"Goodbye, George, old boy," Marc said. "We won't soon forget you." "No," Toffee seconded. "Not in a million years." George was grinning as his face dissolved into thin air. The word "good-bye" whispered through the room, and for a moment seemed to coil warmly around Marc and Toffee, engulfing them in a tide of friendliness. Then it was gone. "You know," Toffee said thoughtfully, "he really wasn't such a bad sort. I hope he makes out well with that High Council of his. They sounded awfully heavy-handed." "If my feelings in the matter count for anything," Marc said, "he's a cinch." During this tender passage the drumming had continued, unnoticed, on the door. But now that George had been seen off in proper style, the insistent reporters resumed their former place of pressing immediacy on the agenda. "We've got to get out of here before they break that door in," Marc said. "There's a side door," Toffee observed. "The Justice must have gone out that way." "Good night!" Marc cried. "And the darned thing has been unlocked all this time. The reporters might have walked in on us at any minute. Well, let's get out before they do." He walked to the door and reached for the knob, but he never quite completed the motion. Suddenly, the door burst open in his face, and its edge caught him squarely between the eyes. For a moment he rocked crazily back and forth, then he closed his eyes and crumpled to the floor. The young reporter bounded into the room and stopped short. He could have sworn he'd seen the redhead when he'd first thrown the door open, but now she didn't seem to be there at all. He searched the room systematically and finally decided the girl had only been a trick of the imagination. Settling for second best, he turned his attention to Marc. He looked at the unconscious man and frowned. There was something odd in the way the fellow's lips kept moving. Also, something odd in his expression. He seemed to be holding a whispered conversation with someone. The reporter dropped to his knees and lowered his ear to Marc's murmuring lips. "No, no," Marc was saying. "No, Toffee! Stop wrapping your arms around my neck like that. What are you trying to do, throttle me? Can't we say good-bye without all that?" Then he made a strange whooshing noise as though a fist had been jabbed into the pit of his stomach. For a moment his expression was angered, then it slowly relaxed. "Goodbye," he whispered. "Goodbye." * * * * * The reporter sat up, deeply perplexed. If he had been expecting to overhear an inadvertent confession, he was sadly mistaken. He wasn't quite sure just what he had heard. It didn't seem to make sense.