Strange things were happening, such as the disappearance of her cashmere sweaters, which she had not mentioned to Doug lest that too be blamed on their houseguest, but Audrey knew that if Chuck were involved in any of these occurrences there was a rational explanation for such involvement.

She was aware that her position with respect to Chuck had deteriorated somewhat: until now she had refused to put him anywhere in the picture of negative events. But on reflection she could say that while Doug was a skilled evader of the truth, he had never been a blatant liar unless his sex life was the subject at hand. It would therefore be utterly out of character for him to cut from the whole cloth such a tale as that in which Chuck robbed him of money at gunpoint.

Perhaps Chuck did possess a firearm or something that resembled one and coincidentally Doug had espied this real or fake weapon while the houseguest was asking him for a loan. For it was not out of the question that Chuck might find himself financially embarrassed at the moment, in need of pin- or mad-money, say, and would find it necessary to apply to the father of his best friend. As everybody close to their son would know, Bobby was always out of pocket, irrespective of how much had lately been given him, and was himself always and exclusively a debtor.

Perhaps Chuck had been acting in Bobby’s behalf. Bobby was quite capable of putting a friend in such an uncomfortable position, and from what she had observed of Chuck, it would be in character for him to undertake such a selfless mission.

She had seen nothing in Chuck that was untoward with the exception of that instant in which he had suddenly, irrationally, clutched her left breast. But in retrospect she could now identify that incident as being a product of pure fancy: which was to say, it had not happened on the plane of that which we know as everyday reality but was rather an emotional projection of some sort. Having made that identification, and without a doctor’s help, she could go now without uneasiness to find the charming houseguest.

The door to his room was ajar when she reached it. Therefore she did not knock but opened it farther while asking, “Chuck?” Receiving no answer, she stepped in and repeated the name. But no one answered. Both bedroom and the bath were as neat as though they had yet to be used, on this Sunday afternoon, two days since the latest tour of the cleaning staff, nor had Mrs. Finch been on the premises since 4 P.M. Friday. In like circumstances, at least before his marriage (since which his mother had scrupulously avoided visiting his quarters), Bobby’s room would have been an unspeakable sty, and when the help were not at hand Audrey herself rarely even pulled up the bedclothes on arising. Actually, Doug was somewhat more self-reliant in these matters, having been sent at least one summer as a child to a camp that imposed quasi-military discipline on its charges, and certain residual effects persisted: when making a bed he could even, if he chose, give the sheets an army tuck.

But there had been no precedent for Chuck’s spit-and-polish. It was routine for Mrs. Finch to complain about the slovenliness of guests, but now it occurred to Audrey that the housekeeper had not made a single reference to Chuck, and small wonder, given the condition of this room even on a weekend.

As the current resident was not on the premises at the moment, Audrey had no legitimate reason to remain, except to wonder at the unusual orderliness. Was it likely that so neat a man could be ethically irregular? She decided just to peep into the closet: there were those who hid confusion behind closed doors.

A single garment hung on the horizontal rod: a simple tan jacket of the sort worn at golf. Apparently Chuck at all times wore the remaining entirety of the outer wardrobe he had brought with him, and it was of such an unobtrusive nature that one did not easily notice it never changed. Also there was the considerable distraction of his personality. … . Was his intimate apparel in comparably short supply? She opened the nearest of the drawers that, as in every other room, were sunk into the wall, the architect having had a distaste for pieces of movable furniture that served principally as receptacles, and Audrey had gone along with all of his ideas, being as enchanted with him as it was possible to be in the case of a man who was demonstrably without a sexual taste for women.

The first drawer opened by her was empty save for a lone paper clip, which slid forward with the motion to clatter against the front panel. The second, nearer the floor, held a number of cashmere sweaters. For a moment she assumed that, like her, Chuck had owned a collection of such garments, but unlike her had retained possession of his own. Which is no more than to say that her first impulse was as always to give the houseguest the benefit of any possible doubt. Not even the labels were accepted as conclusive proof of theft—but there could be no arguing with the size of the sweaters.

While she squatted at the ordeal of investigation, Chuck came in from the hallway. She knew it was he without turning, and for an instant she flinched, expecting to be throttled from behind.

