The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow

Unexpectedly, as John Flint carried his wife’s breakfast tray into the bedroom, It came back. Came back was not really the right phrase, because now It was never completely out of his mind. But the spring sunshine, which stole through the half-closed drapes, must have had some quality of Mexican sunshine, for suddenly he was in Mexico City again, breathing the exhilarating mountain air and feeling the wonder of its strangeness.

“Had a good night, dear?” With neat automatism he balanced the tray on his wife’s knees and hardly hearing Amy’s patient, invalid’s response, murmured: “Well, mind you call Dr. Jepson if there’s any trouble.”

He crossed to the frilly vanity table, and opening the little jewel box, brought it over to his wife’s bed. Since he had performed this ritual every morning for five years, he knew exactly what she was doing—although he himself was three thousand miles away. First, the diamond-chip bracelet was slipped onto the thin left wrist; then the clasp of the real pearl necklace was snapped beneath the heavy bun of dark hair, streaked with grey. Then came the two solitaire-diamond earrings. Amy had taken to wearing this jewelry, inherited from an aunt, ever since the first heart attack which had made her virtually bedridden. John Flint had never really wondered why—he was not a curious man; perhaps it was her gesture of rebellion against the drabness of invalidism. After her bad nights, she asked him to help with the earrings; but she didn’t today.

“Well, goodbye, dear.” He kissed the dry forehead which reminded him dimly of paper. “Tell Mrs. O’Roylan I’ll be back for dinner.”

He was always home for dinner, but those were always his parting words. In the kitchen, bright with shelf paper and flowered oilcloth, he prepared his own breakfast. The daily woman didn’t come in until nine-thirty. After stacking the dishes, he moved out into the suburban street lined with neat little homes just like his own, and walked the three blocks to the trolley which would take him to the center of town.

As he jolted through the tame prettiness of the city spring, with children, housewives, and other businessmen seated around him, It was still with him. At times these curious spells puzzled him, although they had been coming with increasing frequency during the last two years. He had been to Mexico City for a month’s vacation a long time ago and he had been fascinated by its exotic beauty. But later, through the years of a dull, not unhappy marriage, he had hardly given it a thought. Why should it have returned to him now?—so transformed, so wonderful and shining like a mirage of Paradise.

He knew that he should bring himself down to earth. There was a lot to be done to perfect his new sales-promotion scheme which had already won an unofficial nod of approval from the head office. As the town’s sole representative for Bonifoot Shoes, John was a conscientious employee. But his painstaking efforts to concentrate on shoes only brought him visions of huaraches, and then of bare, dust-stained Mexican feet padding over distant sidewalks—the feet of Indian peons from the hills, carrying baskets of rare flowers, strange fruit, and exotic pottery to the markets….

When he reached the one-room office where he conducted his business modestly, without the aid of a secretary, John Flint still felt the odd sensation of not belonging here. In these periods he wasn’t a man of forty-three dutifully wedded to a bedridden wife and a humdrum job in a banal industrial city. He was—what? A boy—that was it—a boy, free as the mountain wind, in a world where Popocatepetl’s great hump loomed against a translucent sky.

It was the arrival in the office of Harry Shipley which pulled John back to reality. He hadn’t seen Harry for a long time—not since Harry had worked for a while as a salesman for Bonifoot Shoes. But he looked exactly the same—the same flashy sports coat, the same violent, hand-painted tie; the same false camaraderie; all designed to counteract the essential insignificance of his face and personality.

Harry Shipley sat down opposite the desk where the mail, which John had picked up from under the door, still lay unopened. The moment Harry started to speak, John sensed a touch. And he was correct. Kind of a tough period, Johnny. Just the right opening’s hard to find. There were marital difficulties, too. Harry had never got on with his wife. Now finally he had persuaded her to agree to a divorce. He was desperately eager to get to Reno and then start a new life with a new girl—a fresh start far away—say, on the Coast. He had a little saved up, but not enough. If John, as an old pal, could see his way clear to a loan of five hundred dollars—

It wasn’t difficult to plead temporarily straitened circumstances himself and get rid of Harry Shipley. But the look of bleak disappointment on the other man’s face remained to haunt John. Secretly he had been impressed by Harry—daring to attempt something so bold as a divorce and a new life. For a moment, as an image of Amy’s emaciated figure passed across his mind, he thought It was going to come back….

