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been taking his sleeping pills more regularly long before this. Stupid of him. Stupid.
    Drifting, drifting away.
    He was standing in a shadowy warehouse. He could see a large wooden tank some distance away. He could hear the hollow sound of water dripping. Dripping. He drew nearer, reached up and pulled himself over the damp slippery edge. Mr. Cruikshank was floating on his back in chunks of ice. He was wearing a flight suit. A tangle of wires were attached to his stomach.
    Wilf opened his eyes.

CHAPTER SIX
    It was just before nine o’clock the next morning when Carole pushed open the door to the office. It was unlocked, the lights were on and Wilf was sitting at Dorothy Dale’s desk.
    “Morning,” Wilf mumbled. He was looking through a file.
    Carole wondered if he’d had any sleep. Or if he’d slept in the office. Anyway, he seemed to have forgotten to brush his hair, parts of it were standing up on end.
    “Good morning.” Carole took off her hat and coat carefully. She’d been looking forward to seeing him, telling him what she’d found out, but now she wasn’t so sure.
    “Just checking the date on Cruikshank’s will,” Wilf said.
    He looked feverish. Carole had spent at least ten minutes that morning staring at the sweater Wilf had given her, deciding whether to wear it or not. Now she was glad she hadn’t. She pushed through the little gate, took the cover off her typewriter and sat down opposite him. “What’s it say?”
    “July twenty-third of last year. He must have been head over heels in love.”
    “Or thought highly of her, anyway.”
    “Thought highly of her?”
    “Yes. And then he died of a heart attack.”
    Wilf looked over at Carole. She was sitting as erect as a schoolteacher. Her long straight back. If only there were more to her, Wilf thought to himself, she’d be attractive. Not that it would do him any good. Or her, either.
    Carole pushed her unruly lock of hair back and began sorting through her work.
    “Did you find anything out?” Wilf asked
    “Well, yes and no. Do you remember Nancy Dearborn from school?”
    “She’s a telephone operator.”
    “She’s also my cousin and when I thought about it I realized that my uncle’s house is just across the street from where Mr. Cruikshank lived. So I called Nancy and of course it’s the talk of the neighbourhood. I got the feeling that no one liked Mr. Cruikshank very much, he wasn’t very neighbourly, but everyone’s feeling sorry for what happened to him anyway.”
    “That someone drowned him in his tub?”
    “No,” Carole replied.
    More firmly than necessary, Wilf thought.
    She went on. “I told Nancy that he’d been a client of ours and we were just feeling bad about it and she started talking about Adrienne O’Dell without me even having to mention her name. They saw her around there a lot. For the last year or so anyway. She helped him with his garden, took him grocery shopping, took him to his doctor appointments.”
    “He wasn’t an invalid.”
    “But he was elderly and he had a bad heart and so she was just helping out. That’s all. All the neighbours thought that it was a very nice thing for her to be doing, particularly since she was an O’Dell. They never saw any of his own family there.”
    “And we know why, don’t we?”
    “So did all his neighbours. Everyone knew there was a big fight going on. The courthouse is in Brantford, but you can’t keep a secret in this town. Everyone knows everything. You can’t keep anything private.”
    “Right,” Wilf said and remembered. Poor Carole Birley.
    Carole glanced toward the front door, looked back at Wilf and dropped her voice. “But the most interesting thing was, my aunt saw Mr. Cruikshank on his front porch arguing with someone. Someone tall and blonde and middle-aged. She hadn’t seen him before but with all the swinging of arms around and all the angry talk it was obvious they were really fighting. And then the man went away. That’s what