He broke off, looking narrowly at Malone with what might have been concern, but looked more like discouragement and boredom. "Mr. Malone," he said, "are you ill?" Malone thought about it. He wasn't quite sure, he discovered. The chill in the office was bothering him more and more, and as it grew he began to doubt that it was all due to the O'Connor influence. Suddenly a distinct shudder started somewhere in the vicinity of his shoulders and rippled its way down his body. Another one followed it, and then a third. "Me?" Malone said. "I'm ... I'm all right." "You seem to have contracted a chill," O'Connor said. A fourth shudder followed the other three. "I ... guess so," Malone said. "I d-d ... I do s-seem to be r-r-rather chilly." O'Connor nodded. "Ah," he said. "I thought so. Although a chill is certainly odd at seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit." He looked at the thermometer just outside the window of his office, then turned back to Malone. "Pardon me," he said. "Seventy-one point six." "Is ... is that all it is?" Malone said. Seventy-one point six degrees, or even seventy-two, hardly sounded like the broiling Nevada desert he'd expected. "Of course," O'Connor said. "At nine o'clock in the morning, one would hardly expect great temperatures. The desert becomes quite hot during the day, but cools off rapidly; I assume you are familiar with the laws covering the system." "Sure," Malone said. "S-sure." The chills were not getting any better. They continued to travel up and down his body with the dignified regularity of Pennsylvania Railroad commuter trains. O'Connor frowned for a second. It was obvious that his keen scientific eye was sizing up the phenomenon, and reporting events to his keen scientific brain. In a second or less, the keen scientific brain had come up with an answer, and Dr. O'Connor spoke in his very keenest scientific voice. "I should have warned you," he said, without an audible trace of regret. "The answer is childishly simple, Mr. Malone. You left Washington at noon." "Just a little before noon," Malone said. Remembering the burning sun, he added: "High noon. Very high." "Just so," O'Connor said. "And not only the heat was intense; the humidity, I assume, was also high." "Very," Malone said, thinking back. He shivered again. "In Washington," O'Connor said, "it was noon. Here it is nine o'clock, and hardly as warm. The atmosphere is quite arid, and about twenty degrees below that obtaining in Washington." Malone thought about it, trying to ignore the chills. "Oh," he said at last. "And all the time I thought it was you." "What?" O'Connor leaned forward. "Nothing," Malone said hastily. "My suggestion," O'Connor said, putting his fingertips together again, "is that you take off your clothes, which are undoubtedly damp, and--"