Chapter I: Part 1

_Books by GEORGE HARMON COXE_

_Murder with Pictures (1935)_
_The Barotique Mystery (1936)_
_The Camera Clue (1937)_
_Four Frightened Women (1939)_
_Murder for the Asking (1939)_
_The Glass Triangle (1939)_
_The Lady Is Afraid (1940)_
_No Time to Kill (1941)_
_Mrs. Murdock Takes a Case (1941)_
_Silent Are the Dead (1942)_
_Assignment in Guiana (1942)_
_The Charred Witness (1942)_
_Alias the Dead (1943)_
_Murder for Two (1943)_
_Murder in Havana (1943)_
_The Groom Lay Dead (1944)_
_The Jade Venus (1945)_
_Woman at Bay (1945)_
_Dangerous Legacy (1946)_
_The Fifth Key (1947)_
_Fashioned for Murder (1947)_
_Venturous Lady (1948)_
_The Hollow Needle (1948)_
_Lady Killer (1949)_
_Inland Passage (1949)_
_Eye Witness (1950)_
_The Frightened Fiancée (1950)_
_The Widow Had a Gun (1951)_
_The Man Who Died Twice (1951)_
_Never Bet Your Life (1952)_
_The Crimson Clue (1953)_
_Uninvited Guest (1953)_
_Focus on Murder (1954)_
_Death at the Isthmus (1954)_
_Top Assignment (1955)_
_Suddenly a Widow (1956)_
_Man on a Rope (1956)_
_Murder on Their Minds (1957)_
_One Minute Past Eight (1957)_
_The Impetuous Mistress (1958)_
_The Big Gamble (1958)_
_Slack Tide (1959)_
_Triple Exposure (1959) CONTAINING_
_The Glass Triangle, The Jade Venus, & The Fifth Key_
_One Way Out (1960)_
_The Last Commandment (1960)_
_Error of Judgment (1961)_
_Moment of Violence (1961)_
_The Man Who Died Too Soon (1962)_
_Mission of Fear (1962)_

THESE ARE BORZOI BOOKS, PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK BY

_ALFRED A. KNOPF_

_MISSION OF FEAR_

Sam Adler appeared one afternoon at Marion Hayden’s door trying for the big payoff--Blackmail. The next day he was dead--paid off with a knife in the back--and for the Haydens the nightmare had just begun.

Adler’s story had been stunning enough before--now, with State Police Lieutenant Garvey pushing hard it could mean a murder indictment for both of them. And Garvey kept the questions coming fast--questions that all reduced to one: Was Ted Corbin alive? Ted Corbin--Marion Hayden’s ex-husband, and by every evidence dead these two years in an airplane accident.

Doris Lamar knew some of the answers--but she had her own good reasons for keeping them to herself.

John Hayden didn’t have any answers--yet. But he did have two photographs and a hunch; and that was why he was traveling desperately across the country now--in search of a dead man.

For if Corbin were alive he might know all the answers--might very well _be_ the answer.

This was John Hayden’s last chance: he had to find Corbin ... he _had_ to find him.

The pace and tension build in every page of this tale of greed, jealousy and hatred by the dean of American mystery writers. Here is one of George Harmon Coxe’s neatest, briskest performances.

MISSION OF FEAR

_George Harmon Coxe_

ALFRED A. KNOPF · _New York_

1962

_L. C. catalog card number_: _62-14612_

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK,
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.

_Copyright © 1962 by George Harmon Coxe._

_All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form without permission in writing from the publisher,
except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review
to be printed in a magazine or newspaper. Manufactured in the
United States of America, and distributed by Random House, Inc.
Published simultaneously in Toronto, Canada, by Random House of
Canada, Limited._

FIRST EDITION

MISSION OF FEAR

_1_

The first word John Hayden heard about the stranger who had arrived in Morrisville to threaten his marriage came from Lee Cramer, who ran the filling station at the south edge of the village. It was a gray, damp, and windy day in early March, with no promise of spring in the raw air, and now, at five-thirty, it was nearly dark when Hayden, on his way home from his small factory near South Norwalk, angled the sedan into the service area and stopped opposite the row of gasoline pumps.

There were no other customers and Cramer popped out of the concrete cube which was his office and hurried forward, leaning a little against the wind and giving a tug to the zipper on the short woolen jacket he wore over his coveralls. He was a short but sturdy man with a rugged face and a lively manner, and as Hayden rolled the window down, Cramer remarked with some disgust that it was a lovely day. Hayden said yes but at least it was a change, it wasn’t raining.

“Fill it up?”

“Please. I think the front end is okay for now.”

Cramer activated the pump’s motor, and with the nozzle inserted and the automatic cutoff working, he picked a paper towel from the dispensing container, squirted cleaner on one side of the windshield, and began to polish it. He had finished half of this when he stopped and looked at Hayden.

“Say, did that fellow find your place all right yesterday afternoon?”

“What fellow?” Hayden said, leaning toward the open window.

“He drove in here and asked if there was a good motel in town.” Cramer walked around the hood and attacked the remaining part of the windshield. “I told him The Shady Maple was the only one we had, and then he asked if I knew you. I told him yes. I said you were a regular here and he asked how to get to your place. I told him.”

