badge, he broke through the cordon of International Police that was zealously guarding an ordinary seat, like any other of the five thousand in sight.
'What was it?' he demanded of a French provost. 'Killing?'
The provost shrugged. 'We do not know vat, m'sieu. On-lee we know that in that seat sat M'sieu the mayor of Bruxelles.'
'Hi,' snapped a crisp young voice at Ballister.
He removed his horn-rims to regard the young lady disapprovingly.
'Beat it, Kay,' he ordered. 'This isn't for the papers. Another unpleasant international incident. The Mayor of Brussels.'
The young man looked down at the stage, very small and far away. From the speakers in the walls came the voice of Senator Beekman, hoarse and embarrassed:
'Our agenda will be incomplete today, gentlemen and ladies. I have been advised of the—the non-attendance of Monsieur Durtal, Mayor of Brussels and major sponsor of the bill entitled: 'An Act to Prevent Competitive Development of Instruments of Warfare.' We will proceed to—'
The Anti-War Conference had been in full swing for two months. There was nothing slow or inefficient about the great congress of all the nations; the tremendous task before them took time, lots of it. The Grand Agenda of the Conference covered a space of three years, and all busy ones.
Banister knew something about the Second World War; he had spent a couple of years in command of an infantry company at the tail-end of the mighty conflict. Then, when it was settled, and the sick-and-tired Axis armies and peoples had revolted and overthrown their warlords, he had naturally gone to the Conference as an American delegate.
Training as specialized as his—psychological jurisprudence—was in demand.
He thought he had seen everything, world-weary at twenty-three, but the Conference offered a few new kicks. There was something ludicrous about a Japanese delegate trying to wangle a few more square miles of Korea for his nation. Ballister was usually the trouble-shooter who explained to the simple people how their demands would encroach on so-and-so's rights, which would lead to such-and-such a consequence, which would be bad for the world in general for this-and-that reasons.
It was a plan magnificent in scope. The vast Auditorium of Oslo was jammed with the delegates and specialists; the gallery was jammed day and night with visitors—anybody who wanted to see. There was to be no diplomacy under the table in the world the Conference was making!
Twenty years of war had shown the fallacy of secret treaties; the delegates desperately hoped that their three years of cooperative common sense would blast the old diplomatic nonsense from the face of the Earth.
Ballister had his troubles, not the least of these being Kay Marsh, of the New York Enquirer. Any other reporter he could handle; not Kay, for she had majored with him at Columbia in the same psych courses and knew him like a book. She knew then, in the gallery, that this wasn't the time for comedy.
'Did you know him?' she asked.
'Met him twice,' said Ballister despondently, regarding the empty chair. 'A real humanitarian, man of the people. Not one of these professionals. And he's the third to go.'
'Pelterie from Switzerland, Vanderhoek from South Africa, now Durtal of Belgium,' she listed somberly. 'Who's doing it?'
'If I knew I'd tell you,' said Ballister. 'Hell! Let us be gay! Have you got the handouts for the day's work?'
'I filed my copy already,' she said. 'Macklin's covering this business.
He's going to do a series of articles on it. You're off?'
'Through for the week. Let's flit.'
'Sounds like an insect,' she complained. 'But if you wish.'
They elbowed their way through the crowd, out of the Auditorium. Oslo was en flite, with its face washed and its hair brushed for the distinguished visitors. Its population had swelled by a half-million since it was chosen as the Conference site. Festively decked helicopters and 'gyros dragged advertising signs through the sky in all languages.
One battered little blimp towed the notice in French: 'Attend the Produce Show! April 11!'
Kay pointed at it with a smile. 'Did I ever tell you I was a farmer's daughter?' she remarked.
Ballister recognized the lead. 'All right,' he said. 'I'll take you. But I guarantee you'll be bored silly; they probably won't even speak the international language.'
'Cows and hay don't have to speak any language,' she sparkled happily.
'I haven't seen a decent steer since Nebraska.'
They got wind of the Produce Show and followed the smell to a neat collection of tents, where Kay delightedly inspected timothy and cheeses and champion milkers for two hours while Ballister tried to hold his breath for that length of time.
'Hold it,' he snapped as she was going into a gush at a draft-horse who stared sullenly at her hat. 'Gent's fainted.'
They elbowed their way through the crowd, to find that the gentleman was nearly foaming at the mouth, twitching convulsively on the ground.
The only serious attention being paid him was by a barker from a nearby tent, who loudly offered three to one that the gentleman would die in less than half an hour.
'Throat constricted or something,' said Kay after a swift examination.
'Looks like a super-violent allergy.'
Ballister went through his pockets, found a box of amyl nitrite pearls.
He broke one under the man's nose, drawing it away as he came to.
'You, there,' he snapped, waving up a couple of husky farmers. 'Carry him away from this damned show of yours. There's something in the air that nearly killed him.'
The peasants, grinning happily, lugged the man to the nearest taxi stand. Ballister ordered the hackie to drive to the center of town, where monoxide would most likely replace the pollen or whatever it was that had strangled him.
The man was unable to talk for a few miles, though he insisted, despite the soothing words of Miss Marsh, on pantomiming gratitude. He was a fine-looking gentleman, ruddy-faced, middle-aged or over, exquisitely dressed.
Finally, with one tremendous cough, he cleared his throat. 'Thanks awf'ly,' he exclaimed. 'Those dim-head hunks would've let me perish on the spot!'
'What got you going?' asked Ballister. 'Pollen from the hay?'
'Nothing so dashed ordin'ry. Would you believe it? It was mice that nearly did me in. They could get me in about sixty seconds.'
'Why not?' replied Ballister. He thought to introduce himself, adding his official capacity at the Conference.
'Splendid,' muttered the gentleman. 'Psychological jurisprudence and all that, I mean! I'm Gaffney, by the way. Sir Mallory. Baronet.'
Kay sat up like a shot; in the next two minutes she had asked him thirty questions and was primed for fifty more. Sir Mallory Gaffney was news—big news—hot news! He was said to be the man who had invented the springing system that made the revolutionary Enfield Armored Wagon a practical and terrible weapon. He was the man behind the gas-cooled tank motor. Likewise the synthesis of rubber from chalk and carbon dioxide, and any number of other departures.
And he had never been interviewed before!
Ballister pointedly interrupted the questioning with: 'Didn't know you were at the Conference, Sir Mallory. Any official capacity, or just visiting?'
'Just ordered over, Mr. Ballister. They want my more-or-less expert testimony on this Durtal Bill.'
'Durtal died or vanished without a trace this morning,' said Kay. 'Have you done anything in the invisibility line, Sir Mallory?'
The baronet laughed indulgently. 'Hardly. You Americans had invisible battleships back in 1941, I hear. Learned the trick from some illusionist chap—Dunnings, or Kuss—one of them. But the mirrors lost their silvering in the
