I debated lying, then decided against it. “Slightly,” I said. “Why?”

“I was just trying to find her, Mr. Foster. That’s all. I was wondering if you knew where she might be. She seems to be out of town.”

My stomach tried to crawl up through my windpipe and my mouth. I forced myself to say calmly, “I’m afraid I haven’t seen Peggy—Miss Armour—for quite some time, now. I guess I can’t help you, Mr. Harrison.”

“You can call me Duke,” came the slow, oily answer. “Tell you what, though: I’m really anxious to find her. What say I give you my address and phone number, and you get in touch with me if you hear from her again. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said in a dry voice. I was beginning to smell shake-down here.

He gave me an address on the lower east side, and I scribbled it on a sheet of notepaper and jammed it in my pocket. “I’ll let you know,” I said.

“Thanks a lot, Mr. Foster. I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you again. Soon.”

The line went dead.

I dropped the receiver into its cradle and walked shakily back to my desk, having a little trouble getting there still standing up. Phil came over to me and said, “Everything all right, Mr. Foster?”

“Fine,” I said. “Fine.”

“You look kinda green,” he said.

I chuckled hollowly. “That was my bookie. My horse didn’t place. Don’t ever gamble, kid; it’s bad for the digestion.”

“Gee,” he said. “Sorry to hear that.”

* * *

I didn’t sleep so well that next couple of nights. I kept scanning the papers for the news that Peggy’s body had been found, and every time the phone rang I jumped half a foot. I kept waiting for the maid to appear, with a faintly puzzled look on her face, and say, “Mister Foster, there’s a Mister Harrison on the wire for you.”

Harrison didn’t call. I got jumpier and jumpier, though. I was starting to figure the possibilities, and I didn’t like any of them.

Berril was around the house a lot, smiling smugly, using up our martini supply, eating dinner with us more often than not, working out new and better schemes for turning Helen’s money into more money. He was a supercilious bastard if I ever knew one. Forty years old, a plumpish bachelor who got all his kicks in life from handling someone else’s money. I was willing to bet he’d never been to bed with a woman in his life—or at least not in the last fifteen years.

Somehow having Berril around so much made me jumpier than ever. I made things rough on everybody, and Helen didn’t like it. What was happening to that fresh start, I wondered?