“Sure, sure, Mac. Now just let’s go to the study.”

“It’s right in there… sir.”

“Fine,” Casey said. “And what’s that, under the stairway?”

“Why, that’s a broom closet. The downstairs maid’s broom…”

Casey brought his flat hand around in a quick clip. The servant folded up with a lung-emptying sigh and Casey caught him before he hit the floor, pushed and wedged him inside. He darted a hand to a vest pocket and brought forth a syrette. “That’ll keep you out for a couple of hours,” he muttered, closing the closet door.

He went over to the heavy door which the butler had indicated as Senator McGivern’s study, and knocked on it. In a moment it opened and a husky in his mid-twenties, nattily attired and of obvious self-importance, frowned at him.

“Yes?” he said.

“Steve Jakes of Hemisphere News,” Warren Casey said. “The editor sent me over…” As he talked, he sidestepped the other and emerged into the room beyond.

Behind the desk was an older edition of nine-year-old Fredric McGivern. A Fredric McGivern at the age of perhaps fifty, with what had been boyish plump cheeks now gone to heavy jowls.

“What’s this?” he growled.

Casey stepped further into the room. “Jakes, Senator. My editor…”

Senator Phil McGivern’s ability included cunning and a high survival factor. He lumbered to his feet. “Walters! Take him!” he snapped. “He’s a fake!” He bent over to snatch at a desk drawer.

Walters was moving, but far too slowly.

Warren Casey met him half way, reached forward with both hands and grasped the fabric of the foppish drape suit the secretary wore. Casey stuck out a hip, twisted quickly, turning his back halfway to the other. He came over and around, throwing the younger man heavily to his back.

Casey didn’t bother to look down. He stuck a hand into a side pocket, pointed a finger at McGivern through the cloth.