The third floor was like the second, its long central corridor dwindling away into shadows. Down it he moved cautiously, remembering what the guard at the gate had said. The third floor, the last door on your left. Ramsey was in conference. But it wasn't a conference of industrial associates planning a division of spoils. Ramsey was talking to a killer under duress. Corriston was half way down the corridor when he heard the shot. It rang out in the stillness with a terrible clarity, sending echoes reverberating throughout the building, stopping Corriston in his tracks. For an instant the silence remained absolute, as if the shot had somehow silenced all life within the building. Even Corriston's breathing was affected by it, so that for an instant he remained like a man horror-blasted into immobility, frozen, a statue with waxen features and widely dilated eyes. Then, abruptly, he ceased to be a statue. He broke into a run, heading for the door from which the shot had come. He came to the door and saw that it did not slide open on a panel. It was massive, with a knob jutting out from it, and when he grasped the knob it swung inward instantly and soundlessly and he found himself in a large, blank-walled room brightly illumed by three circular overhead lamps. Ramsey was sitting stiff and straight before a desk that was cluttered with reference files, manuscripts in folders, pens, pencils and other writing materials. His face was drained of all color, and his eyes were wide and staring. He was looking directly at Corriston, and yet he did not seem to see Corriston. He did not appear to be staring at anything in particular, that small, shrunken, unimpressive-looking little man with graying temples and a look of blank incomprehension in his eyes that chilled Corriston to the core of his being. Shaking, wishing that the eyes would close or brighten with relief, or do anything but remain so stonily indifferent, Corriston moved closer to the desk. He saw at once that Ramsey was close to death. He had been shot in the chest. There was a dull red stain on his chest, and even as Corriston stared it widened, a butterfly pattern of red, like a Rorschach seen through the eyes of a homicidally inclined psychotic. Suddenly Ramsey moved. He caught hold of the desk edge, and swayed a little, but his eyes remained filmed, blankly staring. Corriston was bending above him when a familiar voice said: "He's done for. Nothing you can do for him. We had an argument and he lost his head. He just couldn't see it my way. So I made a mistake and shot him. It was a mistake, all right. I lost _my_ head. Now I've got nothing to lose by killing you." Corriston raised his eyes slowly. He had one chance in a hundred perhaps. He knew it; he sensed it. Henley had somehow managed to stay out of sight for an instant. The room was very large. There were shadows in it, and Henley had apparently flattened himself against the wall behind the desk, in deep shadow.