moment Rand stood in the doorway,
adjusting his eyes to the darkness within and wondering where everybody
was.

Then, in the path of light that fell inward from the open door, he saw
two feet in tan shoes, toes up, at the end of tweed-trousered legs, on
the floor. An instant later he stepped inside, pulled the door shut after
him, and was using his pen-light to find the electric switch.

For a second or so after he snapped it nothing happened, and then the
darkness was broken by the flickering of fluorescent tubes. When they
finally lit, he saw the shape on the floor, arms outflung, the inverted
rifle above it. For a seemingly long time he stood and stared at the
grotesquely transfixed body of Arnold Rivers.

The dead man lay on his back, not three feet beyond the radius of the
door, in a pool of blood that was almost dried and gave the room a
sickly-sweet butchershop odor. Under the back of Rand's hand, Rivers's
cheek was cold; his muscles had already begun to stiffen in _rigor
mortis_. Rand examined the dead man's wounds. His coat was stained with
blood and gashed in several places; driven into his chest by a downward
blow, the bayonet of a short German service Mauser pinned him to the
floor like a specimen on a naturalist's card. Beside the one in which
the weapon remained, there were three stab-wounds in the chest, and the
lower part of the face was disfigured by what looked like a butt-blow.
Bending over, Rand could see the imprint of the Mauser butt-plate on
Rivers's jaw; on the butt-plate itself were traces of blood.

The rifle, a regulation German infantry weapon, the long-familiar _Gewehr
'98_ in its most recent modification, was a Nazi product, bearing the
eagle and encircled swastika of the Third Reich and the code-letters
_lza_--the symbol of the Mauserwerke A.G. plant at Karlsruhe. It had
doubtless been sold to Rivers by some returned soldier. In a rack beside
the door were a number of other bolt-action military rifles--a Krag, a
couple of Arisakas, a long German infantry rifle of the first World War,
a Greek Mannlicher, a Mexican Mauser, a British short model Lee-Enfield.
All had fixed bayonets; between the Lee-Enfield and one of the Arisakas
there was a vacancy.

Rivers's carved ivory cigarette-holder was lying beside the body, crushed
at the end as though it had been stepped on. A half-smoked cigarette had
been in it; it, too, was crushed. There was no evidence of any great
struggle, however; the a