" ... In answer to those who consider all critics as fiends devoted solely to the destruction of sensitive talent, this column wishes to thank Peter Keating for affording us the rare — oh, so rare! — opportunity to prove our delight in our true mission, which is to discover young talent — when it is there to be discovered. And if Pete Keating should chance to read these lines, we expect no gratitude from him. The gratitude is ours."

It was when Keating began to read the article for the third time that he noticed a few lines written in red pencil across the space by its title:

"Dear Peter Keating,

"Drop in to see me at my office one of these days. Would love to discover what you look like.

"E.M.T."

He let the clipping flutter down to his desk, and he stood over it, running a strand of hair between his fingers, in a kind of happy stupor. Then he whirled around to his drawing of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, that hung on the wall between a huge photograph of the Parthenon and one of the Louvre. He looked at the pilasters of his building. He had never thought of them as Culture flowering from out of the broad masses, but he decided that one could very well think that and all the rest of the beautiful stuff.

Then he seized the telephone, he spoke to a high, flat voice which belonged to Ellsworth Toohey's secretary, and he made an appointment to see Toohey at four-thirty of the next afternoon.

In the hours that followed, his daily work assumed a new relish. It was as if his usual activity had been only a bright, flat mural and had now become a noble bas-relief, pushed forward, given a three-dimensional reality by the words of Ellsworth Toohey.

Guy Francon descended from his office once in a while, for no ascertainable purpose. The subtler shades of his shirts and socks matched the gray of his temples. He stood smiling benevolently in silence. Keating flashed past him in the drafting room and acknowledged his presence, not stopping, but slowing his steps long enough to plant a crackling bit of newspaper into the folds of the mauve handkerchief in Francon's breast-pocket, with "Read that when you have time, Guy." He added, his steps halfway across the next room: "Want to have lunch with me today, Guy? Wait for me at the Plaza."

When he came back from lunch, Keating was stopped by a young draftsman who asked, his voice high with excitement:

"Say, Mr. Keating, who's it took a shot at Ellsworth Toohey?"

Keating managed to gasp out:

"Who is it did what?"

"Shot Mr. Toohey."

"Who?"

"That's what I want to know, who."

"Shot ... Ellsworth Toohey?"

"That's what I saw in the paper in the restaurant a guy had. Didn't have time to get one."

"He's ... killed?"

"That's what I don't know. Saw only it said about a shot."

"If he's dead, does that mean they won't publish his column tomorrow?"

"Dunno. Why, Mr. Keating?"

"Go get me a paper."

"But I've got to ... "

"Get me that paper, you damned idiot!"

The story was there, in the afternoon papers. A shot had been fired at Ellsworth Toohey that morning, as he stepped out of his car in front of a radio station where he was to deliver an address on "The Voiceless and the Undefended." The shot had missed him. Ellsworth Toohey had remained calm and sane throughout. His behavior had been theatrical only in too complete an absence of anything theatrical. He had said: "We cannot keep a radio audience waiting," and had hurried on upstairs to the microphone where, never mentioning the incident, he delivered a half-hour's speech from memory, as he always did. The assailant had said nothing when arrested.

Keating stared — his throat dry — at the name of the assailant. It was Steven Mallory.

Only the inexplicable frightened Keating, particularly when the inexplicable lay, not in tangible facts, but in that causeless feeling of dread within him. There was nothing to concern him directly in what had happened, except his wish that it had been someone else, anyone but Steven Mallory; and that he didn't know why he should wish this.

Steven Mallory had remained silent. He had given no explanation of his act. At first, it was supposed that he might have been prompted by despair at the loss of his commission for the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, since it was learned that he lived in revolting poverty. But it was learned, beyond any doubt, that Ellsworth Toohey had had no connection whatever with his loss. Toohey had never spoken to Mr. Slotnick about Steven Mallory. Toohey had not seen the statue of "Industry." On this point Mallory had broken his silence to admit that he had never met Toohey nor seen him in person before, nor known any of Toohey's friends. "Do you think that Mr. Toohey was in some way responsible for your losing that commission?" he was asked. Mallory had answered: "No."

"Then why?" Mallory said nothing.

Toohey had not recognized his assailant when he saw him seized by policemen on the sidewalk outside the radio station. He did not learn his name until after the broadcast. Then, stepping out of the studio into an anteroom full of waiting newsmen, Toohey said: "No, of course I won't press any charges. I wish they'd let him go. Who is he, by the way?" When he heard the name, Toohey's glance remained fixed somewhere between the shoulder of one man and the hat brim of another. Then Toohey — who had stood calmly while a bullet struck an inch from his face against the glass of the entrance door below — uttered one word and the word seemed to fall at his feet, heavy with fear: "Why?"

No one could answer. Presently, Toohey shrugged, smiled, and said: "If it was an attempt at free publicity — well, what atrocious taste!" But nobody believed this explanation, because all felt that Toohey did not believe it either. Through the interviews that followed, Toohey answered questions gaily. He said: "I had never thought myself important enough to warrant assassination. It would be the greatest tribute one could possibly expect — if it weren't so much in the style of an operetta." He managed to convey the charming impression that nothing of importance had happened because nothing of importance ever happened on earth.

Mallory was sent to jail to await trial. All efforts to question him failed.

The thought that kept Keating uneasily awake for many hours, that night, was the groundless certainty that Toohey felt exactly as he did. He knows, thought Keating, and I know, that there is — in Steven Mallory's motive — a greater danger than in his murderous attempt. But we shall never know his motive. Or shall we? ... And then he touched the core of fear: it was the sudden wish that he might be guarded, through the years to come, to the end of his life, from ever learning that motive.

Ellsworth Toohey's secretary rose in a leisurely manner, when Keating entered, and opened for him the door into Ellsworth Toohey's office.

Keating had grown past the stage of experiencing anxiety at the prospect of meeting a famous man, but he experienced it in the moment when he saw the door opening under her hand. He wondered what Toohey really looked like. He remembered the magnificent voice he had heard in the lobby of the strike meeting, and he imagined a giant of a man, with a rich mane of hair, perhaps just turning gray, with bold, broad features of an ineffable benevolence, something vaguely like the countenance of God the Father.

"Mr. Peter Keating — Mr. Toohey," said the secretary and closed the door behind him.

At a first glance upon Ellsworth Monkton Toohey one wished to offer him a heavy, well-padded overcoat — so frail and unprotected did his thin little body appear, like that of a chicken just emerging from the egg, in all the sorry fragility of unhardened bones. At a second glance one wished to be sure that the overcoat should be an exceedingly good one — so exquisite were the garments covering that body. The lines of the dark suit followed frankly the shape within it, apologizing for nothing: they sank with the concavity of the narrow chest, they slid down from the long, thin neck with the sharp slope of the shoulders. A great forehead dominated the body. The wedge-shaped face descended from the broad temples to a small, pointed chin. The hair was black, lacquered, divided into equal halves by a thin white line. This made the skull look tight and trim, but left too much emphasis to the ears that flared out in solitary nakedness, like the handles of a bouillon cup. The nose was long and thin, prolonged by the small dab of a black mustache. The eyes were dark and startling. They held such a wealth of intellect and of twinkling gaiety that his glasses seemed to be worn not to protect his eyes but to protect other men from their excessive brilliance.