He said suddenly, "All right, Virgie. You're entitled to something for
having kept faith. I tell you what I'll do--I'll let you in on what
I'm doing here."
All at once, the little muscles at the back of my neck began to tense
up.
He would do _what_? "Let me in" on something? It was an unpleasantly
familiar phrase. I had used it myself all too often.
"To begin with," said the Greek, focusing attentively on me, "you
wonder, perhaps, what I was doing when you came in."
"I do," I said.
He hesitated. "Certain--particles, which are of importance to my
research, have a tendency to go free. I can keep them under a measure
of control only by means of electrostatic forces, generated in this."
He waved the thing that looked like a toaster on a stick. "And as for
what they do--well, watch."
* * * * *
El Greco began to putter with gleamy, glassy gadgets on one of the
tables and I watched him with, I admit, a certain amount of suspicion.
"What are you doing, Greek?" I asked pretty bluntly.
He looked up. Surprisingly, I saw that the suspicion was mutual; he
frowned and hesitated. Then he shook his head.
"No," he said. "For a minute I--but I can trust you, can't I? The man
who kept my secret for ten long years."
"Of course," I said.
"All right." He poured water out of a beaker into a U-shaped tube,
open at both ends. "Watch," he said. "Remember any of your college
physics?"
"The way things go, I haven't had much time to keep up with--"
"All the better, all the better," he said. "Then you won't be able to
steal anything."