"Because it's not true, Delvin," he said. His voice was suddenly old and tired, and very much in keeping with his snowy hair. "You see, the Space Scouts have vanished."
I came up in the chair, ramrod-straight. "Their mothers—they've been getting letters and—"
"Forgeries, Fakes. Counterfeits."
"You mean whoever took the Scouts is falsifying—"
"No. My men are doing the work. Handpicked crews, day and night, have been sending those letters to the trusting mothers. It's been ghastly, Delvin. Hard on the men, terribly hard. Undotted i's, misuse of tenses, deliberate misspellings. They take it out of an adult, especially an adult with a mind keen enough to get him into Interplanetary Security. We've limited the shifts to four hours per man per day. Otherwise, they'd all be gibbering by now!"
"And your men haven't found out anything?" I marvelled.
Baxter shook his head.
"And you finally had to resort to the Brain, and it gave you my name, but no reason for it?"
Baxter cupped his slightly jowled cheeks in his hands and propped his elbows on the desktop, suddenly slipping out of his high position to talk to me man-to-man. "Look, son, an adding machine—which is a minor form of an electronic brain, and even works on the same principle—can tell you that two and two make four. But can it tell you why?
"Well, no, but—"