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 Jame 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 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.
No 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 ultraviolet 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--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.
"I sat here yesterday by this bed," continued Craig, motioning toward
the chair he had occupied, as I remembered. "Mr. Haswell was telling
Dr. Scott something in an undertone. I could not hear it. But the old
man grasped the doctor by the wrist to pull him closer to whisper to
him. The doctor's hand was toward me and I noticed the peculiar
markings of the veins.