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Title: The magnificent possession
Author: Isaac Asimov
Release date: September 13, 2025 [eBook #76871]
Language: English
Original publication: Chicago, IL: Double Action Magazines, 1940
Credits: Roger Frank
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAGNIFICENT POSSESSION ***
[Illustration: “My God ... watch out! It’s nitroglycerine!”]
The Magnificent Possession
By Isaac Asimov
Walter Sills labored for years as an unknown laboratory
worker--but at fifty he makes his great discovery! Fame,
riches are to be his fate--until interference looms up
in the form of a few unreliable characters--and Nature
herself!
Walter Sills reflected now, as he had reflected often before, that life
was hard and joyless. He surveyed his dingy chemical laboratory and
grinned cynically--working in a dirty hole of a place, living on
occasional ore analyses that barely paid for absolutely indispensable
equipment, while others, not half his worth perhaps, were working for
big industrial concerns and taking life easy.
He looked out the window at the Hudson River, ruddied in the flame of
the dying sun, and wondered moodily whether these last experiments
would finally bring him the fame and success he was after, or if they
were merely some more false alarms.
The unlocked door creaked open a crack and the cheerful face of Eugene
Taylor burst into view. Sills waved and Taylor’s body followed his head
and entered the laboratory.
“Hello, old soak,” came the loud and carefree hail. “How go things?”
Sills shook his head at the other’s exuberance. “I wish I had your
foolish outlook on life, Gene. For your information, things are bad. I
need money, and the more I need it, the less I have.”
“Well, I haven’t any money either, have I?” demanded Taylor. “But why
worry about it? You’re fifty, and worry hasn’t got you anything except
a bald head. I’m thirty, and I want to keep my beautiful brown hair.”
The chemist grinned. “I’ll get my money, yet, Gene. Just leave it to
me.”
“Your new ideas shaping out well?”
“Are they? I haven’t told you much about it, have I? Well, come here
and I’ll show you what progress I’ve made.”
Taylor followed Sills to a small table, on which stood a rack of
test-tubes, in one of which was about half an inch of a shiny metallic
substance.
“Sodium-mercury mixture, or sodium amalgam, as it is called,” explained
Sills, pointing to it.
He took a bottle labeled “Ammonium Chloride Sol.” from the shelf and
poured a little into the tube. Immediately the sodium amalgam began
changing into a loosely-packed, spongy substance.
“That,” observed Sills, “is ammonium amalgam. The ammonium radical
(NH₄) acts as a metal here and combines with mercury.” He waited for
the action to go to completion and then poured off the supernatant
liquid.
“Ammonium amalgam isn’t very stable,” he informed Taylor, “so I’ll have
to work fast.” He grasped a flask of straw-colored, pleasant-smelling
liquid and filled the test-tube with it. Upon shaking, the
loosely-packed ammonium amalgam vanished and in its stead a small drop
of metallic liquid rolled about the bottom.
Taylor gazed at the test-tube, open-mouthed. “What happened?”
“This liquid is a complex derivative of Hydrazine which I’ve discovered
and named Ammonaline. I haven’t worked out its formula yet, but that
doesn’t matter. The point about it is that it has the property of
dissolving the ammonium out of the amalgam. Those few drops at the
bottom are pure mercury; the ammonium is in solution.”
Taylor remained unresponsive and Sills waxed enthusiastic. “Don’t you
see the implications? I’ve gone half way towards isolating pure
ammonium, a thing which has never been done before! Once accomplished
it means fame, success, the Nobel Prize, and who knows what else.”
“Wow!” Taylor’s gaze became more respectful. “That yellow stuff doesn’t
look so important to me.” He snatched for it, but Sills withheld it.
“I haven’t finished by any means, Gene. I’ve got to get it in its free
metallic state, and I can’t do that so far. Every time I try to
evaporate the Ammonaline, the ammonium breaks down to everlasting
ammonia and hydrogen.... But I’ll get it--I’ll get it!”
* * * * *
Two weeks later, the epilogue to the previous scene was enacted. Taylor
received a hurried and emphatic call from his chemist friend and
appeared at the laboratory in a flurry of anticipation.
“You’ve got it?”
“I’ve got it--and it’s bigger than I thought! There’s millions in it,
really,” Sills’ eyes shone with rapture.
“I’ve been working from the wrong angle up to now,” he explained.
“Heating the solvent always broke down the dissolved ammonium, so I
separated it out by freezing. It works the same way as brine, which,
when frozen slowly, freezes into fresh ice, the salt crystallizing out.
