"Yes, I am afraid that is the only way out. We must have the monopoly, and anyone who might be able to interfere with it must be removed. How has your search for more X prospered?" "About as well as I expected. We bought up all the platinum wastes we could get, and reworked all the metallic platinum and allied metals we could buy in the open market, and got less than a gram of X out of the whole lot. It's scarcer than radium. Seaton's finding so much of it at once was an accident, pure and simple--it couldn't happen once in a million years." "Well, have you any suggestions as to how we can get that solution?" "No. I haven't thought of anything but that very thing ever since I found that they had hidden it, and I can't yet see any good way of getting it. My forte is direct action and that fails in this case, since no amount of force or torture could make Crane reveal the hiding-place of the solution. It's probably in the safest safe-deposit vault in the country. He wouldn't carry the key on him, probably wouldn't have it in the house. Killing Seaton or Crane, or both of them, is easy enough, but it probably wouldn't get us the solution, as I have no doubt that Crane has provided for everything." "Probably he has. But if he should disappear the stuff would have to come to light, or the Seaton-Crane Company might start their power-plant. In that case, we probably could get it?" "_Possibly_, you mean. That method is too slow to suit me, though. It would take months, perhaps years, and would be devilishly uncertain, to boot. They'll know something is in the wind, and the stuff will be surrounded by every safeguard they can think of. There must be some better way than that, but I haven't been able to think of it." "Neither have I, but your phrase 'direct action' gives me an idea. You say that that method has failed. What do you think of trying indirect action in the shape of Perkins, who is indirection personified?" "Bring him in. He may be able to figure out something." * * * * * Perkins was called in, and the main phases of the situation laid before him. The three men sat in silence for many minutes while the crafty strategist studied the problem. Finally he spoke. "There's only one way, gentlemen. We must get a handle on either Seaton or Crane strong enough to make them give up their bottle of dope, their plans, and everything...." "Handle!" interrupted DuQuesne. "You talk like a fool! You can't get anything on either of them."