Part 23 (2/2)

”You expected at first that the whole thing would be completed in six months.”

”That is true, but I had not reckoned on the contingency of a broken leg.”

”But apart from your accident you were out of your calculations.”

”A little. When you are dependent to so large an extent upon other people, it is impossible to be absolutely sure as to dates.”

”Then your six months may run into nine months?”

”Oh, no; six months more gives a wide margin for every contingency.”

Muller withdrew from the fire and dropped into an easy-chair that Rufus had pulled round for him.

For a moment or two there was silence, then Muller, diving his hand into his breast-pocket, said in his most casual tone, ”You don't mind my having a smoke, do you?”

”My dear fellow, I beg your pardon,” Rufus said, hurriedly, ”but the truth is I was waiting for supper; won't you have something to eat first? The cold drive ought to have given you an appet.i.te!”

”Well, now that you mention it, I think I do feel a bit peckish.”

”You will have to be content with simple fare, but such as I have, etc.,” and he went out of the room to hunt up Mrs. Tuke.

Rufus watched his guest narrowly while he ate, and felt sure that he owed this visit not to the proximity of Longridge, but to some other cause that had not yet been revealed.

Conversation flagged during the meal. Muller ate like a man whose thoughts were engaged somewhere else, and on something vastly more important than eating and drinking.

Rufus began to have an uncomfortable feeling that his visit boded no good, and yet he had not the courage to precipitate matters by asking impertinent questions.

As soon as the supper-tray was taken away, Rufus produced a box of cigars, and for a minute or two they blew smoke in silence.

Muller was the first to speak. Looking at his cigar carefully, as if examining the brand, he said in his most casual manner, ”I suppose, Sterne, you have never considered the possibility of being forestalled in your invention?”

”Well, no,” he said slowly, but with a startled look in his eyes. ”I cannot say that I have ever seriously considered such a possibility.”

”And yet it is notorious in the realm of discovery and invention, that the same idea has been hit upon by different men in different parts of the world almost at the same time.”

”I do not remember that fact being brought clearly to my mind,” Rufus said, wondering if someone had forestalled him.

”It is true, nevertheless. I could give you ill.u.s.trations if I had time.

But what is important at the present moment is that a man away up in Westmorland has got ahead of you.”

”No!” Rufus said, in a tone of alarm.

”Well, perhaps I ought to have said that he appears to have got his claim in first. I do not understand all the technicalities of the case, but he appears to me to have achieved, or to have achieved very largely, the thing you are aiming at,” and he took a newspaper cutting out of his pocket, and pa.s.sed it on to Rufus.

Rufus unfolded the cutting with hands that trembled in spite of himself.

If he had been forestalled then life with him was at an end. The greater part of the thousand pounds was spent or pledged already. Failure meant that he would have now to employ his ingenuity in devising a method of escaping from the world in a way that would not awaken suspicion.

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