Having been allowed to survive, she spoke to the open drawer. “I’m sorry. It’s unforgivable of me.”

He advanced to a position beside her and gave her his hand. He pulled her to her feet.

“Here,” he said, “take a look at this.” He went to the closet and slid open the door on the right: his lone jacket hung at the far left end of the rod. On the floor of the closet, in the rear right-hand corner, sat a sizable cardboard carton. Chuck thrust in his head and shoulders and drew the container out into the room, folding down the flared flaps of its top to make visible a mailing label.

Audrey submissively placed her hands on her knees and bent to examine the legend on the label. Fortunately it had been hand-printed in large capitals and was legible in the absence of her eyeglasses.

FATHER DICK O’TOOLE

CHRISTIAN MISSION

SANTA LUCIA

REPUBLICA DE PONGO

“You have so much,” Chuck said softly, behind and above her. “And they have so little.”

But this was not a note that Audrey found easily persuasive. She turned and said, frowning quizzically, “But that sounds like the tropics.”

“It gets frigid every night in the mountains where the peasants have been driven by the big landowners.”

“Presumably they come down every day to work on the plantations?”

“Exactly,” said Chuck, with a leer that seemed to hover on the edge of nastiness. He pushed the carton back into the closet and hurled the door to the closed position.

Audrey sighed. “I don’t really care. I hate those sweaters. I hate everything Doug gives me, because I hate him.”

Chuck kicked shut the drawer full of cashmere. “What does that mean?” he asked. “That you want me to do something about it?”

Audrey sighed again. “Only if you’d like to.” She realized that this could seem pitiful if misinterpreted, but was at a loss as to how to direct his reaction.

He looked away, though probably not in delicacy. “There are expenses.”

After a moment or two, Audrey came back decisively from her dream. “Oh, no,” she said. “I don’t want him killed. Oh, God.”

Chuck shrugged. “You’d better make up your mind.”

“Well, I certainly did not suggest that.” She stepped towards him. “Please be patient with me, Chuck. I think I have a certain sense of things, but of a pretty naïve kind, I suppose, by your standards. You’re younger than I, but you’ve undoubtedly seen more of the sort of life—”

He winced. “Stop driveling!”

The command was much harsher, and more fearsome, than the slap in the face she had been given by her husband, and her response now was not anger but rather self-pity.

“Take the sweaters,” she said tearfully. “And I’ve got a lot of other stuff I don’t need, which the poor people down there can undoubtedly use. Take anything—anything in the house. Just don’t be nasty to me. I can’t stand that.”

His smile was like that of a young boy. “I don’t need your permission. You have nothing to bargain with.”

Audrey was frightened, but she was also strangely thrilled by Chuck’s sudden display of what must finally be his true colors. “Then it is true? You do carry a gun?”

“Right here.” He put his hand to his groin. “Just do as you’re told. That shouldn’t be a strain on you: it’s your normal way of life.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

He laughed heartily. “Why would I want to do that?”

“We won’t obstruct you,” Audrey said. “We’re not used to this sort of thing… . Do you mind my asking? Are you a friend of Lydia’s?”

Chuck jovially raised and lowered his eyebrows. “Only since a little while ago. But I had her number the first time I laid eyes on her. She’s not your kind.”

“No,” said Audrey, “she’s not.”

“The rest of you are useless. At least she’s a good fuck.”

Audrey remembered that this was all a dream. Therefore it did not really matter what she heard, or what she said in response.

“Chuck … I thought perhaps you and I had—well, a certain sympathy, affinity …”

He let her drift for a while, then said, “You? An old lady like you?”

She did not ask permission to leave his presence. She went from the room, passed through the breezeway, and was back in the main house. The door of Bobby’s room was open, offering a view of the rumpled bed. The image had obscene and disorderly connotations for Audrey, whereas it seemed natural that Chuck and Lydia should connect sexually. She had only profited by her expedition to the room of the houseguest: her theory that those two had conspired against the Graves family had been decisively confirmed.

