Nick went down, slithering more than falling, collapsing forever with the feeble dead flap of his pudgy hand against the counter.

The captain sat like a man of bronze, his cup half-raised. Any second the gun would go off again and his own career would be finished.

Unhurried footsteps walked away—toward the other end of the diner where the cigarette machine stood. The captain listened, counting, and let a sound-etched photograph developed in his brain of a man about the size of Nick, with an overcoat rapping against his legs.

The captain remembered the hinged counter-flap. He heard it raised, and he could feel the vibrations as the man swung it over and dropped it against the counter.

He counted the footsteps along the duckboards and jumped involuntarily at the sound of the bell and the opening of the cash drawer.

For three long seconds he listened to heavy and muffled breathing, as the man stared in the drawer. The captain knew then why the man hadn’t shot him.

The man was masked with something covering his nose and mouth—a handkerchief perhaps. He couldn’t know Maclain was blind, but he didn’t care; he couldn’t be recognized.

The clank of metal sounded from the duckboards near where the captain figured Nick lay. “He’s disposed of the gun beside his victim,” the captain thought, and wondered why.

The heavy footsteps retraced their course, paused for a second inside the door, then went on out.

For thirty seconds the captain waited, tense and listening. There had been no sound of a car.

He set his coffee cup down and began to function again. When he knew his way, he could move much faster than most sighted people. He went to the end of the counter and through the opening almost on a run. Then he grew more cautious. He felt along, with his fingers brushing shelves of condiments and canned goods, until he reached the swinging door. As he had already pictured, a large round porthole of glass was set in the door.

The woman who had screamed was undoubtedly Mrs. Gherigis. She must have seen the gunman through the window in the door. The captain figured swiftly that she couldn’t have seen Nick standing in front of the grill out of range of vision.

Why had she screamed, “Nicky, don’t shoot! Don’t kill anyone!”?

The captain snapped his fingers in sudden understanding. The masked killer must have been wearing some of Nick’s clothes. Mrs. Gherigis didn’t know her husband had been shot—she had thought he was the killer!

“Of whom?”

Obviously the man, whoever he was, who was shaking Nick down.

The aroma of the cooking ham and eggs grew sharper, mixed with the smell of the simmering coffee.

If Duncan Maclain knew any fear, it was that of fire. With even greater caution, he located the gas knob and turned off the grill.