brown brick place in this, the classier part of town near the ocean. The grounds were well maintained, and the wall was low and matching brick. It would have a phone, and it might have a reasonable owner of some position in Mirador, someone who might mediate between Agnes and me and the law. The sun was setting on the horizon, and the first chill of February night roared by when I knocked at the oak door. There was a light on upstairs, so I knocked again. Then the footsteps came, heavy and slow, and the door opened.
There is good luck and bad luck and no luck at all. I never knew which would be there when a door opened. This time it opened on the double-faced Thomas Paul.
“Mr. Peters,” he said. “To what do I owe this surprise?”
There wasn’t much choice, and besides, I was pretty sure now who my murderer was, so I took the chance.
“Your sheriff is after us for murder,” I said.
“Yes, I know,” he said. “The young woman down on the beach. Won’t you come in?” He stepped back, and I led Agnes in behind me.
The hallway was dark, but the last of the sunlight was enough to see by as we followed Paul to the right and into a living room. The furniture was comfortable, soft and dark, and the walls were covered with paintings, circus paintings: clowns, jugglers, aerialists, elephants, even a band.
“I told you I wanted the circus in Mirador,” said Paul, watching my face. “I have deep feelings for the circus, deep feelings. And you, young lady, you are Helene, the charming snake charmer. I saw your act yesterday.”
“I saw you seeing my act yesterday,” said Agnes, sitting on a sofa and pulling me down with her.
Paul’s right hand went up to his face. “Yes,” he said, “I’m rather difficult to miss. Now, what can I do for you? As you know, I want to make relations with the circus as cordial as possible. I cannot, however, harbor killers.”
“Accused killer,” I said. “I know who the real killer is, and I can prove it.”
Paul looked at me with one side smiling and the other side of his face twisted in what looked like hatred. “Good,” he said. “I’d like this settled, and I don’t want any trouble. Can I get you something to eat and perhaps a file or saw?”
“Great, and get the state police here,” I said.
“Make yourselves comfortable,” replied Paul, walking out the door and closing it behind him. “I’ll take just a few minutes.”
“Up,” I said. She sighed, pouted, and got to her weary feet. We walked on the Persian carpet to the rear of the room, to a wide bay window that looked down at the beach. I could see the spot where Rennata had been killed and Nelson had found me over the body.
“Don’t you wonder why he closed the door behind him when he walked out?” I said.
“No,” she answered. “He said he’s getting the state cops and a file. That’s all I care about.”
“He didn’t say that. I asked him to do it, but he didn’t say he would. Come on.”
We went to the door of the living room, and I opened it. I could hear Paul’s voice at the back of the house through another closed door. We followed the sound, walking softly. The hallway was dark and the door thick. I could hear Paul’s voice behind it but not the words. So I pushed the door gently. It gave. I put my fingers on Agnes’ lips to keep her quiet and heard him say, “I’ll simply have to, that’s all. No, you call the sheriff. Tell him to get to my house quickly, that Peters is here threatening to kill me. When I hear the sheriff’s car pull up, I’ll shoot them and put a gun in Peters’ hand, a gun with a bullet recently fired. No, I’ll be careful. There’s still too much more to do.”
I closed the door and led Agnes back down the hall.
“That bastard is going to kill us,” she said aloud. I clamped my hands over her mouth and shook my head negatively. I got her back in the living room, told her to lean back and pretend to sleep, and I sat rubbing my eyes.
Paul, massive and now deadly, came back in the room carrying a huge plierlike black steel tool.
“This should do it,” he said. I held up my right hand and Agnes’ to reveal the handcuffs. His story to the police about having to kill us would go better if we seemed less hopeless and he more vulnerable.
Agnes looked up at him with more hatred than fear, and I gave her a look designed to keep her from giving anything away. Paul fit the pliers over a steel link and pressed down with both hands. His body shook under his gray suit, and then the link snapped, and Agnes and I came apart. We each still had a bracelet, but the sense of regaining our own separateness was a nice shock.
“The police will be here shortly,” he said. “I’ll get you a drink. Bourbon, beer, coffee, tea?” he asked as amiably as his face, body, and probable madness would allow.
“I don’t know about Agnes,” I said, rising with a stretch, “but I could use a washroom.”
“Me too,” agreed Agnes.
Paul looked at his watch and figured, as I hoped he would, that there was plenty of time for us to get to the washroom and back before the police came. It was either that or pull out the gun now and hold us, which had other risks, including a pair of victims who weren’t surprised and might cause some trouble at the very moment when they were supposed to be catching bullets between their teeth.
“Right down the hall near the kitchen,” he said. “I’d suggest you hurry. The state police are not far off, and they said they’d get here quickly.”
We thanked him and went into the hall. Next to the kitchen where we had overheard Paul’s phone call was the partially open door of the bathroom.
“You first,” I said to Agnes with a yawn and closed the door before she could step in. I looked back toward the living room, but Paul didn’t step out. Agnes followed me into the kitchen. The door to the outside was bolted. I pushed the bolt back slowly, turned the latch and opened the door. It made a little noise.
“Peters?” came Paul’s voice.
“Let’s run like hell,” I said, and held her hand as we stumbled across the lawn. We had just reached the low wall when the first shot came. It chunked into the wall, sending a spray of yellowish fragments in front of my eyes. Agnes scrambled over the wall with me behind, followed by a second shot that whizzed across the road. We crouched behind the wall and did an ape scramble across the road. We could hear Paul coming after us, and I hoped he would guess wrong and try to head us off toward the beach. When we hit the small road in front of the house, I glanced back and saw Paul leveling a small rifle at us.
I pulled Agnes down, and the third shot caught a piece of the heel of my right shoe. The closest cover was some tall grass a dozen feet away, and he was sure to get a shot off before we were up and moving. I squeezed Agnes’ hand, gave her my devil’s grin, and began to roll into the road. She did the same. It seemed like a good idea, but it almost got us killed by the car that sped out of Paul’s driveway and stopped inches from my head.
The car door opened, and an arm reached out to grab me and lift me like a teddy bear into the front seat. The arm went out again and pulled Agnes in as the fourth shot screamed through the car door and lodged in the seat near my shoulder.
“Jeremy,” I said. He drove away as a fifth wild shot went over the car.
“I was watching the house, watching Paul,” he explained, looking back in the rearview window. A car had stopped in front of Paul’s house. It was a small car, getting smaller in the mirror, but it was clearly Alex and Nelson, who got out of it and met the massive Paul, who pointed in our direction.
“You see?” I said.
Jeremy nodded and stepped on the gas. The car was Shelly’s Olds, and it proved to be reliable as always. Nelson and Alex might have caught us if they had had a little driving nerve, but that had probably been taken out of them earlier in the day by a snake and a crash. Neither of them wanted to risk nonsurvival in a second accident.
“Why not just leave me off at the side of the road?” said Agnes. “I like a little excitement, God knows, but this is going a little far.”
“Sorry, Agnes,” I explained, as Jeremy took a corner and sent me up against the door. “Paul knows we ran, knows we know he tried to kill us. If he spots you, he’ll pull the trigger and claim you had a gun, or he went mad, or who knows. No, let’s get back to the circus. I’m almost close enough to taste it.”
“The killer?” asked Jeremy. “But isn’t Paul the killer?”
“Nope,” I said, leaning back to rest. “He’s only half the tale.”
“There is little poetry in the world,” sighed Jeremy, turning another corner.
“We need what we can get,” I said with eyes closed.