That called for a drink, which could be taken openly, boldly, in all conspicuous self-righteousness. She steered for the little bar-pantry just off the dining room. In ransacking her room Chuck must have discovered the half-gallon jug of vodka, which Mrs. Finch discreetly and regularly replenished. Then he wasn’t as cruel as he might have been: he could have called her a drunk. She was not all that old. She came off better than she could have hoped. Injustice is always easier to bear than punishment for the failing of which one is guilty.

Bobby woke up when his shoulder was shaken. It was his mother, who looked uncomfortably animated.

“Hi,” he said slowly, and closed his eyes again. “Is dinner ready?”

“Bobby, please.”

He reluctantly opened one eye.

“I can’t find either your father or your wife.”

“Lyd just went to the room.” He looked at his wristwatch. “My God, have I slept that long? Well, an hour or so back she went to take a nap. You remember she almost drowned.”

His mother peered in turn at each of the doorways. She lowered her voice. “How long have you known Chuck?”

Bobby scowled in exasperation. “Dad keeps asking me that! He refuses to believe me when I say I never saw the guy before meeting him here.”

“Then his connection is with Lydia. That’s been my feeling all along.”

Bobby adjusted his long body to sit up on his buttocks rather than his sacroiliac. “This is getting to be quite the joke,” said he. “Lyd didn’t know him, either!” He remembered something. “Dad’s got it in for Chuck for some reason. We had an argument about that and Dad slapped me. Imagine that: at my age.”

“Chuck is not a good man, Bobby. He’s been stealing things from this house.”

“Oh, come on, Mother, not you too! All at once you both have gotten so weird. There are a hundred good reasons why Chuck would carry a gun. After all, he hasn’t exactly shot anybody around here, has he?” Except when fooling with her plants, his mother always seemed to wear a dress, not even a blouse and a skirt. Bobby was noticing that consciously for the first time. She also always gave the appearance of being well balanced, even now. He therefore could not believe anything was out of order, even if it was she who said it was.

“I don’t know why a person would carry a gun if he had no intention of using it.”

Bobby stood up and looked down at her. “Self-protection, Mother. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to answer the call of nature.”

“Where is Lydia?” His mother blocked the route to the little lavatory in the central hallway, the one used by cocktail and dinner guests.

“I told you. In my room.”

“She’s not there. And I can’t find your father, either.”

“Where is Chuck?”

“He’s in his room. We must find your father, Bobby. He was right about Chuck, as it happens. I hate to admit it, but he was right.”

Bobby had a grievous need to pee, but he overcame it for the moment. “Now, listen,” he said with uncharacteristic energy. “Just stop this crazy business right now, before it gets seriously out of hand. Chuck was just in here a while ago telling me he was going to leave because he thought Lydia didn’t like him. Can you beat that? After saving her life? He’s a sensitive man: oversensitive, in fact. I don’t care if he carries a gun or not: he wears his feelings on his sleeve. That’s what’s so nutty about you and Dad calling him a criminal.”

His mother stared at him for a moment, and then she said gently, “You just go to the toilet, Bobby. And if meanwhile you run into Chuck, try not to anger him. If he’s stealing something, let him, for goodness’ sake.”

In the lavatory Bobby peed out of the left leg of his shorts, without having to open his fly, as he had done as a little boy: it was less trouble.

Lydia and her father-in-law were sitting at the kitchen table. Before leaving the utility room they had come to a preliminary agreement on the plan to deal with Chuck Burgoyne: she would lure him into an intimate situation and, when he was thereby thrown off his guard, would seize the pistol, then call for the nearby Doug to rush in and take over. That was the agreement, but Lydia had no intention of honoring the final clause before punishing the houseguest for humiliating her as he had. She wanted to see his reaction when she thrust the gun barrel between his legs and cocked the trigger.

She said now, “We agree that Bobby is not to know a thing about this until Chuck is taken prisoner.”

“And the same for Audrey,” said Doug. “Those people aren’t cut out for emergencies. They have to be shielded when the going gets rough. Furthermore, they both think Chuck is wonderful. Now, that can help us to keep him in a state of false security. Whereas even if they agreed with us, neither could ever be a convincing actor.”

“I know what you mean about Bobby,” Lydia said. “And it’s not a criticism. I admire such openness and honesty.” But a spurious note was creeping into this, and she desisted. Also she remembered that Bobby had often told her of his suspicion that contempt was very likely the deepest emotion his father felt for him.

