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change for lunch,” Linda said.
    Michael watched her disappear through the doors. He half
expected Gordon to speak to him, but Gordon went after his wife, like a
faithful dog. Dog…What the hell, Michael wondered, making up the end of
the procession—what the hell is going on in this
house?
    II
    That afternoon Linda searched her husband’s room.
    Though their bedrooms were connected through the
twin-mirrored dressing rooms, she had not been in Gordon’s room for
almost a year. Not since that night…Her memory shook, and went dark, as
it always did when she thought about that night. But surely, today, it
would be safe. Gordon and his repulsive secretary were with Michael,
and would be until dinnertime. The maids cleaned the bedrooms in the
morning. No one else had any business upstairs, except possibly
Haworth, the butler, who doubled as Gordon’s valet, and she had set him
to polishing the silver. It was a week before the silver was supposed
to be polished, but…so what? That was what she had said to Haworth when
he courteously pointed out the discrepancy. So what?
    She repeated it now, taking an infantile pleasure in the
cheap defiance of the phrase. She giggled softly, remembering Haworth’s
face when she said it. Then she stopped the giggle with a quick hand
that covered her lips. None of that. She had done well, so far
today—except for that one slip. If he hadn’t sprung it on her
unexpectedly, just when she was beginning to relax, to feel confident
of her power to charm and convince…That had been a bad one. It was all
the more necessary now that she be calm. Calm, and charming, and
gracious and…sane.
    Yet, when the heavy door moved under the pressure of her
hand, she caught her breath with a sharp sound, and stepped back,
jerking her hand away as if the door had been red hot. Fine courage,
she jeered silently. You really hoped, deep down inside, that the door
would be locked on the other side. It had been locked on her side;
surely Gordon had an even stronger reason to keep his door bolted and
barred. But he had not done so.
    There had not been bolts on either side of the door at
first. She had put hers on herself, after that night, on an afternoon
when Gordon was out of the house. The whole thing had come in a neat
package, enclosed in plastic—the bolt and the screws with which to
affix it. She hadn’t remembered the need—the so obvious need—for hammer
and screwdriver until she stripped off the stiff plastic, kneeling with
pounding heart by the closed door. Even now she could recall the wave
of terror that had gripped her when she realized she couldn’t do the
job without tools. It had taken cunning as well as courage to get rid
of them long enough to sneak into the hardware
store in the village. She could never do it again. The thought of
boldly entering the tool shed, where the gardener kept his tools, made
her stomach turn over. What if he came in and caught her, standing
there, with the hammer in her hand?
    In the end, with a resource she had thought long
forgotten, she had used the heel of a shoe and a nail file.
    The whole performance had been ridiculous, of course. She
could see that now. Gordon must have known about the bolt. If he had
not wanted her to have it, he could have had it removed. But he had
never said a word about it. Yet someone must have oiled it, because its
surface shone as brightly as it had when she took it out of its plastic
cover, and it had slid back without a sound.
    Gradually her pounding heart slowed, as no noise came
from the next room. She pushed the door open wider and looked in.
    His room was the twin of hers in size and shape, except
that the high windows on the south wall were French doors, leading out
onto a stone-balustraded balcony. They had breakfasted there, on summer
mornings, in the first year of their marriage…. The furnishings, of
course, were quite different. Gordon had had her room redone. His still
contained the furniture his grandfather had