But none of these advertised tokens of financial and social success was more significant than a sleeping-porch with a sun-parlor below.

The rites of preparing for bed were elaborate and unchanging.  The blankets had to be tucked in at the foot of his cot. (Also, the reason why the maid hadn’t tucked in the blankets had to be discussed with Mrs. Babbitt.) The rag rug was adjusted so that his bare feet would strike it when he arose in the morning.  The alarm clock was wound.  The hot-water bottle was filled and placed precisely two feet from the bottom of the cot.

These tremendous undertakings yielded to his determination; one by one they were announced to Mrs. Babbitt and smashed through to accomplishment.  At last his brow cleared, and in his “Gnight!” rang virile power.  But there was yet need of courage.  As he sank into sleep, just at the first exquisite relaxation, the Doppelbrau car came home.  He bounced into wakefulness, lamenting, “Why the devil can’t some people never get to bed at a reasonable hour?” So familiar was he with the process of putting up his own car that he awaited each step like an able executioner condemned to his own rack.

The car insultingly cheerful on the driveway.  The car door opened and banged shut, then the garage door slid open, grating on the sill, and the car door again.  The motor raced for the climb up into the garage and raced once more, explosively, before it was shut off.  A final opening and slamming of the car door.  Silence then, a horrible silence filled with waiting, till the leisurely Mr. Doppelbrau had examined the state of his tires and had at last shut the garage door.  Instantly, for Babbitt, a blessed state of oblivion.

IV

At that moment In the city of Zenith, Horace Updike was making love to Lucile McKelvey in her mauve drawing-room on Royal Ridge, after their return from a lecture by an eminent English novelist.  Updike was Zenith’s professional bachelor; a slim-waisted man of forty-six with an effeminate voice and taste in flowers, cretonnes, and flappers.  Mrs. McKelvey was red-haired, creamy, discontented, exquisite, rude, and honest.  Updike tried his invariable first maneuver—­touching her nervous wrist.

“Don’t be an idiot!” she said.

“Do you mind awfully?”

“No!  That’s what I mind!”

He changed to conversation.  He was famous at conversation.  He spoke reasonably of psychoanalysis, Long Island polo, and the Ming platter he had found in Vancouver.  She promised to meet him in Deauville, the coming summer, “though,” she sighed, “it’s becoming too dreadfully banal; nothing but Americans and frowsy English baronesses.”

And at that moment in Zenith, a cocaine-runner and a prostitute were drinking cocktails in Healey Hanson’s saloon on Front Street.  Since national prohibition was now in force, and since Zenith was notoriously law-abiding, they were compelled to keep the cocktails innocent by drinking them out of tea-cups.  The lady threw her cup at the cocaine-runner’s head.  He worked his revolver out of the pocket in his sleeve, and casually murdered her.