Not until five minutes had passed was Martin Kirk sufficiently in control of his nervous system to even attempt replacing the loose panel in the headboard. When at last he managed to do so, he returned the bed to its original position, closed and bolted the kitchen door, took one last look around to make sure nothing was out of place, then slunk out of the apartment. By the time he was back behind the wheel of his car and had burned up half a cigar, Kirk's brain was ready to function with something like its normal ability. He sat limp as Satan's collar, trying to piece together the significance of the last half hour's events. There was no longer any doubt that Alma Dakin was in this mess up to her bangs. Linked as she was to the murders (and Kirk was convinced heart disease had nothing to do with it) of those scientists, he would have sworn she was a foreign agent bent on weakening America's defenses. Except for one thing. That machine. The kind of mind that could design and put together a mechanism like that was not of this planet. No longer did Paul Cordell's story of a girl who floated in a ball of blue fire sound like the ravings of a deranged brain. And the seeming miracle of Naia North's escape from a cell block now passed from fantasy to the factual. What to do about it? Martin Kirk, at this moment undoubtedly the most bewildered man alive, put his head in his hands and tried to reach a decision. Take his story to the Police Commissioner? It would mean a padded cell--and without even bothering to see if Alma Dakin possessed a machine more complicated than an electric iron. Some government agency? By the time the red tape was unsnarled the former secretary could have reached Pakistan on foot. Slowly from the depths of his terror of the Unknown, Martin Kirk's training in police procedure began to make itself felt. A plan started to form--hazy at first, then in a sharp and orderly pattern. * * * * * He left the car and returned to the apartment building. A glimpse of his badge and a few incisive orders masked as requests reduced the superintendent to a state of almost obsequious co-operation. Nor was the tenant of apartment 3D, a middle-aged spinster, any less anxious to assist the law. It seemed she had an older sister living on the other side of town who would be happy to put her up for a few days. She departed within the hour, a traveling bag in one fist. Before that hour was gone, Chenowich, in response to a sizzling phone call, skidded a department car to a stop at the curb a block from the building. He delivered a dictograph to his superior, listened to a grim warning to keep his mouth shut about this at Headquarters, asked a couple of questions that drew no answers, and departed as swiftly as he had come.