wave length we pass from sound waves to heat waves or what are known
as the infra-red waves, those which lie below the red in the spectrum
of light. Next we come to light, which is composed of the seven
colours as you know from seeing them resolved in a prism. After that
are what are known as the ultra-violet rays, which lie beyond the
violet of white light. We also have electric waves, the waves of
the alternating current, and shorter still we find the Hertzian
waves, which are used in wireless. We have only begun to know of
X-rays and the alpha, beta, and gamma rays from them, of radium,
radioactivity, and finally of this new force which I have discovered
and call 'protodyne,' the original force.
"In short, we find in the universe Matter, Force, and Ether. Matter
is simply ether in motion, is composed of corpuscles, electrically
charged ions, or electrons, moving units of negative electricity
about one one-thousandth part of the hydrogen atom. Matter is made
up of electricity and nothing but electricity. Let us see what that
leads to. You are acquainted with Mendeleeff's periodic table?"
He drew forth a huge chart on which all the eighty or so elements
were arranged in eight groups or octaves and twelve series.
Selecting one, he placed his finger on the letters "Au," under which
was written the number, 197.2. I wondered what the mystic letters
and figures meant.
"That," he explained, "is the scientific name for the element gold
and the figure is its atomic weight. You will see," he added,
pointing down the second vertical column on the chart, "that gold
belongs to the hydrogen group - hydrogen, lithium, sodium, potassium,
copper, rubidium, silver, caesium, then two blank spaces for elements
yet to be discovered to science, then gold, and finally another
unknown element."
Running his finger along the eleventh, horizontal series, he
continued: "The gold series - not the group - reads gold, mercury,
thallium, lead, bismuth, and other elements known only to myself.
For the known elements, however, these groups and series are now
perfectly recognised by all scientists; they are determined by the
fixed weight of the atom, and there is a close approximation to
regularity.
"This twelfth series is interesting. So far only radium, thorium,
and uranium are generally known. We know that the radioactive
elements are constantly breaking down, and one often hears uranium,
for instance, called the 'parent' of radium. Radium also gives off
an emanation, and among its products is helium, quite another
element. Thus the transmutation of matter is well known within
certain bounds to all scientists to-day like yourself, Professor
Kennedy. It has even been rumoured but never proved that copper has
been transformed into lithium - both members of the hydrogen-gold
group, you will observe. Copper to lithium is going backward, so to
speak. It has remained for me to devise this protodyne apparatus
by which I can reverse that process of decay and go forward in the
table, so to put it - can change lithium into copper and copper into
gold. I can create and destroy matter by protodyne."
He had been fingering a switch as he spoke. Now he turned it on
triumphantly. A curious snapping and crackling noise followed,
becoming more rapid, and as it mounted in intensity I could smell
a pungent odour of ozone which told of an electric discharge. On
went the machine until we could feel heat radiating from it. Then
came a piercing burst of greenish-blue light from a long tube which
looked like a curious mercury vapour lamp.
After a few minutes of this Prescott took a small crucible of black
lead. "Now we are ready to try it," he cried in great excitement.
"Here I have a crucible containing some copper. Any substance in
the group would do, even hydrogen if there was any way I could
handle the gas. I place it in the machine - so. Now if you could
watch inside you would see it change; it is now rubidium, now silver,
now caesium. Now it is a hitherto unknown element which I have
named after myself, presium, now a second unknown element, cottium
- ah! - there we have gold."
He drew forth the crucible, and there glowed in it a little bead or
globule of molten gold.
"I could have taken lead or mercury and by varying the process done
the same thing with the gold series as well as the gold group," he
said, regarding the globule with obvious pride. "And I can put this
gold back and bring it out copper or hydrogen, or better yet, can
advance it instead of cause it to decay, and can get a radioactive
element which I have named morganium - after my first name, Morgan
Prescott. Morganium is a radioactive element next in the series to
radium and much more active. Come closer and examine the gold."
Kennedy shook his head as if perfectly satisfied to accept the
result. As for me I knew not what to think. It was all so
plausible and there was the bead of gold, too, that I turned to
Craig for enlightenment. Was he convinced? His face was
inscrutable.
But as I looked I could see that Kennedy had been holding concealed
in the palm of his hand a bit of what might be a mineral. From my
position I could see the bit of mineral glowing, but Prescott
could not.
