The Man Who Disappeared

The Man Who Disappearedby EDGAR BOHLEMystery-Suspense, 1958Version 1.0

BlurbDick Stoddard knew that he was suffering from a mild case of poisoning. It was the result of his job; he was head of a research team in a top-security chemical plant. He also knew that the mild poisoning might develop into panics, depressions, delusions, hallucinations. "All these," said the doctor casually, "depend upon the individual's reaction." One of Dick's associates, Steve Haklos, had been affected to such an extent that he had been forced to abandon the work entirely. "Highly susceptible individual," said the doctor, again casually.The Man Who Disappeared opens on the morning that Dick Stoddard came to the plant very early and found Steve there, alone and obviously very ill. Fifteen minutes later, he was no longer there. And it was impossible for Dick to convince anybody that he had ever been there. The security guards had not seen him come in or leave; other key people in the building had not seen him. It was impossible for him to have been there. There was only one logical explanation: Dick himself, finally, was having hallucinations. "I warned you this might happen," said the doctor, this time sorrowfully.Dick was forced to agree. But, stubbornly, he didn't agree. And when, later that morning, an attempt was made on his life, he knew that he had seen Steve and that Steve had to be found, quickly. There was no time to convince the skeptics. Dick was the only one who knew. He had to do it alone.He had a few thin clues: a strain of music whistled by an unseen truck driver, a packing case that looked like a coffin, a smudge of pink chalk on a dust cloth. They led Dick to a fashionable inn in Connecticut, to a seemingly abandoned farmhouse, and finally, on a fantastic Easter Sunday chase in New York.The Man Who Disappeared is an extraordinary first novelspare, tense, unrelenting in its pace, reminiscent of the mood and suspense of The Lady Vanishes.

Copyright, 1958, by Edgar BohleAll rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in New York by Random House, Inc., and simultaneously in Toronto, Canada, by Random House of Canada, Limited.Manufactured in the United States of America

For Ernest Havemann

The Man Who Disappeared

One

The alarm went off as usual at six. Stoddard reached over shakily and shut it off. He dragged himself wearily out of bed; he had been lying awake, his arms and shoulders aching with tension, since ten after three. He was becoming used to the tension, but becoming used to it made it no less tormenting.He switched on the lamp on the chest of drawers and stared somberly at his reflection in the mirror. What he saw no longer shocked him; he had been staring at the same image in the same mirror each morning for weeks. The muscles in his neck were rigid. He felt as though his whole head was trembling, but the image In the mirror, with the set jaw and the glaring eyes, seemed steady enough.He looked a good ten years older than thirty-two. In a rugged, bony way he had been considered handsome, and his black hair, blue eyes, broad cheekbones, and square, determined mouthtestimony to the Irish blood he had got from his motherwere still handsome, but his face now was haggard. His eyes, which before had never been further away from a grin than the edge of it, had lost all trace of humor. With the depth of their sockets accentuated by his emaciation, they seemed almost baleful, and the baleful effect was heightened by the scar which ran down the bridge of his nose and across his right cheek.Stoddard rubbed his jaw, and he noted once again how long it took for the imprint of his fingers to fade. His skin, normally ruddy, was pale, with a decided yellowish cast. "All the patients show severe anemia," Dr. Blaine had told Stoddard grimly, before Stoddard had become a patient himself. "That's about all they've got in common. The nervous and mental symptoms vary all over the lot. Fullblown psychoses in some cases. The anemia might be responsiblebrain starved for oxygenbut I suspect there's actual damage to the central nervous system too. That stuff you fellows are working with is downright lethal."Stoddard rubbed his chin again, staring morbidly at the imprint of his fingers. Then he turned to go to the bathroom, and his gaze fell on the neat, twin bed beside his, the spread smooth and unruffled. He had to fight to keep from flinging himself down and burying his face in it. For the thousandth time he wished fervently that the automobile crash two years before had had no more serious consequence than the scar on his face. His eyes burned; he could have sobbed. "And what good would that do?" he asked himself, hating himself for his self-pity.In the bathroom he let the water in the basin run good and cold. He wrung out his washcloth and pressed it against his eyes for a full two minutes. Then he walked through the living room of the apartment and into the kitchen. Even in the dim light of the very early morning the apartment, a pleasant, suburban walk-up, looked neglected, although Stoddard had become far too accustomed to this to be conscious of it. The place was neat and clean enough, and the furnishings were in good taste; but the sofa and chairs and coffee table in the living room were not in quite the right positions, and the arrangement of the lamps and ash trays seemed a bit haphazard. There were vases for flowers and plants, but they were empty. The living room did not look lived in. It was apparent that all the furnishings had been allowed to remain exactly as the woman who came in each Thursday morning to clean had left them after sweeping and dusting.In the kitchen, Stoddard took two soda crackers from a box in the pantry and put them on the drainboard of the sink. From a waxed cardboard container in the refrigerator he poured half a glass of milk. The cleaning woman brought him milk and rolls each Thursday, and occasionally a box of crackers; and the pantry and refrigerator contained little else. Most of the shelves were bare.As usual, his mouth was dry as tinder. He chewed half of one of the crackers, but had so little saliva that it stayed a semidry paste in his mouth; it took frequent swallows of milk for him to get the two crackers down.Without bothering to rinse the glass from which he had drunk the milk, he filled it with water. From the bottle on the shelf over the sink, he took two of his green capsules and gulped them down with the water. Dr. Blaine had warned him against taking the capsules on an empty stomach. One of the newer tranquilizers, the doctor had explained. In the old days a case like Stoddard's would have had to be treated with barbiturates, but one trouble with the barbiturates was of course that they were so stupefying. The capsules he prescribed wouldn't do much for Stoddard's shakiness, Blaine had said, but they would make him less panicky, and they would leave him alert. In combination with the iron and the rest of the medication they might make it possible for him to hang on until Haklos had recovered and could come back to the laboratory to take over.When that would be, no one would even attempt to predict. Haklos had at last been released from the hospital, but he was confined to his apartment for convalescence. The doctors were frank to admit that they had no way of knowing how prolonged the convalescence might be. Based on the progress he had shown to date, it was obvious that he would be unable to return to the laboratory, even on a part-time basis, for some weeks more at the least. It might equally well be months. There was just no way of knowing. The poison was too new; there was no past experience to go on.

TwoThe poisoning had hit Stoddard with characteristic suddenness one afternoon two months earlier. With the help of Anderson, one of the junior engineers from the pilot plant, he had made his way, every muscle in his body trembling almost uncontrollably, to the company clinic in the main administration building. Although there had been no real doubt as to the diagnosis, the medical department had kept him there for two days and nights, running tests on samples of his blood and spinal fluid. On the third day he had had a session with the neurologist."From a strictly medical standpoint," Dr. Blaine had said, "I'd like to hospitalize you, like the others. You need two or three months of complete rest. But Rupple has been pleading with me to keep you in harness. You certainly seem to be the indispensable man."He had stared at Stoddard appraisingly. He was a short, intense-looking man with grayish brown hair and hornrimmed glasses. He spoke very precisely, taking unusual care in his enunciation. "Rupple seems to feel," he had continued, "that with Haklos out already, our whole pro-pellant program would come to a grinding halt if you left the scene. He says Washington's pushing for results harder than ever, too. But that's just his side of it. What do you want to do?"Stoddard had hesitated before answering. "I've got to stay on the job," he had finally said. "Till Steve Haklos gets back.""Oh, come now, Dick," Blaine had responded. "You don't have to do anything. Aren't there plenty of other companies working in this field?""Yes, but the Air Force seems to feel that dimethyl" Stoddard had checked himself just in time. He had almost named the material, and the whole program was of course highly classified. Not that naming it to Blaine would really have mattered. Blaine was completely trustworthy, and for that matter he had a security clearance, like everyone else on the project. Still, the rules provided that you gave a man, even if he had been cleared, only the information he needed to do his part of the job, and no more."The Air Force seems to feel that one of our latest developments," Stoddard had gone on, "is getting pretty close to the answer. Not that there will ever be a final answer in this area."Blaine had shaken his head. "Missiles loaded with that stuff," he had said, "won't need warheads. The fuel, all by itself, will reduce whole populations to quivering wrecks. No wonder the Chemical Corps has picked it up. Look what the stuff's done to you fellows. You're the eighth man in the group to go down, you know. With the delayed action that stuff shows there's no guarantee you'll be the last. We're not talking about it too muchwe don't want to scare everybody working here out of his witsbut some of these cases are really acute. Panics, depressions, delusions, hallucinationsyou can't predict what you'll be up against. Just what symptoms any given individual will show seems to depend on his underlying personality. Everybody has latent neurotic or even psychotic trends, and exposure to this stuff, once you get past the threshold, seems to bring out every latent tension, every anxiety."Blaine had paused. "You know, Dick," he had gone on sympathetically, "you were awfully vulnerable anyway. For two years your life has been completely out of balance. We both know why, of course."Stoddard had stared gloomily at the floor."Lucy," Blaine had said softly. He had leaned forward, his elbows on his desk. "Naturally, losing her bowled you over. But it's no answer to bury yourself in work. You've lived too long on cigarettes and coffee. You were on the verge of emotional exhaustion, whether you knew it or not. Exposure to this stuff was just the trigger that set you off. From what Rupple says, you've made yourself one of the world's experts on missile propulsion, but believe me, it isn't worth the price."He had paused again, and then gone on in a more matter-of-fact tone. "Well, if you want to stay in harness, we'll try it. We'll have to shift you to the administration building here, and you'll have to direct the work from your office. No more exposure to these fuels, any of them. Or to reagents of any sort, for that matter. Leave the work in the lab and on the testing platforms to the others. We can take precautions for them, now that we're beginning to know how this stuff acts." He had gone on with meticulous directions on diet, rest, and medication.