Luckily, the Ammonaline freezes at 18 degrees Centigrade and doesn’t
require much cooling.”
He pointed dramatically to a small beaker, inside a glass-walled case.
The beaker contained pale, straw-colored, needle-like crystals and
covering the top of this, a thin layer of a dullish, yellow substance.
“Why the case?” asked Taylor.
“I’ve got it filled with argon to keep the ammonium (which is the
yellow substance on top of the Ammonaline) pure. It is so active that
it will react with anything else but a helium-type gas.”
Taylor marveled and pounded his complacently-smiling friend on the
back.
“Wait, Gene, the best is yet to come.”
Taylor was led to the other end of the room and Sills’ trembling finger
pointed out another airtight case containing a lump of metal of a
gleaming yellow that sparkled and glistened.
“That, my friend, is ammonium oxide (NH4₂O), formed by passing
_absolutely dry_ air over free ammonium metal. It is perfectly inert
(the sealed case contains quite a bit of chlorine, for instance, and
yet there is no reaction). It can be made as cheaply as aluminum, if
not more so, and yet it looks more like gold than gold does itself. Do
you see the possibilities?”
“Do I?” exploded Taylor. “It will sweep the country. You can have
ammonium jewelry, and ammonium-plated table-ware, and a million other
things. Then again, who knows how many countless industrial
applications it may have? You’re rich, Walt--you’re rich!”
“_We’re_ rich,” corrected Sills gently. He moved towards the telephone.
“The newspapers are going to hear of this. I’m going to begin to cash
in on fame right now.”
Taylor frowned, “Maybe you’d better keep it a secret, Walt.”
“Oh, I’m not breathing a hint as to the process. I’ll just give them
the general idea. Besides, we’re safe; the patent application is in
Washington right now.”
But Sills was wrong! The article in the paper ushered in a very, very
hectic two days for the two of them.
* * * * *
J. Throgmorton Bankhead is what is commonly known as a “captain of
industry.” As head of the Acme Chromium and Silver Plating
Corporation, he no doubt deserved the title; but to his patient and
long-suffering wife, he was merely a dyspeptic and grouchy husband,
especially at the breakfast table ... and he was at the breakfast
table now.
Rustling his morning paper angrily, he sputtered between bites of
buttered toast, “This man is ruining the country.” He pointed aghast at
big, black headlines. “I said before and I’ll say again that the man is
as crazy as a bedbug. He won’t be satisfied....”
“Joseph, please,” pleaded his wife, “you’re getting purple in the face.
Remember your high blood pressure. You know the doctor told you to stop
reading the news from Washington if it annoys you so. Now, listen dear,
about the cook. She’s....”
“The doctor’s a damn fool, and so are you,” shouted J. Throgmorton
Bankhead. “I’ll read all the news I please and get purple in the face
too, if I want to.”
He raised the cup of coffee to his mouth and took a critical sip. While
he did so, his eyes fell upon a more insignificant headline towards the
bottom of the page: “Savant Discovers Gold Substitute.”
* * * * *
The coffee cup remained in the air while he scanned the article
quickly. “This new metal,” it ran in part, “is claimed by its
discoverer to be far superior to chromium, nickel, or silver for
plating purposes, besides being ideal material for cheap and beautiful
jewelry. ‘The twenty-dollar-a-week clerk,’ said Professor Sills, ‘will
eat off ammonium plate more impressive in appearance than the gold
plate of the Indian Nabob.’ There is no....”
But J. Throgmorton Bankhead had stopped reading. Visions of a ruined
Acme Chromium and Silver Plating Corporation danced before his eyes;
and as they danced, the cup of coffee dropped from his hand, and
splashed hot liquid over his trousers.
His wife rose to her feet in alarm, “What is it, Joseph; what is it?”
“Nothing,” Bankhead shouted. “Nothing. For God’s sake, go away, will
you?”
He strode angrily out of the room, leaving his wife to search the paper
in vain for anything that could have disturbed him.
“Bob’s Tavern” on Fifteenth Street is usually pretty well filled at all
times, but on the morning we are speaking of, it was empty except for
four or five rather poorly-dressed men, who clustered about the portly
and dignified form of Peter Q. Hornswoggle, eminent ex-Congressman.
Peter Q. Hornswoggle was, as usual, speaking fluently. His subject,
again, as usual, concerned the life of a Congressman.
