Homicide Sanitarium

The Locked Door

We were in the middle of our third game of chess when it happened.

It was late in the evening--eleven thirty-five, to be exact. Jack Sebastian and I were in the living room of my two-room bachelor apartment. We had the chess game set up on the card table in front of the fireplace, in which the gas grate burned cheerfully.

Jack looked cheerful too. He was wreathed in smoke from his smelliest pipe and he had me a pawn down and held a positional edge. I'd taken the first two games, but this one looked like his. It didn't look any less so when he moved his knight and said, "Check." My rook was forked along with the king. There didn't seem to be anything I could do about it except give up the rook for the knight.

I looked up at the Siamese cat who was sleepily watching us from her place of vantage on the mantel.

"Looks like he's got us, Beautiful," I said. "One should never play with a policeman."

"I wish you wouldn't do that, dammit," Jack said. "You give me the willies."

"Anything's fair in love and chess," I told him. "If it gives you the willies to have me talk to a cat, that's fine. Besides, Beautiful doesn't kibitz. If you see her give me any signals, I'll concede."

"Go ahead and move," he said, irritably. "You've got only one move that takes you out of check, so make it. I take your rook, and then--"

There was a noise, then, that I didn't identify for a second because it was made up of a crack and a ping and a thud. It wasn't until I turned to where part of the sound came from that I realized what it had been. There was a little round hole in the glass of the window.

The crack had been a shot, the ping had been the bullet coming through the glass--and the thud had been the bullet going into the wall behind me!

But by the time I had that figured out, the chessmen were spilling into my lap.

"Down, quick!" Jack Sebastian was saying sharply.

Whether I got there myself, or Jack pushed me there, I was on the floor. And by that time I was thinking.

Grabbing the cord of the lamp, I jerked the plug out of the wall and we were in darkness except for the reddish-yellow glow of the gas grate in the fireplace. The handle of that was on Jack's side, and I saw him, on his knees, reach out and turn it.

Then there was complete darkness. I looked toward where the window should be, but it was a moonless night and I couldn't see even the faintest outline of the window. I slid sideways until I bumped against the sofa. Jack Sebastian's voice came to me out of the darkness.

"Have you got a gun, Brian?" he asked.

I shook my head and then realized he couldn't see me. "No," I said. "What would I be doing with a gun?"

My voice, even to me, sounded hoarse and strained. I heard Jack moving.

"The question is," he said, "what's the guy outside doing with one? Anybody after you, pal?"

"N-no," I said. "At least, not--"

I heard a click that told me Jack had found the telephone. He gave a number and added, "Urgent, sister. This is the police." Then his voice changed tone and he said, "Brian, what's the score? Don't you know anything about who or why--"

He got his connection before he could finish the question and his voice changed pitch again.

"Jack Sebastian, Cap," he said. "Forty-five University Lane. Forty-five University Lane. Somebody just took a pot-shot in the window here. Head the squad cars this way from all directions they can come from. Especially the campus--that's the logical way for him to lose himself if he's on foot. Start 'em. I'll hold the line."

Then he was asking me again, "Brian, what can I add? Quick."

"Tell 'em to watch for a tall, slender, young man," I said. "Twenty-one years old, thin face, blond hair."

"The hell," he said. "Alister Cole?"

"Could be," I told him. "It's the only guess I can make. I can be wrong, but--"

"Hold it." Whoever he'd been talking to at the police station was back on the line. Without mentioning the name, Jack gave the description I'd just given to him.

He said, "Put that on the radio and come back in."

Again to me, "Anything else?"

"Yes," I said. "Tell 'em to converge those squad cars on Doc Roth's place, Two-ten University Lane. Forget sending them here. Get them there. Quick!"

"Why? You think if it's Alister Cole, he's going for Doc Roth, too?"

"Don't argue. Tell 'em. Hurry!"

I was on my feet by now, trying to grope my way across the pitch black room to the telephone to join him. I stepped on a chessman and it rolled and nearly threw me. I swore and got my lighter out of my pocket and flicked the wheel.

The tiny flame lighted part of the room dimly. The faint waver-ing light threw long dancing shadows. On the mantel, the Siamese was standing, her back arched and her tail thick. Her blue eyes caught and held the light like blue jewels.

"Put that out, you fool," Jack snapped.

"He isn't standing there at the window," I said impatiently. "He wouldn't stay there after we doused the light. Tell them what I said about Roth's, quick."

"Hello, Cap. Listen, get some of the cars to Two-ten University Lane instead.

Two-one-oh. Fast. No, I don't know what this is about either. Just do it. We can find out later. The guy who took a shot here might go there. That's all I know. So long."

He put the receiver back on the hook to end argument. I was there by that time, and had the receiver in my hand.

"Sorry, Jack," I said, and shoved him out of the way. I gave Dr. Roth's number and added, "Keep ringing till they answer."

I held the receiver tight against my ear and waited. I realized I was still holding up the tiny torch of the cigarette lighter and I snapped it shut. The room snapped again into utter darkness.

"You stay in here," Jack said. "I'm going out."

"Don't be a fool. He's got a gun."

There was a sharp knock on the door, and we neither of us moved until the knock came again, louder. Then we heard Professor Winton's high, nervous voice.

"Brian, was that a shot a minute ago? Are you all right?"

Jack muttered something under his breath and groped for the door handle. In the receiver against my ear I could hear Dr. Roth's phone still ringing. He hadn't answered yet. I put my hand over the mouthpiece.

"I'm all right, Dr. Winton," I called out.

By that time, Jack had found the knob and opened the door. Light streamed into the room from the hallway outside, and he stepped through the door quickly and closed it behind him.

"Someone shot through the window, Doctor," I heard him say, "but everything's under control. We've called the police. Better get back inside your room, though, till they get here."

Dr. Winton's voice said something, excitedly, but I didn't hear what, because Jeanette Roth's voice, husky and beautiful, but definitely sleepy, was saying "Hello,"

in my ear. I forgot Jack and Winton and concentrated my attention on the phone.

I talked fast. "This is Brian Carter, Jeanette," I said. "Listen, this is important.

It's maybe life and death. Just do what I say and don't argue. First, be sure all the lights in your house are out, all doors and windows locked tight--bolted, if they've got bolts. Then don't answer the door, unless you're sure it's the police--or me. I'm coming over, too, but the police may get there first."

"Brian, what on earth-- ?"

"Don't argue, darling," I said. "Do those things, fast. Lights out. Everything locked. And don't answer the door unless it's me or the police!"

I hung up on her. I knew she'd do it faster that way than if I stayed on the line.

I groped my way through the dark room and out into the lighted hallway. The door to Dr. Winton's room, just across from my apartment, was closed, and there was nobody in the hallway. I ran to the front door and out onto the porch.

Out front on the sidewalk, Jack Sebastian was turning around, looking. He had something in his hand. When he turned so light from the street lamp down on the corner shone on it, I could see that it was a long-barreled pistol. I ran out to join him.

"From Winton. It's a target pistol, a twenty-two. But it's better than throwing stones. Look, you sap, get back in there. You got no business out in the open."

