The Project Gutenberg EBook of Brink of Madness, by Walter J. Sheldon

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Title: Brink of Madness

Author: Walter J. Sheldon

Illustrator: Kelly Freas

Release Date: May 12, 2010 [EBook #32339]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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BRINK OF MADNESS

By Walt Sheldon

Illustrated by KELLY FREAS

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science
Fiction July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

[Sidenote: _C.I.B. Agent Pell used his head, even if he did rely on
hunches more than on the computer. In fact, when the game got rough, he
found that to use his head, he first had to keep it...._]

Chapter I

The night the visitors came Richard Pell worked late among the great
banks of criminological computers. He whistled to himself, knowing that
he was way off key but not caring. Ciel, his wife, was still in his
mind's eye; he'd seen her on the viewer and talked with her not ten
minutes ago.

"Be home shortly, baby," he'd said, "soon as I fill in a form or two."

"All right, dear. I'll wait," she'd answered, with just the slightest
tone of doubt.

It was an important night. It was at once their second anniversary and
the beginning of their second honeymoon. Just how Pell--knobby, more or
less homely, and easygoing--had won himself a lovely, long-limbed blonde
like Ciel was something of a mystery to many of their friends. She could
hardly have married him for his money. Central Investigation Bureau
agents were lucky if all their extras and bonuses brought them up to a
thousand credits a year.

Pell had unquestionably caught her in a romantic moment. Maybe that was
part of the trouble--part of the reason they needed this second
honeymoon, this period of re-acquaintance so badly. Being the wife of a
C.I.B. agent meant sitting at home nine-tenths of the time while he was
working on a case,