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finally. "Rather cruel; bad taste; perhaps from somebody who's brooded over a loss of their own too long; but outside of that--"
    Cameron had sat down suddenly, without being invited to. As though he intended staying for some time.
    "Let me ask you to finish something you started to say awhile back," he said. "What was the 'horrible impression' you say you had for a moment, when you first picked this up?"
    Garrison seemed reluctant to answer that. "Why, er--my wife's death was from natural causes, of course. But for a moment, when I first read this, I thought maybe it--it hadn't been after all. Without my realizing it. It almost sounded as if--as if someone had had a hand in it, had had something to do with it. It was just a horrible, mistaken idea that flashed through my mind." He ended with an apologetic smile.
    Cameron didn't return the smile. "It's an idea," he concurred sombrely. "And it's horrible. But whether it's mistaken or not--that's what we're going to try to find out, starting in right now."
    He picked up the note once more and balanced it, unfettered, across the tips of his upturned fingers, as though he were testing it for weight. It wasn't its physical weight that he was interested in.
    "I think you did the right thing, in calling us in on this," he said.

    "I'm not a patient," Cameron told Dr. Lorenz Muller's receptionist. "I don't mind waiting until the doctor can give me his full and undivided attention. In fact I'll even come back later if I have to."
    "There's a gentleman here from the police department to see you about Mrs. Garrison--" And she repeated the rest of the message.
    The doctor seemed to possess his full share of normal human curiosity. "You can go right in now," she relayed. A barrage of black looks from a number of stylishly-gowned women who had preceded him in the waiting room followed him as far as the inner door.
    The doctor seemed to like the idea of chatting with a non-patient for a change. He even seemed to like the idea of chatting with a member of the police force, as a novelty. He lit up a cigar, offered Cameron one, and leaned back comfortably at his desk.
    "At least I don't have to hold your hand, Inspector, and inhale a lot of sachet," he told him. "I wish I'd been a detective. You get out among healthy people more."
    "Healthy criminals," Cameron remarked drily. "And you end up poor."
    "But think of all the excitement you've had."
    Following which amenities, they got down to business, Cameron already with a considerable liking for the doctor and a fairly strong impression of his honesty.
    "You treated Mrs. Garrison, doctor?"
    "I've been their family physician for years. He's a former classmate of mine. I was called in on--" he looked it up--"May the thirty-first, in the small hours of the night. I didn't like what I saw, but I couldn't diagnose right away. I made a second visit later that same day. I rushed her immediately to the hospital." His voice dropped. "I didn't waste any more time, but it didn't do any good. By evening she was dead."
    "What was the cause of her death?"
    The doctor's face clouded. He glanced away for a moment, as if averse to speaking. "Tetanus," he said quietly. Cameron noticed he put his cigar aside for a moment, as if it didn't taste so good right then. "I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy."
    "You say you didn't recognize it right away, the first time you were called?"
    "A physician is seldom that fortunate. It wouldn't have mattered much if I had. I suspected it on the second visit, and I didn't wait to make sure, I took her out of there fast. The tests at the hospital confirmed it." He took a deep breath. "It was already too late for vaccine to be effective. The deadline had already expired. There's a time limit on the injections, you know. If you go past that, no power in heaven or on earth can save you."
    Cameron was beginning to feel chilly down his back.
    "How did she happen to get it?"
    "She grazed her leg on a nail as she was going in the