He signed in his accustomed precise script.

“You realize, of course, that we cannot margin this stock, being on the Curb, and poor bank collateral.”

“Of course,” said Edmond. “I will provide sufficient security.” So he departed.

CHAPTER IV

PUZZLEMENT

BOHN and Hoffman presented themselves at Edmond’s home promptly in accordance with their appointment. Magda admitted them, and directed them to the upper rear room that served as his laboratory. They found him seated facing the door, idle, and toying with little Homo who chattered furiously at them. Edmond returned their cold greetings without rising, indicating two wooden chairs beside the long table.

Hoffman sat down quietly and faced Edmond, but his companion’s eyes ranged sharply about the room. Bohn noted the blackened windows, and a peculiar shade in the illumination of the room struck him. He glanced at the lights—two bulbs of high capacity of the type called daylight, under whose blue-white glare the group assumed a corpse-like grayness. Their host was hideous, Bohn thought; curious thing, he continued mentally, since his features were not irregular. The repulsion was something behind appearances, some fundamental difference in nature. He continued his inspection, considering now the equipment of the laboratory. A small motor-generator in the far comer, probably as a direct-current source, beside it a transformer, and next to that the condenser and hollow cylinder of a rather large high-frequency coil. A flat bowl of mercury rested on a little turn-table at his elbow; he gave it a twist, and it spun silently, the liquid metal rising about the sides of the bowl in a perfect parabolic mirror. Struck by a sudden thought, e glanced at the ceiling; there was a shutter there that might open on a skylight. For the rest, jars of liquid, some apparently containing algae, a sickly plant or two on a shelf below the black window, and two white rabbits dolefully munching greens in a cage on the windowless wall. Simple enough equipment!

Edmond meanwhile had dismissed the monkey, who backed away from the group, regarded the strangers with bright intelligent eyes and scampered out into the hallway.

“You are not impressed, Mr. Bohn.”

“Hardly,” Bohn bitterly resented the implied sneer. “The tools are less important than the hand that wields them.”

“Let’s get down to business,” said Bohn.

“Very well,” said their host. “Will you be so kind as to lift that reflector to the table?”

He indicated one of several wooden bowls perhaps eighteen inches across whose inner surfaces seemed blackened as if charred or rubbed with graphite. Bohn stooped to lift it; it was surprisingly heavy, necessitating the use of both his hands. He placed it on the table before Edmond.

“Thank you. Now if you will watch me …”

He opened a drawer in the table, removing from it a spool of heavy wire and a whitened cardboard square perhaps four inches to a side.

“This is lead wire. This cardboard is coated with calcium fluoride.”

He passed the articles to Bohn, who received them with patient skepticism.

“I want you to see that the wire is inactive. I will extinguish the lights”—the room was suddenly and mysteriously dark—“and you will note that the board does not fluoresce.”

Bohn rubbed the wire across the square, but there was no result whatsoever. The lights were suddenly glowing again; the wire and square were unchanged save for a scratch or two on the latter’s white surface.

“Your demonstration is convincing,” said Bohn sardonically. “We feel assured that the wire is innocent and harmless.”

“Pass it here, then, and I will give it its fangs.” Edmond unwound some six inches from the spool, leaving it still attached, extended out like a little wand. He drew three cords from points on the edge of his reflector; at the apex of the tetrahedron thus formed he gathered the ends. To mark this elusive point in space he moved a ring stand beside the bowl setting a clamp to designate the intersection of his bits of string which he allowed to drop.

“A simple method of locating the focus,” he explained. “As the black surface of my reflector does not reflect light, I have to use other means. The focal length, as you see, is about thirty centimeters. The reflector itself is not parabolic, but spherical.