The messenger girl walked briskly into my office and the memo from Severent fluttered down into my in basket. She walked back toward the door and I noticed that she was holding her back rigid. She had a listening look. But I was too interested in the memo to play any games.

She paused with her hand on the knob of the door and turned, her brows arched high with surprise. �No whistle today, Mr. Palmer? No vulgar groans of anguish? No propositions?�

�You�re not slipping, Honey. I just got my mind on big matters. The broad picture,� I answered. �Besides, a guy can become weary with effort.�

�I read the memo, Mr. Palmer. Bring me back a rickshaw.� She flounced out with just enough flourish to take my mind off the precious memo for another ten seconds.

I had to savor it. I leaned back and lit a cigaret. Then I stared out the window. Finally I picked it up. �From the Desk of Walter B. Severent.� That�s the boss. �To Mr. Lyndsey Palmer.�

That�s me.

�Your application to fill the vacancy in the China Division is herewith approved. You will be furnished transportation to Kunming on or about the twentieth of September.�

It was signed with initials. It made the whole request took easy.

It made it look as though I hadn�t spent two whole months on that cold grey fish named Severent. He is the General Manager of Kurtron Oil, and the man to give the big no to all ambitious projects. We�re located in a glossy building on Madison, and I am a small fish indeed in the international affairs of Kurtron.

I suppose that the biggest thing in my favor was persistence. I am a small guy, a faded blonde type; but very chunky and solid, with big brown innocent eyes and all the stubbornness of a twenty mule team.

Old Severent probably figured that he�d have to send me out to China or I�d lose the power to walk by sitting so long in his outer office. He tried the method of ignoring me, and I brought library books in. I talked to him at least eleven times and finally he ran out of good reasons to keep me in New York. Every time he�d finish with a good reason, I�d say, �You�re probably right, Mr. Severent, but...�

On the day he finally agreed to think it over once more, his voice was hoarse and his grey eyes glittered like an animal trapped in the brush. Then the memo came. There were older men, more experienced men, more reliable men, more dependable men to fill the vacancy. But there wasn�t another guy as persistent.

The only way I had seen China had been as a T-4 with the Fourteenth Air Force. That is really a worm�s eye view. I was ground crew stuff.

All around me, the guys complained about the Chinese. I tried to do so too. I ended up by liking them. Not the big shots, the slicker generals and high civilians. I like the little joes, the ones they drag out of the fields in chains and stick in the army.

Tied up with the discipline malarkey, I never did get a good enough chance to know them. Also, in my circle over there, if a guy got chummy with anything except a horizontal dictionary, he was considered a radical and a disciple of Madame Chiang.

That was reason number one for going back.

Reason number two was Burke Streeter, the guy in charge of the Kunming office. I met him when I was stationed there. We waited out one or two high raids in the same hole in the ground. We got tight together. We hunted up new joints to eat in together. A hell of a guy. Rough, tough, dark and nasty. I had a yen to go over and work for him.

Reason number three was the fact that in the New York office, I�m a pin-sized frog in a puddle full of hungry sharks. If I was any bigger, they�d be able to see me clear enough to eat. I had seen the way Burke operated, a little king among men. I had a hunger to go to China and have a house of my own with my own staff of servants, my own liquor supply and a big party for my friends a couple of times a week. In New York, I can afford to buy somebody a beer every second Tuesday.

The Executive-Vice President in Charge of Personnel, a fellow named Harold Panterson, had seen the light and had helped exert some gentle influence on Severent. In fact, Panterson was the man who helped me get started with Kurtron in thirty-eight. He is a fairly tall guy, prematurely grey � myopic and sarcastic. But he has the knack of making everyone in the outfit feel that he�s on their side. He doesn�t look old enough or dignified enough to merit the fabulous salary they pay him.

With the Chinaside job clinched. I was on top of the world. I had all my teeth, a few bucks in the bank, no tragic love affairs at the moment and a constitution as durable as a plumber�s wrench. I tossed Severent�s memo back into the basket and stretched. I felt good. It was two days after Labor Day, and the streets outside looked pleasantly warm. I felt like a cat on the right side of a canary sandwich.

I walked into Mr. Panterson�s office to break the news. I knew he�d be glad that we had swung it. I even felt good enough to grin at his ice-bound secretary � Marylin Hays. She lifted one side of her ripe mouth a quarter of a millimeter. It was as much a sneer as a smile.

I stopped in front of her desk. �Look, my plum,� I said. �I bathe frequently. My clothes fit. My best friends have never mentioned anything. I even speak English. I don�t want to date you. I just want reasonably pleasant conversation. What have I ever done to you or your loved ones?�

She lifted her hand and brushed a strand of her heavy black hair back off her forehead. Her eyes were as still and blue and cold as the northern sea. �If you wish to speak to Mr. Panterson, Mr. Palmer, I believe you�ll find that he�s alone in his office at the moment.�

I walked away from her desk, feeling completely defeated. Panterson was slouched behind his desk. He had one bow of his glasses hooked over his ear. The end of the other bow was in his mouth. He grinned up at me.

�I understand we came through,� he said. �When I think of the promises I had to make in your name...� He shook his head and whistled softly.

I agreed to be good, thanked him for what he had done, and left his office. I got back to my own office and found the phone ringing. I answered it and a soft, precise voice said, �Mr. Lyndsey Palmer?� I told him it was, and he said, �This is Mr. Connolly at the Office of the Collector of Internal Revenue. Could you come over and see me at about two thirty?�

�Sure. Anything wrong?�

�I prefer to discuss it when I see you.� I hung up slowly, feeling puzzled. There had been an ominous sound about it all. As far as I knew, my taxes were in order. I was square with the board. I shrugged and located my income tax folder in my personal file. Uncle Sugar can sometimes be wrong. Then I realized that maybe Mr. Connolly had heard of my trip to China coming up. It didn�t seem possible, but it was as good a reason as I could think of.

I left the office at two and walked over. It was a gala day � at that point. New York is usually loaded with jokers who walk along bent over, using the elbows. They seem to wear their underlips out far enough to be just ahead of their noses. Not on that day. They walked along gay and bright � reveling in the heat. I felt good enough to try out my shaking voice in song, until finally a couple of high school gals in front of me turned around and started to giggle. They didn�t mix me up with Sinatra.

That�s the way I went into Connolly�s office. He motioned to the chair beside his desk and I sank into it, feeling the smile sag a little at the ends. It bounced off of him like a pelota off the back wall.

He didn�t say a word for about twenty seconds. He just sat twisting a yellow pencil in hi� big hands, staring down at his desk blotter. He was an oldish guy, with a seamed face and coarse white eyebrows. Then he opened the top drawer of his desk and took out a tan file folder. I saw that it had my name and my army serial number on the visible edge.

When he spoke, he didn�t look up at me except for darting glances at the end of each sentence. His voice was soft and calm.

�Mr. Palmer, you�re a young man. It�s bad business for you to get off on the wrong foot in your relations with your government.�

�Look, I don�t understand...� I started.

He lifted a big paw and said, �Please don�t interrupt until I have quite finished. Then you can tell me anything you want to.�

�Shoot,� I said, breezily.

He frowned at me and then reinspected the yellow pencil. �The service men in China made a good thing out of missionary bonds. I don�t have to tell you that. They forgot one thing, some of them. That when the wife or other relation cashes the bonds on this side, the record of money paid out comes to this department.

�My records here,� he said, opening the folder, �indicate that in May of 1944, your wife cashed a ten thousand dollar missionary bond at the Chase National Bank. Three weeks later, she cashed two for ten thousand each. Three weeks after that, she cashed one for twenty-five thousand, one for ten thousand and one for five. Two weeks after that date, she cashed one for fifty thousand and two for twenty thousand each. You parlayed a small stake into ninety thousand dollars. You owe the government in the neighborhood of seventy thousand dollars. You turned in a negative return for the year 1944. Even though we have your falsified return, we will accept the seventy thousand � I�ll give you the exact figures later � and we won�t prosecute.�

He stopped giving me those quick glances and stared at me steadily. Something in his look made me feel like a white grub caught under a damp rock.

I had to have time to think. I leaned back in the chair. Then I said, �You people must have me mixed up with somebody else named Palmer who served in the China Theater. In nineteen forty-four, I didn�t have a wife. I�ve heard of missionary bonds, but I don�t have the vaguest idea of how they work. You�re on the wrong track, Pop.�

His lip curled a little. �Young man, I�ve been sitting in this office for some time. You have the doubtful honor of having made the most blatant denial I�ve yet heard. We aren�t going to get anywhere until you start to tell the truth.�

�Give me a break. How do these bonds work?�

He glanced at his watch. �You know all this anyway, Palmer, but I�ll run through it for you. The organization in the states that support the missionaries overseas take their funds to a bank like the Chase Bank and purchase a bond which they mail to the missionary, to his church in China. Those bonds can be redeemed by the missionary at the National Bank of China at the official rate of exchange.

�With black market inflation shoving the exchange up to two thousand CN for one U.S. Dollar, the missionaries took a terrific tossing when they traded their bonds in and got thirty to one. So, if the black market rate was, say, two thousand Chinese dollars to one American dollar, smart American officers would buy the bonds from the missionaries for one thousand to one. They could buy a ten thousand dollar bond in that way for about five thousand dollars. Then they�d send the bond back to the wife, like you did, she�d cash it for the ten, and send the ten on out to her husband in money orders. He�d cash those and buy more bonds. Double your money in the time it took for a letter to get to the States and back out to China. An awful nice racket. But you boys forgot that the bonds would show on the bank�s books, along with the name and address of the person cashing them. Also, your signature is on the bonds.�

I heaved a great sigh. That let me out. �I didn�t sign a thing.�

He smirked and took a bond out of the folder. It was a positive photostat. He pointed to a place where my name was signed. It was a shaky scrawled signature, third grade writing, �Nuts!� I said. �Not mine at all.�

�I�m not so sure,� he said, leaning back in his chair. �The army records indicate that you received a hand injury early in forty-four. That could be your signature.� We both glanced down at my right hand, at the puckered edge of the scar that cut deeply across the back of it.

I found the address on Ninety-eighth. It was a six story job of dirty grey stone. The river was three hundred yards away, just far enough to see without being reflected in the rent. On the corner of the block was a big cafeteria, next to a bright liquor store. Next came the apartment house where my mythical wife had appeared to reside. Then there was a restaurant. The next building was red stone, decorated by pigeons. Then came the big-awninged, sand-blasted residences of those who could afford an extra hundred or two per month to look at the oily grey river.

I walked up the two steps and into the dim narrow hall of the grey building. On my right was a staircase with metal treads. On the left was an elevator as wide open as a bird cage. An old guy with yellow stains on his mustache sat in a kitchen chair next to the elevator, moving his lips as he read a bulldog edition.

When I walked in he glanced up at me and then back at the paper. The expression on his face meant, �Unless it�s the top floor, sonny, you look healthy enough to walk.�

I stopped in front of him and said, �Where�s the manager?�

He didn�t look up. �Nothing vacant.�

�Where�s the manager?�

�Not buying nothing.�

I reached one foot and put it on the bottom rung of his chair and pushed down. He had it tilted against the wall. It brought the chair down onto all four legs with a pretty fair jar, He glared up at me and said, �What the hell is the...�

�Relax, Pop. Where�s the manager?�

�Right around under the stairs. First door. Mrs. Seely.�

He was reading again before I�d walk away. Mrs. Seely opened the door. She wore a pink terry cloth robe that looked as though it had been used to dry a washed buffalo. She had a muddy face, little suspicious eyes and an aroma of stale beer.

�I�m looking for some information, Mrs. Seely. I want to know about a woman that lived here in May of 1944, and possibly up through July or August.� I knew it was a long shot � it may have just been an address picked at random. On the other hand, it would have been uncomfortable for the imposter if the bank had checked the address and she didn�t live there.

Mrs. Seely had a voice like fingernails scraping on a blackboard. �You a cop?�

�No. This is personal.�

�It�s going to be trouble to look it up, Mister.� She licked her lip and twitched her fingers in a buck-hungry fashion. I handed her a dollar. She looked at it and said, �More trouble than that.�

I gave her another one. She folded them together and stuffed them into the sagging pocket of the robe. �Who is it you wanta know about?�

�A Mrs. Lyndsey Palmer. Remember her?�

�No. Come on in while I look at the cards. We get lots of people here. They come and go. We don�t really have apartments, just rooms with a community kitchen on each floor.� I followed her into a dingy room. She dug into a big drawer and pulled out a three by five file card filled with copies of rent receipts. She sat down with a sigh, the box on her lap and started to paw through them, squinting.

I stood and waited. Finally she pulled out a slip and said, �Here she is. Got rent from her by the week for May, June, July and August. Four full months.�

�Got her signature anywhere?�

�Uh-uh.�

�What�d she look like?�

�Mister, that was better than two years ago. How the hell do I know what she looked like? I take care of about fifty rooms here. So long as they can pay the rent, that�s all I care.�

�What room number was she in?�

She looked at the slips again. �Four ten. Eight bucks a week.�

�Had many in that room since she left?�

�Probably about a dozen.�

�There any permanent people around that might remember her. Maybe somebody on the same floor?�

�You don�t understand this place, Mister. They usually hit here when they�re living on their savings. They get more dough and they move to a better place. They run short and Jake and I toss �em out. Nobody stays here long. Would you?�

I looked around. I decided that I wouldn�t if I could help it. It seemed like a strange place for a gal to stay who was cashing bonds for big money. On the other hand, it was perfect for her. The place itself covered her trail for her.

I thanked her and walked out and had the old guy take me up to four ten. I knocked on the door and heard bedsprings creak. Finally the door opened a cautious crack and I saw a section of flushed young face and curly yellow hair.

My appearance must have reassured him. He swung the door open and blinked at me. Then he smiled shyly. �Did Morris send you over?� he asked.

�No. I just want to know how long you�ve lived in this room.�

�Heavens! It�s nothing to you. I really think you�ve got your nerve. I�ve been here a week, as if it�s any of your silly business.�

�Know who was in the room before you?�

�No. And I really think who ever it was should have something awful done to him. He must have been a very filthy man and he certainly did leave this room in simply terrible condition, and they only half cleaned it out when I took it, and I must say...�

He stopped talking after I was twenty feet down the hall. I heard his door slam petulantly.

I had myself another cup of coffee and it didn�t taste any better than the first one. In fact, it tasted worse.

It was after four. I just had time to get back to the office and make like I had been working all day. Not that it made any difference. Suddenly the job had become a great deal less important. The same sun was shining down, but it was brass instead of gold. The same people were smiling, but they wore smirks behind the smiles. The buildings were more drab, the streets more shabby, and all the chrome on all the cars was about to rust away.

I hailed a cab, climbed in, and scowled at the picture of the driver all the way back to the office. I remember that his name was Lesnovitch.

I paused for a moment in my office, and then decided to go and see Harold. Out in the hall I nearly ran Honey down � she was carrying an armful of papers. I mumbled something about being sorry and tried to walk on by her. She put a small hand on my arm.

�What�s chewing on you, Baby,� she whispered. �You look like the body they found under the crap table.�

I snarled a little. Something about how it was nothing that had anything to do with her and nothing she could do anything about. She twirled and walked down the hall, but not before I had seen a hurt look in her eyes. That made me feel worse. When things start to go wrong for the male animal, he usually finds seven or nine ways to make them worse. I realized that if I kept that up, I wouldn�t have anybody left around the firm who would want to listen to me or help me.

I stopped in front of Marylin Hays� desk and asked, �Could I see Mr. Panterson now?� I didn�t crack a smile. She told me to go right in.

Harry was looking over some of the stuff from the advertising agency, and he was wearing an expression that could have been used for finding dead mice in the back of his desk drawer. He glanced up at me and tossed the papers aside. �What�s the matter, Lyn. You look like you had indigestion.�

I sat on the corner of his desk and said, �I have. I just had something given to me that I can�t swallow.�

He sat with the tips of his fingers pressed together while I gave him a short but complete version of my talk with Connolly. When I was through I finished off by saying, �So there it is, Harry. Just when everything was set. What do I do now?�

�Unless you can do something quick, Lyn, this is going to be a great break for Weller. And I can even see Severent smiling about it � if you can imagine Severent smiling.� He thought for a while and then said, �Damn it, Lyn, I don�t see how it can be so serious if you�re innocent. You don�t know anything about all this � I can see that. Why should you have to start paying lawyers.�

�People that are framed usually have to pay lawyers, they tell me.

�Maybe a good sharp detective outfit could work on it a little faster than a lawyer. Maybe something could be dug up that you could take to Connolly to clear you.�

�Hell, I�d like to look into it a little myself, but how the devil can I as long as I�ve got to hang around here.�

�That�s too easy,� he said. �I�ll recommend to Severent that he let you off until you�re due to go. Clean up what work you have left, and take off. Keep in touch with me and let me know if I can help. If you want a detective, try John Foley, in the book. He�s way uptown. And you know Harvey Sheridan. He ought to be good on that type of law case.�

There wasn�t any point in trying to hand him a lot of fancy thanks. With a friend, there�s no need of it. But I decided that I�d lay off his idea of getting hold of a lawyer. To me, it sounded too much like saying, �Okay, boys. I�m guilty. I got a lawyer. Come and get me.�

I appreciated not having to go and talk to Severent. It was highly probable that he�d prorate my month�s pay over the days I would have to be off. He approved expenditures of Kurtron funds just like it was his own money. And with him, a ten cent tip for a two dollar taxi fare is generous.

I was in the hall heading back for my own office, when I saw Stanley Weller. I had no urge to talk to him, and I tried to inspect the plaster on the wall beside my head as I walked, but it didn�t help. He veered over to me and blocked me. He stuck his hand out and I had to take it.

Then he stuck his mouth out toward me, giving off a fine spray as he said, �Lyn, old boy, I�m happy to hear that you got the China job, I really am.� With each third word, his eyebrows bounced up toward his hair and back. I was surprised again at the hint of muscles behind his fruity mannerisms. He stood there, pumping on my hand, his wide mouth smiling, his faded eyes bulbous behind his thick lenses.

�Nice of you to say so, Stanley.�

He let go of my hand and smiled even more broadly. Then he sprayed me again as he said, �I hope you have a fine trip, I really do.� He minced off down the hall, leaving me staring after him, scratching my head. There had been something about the way he looked when he talked about the trip. I wondered if he could possibly know about the tax business. I decided that he was merely being nasty-nice.

Weller�s secondary aim in life, second to his desire to run Kurtron, seemed to be to impress anybody handy with his intellect, his influence and his apparently unlimited private means.

I walked into my own office with the intention of finishing up my work. It was no go. I picked up some papers and tried to read them. I read one paragraph four times without being able to make anything out of it. I put it back in the basket and stared out the window.

I left the office and walked around through the evening crowd. I didn�t resist or object when people banged into me. When a guy out in the sticks wants to be alone with his thoughts, I�ve heard that he goes off into the fields and sits on a rock or something. We city kids have it easier, we just go out into the street and we are completely alone. We can walk along, and nobody knows us. It is a city of the blind, the deaf and the dead. You can cruise the sidewalks on your own two feet, and the current carries you along. If you roll along with a blank face � not too fast, not too slow � your arms swinging and eyes dead, you can walk forever.

I walked forever.

I ended up eating a wooden hamburg inside a stale roll at a grey enamel place in The Village. The grease smeared on the windows and the tired smell of old garbage matched my mood with infinite precision. I chewed mechanically and I looked across the counter into the blue glass behind the dish rack. I was me sitting there, a stocky little man who wondered why pieces of the sky were falling on his head. With one finger I wrote in the grease on top of the counter, �$70,000�. Then I put a big dollar sign in front of it. Then I rubbed it out with the heel of my hand and wiped my hand on a paper napkin.

�Lyndsey Palmer, until recently employed by the Kurtron Oil Company in this city, was today sentenced to...�

�Nationwide hunt for Lyndsey Palmer, recently employed by the Kurtron Oil Company, was concluded today when Palmer was located in...�

�Palmer conviction enlightens public as to the large amount of money made by military personnel stationed in China during the war. It is believed that...�

I walked into my apartment and shut the door behind me. I stood for a moment, leaning against it, looking at the bulky shadows of my chairs. A flashing sign across the street changed the grey glow of the windows to neon red, and back to grey.

