Account Settled. John Russell Fearn
“Hmm. I’m sorry to hear that. Is she—young?”
“Twenty-five—and most capable. You see—” Quinton moved as though his words had suddenly become distasteful to him— “I’m staking pretty well everything on this invention, Mr. Drew. I sold out my watchmaker business, but it didn’t realize a very great deal, certainly not enough money to live in the style my daughter and I would like. I want, if I can, to get into a high social niche in this country, and my daughter too, of course. We undoubtedly will if you and I come to terms. At the moment you can reach me at the Grand Hotel in Fennis Street.”
Drew jotted down the address on his scratchpad. He was looking quite amiable again now.
“And if we come to terms, do you propose to stay in London?”
“I think not. We prefer the country. We have ideas about a quiet place up in the northeast.”
“And yet I believe you mentioned milder air?
“The northeast of England is far milder than Switzerland, Mr. Drew, and there’s a lot of quiet countryside up there.”
“Mmm, true—”
Drew broke off as Janet Kayne returned, a quarto sheet embossed with the Trust seals in her hand. Drew took it, added his signature, then handed it across to Quinton. “There you are, sir—everything in order.”
Quinton looked at it and put it in his briefcase. The only sound for a moment was of the zipper closing, then the inventor got to his feet.
“I’ll be here this time tomorrow, Mr. Drew,” he said. “And thank you.”
The financier rose and shook hands, went with Quinton as far as the office door; then, when he had shown him out, he stood for a moment and pondered, his hand on the knob. Janet Kayne straightened up from the desk, glanced briefly at the blueprint, and set it on one side.
“Miss Kayne—”
“Sir?” She glanced up expectantly as Drew came over to her ponderously.
“Have Mr. Valant come in here from the research department right away, will you?”
The girl nodded and went out. Still pensive, pulling at his cigar, Drew unrolled the blueprint again and contemplated it. He was still doing so when Bruce Valant, the lanky chief of the scientific research department, came in. He had light-colored eyes and his wiry hair bushed up around his head.
“Want me, Mr. Drew?”
“Yes. Take a look at this and tell me how good or bad it is. A good deal depends on it.”
The scientist flattened the blueprint out and brooded over it. Drew stood watching, the fragrance from his cigar drifting into his eyes.
“Offhand,” Valant said at length, straightening up, “I’d say this is some new-fangled sort of bomb. From the look of this blueprint—crazy though it sounds—it looks as though the bomb would pass through the interstices of matter to any desired depth, drawn by the pull of earth’s own gravity.”
Drew nodded his shaven head approvingly.
“Good! I can see I don’t pay for nothing in having you, Valant. That’s exactly what the thing is. I want you to rush through a model of it and see just how efficient it is—say, by eight o’clock tonight.”
The scientist shook his wild-haired head dubiously.
“That won’t be too easy, sir. There’s some pretty intricate workmanship here—”
“Quinton told me that a copy model from these designs would not take long, and I want it done!” Drew set his jaw. “Drop everything else, commandeer all the labor and money you need, but get this model ready for eight tonight.”
Valant rolled the print up and nodded. He knew it was impossible to argue with Emerson Drew when he got hold of pet idea.
“I’ll do it, sir,” he promised, and headed for the door.
“And another thing, Valant—”
“Yes, sir?”
“Don’t let anybody else see the print. Put your workers on separate sections and never let the entire setup get out of your hands. I’m holding you responsible.”
The scientist nodded and went out. Drew sat down at the desk again and pulled a telephone to him, dialed on the private wire.
“That you, J.K.?” he asked presently.
The heavy, chesty voice of Joseph K. Darnhome, head of the Darnhome Metals Corporation, answered.
“Who’d you think it was, man? Couldn’t be anybody else on this line, could it?”
“All right, all right, don’t get touchy—or is it your liver again? Anyway, I rang to tell you that I think we’re on to something, and if I’m any judge, it’s worth a fortune several times over.”
“Well, your judgment has been pretty accurate all the time I’ve known you, so I don’t see any reason why it should fail now. What is it?”
“I don’t even trust the private wire to tell you that. Enough for me to say that it’s worth your while to be over here in my office this evening at eight sharp. You’ll get the surprise of your life!”
“Well, I—” J.K. hesitated, then he seemed to make up his mind. “All right, Drew, I’ll be there. I’m afraid the wife will play hell. I was going to take her out.”
“Eight it is,” Drew said briefly, and put the phone back on its cradle. He waited a second or two and then dialed another number. This time the high, acrimonious voice of Marvin de Brock floated to him. De Brock, head of Independent Atomics, had no time for anybody outside of himself. He was only civil with Emerson Drew because he had to be. Drew was the mastermind—finance.
“Eight o’clock, eh?” de Brock repeated querulously, when Drew had uttered practically the same words as to Darnhome.
“You choose a damned awkward time, don’t you?”
“If you can’t take time out to put yourself in line with more money, you’re more self-centered than I thought,” Drew snapped. “Of course, I can always get—”
“No, no,” de Brock interrupted. “I’ll be there.’
“Good!”
Drew put the telephone down and rubbed his hands gently together.
CHAPTER TWO
Jaline Quinton was waiting for her father when he came into the entrance lounge of the Grand Hotel. She saw him enter through the revolving doors, got to her feet hurriedly, and went across to him.
“Well, dad, how did it go?” She spoke in her native tongue.
“Oh, hello, Jal.…” Her father smiled at her, did not resist as she led him across to the wicker chairs under the dried palms where she had been seated. “I didn’t think you’d be back so soon.”
“Nothing else for it,” the girl answered, sighing. “The post was filled. Don’t seem to be many people who want an interpreter these days. You’d think that with a knowledge of seven languages, I’d get a good deal further than this.”
Her serious blue eyes regarded him for a moment. She was a good-looking girl of obviously Teutonic descent. Blonde hair was piled in coils and waves on top of her head and about her ears. She was slender-shouldered, elfin-limbed, with features which had the pink and white delicacy begotten of her cardiac trouble.
“And you?” she asked. “How did you get on?”
“I think Mr. Drew will be able to do something for me—”
“Then—then you don’t know? You showed him the blueprint, didn’t you?”
“Of course—but