Account Settled. John Russell Fearn
the chair beside him. “That I shouldn’t have done that. I had to, Jal: there was no other way. No scientist could decide the value of my invention by a mere glance. I’m going back tomorrow morning for the answer. I have a receipt, so there’s nothing whatever to worry about.”
“If ever there was a man with no business acumen and a frightening trust of his fellow men, it’s you, dad,” the girl sighed. “You built that watch-making firm of yours up into a concern worth a fortune, and then you let it go for a paltry fifty thousand pounds, English value. Now you have an invention that is again worth millions, and you actually leave the blueprint in the hands of a man about whom you know nothing, trusting solely to a receipt. Do you realize what you’ve done?”
Quinton smiled and patted the girl’s hand. “I have copies of the print, my dear. Everything will be all right, don’t you worry. Drew is too well-known as a financier to try any shady tricks. Wouldn’t pay him.”
“I wonder…,” Jaline reflected. “I don’t trust financiers—not the big ones anyway—no more than you trust banks. Remember how you had your cheque for fifty thousand changed into notes when you got to England, and now have it stored away in your trunk upstairs? Well, you’re afraid of banks, just as I am of financiers.… Y’know, dad, what I really wish is—” The girl’s voice trailed off and she shrugged. “What’s the use of my talking?”
“What? What do you really wish?”
“That we could go back to Switzerland, retire on the fifty thousand, and forget everything. England and London are not the places for us, dad. I’m unhappy. That’s why I’m trying to liven things up by looking for a post of some kind.”
Her father looked at her steadily. “We can’t go back to our own country, Jal—and you know it. We’ve got to remember what the specialists said.”
“About my heart, you mean? That only softer air could prolong my life? That’s all medical talk and I don’t believe one half of it. Let’s go back, the moment we have Drew’s answer!”
Quinton shook his head slowly.
“No, my dear, I wouldn’t take the risk, not with your heart in its present state. If we went back and the air braced you so much as to—to kill you, just think how I’d feel!”
Jaline shrugged. “All right, then, we’ll just have to carry on in London—or out in the northeast country somewhere. Perhaps we’d better discuss it tomorrow when we’ve heard what Drew has to say.”
“That,” her father agreed quietly, “would probably be the best.”
* * * *
At eight o’clock that evening the shades were tightly drawn over the windows in Emerson Drew’s immense office, and the concealed lighting glowed on the furniture and roughcast walls in shadowless brilliance.
He sat at the desk, square and complacent, contemplating the finished model of the Quinton bomb. On his right was the pale-faced, lean-cheeked Metals tycoon J.K. Darnhome, his cold gray eyes studying the bomb’s smooth, tapering outlines.
Marvin de Brock, acid-faced, black-haired, fiftyish, had his elbows on the desk and his chin cradled in his hands. His expression was one of profound absorption.
“And you are sure,” Drew asked Bruce Valant, the scientist, slowly, “that everything is perfect? That Quinton really knows what he is up to?”
“Beyond a doubt,” the scientist agreed, standing on the opposite side of the desk. “Suppose I demonstrate the thing for you, then you’ll get the right idea.…”
Drew nodded, waved a hand, and sat back in his chair. Valant picked up the bomb and took it across to a sheet of two-inch-thick steel that he had brought in. The steel formed the top of a table, collapsible legs supporting it on each side.
“Observe, gentlemen,” Valant said, after setting the bomb’s internal mechanism in operation.
He put the bomb nose-down on the steel plate, and before the eyes of the astonished men the object began to sink gently through the tabletop, until its entire length had made the transition, and it dropped like a gigantic metallic pear to the carpet.
Immediately Valant whipped it up and stopped the mechanism.
“It looks,” Marvin de Brock said, musing, “just like a conjuring trick. One of those matter-through-matter illusions.”
“With one difference, gentlemen, that this is not an illusion,” Valant said. He unfastened the steel plate from the legs and stood it endwise on the desk. There was not a trace of rupture or marking where the bomb had been.
“Miraculous!” J.K. Darnhome breathed, pushing a lock of fallen gray hair out of his eye.
“Simply the utilization of scientific facts,” Valant said, shrugging. “Quinton has found a way to make matter pass through matter by forcing the atoms to obey magnetism, and thereby their normal obstructive power is neutralized. It’s brilliant—no doubt of it.”
Drew nodded slowly and motioned the scientist to put the bomb on the desk.
“That’s all for now, Valant. You can go home if you want. Thanks for getting the job done.”
The scientist nodded and left the room. Drew gave a slow, grim smile and then glanced at the men to either side of him.
“Well, gentlemen, was it worth your while getting here for eight o’clock, or not?”
“Oh, it was worth it,” J.K. agreed. “Just as you said, the thing is worth a fortune.… How much does this chap Quinton want for it?”
Drew reached out for a cigar box and held it forth.
“A million advance in respect of royalties, and the remaining terms to be arranged.”
“Then he’s crazy,” Marvin de Brock commented, striking his lighter. “Give him a thousand and he’ll think himself lucky.”
“I do not propose,” Drew said, closing the box emphatically, “to give him anything! I’ve seen him, you have not, and believe me I doubt if a more simple-minded soul ever descended from heaven straight into the lion’s den.”
“Many inventors are apparently quiet,” Darnhome reflected. “But when you start to cross them, they blow up in your face. I don’t trust the quiet type. Never did.”
“I don’t think Rajek Quinton falls into the category you’re thinking of, J.K.,” Drew said, shaking his head. “In fact, the thing is so easy it’s nearly a shame to do it. Here, right in our grasp, is the blueprint for an invention worth millions. I could, of course, photocopy it, manufacture it secretly, and have the original blueprint returned to Quinton with the simple statement that his invention doesn’t interest us. But that wouldn’t do us any good. He’d submit it elsewhere and we’d perhaps find ourselves saddled with stiff opposition before very long. So, I see only one way out.…”
The huge office was quiet for a moment. Marvin de Brock found himself staring at the sinister outlines of the thing that held unlimited power.
“You mean—dispose of him?” Darnhome’s voice was sober.
“There have been times,” Drew answered, “when disposal of a certain irritating faction has been necessary, just in the course of business. I don’t hide the fact from either of you, because you yourselves were in at those disposals. Remember Travers of New York? Then there was the case of L’Estrage of Paris, a necessary extermination. I’m afraid we have similar necessary extermination here.”
De Brock rubbed his chin and scowled. Darnhome looked across at the cocktail cabinet and decided he needed a drink.
“This is no time for your damned whisky, J.K.!” Drew snapped, turning.
“Any time’s the time for that.…” The tycoon went over to the cabinet, poured out three glasses of whisky, and brought them across to the desk.