ly. "School tomorrow, remember? And
don't forget to brush your teeth."

"I won't. Goodnight, Mommy, goodnight, Daddy." She turned up her face to
be kissed, smiled at them, and was gone. They listened to her footsteps
on the stairs.

"Jim, I'm sorry about the things I said." Jean's voice was hesitant, a
little ashamed. "It _is_ hard, though, you know it is-- Jim, aren't you
listening? After all, you don't have to watch the clock now." Her smile
was as labored as the joke.

He smiled back. "I think I'll take a walk, honey. Some fresh air would
do me good."

"Jim, don't go. I'd rather not be alone just now."

"Well." He looked at her, keeping his expression blank. "All right,
dear. How about some coffee? I could stand another cup." And he thought:
_Tomorrow I'll go. I'll talk to Holland tomorrow._

* * * * *

"Let me get this straight, Jim." Holland's pudgy face was sober, his
eyes serious. "You started out by thinking Jean was showing paranoid
tendencies, and offhand I'm inclined to agree with you. Overnight you
changed your mind and began thinking that maybe, just maybe, she might
be right. Honestly, don't you suspect your own reasons for such a quick
switch?"

"Sure I do, Bob," Blair said worriedly. "Do you think I haven't beaten
out my brains over it? I know the idea's monstrous. But just suppose
there _was_ a branch of humanity--if you could call it human--living off
us unsuspected. A branch that knows how to eliminate--competition--almost
by instinct."

"Now hold on a minute, Jim. You've taken Jean's reaction to this last
death, plus a random association with a cuckoo clock, and here you are
with a perfectly wild hypothesis. You've always been rational and
analytical, old man. Surely you can realize that a perfectly normal urge
to rationalize Jean's conclusions is making you concur with them against
your better judgment."

"Bob--"

"I'm not through, Jim. Just consider how fantastic the whole idea is.
Because of a series of accidents you can't accuse a child of planned
murder. Nor can you further hypothesize that all orphans are
changelings, imbued with an instinct to polish off their
foster-siblings."

"Not _all_ orphans, Bob. Not planned murder, either. Take it easy. Just
some of them. A few of them--different. Growing up. Placing their young
with well-to-do families somehow, and then dropping unobtrusively out of
the picture. And the young growing up, and always the n