“I remember a case in point,” he was saying, “when that same argument
was brought up in the house, and which I answered as follows: ‘The
eminent gentleman from Nevada in his statements overlooks one very
important aspect of the problem. He does not realize that it is to the
interest of the entire nation that the apple-parers of this country be
attended to promptly; for, gentlemen, on the welfare of the
apple-parers depends the future of the entire fruit industry and on the
fruit-industry is based the entire economy of this great and glorious
nation, the United States of America.”
Hornswoggle paused, swallowed half a pint of beer at once, and then
smiled in triumph, “I have no hesitation in saying, gentlemen, that at
that statement, the entire House burst into wild and tumultuous
applause.”
One of the assembled listeners shook his head slowly and marveled. “It
must be great to be able to spiel like that, Senator. You musta been a
sensation.”
“Yeah,” agreed the bartender, “it’s a dirty shame you were beat last
election.”
The ex-Congressman winced and in a very dignified tone began, “I have
been reliably informed that the use of bribery in that campaign reached
unprecedented prop....” His voice died away suddenly as he caught sight
of a certain article in the newspaper of one of his listeners. He
snatched at it and read it through in silence and thereupon his eyes
gleamed with a sudden idea.
“My friends,” he said turning to them again, “I find I must leave you.
There is pressing work that must be done immediately at City Hall.” He
leant over to whisper to the barkeeper, “You haven’t got twenty-five
cents, have you? I find I left my wallet in the Mayor’s office by
mistake. I will surely repay you tomorrow.”
Clutching the quarter, reluctantly given, Peter Q. Hornswoggle left.
* * * * *
In a small and dimly lit room somewhere in the lower reaches of First
Avenue, Michael Maguire, known to the police by the far more euphonious
name of Mike the Slug, cleaned his trusty revolver and hummed a
tuneless song. The door opened a crack and Mike looked up.
“That you, Slappy?”
“Yeh,” a short, wizened person sidled in, “I brung ya de evenin’ sheet.
De cops are still tinkin’ Bragoni pulled de job.”
“Yeh? That’s good.” He bent unconcernedly over the revolver. “Anything
else doing?”
“Naw! Some dippy dame killed herself, but dat’s all.”
He tossed the newspaper to Mike and left. Mike leaned back and flipped
the pages in a bored manner.
A headline attracted his eye and he read the short article that
followed. Having finished, he threw aside the paper, lit a cigarette,
and did some heavy thinking. Then he opened the door.
“Hey, Slappy, c’mere. There’s a job that’s got to be done.”
A NIGHT OF TROUBLE
Walter Sills was happy, deliriously so. He walked about his laboratory
king of all he surveyed, strutting like a peacock, basking in his
new-found glory. Eugene Taylor sat and watched him, scarcely less happy
himself.
“How does it feel to be famous?” Taylor wanted to know.
“Like a million dollars; and that’s what I’m going to sell the secret
of ammonium metal for. It’s the fat of the land for me from now on.”
“You leave the practical details to me, Walt. I’m getting in touch with
Staples of Eagle Steel today. You’ll get a decent price from him.”
The bell rang, and Sills jumped. He ran to open the door.
“Is this the home of Walter Sills?” The large, scowling visitor gazed
about him superciliously.
“Yes, I’m Sills. Do you wish to see me?”
“Yes. My name is J. Throgmorton Bankhead and I represent the Acme
Chromium and Silver Plating Corporation. I would like to have a
moment’s discussion with you.”
“Come right in. Come right in! This is Eugene Taylor, my associate. You
may speak freely before him.”
“Very well,” Bankhead seated himself heavily. “I suppose you surmise
the reason for my visit.”
“I take it that you have read of the new ammonium metal in the papers.”
“That’s right. I have come to see whether there is any truth in the
story and to buy your process if there is.”
“You can see for yourself, sir,” Sills led the magnate to where the
argon-filled container of the few grams of pure ammonium were. “That is
the metal. Over here to the right, I’ve got the oxide, an oxide which
is more metallic than the metal itself, strangely enough. It is the
oxide that is what the papers call ‘substitute gold’.”
Bankhead’s face showed not an atom of the sinking feeling within him as
he viewed the oxide with dismay. “Take it out in the open,” he said,
“and let’s see it.”
Sills shook his head. “I can’t, Mr. Bankhead. Those are the first
samples of ammonium and ammonium oxide that ever existed. They’re
museum pieces. I can easily make more for you, if you wish.”
“You’ll have to, if you expect me to sink my money in it. You satisfy
me and I’ll be willing to buy your patent for as much as--oh, say a
thousand dollars.”