"Might I ask," interrupted Kennedy, "what that curious greenish or
bluish light from the tube is composed of?"
Prescott eyed him keenly for an instant through his thick glasses.
Craig had shifted his gaze from the bit of mineral in his own hand,
but was not looking at the light. He seemed to be indifferently
contemplating Prescott's hand as it rested on the switch.
"That, sir," replied Prescott slowly, "is an emanation due to this
new force, protodyne, which I use. It is a manifestation of energy,
sir, that may run changes not only through the whole gamut of the
elements, but is capable of transforming the ether itself into
matter, matter into life, and life into mind. It is the outward
sign of the unity of nature, the - "
"The means by which you secure the curious telepagrams I have heard
of?" inquired Kennedy eagerly.
Prescott looked at him sharply, and for a moment I thought his face
seemed to change from a livid white to an apoplectic red, although
it may have been only the play of the weird light. When he spoke
it was with no show of even suppressed surprise.
"Yes," he answered calmly. "I see that you have heard something of
them. I had a curious case a few days ago. I had hoped to interest
a certain capitalist of high standing in this city. I had showed
him just what I have showed you, and I think he was impressed by it.
Then I thought to clinch the matter by a telepagram, but for some
reason or other I failed to consult the forces I control as to the
wisdom of doing so. Had I, I should have known better. But I went
ahead in self-confidence and enthusiasm. I told him of a long
banished daughter with whom, in his heart, he was really wishing to
become reconciled but was too proud to say the word. He resented it.
He started to stamp out of this room, but not before I had another
telepagram which told of - a misfortune that was soon to overtake
the old man himself. If he had given me a chance I might have saved
him, at least have flashed a telepagram to that daughter myself, but
he gave me no chance. He was gone.
"I do not know precisely what happened after that, but in some way
this man found his daughter, and to-day she is living with him. As
for my hopes of getting assistance from him, I lost them from the
moment when I made my initial mistake of telling him something
distasteful. The daughter hates me and I hate her. I have learned
that she never ceases advising the old man against all schemes for
investment except those bearing moderate interest and readily
realised on. Dr. Burnham - I see you know him - has been superseded
by another doctor, I believe. Well, well, I am through with that
incident. I must get assistance from other sources. The old man,
I think, would have tricked me out of the fruits of my discovery
anyhow. Perhaps I am fortunate. Who knows?"
A knock at the door cut him short. Prescott opened it, and a
messenger boy stood there. "Is Professor Kennedy here?" he inquired.
Craig motioned to the boy, signed for the message, and tore it open.
"It is from Dr. Burnham," he exclaimed, handing the message to me.
"Mr. Haswell is dead," I read. "Looks to me like asphyxiation by
gas or some other poison. Come immediately to his house. Burnham."
"You will pardon me," broke in Craig to Prescott, who was regarding
us without the slightest trace of emotion, "but Mr. Haswell, the
old man to whom I know you referred, is dead, and Dr. Burnham wishes
to see me immediately. It was only yesterday that I saw Mr. Haswell
and he seemed in pretty good health and spirits. Prescott, though
there was no love lost between you and the old man, I would esteem
it a great favour if you would accompany me to the house. You need
not take any responsibility unless you desire."
His words were courteous enough, but Craig spoke in a tone of quiet
authority which Prescott found it impossible to deny. Kennedy had
already started to telephone to his own laboratory, describing a
certain suitcase to one of his students and giving his directions.
It was only a moment later that we were panting up the sloping
street that led from the river front. In the excitement I scarcely
noticed where we were going until we hurried up the steps to the
Haswell house.
The aged caretaker met us at the door. She was in tears. Upstairs
in the front room where we had first met the old man we found Dr.
Burnham working frantically over him. It took only a minute to
learn what had happened. The faithful Jane had noticed an odour of
gas in the hall, had traced it to Mr. Haswell's room, had found him
unconscious, and instinctively, forgetting the new Dr. Scott, had
rushed forth for Dr. Burnham. Near the bed stood Grace Martin,
pale but anxiously watching the efforts of the doctor to resuscitate
the blue-faced man who was stretched cold and motionless on the bed.
Dr. Burnham paused in his efforts as we entered. "He is dead, all
right," he whispered, aside. "I have tried everything I know to
bring him back, but he is beyond help."
There was still a sickening odour of illuminating gas in the room,
although the windows were now all open.
