The first test of my ability came on Monday of the second week, when I appeared at the local bank to deposit several routine checks received in the mail. People are essentially unobservant, and providing that the pattern of a personality is not changed or violated, a masquerade such as the one in which I was engaged is practical and possible. I did ordinary things, on several subsequent visits to town, progressing from one small public chore to another slowly and easily, grafting the idea of the new Ray Goetz over the town’s idea of the old, and by the middle of the third week had genuinely begun to enjoy my new existence, spiced as it was with danger, and made whole by the comfort and pleasure I had begun to take in Mina.
We had scheduled our departure for the end of the third week, feeling that we had sufficiently planted the idea that Goetz was still alive. (I took extraordinary pleasure in bathing in the pool, a cosmic jest which Mina did not appreciate.) It was a gracious period of my life, filled with music and laughter and the promise of better things to come. We prepared for our trip with care, first the careful scheduling of trains (I am nervous about flying), then the delightful chore of arranging the stops for our Grand Tour, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Stockholm, Copenhagen.
Perhaps the peak of my enjoyment of this adventure came on our departure night, when we sat in the living room, a staid, wealthy American couple about to take a year’s vacation. I thought then of the rare pattern of the past few days, the odd and interesting beginning, the exciting climax, the wonderfully managed but uncontrived ending which somehow still remained too simple — and unsatisfactory from a dramatic viewpoint. As we sat and waited for the taxi to take us to the station it amused me to think of other endings I might contrive. I thought of Wainright, the man I had destroyed, and of Goetz, the man I had become, and how easy it would be for me to slip back into the character of Wainright again, picking up the threads of his life where it had stopped only three weeks before. To do so I would have to remove Mina, a simple matter in her present absurd and childish state of trust. A scarf properly applied, the body left in the bedroom, and the authorities on a merry chase for the absent but nonexistent husband — a wonderfully baffling puzzle. But there was the matter of my fingers, and above all the vast quantity of wealth which I was enjoying. It was an impractical idea, the contemplation of which ceased with the ringing of the doorbell announcing the arrival of the cab.
I smiled at Mina and opened the door to find two men on the porch, the first of them performing that idiotic and theatrical gesture of all police officers, showing me a metal badge, mumbling the usual formula. Mina was standing by the bags, her face a living question. I believe I carried the opening conversation off splendidly, seating them, offering them a drink.
“I’m Ray Goetz,” I said. “This is my wife, Mina. What can we do for you?”
“I see you are leaving, Mr. Goetz,” the tall one said. “We’ll be brief. Sorry to bother you.”
“Please go ahead,” I said. “We have allowed a little extra time.”
“We are looking for a Mr. Jonathan Wainright,” the tall man said.
“He’s not here,” I told him. “That is the name of the gentleman who came to put the pool in for us three weeks ago.”
“When did he leave here?” the tall man asked.
“On Friday, June 26th, as I remember,” I said, hesitating appropriately.
“Do you remember the time?”
“About five o’clock in the afternoon. I remember, because I took him to town. The clock on the bank read five twenty-five as I dropped him off at the bowling alley.”
“Why there?” said the tall one.
“He said he left his car there.” (I could only bemoan my stupidity. But it had seemed perfectly safe to leave the Wainright car in the bowling alley parking lot, adding one more bizarre note to the disappearance of Jonathan Wainright, but I had forgotten that abominable counter man, whose memory of a stranger was the undoubted cause of this visit from the minions of the law.)
“Has something happened?” Mina asked.
“Just a routine disappearance, Mrs. Goetz. The car is still there. At the bowling alley. He never picked it up. Did he say anything to you that might indicate where he was going?”
They were being professionally casual. “No,” I replied. “He finished his supervisory job and left. I assumed he was going back to Los Angeles.”
“Why did he leave his car in town?”
“He met me at the office. I asked him to dine with us and saw no reason why we should take two cars. He stayed here over night, supervised the construction of the pool, then left.”
“Why did he stay here?”
“He was a pleasant enough fellow. We had a spare guest room.”
“We’re not questioning your motives, Mr. Goetz, just trying to get a little information. How did you get back to town?”
“In my car. Down the Country Club Road.” I felt secure now, the danger averted.
“What time was that?” The tall one was doing the talking, while his shorter companion was busy with his notes.
“We left at five o’clock.”
“You’re sure of the time?”
“Quite sure. I remember checking my watch.”
“You left here at five o’clock on Friday, arriving at the parking lot at what time?”
“Five twenty-five, by my watch.”
“We are trying to pinpoint the time as precisely as possible.”
“The clock on the bank read five thirty as I went by on my way back here.”
“You returned the same way?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure of the time, Mr. Goetz?”
“Positive.”
They rose to leave. The tall one looked at me for a moment, casually. “Mr. Goetz.”
“Yes.”
“What did Wainright look like?”
“Rather like me, I thought.”
“Yeah. We saw the picture.”
They were both, eyeing me now. “Would it be possible for you to take a later train?”
“Inconvenient, but possible.” I was superb. “Why?”
“We would like you to come to the station and write out a statement.”
“You are insisting?”
“Might as well tell you. It’s kind of important we find that fellow Wainright.”
“Is there something you haven’t told us?” Mina asked.
The tall officer stopped to hold the door for me. “Yeah, Mrs. Goetz. Two things.” I savored the pulsing feel of the room while Mina waited for her answer. “Wainright’s a pathological killer. We have three fugitive warrants for him.”
Mina, her eyes wide, looked from me to the officer. She was never more beautiful.
“Who did he kill?” she said, the words choking their way out of her throat.
“His wife, among others. Real name is Keeler — Jonathan Keeler. Sometimes he tags the name Wainright onto that.”
Mina was rigid, her hands shaking, her face turned up to mine like a flower in the sun, searching, searching. I smiled at her.
“You said there were two things,” she said.
The short officer answered this time. “Yes, Ma’am, there is another problem. We’d like Mr. Goetz to explain how he got to the bowling alley with Wainright that Friday at five o’clock on the Country Club Road.”
“I’ve already explained it,” I said.