Murder was not only good for business but also improved attendance at the Tenants' Meeting. Oliver's office was barely big enough - even with the double doors connecting to his shop open and folded against the wall, it was crowded. Steven was slouched on a chair in the corner as if wondering what new disaster would present itself. Ronnie and Ginger shared the Louis XIV couch with little, gray-haired Miss Endicott, owner of the Toy Box. Ginger was cuddling a foil wrapped package on her lap, as if unsure that her brownies were appropriate. I wondered what had happened to her last batch.

Oliver was, of course, behind his desk with Lucy perched on the corner, Oliver holding her hand. A variety of chairs appropriated from Oliver's stock of antiques held Mrs. Balrymple, Harry Martin from the Candle Waxworks and Charlie, who had abandoned his post to join us. Jonathan was, of course, in his own wheelchair. Mrs. Arriola had chosen a cane bottom rocker next to the desk while Mr. Mangan had taken a corner of the heavy maple coffee table in front of the couch. Mrs. Balrymple, in response to Jonathan's request, had come accompanied by two of her husband's security guards - they chose to stand behind her, one to each side of the double doors.

The room was already crowded so I decided to stand, choosing a spot by Oliver's desk rather than trying to bring in another chair.

It was just as well. Oliver attentions were safely concentrated on Lucy which left me to open the meeting - which I did with a brief recap of the events of the past five days. Then I explained - a censored account - about Mrs. Arriola and her voices. "And," I finished, "the voices were predicting - according to Mrs. Arriola - murder."

Now, I had Oliver's attention ... and everyone else's. "Murder?" Oliver's voice was hollow with surprise. "You mean Jarvis' murder?"

"Not exactly, what she was actually hearing had nothing to do with the murders. But ... that was something that we did not discover until later. Wednesday night," I continued my explanation, "Mrs. Arriola came to consult me ... for, er, fortunetelling aids. Our idea, that is - Jonathan's and mine, was that Mrs. Arriola was picking up radio broadcast signals on her bridgework ..."

That raised a short storm of protests, disbelief and questions ... which I ignored.

Instead, I recounted our visit to Roland Smith's trailer - the first visit - and the results that he had reported. "... and that," I reported, "seemed to be conclusive! At least, it left us in the position of doubting Mrs. Arriola's sanity." I didn't account for the other reasons for questioning her state of mind.

"That was Thursday," I reminded them. "Saturday, the picture changed drastically - in two respects ... First, Roland Smith was killed - spectacularly." This brought a wave of nods of agreement - everyone was familiar with that event.

"Second," I told them what they didn't know about, "the voices - or voice, which Mrs. Arriola had been hearing, changed! Now, they began talking what Mrs. Arriola has referred to as 'nonsense'. More important, she had no doubts about what was being said because, now, the voice was speaking Spanish!"

I paused to wait for a second storm of disbelief and protest to die. "But that was later. It was the first voices that talked about murder. Lucy, would you like to explain?"

Lucy had spent part of the afternoon preparing 'visual aids'. She now crossed to the couch and pulled out several sheets of poster board. Taking the sheets, I propped then up on a small table in the corner by Oliver's desk.

"What Grandmother heard," Lucy indicated the left column on the first poster, "were the words: 'tirar a', 'rabia', 'fuerza' or 'furia' and 'matar' ..."

The poster read:

TIRAR A - To shoot - fire at

RABIETA - Rage - anger

FUERZA / FURIA - Force / Fury

MATAR - To kill - slay

"Si," Mrs. Arriola agreed, "I hear them - not loud, sabe?" She tapped on temple. "Spirit voices!" She looked around the assembly to be sure that everything was perfectly clear.

"Excuse me," I said to the company at large, some of whom were looking very boggled indeed. "They weren't really ..."

Oliver had recovered enough to bang his gavel. "Daisy. You're out of order!"

Lucy whispered to her grandmother who then corrected herself. "No, no, not spirit voices." She held up thumb and forefinger to indicated some minuscule object. "'Bug' voices - sabe? Little bugs that crawl in the woodwork. Mrs. Carson, she explain for me. She say they drop down from the eaves ..."

