FICTION

The Secrets of Dr. Caravelle

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Young Dr. Caravelle had two secrets. The first was this: ever since he could remember he had wanted to dress as a girl and now at last he had rented a home of his own, and could do so, even if only in the privacy of his own house. He dressed in this way only when he was by himself, because he thought that no one else would understand his strange desire, and no one else could share it except innumerable girls.

His second secret concerned a new and fundament- al factor in the composition of matter, a factor which promised to give undreamed of power to the nation which understood it and could use it properly. This was a secret which might well tilt the balance of the cold war in favour of a warmer peace. It was a secret which a certain international gang would stop at noth- ing to possess.

Dr. Caravelle, the scientist, was not worried a- bout that. He did not even know this gang existed, and if he had known he would have been unconcerned. He had told his secret to nobody except a few senior mem- bers of the Government and the University, so that arrangements could be made for the world's most sophis- ticated computers to test his theory for him. This was now being done, in complete secrecy.

Secrecy may guard a secret-but it will not always prevent the wrong people from knowing that there is a secret. Now the wrong people had sensed the excite- ment among young Caravelle's distinguished colleagues, and they were determined to discover what the brilli- ant physicist had achieved. They guessed it was a break- through in something but what? Suave gentlemen met behind invisible and sound-proof doors; ordinary-look- ing, almost imperceptible people watched Dr. Caravelle whenever he went out. And some of these ordinary

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