And so Laura McIntyre became duly
engaged to Raffles Haw, and old McIntyre grew even
more hungry-looking as he felt himself a step nearer
to the source of wealth, while Robert thought less
of work than ever, and never gave as much as a thought
to the great canvas which still stood, dust-covered,
upon his easel. Haw gave Laura an engagement ring
of old gold, with a great blazing diamond bulging out
of it. There was little talk about the matter,
however, for it was Haw’s wish that all should
be done very quietly. Nearly all his evenings
were spent at Elmdene, where he and Laura would build
up the most colossal schemes of philanthropy for the
future. With a map stretched out on the table
in front of them, these two young people would, as
it were, hover over the world, planning, devising,
and improving.
“Bless the girl!” said
old McIntyre to his son; “she speaks about it
as if she were born to millions. Maybe, when
once she is married, she won’t be so ready to
chuck her money into every mad scheme that her husband
can think of.”
“Laura is greatly changed,”
Robert answered; “she has grown much more serious
in her ideas.”
“You wait a bit!” sniggered
his father. “She is a good girl, is Laura,
and she knows what she is about. She’s not
a girl to let her old dad go to the wall if she can
set him right. It’s a pretty state of things,”
he added bitterly: “here’s my daughter
going to marry a man who thinks no more of gold than
I used to of gun-metal; and here’s my son going
about with all the money he cares to ask for to help
every ne’er-do-well in Staffordshire; and here’s
their father, who loved them and cared for them, and
brought them both up, without money enough very often
to buy a bottle of brandy. I don’t know
what your poor dear mother would have thought of it.”
“You have only to ask for what you want.”
“Yes, as if I were a five-year-old
child. But I tell you, Robert, I’ll have
my rights, and if I can’t get them one way I
will another. I won’t be treated as if
I were no one. And there’s one thing:
if I am to be this man’s pa-in-law, I’ll
want to know something about him and his money first.
We may be poor, but we are honest. I’ll
up to the Hall now, and have it out with him.”
He seized his hat and stick and made for the door.
“No, no, father,” cried
Robert, catching him by the sleeve. “You
had better leave the matter alone. Mr. Haw is
a very sensitive man. He would not like to be
examined upon such a point. It might lead to a
serious quarrel. I beg that you will not go.”
“I am not to be put off for
ever,” snarled the old man, who had been drinking
heavily. “I’ll put my foot down now,
once and for ever.” He tugged at his sleeve
to free himself from his son’s grasp.
“At least you shall not go without
Laura knowing. I will call her down, and we shall
have her opinion.”
“Oh, I don’t want to have
any scenes,” said McIntyre sulkily, relaxing
his efforts. He lived in dread of his daughter,
and at his worst moments the mention of her name would
serve to restrain him.
“Besides,” said Robert,
“I have not the slightest doubt that Raffles
Haw will see the necessity for giving us some sort
of explanation before matters go further. He
must understand that we have some claim now to be
taken into his confidence.”
He had hardly spoken when there was
a tap at the door, and the man of whom they were speaking
walked in.
“Good-morning, Mr. McIntyre,”
said he. “Robert, would you mind stepping
up to the Hall with me? I want to have a little
business chat.” He looked serious, like
a man who is carrying out something which he has well
weighed.
They walked up together with hardly
a word on either side. Raffles Haw was absorbed
in his own thoughts. Robert felt expectant and
nervous, for he knew that something of importance
lay before him. The winter had almost passed
now, and the first young shoots were beginning to peep
out timidly in the face of the wind and the rain of
an English March. The snows were gone, but the
countryside looked bleaker and drearier, all shrouded
in the haze from the damp, sodden meadows.
“By the way, Robert,”
said Raffles Haw suddenly, as they walked up the Avenue.
“Has your great Roman picture gone to London?”
“I have not finished it yet.”
“But I know that you are a quick
worker. You must be nearly at the end of it.”
“No, I am afraid that it has
not advanced much since you saw it. For one thing,
the light has not been very good.”
Raffles Haw said nothing, but a pained
expression flashed over his face. When they reached
the house he led the way through the museum. Two
great metal cases were lying on the floor.
“I have a small addition there
to the gem collection,” he remarked as he passed.
“They only arrived last night, and I have not
opened them yet, but I am given to understand from
the letters and invoices that there are some fine
specimens. We might arrange them this afternoon,
if you care to assist me. Let us go into the
smoking-room now.”
He threw himself down into a settee,
and motioned Robert into the armchair in front of
him.
“Light a cigar,” he said.
“Press the spring if there is any refreshment
which you would like. Now, my dear Robert, confess
to me in the first place that you have often thought
me mad.”
The charge was so direct and so true
that the young artist hesitated, hardly knowing how
to answer.
“My dear boy, I do not blame
you. It was the most natural thing in the world.
I should have looked upon anyone as a madman who had
talked to me as I have talked to you. But for
all that, Robert, you were wrong, and I have never
yet in our conversations proposed any scheme which
it was not well within my power to carry out.
I tell you in all sober earnest that the amount of
my income is limited only by my desire, and that all
the bankers and financiers combined could not furnish
the sums which I can put forward without an effort.”
