The superintendent lifted the brief case. "I brought up the mail that accumulated while you were gone. There's not much, since we sent cards to each return address, notifying them that you were not available and that your mail was being held until your return."
He opened the brief case and took out seven standard pneumatic mailing tubes and handed them to Turnbull.
Turnbull glanced at them. Three of them were from various friends of his scattered over Earth; one was from Standard Recording Company; the remaining three carried the return address of James M. Duckworth, Ph. Sch., U.C.L.A., Great Los Angeles, California.
"Thanks, Mr. Sanders," said Turnbull. He was wondering why the man had brought them up so promptly after his own arrival. Surely, having waited a year, they would have waited until they were called for.
Sanders blinked apologetically. "Uh ... Dr. Turnbull, I wonder if ... if any of those contain money ... checks, cash, anything like that?"
"I don't know. Why?" Turnbull asked in surprise.
Sanders looked even more apologetic. "Well, there was an attempted robbery here about six months ago. Someone broke into your mailbox downstairs. There was nothing in it, of course; we've been putting everything into the vault as it came in. But the police thought it might be someone who knew you were getting money by mail. None of the other boxes were opened, you see, and—" He let his voice trail off as Turnbull began opening the tubes.
None of them contained anything but correspondence. There was no sign of anything valuable.
"Maybe they picked my box at random," Turnbull said. "They may have been frightened off after opening the one box."
"That's very likely it," said Sanders. "The police said it seemed to be a rather amateurish job, although whoever did it certainly succeeded in neutralizing the alarms."