_There is no lie so totally convincing as something the other
fellow already knows-for-sure is the truth. And no cover-story so
convincing...._
[Illustration]
The building itself was unprepossessive enough. It was an old-fashioned,
six-floor, brick structure that had, over the years, served first as a
private home, then as an apartment building, and finally as the
headquarters for the organization it presently housed.
It stood among others of its kind in a lower-middle-class district of
Arlington, Virginia, within howitzer range of the capitol of the United
States, and even closer to the Pentagon. The main door was five steps up
from the sidewalk, and the steps were flanked by curving balustrades of
ornamental ironwork. The entrance itself was closed by a double door
with glass panes, beyond which could be seen a small foyer. On both
doors, an identical message was blocked out in neat gold letters: _The
Society For Mystical and Metaphysical Research, Inc._
It is possible that no more nearly perfect cover, no more misleading
front for a secret organization ever existed in the history of man. It
possessed two qualities which most other cover-up titles do not have.
One, it was so obviously crackpot that no one paid any attention to it
except crackpots, and, two, it was perfectly, literally true.
Spencer Candron had seen the building so often that the functional
beauty of the whole setup no longer impressed him as it had several
years before. Just as a professional actor is not impressed by being
allowed backstage, or as a multimillionaire considers expensive luxuries
as commonplace, so Spencer Candron thought of nothing more than his own
personal work as he climbed the five steps and pushed open the
glass-paned doors.
Perhaps, too, his matter-of-fact attitude was caused partially by the
analogical resemblance between himself and the organization. Physically,
Candron, too, was unprepossessing. He was a shade less than five eight,
and his weight fluctuated between a hundred and forty and a hundred and
forty-five, depending on the season and his state of mind. His face
consisted of a well-formed snub nose, a pair of introspective gray eyes,
a rather wide, thin-lipped mouth that tended to smile even when relaxed,
a high, smooth forehead, and a firm cleft chin, plus the rest of the
normal equipment that normally goes to make up a face. The skin was
slightly tanned, but it was the tan of a man who goes to the beach on
summer weekends, not that of an outdoorsman. His hands were strong and
wide and rather large; the palms were uncalloused and the fingernails
were clean and neatly trimmed. His hair was straight and light brown,
with a pronounced widow's peak, and he wore it combed back and rather
long to conceal the fact that a thin spot had appeared on the top rear
of his scalp. His clothing was conservative and a little out of style,
having been bought in 1981, and thus three years past being up-to-date.
Physically, then, Spencer Candron, was a fine analog of the Society. He
looked unimportant. On the outside, he was just another average man
whom no one would bother to look twice at.
The analogy between himself and the S.M.M.R. was completed by the fact
that his interior resources were vastly greater than anything that
showed on the outside.
The doors swung shut behind him, and he walked into the foyer, then
turned left into the receptionist's office. The woman behind the desk
smiled her eager smile and said, "Good morning, Mr. Candron!"
Candron smiled back. He liked the woman, in spite of her semifanatic
overeagerness, which made her every declarative sentence seem to end
with an exclamation point.
"Morning, Mrs. Jesser," he said, pausing at the desk for a moment. "How
have things been?"
Mrs. Jesser was a stout matron in her early forties who would have been
perfectly happy to work for the Society for nothing, as a hobby. That
she was paid a reasonable salary made her job almost heaven for her.
"Oh, just _fine_, Mr. Candron!" she said. "Just _fine_!" Then her voice
lowered, and her face took on a serious, half conspiratorial expression.
"Do you know what?"
"No," said Candron, imitating her manner. "What?"
"We have a gentleman ... he came in yesterday ... a _very_ nice man ...
and very intelligent, too. And, you know what?"