was still
with us.

"You'll have to look to your laurels, Hoddy," Nelson said. "Your
Ambassador seems to be making quite a reputation for himself as a
gunfighter."

"Look," Hoddy said, and though he was facing Nelson, I felt he was
really talking to Stonehenge, "before I'd go up against this guy, I'd
shoot myself. That way, I could be sure I'd get a nice painless job."

After they were gone, I turned to Stonehenge and Thrombley. "This seems
to be a carefully prearranged killing."

They agreed.

"Then they knew _in advance_ that Mr. Cumshaw would be on Colonel
Hickock's front steps at about 1030. _How did they find that out?_"

"Why ... why, I'm sure I don't know," Thrombley said. It was most
obvious that the idea had never occurred to him before and a side glance
told me that the thought was new to Stonehenge also. "Colonel Hickock
called at 0900. Mr. Cumshaw left the Embassy in an aircar a few minutes
later. It took an hour and a half to fly out to the Hickock ranch...."

"I don't like the implications, Mr. Silk," Stonehenge said. "I can't
believe that was how it happened. In the first place, Colonel Hickock
isn't that sort of man: he doesn't use his hospitality to trap people to
their death. In the second place, he wouldn't have needed to use people
like these Bonneys. His own men would do anything for him. In the third
place, he is one of the leaders of the annexation movement here and this
was obviously an anti-annexation job. And in the fourth place--"

"Hold it!" I checked him. "Are you sure he's really on the annexation
side?"

He opened his mouth to answer me quickly, then closed it, waited a
moment, answered me slowly. "I can guess what you are thinking, Mr.
Silk. But, remember, when Colonel Hickock came here as our first
Ambassador, he came here as a man with a mission. He had studied the
problem and he believed in what he came for. He has never changed.

"Let me emphasize this, sir: we know he has never changed. For our own
protection, we've had to check on every real leader of the annexation
movement, screening them for crackpots who might do us more harm than
good. The Colonel is with us all the way.

"And now, in the fourth place, underlined by what I've just said, the
Colonel and Mr. Cumshaw were really friends."

"Now you're talking!" Hoddy burst in. "I've knowed A. J. ever since I
was a kid. Ever since he married old Colonel MacTodd's daughter. That
just ain't the way A. J. works!"

"On