HYSTEREO By MAURICE BAUDIN Illustrated by ADKINS _A quiet concert in the evening by the lake ... a harmless hi-fi hobbyist ... yet why did Woodard tremble at the sound, sound, sound._ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories November 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Daytimes, Woodard wasted little speech on the other guests at the summer hotel. Biddies and garrulous men--fools one and all, he told himself. They had come to be with nature, they said; but the clear, deep lake with its rocks and pointed firs, and the mountains beyond were merely a backdrop for their inane gabble. They had come for health and renewal, clucking of the ravages of city life. Yet scarcely a one but had acquired some absurd malady. They had turned the small hotel into a hospital for twitches and bor-borygms. As if, because they were paying their way, they must give the climate work to do. As if, thought Woodard, they were hiring the warm sunlight, the cool, sweet air, to mend their palsies, tachycardias, facial tics or rheumatic twinges. Relishing the fact of being resented and the illusion of being sought after, he kept himself to himself. But this sort of thing must not be carried too far. Directly after dinner, for fifteen minutes before his evening walk, he mingled with the rest as graciously as their recollections of the day's snubs permitted. He had settled upon this course early in the summer. Circulating, at the breakup of the dinner hour, among as many guests as time allowed, he fell in benignly with all topics, however foolish. On the last of these fence-mending tours, he tuned in to elderly Mrs. Jenson. "But why," she was asking plaintively, "has poor Mr. Ward's body not risen?" What a conversational god-send, that presumed drowning! The old girl had stopped circulating romantic rumors about himself. She had relegated her newly developed lumbago to second place. Woodard smiled inwardly. Of course, several times in the past three weeks he had heard her question answered. So, if she listened, had she. How sensible of himself to budget his day's quota of chitchat. Glancing at his watch, he saw that he had two minutes left, enough time for a terse review. "The lake is very deep in parts, and there the cold would prevent the gas from forming that would raise the body...." Mrs. Jenson fidgeted. It was one thing to repeat a question; must one listen while someone else repeated the answer? "But no _clothes_ were found, Mr. Woodard!" As he flinched at her corruption of his name, she whimpered: "On the entire shore of this big, big lake--not a _stitch_ of clothing!" Woodard nodded sympathetically. "Possibly he rushed from the hotel in a state of undress. Was he a frolicsome type?"