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"Oh, botheration!" I said, somewhat too loudly, as I sat up and
tossed my head, hard, so that the hair obediently fell back into
place. Sleek as you please. No tumbling curls for Fremont Jones,
alas.

God help me, I was in a quandary. For even as I fell asleep I
found myself wondering if Frances and Patrick had known each other
all along, if they had set this whole thing up just so that he
could murder Mrs. Locke and end up with my friend. With a sinking
feeling so profound it was almost as if the pit of my stomach had
nailed me to the bed, I wondered:
And what if they killed Ingrid
Swann, too, just so that when Patrick and Frances started out their
tandem enterprise, there would be less competition?

But I could not think about it for long, because I was very
tired, and I fell asleep still wondering.

I do not sleepwalk. Absolutely do not, never have, never will
walk in my sleep. So how in the world was it that I found myself
outside my bedroom before I was truly awake? Or was I dreaming?

I have heard that the urge for self-preservation is very deep,
and perhaps that was what had propelled me from my bed and into the
corridor in my nightgown, where I stood trembling, coming awake to
the rapid beating of my own heart. Coming awake quickly, too, for
all in the same instant I remembered rolling out of bed and
slithering out into the hall, along with the sounds that had caused
me to do it.

If I got through this, I realized not much later, I would owe my
survival to Michael twice over, although he was not even physically
present: First, because he had given me the silk nightgown I was
wearing-and this gown was not some pale bit of fluff, but rather
oriental in style with a high neck, long sleeves, and side buttons,
and most important of all it was dark in color, garnet red. Second,
because I'd been sleeping alone, missing Michael, I had been curled
around his two pillows as if they were him . . . and had left those
two pillows like a lump under the bedclothes when I rolled out of
bed.

Therefore, as the sound of stealthy footsteps came inexorably up
the stairs, I faded farther and farther back along the hallway,
keeping to the shadowy side of the wall. There was very little
light anyhow, as the night outside had apparently clouded over and
we were missing one of the two streetlamps. Quickly I undid my
braid, shook my head, and let the hair fall over to obscure my
white face. I might have gone down the back stairs and out of the
house, and perhaps I should have-for I had no weapon, the gun being
in the drawer of the bedside table, and my walking stick with its
trusty hidden blade standing in its customary place in the corner
of the bedroom. But I did not go so far as the back stairs. I
wanted to see who had invaded my house.

A large person but light on his feet. A man, surely; dressed in
dark, conventional clothes, including gloves; he seemed to have no
face at all. An illusion, of course. He must be wearing a mask.
There was no way on earth even to begin to guess at his identity. I
held my breath, my mind a catalog that ran like lightning through
every way conceivable-and some inconceivable-to surprise him into
taking off that mask while not physically endangering myself.

It was hopeless. There was no way, and without a weapon there
was nothing whatever I could do. If I'd had Michael's keys, if I'd
kept them instead of giving them to Frances, I might go over to the
other side of the house and lock myself in.

Frances! Yes! Big as he was, that masked figure (which had just
now entered my bedroom] was not Jeremy McFadden, but that meant
nothing. McFadden had many people in his employ. And what if he had
assumed she would logically come to me, or indeed if he had had
someone already in place to follow her here, with instructions to
wait until the house was dark and quiet, then go in and do the
deed. What if I had dismissed my earlier suspicions of McFadden
entirely too easily?

I shuddered, as from within the bedroom came a muffled, whompish
kind of sound, followed by an equally muffled exclamation, and then
some ferocious slashing. I surmised what my intruder had done in
Michael's pillows. Later examination of the bed's carnage-or I
suppose one should say rather "featherage"- proved me correct in
this surmise. But at the moment the time had clearly come to flee,
and so I did, down the back stairs, which was the logical way to
go.

All the way down, my mind continued to run rapidly through the
various possibilities-there had to be,
must
be, a way to
catch this dastardly fellow, take him into custody, and force him
to Tell All. But there was not, for without a weapon I was
helpless. I could not hope to overpower someone so much bigger than
I.

When I reached the first floor I hesitated, listening hard, and
bristling with questions:
Why had I never taken the time to
learn jujitsu, like my friend Meiling Li? Might I have time to call
the police from the office? Even if I did, could they possibly get
here in time to get this intruder?

The footsteps, which were the only sounds this fellow made,
other than stabbing and slashing, came to the top of the back
stairs and started down. I held my place there at the bottom, not
at all sure what I would do.

THE BACK STAIRS ascend from-and therefore descend to-an enclosed
area off the kitchen that the previous owner of the house had used
as a pantry. To one side is the back door, and to the other, the
door into the kitchen. I noted now that the back door stood ajar,
though I was certain I had locked it earlier, at the end of the
workday, as was my habit.

I assumed the intruder had gained entry that way-in spite of
Michael's installation of the new, heavy bolts on all outside
doors. A swift glance at the door to the kitchen confirmed that it
was still shut, as I had left it; or perhaps this intruder was a
neat sort of person who had closed the door behind himself on
entering the house proper, while leaving the outer door ajar for a
quick getaway. For he
had
gone through the house; with my
own eyes I had seen him come up the main stairs.

