aring
brilliance, but a hand came out of the wall of darkness and jerked it
back again.

"Just to remind you," the quiet voice continued conversationally, "I'm
Detective Lieutenant Kirk, Homicide Bureau." A pair of hands thrust a
second chair toward the circle of light. Kirk swung it around and
dropped onto the seat, resting his arms along the back, facing the man
across a distance of hardly more than inches.

In the pitiless glare of the spotlight Cordell's cheekbones stood out
sharply, and under his deepset eyes were dark smudges of exhaustion. His
rigid posture, his blank expression, his silence--these seemed not so
much indications of defiance as they did the result of some terrible and
deep-seated shock.

"Let's go over it again, Cordell," Kirk said.

The young man swallowed audibly against the silence. One of his hands
twitched, came up almost to his face as though to shield his eyes, then
dropped limply back, "That light--" he mumbled.

"--stays on," Kirk said briskly. "The quicker you tell us the answers,
the quicker we all relax. Okay?"

Cordell shook his head numbly, not so much in negation as an effort to
clear the fog from his tortured mind. "I told you," he cried hoarsely.
"What more do you want? Yesterday I told you the whole thing." His voice
began to border on hysteria. "What good's my trying to tell you if you
won't listen? How's a guy supposed--"

"Then try telling it straight!" Kirk snapped. "You think you're fooling
around with half-wits? Sure; you told us. A crazy pack of goof-ball
dreams about a blonde babe clubbing two grown people to death, then
disappearing in a ball of blue light! You figure on copping a plea on
insanity?"

"It's the truth!" Cordell shouted. "As God hears me, it's true!"
Suddenly he buried his face in his hands and long tearing sobs shook his
slender frame.

* * * * *

One of the other men reached out as though to drag the young man's face
back into the withering rays of the spotlight, but Kirk motioned him
away. Without haste the Lieutenant fished a cigar from the breast pocket
of his coat and began almost leisurely to strip away its cellophane
wrapper. A kitchen match burst into flame under the flick of a thumb
nail and a cloud of blue tobacco smoke writhed into the cone of hot
light.

"Cordell," Kirk said mildly.

Slowly the young man's shoulders stopped their shaking, and after a long
moment his wan, tear-stained face came bac