Shortly afterward, the bullet-riddled sedan was found by the roadside, but only one of the gang was in it. He was dead. And some time later, a call aroused Sgt. Falasca from a sound sleep. He didn't even take time to don his State Police uniform, but merely pulled a trenchcoat on over his pajamas, got his revolver out of the bureau drawer, and kissed his wife on the way out the front door. He had three other State Troopers to pick up, off-duty as he was, before proceeding to the assembly point at Lima. The Claggett gang had split up, some of them probably wounded, each of them armed and more dangerous than ever. They were wanted for murder now. * * * * * Dr. Whitney made the trip by helicopter, of course--the head of a scientific instrument company must keep up appearances. He'd waited as long as he could, hoping the weather might clear, then had taken off on instruments and reached the lake by ADF gridmap. He settled to the lake surface and crept in to shore, his landing lights probing the thick curtains of rain. I heard the hollow roar of his turbine, rather than the throb of his rotor blades, and hurried around the slanting wing of the old hotel to meet him. The lakefront presented a macabre view that wrenched at my memory. The desolate, cracked-stucco walls with the black holes of their windows rising from mounds of rubble beside me, a weed-grown lawn and a straggle of trees half-masking the lake--stark-looking trees now, in the 'copter's landing lights--and a small boat-dock leaning half into the black water. Once, as a rather obnoxious young high-school student, I had seen this lakefront on just such a night. A steady rain fell, lightning flickered, and thunder blasted its anger ... and, for a moment, I saw it as it had been, with that grand old British pioneer of space flight, Arthur C. Clarke, standing out there in the pelting rain with his camera, taking pictures of the lightning! Dr. Whitney brought his sleek craft over the treetops and settled neatly into the small space that remained of the lawn, his rotor tips almost nicking the crumbled walls of the hotel. It was a plexi-nosed, three-place executive ship--a Bell, I think. A lot of people prefer flying. They must fly specific air routes and airfield traffic patterns; and with airfields so crowded, they have trouble finding a place to park. It's not for me. But Dr. Whitney had heard the newscasts on the way out. I don't recall what was said at our meeting. It was rather uncomfortable, under the circumstances--the more so for me, I think, as those circumstances were my own making. But when we'd rounded the hotel and entered the old restaurant-bar, I recall Whitney's jocular approval. "Well, we're cozy enough here," he said. "So long as the Claggett gang doesn't drop in on us!"