"Excuse me, Abuela," Lucy interrupted. "Maybe I'd better explain. Oliver" she stopped him with a half-raised gavel. "Now," she continued, "Grandmother is not fluent in English. The voices which she was hearing were indistinct, faint ... just barely audible. Under the circumstances, she could only pick out a few words here and there. And, as Grandmother said, the same words were being repeated - many times. At least," she stressed, "the words that she thought she understood!"

"Most of what the voices said," Lucy continued, "Grandmother couldn't under-stand and those words that she did, she interpeted as being Spanish ... not English! If we interpret them as English ..." she suggested while I changed to the second poster which read:

TIRAR A - Tiara

RABIETA - Rabbit

FUERZA - Furs

MATAR - Matter? Metal?

"... then we have a very different interpretation. I admit," she raised a hand, "these are not evidence! Our choices here are purely guesses."

"When I was a kid, we played a game called 'Gossip' where a single word or phrase was whispered from one player to the next. The result, at the end of the line, rarely had the slightest resemblance, to the word or phrase that started the round. What Grandmother was hearing was like that ... but worse!"

"But you said . . ," Oliver interrupted. "Er, ah, may the Chair request clarification?" Oliver hates violating parliamentary procedures.

"Of course, Oliver," Lucy smiled. "What?"

"You said that, ah, some of the voices were, ah, Spanish. Couldn't she understand what they said?"

"Uh, well, yes," Lucy was flustered. "Mrs. Carson, would you explain?"

"Certainly, Lucy." I could imagine why she preferred not to answer but I thought I'd better finish some background before going into that! "I've mentioned the theory about the electronic 'bugs' already and told you how Roland Smith tested Mrs. Arriola and shot down the theory," I recapped. "But then Smith was killed! In a most unusual manner," I added.

"Now, suppose that the method of his murder was accidental? Suppose that there was a different purpose in the use of the magnetic crane than murder?" I really wasn't at all certain that Roland Smith's death was accidental. I suspected deliberate and premeditated murder and that the crane had been used to confuse the evidence ... as well as destroying other evidence. The real problem was that I didn't see any way to prove premeditation or intention - the rest of it, I hoped, could be proven.

"As a hypothesis," I looked at Jonathan, "suppose that the Compound was bugged and that Roland Smith was behind it."

"You mean, like the CIA?" Oliver whispered before his head ducked under the desk - looking for one of the listening devices.

"No, not like the CIA," I corrected him, "and I doubt very much that this room is bugged." Oliver looked disappointed as his head came back out from under his desk. "If Roland had planted the bugs, then he would also have had every reason to fake the tests he ran on Mrs. Arriola ... I doubt that there is any way that we would ever be able to prove anything," I lied, "but suppose that Smith had not only planted the bugs but had recorded what he picked up with them? If he were using this for blackmail ..."

"The electromagnet!" Oliver chimed in. "It would have erased the tapes! I did that to a Statler Brothers tape once when ..."

"Exactly," I confirmed. "We don't have to hypothesize murder as being the intention at all. Actually," I added to be fair, "as a murder weapon, it's fairly unlikely that either the electromagnet or the shaking up would have killed Roland but there isn't much doubt that any tapes which he'd made would have been erased.

"As a further hypothesis," again I gave Jonathan a smug look, "I took the supposition that this new voice which Mrs. Arriola was hearing could be easily explained if: one, the blackmail victims had found the bug planted by Smith; two, were aware or suspected that Mrs. Arriola was receiving the transmissions from the bug and; three, had provided a fake transmission for the purpose of discrediting Mrs. Arriola."

"But how?" Charlie questioned. "Discredit Miss Lucy's grandmother, I mean?"

"We'll get to that in a moment," I promised. "As for the hypothesis, that was subject to experimental verification. You may recall," I suggested, "the entertainment provided earlier today by the mariachi band?"