The apartment was still and empty. I stared at it stupidly. It would be nice to be able to go to a hiding place and pull out the key. Go the next day to the bank and take out the seventy thousand. Pay it to Connolly and then go to China. If I had a key. If I had the seventy thousand.

I had the lights on just long enough to enable me to get undressed and fall into bed. I suppose that I should have rolled around in the bed, gnawing on my fingers and screaming in a hoarse whisper. I dropped off like a sodden log. Sleep was a nice warm place to crawl into � a place with no taxes and no people who signed the wrong names.

I found John Foley at home in his office-apartment on 144th Street. He was sweating over a report to a client, stamping it out with one fat finger on an antique portable. He was a large man with a stomach that bulged over his belt. He wore a dirty white shirt, a frayed grey vest and pants. His nose was long, twisted and bulbous at the tip. He stared at it through flimsy bifocals.

�Something we can do for you, son?�

�Maybe. I want to find a woman. And I want to know how long it�ll take and how much it�ll cost.�

�Finding folks is nice clean work, but expensive if I have to hire cops instead of using police legwork.� He stood up and stretched. Then he stood with his back to me, staring out the window, his hands jammed into his hip pockets while I told him as much of the story as I wanted him to know. I left out the tax business, and just said that I was anxious to locate a woman who had used my name at such and such an address at such and such a time. I told him about talking to Mrs. Seely and about the lad in the room she had occupied. He seemed to be listening.

When I was through he turned around and sat down again, heavily. �If I had lots of free time, son, I might give you a big dance and stick you for a few hundred bucks. I�d really try to find her, too, but I wouldn�t have much luck. Not enough to go on. No description � nothing. Have to really cover the neighborhood and see if anybody could remember her. And if she was using your name without wanting to be discovered, she would have kept pretty much to herself. I�m busy, and you better save your money. If you look around, you can probably find some principal who will be willing to rook you.�

I must have showed my disappointment on my face.

His voice was gentler as he said. �You didn�t tell me the reason why you want her found. The best place to look is among the people you know. What she was up to must have had some effect on you, and she must have known it would. You can handle it yourself better than I could. But when you do get a lead, and don�t know what to do about it, come back and see me.�

I thanked him and shook his meaty hand and left. Something about him had created confidence. As I walked out I could hear the typewriter start again, a slow and measured clicking.

It was ten o�clock, a grey misty morning that kept the streets glazed, and spotted wool cloth with small bright droplets. I walked around trying to think. I looked up and found I was in front of the office. So I went in. I located Honey in the file room and called her out with a jerk of my head. She came out uncertainly, frowning at me.

�Sorry about yesterday, Kitten. I�ve got trouble, and I was taking it out on you.�

She stopped frowning. �Sure, Lyn. Anytime you feel terrible, come around and kick me. It�s good for the soul. I�m just a masochist at heart.� Then she grinned and I knew we were friends again.

She lowered her voice and said, �Friend Stanley is trying to date me.�

�Nice going, Honey.� I could picture her on a date with Stanley � with him slapping her on the back so often that her teeth would rattle on a glass rim like castinets. Stanley � the maker of friends and influencer of people.

I went back to my office and cleaned my personal stuff out of my desk. I had one of the elevator boys get me a carton out of the basement and I stuffed the junk in it. I set it on the floor near the door and started to breeze through the stuff piled up in my �in� basket. It was all concerned with the cost data on establishing one of the new cracking outfits in Pennsylvania. When I had it analyzed, I dictated my memo in opposition to the establishing of such a plant under current price conditions, slipped the roll out of the machine and routed it to the steno pool for transcription. I sent the reports in to file. Then, aside from signing my name to the memo, I would be through. I folded a piece of paper into a little long tent and printed on the visible side of it, �Out to Lunch � Back in a Couple of Years.� I propped it up in front of the �in� basket and went out to lunch.

Only I didn�t get any lunch.

I went to Karoff�s place on 53rd. Sammy, the head bartender, has been there for twenty-one years. He understands me. I took a stool at the end of the bar and held up one finger. After a series of deft, mystic motions, he came over with the expected Martini. After four of them, I was convinced that I could talk my way out of my difficulties. After five, I was ready to weep with self-pity. The cruel world had its heel on my neck and I was being ground into the mud. After six, I squared my shoulders, satisfied that a healthy punch in the nose for Connolly would clear the air. And another one for Stanley Weller. And one for the babe who had signed my name, if I could just find her. Then I would catch my boat; they would never get their dirty hands on Lyndsey Palmer.

Sammy sighed heavily as I paid the check and said, �This ain�t like you, Mr. Palmer. How about a nice steak?�

That reminded me of lunch. I considered. Lunch seemed unessential. I walked on out and found that the mist had cleared, that the sun had broken out and the street was drying. I walked along, feeling as if I were floating. I knew that if I had to, I could run like a deer, leap like a rabbit, hedge all questions with brisk and sparkling repartee. I went back to the office to kiss them all goodby.

As I rode up in the elevator, I whistled, but the tune didn�t seem to, come out right � I couldn�t curl my lips over the high notes, but it seemed to me that the low notes were remarkably full and round, like cello notes. It was very evident to me that it was a matter of greatest urgency to say goodby to the people.

The elevator stopped at the twentieth and I walked out. The hall seemed to be swaying a bit, but not seriously. The receptionist gave me one bored glance, which she held for a while as the boredom melted away. She started to get up to get in front of me and block me off from the door, but I took one great bound, and was through before she could object. I pulled myself up to my full five-foot-seven-and-a-quarter and walked back to Mr. Panterson�s office. Marylin sat there, as prim as ever, and looked up at me inquiringly. Strangely, she seemed to sway from side to side, desk, typewriter, chair and all.

I said, �Want to see Harry. Got to see good old Harry right away, sweetheart.�

Instead of answering, she jumped up and went around me and shut the open door to the hall. Then she stepped up and looked at me queerly. She had to look up to look into my eyes. I hadn�t realized that she was so short. It amazed me to think that a girl so small could manage to look so regal.

�You better get out of here, Mr. Palmer. You�ll be in trouble. You know the rules about drinking.�

�A manifest absurdity, my girl. I�ve been drinking � yes. But in moderation and I demand to see Mr. Panterson on a matter of the greatest urgency. In fact I want to say to him my heart-felt good-by. Then I am going to find Mr. Weller and punch him in the head � smartly and with gusto. You have an objection?�

She looked around and caught her underlip between her teeth. She narrowed her blue eyes. Then she grabbed my arm and said in a steely voice, �You come with me.�

I did. We went out into the hall and down to a little square supply office on the other side of the hall. It contained racks of paper supplies, a refrigerated drinking fountain and a large bulletin board. She ignored my objections, shoved me in there and said, �Don�t you dare move out of here until I come back.� Then she was gone. I knew that the thing to do was to walk out into the hall and follow her. She couldn�t tell me what to do. And then I saw the bulletin board. I�d never seen it before. Something for the gal employees. I walked over to it and clasped my hands behind my back while I read it with large, bland approval. The gals were having a late picnic, signing the list with their names and indicating whether or not they were bringing guests.

I was reading down the list, seeing how many I knew, when Marylin rushed in and grabbed my arm again. I was reading a name that seemed oddly interesting and I pulled away from her. She grabbed me again and again I yanked back out of her grasp. She looked at me and her underlip seemed to shake a little as she said, �Oh, please come with me.�

I�m always a sucker for a vibrating underlip. I went with her down the hall and she pulled open a heavy door. We went out into the stairwell while I heard her mutter, �Can�t afford to be seen on the elevator with him...�

That offended me. I stopped and said, with dignity, �And why is Lyndsey Palmer unfit for human consumption? I refuse to go further with you, my girl.�

She wasn�t hurt. She grinned at me and then she giggled. �Okay, my dignified friend. Go right on back through that door.�

I would have, except that it didn�t have any handle on the side we were on. Neither did any of the doors all the way down to the street. The last one had a handle. Something about that circular descent stirred up what was left of the Martinis. Her small pale face with the blue eyes seemed to be dancing around me. I didn�t object � I could only mumble � when she hailed a cab. She helped me to climb in and I heard the driver say, �Something nice like a Turkish bath for him, lady?�

She shook me and shouted into my ear until I was able to say my address. I almost came out of it when the two of them dragged me into the elevator at my place. But not quite. Then I remembered sitting on the edge of the bed and she was saying something about why should she take the trouble with me, and somebody undid my shoe laces. They pulled my coat off, and then I was on my back, and the bed and I were sinking down and down and down into whirling blackness.

I woke up with a start. I sat up in a hurry and it was necessary for me to keep my head from floating off by holding it down delicately with both hands. It was light out. I was in bed in my shirt, pants and socks. There was a delicious, exciting, overpowering odor in the apartment. I trembled out into the kitchen and located it. A pot of simmering coffee was sitting over the pilot light. It looked as though it had been sitting there for a long, long time. I glanced at my watch. Five after five. I could see sun on the wall outside the kitchen window and knew that it was five in the afternoon.

I poured out a cup and sat in shame, scalding my tongue on it, as I remembered the Martinis and the call on Panterson. I realized that my rating with Marylin would be quite a way from par. I pitied myself and moaned over myself while I drank the coffee. The headache threatened to break out through the front part of my head. When the coffee was gone, I stripped and took a cold shower. As I stood there, life began to seep back into the tired body.

As I was toweling myself, I suddenly stopped, remembering something unusual about the office. I couldn�t quite place what it was, but I knew that there was something. Something important. I dressed thoughtfully, stopping now and again, staring at the wall, wondering what it was that I was trying to remember.

I glanced at my watch again. Nearly six. The office closed at five. I wondered if there was any chance of getting in, believing that if I went over the same ground again, I might run into whatever it was that had left me with the after-taste of being important.

Then I hurried. I dashed out and had luck finding a cab. Traffic was rough. I sat up on the edge of the seat and talked gently to the cab and to the traffic. He gunned it through the holes and I jumped out in front of the office at six-twenty. As I walked out of the elevator and looked at the main door, my heart sank. It was shut and I could see no light shining through the opaque glass. The elevator door had shut behind me. I looked up and down the hall. It was deserted. Then I stepped forward and tried the knob. The door opened.

I walked in cautiously. Something about the place made me feel uncertain about the intelligence of poking around after hours.

I shrugged off my fears and started back along the company corridor toward Mr. Panterson�s office. Whatever it was that I had noticed would still be there, I hoped. I came to an open door and stopped short. Marylin Hays was sitting at her desk leafing through a batch of papers. She glanced up and saw me in the doorway. She stopped all motion and stared at me. There wasn�t a flicker of warmth in her eyes. Her black hair gleamed in the fluorescent desk light.

She left it up to me to say something. I made a bad start by saying. �I... uh... wanted to thank you, Miss Hays, for what you did this afternoon. It... uh...�

�Don�t try, Mr. Palmer. I didn�t do it for you. I know Mr. Panterson wants you to hold onto the China assignment. You would have lost it if Mr. Severent had seen you.�

That brought me back to myself. I said, �I�m missing a letter I had in my pocket. Probably dropped it while I was fumbling around up here. You haven�t seen it, have you?�

�No.�

�Oh. Where was I besides in this office?�

�Across the hall in the store room. Maybe it�s in there.�

I bowed my way out. While I had been talking to her, I had been looking around the office in a frantic attempt to see something of sufficient importance to give me that little gnawing feeling that had come over me while drying myself after the shower.

I walked into the little store room. I didn�t remember being in it before, but as soon as I walked in, the objects looked familiar. I realized that the bulletin board held the most promise. I walked over to it. Outside of some official memos to the help, there was nothing on it. That didn�t seem right. And yet I didn�t know in what way it was wrong. I looked around some more and then walked back. Marylin had started to type. The machine rattled and gasped as she beat on it with both hands. I stood staring at her until at last she stopped. She looked up, impatient and scornful.

�What else do you want, Mr. Palmer?�

�That bulletin board over there. Was there something else on there when I was in there this afternoon?�

�What of it?�

�Look, Miss Hays. I�ve got a hangover. I�m sorry about this afternoon. I don�t want to bother you any more.�

�Then go home, will you?�

�Was there anything on that bulletin board that�s not there now?�

�Yes.�

�What was it?�

�I don�t see what business it is of yours. It�s a list of girls who signed up for a picnic. They had to sign their names with a yes or no after it. Why are you so interested?�

�Where is it now?�

�In this desk. Is your long-lost sister on it?�

I was too tired to argue. I walked toward her and leaned over her desk. A man can only be needled so far. I was past the point. I stuck my hand out, palm up, and said, �Put that list in my hand, or I swear I�ll tear up every file and every letter in this office.� I didn�t say it loud, but she must have been able to read in my eyes a pretty fair amount of determination. She rolled open a desk drawer, snatched out the paper and dropped it into my hand. It missed and I grunted as I picked it off the floor. She didn�t have any windows. I had to hold it under her desk light to look it over. At first I didn�t see a thing. I went through it twice and paused, puzzled. Then I tried the third time more slowly. I found it. It grew and grew in front of my eyes until it seemed to fill half the page. Celia Sherman. I�d never heard of her. The name meant nothing. And yet, she�d made the �s� in Sherman in a very odd manner. She had looped the last stroke of the �s� back around the bottom of it, and then drawn the line down into an oily little squiggle. I remembered having seen that s before. In Connally�s office, on the bond.

I grinned at Marylin. Her set face slowly dissolved the smile. I gave her a good look. Her face was nice, though pale. Delicate nose, full lips held in too firm a line, a cleft chin, blue eyes widely spaced, eyebrows too heavy, hair too lush and black for the rest of her face.

�You know most of these gals around here?� I asked, handing back the slip of paper.

�Most of them,� she said, in an inquiring tone, as though inviting me to go on. On any other approach, she would have chilled me. But she sensed a chunk of dirt about some other girl, and that drew her in like a fish into the net.

I walked over to the wall and grabbed a chair. I pulled it up close to her desk and lowered my voice as I said, �Maybe I can tell you later. But first, Miss Hays, let me say that I think we got off onto the wrong foot together. Maybe I�m too wise. Maybe I talk too fast. Anyway, I want to tell you that I�m sorry, and I want to make it up to you by getting you a nice steak some place for your dinner tonight. I won�t take a drink and I won�t try to be smart. Please come along with me,�

I put on my trampled-spaniel smile and tried to look melting. She cocked her head and glanced up at the ceiling. Then she glanced at her watch again. �Okay, Mr. Palmer, but you�ll have to buy me a drink even if you don�t want any. I�ll limit you to three. And you�ll have to get me home very early. Say about eight-fifteen. I live fifteen minutes by cab from here. That gives us one hour and twelve minutes to eat.�

When we left, she locked up and put the key in her purse. She looked too trim and businesslike to take to dinner. Her hat was plain, her dress dark and plain, her blouse collar was stiff, white and gleaming. She looked like the high school librarian in Cincinnati. I must have been tired enough to let a little of my doubt show in my face as we rode down in the elevator. She glanced quickly at me and then said, �You realize, of course, that I�d rather eat alone. I�m doing this to show you that your display this afternoon was unimportant to me.�

I was afraid to answer her, afraid that I�d give her some other cause to take offense. When we were on the sidewalk I asked her if she had any preference as to where to go. No indecision about that little girl. She yanked me off toward a place at a half run.

We dropped panting into a booth and she had given the order to an adenoidal waiter before I had a chance to pick up the menu. �How about that drink?� I asked.

�We�ll drink after dinner,� she said in tones that permitted no argument.

I took my time ordering just to show my resentment at being pushed around. She frowned absentmindedly at the bridge of my nose, and we sat like two warring Indian tribes, waiting for food to come out of the kitchen. The rich smell of beef cooking reminded me that I�d missed my lunch.

When the waiter had brought a double Hennessy for her and a rye and water for me, I began to realize that I was going to have to leap right into the middle of my questions. All attempts to sidle up to the subject got me nothing but frosty stares and the slight curl of a lip. I felt more unpopular each moment.

She saw me fumbling around, so she said, �What girl were you interested in on that list?�

It was a relief. I said, �Celia Sherman. Who is she? What department is she in? What does she look like?�

Marylin took a deep breath and said, �Celia Sherman is a tall, hefty redhead who has expensive tastes and a bad reputation. She lived with me when I was younger and more foolish. She doesn�t now. She lives in a very nice little apartment on 63rd. She works in the District Office Division under Herbert Salter and Stanley Weller What about her?�

�Why do you have to go home so early?�

�That�s none of your business and you changed the subject. If you�re so curious you can�t stand it, I�m going to a movie. And not alone. What about Celia?�

I picked up the check and counted out the right amount of money, including tip; then I stepped out of the booth and leaned over her. I said, �Look, Marylin � Miss Hays � I don�t want to tell you something that I can�t prove. I�m grateful for the information you�ve given me. If my hunch is right. I may be able to give you the story later. Do I have your permission to leave you here?� She nodded absently. I left.

I looked around at the next corner, and realized that I was only two blocks from the Penn Station. I walked over and sat on a bench in the waiting room, trying to figure out what to do next.

I realized that if my assumption was right, and if the Sherman woman had forged my wife�s name to the bonds, the name of Lyndsey Palmer would be plain poison to her. I wouldn�t get a chance to talk to her.

On the other hand, if I claimed to be somebody else, she wouldn�t tell me much over the phone. And if I met her, she might recognize me as Palmer, having seen a picture or having seen me around the office.

It made more sense to try another name. The District Office Division is on the eighteenth floor, and I don�t get down there often. Also, those gals don�t come up to twenty very often.

I checked the phone book. She was in it. Celia Hunt Sherman. Apartment 5W. 111 West 66th Street. Phone Gra 9-1680. I went to a booth and phoned.

I held onto the earpiece. I was about to slug the receiver back onto the hook when I heard a click and a thick, rich, sleepy, velvet insinuating voice said, �Hello there. Who is it?�

�I�m awfully sorry to bother you, Miss Sherman. Were you sleeping?�

�Yup. Had some bad evenings and decided to get to bed early. For lines in the face, they keep telling me. Boy, have I got lines!�

�That�s too bad, Miss Sherman. I didn�t want to do anything like wake you up, but you see it was sort of like...�

I heard her yawn and then she said, �Come to the point, honey, so I can go back to sleep. Who the hell are you?�

�You don�t know me. I�m Carl Greybit. You see, a friend of yours named Tom Willow from Dayton told me to call you up, I was...�

�A friend named who?�

�Tom Willow. Tom Willow. He was on a party with you and Buster and Helen and Roger and a lot of people I know.�

�Oh,� she said doubtfully. �We both know all these people, hey?�

�Sure, and Tom said that I was to call you and...�

�What do you want, honey? Let�s get this over with.�

�Damn it, Miss Sherman. Can�t you listen for a minute. I want to come up and see you and say hello, if you�re not too damn sleepy!�

There was silence on the other end of the line and then she giggled. �I was going to hang up, honey, but you sound like fun when you�re mad. How old are you?�

�Thirty-three. Why?�

�I don�t want to get up for school kids or grandpappies, honey. How tall are you?�

�Nine foot eleven and I�ve got three heads. Get the hell out of bed.�

She giggled again. �Okay, honey. You can come over and call, but don�t expect me to be any life of the party. I�m a tired girl. I work for a living. When will you be over?�

�Fifteen minutes or so.�

�Well, look. You come on over and you bang on the door like hell and gone, because I�m going to roll over and I�m going to get myself a little bit more sleep. You just kick on that door and after a while I�ll let you in, honey.�

She hung up before I could say another word. I walked slowly out of the station and down the street. I stopped and bought a bottle of rye, just in case. Then I jumped into another cab and told him to take it easy driving me on out to 66th. I leaned back in the corner of the seat and stared dreamily at the meter as the nickels clicked along.

Number one eleven stopped me. It was on the end of the street, a building of pale blonde stone blocks, curved windows and glass brick. There were a few very formal little trees in front of it.

