We find Cecile Douve, as she is known to the intelligence services of this and perhaps a few other countries, in a stinky little bedroom. Again don't get ahead of the story; she is merely investigating. Not engaged in active inquiry, if you follow me.
This stinky little bedroom, with massive volumes of a technical nature, broken test tubes, and other rot and junk of a like nature littering it, is the erstwhile bedroom of Achilles Maravain. He no longer inhabits it, although we can linger nostalgically for a moment, although we can sniff mystifiedly at the—peculiar—odors emanating from the broken test tubes, although we can tinker with the gimcracks and thingumbobs and machinery and no doubt shock ourselves into a reckoning with Old Scratch.
In any case, Cecile Douve is here searching for a clue to the whereabouts of Achilles. The scientist of the galvanometers is also here. His name is Harold Boscoe, and he is a Ph. D. Together, Cecile and the Ph. D. search and also engage in polite converse. They sniff not, mystifiedly or otherwise; they linger not on anything nor brood about the fact that perhaps here, in this very, very room was conceived the diabolicism of the force-wall. No, they search and converse.
"It must not happen. The man is a maniac," postulates Cecile prettily, then continues the efficient search.
"Honeybunch,"—evidently the poor egg has joined the clan of the lovelorn—"it shall not. I shall find something to combat him and his evil."
"Do you think you can do it, my pet?"
"Certainly. I'm a scientist, am I not? Just between you and me (and a few governments: Auth. Note) I'm working on something already. I have a magnificent conception that may well prove his downfall."
"Do you really think so? You're so wise—so—so marvelous."
"Do you really think so?"
"Yes," a pause, then in husky tones, "really."