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 pillow. I merely repeated the gesture with a corpse."

"That's insane—"

"But it just might have worked, mightn't it? You came back, then gave the prearranged signal which activated Wagram's pattern of suggestion over me. So that I'd retrace your footsteps, leave telltale fingerprints, retain a memory which would later convince me that I'd been guilty of the crime. The rest of it I can figure out, too. Wagram expected me to come running to him today, with the story. And he'd be very sympathetic, but finally he'd agree to let me go to the police. That's when you'd step in to testify about my inexplicable absence. Everything would come out then; everything except the present whereabouts of the emeralds—which you were already to have concealed, and turn over to Wagram once I was safely incarcerated and the heat was off. It was a doubly-perfect crime, wasn't it, Roxie?

"Only you wanted to make it triply-perfect. By crossing up Wagram, taking the emeralds yourself, and making a run for it. Mexico, I suppose.

"But when I came to Wagram, something I said or did seemed to have aroused his suspicions. Maybe you were supposed to have phoned him, and didn't. Anyway, he figured things out. And he stole my key, gave it to Dugan, sent Dugan to kill you. It was all right if I discovered your body—that would merely implicate me further, when Wagram informed the police he had Hexler's killer. Maybe I was to be accused of your death, too. In any event, Wagram would get rid of me, of you, and of any suspicion of complicity.

"Except, of course, that I arrived before Dugan finished the job. And went to Clermer. And came here." I shook my head. "Why didn't you keep on running, Roxie? Why did you come back?"

She stared into my eyes. "To save your life, Steve. Wagram had the gun. In another minute he'd have killed you."

"I know."

"Maybe it's true, Steve, maybe everything you said is true. And maybe there were other things to come. What would you say if I told you that Carl Wagram confided in me? What if I told you that he was in love with me himself, that he offered me a full share in his future? If this experimental venture succeeded, he wasn't going to stop there. He 42