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said nastily. “I’m a coward. I just came here to find out what the joke is.” I moved sideways while slapping that monstrous piece of ordnance the other way, chopped his wrist, and caught it. Then I handed it back to him. “Don’t play with that thing, or I’ll shove it up your deposition. I’m in a hurry. You’re Doctor Balsamo? You ran that ad?”
    “Tut, tut,” he said, not at all annoyed. “Impetuous youth. No, Doctor Balsamo is in there.” He pointed his eyebrows at two doors on the left wall, then pushed a bell button on his desk—the only thing in the room later than Napoleon. “Go in. She’s expecting you.”
    “‘She’? Which door?”
    “Ah, the Lady or the Tiger? Does it matter? In the long run? A hero will know. A coward will choose the wrong one, being sure that I lie. Allez-y! Vite, vite! Schnell! Get the lead out, Mac.”
    I snorted and jerked open the right-hand door.
    The doctor was standing with her back to me at some apparatus against the far wall and she was wearing one of those white, high-collared jackets favored by medical men. On my left was a surgeon’s examining table, on my right a Swedish-modern couch; there were stainless-steel and glass cabinets, and some framed certificates; the whole place was as up-to-date as the outer room was not.
    As I closed the door she turned and looked at me and said quietly, “I am very glad that you have come.” Then she smiled and said softly, “You are beautiful,” and came into my arms.

Chapter 4
    FOUR
    About a minute and forty seconds and several centuries later “Dr. Balsamo-Helen of Troy” pulled her mouth an inch back from mine and said, “Let me go, please, then undress and lie on the examining table.”
    I felt as if I had had nine hours of sleep, a needle shower, and three slugs of ice-cold akvavit on an empty stomach. Anything she wanted to do, I wanted to do. But the situation seemed to call for witty repartee. “Huh?” I said.
    “Please. You are the one, but nevertheless I must examine you.”
    “Well…all right,” I agreed. “You’re the doctor,” I added and started to unbutton my shirt. “You are a doctor? Of medicine, I mean.”
    “Yes. Among other things.”
    I kicked out of my shoes. “But why do you want to examine me ?”
    “For witches’ marks, perhaps. Oh, I shan’t find any, I know. But I must search for other things, too. To protect you.”
    That table was cold against my skin. Why don’t they pad those things? “Your name is Balsamo?”
    “One of my names,” she said absently while gentle fingers touched me here and there. “A family name, that is.”
    “Wait a minute. Count Cagliostro! ”
    “One of my uncles. Yes, he used that name. Though it isn’t truly his, no more than Balsamo. Uncle Joseph is a very naughty man and quite untruthful.” She touched an old, small scar. “Your appendix has been removed.”
    “Yes.”
    “Good. Let me see your teeth.”
    I opened wide. My face may not be much but I could rent my teeth to advertise Pepsodent. Presently she nodded. “Fluoride marks. Good. Now I must have your blood.”
    She could have bitten me in the neck for it and I wouldn’t have minded. Nor been much surprised. But she did it the ordinary way, taking ten cc from the vein inside my left elbow. She took the sample and put it in that apparatus against the wall. It chirred and whirred and she came back to me. “Listen, Princess,” I said.
    “I am not a princess.”
    “Well… I don’t know your first name, and you inferred that your last name isn’t really ‘Balsamo’—and I don’t want to call you ‘Doc.’” I certainly did not want to call her “Doc”—not the most beautiful girl I had ever seen or hoped to see…not after a kiss that had wiped out of memory every other kiss I had ever received. No.
    She considered it. “I have many names. What would you like to call me?”
    “Is one of them ‘Helen’?”
    She smiled like sunshine and I learned that she had