There were two letters from the head office. One finally okayed his promotion scheme, which involved a street check and the distribution of coupons for free shoes. The second letter was from the Personnel Manager. As John read it, his heart began to thump violently.

Dear John,

Old Pemberton, our Mexico City representative, is going to retire shortly. He finds the altitude too tough on his ticker. Gummet tells me that you are familiar with Mexico and that you have applied for a South of the Border position. So, if you feel like a change of scenery, here’s your chance. There’s no hurry about this, but let me know as soon as you can.

Yours for bigger Bonifoot sales,

Sam

John Flint found himself shivering. This couldn’t be true. Life didn’t do this for you. Of course, several years ago he had told Gummet, the District Manager, that he would like a South American assignment if one ever came up. And yet … and yet … Suddenly It was upon him again, as if It had known all along and had been preparing him for this moment. And now It was much more glorious than ever before. For this was real. Those bustling, colorful streets three thousand miles away were no longer a mirage. They were his future—a true, concrete future which nothing could snatch away.

He read the letter again and, as he did so, his glance settled on the sentence: He finds the altitude too tough on his ticker. A chill began to invade him and with it rushed the image of Amy lying, bejewelled, in her dim bedroom; Amy nursing her high blood pressure and her faltering heart. Somehow in all his golden dreams he had never thought of Amy. With a sense of impending disaster he called Dr. Jepson and listened in silence to his clipped, relentless reply.

“Take Amy to Mexico City? My dear man, a week in that altitude and she’d be dead. Out of the question. Quite out of the question. It would be murder.”

Late that night John Flint lay awake in his bed. Only a few feet away, his wife’s thin figure was stretched, invisible, in the darkness. He had not told her about the Mexican offer. What was the point? It would only make her feel guilty, make her feel more of a drag on him than she felt already. If only she could be cured! He had a little nest egg put away. And then there were her jewels. Wasn’t there some specialist—New York? Even London? But he knew this was only idle dreaming. Dr. Jepson had made that abundantly clear many times. There was nothing that could be done for her condition.

Against his will he started to think about Harry Shipley. Harry was divorcing his wife, beginning a new life. Divorce … But how could he divorce Amy? She had no one in the world but him. And it wasn’t her fault that she was sick. What had she ever done to him except try to be as little trouble as possible?

John scrambled out of bed as he had done a thousand times before and turned on the bedside lamp. Amy blinked up at him. She had forgotten to take off the earrings. They glittered with incongruous splendor beneath her untidy hair. Because John had loved her and knew that it was his duty to go on loving her, he had not for years really thought about her or even looked at her. But now he had been jolted from his anesthetizing habit-pattern and he saw with merciless clarity the rough skin under the defeated eyes, the sharp angles of her cheekbones, the withering neck. She was suddenly a stranger, something infinitely removed from the solemn, fresh young girl he had married….

So it’s this, he thought, almost wonderingly, that stands between me and everything that matters. It’s this pointless woman who is chaining me forever to this prim little house, this suburb, this awful town.

He went down to the pretty kitchen. As he was pouring milk into a glass, the thought came, sudden, shocking, unlike any other thought he had ever had.

In his mind, faint guitar music was trailing from behind pale pink adobe walls. What was that song? Oh, yes, he remembered:

Ya yo me voy

Al puerte donde se alla…

Next morning John Flint awoke with the thought: What if burglars broke in some afternoon when Amy was alone in the house and killed her for her jewels? It was not impossible. Mrs. O’Roylan was a confirmed gossip. Everyone in the neighborhood must know about Amy’s jewels and her odd habit of wearing them in bed. All that day, as he put the last touches on his Bonifoot promotion scheme, he kept the Personnel Manager’s letter unanswered on his desk and the thought of burglars in his mind. Now that he had invented them, it seemed somehow certain that they would come. That evening he returned to his house with a fearful expectancy, half dread, half joy, of what he might find. But Amy greeted him with a smile from her bed: it had been one of her good days.