I told him I was going to Roth's place, and started down the sidewalk at a trot.

"What's the score?" he called after me. "What makes you think it was that Cole kid and why the excitement about Roth?"

I saved my breath by not answering him. There'd be plenty of time for all that later. I could hear him running behind me. We pounded up the steps onto the porch of Dr. Roth's place.

"It's Brian Carter--and the police!" I called out while I rang the bell.

Maybe Jack Sebastian wasn't exactly the police, in the collective sense, but he was a detective, the youngest full-fledged detective on the force. Anyway, it wasn't the time for nice distinctions. I quit leaning on the bell and hammered on the door, and then yelled again.

The key turned in the lock and I stepped back. The door opened on the chain and Jeanette's white face appeared in the crack. She wasn't taking any chances.

Then, when she saw us, she slid back the chain and opened the door.

"Brian, what--" she began.

"Your father, Jeanette. Is he all right?"

"I--I knocked on his door after you phoned, Brian, and he didn't answer! The door's locked. Brian, what's wrong?"

Murder for a Million!

Out front a car swung into the curb with a squealing of brakes and two big men got out of it. They came running up the walk toward us and Jack stepped to the edge of the porch, where light from a street lamp would fall on his face and identify him to the two men. It also gleamed on the gun dangling from his hand.

Jeanette swayed against me and I put my arm around her shoulders. She was trembling.

"Maybe everything's okay, Jeanette," I said. "Maybe your father's just sleeping soundly. Anyway, these are the police coming now, so you're safe."

I heard Jack talking to the two detectives who'd come in the squad car, and then one of them started around the house, on the outside, using a flashlight. Jack and the other one joined us in the doorway.

"Let's go," Jack said. "Where's your father's room, Miss Roth?"

"Just a second, Jack," I said. I snapped on the hall lights and then went into the library and turned on the lights there and looked around to be sure nobody was there.

"You wait in here, Jeanette," I said then. "We'll go up and try your father's door again, and if he still doesn't answer, we'll have to break--"

Footsteps pounded across the porch again and the other detective, the one who'd started around the house, stood in the doorway.

"There's a ladder up the side of the house to a window on the second floor--northwest corner room," he said. "Nobody around unless he's upstairs, in there. Shall I go up the ladder, Sebastian?"

Jack looked at me, and I knew that he and I were thinking the same thing. The killer had come here first, and there wasn't any hurry now.

"I'll go up the ladder," he said. "We won't have to break the door now. Will you two guys search the house from attic to cellar and turn all the lights on and leave them on? And, Brian, you stay here with Miss Roth. Can I borrow your flashlight, Wheeler?"

I noticed that, by tacit consent, Jack was taking charge of the case and of the older detectives. Because, I presumed, he was the first one on the scene and had a better idea what it was all about.

One of the men handed over a flashlight and Jack went out-side. I led Jeanette into the library.

"Brian," she asked, "do you think Dad is--that something has happened to Dad?"

"We'll know for sure in a minute, darling. Why make guesses meanwhile? I don't know."

But--what happened that made you call me up?"

"Jack and I were playing chess at my place," I told her. "Some-one took a shot through the window. At me, not at Jack. The bullet went into the wall behind me and just over my head. I-- well, I had a sudden hunch who might have shot at me, and if my hunch was right, I thought he'd consider your father his enemy, too. I'm afraid he may be--mad."

"Alister Cole?"

"Have you noticed anything strange about him?" I asked her.

"Yes. He's always scared me, Brian, the way he's acted. And just last night, Dad remarked that--"

She broke off, standing there rigidly. Footsteps were coming down the stairs.

That would be Jack, of course. And the fact that he walked so slowly gave us the news in advance of his coming.

Anyway, when he stood in the doorway, Jeanette asked quietly, "Is he dead?" and Jack nodded.

Jeanette sat down on the sofa behind her and dropped her head into her hands, but she didn't cry.

"I'll phone headquarters," Jack said. "But first--you and he were alone in the house tonight, weren't you, Miss Roth?"

She looked up and her eyes were still dry. "Yes" she said. "Mother's staying overnight with my aunt--her sister--in town. This is going to hit her hard. Will you need me here? I--I think it would be best if I were the one to break it to her. I can dress and be there in half an hour. I can be back in an hour and a half. Will it be all right?"

Jack looked at me. "What do you think, Brian? You know this guy Cole and you know what this is all about. Would Miss Roth be in any danger if she left?"

"You could figure that yourself, Jack," I said. "Cole was here, alone in the house with her after he killed Dr. Roth, and he had all the time in the world because there hadn't been an alarm yet. But let me go with her, though, just to be sure."

He snorted. "Just to be sure--of what? He is after you, my fine friend. Until we get Cole under lock and key--and throw away the key--you're not getting out from under my eye."

"All right," I said, "so I'm indispensable. But everybody isn't, and this place will be full of police in a few minutes. If I'm not mistaken, that sounds like another squad car coming now. Why not have one of the boys in it use it to drive Miss Roth over to her aunt's?"

He nodded. "Okay, Miss Roth. I'll stick my neck out--even though Headquarters may cut it off. And Wheeler and Brach have finished looking around upstairs, so it'll be okay for you to go to your room if you want to change that housecoat for a dress."

He went to the front door to let the new arrivals in.

"I'm awfully sorry, Jeanette," I said then. "I know that sounds meaningless, but-- it's all I can think of to say."

She managed a faint smile. "You're a good egg, Brian. I'll be seeing you."

She held out her hand, and I took it. Then she ran up the stairs. Jack looked in at the doorway.

"I told the new arrivals to search the grounds," he said. "Not that they'll find anything, but it'll give 'em something to do. I got to phone Headquarters. You stay right here."

"Just a second, Jack," I said. "How was he killed?"

"A knife. Messy job. It was a psycho, all right."

"You say messy? Is there any chance Jeanette might go into-- ?"

He shook his head. "Wheeler's watching that door. He wouldn't let her go in.

Well, I got to phone--"

"Listen, Jack. Tell me one thing. How long, about, has he been dead? I mean, is there any chance Cole could have come here after he shot at me? I might have thought of phoning here, or getting here a minute or two sooner. I'd feel responsible if my slowness in reacting, my dumbness--"

Jack was shaking his head. "I'm no M.E.," he said, "but Roth had been dead more than a few minutes when I found him. I'd say at least half an hour, maybe an hour."

He went to the phone and gave the Headquarters number. I heard his voice droning on, giving them the details of the murder and the attempted murder.

I sat there listening, with my eyes closed, taking in every word of it, but carefully keeping the elation off my face. It had gone perfectly. Everything had worked out. Whether or not they caught Alister Cole--and they would catch him--nothing could go wrong now. It had come off perfectly.

I would never be suspected, and I stood to gain a million dollars--and Jeanette. . . .

She came down the stairs slowly, as one approaching a reluctant errand. I waited for her at the foot of the staircase, my eyes on her beautiful face. There was shock there, but--as I had expected and was glad to see--not too much grief. Roth had been a cold, austere man. Not a man to be grieved for deeply, or long. She stopped on the second step, her eyes level with mine and only inches away. I wanted to kiss her, but this was not the time. A little while and I would, I thought.