“Did he give his name?”

“I didn’t ask him.”

“What did he look like?”

Cramer heard the cutoff work in the nozzle and disappeared behind the car to remove it. When he had racked it in place and stopped the motor he said: “Three-eighty, Mr. Hayden. I’ll get the book.”

When he came out of the office with the charge book, Hayden repeated the question.

“Oh--average size, dark-haired, late thirties maybe. A snappy dresser with a city look to him. The cocky type. Nosy too.”

“Oh? What did he say?”

“He said he was a friend of yours. Wanted to know if you didn’t have a factory that made citizen-band radios, and when I said yes, he asked how you were doing. By then I’d had enough. I told him if he was a friend of yours he could ask you himself. He said he would. That’s why I mentioned it to you in the first place. I thought he was going to look you up.”

Hayden signed the book and stepped on the starter, a frown working at his brown eyes as he tried to place someone who would fit Cramer’s description. When he failed he thanked Cramer for the information and drove down the main street toward Jerry’s Tavern to get his nightly after-work quick one.

In other days, before he had married and moved to Morrisville, he had commuted to a small apartment not far from the Greenwich station. Like so many of his fellow travelers, he had stopped at the Commodore or the Biltmore Men’s Bar to fortify himself with two martinis for the ride home. Since the habit was strong and since Marion seldom wanted but one cocktail before dinner, it was his custom on weekdays to stop at Jerry’s for that first drink to lessen the tensions of his work day and bring him home for his drink with his wife in a more relaxed and human frame of mind.

Jerry’s Tavern was almost directly across the street from The Shady Maple, a long, narrow, dimly lighted establishment that was part of an old building which had been sandwiched in between the more modern structures making up the rest of the block. The ancient and massive bar, the ornate back-bar, the woodwork, and the wide but uneven board floors suggested that it had always been a tavern, but under the present owner the kitchen had been modernized, so that Jerry could offer a so-called businessman’s lunch as well as dinner from an à la carte menu.

John Hayden parked opposite the tavern and fifty feet short of the motel office, which stood at the head of one of the two long rectangular buildings that housed the twenty-two units, noting as he did so that perhaps a dozen cars had been parked aslant in the quadrangle. He considered again the information given him by Lee Cramer as he crossed the wide, tree-lined village street, wondering some but not bothered as he entered the tavern and angled toward the familiar bar.

Jerry himself was presiding, as he usually did at this hour, a large and beefy man with a round balding head and very little neck. He wore white half-sleeved shirts winter and summer, thereby exposing a pair of hard and hairy forearms that tapered only slightly to his massive and formidable fists. Now, seeing Hayden enter, he reached for a bottle of bourbon, dropped ice cubes into an Old-Fashioned glass, added whisky and a twist of lemon.

“Evening, Mr. Hayden,” he said as he centered the glass and picked up the dollar bill. “When do you think we’ll see the sun again?”

“What are the odds?”

“Prohibitive.”

Jerry punched the cash register, put change on the bar, and moved away to draw a beer for another customer. Hayden took a sip of his drink and turned with one elbow on the bar to inspect the interior. He was a rangy-looking man of thirty-two, with good height and no more weight problem than he had when he was running the hurdles for the small Ohio university where he got his education. His dark brown hair matched his eyes, his brows were straight, his jaw angular but well cut beneath a wide mouth that was quick to smile and made one forget his face was a little gaunt to be handsome.

The smile came when his glance looked past the customers at the bar and he saw Doris Lamar give him a small and welcoming salute as she moved from the kitchen and began to set dinner places for a couple at one of the booths that stretched along the opposite wall. He did not recognize the pair, or the second couple who occupied the booth at the rear, but he took time to give his approval to the nicely rounded and supple body of the waitress as she went so efficiently about her work. It was as he turned back to his drink that he noticed George Freeman at the far end of the bar.

Freeman was the acting manager of The Shady Maple while the owner and his wife were spending three months in Florida, a stubby pleasant-mannered man of forty or so, with a colorless and inconspicuous look that seemed somehow to present exactly the proper appearance for the job he performed. Hayden did not know him well, but he had heard that Freeman had become romantically inclined toward Doris in the past months. Now, sitting hunched over the bar on his solitary stool, there was a look of acute melancholia on his round, boyish face, and the dark glasses he wore seemed strangely out of place, considering the hour and time of year.

Because his attitude seemed so out of character, Hayden wondered about it as he took another sip of his drink. For Freeman was normally a friendly person in a shy sort of way, and to watch him when Doris was present, to see the way his eyes followed her about, was to know that he was very fond of her indeed. Even when he was talking to someone else, his approving glance sought her out, and his smile was quick and eager and obvious whenever he caught her eye. There was, somehow, a worshipful quality in that look, and the regulars who understood the relationship would wink and grin when they noticed it. But this was a different man. This was a sullen, brooding man, and when Doris came to get refills for the couple in the rear booth, Hayden’s curiosity got the better of him.

“What’s the matter with the boy friend?”