John could never have told exactly when he decided to make the burglars real. But the next day in his office he found himself working out a Plan with the same impersonal efficiency which he used to tackle one of Bonifoot’s problems.

The burglars would come on Thursday afternoon, of course, because Thursday was Mrs. O’Roylan’s afternoon off and Amy was invariably alone. In his mind’s eye he saw burly men, with handkerchiefs tied over their noses and mouths, creeping up the stairs to the bedroom. Amy was lying there in the semi-darkness, behind closed drapes, the jewels gleaming at her throat and ears. She would see the intruders, of course, so they would have to be quick. A pillow pressed on her face—that would stop her cries for help and work swiftly, considering her heart condition, with a minimum of discomfort to her. He could picture the men, after the deed, fumbling the jewels from the limp body and stealing furtively away.

By this time the burglars were so lifelike that it was all he could do to remember that they would, in fact, merely be himself.

And what of him? At the time of the crime, of course, he would have to be far away, in some definite place, where there would be unimpeachable witnesses to his presence.

It seemed obvious that his Bonifoot promotion scheme should somehow provide the alibi. The scheme was a simple publicity stunt which the company had never tried before; but they had been impressed with John’s idea and, if his first tests proved successful, they were considering adopting it throughout the nation. Every day for a week, John was going to stand at a busy midtown intersection, taking note of all the wearers of Bonifoot models who passed him on the sidewalk. Every tenth individual who walked by wearing Bonifoot Shoes would be stopped, asked his or her name and address, and then given a coupon entitling the lucky person to a free pair of Bonifoot Shoes at any of the local stores. As a final twist, every hundredth Bonifoot patron who passed by would receive a coupon for five pairs of shoes.

Yes, if the burglars were to kill Amy next Thursday afternoon, John would be standing with his notebook at the corner of 15th and Market.

But how? That was the kernel of the problem. How could he be at 15th and Market and at his home, three miles away, simultaneously?

It was the thought of Harry Shipley that clinched it. Harry’s blank, nondescript face with its typical salesman’s grin came into his mind—and suddenly John Flint saw his way.

“Johnny, old horse!” Harry’s voice was thick with eagerness. “I knew it. I knew old Johnny-boy wouldn’t let me down.”

“Fine. How about coming over to the office right now. I’ve got a little proposition.”

While he was waiting for Harry, John Flint surveyed his own reflection in the mirror behind his desk. He had always disliked his face. It was so depressingly ordinary: a smooth, uneccentric face which could have been worn by any of countless thousands of small businessmen or salesmen; a face, surely, that gave no hint of his personal uniqueness. But now, for the first time, the colorlessness of the reflection pleased him. He practiced a jovial salesman’s grin. Yes, that vacuous face might be anyone’s face—Harry Shipley’s, for example.

He called the railroad station and was told that the Western Express to Reno arrived daily from New York at 6.47 P.M. and left at 6.49 A.M.

When Harry Shipley burst exuberantly into the office, he was wearing grey flannel trousers and a brand-new, flashy sports jacket, beige with large orange squares. On his necktie, two hand-painted cockers struggled cutely for a bone against a tan background.

“This week I’m up to my neck. Got a promotion project that’ll keep me on the streets all day. I need someone to hold down the office. Just to answer the telephone and make a couple of trade calls. That’s all it amounts to. If you’ll do that for me, I’ll write you a check right now. You can knock off a hundred bucks for salary and pay me back the rest when you’re good and ready.”

As John scribbled the check, Harry’s gratitude was almost oppressive. Sure, he’d start work tomorrow, sure, he’d do anything for old Johnny. And, boy, come 6.49 A.M. next Thursday this town wasn’t going to see him for dust.

When finally Harry got up to leave with the check in his pocket, John Flint glanced from his own sober grey lounge suit to the dazzling sports jacket.

“Sure. Just picked it up the other day at Hunt & Hunt.” Harry fingered the necktie proudly. “Picked this up too. Sharp, isn’t it?”

