Sergeant Clay said, 'You tell me. There were no fingerprints in the room, apart from 
yours and Mrs. Woods's. There were no unusual soil samples in the dust we vacuumed up 
from the rug.'
   'And the urine on the bed? What about that - that urine you said was nonhuman?'
   Sergeant Clay looked at John steadily. 'We were right. It wasn't human. It wasn't even 
urine. It was simply a mixture of water and chemicals, including sulphur and iodine.'
   There was a lengthy silence. John held Sergeant Clay's gaze for a moment, then glanced 
at his twin. Detective Clay was standing close to Lenny, frowning, his hand pressed to 
his forehead as if he were suffering from a headache.
   John turned back to the sergeant. 'And that's what you think, is it? That my wife and 
I had an argument and smashed up our own bedroom and told you that it was vandals?'
   'It's one of the possibilities,' said Sergeant Clay flatly. 'After all, you couldn't 
claim insurance, could you, if it was proved that you did it yourselves?'
   'Oh, I see. We're guilty of perpetrating insurance fraud now, are we?'
   'It's one of the possibilities,' Sergeant Clay repeated. 'And - do tell me, Sergeant - 
what are the other possibilities?' John demanded.
   Before he could answer, Detective Clay came over and took hold of his brother's arm. 
He whispered something in Sergeant Clay's ear, nodded toward Lenny, then whispered 
something else. Sergeant Clay listened impassively, although his narrow Arabian-looking 
nostrils flared a little, as if he were breathing more deeply. John looked from one twin 
to the other, 'What's all that about?'
   Sergeant Clay checked his watch. 'I'm sorry, Mr. Woods. We have to get back to 
headquarters. Something just came up.'
   'Will you tell me what the hell is going on?' John demanded.
   Sergeant Clay said, There's nothing going on, Mr. Woods. Just a routine 
investigation.' 'So, what do you intend to do now?'
   'We intend to go back to headquarters, that's all.'
   'And you don't intend to make any further effort to find out who broke into my house 
and tore my bedroom to pieces because you think I did it?'
   'Believe me, Mr. Woods, the investigation is going to continue. But we have plenty of 
other work to do. The situation is that, whatever actually happened here, nobody got 
hurt.'
   Jennifer came across and took hold of John's hand. 'Come on, John, he's right. There's 
no point in getting mad about it.'
   John showed Sergeant and Detective Clay to the door. As they were leaving, Detective 
Clay whispered something else in his twin's ear. Sergeant Clay turned to John and said, 
'Do you intend to stay here tonight?'
   'We're staying at a friend's house on Chestnut Hill.'
   'Maybe you should give me the address.'
   'What for? You don't think this is going to happen again, do you?'
   'Mr. Woods, please don't make it difficult.'
   'Very well, then,' said John testily. 'It's 1305 Fairmount.'
   Thank you, Mr. Woods,' said Sergeant Clay, jotting down the address in his notebook. 
'And there's one thing more.'
   John said nothing, waiting with an exaggeratedly impatient expression for Sergeant 
Clay to tell him what this 'one thing more' might be.
   'My brother says to lock your bedroom door.'
   'Your brother says what?'
   'It may sound impertinent, Mr. Woods, but believe me, he knows what he's talking 
about.'
   'Are you guys high?' John demanded.
   'Mr. Woods, what we're telling you is entirely for your own protection.' 'You're 
spaced out, both of you,' John retorted. 'I never met two such goddamned weirdos in my 
whole life. Well, you listen to me. If I get any more crap from you two, I'm going to 
call the police commissioner's office personally and make an official complaint. I'm not 
some bum living in a cardboard box, mister. You can't roust me, and you'd better not try.'
   'We know who you are, sir,' said Sergeant Clay courteously. 'And we're still advising 
you to lock your bedroom door tonight. Not just for your own protection, but for the 
safety of your wife and son, too.' John was about to snap out another caustic remark when 
Jennifer quietly laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. He turned around, and she 
smiled at him. He let out a long breath of resignation, and said, 'Okay, okay. Thank you, 
gentlemen. Let's just leave it at that, shall we?'
   He  closed the  door,  and put his  arms  around Jennifer, and kissed her.
   'What do you think of that?' he asked her. 'They think we did it.'
   Jennifer smiled. 'I love you when you're angry.' 'Angry? Goddamn it, I'm not angry. 
I'm just - I don't know - mystified.'
   He went back into the sitting room and poured them both a last foaming glass of 
champagne.
   'Here's to us,' he said. 'And here's to the confusion of our enemies.'


Three
   
   As evening settled warm and cloudless over Chestnut Hill, John and Jennifer sat on the 
patio at the back of Jack Felling's house and enjoyed a last glass of wine. Lenny was 
just inside the patio doors, playing with He-Man figures on the tiled floor of the 
sunroom. John said, 'How about another toast? Here's to Jack.' Jack Felling was the 
chairman of the executive committee at the Philadelphia News group. Although he was 
eleven years older than John, and one of corporation's most senior executives, the two 
men had become friends almost at once. The immediacy of their friendship had had a lot to 
do with their mutual obsession with backgammon, but they were also remarkably alike, both 
in character and in looks. Jack saw in John the feisty young manager that he himself had 
been when he first joined the News; John saw in Jack the wise, experienced member of the 
board that he would like to grow into.
   Chestnut Hill was one of the most desirable residential areas in Philadelphia, 
northwest of the city past Fairmount Park, and Jack Felling owned one of its most 
dramatic houses. Jack's mother had been a native Neapolitan, and Jack adored Italy and 
everything Italian. He had built the house on three levels on a thickly wooded slope, its 
blue-tiled rooftops clustered together to resemble a small Italian village rather than a 
single house. There were cloisters and courtyards and ornamental fountains, and even a 
bell tower copied from a church in Siena, although its bell had been rung only once. 
Further campanology had been forbidden by the Chestnut Hill residents' association.
   The patio was sheltered on its north and east sides by a spectacular rockery, densely 
planted with maiden pink and rockrose and snow-in-summer. An artificial stream trickled 
down through the rocks, and into a small circular pool at the patio's edge.
   John and Jennifer had been too tired and a little too drunk to cook supper, so they 
had sat on Zarach stools in the stylish marble-countered kitchen and eaten a Chinese 
carryout, chow mein and sweet-and-sour-pork, straight out of the boxes. Now, an hour 
later, John was beginning to wish that he hadn't so doggedly finished off the last of the 
soft-fried noodles. He grimaced and thumped his chest with his fist.