There were many papers and the record went back for years. I switched on the light and examined the contents of the envelope marked "Thorium." It was all there--the ship--the names--the ports--the mission. There was documentation on Jacklin. I ran through it. It was accurate and included a specimen of my signature. There was a cross-reference to Chalmis and a small file on someone named Kaplansky. Irrelevantly included was a folder which contained three cards labeled "Retreat--Holy Week." "St. Michael" and "Stations of X!" I crossed to the fireplace and put the papers in the grate. For an hour I sat there feeding the flames with the record of betrayal and infamy. Names, places, dates--I glanced at them, forgot them and burned them with rising exaltation. Thank God! that load was off my conscience. I might have to answer for Winnie's sins but I was damned if I'd be responsible for his crimes. And the killing of Ponto was no longer to be murder, it was an execution. For Ponto was Tompkins and Tompkins was Von Bieberstein. Dawn was beginning to smudge the windows when the last paper had been burned and the ashes crushed to fragments beyond the power of reconstruction by forensic science. Without Winnie the organization of his gulls and dupes would fall apart and the thing that had been Von Bieberstein would cease to exist. Another thing was clearer, too. Winnie Tompkins had had an obsession about Jacklin. Finally, through some combination of fatigue and mental shock, a Jacklin personality had taken control. Call it schizophrenia, Jekyll-and-Hyde, or whatever, there was a fair chance that I was still Winnie, but his better self. The dog had been another obsession. The dog was to blame? Well, if I believed it, it might be true, like the old scape-goat system. I was physically the same man who had been Von Bieberstein and had blown up the Alaska, planting evidence that would throw the blame on Jacklin. In my heart and spirit, it was as though I had been recreated. All the evidence had been destroyed. I switched off the light and returned to bed. I fell asleep almost at once, for now I knew that I would be safe and that Germaine would be safe. There was no record left and soon Ponto, too, would be gone. CHAPTER 33 Wednesday, the twenty-fifth, dawned bright and fair. My mind was fully made up and I was feeling fine. Germaine was still anxious about me at breakfast but I soon convinced her that there was nothing serious involved. I laughed secretly as I said it. "You know," I told her, "I think I'll drive over to Hartford and have those people at the Sanctuary look me over again. I think I need some kind of rest--the reaction, you know." My wife raised no objection. In fact, she seemed rather relieved as though my aloof conduct of the previous night had been a shock to her self-confidence. "I'll stop off at the kennels on my way over," I added, "just to make sure that Ponto is all right."