room."

"Listen to me, Gerhart-" That was as far as Nichols got when the snarl

of the dial tone struck his ear.

The drizzle had turned to rain and Nichols's disposition rrored the

dismal weather as he was led through the University Hospital's entrance

to the pathology laboratory.  He hated the etherlike smells that

permeated the halls.

True to his word, Gerhart waited in the anteroom.  The two men knew each

other by sight and name but had never spoken.  Gerhart came forward but

made no effort to shake hands.

"Thank you for coming," he said in an official tone.

"Why am I here?" Nichols asked directly.

"for an identification."

Nichols was suddenly flooded with foreboding.  "Who?"

"I'd prefer you tell me."

"I don't have the stomach for looking at dead bodies.

"This isn't exactly a body, but you will need a strong stomach."

Nichols shrugged.  "All right, let's get it over with."

Gerhart held the door open and guided him down a long corridor and into

a room with large white tiles inlaid on the walls and floor.  The floor

was slightly concave with a drain in its center.  A stainless steel

table stood in stark solitude in the middle of the room.  A white,

opaque plastic sheet covered a long object that rose no more than an

inch above the surface of the table.

Nichols looked at Gerhart in bewilderment.  "What am I supposed to

identify?"

Without a word Gerhart lifted the sheet and pulled it away, letting it

drop in a crumpled wad on the floor.

Nichols stared at the thing on the table, uncomprehendingAt first he

thought it was a paper outline of a man's figure. Then he shuddered as

the gory truth struck him.  He leaned over the floor drain and threw up.

Gerhart stepped from the room and quickly returned with a folding chair

and a towel.

He steered Nichols to the chair and passed him the towel. "Here," he

said without sympathy, "use this."

Nichols sat for nearly two minutes, clutching the towel against his face

and dry-retching.  At last he recovered enough to look up at Gerhart and

stammer.

"Good lord . . . that's nothing but .

"Skin," Gerhart finished for him, "flayed human skin."

Nichols forced himself to stare at the grisly thing stretched out on the

table.

He was reminded of a deflated balloon.  That was the only way he could

describe it.  An incision had been made from the back of the head down

to the ankles, and the skin peeled away from the body like a pelt from

an animal.  There was a long vertical slit in the chest that had been

crudely sewn.  The eyes were missing, but the entire denmis was there,

including both shriveled hands and feet.

"Can you tell me who you think he might be?" asked Gerhart softly.

Nichols made a conscious effort, but the grotesque, misshapen facial

features made it all but impossible.  Only the hair seemed vaguely

familiar.  Yet he knew.