Transvestia

haps you might let me look you over to make sure ev- erything's as it should be- there will be no charge, of course. Shall we go inside?"

Dr. Caravelle was puzzled, but polite. Had they given him time to think about it he would have consid- ered it a remarkable coincidence that both doctor and ambulance should have been present at the very mom- ent when he had his fall. But the doctor seemed so con- cerned for him and was already moving towards the door, that the young man was in the act of inviting him in when the whole situation changed in a twinkling.

There was the sudden, sinister wail of police si- rens. The ambulance men looked at one another sharp- ly. The noise seemed to grow closer and closer. The doctor, changing his tone from warm solicitude to sporting defeat, remarked: "No? Oh well, just as you wish," and sauntered back to his car and drove off. Al- though he appeared unhurrted, he moved with astonish- ing speed. The ambulance men also departed, and with equally startling quickness. In twenty seconds there was no trace of any of them. Dr. Caravelle, somewhat bewildered, was left with his bruises and with the girl next door.

The girl next door was called Valerie Paul, and she was fumbling about in her handbag. Extracting a tiny transistor tape-recorder, she switched it off. Im- mediatly, the noise of police sirens was cut off. Dr. Caravelle stared at the toy-sized machine. "Is that where the siren-sound came from?"

·

"Yes," said Valerie, rather breathlessly. "Clever isn't it? It's got me out of several tight corners and this time it got you out of one!"

But John Caravelle was not listening. He was thinking what a sore trial the girl next door was to him. Everyone in the neighborhood knew that she was in love with him, or thought she was. This was pretty common knowledge at the University, too, where she was one of his mathematics students. She seemed to have a knack of turning up at the most unlikely moments, eith- er to ask him some question about her work, or on any

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