“Very sharp. Wear them around the office, Harry. I like a snappy dresser. Gives people a good impression.”

After Harry had left, John went out to Hunt & Hunt. A sports coat, exactly like Harry’s, was on the rack. He bought it. He also bought a tan necktie with gamboling cockers, and a pair of grey flannel trousers. He took the box back to the office and hid it in a closet.

That evening, as he jolted home on the trolley, the lumbering vehicle seemed suddenly to be crammed with Indians. Bunches of Easter lilies, almost sickeningly sweet, seemed to be jostling against his face. Bajando. The air was full of excitable Mexican voices. Bajando …

Next morning, at nine o’clock, Harry Shipley, in his gaudy sports jacket, all smiles and coöperation, showed up at the office. John explained the routine setup to him and then sent him off with some new Bonifoot samples to a large department store. Once he had gone, John Flint produced the box from the closet and quite calmly, as if his entire life wasn’t changing, slipped into the sports jacket and flannel trousers and knotted the cocker necktie beneath his collar. Putting his own suit back in the box, he returned the box to the closet and studied his reflection in the mirror. His features, actually, were not at all like Harry’s. But essential insipidity gave them a kinship. A hearty smile, and, for all any casual observer would notice, that might be Harry Shipley beaming back at him from the glass.

With his notebook and his coupons, John Flint took the trolley to 15th and Market. There he spent the day, conscientiously taking down footwear details, giving out the coupons, noting the names and addresses of the recipients. This was his scheme and there was no reason not to make a good job of it. But The Other Thing was always there, excitingly in the back of his mind. It made him take pains to attract the mild attention of the cop on the block and of the cripple who sold newspapers outside the bank building. A casual greeting, a smile, the beige and orange sports coat—they were enough to make him a distinct if unimportant feature of the corner.

During the day he telephoned his office several times to keep a check on any business that had come up. At five o’clock exactly he called for the last time and told Harry he could go home.

Back in the empty office, he typed up his material for the day and changed back into his grey business suit and sober tie, returning his borrowed plumage almost lovingly to the box in the closet.

He repeated this procedure for four days, and during those days he behaved at home exactly as he had always behaved. He found it surprisingly easy. Something had happened, something which had made Amy completely unreal to him. Every morning he brought her breakfast tray, every morning he went through the ritual with the jewel box. Every night he slept in the bed next to her. But she wasn’t there—especially at night when the Personnel Manager’s still unanswered letter glowed in his mind and then slowly, luxuriously dissolved into a panorama of broad foreign avenues, brilliant with sunshine, lovelier, more desirable than the streets of any earthly city….

The fifth day was Thursday. Before John left the house, he unbolted the kitchen door. Later, when Harry, still in the snappy sports jacket, hurried flushed and apologetic into the office a few minutes after nine, John greeted him with a friendly smile.

“I’ll say I am. Bags all checked at the depot and my ticket bought. Johnny, you old horse thief, if you knew what you’ve done for me!”

“Think nothing of it. Look, Harry, something’s come up from the head office. I’ve got to work on it all day and this is the last day of my street survey. Think you could take over the survey for me? You know the Bonifoot models by now.”

It did not take long to brief Harry on the survey. John explained how to make notes of each Bonifoot model that passed, how to handle the free coupons.

“There should be a hundredth coming up today. That person gets the coupon for five pairs of shoes. And always keep a careful time note. That’s important. Jot down the exact minute you give out a coupon. I’m using that in my report. And, Harry, no sales talks, no personal conversations with the coupon winners. I want to keep this whole thing dignified.”

“Fine, Johnny. And until five, you say? That’s a cinch. Plenty of time to bring my notes back here before I get that train. Boy, that train! Will I be singing hallelujah when I finally see the last of this old town!”

After he had sent Harry off to 15th and Market, John Flint resisted the temptation to write to the Personnel Manager and accept the Mexico City offer. He found an old copy of Brush Up on Your Spanish in his desk drawer and carried it out with him to lunch. At two-thirty he took the trolley to his home. It was practically empty and, in any case, his ordinary appearance and drab suit were a perfect camouflage against attracting attention.