But I could look now, and I could dream. I could imagine my hand stroking that soft blonde hair. I could imagine those soft, misty blue eyes closed and my lips kissing the lids of them, kissing that soft white throat, her yielding lips. Then--

My hand was on the newel post and she put hers over it. It almost seemed to burn.

"I wish I could go with you, darling," I said. "I wish there was something I could do to help you."

"I wish you could come with me too, Brian. But--your friend's right. And didn't you take an awful chance coming over here anyway--out in the open, with a madman out to kill you?"

"Jack was with me," I said.

Jack was calling to me from the library. "Coming," I said, and then I told Jeanette, "It's cool out, darling. Put a coat on over that thin dress."

She nodded absently. "I wish you could come with me, Brian. Mother likes you--"

I knew what she meant, what she was thinking. That things were going to be all right between us now. Her mother did like me. It was her stuffy, snobbish father who had stood in the way. Jack called again impatiently.

"Take care of yourself, Brian," Jeanette whispered quickly. "Don't take any chances, please."

She pressed my hand, then ran past me toward the coat closet. I saw that one of the detectives was waiting for her at the door. I went into the library. Jack was still sitting at the telephone table, jotting things into a notebook. He looked very intent and businesslike.

"Captain Murdock--he's head of Homicide--is on his way here," Jack said.

"He'll be in charge of the case. That's why I wanted you to let the girl get out of here first. He might insist on her staying."

"What about you?" I asked him. "Aren't you staying on the case?"

He grinned a little. "I've got my orders. They're to keep you alive until Cole is caught. The Chief told me if anything happens to you, he'll take my badge away and shove it up my ear. From now on, pal, we're Siamese twins."

"Then how about finishing that chess game?" I said. "I think I can set up the men again."

He shook his head. "Life isn't that simple. Not for a while yet, anyway. We'll have to stick here until Cap Murdock gets here, and then I'm to take you into the Chiefs office. Yeah, the Chiefs going down there at this time of night."

It was after one when Jack took me into Chief Randall's office. Randall, a big, slow-moving man, yawned and shook hands with me across his desk.

"Sit down, Carter," he said, and yawned again.

I took the seat across from him. Jack Sebastian sat down in a chair at the end of the desk and started doodling with the little gold knife he wears on the end of a chain.

"This Roth is a big man," Chief Randall said. "The papers are going to give us plenty if we don't settle this quick."

"Right now, Chief," Jack said, "Alister Cole is a bigger man. He's a homicidal maniac on the loose."

The Chief frowned. "We'll get him," he said. "We've got to. We've got him on the air. We've got his description to every rail-road station and airport and bus depot. We're getting out fliers with his picture--as soon as we get one. The state patrolmen are watching for him. We'll have him in hours. We're doing every-thing."

"That's good," I told him. "But I don't think you'll find him on his way out of town. I think he'll stay here until he gets me--or until you get him."

"He'll know that you're under protection, Brian," Jack said. "Mightn't that make a difference? Wouldn't he figure the smartest thing to do would be to blow town and hide out for a few months, then come back for another try?"

I thought it over. "He might," I said, doubtfully. "But I don't think so. You see, he isn't thinking normally. He's under paranoiac compulsion, and the risks he takes aren't going to weight the balance too strongly on the safety side. He was out to kill Dr. Roth and then me. Now I'm no expert in abnormal psychology, but I think that if he'd missed on his first killing he might do as you suggested--go away and come back later when things had blown over. But he made his first kill. He stepped over the line. He's going to be under terrifically strong compulsion to finish the job right away--at any risk!"

Double Bodyguard

Jack said, "One thing I don't get. Cole was probably standing right outside that window. We reacted quickly when that shot came, but not instantaneously. He should have had time for a second shot before we got the light out. Why didn't he take that second shot?"

"I can suggest a possibility," I told them. "I was in Alister's room about a week ago. I've been there several times. He opened a drawer to take out his chess set for our game, and I happened to notice a pistol in the drawer. He slammed the drawer quickly when he saw me glancing that way, but I asked him about the pistol.

"He said it had been his brother's, and that he'd had it since his brother had died three years ago. He said it was a single-shot twenty-two caliber target pistol, the kind really fancy marksmen use in tournaments. I asked him if he went in for target shooting and he said no, he'd never shot it."

"Probably telling the truth about that," Chief Randall said, "since he missed your head a good six inches at--how far would it have been, Jack?"

"About twelve feet, if he'd been standing just outside the win-dow. Farther, of course, if he'd been farther back." Jack turned to me. "Brian, how good a look did you get at the pistol? Was it a single-shot, the kind he described?"

"I think so," I said. "It wasn't either a revolver nor an automatic. It had a big fancy walnut handle, silver trimmings, and a long, slender barrel. Yes, I'd say I'm reasonably sure it was a single-shot marksman's gun. And that would be why he didn't shoot a second time before we got the light and the gas-grate turned out. I think he could have shot by the light of that gas flame even after I pulled out the plug of the floor lamp."

"It would have been maybe ten seconds, not over fifteen," Jack said, "before we got both of them out. A pistol expert, used to that type of gun, could have reloaded and shot again, but an amateur probably couldn't have. Anyway, maybe he didn't even carry extra cartridges, although I wouldn't bet on that."

"Just a second," Randall said. He picked up the phone on his desk and said,

"Laboratory." A few seconds later he said, "That bullet Wheeler gave you, the one out of the wall at Brian Carter's room. Got anything on it?" He listened a minute and then said, "Okay," and hung up.

He said, "It was a twenty-two all right, a long rifle, but it was too flattened out to get any rifling marks. Say, Jack, do you know if they use long rifle cartridges in those target guns?"

"A single-shot will take any length--short, standard, or long rifle. But, Brian, why would he carry as--as inefficient a gun as that? Do you figure he planned this on the spur of the moment, and didn't have time to get himself a gun with bigger bullets and more of them?"

"I don't think it was on the spur of the moment," I said. "I think he must have been planning it. But he may have stuck the target gun in his pocket on the spur of the moment. I figure it this way: The knife was his weapon. He intended to kill us both with the knife. But he brought along the gun as a spare. And when he got to my place after killing Dr. Roth and found you there, Jack, instead of finding me asleep in bed, it spoiled his original idea of coming in my window and doing to me what he did to Roth. He didn't want to wait around until you left because he'd already made one kill, and maybe he remembered he'd left the ladder at the side of the house.

There might be an alarm at any time."

Randall nodded. "That makes sense, Carter. Once he'd killed Roth, he was in a hurry to get you."

Jack quit doodling with his penknife and put it in his vest pocket. "Anything from the M.E.?" he asked.

Randall nodded. "Says the stroke across the jugular was prob-ably the first one, and was definitely fatal. The rest of the--uh--carving was just trimming. The ladder, by the way, belonged to a painting contractor who was going to start on the house the next day. He painted the garage first--finished that today. The ladder was lying on its side against a tree in the yard, not far from where Cole used it. Cole could have seen it there from the front walk, if he'd gone by during the day or during the early evening while it was still light."

