"Don't answer," said McGill. "And keep away from the windows. I guess
they saw the light in my office." He leaned out. "What do you want?" he
shouted.
"This is the police. Open up!"
"I won't unless you have a warrant!"
There was no more shouting. They seemed to be parlaying among
themselves, but the crowd had a menacing sound. A brilliant light
suddenly hit our windows, illuminating the lab ceiling--a police
searchlight. I saw that Molly had disappeared and I assumed she had
gone into McGill's office.
"These guys mean business," he said, "but what the hell brought them?"
"Something on the roof. That's what they're all looking at, so why
don't we go up and see?"
"All right, but you'd better stay down here. There's no parapet and
they'll see you."
He started for the door and I decided to follow--at least as far as the
trapdoor, or whatever gave onto the roof--when Molly came in from the
hall. She looked scared.
"My God! I climbed an iron ladder and took a look outside. There's a
small cyclone over us--a ton of torn papers and dust and junk whirling
around like a waterspout! They'd be able to see it for blocks!"
"Oh, great," McGill groaned. "Now it's playing tricks with the wind.
That's how they spotted us."
"We've got to get out of here, McGill," said Molly.
"Maybe the best thing would be for me to give myself up to the cops," I
said.
"I don't know whether they'd be able to get you through that mob,"
McGill replied. "Just listen to them. I only wish I could think of some
way to satisfy the damn crystal or whatever it is. I have the feeling
it wants something. It can't be merely fooling around for no reason.
But there doesn't seem to be any motive beyond the fact that it's
apparently on your side. How did it start? That's what I wish I knew."
He absently turned the bench lamp on again. I shrugged unhappily and
scratched my cheek. In so doing, I pulled the piece of pink adhesive
tape loose and it began to bleed again.
"Cut yourself shaving, darling?" Molly asked me.
"No," I said. "As a matter of fact, it was a kind of freak accident."
"Oh?" McGill lifted his head interestedly. "Anything involving you and
a fluke I want to hear about. Tell Papa."
I did and McGill began to get his dedicated look. "You say this piece
of glass just blew up? What did it look like? How big was it?"
"I only saw it for a second. It was dirty and I'd say about two feet
across--more or less round and with flat places all over it."
* * * * *
McGill came toward me in a state of great excitement. "That piece that
hit your cheek--did it merely nick you or is it embedded? If it _is_
embedded...." He picked up a bottle of alcohol and a piece of cotton
and took a lens out of a drawer. "Molly, there's a pair of tweezers in
my desk. Will you fetch them?" He tilted the light up onto my face and
dabbed the cut with the alcohol.
"Ouch!"
"Keep still. It'll sting a little.... Yes, I think I can see it." He
took the tweezers from Molly, who had returned, and neatly removed
something from the cut. He held it under the light and looked at it
through the lens. Then he rinsed it under the water faucet, dried it on
a piece of filter-paper and looked at it again. "Well, it looks like
glass. I don't know. Maybe it's the nucleus of the glass chunk and...."
His voice trailed off and he frowned at nothing in particular, putting
the fragment down on the filter-paper.