slender arms, tipped with red ink, extended from the brown metal panel to the chart paper.
Ness pointed to the nearest of the three slender arms. 'This stylus records heart action.' He reached across the desk and threw a switch. A motor hummed; machinery whispered into action. The chart paper began to slowly move, as each stylus point, though motionless, traced continuous red lines.
'The middle stylus,' Ness said, 'connects with the electrodermal unit.'
'What does skin have to do with it?' Lloyd asked, smiling smugly, as if proud of knowing what 'dermal' referred to.
'Because liars tend to sweat, Lloyd-and that varies the conductivity of saline-impregnated electrodes placed in contact with the skin.'
'Oh. And this final stylus?'
'It monitors breathing. The emotions affect breathing, just as they do the heart.'
'What would happen,' Lloyd asked slyly, 'if you encountered someone in complete control of his emotions?'
Ness gave him a broad smile. 'Well, Lloyd-I suppose he'd beat the machine, now wouldn't he?'
Lloyd smiled. He turned to his father. 'I'm not afraid of this thing.'
The father nodded solemnly.
A knock at the door announced room service, and the steak luncheons were brought in and trays were set up, the three men sitting to their meals and eating them in near silence. Neither Ness nor Dr. Watterson ate much at all; but Lloyd, brandishing his shiny stainless-steel steak knife like a scalpel, ate his rare steak quickly, greedily, cheerfully.
Lloyd dabbed his mouth with a napkin and his smile was very white in his suntanned, bruised face. He stood and rubbed his hands together as if about to tackle some challenging project for dessert.
'Let's get it done,' he said. 'Let's put these silly notions about the 'Mad Doctor of Kingsbury Run' behind us.' He turned and looked at his father. 'Right, Father?'
Dr. Watterson, still seated behind his tray, his meal practically untouched, nodded gravely.
'Remove your coat, Lloyd,' Ness said, and Lloyd did. 'Roll your sleeve up, your right sleeve, clear to the shoulder.' Lloyd did that, too.
'Now take a seat in that easy chair, and relax. Just relax.'
Lloyd settled into the brown leather chair, hands on either arm of it, and his smile once again was that of a naughty child. Ness wrapped a cloth and rubber bandage, similar to a doctor's blood-pressure apparatus, snugly around Lloyd's bare arm above the elbow. Then he positioned a rubber cylinder, capped with shiny metal at either end, across Lloyd's chest, fastening it in place. To Lloyd's left hand, with small tonglike clamps, he attached saline- dampened sponge-pads on the palm and below the knuckles.
Then Ness took his position behind the desk. He sat with one hand poised near the dials and knobs, the other with pencil near the slowly moving chart paper.
'Now, Lloyd, I'm going to ask you questions that can be answered yes or no. In fact, I'd like you to limit yourself to those responses.'
'All right.'
'You mean, 'yes.''
Lloyd grinned. 'Yes.'
'All of my questions will be asked only in relation to the events under investigation. Do you understand?'
'Yes.'
'Now I have to establish a normal level of response, so we're going to perform an experiment-with your interests in science and medicine, I think you'll find this interesting. Is that all right?'
'Yes.'
'It's going to allow me to show you the capability of this machine. All right?'
'Yes.'
'We're going to do a little card trick. Actually, Lloyd, you're going to do it.'
Ness withdrew a deck of playing cards from his suit coat pocket. He handed the cards to Lloyd, who seemed somewhat surprised, but accepted them.
Dr. Watterson seated himself on the couch and watched as if hypnotized.
'Now, Lloyd,' Ness said, 'I want you to select a card. Don't show it to me.'
Lloyd, grinning goofily, did so.
'I'm going to ask you some questions about your card. And no matter what the true answer is, I want you to answer 'no.' Do you understand?'
'Yes.'
'You're to answer 'no,' in each instance. Understood?'
'Yes.'
'Is it a red card?'
'No.'
'Is it a black card?'
'No.'
'Is it the number ten?'
'No.'
'Is the card below the number ten?'
'No.'
'Is the card above the number ten?'
'No.'
'Is it a face card?'
'No.'
'Is it a spade?'
'No.'
'Is it a club?'
'No.'
'Is it a jack?'
'No.'
'Is it a queen?'
'No.'
'Is it a king?'
'No.'
'Is it an ace?'
'No.'
'All right, Lloyd. The experiments over. Incidentally, that card you're holding is the jack of spades.'
Lloyd's mouth dropped open and his eyes were wide and round. He swallowed dryly. His hand, holding the card, was trembling. He looked helplessly at his father, showing his father the card, which was indeed the jack of spades.
Then Lloyd stood up, tearing away the wires and pads and cloths and tubes attached to him, rising like the waking Gulliver caught in the net of the little people.
Ness stood and said, 'Lloyd…'
Lloyd made an animal sound, tearing himself free; he lurched away from the brown leather chair and dove for the tray where he'd eaten the rare steak and grabbed the shiny steak knife. He stood there, between his father, who had risen from the couch, and Ness, who had come around the desk-stood there with the juice-stained knife tight in his fist and the expression of a cornered beast distorting his features.
Then he hurtled toward Ness, steak knife raised like a dagger.
Ness stepped back but Lloyd was fast and on top of him. The hand with the steak knife slashed and tore Ness's coat sleeve and shirt, without tearing flesh, and Ness got his hand around Lloyd's wrist and with a jujitsu twist sent the knife tumbling from Lloyd's fingers.
But Lloyd's weight and strength pressed into Ness, pushed him backward, into the desk, across the polygraph, the arms of the stylus digging into Ness's back as Lloyd climbed on him, hands clawing viciously at Ness,
