barely escaped with my life."

He picked up the mounted photograph that Barnard had vaguely noticed on the desk and turned it for the reporter to see. Barnard recognized Quong Kee and—George Melvin! But a George Melvin whose eyes were young and intelligent and flashing with the joy of living!

"Gail located him," said Quong Kee, "through the Missing Persons Division. He was here in Kainor, in the condition in which you saw him tonight. Gail and I packed what we could into George's space ship, the Chicago, and we came here, where I opened this—ah—place of refreshment."

"Chicago," Barnard mused. "I should have guessed that."

"Gail recognized you standing out there this evening," said Quong Kee. Again the haunted smile crept over his lips. "I can't understand her motivation for intervening in your quarrel. She told me you were a great reporter who might expose the criminals and she had to save you."

"Isn't that reason enough?" Barnard demanded suspiciously. "What did she say to him?"

"She told him you were a higher-up in the neoin organization and would see that his supply was stopped if he harmed you. A clever girl—but foolish."

Barnard didn't ask why. "Where is George Melvin now?" he demanded.

Before Quong Kee could answer, the pound of heavy feet sounded in the doorway. Barnard whirled and watched the three local policemen march in.

"Where's the body?" asked the leader.

Quong Kee's eyes flickered briefly toward Barnard, and he gestured toward something the newsman hadn't noticed. In a corner of the room was a bed. With something on it. The policeman yanked a sheet off the something. Barnard felt the hairs on the back of his neck beginning to rise.

He stared at the body of George Melvin.

"I had my men detain everybody," Quong Kee told the police. "But the body was discovered close to the door, indicating that the murderer escaped. Several fights were in progress at the time, and it is possible that he was struck by a stray knife, but I doubt it."

"No," the policeman grunted. "The knife struck upwards and his pockets have been searched."

"Evidently he was enticed into the hallway for that purpose," said Quong 

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