It was strange, it never ceased to amaze Ruth Porges, how much familiar surroundings, a chair you sat in daily, a painting on the wall that had become as well-known to you as the face and even the shared thoughts of an old friend, a potted palm you'd watch grow and watered dutifully for years--just how much such objects helped you to think clearly when you were in a tormented frame of mind. She'd made her decision now and she felt no remorse, no sense of guilt at all. She was probably a very unusual person in some respects, but she had long since ceased to reproach herself because she felt compelled at times to behave in an unusual way. She'd hid the gun where she didn't think it would be found easily, if the police should suspect anything--they still kept dropping in at the office--and called unexpectedly within the next few hours to question her about her descent into the excavation and her sudden decision to take the day off. As soon as it became dark she'd take a taxi to the East River on the upper East Side, get out a few blocks from the esplanade that overlooked the most turbulent part of the river, walk calmly through the beautiful park that ended in an ascending terrace, and make sure that all of the nearby benches were unoccupied. Then she'd move quickly to the iron railing and toss the gun as far out into the river as she could. Did they ever drag the East River for a murder weapon? Could they, with any real hope of finding it? She didn't know for sure, but she rather suspected they couldn't. And how would anyone ever know, or even remotely suspect, where she'd tossed the gun? They'd have to drag the Hudson also and the bay all the way to Staten Island, because you could drop a gun from a ferry too. She knew she couldn't morally justify what she was planning to do. It would have been useless to try. But if she had hated Lathrup herself enough to want to kill her, she couldn't see herself in the role of a hypocritical betrayer, sending to his death a man who had lost control completely and gone all the way. If the police had stumbled on the gun themselves, without her help, it would have been quite different. But having opened a Pandora's box, the horror that had come out had to be destroyed. It was her responsibility--hers alone. That the box had been a big flat stone that she had overturned impulsively, with no knowledge of what lay concealed underneath, changed nothing. The same woman's curiosity which had betrayed Pandora had been at work in her. It was the most destructive kind of curiosity in the world, but she had succumbed to it and must pay the price, even if it would mean that she would have to wear a gray prison uniform for four or five years.