Kennedy, with provoking calmness in the excitement, turned from and
ignored Dr. Burnham.
"Have you summoned Dr. Scott?" he asked Mrs. Martin.
"No," she replied, surprised. "Should I have done so?"
"Yes. Send James immediately. Mr. Prescott, will you kindly be
seated for a few moments."
Taking off his coat, Kennedy advanced to the bed where the emaciated
figure lay, cold and motionless. Craig knelt down at Mr. Haswell's
head and took the inert arms, raising them up until they were
extended straight. Then he brought them down, folded upward at the
elbow at the side. Again and again he tried this Sylvester method of
inducing respiration, but with no more result than Dr. Burnham had
secured. He turned the body over on its face and tried the new
Schaefer method. There seemed to be not a spark of life left.
"Dr. Scott is out," reported the maid breathlessly, "but they are
trying to locate him from his office, and if they do they will send
him around immediately."
A ring at the doorbell caused us to think that he had been found,
but it proved to be the student to whom Kennedy had telephoned at
his own laboratory. He was carrying a heavy suitcase and a small
tank.
Kennedy opened the suitcase hastily and disclosed a little motor,
some long tubes of rubber fitting into a small rubber cap, forceps,
and other paraphernalia. The student quickly attached one tube to
the little tank, while Kennedy grasped the tongue of the dead man
with the forceps, pulled it up off the soft palate, and fitted the
rubber cap snugly over his mouth and nose.
"This is the Draeger pulmotor," he explained as he worked, "devised
to resuscitate persons who have died of electric shock, but actually
found to be of more value in cases of asphyxiation. Start the motor."
The pulmotor began to pump. One could see the dead man's chest rise
as it was inflated with oxygen forced by the accordion bellows from
the tank through one of the tubes into the lungs. Then it fell as
the oxygen and the poisonous gas were slowly sucked out through the
other tube. Again and again the process was repeated, about ten
times a minute.
Dr. Burnham looked on in undisguised amazement. He had long since
given up all hope. The man was dead, medically dead, as dead as
ever was any gas victim at this stage on whom all the usual methods
of resuscitation had been tried and had failed.
Still, minute after minute, Kennedy worked faithfully on, trying to
discover some spark of life and to fan it into flame. At last,
after what seemed to be a half-hour of unremitting effort, when the
oxygen had long since been exhausted and only fresh air was being
pumped into the lungs and out of them, there was a first faint
glimmer of life in the heart and a touch of colour in the cheeks.
Haswell was coming to. Another half-hour found him muttering and
rambling weakly.
"The letter - the letter," he moaned, rolling his glazed eyes about.
"Where is the letter? Send for Grace."
The moan was so audible that it was startling. It was like a voice
from the grave. What did it all mean? Mrs. Martin was at his side
in a moment.
"Father, father, - here I am - Grace. What do you want?"
The old man moved restlessly, feverishly, and pressed his trembling
hand to his forehead as if trying to collect his thoughts. He was
weak, but it was evident that he had been saved.
The pulmotor had been stopped. Craig threw the cap to his student
to be packed up, and as he did so he remarked quietly, "I could wish
that Dr. Scott had been found. There are some matters here that
might interest him."
He paused and looked slowly from the rescued man lying dazed on the
bed toward Mrs. Martin. It was quite apparent even to me that she
did not share the desire to see Dr. Scott, at least not just then.
She was flushed and trembling with emotion. Crossing the room
hurriedly she flung open the door into the hall.
"I am sure," she cried, controlling herself with difficulty and
catching at a straw, as it were, "that you gentlemen, even if you
have saved my father, are no friends of either his or mine. You
have merely come here in response to Dr. Burnham, and he came
because Jane lost her head in the excitement and forgot that Dr.
Scott is now our physician."
"But Dr. Scott could not have been found in time, madame,"
interposed Dr. Burnham with evident triumph.
She ignored the remark and continued to hold the door open.
"Now leave us," she implored, "you, Dr. Burnham, you, Mr. Prescott,
you, Professor Kennedy, and your friend Mr. Jameson, whoever you
may be."