Now that the moment of climax was approaching, he didn’t exactly feel calm. It was a stronger emotion than that. He felt exalted, infinitely capable, as if there was nothing in the world he couldn’t carry off. Some kids were playing ball on a corner lot. It was all he could do to keep himself from jumping off the trolley and running to join them. If he hit that ball, it would travel all the way to the moon. That’s it—that’s where he was going—all the way to the moon….

He had to be careful that no one should see him entering the house at this uncharacteristic hour. He dropped off the trolley several stops before his regular one, and, choosing a deserted side street, slipped around to the back door of the house. He turned the knob and entered.

It was so long since he had been home on a weekday afternoon that the quiet kitchen seemed oddly unfamiliar. From upstairs, he could hear symphony music playing on Amy’s radio. That was odd too. He disliked classical music and he didn’t know that Amy ever listened to it. Quietly—although there was no need to be quiet—he went up the stairs and through the open door into the somber-draped twilight of the bedroom.

Almost before he saw Amy herself, he saw the jewels. They made little glittering areas in the shadowy monotone. Then Amy noticed him and her voice came warm with pleasure, young, the way he remembered it.

He crossed to the little alley between the two beds. She was smiling, and in the vague light she looked fragile and girlish. But he had travelled too far into himself to feel any pity for her.

“Oh, John, that music!” She made a move as if to turn off the radio. “I know you hate it. But lately when I’ve been lying here alone …”

As he slipped one of the pillows from beneath her head, she patted his sleeve shyly.

“It’s wonderful that you’ve managed a free afternoon on a Thursday, John. Thursdays, without Mrs. O’Roylan, always seem to drag so. But then I shan’t complain, shall I? I won’t spoil this lovely treat. I …”

He brought the pillow violently down against her face. The impact of the unexpected blow knocked her head back onto the other pillow. Caught between the two smothering surfaces, she struggled for a little while. Then her body went limp.

John let his pillow drop to the floor. Automatically, as he had acted a thousand times before, he took off the pearl necklace, the diamond earrings, and the diamond-chip bracelet. Only this time, instead of replacing them in the jewel box, he put them in his pocket. He stood for a moment looking at the dimly discerned body which had no reality for him. Then he removed from her dangling wrist the little watch he had given her on their tenth anniversary. He peered at its dial. It said exactly twenty minutes past three. He threw it on the floor repeatedly until it stopped, so that the precise time could be established from it later. Tossing it on the floor by the bed, he tugged drawers open and simulated a hasty search for other valuables. Then, leaving the radio still playing, he walked out.

With a crowbar from the cellar he forced the bolt on the back door to show where the burglars had broken in. Putting the crowbar back where he had found it, he slipped out through the yard and picked up the trolley four blocks away.

He had rather thought, now that he had killed Amy, that It would come back. But no. While he rode into town, he was still John Flint who had just murdered his wife. He did not feel any emotion. But he was still alert, capable, reviewing what he had done, searching painstakingly for flaws. He could find none. All that remained was to get rid of the jewels, to wait in the office for Harry to bring back his notes from the survey, and then to make sure Harry caught that train.

He had already decided the fate of the jewels. He got off the trolley at the stop before the bridge and carefully choosing his moment as he walked across, dropped them into the grimy river. He saw them go with no pang. The jewels had no part in his future. It hadn’t been jewels that he had wanted from Amy.

At exactly five-thirty Harry barged into the office in a state of great excitement and self-satisfaction.

“Here you are, old boy—all the notes. Exactly the way you said. Gave out coupons. Didn’t even whistle at a blonde. The real dignified gentleman—that was me.”

He hovered while John studied the pencilled notes. They couldn’t have been more desirable. That afternoon, between two and five, two regular coupons had been handed out and at precisely three-fifteen, one special five-shoe coupon had been given to a woman. Her name and address, like that of the other recipients, were neatly marked down with the exact time.

“You thanking me? That’s for laughs. Johnny, old boy, you’ve saved a life today—that’s what you’ve done.”