“Scotch and water and another daiquiri, Jerry,” she said before she acknowledged the question. “Hello, Mr. Hayden. You mean George? He’s sulking tonight.”

“Why the dark glasses?”

“He had a little accident.”

“Today?”

“Last night.”

“From you?”

“From the fellow I was with.”

She did not look at him when she spoke but watched her tray, and when the drinks were ready she went away. As she did so, George Freeman slipped from his stool and started for the door. Looking neither to the right nor the left, and acknowledging no one’s presence, he marched out, and it was then that Hayden noticed the discoloration under one eye that the dark glasses could not quite hide.

Jerry, who had moved opposite Hayden, watched Freeman’s stiff-legged exit and muttered softly.

“I asked him if he ran into a door and he said no.”

“Who’s the fellow Doris mentioned?”

“Never saw him before. Came in yesterday about this time. Had a few drinks and then dinner. He was kidding around with Doris and I guess she and George had had a tiff or something because she had her back up and went along with the kidding.”

“Was Freeman here?”

“Sure. That’s the reason she was putting on the act if you ask me. He stood here glowering for a while and when he couldn’t take it any longer he went over to the table and they had some words and George took off. That’s all I knew about it until this guy shows up at ten when Doris is getting through and drives off with her.”

He went away to serve another bar customer and Hayden, sensing some movement beside him, turned to find the girl at his side. She seemed at ease now that Freeman had gone and her green eyes beneath the penciled brows appraised him as she touched her hair to see if the curled ends at the back of her neck were all in place. It was blond hair, a chemical job but well done, and he decided it suited the rest of her face, which was perhaps a bit too coarse in some features to be pretty but attractive for all that if one overlooked the permanent aging at the corners of the mouth and the disillusionment that was mirrored in her eyes. About thirty he thought, or a bit more, but this light was very kind to her and he could understand why men might be attracted to her.

“I thought you and Freeman had things worked out.”

“Not quite, Mr. Hayden.”

“I had the idea you liked him.”

“I do. But he doesn’t own me. Not yet anyway. And I didn’t start that business last night; he did.” She made a small, deprecating sound and a corner of her mouth dipped. “He’s forty but I guess he hasn’t been around women much because there’s an awful lot he doesn’t know. Why he was even jealous of you.”

“Me?” Hayden said in quick astonishment.

“Because you drove me home that rainy night a week or so ago.”

Hayden remembered the night. He had worked late and stopped in about nine-thirty for one drink. Business was slack and he asked Doris if she had a ride and she said no, so he drove her to the small cottage she had rented, a three-block ride that lasted little more than three minutes.

“George stopped here a little after ten that night,” she added, “and Jerry told him he’d let me off early. It took George all the next day to stop sulking. When he went into the same routine last night just because he thought I was being too friendly to a customer, I decided to show him he couldn’t tell me what to do.”

“Jerry said he was a stranger.”

“He was, and if George hadn’t made such a fuss I probably wouldn’t have gone out with Sam later. Not that there was anything wrong with him. He was not bad-looking, the city type, a sharp dresser. You could tell he’d been around but then”--she tipped her head and gave him a lopsided smile--“so have I. I’ve seen a lot of Sam Adlers. Cocky, good spenders, always on the make for one thing or another. Hard to discourage but not hard to handle once you understand what makes them tick.

“After George had made his little scene and I finally got rid of him, I decided to teach him a lesson and Sam made it easy. He asked when I got off and I told him. He said would I like to go somewhere later for a drink and a dance and I said maybe I would. He picked me up at ten and we went to the Log Cabin,” she added, mentioning a run-of-the-mill night spot on the Post Road. “George must have followed us because he came storming up to the table and tried to get tough. Sam was agreeable. George swung but Sam beat him to the punch and the owner escorted George to the door. Poor George,” she said and then, as a new thought occurred to her, the green eyes sobered.

“Incidentally, Sam asked about you.”

The statement reminded Hayden of the information Lee Cramer had given him at the gasoline station and suddenly an odd and unaccountable feeling of uneasiness started to work inside him. A frown dug in above the bridge of his nose and the brown eyes narrowed slightly as he studied her.

“You say his name was Sam Adler?”

“That’s the name he gave me.”

“What did he look like?”

He listened carefully as she gave her description, and the picture that came to him corresponded with the one Cramer had drawn. To this Doris added a thought of her own.

“He gave me the idea he was some sort of business acquaintance, but if you ask me you’d be more likely to find him at the race track than you would in an office.”

Hayden finished his drink and put the glass down, the uneasiness expanding and his thoughts uncertain. Sam Adler, whoever he was, had been in town since yesterday afternoon and he knew where the Haydens lived. But Marion had said nothing about receiving a caller yesterday. So maybe Adler hadn’t called yesterday. Maybe he’d called today.

He tried to remember whether his wife’s manner and actions had been any different when he came home last night and remembered now that there had been one small change. She had had a drink before he came in last night and this in itself was unusual. But he understood that women who were four months pregnant were likely to do unusual things now and then, and he had not given it a second thought. Now, aware that there was no point in letting his imagination get off the track, he knew that it was time to go home. He glanced at his watch, thanked the girl for the information, and, in the act of turning away, stopped abruptly.

