The "just in case" had maybe happened.
Professor Long sat in Marshall's office and listened stolidly to the problem. The expert was a tall, barrel-chested man with a fantastic shock of white hair exploding out in all directions from his head. His nose was bulbous, his jaw out-thrust, his eyes deepset, his ears hairy, his hands huge and his feet huger. He looked like a dressed-up lumberjack, of the old school.
He listened, and they talked, and every once in a while he nodded, and said, "Huh." His voice was, predictably, basso profundo.
Then they were finished, and Professor Long summed it all up. "He changes the temperature of objects. Yes?"
"Yes," said Marshall.
"You looked for a machine. Yes?"
"Yes, and we didn't find it."
"And your thermodynamics people said no such machine could exist anyway, yes?"
"That's right."