doctors had used;
it was faultless. One person even went so far as to cast a suspicious
look at the big automatic micro-balance standing on its pedestal in the
center of the room. He weighed a piece of paper, wrote his name on it
in pencil and reweighed it. The difference was satisfactory. For a few
moments, they all just stood and looked at each other. Then the whole
lot of them set to work.

A junior technician headed for the spectrograph, came back in three
minutes with a freshly developed spectral photograph and a puzzled
look. He spent some time comparing both of them with the illustrations
in a manual entitled _Structural Formulae as Indicated by Spectral
Groupings_.

The two German exchange students made a few tries at finding the class
of compound. They soon were deep in a technical discussion in their own
language, the only recognizable words being "biuret," "dumkopf," and
"damn."

A senior research-chemist tried crystalizing some and invented an
entirely new swear word.

With four helpers, Dr. Brinton and Dr. Ferber redid the combustion
analysis in slightly less than twice the time it would have taken only
one of them. Of course they were assured of accuracy; each step was
checked at least twice by everyone.

The result was still carbon 281.6%.

Dr. Brinton escaped the ensuing mental paralysis since he had already
been through the experience once. He went over and began to study the
figures written in on the side of the spectral photograph. Out of
little more than idle curiosity, he compared the ratios of the rough
quantitative estimate found spectrographically with the more accurate
but impossible answer of the combustion micro-analysis.

While he was doing the necessary figuring, he listened sympathetically
to the technician. The young man was complaining bitterly about things
in general, and chemistry in particular. Chemical reference books came
in for a special roasting, because: "either that lousy book is
incomplete, or this structural formula is out of this world."

That did it.

Brinton got out a scratch pad and drew a little diagram.

Then he went to talk to Dr. Ferber.

"Would it be possible that Harrison started with a multi-ringed
phenol?" he asked. Dr. Ferber nodded. Dr. Brinton showed him the
drawing. "Does that remind you of any geometrical figure?"

Dr. Ferber looked. There was a pause, then his eyes lit up.

"Of course," he said. "Since formulae are usually drawn in one plane,