"Right in the middle of the room. It would have done a lot more damage if the bomb had gone off there," Sigrid mused. "I thought the killer had a total disregard for human life, but it would appear I was wrong."

She smiled at her partner. "So we finally know that John Sutton's the right jack. I don't suppose you found his killer in those notes and papers?"

"Not yet, but I'll keep working on it. Looks more than ever like Flythe, doesn't it?"

"He may be the killer, but he isn't Fred Hamilton," she said and brought him up to date on her trip to Mantausic and the interview with Victor Earle.

They talked until Sigrid saw the weariness in Tillie's face and stood to go.

"I'm glad you stopped by, Lieutenant and I like the way you changed your hair."

Her whole appearance seemed to register for the first time-her wine-colored dress, the high-heeled shoes, the musky scent of perfume.

"You look very nice tonight," he saidw istfully. "You must be going someplace special."

"I did," she smiled. "I came here, Sleep well, Tillie."

"Good night, Lieutenant."

By the time Sigrid got home a little after nine, Roman Tramegra was totally exasperated. He had wanted to experiment with a new guacamole dip but the telephone had driven him to distraction.

"So there you are! Oscar's been calling every twelve minutes for the last hour. He sounds frightfully upset."

Roman had been out when she came home to change earlier, so this was his first view of her new appearance and his hooded eyes widened in appreciation.

"My dear Sigrid! I never dreamed! That color is you. And your eyes-your hair! Words simply fail me."

Sigrid immediately wished that they would.

The telephone began to ring. "If that's Nauman, tell him I'm not back.". "He'll only call again,", Romang rumbled, but did as he was told. "No, she isn't home yet," he lied irritably. "No, you certainly may not come over and wait. Oscar, I promise you-the very minute she walks in, I'll have her-"

He paused and looked at the receiver. "I say, old chap. Are you quite sober?"

When at last he got off the line, Roman asked crossly, "What on earth is this all about?"

"Nothing important," she said airily, leaning over to dip a tortilla chip in his guacamole.

It was delicious and she suddenly remembered that she'd had nothing except a glass of dreadful wine punch and a nibble of almond-toasted brie since lunch.

"Don't add a thing to that for the next three minutes," she urged, slipping out of her shoes and down to the bedroom.

There, she changed into a soft yellow robe and switched on her answering machine. The kitchen extension, which was also on her line, began to ring as she came back along the hall.

"Don't answer it," she called and ther inging stopped as the machine took over.

There were two more attempts on her line before it finally went silent. Sigrid sampled several versions of the dip and had a long relaxing conversation with Roman about the effects one might achieve with cosmetics. As usual, he added to her knowledge from his fund of inexhaustible trivia.

One of the things the Mantausic beautician had sold her was a tube of green lipstick. Sigrid was intrigued with the way it turned red on her lips, but Roman was less impressed.

"The Chinese have had rouge like that for ages. Made from safflower, I believe. It used to be sold on little cards and had a brilliant metallic green luster; but as soon as it was moistened and applied to the skin, it turned a delicate pink."

"Nothing new under the sun," she said, which led to Cleopatra's kohl eyeliner and Elizabeth I's attempts to stay the calendar with henna rinses.

"What newswoman was it who said men get gray with age while women get blonder?" Sigrid wondered.

"Up to forty, only your hairdresser knows for sure. After forty, it's a safe assumption."

"Is it?" asked Sigrid, thinking of Doris Quinn's natural-looking daffodil yellow at the gallery tonight.

"My dear Sigrid, I'm delighted by your new interest in this field-may one assume it's connected with Oscar's agitation?-but do not be led down any primose path. There is no fountain of youth in your little jars and tubes."

"Makeup can take off years. Everyone says so."

"At a distance perhaps, or in very subdued light; but it's only an illusion, my dear. Only an illusion."

"What about Lucienne Ronay? She's fifty, almost as old as Mother, yet she looks ten years younger."

"Every rule has an exception, although if you stood quite close to her, I'm sure you'd detect wrinkles even there. The Dixon woman you described-"

"Commander Dixon?"

"Yes. Now you said-"

The telephone's abrupt ring made them both jump.

Roman looked at her reproachfully. "Don't you think you should set his mind at rest?"

Sigrid considered.

"No," she decided and switched off the bell.

They put away the food and cleaned up the kitchen, but every now and then, from his quarters beyond the kitchen door, they could near the plaintive bleat of Roman's telephone.

When Sigrid fell asleep that night, she hugged to herself for the very first time in her entire life the blissful and deliciously feminine knowledge that she was making someone crazy."

31

ALAN KNIGHT was not at headquarters when Sigrid arrived there the next morning, but Elaine Albee was. "He called and said he'd be here by ten," she reported.

Both women pretended not to notice Jim Lowry's sullen expression this morning as Albee reviewed the meeting with Ivanovich.

"Lieutenant Knight's checking with the Georgia Crayfish Association."

"Is there really such a group?" asked Sigrid, amused.

"Apparently." Everyone was interested to hear of Tillie's discovery that the tournament pairings had been changed. They unearthed the smudged seating chart that had been trampled underfoot during the confusion Friday night. Despite the damage it had sustained, a close examination did reveal that the middle digits of the numbers 101 and 161 had been altered.

"That's exactly what Ted Flythe did with his grandfather's diploma," Eberstadt pointed out. "Changed 1907 to 1967."

"But why kill John Sutton?" Albee wondered aloud. "What did it gain?"

More material had come in over the Police Intelligence Network during the night. There was sketchy confirmation of Flythe's background and something interesting on the room steward: Raymond George, a.k.a. Amiri Attucks, had been a member of a Black Panther chapter in Sacramento where he was twice arrested for unlawful demonstrations in 1970 and was briefly detained in 1972 for the murder of a fellow Panther before his release for lack of evidence.

"Peters' invisible man!" said Eberstadt. "Who would be less noticeable than a hotel employee who had every right to be there?"

The three detectives argued it back and forth until it gradually penetrated that Lieutenant Harald was listening almost absentmindedly. Something had begun to niggle around the edges of her mind, something as nebulous as a stray hair that one brushes at unconsciously.

"Um?" she said, as she became aware of their questions. "Yes, he would certainly have the opportunity."

She took her arm out of the sling, flexed it gingerly, then spread across her desk all the photographs that had been taken at the Maintenon over the past weekend. What was beginning to coalesce and take shape was so unlikely that she couldn't voice it and what she sought in the pictures didn't seem to be there.

"Albee, were you there when I interviewed Flythe Saturday and those young women on the Graphic Games crew kept coming over to him with questions?"