Page:Astounding Science Fiction (1950-01).djvu/51

 under the control of the finance company. However, they were not the sole users of any of them. Dozens of other companies used the same, warehouses. It seemed reasonable that it should be to their interest that these other companies, have no connection with them:

It was some time, much effort wasted, before he could be sure that there was a negative answer to a question to which he had been sure the answer would be affirmative. At last he was sure that Higgenson Rapid Transit took only normal merchandise from the warehouses. They delivered the items he was interested in, but they did not take them away. If anyone did, it was another trucking company.

He found, eventually, that the trucking exclusive ended with the items going into storage. Going out, they were taken by the first trucking company that someone happened to call. It took much checking and following before he could be sure of any one destination.

The Menton Institute was a nonprofit corporation operated for and by the blind. It was quite well known, and employed Only the blind in various skilled and nonskilled capacities. So far as Tredel knew they made no products directly for public consumption, but handled a good deal of work for other companies. It had been started by Thomas Menton as a place where the blind could work, earning a living solely through their own productive efforts. The workers were well paid, worked regular hours, and went to their own homes at the end of the shift.

The Institute drew on Industrial Finance warehouses for a good percentage of their work. There was no question of that, once he had narrowed the T and W assemblies down to them. Trucks left the warehouses with boxes of parts, delivered them to the Menton Institute. Other trucks made pickups, and delivered some place else, not back to the same warehouses.

Tradel didn't try to get into the Institute. It could be assumed that there would be nothing to see in what would be shown him. He could be reasonably sure of the innocence of the Institute itself, but someone would have taken precautions.

He established a position from which he could watch without being seen. Day after day he watched the loading of the trucks from the dock, waiting for a pattern to form.

He could rule out, almost at once, certain of the boxes that left as being probably for legitimate concerns. Then the pattern for which he watched became obvious.

Shipments were made of cartons that seemed to be of uniform size, in cardboard cartons that were of a different shade of yellowish-brown than the usual cartons. These, he saw, were, in addition, all color coded. There were two shipments a day. The first truck took cartons color-coded brown-black-green-red. The second truck took cartons color-coded blue-red-black-orange. He NOT TO BE OPENED—