"Good God, Wheeler," he cried, "it's Cannell!"

"What?" I asked, stupidly, dumfounded by the assertion.

"Cannell," he repeated, "at my apartment. He says to meet him there at once. Where could he have been, these three years?"

But I was already reaching for my hat and a moment later we were on the street outside, hailing a cruising taxi. Lantin's bachelor home was in the west 70's, a little roof-bungalow set on top of a big apartment building, and we sped up the avenue toward it with the highest legal speed.

Lantin did not speak at all, on the way. He was plainly highly excited, but my own agitation was fast calming. After all, I thought, the thing might be a stupid practical joke, though an unforgivable one to perpetrate. Still, if Lantin had recognized the voice—Before I could ask him about that, the cab stopped, and we hastened into the building, to the elevator.

When the cage stopped at its highest point in the building, Lantin was instantly out and striding eagerly across the foyer of his apartment. He flung the door open, then stopped short. Standing behind him, I peered over his shoulder into the room inside. There was a man there, a man who jumped to his feet and came quickly toward us. It was Cannell, I saw at once. Cannell—but changed.

His face was drawn and haggard, and instead of his former impatient, challenging expression, it bore the impress of an unearthly fear. A fear that showed even in the tense, half-crouching position of his body, as he came across the room toward us, searching our faces with his burning eyes. He came closer, gripped Lantin's hands, struggled to speak.

"Thank God you came, Lantin!" he cried, chokingly.

We stood speechless, and with a sudden reaction of feeling he stepped back and sank wearily into a chair, running his hand tiredly over his eyes. Lantin found his voice then for the first time.

"Where have you been, man?" he shouted. "Three years! For God's sake, Cannell, what happened to you? Where were you all that time?"

Cannell gazed up at us, strangely, somberly, a brooding darkness settling on his face. "All that time?" he repeated, musingly. "Three years? Three years to you, perhaps, but not to me. But not to me."

A sudden glance flashed between Lantin and myself. Was the man mad? Did that 

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