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She
shouldn’t have come here. She was making more of a mess of it
than it already was.

“
I
don’t have to put it into words,” I said.

Molly
twisted her head to Esther who stood with the rapt expression of a
child listening to tales of ghosts and witches. “You can’t
understand a woman like me, can you Mrs. Breen?” Molly said
mockingly. “That’s why you’re the right wife for
Adam.” She turned back to me, and a reckless grimace lifted one
corner of her mouth. “So you know that too, Adam?”

“
Why
talk about it?”

“
Say
it, Adam. You’ll say worse about me in a little while. Say I
killed George Moon.”

A
sound came from Esther. It was less than a gasp, hardly more than a
sharp intake of breath. Molly was right. Esther would never be able
to understand her or even quite believe in her reality.

“
You’re
anxious to find out from me if there’s evidence,” I said
to Molly. “I doubt it. I guessed because I was so close to you
all the time. There was the pattern — a woman avenges the
murder of the man she loves. More than that, there were overtones of
moods, emotions, attitudes. Your changing moods at Tilly’s had
me bewildered. You wanted to leave and at the same time you remote,
gay and sullen, intense and apathetic. You were a woman under the
terrific stress of making up her mind to kill a man. You were
dressing when I came into the room after finding Moon’s body.
You were ready to leave in a hurry, and at the same time you no
longer seemed to care much about what was happening. You’d done
your job, you’d had your revenge and there was nothing left for
you.”

Molly
waved a hand across her face as if brushing away an invisible
obstruction. She said wearily: “It seems pointless now. I felt
it was something Larry and I had to do. The gangster’s code of
vengeance, and we were gangsters, weren’t we?” She
laughed tonelessly. “Larry didn’t think you’d had
time to kill Jasper. He would have got the bag out of the car and
left before you could have returned. We figured it was probably Moon
because we knew he was also coming for the bag. But he hadn’t
the bag, which meant that you had it. There were different angles to
the two things I wanted — the bag and the killer. But I had to
be certain that Moon was the killer. You remember he took me drinking
and dancing Thursday night. I told him that in New York I had heard
that a man named Breen had killed Jasper and then had stolen a
valuable bag which had belonged to him, Moon. He smiled and said that
Breen hadn’t killed Jasper, but that he had the bag. He was so
sure and kept smiling, and that told me what I wanted to know. And
then later that night, when we all stood around Larry's body, he said
something else.”

“
I
remember,” I said. “Moon said that a few days ago there
had been two rats and now there was none. If that meant anything, it
meant that he had killed them both,”

“
Yes.”
Molly opened the catch of her handbag and snapped it viciously shut.
“I wouldn’t have killed him!” she burst out. “All
at once I saw that it wasn’t important to me whether he lived
or died. And I saw that Jasper hadn’t been very important to
me, either. Maybe it was because I’d met you. I’d never
known a man like you; you made me see things differently. The bag was
still important, yes — it was worth something, but murder
wasn’t.” She stared at the floor. “And then they
shot down Larry.”

I
didn’t get it. “Did Larry mean so much to you?”

“
No.
Larry was a mug. But he worshiped me. I think he would have given his
life for me. In a way he did. He knew the danger of coming to Tilly’s
and watching over me. He didn’t expose you because he knew that
would expose me. And Moon had him shot down. I hadn’t cried
when Jasper died, but that night I cried.”

I
looked at Esther. She had retreated all the way to the club chair.
One hand gripped the high back. Her eyes were never so big and dark.

Then
Molly was saying in a voice suddenly strong and crisp: “I hate
to do this, Adam, but I want that bag.” I turned back to her.
She had opened her handbag and had taken a gun out of it.

This,
one was a revolver and bigger than her pearl-handled automatic, but
she held it as steadily and competently. The muzzle pointed at my
heart.

There
was' a breathless moment of silence and then I heard Esther start to
whimper. She leaned one hip against the club chair and stared at the
gun as if it were an incredible thing from another world.

“
There’s
nothing to worry about,” I told her. “She’s not
going to shoot anybody.”

Molly
said: “All I want is the bag.” I hadn’t moved from
the table since Molly had entered the room. The bag was no more than
twelve inches from my hand. I put the backs of my thighs against the
edge of the table. “So you knew the bag was here, Molly?”

“
Oh,
God, I told her!” Esther’s fingers clawed at her mouth.
“She phoned me this morning that you were safe and resting, and
I asked her to tell you to call me as soon as you awoke because I had
found something important.”

“
She
was too excited to be subtle,” Molly commented. “So I
came here as soon as I could.”

“
With
a gun,” I said dryly. “Moon had taken your automatic. You
were delayed getting another gun.”

Her
mouth had a to-hell-with-it twist. She didn’t like to do this,
but she could do whatever she thought she had to. Her broad shoulders
were very square. She looked as indomitable as when she had faced
Moon and Rufus and the others in the sitting room with a smaller gun
in her hand.

