"What's wrong?"

"This won't come out like what I saw. I wanted to draw the woman in charge. A small woman, average-looking with ginger hair. Cut off straight above her eyes and straight all the way around the rest, two inches down from where her ears should've been."

The thing he had drawn owned no ears.

He was drawing something that wasn't human. Its head was shaped something like an inverted pear. Its eyes were oversize, bulgy, teardrops shaped, evidently without pupils. He did not put in a nose. Instead, there were slits, unconnected, forming an inverted Y.

I observed, "There isn't any nose. And what about ears?"

"I thought they were hidden under her hair. I guess... not. There're these dark, bruise-looking patches down here, practically on the neck. Maybe they do the same job."

That was weird. I couldn't think of a race that didn't have ears of some kind. In fact, most races have ears that make our human ones look like afterthoughts. Great hairy, pointy, or dangly things all covered with scales and warts.

"Old Bones, you've got to help us out here. Why can't Play draw what he really saw?"

Grumpy atmospherics. Kip squeaked. The Dead Man observed, Mr. Playmate appears to be reproducing what was actually in front of him rather than what he believes he saw. It is possible he was gulled by some illusion. The illustration does resemble the boy's recollections of his elven acquaintances.

"Wonderful. Play, I'll bet Colonel Block wishes he had somebody who could draw pictures like this of the villains he wants to catch."

"The Guard can go on wishing. You know I'm a simple man, Garrett. Not greedy at all. But I do have to point out that a second-rate stable operator like myself still makes a better living than the best-paid honest policeman."