1

When I swung out of the village street onto the main highway, there was
a truck behind me. It was one of those big semi jobs and it was really
rolling. The speed limit was forty-five on that stretch of road, running
through one corner of the village, but at that time in the morning it wasn't
reasonable to expect that anyone would pay attention to a posted speed.
I wasn't too concerned with the truck. I'd be stopping a mile or so up
the road at Johnny's Motor Court to pick up Alf Peterson, who would be
waiting for me, with his fishing tackle ready. And I had other things to
think of, too - principally the phone and wondering who I had talked with on
the phone. There had been three voices and it all was very strange, but I
had the feeling that it may have been one voice, changed most wonderfully to
make three voices, and that I would know that basic voice if I could only
pin it down. And there had been Gerald Sherwood, sitting in his study, with
two walls lined by books, telling me about the blueprints that had formed,
unbidden, in his brain. There had been Stiffy Grant, pleading that I not let
them use the bomb. And there had been, as well, the fifteen hundred dollars.
Just up the road was the Sherwood residence, set atop its hill,