I pulled a slip of paper from my pocket. "This," I announced, "is a list of the songs the band played and ... the locations where each song was performed. While this was occurring, Mrs. Arriola was in Lucy's apartment listening. I won't bother with the details but, on the basis of which songs Mrs. Arriola was able to hear - along with the 'voice' - we were able to determine where the bug was located!

"At least," I added, "within a general area. This is where Mr. Mangan enters the picture. Mr. Mangan is the manager of Radio Shack and agreed to assist us in finding the precise location of the bug - thereby verifying at least a portion of the hypothesis ..."

The silence was deafening. "As I said," I continued, "we did locate the 'bug'. Mr. Mangan, would you like to explain for us?" I requested.

Mr. Mangan rose and placed the package on the desk, then pushed a key. The silence of the room was broken first by a brief whirring of white noise, then an indistinguishable whisper. Behind me, Mrs. Arriola let out a sudden yelp and slapped her hands over her ears.

"Oh ... er, sorry!" Mr. Mangan gave an absent-minded nod in her direction and switched the recorder off. He patted himself all over until he found a small clasp knife, cut the strapping tape, removed the small package and examined it carefully. He was nodding wisely to himself as he pulled a single red wire loose.

"That should do it," he remarked, placing the smaller package in his pocket. "Now, let's try it again. The volume was all the way down," he explained. "I'll turn it up." He touched the controls and the whisper rose to a normal speaking tone.

My Spanish is rudimentary and the voice on the tape was speaking very fast. I could only recognize a few words here and there ... but those few I didn't care to translate. David, who had minored in Spanish at the University of Texas, soon began looking very grim indeed.

The content was almost ludicrous - considered soberly, some of the suggestions sounded like they belonged in the routine of an X-rated comedian. The worst part was monotonous voice as it poured out a seemingly endless stream of obscenities - speaking rapidly, one phrase followed another with no change in inflection or tone. It was as if the voice were simply reciting a list so boring as to be totally without interest.

Mrs. Arriola crossed herself, then nodded slowly, a look of growing recognition on her face. But it was Mrs. Balrymple who let out an sudden shriek. "But ... but that's Emilio's voice!" she informed us indignantly.

Damn, I hadn't thought of that but, of course, it would be . . !

Mr. Mangan nodded politely to Mrs. Balrymple but refused to be distracted. He addressed Mrs. Arriola with a gracious half-bow, "Seņora, would this be the, er, voice you've been hearing recently?"

Her eyes bright with interest, the old woman said emphatically: "Si! It is the ghost! It is ... 'el ritmo'. I tell you before, Mrs. Carson, I do not hear that but the same words, the same ..."

"The same rhythm," Lucy supplied.

Oliver knows a little Spanish too - I've never been sure just how much. His ears, normally pinkish enough, had turned quite crimson and he'd released Lucy's hand. "You mean ..." he looked back and forth between the old Chicano woman and the cassette in Mr. Mangan's hand. "You mean," he spoke slowly as if wanting to be certain of every word, "Mrs. Arriola has been hearing all that, over and over, night and day? And not knowing where it came from?"

I nodded. "Precisely!"

He looked wonderingly around the room as if to see if anyone else realized the implications. "But ... that would be enough to drive a person Crazy!"

"Precisely," I repeated. "And that was why ..."

Mrs. Balrymple had been imitating a fish, her mouth opening and closing silently, but now succeeded in forcing her voice to function. "I ... I would like everyone to know," she began, "that I certainly did not, ever, allow Emilio to use such language in my ..." Then the enormity of it all struck her and her voice faded to inaudibility.

Mr. Mangan shut off the recorder and removed the cassette. "This," he informed us, "is a continuous loop tape with a running time of about one - two minutes. These are commonly used in telephone answering machines for long out-going messages. Quite common, no problem to obtain.

"The cassette-recorder," he continued, "was hidden behind the furnace and spliced into the electrical system - a very amateurish job, I might add. I left the power cord in place, jerking it loose might have caused a short.

"And this," he pulled the smaller package from his pocket, "is the transmitting device, commonly known as a 'bug'. This was taped to the recorder for the purpose of picking up and transmitting the, er, Spanish message. The result was that the message was being transmitted continuously. The transmitter is a fairly common item. They're used for short range intercom links, remote microphones, other things like that.

