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"Well, I don't slip around, dropping sly hints and giving people the wink. Nothing so crude as that, Joe. It's more a matter of moving around, observing and listening, gathering impressions, figuring out whether you're the kind of guy that would-"

"I suppose you try to put yourself in the-the other fellow's place, too."

"No. No, I don't, Joe." Rolling down the window, he threw out the butt of his cigarette and lighted another one. "In the first place that requires a preconceived notion of what the other fellow is; I'm making up my mind about him before I ever go to work on him. What kind of an investigation is that?"

"I've never thought about it that way," I said. "You hear the expression used so often, putting yourself in the other fellow's place-"

"It's bad business all the way around, Joe. If you put yourself in the other man's place often enough you're very likely to get stuck there. Some of your worst criminals began their careers as officers of the law. There's probably a higher incidence of insanity among psychiatrists than any other group. I remember a case I worked on several years ago-"

He paused and gave me a glance as much as to ask if he was boring me. I told him to go on. He was an easy guy to listen to, and I didn't want to go home.

"It was a murder, Joe. Just about the messiest job I've ever seen. A woman was literally clawed, clawed and chewed to death. Obviously, the murderer was a degenerate or a lunatic; we needed an expert on morbid psychology to get to the bottom of the crime. One of the best men in the country lived right there in the neighborhood, so, with the permission of the authorities, we called him in.

"Well, the police threw out the well-known dragnet, pulled in all the twist-brains they could lay hands on, and this guy went to work. And, Joe, by God, it was enough to make your flesh crawl to watch him. He'd sit there in a cell with some bird that you and I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole-the sort of bird that does things a lot of newspapers won't print-and he'd pal right up to him. He'd talk to him like a long lost brother. He'd find out what special sort of craziness this guy went in for, and for the time being he'd be the same way. If you closed your eyes and listened, you wouldn't know which one was doing the talking. And, yet, he was one of the most likable guys I've ever known. He talked my language, too. We seemed to click.

"We got to where we saw quite a bit of each other outside the line of business. He'd drop in on me a night or two a week, or I'd run in on him. We'd have a few drinks and a bite to eat, and bat the breeze around. And, gradually, without knowing I was doing it, I began to get his guard down. He started tipping his hand."

Appleton shook his head, started fumbling for another cigarette. I gave him one, and held a match.

"For God's sake," I said. "Let's hear the rest of it."

"He had a big German shepherd, Joe; a big brute that was a hell of a lot more wolf than it was dog. And I began to notice-he and that dog were a lot alike. Sometimes he'd snap at a sandwich or a piece of food just like the dog. Sometimes there'd be a trace of growl in his voice, or he'd scratch the back of his head with that stiff, rapid stroke a dog uses. Sometimes they even looked alike.

"The payoff came one night when he started to play with the dog. It started off as a romp, but before it was over they were down on the floor together, snapping and slashing and clawing, yeah, and barking. Both of 'em. And when I got the cops in they turned on us- the two dogs. Wolves. I don't need to tell you who our murderer was."

I shivered. He gave a short laugh.

"Not nice, huh, Joe?"

"I think I'm coming down with a cold," I said. "I've been having chills all evening."

"Well, I'll shove off and let you go. How about dinner some night this week?"

"Sure," I said. "But don't rush off. Tell me some more about this guy."

"What about him?"

"Well, why did he choose to be a dog? It doesn't seem to make sense. I can understand how a guy who worked with crooks all the time might turn out to be a crook, but-"

"He was a man of innate and extraordinarily fine sensibilities, Joe. And a man has to identify himself with something. He has to be able to picture himself as being some certain thing. If he can't, he's helpless. There's no motivation, no guide for his acting and thinking."

"Yeah," I said. "That's right, isn't it?"

"This man couldn't identify himself with the human race. He appeared to be able to do it with extreme ease, but actually he was losing a little of his character and personality with every contact. In the end, there wasn't anything left; nothing but the idea that humanity was pretty rotten. So-"

"I see," I said.

I shivered again, and he reached for the door.

"You ought to be in bed, Joe. I've got to be going, anyway. I've got another case to handle. Going to be on the jump for the next few days."

"Where's the fire this time?"

He shook his head. "It's not in my line, but as long as I'm here I'm taking a crack at it. It's a disappearance case. Some dame is supposed to have come out here from the city a few days ago, and she hasn't been heard of since."

"The hell!" I said. "What do you know about that?" And he gave me a funny look.

"You don't need to be polite, Joe; I'm not interested in it, either. We get a hundred like it every year."

"But-but where could she disappear to in a town this size?"

"She couldn't; I'll turn her up in a few days. She's a houseworker; came out here to take a job. That narrows it down a lot. There aren't many people here who hire household help."

"No," I said. "Uh-how did you know she disappeared, anyway? Who reported it?"

"Her former landlady. She didn't have any relatives, it seems, and she owed this landlady a hell of a big bill. So, as a gesture of good faith, she switched a little paid-up policy she had-actually it would just about take care of her burial expenses when she died-to her landlady. That is, she named her as beneficiary until such time as she could clear up her debt. Well, she left the city in a hurry and was supposed to send for her baggage, and she hasn't done it. Naturally, the landlady is sure-she hopes-that something has happened to her, and she comes down on us."

"Y-Y-You're pretty sure y-you can f-f-find-"

"How can I help it? Say, you have got a chill, haven't you?"

My teeth were clattering too hard to answer. I nodded, and he said good night and got out. Up on the curb he hollered at me not to forget our dinner date; and I nodded again.

I backed the car out into the street, made a U-turn, and headed for home. As I started to angle around the square, I glanced into the rearview mirror. He was still standing where I had left him. Up on the curb, with his hat thrust back and his hands on his hips.

Watching me.

21

I must have been off my nut by the time I got home. I had to be to do what I did. I ran up the steps almost before the car had stopped rolling. I pushed the door open, half fell inside, and stood leaning against it.

"Elizabeth," I panted. "Elizabeth-"

And, of course, it wasn't Elizabeth. But even when I realized that, I couldn't come to my senses. It only made me worse.

I started to say that I was sorry, that Elizabeth's name had just slipped out; but I felt so ugly and scared, I guess, that it acted on her. And when it did she wasn't something I cared about hurting. She got me in the same way Elizabeth had used to.

It was all I could do to keep from slugging her.

"You-you muddle-headed bitch. Goddam-damn you! Didn't know where she was going, huh? Everything was all right, huh? Now they got us they got us they got us! They-"

I don't know what I said, the words were coming so fast and so mixed up, but somehow Carol got the sense of it.

"She didn't, Joe! She didn't know. I swear that she didn't!"

"Huh? How-"