THE SCI-FI COLLECTION OF EDGAR WALLACE. Edgar Wallace
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the shattered apparatus one of the most brilliant of mechanical minds of the country was rebuilding the broken instruments. Sir Charles Layman, one of the foremost scientific minds in England, had been called into consultation by the lawyer, and to him Tim had related as much as he knew of Professor Colson’s secret.
“I knew Colson,” said Sir Charles; “he was undoubtedly a genius. But this story you tell me takes us into the realm of fantasy. It isn’t possible that life can exist on the sun; and really, young gentleman, I can’t help feeling that you have been deceived over these mysterious voices.”
“Then three people were deceived,” said Tim firmly. “My friend Chap West and his sister both heard the speaker. And Mr. Colson was not the kind of man who would descend to trickery.”
Sir Charles pursed his lips and shook his head.
“It does seem most extraordinary. And frankly, I cannot understand the functions of these instruments. It is quite possible, as Colson said, that there are sounds come to this earth so fine, and pitched in such a key, that the human ear cannot catch them. And I am pretty sure that what he called a ‘sound strainer’ was an amplifier on normal lines. But the mysterious world — where is it? Life in some form may exist on a planetoid, but it is almost certain that these small masses which whirl through space in the zone between Mars and Jupiter are barren globules of rock as dead as the moon and innocent of atmosphere. There are a thousand-and-one reasons why life could not exist on these planetoids; and of course the suggestion that there can be life on the sun is preposterous.”
He walked up and down the library, smoothing his bushy white beard, his brows corrugated in a grimace of baffled wonder.
“Most scientists,” he said at last, “work to the observations of some pet observer — did the Professor ever mention an astronomer whose calculations he was endeavouring to verify?”
Tim thought for a moment.
“Yes, sir, I remember he spoke once or twice of Professor Watson, an American. I remember once he was lecturing to our school on Kepler’s Law, and he mentioned the discoveries of Mr. Watson.”
“Watson?” said Sir Charles slowly. “Surely he was the fellow who thought he found Vulcan, a planet supposed by some people to revolve about the sun within the orbit of Mercury. As a matter of fact, what he saw, during an eclipse of the sun, was the two stars, Theta and Zeta Cankri, or, more likely, the star 20 Cankri, which must have been somewhere in the position that Watson described on the day he made his discovery.”
Then he asked, with sudden interest:
“Did Professor Colson believe in the existence of Vulcan?”
Tim shook his head. “No, sir, he derided the idea.”
“He was right,” nodded Sir Charles. “Vulcan is a myth. There may be intra-Mercurial bodies revolving about the sun, but it is extremely unlikely. You have found no data, no photographs?”
The word “photograph” reminded Tim. “Yes, there is a book full of big enlargements, but mostly of a solar eclipse,” he said. “They were taken on Friday Island last year.”
“Would you get them for me?” asked Sir Charles, interested.
Tim went out and returned with a portfolio, which he opened on the table. Sir Charles turned picture after picture without speaking a word, then he laid half a dozen apparently similar photographs side by side and pored over them with the aid of a magnifying-glass. They were the conventional type of astronomical photo: the black disc of the moon, the bubbling white edges of the corona; but evidently Sir Charles had seen something else, for presently he indicated a speck with a stylo.
“These photographs were taken by different cameras,” he said. “And yet they all have this.”
He pointed to the pinpoint of white which had escaped Tim’s observation. It was so much part of the flame of the corona that it seemed as though it were a spark thrown out by one of those gigantic irruptions of ignited gas that flame up from the sun’s surface.
“Surely that is a speck of dust on the negative?” said Tim.
“But it is on all the negatives,” said Sir Charles emphatically. “No, I cannot be sure for the moment, but if that is not Zeta or Theta Cankris — it is too large for the star 20 Cankris — then we may be on the way to rediscovering Professor Colson’s world!”
At his request, Tim left him, whilst, with the aid of charts and almanacs, he plunged into intricate calculations.
When Tim closed the door and came into the corridor he saw the old butler waiting.
“Mr. Hildreth is here, sir,” said the man in a low voice, as though he also suspected the sinister character of the financier. “I’ve put him in the blue drawingroom: will you see him, sir?”
Tim nodded and followed the servant.
Hildreth was standing by a window, looking out upon the lawn, his hands behind him, and he turned, with a quick, birdlike motion as he heard the sound of the turning handle.
“Mr. Lensman,” he said, “I want a few words with you alone.”
The young man dismissed the butler with a gesture.
“Well, sir?” he asked quietly.
“I understand that you have engaged in a little speculation. You are rather young to dabble in high finance,” drawled Hildreth.
“Do you mean Black Sea Oils?” asked Tim bluntly.
“I had that stock in mind. What made you buy, Mr. Lensman — or rather, what made your trustee buy, for I suppose that, as you’re under age, you would hardly carry out the transaction yourself.”
“I bought because I am satisfied that Black Sea Oils will rise.”
A slow smile dawned on Hildreth’s hawklike face.
“If you had come to me,” he said coolly, “I could have saved you a great deal of money. Black Sea Oils to-day stand at fifty shillings: they are worth less than fivepence! You are little more than a boy,” he went on suavely, “and I can well understand how the temptation to gamble may have overcome you. But I was a friend of Colson’s, and I do not like the thought of your money being wasted. I will take all the stock off your hands, paying you at the price you paid for it.”
“That is very generous of you,” said Tim drily, “but I am not selling. And as for Mr. Colson being a friend of yours—”
“A very good friend,” interrupted the other quickly, “and if you tell people that he and I were enemies it may cost you more than you bargain for!”
There was no mistaking the threat in his tone, but Tim was not to be browbeaten.
“Mr. Hildreth,” he said quietly, “nobody knows better than you that you were bad friends with Mr. Colson. He was constantly spoiling your market — you said as much. You believed that he was possessed of information which enabled him to operate to your detriment, and you knew this information came by wireless, because you had listened-in, without, however, understanding the language in which the messages came. You guessed there was a code, and I believe that you made one or two efforts to secure that code. Your last effort ended in the death of my friend!”
Chapter VI
Hildreth’s face went white.
“Do you suggest that I am responsible for Colson’s death?”
“You were responsible directly and indirectly,” said Tim. “You sent a man here to steal the codebook — a man who has been identified this afternoon as a notorious criminal. Whether you told him to shoot, or whether he shot to save his skin, we shall never know. The