development, but it had been remodeled recently. It had scanner screens.

After the usual protests, the superintendent showed me around. Most of the occupants weren't home. He let me into a rear apartment on the sixth floor, and I took one look and caught my breath.

I pulled out my sketch, though I had it memorized by this time, and moved across the room to get the right angle. The sofa was there—it was an old-fashioned job with a back. What had been a bright blotch in the picture turned out to be a mirror. A blur by the sofa was a low table. A chair was in the wrong place, but that could have been moved. What was I thinking about? It was going to be moved. Every detail checked.

"Stella Emerson," the superintendent said. "Miss Stella Emerson—I think. She never gave me no trouble. Something wrong?"

"Not a thing," I said. "I want some information from her."

"I dunno when she's home."

Her next-door neighbor did. I went back to headquarters and picked up the loose ends on the attempt to identify our assailant-to-be. No luck.

And at six o'clock that evening, I was having a cup of coffee with Miss Stella Emerson.

She was the sort of person it's always a joy to interview. Alert, understanding, cooperative—none of that petty, temperamental business about invasion of privacy. She was brunette and twenty-six or twenty-seven, maybe five feet four, a hundred and ten pounds. The pounds were well distributed, and she was darned nice looking.

She served the coffee on the low table by the sofa, and sat back with her cup in her hand.

"You wanted information?" she said.

I fingered my own cup, but I didn't lift it. "I'd like to have you think carefully," I said, "and see if you've ever known a man who matches this description. He's big, really big. Heavy set. Maybe six feet eight or nine. He's left handed. He might walk with a slight limp in his right foot...."

She set her cup down with a bang. "Why, that sounds like Mike—Mike Gregory. I haven't seen him for years. Not since...."

I took a deep breath, and wrote "Mike Gregory" in my notebook.

"Where was he when you saw him last?"

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