Psyche by Phyllis Young

repair a faulty lock on the back door. The job took him no more than twenty minutes, and was a perfectly legal undertaking in all respects. Nevertheless, by the time he returned to his ancient car, his narrow forehead was damp with sweat, and his bony fingers were trembling to such an extent he could scarcely fit the car key into the ignition.
    He came back a week later under cover of darkness in order to install sufficient supplies for a stay of, if necessary, three weeks’ duration. A bundle of cheap, new blankets, a case of whiskey, a meagre assortment of clothing, and several cartons of cannedgoods which included Carnation Milk and Clapp’s Baby Foods, comprised the sum of preparations which he considered not only adequate but inspired.
    The mechanics of his plan for collecting the money—he intended to demand two hundred thousand dollars—were simple enough, and involved nothing more complicated than a paper parcel, neither registered nor insured, addressed to Mr. V. E. Teran, Box 3005, General Post Office, City. He thought, and quite wisely, that the crowded anonymity of a public place offered more cover than any country hedgerow at midnight. A pawn, who would actually open the box, could easily be found, and hired on some slight pretext, within the precincts of the Post Office itself.
    The ransom note, which he also wished to have prepared in advance, proved an unexpected stumbling block. Sitting, as he invariably did when he was in his room, on the edge of his untidy bed, he struggled evening after evening with the composition of this piece of literature. And, as the waste-basket filled with abortive attempts—later to be flushed down a communal toilet—his unhealthy skin grew red with frustration, and the unruly muscle in his cheek increased the tempo of its rhythm.
    It was, curiously enough, the threat that must accompany the practical directions that bothered him so much. If he failed to make the child’s death the alternative of a safe return for payment received, the whole scheme would deteriorate into a comparatively mild game of hare and hounds, with time no longer a decisive element, and the odds therefore in favour of the hounds. The parents must be frightened into acting at once and without calling in the police. Yet, psychopathically sensitive to the opinion of others, he shrank from branding himself in black and white as a possible murderer. The very word terrified him. He was no baby-killer—merely a man who had been unfairly treated, a man who had Never Been Given a Chance.
    With a vision of feminine legs rampant on a heraldic motif of new cars on the one hand, and a very realistic hangman’s noose in bas relief against a sea of accusing faces on the other, he wasstill struggling in a quagmire of indecision when the opportunity for which he had been waiting presented itself, made to order down to the last detail.
    2
    The chimes
of
the grandfather clock at the foot of the circular stairway, announcing to the household that it was seven o’clock, coincided with the single deep tone of the dinner gong
.
    Sharon put her cocktail glass down on the inlaid table in front of the fireplace, but she was slower in relinquishing the object she had been holding in her left hand
.
    With a small, half-apologetic grimace at her husband, she said, “I’ll take it up to her after dinner. She would be unhappy if she woke and it
wasn’t
there.”
    With mock ceremony, she placed the small teddy-bear in the exact centre of the lounge on which she had been sitting. And the firelight caught not only his wise glass eyes, but also the shimmering mass of Sharon’s hair as she stooped and then straightened again
.
    â€œYou spoil her,” the man said softly, “as much as you spoil me.”
    Sharon was tall, but she had to look up to meet her husband’s grey eyes. “And why shouldn’t I spoil you both just a little?” she asked, smiling. “You