The Man Who Ended War. Godfrey Hollis
of radio-active waves. Tom is just going to have his assistant test the radium he is to use to-night, and has half a dozen reflectoscopes here,” and she waved her hand at the bench before her, where half a dozen similar instruments were placed.
“They are a good deal like the old electroscopes, only infinitely more sensitive. You see that gold leaf,” she pointed to two tiny ribbons of gold that hung limply together, “when a wave from a radio-active source, such as radium, comes along, those ribbons fly apart. All our reflectoscopes are discharged now, but they’ll be charged later.”
As we spoke, Tom joined us. “I’ve sent Jones down-stairs for the radium in the safe, Dorothy,” he said, and we three stood looking silently at the instruments before us. Through the open windows a fresh breeze fluttered in, and the soft night gave back but the slightest hum, a minimum of that sound that never ceases in the quietest hours of the great city. A church tower rang out – One, Two, Three, Four. Tom glanced at the chronometer. “Just right,” he said, and looked back. A strange hush filled the air. Again a terrific force seemed to be pulling me towards Dorothy, but my eyes never turned from the reflectoscopes. Suddenly, as I gazed, the golden ribbons sprang to life, parted and stood stiffly separate.
“Good heavens!” cried Tom. “What did that? They were perfectly insulated. What did that, Dorothy? It must be Jones bringing the radium.”
Dorothy’s eyes glowed with excited interest. “I don’t think it was Jones,” she said eagerly. “I believe I know what it was, but anyway, let’s go first and see where Jones is. There’s absolutely nothing else in the laboratory that could have charged them, insulated as they were.”
Down the stairs, flight after flight, four in all, we trooped, and found Jones in an office on the first floor, seated in a chair before the safe, and looking disconsolately at its closed door. At Tom’s voice, he rose.
“Professor, I’ve forgotten the combination again. I was sitting here trying to bring it to mind.”
“Then you haven’t taken the radium from the safe at all?” shouted Tom, in wild excitement.
“No,” answered Jones, staring in amazement.
“Then how in blazes did those reflectoscopes get charged?”
Jones showed a sudden interest, “Have they got charged again?”
“Yes, have they been charged before?”
“Twice before, and I meant to speak to you about it, but it slipped my mind.”
“When did it happen?” Dorothy broke in.
“I’ve got full particulars noted down, up-stairs,” said Jones. “But how about the combination?”
“Never mind that,” cried Tom. “Let me see your data.”
Rapidly we ascended, the slower Jones following some way behind. In the laboratory the assistant turned to a littered desk and fumbled among a mass of papers. I could see that Dorothy was burning with impatience which I could not understand. Jones fumbled on, picking up paper after paper, peering at them blindly through his black-rimmed spectacles. Tom seized my arm and walked me down the room impatiently.
“That man will drive me mad some day,” he exclaimed. “He’s the most accurate investigator and observer we ever had, but he keeps his desk in an unspeakable mess. He’s got that data somewhere, and when he finds it, it will be correct, but he’ll take perhaps an hour to find it. There, thank the Lord!” he remarked, as we turned back, “Dorothy’s taking a hand.”
Then came order from chaos, regularity from irregularity. Paper by paper was read, rejected and placed in its appropriate place, while Jones looked on, by no means displeased. Scarcely five minutes had passed, and the desk had assumed an order foreign to its nature. Ten minutes passed, and Dorothy turned. “It isn’t here, Mr. Jones. Now think, where did you put it?”
Jones seized the knotty problem, bent his mind to it, struggled with it, emerged victorious. “I know,” he said. “It’s in the middle of that black, leather note-book in the third right-hand drawer.”
Before he had finished, the note-book was in Dorothy’s hand, was open, and a paper fluttered out into her lap. She picked it up and read, “July 3d, 19 – . Reflectoscopes charged without apparent cause at 3.45-30 P. M.; July 11th, 19 – . Reflectoscopes charged without apparent cause between 9.35 and 10.10 P. M.”
“I thought so, I thought so,” said Dorothy, jumping from her chair. “Tom, it’s as straight as a die. Oh, Jim, it’s a big step.”
Tom looked as bewildered as poor Jones had seemed before the safe, or as he did now. I was thoroughly puzzled. The only thing that struck me forcibly was that Dorothy had called me by my first name. That was a big step surely, but evidently it was not the step she meant. Dorothy saw our bewilderment, and went on emphatically.
“You are stupid. I’d like to know how far you men would get in this world without women to find things out for you. What happened on July 3d in the afternoon, and what occurred sometime in the evening, our time, on July 11th?”
Tom and I stood still, looking at each other in bewilderment. Suddenly I saw a great light.
“Why, those were the times the Alaska and the Dreadnought Number 8 disappeared!” I shouted, in wildest excitement, “and just now.”
“A French battleship went down,” said Dorothy gravely. “And, – ” she broke her sentence with a brief sob, “the poor wives and children.”
We had turned instinctively to watch the golden ribbons that told of the sinking of the proud battleship, and of the death of hundreds, and I bowed my head as when the death angel comes close beside us in his flight. A moment’s silence, and Tom turned to Jones.
“If you don’t mind, Jones, I wish you would say nothing of this, no matter what you see or hear. We shall do no more to-night; you may go home.”
With Jones’ departure, we began another council. Tom drew out his pipe. “Dorothy, I know Jim and I need to smoke over this, do you mind?” and at her word we filled our pipes and invoked the help of that great aid to philosophers, tobacco. Dorothy was at the desk, her brow knotted in deep thought. Tom and I sat on a side bench against the wall, facing her. The dawn was coming in through the wide windows, and the city stirred as we talked.
“Your theory about the disintegrating steel of the battleships was evidently wrong, Tom,” said Dorothy. “The wave that charged the reflectoscopes was a wave definitely projected from some definite place.”
“Yes,” said Tom musingly. “I was wrong. The man who is trying to stop all war must have some radio-active generator, some means of wave disturbance greater than anything we have yet attained. As a man starts a dynamo, and uses the electricity it furnishes to do work, so this man starts this unknown engine of destruction, and its waves destroy the ship.”
“But how could he possibly cause a ship to vanish without a sound?” I asked.
“Of course, I’m not perfectly sure,” answered Dorothy. “But the moment the reflectoscopes were charged, I thought of a possible theory. His force, so powerful that it affects our reflectoscopes thousands of miles away, may be able to resolve the metal which makes up a battleship into its electrons, which would disappear as intangible gas.”
“What are electrons?” I persisted. “I’ve heard of them, of course, but I’m not quite sure what they are.”
“They’re the very smallest division of matter, the infinitely small particles that make up the atom. If a man could find a way to break matter down to them, it’s entirely possible that they would then go off as a gas. The waves the man sends out must be terrifically strong, anyway. One thing I don’t see, though, is how he could break down organic matter. He could break down everything metallic, perhaps, but I don’t see how he could break down wood – or human beings,” she ended, with a shudder.
“Part of that’s easy,” said Tom, with a long whiff at his pipe. “Absolutely no wood for the last two years on any battleship. All nations have taken out what wood they had on their