“Yes, certainly, certainly—er——” Pentecost appeared to be slightly flurried by having the subject shifted so suddenly away from what was apparently uppermost in his mind. (It might be just as well to remember I said “appeared to be” and “apparently.”) “Your firm specializes in novelties of a mechanical nature, you say—organizes companies and that sort of thing?” “Yes—yes, we—that’s our business.” “What are some of the inventions you’ve handled?” “Well, there’s quite a number. The latest thing we took over was the Crudex Oil Burning Device. We’re also behind the Polaris Refrigerating Machine, the Acme Vacuum Cleaner and other successful things. Of course we hit on a loser now and then, but our average stands up well.” (Pentecost had naturally given out the straight deals that the firm had undertaken—sometimes at considerable expense—for precisely this sort of emergency.) “That being your business, I take it you were attracted to Haworth’s inventions.” “Yes—I was.—That is, to one of them.” “How did you happen to hear of them?” “From reading a Sunday supplement write-up when I was over here a couple of weeks ago—or thereabout.” And Pentecost went on to give an account of how he went out there to see what sort of mechanical novelties the inventor had, and to describe his visit to the ancient mansion—the young man alone there with an old charwoman—the finding of a device that greatly interested him—the bringing of his partner over from New York to see it—and their ultimate purchase of the rights in the machine and the payment of quite a large sum of money down. “Did you see much of the old woman you speak of,—the one who came in to cook for him and so on?” “Not a great deal, but I had to admire her.” “Why? What did you admire?” “The game way she kept at it trying to protect Mr. Haworth from us,—for she got the idea we were trying to rob him or something like that. She bothered us some listening around, but it was no great matter, so I let it go.—Though now I think of it I did drive her away once.” “What was the reason for that?” “The machine we were negotiating for depended on a secret process, as you might say. That is, he managed his combustion to compress air direct without the use of intervening machinery. Something they’d hardly allow a patent on. That’s why I’m so nervous about it. I hope nobody takes it out of that crate.” “Was the old woman trying to see it?” “Trying to see anything she could. We’d find her everywhere. I don’t suppose she’d have understood the thing even if she’d got a good look at it, but I always like to play safe when there’s no patent. So we finally asked Haworth to keep her out of the house till we got the machine away.”