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well as I do that in my suitcase, locked in the car trunk—hell, I could carry a Samurai sword back there if I wanted. Legally.”
    He sighed. “I guess that’s true, Mr. Peters. But it’s kind of a specialized weapon. Do you mind telling me why you have it?”
    â€œI’m interested in specialized weapons; it’s a hobby of mine.” I got to my feet, which gave me a sudden height advantage of several inches. He was heavier, though. But he wouldn’t be hard to take. Nobody is who kids himself that one deadly weapon is morally better, or worse, than another. I said, “Did you have the state boys flag me down and bring me here just because you heard I was packing a shiv in my suitcase? What’s the matter, did some local taxpayer get cut? Send it to your lab, if you’ve got one. They won’t find any blood on it.”
    He looked at me sharply. We both knew that knife was irrelevant—that it had nothing whatever to do with the case—but I wasn’t supposed to know it, yet. He tried to decide whether or not my attitude indicated guilty information. Then he shook his head, dismissing the subject.
    â€œWould you mind telling me where you’ve spent the day, Mr. Peters?”
    I said, “I was a day early for an appointment in Washington, so I took a drive over your big bridge and down the peninsula a ways, just sight-seeing. I was coming back to Washington to spend the night when I was stopped.” Saying it, I wondered if there were some way he could check if I’d crossed the toll bridge twice. Usually there isn’t; but I took a step forward and said harshly, to get us off the subject, “What the hell is this all about, anyway? Who do you think you’re pushing around? You hick cops are all alike when you get hold of somebody with an out-of-state license—”
    I could have saved my indignation. He had stopped listening. Another policeman had stuck his head in the door. When Crowell looked in his direction, the newcomer nodded briefly and withdrew as silently as he had appeared. Crowell tossed the knife into my open suitcase and turned to me.
    â€œLet’s go in the other office, Mr. Peters.”
    â€œI’m not going anywhere until somebody tells me what—”
    He took my arm. “If you please. This way.”
    I jerked free and started to speak. Then the door opened and stayed that way, held by the young policeman who had looked in a moment ago. Two people came in. The woman stopped abruptly, staring at me.
    â€œThat’s him!” she said. “That’s the murderer!”

6
    It wasn’t exactly a shattering surprise. The police had been too sure of themselves not to have what they considered positive identification.
    The surprise was that it wasn’t the diminutive Bikini blonde whose cigarette I’d lit. This was the taller female member of the Polar Bear Club; the one who’d seemed to pay me no attention at the pool. She’d exchanged her bathing suit for a casually expensive-looking sweater-and-skirt outfit, and she looked older and more dignified with clothes on, but she still looked quite tall: a brown, handsome woman with dark hair brought back smoothly to a big knot at the nape of her neck.
    I already had reason not to be fond of the lady—even with justification, nobody likes to be called a murderer— but seeing her at close range for the first time, I couldn’t help that special feeling of respect and admiration reserved for something unique. I mean, one gets tired of the sexy young carbon copies of Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot; one even gets bored with all the nice girls who used to be more or less Grace Kelly and are now more or less Jacqueline Kennedy, attractive though the prototypes may be.
    This woman wasn’t outstandingly beautiful or strikingly seductive, but there was only one of her. She’d never look like anybody else. She had a real nose in her