XXXVI. THE MAN WITHIN AND THE MAN WITHOUT
An instant of silence, during which the two men eyed each other; then,Sweetwater, with an ironical smile directed towards the pistol lightlyremarked:
"Mr. Challoner and other men at the hotel are acquainted with my purposeand await my return. I have come--" here he cast a glowing look atthe huge curtain cutting off the greater portion of the illy-litinterior--"to offer you my services, Mr. Brotherson. I have no othermotive for this intrusion than to be of use. I am deeply interested inyour invention, to the development of which I have already lent someaid, and can bring to the test you propose a sympathetic help which youcould hardly find in any other person living."
The silence which settled down at the completion of these words had aweight which made that of the previous moment seem light and all athrobwith sound. The man within had not yet caught his breath; the manwithout held his, in an anxiety which had little to do with thedirection of the weapon, into which he looked. Then an owl hooted faraway in the forest, and Orlando, slowly lowering his arm, asked in anoddly constrained tone:
"How long have you been in town?"
The answer cut clean through any lingering hope he may have had.
"Ever since the day your brother was told the story of his greatmisfortune."
"Ah! still at your old tricks! I thought you had quit that business asunprofitable."
"I don't know. I never expect quick returns. He who holds on for a risesometimes reaps unlooked-for profits."
The arm and fist of Orlando Brotherson ached to hurl this fellow backinto the heart of the midnight woods.
But they remained quiescent and he spoke instead. "I have buried thebusiness. You will never resuscitate it through me."
Sweetwater smiled. There was no mirth in his smile though there waslightness in his tone as said:
"Then let us go back to the matter in hand. You need a helper; where areyou going to find one if you don't take me?"
A growl from Brotherson's set lips. Never had he looked more dangerousthan in the one burning instant following this daring repetition ofthe detective's outrageous request. But as he noted how slight was thefigure opposing him from the other side of the threshold, he was swayedby his natural admiration of pluck in the physically weak, and lost histhreatening attitude, only to assume one which Sweetwater secretly foundit even harder to meet.
"You are a fool," was the stinging remark he heard flung at him. "Do youwant to play the police-officer here and arrest me in mid air?"
"Mr. Brotherson, you understand me as little as I am supposed tounderstand you. Humble as my place is in society and, I may add, in theDepartment whose interests I serve, there are in me two men. One youknow passably well--the detective whose methods, only indifferentlyclever show that he has very much to learn. Of the other--the workmanacquainted with hammer and saw, but with some knowledge too of highermathematics and the principles upon which great mechanical inventionsdepend, you know little, and must imagine much. I was playing the gawkywhen I helped you in the old house in Brooklyn. I was interested inyour air-ship--Oh, I recognised it for what it was, notwithstanding itsoddity and lack of ostensible means for flying--but I was not caught inthe whirl of its idea; the idea by which you doubtless expect, and withvery good reason too, to revolutionise the science of aviation. Butsince then I've been thinking it over, and am so filled with your ownhopes that either I must have a hand in the finishing and sailing of theone you have yourself constructed, or go to work myself on the hints youhave unconsciously given me, and make a car of my own."
Audacity often succeeds where subtler means fail. Orlando, with acurious twist of his strong lip, took hold of the detective's arm anddrew him in, shutting and locking the door carefully behind him.
"Now," said he, "you shall tell me what you think you have discovered,to make any ideas of your own available in the manufacture of a superiorself-propelling air-ship."
Sweetwater who had been so violently wheeled about in entering that hestood with his back to the curtain concealing the car, answered withouthesitation.
"You have a device, entirely new so far as I can judge, by which thiscar can leap at once into space, hold its own in any direction, andalight again upon any given spot without shock to the machine or dangerto the people controlling it."
"Explain the device."
"I will draw it."
"You can?"
"As I see it."
"As you see it!"
"Yes. It's a brilliant idea; I could never have conceived it."
"You believe--"
"I know."
"Sit here. Let's see what you know."
Sweetwater sat down at the table the other pointed out, and drawingforward a piece of paper, took up a pencil with an easy air. Brothersonapproached and stood at his shoulder. He had taken up his pistol again,why he hardly knew, and as Sweetwater began his marks, his fingerstightened on its butt till they turned white in the murky lamplight.
"You see," came in easy tones from the stooping draughtsman, "I have animagination which only needs a slight fillip from a mind like yours tosend it in the desired direction. I shall not draw an exact reproductionof your idea, but I think you will see that I understand it very well.How's that for a start?"
Brotherson looked and hastily drew back. He did not want the other tonote his surprise.
"But that is a portion you never saw," he loudly declared.
"No, but I saw this," returned Sweetwater, working busily on somecurves; "and these gave me the fillip I mentioned. The rest cameeasily."
