of fishy hatred, purred with lusty venom and slithered out of sight.

Across the table Louis Nevin apologized. "The damn things keep sneaking through all the time. I suppose, Mr. West, you have trouble with them, too."

"We tried rat traps," said Cartwright, "but they were too smart for that. So we get along with them the best we can."

West laughed to cover momentary confusion, but he found Nevin's eyes upon him.

"Annabelle," he said, "is the only one that ever bothered me."

"You're lucky," Nevin told him. "They get to be pests. There is one of them that insists on sleeping with me."

"Where's Belden?" Cartwright asked.

"He ate early," explained Nevin. "Said there were a few things he wanted to get done. Asked to be excused."

He said to West, "James Belden. Perhaps you've heard of him."

West nodded.

He pulled back his chair, started to sit down, then jerked erect.

A woman had appeared in the doorway, a woman with violet eyes and platinum hair and wrapped in an ermine opera cloak. She moved forward and the light from the flaring tapers fell across her face. West stiffened at the sight, felt the blood run cold as ice within his veins.

For the face was not a woman's face. It was like a furry skull, like a moth's face that had attempted to turn human and had stuck halfway.

Down at the end of the table, Cartwright was chuckling.

"You recognize her, Mr. West?"

West clutched the back of his chair so hard that his knuckles suddenly were white.

"Of course I do," he said. "The White Singer. But how did you bring her here?"

"So that's what they call her back on Earth," said Nevin.

"But her face," insisted West. "What's happened to her face?"

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