I walked up the flagstone path, which looked very, very strange at that location, pushed my way through a pair of plate glass doors, and stepped down into a small hallway, indirectly lighted. I pushed through a second set and stepped into a deep rug. A little cough steered me over to a high counter. Behind it was a brushed, washed, polished, pale, glistening man, who had so many muscles that they bulged out of his cheeks and temples. He inspected me with a feline eye and said, �Yes?�

�Miss Sherman. 5W. She�s expecting me.�

He turned toward the switchboard and said, �Your name, sir?�

�The name is of no importance. She�s expecting me and I don�t want to be announced.�

�I�m sorry, sir, but we have a rule. I�ll have to announce you, or I can�t let you go up.�

I leaned over the high counter, standing on my toes and said. �Look, my friend. You�re spoiling a surprise. I�ll bet you ten bucks that your name is Tinklemeyer.�

He wrinkled his nose and said, with great dignity, �My name is Sydney Sills.� I shoved the ten across the counter. He looked down at it and then looked at me. When I looked down again the ten was gone. He said, �Well, sir, if you say she was expecting you...�

�Thank you, Sydney,� I said, and walked toward the elevators. They were across from the desk. There were three of them. Self service. They could have been reduced to one inch cubes and served very well as jewel boxes.

I slid the door shut behind me and pushed the ebony button labeled 5. It moved up silently and stopped without a jar. Apartment 5K faced the elevator and I could see the door of 5L just down the hall. I walked on the silent carpet until I found 5W.

At first I banged on the door gently, slightly awed by the depth of the quiet around me. Nothing happened. I banged harder. Then I began to bang with my fist and kick at the door. Finally, I turned around and stood with my back to the door. I let my heel swing back � hard. Four or five of those worked.

The door clicked behind me and I turned around. This was it. If she showed that she recognized me as a guy named Lyndsey Palmer � I was through, but quick. Otherwise, there was a chance that I could find out something.

She was redheaded and big, but she wasn�t hefty. Her thick red hair was tangled around her sleepy face, and she was pawing at it with her hands, yawning at the same time. She wore a sleek robe, tailored, in a pale aqua that set off her hair and the soft ivory pallor of her skin. She was half a head taller than I.

I walked in, trying to keep well up on my toes, shrinking with the fear that she might know me. She stopped yawning and stood looking at me, no expression on her face. Then her eyes crinkled and she smiled. �Hell, honey, you�re a little fellow. Remind me not to go dancing with you.�

I walked in and she shut the door. The apartment was right for her. The big room I was in was wide and long, with steps on one end, three of them, up to a wide window. There was a table in front of the window. At the other end, on my right, was a big piano, silent, gleaming darkly. The furniture was right, the lamps dim.

Directly across from the door was a fireplace, with two deep ivory leather couches set at right angles to it, facing each other. The room was faintly garish, faintly spectacular and entirely comfortable � just like Celia Sherman.

I handed her the bottle and she yawned again. �Honey, I got gallons of the stuff. You can drink mine, if you�ll go out in the kitchen and fix it. I�m too damn bushed.� She dropped onto one of the couches and waved toward one of the doors. I went out through it and found the sparkling, aseptic kitchen. I found glasses, ice and water. I mixed two heavy ones and brought them back in.

She extended a languid hand and took one. She sipped it, and then looked up in appreciation. �This willow tree gent must have steered you right, honey. Two ounces of liquor and plain water.� She sipped it again.

I sat down opposite her and wondered what to say next. Our imaginary mutual acquaintance seemed safe, so I started, �That Ed Willow is sure a great guy. He always...�

�You said his name was Tom?� she interrupted.

I tried to look amused. This was the girl who had helped put me in the bag for seventy thousand. I couldn�t let my anger show, or she would soon catch on. There was nothing stupid about her. She talked in a lazy, indifferent way, and she soaked up the rye like a sponge � but underneath she was sharp and keen. I couldn�t take chances. �Okay, Celia. I�ll drop the Willow gag, but I can�t tell you who it was. I promised to leave the other party out of this. You see, I mentioned the fact that I was lonesome, and your name came up as a possible cure.�

�Fine thing,� she grumbled. �Now I got friends giving me away like a bingo prize. Who the hell was it?�

�Greybit keeps his promises.�

�If I guess right, will you tell me?�

�Maybe yes, maybe no. Depends on how quick you hit on the right one.�

�It sounds like it might have been Berlotti.�

�I know a couple of Berlottis.�

�This one is a sharpie from Brooklyn who sends around a couple of cases of free beer every once in a while. A guy who has been racing for first base for a long, long time. He�s getting sore at me. I don�t like him. He eats too damn many onions and he stinks up the place with cigars. Sure, it sounds like Joe.�

I nodded wisely, my heart pounding, and said, �I better not say.�

It was getting better and better. I raced through the memories, pinning down the boy named Berlotti. He had been along when I married Clara. He had gone with the unit to China. He knew about the divorce. He had bucks to burn, and knew how to play the angles. He was a slim kid with a big chest and shoulders, and an expression that held the pathos of the ages. He always looked ready to break into tears. I had lost track of him in China after I had been transferred to Kweilin.

�Come on, honey,� she said. �Better tell Celia if Joe was the one. I won�t tell him you told me.�

�How did you get to know Joe?�

�I don�t know. He�s always been one of the guys around with big ideas and a few bucks to spend. What difference does it make.�

�Just curious,�

Suddenly she stood up and said, �I�m hungering for some hamburg and coffee, honey. You sit tight while I put on a dress, and I�ll let you buy me some.�

While she was dressing, I poured my drink into the kitchen sink. I had time to smoke half a cigaret before she came back out. Her hair was combed and she wore a flimsy dress of some kind of yellow-green. It fitted in all the right places. She was hatless and on her feet she had some kind of Mexican sandals that left her feet practically bare.

I said the proper things about seeing her in clothes and we went down in the elevator. It was eleven thirty. I wanted to grab a taxi, but she said that there was a good hamburg joint a block and a half away. We walked to it, with her making me more self-conscious than ever by saying, �Honey, if I got you a little pair of stilts and I walked with my knees bent, we�d look okay together.�

I didn�t answer that one. Most of my life has been devoted to sneering at guys who figure that growing six feet tall is a personal accomplishment. When I was an adolescent, I made a list of all the little guys in history. It didn�t help much.

She was right. The hamburgs were good and the place was clean and bright. I had a couple. She was good company, laughing as though she meant it, and kidding with the counter man until the three of us were one chummy little family.

Then it happened.

Whenever you want to run into somebody you know in this town, you can�t. The world is full of strangers. But when you want to stay clear of your friends, they pop up like mushrooms in the woods.

A jerk kid named Barney Something-or-other came in. I didn�t notice him until he clapped me on the shoulder and said, �Hy, there, Lyn. How�s the pride of the Palmers?� Then he looked at the Sherman dish and made appropriate smacking noises with his lips. I was too busy looking at her to answer him for a few seconds. She stared at her own face in the mirror behind the counter man, and I could see her grow pale. Then she turned to me and looked at my right hand, as though seeing it for the first time. The big scar across the back of it looked as big and bright as red neon. That was the tip. I knew she was the one. I knew that I could take her to a lawyer and take her to Connolly and take her to see Mrs. Seely and I could make the whole thing clear as to how I had been caught in the middle.

While I was saying, �Hello, Barney,� she slipped off the stool and spun toward the door. I made one quick step and caught her just above the elbow with my left hand. I�ve always had a lot of power in my hands. This was no time to be chivalrous. I bore down and she gasped and stopped, frozen with the sudden pain in her arm.

I stuffed my right hand into my pocket and pulled out some change. It looked like more than enough, so I dropped it on the counter and walked out the door with Celia. She didn�t say a word. I kept my hand on her arm.

�What�s the matter, babe. Why the attempt to run out on me?�

�Nothing�s the matter. I just don�t like to have men try to ring in a phoney name on me. That�s all.� Her voice was sulky and a little frightened.

�Isn�t there something more than that?� I asked gently.

She didn�t say another word until we were in front of one eleven. Then she tried to hold back. I urged her along and she got stubborn.

�What�s wrong, Celia?�

�You�re not coming in, Mr. Palmer.�

�She says I�m not coming in. I am coming in, dearie and you�re not going to object. You and your friends, whoever they are, have stuffed me into a bad spot, and I�ll get out of it any way I can. Even if I have to do something about that face of yours. I can slam one of these fists through a thick door panel, you know. How would you like that pretty nose flattened out like a trampled marshmallow?�

I felt her wince at that. I was threatening some of her best possessions. I had to strike while the striking was good, so I said, �We�re going in, and one peep out of you, my lovely, to that fancy night man at the switch board, and I�ll knock you over into his lap. My pappy told me never to hit a woman, but I�ll try it once to find out what�s so bad about it.�

She came along like a good little girl, and I allowed myself one quick sigh when we were in the elevator on our way up.

She tried a break at the door, trying to twist away after she had unlocked it, trying to slam it in my face. I got my foot in front of it and it didn�t quite latch. I pushed it open and walked on in. She sat on one of the couches, her face dead, her eyes like bits of glass from the bottom of a bottle. For the first time, I noticed that there were fine lines in her neck and at the corners of her eyes. Her hair seemed to have lost a bit of its life and color.

I sat opposite her and said, �Now let�s have it. I�m going to find out sooner or later, and you might as well tell me now. It�ll be easier.�

She smiled, but it was a pale smile. �I don�t have any idea what you�re talking about, Mr. Palmer. I just don�t like people trying to kid me, that�s all. When a man uses a wrong name, it means he�s got wrong ideas. I don�t like it. That�s all.�

�Bunk, lady. Somebody primed you to take a room registering as my wife and cash some bonds in that name. The bonds were supposed to come from me in China. I�ve got you and I�m going to get hold of the others. So come clean while I�m making it easy.�

She just sat and stared at me. Then she said, �I don�t know what you�re talking about, honey. But suppose I was mixed up in some kind of a deal like you say. Don�t you figure that certain other parties could be rougher on me than you could? If you were talking sense, you ought to know that. Maybe, if a girl was in the spot you say, she might listen to some kind of offer. She might want enough dough to go a long way away and get a new name. But, of course, I don�t know what you�re talking about.�

I thought that one over. She was willing to bargain. So I said. �And if you did know what I was talking about, maybe a thousand dollars would help you remember some of the details.�

She looked startled, then she giggled. It changed to a high, full laugh, with an undernote of hysteria. �A thousand dollars!� she gasped, when she could get her breath. �You sure you can stand it? If a gal was in the spot you�re talking about and you offered her twenty-five thousand, she might be encouraged � thinking you might eventually offer enough to make it worth while. If I was mixed up in a thing, honey, it would be big league. You ought to be able to figure that.�

So I couldn�t buy her. A simple case of not having the money. That left me with the alternative of sticking with her until I could take her to see a lawyer or the cops in the morning. There was no rush. I yawned and asked if she�d run out on me if I went back to her bathroom.

She told me that with the clothes and nylons she had laying around, she�d be crazy to move. I went into the back of the apartment.

I came wandering out again after two or three minutes, maybe a little more. She was slumped over against the arm of the couch. Her arm, hanging free, was twitching slightly. She was staring up at the ceiling. Her long red hair fell over the arm of the couch. Thick blood pulsed from the wide gash in her throat. It clotted the front of the yellow-green dress and ran across the ivory leather of the couch. It spilled down to the pale rug. The pulsing stopped and the hand stopped moving. She stared at the ceiling. The blood ran sluggishly. Her body seemed to collapse against the couch, growing smaller and flatter as I looked at it.

It was color. The contrast of shades of red-blood and hair. The green and yellow of the dress... the ivory of the couch. The sandal was half off of one slim foot. The heel of the sandal touched the floor. I stood and laughed. I heard the laughter in the room and wondered what the noise could be. I stopped laughing. I went on my toes to the door, opened it and stood in the hall. I looked back and saw the light shining on her round white arms. I ran down the corridor, running silently on my toes. There was an elevator at the floor. I shut the door and stood in the exact center of it. It stopped at the ground floor.

I walked to the desk. I heard my voice saying, �Miss Celia Sherman is dead up in her apartment. Somebody just cut her throat. Cut it right across and her blood is ruining the furniture.� Then I giggled.

His face seemed to back away from me and then come closer. I wondered what made those muscles on his temples. I wondered if he ever hung by his teeth for a living.

Then he said, �That�s very interesting?�

I looked down at his hand and there was a gun in it. It looked like a toy gun and the barrel was as solid and steady as the desk itself. It seemed to be pointed at my middle. He fumbled with his other hand and then he picked up a phone. He didn�t take his eyes off of me.

�Please give me the police.�

He waited a few seconds and then he said, �This is One Eleven, West Sixty-sixth Street. A woman has just been murdered in one of the apartments. I�m holding a gun on the man who did it. Please arrive without sirens if you can.�

He hung up and shifted the gun to his other hand. Then he said, �You�re about three feet too close to me. Move back a bit and hold your arms well out from your sides.� I did exactly as he suggested. I moved back with care, and I stood with my arms held well out. He had a way with him.

The clock inside his cubicle said quarter to one.

I looked around. I could see the door that seemed to lead to the stairs. I started to think again. I said, �Did anyone leave just before I came down?�

�No,� he answered gently.

�Then the murderer must be still in the building.�

�Very probably,� he said, with an easy smile. He didn�t look at all nervous, except that highlights had appeared on his cheeks and forehead, as though he had been sprayed with oil.

They came with sirens. They screamed from far away, moaning in the night, slowing to a growl as they stopped in front. Two in uniform. The one in the lead had a gun in his hand. He glanced at me and then at the clerk. He turned the gun on me and the clerk�s gun disappeared under the counter.

The other one, hefty and meat-faced, waddled up to the desk and said, �Where is it?�

�Apartment 5W.�

�Anybody else up there?�

The clerk looked at me and I shook my head. The hefty one turned toward the one with the gun and said, �I�ll go on up and wait for the experts. You keep junior here and don�t let nobody in unless the fella behind the desk knows �em.�

Another siren in the distance. Another growling stop outside and this time one in uniform and two without. All plain-faced, steady, sane, purposeful. The quick questions and the same answers. They left the original one with the gun at the door and they took me up with them to the apartment.

There were the five of us in the room, and what had been Celia. The smaller one with the grey hair looked down at her and made clucking noises and made me sit on the piano bench while he stood over me. The others scurried about the room and their activities were a blur in front of my eyes.

I answered the questions. �No, this was the first time I�d ever met Miss Sherman. A mutual friend mentioned her and I had called her up. No, no one else had known I was with her. Yes, it was just a date. I had arrived early and we�d finished a bottle of rye and we had gone out to eat and we had come back.� I told him the times. I couldn�t tell him the reason. It would have given them a motive. I was safe so long as I kept our relationship on a casual basis, but I knew that if I blurted out the bond angle, I was done. So I told them it was a date. I had phoned and she had invited me over � all very matey, all very sweet and gay. He dug out the information about my going back to the bathroom, returning to find her fading heart still pumping the blood out through the hole in her neck. I told him that it was possible that the door hadn�t latched.

I didn�t feel nervous. I felt numb. I couldn�t permit myself to think of what I would do next to find out who was behind the bond racket. They had been close and now they were far away again � invisible � laughing at me.

More plainclothes men came into the room and one knelt beside her, avoiding the blood, staring at her intently, feeling the body temperature. He got up and walked over to grey-hair and me.

�Got the time of death, Dougherty?� he asked.

Grey-hair said, �Twenty to one. How about the cut?�

�Looks like a knife that wasn�t too awful sharp. Edges are jagged and the flesh is bruised from the impact. It was a healthy blow, severing the jugular and cutting behind it almost back to the spinal column. Death in a matter of seconds. As I figure it, she was sitting there and the killer stood in front of her. Maybe he held the knife behind him. She had her chin tilted up talking to him. He made a roundhouse right with the knife, and the blow knocked her over to his left, her right, with her head against that arm.�

�Any chance of blood on the killer?�

�Some. Can�t tell. A blow like that, there�s a split second before it spurts. He could have had time to jump back. Find the knife around?�

�Not yet. Donovan searched this fellow Palmer here. He claims he walked in when blood was still spouting out of her neck. How long would that be after she was sliced?�

The plump doctor rubbed his fingernails on his lapel and then studied them. �Not more than nine or ten seconds, at the very outside.�

�Then, if Palmer here didn�t kill her, the guy who did must have been going out the front door to the apartment, just closing it behind himself when Palmer came back into the room.�

�Or else he hid behind the couch or something until Palmer left. Then he left.� They stood and shook their heads wisely, impressed with their own reconstruction of the crime. They impressed me too. But they hadn�t scared me yet. I had a hunch they weren�t trying to.

We went back down in the elevators and Dougherty was complaining to the hefty one that they�d have to search every apartment. The hefty one glared at me as though he thought I ought to confess and save the department the trouble.

My friend Sidney was talking to the young cop downstairs. Every few minutes, the young cop would go out through the glass doors and tell the populace to �get the hell away. Nothing to see.�

As we stepped out into the hall, I caught Dougherty by the arm and pointed to the stairway door, telling him that Sidney Sills had told me that no one had come out just before I had dashed down. He pulled his arm away and said, �Relax, Palmer. I know my own business. That�s been checked. Nobody has come out since the crime was committed. This is a fire resisting building. No outside fire escapes. The men are starting on the apartments now.�

He beckoned to Sidney Sills and the young cop. They both walked over to where we stood by the elevators.

Dougherty started to question Sills again, but I couldn�t keep my mind on what he was saying. I was looking down at my toes, thinking of that woman up in the apartment, growing colder by the minute.

I glanced toward the door just as Harold Panterson came in. He looked at the group of men and then his eyes widened in surprise as he saw me.

One of the cops walked over to meet him, saying, �You, there. Get back out them doors and...�

Sidney interrupted firmly, saying, �Mr. Panterson lives here.�

Harold walked over to me and said, �What�re you doing here this time of night, Lyn? What�s it all about?�

Dougherty turned to him and said, �You know this fellow?�

�Certainly,� he replied. �I�m personnel director of the firm where he works. What�s the trouble?�

�Plenty, Mister. Another employee of your firm, a dolly named Sherman, was knocked off not long ago up in her apartment. You live here, so you must know her. What did she do down there?�

�I know her to speak to. I believe she�s a stenographer.�

�Then how come she lives in a place like this?�

�Kurtron feels that what an employee does in his spare time is his own business. Maybe a rich, aunt payed her rent. How should I know?�

�It�s not smart to get rough with the law, Mister. Where have you been?�

�Taking a long walk for my health. Why?�

�I don�t know,� Dougherty sighed, �I seen you come in. You had to be out when it happened. How about this Palmer, here. Know him well?�

�Yes, I do. He�s reliable. A good citizen. Not a type that I�d advise you to arrest on suspicion unless you want to look foolish.�

I grinned my thanks at Harry. Dougherty shrugged and turned back to Sills. I edged Harry over into a corner and told him what had happened, that Sherman had been the one who had signed the bonds in the name of a wife I no longer had.

He whistled and said, �And that could account for her being able to live in this place. Did you get any information out of her?�

�Not much. She mentioned one guy I want to look up. Also, if I�d had the bucks, I could have paid her off and gotten all the dope. She seemed willing to talk for enough money.�

At that point, two lean and amiable young men wandered in and brushed off the first efforts of the cop to push them back out. Dougherty let them hang around. The most talkative one proved to be a police reporter named Bob Lucas. He knew Harold Panterson. After pumping Dougherty, he wandered over and met me. The other one took my picture. Panterson said to Lucas, �Lyn Palmer here is a special friend of mine, Bob. If Dougherty tries to pin this thing on him, try to give him a good press, will you?�

�Sure thing.� He turned and saw Dougherty going back into an elevator. He hurried away, smiling back at us. Harry made me promise to phone him immediately if they tried to hold me. He went on up to his apartment and I waited by the desk for somebody to tell me what to do.

It was about two-thirty when they took me out to one of the cars for a ride to headquarters and a few additional questions, fingerprints and so on. I looked back as we were leaving and saw two husky guys in white coats carrying a long object down the walk toward the waiting ambulance.

They stuck me in a place that looked like an oversized school room. There were rows of big desks, a blackboard and a box of ends of chalk. They let me sit for nearly twenty minutes before a smiling young fellow who told me his name was Deressa, came in with a wispy citizen who carried a notebook. We draped ourselves around on the chairs and Deressa had me go through the whole thing again. Twice for luck.

Then he smiled in a tired way and said, �That ought to do for tonight, Mr. Palmer. You can go back home now. We have your address and phone number. We�ll stay in touch with you. You just stick around town.� I agreed to stick, the wispy one slapped the notebook shut, and I walked back out through the smell of garnish, wet wool and antiseptic. I fell into a cab � weary, sick and dull. I must have slept. The driver shouted at me and I climbed out and paid him off. I staggered as I headed toward my elevator.

