Criminals -- Fiction; Detective and mystery stories; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Physicists -- Fiction; Science fiction
When Carton hurried a little later for the second time down the long
hall of the physics building of America University, his steps were
quickened by the sight of a little knot of men outside the door of
the rooms he had visited on the preceding day. There was Burns, his
fellow-reporter of the _Courier_, two blue-clad policemen, and another
man in plain clothes. All turned as he approached.
"Carton here saw it the same as I!" Burns was declaring. "He can tell
you, Sergeant Wade!"
The detective-sergeant turned toward Carton, greeting him with a nod.
He was familiar to the reporter, a sleepy-eyed, soft-moving man who
chewed gum unceasingly and slowly.
"What is it I'm supposed to have seen?" Carton demanded. "And where's
Dr. Grantham? And what's happened?"
"One thing at a time, Carton," soothed the sergeant. "Dr. Grantham's
had a nasty crack on the head, and a doctor's in there fixing him up.
In the meantime Burns here has been telling me a story about this
Grantham making something invisible here yesterday with some machine?"
"Don't you read the papers, Wade?" Carton asked. "If you did, you'd
have read last night that Dr. Grantham did just that."
"I never read what you fellows write," the detective assured him. "And
I think I'll do so even less from now on. Making things invisible--you
two haven't had any cracks on the head, have you?"
"Laugh on, ignorance," Carton told him as the other smiled slowly.
"You're the sap, Wade, not to believe it. Grantham pulled the thing not
only in front of three of us but also in front of President Ellsworth
of the university himself."
"President Ellsworth, eh?" queried Wade keenly. "Same that's in there
with Grantham now."
"In there?" they both asked, and the detective nodded. "Yes, it seems
he was the one that found Grantham. And you say he saw this stunt
pulled the same as you?"
He seemed to consider that. Carton was about to riddle him with
questions when the door opened and an elderly man beckoned them inside.
Carton and Burns slipped in with Sergeant Wade, and found Grantham
leaning back in a chair with a thick bandage round his head, his eyes
half-closed, and President Ellsworth bending anxiously over him. The
doctor who beckoned them turned to the detective.
"Simple enough," he stated, "a blow on the skull with something blunt,
more from the side than from behind. He says he was turning when it
came--it probably saved him from concussion."
Who Did It?
Wade nodded quickly, and as the doctor passed out moved over to the
seated scientist, Carton and Burns close behind him.
"Feeling better?" he asked. "Just take your time, Dr. Grantham--but
we'd like to hear something about it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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