mustache, which curled luxuriantly at either end and was of an improbable shade Jerry classified as Hunter's Pink. So was his beard. "What did you say her name was?"

"Heather Higgins."

"You sighed the second time you said it, too. I just wanted to be sure."

Jerry crossed to the unfinished canvas. "Hair like sunshine on slightly oxidized copper. Eyes blue like the sea where it meets the horizon on a summer day."

"Gertrude!" yelled Captain Wully.

From the turbulence of the air current which marked Gertrude's passing, Jerry decided the invisible cat had been in a hurry.

"And who are you, and what are you doing here?" Captain Wully yelled at a second slipstream.

Distinctly audible was a high pitched caterwauling. In addition, there was a sound that made Jerry's curly hair crawl—the baying of a wolf?

"I better look into this," Captain Wully muttered and dashed outside. As he reached the doorway, his figure melted into transparency, then into air.

Jerry loaded the crated paintings into his car and took them to the express office. They wouldn't sell—they never did. But he couldn't afford to pass up the chance that they might.

When he returned home, there was no sign of Captain Wully, only a few paper candy wrappers on the floor. He started to pick them up, but remembered he wanted to imprison a highlight on Heather Higgins's nose and forgot the papers.

Someone had been into his paints. A tube of Payne's gray had been pressed dry. The cap was off the gamboge, and a new tube of bice green had been squeezed in the middle. Nor had the intruder bothered to scrape the palette, which gleamed with puddles of color.

A dab of ivory, the hint of rose madder and a suspicion of cadmium yellow fused under his brush tip. Creative fury struck him, and he failed to notice a figure that paused at the outside front gate. The figure stooped, picked up something, then carefully scanned the inside walkway. Here, too, she picked up something. She stooped momentarily on the front porch, and again in the hallway.

Then Heather Higgins stood in the studio. Her gaze swept the floor, and she bent over to pick up a candy wrapper.

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