the lunchroom. But that’s all there was.”

She shrugged and went back into the bathroom.

She’d be busy there for a few minutes, at least. This was the chance I needed. I went into the kitchen and got a butcher knife out of the drawer. While I was at it, I counted them. There were two of the long ones, one short paring knife, and an ice pick. And the scissors, I thought. Any time I didn’t know where all those things were, I’d better start watching behind me.

I shot a glance back into the living room. She was still in the bathroom. I slipped in and picked up the radio off the table. I pulled the cord from the receptacle in the wall. Hurriedly loosening the two screws in back on the underside, I pried up the rear of the chassis enough to get the blade of the knife in under it I shoved and sliced, feeling wires and parts give way. Then I retightened the screws and plugged it back in. I set it right where it had been before, and took the knife back to the kitchen.

It was about ten minutes before she came out of the bathroom. She had a towel wrapped around her head. She lit a cigarette and stood watching me.

“I don’t think my hair will look nearly so ragged as soon as it sets,” she said. “And the color came out nicely. Did you notice?”

“Yes,” I said.

“It’s odd what a change of exterior will do. I feel like an entirely different person. As if I were somebody else, and Madelon Butler were dead.”

There was no way to tell how she meant it. It might be perfectly innocent, or she might be very subtly tightening the screws on me. The only thing I knew for sure was that mind of hers was dangerous. I’d seen enough of its work by now.

“Well, that was the general idea,” I said.

She sat down, switched on the radio, and leaned back. “Let’s see if there’s any news.”

The radio started to warm up. Then smoke began to pour out of the cabinet.

“Hey,” I said, “turn it off! The damn things burning up”

She switched it off and looked innocently across at me. “Isn’t that odd?” she said. “It was all right a little while ago.”

“Must have a short in it,” I said. “I’ll take it to a shop in the morning and have it fixed.”

“Do you think it’ll take long?”

“No,” I said. “Probably get it back in two or three days.”

“That long? Perhaps you could rent one while it’s being repaired. Or buy a new one.”

“Why?” I asked. “You afraid you’ll miss the soap operas?”

“No. I just feel so isolated without it.” She smiled. “Cut off from the world, you know, as if I didn’t know what was going on.”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on. And you can read the papers.”

She’d like hell read the papers.

Again I tried to guess how much she knew. There was just no way to tell. I began to hate that lovely, imperturbable face. Everywhere I looked it was mocking me. It showed nothing. Absolutely nothing. Inside she could be laughing, just waiting for a chance to kill me.

If she knew, all she had to do was wait for me to go to sleep and let me have it. She would have committed the perfect crime. In my pocket were the three keys to all that money, and I was the only remaining person on earth who knew she was still alive. She could walk out, take the money from the boxes, and leisurely board a plane to anywhere she wanted to go.

It could drive you crazy just thinking about it.

I was wanted by the police for killing her, but she could kill me and walk off with $120,000, and nobody would even look for her.

Not for Madelon Butler, because she was dead.

Not for Susie Mumble, because she had been born here in this room and nobody else knew she existed.

It was insane. But there it was.

But did she know?

She had probably planned the whole thing the exact instant Diana James had dropped her flashlight there in the basement and we had seen her face as she reached to pick it up. She’d put it all together in that short fraction of a second—the deputy’s recognizing her, what would happen if the house burned, all of it.

But, still, could she be sure it had worked? Diana James might have been wearing a watch with her name inside