The other smiled faintly.
“Let them come and try it on, and you will see,” he said. “They
know me, but I know also every one of them. They won’t come near
me – not they.”
His thin livid lips snapped together firmly. Ossipon began to
argue.
“But they could send someone – rig a plant on you. Don’t you see?
Get the stuff from you in that way, and then arrest you with the
proof in their hands.”
“Proof of what? Dealing in explosives without a licence perhaps.”
This was meant for a contemptuous jeer, though the expression of
the thin, sickly face remained unchanged, and the utterance was
negligent. “I don’t think there’s one of them anxious to make that
arrest. I don’t think they could get one of them to apply for a
warrant. I mean one of the best. Not one.”
“Why?” Ossipon asked.
“Because they know very well I take care never to part with the
last handful of my wares. I’ve it always by me.” He touched the
breast of his coat lightly. “In a thick glass flask,” he added.
“So I have been told,” said Ossipon, with a shade of wonder in his
voice. “But I didn’t know if – ”
“They know,” interrupted the little man crisply, leaning against
the straight chair back, which rose higher than his fragile head.
“I shall never be arrested. The game isn’t good enough for any
policeman of them all. To deal with a man like me you require
sheer, naked, inglorious heroism.” Again his lips closed with a
self-confident snap. Ossipon repressed a movement of impatience.
“Or recklessness – or simply ignorance,” he retorted. “They’ve
only to get somebody for the job who does not know you carry enough
stuff in your pocket to blow yourself and everything within sixty
yards of you to pieces.”
“I never affirmed I could not be eliminated,” rejoined the other.
“But that wouldn’t be an arrest. Moreover, it’s not so easy as it
looks.”
“Bah!” Ossipon contradicted. “Don’t be too sure of that. What’s
to prevent half-a-dozen of them jumping upon you from behind in the
street? With your arms pinned to your sides you could do nothing –
could you?”
“Yes; I could. I am seldom out in the streets after dark,” said
the little man impassively, “and never very late. I walk always
with my right hand closed round the india-rubber ball which I have
in my trouser pocket. The pressing of this ball actuates a
detonator inside the flask I carry in my pocket. It’s the
principle of the pneumatic instantaneous shutter for a camera lens.
The tube leads up – ”
With a swift disclosing gesture he gave Ossipon a glimpse of an
india-rubber tube, resembling a slender brown worm, issuing from
the armhole of his waistcoat and plunging into the inner breast
pocket of his jacket. His clothes, of a nondescript brown mixture,
were threadbare and marked with stains, dusty in the folds, with
ragged button-holes. “The detonator is partly mechanical, partly
chemical,” he explained, with casual condescension.
“It is instantaneous, of course?” murmured Ossipon, with a slight
shudder.
“Far from it,” confessed the other, with a reluctance which seemed
to twist his mouth dolorously. “A full twenty seconds must elapse
from the moment I press the ball till the explosion takes place.”
“Phew!” whistled Ossipon, completely appalled. “Twenty seconds!
Horrors! You mean to say that you could face that? I should go
crazy – ”
“Wouldn’t matter if you did. Of course, it’s the weak point of
this special system, which is only for my own use. The worst is
that the manner of exploding is always the weak point with us. I
am trying to invent a detonator that would adjust itself to all
conditions of action, and even to unexpected changes of conditions.
A variable and yet perfectly precise mechanism. A really
intelligent detonator.”
“Twenty seconds,” muttered Ossipon again. “Ough! And then – ”
With a slight turn of the head the glitter of the spectacles seemed
to gauge the size of the beer saloon in the basement of the
renowned Silenus Restaurant.
“Nobody in this room could hope to escape,” was the verdict of that