ThreeAt least, Stoddard had escaped the hallucinations which had plagued Haklos. "Escaped them so far" Stoddard thought wryly. He was still standing at the sink in the kitchen of the apartment, waiting for the green capsules to have some effect. He walked jerkily back across the living room to the bathroomhe still, even now, had a trace of the springy step he had acquired as an amateur light-heavyweight in collegeand had his shower. He dried himself and stepped on the bathroom scale, the one Lucy had used. It read one forty-six, down nineteen pounds from his normal one sixty-five, and for a man standing six feet one in his socks he was lean even at his normal weight. Now the skin was stretched tight over his ribs.His shaky hand made shaving difficult, but he managed. Afterward he dressed, and then, although he had no particular appetite, he ate a roll, with another glass of milk. What he wanted badly was coffee, but that was strictly forbidden. He washed and dried his plate and glass, and it was ten to seven.He went back to the bedroom and made his bed, smoothing the sheets, pulling the blanket taut, and fluffing up his badly mauled pillow. One more working day, and then the Easter week end. He was sweating a little. The day ahead, he reminded himself, should not be too arduous. They would not be bothered with the usual phone calls from the main office in New York; it was Good Friday, and although the laboratories were open as usual, the main office was closed. He had kept the morning free to finish the progress report. He had scheduled the meeting with Dudley's group for two o'clock, and the men from du Pont would be in at three-thirty.He tucked the fold of the spread beneath the pillow and straightened up. He took his jacket from its hanger and put it on, and he went methodically to the closet in the living room for his topcoat and hat. He opened the door of the apartment and stepped out into the corridor. He slammed the door behind him and double-locked it, and then he set off along the corridor to the stairs at the front of the building.He descended to the small lobby on the first floor, with its brass mailboxes glistening cheerfully in the sunlight which streamed in through the leaded glass panel in the front door, and continued on down the stairs to the garage in the basement. He walked back to his Ford and drove out into the suburban street. In three minutes he had gone through the shopping section of the villagemost of the shops were still closedand he was on the highway which led directly to the laboratory. A few minutes more brought the group of new laboratory buildings into sight, just over the crest of a low hill. Architecturally the low buildings, all functional yellow brick and glass, fitted well into the gently rolling, north-Jersey landscape, still brown in early April. Hugging the contours of the ground, they looked smaller than they actually were.There was no activity as yet in the big parking lot to one side, more than three-quarters empty. Only the technicians working the midnight-to-eight shift were on duty; the people on the regular day shift had not yet begun to arrive. Stoddard parked in the space assigned him, close to the entrance to the main building, and climbed out of his car, taking out his identification badge as he approached the doors. The gray-uniformed guards at the table just inside nodded as he came into the building, without bothering to look at the badge. "You're an early bird for sure this morning, Dr. Stoddard," said one of them, a hulking fellow with a rugged Irish face. "It's barely quarter after seven.""I couldn't sleep," Stoddard replied, forcing a smile which felt twisted."Planning a big Easter week end, doc?" the other guard asked. He was a dapper Italian."No," Stoddard said. "I guess I wish I were."Stoddard pushed through the swinging inner doors and turned right, down the broad vinyl-tiled corridor toward the stairway leading to the second floor, where he now had his office. This end of the first floor was the executive wing of the building, and Stoddard noticed idly that the door to Rupple's office, the last one on the left before the stairway at the end of the corridor, stood ajar. As he passed it he glanced in, and then he stopped in amazement. Slumped down on Rupple's leather-upholstered sofa was a swarthy little gnome with a wrinkled face and a tremendous nose. His head lay against the back of the sofa, and his eyes were closed. He was still wearing a heavy black overcoat, and his battered black hat lay beside him on the sofa. Stoddard stared for a long moment in disbelief.The man was certainly Haklos, but that was impossible. It was too good to be true.His heart pounding, Stoddard crossed the corridor hesitantly and stopped in the doorway of Rupple's office. The office was quite large, and it was furnished expensively and in reasonably good taste, as would have been expected for the office of the Director of the Laboratories, but the furnishings showed no particular imagination or individuality. In front of the picture window which looked out on the other buildings was a well-polished mahogany desk, and grouped about the walls, in addition to the sofa, there were a table, several bookcases, and a number of comfortable-looking leather-upholstered chairs. The floor was covered with a dark green carpetthe standard Consolidated shade of green, right out of the furniture standards manualand on the walls were framed aerial photographs of the company's principal manufacturing plants. The swivel chair behind the desk was empty; Haklosif it really was Hakloswas alone in the room."Steve?" Stoddard said tentatively.Haklos opened his eyes. He turned his head toward the doorway, and as he saw Stoddard, his ugly, wrinkled face broke into an enormous smile. "Dick," he responded. "Dick." His voice was weak, but he rose to his feet, steadying himself on the arm of the sofa, and held out a hand to Stoddard.Stoddard rushed across the room and grasped the outstretched hand with both his own. "It's wonderful to see you, Steve," he said. "But, here, you'd better sit down." Haklos was swaying on his feet.Haklos sank back on the sofa. His face was pale, but he still smiled warmly, his big intense eyes on Stoddard. "I am all right," he said in his thick Hungarian accent. "Just weak, that is all. Rupple went to get me a glass of water. Such service I get from the Boy Wonder." Haklos grinned weakly and pointed with a shaky hand toward the chromium-plated carafe on the table. "His new secretary is not in yet, so early, and his bottle is empty. From outside he must bring me the water." He looked more closely at Stoddard. "But you, Dick, you have lost weight." He leaned forward, his hand on Stoddard's arm, and scanned Stoddard's face anxiously. "Did it get you too?""A little," Stoddard said. "Just a light case, nothing like yours.""Treacherous stuff, treacherous stuff," Haklos said, his mobile face now frowning. "Hallucinationsnow at last I realize my angel was just a hallucination. Dr. Kraft, at the hospital, says I must be getting better, to realize that. You, Dick, do you have hallucinations, too?""No," Stoddard said, "no hallucinations. I think Blaine calls my trouble an anxiety state. This psychiatric terminologyit makes everything sound so impersonal and orderly, so under control. Like a war communique.""Wonderful, my angel," Haklos said. "Translucent, like porcelain. Even the robes. And so calm, so serene." He let his head fall back against the sofa, his eyes half closed. "An angel of the Lord," he murmured dreamily.Haklos' manner made Stoddard a bit uncomfortable. "Did she have a halo?" he asked uncertainly, to break the silence."She, Dick? She?" Haklos asked reproachfully, his head erect again. "My angel was male. Always in the Bible angels were male. These paintings of female angelsall wrong, all bunk. But not Hakloseven in hallucinations Stefan Haklos is accurate." He grinned, and then his face became sober. "He was my protector, that angel. Of enemies he would warn me, in corners, behind doors. The doors there, to this officeI opened them after Rupple left to get me the water." Haklos' voice had become tense; his grip on Stoddard's arm was tight. "Only outside is safety, Dick, outside, in the open. You know what I do now, Dick, when I must go from outside into a building, a room, an elevator?" He fumbled under his overcoat and from a vest pocket brought out a stump of pink chalk. "With this chalk beside the door I make a cross." He marked a small shaky cross on the leather arm of the sofa. "A pink cross. The sign of my angel. There just now I made one"he gestured toward the doorway at the side of the room, leading into the office of Rupple's secretary"when Rupple brought me here."Stoddard heard a slight noise from the secretary's office. "That must be Rupple now," he said. But no one came through the door, which stood ajar, and after a moment Stoddard crossed over and pushed the door all the way open. The secretary's office was empty.He went back to Haklos on the sofa. "Nobody there," he said. "Rupple should be here soon. Did you say he brought you here this morning, Steve?"Haklos grinned again. "Yes, Rupple himself. The Boy Wonder. And the other fellow. Last night at my apartment Rupple phoned. On a problem here he would like to consult me. He would pick me up outside the apartment this morning." Haklos' voice was getting weaker and weaker.Stoddard was becoming alarmed. Haklos laid his head back on the sofa and closed his eyes again."I'll get you some water myself, Steve," Stoddard said. "I don't know where Rupple can be."Stoddard left the office and hurried to the drinking fountain in the corridor, beside the stairway, but found the paper cup dispenser empty. It was still not seven-thirty; the janitor on the day shift had not yet arrived to fill the dispenser for the day. Stoddard turned back toward Rupple's office for a glass, but remembered that there had been no glass on the tray which held the carafe; evidently Rupple had taken the glass himself when he went to get water for Haklos. Stoddard ran up the stairway to the second floor and went into his own office for one of his glasses. It was a pleasant room, but naturally much more plainly furnished than Rupple's office, and more functional. Stoddard's desk and a bookcase were at the end near the door; the central part of the room was occupied by a conference table, with eight wooden armchairs surrounding it. Mounted on the far wall was a blackboard.Stoddard took one of the glass tumblers from a drawer of his desk and hurried back down the corridor to the stairway. In his haste he stumbled at the top of the stairs; he caught himself on the railing, but dropped the glass, and it broke as it hit the floor. He picked up the larger fragments impatiently and darted back to his office, where he pitched them into the wastebasket and got the other tumbler from the desk drawer. This time he got down the stairs and back to the drinking fountain without accident. Only one other employee was visible in the corridor: one of the medical department's receptionists. She was a middle-aged woman, still wearing her coat and hat. Stoddard recognized her by her gait, even though she was walking away from him, toward her office at the other end of the building.He filled the glass about two-thirds full of water and went back to Rupple's office. This time the door was closed, but he opened it and pushed inside. After a single step he stopped abruptly. At the desk was Rupple, studying a typewritten report stapled into blue backing-paper. The sofa was empty.