“Have you seen him since last night?”

“Yes. He was in for lunch. He’s staying over at The Shady Maple if you want to talk to him. Room twelve.”

Hayden thanked her again. He said maybe he would talk to Adler, but not now. He went out quickly then, his bony face somber and signs of worry beginning to show in the dark brown eyes.

_2_

John Hayden knew as he walked into the living room of the ranch-style home they had bought six months earlier that something was definitely wrong; he knew it even before he saw his wife and the empty Old-Fashioned glass on the end table beside the wing chair.

He had parked the sedan next to the station wagon that Marion used to run around in and had come through the small breezeway to the kitchen. The door to the dining room area at the end of the living room was open and the lights were on but there was no sound and this in itself was disturbing. Always before, she was waiting for him in the kitchen by the time he had parked the car and always, even when she did not feel well, there was a smile and a kiss for him, a moment when she stood close when his arms tightened about her.

Before that, in the rented house where they had spent their first eight months of married life, there was not even a garage and she somehow always managed to hear him arrive and meet him at the door. Now he saw the ice bucket and the bottle of whisky and the steak which had been put out to defrost; the potatoes, which had been scrubbed for baking, were still on the counter and the oven had not yet been turned on.

“Marion?”

There was no answer as he crossed to the open door and he called again, his voice carrying an edge that worry and anxiety had put there. He was in the other room then, hurrying a little until he saw her in the chair, the light from the floor lamp burnishing her soft dark hair. Even then there was no reaction until he stopped in front of her.

“Oh, hello,” she said, not looking at him.

“Hi, darling.”

He bent down to kiss her and she turned her head slightly, so that his lips found a cheek that was soft, fragrant, and discouragingly cold. He straightened slowly, greatly disturbed now and a little scared. It took an effort to contain himself and he did not know whether to sit down and ask for some explanation or pretend that he was not yet aware that anything was wrong. Because he wanted to give her a chance to make the first move, he kept his tone unconcerned.

“Hey,” he said lightly. “You’ve already had a drink.”

“You always stop for one at the tavern, don’t you?”

“Sure, sure.”

“So what’s wrong with me having one too if I want it?”

“Nothing, sweetheart. Just making an observation. I’ll fix a fresh one.”

“Do that,” she said. “I think you’re going to need it. And make another one for me, a strong one, please.”

“Right.” He leaned down to take her glass. “Shall I turn the oven on?”

“Oven?” she said, as though she had never heard the word before.

“For the potatoes. Do you want me to put them in now?”

“If you want to.”

By the time he had reached the kitchen he was thoroughly upset and he stood a moment by the sink and let his breath out slowly. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the thought of a stranger named Sam Adler, but he could not yet accept the intuitive prodding that told him this man might be the key to his wife’s strange conduct. Instead his glance moved idly about the modern room and he recalled how delighted Marion had been when they first inspected the house. The owner, who had built it two years earlier, had been transferred by his company to the Pittsburgh office, and they had been lucky to get something that suited them so well at a fair price.

Now, seeing again the scrubbed potatoes and the built-in oven, he decided to ignore them. When he went to the refrigerator to get a lemon he noticed the row of gleaming copper pans on the pegboard at one side of the stove. They came in graduated sizes and Marion treated them as though they were heirlooms made of some precious metal. The knife that he usually used to cut lemon peel was not in the rack but he had no wish to look for it and he used the next size, cutting generous slices and bruising them against the bottoms of the Old-Fashioned glasses with the end of a mixing spoon before adding water and bitters and sugar, a pinch for him, a more generous portion for her. He cracked ice, added whisky, stirred, and still he stood there until he was sure he could face her with his thoughts and emotions under control.

She had not moved while he was in the kitchen, and when he had put her drink on the end table, he took the chair which faced hers from the other side of the fireplace. He took a cigarette from the silver box beside him, not offering her one because she had stopped smoking when her pregnancy was confirmed. When he had a light he said: “Cheers, dear,” and pretended not to notice when there was no reply.

He took a big swallow and the whisky put a welcome warmth in his throat and the top of his stomach. He let the silence build as he studied her, and though she still would not look at him he saw that her cheekbones, which to him had always added some extra beauty to her face, were pale now, the smooth skin taut-looking, the full, sweetly shaped mouth compressed and severe. The hazel eyes were fastened on her glass, but he could see the long black lashes, unblinking now and fixed by some inner struggle that was tormenting her. She was wearing a flannel skirt and cashmere sweater set, and it came to him now that she did not look four months pregnant.

She denied this when he had mentioned the subject before. She said her clothes were beginning to feel too tight but he could only be sure at night when, under the gentleness of his hand, he could feel the rounded firmness beneath the satiny skin of her belly that grew so gradually from week to week. He had told her that she must tell him when the first signs of life came, so he could feel it for himself, and she had promised him that she would....

He pulled his thoughts back to the moment and a sickness began to grow inside him as he tried to make his voice hearty.

“Have a tough day, baby?”