“
Listen,”
she said. “Once George Moon was offered one hundred thousand
dollars for those tools. That was during the war when cars fetched
almost any price in the black market. Now they’re worth less —
say fifty thousand dollars, or at least twenty-five thousand. I know
some men who’ll put cash, on the line for them. Listen! We’re
the only three people who know you have the bag. I’ll handle
the sale and give you half.”

“
You
know the answer, Molly.”

“
At
least twelve thousand dollars for your share. Maybe double that.
Adam, think of what you can do with all that money.”

“
You’re
a good salesman,” I said, “but not that good.”

Her
head jerked back. The yellow flecks in her gray eyes glittered. “An
honest man!” she said derisively. “Do you know what your
honesty did?”

“
I
know.”

“
Jasper
offered you five hundred dollars for that bag. Do .you know what
would have happened if you had taken it? Jasper and Larry wouldn’t
be dead how. I wouldn’t have killed George Moon. Your wife
wouldn’t have gone through hell, and you and I through worse
than that. What did honesty get you?”

I
said: “You’d better go, Molly.”

“
Go?”
She brought a hand up to her face and realized the gun was in it and
turned the muzzle back toward me. Suddenly there was a fever in her
gray eyes and her red lips quivered. “I thought you’d be
like that, Adam. That’s why I brought a gun. I’ll go with
the bag. Get away from the table.”

“
Don’t
do it, Molly,” I said. “You’ll compel me to tell
the police that you went off with the bag.”

“
I
want it, Adam. I’ve gone through too much not to get it now.
I’ve lost Jasper. I’ve lost other things. The bag is all
that’s left.”

As
if from a distance, I heard Esther’s voice thin with terror.
“Oh, God, Adam, give it to her! Why don’t you give it to
her?”

The
gun was thrust out from Molly’s side. The sleeve of her coat
was pulled back and on her wrist I saw a thin gold charm bracelet. It
was close enough to me so that I could distinguish individual charms
— tiny hearts and boxing gloves and horns and arrows and
watches and books.

“
Damn
you, Adam, are you going to make me shoot you?”

“
You
won’t shoot,” I said. “Not after the room under the
barn and the reservoir.”

The
eyes faltered. A sob shook the tall body. “Damn you!” The
gun dipped. She turned a shoulder to me and stood like that for a
moment and then moved slowly away.

I
went to Esther. She had sunk into the club chair and sat crouched
against one arm. I placed a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t
stir.

Molly
had stopped at the door. Her handbag was open. She had substituted
her huge plastic compact for the gun and was dabbing powder on her
face. Within seconds she had become completely relaxed —
another of her lightning changes of mood. She snapped the compact,
snapped the handbag, and brought her deluxe smile to her face.

“
I’m
sorry, Mrs. Breen,” she said. “I should have known that
Adam would be too much for me. I envy you. I envy you Adam and Carol
and the two other children you’re going to have.”

Molly
took a step through the door and turned. “Good-bye, Adam. It
was nice knowing you.”

We
listened to her walk up the hall and . . . out through the front
door.

I
went to one of the two front windows.

“
Adam,
are you going to tell the police?”

“
She
didn’t take the bag.”

Esther
fumbled at the buttons of her dress. “She admitted she murdered
a man.”

“
Only
to us,” I said. “She will deny it to the police. And
there is absolutely no proof. There never will be.”

“
You
don’t want her arrested.” She made that sound like an
accusation. I realized then that Esther had guessed much of what had
happened to Molly and me during those three days and nights we had
spent together.

“
For
having done what I twice thought of doing myself?” I said. “No,
I don’t want her arrested for that.”

Carol
and Susan Levy squatted on the sidewalk in front of the house.
Between them lay, as if on display, Carol’s purchases from the
corner stationery store — a ball on a rubber cord, a plastic
fife, a toy jeep, a cellophane bag full of brightly colored hard
candies. The girls’ heads were cocked, their eyes fixed gravely
on Molly who stood over them. Molly said something that caused Carol
to jump to her feet and open her mouth wide as if in a soundless
exclamation that had frozen.

I
heard Esther come to my side. She reached for my hand. Together we
stood looking out to the street.

Molly
was removing the charm bracelet from her wrist. She stopped to fasten
it around Carol’s skinny wrist while Carol and Susan watched in
awe. Then Molly straightened up and patted Carol’s head and
moved on to her coupe at the curb.

“
She
loves you, Adam,” Esther said in a small, tight voice.

“
She
could never love anybody but herself,” I murmured because that
was the best thing to say.

Molly
opened the car door and looked back at the house and saw us at the
window. She waved to us. I lifted my hand and dropped it. A, breeze
plucked at the fringe of her long bob as she got into the car. After
she had driven away, the street felt empty.

“
You
care very much for her,” Esther said quietly.

“
I
love
you
,” I said fiercely and turned to her.

THE
END