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wondering if they could bear to continue to meet. Ricky knew that none of them could bear not to. And then he had had his inspiration: he had turned to John Jaffrey and said, "What's the worst thing you've ever done?"

    Dr. Jaffrey had surprised him by going pink; and then had set the tone of all their subsequent meetings by saying, "I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me—the most dreadful thing ..." and following it by telling what was in effect a ghost story. It was riveting, surprising, frightening ... it took their minds off Edward. They had gone on like that ever since.

    "Do you really think it's just coincidence?" asked Jaffrey.

    "Don't follow," Sears grumped.

    "You're dissembling, and it's beneath you. I mean that we started on this tack, me first, after Edward ..."

    His voice trailed off, and Ricky knew that he was caught between died and was killed.

    "Went west," he put in, hoping for lightness of touch. Jaffrey's stony lizardlike eye, darting at him, told him he'd failed. Ricky leaned back in the opulent chair, hoping to vanish into the luxurious background and be no more conspicuous than a water stain on one of Sears's old maps.

    "Where did you get that from?" Sears asked, and Ricky remembered. It was what his father had used to say when a client died. "Old Toby Pfaff went west last night ... Mrs. Wintergreen went west this morning. There'll be the devil to pay in probate court." He shook his head. "Yes, that's right," Sears said. "But I don't know ..."

    "Exactly," said Jaffrey. "I think something pretty damn funny is going on."

    "What do you advise? I take it that you're not just talking for the sake of interrupting the proceedings."

    Ricky smiled over the tops of his joined fingers to show that he took no offense.

    "Well, I do have a suggestion." He was doing his best, Ricky saw, to handle Sears carefully. "I think we should invite Edward's nephew to come here."

    "And what would be the point of that?"

    "Isn't he by way of being an expert in ... in this sort of thing?"

    "What is 'this sort of thing'?"

    Pushed, Jaffrey did not back down. "Maybe just what's mysterious. I think he could—well, I think he could help us." Sears was looking impatient, but the doctor did not let him interrupt. "I think we need help. Or am I the only man here who has trouble getting a decent night's sleep? Am I the only one who has nightmares every night?" He scanned them all with his sunken face. "Ricky? You're an honest man."

    "You're not the only one, John," Ricky said.

    "No, I suppose not," said Sears, and Ricky looked at him in surprise. Sears had never indicated before that he too might have awful nights—certainly it never showed on that big smooth reflective face. "You have his book in mind, I imagine."

    "Well, yes, of course. He must have done research— he must have had some experience."

    "I thought his experience was of mental instability."

    "Like us," Jaffrey said bravely. "Edward must have had some reason for willing his nephew his house. I think it was that he wanted Donald to come here, if anything should happen to him. I think he knew that something would happen. And I'll tell you what else I think. I think we ought to tell him about Eva Galli."

    "Tell him an inconclusive story fifty years old? Ridiculous."

    "The reason it's not ridiculous is that it is inconclusive," the doctor said.

    Ricky saw that Lewis was as surprised, even shaken, as he that Jaffrey had brought up the story of Eva Galli. That episode lay, as Sears had said, fifty years in their past; none of them had mentioned it since.

    "Do you think you know what happened to her?" the doctor challenged.

    "Hey, come on," Lewis put in. "Do we really need that? What the hell is the point?"

    "The point is trying to find out what really happened to Edward. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear."

    Sears nodded, and Ricky thought he could detect in his longtime partner's face a sign of—what? Relief? Of