Doug was on the point of speaking, perhaps to say something that would reflect on this very matter, when Audrey came in from the dining room. She glanced at Lydia in what would seem distaste, and said to Doug, “May I have a word with you?”

He raised his left hand and splayed it. “Feel free.”

She made some facial gestures. “Please.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“No, it can’t,” Audrey said with force. “Something must be done about Chuck.” She turned to Lydia and snarled, “I know he saved your life.” Turning back to her husband, she added, “But he’s bad news for the rest of us.”

Doug was squinting at her. “What are you trying to pull now, Audrey? When I tried to tell you much the same, you defended the bastard. Fact is, you convinced me. I find him a capital fellow, salt of the earth.”

He pronounced these words so convincingly as momentarily to shock Lydia, who was not prepared for irony at this instant. She hastened to make common cause with her mother-in-law.

“You’re right! He’s scum.”

Now Audrey was the one to be astonished. “You?” she asked rudely.

Doug broke in. “If I thought you could be trusted, it might be a different story.”

Lydia suddenly felt a unique urge of sororal feeling for Audrey and spoke in her interest. “Of course we can trust her! She’s found something out, don’t you see? And we need all the help we can get.”

Doug wore a faint grimace. He could be suspected of wanting to exclude Audrey at least a while longer, whatever the emergency, and he also very likely resented Lydia’s gesture towards his wife, assuming his own influence might henceforth be outweighed by femininity.

In a dramatically lowered voice he asked, “Should we be shouting, with him at large somewhere?” This was an exaggeration; there had been no cries. But his point was not without merit: it was an awfully public place, where, plans formulated, they had come so that, if found by Chuck, they would not be suspected of conspiring against him. Lydia had intended to prepare tea, but could not find the makings.

She was now aware that Audrey had been staring at her awhile. Finally her mother-in-law asked, “Can I believe what you are telling me?”

With all that Lydia had undergone this day, she could not endure persistent rudeness. “Please don’t address me in that tone. I was Chuck’s first target.” Contrary to the common theory, it had been much easier for her to specify her experience to a man than to tell it now to a member of her own sex, at least this example.

When Audrey looked to Doug for clarification, he said only, “For God’s sake, Audrey, this is no time to be dubious. The girl’s been put through the wringer.”

Audrey turned back to Lydia. “Then you too have been missing articles of clothing?”

“For Christ’s sake, Aud,” said Doug.

To him Lydia said, “It’s okay now.” She addressed her mother-in-law. “I could kill him.”

Audrey recoiled slightly. “It’s only a few sweaters. I really don’t—”

“Shut up, Audrey,” said Doug. “I thought I heard—”

The screen door was suddenly thrust open, and Chuck entered from outside. This was at the end of the kitchen, nowhere near the table, but it was not out of the question that he had heard some or even all of their conversation.

“Well, well,” he said with a good imitation of heartiness, “are we all back here already? After just eating that big breakfast? I came in to wash my hands. I’m afraid I have only bad news where both cars are concerned. I can’t get either one of them started now.”

Even in her hatred of him Lydia had to recognize how careful he had been to acquire an air of authenticity: the hands he held up for display were covered with grease.

Doug responded with a fake bluffness of his own. “You oughtn’t have bothered, old man! We’re none of us going anywhere.”

Chuck vigorously wiped his hands on a length of paper towel he tore from the mounted roll on brackets under a cabinet. “Still,” he said, “it’s reassuring to have available transport. It’s pretty remote out here without it. That’s the negative aspect of privacy.”

Lydia realized that they had better deal with Chuck without delay: she interpreted this speech as an implication that he intended to savage them all. Call her fear preposterous, but such things did happen from time to time in isolated houses. Mass murder was lately in vogue and Chuck Burgoyne when seen in this context was the typical perpetrator: a loner, but eminently respectable, genteel, handsome, charming. It was just a pity that she and Doug had worked out no plan by which they might together jump him as he washed his hands at the sink, a totally unprotected back towards them, gun way down inside his socks—if to be sure he was even carrying it now. Only Doug had seen this weapon.

