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important—”
    â€œI’m examining a patient,” he snapped. “I’ll call back.”
    Gresham sounded displeased when Harry finally called. “I said it was important, Harry.”
    â€œI don’t take calls in the middle of an examination, Kurt,” said Harry. “What do you want?”
    â€œI want to see you.”
    â€œYou do?” said Harry. “That’s a coincidence. I want to see you, too.”
    There was a silence. Then he heard Gresham chuckle. “Well. That makes it cosy. So you figured it out, Harry?”
    â€œFigured what out?”
    â€œAbout Lynne Maxwell?”
    It was Harry’s turn to be silent. He felt confused and angry and helpless all at the same time.
    Finally he said curtly, “When and where?”
    â€œThree o’clock? My office?” asked the prissy voice.
    â€œI’ll be there.”

THREE
    Dr. Harry Brown looked him over. Really for the first time.
    He was a big man, globular. He had a round ruddy face, soft, white, womanish hair and eyes clear and colorless as sun on ice. The tip of his big nose was round and the little red-lipped mouth was round. He looked guileless, good-natured, almost cherubic. He was about as harmless as a big fat round H-bomb, Dr. Harry Brown thought.
    â€œHarry,” Kurt Gresham began, “I’m going to make a confession to you. Try to win you over. If I fail, no hard feelings. But I warn you now. If you breach my confidence by so much as a word…” The millionaire shook his head; everything shook with it. “I wouldn’t like that at all. Harry. I’m not a man of violence. Quite the contrary. I consider violence the first resort of the stupid. The only times I have indulged in violence were those times when nothing less would serve—the last resort. Do I make myself clear, Harry?”
    â€œPerfectly. You’re threatening to have me murdered if I don’t keep my mouth shut.”
    The girlish lips opened out into a little round smile. “Crude, Harry. But I see we understand each other.”
    â€œThe hell we do, Gresham. I don’t give a damn about your ‘confession,’ as you put it. I want to know just one thing: why did you have the dead body of that Maxwell girl planted in my apartment?”
    Gresham blinked. “You’re really a very clever young man, Harry. However, I’d like, if I may, to develop this in my own time and way—”
    â€œThe hell with your time and way! Answer my question!”
    The silky white brows drew together sulkily, the colorless round eyes flattened and slitted. For an absurd moment Harry Brown thought of pediatrics and the baskets of fat little baby-faces just before feedings, preparing to cry. But there was nothing infantile in Gresham’s tone; it was hard, greedy, paranoiac. “You have the gall to talk to me that way? Nobody talks to me that way, Doctor. Nobody. Nobody !” The last word was almost a shout. And then the brows drew apart and the eyes and face became round again. “I’m sorry, Harry. You mustn’t make me angry. A bad heart and a bad temper don’t mix, do they?”
    â€œI’m not here as your doctor. What about Lynne Maxwell?”
    â€œHarry, I admire you. You’re rough and tough. I want you on my side.”
    â€œWhat about Lynne Maxwell?”
    â€œI’ll come to that, Harry. But first I want to talk to you about myself. About you. About our future together.”
    â€œWe have no future together, Gresham.”
    â€œHow do you know, my boy?”
    â€œWhat about Lynne Maxwell?”
    â€œPlease, Harry. I beg your attention.”
    Dr. Harrison Brown sat back in the enveloping armchair and looked past Gresham’s globular head and out through the wide windows at the blank blue sky. They were high up, on the fifty-fifth floor. He wondered dully what was coming.
    â€œDo you know what business I’m in,