When he showed particular interest in one piece, she identified it for him: "That is a U.S. rifle, that is to say, a military rifle, Model of 1819-"

"With a J. H. Hall action," Captain Pekach interrupted.

"Oh, do you know weapons?"

"And stamped with the initials of the proving inspector," he went on. "Z. E. H."

"Zachary Ellsworth-" Martha began to explain.

"Hampden," Captain Pekach concluded as their eyes met. "Captain, Ordnance Corps, later Deputy Chief of Ordnance."

"He was born in Allentown, you know," Martha said.

"No. I didn't know."

"There are some other pieces you might find interesting, Captain," Martha said, "if I'm not taking you away from something more important."

He looked at his watch.

"I'm running late now," he said.

"I understand," she said.

"But perhaps some other time?"

"If you like."

He gestured around the gun room.

"I could happily spend the next two years in here," he said.

He means that. He does want to come back!

"Well, perhaps when you get off duty," she said.

He looked pained.

"Miss Peebles, I'm commanding officer of the Highway Patrol. We're trying very hard to find the man the newspapers are calling the Northwest Philadelphia serial rapist."

"Yes, I read the papers."

"I want to speak to the men coming off their shifts, to see if they may have come up with something. That will keep me busy, I'm afraid, until twelve-thirty or so."

"I understand," she said. Then she heard herself say, actually shamelessly and brazenly lie, "Captain, I'm a night person. I rarely go to bed until the wee hours. I'm sure if you drove past here at one, or even two, there would be lights on."

"Well, I had planned to check on your property before going home," he said. "I've stationed officers nearby."

"Well, then, by all means, if you see a light, come in. I'll give you a cup of coffee."

After five minutes past one that morning Martha Peebles could no longer think of herself as the world's oldest virgin, except for cloistered nuns, perhaps.

And her father, she thought, would have approved of David, once he had gotten to know him. They were very much alike in many ways. Not superficially. Inside.

Martha knew from the very beginning, which she placed as the moment, post coitus, that he had reached out to her and rolled her over onto him, so that she lay with her face against the hair on his chest, listening to the beat of his heart, feeling the firm muscles of his leg against hers, that David was the man she had been waiting forwithout of course knowing it-all her life.

Captain David Pekach drove directly from the meeting in Staff Inspector Peter Wohl's office at Bustleton and Bowler to 606 Glengarry Lane in Chestnut Hill. He parked his unmarked car in one of the four garage stalls in what had been the carriage house behind the house, then walked back down the drive to the entrance portico.

The door opened as he got there.

"Good evening, Captain," Evans, the black guy, greeted him. He was wearing a gray cotton jacket and a black bow tie.

"What do you say, Evans?"

"Miss Martha said to say that if you would like to change, she will be with you in a moment."

"We're going to dinner," Pekach said.

"So I understand, sir. Can I get you a drink, Captain? Or a glass of beer?"

"A beer would be fine, thank you," Pekach said.

"I'll bring it right up, sir," Evans said, smiling.

Martha had told David that Evans "adores you, and so does Harriet," and Evans was always pleasant enough, but there was something about him-and about his wife-living in the house and knowing about him and Martha that made Pekach uncomfortable.

Pekach climbed the wide curving stairs and went down the corridor to "his room." That was a little game they were playing. The story was that because he lived to hell-and-gone on the other side of Philadelphia, he sometimes "stayed over." When he "stayed over," he stayed in a guest room, which just happened to have a connecting door to Martha's bedroom.

Every time he "stayed over," which was more the rule than the exception, either he or Martha carefully mussed the sheets on the bed in the guest room, sometimes by even bouncing up and down on them. And every morning either Harriet or one of the nieces made up the guest room bed and everyone pretended that was where he had slept.

When he went in the guest room, there was clothing, not his, on what-because he didn't know the proper term-he called the clotheshorse. It was a mahogany device designed to hold a jacket and trousers. There was a narrow shelf behind the jacket hanger, intended, he supposed, to hold your wallet and change and watch. He had never seen any clothing on it and had never used it. He hung his uniforms and clothes in an enormous wardrobe.

When he opened the wardrobe to change into civilian clothing, there was another surprise. He had expected to find his dark blue suit and his new gray flannel suit (Martha bought it for him at Brooks Brothers, and he hated to remember what it had cost). The wardrobe was now nearly full of men's clothing, but neither his dark blue suit nor his new gray flannel suit was among them.

"What the hell?" he muttered, confused. He turned from the wardrobe. Both Evans (bearing a tray with a bottle of beer and a pilsner glass) and Martha were entering the room.

Martha was wearing a black dress and a double string of pearls long enough to reach her bosom.

My God, she's good-looking!

"Oh, damn, you haven't tried it on yet!" Martha said.

"Tried what on?"

"That, of course, silly," she said, and pointed at the clothing on the clotheshorse.

"That's not mine," he said.

"Yes and no, Precious," Martha said. "Try it on."

She took the coat-he saw now that it was a blue blazer with brass buttons.

"Honey," he said, "I told you I don't want you buying me any more clothes."

"And I haven't," she said. "Have I, Evans?"

"No, Captain, she hasn't."

There was nothing to do but put the jacket on. It was doublebreasted and it fit.

"Perfect," Evans said.

"Look at the buttons," Martha said. He looked. The brass buttons were the official brass buttons of the Police Department of the City of Philadelphia.

"Thank Evans for that," Martha said. "You have no idea how much trouble he had getting his hands on those."

"Where did the coat come from?"

"Tiller and Whyde, I think," Martha said.

"That's right, Miss Martha," Evans confirmed.

"What the hell is that?"

"Daddy's tailor-one of them-in London," Martha said. "Precious, you look wonderful in it!"

"This is your father's?" he asked. The notion made him slightly uncomfortable, quite aside from considerations of Martha getting him clothes.

"No, it's yours.Now it's yours."

"I suggested to Miss Martha, Captain," Evans said, "that you and Mr. Alex were just about the same size, and all his clothes were here, just waiting to feed the moths."

"So we checked, and Evans was right, and all we had to do was take the trousers in a half inch, and an inch off the jacket sleeves, and of course find your policeman's buttons. Evans knows this marvelous Italian tailor on Chestnut Street, so all you have to do is say 'Thank you, Evans.' "

"Allof those clothes?" Pekach said, pointing to the wardrobe.

"Mr. Alex always dressed very well," Evans said.

Captain David Pekach came very close to sayingOh, shit,I don't want your father's goddamn clothes.

But he didn't. He saw a look of genuine pleasure at having done something nice on Evans's face, and then he looked at Martha and saw how happy her eyes were.

"Thank you, Evans," Captain Pekach said.

"My pleasure, Captain. I'm just glad the sizes worked out; that you were just a little smaller than Mr. Alex, rather than the other way around."