"You mean you're not?" Toffee returned quickly.

"Certainly not. I wouldn't have killed Mr. Epperson and Miss Logan if they hadn't forced me to. They got to prying into my private affairs, and I had to put an end to it somehow."

"The method seems a little extreme," Toffee pointed out. "A good, old-fashioned talking-to might have been simpler ... or were you afraid of hurting their feelings?"

The doctor waved an impatient hand through the air.

"They were only laboratory assistants and they insisted on knowing what I was working on. So I simply obliged them. I contrived to leave a couple of capsules where they would be sure to find them. I was certain they'd both be destroyed by the blast, but that fool woman ... she never did do anything right ... got outside the radius of vaporization. Naturally, I had to shoot her."

"Oh, naturally," Toffee broke in. "Anyone silly enough to get outside a perfectly good radius of vaporization deserves to be shot. I see what you mean."

"If you must speak," the doctor said scornfully, "try to say something intelligent."

"Give me time," was Toffee's bland reply, "and I'll build up a really good insult for you."

"But we were talking of other things," the doctor said loftily, wagging a finger toward a group of chairs before his desk. "You'd better sit down."

Hesitantly, Marc and Toffee accepted the invitation. Toffee crossed one lovely leg over the other and regarded it bleakly. Obviously, she thought it a waste in such scientific surroundings. Her determined belief in the idea that sex, if just given half the chance, could surmount any obstacle, seemed in grave peril of disproof. It was the first time that her faith in herself had ever been shaken, and it was not a nice feeling. She scowled at the doctor, who quickly averted his eyes. He sat down at the desk, dropped the gun on its glistening surface.

"And now," he said, shifting his attention to Marc, "I think we'd better get to the point of your visit. And just to relieve your minds, I'll tell you that you are not to be killed."

Toffee brightened.

"No," the doctor continued, "You were brought here, Mr. Pillsworth, because you are one of America's most influential advertising men. As such, you can be of 

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