The ship's first-class lounge looked out upon the bow deck with its mast and cargo booms, only dimly visible in the darkness outside the rain-wet windows.  I hoped the guy up on the bridge could see more out there than I could and that he had an efficient radar to help him.  We seemed to be proceeding at a good clip, judging by the sound of the machinery below, and the map of Norway I'd studied had indicated that it was a hell of a rocky, reef-strewn coast to go blasting along blindly on a stormy night.  I consoled myself with the thought that this ship, and presumably this captain, had been making it for years, clear up beyond the Arctic Circle and back.  Maybe it was easy when you knew how.

A TV set was going in the lounge, tuned to a Norwegian quiz show that had the studio audience roaring with appreciative laughter.  Only a few of the people scattered around the room were paying any attention.  The rest were manfully, or womanfully, trying to ignore the noisy box as they chatted, read, or napped, bracing themselves against the motion of the ship in their comfortable, clamped-down chairs.  Again, as on the plane, I found myself wondering about a society that permits one person with a coin, or the strength to manipulate a switch or just make a request, to inflict his entertainment preferences on everybody around; but it was hardly a time for solving odd social problems....

I saw the red backpack, mate to the one I'd watched being carried ashore, parked by the lounge door.  Then I spotted the owner, in the corner to my right where he could see who entered while ostensibly enjoying the funny, funny show on the black-and-white screen.  I say ostensibly, because when I first saw him he was being seriously distracted by a pair of nylon-clad legs belonging to an attractive, nicely dressed young lady passenger sitting on a nearby sofa.  I didn't blame him for his preoccupation, considering the scarcity of that kind of entertainment in Scandinavia, these trousered days - but the older man seated beside the girl was rather small and inconspicuous, with fine, white, carefully combed hair that let the pink scalp show through on top.

A rather mild-looking little whitehaired man, Hank Priest had said, describing Dr. Adolf Elfenbein.  Fairly small and rather attractive, he'd said, referring to Greta Elfenbein.  Well, that was fine, the enemy high command was in sight, but it could wait.  At the moment I had business with the lower echelons.

My man glanced around, nudged by some primitive instinct, and saw me standing there.  For a moment, he couldn't decide how to treat the discovery; but I was looking straight at him, and there was really nothing to be cute about, so he looked back with a direct challenge in his eyes.  We both knew what he'd done tonight, he said to me silently across the room and what was I going to do about it, hey?  Of course, I knew he was a successful murderer and he thought he'd failed; but that was my little joke, and I wasn't going to share it with him or anybody else, if I could help it.