Roal halted. Beyond Minna's bar was a battered warehouse, a relic of the days when Transite was a commercial street. The Jinx house was the next dive.
Roal swore softly. "It was right here, last night. I swear it was, Chief—and now—there's nothing but that old warehouse."
"Which has been there for thirty years," said Calvin.
"Yeah, I know it now, but last night it just seemed as if the Starhouse belonged there, that it had been there all along. I don't understand it. The Starhouse was here—it couldn't have been moved since last night. Chief, it was last night, wasn't it? Didn't I report in yesterday?"
Commander Calvin nodded. "I'm afraid I know exactly what happened, boy. You were on Transite Street, all right. But somehow they slipped you the drug and stole the antidote before you had time to use it. Then they found you were an SBI man and didn't dare kill you, so they dumped you in the desert. All this tale about the Starhouse and the beautiful, wondrous Queen of the Silver Stars is exactly the same tale that you yourself have heard from a thousand starmen. You ought to know that it was only induced by the drug."
For a moment Roal felt as if his mind were tottering. What if Commander Calvin were right and all this were merely the result of an actual dose of harmeena? He tried to think back, to retrace the events prior to the time he had gone into the Starhouse. But he could remember nothing except that he had gone directly from his hotel room for a walk along Transite to see what business for the SBI might be turned up. And the Starhouse had turned up right where this warehouse now stood. He would stake his life and reputation on it.
He whirled suddenly on Calvin. "I know how I can prove it! That cape I left in your office. Alayna touched it. If we can get her finger prints off it—"
The Commander did not share Roal's enthusiasm, but he patiently returned with Roal to the headquarters of the SBI. His own mind was puzzled and distracted by the mystery of Starhouse. He didn't believe Roal's story, but he didn't quite believe his own, either. He didn't know what to believe.
Roal took the cape into the finger print laboratory. The operating technician examined the collar at the point Roal remembered Alayna grasping it impulsively.
"There're plenty of prints here," said the technician. "Let's see what yours look like."