"We might appeal to the ad manager's citizenship and all and get a look, request him to be quiet, but I don't want to chance it and risk the Tattler slobbering all over us. It would take a warrant to go in there and Bogart the mail. I'm thinking about it."

"If Chicago turns up nothing, we could put an ad in anyway. If we're wrong about the Tattler, we wouldn't lose anything," Graham said.

"And if we're right that the Tattler is the medium and we make up a reply based on what we have in this note and screw it up – if it doesn't look right to him – we're down the tubes. I didn't ask you about Birmingham. Anything?"

" Birmingham 's shut down and over with. The Jacobi house has been painted and redecorated and it's on the market. Their stuff is in storage waiting for probate. I went through the crates. The people I talked to didn't know the Jacobis very well. The one thing they always mentioned was how affectionate the Jacobis were to each other. Always patting. Nothing left of them now but five pallet loads of stuff in a warehouse. I wish I had-"

"Quit wishing, you're on it now."

"What about the mark on the tree?"

"'You hit it on the head'? Means nothing to me," Crawford said. "The Red Dragon either. Beverly knows Mah-Jongg. She's sharp, and she can't see it. We know from his hair he's not Chinese."

"He cut the limb with a bolt cutter. I don't see-"

Crawford's telephone rang. He spoke into it briefly.

"Lab's ready on the note, Will. Let's go up to Zeller's office. It's bigger and not so gray."

Lloyd Bowman, dry as a document in spite of the heat, caught up with them in the corridor. He was flapping damp photographs in each hand and held a sheaf of Datafax sheets under his arm. "Jack, I have to be in court at four-fifteen," he said as he flapped ahead. "It's that paper hanger Nilton Eskew and his sweetheart, Nan. She could draw a Treasury note freehand. They've been driving me crazy for two years making their own traveler's checks on a color Xerox. Won't leave home without them. Will I make it in time, or should I call the prosecutor?"

"You'll make it," Crawford said. "Here we are."

Beverly Katz smiled at Graham from the couch in Zeller's office, making up for the scowl of Price beside her.

Scientific Analysis Section Chief Brian Zeller was young for his job, but already his hair was thinning and he wore bifocals. On the shelf behind Zeller's desk Graham saw H. J. Walls's forensic science text, Tedeschi's great Forensic Medicine in three volumes, and an antique edition of Hopkins' The Wreck of the Deutschland.

"Will, we met once at GWU I think," he said. "Do you know everybody?… Fine."

Crawford leaned against the corner of Zeller's desk, his arans folded. "Anybody got a blockbuster? Okay, does anything you found indicate the note did not come from the Tooth Fairy?"

"No," Bowman said. "I talked to Chicago a few minutes ago to give them some numerals I picked up from an impression on the back of the note. Six-six-six. I'll show you when we get to it. Chicago has over two hundred personal ads so far." He handed Graham a sheaf of Datafax copies. "I've read them and they're all the usual stuff -marriage offers, appeals to runaways. I'm not sure how we'd recognize the ad if it's here."

Crawford shook his head. "I don't know either. Let's break down the physical. Now, Jimmy Price did everything we could do and there was no print. What about you, Bev?"

"I got one whisker. Scale count and core size match samples from Hannibal Lecter. So does color. The color's markedly different from samples taken in Birmingham and Atlanta. Three blue grains and some dark flecks went to Brian's end." She raised her eyebrows at Brian Zeller.

"The grains were commercial granulated cleaner with chlorine," he said. "It must have come off the cleaning man's hands. There were several very minute particles of dried blood. It's definitely blood, but there's not enough to type."

"The tears at the end of the pieces wandered off the perforations," Beverly Katz continued. "If we find the roll in somebody's possession and he hasn't torn it again, we can get a definite match. I recommend issuing an advisory now, so the arresting officers will be sure to search for the roll."

Crawford nodded. "Bowman?"

" Sharon from my office went after the paper and got samples to match. It's toilet tissue for marine heads and motor homes. The texture matches brand name Wedeker manufactured in Minneapolis. It has nationwide distribution."

Bowman set up his photographs on an easel near the windows. His voice was surprisingly deep for his slight stature, and his bow tie moved slightly when he talked. "On the handwriting itself, this is a right-handed person using his left hand and printing in a deliberate block pattern. You can see the unsteadiness in the strokes and varying letter sizes.

"The proportions make me think our man has a touch of uncorrected astigmatism.

"The inks on both pieces of the note look like the same standard ball-point royal blue in natural light, but a slight difference appears under colored filters. He used two pens, changing somewhere in the missing section of the note. You can see where the first one began to skip. The first pen is not used frequently – see the blob it starts with? It might have been stored point-down and uncapped in a pencil jar or canister, which suggests a desk situation. Also the surface the paper lay on was soft enough to be a blotter. A blotter might retain impressions if you find it. I want to add the blotter to Beverly 's advisory."

Bowman flipped to a photograph of the back of the note. The extreme enlargement made the paper look fuzzy. It was grooved with shadowed impressions. "He folded the note to write the bottom part, including what was later torn out. In this enlargement of the back side, oblique light reveals a few impressions. We can make out '666 an.' Maybe that's where he had pen trouble and had to bear down and overwrite. I didn't spot it until I had this high-contrast print. There's no 666 in any ad so far.

"The sentence structure is orderly, and there's no rambling. The folds suggest it was delivered in a standard letter-size envelope. These two dark places are printing-ink smudges. The note was probably folded inside some innocuous printed matter in the envelope.

"That's about it," Bowman said. "Unless you have questions, Jack, I'd better go to the courthouse. I'll check in after I testify."

"Sink 'em deep," Crawford said.

Graham studied the Tattler personals column. ("Attractive queen-size lady, young 52, seeks Christian Leo nonsmoker 40 – 70. No children please. Artificial limb welcomed. No phonies. Send photo first letter.")

Lost in the pain and desperation of the ads, he didn't notice that the others were leaving until Beverly Katz spoke to him.

"I'm sorry, Beverly. What did you say?" He looked at her bright eyes and kindly, well-worn face.

"I just said I'm glad to see you back, Champ. You're looking good."

"Thanks, Beverly."

"Saul's going to cooking school. He's still hit-or-miss, but when the dust settles come over and let him practice on you."

"I'll do it."

Zeller went away to prowl his laboratory. Only Crawford and Graham were left, looking at the clock.

"Forty minutes to Tattler press time," Crawford said. "I'm going after their mail. What do you say?"

"I think you have to."

Crawford passed the word to Chicago on Zeller's telephone. "Will, we need to be ready with a substitute ad if Chicago bingoes."

"I'll work on it."

"I'll set up the drop." Crawford called the Secret Service and talked at some length. Graham was still scribbling when he finished.

"Okay, the mail drop's a beauty," Crawford said at last. "It's an outside message box on a fire-extinguisher-service outfit in Annapolis. That's Lecter territory. The Tooth Fairy will see that it's something Lecter could know about Alphabetical pigeonholes. The service peopIe drive up to it and get assignments and mail. Our boy can check it out from a park across the street. Secret Service swears it looks good. They set it up to catch a counterfeiter, but it turned out they didn't need it. Here's the address. What about the message?"