She was now cold and calm. In the bewildering change of events we
had forgotten the wan figure on the bed still gasping for the breath
of life. I could not help wondering at the woman's apparent lack
of gratitude, and a thought flashed over my mind. Had the affair
come to a contest between various parties fighting by fair means or
foul for the old man's money - Scott and Mrs. Martin perhaps -=20
against Prescott and Dr. Burnham? No one moved. We seemed to be
waiting on Kennedy. Prescott and Mrs. Martin were now glaring at
each other implacably.
The old man moved restlessly on the bed, and over my shoulder I
could hear him gasp faintly, "Where's Grace? Send for Grace."
Mrs. Martin paid no attention, seemed not to hear, but stood facing
us imperiously as if waiting for us to obey her orders and leave
the house. Burnham moved toward the door, but Prescott stood his
ground with a peculiar air of defiance. Then he took my arm and
started rather precipitately, I thought, to leave.
"Come, come," said somebody behind us, "enough of the dramatics."
It was Kennedy, who had been bending down, listening to the
muttering of the old man.
"Look at those eyes of Mr. Haswell," he said. "What colour are they?"
We looked. They were blue.
"Down in the parlour," continued Kennedy leisurely, "you will find
a portrait of the long deceased Mrs. Haswell. If you will examine
that painting you will see that her eyes are also a peculiarly
limpid blue. o couple with blue eyes ever had a black-eyed child.
At least, if this is such a case, the Carnegie Institution
investigators would be glad to hear of it, for it is contrary to
all that they have discovered on the subject after years of study of
eugenics. Dark-eyed couples may have light-eyed children, but the
reverse, never. What do you say to that, madame?"
"You lie," screamed the woman, rushing frantically past us. "I am
his daughter. No interlopers shall separate us. Father!"
The old man moved feebly away from her.
"Send for Dr. Scott again," she demanded. "See if he cannot be
found. He must be found. You are all enemies, villains."
She addressed Kennedy, but included the whole room in her
denunciation.
"Not all," broke in Kennedy remorselessly. "Yes, madame, send for
Dr. Scott. Why is he not here?"
Prescott, with one hand on my arm and the other on Dr. Burnham's,
was moving toward the door.
"One moment, Prescott," interrupted Kennedy, detaining him with a
look. "There was something I was about to say when Dr. Burnham's
urgent message prevented it. I did not take the trouble even to
find out how you obtained that little globule of molten gold from
the crucible of alleged copper. There are so many tricks by which
the gold could have been 'salted' and brought forth at the right
moment that it was hardly worth while. Besides, I had satisfied
myself that my first suspicions were correct. See that?"
He held out the little piece of mineral I had already seen in his
hand in the alchemist's laboratory.
"That is a piece of willemite. It has the property of glowing
or fluorescing under a certain kind of rays which are themselves
invisible to the human eye. Prescott, your story of the
transmutation of elements is very clever, but not more clever
than your real story. Let us piece it together. I had already
heard from Dr. Burnham how Mr. Haswell was induced by his desire
for gain to visit you and how you had most mysteriously predicted
his blindness. Now, there is no such thing as telepathy, at least
in this case. How then was I to explain it? What could cause
such a catastrophe naturally? Why, only those rays invisible to
the human eye, but which make this piece of willemite glow - the
ultra-violet rays."
Kennedy was speaking rapidly and was careful not to pause long
enough to give Prescott an opportunity to interrupt him.
"These ultra-violet rays," he continued, "are always present in an
electric arc light though not to a great degree unless the carbons
have metal cores. They extend for two octaves above the violet of
the spectrum and are too short to affect the eye as light, although
they affect photographic plates. They are the friend of man when
he uses them in moderation as Finsen did in the famous blue light
treatment. But they tolerate no familiarity. To let them -=20
particularly the shorter of the rays - enter the eye is to invite
trouble. There is no warning sense of discomfort, but from six to
eighteen hours after exposure to them the victim experiences
violent pains in the eyes and headache. Sight may be seriously
impaired, and it may take years to recover. Often prolonged exposure
results in blindness, though a moderate exposure acts like a tonic.
The rays may be compared in this double effect to drugs, such as
strychnine. Too much of them may be destructive even to life itself."
Prescott had now paused and was regarding Kennedy contemptuously.
Kennedy paid no attention, but continued: "Perhaps these mysterious
rays may shed some light on our minds, however. Now, for one thing,
ultra-violet light passes readily through quartz, but is cut off by
ordinary glass, especially if it is coated with chromium. Old Mr.
