Free The Good Old Stuff by John D. MacDonald Page A

the alphabet, and the object was to fill out a grid with words in such a way that the highest possible total was reached.
    At midnight he put his solution into the envelope and addressed it. Myra awakened by herself, yawned, and smiled sleepily at him. Trusting Myra! For a moment his resolve was weakened by pity. He thought of the envelope in his hand. The first prize was fifty thousand dollars. With fifty thousand dollars, life could be made bearable, even with Myra. Money would buy a certain amount of liberty from the married state.
    But, as a winner of many very small prizes, he knew how remote his chances were.
    He smiled back at her and they went to bed.
    On Saturday afternoon he had, as he expected, an hour alone in the apartment. It was a ground-floor apartment in the back of the building, the windows half shadowed by cedars. That was a necessary part of the plan. He took the fishline from the closet shelf, cut off a ten-foot length and tied a loop in the end, made a slipknot. The windows were of the sort with a permanent screen, and they could be opened or closed by inside cranks. Each movement had been planned. The handles on the small gas stove pointed straight down. They turned in the right direction for his purposes. He slipped the noose over one handle, pulled it tight, ran the other end of the string to the window, and poked it through one of the meshes of the screen. The window was open a few inches. Then, carrying a screwdriver for the sake of appearances, he went outside and around the building to the window. He found the end of the string, pulled it slowly and firmly. It gave slightly and then came free. Hepulled it all the way out through the mesh, forcing the knot through, then pushed firmly against the window. As he had expected, the crank made a half turn and closed.
    He hurried back into the apartment and found that the kitchenette was filled with the stink of gas. The burner, unlighted, was on full. He turned it off, opened the window to air the place.
    The stove had four burners. He made three more lengths of string with slipknots at the end, knots that would slip off when the handles pointed directly at the window. He put the four lengths of string on the closet shelf.
    When Myra returned from the store, he was working on a new puzzle which had just come out.
    That was on Saturday. He gave himself Sunday as a breathing space and began the second part of the campaign. Myra was a person who needed a great deal of sleep. Peter decided to see that she would become starved for sleep.
    Monday night he talked her into a late movie. After they got back to the apartment he talked long and animatedly about the picture they had seen, ignoring her yawns and sighs. They were in bed by two thirty. He set the alarm for seven and saw that she got up when he did. On Tuesday he phoned four times during the day, knowing from the drugged sound of her voice that he was awakening her each time. Tuesday night he took her out to dinner and then to another movie. He watched her in the movie and awakened her the two times she fell asleep. He insisted on seeing part of the picture over and afterward invented an excuse to call on friends.
    They were in bed by midnight, but Peter lay in the darkness for a time and then awakened her to tell her that he was ill. Her concern for him kept her from getting very much sleep that night. And on Wednesday morning Peter phoned the office and said that he was not well. He demanded copious attention all through the day. Myra cared for him and dragged about with the drugged look of a sleepwalker.
    It was hard for him to conceal his excitement and anticipation. At five o’clock he got up and dressed, declaring that he felt much better. In fact, he said, he was famished.
    At seven o’clock, with the dishes washed, Myra sat across the room from him and fell asleep, making no attempt to read.
    “Myra!” he said, quite loudly. “Myra!”
    She didn’t stir. Everything up to this point had been