Then Orville Snyder had died in an automobile accident. He had no known relatives, and had made Fred the beneficiary of his life insurance. That was how Fred had known. Two years later Fred had taken a risk. He saw a chance to make some money in a quick stock transaction. He "borrowed" some money from the company he was with. The transaction proved to be a swindle game worked on him. He was faced with exposure and jail. He remembered Orville Snyder. In all probability no one knew he was dead. Records of that were in closed files in the insurance company, in the files of an undertaker and the city hall of a far-away city. He could take Orville's identity and employment record, and continue his career as a research engineer somewhere else in the country. He did. He worked several places, finally coming to work for Rexlo Research. Almost at once he met and fell in love with an attractive girl. They were quickly married. It was a year before he knew her real character. He could divorce her. He put it off. Shortly after that he rented this apartment under his real name, feeling sure that after five years it would be safe to do so. He didn't know what he would do now. He had planned on simply dropping out of sight in the near future. That's what he said. But I could see in his eyes that he had another, more sinister plan. Murder. Only, he had been putting it off as he had always put everything off. "What are you going to do?" he asked as I stood up and went to the door. I looked at him, then around at my apartment, but mine no longer. The supreme conviction that I was Fred Martin had left me. "I don't know," I said. "Probably nothing. Come to work tomorrow and say nothing. If I ever want to talk about it I'll tell you. Until then, forget that I know." I opened the door and went out into the hall, and closed it behind me. I looked at the familiar walls of the hallway, at the somewhat worn carpeting. And in some intangible way it was no longer familiar. I was bewildered. I had nothing more to cling to. I was neither Fred Martin nor Orville Snyder--nor Dave Thordsen. I wasn't anyone, and yet I had to be someone. It was impossible to _be_, and not be someone! * * * * * I made my way down the carpeted stairs to the street, trying to think. Instead, I felt only despair. I had thought I was Fred Martin. Through the ears of Dave Thordsen I had listened to Fred Martin, and as I listened I had realized I couldn't be. Some of his memories were my memories, but what I possessed was nothing more than fragments. Spotty fragments. It was the same with his other identity, Orville Snyder. Spotty fragments that I clutched and possessed, while all else was strange to me--even such a thing as the name of his wife, a recognition of her features. It was the same now, with Dave Thordsen. His face was _my_ face when I looked at it in the mirror--just as Fred's face had been mine when I looked at it with his eyes in the mirror.