Brent had no intention of keeping the promise which Balcom had extracted
from him by a species of moral duress that afternoon.
In fact, already he had gone too far in his plans for restitution--or
was it self-preservation?--to turn back. It was late in the night that
he himself secretly admitted to the house a tall, dark-haired stranger
who evidently called by appointment.
"Well, Flint," he greeted, in a hushed tone, "what was it you asked to
see me about?"
Flint replied not a word, but impressively tapped a bundle which he
carried under his arm and began to undo the cord which bound it.
Brent looked startled, then caught himself. He had known Flint for some
time--an adventurer, more or less unscrupulous, who had been the foreign
representative of International Patents.
Flint took off his coat and threw it on a chair with an air of assurance
that seemed to increase Brent's anxiety, then began again to untie the
bulky package.
"Just a moment, Flint," cautioned Brent, stopping him.
With an air of uneasy secrecy Brent hurried to the door that led from
the dining-room to the conservatory and bolted it securely. Then he made
sure that the door to the library was bolted.
As he did so he did not see his secretary, Zita, watching in the hall,
for the footsteps of Locke, approaching, had caught her quick ear and
she had fled.
"Locke!" called Brent, hearing his laboratory, manager. "Under no
circumstances allow me to be disturbed to-night."
"Very well, sir," responded Locke.
Just then the light step of Eva was heard on the stairs.
"What's the matter, father?" she asked, still upset by the events of the
afternoon. "Is there anything wrong?"
"No, my dear, nothing," hastily replied Brent. "In the morning I shall
have something to say to you. Now run along like a good girl."
Dutifully Eva turned. Brent watched her out of sight. Then with a keen
look at Locke he pulled out a paper from his pocket and handed it to the
young scientist, who read:
BRENT,--This is my last warning. If you persist in your course you
will be struck down by the Madagascar madness.
Q.
Locke looked up from the scrawl in alarmed perplexity.
"What does this mean?" he queried.
Brent merely shook his head cryptically.
"Study this message. I shall have something very important to tell you
in the morning."
As Brent turned back into the library he paused a moment and looked
after Locke, hesitating, as if he would call him back. Then he decided
not to do so, turned, and carefully locked the door from the dining-room
into the hallway.
Eva was waiting at the head of the stairs as Locke, perplexed by the
strange actions of his employer, came up.
"What _is_ the trouble?" she repeated, anxiously. "Please tell me. Is
there anything wrong?"
"No--nothing," reassured Locke, in spite of his own doubt. "Everything
is all right."
"I hope so." Eva lingered. "Good night."
Locke bowed admiringly. But there was the same restraint in his look
that had been shown in the afternoon.
"Good night," he murmured, slowly.
Eva quite understood, and there was a smile of encouragement on her face
as she turned away and flitted down the hall to her room.
Outside, Zita had hurried from the house to the nearest public
telephone-booth and was frantically calling Balcom at his apartment.
"Mr. Balcom," she repeated, breathlessly, as the junior partner
answered, "Flint has returned. I have seen him."
"The devil!" exclaimed Balcom, angrily, then checked himself before he
said any more. "Keep me informed."
Abruptly he hung up.
It was scarcely a moment later that Paul Balcom entered the Balcom
apartment, admitted by a turbaned black suggestive of the Orient.
Paul was surly and had evidently been drinking, for he shoved the
servant roughly out of the way as he strode toward his father.
Apparently outside Paul had overheard and had gathered the drift of what
Balcom had been saying. Or perhaps, from his own sources of information,
he already knew. At any rate, as Balcom turned from the telephone,
father and son faced each other angrily.
"Brent's lying," exclaimed Paul. "That marriage to me must take place
to-morrow."
Talking angrily, sometimes in agreement, at others far apart, the two
left the room.
Back in the dining-room by this time Brent had rejoined Flint and now
watched him eagerly as he took the last wrappings from the package which
he had carried so carefully.
