And Thomas Lionel, Ph.D. M.M., awoke. His first consideration was the chessboard. It baffled him. He didn't really think that the engineer would capture his queen. It was too easy. Obviously, there was more to the set-up than appeared. For offering the trap of the double-check and subsequent loss of his queen, Thomas had opened the row blocked by the knight. That left him in the desirable position of capturing the engineer's rook, after which if the engineer was not more than careful in his counterattack, he would find himself staring a checkmate in the face. Either the engineer was blind to the trap, or he had a more complicated trap to spring once the physicist started to move in.

He had time. He wanted to consider the whole thing. He was going to be darned sure that he was right before he moved.

He dressed slowly, and as he entered his kitchenette to prepare breakfast, he saw a new notebook on the table. He picked it up, riffled the pages first, and then read the lettering on the front page.

PHYSICAL DATA AND OBSERVATIONS MADE ON THE OCCURRENCE OF THE MANIPULATION OF NATURAL FORCES WHICH HAVE NO EXPLANATION IN THE KNOWN REALM OF PHYSICS.

Contents:

173pages of text.
77 pages of calculations.
48 tables of figures.
67 photographs.
13 statements made by unbiased—but not trained—observers.
7 similar incidents not given scientific attention.
29 graphs and curves.
25 pages of description and data pertaining to:
meteorological conditions.
terran constants—gravity and magnetism.
sunspot activity.
chemical analyses of earth at discrete intervals near the occurrence.
analysis of atmosphere during phenomena.

Accompanying information and data are samples of earth mentioned above. Atmospheric samples were contaminated during analysis and have therefore been destroyed.

"Little Tommy has been a busy lad," mused the physicist. "'No explanation' huh? That's a laugh. Anything can be explained. Well, my engineering friend, let's see what you have cooked up for me."

Thomas Lionel started to read the "173 pages of text" and got down as far as the bottom of the first page. He blinked, did a double take, and reread it.

"Great howling entropy," he grunted. "The unmitigated screwball has spent weeks in the compilation of data on his own, personal observations of a poltergeist in action!"