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The camera cut to a head-and-shoulders shot of young, crew-cut Jack Cogger in front of police headquarters out on the bypass. “Hi Ken, Hi Baretta. Indeed, Seaboard police lieutenant Richard Tracy announced that arrest warrants have been issued for Blanko Dragan and Andrijana Jakovich, aka Stella Fox, in the murder of Martin Sterl, whose apparent suicide in June has been regarded suspiciously from the start.”

There followed a head shot of Sterl, a quite ordinary mortal with glasses and toupee, as Mr. Cogger’s narration continued. “Tracy said the police were operating on leads supplied by Norman de Ratour, the director of Wainscott University’s [sic] Museum of Man.”

The video taken from the diorama monitors that I had secured for Lieutenant Tracy played as Mr. Cogger, voice over, said, “The tape of Dragan and Jakovich, shown here at an exhibit at the museum, was supplied by Ratour, who himself has been implicated in the recent murder of Heinrich Grümh.”

There was a file photo of me, not very flattering, just before the camera switched back and forth between the reporter in the field and the two anchorpersons thusly:

Jack: “Back to you, Ken and Baretta.”

Baretta: “Jack, are the police saying anything about a possible connection between the two murders?”

Jack: “Right now police are treating the murders as separate.”

Ken: “What does Ratour have to say about his role in the investigation?”

Jack: “The Wainscott News Office told us that they had no knowledge of Ratour’s involvement. They referred us to the museum. We have a call in and a news crew on the way there now.”

Baretta: “Thanks, Jack. This is a story we’ll be keeping an eye on.”

A different voice off camera intoned, “This has been a Channel Five breaking news special report. We now return to our scheduled broadcasting.”

Just then my phone rang. It was Mort in Security. A news crew had indeed arrived and I was wanted in the Diorama of Paleolithic Life.

Well, I had asked for it, hadn’t I? The newsperson turned out to be a petite young woman of Chinese extraction who worked her hands up and down in front of her as she talked to the camera held by a technician whose polished skull reflected whitely in the overhead lights of the exhibit.

The newsperson asked me basic, sensible questions with the “Early Kitchen” display as a backdrop. What made me realize I had seen the suspects before? My knack for remembering things. In my opinion, why did the suspects pick the museum for their meetings? A mistaken sense of privacy. Did I think there was any connection between the Sterl and von Grümh murders? Perhaps mirror images of each other. Are you working with the Seaboard police on the von Grümh murder even though charged as an accessory? Not at liberty to say.

She thanked me graciously and, following the beacon of her cameraman’s skull, left.

Back in my office, I wondered if I should call Diantha to tell her I would be on the evening news. Hoping, of course, that she might see me in a different, more advantageous light. Or would it not be more impressive if I were to consider it something of a trifle, which, in fact, it was.

I got back to work. Amid the pile on my desk was a draft of a letter to Elgin Warwick. I had been gnawing at the thing for the past several days. I had run out of equivocations. Izzy’s words kept coming back to me. Don’t do something you will regret the rest of your life.

Following the rapid heartbeat of the pulser on my screen, I figuratively tore up the equivocating draft and wrote instead:

Dear Elgin:

I want first to thank you very much for your generous and original idea regarding the preservation of your remains here at the Museum of Man after you die. I have thought long and hard about it. Our chief counsel Felix Skinnerman has championed the idea. Indeed, he has suggested that, centered on your temple and tomb, we create a mortuary wing open to any and all who wish to join “the permanent collection.” He foresees that it would become quite popular, with many