"You can't have it," Lin said.
Fairchild looked around quickly. "We're alone," he said rapidly. "I could knock you out with one blow of my fist. If you won't make any outcry I'll just take it out of your billfold and leave."
Lin watched, grinning, as Fairchild opened the drawer and took out the billfold and searched it swiftly. When he saw it wasn't there he tossed the billfold back in the drawer and looked grimly at Lin. "Where is it?"
"You think I don't know the value of that bit of paper?" Lin said. "You'll never get it. But you interest me. How did you get here? You know what I mean."
"Look, Lin Grant," Fairchild said. "I'm desperate. I have to have that paper. It means nothing to you. Please let me have it."
"Means nothing to me?" Lin said, his voice soft and mocking. "If I hadn't snatched that paper from the fire I would be dead right now. You know that. And so long as I keep it nothing can ever kill me. That's why you'll never get it."
"You're insane," Fairchild said. "How could a mere piece of paper have that power? It has no meaning whatever. The writing on it is merely nonsense."
"Then why are you so interested in getting it to put into the flame?" Lin said. "If you hadn't shown up I might in time have rationalized my memories some way and torn the thing up. But not now. Your coming after it convinces me I'm right. You'll never get it!"
"If I don't," Fairchild said, tight-lipped, "you'll regret every minute you keep it. You're wrong about it. It has nothing to do with you at all." His voice became pleading. "Give it to me and I promise you that you will recover completely as though you were never in a wreck. The doctors can tell you how much of a miracle that will be."
Lin shook his head. "There's more to this than mere superstition or fantastic miracles," he said. "I'll never give up that paper until I know what it means and what it's all about. I know, I should have died. I don't have anything to lose, whatever I do. So I'm keeping it."