I had been running in fear and horror, my feet slipping on ivory colored leather, my pursuer running heavily behind me. Then I fell, rolling tangled in thick, greasy hair the color of copper. It wound around me and strangled me. I fought it, but the tendrils curled and coiled like snakes...

Suddenly I was awake, drenched in sweat. The telephone was ringing insistently. The window was grey with dawn. I fumbled into my slippers and hurried into the hall to get the phone. I picked it up and said, �Hello. Hello.�

For a few seconds there was no answer, and then a cautious voice said, �Lyn? Is that you? Are you alone?�

�Yeah. Who is it?�

�Harry, I�ve got bad news for you, boy. Lucas just phoned me, knowing that I�m a friend of yours.�

I shook the sleep dust out of my ears and listened carefully.

�Bob Lucas was down at headquarters a half hour ago. It�s six o�clock now. He sneaked out and phoned me. Seems as though some guy in the Income Tax department can�t sleep. He listens to newscasts. The Sherman killing was on the air at five. He phoned up and told the cops that they were after you for income tax evasion. He remembered the address where this wife of yours was supposed to live. Dougherty grabbed one of her pictures they found in the apartment and went on up there. They got the manager out of the bed and got an identification of her as the babe that was signed in as your wife.�

He paused, waiting for me to say something, but I couldn�t. I couldn�t have said my own name for fifty dollars.

�And,� he continued, �they found the knife out in the side alley. They figure it was tossed out a window at the end of the hall, about thirty feet from the front door of her apartment. No prints on the knife. Lucas says they got you cold as can be.�

My voice was hoarse as I said. �What the hell do I do?�

�I don�t know, Lyn. This town has good cops, but it seems as if they get a readymade suspect, and they don�t look so hard in other directions. You know what I mean?�

�Sure, and thanks for calling. Harry.�

�I wouldn�t have called, except that I�m betting you didn�t do it, see?�

�Damn it, Harry. Could I have talked to you like that if I�d done it?�

�I know. I know. Take it easy. Look, Lyn. Things are going to be tough. It looks like you might lose either way � as far as Severent is concerned. You�ll be in the morning papers whether they pick you up or not.�

�And you figure that will make him mad?�

�Mad isn�t the word. This is a hell of a lot more important to you than any China trip. You have a choice to make. Either you can stay there and let them pick you up and depend on your innocence to let you out of it, or you can run like hell and give me a chance to poke around and see what I can dig up in your favor. If you want to run, I can sneak your passport and ship ticket out to you. You can catch the Seaqueen Victory at Pier 90 on Friday, if you have luck.�

�What would you do, Harry.�

He waited a long time before he answered. Then he said, �It�s hard to tell, Lyn. If it were I, I think I�d stay around, but then I think I have more patience than you have.�

�I think I�ll get out of here so that I�ll have time to think before they pick me up. If I want the tickets later, I�ll phone you.�

�If that�s the way you want to do it. I�ll help you all I can. I�d offer to hide you out at my place if the building wasn�t lousy with pops.�

�I know you would. So long, Harry.�

I thanked him and hung up. I went in and sat on the edge of the bed. It was likely that a prowl car was a matter of blocks away, heading for me. I could sit and take it, or I could move along. If I sat, they had me with motive and opportunity. If I ran, I might have a chance to check on the bond racket and show how it would have been silly of me to cut her throat.

I pulled on my most inconspicuous suit, and tossed shirts, socks, shorts, and toilet articles in a small suitcase. I had luck. I took the stairs and had the good sense to peer around the edge of the doorway before stepping out into the lower hall. I saw the familiar, pert little figure of Honey, the messenger girl, stepping into the elevator. I waited and saw the arrow stop at my floor. Then I went out into the street, puzzled and confused. There would be time later to get in touch with her and find out what was of sufficient importance to bring her around to my place at six-fifteen in the morning. I hurried down the street and didn�t begin to feel safe until I had put three or four corners between me and my apartment. I checked the bag at the Penn Station and had coffee.

Then I began to wonder where to go. Think over your own friends and try to imagine who would hide you if the papers were calling you a murderer.

That wasn�t the only stipulation. I wanted to get someone to hide me out who could also get me some more dope on Celia Sherman. Panterson was a logical one, but his apartment wasn�t practical. I fretted over the problem.

Having Honey come to my apartment so early canceled her out as a possibility. I couldn�t be certain of where she stood.

There was only one answer left. I fished a nickel out of my pocket and went down to the phone booths. I dialed Kurtron and asked for Miss Marylin Hays. The switchboard said, �Just a moment, plee-uz.�

Then her voice, saying, �Mr. Panterson�s office.�

�This is a man who walked out on you last night.�

Dead silence. Then cautious tone, �I remember.�

�I�m in trouble.�

�Yes, I usually look at the paper on the subway on my way to work.�

�You�re my link � you knew her. You know Panterson. Can you help.�

�Where are you?�

�Pennsy Station.�

�Leave there immediately, in case someone is on the line. Loiter across the street from where we had dinner. Half an hour.�

I stood sweating on the sidewalk and every pedestrian was connected with headquarters, every car was a prowl car, the high windows were full of eyes and faces, staring down at me. It was as though I was the central figure in a stage set. The big spot was on me, and I stood alone. Around me in the shadows, there was a murmuring, and various movements. Every movement, every sound was a gun pointed at my heart.

I started to shake my head when a cab pulled up to the curb in front of me. Then I saw Marylin�s dark hair, framed in the back window. She called, �Hello, Mike darling!� in a bright gay voice.

Forcing myself to walk slowly, I strolled, smiling over to the cab. �Hello, Joan.�

�This is wonderful, meeting you like this,� she gushed. �I�m going to cancel my shopping trip and take you home with me. I�ve got a new bottle and some wonderful pictures I want you to see.�

I climbed into the cab and sat beside her and started to open my mouth. Her hand, pinched down on my knee in warning, and I took hold of it. It was small, rigid and as chill as shaved ice.

She kept up a running babble of conversation until we got up to Ninety-fifth, just about three blocks from where Celia had registered as Mrs. Lyndsey Palmer. I paid the driver and followed her into the doorway of a red stone-apartment house, not much better than the one Mrs. Seely operated.

We went up to the second floor and back along the corridor. It was dark and smelled faintly musty. She fumbled for seconds with the lock, and finally the door swung open. I hurried in and she followed, shutting it after us.

�I should have told him to take us to some other address near here and then we could have walked over here, but I didn�t want you on the street any more than I could help.� Her voice sounded flat and tired, as though keeping up the pretense had exhausted her.

Then she did a strange thing. She walked around in front of me and took both my hands in her cold grasp. She gave an odd little yank at my hands and then looked up into my eyes. For once the mask was down, and there was softness there. But her voice was cold and level as she asked, �Tell me, Lyn. Did you kill her?�

�No, Marylin,� I answered as gently as I could. �I didn�t kill her.�

She sighed and sat down very heavily for a girl as slight as she. She held her hands tightly linked in her lap. �Sit down and tell me the whole thing. I want to know.�

So I told her the whole thing, starting with Connolly, and ending with Dougherty, leaving nothing out. And all the time, her blue eyes searched my face and her face was still. Her heavy black hair looked too massive for the delicate lines of her face and throat. She sat and listened, asking no questions, until at last I was through and the room was silent.

She looked strong and smart, and before I thought, I said, �What do you think I ought to do?�

�If you give yourself up, I don�t see how you would have a chance. I believe you, but they won�t. They�ll say you killed her because you were angry, because she cashed in bonds in your name.� Her forehead wrinkled and she stared at the dean tan rug. �There�s so little that you can do, Lyn. You ought to see if you can get hold of this Berlotti person. You ought to put the police on the trail of the bond swindle. You could get the passport and ticket and see if you can leave on that ship � but I agree with Mr. Panterson, that�s running away, pure and simple.�

�I don�t even know where to go.�

�You can stay here. I don�t have visitors.�

That was what I had been hoping she would say. �It will be bad for you if they catch me here.�

�They won�t, unless one of us slips. Let�s not slip.�

It was set. I gave her the baggage check and she promised to get my small suitcase from the station. She had to hurry back to the office. She had lost well over an hour and a half of time. She had told them that she wanted to see a dentist.

I stopped her at the door and took her hands as she had taken mine. I looked down into her eyes and said, �Why do all this for me, Marylin? I thought you disliked me.�

�I neither like you or dislike you, Lyn. I have a darned good reason for helping you.�

�What is it? Can�t you tell me?�

�I�ll just tell you this much � it�s a penance. You look very much like a boy I knew once. He was kind of gay and silly and not very bright � like you. I hurt him and sent him away. He won�t ever come back. There won�t ever be a chance in this world to tell him how sorry I am. When I help you, I�m really doing it for him.�

She slammed the door behind her and I locked it on the inside.

I tiptoed around and looked out all the windows. I had a break there. Three looked out onto the street, and had drapes that could be pulled shut. Two looked out onto an air well, with no windows opposite. The last window looked out onto a blank wall at the rear of the building.

It was a clean little apartment, but nothing like the one that Celia had lived in. Marylin had made the most of the cheap furniture, repainting it in an off white and rubbing umber into the cracks to antique it. There was a tiny bath with a shower, no tub, and a kitchen nook with a miniature two burner gas stove. The refrigerator had about a two foot cubic capacity.

I paced around the place, trying to think, happy at being in off the street, and confident that the police would have a rough job locating me.

She kept her little radio on the end of one shelf of a book case that had been made of heavy boards and ordinary building bricks, painted white. I switched it on and sat listening vaguely to the soap operas until at last there was a news program. I kept the little job turned low. I squatted on the floor in front of it and listened to the announcer:

�Special flash! Lyndsey Palmer, whom police believe to be guilty of the brutal murder of glamorous, redheaded Celia Sherman, stenographer at Kurtron Oil, where Palmer also worked, was released during the small hours of the morning due to lack of any evidence against him. Further evidence was discovered after Palmer was released, and a squad car was sent to pick Palmer up at his residence at six thirty this morning. Palmer had packed a few belongings and disappeared. Police doubt that he could have left the city. All railway stations, bus stations, air terminals and highways are being watched. Police believe that Palmer will be recaptured in a matter of hours.

�He is described as thirty-three years of age, five foot seven inches tall, one hundred and sixty pounds. Pale blonde hair, receding slightly, brown eyes and a large deep scar diagonally across the back of his right hand. Be on the lookout for this man. He may be dangerous!�

He started on some other news and I switched him off. In spite of the feeling of safety that Marylin�s apartment gave me, the statement that they would get me in a matter of hours made me feel cold. I paced the floor, walking as noiselessly as I could, suddenly conscious that anyone downstairs might think it unusual to hear footsteps during the time that Miss Hays was supposed to be working.

It was shortly after noon that I heard a rattle at the door. I jumped up off the couch and crept over in my stocking feet. I held my ear close to the door. Then Marylin said, �Open quick. You�ve got the key.�

I opened it and then stood back out of sight while she scurried in and slammed the door. She carried my bag and a paper bag. Her hands were full, so I locked the door and then took my suitcase. I slid it under the couch while she walked into the kitchen with the other bag.

It felt good to have her there. Someone on my side. I sat in one of the kitchen chairs just outside the alcove which contained the stove, the refrigerator and a small sink. She put on an apron, made some sandwiches from cold cuts and put some coffee on. While she worked, she told me about the excitement at the office, about the men from the police station who interviewed those who had worked with me.

Finally she took off the apron, poured the coffee and sat opposite me. We kept our voices low. Her eyes looked strained, but she found the guts to smile at me.

She had brought a paper, but she wouldn�t let me look at it until after I had eaten. We didn�t get a chance to discuss much of the case. As I was telling her that I didn�t know what to do next, she glanced at her watch. I was in the middle of a sentence. �Hold it, Lyn. Sit tight and we�ll talk about it tonight.� She handed me the paper at the door, before she left.

It was a bad afternoon, cooped up with the paper. There was a picture of Celia, and one of me. Also, they had one of the apartment house on Ninety-eighth where Celia had registered as Mrs. Palmer. They had checked my military record, such as it was, but they paid little attention to it. I was the one they wanted to get hold of. I was happy to see that their picture wasn�t much good. What interested me most was a veiled hint that certain developments in the case made it entirely possible that federal investigators might be called in. That sounded good. That sounded as though they were paying some attention to the bond angle.

I found a portable typewriter in her closet, with paper clamped inside the lid of it. I opened it up and set it on a cushion on a table to cut down the noise. I located carbon and typed out a complete history of the case � everything I could remember. I left out Marylin�s name and address. Then I put on a cover letter to John Foley, the detective, and told him to use that as a starter and see if he could find out who Celia�s playmates had been. I made a cover letter for Lucas for the carbon copy.

I read them over, tore them up and tried again. This time, I left out all references to Berlotti and Marylin. I had to cover Marylin, and I wanted to save Berlotti for myself. I found envelopes and addressed them. Then I put the letters on the table, put the typewriter away and looked at my watch. Time for my girl to be back. I discovered, to my surprise, that the thought of seeing her in a few moments excited me.

She came in at five thirty, with more bundles. We made an agreement not to talk about the major problems until after dinner. It was hard to do. There were little silences that grew longer and more awkward, that had to be filled up with some kind of chatter.

We took our coffee out to the couch and sat side by side. She frowned down at her cup and stirred it slowly.

�The latest edition of the paper was worse, Lyn.�

�Could it be?�

�It was. They checked everybody that was in the apartment house at the time of the murder. They could find no connection between any of them and Celia. Some knew her by sight, but that�s all. They�re certain that it was you.� It did look blacker. Before I had time to answer she said, �Mr. Severent had Mr. Panterson in for a long time this afternoon. Mr. Panterson came back very upset.�

�I can imagine.�

�Stanley Weller will be sent to China in your place. He can�t leave right away. So Severent wants Mr. Panterson to fly over on an inspection trip in a few days. Mr. Panterson is worried about you. He has the feeling that if he was able to stay around, he might be able to help you somehow.�

�It looks like it�s too late for help. And by the way, why did he mention all this to you? Did you tell him that I�m here?�

�No. I thought it would be wise if nobody else was in on it. He always talks to me. He doesn�t expect any answers. It�s sort of a release for him. He knows that I don�t tell his business outside the office. And don�t say that it�s too late for help. You still have a chance, as long as you know that you didn�t do it. You�ve got to keep trying.�

�That�s easy to say, Marylin. There isn�t anybody after you � yet. Tell me some more about Celia. You said that the two of you roomed together.�

�Two years ago. I was fresh from St. Louis and she came from Miami. We had both finished secretarial courses and we met the day we got the job at Kurtron. Girls were hard to get at that point and we didn�t have much trouble. We got along, but after a while she picked up too many friends. We had a big apartment that was just a bit too expensive for us. She seemed to be able to get along without much sleep for nearly a week. Then she would fold up and sleep for twenty-four hours. I couldn�t take it. I wanted to break it up, and she was mad at me because she didn�t want to give up the apartment and she didn�t want to go to the trouble of finding someone else to move in with her. I was meek and out of the way most of the time. It was ideal for her.�

�What happened?�

�About that time I met a friend of hers that I liked, but that�s another story. When it was over, I moved out. I found this place.�

�What was this other story?�

�It�s dull. I got all whooped up over one of the dear boys in uniform. This was a nice one. Due to go overseas. We had two wonderful weeks and then I got a letter. He finally had the guts, three thousand miles away from me, to tell me that he had a wife and baby in Seattle. I guess it�s an ordinary story. I told Celia and she laughed at me and told me that he had been sucker bait, that she had brought him around with orders to soften me up a little. So I left. By that time...� Her voice trailed off and she clamped her lips shut.

I finished the sentence for her. �By that time, you had told this other fellow, the one you really loved, to go chase himself, and it was too late to tell him that you had made a mistake?�

She moved away from me and nodded her head without looking at me. I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder. She winced away and spun on me, her eyes hot. �I don�t want your sympathy and I don�t want to be pawed. Get that through your head or get out. I�m helping you to make up to myself for what I did to the boy who looked like you... not because you�re irresistable.�

I tried to apologize, but she didn�t seem to be listening to me. I changed the subject by showing her the letters I wanted her to mail. She read them carefully and then said, �What are you going to do about Berlotti?�

�Go and see him. Tonight, if I can dream up the nerve to go out into the wide world.�

�Then, let�s leave these here, stamped and ready to go. Then, if we don�t have any luck with this Berlotti, they can be mailed later.�

�How about this �we� stuff?�

�Don�t be foolish, now. They�re looking for a man by himself. They won�t look twice at a couple. Besides, if anybody starts to get curious, we can get so sloppy with each other, that will take their mind off anything else.�

I thought it over. �On one condition, Marylin. If I�m picked up, you have to agree right now to say that I forced you to come with me. Understand?�

She stuck her hand out and I shook it. �Fair enough.�

We talked for a time before we were due to leave. Then we waited in a cigar store until a stubbly gentleman found what he wanted in the book, using trial and error rather than a working knowledge of the alphabet. I ran my thumbnail down the Brooklyn Bs and found Berlotti. Joseph S. Berlotti. And the address.

We had a five minute wait until we could get a taxi. She stood with her head leaning against my shoulder, looking up into my face whenever anyone walked too slowly near us. I put my arm around her and helped her into the cab. I gave him the address and for a time we were safe � moving along in an imitation leather cubicle that smelled of gasoline and smouldering ash trays, the lights of passing cars flickering across us, the relaxed back and cocked head of the driver silhouetted against the glow of the streets. He whistled softly, a tremolo rendition of an old one called, �Sophisticated Lady,� and the night was around us.

It was a quiet street in Brooklyn, a street with the houses well-spaced, the darkness of lawns, and kids playing under the trees, their sharp voices like the cries of shrill small animals. He cruised along, his head out the window and finally stopped.

�I can�t tell exactly which house it is, Doc, but it�s right in here someplace. You want I should run up and look at some of the numbers?�

�No. This is fine. We�ll look for it,� I said. �Suppose you stick right here, and keep your motor running.�

�You expecting trouble, Doc?�

�Maybe. I�m trying to collect dough from this guy we�re going to see, and he might get pretty excited.�

He didn�t offer any objections. Marylin stood on the sidewalk while I went up toward the front porch of one of the houses, trying to see the number. It was the right one. I could see lights back in the house, so I beckoned to Marylin and met her halfway up the walk where the taxi driver couldn�t hear us.

�Look here,� I said quietly, �you can help by hanging around the outside of this place. If I get into trouble, I�ll yell and you get in the cab and get out of here. I�ll do as well as I can. I don�t want them seeing you or identifying you. This porch looks long and dark. Come on up onto it with me, and go quietly down to that end there on the right. Keep quiet and wait. If I shout, you go like hell.�

She considered it for a moment, and then nodded agreement. We walked up the steps and she drifted down the porch as I located the bell and leaned on it. I heard footsteps hurrying toward the door. I had no idea what to do or say. I waited.

The kid who opened the door looked like a younger, rattier edition of Joe Berlotti. He swayed a little and peered at me and I saw that his eyes were reddened and that he held a glass in his hand. He wore gray slacks and a brilliant red checked cotton sport shirt. His black hair was greased back, but one lock had come unfastened and hung down toward his eyes.

He grabbed my arm and pulled me in, saying, �Everybody�s welcome. Come on it. Good old party.�

I stepped into the dim hall and he tugged on my arm. Then he reached up and took off my hat and threw it on the hall chair. I could see back through to a lighted room, hear music, hear people talking too loud and too fast.

A tall, bulky man, bald, with heavy pouches under his pale eyes came to the hall doorway. He saw me and said, �Ah! Another applicant. We regret that you cannot be admitted unless you bring a present. Presents are restricted to the category female, of tender years, in reasonable shape. Have you one with you?�

I didn�t have a chance to answer. The kid pulled on my arm and we brushed by the bald one. He smiled down at me with foggy good humor and we went into the room where the people were.

It was too confusing to see, except in sections. It was a small room with a big record player blaring Herman�s loudest, two long couches and assorted chairs, some of them from the kitchen. A card table was set up in one corner with bottles, bowls of ice, soda, gingerale and pitchers of water. Two people were mixing drinks for themselves. Assorted couples sat on the couches gazing into each other�s eyes in an amatory, alcoholic haze. One pudgy citizen sat on one of the kitchen chairs, weeping quietly, tears dropping onto the backs of his work-gnarled hands. A couple was dancing, the man smaller than I, the woman big, rawboned and giggling. He was trying to swing her clear of the floor and she was trying to help with little hopping motions. He was grunting at the task, and those in range of her heels were glancing at them fearfully.

