“Mr. Diamond!” Eams was angry now. “Please could you be careful what you say. You told me you were going to ask Barry what he saw outside Lenny Smile’s house.”

“You’re absolutely right, Doc.” Tim winked. “I think it’s time we got to the crunch . . .”

Krishner went completely white. I thought he was going to pass out.

Dr. Eams stared at Tim. “For heaven’s sake . . . !” he rasped.

“Can we run over a couple things?” Tim asked.

Krishner began to foam at the mouth.

“You see, I really want to crack this case. Although I have to say, clues are a bit thin on the ground . . .”

Barry Krishner screamed and jumped out of the window. Without opening it. Alarms went off all over the hospital and, two minutes later, Tim and I were being escorted off the premises with the gates locked securely behind us.

“They weren’t very helpful,” Tim muttered. “Do you think it was something I said?”

I didn’t answer. We had spent the whole day following in a supposedly dead man’s footsteps. They had led us nowhere.

So where did we go now?

A NIGHT AT THE CIRCUS

The next day was a Saturday. Tim was in a bad mood when he came in for breakfast. He’d obviously gotten up on the wrong side of the bed: not a good idea, since he slept next to the window. At least there was food in the fridge. The money that Joe Carter had paid us would last us a month, and that morning I’d cooked up eggs, bacon, tomatoes, sausages, and beans. The papers had arrived—the Sun for me, the Dandy for Tim. An hour later the two of us were so full we could barely move. There’s nothing like a great British breakfast for a great British heart attack.

But the truth is, we were both down in the dumps—and this time I don’t mean the apartment. We were no nearer to finding the truth about Smile. Rodney Hoover and Fiona Lee, the pair who ran Dream Time, were obviously creepy. According to Mrs. Lovely, the next-door neighbor, they had half-carried Smile downstairs just before his fatal accident. Had he been drunk? Or drugged? They could have thrown him in front of the steamroller—but if so, why? As Tim would undoubtedly have said, they’d have needed a pressing reason.

Barry Krishner, the driver of the steamroller, hadn’t been able to tell us anything. After his encounter with Tim, it would probably be years before he talked again. He might babble and gibber, but I guessed talking would be a little beyond him. The police had presumably investigated and found nothing. Maybe there was nothing to find.

And yet . . .