ts open windows, so the police said, an intruder had
entered. There was evidence of a struggle, but it must have been short,
because neither Babs, Alan, the housekeeper, nor any of the neighbors
had heard anything. And the fragment of golden quartz was gone!

The police investigation came to nothing. Polter was found in New York.
He withstood the police questions. There was nothing except suspicion
upon which he could be held, and he was finally released. Immediately
thereafter, he disappeared.

Neither Alan, Babs nor I saw Polter again. Dr. Kent had never been heard
from to this day, four years later when I flew to join the twins in
Quebec. And now Alan told me that Polter was up there! We had never
ceased to believe that Dr. Kent was alive, and that Polter was the
midnight marauder. As we grew older, we began to search for Polter. It
seemed to us, that if we could once get our hands on him, we could drag
from him the truth which the police had failed to get.

The call of a traffic director in mid-Vermont brought me back from these
memories. My buzzer was clanging; a peremptory halting signal day-beam
came darting up at me from below. It caught me and clung. I shouted down
at it.

"What's the matter?" I gave my name and number and all the details in
one breath. Above everything I had no wish to be halted now. "What's the
matter? I haven't done anything wrong."

"The hell you haven't," the director roared. "Come down to three
thousand. That lane's barred."

I dove obediently and his beam followed me. "Once more, like that, young
fellow--" But he went busy with somebody else and I didn't hear the end
of his threat.

I crossed into Maine in mid-afternoon. It was already twilight. The sky
was solid lead and the landscape all up through here was gray-white with
snow in the gathering darkness. I passed the City of Jackman, crossing
full over it to take no chances of annoying the border officials; and a
few miles further, I dropped to the glaring lights of International
Inspection Field. The formalities were soon finished. I was ready to
take-off when Alan rushed at me.

"George! I thought I could connect here." He gripped me. He was
wild-eyed, incoherent. He waved his taxiplane away. "I'm going with you,
George. I'm almost out of my mind. I can't--I don't know what's happened
to her. She's gone, now--"

"Who's gone? Babs?"

"Yes." He pushed me into my plane and climbed in after me. "Don't talk.
Get us up! I'll t