"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."