Haswell did not wear glasses. Therefore he was subject to the rays
- the more so as he is a blond, and I think it has been demonstrated
by investigators that blonds are more affected by them than are
brunettes.
"You have, as a part of your machine, a peculiarly shaped quartz
mercury vapour lamp, and the mercury vapour lamp of a design such
as that I saw has been invented for the especial purpose of
producing ultra-violet rays in large quantity. There are also in
your machine induction coils for the purpose of making an impressive
noise, and a small electric furnace to heat the salted gold. I
don't know what other ingenious fakes you have added. The visible
bluish light from the tube is designed, I suppose, to hoodwink the
credulous, but the dangerous thing about it is the invisible ray
that accompanies that light. Mr. Haswell sat under those invisible
rays, Prescott, never knowing how deadly they might be to him, an
old man.
"You knew that they would not take effect for hours, and hence you
ventured the prediction that he would be stricken at about midnight.
Even if it was partial or temporary, still you would be safe in
your prophecy. You succeeded better than you hoped in that part of
your scheme. You had already prepared the way by means of a letter
sent to Mr. Haswell through Dr. Burnham. But Mr. Haswell's credulity
and fear worked the wrong way. Instead of appealing to you he hated
you. In his predicament he thought only of his banished daughter
and turned instinctively to her for help. That made necessary a
quick change of plans."
Prescott, far from losing his nerve, turned on us bitterly. "I knew
you two were spies the moment I saw you," he shouted. "It seemed as
if in some way I knew you for what you were, as if I knew you had
seen Mr. Haswell before you came to me. You, too, would have robbed
an inventor as I am sure he would. But have a care, both of you.
You may be punished also by blindness for your duplicity. Who knows?"
A shudder passed over me at the horrible thought contained in his
mocking laugh. Were we doomed to blindness, too? I looked at the
sightless man on the bed in alarm.
"I knew that you would know us," retorted Kennedy calmly. "Therefore
we came provided with spectacles of Euphos glass, precisely like
those you wear. No, Prescott, we are safe, though perhaps we may
have some burns like those red blotches on Mr. Haswell, light burns."
Prescott had fallen back a step and Mrs. Martin was making an effort
to appear stately and end the interview.
"No," continued Craig, suddenly wheeling, and startling us by the
abruptness of his next exposure, "it is you and your wife here - Mrs.
Prescott, not Mrs. Martin - who must have a care. Stop glaring at
each other. It is no use playing at enemies longer and trying to
get rid of us. You overdo it. The game is up."
Prescott made a rush at Kennedy, who seized him by the wrist and
held him tightly in a grasp of steel that caused the veins on the
back of his hands to stand out like whipcords.
"This is a deep-laid plot," he went on calmly, still holding
Prescott, while I backed up against the door and cut off his wife;
"but it is not so difficult to see it after all. Your part was to
destroy the eyesight of the old man, to make it necessary for him
to call on his daughter. Your wife's part was to play the role of
Mrs. Martin, whom he had not seen for years and could not see now.
She was to persuade him, with her filial affection, to make her the
beneficiary of his will, to see that his money was kept readily
convertible into cash.
"Then, when the old man was at last out of the way, you two could
decamp with what you could realise before the real daughter, cut
off somewhere across the continent, could hear of the death of her
father. It was an excellent scheme. But Haswell's plain, material
newspaper advertisement was not so effective for your purposes,
Prescott, as the more artistic 'telepagram,' as you call it.
Although you two got in first in answering the advertisement, it
finally reached the right person after all. You didn't get away
quickly enough.
"You were not expecting that the real daughter would see it and
turn up so soon. But she has. She lives in California. Mr.
Haswell in his delirium has just told of receiving a telegram which
I suppose you, Mrs. Prescott, read, destroyed, and acted upon. It
hurried your plans, but you were equal to the emergency. Besides,
possession is nine points in the law. You tried the gas, making it
look like a suicide. Jane, in her excitement, spoiled that, and
Dr. Burnham, knowing where I was, as it happened, was able to
summon me immediately. Circumstances have been against you from
the first, Prescott."
Craig was slowly twisting up the hand of the inventor, which he
still held. With his other hand he pulled a paper from his pocket.
It was the old envelope on which he had written upon the occasion
of our first visit to Mr. Haswell when we had been so unceremoniously
interrupted by the visit of Dr. Scott.