The kid pushed me over to the table and left me there. I mixed a rye and water and then turned around, looking for a corner I could back into. There was no sign of Joe Berlotti. I was annoyed. I finished off the drink and made myself another one. I hunted around for someone who looked sober enough to talk to. I turned to go back to my chair and I saw that the big baldheaded man who had walked into the front hall was sitting in it. He was nodding his head in time to the music and smiling with great joy and contentment at all of the confusion.

A couple was holding hands, sitting on the sofa near the chair. They looked oblivious to all outside interruptions, so I walked over and sat on the arm of the sofa, close to the baldheaded one.

He looked at me inquiringly and I shouted in his ear, �I�m looking for Joe Berlotti; I�m a friend of his. Where is he?�

�That�s right,� he said, �Joe is a great man. A great man. But not very smart.�

�Where is he?�

�He shines resplendent in the uniform of his country. Gold leaves on his shoulders. A great man. But not too smart.�

�Where is he now?�

�Off somewhere, being a great man, polishing the gold, pressing the pants � being a post-war professional hero. What�s it to you?�

�I told you I was his friend. Where exactly is he, besides being in the army still.�

The kid who had let me in roamed over, acting relaxed, but his knuckles showed white where he held the glass. �Just who do you want, friend?� he asked, and he seemed to have lost a bit of the alcohol.

�This gentleman was telling me that Joe Berlotti is still in the army.�

The kid turned to Baldy and said, out of the corner of his mouth, �This gentleman is stinko drunk. This gentleman doesn�t know my brother. This gentleman has a size twelve mouth.�

Baldy jerked himself up off the chair and he towered above me and the brother. He pulled his eyebrows together into a fuzzy knot in the middle of his forehead. �Take a loop around that fresh tongue, Robert. I�m not intoxicated and I say what I please to whom I please at any time, at any place.�

The kid looked up at him and there was anger and pleading in his voice at the same time as he said, �Then don�t fill strangers full of guff Tell this man that Joe�s out of the army, that Joe ain�t here, that you didn�t know what you were talking about.�

Baldy bowed to me and said, �As you can see, friend, I am expected to retract statements I have made. Allow me to say to you that I haven�t any recollection about our conversation. What were we discussing?�

I spun on the kid just as the music stopped. I had my mouth open to shout, but I could have whispered and they both would have heard me. I said, �Suppose you two stop this dance-me-around game and tell me where I can find Joe. I was in the army with him. I want to see him. I want to say hello. I want to have a drink with him.�

The tone of my voice stirred some interest and a few heads were turned in our direction. The kid said, �Just what is it that...�

Baldy interrupted him by putting a large hand over his mouth and shoving. The kid landed on a sofa on an entwined couple and his drink sprayed everybody within two yards. There were yells of protest. I saw that the bald man was a great deal more drunk than I had guessed. His eyes looked glazed.

I heard the kid mumble something to the man he had landed on, and somebody cut off the record that had just started. Baldy swayed and said, �I, too, would like to see Joseph. I would like a discussion with him, when he can spare the time from his oriental machinations. He can then tell me...�

The words were cut off with a gentle sigh. A woman gasped as Baldy slowly came apart at the joints and settled foreward. I stepped back and he went onto his face at my feet, the remains of his drink sloshing into my shoe. The man Robert had spoken to was slipping a black leather sap back into his side coat pocket. They all looked at me and I backed toward the door. Robert jumped up and started to come toward me.

�Just a second, friend. Just who the hell are you?� he asked.

Then I heard a woman gasp again and squeal, �That�s him! The guy in the paper! The one that killed the redhead that Joe ran around with!� She stopped and tried to shove both hands in her mouth. The chunky one took his hand back out of his pocket and he had the sap in it again. For an endless second we all stood motionless, and then I broke the spell by taking a step backward toward the door.

I wondered for a second why they didn�t rush me, and then understood as a pair of arms, coming from behind, clamped my arms to my sides and locked across my chest. The chunky one started toward me and his arm started to lift.

I reached up, crossing my arms and put a hand on the forearms of the one who had come up in back of me. I braced myself, and then yanked down hard, bending sharply at the waist with every ounce of power I could manage. He came forward over my head, and I felt his locked hands break apart as the strain came on them. He flew into the others and I didn�t wait to find out what happened.

I turned and dashed through the darkened room into the front hall. One light was on. A new one stood in front of the door. The light shone on scarred brows, sunken eyes, a thick nose and a twisted ear. As I came along in a hurry, he dropped into a crouch, and the light shone on a small tight smile. His face showed that he knew what he was doing.

I set my heels and skidded to a stop. There were footsteps coming behind me. The pug blocked the door. There was no place to go. Then a window crashed in to my left, in the direction of the darkened front room. The pug turned his head to look, and I would have done the same if he hadn�t looked first, showing me the angle of his jaw.

It was no time for finesse. I used my right fist like a club, with a lot of follow through. Something warned him and his jaw was turning back toward my fist as it landed. The pain of the blow numbed my arm. I fumbled for the door, tripping over his feet as I ran out onto the porch. Marylin was on the steps, her white face turned toward me. As I soared down the steps, I grabbed her wrist. She told me later that she thought her arm was coming off at the shoulder.

The driver was on the ball. He swung the door open and gunned away before I could close the door behind us. He took two fast corners and then cut it down to about thirty.

I massaged my wounded hand while Marylin felt of her arm and shoulder. We were grinning at each other when the driver said, �Sounded like lots of trouble back there, Doc. Thought I heard one of the windows get busted.�

�The guy was pretty sore,� I explained. �He threw a punch at me and I ducked and he put his hand through his own window.�

�You sure loan money to nice people!�

�Well, my lawyer handles this one from here on in, I owe you an extra five bucks over the fare for getting us out of there quick.�

�Think nothing of it, Doc.�

I had him take us back to the river four blocks below Marylin�s place. We walked casually along and found a bench facing the river. We sat down and it was nice just to sit there and, relax in the night for a time, and glance once in a while at her quiet, delicate profile.

�You broke the window?� I asked.

�Uh-huh. I could see the hallway and I was watching when you came running back. I saw the man ready to hit you and I hit the window with my purse. I thought maybe he would look that way. Then, just as the window broke, I realized that maybe you�d look and he�d hit you.�

�Thanks. It was quick thinking.�

She shuddered a little. �It was exciting at the time, but now I�m scared � now it�s over. What did you find out?�

�Nothing, except that it�s against the rules there to talk about Joe. It isn�t done. I think he�s pretending to be still in the army or something. One of the women spotted me. That�s what started the riot.�

�Suppose they tell the police, Lyn?�

�Suppose they do? So what? What have they got?�

�Don�t be so stupid!� she said, turning on me. �Can�t you see? We took that cab at the corner near my place. If they tell the police, their address will be in the paper. The cab driver will remember us and where he picked us up. He�ll be able to give a description of sorts of me. Then, if they use their heads, they�ll be able to figure out where you�re staying.�

She was right. It depended on two things � on the people at Berlotti�s talking and on the cab driver remembering. Both items seemed logical. The safe refuge suddenly became a trap. I began to feel sorry for myself. The hand of every man was against me � and every circumstance pushed me deeper down into despair. I tried to put some of my gloomy thoughts into words and she sniffed at me. A feminine, derisive, all-inclusive sniff. It helped.

�I can�t stay at your place any longer then, Marylin.�

�And where do you go?�

�I don�t know and I�m getting to the point where I don�t care. Maybe I�ll go call on Dougherty. Maybe I�ll swim out to sea.�

�Very melodramatic. Of course, you realize that even if the Berlottis do call the cops, it won�t be in the papers until tomorrow morning and even then, maybe the cab driver won�t see it. You�ll be safe tonight.�

I considered the fact that it might be on the radio while we were sitting there, that the cab driver might be calling the police, that cars might be on their way to surround the place where he had let us off. But I let her convince me. I was tired and dopey. I wanted to sleep. I could have slept anywhere � even on the bench where we were sitting.

So we got up and walked arm in arm back to her place. It felt strange to climb the stairs with her again. It felt good to shut the door against the world � but our odds had gone down a bit more. I realized that if I was a gentleman, I would have refused to come back, to put her in any possible danger. But I was too tired to have ethics, too weary for the better instincts.

I almost fell asleep sitting on the couch while she made coffee. She brought it out to me and the bite of it woke me up to the point where I could discuss the situation with her. �This is odd,� I said, �Here you are, sticking your neck out, and for what? There�s nothing constructive that I can see to do except to give myself up and cross my fingers. Everything is a dead end. Assume that Berlotti had this cooked up with Celia Sherman. Assume that he killed her. Where am I. I can�t prove anything. I can�t find him. When I try to think like the police must be thinking. I begin to suspect myself.�

She doubled her fist and pounded it gently on the arm of the sofa as she said, �You�ve got to think of a way to prove to them that someone else had more motive than you to kill Celia. Something must have been said, something that you attached no importance to at the time, but which could be unraveled if you�d just remember and think.�

It wasn�t any good. She made me go over everything that had happened. I tried to remember every scrap of conversation, every intonation, every hint. No soap. The only thing we could dig up was the comment of Baldy�s that convinced me that Joe Berlotti was back in China, if indeed he had ever left.

I said to her, �It would be a very nice thing if I could get to China, Marylin. There must be some army personnel and records left there. Maybe they have the records of registered mail sent out of the theater. Maybe I could find out by orders and records that I was hundreds of miles away when those bonds were mailed to Celia at the Ninety-eighth Street address.�

�Sure,� she said, �and maybe they were sent to her not registered at her own place. Maybe they were sent to the office. Maybe a messenger brought some of them back. Fine idea. You want to just leave, with all the transportation being watched, so you can roam around just about the biggest country there is looking for something that probably isn�t there any more.�

�That�s secondary. Maybe I could find Berlotti. Maybe I could make him talk.�

�That�s dreaming, Lyn. You�ve got to be certain that the answer isn�t right here.�

She looked drawn and worried and-I knew that it was about me. Man is an egotist. If a woman looks worried about you, she must be fond of you. If she�s fond of you, she won�t mind a display of affection. I set the cup down, reached over and tilted her chin up and kissed her. As soon as my lips touched hers, she folded hers under and compressed them tightly. She held her body rigid and motionless until I was quite through. It was like kissing a statue in the park.

I let go of her and she said in a dead tone of voice, �I told you before, Lyn. I�m doing this in memory of somebody else. Don�t make it complicated for yourself. I�ve had enough of men in a personal sense. Don�t make any more passes.�

There wasn�t much chance that I would. It hurt my pride more than if she had bitten, scratched and kicked. I asked her, �You were really in love with the guy you chased away in favor of Celia�s friend?�

�Yes, I was. And he�s been dead a year now.�

I was wondering what to say to get her mind off of him when there was a dainty knock at the door. By luck, we hadn�t said anything to each other for a couple of minutes. And when she had told me off, she had used a low, vibrating whisper.

I had previously decided where to go. I picked up my cup and walked quickly over to the little alcove where her bed was. I set the cup and saucer on the night table and pulled the curtains shut that blocked off the alcove. Then I stood quietly behind the curtains, my muscles bunched to leap out if I had to.

I knew that Marylin was inspecting the room for any other sign of my presence. Then I heard the key turn in the lock and the door open. There was silence for a moment and then Marylin said, �Why, hello, Honey! What are you doing up here at this hour?�

For a moment I thought it was a boy friend who was being given the big hello. Then a familiar husky voice said, �Aren�t you going to ask me to come in?� It was the little messenger girl. I remembered then that I had seen her heading up to my room, or at least to my floor, the morning I had left my apartment to come to Marylin�s.

Marylin asked her in and I heard the door shut. Then I heard Marylin offer her a cigaret, heard Honey say thank you, heard a match striking � and I knew that they were seated. I knew Marylin was wondering, as I was, the reason behind the visit Marylin hadn�t mentioned being friendly with any particular girl at Kurtron.

Honey started it. She said, �It sure must seem funny to you to have me busting in here like this, but honest I�ve been having the worst time.�

�What about?�

�Poor Mr. Palmer. Gosh, I can�t sleep or nothing and I thought I�d just have to talk to somebody that knows him. I�ve seen you talking to him down at the office and once I saw you coming out the door from the stairs and Mr. Palmer, he... well, he looked like he�d had a couple.�

�Why come to me, though.�

�Well, Miss Hays, you know him and you surely can tell if a man can be a murderer, can�t you. You think Mr. Palmer�s a murderer?�

�Anyone can be a murderer,� Marylin said with chill calm. I wanted to rush out and kick her loose from her jewelry. It seemed disloyal somehow. But there was nothing I could do.

�I sure hope Mr. Palmer isn�t innocent,� Honey said.

�Why do you say that?� Marylin gasped.

�I�ve got an uncle that works for the deputy chief and he told my father that there�s a lot of feeling around about taking so long to electrocute people after they catch them. They�re going to rush it through, when they find Mr. Palmer, and he�s just about going to have a chance to say �Boo� before he�s sitting there sizzling.�

That just about threw me. It was too graphic. I stifled a desire to tear my collar open at the throat.

�Of course,� she continued, �if they don�t pick him up right quick, things might quiet down for him and they might take it a little easier.�

Marylin must have known what the conversation was doing to me. As soon as Honey paused again, she said, �Honestly, Honey. I�d rather not talk about it. Where did you buy the darling suit?�

The conversation veered off to talk of clothes and shops and shoes. I moved quietly over to the bed and inched onto it without creaking the springs. It was a chance to relax, but I couldn�t. I knew that I was holding every muscle tense, breathing in great shuddering breaths that shook me from head to toe. Honey�s comments had taken it out of the realm of a game between me and the police. It was deadly serious. Finally I heard them walk over to the door. They said goodby with the careful affection of women who care little for each other. Then I heard the door shut again.

I rolled off the bed, smoothed out the spread and wandered back into the room. Marylin was standing in the middle of the room, her arms folded, her chin cupped in her right hand, staring at the door.

She looked at me and said, �That was a cheery little visit!�

�Wasn�t it. Like a black-bordered letter.�

�I don�t know why she came to talk to me. She must have sensed that I think she�s trivial and more than a little silly. Could she have suspected that you�re here, Lyn?

�I don�t see how. I think you�re giving her credit for more subtlety than she�s got. And yet...� I told her the story of seeing Honey the morning I left my apartment.

She frowned and worried at it and then said, �There�s an easy answer to that. You�re just irresistible.� She said it with a straight face, and for the first time I began to wonder if she had a sense of humor.

We talked it over from every angle and finally came to the conclusion that there was no more to the visit than met the eye. One thing Honey had made clear. It would be a lot better for me to get out of New York. The idea of getting to China became more practical. There was only one line of attack I could try in New York, and that was too dangerous � namely, trying to find out the names and addresses of Celia Sherman�s friends and seeing them, one at a time. That was a job that the police might or might not be doing.

We had more coffee and we sat and talked in whispers about what I could do. I wanted to have her take a note to Harry, telling him to turn over my passport and tickets to Marylin.

�Can�t do that,� she said. �A man from the police was in the office this afternoon. I forgot to tell you. They took your passport. They thought it was a better picture than the one the photographer took in the lobby of Celia�s apartment house.�

It was another door slammed shut on me. I walked over and looked out the window. The dark street looked mysterious and unfriendly. A dark figure leaned against a store front across the street. I beckoned to Marylin and she came over and stood beside me, breathing quickly. As we peered through the slit in the drapes, the dark figure lit a cigaret, turned and walked away down the street. We both heaved great sighs at the same moment and smiled at each other. Our nerves were going bad. There was nothing left to talk over.

Going to bed was a routine that demanded precise timing. She left her alarm clock with me, and undressed behind the curtain in the alcove and went to bed. When I was ready, I clicked the lights out and spread out on the couch. I called a polite goodnight.

I lay on the couch and watched headlight beams sweep across the ceiling. It didn�t seem possible that the day before yesterday, I had seen Connolly, that yesterday I had watched blood slide down the side of a pale couch, that a few hours before I had managed to wiggle out of a house where every hand was against me.

I knotted my hands behind my head, trying to adopt a philosophic attitude, pretending to myself that it would all come out okay for me in the end. It was tough pretending. There was a money question, too. I made a mental review of the contents of my pocket. With all the taxi fares, I should be down to about thirty or forty dollars. It would be too risky to try a check. Fifteen hundred in the bank that I couldn�t touch.

After a while I heard her soft, regular breathing and knew that she had dropped off. I couldn�t quite figure her out. Granted that she had given some unknown joker a raw deal, it didn�t seem right that by helping me, she could ease her own conscience. I tried to imagine myself in her shoes, to imagine what it would be like to have brushed off some female, only to realize later that she might have been the one and only. Would I then stick my neck out to help another gal of the same type, even though there was no emotional attachment? I decided that maybe I would. It bore a distant relationship to the fakir philosophy, the bed of nails, the hair shirt. I wondered if it had any relationship to the gifts of libraries to the public by sharpie financiers who had made their bucks by rooking that same public. Maybe. I wondered what Marylin�s first guy had been like. And the second.

There was about another hour of troubled thought, of beating my head on the bars and walls of invisible cages, and at last I dropped off into drifting sleep; one ear ready for heavy steps on the stairs, the booming of big knuckles on the frail door.

The sleep drugged me. When the alarm went off, I didn�t have the least idea of where I was or what it was. I fumbled on the floor, tipped it over, found it again and at last pushed the lever to stop its hysterical clangor. The noise left me shaken and jittery � and in a foul humor.

I had time to dress, fold up the blanket and smoke half a cigaret before she came out. The smoke tasted thick and oily in my mouth � my head felt stuffed and cottony, ray hands and knees were shaky.

When she appeared, she looked pert, trim and efficient. For a moment I thought she was going to be cheery, and I loathed her a little. Then she said, �I�m warning you. I can�t smile or carry on a conversation until after coffee. So let�s not talk.�

That suited me beautifully.

I stood by the window and looked out at the pale sun. I knew from the feel of the air that it would be a hot day. The sidewalks were beginning to fill up with early morning faces, puffy and semi-conscious. In the light of morning, it hardly seemed possible to me that there were men out there who were anxious to find me, anxious to haul me off down to dim rooms and gloat over me as though by being on the streets I was spreading some foul disease.

I looked out and my instinct told me to get out of the city � it was a trap. From an intellectual point of view, I knew that I was as safe where I was as I could be anywhere in the world � and yet I felt too close to Dougherty.

I started thinking of police methods, of their way of checking paper, envelopes, type faces, mail drops. I took the two letters off the table and tore them into small fragments. I burned them in a glass ashtray. By the time I was through, coffee was ready. Canned orange juice, toast and coffee.

We sat and she stared over my shoulder at the wall and I stared down at the cup, each far away. At last she said, �I dreamed last night that you had left here, that you were safe.�

�Lovely thought.�

�We�ve got to think of a way of changing your looks, of getting false identification for you. You�ve got to get away �till it can be proved that you didn�t do it.�

�That�s what they do in the Grade Bs,� I said. �Plastic surgery and a job lot printer. Fake calling cards. Then the hero appears holding a gun in the plush office of the bad guy. Maybe if I knew where to find the bad guy, I could do something.�

�You ought to have a gun.�

�Gun! Are you nuts. I�m nervous. I�m scared. Give me a gun and I may shoot somebody. Then where am I? Then it wouldn�t make any difference that I didn�t kill Red.�

�It was a thought.�

�Think again, sugar.�

�You don�t have to be nasty.�

I took that one in silence and at last she was ready to go to work. She paused at the door and looked at me with a worried expression. Then she stuck out her hand and we shook hands solemnly. She left. The door closed. I was alone again. I missed her.

It was the longest morning that�I can remember. The radio was full of fainting women, heart throbs and vicious, fascinating doctors. They made me sick to my stomach. I tried to read her books, and the paragraphs would go by and I would suddenly realize that I was reading with my eyes, and my mind was far away.

I paced through the house and knew that I couldn�t take many more days of it. I took a shower and then I found some cards. I sat on the floor and played Canfield. Then I built houses out of cards and blew them down. I began to feel like an idiot child. The hands of the clock moved as though they had sandbags tied to them.