"They're usually battery powered," he continued, "but they can be used with an external power supply. In this case, both external power and a battery pack were being used. The clip leads," he indicated two small, rubber coated alligator clamps, "are used to attach to a power line. This, unlike the rest of the work, is a very professional job. At a guess, it appears to have been designed to be installed in a power outlet or behind a light fixture. Small and easily concealed, it uses the powerline as a transmitting antenna as well. It's really a first rate espionage device," he finished.

"Thank you, Mr. Mangan." Oliver started a round of applause.

Mr. Mangan was looking curiously at the bug. "Ah ... Mrs. Carson, do you mind ... Do you need this right now?" he asked. "I'd like to take a closer look at it."

"Well," I temporized, "we'll have to turn it over to the police ..."

He waved that away. "Yes, yes, of course but, this afternoon, when I was going thru the contents of Roland Smith's trailer ..." He paused and, somewhere in the room, I heard a chair creak as though its occupant had given an involuntary start. "... trying to see what could be salvaged to benefit his estate, I came across something similar. There were some schematics ... They're in my briefcase and I'd like a moment to compare them."

"Sure, go ahead," I said. He took his briefcase and the bug and retired to Oliver's shop where there was room to spread the papers out. Through the open door, I could see him poking curiously inside the case.

I got back to my explanation.

"Given the speculation," I resumed, favoring Jonathan with a pointed glance, "that a bugging device was involved in this business and that it was what Mrs. Arriola was hearing, there were three points which really stood out about the 'crazy' voices: One, that unlike the earlier voices, these were in Spanish. Two, these stopped when Mrs. Arriola left the Compound area and did not recur as long as she stayed away. And, three, Mrs. Arriola remarked on the limited vocabulary of the ghosts - that they kept saying the same things over and over.

"These factors suggested some automatic device with a limited transmission range ..."

David looked up from his notes and broke in: "Then you're saying, Daisy, that the tape was an attack on Mrs. Arriola's sanity. There's one big question, how in the world did the murderer - I suppose that you're assuming a connection - get hold of a transmitter set to Mrs. Arriola's frequency? And how did he know ..."

The second question was one I didn't want asked - not right now! "We were trying to keep it quiet about Mrs. Arriola's voices," I said hastily, "but several people knew, all the same. She'd asked a few questions of Steven and Oliver ..."

Out of a black study, Steven woke up with: "Huh? What are you talking about?"

I ignored him and hurried on to safer ground. "As to how the murderer got a transmitter set for that particular frequency, that's simple. He just found the one that Smith was bugging him with and used it. Why the murderer, himself, came to suspect that he was bugged, I don't know."

Actually, I had a pretty good idea but that was another item I was reserving for the moment. "It could be that Smith, having collected all the evidence he needed, simply let it slip when he was making black-mail demands. Once the murderer had found the bug, the idea of using it against Mrs. Arriola in just that way ... Well, that was a stroke of brilliance. It was also every bit as vicious as the method he chose to murder Smith with."

The room was deathly silent - the only sound was David's pencil moving swiftly across the pad.

"That's right," I confirmed. "The same person who murdered Mr. Jarvis also killed Roland Smith and tried to drive Mrs. Arriola insane. The second murder might have been accidental - something for the courts to decide," I added. "The real point is that the crane served several purposes. Besides killing Smith, it destroyed any taped evidence Smith may have had and provided a whopping piece of misdirection that sent the Police off looking for juvenile pranksters in the lake area."

"They did," David interrupted. "Detectives have been questioning everyone living on that side of the lake."

"This little piece of obscene Spanish blasphemy," I continued, indicating the cassette, "was intended to serve similar purposes. For one, it would discredit Mrs. Arriola's earlier voices - just in case anyone was taking them seriously. It worked for a while, fooling both Lucy and me."

Lucy nodded, her face reddening, and gave a little shudder. "That's right, for a while ... I really thought ..."

Mrs. Arriola patted Lucy's hand comfortingly.

