"A time bomb did it," the Chief was saying. "The officials deny it, but what other answer is there? No one approached that ship--you know that, Del--no torpedo nor aerial bomb! Nothing as fanciful as that!" Robert Delamater's lips formed a wry smile. "Nothing at fanciful as that"--and he was thinking, thinking--of what he hardly dared express. "We will start with the ship's personnel," the other continued; "find every man who was not on board when the explosion occurred--" "No use," the operative interrupted; "this was no inside job, Chief." He paused to choose his words while the other watched him curiously. "Someone _did_ reach that ship--reached it from a distance--reached it in the same way they reached that poor devil I left at room nine forty-seven. Listen--" * * * * * He told his superior of his vigil on the speed-boat--of the almost invisible flash against the ship's mast. "He reached it, Chief," he concluded; "he felt or saw his way down and through the side of that ship. And he fired their ammunition from God knows where." "I wonder," said the big man slowly; "I wonder if you know just what you are trying to tell me--just how absurd your idea is. Are you seriously hinting at long-distance vision through solid armor-plate--through these walls of stone and steel? And wireless power-transmission through the same wall--!" "Exactly!" said the operative. "Why, Del, you must be as crazy as this Eye of Allah individual. It's impossible." "That word," said Delamater, quietly, "has been crossed out of scientific books in the past few years." "What do you mean?" "You have studied some physical science, of course?" Delamater asked. The Chief nodded. "Then you know what I mean. I mean that up to recent years science had all the possibilities and impossibilities neatly divided and catalogued. Ignorance, as always, was the best basis for positive assurance. Then they got inside the atom. And since then your real scientist has been a very humble man. He has seen the impossibility of yesterday become the established fact of to-day." The Chief of the United States Secret Service was tapping with nervous irritation on the desk before him. "Yes, yes!" he agreed, and again he looked oddly at his operative. "Perhaps there is something to that; you work along that line, Del: you can have a free hand. Take a few days off, a little vacation if you wish. Yes--and ask Sprague to step in from the other office; he has the personnel list." * * * * * Robert Delamater felt the other's eyes follow him as he left the room. "And that about lets me out," he told himself; "he thinks I've gone cuckoo, now." He stopped in a corridor; his fingers, fumbling in a vest pocket, had touched the little metal spheres. Again his mind flashed back to the chain of events he had linked together. He turned toward an inner office.