arage. It was
bone-black, which cannot be told from lamp-black or soot by the
uninitiated.

From the cloud came a despairing revolver shot. It was pure reflex
action by a man who had been whammed over the head by a
hundred-and-fifty-pound drum of yielding--in fact bursting--material.
There was a metallic clang. Then silence.

In a very little while the dust-cloud cleared. One figure struggled
insanely. Upon him descended--from an oil drum of cylinder-oil stored
above the rafters--a tranquil, glistening rod of opalescent
cylinder-oil. His last bullet had punctured the drum. Oil turned the
bone-black upon him into a thick, sticky goo which instantly gathered
more bone-black to become thicker, stickier, and gooier. He fought it,
while his unconscious companion lay with his head in a crumpled
cardboard container of more black stuff.

The despairing, struggling hood managed to get off one more shot, as if
defying even fate and chance. This bullet likewise found a target. It
burst a container of powdered dye-stuff, also stored overhead. The
container practically exploded and its contents descended in a
widespread shower which coated all the interior of the garage with a
lovely layer of bright heliotrope.

Maybe the struggling hood saw it. If so, it broke him utterly. What had
happened was starkly impossible. The only sane explanation was that he
had died and was in hell. He accepted that explanation and broke into
sobs.

* * * * *

Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald had witnessed every instant of the
happening, but he did not believe it. Nevertheless, he said in a strange
voice: "I'll phone for the paddy-wagon. It'll do for a ambulance, in
case of need."

He put away his unused service revolver. Thinking strange, dizzy
thoughts of twitching eyelids and plastic scraps and starkly incredible
happenings, he managed to call for the police patrol. When he hung up,
he gazed blankly at the wall. He gazed, in fact, at a spot where a
peculiar small machine with no visible function reposed--somewhat
dusty--on a shelf.

Brink stepped over briskly and closed the door between the scene of
catastrophe and the immaculate shop. Somehow, none of the mess had
spilled back through the doorway. Then he came in, frowning a little.

"The fight's out of them," he said cheerfully. "One's got a bad cut on
his head. The other's completely unnerved. _Tsk! Tsk!_ I hate to have
such things happen!"

Sergeant Fitzg