FourRupple was a tall man, meticulously neat, with an alert, thin face dominated by a pair of piercing, cold, gray eyes. He was obviously young, but his thick, wavy hair was prematurely gray, almost white. He wore a well-cut gray flannel suit with a vest, a striped tie of rep silk, and a Brooks Brothers white Oxford shirt with a button-down collar. With his left hand he held one page of the report through which he was skimming, preparatory to flipping the page over, and the fingers of his right hand drummed impatiently on the desk top. He gave an impression of great energy held in leash only with difficulty. As he heard Stoddard enter the office he looked up, surprised.Rupple's startled expression reminded Stoddard that the normal mode of entry into Rupple's office was through the secretary's office adjoining, and not through the door which opened directly into the corridor, which he had used. Rupple's expression deepened into astonishment as he noted the glass of water in Stoddard's hand. Stoddard realized uneasily that he must seem a queer figure, bursting in breathlessly with a glass of water, still wearing his topcoat and hat.Rupple leaned back in his big swivel chair. "Morning, Dick," he said. There was a note of inquiry in his tone.Stoddard glanced quickly about the room. Except for Rupple and himself it was empty. "I was bringing a glass of water for Steve," Stoddard said. His voice sounded hoarse.Rupple stared at him. "For Steve?" he asked. The drumming of his fingers had stopped.With his empty left hand Stoddard pointed to the sofa. "Steve Haklos," he said.Rupple glanced at the sofa and then back at Stoddard, his expression now one of complete bafflement. "He said you had gone to get him a glass of water, after you brought him here," Stoddard went on awkwardly. "But you didn't come," he stumbled on. "He looked faint, so I went for a glass of water myself. Where is he?"Rupple sat silent, staring at Stoddard for several seconds. "You saw Steve Haklos here, this morning?" he finally asked incredulously."Yes," Stoddard said. "Of course.""He said I brought him here?" For once Rupple was speaking slowly. Usually the words spouted out as though from a machine gun.This time it was Stoddard who paused, staring at Rupple. An ominous feeling of apprehension was beginning to close in on him. "Yes," he said. His hand was shaking, and he put the glass of water down on a table to keep from spilling it.Rupple rose from his chair and came around the desk and across the room to Stoddard. Out of his chair, Rupple's height was impressive; he stood at least three inches taller than Stoddard. He put a hand on Stoddard's shoulder in what was intended as a friendly gesture."I think we'd better go see Dr. Blaine," Rupple said. Stoddard felt the muscles of his neck go rigid. "What do you mean?" he asked. In his own ears his voice sounded like croaking."I haven't seen Steve Haklos in weeks," Rupple said. "You know perfectly well he hasn't been here this morning."Stoddard felt extremely dizzy. He saw Rupple towering up over him through a red haze. He shook Rupple's hand from his shoulder. "Haklos was here ten minutes ago," he said stubbornly. His mouth was so dry that his lips stuck together as he spoke. "You know he was here. He said you brought him here.""Easy, Dick," Rupple said. The sharpness of his tone belied his admonition.Stoddard was trembling throughout his body. Almost without his being aware of it Rupple guided him to the sofa, and he collapsed upon one end of it, clutching the arm tightly.Rupple strode to his desk and pressed the buzzer. Impatience was written all over him: after only a second, long before his secretary could possibly have responded, he pressed the buzzer again, and then again. After a normal interval the secretary came in, carrying her notebook and pencil."Dr. Stoddard isn't feeling well," Rupple said. He gestured toward his head. His enunciation was back to its normal machine-gun tempo. "Stay with him for a few minutes. I'll get Blaine." He rushed out.Stoddard was suddenly overwhelmingly tired. He leaned back on the sofa, and his hat fell off. Miss Halsey came over and picked it up. "Is there anything I can do?" she asked.Stoddard looked up at her. A trim, full-breasted brunette in her middle twenties, she had an attractive oval face with vivacious black eyes and pert, full lips. Her hair was cut in an Italian bob. She wore a tailored gray dress, and her legs were shapely enough to be good looking even in the comfortable low-heeled pumps she was wearing."Thanks, Marian," he said. "Nothing.""Wouldn't you like to take off your topcoat?"He rose, obedient to her suggestion, and she helped him take off the coat. She folded it neatly and put it on a chair with his hat."Wonderful day, isn't it?" she said.He had sat down on the sofa again, and she sat down on the other end of it. "Thanks for being so matter-of-fact," he said.She smiled. "The world isn't coming to an end," she said.He found himself smiling backa rather pallid smile, but it was the first time he could remember smiling spontaneously in months. Then the anxiety welled up again. A moment later Rupple and Blaine came into the room.

FiveWith his customary air of calm deliberateness, Blaine sat down in one of the leather easy chairs, casting an appraising glance at Stoddard as he did so. Rupple sat tensely on the edge of his desk."I hear you met an old friend here this morning," Blaine said, peering at Stoddard through his glasses.Again Stoddard felt a wave of dizziness. He was glad he was seated. "There seems to be some question whether I really did," he responded haltingly."Why not tell us just what happenedor at least what you thought happened?" Blaine suggested sympathetically.Stoddard licked his dry lips. "What apparently happened," he said, "was that I had a hallucination. But the whole thing seemed so vivid.""Hallucinations often do," Blaine said dryly."This was no blinding flash," Stoddard protested vehemently. "It wasn't dreamy at all. It was rather ordinary-all full of prosaic details, like real life." He paused. As he recalled the conversation with Haklos, his neck and shoulders went rigid again. "This was no hallucination," he went on grimly. "This was real.""Why don't you give us some of the details, Dick?" Blaine suggested."Well, Steve spoke of his hallucination," Stoddard said. "An angel. A translucent angel. He said he realizes now it was a hallucination. I gathered he's developed a case of claustrophobia: he spoke of feeling uneasy on going into confined places." Stoddard was speaking rapidly, hardly conscious of the three pairs of eyes fixed intently upon him as he called up the details of the meeting with Haklos. "He said he makes a pink cross with a piece of chalkthe sign of his angelon going into buildings and rooms and elevators. He made one"Stoddard broke off. He could feel his head beginning to shake."Yes?" Blaine prompted.Stoddard's voice was tight as he resumed. "He made a cross with his piece of chalk on the arm of this sofa, but now it isn't here."No one spoke.Stoddard jerked himself to his feet. "He told me he'd made a cross beside the door in Marian's office when Rupple brought him here," he blurted. Stoddard darted across the room to the door to Miss Halsey's office, threw it open, and peered intently at the frame on her side of the door, first on the right and then on the left. There was no sign of a cross.He dragged himself stiffly back to his place on the sofa and sat down heavily, cradling his quivering head in his hands, his elbows on his knees. "Crosses or not, Haklos was here this morning," he said thickly."Dick," Blaine said sharply, "Haklos told you Rupple brought him here. Rupple hasn't seen Haklos in weeks."The room seemed to be spinning. "Rupple could be lying," Stoddard heard himself saying. The voice seemed to be coming from someone else.Rupple rose to his feet, his jaw set. Blaine waved him back without taking his eyes from Stoddard. "You're talking nonsense, and you know it," Blaine said, even more sharply. The sharpness in his voice was rather like the slap in the face which a doctor sometimes uses with a hysterical patient. "Where are the crosses you saw Haklos make on the arm of the sofa and beside the door?" He leaned forward for emphasis. "They're not gone. They were never there. They never existed except in your imagination.""They could have been wiped away while I was getting the water," Stoddard answered stubbornly.There was a moment's silence. Blaine leaned back and continued in a quieter tone. "You're under medical care, Dick. Having a hallucination is no disgrace. But it will save us a lot of time and trouble in your treatment if you can face up now to the fact that it was a hallucination." He paused for a moment. "Good lord, man," he went on, speaking slowly and emphatically, "for weeks you've been living for the day when Haklos will return to his office. In that frame of mind, and in your present physical condition, it's no wonder you're beginning to conjure up visions of the man you so desperately want to see back here. We're none of us superhuman: the whole thing was just a trick of your unconscious, but the important thing is to recognize it for what it was."Stoddard sat stubbornly silent.Blaine turned to Miss Halsey. "Did you see Dr. Haklos this morning?" he asked her."I'm afraid I don't know Dr. Haklos," Miss Halsey answered him. "I've been here only six weeks. Dr. Haklos was gone on medical leave when I came.""Of course," Blaine said. He thought for a moment, and then went on, "Dr. Haklos lives in a small apartment hotel in Paterson. Could you look it up and phone""Sure," Rupple said, rising to his feet. "Good idea. Should have thought of it myself. We can phone him there. The Holton Arms.""The Holton Arms?" Miss Halsey said. She went to the telephone table at one end of Rupple's desk, got the directory, looked up the number, and dialed it on Rupple's telephone. Stoddard followed her motions dreamily. Her wrists as she dialed seemed slim but quite strong; her hands were medium in size, with tapering fingers. She wore no nail polish. The tracery of the veins in her hands and wrists showed faintly blue under her clear skin.Rupple resumed his position on the edge of the desk, gripping the top with his hands.The call went through, and Miss Halsey said, "Dr. Haklos, please." She glanced at Blaine, her eyebrows raised, as she went on into the phone: "Not in? Would you know when he'll be back?" She continued to look at Blaine as she listened to the voice at the other end. Blaine and Rupple and Stoddard could hear the distorted, squawky sound of the voice coming through the receiver, but the words were unintelligible to them. After a bit Miss Halsey asked, "Do you know who these friends are, or how we could reach them?" There was another pause while she listened to the response. Finally she said, "Thank you very much," and hung up."Dr. Haklos left about half-past six this morning," she told Blaine. "I gather he's a bachelor, living alone."Blaine nodded."He didn't say where he was going," she went on, "but several days ago he mentioned to the desk clerk that he was planning to spend the week end with some friends, and the clerk assumes that's where he's gone. The clerk doesn't know who they are.""That doesn't get us anywhere, does it?" Blaine said to her. "Well, we can take another tack. Will you please ask one of the guards at the entrance to come here?"Rupple sprang to his feet again. "Wait," he said, gesturing peremptorily to Miss Halsey. He turned to Blaine. "Enough is enough," he said. "This could go on all day. Dr. Stoddard had a hallucination. Let's let it go at that. We've got a research program to run."Blaine turned his steady gaze on Rupple. For a moment no one spoke. Blaine finally said, speaking with the utmost calm, "It's most important that we help Dr. Stoddard to see himself, if he can, that all this teas a hallucination. I'd like to have him learn from the guards whether Dr. Haklos was here this morning." Blaine was in a staff department. Although his office was in the laboratories, he reported not to Rupple but to the head of the medical department in the main office in the RCA Building; the head of the medical department reported to the president, through an assistant to the president. "You're of course quite right," Blaine went on in his precise, level voice; "we do have a research program to run. If you'd like to devote yourself to other matters, Dr. Stoddard and I can continue this in my office, and leave you free."Rupple clasped his hands tightly behind his back. "That's no answer," he said heatedly. "I can't have Dr. Stoddard spend his entire day cross-examining guards. He's got his own work to do."Blame's posture in the chair remained unaltered, and his expression did not change in the least. "I assume," he said in the same level voice, "that you're interested in having Dr. Stoddard operate at the maximum possible level of productivity. If you want to order Dr. Stoddard to discontinue this interview with me, that of course is your prerogative." He paused for just the right fraction of a second. "And your responsibility," he added. "I am recommending strongly that Dr. Stoddard and I proceed to talk to one of the guards on duty at the entrance to this building."Rupple glared at Blaine for several seconds. Then, dropping his eyes, he walked around to the swivel chair behind his desk and sat down in it. "Get the guard," he said to Miss Halsey.Miss Halsey went out. The three men sat silent. Stoddard was conscious of an almost overpowering headache that throbbed with each beat of his heart.

