He sat there staring at me. I had told him everything he needed to know, even about Lola. It seemed funny it had only taken about ten minutes. Then he got up. I grabbed him.

"Keyes."

"I've got to go, Huff."

"See that they don't beat her."

"I've got to go now. I'll be back after a while."

"Keyes, if you let them beat her, I'll-kill you. You've got it all now. I've told you, and I've told you for one reason and one reason only. It's so they won't beat her. You've got to promise me that. You owe me that much. Keyes-"

He shook my hand off and left.

While I was telling him I hoped for some kind of peace when I got done. It had been bottled up in me a long time. I had been sleeping with it, dreaming about it, breathing with it. I didn't get any peace. The only thing I could think of was Lola, and how she was going to find out about it at last, and knew me for what I was.

About three o'clock the orderly came in with the afternoon papers. They didn't have any of what I had told Keyes. But they had been digging into their files, after the morning story, and they had it about the first Mrs. Nirdlinger's death, and Nirdlinger's death, and now me being shot. A woman feature writer had got in out there and talked with Phyllis. It was she that called it the House of Death, and put in about those blood-red drapes. Once I saw that stuff I knew it wouldn't be long. That meant even a dumb cluck of a woman reporter could see there was something funny out there.

It was half past eight that night before Keyes came back. He shooed out the nurse as soon as he came in the room, and then went out a minute. When he came back he had Norton with him, and a man named Keswick that was a corporation lawyer they called in on big cases, and Shapiro, the regular head of the legal department. They all stood around, and it was Norton that started to speak. "Huff."

"Yes sir."

"Have you told anybody about this?"

"Nobody but Keyes."

"Nobody else?"

"Not a soul…God, no."

"There have been no policemen here?"

"They've been here. I saw them out in the hall. I guess it was me they were whispering about. The nurse wouldn't let them in."

They all looked at each other. "Then I guess we can begin. Keyes, perhaps you had better explain it to him."

Keyes opened his mouth to say something, but Keswick shut him up, and got Norton into a corner. Then they called Keyes over. Then they called Shapiro. I could catch a word, now and then. It was some kind of a proposition they were going to make me, and it was a question of whether they were all going to be witnesses. Keswick was for the proposition, but he didn't want anybody to be able to say he had been in on it. They finally settled it that Keyes would make it on his own personal responsibility, and the rest of them wouldn't be there. Then they all tip-toed out. They didn't even say good-bye. It was funny. They didn't act like I had played them or the company any particularly dirty trick. They acted like I was some kind of an animal that had an awful sore on his face, and they didn't even want to look at it.

After they left Keyes sat down. "This is an awful thing you've done, Huff."

"I know it."

"I guess there's no need my saying more about that part."

"No, no need."

"I'm sorry. I've-kind of liked you, Huff."

"I know. Same here."

"I don't often like somebody. At my trade, you can't afford to. The whole human race looks-a little bit crooked."

"I know. You trusted me, and I let you down."

"Well-we won't talk about it."

"There's nothing to say…Did you see her?"

"Yes. I saw them all. Him, her, and the wife."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing…I didn't tell her, you see. I let her do the talking. She thinks Sachetti shot you."

"For what?"

"Jealousy."

"Oh."

"She's upset about you. But when she found out you weren't badly hurt, she-. Well, she-"

"-Was glad of it."

"In a way. She tried not to be. But she felt that it proved Sachetti loved her. She couldn't help it."

"I see."

"She was worried about you, though. She likes you."

"Yeah, I know. She…likes me."

"She was following you. She thought you were him. That was all there was to that."

"I figured that out."

"I talked to him."

"Oh yeah, you told me. What was he doing there?"

He did some more of his pounding around then. The night light over my head was the only light in the room. I could only half see him, but I could feel the bed shake when he marched.

"Huff, there's a story."

"Yeah? How do you mean?"

"You just got yourself tangled up with an Irrawaddy cobra, that's all. That woman-it makes my blood run cold just to think of her. She's a pathological case, that's all. The worst I ever heard of."

"A what?"

"They've got a name for it. You ought to read more of this modern psychology, Huff. I do. I wouldn't tell Norton. He'd think I was going high-brow or something. I find it helpful though. There's plenty of stuff in my field where it's the only thing that explains what they do. It's depressing, but it clears up things."

"I still don't get it."

"You will…Sachetti wasn't in love with her."

"No?"

"He's known her. Five or six years. His father was a doctor. He had a sanatorium up in the Verdugo Hills about a quarter mile from this place where she was head nurse."

"Oh yeah. I remember about that."

"Sachetti met her up there. Then one time the old man had some tough luck. Three children died on him."

The old creepy feeling began to go up my back. He went on. "They died of-"

"-Pneumonia."

"You heard about it?"

"No. Go on."

"Oh. You heard about the Arrowhead business."

"Yes."

"They died on him, and there was an awful time and the old man took the rap for it. Not with the police. They didn't find anything to concern them. But with the Department of Health and his clientele. It ruined him. He had to sell his place. Not long after that he died."

"Pneumonia?"

"No. He was quite old. But Sachetti thought there was something funny about it, and he couldn't shake it out of his mind about this woman. She was over there too much, and she seemed to take too much interest in the children up there. He had nothing to go on, except some kind of a hunch. You follow me?"

"Go on."

"He never did anything about it till the first Mrs. Nirdlinger died. It happened that one of those children was related to that Mrs. Nirdlinger, in such fashion that when that child died, Mrs. Nirdlinger became executrix for quite a lot of property the child was due to inherit. In fact, as soon as the legal end was cleared up, Mrs. Nirdlinger came into the property herself. Get that, Huff. That's the awful part. Just one of those children was mixed up with property."

"How about the other two?"

"Nothing. Those two children died just to cover the trail up a little. Think of that, Huff. This woman would even kill two extra children, just to get the one child that she wanted, and mix things up so it would look like one of those cases of negligence they sometimes have in those hospitals. I tell you, she's a pathological case."

"Go on."

"When the first Mrs. Nirdlinger died, Sachetti elected himself a one-man detective agency to find out what it was all about. He wanted to clear his father for one thing, and the woman had become an obsession with him for another thing. I don't mean he fell for her. I mean he just had to know the truth about her."

"Yeah, I can see that."

"He kept up his work at the university, as well as he could, and then he made a chance to get in there, and talk with her. He already knew her, so when he went up there with some kind of a proposition to join a physicians'-and-nurses' association that was being formed, he figured she wouldn't think anything of it. But then something happened. He met this girl, and it was a case of love at first sight, and then his fine scheme to get at the truth about the wife went on the rocks. He didn't want to make the girl unhappy, and he really had nothing to go on, so he called it off. He didn't want to go to the house after what he suspected about the wife, so he began meeting the girl outside. Just one little thing happened, though, to make him think that maybe he had been right. The wife, as soon as she found out what was going on, began telling Lola cock-eyed stories about him, and got the father to forbid Lola to see him. There was no reason for that, except that maybe this woman didn't want anything named Sachetti within a mile of her, after what happened. Do you follow this?"