"What about next time, punk?" I asked sneeringly.

"The next time," he said gently, "you'll have to kill me. Come on, Teddy. My car's downstairs. I'll take you back to the motel."

I watched them go out, frowning. There might be less to little Teddy Michaelis, as far as the case was concerned, than had appeared at first, but young Orcutt, with his habit of popping up at odd moments, was becoming more and more interesting.

The phone started ringing behind me. I closed the door and looked at my watch. Mrs. Rosten was calling back right on time; it had been exactly half an hour since her previous call. I shivered, for some reason, as I went to talk to her.

SIXTEEN

Ii WAS A large place on the water, some distance out of town. By the time I reached it, the moon was getting low and a mist was rising. My headlights sent long white fingers searching the lawns and trees ahead of me as I followed the winding drive around to the rear of the house, as instructed. There wasn't a breath of air moving. The small sound as the house door opened seemed as loud as a gunshot.

"This way," Mrs. Rosten called softly. I got out of the car and joined her. She said, "I apologize for the back door, but I thought you'd rather not attract any more at-attention than necessary."

I said, "It couldn't just be that you're ashamed of your guest, lady."

She was wearing something long and pale that whispered when she swung to face me. I couldn't see her face clearly, but her voice was sharp, "Can't you forget that twisted pride for one minute, Petroni? I said please over the phone, didn't I?"

She turned away, leaving me to follow her ghostlike figure through a dark kitchen and a succession of dark rooms into a small, softly lighted, booklined study in which a fire was burning. I noted a gun rack over the fireplace. A leather sofa faced the fireplace. It looked quite comfortable and inviting. On the low table before the sofa was a silver tray holding an array of bottles, two glasses, a silver ice bucket, and so help me, a real honest-to-God soda-water siphon. I hadn't seen one of those in years.

She had stopped to close the door behind me. I turned to face her. We stood like that for a moment. I pursed my lips and whistled softly.

"Not bad. That must be just about the quickest recovery in history."

She'd got her hair up again, drawn back smoothly from her face. It had a dark, velvety luster she must have worked hard to attain in such a short time. I don't know the technical distinction between a negligee and a peignoir, but she was wearing one of those elaborate boudoir creations, creamy white against her brown skin, high-necked and long-sleeved, lace to the waist and layers upon layers of nylon below, reaching the floor all around her.

In this day of trick pajamas and Peter Pan nighties, it's a real treat to see an attractive woman dressed for seduction in a garment with some grace and dignity to it. It raises the whole business of sex to a higher plane, in my opinion. I assumed that seduction was what she had in mind, dressing like that-or at least that it was the idea she wished to plant in Lash Petroni's crude mind, for reasons yet to be determined. In a way it was a relief. I hadn't been sure she wouldn't greet me with a shotgun, or the police.

"You have the tact of an ox, Petroni," she said. "Never remind a woman of looking like hell, particularly when it was your fault. Come to that, you look a little better yourself."

That was a lie. I'd seen myself in the mirror as I left the hotel room in my other Petroni suit. The man who'd looked back at me from the glass had been a real cool cat. I wouldn't have trusted him in the same house with Whistler's grandmother.

"It a wet damn bay," I said.

"Let's drink to that," she said, smiling. "It's something we can agree on, anyway. What will you have?"

I watched her sweep past and bend over the silver tray. There wasn't any peekaboo stuff; there were no provocative displays of skin or limbs such as often go with the negligee bit. She was a great lady entertaining at home, but I couldn't help the distracting thought-as Lash Petroni, of course-that dignified though she might look in the regal gown, she probably had on very little underneath it.

I cleared my throat and said, "Bourbon and water, lady. Hell, make it soda. I haven't seen one of those fizzwater machines in action since I was a kid."

"Is that so?"

She tried to sound interested, but her smile was mechanical. The polite mask slipped for just a moment. She didn't give a damn what Petroni had or had not seen as a kid, and the idea of pretending to be fascinated by the horrible creature's revolting childhood turned her stomach. But she caught herself, and brought my drink to me, and smiled again, doing a better job this time.

"Sit down, please," she said, and laughed softly. "There! I said it again. Please." She moved towards the couch. "Where did you grow up, Petroni-Jim? That's your name, isn't it? Jim

"That's it," I said. "Jim."

"You may call me Robin."

"Okay, Robin."

She sank down on the couch, and patted the space beside her. "Please sit down. You make me nervous standing over me like that. You must be just about the tallest man I know. Did you play basketball as a boy, Jim?"

It was time to exert a bit of pressure. She couldn't be allowed to think Petroni was a complete fool. I looked down at her deliberately, and gave her a slow, mean grin.

"Cut it out, lady. All you have to be is polite. If there's any seducing to be done, I'll do it."

Sitting there, she looked up quickly. I saw hatred flame in her dark eyes, but only for an instant. Then she was laughing.

"All right," she said, "all right, Jim. I deserved that. I underestimated you. I was only testing my weapons, if you know what I mean."

"I know what you mean." I sat down beside her. "Let's not worry about my childhood. You don't give a damn about my lousy childhood. Have you got anything on under all that glamor?" I touched the filmy stuff of her skirt, draped across the leather sofa between us.

It caught her by surprise. "Why-why, just a nightgown," she said.

"I bet it's real pretty," I said. "Maybe we'll get to it later. Right now I figure we've got other business than my childhood and your lingerie, but don't give up hope."

That brought her to her feet. Two quick steps took her to the fireplace. She reached up, and swung to face me with a double-barreled shotgun in her hands. The business-like weapon, though very handsome for a gun, went oddly with the feminine fragility of her appearance.

"You despicable creature!" she said. "You revolting animal! Just because you force me to be civil to you doesn't mean-" She stopped.

I yawned deliberately, and gave her that mean Petroni grin again. "So," I said, "now we know. Wet or dry, you're still a snooty bitch, and I'm still a revolting animal, and any resemblance to nice people having a cozy drink before making beautiful music is strictly, like they say in the movies, coincidental." I swung my feet up on the couch, and leaned back with a sigh of contentment. "Ah, that's better. It's been a long, busy day. Put the blaster away, honey. I figured you had one loaded and ready somewhere. It was either that or cops; you'd want some protection from a despicable creature like me."

"Get your damn feet off my furniture!"

I yawned again. "Cut it out, sweetheart. You've proved you're not a pushover. I've proved I'm not a pushover. Let's stop making faces at each other, huh?"

I tasted my drink without looking at her or the gun, which wasn't as easy as it sounds. At that range, a twelve-gauge would take my head off if she got careless with the trigger. I was relieved when she laughed shortly and put back the weapon. Nylon whispered as she moved away across the room. I turned my head at last and saw her standing at the window, looking out. After a while, I set my drink aside and went to stand behind her.