“You could call it that.”

“Any morning sickness after I left?”

“Some.”

“Has Junior been behaving?”

“Junior’s been fine,” she said in the same dull tones. “Unfortunately--” She stopped here; then, as though becoming aware of the glass in her hand for the first time, she lifted it and he could see her throat move as she took two quick swallows. She put the glass down on the end table and the sound of it was loud in the otherwise quiet room. But she was looking at him now, her chin up, the stiffness still in her face, her eyes enormous. He saw her lips quiver once and then she said harshly: “Unfortunately for Junior, he’s going to be a bastard.”

He heard the phrase distinctly but he did not believe his ears, and for that first shocking instant he was more distressed by the word itself than by the inference it conveyed. The effect was more punishing than a physical blow because it struck deep inside him and he had as yet no time to consider her meaning or speculate about the reasons for her outburst. For one of the first things that had attracted him to her was a look of breeding that he had found authentic, and in their fourteen months of married life the closest Marion had ever come to profanity was three or four determined damns, and then only under extreme provocation.

True, in the past couple of months there had been small emotional upheavals, but he understood that these were due to her condition and he made the proper allowances. He knew that she felt queasy at times, that morning sickness bothered her now and then. There were occasional tears that seemed to have no logical explanation, but if she was sometimes a bit difficult she could also be contrite; when the outbursts were over, the proof of her feeling of guilt was often demonstrated by a passion that surprised him. All these thoughts came to him as he stared at her, and before he could demonstrate or reply she attacked him again.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“I heard you.”

“Well, say something. Or do you want me to repeat it?”

It came to him then that she was trying to tell him something that he was in no condition mentally or emotionally to accept. This was no outburst brought about by some instability of the mind. He knew somehow that she was close to hysteria and such knowledge chilled him and put a further strain on nerves already ragged. He wanted to come out of the chair and shake her, to shout at her to stop this nonsense, but some inner warning signal made him sit still and demand an explanation as soberly as he could.

“Not now or any other time,” he said, an edge in his tone. “Just give a simple explanation of what you’re talking about--if you can.”

The cold, no-nonsense quality of the words had their effect, and he saw her labored breath as she fought for some self-control. He watched it, the slow gathering of that control, and her voice, when it came, was as distant as his own.

“A child whose parents are not married is illegitimate. If you prefer that word, let’s use it. All I’m trying to say is that our baby will be illegitimate.”

“What?” He felt the back of his neck prickle as he sat up, and suddenly his scalp was tight. “What the devil are you talking about? You must be--”

“But I’m not,” she said, interrupting. “I found out today that we’re not married, at least not legally.”

“_Marion!_”

“No.” She gestured impatiently with one hand. “Let me finish, please. It’s really very simple. Ted is still alive.”

He knew what she meant then but he could not accept the statement. His mind and senses rebelled and he fought against belief, even though he knew that for her there could be but one Ted. He himself had never seen the man--Marion had been widowed for six months when he first met her--but he knew that for a period of three years she had been Mrs. Ted Corbin.

“I don’t believe it,” he said, aware of the inadequacy of his words but unable to find others.

“I didn’t want to believe it either but it’s true. I saw his picture--”

A sob that was a convulsive choking sound cut through the sentence and he saw her face crumble. Tears spilled from her eyes. When she could no longer face him she bowed her head and covered her mouth and eyes with her hands. The sight of all this torment and helplessness chewed his insides and he came to his feet with a muffled curse. Two long strides took him to her chair and he went to one knee and leaned close.

In his effort to comfort her he took her hands and pulled them gently down and she did not resist. He started to slide an arm around her shoulders and draw her close, and suddenly he could feel her stiffen. When he tried to persist she drew back. Her head came up, and though her eyes were still wet, they were wide open now and there was a look in them he had never seen before. Then, as the astonishment grew in him, she put her hands against his chest and pushed.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Marion!”

“I mean it.”

The cold and brittle sound of the words told him that she was deadly serious, and although he did not understand what prompted the outburst, he wisely withdrew his arm and came to his feet.

He went back to his chair, glaring now as he saw his drink. He snatched it up and finished it in one gulp, but this time the whisky did him no good. For the anger was rising in him now, an impotent helpless anger that had no direction. It took a considerable effort for him to sit down and face her again, to see that the tears had stopped and that she was frightened by what she had done.

“Who told you?” he demanded.

“A man.”

It seemed then, as he recalled the information he had picked up at Cramer’s filling station and Jerry’s Tavern, that he already had the answer.

“Was his name Adler?”

The question seemed to startle her. “How--how did you know?”

“When was the first time you saw him, yesterday afternoon?”

He had her attention now. Her lips were parted and she moistened them with the tip of her tongue. She sat up a little straighter, the hazel eyes puzzled and all traces of hysteria gone.

“But--how did you know, John?”

He told her. He spoke of Lee Cramer and Doris Lamar and George Freeman. He kept his voice level in an effort to mask his own doubt and anxiety.

“Yes,” she said when he repeated his question. “I guess it was around four.”

“Did you let him in?”

