came, dish cloth in hand, and thoughtfully examined them, one by one. “Multiple choice questions! It looks like a psychological test of some sort.”
“This isn’t the kind of thing I expected them to send me,” worried Don. “Look at the type of thing they ask. ‘If you had discovered a new and virulent poison that could be compounded from common household ingredients, would you (1) publish the information in a daily newspaper, (2) manufacture it secretly and sell it as rodent exterminator, (3) give the information to the armed forces for use as a secret weapon, or (4) withhold the information entirely as too dangerous to be passed on?’“
“Could they be a spy ring?” asked Betty. “Subversive agents? Anxious to find out your scientific secrets like that classified stuff that you’re so careful of when you bring it home from the lab?”
Don scanned the papers quickly. “There’s nothing here that looks like an attempt to get information. Besides, I’ve told them nothing about my work except that I do research in physics. They don’t even know what company I work for. If this is a psychological test, it measures attitudes, nothing else. Why should they want to know my attitudes?”
“Do you suppose that POSAT is really what it claims to be—a secret society—and that they actually screen their applicants?”
He smiled wryly. “Wouldn’t it be interesting if I didn’t make the grade after starting out to expose their racket?”
He pulled out his pen and sat down to the task of resolving the dilemmas before him.
His next communication from POSAT came to his business address and, paradoxically, was more personal than its forerunners.
Dear Doctor Alford:
We have examined with interest the information that you have sent to us. We are happy to inform you that, thus far, you have satisfied the requirements for membership in the Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth. Before accepting new members into this ancient and honorable secret society, we find it desirable that they have a personal interview with the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
Accordingly, you are cordially invited to an audience with our Grand Chairman on Tuesday, July 10, at 2:30 P.M. Please let us know if this arrangement is acceptable to you. If not, we will attempt to make another appointment for you.
The time specified for the appointment was hardly a convenient one for Don. At 2:30 P.M. on most Tuesdays, he would be at work in the laboratory. And while his employers made no complaint if he took his research problems home with him and worried over them half the night, they were not equally enthusiastic when he used working hours for pursuing unrelated interests. Moreover, the headquarters of POSAT was in a town almost a hundred miles distant. Could he afford to take a whole day off for chasing will-o-wisps?
It hardly seemed worth the trouble. He wondered if Betty would be disappointed if he dropped the whole matter. Since the letter had been sent to the laboratory instead of his home, he couldn’t consult her about it without telephoning.
Since the letter had been sent to the laboratory instead of his home! But it was impossible!
He searched feverishly through his pile of daily mail for the envelope in which the letter had come. The address stared up at him, unmistakably and fearfully legible. The name of his company. The number of the room he worked in. In short, the address that he had never given them!
“Get hold of yourself,” he commanded his frightened mind. “There’s some perfectly logical, easy explanation for this. They looked it up in the directory of the Institute of Physics. Or in the alumni directory of the university. Or—or—”
But the more he thought about it, the more sinister it seemed. His laboratory address was available, but why should POSAT take the trouble of looking it up? Some prudent impulse had led him to withhold that particular bit of information, yet now, for some reason of their own, POSAT had unearthed the information.
His wife’s words echoed in his mind, “Could they be a spy ring? Subversive agents?”
Don shook his head as though to clear away the confusion. His conservative habit of thought made him reject that explanation as too melodramatic.
At least one decision was easier to reach because of his doubts. Now he knew he had to keep his appointment with the Grand Chairman of POSAT.
He scribbled a memo to the department office stating that he would not be at work on Tuesday.
At first Don Alford had some trouble locating the POSAT headquarters. It seemed to him that the block in which the street number would fall was occupied entirely by a huge sprawling warehouse, of concrete construction, and almost entirely windowless. It was recessed from the street in several places to make room for the small, shabby buildings of a wholesale pharmacy, a printer’s plant, an upholstering shop, and was also indented by alleys lined with loading platforms.
It was at the back of one of the alleys that he finally found a door marked with the now familiar emblem of POSAT.
He opened the frosted glass door with a feeling of misgiving, and faced a dark flight of stairs leading to the upper floor. Somewhere above him a buzzer sounded, evidently indicating his arrival. He picked his way up through the murky stairwell.
The reception room was hardly a cheerful place, with its battered desk facing the view of the empty alley, and a film of dust obscuring the pattern of the gray-looking wallpaper and worn rug. But the light of the summer afternoon filtering through the window scattered the gloom somewhat, enough to help Don doubt that he would find the menace here that he had come to expect.
The girl addressing envelopes at the desk looked very ordinary. Not the Mata-Hari type, thought Don, with an inward chuckle at his own suspicions. He handed her the letter.
She smiled. “We’ve been expecting you, Dr. Alford. If you’ll just step into the next room—”
She opened a door opposite the stairwell, and Don stepped through it.
The sight of the luxurious room before him struck his eyes with the shock of a dentist’s drill, so great was the contrast between it and the shabby reception room. For a moment Don had difficulty breathing. The rug—Don had seen one like it before, but it had been in a museum. The paintings on the walls, ornately framed in gilt carving, were surely old masters—of the Renaissance period, he guessed. Although he recognized none of the pictures, he felt that he could almost name the artists. That glowing one near the corner would probably be a Titian. Or was it Tintorretto? He regretted for a moment the lost opportunities of his college days, when he had passed up Art History in favor of Operational Circuit Analysis.
The girl opened a filing cabinet, the front of which was set flush with the wall, and, selecting a folder from it, disappeared through another door.
Don sprang to examine the picture near the corner. It was hung at eye level—that is, at the eye level of the average person. Don had to bend over a bit to see it properly. He searched for a signature. Apparently there was none. But did artists sign their pictures back in those days? He wished he knew more about such things.
Each of the paintings was individually lighted by a fluorescent tube held on brackets directly above it. As Don straightened up from his scrutiny of the picture, he inadvertently hit his head against the light. The tube, dislodged from its brackets, fell to the rug with a muffled thud.
Now I’ve done it! thought Don with dismay. But at least the tube hadn’t shattered.
In fact—it was still glowing brightly! His eyes registered the fact, even while his mind refused to believe it. He raised his eyes to the brackets. They were simple pieces of solid hardware designed to support the tube.
There were no wires!
Don picked up the slender, glowing cylinder and held it between trembling fingers. Although it was delivering as much light as a two or three hundred watt bulb, it was cool to the touch. He examined it minutely. There was no possibility of concealed batteries.
The thumping of