She tried now to catch her father-in-law’s eye, but he was utterly occupied with Chuck and seemed at the moment interested only in foolishly topping him verbally.

“But then,” Doug was saying, “that’s pretty true of all of life, isn’t it, Chuck? You give up one thing to get another. Speaking for myself, I’d give up security any day for privacy.”

Chuck dried his hands with another paper towel. He stared at Doug. “Security? Nothing criminal ever happens around here, does it? Isn’t that the idea in coming here? To get away from all that?”

Doug stared back. “It’s what I always thought.”

Lydia was getting nervous. She had not expected that Doug would act as though moving towards a showdown with their adversary. She popped out of her chair.

“I could use some exercise.”

“Haven’t you had enough for one day?” Chuck asked, with gentle derision. “Not swimming again, I trust.”

She could not help responding defiantly. “I’m not afraid to go in the water again!”

“I’d be worried if I took you seriously,” said Chuck, with apparent irony. He was a master of the disarming effect.

This was the ideal moment to institute their plan. “Well, then,” she said, “at least I can take a walk. How about it, Chuck? Want to come along?” She tried to leer.

“What a good idea!” said Audrey, pushing back her own chair. “I could use a constitutional at this point. It’s been a sedentary Sunday.”

This was where Doug should have come into the picture to obstruct his wife, but he acted as though he and Lydia had never had their colloquy. “Oh, the devil with that,” said he. “Let’s play bridge instead.” He too rose.

Lydia changed her mind when she saw that Chuck was now at a physical disadvantage. He was not much taller than either woman, and of course Doug loomed over him.

Their instant was brief. The houseguest drew a large chef’s knife from one of the slots of the hardwood block on the counter.

He said, with a snicker-snack movement of the long triangulated blade, “I’ve got to make dinner, if we expect to eat here, and obviously we do if the cars won’t run.”

Doug backed dramatically away, though he had not been formally threatened. “Sure,” he said with a placating outthrust hand. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll keep occupied.”

Audrey suddenly made the neighing sound of what was probably supposed to be a laugh. “But Lydia doesn’t play bridge—unless she’s just been pretending.”

“That’s right,” Lydia assured her. “Someone at college once was teaching me to play hearts, but I’m afraid I have forgotten all I learned.” No doubt because she despised cards and in fact most other games: she couldn’t really understand why time should be in need of that sort of killing.

“We’ll go find Bobby,” said Doug. “Surely we can find something to play as a foursome.”

Doug was proving to be useless. Lydia saw she would have to make her own move. “I can’t boil water,” she told Chuck. “This might be a time when I could take a few cooking lessons.”

The houseguest smiled at her. “As it happens the moment is not opportune. I’ve got some delicate tasks to perform.”

But she had claimed the initiative, and moved quickly to exploit it. “Oh, I’ll just stand over there, out of the way, and watch. You’ll never even know I’m present.” She had no doubt that he would reject her plea, which was eminently reasonable, and thereby weaken his position morally, for what honorable objection could be made to so modest a request?

But in fact he shrugged and said, “Have it your own way.”

Doug and Audrey were leaving the kitchen. Lydia tried to think of something she could say, if not to detain them, then at least to reaffirm the solidarity of the threesome against Chuck, but her parents-in-law failed even to glance at her as they made an exit. Could this be treachery? Were they double agents who had now delivered her to the enemy?

“In fact,” Chuck was saying, “you can help. Get those lobsters from the fridge.”

“There are lobsters in there?” If so, they had come from nowhere, certainly were not in place when she had got the makings of the grilled-cheese sandwich she prepared for breakfast. Yet nobody had left the premises.

“Look in the crispers,” Chuck said, gesturing with the enormous knife.

She opened the refrigerator and went where he directed her. The enameled bin on the lower left held two dark-green crustaceans. They appeared comatose but not dead despite their removal from the water many hours earlier: there was a slight movement of feelers and, if one watched long enough, an even slighter indication of claw that suggested the creatures were still sentient. Lobster eyes told nothing, ever. These beasts were closer to insects than to fish, irrespective of habitat.

