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“Keep the kid’s door locked at night?” I asked Roxy.

She shook her head. “No. There’s no reason to.”

“Notice any tracks around here, outside the door or window?”

Another negative. “If there were any,” she added, “they would have been wiped out in the excitement.”

I dragged slowly on the cigarette, letting all the facts sink in. It seemed simple enough, but was it? “Who are all the twerps downstairs, bunny?”

“Relatives, mostly.”

“Know ’em?”

Roxy nodded. “Mr. York’s sister and her husband, their son and daughter, and a cousin are his only blood relations. The rest are his wife’s folks. They’ve been hanging around here as long as I’ve been here, just waiting for something to happen to York.”

“Does he know it?”

“I imagine so, but he doesn’t seem bothered by them. They try to outdo each other to get in the old boy’s favor. I suppose there’s a will involved. There usually is.”

“Yeah, but they’re going to have a long wait. York told me his health was perfect.”

Roxy looked at me curiously, then dropped her eyes. She fidgeted with her fingernails a moment and I let her stew a bit before I spoke.

“Say it, kid.”

“Say what?”

“What you have on your mind and almost said.”

She bit her lip, hesitating, then, “This is between you and me, Mike. If Mr. York knew I told you this I’d be out of a job. You won’t mention it, will you?”

“I promise.”

“About the second week I was here I happened to overhear Mr. York and his doctor after an examination. Apparently Mr. York knew what had happened, but called in another doctor to verify it. For some time he had been working with special apparatus in his laboratory and in some way became overexposed to radiation. It was enough to cause some internal complications and shorten his life span. Of course, he isn’t in any immediate danger of dying, but you never can tell. He wasn’t burned seriously, yet considering his age, and the fact that his injury has had a chance to work on him for two years, there’s a possibility that any emotional or physical excitement could be fatal.”

“Now isn’t that nice,” I said. “Do you get what that means, Roxy?” She shook her head. “It might mean that somebody else knows that too and tried to stir the old boy up by kidnapping the one closest to him in the hope that he kicks off during the fun. Great . . . that’s a nice subtle sort of murder.”

“But that’s throwing it right on the doorstep of the beneficiary of his estate.”

“Is it? I bet even a minor beneficiary would get enough of the long green to make murder worthwhile. York has plenty.”

“There are other angles too, Mike.”

“Been giving it some thought, haven’t you?” I grinned at her. “For instance, one of the family might locate the kid and thus become number-one boy to the old man. Or perhaps the kid was the chief beneficiary and one of them wanted to eliminate him to push himself further up the list. Yeah, kid, there’s a lot of angles, and I don’t like any of ’em.”

“It still might be a plain kidnapping.”

“Roger. That it might. It’s just that there’re a lot more possibilities to it that could make it interesting. We’ll know soon enough.” I opened the door and hesitated, looking over my shoulder. “’Night, Roxy.”

“Good night.”

York was back by the fireplace again, still brooding. I would have felt better if he had been pacing the floor. I walked over and threw myself in a big chair. “Where’ll I spend the night?” I asked him.

He turned very slowly. “The guest room. I’ll ring for Harvey.”

“Never mind. I’ll get him myself when I’m ready.”

We sat in silence a few minutes then York began a nervous tapping of his fingers. Finally, “When do you think we’ll have word?”

“Two, three days maybe. Never can tell.”

“But he’s been gone a day already.”

“Tomorrow, then. I don’t know.”

“Perhaps I should call the police again.”

“Go ahead, but you’ll probably be burying the boy after they find him. Those punks aren’t cops, they’re political appointees. You ought to know these small towns. They couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag.”

For the first time