Then Coburn said thickly: "I'm crazy enough to put a bullet through you
if your gang of devils has harmed the real Helena. What's happened to
her?"
Hallen moved irresolutely to interfere. But the girl's expression
changed. She smiled. "The real Helena, Mr. Coburn," said an entirely new
voice, "has gone to the suburbs to visit her fiance's family. She is
quite safe."
There was dead silence. The figure--it even moved like Helena--got
composedly to its feet. It got its coat. It put the coat on. Hallen
stared with his mouth open. The pins hadn't convinced him, but the
utterly different voice coming from this girl's mouth had. Yet, waves of
conflicting disbelief and conviction, horror and a racking doubt, chased
themselves over his features.
"She admits she's not Helena!" said Coburn with loathing. "It's not
human! Should I shoot it?"
The girl smiled at him again. Her eyes were very bright. "You will not,
Mr. Coburn. And you will not even try to keep me prisoner to prove your
story. If I screamed that you attack me--" the smile widened--"Helena's
good Greek friends would come to my assistance."
She walked confidently to the door and opened it. Then she said warmly:
"You are very intelligent, Mr. Coburn. We approve of you very much. But
nobody will believe you."
The office door closed.
Coburn turned stiffly to the man he'd called to hear him. "Should I have
shot her, Hallen?"
Hallen sat down as if his knees had given way beneath him. After a long
time he got out a handkerchief and painfully mopped his face. At the
same time he shivered.
"N-no...." Then he swallowed. "My God, Coburn! It's true!"
"Yes," said Coburn bitterly, "or you're as crazy as I am."
Hallen's eyes looked haunted. "I--I ..." He swallowed again. "There's no
question about the Bulgarian business. That did happen! And you were
there. And--there've been other things.... Rumors.... Reports that
nobody believed.... I might be able to get somebody to listen...." He
shivered again. "If it's true, it's the most terrible thing that ever
happened. Invaders from space.... Where do you think they came from,
Coburn?"
"The creature that looked like Dillon could climb incredibly fast. I saw
it run and leap. Nothing on Earth could run or leap like that." Coburn
shrugged. "Maybe a planet of another sun, with a monstrous gravity."
"Try to get somebody to believe that, eh?" Hallen got painfully to his
feet. "I'll see what I can do. I ... don't know that I can do anything
but get myself locked up for observation. But I'll call you in an hour."
He went unsteadily out of the door. Coburn instantly called the Breen
Foundation on the telephone. He'd left Janice there less than an hour
before. She came to the phone and gasped when she heard his voice.
Raging, he told her of Helena, then cautioned her to be especially
careful--to be suspicious of everybody.
"Don't take anybody's word!" snapped Coburn. "Doubt everybody! Doubt me!
Until you're absolutely certain. Those creatures are everywhere.... They
may pretend to be anybody!"
After Coburn hung up on Janice, he sat back and tried to think
logically. There had to be some way by which an extra-terrestrial
Invader could be told instantly from a human being. Unmask and prove
even one such creature, and the whole story would be proved. But how
detect them? Their skin was perfectly deceptive. Scratched, of course,
they could be caught. But one couldn't go around scratching people.
There was nothing of the alien creature's own actual form that showed.
Then Coburn remembered the Dillon foam suit. The head had been hollow.
Flaccid. Holes instead of eyes. The creature's own eyes showed through.
But he'd have to make certain. He'd have to look at a foam-suited
creature. He could have examined Helena's eyes, but she was gone now.
However, there was an alternative. There was a Dillon in Salonika, as
there was a Helena. If the Dillon in Salonika was the real Dillon--if
there were a real Dillon--he could look at his eyes. He could tell if he
were the false Dillon or the real one.
* * * * *
At this hour of the afternoon a Britisher would consider tea a
necessity. There was only one place in Salonika where they served tea
that an Englishman would consider drinkable. Coburn got into a cab and
gave the driver the address, and made sure of the revolver in his
pocket. He was frightened. He was either going to meet with a monster
from outer space, or be on the way to making so colossal a fool of
himself that a mental asylum would yawn for him.
He went into the one coffee-shop in Salonika which served drinkable tea.
It was dark and dingy inside, though the tablecloths were spotless. He
went in, and there was Dillon.
Coburn's flesh crawled. If the figure sitting there with the _London
Times_ and a cup of tea before him were actually a monster from another
planet ...
But Dillon read comfortably, and sipped his tea. Coburn approached, and
the Englishman looked up inquiringly.
"I was ... up in the mountains," said Coburn feverishly, "when those
Bulgarians came over. I can give you the story."
Dillon said frostily: "I'm not interested. The government's officially
denied that any such incident took place. It's merely a silly rumor."
It was reasonable that it should be denied. But it had happened,
nonetheless. Coburn stared, despite a consciousness that he was not
conspicuously rational in the way his eyes searched Dillon's face
hungrily. The eyes _were_ different! The eyes of the Dillon up in the
mountains had been larger, and the brown part--But he had to be sure.
Suddenly, Coburn found himself grinning. There was a simple, a perfect,
an absolute test for humanity!