Vogel left the shop and drove across town to Amenth's address. It
turned out to be an ancient rooming house on the West Side. Mrs.
Reardon, the landlady, was an apathetic woman who brightened when he
asked her about Amenth.

"He moved in just three weeks ago." Her face softened in recollection.
"He was like a lost dog coming in out of the rain. Couldn't hardly
speak English and he wanted me to trust him for the rent. I must have
been crazy." Her nostrils flared. "Not that he hasn't paid up. Are you
a cop?"

Vogel nodded as he took out his wallet. In it was his honorary
sheriff's badge, but he doubted if the woman would know the
difference. She didn't. She led the way upstairs to Amenth's room,
worrying, and Vogel assured her they were only looking for a
hit-and-run witness, that it was strictly routine.

Amenth's room was incredibly aseptic, barren of pictures, ash trays,
dirty laundry, any of the normal masculine debris. Vogel got the stark
impression of a convict's cell. In the bleak dresser were two pair of
socks, underwear, one tie. In the closet hung one white shirt ...
period. Everything wore an indefinable patina of newness. Two books
graced the top of the dresser. Vogel recognized one of them, a text on
fabrication and design which Amenth had borrowed from his office. The
other was a child's primer of English.

"He stays in his room almost every night--reads mostly, and he speaks
English much better now," said Mrs. Reardon. "A good tenant--I can't
complain--and he's quiet and clean." She described Amenth and Vogel
shook his head.

"Our man is about sixty, with a beard," he said. "Funny coincidence.
It's a strange name."

Mrs. Reardon agreed.

Vogel drove back to the shop, whistling.

[Illustration]

He did not go to his chess club that night, but went to the library
instead. He read about Flying Saucers, about space travel, about the
possibility of life on other planets. Sometimes he chuckled. Once he
frowned deeply and bit his lip.

That night in bed, listening to his wife's shallow breathing, he said,
"Alice."

"Yes?"

"Supposing you were lost on a desert island. What would you do?"

"I'd build a raft," she said sleepily.

Vogel smiled into the darkness.

Next day he made a systematic tour of the stockroom, scanning the
racks of completed sub-assemblies, the gleaming fixture components,
the rows of panels, brackets, extrusions, all waiting like soldiers to
march from the stockroom into