l, it's only that I happen to be his wife. Mary Landers is the name
of a cousin of mine. Dan and I have been planning to get him out of your
dungeon when you locked him up there again, as we expected you would.
I'm simply carrying out his ideas."

Angry sounds, like the growls of enraged bears, came from the throats of
all three prisoners.

"If we sign," demanded Malvine, "will you let us go?"

"There's only one promise I can make. If you don't sign, my friends
here"--she designated the three guards--"will see that you remain
paralyzed."

The conspirators were trapped, and they knew it; were caught like rats
in a corner, beyond rescue by the corrupt system they had built up. And
so, after their paralysis had begun to wear off and they had been
re-paralyzed several times in succession, they bowed their heads in
capitulation.

"Come on," snarled Hogarth, "give us that damned paper!"

He glanced over the sheet, and an even angrier snarl came from his
throat.

"You must think we're crazy, young lady!" he roared. "You can go to hell
before we'll sign!"

The document was not only an order for Dan's release, but a confession
of the criminal manner in which he had been seized and detained.

"Better think it over, gentlemen," advised Lucile, as the prisoners
continued to hold out against signing.

* * * * *

And this was exactly what they did. After more than twelve hours, during
which they were allowed neither food nor drink (it being impossible to
digest anything in a paralyzed state), the victims realized that they
had no chance except to sign, or miserably to perish. And not being of
the stuff of which heroes are made, they grumblingly asked the guards to
deparalyze them sufficiently to let them sign the paper.

Thus it came about that Dan was again delivered from the basement
prison, and that he and his wife were restored to one another's arms.
Thus, thanks to his discovery and her application of it, the earth was
saved from the most terrible peril in history, and gradually was brought
back to its true orbit. And thus, after Dan had broadcasted all he knew
about the plots of the Triumvirate, Hogarth, Wiley and Malvine were
discredited and disgraced, and, deserted by their confederates, stood
trial for Dan's kidnapping and imprisonment. The last that was heard of
them, they were still serving their twenty-year terms at Wilmott
Penitentiary.

As for the Cosmic Deflector--after t