an ordinary door opening on the immediate
environment, equipped with a time lock.

In that case, where was the door?

Barney made a second, far more careful search. Three hours later, he
concluded it. He'd still found no trace of an exit. But the paneling
in any of the rooms might slide aside to reveal one at the indicated
time, or a section of the floor might swing back above a trap door.
There was no point in attempting to press the search any further.
After all, he only had to wait.

On the side, he'd made other discoveries. After opening a number of
crates in the storage room, and checking contents of the freezer, he
could assume that there was in fact more than enough food here to
sustain one man for five years. Assuming the water supply held
out--there was no way of checking on it; the source of the water like
that of the power and the ventilation lay outside the area which was
accessible to him--but if the water could be depended on, he wouldn't
go hungry or thirsty. Even tobacco and liquor were present in
comparably liberal quantities. The liquor he'd seen was all good;
almost at random he had selected a bottle of cognac and brought it and
a glass to the main room with him. The thought of food wasn't
attractive at the moment. But he could use a drink.

He half filled the glass, emptied it with a few swallows, refilled it
and took it over to one of the armchairs. He began to feel more
relaxed almost at once. But the truth was, he acknowledged, settling
back in the chair, that the situation was threatening to unnerve him
completely. Everything he'd seen implied McAllen's letter came close
to stating the facts; what wasn't said became more alarming by a
suggestion of deliberate vagueness. Until that melodramatically
camouflaged door was disclosed--seventeen hours from now--he'd be
better off if he didn't try to ponder the thing out.

And the best way to do that might be to take a solid load on rapidly,
and then sleep away as much of the intervening time as possible.

He wasn't ordinarily a hard drinker, but he'd started on the second
bottle before the cabin began to blur on him. Afterwards, he didn't
remember making it over to the bed.

* * * * *

Barney woke up ravenous and without a trace of hangover. Making a
mental adjustment to his surroundings took no more time than opening
his eyes; he'd been dreaming Dr. McAllen had dropped him into a snake
pit and was sadistically d