"Did the medical examiner say about when he was killed?" I asked.

"Roughly half an hour to an hour before he was found," Randall said. He sighed. "Carter, have you told us everything about Cole that you think of?"

"Everything."

"Wish I could talk you into sleeping here, under protective custody. What are your plans for the next few days?"

"Nothing very startling," I told him. "This is Friday night--Saturday morning, now. I have to teach a class Monday afternoon at two. Nothing special to do until then, except some work of my own which I can do at home. As for the work I was doing with Dr. Roth, that's off for the time being. I'll have to see what the Board of Regents has to say about that."

"Then we'll worry about Monday when Monday comes," Randall said. "If, as you think, Cole is going to stay around town, we'll probably have him before then.

Do you mind Sebastian staying with you?"

"Not at all."

"And I'm going to assign two men to watch the outside of your place--at least for the next forty-eight hours. We won't plan beyond that until we see what happens.

Right now, every policeman in town is looking for Cole, and every state policeman is getting his description. Tomorrow's newspapers and the Sunday papers will carry his photograph, and then the whole city will be on the lookout for him. You have your gun, Sebastian?"

Jack shook his head. "Just this twenty-two I borrowed from Winton."

"You better run home and get it, and whatever clothes and stuff you'll need for a couple of days."

"I'll go with him," I said.

"You'll wait here," Jack told me. "It's only a few blocks. I'll be right back." He went out.

"While he's gone, Carter," Randall said, "I want to ask a few things he already knows, but I don't. About the set-up at the university, the exact relationship between you and Roth and between Roth and Alister Cole, what kind of work you do--things like that."

"Dr. Roth was head of the Department of Psychology," I said. "It's not a big department, here at Hudson U. He had only two full professors under him. Winton, who stays where I do, is one of them. Dr. Winton specializes in social psychology.

"Then there are two instructors. I'm one of them. An instructor is somewhere between a student and a professor. He's taking post-graduate courses leading to further degrees which will qualify him to be a professor. In my own case, I'm within weeks of getting my master's. After that, I start working for a doctorate. Mean-while, I work my way by teaching and by helping in the research lab, grading papers, monitoring exams--well, you get the idea.

"Alister Cole was--I suppose we can consider him fired now--a lab assistant.

That isn't a job that leads to anything. It's just a job doing physical work. I don't think Cole had even completed high school."

"What sort of work did he do?"

"Any physical work around the laboratory. Feeding the menagerie--we work with rats and white mice mostly, but there are also Rhesus monkeys and guinea pigs--cleaning cages, sweeping--"

"Doesn't the university have regular cleaning women?"

"Yes, but not in the lab. With experiments going on there, we don't want people who don't know the apparatus working around it, possibly moving things that shouldn't be moved. The lab assistants know what can be touched and what can't."

"Then, in a way, Dr. Roth was over both of you?"

"More than in a way. He didn't exactly hire us--the Board of Regents does all the hiring--but we both worked under him. In different capacities, of course."

"I understand that," Randall said. "Then you could say Dr. Roth's job was something like mine, head of a department. Your relationship to him would be about that of your friend, Sebastian, to me, and Alister Cole would be--umm--a mess attendant over on the jail side, or maybe a turnkey."

"That's a reasonably good comparison," I agreed. "Of course I was the only instructor who worked directly under Dr. Roth, so I was a lot closer to him than Jack would be to you. You have quite a few detectives under you, I'd guess."

He sighed. "Never quite enough, when anything important happens."

There was a knock on the door and he called out, "Yeah?" The detective named Wheeler stuck his head in. "Miss Roth's here," he announced. "You said you wanted to talk to her. Shall I send her in?"

Chief Randall nodded, and I stood up. "You might as well stay, Carter," he told me.

Jeanette came in. I held the chair I'd been sitting in for her, and moved around to the one Jack had vacated. Wheeler had stayed outside, so I introduced Jeanette and Randall.

"I won't want to keep you long, Miss Roth," Randall said, "so I'll get right down to the few questions I want to ask. When did you see Alister Cole last?"

"This afternoon, around three o'clock."

"At your house?"

"Yes. He came then and asked if Dad was home. I told him Dad was downtown, but that I expected him any minute. I asked him to come in and wait."

"Did he and you talk about anything?"

"Nothing much. As it happened, I'd been drinking some coffee, and I gave him a cup of it. But we talked only a few minutes--not over ten--before Dad came home."

"Do you know what he wanted to see your father about?"

"No. Dad took him into the library and I went out to the kitchen. Mr. Cole stayed only a few minutes, and then I heard him leaving."

"Did it sound as though he and your father were quarreling? Did you hear their voices?"

"No, I didn't hear. And Dad didn't say, afterwards, what Mr. Cole had wanted to see him about. But he did say something about Mr. Cole. He said he wondered if the boy was--how did he put it?--if he was all right. Said he wondered if maybe there wasn't a tendency toward schizophrenia, and that he was going to keep an eye on him for a while."

"Had you noticed anything strange about Cole's actions or manner when you talked to him before he saw your father?"

"He seemed a little excited about something and--well, trying to hide his excitement. And then there's one thing I'd always noticed about him--that he was unusually reticent and secretive about himself. He never volunteered any information about his--about anything concerning himself. He could talk all right about other things."

"Do you know if Cole knew your mother would not be there tonight?"

"I don't believe--Wait. Yes, he did. I forget just how it came into the conversation when I was talking with Mr. Cole, but I did mention my aunt's being sick. He'd met her. And I think I said Mother was staying with her a few nights."

"Was anything said about the ladder in your yard?"

"He asked if we were having the house painted, so I imagine he saw it lying there. It wasn't mentioned specifically."

"And tonight--what time did you last see your father?"

"When he said good-night at about ten o'clock and went up to bed. I finished a book I was reading and went upstairs about an hour later. I must have gone right to sleep because it seemed as though I'd been asleep a long time when I heard the phone ringing and went to answer it."

"You heard nothing until--I mean, you heard nothing from the time your father went to sleep at ten until you were wakened by the phone--which would have been at a quarter to eleven?"

"Not a sound."

"Did your father usually lock the door of his room?"

"Never. There was a bolt on the door, but he'd never used it that I know of."

Chief Randall nodded. "Then Cole must have bolted the door before he went back down the ladder," he said. "Is there anything you can add, Miss Roth?"

Jeanette hesitated. "No," she said. "Nothing that I can think of." She turned and smiled, faintly, at me. "Except that I want you to take good care of Brian."

"We'll do that," Randall told her. He raised his voice, "Wheeler!" The big detective opened the door and Randall said, "Take Miss Roth home now. Then take up duty at Forty-five University Lane--that's where Carter here lives. Outside. Jack Sebastian'll be inside with him. If the two of you let anything happen to him--God help you!"

A Window Is Opened

Pulling the car to the curb half a block from my place, Jack said, "That looks like Wheeler in a car up ahead, but I'm not taking any chances. Wait here."

He got out and walked briskly to the car ahead. I noticed that he walked with his hand in his right coat pocket. He leaned into the car and talked a moment, then came back.