SixBehind the table in the lobby of the building, just inside the front door, the two guards were relaxing. It was eight-fifteen. The heavy influx of employees arriving for the regular day shift had ended, and visitors from outside would not begin arriving in any numbers before nine o'clock. The big Irishman took off his uniform cap and ran his handkerchief over the top of his bony skull, across which a few long strands of gray hair had been arranged carefully in a wholly unsuccessful attempt to hide the red skin underneath."Look out," his dapper companion said. "Don't get that bushy hair mussed." He took off his own cap and stretched luxuriantly. His hair was a thick, sleek black; in his eyes was habitually a supercilious, mocking smile, but he kept his face otherwise expressionless. His uniform was molded to his stocky figure; it was evident that, unlike the Irishman, he had spent some of his own money to have it altered to give him the tight fit he liked.One of the doors leading into the lobby from the outside was opened. The Italian looked up, and then wagged his finger in mock reproof at the girl coming in. She was a pretty, amiable-looking girl, with the kind of plumpness that was curvaceously attractive at nineteen and would become rotund at forty; and she gave the impression that her somewhat constricted gait was as much a matter of early morning sleepiness as of the backless high-heeled shoes she was wearing."Let me up, Tony," the girl wailed, grinning as she hobbled toward the inner doors. "It's my mother's fault, anyhow. She knows you have to call me at least three times to get me up, but she just won't do it." She pushed open the swinging doors and hurried inside."She gets by with murder," the Irishman said. "Ain't been on time in a month." He had a high, piping voice which sounded incongruous in a man of his bulk. "Just bats those goo-goo eyes and nobody does nothing to her."The Italian's eyes still lingered on the swinging doors through which the girl had vanished. "Cute little broad like that," he said, "you can't expect her to be on time in the morning. I bet her nights are plenty busy." He sighed. "I should have the assignment of getting her up." He continued staring at the swinging doors. "She's wasted on Stoddard and Leindecker.""Dr. Stoddard's been pretty sick," the Irishman said. "He used to be lively enough.""Say," the Italian said, "what is this sickness, anyway? Him and Haklos and the rest of 'em?""I don't know, exactly," the Irishman said. "Some kind of a chemical. Nobody says much.""Takes a head-shrinker to straighten 'em out," the Italian said. "I don't want no business with head-shrinkers." He paused. "No chance we could be getting a dose of this chemical ourselves, without knowing it, is there?"The Irishman looked at him and grinned. "You ain't been looking too good, lately," he said."Go take a flying jump," the Italian said. I'm serious.""Dr. Haklos and Dr. Stoddard and the rest of 'em were all working over in Building G when they took sick," the Irishman said. "We ought to be all right over here. Nobody over here took sick.""What goes on in Building G, anyhow?" the Italian asked. "What're they working on over there?""That's something President Eisenhower forgot to tell me, last time we talked," the Irishman said."You ever hear of these nerve gases?" the Italian asked. "You think Building G could be doing something with nerve gases?""Like I said, the President must've forgot to tell me."The Italian shifted in his chair. "I don't want no business with head-shrinkers." His eyes went to the swinging doors again. "I don't want to lose my interest in dames. Not with this cute bunch of chicks we got here. Several of 'em I could go for. That Halsey dame of Rupple's, for instance."The Irishman snorted derisively. "Fat chance you'd have with her. You just stick to them girls from the hat factory.""I ain't so sure" The Italian broke off as one of the inner doors swung open.It was Marian. She remained in the doorway, leaning against one of the doors to hold it open."Come on over," the Italian called to her. "Be sociable."Marian grinned. "Lucky you," she said. "Mr. Rupple wants one of you in his office.""What's up?" the Irishman asked."I don't know exactly," Marian lied.The guards looked at each other."Which of us does he want?" the Irishman asked."You both been here since six?" Marian asked."Yes, both of us," the Irishman said."Then I guess it doesn't matter," Marian said. "Either of you can handle it.""You go," the Italian said to his companion. "You got seniority.""Thanks, pal," the Irishman said. He put on his cap and raised his bulk out of the chair. He and Marian went back through the inner doors and walked down the corridor to Rupple's office. They went in, and the guard halted just inside the door, taking off his visored cap and holding it awkwardly beside him. He glanced furtively at Blaine, level-eyed in his chair, and at Stoddard, sitting rigid at one end of the sofa, and then he faced Rupple in the swivel chair behind the desk. Miss Halsey remained standing near the door."Dr. Blaine wants to ask you a few questions," Rupple said to the guard in a low voice.The guard turned to Blaine. "Won't you sit down?" Blaine asked him, gesturing to a chair in front of Rupple's desk.The guard walked uneasily to the chair and seated himself, holding himself quite erect. He turned the chair slightly so that he faced Blaine as well as Rupple.Blaine gave Stoddard on the sofa a questioning look."You handle it," Stoddard said hoarsely, in the direction of Blaine."All right," Blaine said. He faced the guard, his manner easy and relaxed. "When did you come on duty this morning?" he asked pleasantly.The guard licked his lips. "Six o'clock," he said. "My regular schedule." His voice sounded a trifle higher than usual."And have you been at the entrance ever since?""Yes, sirthat is, up till a couple of minutes ago, when Miss Halsey came and got me.""You haven't been away from the entrance for even a minute? Up till a couple of minutes ago, that is?"The guard thought for a moment. "No, sir," he answered."Not even to go to the men's room?""No, sir. I took a le" The guard interrupted himself, glancing half over his shoulder at Miss Halsey. "Not since I went on duty at six o'clock," he concluded."So from six o'clock on, you've been there right on through," Blaine said. "Did Dr. Haklos come in this morning?"The guard blinked. "Dr. Haklos? Here?"Blaine nodded."No, sir. Dr. Haklos ain't been here for weeks.""You didn't see him this morning?" Blaine said."No, sir," the guard said, looking puzzled. "Not since he took sick. He ain't been here since he took sick."Blaine turned to glance at Stoddard. Stoddard was slumping down lower and lower on the sofa; he was beginning to feel an engulfing sense of depression. His eyes, however, were fastened on the guard.Blaine turned back to the guard. "If Dr. Haklos had been here this morning, would you have seen him come in?"The guard swallowed. "Well, yes," he said, "I couldn't have missed him. Not unless he got here before six o'clock."He paused. "Tom Heggs was on duty till six. Tom didn't say nothing about Dr. Haklos, though."Blaine turned interrogatively toward Stoddard."The hotel clerk told Marian that Steve left there at six-thirty," Stoddard mumbled. "It would have been at least seven before he got here."Blaine turned to the guard again. "The other doors to the building?" he said."They're always kept locked, like the security regulations say," the guard said. "You got to come in the front way."Blaine nodded. "I think that's all," he said. The guard started to rise, but checked himself when Blaine added, "No, just a minute more. Did you see Mr. Rupple come in this morning?"The guard glanced at Rupple, who sat impassive behind his desk."Yes, sir," he said, facing Blaine again. There was a note of caution in his manner."And about what time was that?"The guard thought for a moment. "About seven-twenty," he said. "I remember it was earlier than usual." Then he reddened slightly, and added hastily, "That is, Mr. Rupple always gets here on timesometimes early, too, but not usually more than half an hour early."Blaine nodded, smiling slightly. "I understand," he said. "Was anyone with Mr. Rupple?""Anyone with him?" the guard asked blankly."That's right," Blaine said. "Did he have someone with him, or was he alone?"The guard swallowed. Then he answered, "He was alone.""You're quite sure?" Blame said. "You couldn't have forgotten?"The guard gave Rupple a furtive glance but got no help from him. "I remember getting up to hold the door for him," the guard told Blaine. "I'd remember if anybody was with him, but nobody was.""Thank you very much," Blaine said. He glanced at Rupple and then at Stoddard. Neither of them spoke. "I think that's all," Blaine told the guard.The guard rose rapidly and left the office with an air of relief.For a minute or two there was silence. Stoddard could feel his face twitching. Finally he looked at Blaine. Blaine was staring at him soberly."Well, Dick?" Blaine said.Stoddard took a deep breath. He exhaled slowly. "Oh, God," he said wearily."You're all right," Blaine said. "I never in my life saw a man more rational than you are at this moment." He paused, avoiding looking at Rupple. "The important thing right now, from the medical standpoint," Blaine went on to Stoddard, "is for you to get home and relax. Have you anything on your schedule that can't wait till Monday?""Last month's progress report," Stoddard said dully."What's that?" Blaine asked."We've got the final draft," Stoddard said. "All it needs is a final check. Two or three hours ought to do it. The report's due in Washington Monday.""Well, finish the report, then," Blaine said. "But take it easy, and go on home as soon as you're finished. Just relax. Drop in Monday morning and let me know how things are going."He rose, and Stoddard rose too, rather listlessly. Blaine handed Stoddard his hat and coat from the chair, and the two of them moved to the door leading into the corridor. With his hand on the knob, Stoddard stopped. He turned back to Rupple at the desk. "I'm afraid I owe you an apology," he said hoarsely."Forget it," Rupple said stiffly.Stoddard pulled the door open, and he and Blaine went into the corridor. Blaine gave him a reassuring nod and turned toward the other end of the building, where he had his office. Stoddard turned toward the stairs leading up to the second floor.As the door closed behind them, Marian Halsey started across Rupple's office toward the connecting door which led into her office. A question from Rupple stopped her just as she reached it: "Could you drop in on him over the week end?"She turned slowly. "On Dr. Stoddard?"Rupple nodded. He sat leaning forward, drumming a staccato tattoo on his desk top with his fingers. "See how he sounds. If he gets any more wild ideas, try to talk him out of them."She stared at him. "What do you think his reaction would be?""You're doing it for his own good. Checking up to make sure he's relaxing. Following the doctor's orders.""He might think it was strange. I've never called on him before, needless to say.""If you handle it right," Rupple said impatiently, "he won't think it's strange. I can't do it myself; you know that. Up in the country I won't even be within reach of a telephone."She still hesitated."Good heavens," Rupple said, "it would be strange if somebody from here didn't call on him. After this morning, we're naturally anxious to make certain he's all right." He paused briefly, his piercing eyes on her face. "At least you could call him on the phone.""All right," Marian said. She turned and went into her office.

