DalNalten and Knobos, with dozens of able helpers, combed the records of three worlds in a search which produced as a by-product a monumental "who's who" of crime.
Skilled technicians fed millions of cards, stack by stack, into the most versatile and most accomplished machines known to the statisticians of the age.
And Dr. Nels Bergenholm, abandoning temporarily his regular line of work, devoted his peculiar talents to a highly abstruse research in the closely allied field of organic chemistry.
The walls of Virgil Samms' quarters became covered with charts, diagrams, and figures. Tabulations and condensations piled up on his desk and overflowed into baskets upon the floor. Until:
"Lensman Olmstead, of Alphacent, sir," his secretary announced.
"Good! Send him in, please."
The stranger entered. The two men, after staring intently at each other for half a minute, smiled and shook hands vigorously. Except for the fact that the newcomer's hair was brown, they were practically identical!
"I'm certainly glad to see you, George. Bergenholm passed you, of course?"
"Yes. He says that he can match your hair to mine, even the individual white ones. And he has made me a wig-maker's dream of a wig."
"Married?" Samms' mind leaped ahead to possible complications.