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undisciplined fashion—they call him by his first name! I’ve even heard it said he sees them socially, drinks with them in utter disregard for decency and the law.”
    “Prohibition’s tough on everybody. Think any of these colleagues’ d like him a bit less candid—via several dozen nasty little bullet holes?”
    He sat up, really shocked, I think. “Officer, please!”
    “Lieutenant, Dr. Bealls, homicide lieutenant. I wouldn’t want abuse from a public servant, either. What about Meiss’s extracurricular activities?”
    He assumed his frostiest expression. I gave it a B-minus. “I assure you, Lieutenant, I do not meddle in the personal lives of my subordinates.”
    This was getting me nowhere. “Listen, Bealls, I’m just doing my job, and it isn’t very easy. Everybody I work for is dead, and it depresses me. What do you say we call a truce?”
    He sat a moment, color returning to normal. Then he nodded microscopically. So I rushed him: “Okay, tell me what sort of physics Meiss was up to lately.”
    He surprised me: “May I see your identification again? I assure you, I’ve good reason.” I handed my badge case over. He looked at the shield, weighing it in his hand—amazingly heavy, wouldn’t feel like authority, otherwise—then flipped over the felt liner and spent more time on the plastic ID. “I don’t suppose you’d mind if I called your department to confirm this?”
    I recognize a National Security reflex when I see one. I sat tight, practicing my poker face. If they told him no, Lieutenant Bear’s in Manitou Springs, it’d take weeks to talk my way out. “Not at all. 226-2421—better get it from the operator, just in case. Ask for Lieutenant James J. James. The J stands for—”
    “I don’t think that will be necessary.” He sneaked a peek at his watch. “You see, Dr. Meiss once pursued investigations of a … sensitive nature. He no longer does that sort of thing—of course, if he’s really dead, I suppose that’s the case anyway, ha ha. Ethics , he maintained, but you can see how they were just as happy. They were disturbed by the turn in his views.”
    “So I’ve been told. About when did all this happen?”
    “Not all at once. I gather he made it final two, two and a half years ago.
    I remembered the date on his Party card. “So why the panic now? That’s a long time, as government secrets go.”
    Bealls went into his spectacle-scrubbing bit again. “Understand, sir, he was—considering his mediocre talent—quite far ahead in the field. The price of catering to reckless independence. I’m afraid no one else has been able—and if that weren’t enough, walking around with all that information in his brain—”
    I couldn’t help it. “Was he supposed to turn it in? His brain, I mean. The usual practice is to do that before you start working for the—”
    “—abandoned everything, charging off on some trivial commercial track, leaving nothing behind but—”
    “What do you mean?”
    “A series of lucrative grants from private industrial sources. Not general endowments, mind you, but personal carte blanche. Anything his whim desired! He was bought, simple as that, out of his proper field and service to his country. I dare say he had more resources available than the rest of this—”
    He fumbled with his glasses, putting them on upside down. “Well, I can tell you, serious consideration was being given certain measures. There were those who could see he was denied tenure,” Bealls added brightly. “They would have thanked me for that. It is not beyond consideration.” He blinked and rearranged his spectacles.
    Before he could open his mouth again, I said, “Would it be possible to examine his office, you know, for clues and things?” I expected resistance, but was prepared to argue.
    An examinatory stare and thoughtful pause. Bealls probably intimidated a lot of undergrads. “It’s quite irregular, Lieutenant. I ought to insist on a warrant or