There was a closet in the office. Marvak had simply waited in the closet until I entered. When I started up the stairs, he had stepped out behind me.
"I—I must have got the wrong ad—address," I faltered.
His eyes, gray chilled steel, they were, drilled into me.
"No doubt," he said—but very doubtfully. "You're the reporter I noticed at the meeting, aren't you? What are you doing here?"
How big a lie could I tell and still be safe? How close to the truth could I come and not get one of those slugs between my eyes?
"I came out to interview Mr. Fradin," I blurted out.
He seemed to let it go, but back of those cold gray eyes I could see his mind working as he decided what to do with me. Then I saw him reach a decision.
First, he searched me. I didn't have a gun, which seemed to surprise him.
"You can come along," he said. "If Fradin can demonstrate to my satisfaction the discovery he claimed to have made, it will make the headlines, if you get a chance to write it."
With that, he dug the little inventor out of the closet, and with the gun out, prodded both of us upstairs. There were only two floors to this building and the entire second floor was Fradin's laboratory.