Remo opened the wallet and checked the wax paper seals. If they were broken he was to discard the identification and say—if he were stopped for questioning—that he had lost his wallet, referring all inquiries about him to a firm in Tacorna, Washington. Should this be done there would be a reference from that firm that, indeed, a Remo Van Sluyters worked for the Busby and Berkley Tool and Die.

Remo opened the seals with his thumb. He looked at the driver’s license. He was Remo Horvath and his card said he worked for the fund-raising firm of Jones, Raymond, Winter and Klein.

He checked the closet for his shoes. The ding-dongs upstairs had unloaded well-used cordovans on him again.

As he dressed, he mused over the morning’s headlines.

HERO COP GIVES LIFE TO SAVE INFORMER.

Or

MANIAC AX WIELDER ATTACKS HERO COP.

Or

A BLOODY MISS AT TOMALINO.

He walked out into the foyer which was now a confusion of blue uniforms, many of them with brass insignia on the shoulders.

‘What happened, officer? What happened?’

‘Stay in your room. No one’s leaving the building.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

An officer with a broken wrist limped out of Tomalino’s room. Why a limp, Remo would never understand. Yet injured people, when they knew they were being observed, often limped.

‘We’re holding people for questioning,’ said the higher ranking officer, who looked at the injured patrolman. The patrolman shook his head, which meant to Remo that there was no identification of him as the killer.

But there was a brief interrogation nevertheless. No, Remo had not seen anything or heard anything and what right did the police have questioning him?