I went to an all night cafe and ordered a hamburger plate and read the paper. They had identified the victim by the wallet they found on him. My wallet, of course. And that meant that the little man had planted it on him and then killed him. With a poisoned needle the papers said. Why? I gave up trying to figure it out after a while and went to my apartment. I had made up my mind to get out of town. They might find out the victim's real identity, and then they would come looking for me to find out why my wallet was on him. I locked the door and began packing clothes into a suitcase. I became aware after a while of someone standing behind me. I jerked around in alarm. It was the little man. "You!" I blurted. "How'd you get in here?" I doubled a fist and started toward him. He had killed a man and planted my wallet on the corpse. Then, suddenly, a queer distortion blanketed my mind. I had a strange conviction that things were happening just the way they had happened before--many times before--only not at different times, but this very instant. Abruptly, like a veil drawing away from a window, the distortion vanished. With preternatural clarity everything that had happened flooded into memory. "Good!" Golfin said. "I see the time-lines have emerged as true memories. And this time I saved your life." "You think so?" I snarled. "The police will be after me by morning. They'll pin the murder on me--the murder _you_ committed." He was shaking his head. "I didn't kill George Wile. Let me explain what happened. But go on with your packing. I can talk while you work." I nodded. "In the first time-line," Golfin said, "the one I started out to investigate, you were actually killed. I know now how it happened. You see, Sarah Fish is a blackmailer. George Wile was one of her victims. To get out of her clutches he had planned on killing her. It was a perfect setup for him. Several of her blackmail victims were there. All he had to do was stick her with the poisoned needle and sit back. Nothing could be pinned on him. Motive? A dozen of those present had equal motives. "But you were there. A pickpocket. You lifted his wallet. He wouldn't have felt your light touch ordinarily, but he was acutely conscious of those spare poisoned needles. He had one in his fingers. Within a few moments Sarah would have been killed. You changed things. He killed you instead, and in the excitement stole back his wallet. And of course he didn't go through with his original plan to kill Sarah Fish. And also of course, the police never solved your murder. That's why I chose it in my first attempt to change the past. It was an ideal mystery. I could solve it and at the same time save your life. "I went into the past and watched your every move. But George Wile was too smart. Even watching I couldn't find out who had done it. So I went back into the past again and began my great experiment, _an attempt to alter what has already happened_.