The next morning Madge sleepily assured me that she had no qualms whatsoever about returning to our house and that she'd consider me a fussbucket if I insisted on leaving early so that I could stop at the place before I left for the office. I told her I'd go directly from the hotel to work and leave her to contend with any old ghosts that happened to be nursing a hangover on our premises. Madge is always vague about time early in the morning however, and I did leave the hotel earlier than was necessary. I started driving toward the office, thinking I'd get a head start on some papers which had piled up. But some obscure impulse persuaded me to turn the car and drive toward the suburbs. I felt a bit foolish, but I couldn't argue myself out of stopping at our house for a quick checkup. I have always been grateful that I heeded the dim prompting which caused me to change directions that morning. When I unlocked the door and walked into the house, everything seemed in order. The windows and rear door were still securely bolted and nothing was amiss. I searched the house from cellar to garret and found nothing disturbed. Finally, feeling rather sheepish at this point, I sat down in one of the living room chairs to rest a minute before I drove to work. As I sat there, I noticed some small object protruding from behind the divan on the opposite side of the room. I couldn't distinguish what it was; mild curiosity prompted me to get up and peer behind the divan. As I bent down, I froze. Huddled against the back of the divan was a pitiful little heap of fur lying in a pool of blood--our cat, Jinko, with his throat slashed wide open. It was the tip of his tail which I had seen protruding. In our haste to leave the previous evening, we had forgotten about him. We hadn't noticed him in the house and I think we both subconsciously assumed that he was outside when we locked up. I cleaned up the blood, buried the little creature in a corner of the backyard, poured myself a stiff drink and went to work. Several times during the day I called up to make sure that Madge was all right. She called me a ninny and said she couldn't even find an old shroud dropped around the house. Of course she got somewhat suspicious in a day or so when Jinko failed to show up. But he had disappeared for days at a time before, and I finally persuaded her that he must have wandered away or met with an accident. The following summer I saved some of my vacation time; Madge and I spent the entire week of October 20th in Maine. In December I put a down payment on a new house. We moved into it just before the holidays--and one of Madge's Christmas presents was a cuddly little Persian kitten. She had been teasing me to buy one for months, but somehow I just hadn't got around to it till then. THE MAN WHO FEARED MASKS