“I have had ample proof of your
immense wealth,” said Robert.
“And you are very naturally
curious as to how that wealth was obtained. Well,
I can tell you one thing. The money is perfectly
clean. I have robbed no one, cheated no one,
sweated no one, ground no one down in the gaining
of it. I can read your father’s eye, Robert.
I can see that he has done me an injustice in this
matter. Well, perhaps he is not to be blamed.
Perhaps I also might think uncharitable things if I
were In his place. But that is why I now give
an explanation to you, Robert, and not to him.
You, at least, have trusted me, and you have a right,
before I become one of your family, to know all that
I can tell you. Laura also has trusted me, but
I know well that she is content still to trust me.”
“I would not intrude upon your
secrets, Mr. Haw,” said Robert, “but of
course I cannot deny that I should be very proud and
pleased if you cared to confide them to me.”
“And I will. Not all.
I do not think that I shall ever, while I live, tell
all. But I shall leave directions behind me so
that when I die you may be able to carry on my unfinished
work. I shall tell you where those directions
are to be found. In the meantime, you must be
content to learn the effects which I produce without
knowing every detail as to the means.”
Robert settled himself down in his
chair and concentrated his attention upon his companion’s
words, while Haw bent forward his eager, earnest face,
like a man who knows the value of the words which he
is saying.
“You are already aware,”
he remarked, “that I have devoted a great deal
of energy and of time to the study of chemistry.”
“So you told me.”
“I commenced my studies under
a famous English chemist, I continued them under the
best man in France, and I completed them in the most
celebrated laboratory of Germany. I was not rich,
but my father had left me enough to keep me comfortably,
and by living economically I had a sum at my command
which enabled me to carry out my studies in a very
complete way. When I returned to England I built
myself a laboratory in a quiet country place where
I could work without distraction or interruption.
There I began a series of investigations which soon
took me into regions of science to which none of the
three famous men who taught me had ever penetrated.
“You say, Robert, that you have
some slight knowledge of chemistry, and you will find
it easier to follow what I say. Chemistry is to
a large extent an empirical science, and the chance
experiment may lead to greater results than could,
with our present data, be derived from the closest
study or the keenest reasoning. The most important
chemical discoveries from the first manufacture of
glass to the whitening and refining of sugar have
all been due to some happy chance which might have
befallen a mere dabbler as easily as a deep student.
“Well, it was to such a chance
that my own great discovery perhaps the
greatest that the world has seen was due,
though I may claim the credit of having originated
the line of thought which led up to it. I had
frequently speculated as to the effect which powerful
currents of electricity exercise upon any substance
through which they are poured for a considerable time.
I did not here mean such feeble currents as are passed
along a telegraph wire, but I mean the very highest
possible developments. Well, I tried a series
of experiments upon this point. I found that
in liquids, and in compounds, the force had a disintegrating
effect. The well-known experiment of the electrolysis
of water will, of course, occur to you. But I
found that in the case of elemental solids the effect
was a remarkable one. The element slowly decreased
in weight, without perceptibly altering in composition.
I hope that I make myself clear to you?”
“I follow you entirely,”
said Robert, deeply interested in his companion’s
narrative.
“I tried upon several elements,
and always with the same result. In every case
an hour’s current would produce a perceptible
loss of weight. My theory at that stage was that
there was a loosening of the molecules caused by the
electric fluid, and that a certain number of these
molecules were shed off like an impalpable dust, all
round the lump of earth or of metal, which remained,
of course, the lighter by their loss. I had entirely
accepted this theory, when a very remarkable chance
led me to completely alter my opinions.
“I had one Saturday night fastened
a bar of bismuth in a clamp, and had attached it on
either side to an electric wire, in order to observe
what effect the current would have upon it. I
had been testing each metal in turn, exposing them
to the influence for from one to two hours. I
had just got everything in position, and had completed
my connection, when I received a telegram to say that
John Stillingfleet, an old chemist in London with
whom I had been on terms of intimacy, was dangerously
ill, and had expressed a wish to see me. The
last train was due to leave in twenty minutes, and
I lived a good mile from the station, I thrust a few
things into a bag, locked my laboratory, and ran as
hard as I could to catch it.
“It was not until I was in London
that it suddenly occurred to me that I had neglected
to shut off the current, and that it would continue
to pass through the bar of bismuth until the batteries
were exhausted. The fact, however, seemed to
be of small importance, and I dismissed it from my
mind. I was detained in London until the Tuesday
night, and it was Wednesday morning before I got back
to my work. As I unlocked the laboratory door
my mind reverted to the uncompleted experiment, and
it struck me that in all probability my piece of bismuth
would have been entirely disintegrated and reduced
to its primitive molecules. I was utterly unprepared
for the truth.
“When I approached the table
I found, sure enough, that the bar of metal had vanished,
and that the clamp was empty. Having noted the
fact, I was about to turn away to something else,
when my attention was attracted to the fact that the
table upon which the clamp stood was starred over with
little patches of some liquid silvery matter, which
lay in single drops or coalesced into little pools.
