– — Ω — –
The last time I'd met the professor in his study he'd released a spirit and stunned himself into near-unconsciousness, so I followed him out of the dining room with some trepidation.
"Good luck," called Roberta.
I took little comfort from her parting words, and as we made our way to the study I asked the professor about the nature of our forthcoming work.
"I have assembled a machine of Roberta's design," he told me. "The parts were ordered from half a dozen suppliers, so that none had any inkling of the whole."
"I believe I saw the invoices upstairs," I said. "The casting and machining of various metal components, if I recall."
"Of course you did. Well, Roberta and I fabricated much of the machine here, from connecting pins to bearings to copper wire. But alas, this new device must be powered by an electrical charge."
"How will you do such a thing?"
"Aha! I read several fascinating reports from America on the subject of electrical energy, and I was lucky enough to secure one or two basic sketches. From these, Roberta and I developed a second machine to power the first. We built an electrostatic generator, Mr Jones, and I believe it is the first of its kind in all of England!"
His words were like a foreign language to me, but when we reached his office and showed me the rough sketches, it all became clear. "The rotating portion generates electricity!" I said, as I studied the faint pencilled lines. "It's sent along these wires, and from there it can be used externally."
"That's very good!" he said, looking at me in surprise. "Very few are that intuitive, young man!"
I thought he might be patronising me, but I realised he meant it. Then I saw something on the diagram which seemed off, somehow. Inefficient, that was it. "Sir, this section here, near the handle. Why is there no reducing gear? It would double the speed of the, er, spinning part."
Now he looked at me in complete astonishment. "Mr Jones, that is the same modification Roberta suggested! Are you sure you have no training in engineering?"
"I am just a bookkeeper, sir. But I confess, I do see patterns in numbers, and these diagrams are merely numbers expressed in lines, arcs and circles."
The professor was silent at this observation, and he remained so as he took up a wooden crate and removed the lid. I thought I might have offended him, but then I realised he was deep in thought. "Come and look at the generator," he said at last. "Tell me what you see."
I approached his workbench, where he'd set down a wondrous gadget about the length and height of a loaf of bread. It was quite clearly the machine from the sketches, and with its gleaming bronze parts, coiled copper wires, and polished wooden crank it was a beautiful device indeed. The professor ushered me closer, and encouraged me to turn the device on the workbench so as to inspect it from every angle. "It's the most amazing instrument I have ever seen," I murmured.
The professor looked pleased. "We are lucky the police did not break it apart with their clumsy searching. Now tell me, do you see anything that could increase the output?"
I guessed he meant the electricity generation. "Is it not sufficient?"
"Sadly, no. Let me see, where did I put… aha!" He pounced on another crate, this one pushed under his workbench. Hauling it out, he took out another device and placed it next to the first.
This new machine was a quarter of the size of the first, and looked like a segmented orange balanced on a child's spinning top, with both enclosed within a metal frame. There was a clear piece of crystal in the centre of the orange, attached to it with fine wires, and as I stared at the contraption I realised there was something strangely familiar about it. Had I seen it in the professor's study before now? No, I did not think so.
Then it hit me. This was the exact same machine displayed in Roberta's drawings from the night before. The drawings I had taken and modified to create a fake diagram for Sykes.
"So, what do you think of this one?" the professor asked me.
"The workmanship is remarkable," I said. "But sir, what does it do?"
"I'm glad you asked, Mr Jones. When you captured a spirit earlier, what was the most difficult part of the operation?"
I thought back to my fight in this very room. "The phantasm was only visible at close range," I said. "Outside that range, I could only see a pitch black fog."
"Precisely!"
"Is this some kind of illumination device?" I asked, turning to the machine. If so, the outsized version I gave Sykes would light up the night sky for miles. Of course, to activate it, he would need an enormous amount of power.
The professor snorted. "You think I'd waste my time and money on a glorified street lamp? No, my boy, this is not a light. Come now, use that brain of yours and consider the design."
I examined the item from every angle. "I should imagine this central part would spin, given sufficient power, and that would cause a disturbance of an electrical nature."
"Very good."
After that I was stumped, so I hazarded a guess. "Does it repel spirits, like the tip of the weapon you used yesterday?"
"No, it's the opposite," said the professor triumphantly. "It attracts them, like a venus flytrap with its prey." He pointed. "You see? Spirits are drawn to this point, and from there it's a trivial matter to scoop them up." Then his face fell. "Unfortunately, it consumes more power than I have available, and I've not been able to run the machine for more than a second or two at a time."
"And the crystal? Is it some valuable specimen which is hard to obtain?"
"No, it's an ordinary piece of glass," said the professor. "Fired, then allowed