I did not so much
decide
what to do as just wait until
the moment came when I
knew,
and then I did it. The intruder
was descending the stairs slowly, carefully, probably on the
lookout for whomever he had thought he'd find in my bed-i.e.,
myself or Frances McFadden. (I still hadn't a clue which one of us
he was after, but Frances did seem the more likely.) There was no
place for me to hide except beneath the stairs themselves, so that
was what I did. I tried not to breathe at all, which of course was
impossible, and so I took only the shallowest sips of air. The
footsteps sounded directly over my head, then passed as it were
down my shoulder, and all the while I listened with every bit of
accuracy I could wring from my normally keen hearing. Would he
leave the house by that open back door, or would he go through the
kitchen, to search further?

Suddenly it was absolutely clear to me what had to happen: He
must be made to leave the house, in a way that would convince him
returning, or proceeding to the other side, would be a poor idea
indeed. I had but one weapon: the element of surprise.

And I used it. When I heard his footsteps reach the bottom of
the stairs, I filled my lungs, and as those steps paused, the way
we all do in moments of deciding where to go next, I burst out from
my hiding place screaming at the top of my voice. My hair streamed
down in front of my eyes, I could scarcely see what I was doing. I
must have looked like a Fury as I charged at the intruder full tilt
with my arms braced out stiff in front of me, screaming all the
while. I knocked him off balance, jerked the door open with one
hand, and while he was still off balance, with all my strength I
kicked him through, slammed the door after him, flipped the bolt,
and realized first that I had ripped my nightgown up one side with
that forceful kick, and second, that the intruder must have picked
the lock or had some sort of master key, because the lock was
intact, bolt and all. I should have to take Michael or Wish
Stephenson to task about that, because hadn't they both said the
new locks were virtually foolproof?

After a moment of euphoria, I knew I was not necessarily safe
yet. Protecting myself came first. I went upstairs and got the gun
I so hated to use, the Marlin that looks and sounds like a small
rifle. I levered a cartridge into the chamber, making the
distinctive ratcheting that fell like music upon my ears. Perhaps
guns are not so bad when one truly has need of them. Then I
snatched up both the leather pouch containing additional cartridges
and my walking stick for good measure.

This time I went down by the main stairs, half expecting to see,
silhouetted against the etched glass of the front door, a man's
dark shape-the shape of an intruder, perhaps a murderer, identity
as yet unknown.

Yet he was not there. I telephoned Frances, and it was only then
I realized, with a sudden, sickening sinking of my stomach: He
could have gone to the other side of the house first! What if she
did not answer? How could I bear it? The telephone rang, and rang,
and rang. . . .

At last, after a delay interminable and intolerable, when I was
about to give up and had begun to mentally prepare myself for the
worst, I heard a click . . . and then Frances's sleepy voice said,
"Oh, hello? Did you ring?" She sounded so vague, she might have
been making inquiry of the instrument itself.

All my protective instincts, which for some reason she could
always evoke, came rushing to the fore and I heard myself lie to
her: "Frances, it's Fremont. I'm sorry to wake you, but I've had a
bad dream, a nightmare, and now I'm afraid to be alone."

"Oh, well then ..." she said, still vague, still more than half
asleep.

I interrupted: "I'm coming over to spend the rest of the night
on Michael's couch. If you don't mind, give me about five minutes,
then go to the front door. I'll knock three times-then you let me
in."

She agreed. I used my five minutes to call Wish and explain
everything. He said he would come right down to the office and
bring the police with him. He would handle it, he promised; and
knowing my aversion to his former colleagues in blue, he said he
would manage it in such a way that I would not even have to talk to
them if I didn't want to. Of course I assured him that I did not
want to!

It rather quickly developed that I wanted only to escape back
into sleep. So, obviously, did Frances, who was yawning and rubbing
her eyes as she let me in.

Shakespeare, I reflected as I curled up beneath the afghan on
Michael's couch, had said something about sleep knitting up the
raveled sleeve of care.
Macbeth,
was it? Regardless of the
play, it did seem to me a good idea, as at the moment I felt
considerably raveled. With the gun behind the cushions and my
walking stick to hand, I managed to go off into the Land of Nod,
where I hoped the Hand of Morpheus would reassemble me.

At ten o'clock the next morning we held a conference around the
kitchen table: Wish, Edna, Frances, and I.

Looking rather grim, Wish said, "It would take a master
locksmith to open that particular type of deadbolt lock without
leaving a trace. This is someone highly skilled we're up against,
very clever, and I'm inclined to think-begging your pardon,
Fremont-that his slashing the mattress and pillows may just have
been the work of a professional burglar venting his frustrations
when he found you had nothing worth stealing."

"And what do the police think?" I asked, stiffening my backbone.
It was a little insulting, though a better solution to the problem
of the intruder than any I had thought of.

"They think the same. With some encouragement from me, of
course," Wish said.

"Then why, I ask you," Edna chimed in with a note of incredulity
in her voice, "didn't the bur-gu-ler, when he saw how it was an
office here, go straight to the other side of the house where
there's nize stuff, an-tee-kees and all? And why didn't he open up
desk drawers down here looking for money? He could've took the
typewriter, too, that's worth a lot."

"She has a point," I said.

Frances stifled a yawn politely with the back of her hand. She
looked pale and strained, an appearance which was not helped by the
fact that my plain skirt and blouse appeared, on her, excessively
severe. Especially as the blouse did not quite meet over her ample
breasts, and so she had taken my old black shawl and crossed it,
like a fichu, over the offending appendages, then anchored the
shawl's ends beneath a belt that emphasized a slender waist upon
that otherwise curving body.

I did not think there was much point to asking her, other than
to keep her alert, but I asked anyway: "Frances, last night on your
way here, did you ever at any point suspect that you were being
followed?"