“No. I hadn’t finished dressing. I had the chain lock on the front door like I always do when you’re not here. He said he was a book salesman. I told him I didn’t want any and he asked me if I had any children. I said no.”

“Then what?”

“He said he was selling some sort of encyclopedia for children. He seemed pleasant enough and I didn’t want to be rude so”--she hesitated and sounded a bit embarrassed as she continued--“I don’t know why I told him this but--”

“Never mind why. Just tell me what you said.”

“I told him there might be a child in another five months and if he wanted to come around again after that I might consider his proposition.” She hesitated again, a frown working on the smoothness of her brow and worry once more clouding her glance. “I started to close the door and he put his weight against it. He gave me a funny smile and suddenly I was afraid of him. I told him if he didn’t leave I would call the police and he said that would be all right with him. He said he wasn’t really selling books; he just wanted to get a look at me. He said he had a message from my husband.”

Again she stopped and once more Hayden prompted her. “What did you say?”

“I told him he was being ridiculous, that if I wanted to talk to my husband all I had to do was pick up the telephone. He said he didn’t mean my present husband; he meant Ted Corbin.”

She took a small breath and said: “I don’t know what all I said then. I know I told him I didn’t believe him, that Ted had been killed along with fifty-eight other people in a plane crash more than two years ago. I guess I said some other things and he waited until I finished, that sly look still in his eyes and that half-smile on his mouth. Then he told me I was mistaken. He said he had seen Ted two weeks ago, that he was in perfect health.

“‘I can prove it to you Mrs. Corbin,’ he said. ‘Or Mrs. Hayden, if you like it better that way. Suppose we keep it a secret, just the two of us, until tomorrow. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon and I’ll bring that proof with me. If you’re smart you’ll listen to the proposition I have in mind.’”

Again she ran out of breath and this time she stopped. She continued to look right at him but it seemed to him that she did not really see him and after another moment he stood up, the glass still in his hand.

“I take it he came back this afternoon.”

“Yes.”

“With proof?”

“He showed me a snapshot of Ted.”

“It could have been taken a long time ago.”

“That’s what I told him but I knew it wasn’t so. Ted’s alive.”

There were a lot of things he wanted to say then but he knew they could wait. He saw that his wife’s drink had scarcely been touched, and now, as he stopped beside her chair, he took the handkerchief from his breast pocket and passed it to her.

“Blow your nose.” He waited until she took the handkerchief. “And work on that drink a little, will you?”

“I don’t want it.”

“Pretend it’s medicine. We’ve got some talking to do,” he said. “I want to hear more about this proof Adler has. I want to know just what happened this afternoon.”

He moved through the dining room area to the kitchen door and stopped to glance back at her. He said he was going to make another drink and while he was doing it she could try to remember exactly what had been said.

_3_

John Hayden did not make a fresh Old-Fashioned but simply added ice and whisky to the dregs of the first one. He gave the mixture a quick and violent stir. When he had tossed the spoon aside he did not lift the glass but stood staring with unseeing eyes at the darkness outside the windows while he tried to ease the tension inside him and quiet his trembling nerves.

He held one hand out palm down and watched his fingers shake. When he could not still them he clenched his fist and shifted his glance. Again he noticed the steak, and because he knew it would not be cooked tonight, he put it back into the refrigerator and tossed the potatoes into the vegetable bin. The diversion helped and his breathing was all right now but there was some thinking to be done and it came to him that this was the time to do it.

He had to think logically, reasonably, sensibly, and he was afraid he could not do so while sitting opposite Marion and watching the naked display of emotions on her sensitive face. To see and understand her distress was to undermine his own self-control and involve him emotionally as well, and this would only further erode his own resolve to find the truth as soon as possible.

To set the pattern he directed his mind deliberately to the accident which had taken Ted Corbin’s life more than two years ago. At the time the name meant nothing to him and he had not yet met Marion, but the accident was a front-page story, not only because of the lives lost, but because the mid-air disintegration of the aircraft was so similar to an accident that had happened some months before.

He had left New York and was working for Brandt Radio and Electronics Company at the time and later, when he met Marion, he remembered the accounts he had read. At first there was some talk of sabotage because the destruction of the aircraft was complete and parts of it, as well as bodies and parts of bodies, had been scattered over a wide area of the farm land on which they fell. Later, the experts were able to determine that the disaster was caused not by sabotage but by some structural failure which, combined with the air pressure at thirty-two thousand feet, had produced the explosive effect.

He learned other details while he was courting Marion. She had already been widowed for six months when he met her at a party in Greenwich, and it was another six months before they were married. The accident had not been mentioned since, but he remembered now that Ted Corbin had gone to Illinois, ostensibly on business but actually to look for a new job. He had gone aboard this particular flight at Capitol City one evening, and about an hour out, somewhere over Indiana, tragedy had struck the plane, its crew, and its passengers.

Because of the violence of the accident, identification had been difficult in many instances; in some it had been impossible. As a result the remains of certain passengers known to have been aboard the aircraft had been buried in a common grave. Ted Corbin was one of these. He had been an orphan who had no living relatives, and Marion, in no condition to consider the grisly evidence, had taken the advice of friends and approved the arrangement.