"Also," I ignored the interruption, "the murderer had already made a start at framing Mrs. Arriola for Jarvis' murder." I didn't want to mention the writing on the wall yet, so I left it vague and didn't stop for questions. "And the crazier she appeared to be, the better suspect she'd make and, if hearing that ... stuff, over and over, actually did drive Mrs. Arriola crazy ... Well, to our murderer's sweet mind, that would just be so much gravy . ."

Little Miss Endicott, proprietress of the Toy Box, was indignant. "Really, Daisy," she exclaimed, "I just don't see how you can talk that way. That was a terrible thing to do!"

A babble of questions erupted.

While Oliver banged for order, I paused for a moment to catch my breath and decide what to cover next. That was when Mr. Mangan reappeared in the doorway. I looked a question at him but his attention was on the sheath of papers he was holding in one hand. He didn't look up until he was back at the front of the room. "Look here, Daisy! I think we've got something." Oblivious to everything else, he spread the papers across Oliver's desk, leaving Oliver holding his gavel in midair, no place to bang it.

"It's okay, Oliver," I assured him hastily. "I relinquish the floor to Mr. Mangan."

The white-haired gentleman looked around the rooms as though he had forgotten the presence of the audience. "Er, yes. Well," he pointed to the cryptic papers, "we seem to have several variant designs here. Now, each of these is vox activated - uh, that is, it only transmits when it is receiving an audio signal above a certain strength."

"Excuse me, please," I interrupted. "Could you just give us the bottom line? In English?"

Mr. Mangan began again, with an air of lecturing young children. "These schematic diagrams ..." he tapped the sheets once again, "appear to show Roland Smith's plans for building a series of bugs to install on, er, whatever premises he was planning to install them on."

"You said bugs?" Jonathan demanded. "Plural?"

Mangan nodded. "That's what we show here. Actually, multiple bugs are more common than not. If you have access, you may as well plant several while you're at it. That way you can be certain of picking conversations up clearly as well as having a backup in case of malfunctions or, er, discovery."

He showed signs of lapsing back into technicalese but Jonathan intervened. "Look here, sir," Jonathan asked, "I claim no background in these matters but, if this bugs has a limited range, just exactly where was it broadcasting to? Could Smith have been picking up the signal all the way out at the lake?"

Mr. Mangan looked shocked. "Of course not! The receiver, with a slow speed tape recorder, must have been hidden somewhere within a reasonable radius - probably," he forestalled another question, "within a radius of a few blocks or less. The normal choice would be some semi-public area where Smith could easily gain access to retrieve and change tapes."

"You mean," I asked, "it might still be here? A tape with the murderer's voice?"

Mangan shook his head. "Well, yes and no. Er, the easily accessible tape, almost certainly not. Smith would have removed it before making any blackmail demands. If not, it would be almost impossible to locate. You would be looking for an object, oh, smaller than a cigar box hidden somewhere in an area covering several city blocks. However, ..." He smiled and tapped the schematic diagram again.

"Well?" I said.

"According to this plan, Mr. Smith was being very through." Mr. Mangan nodded approval. "Very through indeed. According to these schematics, he had also planted a back-up unit, one with its own recorder. The reason, of course," he continued, "is that a broadcast signal always loses something in transmission while direct recording has much higher fidelity. Naturally, this tape would be considerably more difficult to gain access for removal or servicing."

"Wait a minute!" I interrupted. "Are you saying that, somewhere on the murderer's premises, there may still be a tape ... of everything!"

"That is what these plans suggest. Four transmitting bugs and one recording bug. Of course, the murder may have found and destroyed the recording bug but I tend to doubt it ... The inclusion is not common practice, even among professionals - and the person who spliced the bug and the cassette player together," he returned to his former grievance, "was not a professional. Most likely, your murderer found one bug, maybe two, and looked no further."

"That would narrow the search area considerably," Jonathan reflected. "Just the murderer's private office ... or some other place?"

Mangan nodded. "Wherever Smith would expect his victim's private conversations to take place."

I couldn't restrain myself any longer. "David, do you think we have grounds for a search warrant?"

