talking about! You're a faker, trying to cut in on a swindle by a bluff! Clear out!" There were sounds out in the courtyard. Footsteps. Appolonius looked more menacing still. Coghlan snapped: "Clear out! You bother me! Get going!" He opened the door. There were footsteps at the bottom of the stairs. Appolonius said nastily: "I have taken precautions! If anything should happen to me--you would be sorry!" "I'd be heart-broken!" said Coghlan impatiently. "Shoo!" He pushed Appolonius out and closed the door. He went to the small room in which he kept his private experimental equipment. As an instructor in physics he worked on a limited budget at the college. He had his classes build much of the apparatus used, both to save money and because they would learn more that way. But some things he had to build himself--again to save money, and for the plain satisfaction of the job. Now he began to pack stray items. A couple of thermometers. Batteries and a couple of coils and a headset that would constitute an induction balance when they were put together. A gold-leaf electroscope. He got out the large alnico magnet that had made a good many delicate measurements possible. He was packing a scintillometer when his doorbell rang. He answered it, scowling. There stood Mannard and Laurie, studying the scowl. They came in and Mannard said genially: "Our little friend Appolonius is upset, Tommy. He's not himself. What'd you do to him?""He thinks," said Coghlan, "that everything that's happened in the past thirty hours is part of a scheme to extort money from you--the scheme operating from the fourth dimension. He demanded a cut on threat of revealing all. I put him out. Did he expose me as a scoundrel and a blackmailer?"

Mannard shook his head. Then he said: "I'm taking Laurie home. I wouldn't run away myself, but you may be right--she may be the real target of this scheme when it gets in good working order. So I'm taking her away. How about coming along?" He added bluntly: "You could pick out some real equipment for the physics laboratory at the college. It's needed, and I'll pay for it."

It was transparent. Coghlan looked at Laurie. She protested reproachfully: "It's not me, Tommy! I wouldn't ply you with cyclotrons!"

"If you want to make a gift to the lab, I'll give you a whopping list," said Coghlan. "But there's a gadget over at 80 Hosain that I've got to work out. It produces a thin layer of cold in air. I think it's a force-field of some sort, but it's a plane surface! I've got to find out what makes it and how it works. It's something new in physics!"

Laurie muttered 

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