back and made clouds
of pipe smoke, which he stared at contemplatively. Then he made two
calls to New York--one to his boss and another to a private detective
agency he knew he could trust.

* * * * *

The Malcom Porter case quickly became a _cause celebre_. Somebody
goofed. Handled properly, the whole affair might have been hushed up;
the Government would have gotten what it wanted, Porter would have
gotten what _he_ wanted, and everyone would have saved face. But some
bureaucrat couldn't see beyond the outer surface of his spectacle
lenses, and some other bureaucrat failed to stop the thing in time.

"Gall, gall, and bitter, bitter wormwood," said Oler Winstein, perching
himself on the edge of Terry Elshawe's desk.

"You don't Gallic, bitter, wormy, or wooden. What's up?"

"Got a call from Senator Tallifero. He wants to know if you'll consent
to appear before the Joint Congressional Committee for Investigating
Military Affairs. I get the feeling that if you say 'no,' they'll send a
formal invitation--something on the order of a subpoena."

Elshawe sighed. "Oh, well. It's news, anyway. When do they want me to be
in Washington?"

"Tomorrow. Meanwhile, Porter, of course, is under arrest and in close
confinement. Confusion six ways from Sunday." He shook his head. "I
don't understand why they just didn't pat him on the back, say they'd
been working on this thing all along, and cover it up fast."

"Too many people involved," Elshawe said, putting his cold pipe in the
huge ashtray on his desk. "The Civil Aeronautics crowd must have had a
spotter up in those mountains; they had a warrant out for his arrest
within an hour after we took off. They also notified the parole board,
who put out an all-points bulletin immediately. The Army and the Air
Force were furious because he'd evaded their radar net. Porter stepped
on so many toes so hard that it was inevitable that one or more would
yell before they realized it would be better to keep their mouths shut."

"Well, you get up there and tell your story, and I dare say he'll come
out of it."

"Sure he will. They know he's got something, and they know they have to
have it. But he's going to go through hell before they give it to him."

Winstein slid off the desk and stood up. "I hope so. He deserves it. By
the way, it's too bad you couldn't get a story out of that Sam Skinner
character."

"Yeah. But there's nothing to it. After all, even