“I was sitting there, as usual,” the man finally said, and jabbed a thumb at the center desk, “doing some Civilian Defense work, but waiting for contacts from you. Got your word that you would arrive this evening. Got your word, also, that Copper was coming up from Albuquerque. Well—I heard the door open a while later, but I thought it was some Air Raid Warden, and didn’t pay much attention until he reached the desk. But—then it was too late. He came to the desk like a shot of lightning, and the building fell down on top of my head. I guess—I guess, sir, you’d better dismiss me and send me back to laying brick, or something.”
The Colonel was silent a moment; then a soft, sympathetic sadness seeped into his thin face.
“We all fail to touch second base every once in a while, Rigby,” he said quietly. “Of course, it’s a mark against you, but your past service record can stand it. What about this man who slugged you? Get a look at him?”
“Just a look, sir,” Rigby said with a heavy sigh. “Medium height, medium build, and I think he was on the fair side a little. Ten million like him, I’m afraid. It was only a flash look I got. I—By George! Seven-Eleven, sir, do you suppose?”
Colonel Welsh’s face darkened with anger, but he slowly shook his head.
“No, I think not,” he said. “In fact, I’m sure it wasn’t. The pickings around here would be too small for Seven-Eleven. Besides, I have good reason to believe that Seven-Eleven isn’t even in the country.”
“But why slug me?” Rigby said in a low voice as though to himself, and stared around. “Can’t see that anything’s been touched. Besides, there’s not a thing here that would be of any use to anybody.”
“My message in code?” Colonel Welsh asked evenly. “You had destroyed it?”
Rigby’s face went pale as death. He clutched the sides of the chair seat for a moment, then shot out of it and over to the middle desk. When he turned around again his face was the color of chalk, and there was the blaze of a madman in his eyes.
“That’s what he got,” he said in a hushed voice. “I was just putting a match to your code note when he came in. I remember, now. That’s why I didn’t look up at once. I—I was trying to get the sheet burning.”