At home, lobsters like steaks were men’s work. Lydia had not been able to watch the boiling alive—and even worse was done by her maternal uncle Vincent, who favored grilling them over charcoal.

But she could not show the white feather to Chuck. She snatched up one of the lobsters, a finger on either side of the hard smooth shell, and carried it to the counter. The creature’s spark of life was thereby fanned. She felt the considerable power it could manifest by merely curling its tail. The two claws vigorously severed lengths of air.

“Look there,” Chuck said, laughing. “The pegs have fallen out. They can take off a finger with one snip, you know.”

She had not noticed till now that the little wooden or plastic claw-restraints were missing. When eating the cooked version she had always thought briefly how unfair it was to deny a creature its only means of defense, but as with so many other moral stances this one required modification when put to a test. Undoubtedly Chuck was right about the power of such weapons. For a moment she was leery about putting the thing down: how quickly could it turn? But at last she did so, backing away too briskly, surely destroying much of the impression she had sought to give of self-reliance.

Chuck moved the lobster to a chopping block and with three decisive strokes of the big chef’s knife cut the animal into four parts, each of which proceeded to assert an independent existence of its own, with much more power than had been displayed before the loss of general integrity. The tail writhed with such force that had he not seized it, it might have plunged to the floor and in inchworm fashion walked out of the kitchen. The claws continued to snap lethally.

“Hey,” Chuck said, grinning at her as he asked the disingenuous question, “how can this ever be?” To the lobster: “Why don’t you lay down and die, old son?” He asked Lydia to fetch him the other one.

“For God’s sake.”

“Oh,” said he in a mocking little voice, one hand on a hip, “does Missy think it’s cwoo-el? Worse than boiling alive? Which takes a minute and a half to do the trick, for your information. To experience that for yourself, stick in your pinky for ninety seconds. Next time you eat a ham sandwich, reflect that the pig you’re chewing had his throat cut while his buddies watched and waited for their turn.” He used the knife like a wand. “Are you ever honest about anything? You can’t even admit to yourself that I brought you to a climax at least three times… . Now, get me that other lobster!”

She could endure this no longer and fled from the kitchen, her strategy in ruins.

Doug and Audrey had only just reached his room when Lydia appeared. Doug’s regard for her had been highest when they had conspired alone near the hot-water heater. At that time he had been impressed by her ferocity towards Chuck. But in action she had proved disappointing, and now here she was, in distraught retreat and for a silly reason.

“Oh,” said he when they had heard her complaint, “there’s nothing sinister in that. From the sound of it, he’s probably making Lobster americaine. That’s just galvanic action, you know. They’re dead soon as the spinal cord is cut, however it might look.”

Lydia sat down on the straightbacked chair near the desk and met her falling face with rising hands. She spoke through her fingers.

“I’m not getting far.”

“We’ve just got started!” Doug noted, with false energy. “I never thought it would be easy. He’s pretty well entrenched by now. We shouldn’t have let that happen, but it did.” He shook a finger at Audrey, who was about to speak. “Oh, I admit I am as responsible as anyone else. He seemed harmless enough in the beginning.”

“Harmless!” Audrey cried. “You thought he was wonderful.”

“Now that makes sense,” said Doug. “We’ve got this criminal to contend with, and you attack me.”

“My point is simply—”

Lydia screamed here. “Stop, stop!”

Doug nodded. “She’s right. What we need now is not vindictiveness, but some constructive thinking. Here’s my idea: I don’t know a lot about cars, but I suppose I could recognize it if he sabotaged them in a simple way, like taking off the distributor cap. I’ve seen that done in a movie. I’m willing to have a try after dark.”

Audrey was hostile even to such serious planning when it was done by him. “Wouldn’t that be nice?” she asked. “You drive off and look for help. What do you think Chuck will be doing to us while you’re gone? Because he’ll certainly hear the car.”

Doug remained amiable, surprising himself. “I see what you’re getting at: you mean those left behind will be hostages. But there’s an answer to that. We’ll all get ready to go. I’ll slip out first and see what’s wrong, and if it’s easily rectified, I’ll do it. Then the rest of you run out, and off we go. I’ve just thought of a refinement: even if he has some means to get the remaining car going, I’ll deflate all four of its tires.”