SevenStoddard put his hat and coat in the closet inside his office. Then he worked the combination lock on the file for classified material and got out the progress report. He took it to his desk and sat down to go through it, but before he had finished the second line his thoughts were back on the meeting with Haklos. He was sweating profusely. He got up and went jumpily to the window; he threw it open wide, and stood looking out at the bare branches of the trees on the hill beyond the parking area.Fragmentary recollections of his conversation with Haklos went racing through his mind: the dreamy expression on Haklos' ugly, curiously attractive face as he described his angel; the intensity with which he had spoken of the dangers lurking in corners, behind doors; the triumph with which he had drawn the pink cross on the arm of the sofa. Stoddard's grip on the window sill tightened, and without realizing it he clenched his teeth. His visual image of the shaky cross on the leather surface of the arm of the sofa was ineradicably vivid. In drawing the vertical bar of the cross, Haklos' hand had veered slightly to the left as he reached the bottom of the stroke, so that the bar was slightly curved; the horizontal bar was more nearly straight, but the left side was just a bit lower than the right. There was a slight flaw in the leather covering on the arm of the sofa, and the intersection of the two bars of the cross had fallen just a fraction of an inch above it.It was incredible that the whole episode with Haklos had been just a figment of his imagination. Yet the evidence was overwhelming. Haklos had spoken of coming to the building with Rupple, but Rupple had not seen him. Nor had the guard. The cross itself, for that matterwhen Stoddard had come to describe it to Blaine there was no cross. Blaine must be right: Stoddard's unconscious was playing him tricks, mirroring with a vision his desperate wish that Haklos would return to the laboratory.His expression was stolid, but inside he was dangerously close to panic. His senses had obviously gone back on him. Blaine had warned him over and over that in matters where his emotions were strongly involved, his senses, for the time being, were not to be trusted. The episode with Haklos was evidently the sort of thing Blaine meant. He closed his eyes. "You might as well admit it," he told himself, half aloud. "For a few minutes you had it. You were off your rocker."He was a scientist, and proud of it. For years he had schooled himself rigidly to ignore everything but objective evidence. Intuition had no value until it could be tested experimentally; a hunch was only a hunch until it proved out. But his brain could perceive objective evidence only through the medium of his senses. If his senses had gone back on him, he was helpless.The window sill he was clutchingwas it real? The fat, sleek crows at which he was looking in the trees beyond the parking lotdid they actually exist? He watched them fly off, as a mechanic from Building H who had gone off duty at eight walked across the parking lot to his car, parked near the far edge of the lot. The mechanic climbed into the car, started the motor, and drove off. The crows returned to their perches in the tree branches, but after a moment they flew off again, cawing strident protests, as a pickup truck lumbered across the lot and backed to the loading platform just beneath Stoddard's window. A workman in a cloth cap and a leather jacket piled out of the cab of the truck; he climbed the steps at the end of the loading platform and crossed the platform toward the door to the shipping room. The driver remained in the truck. Stoddard could see his hands, big and dark-skinned, on the steering wheel, and he could see the back of the driver's head through the rear window of the cab of the truck. The fellow was a giant; he was hatless, but his shock of unruly straight black hair almost touched the roof of the cab. Waiting in the truck, he began to whistle. Stoddard listened idly. He knew the tunerather a weird melody, rough and exuberantbut at the moment he could not recall what it was. Abruptly, in the middle of a bar, the driver broke off.At the sound of a door opening in his office Stoddard turned from the window. It was Miss Ritchie, the secretary whom he shared with Leindecker, the head of the mechanical section. She had come in from the adjoining office with the mail. "Hi," she said."Morning," Stoddard said, his voice tight. He went back to his desk. "Anything there that can't wait till Monday?"She looked down at the stack and wrinkled her nose. "Well, no," she said, with a somewhat tentative air. "Not really."Stoddard took the stack from her. She had taken the letters from their envelopes and unfolded them, but she had probably not bothered to read them. She was only two years out of high school, and like many of the girls, she was just filling in the time until she got married; she was no great shakes as a secretary, but she was amiable and well-meaning, and Stoddard had long since concluded that he had better settle for that, without demanding that she take any great interest in the work of the laboratory.He skimmed through the stack rapidly. "You're right," he said. "Nothing urgent. Will you hold all this till Monday?""Will do," she said."I'm going to check over our report and then get out of here," he told her. "Take my calls; I'll return them Monday." He glanced at his desk calendar. "That session with Joe Dudley's group at two, and the meeting with Jenkins and Wehrle at three-thirtywill you call all of them and set up sessions for early next week instead?"She nodded, making marks in her stenographer's notebook.He pulled the progress report toward him. "I'll shoot this along to Marian Halsey as soon as I've finished with it," he said. Miss Ritchie had no security clearance and handled no classified material. "Then I'm going to knock off for the day.""Fine," she said, moving to the door.Stoddard bent over his desk. Miss Ritchie opened the door to her office, and air from the open window poured through Stoddard's office in a gale. Stoddard clutched at the progress report and held it in place before him. The gale abated when Miss Ritchie closed the door behind her. Stoddard relaxed his grasp on the report and got up and closed the window. The driver of the pickup truck down below had just started his motor. Two men were walking from the rear of the truck up toward the cab; one of them was the leather-jacketed fellow Stoddard had seen alighting from the truck a few minutes earlier. They climbed into the cab beside the driver, and as the second man pulled the door closed behind him the truck started slowly off. Stoddard stared at it. In the rear of the truck was an unpainted wooden crate. It looked like one of the crates in which the experimental KX422's were shipped, and it was evidently what the two workmen had picked up from the shipping room in the basement below. Stoddard was puzzled. The KX42ZS belonged in Building D. How was it that one of them had been in the shipping room of the administration building?Stoddard frowned. Then for an instant he clutched the window sill for support. The crate, he suddenly realized, was just the size and shape of a coffin. Whirling from the window, he bounded across his office, out into the corridor, and down the stairs.As he tore from the stairs into the first-floor corridor, he almost smashed into Rupple head on. Rupple had been walking along the corridor, and he was just reaching for the knob of the door to his office when Stoddard came hurtling around the corner from the staircase. Rupple shrank against the wall, staring at Stoddard with an air of having lost the capacity to feel surprise. Slowing down self-consciously to a rapid walk, Stoddard continued along the corridor to the front entrance of the building. As he pushed through the swinging doors into the lobby he broke into a run again; ignoring the astonished guards he sprinted through the lobby and out through the front doors to the walk which curved over to the parking lot. His sprint slackened, and then he stopped altogether. The pickup truck had left the parking lot and was out of sight over the crest of the slight incline which the highway ascended just beyond the laboratories.Stoddard swung around and strode purposefully back into the building, stopping at the table in the lobby behind which the guards were seated. The two guards stared up at him poker-faced. Stoddard was uneasily aware that his behavior must seem eccentric, to say the least, and that the Irish guard would undoubtedly have given his companion a detailed account of the questioning he had undergone by Blaine in Rupple's office."That shipment just now," Stoddard said, jerking his head in the direction of the loading platform. "Where's it going?"The two guards exchanged glances, and then they faced Stoddard again."That pickup truck," Stoddard said impatiently. "With the crate. The crate it picked up from the shipping room five minutes ago."The Irish guard cleared his throat. "No shipment from here this morning, Dr. Stoddard," he said in his high voice.Stoddard stared at him. "What do you mean?" he spat out.The guard shifted uneasily. "Nothing's been shipped out of here today," he repeated."The hell you say," Stoddard said angrily. "I watched it from my office window."The dapper Italian guard clenched his fist on the top of the table. "Take it easy, doc," he said. "You calling us liars?"Stoddard turned to face him. The Italian was glaring up at him.The Irish guard spoke again. "Couldn't be no shipment out of here without us knowing about it, Dr. Stoddard," he said in a conciliatory tone. "There's only the two of us on duty in this building. One of us'd have to unlock the door.""We've both been right here together since Mike got back from Rupple's office," the Italian said. "Don't tell us about no shipments."Stoddard took a deep breath. "Let's go have a look at the shipping-room door," he said.The guards exchanged glances again. The Italian shrugged angrily. The Irish guard rose from his chair. "I'll go down to the shipping room with you," he said.Stoddard and the guard went through the inner doors and along the corridor, past the door to Rupple's office, to the stairs. They descended to the basement. The door to the shipping room was just a few feet from the bottom of the stairs. Stoddard pulled it open and went into the dimly lit room, the guard following him. Stoddard crossed over to the door leading to the loading platform. He took the heavy steel handle and shook it. The door was locked tight."Honest, Dr. Stoddard," the guard said, "nothing's gone out today. We'd know it. You know the regulations." He pointed to the door. "Closed and locked, all the time, except when a shipment's coming in or going out. Guard has to open up for a shipment, and then stand by right at the door till he locks it again."Stoddard exhaled slowly. "Thanks, Mike," he said.