There had been some insurance involved--a small life policy that Corbin had carried for some time, plus a seventy-five-thousand-dollar trip policy he had bought in the airport. The fact that the insurance company had paid this claim seemed proof enough that Ted Corbin did indeed die aboard that aircraft. It was this fact that now came to bolster Hayden’s contention that Corbin was dead and that Sam Adler’s scheme, whatever it was, could not be based on fact. Such thoughts helped as he picked up his glass and started for the living room.

Knowing nothing at all about the proof his wife had spoken about, he understood that she was convinced that Sam Adler had told the truth. He was willing to let matters stand that way for the present because it seemed more important to reassure her about the baby and make her understand that her fears were exaggerated, that the conclusion she had reached was subject to sensible revision. Once he had explained things to her, he could go on to the details of her talk with Adler and see just what had to be done.

“You spoke about proof,” he said as he sat down, “but let’s skip that for now.” He put his glass aside and fashioned a smile for her. “Come on, baby, take another sip of your drink.”

He waited, pleased and encouraged when she took a small and dutiful swallow.

“Okay,” he said. “Now, before you tell me just what happened this afternoon, let’s get one thing straight.” He paused again, his dark eyes intent. “Junior is not going to be illegitimate except in a very technical sense and probably not even that.”

“But if Ted is alive--”

“Please! Let me finish. If he _is_ alive, and I’m not buying that yet, you have plenty of grounds for a quick and quiet divorce that no one around here has to know about. You can do that in Nevada or Alabama or Mexico. We can be remarried just as quietly. So if we can do that, how can the baby be illegitimate?”

“Are you sure?” she said, hope touching her glance for the first time.

He was not at all sure and knew little about such laws, but he also knew there would be some way out and he lied convincingly.

“Certainly I’m sure. So let’s forget about that angle and talk about this guy Adler. He says Ted Corbin is alive and I say he isn’t. I wasn’t there at the time, but you and Roger Denham went out west after the accident. You know the facts; you told them to me. Corbin wired you that he would be on that flight. The airline people said he was checked aboard, didn’t they?”

“Yes.”

“They found his trench coat and figured this had been hanging in the tail compartment, which explained why it wasn’t burned. You identified that trench coat. The name tape you had sewn in it was still there. The baggage check they gave him when he handed in his ticket was in the pocket. They found his suitcase. Part of it was charred but there was enough still intact for you to identify his toilet kit and a pair of his shoes.”

“Yes, but--”

“Furthermore,” he went on, not to be interrupted, “the insurance companies never pay off until they are convinced the claim is justified. So let’s get back to Adler.”

He sat up, aware that he had her attention now, that all traces of hysteria had gone. “He came here yesterday afternoon and talked to you. He came back this afternoon and you let him in.”

“I had to. I had to find out the truth, didn’t I? I’d thought about nothing else for twenty-four hours. I was scared but I tried not to show it. I told him the same things you’ve just told me and he just nodded, and smiled in that sly way of his, and showed me the snapshot. It was Ted.”

“How do you know it hadn’t been taken a long time ago?”

“I just know. He had coveralls on with some insignia on the chest. I could see a little of the background and it looked to me as if he was working in a filling station. It certainly hadn’t been taken while we were married and I know he couldn’t have looked like that before that. He looked older, and a little leaner, and he was bareheaded, and tanned--”

“There could be some other explanation,” Hayden said. “One little snapshot isn’t enough.”

“He also showed me some fingerprints.”

“What?” He peered at her. “What fingerprints?”

“He had a picture of the fingerprints of one hand, a photograph. He said they were Ted’s fingerprints.”

The statement jarred Hayden and his earlier uncertainty began to undermine his thoughts, even as he sought some way to refute this new evidence.

“How do you know they’re Corbin’s?” he demanded. “Those prints could be anybody’s.”

“Adler said he could prove it if he had to.”

“How?”

“When Ted was in college he worked two summers for some government project in Tennessee. I don’t know what it was but he had to be fingerprinted. He told me. Those prints would be on file somewhere with the government, wouldn’t they?”

She shifted her weight as she spoke and leaned forward, her arms crossed and hugging her breasts. She was dry-eyed and serious now, and what she said then reminded him again that his wife was as intelligent as she was lovely.

“I think we should stop talking about the word _if_. Instead of doubting that Ted is alive, let’s assume for a moment that he _is_.”

He did not like the assumption but he was forced to admit that it had some merit.

“All right,” he said. “Adler says he can prove that your husband is alive. So what’s his angle? What does he want?”

“Just what you’d think he might want. Money.”

“How much?”

“Twenty thousand dollars.”

“And for this he gives you the picture and the fingerprints and promises to forget the whole thing.”

“Something like that.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him we didn’t have that much money and we couldn’t raise it. He said that would be too bad because in that case he’d have to go to the insurance company. He knows the insurance people paid me seventy-five thousand dollars. He said he thought that they’d be delighted to pay him ten thousand in order to collect seventy-five thousand. If he could prove what he says, we’d have to give the money back, wouldn’t we? And how could we do that?”

