It would be supposed that the last minutes of one's life would seem to pass with a terrible swiftness, but to Marc, it seemed that the minutes of the last two hours had dragged like the third act of a bad play, and he was certainly convinced that the morning would see him a corpse. And the fact that his lifeless body would receive all the personal care and attention due it, as the victim of Miss Quirtt's first murder, didn't help his state of mind as one might have supposed. He was not surprised that Toffee, during the last five minutes or so, had begun to behave peculiarly.

She seemed to be acting on a definite pattern, for she had repeated her little routine three times now, and it had always been precisely the same. She would leave her chair, walk directly to the wall, stand facing it for a moment, and then bend over at the hips, as though looking at something on the floor. This done, she would look up at Marc and nod her head toward the spot which she had been watching.

At first, Marc merely thought that it was nice that Miss Quirtt had left their legs free, if exercise meant so much to Toffee, but then, slowly, he began to realize that perhaps the nodding meant that Toffee had discovered something and wished him to follow her.

Walking to the wall, he waited until Toffee began to bend forward, and followed her example. Once down, he gazed at the floor intently, but there didn't seem to be anything to see, except a dismal section of very ordinary flooring. He looked up questioningly, but Toffee motioned him back again. This time, he gave the floor his undivided attention. He was determined to discover what it was that she had been looking at, and wanted him to see. At least it would give him something to think about, besides becoming a dead body.

If Marc had seen Toffee remove herself from his side, to a position just behind him, he would probably have moved away from the wall like a flash, but since he did not, he remained just as he was, bent over, head to the wall, and perfectly motionless. Toffee couldn't have asked a more willing victim, or a more perfect target.

Slowly, as she brought her foot to Marc's unsuspecting posterior, a pained expression crept into her green eyes. She hesitated a moment, made a few practice kicks for aim, then swung her foot quickly behind her. Sure of her aim now, she closed her eyes tightly, and brought her foot forward with all the force of a sledge hammer.

There was a dreadful splitting sound as Marc's head struck the wall. As 

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