“… explodes,” cried Prokop.
“Yes, explodes, disintegrates. Interesting—what? One learned gentleman explained to me that—hell, what did he say? That—that—”
Prokop sprang up and seized hold of Mr. Carson’s coat. “Listen,” he burst out, violently excited, “if one were to … sprinkle … some Krakatit about … here, let us say … or simply about the place. …”
“… then the next Tuesday or Friday at half-past ten it would explode. Tja. Don’t strangle me, man.”
Prokop released Mr. Carson and paced up and down the room gnawing his fingers in consternation.
“That’s quite clear,” he muttered, “that’s quite clear! Nobody must prepare Krakatit—”
“Besides Mr. Thomas,” suggested Carson sceptically.
“Leave me alone,” said Prokop. “He won’t be able to prepare it!”
“Well,” said Mr. Carson doubtfully, “I don’t know how much you told him.”
Prokop stopped as if rooted to the ground. “Imagine,” he said feverishly, “imagine, for instance … a war! Anyone who possessed Krakatit could … could … whenever he liked. …”
“At present only on Tuesdays and Fridays.”
“… blow up … whole towns … whole armies … everything! All that is necessary is to sprinkle—can you imagine?”
“I can. Magnificent!”
“And therefore … for the sake of the world … I shall never, never give it up.”
“In the interest of the world,” repeated Carson, “do you know, in the interest of the world the first thing is to get on the track of that—”
“What?”
“That cursed anarchist wireless station.”
XIX
“Do you mean to say,” stammered Prokop, “that … that perhaps. …”
“We know,” Carson interrupted, “that there exist various transmitting and receiving stations. That regularly on Tuesdays and Fridays they certainly say something more than good night. That they have at their disposition certain forces at present unknown to us: explosions, oscillations, sparks, rays or some other cursed things. Or certain counter-waves, counter-oscillations or whatever they may be called, something which just obliterates our waves, you understand?” Mr. Carson glanced about the laboratory. “Aha!” said he, and took up a piece of chalk. “It may be like this,” he went on, drawing a long arrow on the floor with the chalk, “or like this,” and he scribbled over the whole of the board and added, by wetting his finger, a dark streak. “So or so, you understand? Positive or negative. They either send new waves into our medium or interfere with ours at fixed intervals, you see? In both cases they can do without our control. Both systems are at present though technically and physically … a pure mystery. Hell!” said Mr. Carson and in a sudden access of anger broke the chalk into pieces, “that’s too much! To send secret messages by secret waves to a secret addressee who is doing—what do you think?”
“Perhaps the Martians,” said Prokop, forcing himself to jest; but he was certainly not in the mood for doing so.
Mr. Carson looked at him with hostility and then neighed exactly like a horse. “Let us say the Martians. Magnificent! But let us rather say somebody on the earth. Let us say that some earthly power is sending out its secret instructions. Let us say that it has extremely serious reasons for escaping human control. Let us say that there exists some sort of … international service or organization, or the devil knows what, and that it has at its disposal certain mysterious forces, secret stations and the rest. In any case … in any case we have the right to be interested in those secret messages, eh? Whether they are from hell or from Mars. It’s simply in the interests of human society. You can imagine. … Well, my dear sir, they certainly won’t be wireless messages about Little Red Riding Hood. So.”
Mr. Carson moved rapidly up and down the shed. “One thing is certain to begin with,” he said loudly, “that the transmitting station in question is somewhere in Central Europe, approximately in the middle of the areas where these disturbances occur, eh? Relatively, it’s not very strong, as it only talks at night. All the worse; there’s no difficulty in finding the Eiffel Tower or Nauen, eh? My friend,” he shouted suddenly and stood still: “Imagine that in the very heart of Europe something extraordinary is being prepared. The organization has branches and offices, and the branches are in touch with one another; it has technical devices unknown to us, secret powers and, that you may know,” roared Mr. Carson, “it has also Krakatit, so!”
Prokop jumped up like a madman. “What!”
“Krakatit. Nine grams and thirty-five decigrams. All that we had left.”
“What did you do with it?” said Prokop fiercely.
“Experiments. We handled it as carefully as if … as if it were something very precious. And one evening—”
“What?”
“It disappeared. Including the porcelain box.”
“Stolen?”
“Yes.”
“And who—who—”
“Obviously the Martians,” grinned Mr. Carson. “Unfortunately through the base collusion of a lab boy who has disappeared—of course with the porcelain box.”
“When did that happen?”
“Well, just before they sent me here in search of you. An educated man, a Saxon. He left us not even a grain of powder. Now you know why I came.”
“And you think that it fell into the hands … of these mysterious people?”
Mr. Carson only snorted.
“How do you know?”
“I am certain. Listen,” said Mr. Carson, jumping about on his short legs, “do I look like a timid person?”
“N—no.”
“But I tell you that this frightens me. Honestly, I’m terrified. Krakatit … that’s bad enough; and that unknown wireless station is still worse; and if they both fall into the same hands, then … good morning. Then Mr. Carson will pack his bag and go off to the cannibals of Tasmania. You know, I shouldn’t like to see the end of Europe.”
Prokop only rubbed his hands together between his knees. “Christ, Christ,” he whispered to himself.
“Well, yes,” said Mr. Carson. “I’m only surprised, you know, that nothing … nothing large has gone up in the air already. All you have to do is to press some button or other and two thousand kilometres away—bang!
