seemed to have nothing to do at all with Mary Rogers or her death. Nor did they explain why Seabright or anyone else would have any reason to want to eliminate Thorn. Nothing here to tell Thorn who was guilty, where to start a search . . .
A faint sound, aboveground, out of doors but near the house. A car had stopped.
Someone else was coming to the mansion.
* * *
There was no hurry on this job, no need to be furtive. As former butler-bodyguard in the house, the man called Brandreth still had a set of keys. If the police or the FBI or reporters should be watching the place this morning, he could tell them he had been sent by Ellison Seabright to check on things, and Ellison Seabright would back him up.
Brandreth eased his car to a stop outside the iron gates, and got out to unlock them. Even before he stopped, he had noticed the other car, parked a little distance away on the other side of the road. Whoever was watching the place from over there wasn't trying to be very subtle about it. Brandreth of course would go on in, the perfectly respectable servant doing a job. Only when he was in the house and sure, very sure, that he was alone, would he get on with his real job and go to open the small hidden safe that Gliddon had told him of . . .
A couple of hours earlier, about dawn, Brandreth had met Gliddon in a small town in northern Arizona, to get keys and instructions. Brandreth had been at the door of the dingy hotel room, leaving, when Gliddon called him back. 'And, listen, if you ever get any ideas about seeing what's on those tapes and films and putting them to use yourself—'
'Not me, boss. Not me.'
'—then you can go right ahead and try. They're not
'I will. I—'
'How are you going to do it?'
Brandreth, with an inward sigh, leaned his large body against the doorframe. Gliddon's stare always unnerved him and he tried to take a relaxed pose in order not to show it. 'Want me to bring 'em here?'
'All the way up here? No. I won't be here anyway, I have to disappear again. Just tear them up, burn them, scatter the ashes. Then stay in Phoenix, where I can get hold of you by phone. I may have another job for you soon.'
Brandreth looked a question.
'No, I don't think it'll involve wasting anybody, this time. Never can tell, though.'
'I did all right on that Blazer, huh?'
'I guess.' Gliddon looked meditative. 'It just bothers me that the guy we were supposed to get wasn't in it after all. Maybe we shouldn't have been so cute, using delayed timers and all.'
'That was your—'
'I know, my idea.' Gliddon spoke very patiently and reasonably. 'I just didn't want your thing going off in the hotel garage, injuring innocent bystanders and all. Too much heat gets generated that way. It's bad publicity. Well, it looks like maybe we got rid of Thorn anyway; he may still be running. And I don't think our employer's really unhappy either that we blew up that bothersome broad. Teach her to go out with strangers.' And Gliddon had smiled.
Brandreth, watching, felt something like a shudder, purely internal. Even if Gliddon was not as big, and a queer besides, Brandreth was afraid of him.
* * *
Now, several hours later, Brandreth going calmly about his butler's business had just got the iron gate unlocked when he heard a car door from across the road. He looked up and saw that a lone man had just got out of the vehicle, an ancient sort of wreck, that was parked over there. The man was walking across the road toward Brandreth, approaching tiredly, almost reluctantly. Not a cop, probably not a reporter either, although there was nothing specific about him to rule out either possibility. He had long brown hair and an unkempt beard, and looked as if he hadn't slept all night.
When the man got close he said: 'I was just watching, wondering if anyone was home over here.'
'The house is vacant now, sir.' Brandreth was wary, but confident. He had several inches and about thirty pounds on the other man, not taking into account the pistol in his belt under his jacket, if this turned out to be a game of some kind. 'I'm one of the staff. I just come round periodically to check if everything's all right.'
'Oh.' The other considered this, with vacant sadness. He put his hands in his pockets and brought out a big- bowled pipe and put it away again. 'I'm Robinson Miller. Mary Rogers was . . . was a good friend of mine. She used to live here once. Maybe you knew her.'
'Sir?'
'Mary Rogers. The girl who was blown up with a bomb last night. I've been at the morgue, looking at her, trying to find out something from the police. You ever look at anyone in a morgue? Who's been all torn to pieces by a bomb?'
Brandreth had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. Talk about coincidence, this was good. Gliddon would get a chuckle out of this one when Brandreth told him—or would he? 'I'm sorry to hear that, sir. There was something on the radio about someone being blown up in a car.'
'She was out here, at this house, last night, you see. With a man named Thorn, the one the car was rented by. Did you know that?'
'No, sir, I had no idea she was here last night.' Brandreth found the impulse to smile completely gone. He was watching this dazed man very carefully and at the same time trying to think. 'Dorlan, he's the regular caretaker, would have been here then.'
Robinson Miller wasn't really listening. 'You see, I talked to the police at the morgue, but I didn't really say anything important. I wanted to think things over, first. Like I might have an idea of who was behind the bombing. It was these people here, this Seabright bunch, who killed her, one way or another. Oh, I don't blame you, you just work here. There was a man named Gliddon who worked here too, and he's supposed to be dead now but he's not.'
'He's not?' Brandreth had no trouble at all in sounding surprised.
'No he isn't. Thorn told us that and they killed him, or tried to. Mary knew it, and they killed her.'
This sounded like it might be too serious to let it get by without taking action. 'Sir? You really don't look well. Would you like to come into the house for a moment? I can get you a cup of coffee, or a drink, or something.'
Miller sighed. He rotated his head, and rubbed the back of his neck in weariness. 'That's good of you. Maybe I will, if you're sure they're all gone. I wouldn't want to face them just now. I don't know what I might do.'
'They're all gone, I'm sure. Listen, there might be a thing or two I could tell you about the Seabrights, if you're interested. I don't want to get involved, though.'
Miller suddenly looked somewhat more awake. 'A thing or two? Like what?'
'Oh, not about bombings. Nothing like that. But . . . look, sir, why don't you just drive your car in through the gate, and park near the house? There's been some problem lately with vandalism in the neighborhood.'
'With my car, it doesn't matter,' Miller said. But then when Brandreth looked anxious he trudged back across the road and started up his engine. With the gate standing open, they drove both cars in; then Miller waited in his while Brandreth locked up the gate again. Then he followed Brandreth's car up to the house, where neither car would be visible from outside the gate.
As he led the way up to the main door, Brandreth looked the place over carefully. The house looked tightly closed up, all right. But as soon as he had unlocked and opened the front door, he stopped; an overhead light just inside was burning, and he had thought that the electricity was supposed to be already turned off. Well, things might go a little easier on this visit if it wasn't.
Like a good butler Brandreth switched the overhead light off now, then gestured deferentially. 'The bar's downstairs, sir. If you'd like a drink.' Downstairs was more certainly private, if things should happen to take a turn for which privacy appeared desirable, as Brandreth was beginning to feel sure they would.
'It's morning, but—hell yes, I want a drink.'
Since the power was still on, Brandreth led the way toward the elevator. Once he had his guest down in the
