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dead beyond the shadow of a doubt. ‘Shadow of a doubt’ were the words. If they never found his body or other evidence there is a shadow, there is a doubt. There is a possibility that he is alive and another possibility that he is dead. There is no ‘beyond the shadow of a doubt.’ None whatsoever. That is journalistic talk. There are shadows; there are doubts.”
    “That’s what I thought when I read it. Not that I care one way or another. Only I have these Lucan patients and I’m under pressure of, well, call it exposure.” “Yes, I call it exposure, Hildegard. Let’s be clear. One gets nowhere by being muddy.”
    “Nowhere,” she said, smiling gratefully at him. Their dinner was prepared and served by the two au pair young men, who were close friends with each other.
    It was a convenient arrangement. Dick and Paul were former students at a psychiatric institution where Hildegard lectured. She had found them to be engrossed with each other, anxious to shed their families, and not at all keen to study. They were delighted to show their prowess at cooking (which was not very great) and general housekeeping. They got on well with Hildegard and in a chummy way with the maid Olivia, who came every morning to clean up. Dick and Paul went shopping for the household, and advised Olivia how to shop economically for her sexy clothes. It was a tranquil background for the love affair between Hildegard and Jean-Pierre. Only the facts of blood which hovered over Hildegard’s professional life and her memories of the past disturbed her.
    The dinner consisted of a mysterious brown fish soup, a mousse of spinach and cream cheese with tiny new potatoes, and a peach ice cream with cherry sauce. Jean-Pierre and Hildegard ate it appreciatively, half consciously, happier with the fact of being cooked for and served at all than with the actual dinner. The young men, slip, tall and wiry, cleared the table and brought them coffee in the sitting room. It had been arranged at first that their status entitled them to join Hildegard and Jean-Pierre at the table for meals, but really they preferred to eat alone together in the kitchen, with occasional friends who had belonged to their student days, than with their employers. And this suited Jean-Pierre and Hildegard, too. They could talk more openly, for one thing.
    While they dined they discussed that other supper in the bistro with Lucky. He had certainly absorbed his smoked salmon followed by lamb chops “like blotting paper,” as Hildegard put it.
    “Well, it was very good smoked salmon; the lamb chops were very well prepared.”
    “What did you make of him?”
    “From the way he was talking I would say Lucky is Lucan, and his mind is giving up. His conscience is taking over. In his mind, God might tell him to kill again.” Walker appeared in Jean-Pierre’s workshop. There were no customers at that hour, 10:30 A.M. Jean-Pierre was working on a plastic eye which was intended for a statue. “My name is Walker.”
    “I know who you are.”
    “I want to speak to you,” Walker told Jean-Pierre.
    “I have no money for you,” said Jean-Pierre.
    Walker left the premises.
    Hildegard was in her office talking to the patient known as Lucky.
    “I’m not supposed to be here,” Lucky told her.
    “I know. How long have you known Walker?”
    “About ten years.”
    “What is your real name?”
    “I’m not at liberty to say.”
    “What was your profession?”
    “A theological instructor.”
    “A priest?”
    “I am a défroqué.”
    “How very interesting. Why were you defrocked?”
    “I got married,” he said.
    “And now? Where is your wife?”
    “That would be telling,” he said.
    “I think you are Lucan,” Hildegard said.
    “No you don’t.”
    “Have it your own way. There is every sign that you are the wanted man.”
    “My job is just to collect from the aiders and abetters.
    Lucan is a name in the newspapers. He could be dead.”
    “Why does Walker send you to