Harry’s effusive thanks went on for so long that John began to worry about the train. But that was all right, too. At ten to six Harry went exuberantly off to the station.

As John studied the notes, he began to feel a deep craftsman’s satisfaction. He had pulled it off. He had done what he had set out to do. He had managed to be in two places, three miles away from each other, at one and the same time.

While Amy was being smothered by the burglars in that dimly lit bedroom, he had been at 15th and Market giving a five-shoe coupon to … what was the woman’s name? He consulted Harry’s notes again. Miss Carmen Gonzales, 1374 Pine Street.

Carmen Gonzales. That name, redolent of distant sunshine and soft Mexican laughter, was surely a favorable omen. The two words rang prettily in his ears, as he carefully typed up Harry’s notes, added them to the complete file of the survey, and burned the papers which bore Harry’s handwriting.

Everything was set now. He changed into the violent sports outfit and packing his grey suit in the box, wrapped it and tucked it under his arm.

At home, he let himself in by the front door as usual. He went straight upstairs. Hardly glancing at the thing on the bed, he unpacked his suit and hung it neatly in the closet. He left the radio still playing and took the empty cardboard box down to the cellar. Then he went to the telephone in the hall. His voice sounded stunned and incredulous even to himself as he called the police.

It was then that a sudden, unrehearsed detail occurred to him. Mrs. Roseway next door had often been kind to Amy; she had brought her doughnuts when she baked; and a couple of times she had sat with her at night when John had had to entertain out-of-town salesmen. He ran now to his neighbor’s house, beating on the front door with his fists. When Mrs. Roseway, plump and amiable, appeared, he gasped: “Amy! Quick! Something terrible has happened to Amy!”

Mrs. Roseway was with him when the police arrived. And while he hunched in apparent apathy in the living room, Mrs. Roseway took them upstairs. Through the long confused interval that followed, when the house seemed to be full of a regiment of plain-clothes men and police officers, Mrs. Roseway was constantly at John’s side, encouraging and comforting him. It was Mrs. Roseway who confirmed the fact that Amy had always worn her jewels in bed and that the jewels were missing. And after John had given his own faltering statement, she plunged to the defense of his as yet unchallenged character. John Flint, she said, was a model citizen, the most affectionate, the most admirable husband on the block.

The Police Inspector, like everyone else, treated her with respect, and, partly for her sake perhaps, was as tender with John as a godfather. When the investigation was finally over, it was obvious that John would have to go with the police to the precinct headquarters. But the Inspector patted his shoulder.

“This is a clear case of breaking and entering. And we can prove you were miles away at the time. But we’d better drop by your office, pick up the records of that survey, and check with those people you say you’ve got on the list. That’ll establish it once and for all. And you’ll feel better when we get that alibi on record for you.”

They drove to the office, John gave the survey file to the Inspector. At headquarters, policemen were sent to pick up the three people whose names and addresses appeared on the afternoon list and also, at John’s suggestion, the cop on the corner and the crippled news vendor.

The cop and the news vendor were the first to be brought in. They both glanced at John, sitting by the Inspector’s desk.

“Yeah,” said the cop, “he’s been around the block all week doing a survey or something.”

The first of the coupon recipients was an elderly woman with the slightly harassed air of a solid citizen unused to police stations. On the Inspector’s instructions, she studied John carefully and then said: “Yes, that’s the man who gave me the coupon. I wouldn’t forget that coat. This—this doesn’t mean the coupon’s no good, does it? I haven’t used it yet but I was planning …”

“No, lady. The coupon’s fine.” The Inspector consulted John’s typewritten list. “It says here he gave you the coupon at two-ten. That right?”

“Yes, that would have been it. I had just been around to the five-and-dime store and …”

The second coupon winner was a young man with a jaunty air. He was even more satisfactory than the woman.

“Sure, I remember that tie. Pretty keen. Figured I might buy one just like it. Keen.”