EightStoddard climbed the stairs to the second floor and went back into his office. He dropped into the chair at his desk, but made no move to take up the progress report. Two hallucinations in one morning? He shook his head angrily. Hallucinations would not be so full of realistic detail. This was no matter of a translucent angel, floating with dreamy serenity in space. There had been nothing translucent about the battered pickup truck he had seen from his office window, and nothing serene about the raw pine planks of the crate.Impulsively he reached for the telephone on his desk. This was a matter for Hoffmann and the security office, or even for the police. As his hand tightened on the phone, he could visualize Hoffmann's ferret-like face, with the close-set eyes wearing their habitual expression of suspicion. After a moment his hand relaxed, the telephone still in its cradle. It was his word against Rupple's, in the one case, and against that of the guards in the other. He could not even prove Haklos was missing. Hoffmann knew he was under treatment for a form of poisoning which produced hallucinations in susceptible individuals. He had been unable to convince even Blaine that Haklos had not been a figment of his imagination. Hoffmann would treat him as a crank.He started violently as the door of his office opened. Rupple appeared in the doorway. Rupple made no move to advance into the room; he remained in the doorway, his hand on the knob of the open door, his cold eyes staring at Stoddard. Stoddard stared back for what seemed minutes.Finally Rupple spoke. "Everything all right?"Stoddard nodded.Rupple gestured at the report on Stoddard's desk. "Making good progress?"Stoddard nodded again, although in fact he had made no progress at all."It has to go out today," Rupple said pointedly.Stoddard nodded a third time.Rupple continued to stare at him, without expression, for several seconds. Then he backed into the corridor and let the door close.Stoddard took a deep breath and pulled the report to him. He had better buckle down to work. Rupple knew he had made no progress; Rupple had seen him tearing down the stairs and through the corridor in an attempt to intercept the truck. If he failed to get the report out on schedule, Rupple might recommend that he be relieved of his post and hospitalized, and after this morning Blaine might acquiesce. He pulled out his desk drawer and got out his slide rule. He opened the report and began to recheck the calculations.It was after eleven before he finished. The morning had been a poor way of warming up for a job requiring painstaking, detailed exactness. He had had to check everything in the report twice, and he still felt a vague anxiety that he had overlooked some glaringly obvious mistake. However, lie had done as good a job as he was capable of doing in the circumstances. If any mistakes had got by him, further checking would not uncover them. He took the report from his desk, got the copies of it from the file, twirled the combination lock shut again, and went down to Marian Halsey's office on the floor below.Miss Halsey was just taking an envelope from her typewriter. She looked up as Stoddard entered. "Feeling better?" she asked him, her cheeks dimpling.Looking at her, Stoddard did feel better. "I'm all right," he said."Fine," she said. "Well, we can all relax. Boss's gone for the week end. Left ten minutes ago."Stoddard put the report and copies on her desk. "Will you send these out?" he said. "The usual distribution for the copies.""Sure," she said. She riffled through the report. "Wait," she added. "You forgot to sign it.""I can't do anything right today," Stoddard muttered."Don't you hope that's the worst mistake you ever make?" she said. She handed him her fountain pen.Stoddard felt too shaky to sign the report standing up. He pulled the chair beside her desk around to the slide on which she held the report open for him to sign, and he started to sit down, but she suddenly pulled his sleeve, pointing to the seat of the chair. There was a half-inch length of cigarette ash on it.Stoddard stooped to blow away the ash, and Marian pulled open the bottom drawer of her desk for her dust-cloth. "Must've been Dr. Conley," Marian said. "Always scatters his cigarette ashes all over the universe." She flicked the dustcloth over the seat of the chair. "That should do it."Stoddard suddenly went rigid. His hand shot forward and clamped her wrist. Marian glanced up at him in amazement. Then, following his gaze, her eyes fell to the dustcloth in her hand. It was a square of white cheesecloth which had been folded upon itself several times. Marian had opened it in flicking it over the seat of the chair, and in the center of the cloth there was an irregular smudge of pink.With his other hand Stoddard took the cloth from her and spread it out on the top of her desk. He turned to face her. "Where did that smudge come from?" he asked sharply.She shook her head. "I don't know," she said with an air of bewilderment.Stoddard released her wrist and snatched up the cloth, holding it to his nose. It seemed to have a faint school-blackboard odor.Marian stared up at him. "Pink chalk?" she asked, her voice faint.Stoddard's hand was shaking as he put down the dustcloth. Without answering her he strode to the door to Rupple's office, studying the frame and the adjoining portions of the wall. Marian followed him, looking over his shoulder. It was impossible to tell whether anything had been wiped away.Stoddard swung round to Marian. "You say he's gone?" he said, jerking his head toward Rupple's office.She nodded.Stoddard pulled open the door leading into Rupple's office and crossed to the sofa. He dropped to his knees and peered intently down at the arm. The brown leather was free of dust. If a pink cross had been wiped away, it had been wiped away thoroughly.Marian was standing in the doorway, looking at him. He rose to his feet and started for the door leading out to the corridor."Wait," Marian called.He stopped impatiently and turned to face her again."You're going to check the entrance to the building?" she asked.He eyed her suspiciously for a moment. Then he nodded."I'm going with you," she said."Why?" he asked her curtly."I'm developing a personal interest in this," she said. "It was my dustcloth you found that pink smudge on."Stoddard shrugged. There was no way he could stop her."It would be just as well not to attract too much attention," she said. "Let's act as though we're going out to lunch. Outside, not here in the cafeteria. It's quarter to twelve. Want to get your coat and hat?"Stoddard looked at her narrowly. Getting his coat and hat from his office upstairs would give her minutes alone-minutes in which she could get to the building entrance ahead of him.He went to Rupple's desk, picked up the telephone, and got Miss Ritchie. "Will you please bring my coat and hat down to Marian Halsey's office?" he asked her.Marian turned back to her own office as he put down the phone. "I'll get my coat," she said.Stoddard followed her into her office. She took up the dustcloth from the top of her desk, studying the pink smudge for a moment, and then started to put it back in the bottom drawer of her desk."I'd like to have that," Stoddard said, reaching."All right," she said. She handed the cloth to him, and he folded it carefully and put it in a side pocket of his jacket."You haven't signed the report yet," she said, pointing to it.Stoddard sat down in the chair beside her desk and took up her fountain pen again. His hand was shaking violently. He started several times to sign the report, but stopped each time before touching the pen to the paper; he was quite unable to control the pen."There's no hurry, Dr. Stoddard," Marian said, in a kindly tone. "Just relax for a few minutes. For that matter, you can sign the report after lunch if you don't mind coming back for just a second.""Guess I'd better," Stoddard muttered, putting down the pen.As Miss Halsey put the report and copies into a drawer of her filing cabinet and twirled the combination of the lock shut, Miss Ritchie came into the office with Stoddard's coat and hat. "Thanks," he said, taking them from her. Miss Ritchie left. Stoddard put on his coat, and then helped Marian into the tweed coat she took from a closet in the corner. She wore no hat."Look," Marian said. "I'll stop and light a cigarette just outside the entrance to the building. That'll give us a minute to look around."Stoddard nodded impassively."The cigarettes are in my handbag," she said. "I won't get them out till we're outside. I can do a lot of fumbling. You know a woman's handbag."They walked down the corridor to the lobby. The corridor was empty; the lunch hour did not begin until twelve. Stoddard noted that the guards in the lobby eyed them covertly as they went by.On the concrete platform just outside the door, before descending the single step to the sidewalk, Marian stopped and opened her handbag. She brought out a silver cigarette case and took a cigarette from it. Then she fumbled elaborately through the handbag, as though she was having difficulty in finding her lighter. Waiting for her, Stoddard studied the yellow bricks first on one side of the double glass door, and then on the other."See anything?" Marian asked in a whisper."Nothing," he said shortly.She came out with the lighter. Stoddard took it and struck a flame for her. As she drew on the cigarette she managed to get a quick glance at the wall on one side of the door."I haven't quite got it," she said, gesturing with the cigarette.Stoddard twirled the wheel again. Marian cupped her hands around the lighter, turning as though the wind were causing trouble, and managed to inspect the other side of the door."There's certainly nothing here," she said, her voice low."No," Stoddard said, his voice curt with disappointment.