At last it was twelve and then twelve five and then twelve ten. She came at twelve fourteen. I let her in cautiously and her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. She stuck up a hand at me, joining her thumb and forefinger to make a circle. She waved it at me and did a little dance step. I got excited without knowing what it was she had on her mind. My first idea was that the real killer had been picked up.

�What cooks, Marylin? What is it?�

�Wait a minute. I want to sit down and catch my breath and give it to you slowly. You might not like the idea.�

�Anything is better than what I�m doing.�

She sat on the couch and I paced the floor back and forth in front of her. She opened her big black purse and pulled out some small packages, placing them carefully on the couch beside her.

�This was all sort of a coincidence,� she began. �You know how the office handles all details of passports, visas and tickets when they send the men out of the country?�

�Sure. My own stuff was down there.�

�Well, this morning, Mr. Panterson was out for a while. Mr. Severent, for some reason, brought Mr. Panterson�s passport and airlines tickets in to me in an envelope. Mr. Panterson leaves in three days. Mr. Severent is very hard to get along with. He doesn�t talk very much to the people around the office.�

�Don�t I know that. The guy frightens me.�

�Anyway, I was very startled when Mr. Severent stopped in front of my desk and pulled Mr. Panterson�s passport out of the envelope. He opened it up and stared at the picture in the front end. Then he said, �Miss Hays, do you believe that criminal tendencies show in a man�s face?� I said, �No, Mr. Severent, I don�t think so.� Then he said, �Neither do I. Look at this.� He came around my desk and stuck the passport in front of me. He said, �Now look at Panterson�s face and compare the structure of it with Palmer�s. Ignore the different color of the hair, and Panterson�s glasses. See the line of the mouth, the structure of the nose. Same thing, and yet Palmer�s a criminal and Panterson isn�t. Of course, Panterson�s face is a bit thinner and he�s quite a bit taller, but you can see the resemblance, can�t you?� I looked and he was right, Lyn, even though I never noticed it before.�

�So I look something like Panterson. What does that make me?�

�Don�t you see? I�ve got the passport and tickets here. You can go as Panterson, and I can make the reservation for this afternoon, with luck.�

�You�re crazy, Marylin Hays. You�re nuts. He�s too tall. I haven�t got any glasses. My hair is the wrong color. Don�t you think they�ll check these things?�

She glared at me and said, �Certainly. I�ve got two kinds of dye here. If we get to work right now, I can fix you up. First a black dye to bring the basic color about the same as Panterson�s. Then a white bleach to give you that lock of hair that makes him look so distinguished. And I stopped in an optometrist�s and got a pair of plain glass specs the same as Panterson�s. The same rim design I mean. I told the man I wanted to try them on my husband for looks.�

�But how about the height?�

�Silly, they won�t check that, and if they do, you act very, very offended. Lots of men that aren�t very tall add a few inches when they fill out forms. Everybody knows that.�

I winced. I had been guilty of the same thing a few times. The same as a matron taking a few years off the age. I began to catch her excitement. It was just weird enough to work.

Then I remembered the spot she would leave herself in. I shook my head slowly and said, �Hey! This puts you in too bad a spot when Panterson finds out.�

She smiled ruefully and said, �I did it on the spur of the moment and it�s too late now. I sealed up an envelope with some scrap paper in it of about the same bulk and gave it to Mr. Panterson. I looked in through the door and saw him put it into that little personal wall safe of his. I haven�t got the combination to it.�

�You could take this stuff back and make an excuse to get hold of that envelope.�

�What excuse? What could be wrong with it? That would only make him suspicious. I�ve done it now, Lyn. No way out. You�ve got to take the chance.�

�But what will happen to you?�

�I don�t know. I didn�t think much about that at the time. Maybe it would be good for me to lose the job and go back home.� �They may do more than that. They have some kind of laws about helping a criminal to escape.�

�Then you�ll have to try that much harder to clear yourself, so you can clear me too. More motivation, like the psychiatrists say.�

�But what happens if I do get to China before Panterson discovers the switch. What do I do there?�

�It gives you time to check any army records, if they�re still around. It gives you a chance to find Berlotti. Maybe your friend Mr. Streeter of the Kunming office will help you. Maybe he hasn�t heard about all this yet. At least you�ll be doing something, and even if they do bring you back, it will focus their attention on the fact that all of this has been due to that bond business. My guess is that it�ll help.�

I told her that I wanted time to think it over. She said that there wasn�t time. We compromised. She went to work on the black dye business, mixing it up and brushing it onto my pale hair while I sat in the tiny bath with a towel around my shoulders. After it was brushed on, she told me to look at myself in the mirror. That was no pleasure. My hair was a caked, nasty shade of blue-black, coarse and thick. I looked like a man with a horsehair wig. I scowled at it. She had left the dye off a long front lock. It stood out, white and nasty against the black. I scowled at myself.

�I�ve got to get back to the office,� she said. �You go to work on that. Wash it and rinse it about five or six times. Hurry with it. His hair is more oily than yours. Once you�re through, dry it and put a little of this vaseline on it and comb it like he does his. Then see how it is. I hope it looks better than it does now.�

I hoped so too. I walked with her to the door. She stopped and said, �I hope I can clear the reservation for today. You can look the tickets over so that you know which way you�re going. When you�re ready, take your bag and phone the office. Ask for me and I�ll let you know the time to get to the Airlines Terminal.� She paused and her face held no expression. �Good luck to you, Lyn,� she said and left before I could answer.

I locked the door and went back in to the bath, filling the sink with hot water and taking off my shirt.

It was a gummy mess. The first sink full was blackish and sticky. I drained it out and swabbed down the sink. It didn�t seem to make the least effect on my hair. I had thought from the looks of the water that it would all be gone.

The second wash was bad, the third a little better � at the end of the fifth, the blue-blackness had dimmed and the streak of white didn�t show up with such dazzling purity. Also, some of the dye had come off on the short hair around the temples where it hadn�t been properly applied. It gave a sort of salt and pepper look, a look of grayness that luckily matched Panterson�s temples.

I greased my hair and then got a comb, the glasses and the passport picture. I combed it as near to Panterson�s method as I could manage. Then I put on the glasses. It was startling. The glasses leaned my face a bit. I didn�t look like Panterson, but I certainly looked related to him. I decided it would be best not to wear a hat, to permit the casual inspector to check the easiest reference point, the hair. The glasses should do the rest.

I had to get myself out of the apartment before I lost my nerve. I packed my stuff in the suitcase and looked around the apartment to see that I had everything. I dressed and took a last look. If I looked slowly and carefully, I wasn�t shocked. It was the quick glimpses in the mirror that floored me. I had the ungovernable suspicion that I was doing a fool thing � but it was too late to stop.

I counted my money, stuffed the passport and tickets in my side pocket and walked on out the door. It closed behind me with an ominous click. I stuffed the key under the edge of the hall mat. I walked down the stairs, self-conscious and afraid. It reminded me of the first day I had worn a uniform on the street. I walked three blocks until I found a dingy drug store with booths near the front door. I walked in and shut the booth door behind me and called Kurtron. It was exactly one hour since Marylin had left the apartment.

�Mr. Panterson�s office,� she said.

�Hello, darling.� I answered softly.

�Oh, are you in town? I�m surprised to hear your voice.�

�It�s been a long time. Do you still keep the key to your door under the mat in the hall?�

�Not any more, dear,� she said. �Do you still have those three o�clock appointments?�

I caught that easily. I was fishing for some easy way to end the conversation when she said, �Did you call me before?�

�No. Why?�

�I was out of the office a few minutes ago. I had to run over to American Airlines with an envelope for one of the men here who�s going on a trip. I�m glad you didn�t call when I was out. Will I see you tonight?�

�Certainly, darling. So long until then.� I hung up the receiver and walked blindly out of the booth. I walked through the store and out the side door. It�s tough to walk normally, to keep from looking back over your shoulder when you know definitely that there has to be someone watching you � following you. My feet, wanted to hurry, to break into a run. My breath wanted to come faster. I slowed it all down and walked with deliberation, carrying the small suitcase.

I walked into the Airlines Terminal and rode up on the escalator, forcing myself to keep from ducking my head, shielding my face. I stood at the top and looked calmly around the big room, at the waiting people, at the clerks, behind the modernistic counters.

I sat on a bench and went through the tickets. The first one was simple. La Guardia to Croydon. I pawed through them. La Guardia to Croydon by Al. Am. Then Croydon to Cairo by Empire. Cairo to Aden to Karachi by Trans-Iran. Karachi to Calcutta by Tata. Calcutta to Kunming by C.N.A.C. I would need luck on reservations. I realized that if I was hung up at Croydon for a couple of days, there would be a heavy hand on my shoulder. And I couldn�t permit myself to think of what would happen to Marylin. I made a list of the crimes they could charge her with. Theft was one of the smallest. The tickets belonged to Panterson and thus to Kurtron.

I located the Al. Am. window and walked over. The clerk looked like Princeton�s best. I wondered if he used something to make him smell like pine trees and hunks of leather. I shoved the Al. Am. ticket over to him and said, �Panterson.�

�Good afternoon, Mr. Panterson. You�re very fortunate to get this reservation. We had a cancellation at noon. Your company was very anxious to have you make it. Have you your proper visas?�

�Yes.�

�They�ll be checked before takeoff. This ticket is in order. Your sedan leaves the front entrance in fifteen minutes. This envelope was brought over here from your office for you.� He slid it across to me. I stuffed it in my pocket and put the ticket back in the envelope after he had made some mysterious scribblings on it. I walked away and I could feel his eyes on the back of my neck. I walked over and bought three magazines. Nice big ones. Big enough to use as tents. Big enough to crawl into.

I found a bench and pulled the envelope out of my pocket. It felt thick. I tore it open. Four twenties, ten tens and four fives. Two hundred dollars and I knew where it came from. From the gal with the chill blue eyes. The gal without a heart.

There was a slip of paper with it. All it said was, �Luck!�

I would need it, I knew. I sat and wished that the calendar could turn backward, that I could be sitting once again in Connolly�s office, listening to his fantastic story. Then I would have the sense not to look up Celia Sherman. I would have the sense to go drop into the hands of a lawyer and let him prescribe.

I put the money in my wallet, crumpled up the note and envelope and stuffed them into my side pocket. Two minutes of my fifteen were gone. I lit a cigaret. A large man strolled over and sat heavily beside me. He stood his briefcase up between his feet and sighed as he crossed his hands over his bulging stomach. He had crisp black hair, a tanned face and hands, and small cheery eyes. His hands had dimples instead of knuckles. He wore a steel grey gabardine suit, the size of a pup tent. His tanned throat bulged over his crisp white collar.

He glanced at me and said, �Damned nuisance, having the airport so far out of town. Waste more time riding around in cars with flags on them than you do flying. Stick the airports right in the middle of town, I say. Balance �em up on the buildings somehow. Save time.� He had a midwest drawl with something droll in the tone of it, though what he said wasn�t particularly amusing.

I was about to brush him off when I remembered what Marylin had said about there being safety in two, when the police are looking for one. So I smiled and said, �It would make it easier.�

�Going far?� he asked, looking down at my bag.

�London,� I answered. There was no point in telling him any more and little point in lying, as he might be on the same plane.

�So am I. Run around like a damn hound dog with the directors� whistling and pointing and waving their arms. No home life any more. What line you in?�

�One of the oil companies.� There was no point in telling him which one. It might start him off on the murder. The odds were that he had read the papers. To keep him from asking any more questions, I said, �What line are you in?�

�Structural steel. Reconstruction stuff. Now I go off to London. Probably get there and find a cable sending me to Sweden or Argentina or Egypt or China. Can�t tell these days. Hell of a life for a man with an ulcer to take care of.�

That gave me a little chill. I realized that he might travel along with me a bit further. I was about to hedge about going to London when I noticed that he had shut his eyes. His fists were still clamped across his middle. He began to snore gently. I moved a few feet away from him and waited.

In five minutes they announced the Al. Am. sedan. I nudged him and he came awake instantaneously. We grabbed our bags and went down the steps. It was a sleek black Buick. He fell asleep again in the back seat and didn�t awaken until we got to the field. I had a chance to look over the other three passengers. There was a tall smart woman in black with a roving eye. A second was one of President Truman�s five hundred thousand doubles. The third was a delicate young man with a soiled shirt and an air of tremendous importance. I guessed the three of them as a fashion designer, a businessman and a State Department clerk. No danger there � at least not on the surface.

We walked into the terminal. The designer was ahead of me, the steel man behind. I had the bag in my hand, my other hand in my pocket clutching the passport and the envelope full of tickets. They cleared the woman in front of me and weighed her in. I stepped up. The bored clerk stuck his hand out and I pushed the right ticket across to him. He looked at it, marked it, tore off most of it and pushed it back. A man in dark blue stood behind him.

Then he said, �Passport, please.� I handed it to him. He flipped it open, checked the visa in the back and then opened it to the front and looked at Panterson�s picture. I had inconspicuously raised myself up onto my toes. He glanced from me to the picture and back and then closed the passport. He frowned and opened it again and looked at the picture and description. My mouth went dry and I couldn�t help nervously licking my lips.

�You have any other identification on you, Mr. Panterson?� I started to fumble at my pockets, wondering what to do. Then, I remembered that I hadn�t thrown away the envelope that Marylin had left at the terminal. My hand shook as I pulled it out and started to unwrinkle it. The clerk frowned at me and the man in blue leaned over and picked up the passport. Before I could unwrinkle the envelope, the clerk said, �Have you got a driver�s license, birth certificate, personal letters � anything like that?�

As I fumbled, the steel man shoved me aside with his shoulder and slammed his papers down on the top of the counter. �What kind of fiddle-faddle goes on here? You trying to impress my friend while I stand here and wait?�

The clerk glanced up at him, annoyed, and said, �We�re trying to check this man�s papers. His description is a bit different than the passport and I...�

�Different? How?�

�His height. It says here that he�s five foot eleven and the gentleman obviously is shorter than...�

�Maybe he is,� the steel man growled. �Nothing wrong with Panterson, though. Known him for years. Here, check my papers. I�ll vouch for him.� He reached into his inside pocket and threw down a great mound of papers, cards, reports, and letters.

The man in blue handed the passport back to me and I stuffed it back into my pocket, trying to look indignant. The clerk glanced at the papers the steel man had thrown down and then handed them back, saying, �All in order, Mr. Humphrey. Sorry to delay you.�

They directed us over to the scales and we were weighed in. We sat on some chrome and blue chairs, waiting for the ship to be announced as ready for passengers. He chuckled and said, �Show these damn stupid clerks a thing or two. Give �em a little dose of the executive approach.�

�How did you know my name, Mr. Humphrey?�

�Saw it on the passport and on the envelope you were fumbling with. I�m a judge of character you know. Wouldn�t have stepped in like that, except I knew you were okay. Bill Humphrey can�t afford to make mistakes about people.�

I couldn�t relax. I didn�t dare look over in the direction of the desk, afraid that I would see the customs man or the clerk start over toward me. The waiting room was crowded. I turned my chair slightly sideways so that I was looking more in the direction of the blank wall behind Humphrey. I wondered if Marylin had her fingers crossed for me. The world is a big, bright place, full of eyes and full of people. There are too many forms to carry and papers to fill out and blanks on which to sign your name. Too much red tape.

The precise voice came over the public address system, announcing the New York to Croydon flight, and we walked out behind the pipe fence as the converted C-54 taxied down the ramp toward us. The crew chief swung it around and the boys wheeled the steps out. I checked my ticket and found that I had seat sixteen. We walked out in a loose group, with a few out there to say goodby to some of the passengers. I climbed on as soon as I could. The stewardess checked the tickets, smiled and pointed out the seats. I shoved my bag under the seat and sank into it with a sigh. The odds were that I wouldn�t be pulled off, but still not good enough to enable me to relax entirely. The fashion designer was in the seat in front of me, Humphrey in the seat across. Al. Am. has the right idea. They sacrifice a bit of carrying capacity to keep from jamming you knee to knee and cheek to cheek with another passenger. I liked the arrangement. It cancelled the necessity for conversation. I didn�t want to talk � I was afraid of making a slip.

The aircraft was set up for thirty-four passengers. There seemed to be a great more than thirty-four entering the ship. When at last the pilot and co-pilot came on and the crew chief slammed the big doors shut, I looked around. All of the seats were occupied. The luggage was stacked and roped in the rear.

The motors were started and the hostess came along and requested us to fasten safety belts. A C154 is a good plane from the passenger point of view. The tricycle landing gear keeps the plane on an even keel, so that the initial lift is almost imperceptible. There is none of the tail lift prior to taking off that is so noticeable in other ships.

We taxied out to the end of the strip and turned slowly. We stood with wheels locked heading down the strip, while the big motors were gunned up beyond takeoff r.p.m. Then they were throttled down and gunned again. The brakes were released and the surge of power forced my head back against the back of the seat. The ground raced by, faster and faster, until it was a blur � then the sensation of lifting and I could see down on the small buildings, could see cars waiting at a grade crossing. We turned slowly and then leveled out, gaining altitude. I swallowed to ease the tension in my ears. Then I could see the flaming towers of Manhattan, crude angles in the afternoon sun. We swung North onto our route. I unclamped the safety belt. Suddenly I was so sleepy that I could barely keep my eyes open.

There is something about a plane � or a ship � and sometimes a train. Once you are on it, there is no longer any chance for you to alter circumstances. As a passenger, it is a complete release from responsibility. There is nothing you can do to change the steady progress to destination. You merely sit and ride along with it. You can walk along a street in the city, decide to cross the street and thereby alter all of the rest of your life. Each moment is a building block in a structure that you are busily erecting. Every moment has its small decision � and your life cuts from channel to channel as the decisions are made.

Not so, on a journey. Nothing you can do will prevent your ultimate arrival. You are suspended in life, an inanimate, unthinking piece of baggage � picked up in one spot and dropped in another. During transit you are completely alone.

The North Atlantic darkened, and the motors hummed with small discords, small sounds that were out of rhythm. The heavy wing stretched out into the greying air, impassive, swaying slightly. I tipped the seat back and slept.

I opened my eyes to a noisy world and the hostess stood smiling down at me. The lights were on in the ship. She swayed easily with what little motion there was.

�You would like your dinner now, Mr. Panterson?�

I yawned at her and nodded and she disappeared. She was back in a few moments with a small tray that hooked into the back of the seat in front of me. She set the grey-blue carton on the tray and snipped the string. She smiled again and left me to go on to the next person. The food was good. I ate quickly and greedily, wiped my hands on the paper napkin and then lit a cigaret. It was time to think about what I should do when I landed in Kunming.

Before I could decide on anything constructive, I had finished the cigaret and gone back to sleep.

When I awakened again, the plane was roaring through the high night. The bumpiness of the air had awakened me. The plane was dark except for a weak glow. I reached up and switched on my reading light. Eleven o�clock. I went back to sleep. It was troubled sleep. The drone of the plane turned into the racing engine of a car. I was alone on a broad strip of concrete that stretched to the horizon. Berlotti sat behind the wheel of a black Buick that had banners flying from small staffs set in the front bumper. The front bumper was sharpened to an edge like a razor.

I stood alone on the concrete, while the black car cruised slowly, a hundred yards away. Then it would turn and come at me, and I would stand, seeing the sharpened bumper, throwing myself to the side at the last moment, and the car would swerve and roar by, Berlotti�s thick shoulders hunched over the wheel, a faint smile on his sad melancholy face � his eyes unsmiling. I jerked awake and the hostess was touching my shoulder, telling me to fasten the safety belt. We were lowering down through the overcast over Croydon, and the landing lights slashed and bounced on the wet clouds. The trip had been too short. There hadn�t been time to plan, to ease aching nerves.

We broke out under the clouds and the field lights were near. We dipped into the flight pattern and swung wide, making ninety degree turns until at last we slanted, in on the final approach. The plane seemed to falter in the air as the flaps and gear went down; then the ground swirled up, faster and faster until at last there was a slight bump, a scream of abused rubber and another jar. The speed slackened and after a straight run we turned toward the lights of the administration buildings.

I waited, after we were stopped, until the crowd of passengers were grouped close to the big doors. The crew chief opened them and the passengers started down the steps, duplicates of the ones in New York.

I arranged it the way I wanted it. I wasn�t the last one off, but I was so close to the last one that I had a chance to see if anyone was watching the passengers � any one who looked like the law.

