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tomorrow we take Norleen and rent a place up north for a few days or so. We could go horseback riding. Remember how she loved it last summer? What do you say?”
    “That sounds nice,” Leslie agreed with a deep glow of enthusiasm. “Very nice, in fact.”
    “And on the way back we can drop off Norleen at your parents’. She can stay there while we take care of the business of moving out of this house, maybe find an apartment temporarily. I don’t think they’ll mind having her for a week or so, do you?”
    “No, of course not, they’ll love it. But what’s the great rush? Norleen’s still in school, you know. Maybe we should wait till she gets out. It’s just a month away.”
    David sat in silence for a moment, apparently ordering his thoughts.
    “What’s wrong?” asked Leslie with just a slight quiver of anxiety in her voice.
    “Nothing is actually wrong, nothing at all. But—”
    “But what?”
    “Well, it has to do with the prison. I know I sounded very smug in telling you how safe we are from prison escapes, and I still maintain that we are. But the one prisoner I’ve told you about is very strange, as I’m sure you’ve gathered. He is positively criminally psychotic…and then again he’s something else.”
    Leslie quizzed her husband with her eyes. “I thought you said he just bounces off the walls, not—”
    “Yes, much of the time he’s like that. But sometimes, well…”
    “What are you trying to say, David?” asked an uneasy Leslie.
    “It’s something that Doe said when I was talking with him today. Nothing really definite. But I’d feel infinitely more comfortable about the whole thing if Norleen stayed with your parents until we can organize ourselves.”
    Leslie lit another cigarette. “Tell me what he said that bothers you so much,” she said firmly. “I should know too.”
    “When I tell you, you’ll probably just think I’m a little crazy myself. You didn’t talk to him, though, and I did. The tone, or rather the many different tones of his voice; the shifting expressions on that lean face. Much of the time I talked to him I had the feeling he was beyond me in some way, I don’t know exactly how. I’m sure it was just the customary behavior of the psychopath—trying to shock the doctor. It gives them a sense of power.”
    “Tell me what he said,” Leslie insisted.
    “All right, I’ll tell you. As I said, it’s probably nothing. But toward the end of the interview today, when we were talking about those kids, and actually kids in general, he said something I didn’t like at all. He said it with an affected accent, Scottish this time with a little German flavor thrown in. He said: ‘You wouldn’t be havin’ a misbehavin’ laddie nor a little colleen of your own, now would you, Professor von Munck?’ Then he grinned at me silently.
    “Now I’m sure he was deliberately trying to upset me without, however, having any purpose in mind other than that.”
    “But what he said, David: ‘nor a little colleen.’”
    “Grammatically, of course, it should have been ‘or’ not ‘nor’, but I’m sure it wasn’t anything except a case of bad grammar.”
    “You didn’t mention anything about Norleen, did you?”
    “Of course I didn’t. That’s not exactly the kind of thing I would talk about with these…people.”
    “Then why did he say it like that?”
    “I have no idea. He possesses a very weird sort of cleverness, speaking much of the time with vague suggestions, even subtle jokes. He could have heard things about me from someone on the staff, I suppose. Then again, it might be just an innocent coincidence.” He looked to his wife for comment.
    “You’re probably right,” Leslie agreed with an ambivalent eagerness to believe in this conclusion. “All the same, I think I understand why you want Norleen to stay with my parents. Not that anything might happen—”
    “Not at all. There’s no reason to think anything would happen. Maybe this is a