Master of the Game by Sidney Sheldon

He’s psychotic, Peter Templeton decided. There was no friend, of course. He was boasting about himself, hiding behind an alter ego. The man was a megalomaniac, and a dangerous one.

Peter decided he had better have another talk with John Harley as quickly as possible.

 

 

The two men met for lunch at the Harvard Club. Peter Templeton was in a difficult position. He needed to get all the information he could about George Mellis without breaching the confidentiality of the doctor-patient relationship.

“What can you tell me about George Mellis’s wife?” he asked Harley.

“Alexandra? She’s lovely. I’ve taken care of her and her sister, Eve, since they were babies.” He chuckled. “You hear about identical twins, but you never really appreciate what that means until you see those two together.”

Peter asked slowly, “They’re identical twins?”

“Nobody could ever tell them apart. They used to play all kinds of pranks when they were little tykes. I remember once when Eve was sick and supposed to get a shot, I somehow wound up giving it to Alexandra.” He took a sip of his drink. “It’s amazing. Now they’re grown up, and I still can’t tell one from the other.”

Peter thought about that. “You said Alexandra came to see you because she was feeling suicidal.”

“That’s right.”

“John, how do you know it was Alexandra?”

“That’s easy,” Dr. Harley said. “Eve still has a little scar on her forehead from the surgery after the beating George Mellis gave her.”

So that was a blind alley. “I see.”

“How are you getting along with Mellis?”

Peter hesitated, wondering how much he could say. “I haven’t reached him. He’s hiding behind a facade. I’m trying to break it down.”

“Be careful, Peter. If you want my opinion, the man’s insane.” He was remembering Eve lying in bed, in a pool of blood.

“Both sisters are heir to a large fortune, aren’t they?” Peter asked.

Now it was John Harley’s turn to hesitate. “Well, it’s private family business,” he said, “but the answer is no. Their grandmother cut off Eve without a dime. Alexandra inherits everything.”

I’m worried about Alexandra, Dr. Templeton. Her depression seems to be worse. She keeps talking about drowning. I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to her.

It had sounded to Peter Templeton like a classic setup for murder—except that George Mellis was the heir to a large fortune of his own. There would be no reason for him to kill anyone for money. You’re imagining things, Peter chided himself.

 

 

A woman was drowning in the cold sea, and he was trying to swim to her side, but the waves were too high, and she kept sinking under them and rising again. Hold on, he shouted. I’m coming. He tried to swim faster, but his arms and legs seemed leaden, and he watched as she went down again. When he reached the place where she had disappeared, he looked around and saw an enormous white shark bearing down on him. Peter Templeton woke up. He turned on the lights and sat up in bed, thinking about his dream.

Early the following morning, he telephoned Detective Lieutenant Nick Pappas.

 

 

Nick Pappas was a huge man, six feet four inches and weighing almost three hundred pounds. As any number of criminals could testify, not an ounce of it was fat. Lieutenant Pappas was with the homicide task force in the “silk stocking” district in Manhattan. Peter had met him several years earlier while testifying as a psychiatric expert in a murder trial, and he and Pappas had become friends. Pappas’s passion was chess, and the two met once a month to play.

Nick answered the phone. “Homicide. Pappas.”

“It’s Peter, Nick.”

“My friend! How go the mysteries of the mind?”

“Still trying to unravel them, Nick. How’s Tina?”

“Fantastic. What can I do for you?”

“I need some information. Do you still have connections in Greece?”

“Do I!” Pappas moaned. “I got a hundred relatives over there, and they all need money. The stupid part is I send it to them. Maybe you oughta analyze me.”

“Too late,” Peter told him. “You’re a hopeless case.”