THE SCI-FI COLLECTION OF EDGAR WALLACE. Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
and above the sun — she managed to speak with Tim alone.
“I’m quite sure Mr. Colson wants to speak to you,” she said; “and if he does, you are not to worry about us: we can get back, it is downstream all the way.”
“But why on earth do you think that?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “But I have that feeling. And I’m sure he did not want to see you until those two men came.”
How miraculously right she was, was soon proved. As they walked into the garden towards the path leading to the riverside, Colson took the arm of his favourite pupil and, waiting until the others were ahead, he said: “Would it be possible for you to come back and spend the night here, Lensman?”
“Why, yes, sir,” said Tim in astonishment. In his heart of hearts he wanted to explore the place, to see some of the wonders of that great instrument-house which, up to now, Colson had made no offer to show them. What was in the room marked “Planetoid 127”? And the queer receiver on the square tower — that had some unusual significance, he was certain. And, most of all, he wanted to discover whether the science master had been indulging in a little joke at the expense of the party when he claimed to have heard voices that had come to him from one hundred and eighty-six millions of miles away.
“Return when you can,” said Colson in a low voice; “and the sooner the better. There are one or two things that I want to talk over with you — I waited an opportunity to do so last term, but it never arose. Can you get rid of your friends?” Tim nodded. “Very good, then. I will say goodbye to them.”
Tim saw his companions on their way until the punt had turned out of sight round the osiers at the end of the backwater, and then he retraced his steps up the hill. He found the professor waiting for him, pacing up and down the garden, his head on his breast, his hands clasped behind him.
“Come back into the library, Lensman,” he said; and then, with a note of anxiety in his voice: “You did not see those precious scoundrels?”
“Which precious scoundrels? You mean Dawes and Hildreth?”
“Those are the gentlemen,” said the other. “You wouldn’t imagine, from my excited appearance when I returned to you, that they had offered me no less than a million pounds?”
Tim stared in amazement at the master.
“A million pounds, sir?” he said incredulously, and for the first time began to doubt the other’s reason.
“A million pounds,” repeated Colson, quietly enjoying the sensation he had created. “You will be able to judge by your own ears whether I am insane, as I imagine you believe me to be, or whether this wretched relative of mine and his friend are similarly afflicted. And, by the way, you will be interested to learn that there have been three burglaries in this house during the last month.”
Tim gaped. “But surely, sir, that is very serious?”
“It would have been very serious for the burglars if I had, on either occasion, the slightest suspicion that they were in the grounds,” said Mr. Colson. “They would have been certainly electrified and possibly killed! But on every occasion when they arrived, it happened that I did not wish for a live electric current to surround the house: that would have been quite sufficient to have thrown out of gear the delicate instruments I was using at the time.”
He led the way into his library, and sank down with a weary sigh into the depths of a large armchair.
“If I had only known what I know now,” he said, “I doubt very much whether, even in the interests of science, I would have subjected myself to the ordeal through which I have been passing during the last four years.”
Tim did not answer, and Mr. Colson went on: “There are moments when I doubt my own sanity — when I believe that I shall awake from a dream, and find that all these amazing discoveries of mine are the figments of imagination due, in all probability, to an indiscreet supper at a very late hour of night!”
He chuckled softly at his own little joke.
“Lensman, I have a secret so profound that I have been obliged to follow the practice of the ancient astronomers.”
He pointed through the window to a square stone that stood in the centre of the garden, a stone which the boy had noticed before, though he had dismissed it at once as a piece of meaningless ornamentation.
“That stone?” he asked.
Colson nodded.
“Come, I will show it to you,” he said, rising to his feet. He opened a door in what appeared to be the solid wall, and Tim followed him into the garden.
The stone stood upon an ornamental plinth and was carved with two columns of figures and letters:
E 6 O 1
T 2 D 4
H 4 L 1
A 1 N 3
W 1 U 1
R 2 B 1
I 3 S 2
“But what on earth does that mean?”
“It is a cryptogram,” said Mr. Colson quietly. “When Heyghens made his discovery about Saturn’s rings, he adopted this method to prevent himself from being forestalled in the discovery. I have done the same.”
“But what does it mean?” asked the puzzled Tim.
“That you will one day learn,” said the professor, as they walked back to the house.
His keen ears heard a sound and he pulled out his watch.
“Our friends are here already,” he said in a lower voice.
They went back to the library and closed the door, and presently the butler appeared to announce the visitors.
The attitude of the two newcomers was in remarkable contrast. Mr. Hildreth was self-assured, a man of the world to his fingertips, and greeted the professor as though he were his oldest friend and had come at his special invitation. Mr. Dawes, on the contrary, looked thoroughly uncomfortable.
Tim had a look at the great financier, and he was not impressed. There was something about those hard eyes which was almost repellent.
After perfunctory greetings had passed, there was an awkward pause, and the financier looked at Tim.
“My friend, Mr. Lensman, will be present at this interview,” said Colson, interpreting the meaning of that glance.
“He is rather young to dabble in high finance, isn’t he?” drawled the other.
“Young or old, he’s staying,” said Colson, and the man shrugged his shoulders.
“I hope this discussion will be carried on in a calm atmosphere,” he said. “As your young friend probably knows, I have made you an offer of a million pounds, on the understanding that you will turn over to me all the information which comes to you by — er — a — —” his lip curled— “mysterious method, into which we will not probe too deeply.”
“You might have saved yourself the journey,” said Colson calmly. “Indeed, I could have made my answer a little more final, if it were possible; but it was my wish that you should be refused in the presence of a trustworthy witness. I do not want your millions — I wish to have nothing whatever to do with you.”
“Be reasonable,” murmured Dawes, who took no important part in the conversation.
Him the old man ignored, and stood waiting for the financier’s reply.
“I’ll put it very plainly to you, Colson,” said Hildreth, sitting easily on the edge of the table. “You’ve cost me a lot of money. I don’t know where you get your market ‘tips’ from, but you’re most infernally right. You undercut my market