Coming out of his office, Jose Despard found his secretary, Miss Mainwaring, bending over a file drawer. Viewed from the front, Miss Mainwaring was tight-lipped and flat-chested, the everlasting spinster. But from this angle, her personality seemed to offer certain possibilities. What if Despard should favor her with a small, innocent tweak, purely as a sporting proposition? She would be startled at first. She would straighten so abruptly that she would give her pelvis a painful knock against the file. But after that, who could tell? Perhaps she would turn slowly, remove her glasses and remark in that sultry tone that had aroused Mrs. Despard’s suspicions the first time she heard it on the phone, “I never knew you thought of me in that light, Mr. Despard.”

He thrust both hands deep in his pockets to keep them out of harm’s way. “Going to lunch. Don’t forget to call the gun shop. Tell them I’ll pick up the gun before five.”

Straightening, Miss Mainwaring turned her spinsterish side in his direction. It became safe to take his hands out of his pockets. Imagine pinching the rear of anybody with a face like that!

“And if Mrs. Despard calls,” he added, “tell her I’ll be going straight to the airport from here. I’ll phone her the minute we get in.”

He went out, hatless. He was tall, very thin, and always seemed to be in a hurry, having important business to transact when he got where he was going. He wore his hair long over his ears. It was touched with gray; he was fifty-three. He sometimes managed to forget his age for as long as three or four days at a time.

He picked up a red Thunderbird convertible in the executive parking lot. Walter Langhorne, head of the design department, was backing a new Chrysler out of the next slot. The two men waved and left the lot by opposite exits. Another early lunch for Walt, Despard noted, and the lucky son of a bitch could stay out as long as he liked, with no fear that some clacking idiot would see him and pass the news along to his wife. Because he had no wife. Despard cocked an eyebrow, a wry expression which he had practiced so long it had become habitual. He believed it made him look English.