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time,” he told me. “It won’t work. You take any hypnotist you want, any professional. You try, you go into it and want to get hypnotized. Just to see what it is, say.” He shook his head, then glanced over at the copier and noticed it had stopped working. Walking over to it, he said, “You won’t go under. It’s the same as with the grass.”
    â€œHave you tried it?”
    Grinning again, reprogramming the copier for ten more, he said, “Five different times. I drive them right up the wall.” He struck a stern pose, and did a parody voice combining Viennese professor and Times Square homosexual: “Professor Crane, you are not cooperating. ”
    â€œAre you cooperating?”
    He cocked his head to one side, looking past me, thinking it over. “I guess I’m not,” he said, sounding surprised. “I want to, but I just won’t let it happen. Like with the grass. You know what I mean?”
    â€œYes, I think so.”
    â€œControl,” he said. “When you found the body, I bet you were very cool.”
    I smiled a little ruefully, remembering that moment. “I didn’t feel cool, believe me.”
    â€œNo? I bet it didn’t show. You don’t let anything blow your mind, not grass, not anything. Not even finding a dead body in the middle of the floor.”
    â€œYou give me too much credit,” I said.
    Suddenly he’d lost interest in the conversation. “I don’t think so,” he said, and turned back to the copier, saying, “All set here? Right.”
    I watched him gather up an armload of copies. He seemed self-absorbed while getting ready to leave, but then gave me another friendly smile and said, “Nice talking to you.”
    â€œThe same.”
    â€œKeep your cool,” he said, and grinned, and left the office.
    A minute later I followed him. Down by the front door, I saw Crane and Ernest Ramsey in conversation, with several of Crane’s students nearby; then Crane and his people left, and Ramsey went off toward the display rooms. I went over to Muller and said, “You don’t have to wait for these people to leave.”
    â€œNo problem,” he said. “They’ll be out in a minute or two.” Over the last few weeks I’d picked up an impression of Muller as a man who preferred being on the job to being at home. I knew nothing of his home life, and might have been mistaking extreme conscientiousness for reluctance to go home.
    Muller and I stood talking by the front door now as the Ramsey students trailed out, one or two at a time. Ramsey himself came along last, and paused to tell Muller that the inventory would continue for the next two or three days, that the museum would remain closed for that time, and that only Muller himself would be required for daytime duty until the reopening. Muller promised to pass it all on to Grazko, and Ramsey turned to me. Like Crane, I had seen Ramsey three or four times in the last few weeks, but we had never actually been introduced. Now Ramsey said, “You’re Tobin, aren’t you?”
    â€œYes, I am.”
    â€œThe guard who found the body?” He was apparently a man who liked to nail down the details.
    â€œThat’s right,” I said.
    â€œYou seem to have handled things very well.”
    â€œI didn’t have to do anything but call the police.”
    â€œNevertheless,” he said, “you seem to have remained remarkably calm under the circumstances.”
    Like Phil Crane, Ramsey was saying I was cool. It was meant as a compliment, and I realized his chilly manner was his natural style and not at all aimed at me, but I couldn’t seem to avoid bristling a bit in response. I made a conscious effort to remain calm under these circumstances, too, and said, “Thank you.”
    He looked around and said, “Astonishing how he could have gotten in here.”
    â€œSomeone with a key,” I