She came in one morning, two years ago this week, and wanted to rent the vacant store space in the Duquesne Building—the one now occupied by the Sport Shop, with the living quarters in back—to open a dress shop. My first impression was that no woman that, good-looking and that young—she was only 25—could know anything about running a business, but it developed she did. She and her husband had owned a very successful dress shop in Miami until they’d split up the year before. After the divorce she’d wanted to get away from Miami and had started for the Coast in her car, stopped overnight in Carthage, and became interested in its possibilities. In the end I rented her the space, and then in less than six months did myself out of a tenant by persuading her to marry me…

I tried to shrug off this mood of futility, and attacked the accumulation of paper work on my desk. Evans, one of the salesmen, came in to discuss an offer he’d received on one of the listings. At three I went next door to Fuller’s for a cup of coffee. The cold front was going to be on us in less than an hour; angry masses of clouds, dark and swollen with turbulence, were beginning to pile up in the northwest. People were rolling up the windows of parked cars and keeping an eye on it as they hurried along the sidewalks. I wished it had come through before daybreak this morning, as originally forecast; I might have got some ducks.

Barbara came in to take some letters. She was sitting in the chair near the corner of the desk with her legs crossed, the shorthand notebook on her thigh, and as I dictated I found my train of thought being interrupted from time to time. It would be asinine to say she had worked for me for over a year without my ever having noticed that she was a very attractive girl, but this was apparently the first time I’d ever consciously thought of it. Leaning forward as she was, a strand of reddish-brown hair had swung down alongside her face, framing the line of her cheek. She was wearing a blouse with long full sleeves gathered closely at the wrists, and I found my eyes returning time after time to the slender, fine-boned hands below them with their delicate tracery of blue veins and the tapering fingers moving so gracefully at their work. I stumbled in mid-sentence.

Without looking up she read back, “—not presently included within the corporate limits of the city of Carthage comma nor expected to be so included within—” One corner of her mouth twitched humorously. “Not ‘foreseeable future’, I hope?”

I grinned. “No. I’ve often wondered what that meant, myself. How about ‘near future’?”

I went on, but I was still having difficulty concentrating on the letter. I was disgusted with myself and wondered if that was what I was going to become, a middle-aged ogler of secretaries. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the contempt she’d feel if she were aware of this scrutiny; she’d already had one experience with a philandering husband—her own. Just then, before I could stumble again, the telephone rang. She answered it, and passed it to me. “It’s the Sheriff.”

“Sheriff?” I repeated stupidly, wondering what Scanlon would be calling here for. “Hello.”

“Warren? Listen, did you go hunting this morning? Out at Crossman Slough?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why?”

“What time?”

“I got there a little before daylight, and left—I think it was about a quarter of ten.”

“You didn’t see anything of Dan Roberts out there?”

I frowned. “No. I saw his car, though. What’s this all about?”

“He killed himself. I’m trying to get some idea of what time.”

“Killed himself?”

“Yes.