His wife was still grimacing bitterly towards her shoes, but Lydia said, “I prefer the first plan. I just haven’t yet had time to apply it. I’ll have to wait till after dinner now. But it’s the best bet.”

“It’s the most likely to get you hurt or killed,” Doug said. “I’m sorry I seemed to agree, earlier on. It’s not a good plan, Lydia. It’s too dangerous.”

Lydia gave him a look in which he thought he could recognize a certain nonerotic tenderness, something not all that familiar to him even as a young boy with a widowed mother who had been in fashion in her era.

“I know what I’m doing, Doug. I’m not afraid of him.”

Now he was disappointed again: she was too arrogant, which could never be a strength. She had too grandiose a sense of her sexual attraction, and that was pathetically ironic, for to Chuck she must now be seen as used merchandise. Lydia was that most vulnerable of females: she who believed she could dominate a man by means of sex.

“Well, I’m afraid of him,” he said, “because I’m unarmed. I’ve always hated guns, and I’ve seen a lot of them. My father owned a virtual armory. He hunted big game and belonged to clubs with private firing ranges and trapshooting. And one day he took one of his finest pistols, puts its muzzle into his mouth, and blew his brains out.”

“Oh, my,” said Lydia.

“I didn’t want to make you feel worse,” Doug said. “You didn’t know him.” He cleared his throat. “What I wanted to say was, I have always detested guns for obvious reasons, but I wish I had one now, unloaded of course; I couldn’t shoot a man. I’d just use it to disarm Chuck. Once he lost his advantage, he would be nothing. He’s just a skinny little squirt. He’s got a few years on me, but I could take him with one hand.” This was no empty boast: Doug had boxed intercollegiately as a light heavyweight and in his city office had a silver cup to prove it. He was that rare sort who in middle age weighed five-ten pounds less than his youthful fighting weight. His left jab had been deadly of old; there was no reason to think Chuck would not buckle and drop when it hit him. If not, then the following right uppercut would lift the little skunk out of his shoes. But it was folly to think of such matters as long as the houseguest was armed and he was not.

At this point Bobby entered, using the loping stride his father hated to see in a man who was no longer a teenager.

“Oh,” said Bobby, “here you all are. Where’s Chuck?”

Doug had neither locked nor even closed the door, for he did not want Chuck to arrive without warning, as had happened at the outside entrance to the kitchen, and he had counted on being able to hear the man’s footsteps in the long uncarpeted hallway. But here was Bobby, having come silently on tennis shoes. Doug went to look up the hall. It was empty. He closed the door and turned the key. If Chuck did appear and found himself locked out, retaliation could be expected. Therefore dispatch was essential.

He spoke sternly to his daughter-in-law. “Lydia, kindly tell Bobby how serious the situation is. He won’t listen to me.”

Grimacing, she complied. “Bobby, Chuck is no good. … . He’s evil, he’s—”

Audrey broke in. “Suffice it to say he’s not the man we took him for. He swipes things. He takes advantage of our hospitality. … .”

Bobby smiled without mirth. “You’re all three in it now? He’s a great guy. I just don’t understand why you all want to knock him. And you, of all people, Lyd!”

“Lydia,” Doug said, “it isn’t my place to tell your husband what must now be told. You’ll have to. Go back to the bedroom.”

Bobby followed his wife; she closed the door behind them.

“Do we really need this overdramatizing?” Audrey asked. “All that’s required is that you simply go to the boy and lay down the law. I thought that’s what Lydia was supposed to be doing in the kitchen.”

“Don’t you yet know that Chuck raped her?”

Audrey bit her lip. She seemed angry. “I wonder if we can believe that.”

“Who would make up such a story? Isn’t rape the kind of thing women tend to conceal?”

His wife shook her head. Her jaw was stubbornly prominent. “Not when it might give them prestige.”

“Something’s wrong with you, Audrey.” And he knew what it was: she was cold sober.

The bedroom door opened and Bobby emerged. He wore a foolish grin. Looking at neither of his parents, he walked methodically to the door, unlocked and opened it, and left.

After a moment Lydia came out. She spoke to her father-in-law.

“He doesn’t believe me,” said she. “Can you believe that?”