Of course it was Chet's job to slap approval stamps on the containers. He
usually began that after they accumulated, and then worked back along the belt.
But Marquette wouldn't accept such an alibi. He'd say that Chet worked the
needler with one hand and laid the stamps on with the other.
Maybe the machine was rigged to feed the stamps, too. In that case, Chet
would be framed all the more efficiently!
That thought was buzzing amid Chet's flood of new impressions, all
stimulated by sight of this strange machine. Then Chet saw something that made
him forget the minor angles. The thing was a glass cylinder made to fit the
screw top of the machine. This was the jar to hold the neutralizer that the
needles jabbed into the Pyrolac!
Obviously, the needles would have to be hollow, like those on a hypodermic
syringe. To check that fact, Chet lifted the portable machine and swung it
toward his desk. There, he stopped, his bewilderment passing one hundred percent
for guilt.
In the doorway stood Marquette, with a leveled automatic. Behind the Fed,
Chet saw the faces of Biggs and the Pyrolac consumers. Like Marquette, they
looked convinced by the evidence before them.
"You fell for it, Conroy," gruffed Marquette. "We didn't tell you that we'd
checked every department except yours. Letting you come back here was just part
of the system. I knew you'd try to get rid of any evidence you had around, so I
brought these witnesses to see what happened."
The witnesses were crowding into the little office, and with them Chet saw
Humphrey Thorneau. No longer was Thorneau's face friendly, though it lacked the
glare that others displayed. Rather it registered disappointment, as though
Thorneau considered this a sad sequel to Chet's earlier show of initiative.
Being caught with the goods was bad enough, in Chet's opinion. The fact
that the goods weren't his made it worse. Chet could stand the accusations,
because he expected them, but disdain from a man like Thorneau was too much.
They could brand Chet as a crook, but he wouldn't let himself be classed a fool.
Marquette's gesture ordered Chet to place the needler on the desk. As Chet
complied, the Fed relieved him of the glass container used for the neutralizing
fluid. Sniffing the jar without result, Marquette nudged his gun toward the
glass of muggy liquid on the desk.
"Let's see that stuff again."
Chet let Marquette see it, at the closest range possible. The Fed took the
gummy juice right in the face when Chet, on sudden impulse, dashed it at him.
The office reverberated when Marquette's gun began to blast, and the shots were
echoed by a clatter of glass, the jar that the Fed dropped. As for Chet, he
wasn't anywhere near Marquette's gunfire. Chet was headed the other way, out
through the office door.
In that mad moment, Chet thought that his path was blocked. The door was
filled with blackness so solid that Chet couldn't see past it. Oddly, the black
blockade evaporated as Chet arrived; indeed, it seemed momentarily transformed
into a life-sized shape that whipped away, like a figure in a cloak. Chet hadn't
any time to bother about illusions, optical or otherwise.
HAVING started this bolt for freedom, Chet intended to see it through. He
jabbed an elbow into Biggs, when the Pyrolac executive made a grab at him. Next
