ny fishing in Florida this afternoon.

Grudgingly, he dialed the phone company's Personal Service and said to the
impossibly cheerful blonde who answered, "Where can I find Professor Peter
Voss who teaches over at the University in Baltimore? I don't want to talk
with him, just want to know where he'll be an hour from now."

While waiting for his information, he dressed, deciding inwardly that he
hated his job, the department in which he was employed, the Boss and
Greater Washington. On top of that, he hated himself. He'd already been
taken off this assignment, why couldn't he leave it lay?

The blonde rang him back. Professor Peter Voss was at home. He had no
classes today. She gave him the address.

Larry Woolford raised his car from his auto-bungalow in the Brandywine
suburb and headed northwest at a high level for the old Baltimore section
of the city.

The Professor's house, he noted, was of an earlier day and located on the
opposite side of Paterson Park from Elwood avenue, the street on which
Susan Self and her father had resided. That didn't necessarily hold
significance, the park was a large one and the Professor's section a
well-to-do neighborhood, while Self's was just short of a slum these days.

He brought his car down to street level, and parked before the scholar's
three-story, brick house. Baltimore-like, it was identical to every other
house in the block; Larry wondered vaguely how anybody ever managed to
find his own place when it was very dark out.

There was an old-fashioned bell at the side of the entrance and Larry
Woolford pushed it. There was no identification screen in the door,
evidently the inhabitants had to open up to see who was calling, a tiring
chore if you were on the far side of the house and the caller nothing more
than a salesman.

It was obviously the Professor himself who answered.

He was in shirtsleeves, tieless and with age-old slippers on his
stockingless feet. He evidently hadn't bothered to shave this morning and
he held a dog-earred pamphlet in his right hand, his forefinger tucked in
it to mark his place. He wore thick-lensed, gold-rimmed glasses through
which he blinked at Larry Woolford questioningly, without speaking.
Professor Peter Voss was a man in his mid fifties, and, on the face of it,
couldn't care less right now about his physical appearance.

A weird, Larry decided immediately. He wondered at the University, one of
the nation's best, keeping on such a f