THE MASTER MYSTERY. Arthur B. Reeve

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      Chapter III

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      Brent had no intention of keeping the promise which Balcom had extracted from him by a species of moral duress that afternoon.

      In fact, already he had gone too far in his plans for restitution—or was it self-preservation?—to turn back. It was late in the night that he himself secretly admitted to the house a tall, dark-haired stranger who evidently called by appointment.

      "Well, Flint," he greeted, in a hushed tone, "what was it you asked to see me about?"

      Flint replied not a word, but impressively tapped a bundle which he carried under his arm and began to undo the cord which bound it.

      Brent looked startled, then caught himself. He had known Flint for some time—an adventurer, more or less unscrupulous, who had been the foreign representative of International Patents.

      Flint took off his coat and threw it on a chair with an air of assurance that seemed to increase Brent's anxiety, then began again to untie the bulky package.

      "Just a moment, Flint," cautioned Brent, stopping him.

      With an air of uneasy secrecy Brent hurried to the door that led from the dining-room to the conservatory and bolted it securely. Then he made sure that the door to the library was bolted.

      As he did so he did not see his secretary, Zita, watching in the hall, for the footsteps of Locke, approaching, had caught her quick ear and she had fled.

      "Locke!" called Brent, hearing his laboratory, manager. "Under no circumstances allow me to be disturbed to-night."

      "Very well, sir," responded Locke.

      Just then the light step of Eva was heard on the stairs.

      "What's the matter, father?" she asked, still upset by the events of the afternoon. "Is there anything wrong?"

      "No, my dear, nothing," hastily replied Brent. "In the morning I shall have something to say to you. Now run along like a good girl."

      Dutifully Eva turned. Brent watched her out of sight. Then with a keen look at Locke he pulled out a paper from his pocket and handed it to the young scientist, who read:

      Brent,—This is my last warning. If you persist in your course you will be struck down by the Madagascar madness.

      Q.

      Locke looked up from the scrawl in alarmed perplexity.

      "What does this mean?" he queried.

      Brent merely shook his head cryptically.

      "Study this message. I shall have something very important to tell you in the morning."

      As Brent turned back into the library he paused a moment and looked after Locke, hesitating, as if he would call him back. Then he decided not to do so, turned, and carefully locked the door from the dining-room into the hallway.

      Eva was waiting at the head of the stairs as Locke, perplexed by the strange actions of his employer, came up.

      "What is the trouble?" she repeated, anxiously. "Please tell me. Is there anything wrong?"

      "No—nothing," reassured Locke, in spite of his own doubt. "Everything is all right."

      "I hope so." Eva lingered. "Good night."

      Locke bowed admiringly. But there was the same restraint in his look that had been shown in the afternoon.

      "Good night," he murmured, slowly.

      Eva quite understood, and there was a smile of encouragement on her face as she turned away and flitted down the hall to her room.

      Outside, Zita had hurried from the house to the nearest public telephone-booth and was frantically calling Balcom at his apartment.

      "Mr. Balcom," she repeated, breathlessly, as the junior partner answered, "Flint has returned. I have seen him."

      "The devil!" exclaimed Balcom, angrily, then checked himself before he said any more. "Keep me informed."

      Abruptly he hung up.

      It was scarcely a moment later that Paul Balcom entered the Balcom apartment, admitted by a turbaned black suggestive of the Orient.

      Paul was surly and had evidently been drinking, for he shoved the servant roughly out of the way as he strode toward his father.

      Apparently outside Paul had overheard and had gathered the drift of what Balcom had been saying. Or perhaps, from his own sources of information, he already knew. At any rate, as Balcom turned from the telephone, father and son faced each other angrily.

      "Brent's lying," exclaimed Paul. "That marriage to me must take place to-morrow."

      Talking angrily, sometimes in agreement, at others far apart, the two left the room.

      Back in the dining-room by this time Brent had rejoined Flint and now watched him eagerly as he took the last wrappings from the package which he had carried so carefully.

      As the last wrapping was stripped from it, on the table before them lay a small steel model, perhaps three feet high—a weird-looking thing in the miniature shape of a man, designed along lines that only a cubist could have conceived—jointed, mobile, truly a contrivance at which to marvel.

      Brent gazed incredulously at the strange thing. "An automaton!" he exclaimed.

      "More than that," replied Flint, calmly.

      Flint unrolled a chart of the human nervous system and spread it out on the table. Pointing to the brain, he leaned over tensely, and whispered:

      "This model is merely a piece of mechanism. But the real automaton possesses a human brain which has been transplanted into it and made to guide it."

      For a moment Brent listened incredulously, then sat back in his chair and laughed skeptically. But even Flint recognized that there was a hollowness in the laughter.

      "Do you mean to tell me," demanded Brent, "that a human brain has been made to control a thing of no use except as a terrible engine of destruction?"

      "Not only possible," reiterated Flint, "but it is true."

      "Oh, Flint," rallied Brent, with a sort of uneasiness, "you can't tell me that!"

      "Believe it or not," insisted the adventurer, "I have been in Madagascar and I know."

      For a moment Brent paused at the vehemence of Flint's answer. What had Flint to gain by misrepresentation? A thousand images of the СКАЧАТЬ