolled up in his bedding. During all those months, while I had been suspecting it and watching, I had often wondered if I would actually go through with it if I ever found the proof and knew, but the moment I opened that briefcase and saw the money there was no longer any doubt or hesitation.

“There wasn’t much time. I slipped it out of the car and hid it in the basement, knowing about how long it would take Jack to get there after Charisse had phoned him my husband had been the last to leave the bank and that he was carrying a briefcase.

“He arrived approximately on schedule, coming in the back way on foot. He was quite convincing. His face was white, and his eyes stared like a madman’s. He demanded to know if my husband had said he was going fishing again. I told him yes, and perhaps I was just a bit hammy myself. He said we couldn’t go on. We couldn’t stand it any longer.

“He was still inciting me with this theatrical harangue when I heard my husband coming down the stairs. I took Jack’s gun from his pocket and shot him as he came through the door.”

She stopped. For a moment she sat staring over my head. Her face showed no emotion whatever.

“All right,” I said. “So then of course he took charge of getting rid of the body and the car?”

She nodded. “Yes. He was remarkably efficient and calm. It was almost as if he had planned all the details beforehand. And it really wasn’t difficult. The cook wasn’t there, as I had been giving her Saturdays off. We merely had to wait until it was dark.”

“And what did they do when they found out it wasn’t in the car?”

“They both came, Sunday night. And of course I didn’t even know what they were talking about. There was no announcement by the bank until Monday morning, you will remember. And certainly they had never said anything about money before. I was sure Mr. Butler hadn’t had any such sum with him.

“They threatened me with everything. But what could they do? If they actually killed me they’d never find it. And obviously they couldn’t threaten me with the police because they were equally guilty. It was somewhat in the nature of an impasse.

“It was buried in a flower bed until the police grew tired of searching the house and watching me. Then I brought it down here and put it in those three safe-deposit boxes.”

“And so Finley was actually the one that abandoned the car in front of Diana James’s apartment. She swore it was you.”

She smiled faintly. “Cynthia, perhaps, wasn’t the most intelligent of women, but even she should have known I’d never be guilty of such an adolescent gesture as that.”

I sat there for a minute thinking about it. It was beautiful, any way you looked at it. She had outguessed them all.

Except me, I thought.

I grinned. I was the only one that had won. They had murdered and double-crossed each other for all that time, and in the end the whole thing was three safe-deposit keys worth forty thousand dollars apiece, and I had all three of them in my pocket.

“Baby,” I said, “you’re a smart cookie. You were almost smart enough to take the pot.”

I went downstairs and around the corner. The morning papers were out now. I bought one.

I opened it.

“MRS. BUTLER DEAD,” the headline