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something that could go on and on, a complete story in every program. The audience saw everything through The Whip’s eyes, did everything with him, finally plugged for him through thick and thin and hoped the police would fail, which they always did. He wouldn’t carry a whip or anything like that, but the nickname would be suggestive of depraved and secret habits. Might have a cigarette lighter with a whip design on it. Whip cuff links, S-shaped. His first exploit might be a robbery, the robbery of a plush house belonging to some moneybags with whom the audience wouldn’t be in sympathy, anyway. The police wouldn’t know his real name, but they suspect he is one of three known criminals whose dossiers they have. The Whip is none of them. He has no police record, because he has always been too clever for the police. And he started young, of course. No, that couldn’t be conveyed, because The Whip had no intimates with whom he talked. That would be part of the fascination: the audience wouldn’t know what was on The Whip’s mind until he started doing things. Satisfy the public’s appetite for corn, take-off, and violence beyond control of the law, all in one.
    Sydney’s thoughts collapsed and vanished suddenly, he smiled and looked up at the blue but sunless sky. He had decided that the disposal of Alicia’s body required a rug, which he would be carrying over his shoulder with the apparent intention of taking it to the cleaners, for instance, which meant he’d have to get one, because he couldn’t leave the floor of the living room or one bedroom naked. But his sensibilities balked at asking Alicia to come with him to choose one, and he thought of going to Abbott’s by himself and bringing one home on his own. He’d say he was tired of looking at the threadbare thing on the living-room floor, which he was. Sydney’s mind went back to The Whip again. Near the house, he began trotting, and once in the house, he went straight to his typewriter.
    He put a carbon in the machine, because he wanted to send a copy to Alex. Then he wrote:
    THE WHIP STRIKES
    The Whip: No one knows his real name. Even his bills come to his London flat addressed to six different people. He is 35, suave, slender, brown-haired, brown mustache, no distinguishing marks except those of a gentleman. Belongs to an exclusive club in Albemarle Street. Speaks French, German, Italian. He detests police and his gorge rises at the sight of any bobby, though The Whip has never killed one; he simply outwits and defies them. He has no partner, no confidant, though many in the underworld (and upperworld) are willing to cooperate with him because a) he has helped them in the past or b) he pays well for favors. These will be hour-long shows, each complete in itself.
    As our first story opens, The Whip is getting low in funds, as we see from his scanning of bills in his chic mews flat in St. John’s Wood. An amused smile plays over his face. His face is eloquent, but not hammy, and The Whip never stoops to soliloquies by way of making his intentions clear. The Whip acts. He goes out and hails a taxi, asks the driver to drive him through certain moneyed neighborhoods. His manner is relaxed as he cases these spots, making a note now and then in a small moroccan notebook. Driver chats with him. He has no destination, but says he is looking at places where he used to live, tells driver he has been in India for the past fifteen years. It dawns slowly on the audience that he is putting on an act of being an elderly man. He has aged thirty years since getting into the taxi. The Whip dismisses the driver, and we have the feeling the driver would not be able to identify him, if his life depended on it. The Whip walks two streets, gazes at house he intends to burgle. He has the man’s name in his little book: Rt. Hon. Dingleby Haight, Q.C. Fade-out.
    Fade-in on a mid-morning scene at tradesmen’s entrance of the Haight mansion. The Whip is now nearly unrecognizable