ome expense money and was on my way south in a chartered plane
within an hour.

On my arrival I went to the Associated Press office and found a message
waiting for me, directing me to call McQuarrie on the telephone at once.

"Hello, Bond," came his voice over the wire, "have you just arrived?
Well, forget all about that disappearance case. Prince is on his way to
Los Angeles to cover it. You hadn't been gone an hour before a wire came
in from Jim Carpenter. He says, 'Send Bond to me at once by fastest
conveyance. Chance for a scoop on the biggest story of the century.' I
don't know what it's about, but Jim Carpenter is always front page news.
Get in touch with him at once and stay with him until you have the
story. Don't risk trying to telegraph it when you get it--telephone. Get
moving!"

I lost no time in getting Carpenter on the wire.

"Hello, First Mortgage," he greeted me. "You made good time getting down
here. Where are you?"

"At the A. P. Office."

"Grab a taxi and come out to the laboratory. Bring your grip with you:
you may have to stay over night."

"I'll be right out, Jim. What's the story?"

His voice suddenly grew grave.

"It's the biggest thing you ever handled," he replied. "The fate of the
whole world may hang on it. I don't want to talk over the phone; come on
out and I'll give you the whole thing."

* * * * *

An hour later I shook hands with Tim, the guard at the gate of the
Carpenter laboratory, and passed through the grounds to enter Jim's
private office. He greeted me warmly and for a few minutes we chatted of
old times when I worked with him as an assistant in his atomic
disintegration laboratory and of the stirring events we had passed
through together when we had ventured outside the heaviside layer in his
space ship.

"Those were stirring times," he said, "but I have an idea, First
Mortgage, that they were merely a Sunday school picnic compared to what
we are about to tackle."

"I guessed that you had something pretty big up your sleeve from your
message." I replied. "What's up now? Are we going to make a trip to the
moon and interview the inhabitants?"

"We may interview them without going that far," he said. "Have you seen
a morning paper?"

"No."

"Look at this."

He handed me a copy of the _Gazette_. Streamer headlines told of the
three disappearances which I had come to Los Angeles to cover, but they
had grown to five during the time