David's mouth was pursed in a silent whistle. "They'll tear the Compound apart," he assured me.

Suddenly Mrs. Balrymple stood up, white-faced. "Mrs. Carson, I have listened to this nonsense long enough. I must insist on speaking to you privately about my furs ..."

I had to disappoint her. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Balrymple, but not in private. Not ... just yet. Now that we know more about the origin of Mrs. Arriola's voices, I think we should take another look at them. Er, I mean, at the posters. Lucy?"

Lucy switched posters to reveal the third.

"Mrs. Balrymple," I resumed, "I believe that there have been several robberies in your neighborhood recently. Didn't the losses include some jewelry? The earlier ones, I mean, not the robbery that included your furs?"

"That is correct," Mrs. Balrymple replied stiffly. "Mrs. Osborne lost a number of rings, two necklaces, a tirara and her husband's gold watch. But the police are perfectly capable of handling that. What I am interested in are my ..."

"We'll get back to your, er, furs in a moment. There's another point that needs to be covered first. Lucy, would you explain?" I surrendered the floor.

"Grandmother's voices," Lucy explained while I set up the fourth poster, "went through three stages. In the first stage, when Grandmother first began hearing the voices, these came most often in the evening. At this time, the voices were indistinct. Grandmother could only understand a few words and, occasionally, heard bits of music."

"Si," Mrs. Arriola confirmed. "The music, it is muy mal."

"Anyhow," Lucy resumed, "in stage one, the only words that Abuela was sure of were," she indicated the first section of the poster which read:

STAGE ONE - TIRAR A RABIATA FUERZA / FURIA MATAR - evenings, indistinct, occasional music

"In the second stage," Lucy continued, "the pattern had changed. This began, as best Grandmother remembers, about Monday evening. At this time, the words were distinct, easily understood and always in English. Also," Lucy pointed at the poster, "the phrases came with pauses between them - as if the person talking were involved in an argument, an argument that Grandmother could only hear one side of."

The center section of the poster read:

STAGE TWO - We've got to kill him! - There's no other way! - He'll ruin us if we don't stop him! - We've got to do it! - evenings, distinct, English only, part of conversation

"The third stage," Lucy resumed her explanation, "was hardest to understand. This stage began Friday evening." I uncovered the last section of the poster which read simply:

STAGE THREE ... crazy voices / continuous / repeating / profanity

"This was an attempt to discredit Grandmother and cover up everything that she had heard prior," Lucy emphasized, "by driving her crazy."

"Si," Mrs. Arriola nodded confirmation. "Me hase loca."

"The obvious conclusion," I began a summation, "was that, in the first stage, Mrs. Arriola was overhearing but misunderstanding perfectly normal conversations ... er, in as much as conversations dealing with fencing operations are normal. The misunderstanding is perfectly natural - if you've ever tried to listen to someone speaking in a language which is unfamiliar - and particularly when it is difficult to hear - it's quite natural to hear what is said in terms which are familiar.

"In the second stage, Mrs. Arriola was hearing was one half of a conversation, spoken loudly, which was talking about murder - Jarvis's murder! This was rather like overhearing one side of a telephone conversation - while what is said can be understood clearly, the conversation may make very little sense because half of the content - and, therefore, the context - is missing. Again, remembering that what is being heard is still only being heard with difficulty, the fragmentary nature of the conversation is understandable.

"A third point," I continued, "is that Mrs. Arriola recollection - and her interpretation - of the earliest, first stage phrases may easily have been colored by the more distinct - and more important - words and phrases heard in the second stage.

"As for the third stage voices, these were not heard until after - several days after - Jarvis' murder. The obvious reason for this hiatus ..."

"WAIT A MINUTE!" Everybody jumped at the sound of Jonathan's voice in its deepest and most resonate tone. All eyes on him, he maneuvered his chair up to Oliver's desk, took the gavel from Oliver's unresisting hand and banged it twice, slowly. "This business," Jonathan announced, "has gone far enough."

The younger security guard by the door whispered, "The cripple in the wheelchair, migod!"