which would break if anyone entered. He had no thread, but after a moment's thought, he pulled a three-cent stamp out of his bill-fold, and turned out the office-light. After glancing up and down the hall, he stuck the stamp on the door so that it would tear if the door opened.

n the morning, the stamp was still intact, and it was hard to see, even in broad daylight. The paper in the curve-tracer was perfectly blank, and there was no punch-card in the transmitter head. It might still be an elaborate joke, but the chances were small. He might be cracking up, or may have imagined the whole thing. The best thing to do would be to put it entirely out of his mind.

He succeeded in this until mid-morning, when ICWEA called him a "handsome devil." He jerked the punch-card out of the transmitter and called Vic.

"Hermosa."

That voice! It made chills run up and down his backbone. A man had no right to a voice like that. "Vic? Bring up the calculations for the last batch of punch-cards, will you? I want to check something. The card numbers are F-141 through F-152."

"Right away."

Vic wasn't especially gabby. A good-looking young Latin, who knew as much math as most, they'd probably lose him to the draft any day now. Presently, someone knocked on the door.

"Come in."

It wasn't Vic; it was the girl. She laid the pack of problems and their attached work-sheets on the desk, shook her hair into place—did she even have to comb it in the morning when she got up?—looked him briefly in the eye, and turned to go.

"How is Vic these days?" Norm inquired, whimsically. "Is he able to get about?"

The girl smiled politely at this obvious badinage and left.

He checked the problems against cards as he came to them. He knew the punch code well enough to do this in his head, since the kind of operation indicated was quite obvious. But the problems ended with F-151, and the "handsome devil" card was F-152. He got on the phone again.

"Vic? What's your next card number?"

"F-153." One expected a little guy to have a high voice; this one was quite deep, but soft.

"Are the cards numbered very far ahead?"

"We usually number a couple of dozen cards, and assign the numbers to the problems as they come in, from a scratch sheet."

"Any of the cards been lost?"

"Oh yes, on occasion. So far, we've recovered them all—there are only two rooms where they could be. Up there or down here."

That voice! How could a man have a voice like that? And why should he care if one did? Why even notice it? Instead of going to the cafeteria for lunch, he drove downtown and consulted the family doctor, who laughed at him. Reassured, he returned to the plant and got a sandwich and milk before going to his office. Old Doc Heffelbauer might be wrong, but he usually wasn't. Norm liked several men, but he didn't dream about any of them; if he was off his rocker, it was in some other manner. Visual delusions, for instance.

The thing to do was to see Vic face to face. He called the office manager. "Henry? Send Vic Hermosa up there, will you? I want to talk to him."

"Vic Hermosa? He's in the Army. Didn't you know?"

"No, I didn't. Who is the guy that answers the phone in that fruity voice?"

Henry lowered his voice. "Guy? That's Vic's sister Virginia. She took Vic's place when he left. Simplified the security investigation, and she's good, too. About as good as Vic, I'd say."

"You mean to tell me a little girl like her could have a voice that deep?"

"Startling, isn't it? Of course, it's actually a low contralto or tenor, but you expect her to be a lyric soprano. Shall I send her up to see you?"

"No, no. I want to think a bit first. Say, who interviewed her?"

"Charley, I suppose. Just a formality, anyhow; the Hermosas and the