e same one
when I--"

King was instantly alert. When you were on the trail of ten grand you
had to be alert, and suspicious of comparative strangers.

"You saw someone who looked like Baker and Matson? A guy without a
broken leg?"

"I was leaving an apartment building on the Upper East Side this
morning. I met him in the street."

"You didn't tell me that."

"I'm telling you now."

King scowled. "I don't get it. You were the doctor. You left a man with
a broken leg in bed in a hospital. You saw a man who looked like--"

"I saw the same man, goddamn it!"

"All right--the same man. And you didn't do anything about it? You
didn't say _Good morning_ or _It might rain_ or _What the hell are you
doing out of bed?_ You just let him walk away?"

"You're being unreasonable. When you come face to face with something
that's impossible, you don't treat it as a fact. It throws you off
balance."

King continued to scowl. "We're not getting anywhere. Let's face it. It
_was_ impossible. Let's get the hell up to your room and talk to William
Matson."

"All right."

Frank Corson came half out of his chair, then he dropped back again. "I
don't like this," he said.

"What's to like? What's to dislike? For ten thousand dollars we can
ignore both."

"I have a feeling we're getting into something beyond our depth."

"Okay, then let me handle it. I'll see that you get your cut."

"Not so fast," Corson said sharply. "I didn't say I was backing out. I
just said this might be bigger than we bargain for."

"I don't think that's quite it," King replied coldly. "I think you don't
trust me."

"Maybe that's it. I don't think you trust me, either."

"Ten thousand _is_ a lot of money. But we're not going to get it by
sitting in a coffee shop arguing over it."

"I guess you're right."

"Then let's go."

They left the coffee shop and, as they walked the four blocks that
separated them from the room where he was ashamed to take Rhoda Kane,
Frank Corson analyzed his own mood and attitude. He decided it wasn't
that he mistrusted King, or that he actually thought the deal had any
frightening elements in it. In plain truth, he was ashamed of himself.
Somehow, in his own mind, he was degrading his profession. His love of
Rhoda Kane, his need of money, his impatience with time and
circumstance, had forced him into what seemed like a cheap intrigue.
There was, somehow, a bad taste to the whole thing.

But it was too late to back o