'The odds ain't good,' said Lee Coffey ruminatively. 'Couple of billion 'others'; only one of you. You can't take an interest, except pretty vague and slightly phony, in the whole caboodle of 'em.'
'Quite so,' said Mrs. Boatright genially. 'You can only start from where you are.'
'Although once you get into this business,' said Virginia softly, 'you are led on.'
'One thing comes .after another,' agreed the bus driver, and the nurse looked at him, with that quick alert tilt of her head again.
'Do you get paid, Mrs. Boatright?' said Rosemary, straightening up suddenly.
'Of course not.' Mrs. Boatright was scandalized.
'You see? She's just a parasite,' said Rosemary, half hysterically.
'Hey!' crowed Lee Coffey. 'That sounds like good old Ethel to me. Ethel says any dame whose old man has got dough is just a parasite? I'll betcha she does. So she never met a high-powered executive like Mrs. B. I'm telling you, this Ethel has got everything bass-ackward. Hey, what was it she said about blondes? You never did tell me
'Blondes,' said Rosemary clearly, 'are predatory nitwits.'
'Are-ent they, though?' said Lee to his nurse fondly. 'Aren't they just? All of 'em. This means you, too, honey- bunch. You and your definitive, your patient.' He chuckled. 'Oh boy, you know, that's Ethel's trouble, right
it-1
there? She starts out with 'some,' slides into 'many,' and don't notice herself skidding right off the rails into 'all.' '
'Ethel's a pain in the neck,' said Paul grumpily. 'I told you, Rosie, the day she sent you into a fit—'
'Ethel,' put in Mrs. Boatright thoughtfully, 'is beginning to sound like a scapegoat.'
Mr. Gibson stirred himself and said rather sharply, 'Yes. And you are all so very kind to be pro-me; I can't think why. . . . But I'd like to get this straight, please. I stole the poison. I meant to die. I stupidly, criminally, left it on the bus. I am responsible, guilty, wrong, and totally to blame.' He knew this to be true.
'Yes,' said the bus driver in a moment, thoughtfuly, 'when you come right down to it, sure you are.'
But Mr. Gibson was thinking dizzily . . . Yes, but if I am to blame, there was freedom. I could have done otherwise. Without freedom, there is no blame. And vice versa. His brain swam. I don't know, he thought. I thought I knew but I don't know.
'Not a lot of use in blame, though,' the bus driver was saying. 'It shouldn't linger. You shouldn't blow on them ashes, hey, Mrs. B.?'
'Make a note of an error,' said that matron briskly, 'for future reference . . . but file it. Now, RosemIary, powder your nose and put on some lipstick and brace up. Theo Marsh may very well be lost in some masterpiece with the thought of nourishment far, far from his mind. It would be quite like him.'
'I haven't got a lipstick,' wailed Rosemary.
'Use mine,' said Virginia warmly.
'Put a good face on it, girls,' said the bus driver tolerantly. 'A man, he takes a shave . . .'
Mr. Gibson saw Paul Townsend rubbing his jaw.
The whole thing struck him. The six of them, this heterogeneous crew, hurtling out into the country on a guess and a prayer, and conversing so fantastically.
Mr. Gibson heard a rusty chuckle coming out of him. 'You know,' he said, 'this is remarkable?'
Not a one of them agreed. He felt all their eyes, Lee's in the rear-vision miror, Virginia's and Paul's turning back, Mrs. Boatright's at his side, Rosemary peering around her. All the eyes said, What do you mean? Not at all!
'Are we getting there?' said Rosemary.
''We are,' said Mrs. Boatright
When they passed the place where the yellow bus had been left, on the road's shoulder, it was gone. Lee said, 'Hey, I wonder am I fired?' No one could tell him, and since he had sounded merely, and rather merrily, curious to know, no one tried to console him, either.
After a while Mrs. Boatright said, 'It's a dirt road. Going off to the right a few yards beyond the junction. The house is wood, stained brown, and it sits on a knoll.'
'I can see a house like that,' said Virginia. 'Look. Is that it? Up there?'
Chapter XVIll
THE LOW STRUCTURE ou the high knoll looked not only rustic but abandoned. The front wall was blank. Weeds grew up to the doorstep. On a narrow terrace of old brick, overrun by wild grass, a few dilapidated redwood outdoor chairs sat at careless angles, their cushions faded and torn. A cat leaped out of one of these and fled into the wilderness.
No sound, no sign of life came from this building.
Mrs. Boatright rapped smartly.
Without sound, the door swung inward. They could see directly into a huge room and the north and opposite wall was glass, so that this space was flooded with clear and steady light. The first thing Mr. Gibson saw was a body.
The body was that of a female in a long flaring skirt of royal blue and nothing else. It was lying on a headless couch. As he blinked his dazzled eyes, it sat up. The naked torso writhed. It was alive.
