Prokop looked at Mr. Carson in amazement. He was surprised to find that his face was no longer an insipid one, glowing with kindliness; it had grown serious and severe, the eyes of this zealous man had disappeared behind his heavy lids and only for an instant now and then did they flash out sharply. “Don’t be foolish,” he said emphatically. “Sell us Krakatit and the thing is done.”
“But how do you know … ?” said Prokop hoarsely.
“I’ll tell you everything, honestly everything. Mr. Thomas came to us; he brought four ounces and the formula. Unfortunately he was not able to tell us the process. Neither he nor our chemists have so far been able to discover it, to discover how to make the stuff. Some sort of a trick, eh?”
“Yes.”
“H’m. Maybe we may come upon it without your assistance.”
“You won’t.”
“Mr. Thomas … knows something about it, but keeps it a secret. He worked for us behind locked doors. He’s a terribly bad chemist, but more artful than you are. At least he doesn’t blurt out what he knows. Why did you tell him? All he knows is to cadge money out of people. You should have come yourself.”
“I didn’t send him to you,” muttered Prokop.
“Aha!” said Mr. Carson, “extremely interesting. Your Mr. Thomas came to us—”
“Where exactly?”
“To us. Factories in Balttin. Do you know it?”
“No.”
“A foreign concern. Marvellously up to date. An experimental laboratory for new explosives. We make keramit, methylnitrate, and such things. Chiefly military, you see? You’ll sell us Krakatit. Yes?”
“No. And is Thomas still with you?”
“Aha! Mr. Thomas; wait, that’s amusing. Now he comes to us and says: This is the legacy of my friend, Prokop, a chemist of genius; he died in my arms, and with his last breath, aha! he bequeathed it me. Aha! magnificent—what?”
Prokop only smiled wryly. “And is Thomas still … in Balttin?”
“Wait a moment. Naturally, to begin with we kept him … as a spy. We get hundreds of them, you know. And we had this powder, Krakatit, tested.”
“And the result?”
Mr. Carson raised his hands to heaven. “Magnificent!”
“What’s the speed of detonation? How did you find Q? And t? The figures!”
Mr. Carson let his hands fall, so that they slapped on his knees and opened his eyes very wide. “What figures, man! The first attempt … fifty percent starch … and the crusher gauge was blown to smithereens. One engineer and two assistants … also in smithereens. Would you believe it? Attempt No. 2 … a Trauz block, ninety percent vaseline, and bang! The roof went up and one workman was killed; nothing of the block remained but a fragment. Then we let the soldiers have a go at it; they laughed at us … said we knew as much about it as … a village blacksmith. We gave them a little; they rammed it into a gun with a lot of sawdust. Splendid results. Seven gunners blown up including a N.C.O. … they found one leg three kilometres away. Twelve dead in two days, there’s figures for you. Aha! magnificent, eh?”
Prokop wanted to say something, but gulped it down. Twelve dead in two days—the devil!
Mr. Carson rubbed his knees and glowed with pleasure. “The third day we gave it a rest. It makes a bad impression, you know, when … you have many such incidents. Then we only took a little Krakatit … about three decigrams … in glycerine and that sort of thing. The idiot of a lab boy left a pinch lying about in the night when the laboratory was shut—”
“It exploded?” cried Prokop.
“Yes. At ten thirty-five. The laboratory chemist was torn to shreds, not to speak of a couple of blocks of buildings. … About three tons of methylnitrate went up with it—in short about sixty killed. Naturally enough a tremendous investigation and all the rest of it. It turned out that nobody had been in the laboratory and that evidently it must have exploded—”
“—by itself,” interrupted Prokop, scarcely breathing.
“Yes. Was it the same with you?”
Prokop nodded gloomily.
“There you are,” said Carson quickly. “And not without a reason. Terribly dangerous stuff. Sell it to us and you won’t have to worry any more. What would you have done with it?”
“And what would you have done with it?” said Prokop through his teeth.
“We’ve … made arrangements about that. What does it matter blowing up a few fellows—but it would be a pity if you were to suffer.”
“But the Krakatit in the porcelain box didn’t explode,” said Prokop, still obstinately reflecting.
“Thank God, no. I should think not!”
“And it was at night,” Prokop reflected further.
“At ten thirty-five, precisely.”
“And … those few grains of Krakatit were lying on a zinc … on a metal plate,” Prokop went on.
“It was nothing to do with that,” burst out the little man with a worried expression, and he bit his lips and started pacing up and down the laboratory. “It was … perhaps only oxidization,” he said after a moment. “Some sort of chemical process. It didn’t explode when mixed with glycerine.”
“Because it isn’t a conductor,” jerked out Prokop. “Because it doesn’t ionize—I don’t know.”
Mr. Carson stopped and stood over him with his hands behind his back. “You’re very astute,” he said appreciatively. “You deserve to get a lot of money. It’s a pity you’re stuck here.”
“Is Thomas still in Balttin?” asked Prokop, exerting all his strength so as to appear indifferent.
Something flashed behind Mr. Carson’s spectacles. “We’ve got our eye on him,” he said evasively. “He certainly won’t come back here. Come to us … you may find him, if—you—want him so very badly,” he said slowly and emphatically.
“Where is he?” repeated Prokop obstinately, making it quite clear that he would talk of nothing else.
Mr. Carson waved his hand airily. “Well, he’s made off,” and he gave Prokop an inscrutable glance.
“Made off?”
“Faded away. He wasn’t supervised carefully enough, and he was an artful bird. He undertook to prepare Krakatit for us. Experimented with it … about six weeks. Cost us a frightful amount of money. Then disappeared, the rotter. Didn’t know what to do—what? Knows nothing.”
“And where is he?”
Mr. Carson bent over Prokop. “A