NineThey walked slowly along the walk which curved over toward the parking lot. "Well, we can split up now," Marian said, as they reached the first row of parked cars.Stoddard glanced at her, startled."Going out to lunch was just a dodge to get a look at the door," Marian said.Stoddard stared at her for a moment. She might know a good deal more than she admitted about how the smudge had got on her dustcloth. "I really would like to take you to lunch," he said.She smiled wryly. His motive was obvious. "All right," she said. "Mind if we take my car?""Sure, if you want to," Stoddard said."I'm still breaking it in," she explained. "I'm not quite up to nine hundred miles."They reached her car; Stoddard held the door for her as she climbed behind the wheel, and then he crossed over and got in beside her from the other side. "How about that place on the edge of Paterson?" Stoddard asked. "The place where we had the lunch for Grover three weeks ago, when his transfer to San Diego came through.""Fine," Marian said, starting the motor.It was a short drive to the restaurant, and they arrived by ten after twelve, but the parking lot was nearly full.They found an empty place over to one side of the lot, up against a concrete retaining wall which had been put in when the corner of the lot had been dug into the slope of a low hill. As Stoddard and Marian climbed out of the car, a gust of wind took Stoddard's hat off, and he had to scamper to retrieve it. It was still a fine day, but the spring wind had become quite strong."I might as well leave this in the car," Stoddard said, coming back with his hat. "The topcoat too, for that matter."They walked around to the front of the restaurant and went in. The place was a rambling frame building with a bar and several dining rooms, not too well lighted. After seeing the parking lot nearly full, Stoddard had feared he and Marian might have to wait for a table, but they found an empty one in the rear dining room. It was one of the less desirable tables, close to the pantry, but excellent for Stoddard's purpose, since it was off to itself against a wall and they could talk in low tones without being overheard.The waiter came up as they seated themselves. He was a slight, watery-eyed fellow in a threadbare tuxedo. "Cocktails?" he asked.Stoddard looked at Marian inquiringly. "After this morning I would like one," she said. "A Scotch sour, please.""It's off limits for me," Stoddard said. "One Scotch sour and one plain ginger ale."The waiter nodded and left.Stoddard pulled Marian's dustcloth from the pocket of his jacket. He opened it part way and looked at it. "Hasn't been used much, has it?" he said."I haven't used it at all," she said. Her tone was even. "It was brand new yesterday."He put the dustcloth back in his pocket as the waiter returned with the Scotch sour and the ginger ale. "Want to order the food?" Stoddard asked Marian. "Or would you like another drink?""Oh, one's plenty," she said. She ordered broiled mackerel and coffee; Stoddard took scrambled eggs and milk.Stoddard sipped his ginger ale slowly. "Do you lock your desk at night?" he asked her.She shook her head. "No need to," she said. "I've got a file for the confidential stuff. The same setup as yours, upstairs. I keep the file locked, of course.""It could have been Rupple, then," Stoddard said. "Rupple could have got the dustcloth out of your desk and rubbed away the crosses."She looked at him. "Anybody could," she said."It had to be Rupple," Stoddard said. "It's Rupple who's trying so hard to convince me I didn't see Steve Haklos this morning."She sipped her Scotch sour without comment.Stoddard sat silent for a minute. "Rupple," he went on softly, "or someone working with him."Marian finished her drink. She put down the glass with an air of calm deliberation before speaking. "Meaning me?" she said, looking at Stoddard with a level gaze. Her eyes, Stoddard thought, were exceptionally clear.The waiter came back with the food. Stoddard took advantage of the interruption to avoid answering her.Marian deftly removed the spine from her mackerel.Stoddard envied her her steady hands. "Any other suspects?" she asked. "Dr. Blaine, perhaps?""Blame?" Stoddard exclaimed. "That's preposterous.""Is it?" she asked."Let's stick to real possibilities," Stoddard said."I can name one," she said.He looked at her. "Who?""You."Stoddard's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?" he asked her."A minute ago," she said, "you nominated me as a suspect. I'm returning the compliment. I nominate you. Richard Lothrop Stoddard, Ph. D.""Why would I rub out the crosses?""Let's face it," she said. "Dr. Blaine thinks the whole thing was a hallucination. He thinks your pink crosses never existed. Now you find a pink smudge on my dust-cloth. You think that shows the pink crosses did exist, and that somebody rubbed them away. You implied that the person who rubbed them away might have been Mr. Rupple or me." She laid down her knife and fork and rested her hands lightly on the edge of the table. Leaning forward, she went on, "In your scientific search for truth, don't ignore the possibility that the person who drew the crosses, and then got my dustcloth and rubbed them away, might have been you, yourself."She picked up her fork and resumed eating. Stoddard stared at her, puzzled. "Do you want to suggest what motive I might have had for that?" he asked.She shrugged. "What motive does anybody have for a hallucination?" she asked. "That's not my department. Ask Dr. Blaine.""Another suspect," he said sarcastically."I wouldn't overlook him," she said."We can forget Blame and me," he said.She studied his face for a moment. "You haven't got my point, Dr. Stoddard," she said. "Dr. Blaine thinks you had a hallucination. I'm just extending his idea a little. I'm not questioning your good faith, or your honestynot now, anyway. It's just that on something like this, your word doesn't mean anything. If you were the person who put up the crosses and then rubbed them outas part of a hallucination, in a tranceyou wouldn't remember any of it."Stoddard's mind was racing. "You are clever," he said to her.She looked at him with her clear eyes ingenuously wide. "No," she said. "Just thorough."Stoddard's tremor had returned. He braced his forearms on the edge of the table to hold them steady as he sought to think of something which would prove that what Marian was suggesting would have been physically impossible. The chalk? Getting the chalk would have been no problem; there were pieces of chalk of various colors, including pink, on the ledge at the base of the blackboard in his office. In sketching such things as piping layouts on the blackboard, during meetings, it was customary to use different colors for lines containing different materials.He glanced at his hands. There were no pink smudges on his fingers, but that proved nothing either. Once during the morning he had gone to the washroom, and any pink smudges would have vanished in the wash basin.Yes, he could have put the crosses on the door frame and the arm of the sofa. It was physically possible. He had arrived that morning before anyone else, according to the Irish guard. Blaine might well say that as he had crossed through the lobby and continued on down the corridor he had wished Haklos into Rupple's office; that he had gone inside and, acting out a hallucination, had chalked up the crosses that Haklosin the visionhad described.Stoddard squirmed in his chair. Marian's suggestion had been devilish. If it was physically possible that he might have put up the crosses himself, how could he be certain, in view of his recent medical history, that he had not done so, with no recollection of the act?But if he had put up the crosses himself, why should he have rubbed them away before going out for the glass of water? Haklos had not rubbed them away, or spoken of doing so. If Stoddard had been acting out a hallucination, surely he would have stuck to the script. For that matter, as he had crossed through the lobby that morning and continued down the corridor, past Rupple's office, he would not have had the chalk with him. To get the chalk he would have had to continue up the stairs to his own office and then, without taking off his coat and hat, go back to Rupple's office and go into his act.Yes, all this was possible, but was it probable? He felt a sudden, flaming surge of rage. This was ridiculous. Marian was clever, damnably clever. He could not prove to her or to anyone else that he had not put up the crosses himself, but for him to be harboring a second's doubtfor him to be questioning for an instant that he had actually seen Haklos that morning, in the fleshwas absurd."Your eggs must be getting stone cold," Marian said. He looked up at her. She was staring at him unblinkingly. She had finished eating, and she had just lighted a cigarette; the cigarette case from her handbag lay beside her coffee cup.Stoddard had no appetite, but he did not say so. "Want dessert?" he asked.She shook her head.He got the check and paid it, and they left.

