"How about a jealous husband or a disgruntled lover?" the sergeant asked.

"Only the Almighty Father, who is swayed neither by the color of the skin nor the smartness of the brain, but judges only by the sincerity of the heart, would have called Sister Wright from her life on Earth to offer her a seat in heaven-as useful as she was to everybody," Sweet Prophet said.

One of the four gilded telephones on the desk began to ring. Sweet Prophet looked at them without moving, and a sedately dressed middle-aged woman, who had been standing impassively by the wall behind him, stepped forward and miraculously picked up the right one.

"The blessed Sweet Prophet's Temple of Wonderful Prayer," she enunciated in a well-modulated voice.

The harsh sound of a voice at the other end came into the room, but the words were indistinct.

"Very well," the woman replied and, looking up toward the sergeant, said, "It is for you, sir, if you are Sergeant Ratigan."

The sergeant got to his feet and reached across the desk for the receiver.

"Ratigan," he bellowed. "Shoot!"

The sound of the harsh voice, metallic and indistinct, poured into the dense, listening silence, punctuated by Ratigan saying, "Yeah… Yeah… Well, that's that…"

He hung up the receiver and said to his assistants, "Let's go."

3

A dilapidated moving van, minus the name of the owner or any identifying inscription save for a license plate almost obliterated by dirt, drew up in front of a four-storied brick tenement on 118th Street. The block was parallel to the one on 117th Street where the baptism had taken place a short time before.

Two big overall-clad colored men, one of whom had been driving, and a small, white-haired Jew, wearing a black suit and a brown felt hat, got out.