"I came to ask you a question I don't think you can answer," Howard said morosely, not moving farther than the foyer.

"I came to ask you what it is about the witches?"

Randolph chewed his lip, standing there beside his much-larger guest, conscious of his own prim—almost prissy—neatness as it contrasted to the other's shaggy look. Shaggy dog, thought Randolph. Big, unkempt, shaggy St. Bernard.

"What about the witches?" he asked finally.

"Well ... there have been some funny things. That slum, of course. I was there, of course. I saw it. And I talked to the small-fry. It was a tenement the day before, I'd stake a lot on it."

There was a silence before Randolph answered.

"Well?"

"Well, then a few little things. A narcotics man came to see me. Just personal. Just curious. They've been pulling in the higher-ups in the dope traffic, by the way—on info from the guys caught in that raid.

"Then that Canaveral deal? Were you listening that night?"

"I always tune you in. It seems to me that today is one of celebration. The dome landed."

"Yeah Yeah, celebration. I'm a newsman, and I get stories that don't go out. There's one that just an hour before zero—a man suddenly died of a heart attack. The technician who took his place—you don't stop a countdown like that for a heart attack—checked his work and found an error that would have misfired the thing. There was also one circuit that had been changed, but they left that because it was changed to be more accurate. They figured the dead guy had done it."

"So?"

"So ... well, nothing. I just wanted to ask you. The witches don't touch anything real these days, of course, so even if ... they were ... well, magic somehow, they couldn't have been involved."

There wasn't even a pause for lip-chewing this time.

"Are you trying to insinuate that Witch products—"

The question was left hanging, but Bill Howard stood there looking his sponsor in the eye.

"Mr. Randolph, I'm not trying to insinuate one damn thing. I'm not even saying anything to anybody, and if I did say anything I'd be laughed off the air, not by you, but by whoever I said it to.

"I'm just telling you what twos and twos have been setting themselves in front of my everlasting consciousness, and asking if you know anything to add to them?"

The lip-chewing started again, and the two stood there. Then Randolph said quietly, "Mr. Howard, I have been manufacturing Witch products for twenty-five years. They have been improved steadily since I first started with a very good formula. They are the best cleaning products available in the world today, I most sincerely believe. They are that exactly, and nothing more than that exactly. So you will have to find another explanation for your twos and twos, which I admit are a rather spectacular run of coincidence, though not beyond the bounds of credibility.

"Myself, I suspect BDD&O with perpetrating some sort of hoax in the first instance. If any more hoaxes are perpetrated, I plan to switch agencies, switch programs, and call for an FCC investigation of BDD&O to clear the Witch name, which never has and never would condone any hoax of any sort, much less one of the magnitude of whatever occurred, which I profess I do not understand, but which I expect the FCC can trace to its source.

"Good day to you, sir," Randolph ended the unprecedentedly long speech, turned on his heel and left Bill Howard to find his own way out.

That night, as Bill Howard ended his newscast, the camera did not switch to the witches. Instead it switched to the announcer.

"Tonight, Witch Products would like you to meet a little girl," the announcer said in a soft voice that contrasted well with Howard's just ended powerful one.

As he spoke the camera backed away to broaden its scope and include in its picture, beside the announcer, a small blond child in a wheel chair. Her hair was shoulder-length and carefully combed. Her eyes were downcast shyly. Her hands gripped the arms of the wheel chair as though for security. Her legs were covered with a shawl.

"This is Mary," said the announcer, then leaned toward her. "Will you speak to the audience, Mary?"

She lifted deep blue eyes briefly to the camera, then dropped them quickly. "Hello," she said in a voice barely audible.

"Mary is not used to many people, or to audiences," the announcer said. "Mary has been sitting in this wheel chair for almost three years, since a crippling disease twisted her limbs.

"We hope that Mary can be made to walk. The finest surgeons in the country have been consulted, and they believe an operation can give her back her legs, that were twisted when the disease struck. International Witch Corporation has arranged for that operation.

"Tomorrow Mary will go to the hospital. She will have the operation soon. In a few weeks, perhaps Mary will walk.

"Will you like that, Mary? Will you like walking?" he asked, leaning toward the child.

Again the eyes lifted for the briefest instant. Again they dropped shyly.

"Yes," Mary said in that barely audible voice.

"Then you shall have it, if it can be done," the announcer said, and the camera moved even farther back to include a stage onto which the witches danced.

The witches came onto the stage, not toward Mary, but stage center, chanting—their cry.

"Witches of the world, unite to make it clean, clean, clean, Witch clean,—NOW!"

At the corner of the screen, the child-body in the wheel chair shuddered suddenly. Mary took a deep breath, went white and then red. With a forceful gesture she threw off the shawl and looked at her legs. Her hand reached down to touch them.

On the stage itself, one witch stopped dancing to watch. The others noticed, stopped. The jingle died, half through....

And Mary stood up, looking at her legs. She took a step towards the camera, and another. Her blue eyes lifted to the camera, widening.

In the absolute quiet, as everyone on stage stood frozen, Mary walked towards the camera, her eyes like saucers looking into it. Her voice, barely above a whisper, spoke.

"I'm ... I'm walking," said Mary.

The papers called it the cruelest hoax of all.

They carried the story side by side with the withdrawal of the Witch program from the network, both by network and by International Witch Corporation order.

The carried the statement of FCC officials that an investigation would be made.

They carried the statement by Randolph that he would sue BDD&O.

They carried the statement by Oswald that he would sue Witch Products.

But mostly they carried the story of a little girl, who had been whisked from sight and couldn't be located. Who had probably been given an operation to make it possible for her to walk, but had been forced to pay for the operation by taking part in a cruel hoax of unbelievable magnitude.

Bill Howard stayed with the network, on the same time, sponsorless. He'd been cleared of any implication in the hoax by all parties concerned, and his reputation had always been good. He was asked to stay in town and be available to appear as a witness, but the network gambled that he was clear, and kept him on. He was one of the biggest draws in newscasting, his personality that made the news seem to belong to the people, to be a continuing story of their lives, was unique. The network decided the gamble of keeping him on was warranted.

By the next night the Formosa crisis had broken into the news, and it was the news.

The details were horrible, and they were uncovered aplenty. Finally ungagged, those who had been holding off gave the story the works.

The effects of the pest plan............