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doormat.”
    That was all. He slammed down the receiver. Helen said, “What was it, Peter?”
    “Somebody wanting Stott to look on the doormat.”
    “Oh dear! Not more pigs’ feet? Peter, I don’t think this is one bit amusing.”
    “Neither do I.”
    Shandy opened the front door. A white paper parcel not more than six inches long and four inches wide was lying on the stoop. He picked it up and brought it inside.
    “Looks like a package of meat.”
    “Then don’t open it here,” said Helen. “Take it out to the sink in case it drips.”
    “What if it’s a bomb?”
    “All the more reason not to mess up the new carpet.”
    Helen took the package out of her husband’s hand and rushed it to the sink. Unhappily, she unwrapped it at the precise moment Iduna started to refill the coffeepot.
    “Why, Helen,” the guest remarked, “you’re not planning to cook pork chops at this hour of the morning, are you?”
    “Pork chops?”
    Like a bullet from a gun, or more aptly a shell from a howitzer, Professor Stott leaped from his chair. “Where did you get that?”
    “Off the doormat,” said Shandy unhappily. “Your friend called again.”
    “What did he say?”
    “Just asked for you and said to look on the doormat. Don’t be alarmed, Stott. That can’t be one of Belinda’s chops. It’s too thin.”
    “The paper’s from the Meat-o-Mat,” said Helen, referring to a store which she and many of her neighbors often patronized. “This chop doesn’t look awfully fresh to me, and they’re usually very fussy about quality. I’d say it’s been bought a while ago and kept in its original wrapper.”
    “Which means it must have been obtained for the purpose to which it was put,” Shandy mused. “Hence we may infer that this was no spur-of-the-moment pignapping. I hope whoever’s pulled this caper is in one of my classes. It would give me particular pleasure to flunk him, her, or more probably them. I’d say it was next to impossible for one person to have made off with Belinda, wouldn’t you, Stott? A gang with a flatbed truck would be more like it. I expect we’ll be able to see tire tracks as soon as it gets light enough. The police may have picked up a trail already.”
    “We must hope so.”
    Somewhat reassured, Professor Stott began to extricate himself from the small kitchen. “I shall go back and lend my personal effort to the search. Are you coming, Shandy?”
    “Not in my bathrobe. I’ll meet you at the barns as soon as I’m dressed.”
    Shandy turned toward the stairs, then paused. “I wonder how they knew you were coming here. You didn’t happen to notice anybody trailing you?”
    “No. I was steeped in gloomy ratiocination. I would not be difficult to follow.”
    That was true enough. Following Stott would be about as hard as tracking a hippopotamus across a tennis court. Shandy put on some warm old clothes and was back downstairs before Stott had quite decided to go on without him. The man was still making his stately farewells to Mrs. Shandy and Miss Bjorklund when the front door began to buckle from thunderous blows on the knocker. This visitor was Thorkjeld Svenson, and the President was extremely upset.
    “Shandy, you’ve got to find Stott.”
    “Nothing easier, President. Come in.”
    “No time. Damn it, where’s Stott?”
    “I am here.” The professor moved into the light. “Have you found her? Is she unharmed?”
    “She’s dead. Guard found her in the mash feeder.”
    “But that’s impossible! Not—good God! Not dismembered?”
    “Of course not dismembered. They just doubled her up and shoved her in.”
    “President, this is an ill-timed jest. The mash feeder is not more than two feet square. Belinda—”
    “Who’s talking about Belinda? It was Flackley the Farrier. She’s had her throat cut with one of her own knives. It was in the feeder with her.”
    “Oh no!” cried Helen. “But she was here last evening! We had her to dinner. We liked her so