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sternness. “Said a man jumped or fell.”
    â€œDefenestration,” Pam North said, unexpectedly, her voice rather high. “If people would just be quiet, we’d tell you. It’s Mr. Wilmot’s.”
    The patrolman named Ben took his cap off. He rubbed his head. He replaced the cap.
    â€œListen, lady,” Ben said. “ That’s Mr. Wilmot?” He shook his head. “Friend of yours, probably?” he said. “Friend of hers, Charlie.”
    â€œHa,” the other patrolman said.
    â€œMr. Wil mot’s ,” Pam said. “He lives in the penthouse. There was a party and somebody shot—this.” She pointed. “It was his idea of a joke.”
    â€œHis?” Ben said, and indicated the fragments.
    â€œListen,” the ambulance interne said, “what the? You expect us to take this?”
    â€œPut a D.O.A. tag on it, doc,” the driver of the ambulance said. “That’s what they want. D.O.A. tag. Then we go get some coffee.”
    There was a siren around the corner. A prowl car came around the corner behind red lights. It joined the ambulance and the first prowl car. Two men, one of them rather drunk, came around the corner after it. Across the street, several people opened windows. A sergeant got out of the new prowl car and said, loudly, “All right. What’s going on here?” He looked around. “You, McGillicuddy,” he said. “What’s all this?”
    â€œYou got me, sergeant,” Ben McGillicuddy said. “This was supposed to be a man.” He pointed.
    â€œBy whom?” the sergeant said, in a voice heavy with skepticism.
    â€œI’ve been trying—” Pam said.
    â€œAlways push you around, Lennie,” the superintendent’s wife said.
    â€œThose two,” Patrolman McGillicuddy said, and pointed. “They made the squeal.”
    â€œLeave us get the hell out of here, doc,” the ambulance driver said. “We can’t take that in.”
    â€œAll right,” the sergeant said. “What’s it all about, lady? What’s the name, lady?”
    â€œNorth,” Jerry said. “If you’d let us—”
    â€œListen,” the sergeant said. “ Gerald North? Mr. and Mrs. Gerald North?”
    â€œAll right,” Jerry said. “Yes.”
    â€œMy God!” the sergeant said.
    â€œI’ve been trying to tell this—this officer,” Pam said. “It belonged to Mr. Wilmot. He must have—have dropped it.” She paused. “After all,” she said. “It’s April Fool’s Day. Or just was.”
    â€œWait a minute,” the sergeant said. He said, “All right, doc, nothing for you.” He said, “Get this broken up, McGillicuddy.” He took a deep breath. “All right,” he said. “Go ahead, Mrs. North.”
    Pamela North went ahead.
    All manner of things happen to policemen. Sergeant Fox thought this, getting out of the elevator on the twelfth floor, searching for and finding the flight of stairs to the penthouse. At two-thirty in the morning (not even of April Fool’s Day) he was required to ask a man named Wilmot why he had dropped a clothing dummy thirteen stories to a sidewalk, to the hazard of pedestrians—to ask him what kind of joke he thought that was. It seemed rather silly.
    Sergeant Fox reached the landing and found a door. He found a bell-push. Remembering what Mrs. North—and wait until he told Mullins he had finally met the Norths, under circumstances as screwy as were to be expected—remembering what Mrs. North had told him, Sergeant Fox braced himself for a woman’s scream. But he heard, instead, melodious chimes. He waited, heard nothing more, pushed again. He pushed several times.
    â€œWha’s the matter,” a thick voice said, finally. It came closer to the door. “Wha’s going on, eh?”
    â€œPolice,” Fox