ney. Why did Miss
Dakin leave him?"

The woman at the other end of the wire seemed astonished by Kirk's
ignorance. "Why, I assumed _everybody_ knew about Dr. Karney. He died of
a heart attack about eight months ago."

"_What!_"

"Goodness, there's no need to shout, Mr. Kirk. He was connected with
Clement University, out in California, and suffered a stroke of some
kind while at work."

Kirk thanked her dazedly and broke the connection. This, he told
himself, is too much a coincidence to _be_ a coincidence! Two prominent
nuclear scientists dying suddenly within seven months of each other at
opposite ends of the country--and both of them with the same secretary
at the time of their deaths!

A sudden thought sent him leafing rapidly through the trial transcript
to the place where Paul Cordell had told of the disjointed phrases he
claimed to have heard before he pushed into Professor Gilmore's
laboratory. The words he sought seemed to stand out in letters of
fire: "... three in the past five months...."

* * * * *

Again he caught up the telephone receiver, aware that his heart was
pounding with excitement, and dialed a number.... "_Bulletin?_ Hello;
let me talk to Jerry Furness.... Jerry, this is Martin Kirk at Homicide.
Look, do something for me. I want to find out how many top nuclear
fission boys have died in the past four or five months.... No, no;
nothing like that. Some of the boys down here were having an argument
about.... Sure; I'll hold on."

He propped the receiver between his ear and shoulder and groped for a
cigar. In the office beyond the partition of his cubbyhole a woman was
sobbing. Chenowich went past his open door whistling a radio commercial.

The receiver against his ear began to vibrate. "Yeah, Jerry.... Four of
'em, hey? Let's have their names." He picked up a pencil and took down
the information. "_Uh-hunh!_ Three heart attacks and one murder.
Check.... You mean _all_ of them? Tough life, I guess.... Yeah, sure.
Anytime. So long."

He replaced the receiver with slow care and leaned back to study the
list of names. Not counting the last name--Gilmore's--three
world-renowned men in the field of nuclear physics had dropped dead from
heart failure within the designated span of months.

Coincidence? Maybe. But he was in no mood for coincidences. If the
deaths of these four scientists was the result of some sinister plan,
who was responsible? Some foreign powe