"It's Wheeler," he said, "and he's got a good spot there. He can watch both windows of your room, and he has a good view of the whole front of the place besides."

"How about the back?" I asked him.

"There's a bolt on the back door. Cole would have trouble getting in that way.

Besides, we'll both be in your place and your door will be locked. If he could get into the house, he's got two more hurdles to take--your door and me."

"And don't forget me."

"That's the hurdle he wants to take. Come on. I'll leave you with Wheeler while I case the joint inside before I take you in."

We walked up to Wheeler's car and I got in beside him. "Besides looking around in my place," I told Jack, "you might take a look in the basement. If he got in while we were gone, and is hiding out anywhere but in my place, it would be there.

Probably up at the front end."

"I'll check it. But why would he be there?"

"He knows that part of the place. Mr. Chandler, the owner, turned over the front section of the basement to me for some experiments that Dr. Roth and I were doing on our own time. We were working with rats down there--an extension of some experiments we started at the university lab, but wanted to keep separate. So Alister Cole's been down there."

"And if he wanted to lay for you someplace, that might be it?"

"It's possible. He'd figure I'd be coming down there sooner or later."

"Okay, but I'll get you into your apartment first, then go down there."

He went inside and I saw the lights in my place go on. Five minutes later he came out to the car. "Clean as a whistle," he said.

"Wait till I get my stuff from my own car and we'll go in."

He went to his own car half a block back and returned with a suitcase. We went into the house and into my place.

"You're safe here," he said. "Lock me out now, and when I come back, don't let me in until you hear and recognize my voice."

"How about a complicated knock? Three shorts and a long."

He looked at me and saw I was grinning. He shook his finger at me. "Listen, pal," he said, "this is dead serious. There's a madman out to kill you, and he might be cleverer than you think. You can't take anything for granted until he's caught."

"I'll be good," I told him.

"I've got more at stake on this than you have," he said, "because if he kills you, you're only dead. But me, I'll be out of a job. Now let's hear that door lock when I go out in the hall."

I locked it after him, and started to pick up the chessmen from the floor. The Siamese blinked at me from her perch on the mantel. I tickled her under the chin.

"Hi, Beautiful," I said. "How'd you like all the excitement?"

She closed her eyes, as all cats do when they're having their chins chucked, and didn't answer me.

I leaned closer and whispered, "Cheer up, Beautiful. We're in the money, almost. You can have a silken cushion and only the best grades of calves' liver."

I finished picking up the chessmen and went over to the window. Looking out diagonally to the front, I could see the car that Wheeler was sitting in. I made a motion with my hand, and got an answering motion from the car.

I pulled down the shades in both rooms and was examining them to make sure that one couldn't see in from the outside when there was a tap at the door. I walked over and let Jack back in after he'd spoken to me.

"Nothing down there but some guinea pig cages and what look like mazes.

The cages are all empty."

"They're rat cages," I told him. "And the things that look like mazes, strangely enough, are mazes. That's a sizable suitcase you brought. Planning to move in on me?"

He sat down in my most comfortable chair. "Only suitcase I had. It isn't very full. I brought an extra suit, by the way, but it's not for me. It's for Alister Cole."

"Huh? A suit for--"

"Strait jacket. Picked it up at Headquarters, just in case. Listen, pal, you got any idea what it means to take a maniac? We'll take him alive, if we can, but we'll have to crease him or sap him, and I'll want some way of holding him down after he comes to." He shuddered a little. "I handled one of them once. Rather, I helped handle one. It took four of us, and the other three guys were huskier than I am. And it wasn't any picnic."

"You're making me very happy," I told him. "Did you by any chance pick up an extra gun for me?"

"Can you shoot one? Ever handled one?"

I said, "You pull the trigger, don't you?"

"That's what I mean. That's why I didn't get you one. Look, if this loonie isn't caught, and he makes a clean getaway, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll get you a permit for a gun, help you pick one out, and take you down to the police range and teach you how to use it. Because I won't be able to stay with you forever."

"Fine," I said. "I'd feel happier with one right away, though."

"Brian, people who don't know guns, who aren't expert with them, are better off without them. Safer. I'll bet if Alister Cole hadn't had a gun tonight, he'd have got you."

"How do you figure that?"

"Simple. He looked in the window and saw me playing chess with you. If he'd had only the shiv, he'd have hidden somewhere until after I'd left and given you time to get to sleep. Then he'd have come in your window--and that would have been that. But since he had a gun, he took a chance with it. Not knowing how to squeeze a trigger without moving his sights, he overshoots. And, I hope, ends his chances of getting you."

I nodded, slowly. "You've got a point," I admitted. "All right, I'll wait and learn it right, if you don't get Alister. Want to finish that game of chess?" I glanced toward Beautiful, now sound asleep, but still perched where she could overlook the game. "I promise you that Beautiful won't kibitz."

"Too late," Jack said. "It's after three. How long have you had that cat, Brian?"

"You should remember. You were with me when I bought her. Four years ago, wasn't it? Funny how a pet gets to mean so much to you. I wouldn't sell her for anything on earth."

Jack wrinkled his nose. "A dog, now, I could understand. They're some company to a guy."

Moving my hand in a deprecating gesture, I laughed at him. "That's because you're not used to such intelligent and aesthetic company. Next to women, cats are the most beautiful things on earth, and we rate women higher only because we're prejudiced. Besides, women talk back and cats don't. I'd have gone nuts the last few months if I hadn't had Beautiful to talk to. I've been working twelve to fourteen hours a day, and--that reminds me. I'd better get some sleep. How about you?"

"Not sleepy yet, but don't let me stop you. I'll go in the other room and read.

What have you got that might give me some dope on Alister Cole. Got any good books on abnormal psychology?"

"Not a lot. That's out of our line here. We don't have courses in the abnormal brand. We work with fundamentals, mostly. Oh, I've got a couple of general books.

Try that Outline of Abnormal Psychology on the top shelf, the blue jacket. It's pretty elementary, I guess, but it's as far as you'll cover in a few hours reading anyway."

I started undressing while Jack got the book and skimmed the table of contents. "This looks okay," he said. "Chapters on dementia praecox, paranoia, waking hypnosis--Never heard of that. Is it common?"

"Certainly," I told him. "We've tried it. It's not really part of abnormal psychology at all, although it can be used in treatment of mental troubles. We've subjected whole classes--with their consent, of course--to experiments in automatic writing while under suggestion in waking state amnesia. That's what I used for my senior thesis for my B.A. If you want to read up on what's probably wrong with Alister Cole, read the chapter on paranoia and paranoid conditions, and maybe the chapter on schizophrenia--that's dementia praecox. I'd bet on straight paranoia in Cole's case, but it could be schiz."

I hung my clothes over the chair and started to pull on my pajamas.

"According to Jeanette," Jack said, "Dr. Roth thought Cole might have a touch of schizophrenia. But you bet on paranoia. What's the difference?"

I sighed. "All right, I'll tell you. Paranoia is the more uncommon of the two disorders, and it's harder to spot. Especially if a subject is tied up in knots and won't talk about himself. A man suffering from paranoia builds up an air-tight system of reasoning about some false belief or peculiar set of ideas. He sticks to these delusions, and you can't convince him he's wrong in what he thinks. But if his particular delusion doesn't show, you can't spot him, because otherwise he seems normal.

