As Julia stepped off the arm of the chair, she saw the open window. A thought crossed her mind before the noose tightened. Belle could have jumped out of the window when I passed out. _Julia, you're a realist!_ * * * * * Mrs. Shultz put down the pot of soup and opened the door. The apartment is called a single. It consists of a Murphy bed, a chest of drawers, an overstuffed chair, a sofa, a coffee table, a seventeen-inch television set, a bookcase partially filled with the volumes A through F of an encyclopedia from the supermarket, and assorted paperback books, and a radio that doesn't work. In the ceiling is a fixture with two twenty-five-watt bulbs. From the fixture hangs a twisted sheet with a hangman's knot in the end of it. The noose is quite empty. So is the apartment. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Vassi, by Art Lewis