But what about Hardesty? Why, when he so obviously distrusted and detested Doc, had he told him of my visit? He wanted me to share his distrust and hatred. He meant to work me up to the point where I would. That was my answer: I was not yet, in his opinion, sufficiently worked up. I was not ready to be used. Until I was, he was chiefly interested in seeing that I did nothing which might cause me to be returned to Sandstone.
Myrtle Briscoe-I stopped in my pacing and sat down again. Myrtle. She was using me to get Doc. I was a rope she was giving him with which to hang himself.
And Doc… Doc had foreseen that she would know, and guessed that she would react as she had. He was tolling out rope of his own. He was certain he could tighten it before she could tighten hers.
And Mrs. Luther? Was she working with one of the three or did she, too, have a plan?
And Madeline…?
No, not Madeline. I'd never had the slightest doubt about her. My instinct told me just one thing about her: that she was good and that she loved me. If I was wrong about that, then I was wrong about everything. And maybe I was.
I didn't know anything. All I had was guesses. Guesses which, when you probed them and tried to follow them out, became ridiculous.
If Eggleston was wrong about the pardon, then most of my conjecturing collapsed. Doc might be my friend. It could be that he had become aware that we were being pressed toward a dangerous situation and that he intended to avoid it at all costs.
Oh, hell, though. That couldn't be right. It-
I gave up. I undressed and got in bed. Yes, and I went to sleep. You can only think so much and I was far ahead of my quota for the day.
The next day was the beginning of my second thirty-day period on parole. I called Myrtle Briscoe's office from a drug store, and asked what time I should report. She told me curtly that I needn't bother to come in- unless there was something I wanted to tell her.
I said there wasn't. She banged down the receiver.
It wasn't much after nine when I reached Madeline's apartment, and she was still in bed. Instead of coming to the living room door, she stuck her head out the other one, the one to her bedroom.
She closed it after me, gave me a fiercely affectionate hug and flung herself down on the bed again. She was wearing white sleeping shorts and a white sleeveless pullover.
She sprawled out on the pillows, raised her legs straight in the air, and grinned at me impishly.
'Guess I'll just stay here all day,' she announced.
'All alone?' I said.
'Guess I won't either.' She let her legs down, sat up and yawned. 'So-oo tired. Make me some coffee, huh, honey?'
'All right,' I said.
'I'll get into something while you're gone. So you won't be thinking evil thoughts.'
I told her I never had such things, and went on back to the kitchen.
I put a pot of coffee on the stove, and slipped a couple of pieces of bread into the toaster. While they were getting ready, I put a napkin on a tray, laid out marmalade and butter, and sliced an orange. The whole business didn't take more than five minutes. I was pretty practiced in getting her breakfast.
I picked up the tray and started for the bedroom. And, then, I halted there in the kitchen door and stood staring. The bedroom door was still open, as I had left it, and I could see her almost as plainly as though I'd been in the room with her. And what I saw sent a cold chill of shock along my spine.
The sleeping trunks and pullover lay on the floor at her feet. She'd got into a pair of thin white panties, and her hands were behind her, working at the clasp of her brassiere. She was completely lost in thought. She wasn't thinking about dressing, but about something- someone-and those thoughts were anything but pleasant.
Always before, even when she was serious, she'd appeared gay, good humored, light hearted. I'd never seen her any other way.
I stepped back into the kitchen, and waited a minute or two. Then I began to whistle and started for the bedroom again.
'Well,' she said, as! put the tray down on a reading stand. 'What took you so long?'
'Oh, I took my time,' I said, carelessly. 'I didn't want to catch you undressed.'
'No-o!' she said. 'I'm sure you wouldn't want to do that.'
I poured coffee and sat down on the bed with her. She'd put on a pair of slacks and a sweater and was propped up on the pillows, her knees drawn up.
'Good,' she said, nibbling on an orange slice. 'Very good.'
For the first time since I had met her, I found it difficult to talk. To respond to her aimless, impish chatter. It was grotesque in the light of what I had just seen. I had the impression of being drawn into a game while a flood tide rose around my neck.
She finished eating, and I lighted a cigarette for her. My hand trembled a little as I held out the match, and she steadied it with her own hand.
'What's the matter with you this morning, Pat?'
'Matter?'
She didn't say anything. She merely lay back, waiting, her brown eyes inscrutable.
'I've been a little worried,' I said. 'Maybe that's it.'
'Worried about what?'
'About what's going to happen to me. About what is happening to me.'
'Is?'
'Yes,' I said, and I told her about the car and my talk with Myrtle Briscoe. At some point in the telling, she suddenly sat up and gripped my fingers.
'Pat,' she said. 'Had you thought about telling Myrtle?'
'Yes,'! said, looking squarely at her. 'I've thought about telling her everything. About everyone and everything. It might send me back to Sandstone, but I think I'd have plenty of company on the trip.'
'You might'-she released my fingers- 'Why don't you do it?'
Her voice was flat, her gaze as steady as mine. I'd made a threat and what it had got me I didn't know. Advice-or another threat.
'I'm sorry,' I said. 'You're the only person I know to turn to, and turning to you doesn't seem to do any good. There's no reason why it should, of course, why you should help me-'
'Do you really believe that, Pat?'
'I don't know,' I said, 'what to believe.'
'No,' she nodded, 'and there's your answer to everything. You don't see anyone's problems but your own. You don't trust anyone but yourself. The fact that I won't tell you everything I know is interpreted to mean that I'm against you. That's all you can see.'
'I don't think that,' I said.
'Yes, you do, Pat. And you're wrong in doing it. I haven't told you any more than I have because it isn't a good thing for you to know it. You'd blunder into something that you're not big enough to handle.'
'I'm supposed to sit still and do nothing?'
'That's about it.' Her face softened. 'That has to be it for the present, honey. Whenever there's anything to be done, I'll let you know.'
She squeezed my hand, and then she sat up and put her arms around me. She drew me down to
