Part 2

"Perhaps Manton's device just hurls them back and forth across the country."

Treed shook his head. "Manton's Better Mousetrap doesn't work that way," he said with conviction. "Thanks to Manton's little registers we know that Manton's catch--overall--has been rising but definitely following the increase in rat population over the entire country. You see, gentlemen, Manton's traps have been made to fill a demand in every case. It started with friends who needed them. You're sort of insisting that Manton's traps come assembled with its own mice."

That got a big laugh.

"And," said Senator Treed, "God help the one who is responsible for this!"

* * * * *

Tony Andrews entered the salesroom and smiled at the clerk. "Look," he said, "I've been a good customer."

"You have," agreed the salesman. "I know you. I'm Tom Locke."

"Well, Mr. Locke, I'd like another one of those key tags."

The salesman nodded. "Those things are popular," he said. "But what happened?"

"I dropped mine through one of those Better Mousetraps."

"Oh," laughed the salesman, "they've been returned from every portion of the globe. But I guess the mail service isn't too good from wherever That is."

"I'd hoped it would come back," said Andrews. "But I'm wrong. And I'd like another one."

"Sure. Be glad to. Since you're the man who originated the idea with us."

"I'm sorry to have to ask--What? Originated what?"

"Why yes. The tale goes that you came in to buy a car quite some time ago, and the salesman saw the tag on your key ring. He mentioned it to Mr. Cagley who is our advertising manager. He had the tags made up and we gave them out to our best customers."

"Then you've got me mixed up with someone else. For I received mine as they did. Mine came in the mail and cost me three cents--which was as good an advertising stunt as the tags themse--"

"Mail? Mail? We gave them in person."

"But mine came through the mail."

"Sorry. We've never sent any of them through the mail."

"Oh," said Andrews with rising suspicion. He took the new tag with thanks and returned to Peter Manton's home.

"Peter, is Junior handy?"

Manton nodded and called. Junior came. Then Andrews said: "Junior, have you ever seen anything like this before?"

Junior nodded. "Last winter. Found it down in the cellar on my sled."

"Sled!"

"Uh-huh. Then because it said to drop it in the mail box if found, I did. You got it, huh?"

Andrews nodded. "Yup," he said. "I got it! Peter Manton, you haven't seen the end of this, yet."

Manton frowned slightly. "Why?" he asked.

"You've really built the Better Mousetrap, and you haven't seen the people who are going to beat their path to your door. They haven't really arrived yet. But they will!"

* * * * *

The first to arrive was the FBI. Then Peter Manton's domicile was changed from a town in Illinois to a cold stone place in Washington.

Ted Harris faced the Court. "Here is the originator of the Plague of Rats," he said. "And the saviour of the country at the same time. He is in the position of a physician who poisons people so that he can save them. A sort of stinking benefactor."

"Will you please explain to the Court?" demanded the Court.

"The field set up by the Better Mousetrap at the plane of cleavage hurls anything that passes through it _backwards in time_. The time-rate is indefinite and uncontrollable. However, this is why Manton's trap was so effective. On Monday a plague of mice appears in an apartment. The master of the place goes out and rents one of the Better Mousetraps. He places it in his apartment and during the time it is there it hurls mice backward in time to create the plague! Naturally, the trap will be removed as soon as the mice stop--and because the trap will be removed in a few days, the trap itself stops the flow of mice."

"But how far back--?"

"There's little correlation. It just hurls. It is aimless and uncontrollable. In one case, a key tag went back several months."

"But how come nothing was known of this?" demanded the Court.

Tag Harris smiled. "When I have something that will utterly destroy something, I do not place anything valuable near it," he said. "In Manton's own laboratory the boys dropped spare parts through it. In hardware stores all over the country the clerks were dropping screws and nuts and the like. Most of this stuff fell to the floor and was swept up a few days to a week before."

Tag Harris held up a scrap of newspaper. The date was four days in the future.

"Proof," he said. "I'll be sending that to myself later."

"And the tagged mice--the duplications?"

"Animals that had gone through the time-trap twice and were living their lives in parallel. You see, your honor, not only did Manton's Better Mousetrap hurl mice back in time, but it could hurl the same mouse back to the same era several times--and the Plague of Rats was a Man-Made Plague."

* * * * *

Epilogue--

_'Tis said that he who laughs last laughs best. The world who beat a path to Peter Manton's door in anger because he built the Better Mousetrap, returned to thank him anyway. You see, with mice being hurled backwards in time, they lived and they died in the mad rat-race in time. And America, for its trouble with more rodents than it could stand for a short period, now reaps its reward. For America is free of rats._

THE END.