"A schizophrenic, on the other hand, may have paranoid ideas, but they're poorly systematized, and he's likely to show other symptoms that he's off-balance.

He may have ideas that other people are always talking about him, or trying to do him harm, and he's subjected to incoherence, rambling, untidiness, apathy--all sorts of symptoms. Cole didn't show any of them."

"A paranoiac, then, could pretty well hide what was wrong with him," Jack said, "as long as no one spotted the particular subject he was hipped on?"

"Some of them do. Though if we'd been specialists, I think we'd have spotted Cole quickly. But listen. Hadn't you better get some sleep too?"

"Go ahead and pound your ear. I'll take a nap if I get tired. Here goes the light."

He turned it out and went into the next room. He left the door ajar, but I found that if I turned over and faced the wall, the little light that came in didn't bother me.

Beautiful, the cat, jumped down from the mantel and came over to sleep on my feet, as she always does. I reached down and petted her soft warm fur a moment, then I lay back on the pillow and quit thinking. I slept.

A sound woke me--the sound of a window opening slowly.

Death--to Rats

With me, as with most people, dreams are forgotten within the first few seconds after waking. I remember the one I was just having, though, because of the tie-up it had with the sound that wakened me.

My dream had changed that slow upward scrape of the window into the scrape of claws on cement, the cement of the basement. There in the little front room of the basement, Dr. Roth was standing with his hand on the latch of a rat cage, and a monstrous cat with the markings of a Siamese was scraping her claws on the floor, gathering her feet under her to spring. It was Beautiful, my cat, and yet it wasn't. She was almost as large as a lion. Her eyes glowed like the headlights of a car.

Dr. Roth cowered back against the tier of rat cages, holding a hand in front of him to ward off the attack. I watched from the doorway, and I tried to open my mouth to scream at her to stop, not to jump. But I seemed paralyzed. I couldn't move a muscle or make a sound.

I saw the cat's tail grow larger. Her eyes seemed to shoot blue sparks. And then she leaped.

Dr. Roth's arm was knocked aside as though it had been a toothpick. Her claws sank into his shoulders and her white, sharp teeth found his throat. He screamed once, and then the scream became a gurgle and he lay on the cement floor, dead, in a puddle of his blood. And the cat, backing away from him, was shrinking to her real size, getting smaller, her claws still scraping the cement as she backed away. . . .

And then, still frozen with the horror of that dream, I began to know that I was dreaming, that the sound I heard was the opening of a window.

I sat up in bed, fast. I opened my mouth to yell for Jack. Some-one stood there, just inside the window!

And then, before I had yelled, I saw that it was Jack who stood there. Enough light came in from the other room that I could be sure of that. He'd raised the shade.

He was crouched down now, and his eyes, level with the middle of the lower pane, stared through it into the night outside.

He must have heard the springs creak as I sat up. He turned. "Shhh," he said.

"It's all right--I think."

He put the window back down again then, and threw over the lock. He pulled down the shade and came over to the bed and sat down in a chair beside it.

"Sorry I woke you," he said, very quietly. "Can you go back to sleep, or do you want to talk a while?"

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Three-forty. You were asleep only half an hour. I'm sorry, but--"

"But what? What's been happening? Did you think you heard a sound outside?"

"Not outside the window, no. But a few minutes ago I thought I heard someone try the knob of the hall door. But when I got there and listened, I couldn't hear anything."

"It could have been Alister Cole," I said, "if he got in the back way. Wheeler isn't watching the back door."

"That's what I thought, even though I didn't hear anything back there. So I went to the window. I thought if I could attract Wheeler's attention, he'd come in the front way. Then I'd take a chance opening the hall door--with my gun ready, of course. If Cole was there, we'd have him between us."

"Did you get Wheeler's attention?"

He shook his head slowly. "His car isn't where it was. You can't even see it from the window. Maybe he moved it to a different spot where he thought he'd be less conspicuous, or could watch better."

"That's probably it. Well, what are you going to do?"

"Nothing. Sit tight. If I stick my neck out into that hall, or go outside through the window, the edge is going to be with Cole. If I sit here and make him come to me, it's the other way round. Only I'm through reading for tonight. I'm sitting right here by the bed. If you can sleep, go ahead. I'll shut up and let you."

"Sure," I said. "I can sleep swell. Just like a lamb staked out in the jungle to draw a tiger for the hunters. That's how I can sleep."

He chuckled. "The lamb doesn't know what it's there for."

"Until it smells tiger. I smell tiger." That reminded me of my dream, and I told him about it.

"You're a psychologist," he said. "What does it mean?"

"Probably that I had a subconscious dislike for Dr. Roth," I told him. "Only I know that already. I don't need to interpret a dream to tell me that."

"What did you have against Roth, Brian? I've known there was something from the way you've talked about him."

"He was a prig, for one thing," I said. "You know me well enough, Jack, to know I'm not too bad a guy, but he thought I was miles away from being good enough for Jeanette. Well--maybe I am, but then again, so's everybody else who might fall in love with her."

"Does she love you?"

"I think so." I thought it over. "Sure, I practically know she does, from things she said tonight."

"Anything else? I mean, about Roth. Is that the only reason you didn't like him?"

I didn't say anything for a while. I was thinking. I thought, why not tell Jack now? Sooner or later, he'll know it. The whole world will know it. Why not get it off my chest right now, while there was a good chance to get my side of it straight?

Something made me stop and listen first. There wasn't a sound from outside nor from the hallway.

"Jack," I said, "I'm going to tell you something. I'm awfully glad that you were here tonight."

"Thanks, pal." He chuckled a little.

"I don't mean what you think I mean, Jack. Sure, maybe you saved my life from Alister Cole. But more than that, you gave me an alibi."

"An alibi? For killing Roth? Sure, I was with you when he was killed."

"Exactly. Listen, Jack, I had a reason for killing Roth. That reason's coming out later anyway. I might as well tell you now."

He turned and stared at me. There was enough light in the room so that I could see the movement of his head, but, not enough so that he could watch my face. I don't know why he bothered turning.

"If you need an alibi," he said, "you've sure got one. We started playing chess at somewhere around eight. You haven't been out of my sight since then, except while you were in Chief Randall's office."

"Don't think I don't know that," I told him. "And don't think I'm not happy about it. Listen, Jack. Because Roth is dead, I'm going to be a millionaire. If he was alive, I still might be, but there'd have been a legal fight about it. 1 would have been right, but I could have lost just the same."

"You mean it would have been a case of your word against his?"

"Exactly. And he's--he was--department head, and I'm only a flunky, a little better on his social scale than Alister Cole. And it's something big, Jack. Really big."

"What?"

"What kind of rat cages did you find in the basement when you looked down there?" I asked him.

"What kind? I don't get you. I don't know makes of rat cages."

"Don't worry about the make," I said. "You found only one kind. Empty ones. The rats were dead. And disposed of."

He turned to look at me again. "Go on," he said.