Brotherson, in dread of his own anger, threw his pistol to the other endof the shed:
"You knave! You thief!" he furiously cried.
"How so?" asked Sweetwater smilingly, rising and looking him calmly inthe face. "A thief is one who appropriates another man's goods, or, letus say, another man's ideas. I have appropriated nothing yet. I've onlyshown you how easily I could do so. Mr. Brotherson, take me in as yourassistant. I will be faithful to you, I swear it. I want to see thatmachine go up."
"For how many people have you drawn those lines?" thundered theinexorable voice.
"For nobody; not for myself even. This is the first time they have lefttheir hiding-place in my brain."
"Can you swear to that?"
"I can and will, if you require it. But you ought to believe my word,sir. I am square as a die in all matters not connected--well, notconnected with my profession," he smiled in a burst of that whimsicalhumour, which not even the seriousness of the moment could quitesuppress.
"And what surety have I that you do not consider this very matter ofmine as coming within the bounds you speak of?"
"None. But you must trust me that far."
Brotherson surveyed him with an irony which conveyed a very differentmessage to the detective than any he had intended. Then quickly:
"To how many have you spoken, dilating upon this device, and publishingabroad my secret?"
"I have spoken to no one, not even to Mr. Gryce. That shows my honestyas nothing else can."
"You have kept my secret intact?"
"Entirely so, sir."
"So that no one, here or elsewhere, shares our knowledge of the newpoints in this mechanism?"
"I say so, sir."
"Then if I should kill you," came in ferocious accents, "now--here--"
"You would be the only one to own that knowledge. But you won't killme."
"Why?"
"Need I go into reasons?"
"Why? I say."
"Because your conscience is already too heavily laden to bear the burdenof another unprovoked crime."
Brotherson, starting back, glared with open ferocity upon the man whodared to face him with such an accusation.
"God! why didn't I shoot you on entrance!" he cried. "Your courage iscertainly colossal."
A fine smile, without even the hint of humour now, touched the daringdetective's lip. Brotherson's anger seemed to grow under it, and heloudly repeated:
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"It's more than colossal; it's abnormal and--" A moment's pause, thenwith ironic pauses--"and quite unnecessary save as a matter of display,unless you think you need it to sustain you through the ordeal you arecourting. You wish to help me finish and prepare for flight?"
"I sincerely do."
"You consider yourself competent?"
"I do."
Brotherson's eyes fell and he walked once to the extremity of the ovalflooring and back.
"Well, we will grant that. But that's not all that is necessary. Myrequirements demand a companion in my first flight. Will you go up inthe car with me on Saturday night?"
A quick affirmative was on Sweetwater's lips but the glimpse which hegot of the speaker's face glowering upon him from the shadows into whichBrotherson had withdrawn, stopped its utterance, and the silence grewheavy. Though it may not have lasted long by the clock, the instant ofbreathless contemplation of each other's features across the interveningspace was of incalculable moment to Sweetwater, and, possibly, toBrotherson. As drowning men are said to live over their whole historybetween their first plunge and their final rise to light and air, sothrough the mind of the detective rushed the memories of his past andthe fast fading glories of his future; and rebelling at the subtle perilhe saw in that sardonic eye, he vociferated an impulsive:
"No! I'll not--" and paused, caught by a new and irresistible sensation.
A breath of wind--the first he had felt that night--had swept in throughsome crevice in the curving wall, flapping the canvas enveloping thegreat car. It acted like a peal to battle. After all, a man must takesome risks in his life, and his heart was in this trial of a redoubtablemechanism in which he had full faith. He could not say no to theprospect of being the first to share a triumph which would send his nameto the ends of the earth; and, changing the trend of his sentence, herepeated with a calmness which had the force of a great decision.
"I will not fail you in anything. If she rises--" here his tremblinghand fell on the curtain shutting off his view of the ship, "she shalltake me with her, so that when she descends I may be the first tocongratulate the proud inventor of such a marvel."
"So be it!" shot from the other's lips, his eyes losing theirthreatening look, and his whole countenance suddenly aglow with theenthusiasm of awakened genius.
Coming from the shadows, he laid his hand on the cord regulating therise and fall of the concealing curtain.
"Here she is!" he cried and drew the cord.
The canvas shook, gathered itself into great folds and disappeared inthe shadows from which he had just stepped.
The air-car stood revealed--a startling, because wholly unique, vision.
Long did Sweetwater survey it, then turning with beaming face upon thewatchful inventor, he uttered a loud Hurrah.
Next moment, with everything forgotten between them save the glories ofthis invention, both dropped simultaneously to the floor and began thatminute examination of the mechanism necessary to their mutual work.