There were burly women with electric trucks to handle the baggage, some flurried and scholarly looking clerks and some bored customs people. Nothing else. To play safe, I fell into step with Humphrey as we walked into the main passenger lounge.

�Slept like a baby,� he said. �Damned hostess woke me up and tried to shove some food at me. Too busy sleeping to eat. Told her to go away. Famished, now.�

I had only the bag in my hand, so I didn�t have to wait, as did the others until the baggage on the ship was off-loaded. Humphrey headed for a lunch counter, and I went over to customs. He was a stout old man with a wispy mustache and the sort of hands people commonly expect surgeons to have. He dipped his long fingers delicately among my shirts, socks, shorts and toilet articles. He snapped the bag shut and pursed his lips as he glanced at the passport visa. He didn�t check the picture.

I hurried over to the ticket window and dug out the ticket entitling me to passage from London to Cairo. The ticket clerk took the ticket, looked at it and then raised his eyebrows in inquiry.

�I want to know how soon I can leave for Cairo. It�s urgent.�

�Sorry,� he said. �A ship left not over forty minutes ago. The next through ship is the day after tomorrow. We could route you down to Casablanca and you might get a reservation across North Africa on the C and C lines, but I can�t guarantee you that, you know. Bit of bad luck, striking here just after she left.�

He was sympathetic to such an extent that I wondered if he wanted to hold my hand and pat my shoulder while I wept. It was discouraging. Two days in London would give them too much time to come along my trail � and my trail wouldn�t be hard to follow.

I walked away and sat on a bench to think it over. I glanced over and saw Humphrey hunched on a stool at the lunch counter. I started to walk away from him when I heard him call out, �Hey! Panterson. Come here a minute.� He shouted so loudly that the sleepy passengers in the station turned around and gawped at him. I hurried over before he could shout again. He saw me coming and then turned back to his food. He was a big man and the stools were close together. When I came up behind him, he spun around on it, striking the arm of a small man in a liverish brown suit who sat on his right. A piece of bread leaped out of the small man�s hand and fell onto the tile floor. He glanced at Humphrey, who hadn�t noticed the damage, and I saw that his eyes were full of rage and woe.

Before I could warn Humphrey, the little man screwed up his lean face, squinted his eyes and jabbed a sharp finger into Humphrey�s ribs. The big man jumped.

�Look, you oaf! You elephant! Look to the floor. See the bread? My bread which you knock from my hand. Apologize immediately.� Then, before Humphrey could answer, the little man stuck the same finger at me and said, �You saw? You saw the clumsy oaf.�

Humphrey turned around again and. with great dignity, took out a dollar bill. He handed it to the little man and said, �Buy a loaf of bread, sonny, and keep your fingers out of my ribs.� They stared at each other for a few seconds. Then the little man took the dollar in his claw-like hands.

�Thank you,� he said politely. Humphrey nodded. Then the little man tore the dollar into dozens of pieces, scattered the green bits of paper on the floor and stalked off with all the dignity he could manage.

Humphrey said, with great feeling. �I�ll be damned. I just wanted to ask you, Panterson, if you want a ride down into town. I got a reservation at the Bristol and I want to be on my way.�

�No thanks,� I said, �I want to put through a couple of phone calls and I don�t want to hold you up. Thanks anyway.� We shook hands and he rolled off. I could hear him browbeating the customs people. I sat back on the bench and waited for an idea � a good idea. I had hopes that one would appear out of the blue. I needed one.

Suddenly I realized that the ticket clerk might be plugging British air lines to the exclusion of all others. It might be possible to get passage to the continent, and from there by French aircraft to North Africa, or even to Cairo. I decided to try him out � so, carrying the bag with me, I headed back toward his desk. As I approached he glanced up at me, smiled and asked, �You were the chap who wanted to get to Cairo?�

I nodded. He continued, �It isn�t good for the prestige of the line, but it�s lucky for you, sir. We�ve heard from her and she�s heading back to the field. Fuel pump trouble in the port engine. There�s empty seats aboard. She ought to pull out again in a half hour � possibly a bit more. Get you into Cairo late tonight.�

That made things a great deal better. I surrendered my ticket and he played games with it, handing me back a pink form which I signed with Panterson�s name and then giving me a small yellow stub which said, �Passengers Confirmation Copy � Base to Cairo.�

I tucked it into my top coat pocket and walked jubilantly back to the bench. Maybe there would be some justice, after all. I looked out through the wide glass across the Croydon Field. The night had faded into dawn. The air was damp and faintly chill. Scraps of paper blew around the edges of the building in a gusty wind. The sky was low and the color of a winter sea.

It wasn�t a long wait. I broke it up by going over to the lunch counter where a strident female with bad teeth tried to tell me that British coffee was drinkable. I had some tea and toast. The toast was chill and limp, but the tea was good.

I expected a public address system again, so I was startled when a clerk tapped me on the arm and said, �Cairo, sir?� I nodded. �Ready now, sir. Out the main door and to the left.�

The plane looked vast and surly in the pale light. It was a monstrosity with a triple rudder and four engines, a pencil-lean fuselage. I went up the ramp as the passengers who had been taken out and returned were drifting up to the plane. They were grumbling, looking at their watches and at the sky. They glared at me � a strange face � as though I had been responsible for the whole thing. I ducked my head and found one of the double seats that looked empty. At least it had no luggage under it or magazines on it. The passengers drifted aboard and I kept my head turned toward the circular port, waiting for someone to claim that I had taken their seat.

With a very casual air, the door was slammed shut and the bar latched across it. Apparently there was no hostess. No one looked at my ticket. I latched the safety belt as we headed toward the end of the strip. The pilot pulled her around, gave a very cursory warm-up and then gunned it down the strip. I knew right away what the trouble would be. Vibration. Smashing, penetrating, needling vibration that shook the fillings in your teeth, shook the ink out of your fountain pen and untied your shoe laces. It was rough, nearly impossible to catch a clear view of the field skating by. The pilot, evidently as out of temper as the passengers, yanked her off in a wide climbing bank that would have fastened the seat of his pants to the ground for a year if he had tried it at Houston, Detroit or Chicago.

An average man sat beside me, dressed in average respectable British clothes with average hair and features. But he wasn�t average in one respect. He slept. At times I could hear him snore, the sound tremolo because of the vibration. I began to wonder what kept the crew of the ship sane.

There were two short stops at vast empty fields in North Africa, fields where we could see the brown buildings of a city on the horizon. No one got off or on.

In the late afternoon, after it had cleared, as we were flying high above the coast, the cramps in my legs grew beyond endurance. I hauled myself out of the seat and climbed over the sleeping Britisher. I walked slowly back down the aisle, holding onto the backs of the seats for security.

I looked down into one seat and saw a familiar face. It stopped me dead in my tracks. For a moment I couldn�t remember where I had seen it. The brown suit furnished the clue. It was the little man who had been shoved by Humphrey. When I stopped he looked up at me with a blank, inquiring expression, and then he seemed to remember who he associated me with. He sneered thoroughly, shoving one half of his lip up until it touched his nostril. Then he returned to his reading. I wondered idly how he could read in that aircraft.

The pilot came in through the fading light into the Cairo field and made a final approach that was too high. Instead of bringing her around again, he brought her to the edge of a stall, mushed down, gunned it to catch the edge of the strip � and then bounced it in, swerving dangerously.

Once again, I tried to be one of the last out. The pilot and co-pilot were right behind me. One of them kicked the edge of the door and said, �Great awkward beast, isn�t she.� The other nodded. We stepped down into the humid twilight of Cairo in September. The sun had gone, but the ground bounced heat up into our faces. I tramped through the familiar talcum dust, walking behind the small man in the brown suit. The modern airport building was scoured by the dust and wind. The sweat popped out on my neck � I felt it soaking into my shirt collar. They had parked the aircraft a good deal farther from the buildings than was necessary. We trudged to the main building as the sky darkened.

It was a five hour wait until the next TransIran left for Karachi at midnight. I was worn out by the vibration of the ride on the triple-tailed monster. We walked into the glow of lights inside the station and I wondered if my face looked as weary as the faces of the rest of them. The little man in the brown suit looked like some kind of dismal bird with ruffled brown weathers. His sharp eyes were dulled and his hands looked more like claws than they had before.

Customs was short and casual. No one asked for my ticket. I looked around the terminal and found a small room with leather couches off the main room. I walked in and turned my suitcase on its side and lay down, using it as a pillow.

I had a great deal to think about, and a great deal to plan, but I was too tired. In addition, the trouble in New York seemed to have shrunk. I knew it would grow back to full stature as soon as I landed in Kunming, but while I was in transit it all seemed petty and far away. The only clear things were the color of Marylin�s eyes and the color of blood. I had seen too much of the second, and not enough of the first.

Just before I dropped off to sleep, the little man in the brown suit came into the small room. He had been eating. He was picking at his teeth with his thumbnail, frequently spitting out small bits onto the floor. He looked at me casually, recognized me, glared and turned away. An annoying type � found all over the world, convinced that all Americans are crude barbarians who make the world difficult and distasteful for true men of culture. I turned my head until I couldn�t see him. I was hungry, but too sleepy to get up and find food. At last I slept.

Aden before dawn. The crackling in my ears awakened me as we began to settle toward it. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, then stuck my head close to the glass and tried to look ahead. I saw the field lights, far ahead and far below us. I guessed the height at about five thousand. Already the brutal heat of the Persian Gulf slashed up at the belly of the plane. Curiously, I could feel the warmth in my feet first, as though we were cruising over a tremendous fire. The heat became almost impossible to bear as we landed. One couldn�t stay inside the ship. Perspiration was dripping off my nose and running into my eyes before I could get out onto the strip. The gas truck was pulled up alongside, the pump running. There was a dim ghost of breeze, but it did little to kill the heat. I heard the pilot mention to one of the passengers that it was around a hundred and ten � at the coolest hour of the day. The gas truck had a small spot mounted on the top. I saw the small man in the brown suit walk through the spotlight beam. He had his coat over his arm. I could see that his shirt was plastered to his scrawny back.

The gas truck roared away and we climbed back in. The pilot yanked it up as fast as he dared. It was a good twenty minutes before the inside of the plane cooled enough so that I could forget the heat.

The co-pilot came back through the ship with sandwiches in a paper sack. I ate one and drank some tepid coffee from a thermos. Then I slept again, my damp shirt uncomfortable and soggy against my flesh.

It was at Karachi that I decided not to go on to Kunming. I remembered the rest leave I had spent in Kashmir, two weeks on a blue lake, living in a houseboat. The money in my pocket would give me two months at least, months when they�d never find me, and I could live on a rented boat, dreaming through the long days, getting the last taste of freedom before they�d lock me up for more years than I could count.

Maybe it was because I was so tired from the constant drumming of the motors, the snatches of sleep caught in odd places at odd times. I felt dried, jaded, sick. I wanted to get off where the sun was hot, the air clear, the nights cool � no one to stare at and wonder if they were after me.

I stood at the Tata window in the Karachi Airport and handed him my ticket to Calcutta. He told me that there would be a wait of about two hours. The little man in the brown suit was behind me, sniffling with the cold he had caught on the trip, coughing with impatience. I had a perverse notion to make him wait. So I asked the clerk about air transportation to Srinagar in Kashmir. He told me that there wasn�t any, and then gave me lengthy advice about leaving the aircraft at New Delhi and taking the train north out of Delhi. I listened and behind his words I could hear the sound of the small waves of the lake lapping against the side of the houseboat, see the sun on the blue water.

I asked a few more questions and then moved slowly away from the window. The little man glared at me and asked for a ticket to Calcutta in a high, whining voice.

I wandered out of the building. The early sun was warm, but not too warm. The Karachi Airport is at the edge of the Sind Desert. I walked along the dusty road and saw, in the distance, the deserted hangar the Germans built long ago to house their dirigibles. I had heard about it, but had never seen it. I turned toward it, cutting across the loose sand.

I thought that by being a tourist, I could take my mind off not continuing on to Kunming. They wouldn�t be able to check very easily at what point I had gone off the route. The pressure would be off until my money ran out. Maybe in the two months, they would find out who killed Celia. I stared at the huge hangar, but I couldn�t tear my mind away from my thoughts. I walked slowly around it until I was on the far side. It was shady. I leaned against it and stared out across the flat land, seeing the white moving figures of Indians in the far distance. When you travel by air with short stopovers of a few hours each, you stay completely out of touch with the natives of each country. That made me think of the little man in the brown suit � he had acted and talked like some sort of half breed, an Eurasian of some kind.

I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and turned my head. He came around the corner of the hangar, the man in the brown suit. I gasped at having my thoughts materialize so suddenly. He stopped dead and looked at me. The look of distaste was gone. He looked puzzled and worried.

�I was looking... I thought I saw you come toward here...� he fumbled.

�So you did and here I am. What do you want?� I asked. Something about him alarmed me, something in his small, lean, rodent face. I felt the alarm that I had felt back on the New York streets. I tensed myself as he stepped closer. He kept one hand in his jacket pocket. He sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of the other hand.

�Pardon the familiarity, but I heard you asking about Kashmir.�

�So?�

He stepped a bit closer and said, �By that you can spoil many things. There are arrangements...�

He read the intention in my face. He stepped back and tried to pull his hand out of his jacket pocket. I led with a long, looping right, aimed at where I thought he would back to. It connected, jarring his mouth open, dropping, him with his face in the dust. I rolled him over and it was though I was seeing him through a mist. He moved and I balled my right fist and hit him again, a long underhanded motion, as though I was bowling. It shapped his mouth shut and a trickle of blood ran from the corner of it. I stood up and looked around. There was no one in sight. I saw a rock and stepped to it and pulled it out of the sand. It was twice the size of my fist. I stood over him and hefted the rock. I was going to smash it down into his face, and then I had a sudden picture of how he would look with his small skull crushed. I threw the rock aside. I found a small Belgian automatic in his jacket pocket. I scuffed a hole in the sand and covered the gun up, leveling it with the sole of my shoe. I glanced again at him and he wasn�t moving. His breathing was light, but steady.

I glanced at my watch. An hour and twenty minutes of the two hour wait was gone. I walked around the back of the hangar, leaving him on the ground in the shadow of the building. I tried to make my tight muscles loosen as I walked. I couldn�t clearly understand my reaction. Distaste for the man had been a part of it. Fear and the threat of discovery. The impossible thought that I had been followed this far. It made little sense to me � but I felt that what I had done had been right, as far as it had gone.

I picked up my bag in the terminal building and located the small two-motored job that would take me to New Delhi. There would be time to think of hiding in Kashmir while the aircraft flew over the Sind Desert.

It was a small plane, with seats for five in addition to the pilot � five chairs wedged in closely. I spent the last ten minutes before takeoff, staring across toward the hangar, trying to look through the shimmering heat waves to see the small figure of a man in brown hurrying back to catch the plane. We took off before he appeared.

It became a question of logic. If the little man knew of my desire to go to Kashmir, which he undoubtedly did, then it ceased to be a safe place to go. The other alternative would be Calcutta and Kunming. The excitement had cleared my mind. I remembered Marylin and realized what it might do to her if I didn�t take every opportunity to clear myself. I needed a friend. I needed Burke Streeter.

Wellington Field at New Delhi was hot and sticky. A row of bearers squatted on their heels beside the iron railing which closed off the ramp from the waiting room. I pushed by their outstretched hands, carrying my own bag. I sat in a state of suspended animation for the entire twenty minute stop, and then climbed back onto the ship.

As we circled into the Chabua field, I could see the warehouses that had been built for the American army. They had rotted in the sun and monsoon rains. Brush was growing in the compounds, around the temporary bungalows.

The runways were cracked, the grass sprouting through the cracks. The Hindu was met by a long muddy car. A British Army officer took his place. We took off and cut Southeast, over the Chin Hills, down around by way of Myitkyina, avoiding the high rocks and snow of the Himalayas, of Tibet.

My pulses began to thud as I looked ahead and saw the vast field of Kunming, surrounded by the rock red hills, six thousand feet altitude. It was an odd place to have the branch office of Kurtron located. But there was a reason for it. Kunming is to China as North Dakota is to the United States. It is in the back country. It became important during the war as the freight terminal for air shipment of China Defense Supplies over the Hump. Also, it was the terminal of the Burma Road. The Ledo or Stilwell Road was built to join the Burma Road. The British have oil refineries at Dig-boy. A pipe line was laid along with the Ledo Road to carry the much needed gasoline to China. Kurtron and the major British outfit which controls the Digboy refineries have an interlocking directorate. It was to our interests to expand that pipe line, and get gasoline into the back country of China. It was our contention that it could be done cheaper than by landing it at coastal ports and shipping it in river tankers and then in oil trucks and finally in drums. It was the commercial utilization for profit of a wartime measure.

If it could be done, it would mean that Kurtron would have a good foothold in the commercial expansion of inland China. Our position would, of course, be contingent on the political situation in China, but the men who run things figured it was worth the gamble� Thus, we maintained our branch office in Kunming, and Streeter�s main assignment was to report on the progress of the expanded pipe line and supervise the marketing of what gasoline was already arriving in Kunming from Digboy.

The pilot ignored any semblance of flight pattern. He slipped it in and leveled out for a fast, efficient landing. We were met at the plane by a smiling, uniformed representative of the Central Government. He rode out in a fire red jeep with driver.

I handed him my papers and he looked them over, noting the date of the visa for China. �Fast trip, Mr. Panterson,� he said in a flat clipped British accent.

He looked over the British officer�s papers. Then he took the two elderly Chinese into the back end of his jeep, and raced off across the field toward his administration building. We walked.

The field is several miles outside of Kunming. From where we stood, I could see the deserted headquarters of the Fourteenth Airforce. At last an alcohol-driven pickup truck coughed out to us. I smelled the fumes and decided that I would give Streeter a gentle ride about not selling more gas in town.

We both wanted to go into Kunming. I started to try my rusty Chinese on the driver, but the Britisher interrupted me with a blur of language that was too fast for me to follow. He popped into the front with the driver and I climbed up over the tailgate and sat on the side of the bed near the cab. We turned out through the airport gates and headed down toward town.

Every sight was familiar. The air had the same chill tang. All my plans dissolved into one basic idea � to give Streeter the whole story and see if he could help in any way. I knew that his blunt philosophy and desire for action would help. If he could do nothing, then I would be reconciled to go on back � after a crack at Berlotti, if I could locate him.

I walked to the right down the main street to the little circular park. I looked up and saw the Kurtron sign on a second story window. It was in the same place. I walked slowly up the stairs, wondering what I would find when I walked in. Maybe Streeter would have news of me and be anxious to report my presence and turn me over to the police. There was no way that I could tell.

I walked up the familiar stairs realizing with amazement that I had made it � that I had skipped out of New York under the eyes of the police, that I had come half way around the world, back to the place where all the trouble had started.

I paused outside the office door, took off the glasses and shoved them into my pocket. Then I opened the door and walked into the outer office. A bright eyed little Chinese girl sat, banging on a typewriter that looked three sizes too big for her. She was like a doll. She looked me over slowly and then said, �You wish to see Mr. Streeter?�

I nodded and she slid out from behind the desk. She wore the clinging Chinese dress, split at the side from the ankle to the knee.

She opened the door of the inner office, smiling back over her shoulder at me. She stood in the doorway and I heard her say, �An American to see you, sir.�

�Send him in,� Burke bellowed, and she stood aside, holding the door open. I walked through. He stared up at me, his wide, brown face set in a business-like smile. He had his elbows on the desk, his immense shoulders hunched. The weather wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and the touches of grey in his black hair made him look like one of the men of distinction who advertise whiskey.

The business smile faded. I stood in the door and grinned at him. Then his mouth opened slowly. He shut it again, gulped, and said, �It can�t be, but it is!�

He jumped up out of the chair and nearly climbed over the desk in his desire to get to me. He crushed my hand and shouted, �Lyn, damn it. How the hell are you? What�re you doing here? What�s the matter with that New York office? They gone nuts? First they tell me you�re coming, then they tell me that, instead, a fellow named Stanley Weller is coming, and then they tell me that Panterson is coming on an inspection trip. What the hell has happened to your hair?�

Before I could answer, he turned to the girl who stood smiling behind me and said, �Molly, bring in the file on Mr. Hague � and a couple of glasses.�

He shoved me into a chair and went back around his desk. Molly came in with a bottle and two glasses. He held up his hand for silence, poured off two generous shots and handed me one. We clicked glasses as he roared, �Here�s to some new life in this old bag of a country.� We downed the shots and he poured out two more. He turned to the girl and said, �This is a ding hao celebration, Molly. Get your glass.� She giggled and hurried out. She came back with a third glass and held it out to him. It was a water tumbler. He winked at me and filled it a little over half full with the Scotch.

