The Second Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 20 More Classic Mystery Stories

She leaned, peering at him closely.

“Atha, surely you remember... the breeze in our faces when I took you sailing... that lovely emerald green gown you wore to the hospital benefit... the way we danced the night the Leyer orchestra kept playing Sunrise Serenade for us?”

A small flicker showed in her sunken eyes. “Guthrie?”

“Yes, Atha, oh, yes!” Marley said fervently.

“Guthrie?” she repeated, like a child whispering in an empty room. “Can it really be Guthrie?”

“Of course, Atha.” He reached and took her bony hands in his. “And I can explain everything, my darling. Let me in. Let me fill my eyes with the sight of you. Let me tell you what really happened.”

A small seizure went through her. Her hands locked tightly on his. “Guthrie... Guthrie... Guthrie...” she whispered.

She drew him inside, not taking her eyes from his face. Across the entry foyer, down two steps into a vast sunken living room where the candle burned on a table set close to the front windows.

“Atha, it’s so...”

“Please,” she said. “Not now.” She stepped back, looking him up and down.

“Atha...” A strange feeling of alarm began pouring through Marley.

“No,” she said, turning away. “You mustn’t say a word.” She braced herself against a small, drop leaf desk. “Not another lying word.”

Her hand dipped into the desk drawer and drew out a gun. She pointed it steadily at Marley.

“I always knew the lure of the money would bring you back someday,” she said.

“Atha, no! Wait... You’ve got it all wrong!”

“And this,” she said, “is the only thing that’s kept me alive for thirty years.”

She squeezed the trigger, and Marley died painlessly, a bullet between his eyes at such short range. He crumpled and fell.

Her whole body seeming to lift in a long-lost self respect and pride, Atha Vanderling quietly, a rustling of white satin, stepped across the prone form, reached out her hand, and pinched the flame from the candle.