Hayden let out his breath and reluctantly brought into focus the thought that heretofore had been left in the back of his mind. He tried to evade it and could not. He glanced at his drink and found that it had little attraction at the moment. To give himself time he took another cigarette and lighted it with deliberate movements.

That seventy-five thousand dollars, although he did not know she had it at the time, was the extent of Marion’s dowry. She had given it to him eagerly when he had a chance to take over control of the Brandt Company after the owner had died a year ago. Without that investment he would still be a salaried employee, and while the company’s credit rating was good and its banking relations sound, his own personal finances allowed little leeway....

“I’m sorry,” he said, aware that she had spoken.

“I said, could we raise twenty thousand?”

“Probably.”

“Do you think we should? I mean, and pay him.”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“Could you pay the insurance company back?”

“No.”

“But you could pay some of it?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe they would give you some time to pay the balance.” She paused, nibbling absently on her lower lip. “We could sell the house and go back to renting for a while. That would help. We could sell one of the cars, or at least get two cheaper ones.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“But--”

“No buts either. Not now anyway.” He took a swallow of his drink and stood up, a hardness in his bony jaw and his mouth grim. “Not until I’ve had a little session with this guy Adler.”

She straightened in her chair as he spoke and traces of alarm touched her eyes.

“Not now, John. Please. I told Roger you wouldn’t until you’d talked to him.”

“Roger?” The word came out in an explosive sound and his stare was both angry and incredulous as his mind digested the implication. “Roger?” he said again. “You mean you told Roger about this?”

“I had to,” she said, close to tears again. “I had to talk to someone.”

“Maybe you had some idea about swinging this thing yourself?”

“No, it wasn’t that. Please try to understand. I intended to tell you everything. I have, haven’t I? But I needed someone who could be objective. I needed advice and I knew I could trust Roger. Roger’s smart and intelligent and he knows all about legal things. I wanted to get his reactions before I talked to you.”

There was more but Hayden did not hear it all. He could not help feeling hurt at what she had said, but as his mind moved on, the forces that had prompted her to turn immediately to Roger Denham took on some importance. For Denham had grown up with her. He knew her long before she had married Corbin, and from bits and pieces of information that had come to Hayden over the past couple of years, he understood that Denham had at one time been a suitor. He was not at all sure that Denham approved of him, but he understood that Marion looked upon Denham as a friend who was happy to advise and help her when she needed help most.

It had been Denham to whom she had turned at the time of the accident. He had gone with her to Indiana and helped with the identification and the funeral. He had represented her with the insurance company and helped her invest the proceeds until she had turned them over to Hayden. Because of this friendship, Denham had helped in setting up the present corporate plan for the Brandt Company when Hayden took over, and he was, in fact, the company attorney.

Remembering these things now, he realized that while Marion had turned to the lawyer on some impulse born of desperation, he, John Hayden, was probably going to need a lot of this same kind of help before this matter was settled. He did not like the way she had confided in Denham before she talked to him, but he could not quarrel with her now. It was natural enough that his feelings be hurt, but that was no longer the primary consideration.

“What did Roger say?” he asked.

“About the same things you did. He didn’t believe it at first. He asked if Adler had left the photograph and the print of the fingerprints and I told him no. He didn’t come right out and say so, but I think he felt the same way you did about paying for Adler’s silence. He said I was to tell you the whole story and not let you rush up to The Shady Maple and deal with Adler yourself.”

“Did he say why?”

“Well--” She gestured emptily and dropped her glance. “He said you were a rather well-adjusted person and not particularly aggressive but that men like you, when they had the provocation and lost their heads, could be pretty violent.”

“A philosopher too, hunh?”

“Please, John.”

“I’m sorry,” he said and meant it. “Okay, I’ll see him.”

She came to her feet then and for the first time there was a small smile on her mouth and a look of relief in her eyes.

“He said he’d wait in his office for your call and that he could meet you at his place after dinner if you still wanted to talk to him.” She smoothed out her skirt and twisted the cardigan back into place. “You call him and I’ll see about dinner.”

Hayden said he would make the call but she could forget about dinner. He told her what he had done with the steak and the potatoes. He said he wasn’t hungry any more; he doubted if she was either, and why not just heat up a can of soup and make a little salad?

_4_

Roger Denham lived in an old Cape Cod cottage that he had bought some years earlier and remodeled. Originally there was only the gray-shingled shell and a tree-studded, hedged-in lot, but this in itself had a charm all its own, and he had preserved most of the original features when he put in the plumbing, the heating plant, and electricity. He had good taste and he had furnished the house himself, mostly with antiques, so that each room had a comfortable, lived-in look.

As a confirmed bachelor he did more or less as he pleased. There was a cleaning woman who came mornings to get his breakfast and straighten up the place. He ate dinner out most of the time and did his entertaining at one of his two clubs. On rare occasions when he gave a dinner party he had a couple come in and take complete charge of all arrangements. Now, at eight o’clock, he answered John Hayden’s knock and ushered him into the low, beamed-ceilinged living room, with its hooked rugs and paneled walls, and waved him to the slip-covered divan.