Arthur B. Reeve Crime & Mystery Boxed Set. Arthur B. Reeve

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СКАЧАТЬ I believe, though he told every one that the patent was applied for and he expected to get a basic patent in some way without any interference."

      "Well," drawled Kennedy, affecting as nearly as possible the air of a promoter, "if I could get his assistant, or some one who had authority to be present, would you, as a practical rubber man, go over to his laboratory with me? I'd join you in making an offer to his estate for the rights to the process, if it seemed any good."

      "You're a cool one," ejaculated Borland, with a peculiar avaricious twinkle in the corners of his eyes. "His body is scarcely cold and yet you come around proposing to buy out his invention and—and, of all persons, you come to me."

      "To you?" inquired Kennedy blandly.

      "Yes, to me. Don't you know that synthetic rubber would ruin the business system that I have built up here?"

      Still Craig persisted and argued.

      "Young man," said Borland rising at length as if an idea had struck him, "I like your nerve. Yes, I will go. I'll show you that I don't fear any competition from rubber made out of fusel oil or any other old kind of oil." He rang a bell and a boy answered. "Call Lathrop," he ordered.

      The young chemist, Lathrop, proved to be a bright and active man of the new school, though a good deal of a rubber stamp. Whenever it was compatible with science and art, he readily assented to every proposition that his employer laid down.

      Kennedy had already telephoned to the Winslows and Miss Winslow had answered that Strong had returned from Boston. After a little parleying, the second visit to the laboratory was arranged and Miss Winslow was allowed to be present with her father, after Kennedy had been assured by Strong that the gruesome relics of the tragedy would be cleared away.

      It was in the forenoon that we arrived with Borland and Lathrop. I could not help noticing the cordial manner with which Borland greeted Miss Winslow. There was something obtrusive even in his sympathy. Strong, whom we met now for the first time, seemed rather suspicious of the presence of Borland and his chemist, but made an effort to talk freely without telling too much.

      "Of course you know," commenced Strong after proper urging, "that it has long been the desire of chemists to synthesise rubber by a method that will make possible its cheap production on a large scale. In a general way I know what Mr. Cushing had done, but there are parts of the process which are covered in the patents applied for, of which I am not at liberty to speak yet."

      "Where are the papers in the case, the documents showing the application for the patent, for instance?" asked Kennedy.

      "In the safe, sir," replied Strong.

      Strong set to work on the combination which he had obtained from the safe deposit vault. I could see that Borland and Miss Winslow were talking in a low tone.

      "Are you sure that it is a fact?" I overheard him ask, though I had no idea what they were talking about.

      "As sure as I am that the Borland Kubber Works are a fact," she replied.

      Craig also seemed to have overheard, for he turned quickly. Borland had taken out his penknife and was moistening the blade carefully preparing to cut into a piece of the synthetic rubber. In spite of his expressed scepticism, I could see that he was eager to learn what the product was really like.

      Strong, meanwhile, had opened the safe and was going over the papers. A low exclamation from him brought us around the little pile of documents. He was holding a will in which nearly everything belonging to Cushing was left to Miss Winslow.

      Not a word was said, although I noticed that Kennedy moved quickly to her side, fearing that the shock of the discovery might have a bad effect on her, but she took it with remarkable calmness. It was apparent that Cushing had taken the step of his own accord and had said nothing to her about it.

      "What does anything amount to?" she said tremulously at last. "The dream is dead without him in it."

      "Come," urged Kennedy gently. "This is enough for to-day."

      An hour later we were speeding back to New York. Kennedy had no apparatus to work with out at Goodyear and could not improvise it. Winslow agreed to keep us in touch with any new developments during the few hours that Craig felt it was necessary to leave the scene of action.

      Back again in New York, Craig took a cab directly for his laboratory, leaving me marooned with instructions not to bother him for several hours. I employed the time in a little sleuthing on my own account, endeavouring to look up the records of those involved in the case. I did not discover much, except an interview that had been given at the time of the return of his expedition by Borland to the Star, in which he gave a graphic description of the dangers from disease that they had encountered.

      I mention it because, though it did not impress me much when I read it, it at once leaped into my mind when the interminable hours were over and I rejoined Kennedy. He was bending over a new microscope.

      "This is a rubber age, Walter," he began, "and the stories of men who have been interested in rubber often sound like fiction."

      He slipped a slide under the microscope, looked at it and then motioned to me to do the same. "Here is a very peculiar culture which I have found in some of that blood," he commented. "The germs are much larger than bacteria and they can be seen with a comparatively low power microscope swiftly darting between the blood cells, brushing them aside, but not penetrating them as some parasites, like that of malaria, do. Besides, spectroscope tests show the presence of a rather well-known chemical in that blood."

      "A poisoning, then?" I ventured. "Perhaps he suffered from the disease that many rubber workers get from the bisulphide of carbon. He must have done a good deal of vulcanising of his own rubber, you know."

      "No," smiled Craig enigmatically, "it wasn't that. It was an arsenic derivative. Here's another thing. You remember the field glass I used?"

      He had picked it up from the table and was pointing at a little hole in the side, that had escaped my notice before. "This is what you might call a right-angled camera. I point the glass out of the window and while you think I am looking through it I am really focusing it on you and taking your picture standing there beside me and out of my apparent line of vision. It would deceive the most wary."

      Just then a long-distance call from Winslow told us that Borland had been to call on Miss Ruth and, in as kindly a way as could be, had offered her half a million dollars for her rights in the new patent. At once it flashed over me that he was trying to get control of and suppress the invention in the interests of his own company, a thing that has been done hundreds of times. Or could it all have been part of a conspiracy? And if it was his conspiracy, would he succeed in tempting his friend, Miss Winslow, to fall in with this glittering offer?

      Kennedy evidently thought, also, that the time for action had come, for without a word he set to work packing his apparatus and we were again headed for Goodyear.

      Chapter XVI

      The Blood Test

       Table of Contents

      We arrived late at night, or rather in the morning, but in spite of the late hour Kennedy was up early urging me to help him carry the stuff over to Cushing's laboratory. By the middle of the morning he was ready and had me scouring about town collecting СКАЧАТЬ