And Kill Once More. Al Fray
midnight chow were on par with the rest of the Engle layout. I laid out two slices of bread, then went eny-meeny-miney-moe among the assortment of meats, cheeses and relish arranged nearby, and came up with something in the nature of a Dagwood Special. Drawing a cup of coffee, I sat down to munch my sandwich and browse through the magazine rack.
The stock of literature ran mostly to men’s mags with a liberal sprinkling of physical-culture stuff. I thumbed around a while, then started an article on muscle tone but when I came to the continued part it said turn to page ninety-six. There wasn’t one. It was the last sheet, next to the cover, and someone had torn it out. Very vexing. Out of idle curiosity, I pulled the issue before mine and the three that followed it. All of them had a page ninety-six and every one of those pages had the same advertisement on the back side. I grinned then, because the page that had been carefully cut out was one of those “do-you-long-for-your-youthful-vigor” booby traps that advise you to waste no time in sending the enclosed coupon along with four dollars. Dr. Holcum’s pills, according to the ad, would indeed put you back in the saddle again. It looked like one or another of Engle’s previous guests was in the market for hormone shots.
I downed the rest of my coffee, glanced at the wall clock, then decided that George had had more than a half hour to work on his dives and maybe I ought to drop by and see if he was doing all right. A light wind had started to blow down from the hill. I went across the terrace separating the pool from the rambling, U-shaped house. Engle wasn’t in sight. He didn’t bob up while I watched and I guessed he’d called it a night so I turned toward the walk leading to my own room, then stopped and whirled around like you do when your mind has just caught up with something your eyes have seen.
A towel and a robe draped across the back of a lawn chair near the diving board. I broke into a jog. When I neared the pool the black tile numbers caught my eye—a one and a five standing motionless against their background of blue. Then I saw something else. The still form of George Engle rested on the bottom under fifteen feet of water.
I gave a king-sized yell and plunged in.
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