And thereafter had anyone been at the rear end of the room on the left (which was the one above) or even in the basement itself, only the faint droning tones of conversation could have been heard, with occasional clanking and grinding sounds suggesting the revolution of geared wheels. No words could have been distinguished and the fact that toward the end of the interview, after Pentecost’s voice had been going on in a subdued but earnest murmur for quite a time, it was suddenly stopped, as though something had shut him off in the midst of a sentence, and that then, for several minutes following, there was absolute silence, could only have mystified without in the least enlightening anyone in a position to overhear. In reality there was no mystery whatever, and the whole discussion between the two in that basement room was simple and straightforward. It was only that while Mr. Pentecost was in the very act of telling Mr. Haworth that there were various reasons why it was impossible for his firm to take on this remarkable idea of his for exploitation, there suddenly came to him—flashing through his mind in the characteristic way he hit on such things—a most ingenious scheme or operation that could be worked in connection with this device of Haworth’s—and in fact with nothing else; a scheme that appealed to him by reason of its extraordinary possibilities for shrewd maneuvering and complicated trickery and strategy, and because it was dangerous, cold-blooded, and terrible. It came crashing in on him in the very midst of his declining to have anything to do with the Haworth invention—even while he was advising Haworth himself to let it alone—and naturally brought him to a stop that was near to being a jolt. The rest of his sentence remained unspoken. He sat motionless, his mind flooded with his new idea, a blank to everything else. And when Haworth, who had taken his refusal as final, at last muttered something about going upstairs, he rose from the wooden box on which he was sitting and followed. Haworth, in the room above, set the lamp down and stood staring into vacancy. Pentecost hunched himself up in a chair where he sat with his dark half-closed eyes fastened on the young inventor. He was figuring on what the chap would be likely to do under certain circumstances—the most effective method of taking care of him should he prove an obstacle—the safeguards he could use. He was as certain that he’d purchase the rights for handling and exploiting the Haworth machine—but doing so in his own way—as he was that he saw the young fellow there before him. It was a chance he’d been looking for ever since he left Chicago. He’d pay anything necessary. But of course he knew how to manage so that the said “necessary” would be an insignificant figure. Haworth began to walk up and down the room. Pentecost watched him for a while. “What seems to be the matter?” he finally asked. The young man stopped in his tracks and looked at him.