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name behind me for all time. “He’s no longer top man at Kinross, is he?” I hoped that my agitation wasn’t showing. I wanted nothing further to do with Ross Forbes.
    “Of course not,” Carswell said, pitying my ignorance, “but he is still CEO of Phidias Manufacturing. Kinross, Mr. Cooperman, is a subsidiary of Phidias. Ross Forbes would support Mr. Caine in this, I think.”
    “You’ve changed a speculation into a certainty, Doctor.” Carswell got up, terminating our conversation.
    “Look,” Carswell said, elongating the word so that it sounded like sweet reason, “I’d like to go on talking to you, Mr. Cooperman, but I’m due to appear on a panel at the television station in less than an hour. As a matter of fact I’m going to debate some of the things we’ve been talking about.” He moved around to my side of his desk. “It seems to me that you have just started your work on this. Am I right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He went right on talking as though I’d smiled, nodded or mimed assent. “After you get your feet wet, give me another call and I’ll see what I can do for you. Your questions about Kinross and Phidias are all basic research. There are answers you can get from other sources. I think there is somebody up at the university researching a history of Kinross. It goes back to the beginning of the last century, you know.”
    I didn’t know, so I hiked up one of my eyebrows to show surprise. I was impressed. In 1800 there can’t have been much industry around Grantham. For a minute I thought I’d awakened the born teacher in him but he quickly regretted the impulse and took early retirement. When he beat me to the door, we shook hands and parted on friendly terms. Only he wasn’t feeling about as stupidas moss. I was burning mad at the way things had happened today. At three o’clock I’d never heard of Jack Dowden. Now the doctor was expecting me to be an expert in everything he touched. Sure, I was out for learning. My ignorance was almost total. Why not? Dr. Carswell watched me go through the waiting room to the front door, judging by the sensation between my shoulder-blades.
    I walked up Ontario Street, feeling a cold wind blowing off the park. Winter was coming, I thought, as a few rusty leaves blew across my path. I remembered the smell of burning leaves from years ago. The environment was now safe from the smoke of burning leaves. It got plastic garbage bags instead.
    Back in my office, I tried Irma Dowden’s number again. She was still out on the town. Maybe she was bending the ear of another investigator about her year-old loss. I tried to imagine her jockeying three or more cards in a church basement bingo game on Pelham Road. I made a mental note to call her later.
    The chief ingredient adding to the acid in my stomach was the fact that Ross Forbes’s name was back in the case. My memory of picking myself up of his petunia bed in front of his office at Kinross was still fresh, in spite of the time that had gone by. It was a lucky punch, of course. He was as surprised by it as I was. I remembered that I bled a lot. Some of it got on his suit, I think. I hope he had to scrap it.
    That was ten years ago. I’d been hired by his estranged wife to keep an eye on him. I played a small part in a long and well-publicized divorce proceeding. My client, Teddie Forbes, made a lot of money in the settlement. In spite of this, it took me nearly a year and a half to collect the eleven hundred dollars she owed me for getting to know her old ball and chain. That included my trip to the General to have my nosed cauterized.
    I checked my city directory and found the name of a friend of Teddie’s. She put me on her trail and I had her on the other end of the phone in less time than it takes to smoke three Player’s cigarettes. I tried not to look at my stained ceiling. Teddie had been a dressage rider when I first met her, and she still haunted horse shows all over the country and