eated her call. "Horace!"

It wasn't until then that it occurred to her the falling of the razor
might have been an ominous sound. Her mind filled with worried images,
she rushed out of the kitchen into the hall leading to the bathroom.

The door was locked.

"Horace!" she called. "Are you all right?" When there was no answer she
pounded on the door. "Horace! Speak to me!"

After that she ran outside and around to the bathroom window. It was
shut and locked, as she already knew. Not only that, it had been stuck
for years.

With an urgency born of a realization that every second might mean the
difference between life and death, she ran back into the house and
called the fire department. Also the family doctor.

By nine-thirty the police had been called in. By eleven o'clock they had
seen the parallel between this disappearance and that of John Henderson.

Martin Grant's first reaction was concern for Ethel. His second reaction
was that, twice, he had presented his theory to someone and that person
had vanished. His third was accompanied by a twinge of fear. He had just
finished presenting his theory to the senior physics class!

This was followed by an amazing realization. He was conceding that there
might be a connection between his theory and the disappearances. He
laughed it off, but it returned. It disturbed him.

It continued to bother him on Wednesday, so he began to search his mind
for reasons. Eventually he found them. There was a distinct analogy
between a theory that didn't agree with observable reality, and a pair
of disappearances which violated known methods of disappearing.

The analogy was so clear that he began to feel there might be a
functional relation between the two. Of course, he concluded, it would
be reasonably certain if a large number of the students in the senior
group were to vanish also.

This intellectual conclusion became an anxiety neurosis.

So, on Wednesday--after he had scanned the room anxiously to see how
many students were absent and discovered to his intense relief that they
were all there--he spent the full hour lecturing on the necessity--the
_vital_ necessity--of unbelief in all things, especially scientific
theories.

But would it work? He vaguely remembered giving Horace a similar
lecture.

Wednesday night just before retiring he had another disturbing thought.
He had explained the theory to his son. But that had been weeks before,
and Fred was steeped in the m