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Harry, its body humming with  latent power. Its eyes were  molten; its open maw  impossibly large. And there, already in its vast throat, was Barbara. He met her eyes out of the tiger's mouth, and saw a flicker of comprehension in them that was worse than any madness. Then the beast threw its head back  and forth to settle its prey in its gut. She had been swallowed whole, apparently. There was no bloodon the landing, nor about the tiger's muzzle; only the appalling sight of the girl's face disappearing down the tunnel of the animal's throat.
    She loosed a final cry from the belly of the thing, and as it rose it seemed to Harry that the beast attempted a grin. Its face crinkled up grotesquely, the eyes narrowing like those of a laughing Buddha, the lips peeling back to expose a sickle of brilliant teeth. Behind this display the cry was finally hushed. In that instant the tiger leapt.
    Harry fired into its devouring bulk and as the shot met its flesh the leer and the maw and the whole striped mass of it unwove in a single beat. Suddenly it was gone, and there was only a drizzle of pastel confetti spiralling down around him. The shot had aroused interest. There were raised voices in one or two of the apartments, and the light that had accompanied Butterfield from the elevator was brightening through the open door of the Bernstein residence. He was almost tempted to stay and see the light-bringer, but discretion bettered his curiosity, and he turned and made his descent, taking the stairs two and three at a time. The confetti tumbled after him, as if it had a life of its own. Barbara's life, perhaps; transformed into paper pieces and tossed away.
    He reached the lobby breathless. The doorman was standing there, staring up the stairs vacantly.
    'Somebody get shot?' he enquired.
    'No,' said Harry, 'eaten.'
    As he  headed for the door he  heard the elevator start to hum  as  it descended. Perhaps  merely  a tenant, coming down for a pre-dawn stroll. Perhaps not.
    He left the doorman as he had found him, sullen and confused, and made his escape into the street, putting two block lengths between him  and the apartment building before he stopped running. They did not botherto come after him. He was beneath their concern, most likely.
    So what was he to do now? Valentin was dead, Barbara Bernstein too. He was none the wiser now than he'd been at the outset, except that he'd learned again the lesson he'd been taught in Wyckoff Street: that when dealing with the Gulfs it was wiser never to believe your eyes.
    The moment you trusted your senses, the moment you believed a tiger to be a tiger, you were half theirs.
    Not  a complicated lesson, but it seemed he had forgotten it, like a fool, and it had taken two deaths to teach it to him afresh. Maybe it would be simpler to have the rule tattooed on the back of his hand, so that he couldn't check the time without being reminded:
    Never believe your eyes.
    The  principle was still fresh in his mind as he walked back towards his apartment and a man stepped out of the doorway and said:
    'Harry.'
    It looked like Valentin; a wounded Valentin, a Valentin who'd been dismembered and sewn together again by a committee of blind surgeons, but the same man in essence. But then the tiger had looked like a tiger, hadn't it?
    'It's me,' he said.
    'Oh no,' Harry said. 'Not this time.'
    'What  are you talking about? It's Valentin.'
    'So prove it.'
    The other man looked puzzled. 'This is no time for games,' he said, 'we're in desperate straits.'
    Harry  took his .38 from his pocket and  pointed at Valentin's chest. 'Prove  it or I shoot  you,' he said.
    'Are you out of your mind?'
    'I saw you torn apart.'
                       32'Not quite,' said Valentin. His left arm was swathed in makeshift bandaging from fingertip to mid-bicep. 'It was touch and go . . .'he said,'. . . but everything has its Achilles' heel. It's just a question of finding the right spot.'
    Harry peered at