Upstairs, the wind was blowing into the apartment and I closed the windows, mainly to shut out the tumult and the shouting. Nat had brightened up considerably.
"I'll stay for one more drink and then I'm due at the office," he said. "You know, I think this would make an item for the paper." He grinned and nodded toward the pandemonium.
When he was gone, I noticed it was getting dark and turned on the desk lamp. Then I saw the curtains. They were all tied in knots, except one. That was tied in three knots.
All right, I told myself, it was the wind. But I felt the time had come for me to get expert advice, so I went to the phone to call McGill. McGill is an assistant professor of mathematics at a university uptown and lives near us. He is highly imaginative, but we believe he knows everything.
When I picked up the receiver, the line sounded dead and I thought, more trouble. Then I heard a man cough and I said hello. McGill's voice said, "Alec? You must have picked up the receiver just as we were connected. That's a damn funny coincidence."
"Not in the least," I said. "Come on over here. I've got something for you to work on."
"Well, as a matter of fact, I was calling up to ask you and Molly—"
"Molly's away for the week. Can you get over here quick? It's urgent."
"At once," he said, and hung up.
While I waited, I thought I might try getting down a few paragraphs of my novel—perhaps something would come now. It did, but as I came to a point where I was about to put down the word "agurgling," I decided it was too reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan, and stopped at the letter "R." Then I saw that I had unaccountably hit all four keys one step to the side of the correct ones, and tore out the page, with my face red.
This was absolutely not my day.

"Well," McGill said, "nothing you've told me is impossible or supernatural. Just very, very improbable. In fact, the odds against that poker game alone would lead me to suspect Nat, well as I know him. It's all those other things...."
He got up and walked over to the window and looked at the hot twilight while I waited. Then he turned around; he had a look of concern.
"Alec, you're a reasonable guy, so I don't think you'll take offense at what I'm going to say. What you have told me is so impossibly unlikely, and the odds against it so astronomical, that I must take the view that you're either stringing me or you're subject to a delusion." I started to get up and expostulate, but he motioned me back. "I know, but don't you see that that is far more likely than...." He stopped and shook his head. Then he brightened. "I have an idea. Maybe we can have a demonstration."
He thought for a tense minute and snapped his fingers. "Have you any change on you?"
"Why, yes," I said. "Quite a bit." I reached into my pocket. There must have been nearly two dollars in silver and pennies. "Do you think they'll each have the same date, perhaps?"
"Did you accumulate all that change today?"
"No. During the week."
He shook his head. "In that case, no. Discounting the fact that you could have prearranged it, if my dim provisional theory is right, that would be actually impossible. It would involve time-reversal. I'll tell you about it later. No, just throw down the change. Let's see if they all come up heads."
I moved away from the carpet and tossed the handful of coins onto the floor. They clattered and bounced—and bounced together—and stacked themselves into a neat pile.
I looked at McGill. His eyes were narrowed. Without a word, he took a handful of coins from his own pocket and threw them.
These coins didn't stack. They just fell into an exactly straight line, the adjacent ones touching.
"Well," I said, "what more do you want?"
"Great Scott," he said, and sat down. "I suppose you know that there are two great apparently opposite principles governing the Universe—random and design. The sands on the beach are an example of random distribution and life is an example of design. The motions of the particles of a gas are what we call random, but there are so many of them, we treat them statistically and derive the Second Law of Thermodynamics—quite reliable. It isn't theoretically hard-and-fast; it's just a matter of extreme probability. Now life, on the other hand, seems not to depend on probability at all; actually, it goes against it. Or you might say it is certainly not an accidental manifestation."
"Do you mean," I asked in some confusion, "that some form of life is controlling the coins and—the other things?"
He shook his head. "No. All I mean is that improbable things usually have improbable explanations. When I see a natural law being broken, I don't say to myself, 'Here's a miracle.' I revise my version of the book of rules. Something—I don't know what—is going on, and it seems to involve probability, and it seems to center around you. Were you still in that building when the elevators stuck? Or near it?"
"I guess I must have been. It happened just after I left."
"Hm. You're the center, all right. But why?"
"Center of what?" I asked. "I feel as though I were the center of an electrical storm. Something has it in for me!"
McGill grinned. "Don't be superstitious. And especially don't be anthropomorphic."
"Well, if it's the opposite of random, it's got to be a form of life."
"On what basis? All we know for certain is that random motions are being rearranged. A crystal, for example, is not life, but it's a non-random arrangement of particles.... I wonder." He had a faraway, frowning look.
I was beginning to feel hungry and the drinks had worn off.
"Let's go out and eat," I said, "There's not a damn thing in the kitchen and I'm not allowed to cook. Only eggs and coffee."
