It was the work of a few minutes to bury the corpse in the coal bin. Afterward he stood at the corner sink, scrubbing his hands and arms with gritty mechanics' soap, drying them on a handful of waste cloth. Then, lost in thought, he remained where he was, a brooding shadow in the near blackness of the basement.

Carol. Why couldn't he accept her explanation? Beynon was a hard drinker at times. Carol had had to call at his apartment to talk to him. So, playing upon his weakness, she had got him so drunk that he passed out. And he was still dead to the world early the next morning when she slipped out of the place. That was all she had had to do, except, of course, to make sure that she was seen coming and going by the elevator operator and desk clerk. That was all-more than enough. For a man of Beynon's prominence-the head of the state's pardon and parole board-to have the wife of a notorious criminal in his apartment for an all-night stay…

Nothing else was necessary, so doubtless nothing else had taken place. As for the bribe money-well, as long as Beynon was stuck, there was no point in refusing a bit of salve.

It all fitted, Doc thought. Yet piece by piece, item by item, he could knock it apart. His mind moved around and around in a circle, disbelieving each time it was on the point of believing.

He was ready to admit that his shaky faith was a personal thing. As a professional criminal, he had schooled himself against placing complete trust in anyone. And as a criminal, he had learned to link infidelity with treachery. It revealed either a dangerous flaw in character, or an equally dangerous shift in loyalties. In any case, the woman was a bad risk in a game where no risk could be tolerated.

So…

Abruptly, Doc broke the agonizing circle of his thoughts. He stood off from himself, standing this fretful, teetering creature that he was now alongside the suave, sure and unshakable Doc McCoy; and the comparison made him squirm.

Now, no more of this, he lectured himself; he smiled softly. No more, either now or later.

Carol had mopped up the kitchen. Now she was at the oil stove, measuring coffee into an enamel pot. Doc walked over to her and put his arms around her. She turned hesitantly, a little fearfully, and looked up into his face.

Doc kissed her enthusiastically. He said mockseriously, "Madam, were you aware that you had a damn fool for a husband?"

"Oh, Doc! Doc, honey!" She clung to him, burying her face against his chest. "It's my fault. I wanted to tell you the truth right back in the beginning but…"

"But you were afraid I'd react exactly the way I did," Doc said. "That coffee smells good. How about some sandwiches to go with it?"

"All right. But shouldn't we be beating it out of here, Doc?"

"Well," Doc grinned wryly, "of course, I wouldn't recommend an indefinite stay. But there's no great rush that I can see." He sauntered over to the refrigerator, peered inside and lifted out a butt of baked ham. "Beynon wouldn't have known exactly when we'd show up. Therefore, he'd have made sure that no one else dropped in on him tonight."

"I guess I shouldn't have killed him, should I, Doc? It's going to make things tough for us."

Doc laid plates and silver on the table. He set out butter and bread. He said that Beynon's death was regrettable but unavoidable; when an accessory to a crime collapsed so completely, there was nothing to do but kill him. "I don't know just how tough it'll make things for us. Maybe not at all. But it certainly forces us to change our plans."

Carol nodded, and lifted the coffee from the stove. "Want to put the cream on for me, honey?" she said; then, "Just how will it change them?"

"Well, here's the way I add it up." Doc sat down at the table, and carved meat onto their plates. "Our car must have been spotted on the way up here. At least we have to assume that it was. Still playing it safe, we can't rule out the possibility that someone got a look at us. Maybe some kid stalking a rabbit near the road, or a nosy housewife with time on her hands and a pair of binoculars…"

"It could happen," Carol agreed. "We change out of these duds, then. Leave our car here and take Beynon's."

"Right. We try to make it appear that the three of us have gone off somewhere together, and that we'll be coming back. But-" Doc took a sip of his coffee. "Here's where the rub comes in. We don't know what Beynon's plans were, his appointments. For all we know he may have been due to see or call someone tomorrow morning, or someone may have been scheduled to see or call him here. Then there's the livestock- that's the real tip-off. When Beynon shows up missing, without having notified his part-time hired hand-" Doc shook his head. "We'll have to get off the road. We can't risk it a moment longer than we absolutely have to."

"No, we can't, can we?" Carol frowned. "We hole up with someone, then?"

"What gave you that idea? Who would we hole up with?"

"Well, Ijust thought that if-weren't you supposed to have a good friend out this way? Somewhere near Mexico, I mean? You know, that old woman-Ma Santis."

Doc said, regretfully, that he didn't have. Ma Santis was on the other side of Mexico, the Southern California side. At least, it had been rumored that she was there, although no one seemed to know where. "I don't know that she's even alive, but it's my guess that she probably isn't. When you get as well known as Ma Santis and her boys, people have you cropping up around the country for years after you're dead."

"Well. If there's no place for us to hole up…"

"I think we'd better be moving." Doc pushed back his plate and stood up. "We can talk about it while we're getting ready."

They cleared up the dishes and put them away. They changed into conservative clothes. As for talk- a discussion of their plans-there was very little. The decision was made for them. One saw it as readily as the other. They had to travel far faster than they had planned, and it was unsafe to use the highways. So there was only one thing they could do.

Aside from putting the kitchen to rights and smoothing out the upstairs bed, they did nothing to expunge the signs of their brief presence in the house. Doc did suggest that they wipe everything off to remove their fingerprints, but that was a joke and Carol grinned dutifully. Criminals are not nearly so cautious about fingerprints as is popularly supposed. Not, at least, the big-time operators who treat crime as a highly skilled profession. They know that an expert fingerprint man might work all day in his own home without picking up an identifiable set of his own prints. They also know that fingerprints are normally only corroborative evidence; that they will probably be tabbed for a certain crime, and the alarm set to ringing for them,long before they are tied to the job by fingerprints-if they ever are.

Doc filled Beynon's car with gasoline from a drum in the garage, also filling two five-gallon cans which he put in the rear of the car. He drove the car out into the yard, and Carol drove the convertible inside; and then they were on their way.

A couple of hours driving got them off of the country roads and back onto the highway. They paused there briefly to consult their road maps, picking out the most practical route to Kansas City. The town was far to the north, farther rather than nearer their ultimate destination. But that, of course, was its advantage. It was the last place they would be expected to go. As a jumping-off place, it offered no clue as to what their destination might be.

Their plan was to abandon the car at Kansas City and take a train westward. It was not, they knew, an ideal one. You are confined on a train. You are part of a relatively small group, and thus more easily singled out. Still, there was only one alternative-to go by plane-and a train was by far the best bet.