tarted for the door and turned. "I wish I
could have stayed in San Francisco," he said. "Why should she insist
on taking _me_ along?"

"The beard," Malone said. "My beard?" Boyd recoiled.

"Right," Malone said. "She says it reminds her of someone she knows.
Frankly, it reminds me of someone, too. Only I don't know who."

Boyd gulped. "I'll shave it off," he said, with the air of a man who
can do no more to propitiate the Gods.

"You will not," Malone said firmly. "Touch but a hair of yon black
chin, and I'll peel off your entire skin."

Boyd winced.

"Now," Malone said, "go back to that costume shop and arrange things.
Here." He fished in his pockets and came out with a crumpled slip of
paper and handed it to Boyd. "That's a list of my clothing sizes. Get
another list from B--Miss Wilson." Boyd nodded. Malone thought he
detected a strange glint in the other man's eye. "Don't measure her
yourself," he said. "Just ask her."

Boyd scratched his bearded chin and nodded slowly. "All right, Ken,"
he said. "But if we just don't get anywhere, don't blame me."

"If you get anywhere," Malone said, "I'll snatch you baldheaded. And
I'll leave the beard."

"I didn't mean with Miss Wilson, Ken," Boyd said. "I meant in
general." He left, with the air of a man whose world has betrayed him.
His back looked, to Malone, like the back of a man on his way to the
scaffold or guillotine.

The door closed.

Now, Malone thought, who does that beard remind me of? Who do I know
who knows Miss Thompson?

And what difference does it make?

Nevertheless, he told himself, Boyd's beard (Beard's boyd?) was really
an admirable fact of nature. Ever since beards had become popular
again in the mid-sixties, and FBI agents had been permitted to wear
them, Malone had thought about growing one. But, somehow, it didn't
seem right.

Now, looking at Boyd, he began to think about the prospect again.

He shrugged the notion away. There were things to do.

He picked up the phone and called Information.

"Can you give me," he said, "the number of the Desert Edge
Sanatorium?"

* * * * *

The crimson blob of the setting sun was already painting the desert
sky with its customary purples and oranges by the time the little
caravan arrived at the Desert Edge Sanatorium, a square white building
several miles out of Las Vegas. Malone, in the first car, wondered
briefly about the kind of patients they catered to. People