to face Johnson fully. "You're driving at
something," he said sharply. "Get to the point."

"Personally I've wondered at a few things about you myself," Johnson
said. He held the gun steadily in his hand now, no longer pretending
to play with it. "I told you that our second robbery occurred while I
was a clerk with the Company," he went on. "They jerked me in to the
Home Office, and for a while I had a pretty rough time.... You know,
when I joined the Company, I was an amnesiac. I remembered my name,
but that's about all...."

"No, I didn't know," Hawkes muttered, growing slightly paler.

"I learned then from the Home Office that I had been a member of their
Secret Service some twenty years earlier. I'd been sent here to
investigate the first robbery. And I had disappeared. Naturally, they
had suspected me.

"However, they had no evidence, and when I reappeared twenty years
later they played it smart by just waiting, instead of arresting me.
When the second robbery occurred, they closed in.

"The only thing that saved me was the fact that tests proved my memory
was really gone, and that I had told the truth--as I knew it. From the
few scraps of information I retained--about being out on the Moebius
Strip--they and I arrived at the theory I mentioned a short time ago.
I was sent back here to wait. The Company never gives up. Remember?"

"Are you insinuating that I was in cahoots with this fellow here?"
Hawkes asked harshly.

"I'd say it was more than an insinuation," Johnson replied. "You made
several other slips. In the first place, Secret Service men are
usually better informed about a situation they're investigating than
you seemed to be. Also, those identification papers you showed me were
faked."

* * * * *

The skin along the bridge of Hawkes' nose had drawn tight, and now his
lips grew narrower. "In that case, why did I save you from that man
this afternoon?" he asked. "And why would I shoot him now?"

"Your saving me was an act, to get into my confidence. You shot him so
you wouldn't have to split the loot. I figure you were in with him on
the second robbery also. There had to be someone because his memory
would be gone, when he came off the Strip. But you weren't satisfied.
Together you decided to pull off another robbery while you were here
and double the spoils. Then you decided you wanted it all for yourself
and you shot him."

"There's one big flaw in your reason