dvantageous in deputies of The
Master. The real Herr Wiedkind had remarkable gifts in eradicating those
ideas."

* * * * *

Jamison sat down and crossed his knees carefully.

"I looked you up because I knew The Master had killed your father," he
added mildly, "and I thought you'd either be hunting The Master or he'd
be hunting you. My name's Jamison. I killed the real Wiedkind and took
his identification papers. He was a singularly unpleasant beast. His
idea of pleasure made him seem a fatherly sort of person, very much like
my make-up. He was constantly petting children, and appeared very
benign. I am very, very glad that I killed him."

Ortiz tore at his collar, suddenly. He seemed to be choking.

"This--this says.... It is The Master's handwriting! I know it! And it
says--"

"It says," Jamison observed calmly, "that since your father killed the
previous deputy in an attempt to save you from The Master's poison, that
you are to be prepared for the work your father had been assigned. Herr
Wiedkind is given special orders about your--ah--moral education. In
passing, I might say that your father was sent to the United States
because it was known he'd killed the previous deputy. He told Bell he'd
done that killing. And he was allowed to grow horribly nervous on his
return. He was permitted to see the red spots, because he was
officially--even as far as you were concerned--to commit suicide.

"It was intended that his nervousness was to be noticed. And a plane
tried to deliver a message to him. Your father thought the parcel
contained the antidote to the poison that was driving him mad. Actually,
it was very conventional prussic acid. Your father would have drunk it
and dropped dead, a suicide, after a conspicuous period of nervousness
and worry."

* * * * *

Bell felt his cigarette burning his fingers. He had sat rigid until the
thing burned short. He crushed out the coal, looking at Ortiz.

And Ortiz seemed to gasp for breath. But with an almost superhuman
effort he calmed himself outwardly.

"I--think," he said with some difficulty, "that I should thank you. I
do. But I do not think that you told me all of this without some motive.
I abandon the service of The Master. But what is it that you wish me to
do? You know, of course, that I can order both of you killed...."

Bell put down the stub of his cigarette very carefully.

"The only thing you