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«He’s a writer and you’re a writer. What are you doing at a booksellers’ convention?»

«Writers attend to push their books, you know. Giles was just autographing books this morning.»

The lieutenant pulled out his little book again. «When this morning?»

«From ten to eleven.»

«Were you there?»

«No, but there must have been a thousand witnesses.»

Brown put away his book and shrugged. «Well, he won’t be doing anything else at this convention. You had better tell the convention people that he’s dead. Is he well known?»

«At this convention, he certainly is.»

«Too bad, but what can you do? Get someone to make some announcement.» He held the door open for me. «So long. We’ll be in touch if anything comes up.»

I left.

11 HENRIETTA CORVASS 2:30 P.M.

I went through the corridor and down the elevator in a fog of unreality. People moved about unconcerned, wearing their badges, attending the convention—which was still going on, of course. You don’t stop for individual tragedies. There must have been conventions going on, here and there, the day President Kennedy was assassinated and they went on.

Eleven athletes were murdered at the 1972 Olympics and the games went on.

It was hard for me to go on, though. Everything had turned unreal. I went to the fifth floor to find the interview room and it was far different from what it had been the day before. Same crowd, same noise, different me.

I pulled Henrietta aside, out of the room altogether. She objected. «What’s the matter with you? What’s going on?»

I said in a low voice. «Emergency. Real emergency. You want me to shout it out?»

It made her nervous and she didn’t try to pull her arm out of my grip any more. Maybe she remembered it had been I who had made it possible for her to take Giles to his interview the night before. We were out in the hall on the far side of the elevator bank and I said, «Look. Giles Devore is dead.»

She said, «What?» and her mouth stayed open.

I said, «Dead. In the bathtub—dead. I found him an hour ago and the police are there now.»

She said, «I was with him only—»

«What difference does that make? Practically everyone who ever died was seen by somebody a few hours before.»

«How did it happen?»

«I wasn’t there. All I can say is he’s lying dead in the bathtub with his head against the faucets. The police say it’s an accident. Look, you’re the only ABA official I know and I want this off my back. If he’s got any other commitments for the convention, cancel them. If there are any announcements to make, you make them, or have them made. If there has to be a minute of silence for mourning, or a cocktail party for celebration, or whatever, you take over.»

That was it. I pulled away, kept my eyes on the floor because I didn’t want to see anybody I knew. Anybody. Not for a while. Not till I had some things sorted out.

12 MICHAEL STRONG 3:00 P.M.

I couldn’t go home. I had to stay in the hotel. I had to stay at the scene of the crime until I got over at least some of my confusion.

He was killed. Nothing had happened to change my mind.

The skies would fall before Giles would have thrown his clothes about like that, and how would the killer have known that?

I couldn’t let it go. Damn it, I owed it to Giles to straighten it out. It wasn’t that we had a David and Jonathan friendship, or that I even liked him very much. It’s that I felt guilty.

I had been asked to do a little errand for him and I had forgotten. He had asked me one last favor and I had flubbed it. How could I tell that my failure to deliver the package had not contributed to his murder?

I had to make it up to him.

I wandered about aimlessly for a while and then, at 3 p.m., found myself in the bar—in one of the bars, that is.

There are a number of them in the hotel and, as a non-drinking man, none of them meant anything to me. This was one of the times, though, that I wished I were a drinking man, if only to have something to do and something to soften the edges of the hard lump inside me.

At that time of day, the bar wasn’t full. I took a corner table and when the pretty waitress approached, in a little frilly crotch-high skirt, I mumbled the only combination of sounds that I can produce that seem appropriate to the surroundings.

«Virgin Mary, straight up,» I said. I’m not sure what «straight up» means; I think it means without ice, because if I ever say just «Virgin Mary» the waiter invariably says, «On the rocks, sir» and I know that means ice.

It did occur to me that Shirley Jennifer was three floors up, signing something or other in one of the booths.

I could go up there and wait for her with a sick and concerned face and she would ask me what’s up and I would tell her and she would get very motherly and take me home and I—couldn’t!

By God, I couldn’t!

I can’t explain it easily, but if I hadn’t met her I would have been off the hook. I would have gotten that damned package and delivered it last night. I would not have delivered it at midday today; I would not have discovered the body; I would not be groveling in the humiliation of having failed a friend’s last request, and maybe, in that way, having brought on the catastrophe.

Had I delivered the package last night, Giles could have broken his neck, or had it broken for him, and it would have been none of my affair. I could have felt the same perfunctory sorrow that all the rest of the thousands at the convention would feel.

I didn’t have to sit there hopelessly involved—if it weren’t for Shirley.

Of course, I could see the flagstones which had been laid.

If that woman hadn’t decided to wear a dress with holes in it, if I hadn’t been made to feel like a fool when I arrived (less than twenty-four hours ago), if everyone hadn’t combined to fan my anger and turn it against Giles—then I would never have yelled like a madman at him, humiliated him utterly (God, my last conversation with him), and forced him to leave the hotel so that he laid the errand on me in the first place—

But put it all together and I would still have done my bit if I hadn’t met Shirley. But because I met her just when I did, I was sitting in the bar, closer to wanting to be drunk than ever in my life and not knowing how to do it.

It wasn’t Shirley’s fault; she didn’t know. But I couldn’t see her without thinking—So I made no attempt to see her.

I had to sit there and work it out.

If Giles was killed, who killed him?

Giles had finished autographing at 11 a.m. He would have gotten to his room by, say, 11:15. I found him at 1:33 p.m. He was dead for some time, say, since 1 p.m. That means whoever had killed him had to have done it between 11:15 a.m. and 1 p.m. How many people at the convention could account for their time fully between those limits? Probably a great many, but that would leave a large number who couldn’t.

Who would have a motive?

Lots of people would have the motive to do him a bad turn, say a nasty word about him, refuse a helping hand at crucial moments. Martin Walters was annoyed with him for standing him up in connection with a talk; Tom and Teresa Valier were sick over his apparent abandonment of them; Roseann Bronstein perhaps felt spurned in a more intimate way. Even Henrietta might have been irritated with his lack of cooperation. As for Asimov, he was bound to be jealous of Giles’s success. Why shouldn’t a guy with 163 books turn a little green over someone shooting past him on his second book? (And why should he harp on my jealousy if he were not feeling the bite himself?)

But not one of these motives was possibly deep enough for murder.