himself that his peculiar experiences of the afternoon were only products of his fevered imagination.

As he let himself into his apartment he had firmly resolved to strictly ration his reading of comic strips and spy magazines. They were pretty strong meat if they weren't handled with discretion. The pleasantly furnished living room of his apartment was shrouded in late-afternoon semi-darkness and, when he closed and locked the door behind him, he switched on the lights.

The first thing he saw when he walked into the room was the little dark man whom he'd seen at the Club and at the bar a few minutes previously. The dark little man was sitting in a straight chair, his hands resting on his knees. There was a faint smile on his face as he studied Reggie with calm, inscrutable eyes.

Reggie staggered back a few steps, clapping one hand hysterically to his forehead. He couldn't believe his eyes. He had left this man at a bar in the Loop, but here he was now, sitting calmly and unconcernedly in the living room of his apartment.

"How did you get in here?" he gasped.

The dark little man stood up and smiled.

"Is that important?" he asked softly. "I am here and that is all that matters."

Reggie swallowed loudly. There was something disturbing about the calm ambiguity of the man's statement. He rubbed his damp palms together nervously.

"Can I get you a drink?" he blurted.

The dark little man shook his head slowly.

Reggie looked at him uneasily, noticing him in detail for the first time. He was small, hardly more than five feet two and he was slenderly built. His hair was jet black and it combed straight back from a high, delicate forehead. He wore severely tailored black clothes that fitted his small frame without a wrinkle. But his eyes dominated his entire personality, for they were a cold chilling black, lusterless and unblinking, as unrevealing as twin diamonds.

Reggie shivered slightly and looked wistfully toward the door of the apartment. He coughed nervously.

"Sorry to seem rude," he said, laughing weakly, "but I've got to be toddling off now. It's been nice--er--running into you. There are magazines on the table, liquor in the ice box, so just make yourself at home."

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