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Lieutenant. My companion last night was Maybelle Seeley. And again to anticipate a question, she came here, by prearrangement, somewhere around midnight and she left somewhere around eight o'clock this morning."
    "She was here all the time?"
    "Yes, she was. I will not strain your credulity by claiming that I, at my age, was awake all night. But I am a very light sleeper; she could not possibly have left and returned without my knowing it."
    "A light sleeper? The commotion over finding Irby's body didn't wake you this morning."
    "Lieutenant, that was on the other side of the midway, around behind the penny arcade top. I would hazard the guess that the distance between here and there is two hundred yards. I doubt if I could have heard voices at that distance even if I had been wide awake and listening for them. By the way, Lieutenant, you said that there is - or, I hope, was - suspicion that Miss Seeley was with Irby last night. May I ask why?"
    "Some dame was with him and we haven't found out who yet. And he talked to her around in back of the model show tent."
    "Yes, she mentioned to me that he had talked to her briefly. And why not? Maybelle had been, ah, going steady with Charlie Flack, who was killed in the same accident in which Irby was injured. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was that Charlie had been killed."
    "So she told us. Okay, but since it wasn't Maybelle, have you got any idea who it could have been he took to that tent?"
    "Please, Lieutenant, do not continue to use the word tent; it hurts my ears. There are no tents on a carnival lot; they are all tops, from a sleeping top on up, there is not a tent among them. No, I have no idea who, if anyone, he took to the sleeping top."
    "He had somebody there. Otherwise why'd he rent it from Rau? Irby had a bedroll of his own, still over at the Mystery of Sex show he used to be barker for."
    "Talker for, Lieutenant. More specifically grinder for, since a show that operates continuously and without a bally doesn't require a spiel. But yes, I agree that if Mack Irby had intended to sleep alone he could have done so almost anywhere and without renting the bridal suite. But it is possible that he rented it in advance, in hope, and he might have been disappointed in that hope."
    The lieutenant grunted agreement, as Dr. Magus hoped he would. He had coached Maybelle very carefully in her story, had told her to volunteer - lest someone had seen or heard them talking - the information that she had talked to Irby, and the further information that he had made a pass at her and had told her he'd rented Rau's top and wanted her to spend the night with him there. But that she'd turned him down because of a previous commitment if for no other reason.
    He pushed home the advantage. "From what I hear, Lieutenant, Irby was in funds and a few dollars would not have mattered to him, so it is not unlikely that he would have rented that top merely in the hope that he could have company therein. He may even have had Maybelle in mind, among others. But if he made such a suggestion to her she didn't tell me about it. However it is not unprobable that whether he had one particular woman in mind or was willing to settle for one of several - as seems likely after seven weeks' continence in the hospital - he might have been unable at so late an hour, on such short notice, to find a woman who was both free and willing to help him break his fast."
    The lieutenant grunted again.
    Dr. Magus asked, "But if he did have a woman there why is her identity important? You don't think a woman killed him, do you?"
    "Not likely, with a tent stake. It isn't a woman's weapon. We found the tent stake, still with traces of blood and hair on it. The murderer had carried it with him until he got almost to the midway alongside the penny arcade tent-top. And besides, Irby was struck down just outside the sleeping top and he hadn't been dragged. From the position we figure he crawled out and was struck down just as he