cold beer and some of my Star-baby's more heavily long-hair, hi-fi selections.

I let the bell ring for a while. Then I let somebody pound on the door for a bit. But that got to be hard on my headache so I went to the door.

There was Mrs. Schmerler, from next door, who used to be a real biddy-buddy of my Aunt Belle's. There were a couple of hard-eyed cops with her, too. They all pushed right on in.

"Celebrating something, Mac?" inquired cop number one, while Mrs. Schmerler and the other glared suspiciously about.

"No," I said, too miserable to think. "Not celebrating, mourning. Just lost my wife, and kids, too."

"He never had any children!" said Mrs. Schmerler. "Only women. And a great deal too many of the cheap tarts. What his poor, dear Aunt Belle, as saintly a woman as ever lived, would say.... Why don't you ask him what he was digging for—digging and yowling Star dust—out there by his garage last night? And not the first time, neither!"

The sudden realization of what could be turned up out there by the garage—and how that would look to the unsympathetic and non-credulous eyes of the law—hit me. I opened and closed my mouth three or four times like an unwell goldfish. Nothing came out except a miasma of alcohol. Mrs. Schmerler gaped at me with delighted shock, indignation and horror. It was the great moment of her life.

The cops stepped in—not aggressively, more big-brotherly—and took a good, firm grip on my arm.

I won't go into the rest of all that. They got a squad and they dug. They took me in. I wouldn't talk. They locked me up. Cell block bookies quoted 50-1, no takers, I would make the death cell. The way I felt, I didn't care. The newspapers went wild. Things had been slow since the election. All my old pals from my working days on the paper were making a buck with special "Even then there was something frighteningly different about him" feature stories.

The next day, as my hangover faded and I got to thinking things over, my outlook changed. It was no time for me to give up. I would get a lawyer.

I walked over to rattle my cell door for a bit. "Hey! Hey there, guard. Come here a minute, huh?"

He came. "So? Is our Bluebeard softening up? Want to make a statement?"

"Uh-uh. Not me. I 

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