Now that I'd started to tell him, I knew I wouldn't even try to go back to sleep.

I was too excited. I propped the pillow up against the head of the bed.

"Make a guess, Jack," I said. "How much food do rats eat a year in the United States alone?"

"I wouldn't know. A million dollars' worth?"

"A hundred million dollars' worth," I said, "at a conservative estimate.

Probably more than a million dollars is spent fighting them, each year. In the world, their cost is probably a billion dollars a year. Not altogether--just for one year! How much do you think something would be worth that would actually completely eliminate rats--both Mus Rattus and Mus Norvegicus-- completely and once and for all? Something that would put them with the hairy mammoth and the roc and the dinosaurs?"

"If your mathematics are okay," Jack said, "it'd be worth ten billion bucks in the first ten years?"

"Ten billion, on paper. A guy who could do it ought to be able to get one ten-thousandth that much, shouldn't he? A million?"

"Seems reasonable. And somebody ought to throw in a Nobel prize along with it. But can you do it?"

"I can do it," I said. "Right here in my basement I stumbled across it, accidentally, Jack, in the course of another experiment. But it works. It works! It kills rats!"

"So does Red Squill. So does strychnine. What's your stuff got that they haven't?"

"Communicability. Give it to one rat--and the whole colony dies! Like all the rats--thirty of them, to be exact--died when I injected one rat. Sure, you've got to catch one rat alive--but that's easy. Then just inject it and let it go, and all the rats in the neighborhood die."

"A bacillus?"

"No. Look, I'll be honest with you. I don't know exactly how it works, but it's not a germ. I have a hunch that it destroys a rat's immunity to some germ he carries around with him normally--just as you and I carry around a few million germs which don't harm us ordinarily because we also carry around the antibodies that keep them in check. But this injection probably destroys certain antibodies in the rat and the germs become--unchecked. The germs also become strong enough to overcome the antibodies in other rats, and they must be carried by the air because they spread from cage to cage with no direct contact. Thirty rats died within twenty-four hours after I innoculated the first one--some in cages as far away as six feet."

Jack Sebastian whistled. "Maybe you have got something," he said softly.

"Where did Roth come in on it, though? Did he claim half, or what?"

"Half I wouldn't have minded giving him," I said. "But he insisted the whole thing belonged to the university, just because I was working on an experiment for the university--even though it was in my own place, on my own time. And the thing I hit upon was entirely outside the field of the experiment. I don't see that at all.

Fortunately, he didn't bring it to an issue. He said we should experiment further before we announced it."

"Do you agree with that?"

"Of course. Naturally, I'm not going off half-cocked. I'm going to be sure, plenty sure, before I announce it. But when I do, it's going to be after the thing has been patented in my name. I'm going to have that million bucks, Jack!"

"I hope you're right," he said. "And I can't say I blame you, if you made the discovery here at your own place on your own time. Anyone else know about it?"

"No."

"Did Alister Cole?"

"No, he didn't. I think, Jack, that this thing is bigger even than you realize. Do you know how many human lives it's going to save? We don't have any bubonic here in this country--or much of any other rat-and-flea borne disease, but take the world as a whole."

"I see what you mean. Well, more power to you, keed. And if everything goes well, take me for a ride on your yacht sometime."

"You think I'm kidding?"

"Not at all. And I pretty well see what you mean by being glad you've got an alibi. Well, it's a solid one, if my word goes for anything. To have killed Dr.

Roth--no matter how much motive you may have had--you'd have had to have had a knife on a pole a block and a half long. Besides--"

"What?"

"Nothing. Listen, I'm worried about Wheeler. Probably he moved that car to another spot, but I wish I knew for sure."

"It's a squad car, isn't it?" I asked.

"Yes."

"With two-way radio?"

"Yes, but I haven't got a radio in here."

"We got a telephone. If you're worried about Wheeler--and you're getting me that way too--why don't you phone Headquarters and have them call Wheeler and phone you back?"

"Either you're a genius or I'm a dope," he said. "Don't tell me which."

He got up out of the chair and I could see he was still holding the gun in his hand. He went first to the door and listened carefully, then he went to the window.

He listened carefully there. Finally, he pulled back the shade a crack to look out.

"Now you're giving me the willies, and I might as well get up," I said. "For some reason, I'd rather get killed with my pants on--if I'm going to get killed." I looked at my cat. "Sorry, Beautiful," I said as I pulled my feet out from under the Siamese.

I took off my pajamas and started putting on my shirt and trousers.

"Wheeler's car still isn't anywhere I can see," Jack said.

He went over to the telephone and lifted the receiver off the hook. I slipped my feet into a pair of loafers and looked over. He was still holding the receiver and hadn't spoken. He put it back gently. "Someone's cut the wires," he said. "The line is dead."

The Cat

I said, "I don't believe this. It's out of a horror program on the radio. It's a gag."

Jack snorted. He was turning around, looking from the window to the door.

"Got a flashlight?"

"Yes. In the drawer over there."

"Get it," he said. "Then sit back in that corner where you're not in direct range from the window or the door. If either opens, bracket it with your flash. I've got my flash but I'm using it left-handed. Anyway, two spots are better than one, and I want to see to shoot straight."

While I was getting the flashlight, he closed the door to the other room, leaving us in pitch darkness except for our flashes. I lighted my own way to the chair he'd pointed out.

"There's a window in that other room," I said. "Is it locked?"

"Yes," he answered. "He can't get in there without breaking that window.

Okay, turn out that light and sit tight."

I heard him move across the room to another corner. His flash-light played briefly first on the door to the hallway, then swept across to the window. Then it went out.

"Wouldn't the advantage be with us if we kept the light on?" I asked.

"No. Listen, if he busts in the window, when you aim your flash at it, hold it out from your body, out over the arm of your chair. So if he shoots at the flash, he won't hit you. Our two lights should blind him. We should be able to see him, but he shouldn't be able to see us."

"Okay," I said.

I don't know how many minutes went by. Then there was a soft tapping at the window. I tensed in my chair and aimed the flashlight at the window without turning it on.

The tapping came again. An irregular series: tap-- tap--tap--tap.

"That's Wheeler," Jack whispered. "It's the code tap. Cole couldn't possibly know it. Sit tight."

I could hear him moving across the room in the darkness. I could see the streak of grayness as he cautiously lifted one side of the shade, then peered through the crack between shade and window. As quietly as he could, he raised up the shade and unlocked and raised the window.

It was turning slightly gray outside, and a little light came from the street lamp a quarter of a block away. I could recognize the big body of Wheeler coming through the window. Wheeler, and not Alister Cole.

I began breathing again. I got up out of the chair and went over to them.

Wheeler was whispering.

". . . So don't put down the windows," he was saying. "I'll come in that way again."

"I'll leave it up to Brian," Jack whispered back. "If he wants to take that chance. Meanwhile, you watch that window."

He pulled me to one side then, away from the open window. "Listen," he said.

"Wheeler saw somebody moving in back. He'd moved his car where he could watch part of the back yard. He got there in time to see a window going down. Alister Cole's inside the building. Wheeler's got an idea now, only it's got a risk to it. I'll leave it up to you. If you don't like it, he'll go out again and get help, and we'll sit tight here, as we were until help comes."

