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her. He asked about Madame Carroll. He recalled her without affection. She’d been an acid personality, even then, with no patience with children. But since she was now Valerie’s whole family—he did not think of her brother—it would be well to be informed.
    Valerie explained with faint amusement that a small inheritance had fallen to her aunt, a tiny cottage in the town of St. Jean-sur-Seine, and that her aunt had gone there to make sure that she was not cheated of a single franc or centime. She left her brother in Paris. Then something happened. Un Américain , said Valerie, had been taken ill in the town. There was no hospital. There was no one to tend him. Since her aunt had to stay in St. Jean-sur-Seine anyhow, she undertook to care for the sick man for a reasonable fee.
    It would be so much clear profit. Eventually she came back to Paris, married to him. He was a M. Carroll, and Valerie liked him very much. He was most intelligent. In fact, in les Êtats-Unis he had been a professor in a university. But now he had no post. He possessed a small income, to be sure, but he would not attempt to secure a position in a university or even a lycée . Still, he was a very pleasant man. Valerie regretted that he remained at St. Jean-sur-Seine while Madame Carroll operated the shop in Paris.
    Harrison came out of the absorption with which he’d listened.
    “Wait!” he said uneasily. “This M. Carroll! He would not be called Henry? He would not be a professor of methodology? The university would not have been Brevard?”
    But it was. He was ex-Professor Henry Carroll, formerly of Brevard University, who had given courses in methods of research, including statistical analysis, when Harrison and Pepe were undergraduates. He was married to Madame Carroll, who was Valerie’s aunt, who was the sister of the M. Dubois who attended to purchases of stock for Carroll, Dubois et Cie, importers and exporters to the year 1804.
    Harrison found the news startling. When Pepe disturbedly said that he would come back later about the thing he wanted made, Harrison hastily made arrangements with Valerie for the meeting that for today must be deferred. He went out of the shop with Pepe.
    “This,” said Pepe in an irritated tone, “this has me standing on my head! I have read the account of my great-great-grandfather’s duel, and you are quite right. I have seen nothing that could not be explained away if you had not found those insane particulars in the Bibliothèque Nationale! But I no longer believe those explanations. I displease myself! I cannot tell you why, but I no longer disbelieve in anything, or else I believe in everything! I am not sure which!”
    Harrison said:
    “The Carroll of Carroll, Dubois and Company is Professor Henry Carroll, late of Brevard. We took a course in statistical analysis under him, as you recalled yesterday.”
    Pepe stared. Then he said slowly:
    “He was thrown out of his job, as I remember. There was some scandal which would not have been scandal had it happened to us, but was a very grave matter for a professor of statistical analysis and allied subjects.”
    “He’s at St. Jean-sur-Seine,” said Harrison, “wherever that may be!”
    “He was a good guy,” said Pepe. “He didn’t flunk anybody without good reason.”
    “A very good guy,” agreed Harrison. “What made you change your mind about the stuff in the shop?”
    “I did not say, but—you are right. I have changed my mind. I cannot tell you why. Cumulative evidence that not everything that is insane is necessarily untrue. More than that, I feel that action of some sort is necessary. We have credible proof of the starkly incredible. What do we do?”
    Harrison frowned. He was at least as much upset as Pepe.
    But besides, there was Valerie. Unless the shop could be explained completely, past all suspicion that it existed upon the impossible, Harrison would be uneasy for himself but desperately uneasy for Valerie. He would be