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matter of fact I did.”
    “Why lie about it?”
    “I didn’t want my mother to find out.”
    “I’m not your mother.”
    “No, but you’ve been talking to her. You’ll probably be talking to her again.”
    “Why is it so important that she shouldn’t know?”
    “I guess it really isn’t. It’s just that I didn’t tell her. She wouldn’t have liked the idea of Phoebe taking one of our apartments. She has a suspicious mind.”
    “So have I. Were you and Phoebe having an affair?”
    “No. We weren’t. It wouldn’t be any business of yours if we were. We’re both adults.”
    “Legally, anyway.
Were
you having an affair?”
    “I said we weren’t. You don’t fool around with the girl you want to marry. I don’t.”
    I almost believed him.
    “Where did you meet her?”
    “A place called Medicine Stone, north of Carmel. I went up there for a week in August. They have a good reef for surfing—better than anything around here. Phoebe was staying there with the Trevors and I got to know her on the beach.”
    “You picked her up?”
    “That’s twisting what I said. She wanted to try surfing, I let her. She was looking for a school to shift to, and I told her about this one. She’d been considering it, anyway.”
    “And while you were at it you rented her an apartment.”
    “She asked me to find an apartment for her,” he said, flushing.
    “So you had a cozy two months.”
    His fists tightened; the muscles stood out like brown wood in his arms. I thought he was going to hit me, and I sort of wished he would. Give me a chance to shake out the truth that I felt I wasn’t getting from him.
    But he held himself under rigid control. “Crack wise if you like. We had a
good
two months. Followed by the worst two months of my life.”
    “When did you see her last?”
    He seemed ready for the question: “On the morning of November the second, that was a Friday—early in the morning. She was going to drive up to San Francisco to see her father off. She asked me to check her oil and tires, which Idid. My own car wasn’t running, and on the way out to the highway she dropped me at the corner of the campus. That was the last time I saw her.” He said it without emotion.
    “What kind of a car was she driving?”
    “1957 green Volkswagen two-door.”
    “Do you know the license number?”
    “No, but you can get it from the dealer. She bought it secondhand at Imported Motors, in town here. I helped her to pick it out.”
    “How long before she left?”
    “A month, or more. She found out she needed one here, to get around. The bus service to town is pretty chancy.”
    “Was she in good spirits when she left?”
    “I think so. You never could tell about Phoebe. Her moods were always changing, as I said.”
    “Did she tell you what her plans were for the weekend?”
    “No. She didn’t.”
    “Or when she was coming back?”
    “She didn’t say.”
    “Why not?”
    “I don’t think I asked her. I took it for granted that she would be back Sunday night or Monday morning.”
    “Did she mention anyone that she was going to see, besides her father?”
    “No.”
    “And you didn’t ask her what she was going to do all weekend?”
    “No.”
    “What do you think she did, after she said goodbye to her father and left the ship?”
    “I have no ideas on the subject.” But he had ideas. They flickered darkly at the back of his green eyes like fish in water too deep for identification.
    Suddenly he looked sick. He lowered his head. The color of his eyes seemed to have run and tinged his cheeks greenish.
    “Did you by any chance go along to San Francisco with her?”
    He waggled his hanging head.
    “Where did you spend that weekend, Bobby?”
    He looked at his hands as if they fascinated him. “Nowhere.”
    “Nowhere?”
    “I mean here. At home.”
    Mrs. Doncaster said behind me: “Bobby was here with his mother, where he should be. He came down with a touch of the flu that Friday. I kept him home in bed