His musing was interrupted by a disturbance at the front door. The voice of
his elderly maidservant was raised in remonstrance. A heavy male voice
interrupted her. The commotion moved down the hall and the dining room door
was pushed open.
“Mia Madonna! Non si puo entrare! The master is eating!”
“Never mind, Angela. I have time to see these gentlemen. You may go.”
Pinero faced the surly-faced spokesman of the intruders. “You have business
with me; yes?”
“You bet we have. Decent people have had enough of your damned nonsense.”
“And so?”
The caller did not answer at once. A smaller, dapper individual moved out
from behind him and faced Pinero.
“We might as well begin.” The chairman of the committee placed a key in the
lock box and opened it.
“Wenzell will you help me pick out today’s envelopes?”
He was interrupted by a touch on his arm.
“Dr. Baird, you are wanted on the telephone.”
“Very well. Bring the instrument here.”
When it was fetched he placed the receiver to his ear. “Hello. . . . Yes;
speaking. . . . What? . . . No, we have heard nothing. . . Destroyed the
machine, you say . . . Dead! How? . . . No! No statement. None at all. . .
Call me later.”
He slammed the instrument down and pushed it from him.
“What’s up?”
“Who’s dead now?”
Baird held up one hand. “Quiet, gentlemen, please! Pinero was murdered a
few moments ago at his home.”
“Murdered?”
“That isn’t all. About the same time vandals broke into his office and
smashed his apparatus.”
No one spoke at first. The committee members glanced around at each other.
No one seemed anxious to be the first to comment.
Finally one spoke up. “Get it out.”
“Get what out?”
“Pinero’s envelope. It’s in there, too. “I’ve seen it.”
Baird located it, and slowly tore it opened. He unfolded the single sheet
of paper and scanned it.
“Well? Out with it!”
“One thirteen P.M. . . . today.”
They took this in silence.
Their dynamic calm was broken by a member across the table from Baird
reaching for the lock box. Baird interposed a hand.
“What do you want?”
“My prediction. It’s in there—we’re all in there.”
“Yes, yes,”
“We’re all in there.”
“Let’s have them.”
Baird placed both hands over the box. He held the eye of the man opposite
him, but did not speak. He licked his lips. The corner of his mouth
twitched. His hands shook. Still he did not speak. The man opposite relaxed
back into his chair.
“You’re right, of course,” he said.
“Bring me that wastebasket.” Baird’s voice was low and strained, but
steady.
He accepted it and dumped the litter on the rug. He placed the tin basket
on the table before him. He tore half a dozen envelopes across, set a match
to them, and dropped them in the basket. Then he started tearing a double
handful at a time, and fed the fire steadily. The smoke made him cough, and
tears ran out of his smarting eyes. Someone got up and opened a window.
When Baird was through, he pushed the basket away from him, looked down and
spoke.
“I’m afraid I’ve ruined this table top.”
SOLUTION UNSATISFACTORY
IN 19O3 THE Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk.
In December, 1938, in Berlin, Dr. Hahn split the uranium atom.
In April, 1943, Dr. Estelle Karst, working under the Federal Emergency
Defense Authority, perfected the Karst-Obre technique for producing
artificial radioactives.
So American foreign policy had to change.
Had to. Had to. It is very difficult to tuck a bugle call back into a
bugle. Pandora’s Box is a one-way proposition. You can turn pig into
sausage, but not sausage into pig. Broken eggs stay broken. “All the King’s
horses and all the King’s men can’t put Humpty together again.
I ought to know—I was one of the King’s men.
By rights I should not have been. I was not a professional military man
when World War II broke out, and when Congress passed the draft law I drew
high number, high enough to keep me out of the army long enough to die of