t him. It struck him and he fell down. My
only thought was to hide, for I realized I couldn't go out through the
outer office, and the only window was barred. So I hid in that closet
again.

"It was only a few minutes before Paul Cordell regained consciousness.
He staggered out of the room and down the hall and I could hear a lot of
excited talk and Greg's secretary calling the police. Then I didn't hear
anything at all for a moment, so I came out of the closet and looked
down the hall. The office door was closed, but it seemed so quiet in
there that I tiptoed quickly to the inner door, opened it a crack and
peered through. The office was deserted; evidently Cordell and Miss
Dakin had gone out to direct the police when they showed up.

"When I saw there was no one in the main hall of the building itself, I
simply walked out and left by another exit. No one I passed even noticed
me."

* * * * *

For a long time after Naia North had finished speaking, Martin Kirk sat
as though carved from stone, staring blindly into space. She knew he was
thinking furiously, weighing the plausibility of what he had heard,
trying to arrive at some method of corroborating it in a way that would
stand up in a court of law.

"Miss North."

She came out of a reverie with a start, to find the Lieutenant's eyes
boring into hers. "This shiny hunk of metal you used: where is it now?"

"I'm sure I wouldn't know. Probably some place in the laboratory, unless
somebody took it away. I do seem to remember picking it up and tossing
it back with several others like it on the bench."

"Then it's still there," he said slowly. "Judge Reed ordered the room
sealed up until after the trial. And then there's the closet.... Were
you wearing gloves that afternoon, Miss North?"

She said, "No. You're thinking of fingerprints?"

"If you're telling the truth," he said, "there's almost certain to be
some of your prints on the inside of that closet door--maybe even on
that length of metal, if we can find it."

She said almost carelessly: "That's all you'd need to clear Paul
Cordell, isn't it?"

"It would certainly help." He swung around in the chair, scooped up the
telephone and gave a series of rapid-fire orders, then dropped the
instrument on its cradle and turned back to where she sat watching him
curiously.

He said, "A few things I still don't get. Like this business of your
standing two feet off the floor in a ball