A man burst into the laboratory, a short, thick-set, dark man, hair disheveled and his face showing every evidence of the fact that he had not shaved for some time. His eyes were wild—his lips were twitching, he stood with clenched hands looking about him. Then his pale face seemed to grow a shade paler. Those staring eyes became focused upon the body lying on the sofa.
“Good God!” he muttered, and then addressing Smith:
“Who are you? What has happened?”
“Doctor Martin Jasper, I presume?”
“Yes, yes! But who are you? What does this mean?”
“My name is Nayland Smith; this is Mr. Bart Kerrigan. What it means. Doctor Jasper, is that your associate Mr. Os.aki has died in your place!”
Dr. Martin Jasper
“You are indeed a fortunate man to be alive.” Nayland Smith gazed sternly at the physicist. “You have been preparing a deadly weapon of warfare—not for the protection of your own country, but for the use of a belligerent nation.”
“I am entitled,” said Dr Jasper, shakily wiping his wet brow, “to act independently if I choose to do so.”
“You see the consequences. As he lies so you might be lying. No, Doctor Jasper. You had received three notices, I believe, from the Si-Fan.”
Dr Jasper’s twitching nervousness became even more manifest.
“I had—but how do you know?”
“It happens to be my business to know. The Si-Fan, sir, cannot be ignored.”
“I know! I know!”
The doctor suddenly dropped on to a chair beside one of the benches and buried his disheveled head in his hands.
“I have been playing with fire, but Osaki, who urged me to it, is the sufferer!”
He was very near to the end of his resources; this was plain enough, but:
“I am going to suggest,” said Nayland Smith, speaking in a quiet voice, “that you retire and sleep, for if ever a man needed rest, you do. But first I regret duty demands that I ask a few questions.”
Dr Jasper, save for the twitching of his hands, did not stir.
“What were the Si-Fan’s orders?”
“That I deliver to them the completed plans and a model of my vacuum charger.”
“This invention, I take it, gives a great advantage to those employing it?”
“Yes.” His voice was little more than a whisper. “It increases the present range of a rifle rather more than fifty per cent.”
To whom were you to deliver these plans and model?”
“To a woman who would be waiting in a car by the R.A.C call box at the comer of the London Road.”
“A woman!”
“Yes. A time was stated at which the woman would be waiting at this point. Failing my compliance, I was told that on receipt of a third and final notice at any hour during the twelve which would be allotted to me, if I cared to go to this call box, I should be met there by a representative.”
“Yes?” Smith urged gently “Go on.”
The speaker’s voice grew lower and lower.
“I showed these notes to Osaki.”
“Where are they now?”
“He took them all. He urged me, always he urged me, to ignore them. By tonight I thought that my experiments would be completed, that I should have revolutionized the subject. He was to meet me here in the laboratory, and we both fully anticipated that the charger would be an accomplished fact.”
“He had a key of the laboratory?”
“Yes.”
Nayland Smith nodded to me.
“Just before half past eleven an awful dread possessed me. I thought that the price which I should receive for this invention would be useless to a dead man. Just before Osaki was due I took my plans, my model—everything, slipped on a light coat, in the pockets of which I placed all the fruits of my experiments, and ran—I do not exaggerate—ran to the appointed spot.”
“What did you find? By whom were you met?” Smith snapped.
‘There was a car drawn up on the north side of the road. A woman was just stepping into it—”
“Describe her.”
“She is beautiful—dark—slender. I know her as Mrs. Milton. I know now she is a spy!”
“Quite enough. What happened?”
“She seemed to be much disturbed as I hurried up. Her eyes—she has remarkable eyes—opened almost with a look of horror.”
“What did she do—what did she say?”
“She said: Doctor Jasper, are you here to meet me?’ I was utterly dumbfounded. I knew in that awful moment what a fool I had been! But I replied that I was.”
“What did she say then?”
“She enumerated the items which I had been ordered to deliver up - took them from me one by one . . . and returned to the car. Her parting words were,”You have been wise.’“
Then your invention, complete and practical, is now in the hands of the Si-Fan?”
“It is!” groaned Dr Jasper.
“Some deadly thing,” said Nayland Smith bitterly, “was placed in the laboratory during the time that your key remained in the door—for in your nervous state you forgot to remove it. A few moments later Osaki entered. Someone who was watching mistook Osaki for you. The shots heard by the butler were a signal to that call box. The phone call is the clue! It was Osaki who took it . . .”
Inspector Gallaho dashed into the laboratory.
“I have traced the call,” he said huskily—”the local police are of some use after all! It’s a box about half a mile from here, on the London Road.”
“I know,” said Smith wearily.
“You know, sir!” growled Gallaho, then suddenly noticing Dr Martin Jasper: “Who the devil have we here?”
The doctor raised his haggard face from his hands.
“Someone who has no right to be alive,” he replied.
Gallaho began chewing phantom gum.
“I said the local police were of some use,” he went on truculently, staring at Nayland Smith. “What I mean is this: They have the woman who made the call.”
“What!”
Smith became electrified; his entire expression changed.
“Yes. I roused everybody, had every car challenged, and luckily got a description of the one we wanted from a passing A.A. scout who had seen it standing near the box. The village constable at Greystones very cleverly spotted the right one. The woman is now at police headquarters there, sir! I suggest we proceed to Greystones at once.”
Constable Isles’s Statement
When presently Smith, Gallaho and I set out in the police car for Greystones, we had succeeded in learning a little more about the mysterious Mrs. Milton. A police inspector and the police surgeon we had left behind at Great Oaks; but as Nayland Smith said, what expert opinion had failed to learn in regard to the death of General Quinto local talent could not hope to find out.
Mrs. Milton, Dr Jasper had told us before he finally collapsed (for the ordeal through which he had passed had entirely sapped his nervous energy), was a chance acquaintance. The doctor, during one of his rare constitutionals in the neighboring lanes, had found her beside a broken-down car and had succeeded in restarting the engine. Quite