�Down the hatch, Molly,� he commanded.

She tilted it up, opened her throat and the amber liquor slid out of sight. She smiled sweetly and said, �Thank you, sir.� Then she went out, closing the door behind her.

�Now tell me about yourself. Start answering those questions,� he demanded.

I looked at his desk. He had a thick stack of papers that he had been going through. I said, �All you heard about me was that I wasn�t coming?�

�Right. What cooks?�

�It�s one long story, Burke. You got much to do there?�

�Reports. A dozen of the stinkers. I�ve let �em ride and they�re near deadline. Supposed to get �em out today in time for the plane.�

�I can�t possibly tell you about all this in less than an hour. Maybe more. Suppose you get finished up and I�ll wander around the town,� I told him. He nodded and I agreed to come back and meet him at the office at five thirty. I had missed lunch and the relief at finding Burke the same as ever had eased me and made me conscious of hunger. I walked out of his office and shut the door behind me.

I wandered around the town, finally ending up at a place called Billie�s for a Cantonese dinner. It was perfect. Time went quickly. I didn�t permit myself to think of the trouble, of Berlotti, of Celia, of Marylin. Instead I watched the people, the rough, smiling, tough, happy people of China � cursing, yelling, laughing.

Burke was waiting when I got back to the office. He acted as though he and Molly had done a bit more talking with Mr. Hague. Her smile was a bit fuzzy and Burke was laughing too long and too loud at nothing at all. She left as I got there, and he urged her along with a chummy slap that sent her giggling toward the stairs.

His little British car was parked behind the building. I remembered him telling me that he couldn�t stand being driven by a Chinese chauffeur � to avoid losing face, the Chinese driver refuses to swerve aside for an oncoming car until the last possible moment.

I got in beside him, my suitcase on my lap. We went back to the road of the arches and turned to the right. He bellowed cheerfully at the pedestrians that slowed us down to a walk.

�Got myself a nice new house, Lyn,� he said. �Was used by one of our general officers until the army left Kunming. Big place � wall around it � dozen servants. Burke Streeter�s a big shot over here, and a very small popgun back in the States.�

�The army is gone � completely?� I asked, visions of Berlotti fading.

�Nearly all. Few guys left cleaning up the property deals. A few lieutenants and stuff.�

I began to see that if I stayed in Kunming, the trip was going to be useless. It sobered me to think that it would all turn out to be a wild-goose chase.

He turned in at the gates of a square white house set well back behind a thick high wall of pink plaster. A guard at the gate touched his semi-military hat.

The house boys hurried out as we got out. One of them took my bag and the other one climbed behind the wheel and took the car off toward the rear of the property. The head boy met us just inside the door.

Burke said, �Fix up a room for the guest, John. Have his bag taken up and you show him where it is. We�ll have drinks now in the library and,� he glanced at his watch, �dinner at nine. No women.�

The head boy bowed and I followed him up the curved, polished staircase. He stood aside at the door of a high-ceilinged room finished off in pale tan wood. The bed was high, with a small canopy. It was a room for visiting royalty. A side door opened onto a small private bath.

I changed shirts, washed and went on down into the main hall. I looked into a couple of rooms and finally saw the back of Burke�s head. He was in a long narrow room, lined with bookshelves � no books, just the shelves. He grinned at me and I sat opposite him. Between us was a tray with Scotch, bottled water, ice cubes, glasses, a shaker, gin and vermouth.

�How do you like the shack?� he asked.

�Good place for roughing it,� I said, smiling at him.

�This is as good a time and place for this long story of yours as I can think of,� he said.

First I concentrated on building myself a Martini, and then I started. I went through it in the right order. I had been over so much of it in my mind, that I could give it in logical sequence. He sat frowning, listening, sipping his drink. He had time to finish three of them before I was done. When I was through, the Martinis that I had made were gone, the ice melted in the bottom of the shaker.

�So with your hair dyed, you look something like this Panterson?�

�Quite a bit.�

�Let�s go back a bit, Lyn. You say that these missionary bonds were mailed from here to the states in your name during the war?�

�They must have been. They had to be procured here, you know.�

�Yeah,� he answered thoughtfully. He rubbed his chin. His fingers grated on the wiry beard. �You say they�ll track you here without any trouble?�

�Sure. They know by now that the tickets are gone, that I used them. All the arrangements were made in New York. Just a question of time.�

�How long you think?�

�Maybe in an hour, maybe a day, maybe two days. Not any longer than that.�

�I help you out, Lyn, and I won�t be very popular with them, will I?�

�If I thought that made much difference to you, I wouldn�t have showed up here.�

He laughed. �I was kidding you, boy. Take it easy. You�d do the same for me, I hope.� He thought for a few minutes and then said, �It seems damn funny that you had so little trouble getting out of New York. You sure nobody followed you?�

Then I remembered that I hadn�t told him about the little man in the brown suit. Burke got excited when I told him about the fight behind the hangar.

�Who the hell was he?� he demanded.

�How do I know? He just seemed to know too much about me. He had that attitude. I acted instinctively. The point is, what do I do now? You think there�ll be any Army mail records left around here?�

�Doubt it like hell. Don�t think there�s anything left. You�ve really got yourself in a spot, haven�t you?�

�So they keep telling me. If I can�t locate this Berlotti or get hold of any records, I�m just going to have to give up like a little man, when they come after me. But I�m sure as hell going to insist that they dig at some of the mystery on this bond racket. Maybe some other suckers got clipped along with me.�

�They�ll figure you ran because you�re guilty, Lyn. They�ll stick you in the can for a thousand years if they don�t burn you.�

The conviction in his tone stung me. I realized that I had been running away from fear, and I couldn�t run any further. I kept trying to pretend that I didn�t give a damn what they did to me, and at the same time, I did care � a great deal.

�I should have done what was suggested to me � let them come and get me in my apartment. But it�s too damn late now. I won�t have any chance to do any investigating around here.� I stared at Burke. His face was impassive, half hidden in shadow. I felt a sudden sense of guilt for putting him in such a bad spot with both the company and the police.

He glanced over at me and said, �Look, Lyn. I got an idea. I don�t know whether it�ll work or not. It�s a �maybe� proposition. I got a little shack over toward Yunanyi. You could call it sort of a summer place. It�s isolated. Suppose you write me a note that makes out like you didn�t come to see me. I can trust Molly and the boys here. You say in the note that you have a place to hide out and that you don�t want to come to me for help and implicate me. Then I can hide you out. That�ll give me time to work on this Berlotti angle and the bond business. And they won�t look in my place to find you. I�ll send one of my boys out to wait on you. I can sneak out once in a while with a bottle and give you a progress report.�

It made sense to me. He called for John and sent him after paper and pen. He brought them back on a tray. I wrote the note, dated it, saying what he had outlined. He took it, read it over, folded it and put it in his pocket. �I�ll tell Molly to say that this note was slipped under the door and somebody ran off down the stairs before she could open the door. It�ll give me time to work on the background of the bond racket, and you�ll be where they won�t find you.�

After it was decided, I felt better. I got foolish arid stepped off the Martinis and onto the Scotch. Between us we polished off the rest of the bottle by about eight thirty. Burke started to tell me about his collection of Chinese guns.

He lurched out of the room and came back with a weapon that he held in both hands, beaming down at it. I reached for it, but he pulled it back and said, �No. This one I got to explain first. Copy of a British Webly. Mostly hand made. Untrustworthy thing.�

He held it loosely in his big fist, the barrel pointed at my middle. He saw me wiggle uncomfortably and said, �No bullets for it, Lyn. Besides, I don�t think the damn thing�ll shoot.� At that point, John, the head boy, came in and collected the empty bottle. Burke told him to bring back a full one. The tall thin Chinese bowed and hurried out. He was back in a matter of seconds with a fresh bottle.

Burke held the gun up to him and said, �These damn things won�t shoot, will they, John?� John shook his head from side to side.

Then Burke put it back in his lap, still pointing toward me. There was a look of curious intentness on the boy�s face. Burke was indefinitely drunk. I felt more uncomfortable.

Burke lifted the gun and pointed it at my head. �Prove it won�t shoot,� he said thickly. At that moment, I saw something move in the doorway behind the boy.

There was a stab of flame and the crash of a shot from the doorway. Burke jumped up with incredible agility, spinning to face the door. I couldn�t move. As he spun, there was a second shot and he fell toward the table. His gun whammed a shot that wasn�t toward the direction of the door. John bent toward me in a deep, low bow. It was a bow which continued beyond the balance point. His head hit the polished floor and he slid out to full length.

At last I got control of my muscles. I fell forward, out of my chair, so that the chair Burke had been sitting in was between me and the doorway. Burke stirred and his gun clattered out of his hand onto the floor. He groaned once.

I heard steps beyond the chair. I snatched the gun Burke had been holding and crawled around the other side of the chair. I could see a pair of legs, but the face was in shadow.

A voice said, �Wait!� I realized that I was to wait so that I could be conveniently shot. I aimed at a leg and yanked on the trigger. The gun clicked. I had no time to yank the slide back to try the next shell. I pulled back behind the chair, slipped my finger out of the trigger guard, jumped up and simultaneously hurled the gun toward the shadowed face.

There was a satisfying thud and a man reeled back against the door frame. It was Berlotti, in civilian clothes. I could see the bright blood flowing from a gash in his forehead. I charged him, ducking low and slamming a shoulder into his middle as I went by. He exploded out into the hall, and his gun fell far away in the darkness. I didn�t break stride. I headed toward the doorway. The porch lights had been snapped on. I went out the door and a familiar figure stood at the top of the steps. It was Burke�s secretary, Molly. She wore a puzzled half-smile which faded when she saw me. I stopped, waiting for the sounds of pursuit. She said something to me in a low tone. Instinctively I bent toward her, trying to hear what she had said.

Her hand flashed out from behind her in a wide circle. I tried to duck back, but something hit me over the left ear. I felt myself going over backwards, and then I spiraled down into blackness, falling slowly end over end into the depths of the night � falling away from one small spot of brightness, like a star far above me...

There was a time when I fought back up out of blackness, tearing mental holds in the slippery sides of the deep pit, holding myself for a moment in the brightness above me. Once I thought I could see the walls of a small white room and there was a chair in the room and a Chinese girl sat in the chair and read.

As she glanced up at me and started up out of the chair, I lost my hold and toppled back into the blackness.

There were other times when I could hear voices at a great distance and heard them speaking my name, as though they were calling to me. It was no use. After a time they would fade away.

Then there was the time that I was awake and the room was full of familiar faces and I couldn�t remember their names. They smiled and there were no names to go with the faces or the smiles. I fought to remember and then I stared at one of them, a gangling kid who stood by the window. He grinned at me and said, �How�s it going, Palmer,� and I remembered how we had watched him and his P-51 hit the end of the south runway at Kweilin in a burst of flame as bright as the sun. There were others there, too. I sank back with the familiar sense of falling, of blackness, of being alone...

When I came back it was as though I had awakened from a night�s sleep. The small room was bright with sun. I lifted my hands to my face and my arms were almost too heavy for me to lift. My wrists looked fantastically thin.

I turned my head slowly and there was a slim man with dark hair and heavy shoulders sitting at a small table in the center of the room. His back was to me. With intense clarity, I could hear the scratching of a pen. He was writing.

I listened for a time, too content to be out of the blackness to wish to ask questions. Vaguely I began to wonder who he was. I began to wonder about Burke. I tried to say, �Hello,� and it came out as a rusty croak.

He turned around and looked at me, brushing his hand wearily through his hair, throwing the pen down onto a pile of papers. It was Joe Berlotti.

�Time you came out of it, Palmer.�

�How long have I been... sick?� My words were little better than a whisper.

�Let me see? Six days now. Miss Sung has been reprimanded for her enthusiasm. We thought she cracked your skull. Just gave you a bad concussion. She used her tennis forehand drive on you. She hit you with a thirty-eight police positive.�

�What are you going to do with me?�

�Send you back to New York.�

�Won�t that be dangerous... for you?�

His dark eyebrows lifted up to his hairline and his melancholy face took on a look of surprise. Then he laughed.

I was indignant. �What the hell is so funny, Berlotti?� I demanded.

�I�m sorry, Palmer. I forgot you need an explanation. You see, we knew you didn�t kill Miss Sherman.�

�Who�s we?�

�Just another government bureau. The army loaned me to them. Investigation of missionary bond swindles, and falsification swindles on tax returns. You were only one of several G.I.s who got home and discovered that bonds had been cashed in their names. You should have gone to a lawyer, but we�re glad you didn�t.�

�Wait a minute. How about the papers. They said I killed her?�

�We let them go ahead. If they didn�t, it would have alarmed the person who did. After it happened, we had a tough time locating you. One of our people almost got to you, but not quite in time. You were leaving for a hideout.�

�That girl, Honey?�

�Yeah. She was planted at Kurtron. Our people there were beginning to get the score when we planted her there. Nice little number, too.�

�Wait a minute. You sound as though you people wanted me to come over here.�

�We did. We needed someone to help us break this end of it open. You would never have gotten out of the states, if it hadn�t been for our help. An agent named Diedrich � you knew him as Humphrey � managed to get you out without your catching on that he was doing so. He turned you over to another man named Lamonte. You slugged Lamonte at Karachi, and managed to come the rest of the way without help. Lamonte made a mistake when he tried to drop his cover; and warn you.�

It was hard to take it all in. My head hurt. He sat smiling at me, the bandage on his forehead white against his tanned skin. �What about Burke?� I asked.

�Streeter, unfortunately, is dead. We would have liked to have tried him. He was here during the war, putting the finger on the right army men whose names he could forge to missionary bonds to be mailed to his accomplice. We estimate that they made profits of about six hundred thousand dollars. Their mistake was in being too greedy � in trying to avoid the taxes.�

�But he was going to help me.�

Berlotti smiled coldly. �Sure. You scared him to death, showing up like this. He hadn�t figured on you arriving here. He didn�t know what to do. He was suspicious that it was a trap, and yet he couldn�t be certain. He got a plan for getting rid of you with no questions asked. He had you write your own death warrant, the note which would clear him if we showed up the next day to question him. If I hadn�t been around, Palmer, you�d be buried in the back of his compound with half your head blown off.�

At first I couldn�t believe it. Then I remembered the odd look on the boy�s face, the heavy automatic pointed at my head. I remembered the shot that Streeter had fired...

�What about those people at your house in Brooklyn?� I asked. �They made me suspicious of you.�

He smiled. �I heard about that. They were drinking and they knew I was on confidential work. They were having spy fever, because I had made the mistake of telling them that my work is dangerous. Then one of the girls recognized you from your picture in the paper. You were lucky to get out when you did.�

�Miss Hays helped me.�

�We knew that. We backtracked you through the taxi driver. But we didn�t want to pick you up. We didn�t know enough about the setup. Originally we were going to warn you through the girl you call Honey, as I told you before. But then, we decided to try to force you to run. I say we, even though I had already left to come over here at that time. They kept me fully informed.�

�That was when Honey came up and told Marylin Hays that they were anxious to get hold of me quickly?�

�I guess that�s the way they did it. Also, they said something about using a man named Severent to show Miss Hays how the passport switch could be made.�

�I�ll be damned. All this time I thought that I was running things, and yet I was being led around by the nose. Jumping just the way you people wanted me to jump. But why the hell didn�t you people let me in on this? You made me sweat. I might have killed your man Lamonte.�

�We didn�t think you could act well enough to fool a man as clever as Streeter. Also, this is a game with big stakes. We had to risk it. We didn�t have anything at all on Streeter. I found out that this Molly dish was sore at him because he had found himself a new woman. She agreed to help us when she found out what he had been doing. I took her there and we put the guard out of the running. I was outside the window while you were writing that note. I knew then what Streeter would try to do. So I came in. Molly didn�t understand where you fitted. When she heard shots and saw you coming out, she figured I had gotten it. That made her mad. That�s why she hit you so hard.�

�But how about this murder business? Where do I stand on that?�

�You�re clear. We know now who did it. It looked bad for you for a while. You remember that the police checked everyone in the apartment house at the time the murder was committed? They merely thought they did.

�Picture a man who had received a phone call from Celia Sherman, telling him that a stranger was trying to date her. She had enough on her conscience to be wary of strangers. This man that she phoned said that he�d look the stranger over. He saw you go into the apartment house. He came in after you did. He was worried. He listened outside the door but he couldn�t hear much. Then you went out to eat. When you came back he knew something was wrong, that she had found out who you were.

�The door didn�t latch the second time you went in with her. He was worried. He saw his opportunity. She was bleeding him for cash each month for her apartment rent. She also had insisted on a bigger cut than had the other women who posed as the wives of soldiers in China. We found her cut in her safety deposit box. She might sell out. She was big trouble for him. It took him a few minutes to get a knife. He cut her throat and left you to take the rap.

�Then he went down the stairs and he couldn�t get out. Sills would have seen him. He waited there and...�

�Wait a minute. How did he get a knife so fast?�

�He lived there.�

�Do you mean that it was...?� I couldn�t believe it.

�Certainly. Your very good friend, Harold Panterson.�

�But we saw him come in. How did he get out?�

�You thought you saw him come in. If you remember, everyone in the lobby was over by the elevators. He had to take a chance. He was afraid and tense. He�s a quick and ruthless man. He rashed quietly out, swung one of the doors open, turned around and headed for the group. No one saw him. They looked up, as you did, and saw the door swinging shut behind him. Everyone assumed he had just come in.�

�But how about Sills. Didn�t you say that he had come in behind me? That would make him come in twice without leaving.�

�Sills didn�t remember. That was natural. Sills didn�t connect him with the case. He didn�t remember until we asked him. Panterson had counted on that.�

I said softly, �Then it was Panterson and Streeter. All during the war. Panterson making the arrangements on this end, and Streeter picking up the bonds. But wait! Harry phoned me. He warned me that they were going to pick me up.�

�Sure,� Berlotti said. �Why not? He thought maybe you�d run for it. If you did, you�d look twice as guilty.�

�But he told me he thought�I hadn�t ought to run.�

�You did, didn�t you.� I was forced to admit that he was right. I had been so trusting, so unsuspecting.

�But how about you and Celia Sherman? She told me you were hanging around her?�

�I was. A routine check on all Kurtron employees who were living above their income. That started once we knew that Kurtron was the focal point of the bond swindle. By the way, you did a good job on that handwriting discovery.�

�I guess it was the only thing I did do right.�

Just then the door beyond him opened and Molly Sung walked in. She stared at me, her eyes wide and I could see that she was wondering whether it would be safe to smile. I grinned at her and said, �You pack a wallop, Molly.�

�I�m so sorry,� she said. Then she looked at Berlotti. She held out a sheet of paper. He took it and read it carefully.

Then he looked up at me and said, �This is a damn shame, Palmer. I thought I�d have one of the boys check and see if your job was okay. We do owe you something. This man Severent told our people that he wouldn�t consider rehiring anyone who was likely to involve the company in a national scandal. That�s a pretty small attitude.�

�What about Miss Hays?� I asked.

�That was in yesterday�s message. We cleared her of any criminal charge, but she was fired by this same Severent. She told our people that she can be reached in St. Louis if there are any more statements for her to make.�

�Look, Joe. You said that you people owe me something. How about making it a job? Out here, if you can.�

He rubbed his cheek and looked thoughtful. Then he said slowly, �First we got to fly you back to New York. Maybe I could use you out here. I got three smuggling cases to check into. It would take a couple of months to get clearance to take you on. Yeah, I think I could use you.�

Molly left the room and I settled back down into the pillow. Berlotti sat down at the table again and started to write. I was thinking of distant things, enjoyable things, possible things...

After a while I said, �Hey, Joe.�

He swiveled his head around and said, �Yeah?�

�Joe, I wonder how hot it is out in St. Louis this time of year.�

He smiled slowly, and his eyes were as sad as ever, twin dark pools of melancholy. �Pretty warm in spots, I�d guess,� he replied.

Then he turned around again, and I fell asleep, hearing through my dreams of Marylin the sound of his pen against the rough paper. It wasn�t a bad sensation.