All that was needed now was Carmen Gonzales. Once she arrived and established the key moment of the alibi, this would be over. John Flint, leaning back in the wooden chair, began to feel a strange affection for the stuffy, drab atmosphere of the police station. He had never been in one before and he hadn’t expected it to be like this. It was almost cosy. But only his surface was reacting to it. Underneath, holding itself patiently in check, but waiting, waiting to surge up again, was It.

As he sat there, John Flint began to realize that something immensely important was happening inside him. All his life, up till now, he had been haunted by a nagging sense of failure. Even It, if he had ever dared to admit it, had been only a daydream, a compensation for the dreariness of reality, a shimmering mirage of what might have been but never would be. He had never really believed he would get to Mexico. No, even after he had started to plan Amy’s death, he had never believed that It could actually be achieved.

But he had done it. Miraculously, by his own unaided efforts, he had forced life to go his way. He, John Flint, had done that, calmly, efficiently, without a faltering step. Who else among his circle of friends and acquaintances could have pulled off so magnificent an enterprise. Harry? The idea was laughable. He felt a growing wonder at himself and a new, burnished pride.

It was half an hour before Miss Carmen Gonzales was brought in by the officer. She was young, dark, pretty as an exotic tropical flower, and at the sight of her It was suddenly released in John and exaltation rose through him. Señorita. That was the word that came with her, and magically, once again, the broad paseos, the softly padding Indians, the little boys scurrying around vending lottery tickets—all vibrant in his mind, beckoning …

John was hardly paying any attention to what was happening now, but he saw the girl glance quickly at him and then turn nervously to the Inspector. She was obviously ill at ease. That touched him. You couldn’t expect an exquisite little girl like that to be calm in a police station.

“Yes, sir. But what’s the matter? The officer wouldn’t tell me. Why have you brought me here? What have I done?”

Carmen Gonzales was drifting into It now. Hand in hand, John and this lovely girl were walking down leaf-fringed boulevards—to the bullfights, perhaps….

“Now, there’s nothing to be frightened of, miss,” said the Inspector paternally. “We just want you to answer a few questions. This afternoon at the corner of 15th and Market Street did you receive a coupon entitling you to five free pairs of Bonifoot Shoes?”

A flush started to spread under the girl’s dusky cheeks. “I haven’t used it yet. I can give it back.”

Suddenly the girl spun to John and clutched his arm. “Oh, Mr. Flint—you must be Mr. Flint, aren’t you?—I’m sorry. You’ve been so wonderful to Harry. He’s told me about the loan and everything. I knew we shouldn’t have done it.” Her pretty pleading face was close to his. “I told Harry it was mean, petty, almost like stealing. But he thought you wouldn’t mind. He said that the five-pairs coupon had to go to someone—so why shouldn’t I be the hundredth person to walk by? You see, having to get the trousseau and everything to join Harry in Reno … Five pairs of shoes, it did seem such a wonderful chance. But we shouldn’t have done it. Oh, Mr. Flint, you’re kind. I know you’re kind. Don’t make a charge against Harry; don’t have him arrested.”

What was happening inside John Flint was terrible. It was as if an atomic bomb had plunged from the air without a sound of warning, raging into his dream city, cracking the tall buildings, splitting the boulevards, smothering the sunlight in a miasma of dust.

The girl turned. “He’s my fiancé. And Mr. Flint has been wonderful to him, lending him money for the divorce, giving him a job as his assistant when he didn’t really need one. Just to be kind. This afternoon he sent Harry on the street survey and—well, Harry shouldn’t have done it, but he called me up and told me if I joined him right away on 15th and Market, I would be able to get the free coupon. He …”

Carmen Gonzales spun back to John Flint, leaning towards him, pathetically eager to justify herself, to convince him that, even though she and Harry had done a shoddy act, they were genuinely sorry.

“Please, Mr. Flint.” Awkwardly she fumbled the coupon from her pocketbook and held it out to him. “Take it. I couldn’t ever use it. Five pairs of shoes! Why, that’d be over fifty dollars! I can’t imagine how we could have been so—so completely despicable.”

“And, Mr. Flint, I only hope that one day you’ll be in trouble. Then Harry and I will really be able to prove our gratitude.”

ALL THE WAY TO THE MOON