"Do you think you can help?" Pat asked anxiously. "Have you any idea what it is?" "It isn't a devil, at any rate," he smiled. "But have you any idea?" "Naturally I have, but I can't diagnose at second hand. I'll have to talk to him." "But what do you think it is?" she persisted. "I think it's a fixation of an idea gained in childhood, Honey. I had a patient once--" He smiled at the reminiscence--"who had a fixed delusion of that sort. He was perfectly rational on every point save one--he believed that a pig with a pink ribbon was following him everywhere! Down town, into elevators and offices, home to bed--everywhere he went this pink-ribboned prize porker pursued him!" "And did you cure him?" "Well, he recovered," said the Doctor non-committally. "We got rid of the pig. And it might be something of that nature that's troubling your boy friend. Your description doesn't sound like a praecox or a manic depressive, as I thought originally." "Oh," said Pat abruptly. "I forgot. He went to a doctor in New York, a very great doctor." "Muenster?" "He didn't say whom. But this doctor studied him a long time, and finally came out with this fixed idea theory of yours. Only he couldn't cure him." "Um." Horker grunted thoughtfully. "Do fixed ideas do things like that to people?" queried the girl. "Things like the pig and what happened to Nick?" "They might." "Then they're devils!" she announced with an air of finality. "They're just your scientific jargon for exactly what Magda means when she says a person's possessed by a devil. So I'm right anyway!" "That's good orthodox theology, Pat," chuckled the Doctor. "We'll try a little exorcism on your devil, then." He rose to his feet. "Bring your boy friend around, will you?" "Oh, Dr. Carl!" she cried. "He's leaving! I'll have to call him tonight!" "Not tonight, Honey. Mueller would let me know if anything of that sort were happening. Tomorrow's time enough." The girl stood erect, mounting to the top step to bring her head level with the Doctor's. She threw her arms about him, burying her face in his massive shoulder. "Dr. Carl," she murmured, "I'm a nasty, ill-tempered, vicious little shrew, and I'm sorry, and I apologize. You know I'm crazy about you, and," she whispered in his ear, "so's Mother!" 18 Vanished "He doesn't answer! I'm too late," thought Pat disconsolately as she replaced the telephone. The cheerfulness with which she had awakened vanished like a patch of April sunshine. Now, with the failure of her third attempt in as many hours to communicate with Nicholas Devine, she was ready to confess defeat. She had waited too long. Despite Dr. Horker's confidence in Mueller, she should have called last night--at once.