ch a piece of thread in
the box. And remember that this box locks and opens with a key
owned by the man who installs the telephone. You noticed that I
had to pick this lock. It looks like a screw head that opens with
a screw driver, but it is not.

"Now, Mr. Hite, suppose I wanted to blow you to kingdom come with
a bomb and you lived in an isolated house situated like the late
Mr. Flynn's. Here is the way I might do it. There are hundreds of
other safe ways but this is one of them.

"I should enter the house in your absence. I should place my bomb
and run a fuse from the bomb to one of the holes in this telephone
box. I should tie the clapper of the bell down in the box with a
bit of weak thread, a bit of thread like this, Mr. Hite."

He held up the bit of gray thread and continued:

"I should predetermine precisely the strength of the thread with
relation to the resistance offered by the tied down bell clapper.
I should know exactly how many times the operator would have to
ring your telephone before the thread broke, say fourteen times. I
should watch you from a convenient patch of woods. When you came
home I would go to the nearest telephone and call your number. At
the fourteenth ring, the clapper would break loose and strike a
nail that discharges a blank cartridge that I had fastened with a
small wooden block. The flare from the cartridge ignites the fuse
I told you about and--"

His open hands, palms upward, made an expressive gesture.

Hite was staring at him in wide-eyed astonishment, his rugged jaws
clenching his corn cob pipe until his muscles on the sides of his
jaw stood out in ridges. He took the pipe slowly from his mouth.

"Say, Professor, ain't you coverin' a little too much territory.
Isn't that rather a bit--"

Professor Brierly exploded into wrath.

"You newspaper men!" he almost spat the words out. "You print the
wildest, most improbable tales, stories that have no basis in fact
or in logic. You print statements by charlatans, without taking
the trouble to verify them. And here, when I give you the result
of a simple scientific bit of reasoning, almost syllogistic in its
scientific simplicity you--"

Hite ducked, from the storm. He sent a ferocious scowl in the
direction of the two young men who were grinning behind Professor
Brierly's back. He held out a large gnarled hand placatingly:

"Pardon me, Professor, but it does seem far--I mean--your logic is
absolutely amazing. We who know