I had a very distinct recollection of having thoroughly
cleared the table before beginning my experiment,
so that this substance had been deposited there since
I had left for London. Much interested, I very
carefully collected it all into one vessel, and examined
it minutely. There could be no question as to
what it was. It was the purest mercury, and gave
no response to any test for bismuth.
“I at once grasped the fact
that chance had placed in my hands a chemical discovery
of the very first importance. If bismuth were,
under certain conditions, to be subjected to the action
of electricity, it would begin by losing weight, and
would finally be transformed into mercury. I
had broken down the partition which separated two elements.
“But the process would be a
constant one. It would presumably prove to be
a general law, and not an isolated fact. If bismuth
turned into mercury, what would mercury turn into?
There would be no rest for me until I had solved the
question. I renewed the exhausted batteries and
passed the current through the bowl of quicksilver.
For sixteen hours I sat watching the metal, marking
how it slowly seemed to curdle, to grow firmer, to
lose its silvery glitter and to take a dull yellow
hue. When I at last picked it up in a forceps,
and threw it upon the table, it had lost every characteristic
of mercury, and had obviously become another metal.
A few simple tests were enough to show me that this
other metal was platinum.
“Now, to a chemist, there was
something very suggestive in the order in which these
changes had been effected. Perhaps you can see
the relation, Robert, which they bear to each other?”
“No, I cannot say that I do.”
Robert had sat listening to this strange
statement with parted lips and staring eyes.
“I will show you. Speaking
atomically, bismuth is the heaviest of the metals.
Its atomic weight is 210. The next in weight is
lead, 207, and then comes mercury at 200. Possibly
the long period during which the current had acted
in my absence had reduced the bismuth to lead and
the lead in turn to mercury. Now platinum stands
at 197.5, and it was accordingly the next metal to
be produced by the continued current. Do you
see now?”
“It is quite clear.”
“And then there came the inference,
which sent my heart into my mouth and caused my head
to swim round. Gold is the next in the series.
Its atomic weight is 197. I remembered now, and
for the first time understood why it was always lead
and mercury winch were mentioned by the old alchemists
as being the two metals which might be used in their
calling. With fingers which trembled with excitement
I adjusted the wires again, and in little more than
an hour for the length of the process was
always in proportion to the difference in the metals I
had before me a knob of ruddy crinkled metal, which
answered to every reaction for gold.
“Well, Robert, this is a long
story, but I think that you will agree with me that
its importance justifies me in going into detail.
When I had satisfied myself that I had really manufactured
gold I cut the nugget in two. One half I sent
to a jeweller and worker in precious metals, with
whom I had some slight acquaintance, asking him to
report upon the quality of the metal. With the
other half I continued my series of experiments, and
reduced it in successive stages through all the long
series of metals, through silver and zinc and manganese,
until I brought it to lithium, which is the lightest
of all.”
“And what did it turn to then?” asked
Robert.
“Then came what to chemists
is likely to be the most interesting portion of my
discovery. It turned to a greyish fine powder,
which powder gave no further results, however much
I might treat it with electricity. And that powder
is the base of all things; it is the mother of all
the elements; it is, in short, the substance whose
existence has been recently surmised by a leading
chemist, and which has been christened protyle by
him. I am the discoverer of the great law of the
electrical transposition of the metals, and I am the
first to demonstrate protyle, so that, I think, Robert,
if all my schemes in other directions come to nothing,
my name is at least likely to live in the chemical
world.
“There is not very much more
for me to tell you. I had my nugget back from
my friend the jeweller, confirming my opinion as to
its nature and its quality. I soon found several
methods by which the process might be simplified,
and especially a modification of the ordinary electric
current, which was very much more effective. Having
made a certain amount of gold, I disposed of it for
a sum which enabled me to buy improved materials and
stronger batteries. In this way I enlarged my
operations until at last I was in a position to build
this house and to have a laboratory where I could
carry out my work on a much larger scale. As
I said before, I can now state with all truth that
the amount of my income is only limited by my desires.”
“It is wonderful!” gasped
Robert. “It is like a fairy tale. But
with this great discovery in your mind you must have
been sorely tempted to confide it to others.”
“I thought well over it.
I gave it every consideration. It was obvious
to me that if my invention were made public, its immediate
result would be to deprive the present precious metals
of all their special value. Some other substance amber,
we will say, or ivory would be chosen as
a medium for barter, and gold would be inferior to
brass, as being heavier and yet not so hard.
No one would be the better for such a consummation
as that. Now, if I retained my secret, and used
it with wisdom, I might make myself the greatest benefactor
to mankind that has ever lived. Those were the
chief reasons, and I trust that they are not dishonourable
ones, which led me to form the resolution, which I
have today for the first time broken.”
“But your secret is safe with
me,” cried Robert. “My lips shall
be sealed until I have your permission to speak.”
“If I had not known that I could
trust you I should have withheld it from your knowledge.
And now, my dear Robert, theory is very weak work,
and practice is infinitely more interesting. I
have given you more than enough of the first.
If you will be good enough to accompany me to the
laboratory I shall give you a little of the latter.”