TenOutside, the wind had become even gustier. Without the bright sun it would have been quite cold. Marian scurried across the parking lot to her car. Stoddard jogged after her stolidly; he had still not emerged from the brown study into which he had plunged at Marian's suggestion that he might himself have chalked up the crosses, and he did not even feel the chill. They reached the car, and Stoddard put on his topcoat and hat and climbed into the front seat.Marian got the car keys from her handbag. For a moment she continued rummaging through it. "How stupid of me," she said. "My cigarette case. I must have left it on the table. I'll run back for it.""I'll get it," Stoddard said woodenly. He went back into the restaurant. The table they had used in the rear dining room had not been cleared, and the cigarette case was still beside Marian's cup and saucer. Stoddard picked it up and went back outside, threading his way among the cars in the parking lot.A truck from the highway was using the parking lot to turn around. The driver had backed into the aisle beyond which Marian had parked, and had come to a stop with the rear of his truck about two feet from the retaining wall at the end of the aisle. Stoddard was temporarily blocked, and like an automaton he walked back three or four feet and started around the back of the truck.One of the sudden gusts of wind took his hat off again. In sheer reflex action he dived for it, off to one side of the truck. Simultaneously there was a scream from Marian, and a crash as the rear of the truck smashed into the retaining wall.Stoddard came up with his hat, and for a moment he stood petrified. It took a second or so for the realization to sink in that if he had not made the sudden dive for his hat, he would have been crushed. The driver threw his motor into forward gear and pulled out toward the road. Stoddard was suddenly furious at the driver's carelessness. As the truck leaped forward, Stoddard sprinted for the cab. The driver was giving his motor the gun. Stoddard's fury increased at the driver's palpable attempt to escape. His sprint brought him close enough to the cab of the truck for him to get his hand on the door beside the driver. The window was down, and Stoddard clutched the door frame around the window opening as he ran, attempting to pull himself abreast of the cab. The motor of the truck was grinding loudly; the driver had not taken the time to shift into high, and evidently he had the accelerator pedal pressed to the floor in his haste to get away. Sprinting as fast as he could, Stoddard would have been left behind if he had not had his grip on the door. As it was, he was barely able to maintain his position relative to the cab; he was not quite able to pull himself abreast of it.Just then the truck driver brought his brown-skinned left fist smashing down on Stoddard's hand on the door frame. Stoddard's grip loosened, and the driver brought his fist down again. Stoddard was forced to let go. The truck pulled away from him. As the rear end passed him, he gaped: the truck was a battered pickup, and in the rear was an unpainted pine crate.He heard Marian calling to him, "Get out of the road, get out of the road." She had evidently jumped from her car to run after him when he began his chase of the truck. He was standing in the middle of the highway, into which, without realizing it, he had run with the truck. He crossed to the side of the highway and stood there gasping for breath as Marian came running up. The truck had turned a bend in the direction of downtown Paterson, and was out of sight.Marian pulled his arm. "Back to the car," she said rapidly. "Maybe we can still catch him."Stoddard shook his head. "Town's too big," he gasped. "Truck'd lose us.""Could you make out the license number?" she asked excitedly."Didn't think to look," Stoddard managed to get out."I couldn't make it out," she said. "The plate was smeared almost solid with mud. It wasn't a Jersey plate, though."Stoddard stooped over, grasping his legs just above his knees for support. He was still heaving for breath. Marian put her hand sympathetically on his shoulder. "You were almost killed," she said.Stoddard grunted."Did you see the driver?" she asked him.Stoddard shook his head. "Couldn't catch up," he said."That was no accident, Dr. Stoddard," Marian said slowly.Stoddard straightened up."You weren't hurt," she said. "It was just the grace of God you weren't, but you weren't. If it was just an accident, why did the driver go to such lengths just to keep from being seen? Even smashing your hand with his fist?"Stoddard let her keep talking."The mud on the license plate, too," she went on. "Caked solid." She shook her head. "That was no accident. The driver must have been someone you would have recognized."They started slowly back toward the parking lot. Stoddard was still short of breath. "Truck look familiar?" he asked her."No," she said, glancing at him. "Just a beat-up old pickup.""Had a crate in back," Stoddard said. "Spitting image of the crates for our new KX422V"I didn't even see that," Marian said. She paused. "It couldn't have been one of our trucks. We haven't got anything that nondescript. Anyway, ours all have Jersey plates."They had reached her car. As they settled down in the front seat Stoddard took off his hat. "Best hat I ever owned," he said."It sure is," she said soberly. "If you hadn't dived for it, you wouldn't be sitting here now."She started the motor, but sat looking out thoughtfully through the windshield for a moment before putting the car in gear. "Were you planning to spend the week end at home alone?" she asked, turning to him."Yes.""Is that such a good idea?"He shrugged."Somebody wants you dead awfully bad," she said."I ought to be safe at home," he said."All alone?" She thought for a moment. "You oughtn't to be left alone.""I'll hire a companion," he said."I'm serious," she said. "Can't you get somebody to come over for the week end?"He shook his head. "We don't know who's gunning for me anyway," he said. "Whoever I got might turn out to be in on the act.""We could go somewhere for the week end," she said. "Atlantic City, if we can't think of something better."He looked at her in surprise. "You'd go along?"She flushed. "I didn't mean it that way. You can think of someone you'd like to have with you, someone you can trust. But you shouldn't be left alone. I really mean it."She threw the car into gear and pulled out onto the highway. Stoddard was conscious of something in his left hand. It was her cigarette case, which he still held. "Here," he said, when she stopped for a red light.She took the cigarette case and put it in her handbag. "That's really what started the whole thing, isn't it?" she said ruefully as she started the car forward again.Her remark startled Stoddard. What she said was true: if she had not maneuvered him into going back for her cigarette case, the truck would not have had the opportunity to attempt to ram him. She had said she would go back for the case herself, but she could not have failed to know he would offer to run the errand for her.

ElevenMarian had no space reserved for her in the parking lot at the laboratories, and when she and Stoddard returned from lunch they found that the space she had used that morning had been taken by someone else during their absence. She was forced to drive around to the back of the building before she found an opening in the long rows of automobiles. She parked in it, and they got out of the car."Let's take the short cut," she said. She led the way out of the parking lot and along the side of the building to the loading platform beneath Stoddard's office. They climbed the steps and set off across the platform toward the steps on the other side. Stoddard looked at the edge of the platform; he could visualize the truck standing there that morning, with the crate in the rear and the two workmen walking up toward the cab. Unconsciously he clenched his fists. Suddenly, from behind him, Marian called, "Dr. Stoddard." There was a note of urgency in her tone.Stoddard turned. She had stopped three paces behind him. She stood staring fixedly at the wall adjoining one side of the shipping-room door. Stoddard went back. As he approached, she pointed. On one of the yellow bricks next to the door there was chalked a small pink cross.She moved beside him and clasped his arm. "It's beginning to appear your session with Dr. Haklos this morning wasn't a hallucination after all," she said quietly. The quietness of her tone could not hide her tension.Stoddard could feel his temples throbbing. He looked down at her. Her expression was sober."Back there at the restaurant, half an hour ago," he said, "you pointed out that I could have put the crosses on the door frame in your office and on the arm of Rupple's sofa myself. In a hallucination. With no recollection of it. You were most persuasive." His tone had become biting. "Do I gather you don't feel the same way about this?" He nodded toward the cross on the wall."Half an hour ago I hadn't witnessed an attack on your life," she said. "That truck outside the restaurant was no hallucination."Mixed with his excitement Stoddard felt a surging exultation. At last someone was beginning to believe his session with Haklos that morning had been real. "You think there's a connection between the truck at lunch and this morning?" he said cautiously."Before today," Marian said, "how many times in your life has somebody tried to kill you?""Never," he said."It would be stretching coincidence much too far to assume there was no connection."Stoddard impulsively put his hand over the hand she had on his arm. "There was a connection, all right," he said. "I'm betting Steve Haklos was on that truck back there at the restaurant. In the crate."This time it was she who stared. He told her of the truck that morning, and the crate it had taken from the shipping room. "I ran down to try to catch it," he concluded. "It was gone, of course, before I could get out to the parking lot. I questioned the guards. They swore nothing had been shipped out of here this morning. They must be involved.""Not necessarily," she said. "Mr. Rupple has a master key.""So that's it," Stoddard said slowly. "He wouldn't need the guards to unlock the door." He turned back to the cross on the wall. "Let's show this to Blame. Maybe now he'll believe Steve wasn't just an apparition this morning."He took half a step toward the far side of the platform, but Marian pulled him back. He turned to her, puzzled. "Can we be sure Dr. Blaine isn't involved in this too