It would take time to come up with a possible helper. So I spent the
next hour driving toward Chicago, and by the time I'd crossed the
Ohio-Indiana line and hit Richmond, I had a plan laid out. I placed a
call to New York and within a few minutes I was talking to Nurse Farrow.

I'll not go into detail because there was a lot of mish-mash that is not
particularly interesting and a lot more that covered my tracks since I'd
parted company with her on the steps of the hospital. I did not, of
course, mention my real purpose over the telephone and Miss Farrow could
not read my mind from New York.

The upshot of the deal was that I felt that I needed a nurse for a
while, not that I was ill, but that I felt a bit woozy now and then
because I hadn't learned to slow down. I worked too fast and too long
and my condition was not up to it yet. This Miss Farrow allowed as being
quite possible. I repeated my offer to pay her at the going prices for
registered nurses with a one-month guarantee, paid in advance. That
softened her quite a bit. Then I added that I'd videograph her a check
large enough to cover the works plus a round trip ticket. She should
come out and have a look, and if she weren't satisfied, she could return
without digging into her own pocket. All she'd lose was one day, and it
might be a bit of a vacation if she enjoyed flying in a jetliner at
sixty thousand feet.

The accumulation of offers finally sold her and she agreed to
arrange a leave of absence. She'd meet me in the morning of the
day-after-tomorrow, at Central Airport in Chicago.

I videographed the check and then took off again, confident that I'd be
able to sell her on the idea of being the telepath half of my amateur
investigation team.

Then because I needed some direct information, I turned West and crossed
the line into Indiana, heading toward Marion. So far I had a lot of
well-placed suspicions, but until I was certain, I could do no more than
postulate ideas. I had to know definitely how to identify Mekstrom's
Disease, or at least the infected flesh. I have a fairly good recall;
all I needed now was to have someone point to a Case and say flatly that
this was a case of Mekstrom's Disease. Then I'd know whether what I'd
seen in Ohio was actually one hundred percent Mekstrom.

VI

I walked into the front office with a lot of self-assurance. The Medical
Center was a big, rambling place with a lot of spread-out one- and
two-story buil