As the last wrapping was stripped from it, on the table before them lay
a small steel model, perhaps three feet high--a weird-looking thing in
the miniature shape of a man, designed along lines that only a cubist
could have conceived--jointed, mobile, truly a contrivance at which to
marvel.
Brent gazed incredulously at the strange thing. "An automaton!" he
exclaimed.
"More than that," replied Flint, calmly.
Flint unrolled a chart of the human nervous system and spread it out on
the table. Pointing to the brain, he leaned over tensely, and whispered:
"This model is merely a piece of mechanism. But the real automaton
possesses a human brain which has been transplanted into it and made to
guide it."
For a moment Brent listened incredulously, then sat back in his chair
and laughed skeptically. But even Flint recognized that there was a
hollowness in the laughter.
"Do you mean to tell me," demanded Brent, "that a human brain has been
made to control a thing of no use except as a terrible engine of
destruction?"
"Not only possible," reiterated Flint, "but it is true."
"Oh, Flint," rallied Brent, with a sort of uneasiness, "you can't tell
_me_ that!"
"Believe it or not," insisted the adventurer, "I have been in Madagascar
and I know."
For a moment Brent paused at the vehemence of Flint's answer. What had
Flint to gain by misrepresentation? A thousand images of the past
flitted through Brent's brain. Then slowly a look of terror came over
Brent's face. Suppose it were indeed true--this Frankenstein, this
conscienceless inhuman superman? Brent gripped himself and composed his
features and his voice.
"But this thing," he rasped. "What does this prove?"
"Oh, this is merely automatic--a piece of mechanism--a model which I
stole. It works when it is wound up--not like the real one. Look."
Flint put a pencil in the little steel hand of the model and pressed a
lever as he held a piece of paper under the pencil. Brent leaned over,
fascinated.
Instantly the tiny hand began to trace on the paper one letter--the
simple letter "Q."
As the hand finished the tail of the "Q" Brent gripped the table for
support. His eyes bulged and stared wildly.
"My God!" burst from his lips. "It is the warning--Q!"
For minutes Brent strove to regain his composure.
Nor was Flint less impressed than the man before him.
What would have been the emotions of both if they had been able to
penetrate with the eye through the rocky cliffs on which the stately
mansion of Brent Rock stood would have been hard to say.
For, down in a rock-hewn cavern, not many hundred yards away and below
them, reached by a secret entrance from the shrubbery of the cliffs near
the shore, already had congregated several rough characters. They were
playing cards and drinking, now and then glancing furtively at the
passage entrance, as though they were expecting the arrival of some one
or something.
Suddenly came a dull metallic clank through the passage, strangely
echoing. At once all leaped to their feet, at attention, not unmixed
with awe and fear that sat strangely on their desperate features. What
was it that they, who feared neither God nor man, feared?
They strained their eyes, looking into the passage that led darkly away
into blackness.
Dimly down it now could be seen two gleaming spots of light, points in
the Cimmerian darkness. They seemed to be growing larger and coming
nearer as with each hollow reverberation the dull metallic thuds
increased.
Faintly now could be made out in the blackness a huge, stalking figure,
having the shape of a man, with gigantic, powerful shoulders, powerful
arms, a thick body, hips, and thighs that spelled terrific strength,
legs and feet that suggested irresistible force.
"The Automaton!" escaped involuntarily from all lips.
Slowly, irresistibly, the horrendous figure stalked forth into the dim
light. There it paused for a moment--a figure of steel, larger than most
men, yet not so large but that it might have incased a man. And yet its
motions, its every action, were like nothing mortal. Even these hardened
denizens of the underworld shuddered.
In its hand the Automaton carried a five-branched candlestick, for what
purpose none seemed to know. Yet all bowed and quaked at every pantomime
motion of the figure, ready to do the bidding of the least motion of
their inhuman master.
Still holding the candlestick with its five huge yellow candles before
him, the Automaton stalked forward to the table and impressively
deposited the candlestick on it, then stepped back a pace and waved his
ponderous hand at the assembled emissaries, who scarcely repressed their
own abject terror.