Reaching out to the toaster on the drainboard of the sink, Jack touched a finger tip to a crumb, and lifted it to his tongue. "So this is my point, Miles. Should they always be explained away? Or laughed away? Or simply ignored? Because that's what always happens." He resumed his slow pacing about the big old kitchen. "I guess it's only natural. I suppose nothing can be given a place in our body of accepted knowledge, except what is universally experienced. Science claims to be objective, though." He stopped, facing the table. "To consider all phenomena impartially and without prejudice. But of course it does no such thing. This kind of occurrence" – he nodded at the little mound of paper on the table – "it dismisses with automatic habitual contempt. From which the rest of us take our cue. What are these things, says the scientific attitude? Why, they're only optical illusions, or self-suggestion, or hysteria, or mass hypnosis, or when everything else fails – coincidence. Anything and everything, except that possibly they really happened. Oh, no" – Jack shook his head smiling – "you must never admit for a moment that anything we don't understand may nevertheless have occurred."

As most wives, even the wisest, do with any real conviction held by their husbands, Theodora accepted this and made it her own. "Well, it's stupid," she said, "and how the human race ever learns anything new, I really don't know."

"It takes a long time," Jack agreed. "Hundreds of years to accept the fact that the world is round. A century resisting the knowledge that the earth revolves around the sun. We hate facing new facts or evidence, because we might have to revise our conceptions of what's possible, and that's always uncomfortable."

Jack grinned, and sat down at the table again. "I should talk, though. Take any of these." He picked up a clipping. "This one from the New York Post, for example. Now, that isn't fiction. The New York Post is a real newspaper, and this little story was actually printed in the Post just a few years ago, and no doubt in a lot of other papers all over the country. Thousands read it, including me. But did we rise up insisting that our body of knowledge be revised to include this strange little occurrence? Did I? No; we wondered about it, were intrigued and interested momentarily, then dismissed it from mind. And now, like all the other odd little happenings that don't quite fit in with what we think we know, it's forgotten and ignored by the world, except for a few curiosa collectors like me."

"Maybe it should be," I said quietly. "Take a look at this." I'd been idly glancing through his clippings as Jack talked, and now I pushed one toward him. It was just a squib from the local paper, and it didn't say much. One L. Bernard Budlong, botany and biology professor at the local college, was quoted as denying a comment the paper had attributed to him the day before, about some "mysterious objects" found on a farm west of town. They were described as large seed pods of some sort or other, and now Budlong was denying having said that they'd "come from outer space." The Tribune apologized: "Sorry, Prof?" the story ended. It was dated May 9.

"What about that, Jack?" I said gently. "The collapse of one of your little items: a one-inch retraction buried in the paper a day or so later. Makes you wonder" – I nodded at his mound of clippings – "about all the rest, doesn't it?"

"Sure," Jack said. "That retraction belongs in the collection, too. And that's why it's there; I didn't exclude it." He picked up a handful of clippings and let them flutter down onto the table again. "Miles, these are lies, most of them, for all I know. Some are most certainly hoaxes. And maybe most of the rest are distortions, exaggerations, or simple errors of judgment or vision; I have sense enough to know that. But, damn it, Miles, not all of them, past, present, and fixture! You can't explain them all away, perpetually and forever!"

For a moment he sat glaring at me, then he smiled. "So is Mannie right? Should what happened last night be explained away, too?" Jack shrugged. "Maybe it should. Mannie makes good sense; he always does. And he's explained what happened almost satisfactorily; maybe ninety-nine per cent." For a moment Jack stared at us, then lowered his voice, and said very softly, "But there's a tiny one per cent of doubt still left in my mind."

I was looking at Jack, and feeling an actual, unpleasant, sluggish prickling along my spine at the simple thought that had just occurred to me. "The fingerprints," I murmured, and Jack frowned momentarily. "The blank fingerprints!" I shouted then. "Mannie thinks it's just an ordinary body. Since when do ordinary men have no fingerprints at all!"

Theodora was pushing herself up from her chair, arms straining against the table top, and her voice came out high and shrill. "I can't go back there, Jack! I can't set foot in that house!" Her voice, as Jack stumbled to his feet, rose still higher. "I know what I saw; it was turning into you. Jack, it was!" And as he took her into his arms, the tears were tumbling down her cheeks, and the fear stood naked in her eyes again.

After a moment I was able to speak quietly. "Then don't go," I said to Theodora. "Stay right here." They both turned to look at me, and I said, "You've got to, both of you." I smiled a little. "It's a big house; pick out a room and stay; bring your typewriter down, Jack, and work. I'd love to have you. I rattle around in this house, and I could use some company."

Jack studied my face for a moment. "You sure?"

"Absolutely."

He looked down at Theodora, and she nodded dumbly, pleadingly, "All right," Jack said to me then. "Maybe we'd better; for a day or so. Thanks, Miles, thanks a lot."

"You, too, Becky," I said then. "You've got to stay, too – for a few days, anyway. With Theodora and Jack," something made me add.

Her face was pale, but she grinned a little at that. "With Theodora and Jack," she repeated. "And where'll you be?"

My face flushed, but I smiled. "Right here," I agreed, "but you can ignore me."

Theodora looked up from Jack's shoulder, and now she was able to smile, too. "It might be fun, Becky," she said. "And I'll chaperon."

Becky's eyes were dancing. "It might at that, a sort of house party that goes on for days." Then the fear came into her eyes again. "I was just thinking of my dad, that's all," she said to me.

"Phone him," I said, "and just tell him the truth. That something has upset Theodora pretty badly, she's going to stay here, and she needs you. That's all you have to say." I grinned. "Though you might add that I have some wicked, sinful plans in mind that you simply can't resist." I glanced at the wall clock. "I've got to get to work, pals; the joint is yours." Then I went upstairs to get ready for the office.

I was more irritated than scared, standing at my bathroom mirror, shaving. A part of my mind was frightened at the fact we'd just faced downstairs: that the body in Jack's basement, incredibly, impossibly, and undeniably, had had no fingerprints. We hadn't imagined that, I knew, and it was a fact Mannie's explanation couldn't cover. But mostly, leaning toward the mirror scraping my face, I was annoyed; I didn't want Becky Driscoll living here in my house, where I'd see her more every day than I ordinarily would in a week. She was too attractive, likeable, and good-looking, and the danger in that was obvious.

I talk to myself when I shave. "You handsome bastard," I said to my face. "You can marry them, all right; you just can't stay married, that's your trouble. You are weak. Emotionally unstable. Basically insecure. A latent thumb-sucker. A cesspool of immaturity, unfit for adult responsibility." I smiled, and tried to think of some more. "You are undoubtedly a quack, and a Don Juan personality. A pseudo – " I cut it out, and finished shaving with the uncomfortable feeling that for all I knew it wasn't funny but true, that having failed with one woman, I was getting too involved with another, and that for my sake and hers, she should be anywhere but here under my roof.