he switch with a sense
of relief. The beard-fringed face of Thomas Boyd appeared on the
screen.

"You're getting hard to find," Boyd said. "I think you're letting fame
and fortune go to your head."

"I left word at the office that I was coming here," Malone said
aggrievedly.

"Sure you did," Boyd said. "How do you think I found you? Am I
telepathic? Do I have strange powers?"

"Wouldn't surprise me in the least," Malone said. "Now, about those
spies--"

"See what I mean?" Boyd said. "How did you know?"

"Just lucky, I guess," Malone murmured. "But what about them?"

"Well," Boyd said, "we picked up two men working in the Senate Office
Building, and another one working for the State Department."

"And they are spies?" Malone said. "Real spies?"

"Oh, they're real enough," Boyd said. "We've known about 'em for
years, and I finally decided to pick them up for questioning. Maybe
they have something to do with all this mess that's bothering
everybody."

"You haven't the faintest idea what you mean," Malone said. "Mess is
hardly the word."

Boyd snorted. "You go on getting yourself confused," he said, "while
some of us do the real work. After all--"

"Never mind the insults," Malone said. "How about the spies?"

"Well," Boyd said, a trifle reluctantly, "they've been working as
janitors and maintenance men, and of course we've made sure they
haven't been able to get their hands on any really valuable
information."

"So they've suddenly turned into criminal masterminds," Malone said.
"After being under careful surveillance for years--"

"Well, it's possible," Boyd said defensively.

"Almost anything is possible," Malone said.

"Some things," Boyd said carefully, "are more possible than others."

"Thank you, Charles W. Aristotle," Malone said. "I hope you realize
what you've done, picking up those three men. We might have been able
to get some good lines on them, if you'd left them where they were."

There is an old story about a general who went on an inspection tour
of the front during World War I, and, putting his head incautiously up
out of a trench, was narrowly missed by a sniper's bullet. He turned
to a nearby sergeant and bellowed: "Get that sniper!"

"Oh, we've got him spotted, sir," the sergeant said. "He's been there
for six days now."

"Well, then," the general said, "why don't you blast him out of
there?"

"Well, sir, it's this way," the sergeant explained. "He's fired about
sixty roun