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He left my office about an hour or an hour and a half ago. Where he went I have no idea.”
    The woman’s voice said, “Did you let him out some secret way?”
    “No,” said the doctor. “There is a door into the cellar and out into the street that no one very much knows about but I did not take him to it. He simply walked out the door and closed it.”
    The woman said thoughtfully, “He has not been seen to leave.”
    “Then—” the doctor started. Paddy pulled himself out of the closet, slid open Ramadh Singh’s door, slipped out into the hall, stepped to Dr. Tallogg’s door, slid it ajar an inch. The drab waiting room was empty. Voices came from the inner room.
    The door slid quietly open. Paddy slipped in like a dark dream.
    He had no weapon—he must go carefully. He stepped across the room, saw a shoulder in gray-green fabric, a hip in dark green. On the hip hung a pouch. If she carried a weapon it would lie in this pouch.
    Paddy stepped through the door, threw an arm around the woman’s throat, dipped into her pouch with his right hand. He pulled out an ion gun, pointed it at the doctor.
    The doctor had his own weapon in his hand. He held it as if it were very hot, as if he were not sure where to aim it.
    Paddy said, “Put down that gun!” in a voice like an iron bell. “Put it down, I say!”
    The doctor peered at him with almost comical indecision. Paddy heaved the struggling woman forward, reached, took the gun from Tallogg’s numb fingers. He shoved it inside his jumper. The woman sprang clear, turned, faced Paddy, her mouth parted, eyes wide with black wide pupils staring.
    “Quiet!” warned Paddy. “I’m a desperate man. I’ll shoot if you drive me to it.”
    “What do you want?” asked Tallogg quietly. He now bore himself with the indifference of a man condemned.
    Paddy grinned, a wide toothy grin. “First, doctor, you will conduct me and this lady to the street through your secret way.”
    The woman stiffened, began to speak, then halted, watching Paddy in frowning calculation.
    The doctor said, “Perhaps I will, perhaps I won’t.” He nodded wearily at the ion gun. “You intend to shoot me anyway.”
    Paddy shrugged. “I won’t shoot. We’ll sit here and talk. Faith, I’m a great talker. I’ll tell you of the Grand Rally at Skibbereen, I’ll talk by the hour of Fionn and Diarmuid. Then there’s Miletus and the old heroes.” He looked brightly at the doctor. “Now what do you say to that?”
    The doctor’s mouth had drooped. He said forlornly, “I suppose I lose nothing by taking you out.”
    Paddy turned to the woman. “And I’ll ask you to take me to your boat.”
    She said, “Now listen to me, Paddy Blackthorn.”
    He took stock of her. She was younger than he had expected and a great deal smaller. There were few inches more than five feet of her and she was slim to boot. She had a small face, short dark hair clinging close to her head. Except for lustrous dark eyes Paddy thought her rather plain, hardly feminine. His taste was for the long-limbed brown-haired girls of Maeve, laughing light-headed girls.
    “I hate killing,” muttered Paddy. “Lucky for you it is that I harm never so much as a fly unless first it stings me. Now as for you, walk quiet and calm and there’ll be no great harm done to you. But mind—no tricks!”
    He motioned to the doctor. “Lead.”
    The doctor said sourly, “Did I understand you to say that you don’t intend to shoot me?”
    Paddy snorted. “You understand nothing. Get moving.”
    The doctor spread out his hands helplessly. “I merely wanted to state that if we are to leave I wish to take along the antidote to the ordeal poison I gave the young woman. If I don’t have hers she won’t give me mine.”
    Paddy said, “Give it to me.”
    The doctor hesitated, eyeing the girl doubtfully.
    “If I don’t get it I’ll sit here till you fall sideways from the poison.”
    The doctor shuffled to the drawer, tossed Paddy an