"On Mars. I was there for two years with Civil Service. Mike was a sort of general handyman around the administration building."

"Do you know where he is now?"

"As far as I know, he's still on Mars!"

My coffee was scalding hot, but I didn't notice as I gulped it down. "I'd like to know everything you can tell me about this Mike Gregory," I said. "May I take you to dinner?"

As my dad used to say, there's nothing like mixing business with pleasure.

She suggested the place—a queer little restaurant in the basement of a nearby apartment building. There were lighted candles on the tables—the first candles I'd seen since I was a child. The waitresses wore odd costumes with handkerchiefs wrapped around their heads. An old man sat off in one corner scraping on a violin. It was almost weird.

But the food was good, and Stella Emerson was good company. Unfortunately, her mind was on Mike Gregory.

"Is Mike in trouble?" she said. "He always seemed like such a gentle, considerate person."

I thought of the knife-wielding shadow, and shuddered. "How well did you know him?" I said.

"Not too well—he stopped to talk with me now and then. I never saw him except at work."

"Was he—interested in you?"

She blushed. It was also the first blush I had seen in so long I couldn't remember when. I had heard it said that the blush went out when women did away with their two-piece bathing suits and started wearing trunks like the men. I'm telling you, you can't have any idea about what's wrong with our scientific civilization until you've seen a girl blush by candlelight.

"I suppose he was," she said. "He kept asking me to go places with him. I felt sorry for him—he seemed such a grotesque person—but I didn't want to encourage him."

"You're certain about the limp?"

"Oh, yes. It was very noticeable."

"And about his being left-handed?"

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