ut a little problem," Kirk explained carelessly.
"Let's say you hear a guy talking in the next room. You can't really
make out the words he's saying, but right in the middle of his mumbling
you hear what sounds like 'taking in washing.' Now you know that can't
be right, so you try to think out what he actually _did_ say...."

It was obvious Chenowich had fallen off on the first curve, so
completely off that Kirk didn't bother finishing what was much too
involved to begin with. The patrolman was staring at him in monstrous
perplexity.

"Jeez, Lieutenant. I don't get it. 'Less the guy's goin' to open up one
of these here laundries. That way he'd be takin' in washin'. But I don't
know what else--"

Kirk's feet hit the floor with a solid thump and he grabbed Chenowich's
wrist with fingers that bit in like steel. "Say that again!" he shouted.
"Say it just that way!"

The patrolman recoiled in alarm. "What's got into you, Lieutenant? Say
_what_?"

"Taking in washing!"

"Takin' in washin'? What for?"

Kirk's grin threatened to split his face, "The same words," he said,
"but you say them different. Only your way's the right way! Thanks, pal.
Now get out of here!"

Chenowich went. His mouth was still open and his expression still
troubled, but he went.

The last of the killer's cryptic remarks was now clear. For Kirk
realized that "takin'" rhymed with words you'd never associate with
"taking." "Bacon", for instance--or "Dakin"! Alma Dakin, former
secretary to two widely separated, and now dead, nuclear scientists. Her
name had been mentioned by the slayer of Professor Gilmore only seconds
before she had clubbed the savant to death.

But now that "taking" had come out "Dakin"--what did the rest of the
phrase mean? _Dakin in washing_ made no sense. What sounded like
_washing_? Washing; washing ... _watching_? It was close; in fact
nothing he could think of came closer.

All right. _Dakin in watching_; no. _Dakin is watching_--that made
sense. But Alma Dakin hadn't been watching anything at the time of the
killing; she, according to Cordell, was at her desk in the outer office.
That would leave _Dakin was watching_ as the right combination. Watching
for the right opportunity for murder!

What did it mean? Well, assuming from her past record that Alma Dakin
was mixed up in the deaths of two prominent men of science, it argued
that she and Naia North were accomplices in a scheme to rid America of
her nuclear fission