"By acting your natural self: The brainy physicist being convinced by a
gadget. You convinced the charlatan that he had something."
"But--"
* * * * *
Newton grinned. "Mangler, you should know by now that cylindrical
magnet cores are never made of laminations because it is just as
efficient to make a square core out of laminations. Turning a laminated
core is an unnecessary nuisance."
"Yes."
"So I figured that the only reason for making a laminated, cylindrical
core was to conceal some minute crack--the sort of crack that would
be visible on a smooth surface. The sort of crack made by a pair of
cunning trap doors. Two samples, elaborately sculped into remarkable
similarity, one radioactive and one dead. God knows how many times
Velikof has done this bit of legerdemain at fifty Gee a clip. Safe,
too, because no man would care to handle the hot sample close enough
to mark it. The flare of photostrobe light to blind the eyes, the
elaborate preparations, and all the rest. And so, the gent who was
going to watch me get clipped fell for the job itself!"
Newton roared with laughter.
"But--"
"Oh," said Newton cheerfully, "even you don't get it?"
"No."
"Simple. Y'see, I had to make a profit. I used a few thousand dollars
worth of radon gas. Radon gas and beryllium produce lots and lots of
neutrons. Neutrons can bombard elements; I had one of your boys prepare
one of the short-term elements for me and put it in my little lead box.
One of the five-minute half lives that would activate the counters and
then die out in the half hour it took to run through the measurements.
By being sloppy in my analysis, I convinced Velikof that his equipment
could be made to actually work if he figured out _how wrong to set his
dials_!"
Newton waved the envelope at Mangler. "So from here on, you stay at
your end of the hall and run the gadgets, and I'll stay at my end and
run the business. And if you are a good gadgeteer, I'll put through
your request--not order--for tectroscopes. I guess we can afford it,
now."