"What's the idea?" I asked. If it wasn't too risky, I'd like it better than another vigil while Wheeler went for help.

"Wheeler," Jack said, "thinks he should walk right out of the door into the hall and out the front door. He thinks Cole will hear that, and will think I'm leaving you.

Wheeler will circle around the house and come in the window again. Cole should figure you're here alone and come in that hallway door--and both Wheeler and I will be here to take him. You won't be taking any risk unless by some chance he gets both of us. That isn't likely. We're two to one, and we'll be ready for him"

I whispered back that it sounded good to me. He gripped my arm.

"Go back to your chair then. That's as good a place as any."

Groping my way back to the chair, I heard Jack and Wheeler whispering as they went toward the hallway door. They were leaving the window open and, since it was momentarily unguarded, I kept my eyes on it, ready to yell a warning if a figure appeared there. But none did.

The hallway door opened and closed quickly, letting a momentary shaft of light into the room. I heard Jack back away from the door and Wheeler's footsteps going along the hallway. I heard the front door open and close, Wheeler's steps cross the porch.

A moment later, there was the soft tap--tap-tap--tap on the upper pane of the open window, and then Wheeler's bulk came through it.

Very, very quietly, he closed the window and locked it. He pulled down the shade. Then I heard the shuffle of his footsteps as he moved into position to the right of the door.

I haven't any idea how long we waited after that. Probably five or ten minutes--but it seemed like hours. Then I heard, or thought I heard, the very faintest imaginable sound. It might have been the scrape of shoes on the carpet of the hall outside the door. But there wasn't any doubt about the next sound. It was the soft turning of the knob of the door. It turned and held. The door pushed open a crack, then a few inches. Light streamed over a slowly widening area.

Then one thing Jack hadn't counted on happened. A hand reached in, between the door and the jamb, and flicked on the light switch. Dazzling light from the bulks in the ceiling almost blinded me. And it was in that blinding second that the door swung back wide and Alister Cole, knife in one hand and single-shot target pistol in the other, stood in the doorway. His eyes flashed around the room, taking in all three of us. But then his eyes centered on me and the target pistol lifted.

Jack stepped in from the side and a blackjack was in his up-raised hand. It swung down and there was a sound like someone makes thumping a melon. He and Wheeler caught Alister Cole, one from each side, and eased his way down to the carpet.

Wheeler bent over him and got the gun and the knife first, then held his hand over Cole's heart.

"He'll be all right," he said.

He took a pair of handcuffs from his hip pocket, rolled Cole over and cuffed his hands together behind him. Then he straightened, picking up the gun he'd put down on the carpet while he worked on Cole.

I'd stood up, my knees still shaking a little. My forehead felt as though it was beaded with cold sweat. The flashlight was gripped so tightly in my right hand that my fingers ached.

I caught sight of Beautiful, again on the mantel, and she was standing up, her tail bushy and straight up, her fur back of the ears and along the back standing up in a ridge, her blue eyes blazing. "It's all right, Beautiful," I said to her soothingly. "All the excitement's over, and everything's--"

I was walking toward the mantel, raising my hand to pet her, when Wheeler's excited voice stopped me.

"Watch out," he yelled. "That cat's going to jump --"

And I saw the muzzle of his gun raising and pointing at the Siamese cat.

My right hand swung up with the flashlight and I leaped at Wheeler. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jack stepping in as Wheeler ducked back. The corner of my eye caught the swing of his blackjack. . . .

The overhead light was bright in my eyes when I opened them. I was lying flat on the bed and the first thing I saw was Beautiful, curled up on my chest looking at me. She was all right now, her fur sleek and her curled tail back to normal. Whatever else had happened, she was all right.

I turned my head, and it hurt to turn it, but I saw that Jack was sitting beside the bed. The door was closed and Wheeler and Cole were gone.

"What happened?" I asked.

"You tried to kill Wheeler," Jack said. There was something peculiar about his voice, but his eyes met mine levelly.

"Don't be silly," I said. "I was going to knock his arm down before he could shoot. He was crazy. He must have a phobia against cats."

Jack shook his head. "You were going to kill him," he said. "You were going to kill him whether he shot or not."

"Don't be silly." I tried to move my hands and found they were fastened behind me. I looked at Jack angrily. "What's wrong with you?"

"Not with me, Brian," he said. "With you. I know--now--that it was really you who killed Dr. Roth tonight. Yes, I know you've got an alibi. But you did it just the same. You used Alister Cole as your instrument. My guess would be waking hypnosis."

"I suppose I got him to try to kill me, too!" I said.

"You told him he'd shoot over your head, and then run away. It was a compulsion so strong he tried it again tonight, even after he saw Wheeler and me ready to slug him if he tried. And he was aiming high again. How long have you been working on him?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You do, Brian. You don't know it all, but you know this part of it. You found out that Cole had schizophrenic tendencies. You found out, probably while playing chess with him, that you could put him under waking hypnosis without his knowing it. And you worked on him. What kind of a fantasy did you build in him?

What kind of a conspiracy, did you plant in his mind, Dr. Roth was leading against him?"

"You're crazy."

"No, you are, Brian. Crazy, but clever. And you know that what I've just told you just now is right. You also know I'll never be able to prove it. I admit that. But there's something else you don't know. I don't have to prove it."

For the first time I felt a touch of fear. "What do you mean?" I asked.

"You gave Cole his fantasies, but you don't know your own. You don't know that--under the pressure, possibly, of working too hard and studying too hard--your own mind cracked. You don't know that your million-dollar rat-killer is your fantasy.

You don't believe me, now that I'm telling you that it is a fantasy. You'll never believe it. The paranoiac builds up an air-tight system of excuses and rationalization to support his insane delusions. You'll never believe me."

I tried to sit up and couldn't. I realized then that it wasn't a matter of my arms being tied. Jack had put the strait jacket on me. "You're part of it, then," I said.

"You're one of those in the plot against me."

"Sure, sure. You know, Brian. I can guess what started it. Or rather what set it off, probably only a few days ago. It was when Dr. Roth killed your cat. That dream you told me about tonight-- the cat killing Dr. Roth. Your mind wouldn't accept the truth. Even your subconscious mind reversed the facts for the dream. I wonder what really happened. Possibly your cat killed a rat that was an important part of an experiment and, in anger, Dr. Roth--"

"You're crazy," I shouted. "Crazy!"

"And ever since, Brian, you've been talking to a cat that wasn't there. I thought you were kidding, at first. When I figured out the truth, I told Wheeler what I figured.

When you gave us a clue where the cat was supposed to be, on the mantel, he raised his gun and pretended--"

"Jack!" I begged him, to break off the silly things he was saying. "If you're going to help them railroad me, even if you're in on the plot--please get them to let me take Beautiful with me. Don't take her away too. Please!"

Cars were driving up outside. I could feel the comforting weight and warmth of the cat sleeping on my chest.

"Don't worry, Brian," Jack said quietly. "That cat'll go wherever you go.

Nobody can take it away from you. Nobody."