We put on our hats and went down to the street. From either end, we could hear wrecking trucks towing away the stalled cars. There were, by this time, a number of harassed cops directing the maneuver and we heard one of them say to Danny, "I don't know what the hell's going on around here. Every goddam car's got something the matter with it. They can't none of them back out for one reason or another. Never seen anything like it."
Near us, two pedestrians were doing a curious little two-step as they tried to pass one another; as soon as one of them moved aside to let the other pass, the other would move to the same side. They both had embarrassed grins on their faces, but before long their grins were replaced by looks of suspicion and then determination.
"All right, smart guy!" they shouted in unison, and barged ahead, only to collide. They backed off and threw simultaneous punches which met in mid-air. Then began one of the most remarkable bouts ever witnessed—a fight in which fist hit fist but never anything else, until both champions backed away undefeated, muttering identical excuses and threats.
Danny appeared at that moment. His face was dripping. "You all right, Mr. Graham?" he asked. "I don't know what's going on around here, but ever since I came on this afternoon, things are going crazy. Bartley!" he shouted—he could succeed as a hog-caller. "Bring those dames over here!"
Three women in a confused wrangle, with their half-open umbrellas intertwined, were brought across the street, which meant climbing over fenders. Bartley, a fine young patrolman, seemed self-conscious; the ladies seemed not to be.
"All right, now, Mrs. Mac-Philip!" one of them said. "Leave go of my umbrella and we'll say no more about it!"
"And so now it's Missus Mac-Philip, is it?" said her adversary.
The third, a younger one with her back turned to us, her umbrella also caught in the tangle, pulled at it in a tentative way, at which the other two glared at her. She turned her head away and tried to let go, but the handle was caught in her glove. She looked up and I saw it was Molly. My nurse-wife.
"Oh, Alec!" she said, and managed to detach herself. "Are you all right?" Was I all right!
"Molly! What are you doing here?"
"I was so worried, and when I saw all this, I didn't know what to think." She pointed to the stalled cars. "Are you really all right?"
"Of course I'm all right. But why...."
"The Oyster Bay operator said someone kept dialing and dialing Mother's number and there wasn't anyone on the line, so then she had it traced and it came from our phone here. I kept calling up, but I only got a busy signal. Oh, dear, are you sure you're all right?"
I put my arm around her and glanced at McGill. He had an inward look. Then I caught Danny's eye. It had a thoughtful, almost suspicious cast to it.
"Trouble does seem to follow you, Mr. Graham," was all he said.
When we got upstairs, I turned to McGill. "Explain to Molly," I said. "And incidentally to me. I'm not properly briefed yet."
He did so, and when he got to the summing up, I had the feeling she was a jump ahead of him.
"In other words, you think it's something organic?"
"Well," McGill said, "I'm trying to think of anything else it might be. I'm not doing so well," he confessed.
"But so far as I can see," Molly answered, "it's mere probability, and without any over-all pattern."
"Not quite. It has a center. Alec is the center."
Molly looked at me with a curious expression for a moment. "Do you feel all right, darling?" she asked me. I nodded brightly. "You'll think this silly of me," she went on to McGill, "but why isn't it something like an overactive poltergeist?"
"Pure concept," he said. "No genuine evidence."
"Magnetism?"
"Absolutely not. For one thing, most of the objects affected weren't magnetic—and don't forget magnetism is a force, not a form of energy, and a great deal of energy has been involved. I admit the energy has mainly been supplied by the things themselves, but in a magnetic field, all you'd get would be stored kinetic energy, such as when a piece of iron moves to a magnet or a line of force. Then it would just stay there, like a rundown clock weight. These things do a lot more than that—they go on moving."
"Why did you mention a crystal before? Why not a life-form?"
"Only an analogy," said McGill. "A crystal resembles life in that it has a definite shape and exhibits growth, but that's all. I'll agree this—thing—has no discernible shape and motion is involved, but plants don't move and amebas have no shape. Then a crystal feeds, but it does not convert what it feeds on; it merely rearranges it into a non-random pattern. In this case, it's rearranging random motions and it has a nucleus and it seems to be growing—at least in what you might call improbability."
Molly frowned. "Then what is it? What's it made of?"
"I should say it was made of the motions. There's a similar idea about the atom. Another thing that's like a crystal is that it appears to be forming around a nucleus not of its own material—the way a speck of sand thrown into a supersaturated solution becomes the nucleus of crystallization."
"Sounds like the pearl in an oyster," Molly said, and gave me an impertinent look.
"Why," I asked McGill, "did you say the coins couldn't have the same date? I mean apart from the off chance I got them that way."
"Because I don't think this thing got going before today and everything that's happened can all be described as improbable motions here and now. The dates were already there, and to change them would require retroactive action, reversing time. That's out, in my book. That telephone now—"
The doorbell rang. We were not surprised to find it was the telephone repairman. He took the set apart and clucked like a hen.