Mr. Murder

were under little pressure to find work.
        They also had four boxes full of the first editions of the early novels of Martin Stillwater. The cover of Time magazine had asked a question that would never be answered-Where is Martin Stillwater?-and first editions that had once been worth a couple of hundred dollars each on the collectors' market had begun selling, by spring, for five times that price, they would probably continue to appreciate faster than blue-chip investments in the years to come. Sold one or two at a time, in far cities, they would keep the family nest egg fat during lean years.
        John presented himself to new neighbors and acquaintances as a former insurance salesman from New York City. He claimed to have come into a substantial though not enormous inheritance. He was indulging a lifelong dream of living in a rural setting, struggling to be a poet.
        "If I don't start selling some poems in a few years, maybe I'll write a novel," he sometimes said, "and if that doesn't turn out right-then I'll start worrying."
        Ann was content to be seen as a housewife, however, freed from the pressures of the past-troubled clients and freeway commuting-she rediscovered a talent for drawing that she had not tapped since high school. She began doing illustrations for the poems and stories in her husband's ring-bound notebook of original compositions, which he had been writing for years, Stories for Rebecca and Suzie Lori.
        They had lived in Wyoming five years when Santa's Evil Twin by John Gault with illustrations by Ann Gault became a smash Christmas bestseller. They allowed no jacket photo of author and artist. They politely declined offers of promotional tours and interviews, prefer ring a quiet life and the chance to do more books for children.
        The girls remained healthy, grew tall, and Rebecca began selectively dating boys, all of whom Suzie Lori found wanting in one way or another.
        Sometimes John and Ann felt they lived too much in a fantasy, and they made an effort to keep up with current events, watching for signs and portents that they didn't even like to discuss with each other. But the world was endlessly troubled and tedious. Too few people seemed able to imagine life without the crushing hand of one government or another, one war or another, one form of hatred or another, so the Gaults always lost interest in the news and returned to the world they imagined for themselves.
        One day a paperback novel arrived in the mail. The plain brown envelope bore no return address, and no note of any kind was included with the book. It was a science-fiction novel set in the far future, when humankind had conquered the stars but not all of its problems.
        The title was The Clone Rebellion. John and Ann read it.
        They found it to be admirably well-imagined, and they regretted that they would never have the opportunity to express their admiration.
        
    THE END