A brief glance back into the lounge to be sure that Mitch is occupied. Head bowed over her knitting, she mutters to herself as the needles click… “Knit one, purl one…”
Quietly, I pad to the cellar door and down.
I find Klempner in my playroom, sitting at a bench close by the spot recently occupied by Finchby before he vanished. The debris of our interrogation of Finchby remain as they were left: the chain and cuffs that fettered him, what remains of his clothes, the drugs; ampoules and syringes; originally his, that we used to keep him unconscious until we were ready for him to wake.
Klempner is busy, dismantling a rifle. From the doorway, I watch in silence as, piece by piece, he disassembles it, cleans each part and sets it carefully down in an orderly line of parts. He seems to be wo
