t less like it.
The apprehension that followed his daytime chimera was on him again, so
strongly that what he wanted most to do was to take Kitty's hand
tightly, like a frightened child, and run headlong until he was beyond
reach of whatever it was that threatened him.

"Small chance," he said, instead. "Any man who'd dream away a honeymoon
with you is dead already."

She sighed placidly and turned back to the business at hand. "You won't
be late for your 16:00 conference with our Mr. O'Donnell and Director
Mulhall of Irradiated Foods, will you? Poor Sean would be lost without
you."

He felt the usual nagging dissatisfaction with the peculiar talent that
had put him where he was in Consolidated Advertising. "He'd probably
lose this case without my soothing presence and CA would pay its first
ungrounded refund claim in--" he counted back over the time he had been
with Consolidated--"four years and eight months."

Kitty said wistfully, "Shall I see you tonight, Philip?"

He frowned, searching for a way to ease the hurt she would feel later,
and finding none. "That depends on the psychiatrist. If he can't help
me, I may fly up to my cabin in the Catskills and wrestle this thing out
for myself."

Kitty moved to go, and then turned back. "I almost forgot. There was a
call for you at noon from a secretary of Victor Jaffers' at Carter
International. She seemed to know you'd be out and said that Mr. Jaffers
would call again at 15:00."

"Victor Jaffers?" Alcorn repeated. The name added a further premonitory
depression. "I think I know what he wants. It's happened before."

When Kitty had gone, Alcorn took a restless turn about the room and was
interrupted at once by the gentle buzzing of the radophone unit on his
desk. He pressed the receiving stud and found himself facing Victor
Jaffers' image.

"Don't bother to record this," Jaffers said without preamble. "Complete
arrangements have already been made to prove that I've never spoken to
you in my life."

* * * * *

Jaffers was a small, still-faced man who might have been mistaken for a
senior accountant's clerk--until the chill force of his eyes made itself
felt. Alcorn had seen the Carter International head before only in
teleprint pictures, had heard and discounted the stories about the man's
studied ruthlessness. But those eyes and the blunt approach made him
wonder.

"I've got a place in the contact branch of my organization for