“A thousand dollars!” exclaimed Sills and Taylor together.
“A very fair price, gentlemen.”
“A million would be more like it,” shouted Taylor in an outraged tone.
“This discovery is a goldmine.”
* * * * *
“A million, indeed! You are dreaming, gentlemen. The fact of the matter
is that my company has been on the track of ammonium for years now, and
we are just at the point of solving the problem. Unfortunately you beat
us by a week or so, and so I wish to buy up your patent in order to
save my company a great deal of annoyance. You realize, of course, that
if you refuse my price, I could just go ahead and manufacture the
metal, using my own process.”
“We’ll sue if you do,” said Taylor.
“Have you got the money for a long, protracted--and
expensive--lawsuit?” Bankhead smiled nastily. “I have, you know. To
prove, however, that I am not unreasonable, I will make the price two
thousand.”
“You’ve heard our price,” answered Taylor stonily, “and we have nothing
further to say.”
“All right, gentlemen,” Bankhead walked towards the door, “think it
over. You’ll see it my way, I’m sure.”
He opened the door and revealed the symmetrical form of Peter Q.
Hornswoggle bent in rapt concentration at the keyhole. Bankhead sneered
audibly and the ex-Congressman jumped to his feet in consternation,
bowing rapidly two or three times, for want of anything better to do.
The financier passed by disdainfully and Hornswoggle entered, slammed
the door behind him, and faced the two bewildered friends.
“That man, my dear sirs, is a malefactor of great wealth, an economic
royalist. He is the type of predatory interest that is the ruination of
this country. You did quite right in refusing his offer.” He placed his
hand on his ample chest and smiled at them benignantly.
“Who the devil are you?” rasped Taylor, suddenly recovering from his
initial surprise.
“I?” Hornswoggle was taken aback. “Why--er--I am Peter Quintus
Hornswoggle. Surely, you know me. I was in the House of Representatives
last year.”
“Never heard of you. What do you want?”
“Why, bless me! I read in the papers of your wonderful discovery and
have come to place my services at your feet.”
“What services?”
“Well, after all, you two are not men of the world. With your new
invention, you are prey for every self-seeking unscrupulous person that
comes along--like Bankhead, for instance. Now, a practical man of
affairs, such as I, one with experience of the world, would be of
inestimable use to you. I could handle your affairs, attend to details,
see that--”
“All for nothing, of course, eh?” Taylor asked, sardonically.
Hornswoggle coughed convulsively. “Well, naturally, I thought that a
small interest in your discovery might fittingly be assigned to me.”
Sills, who had remained silent during all this, rose to his feet
suddenly. “Get out of here! Did you hear me? Get out, before I call the
police.”
“Now, Professor Sills, pray don’t get excited,” Hornswoggle retreated
uneasily towards the door which Taylor held open for him. He passed out
still protesting, and swore softly to himself when the door slammed in
his face.
Sills sank wearily into the nearest chair. “What are we to do, Gene? He
offers only two thousand. A week ago that would have been beyond
anything I could have hoped for, but now--”
“Forget it. The fellow was only bluffing. Listen, I’m going right now
to call on Staples. We’ll sell to him for what we can get (it ought to
be plenty) and then if there’s any trouble with Bankhead--well, that’s
Staples’ worry.” He patted the other on the shoulder. “Our troubles are
practically over.”
Unfortunately, however, Taylor was wrong; their troubles were only
beginning.
* * * * *
Across the street, a furtive figure, with beady eyes peering from
upturned coat collar, surveyed the house carefully. A curious policeman
might have identified him as “Slappy” Egan, if he had bothered to look,
but no one did and “Slappy” remained unmolested.
“Cripes,” he muttered to himself, “dis is gonna be a cinch. De whole
woiks on the bottom floor, back window can be jimmied wid a toot’pick,
no alarms, no nuttin.” He chuckled and walked away.
Nor was “Slappy” alone with his ideas. Peter Q. Hornswoggle, as he
walked away, found strange thoughts wandering through his massive
cranium--thoughts which involved a certain amount of unorthodox action.
And J. Throgmorton Bankhead was likewise active. Belonging to that
virile class known as “go-getters” and being not at all scrupulous as
to how he “go-got,” and certainly not intending to pay a million
dollars for the secret of ammonium, he found it necessary to call on a
certain one of his acquaintances.
This acquaintance, while a very useful one, was a bit unsavory, and
Bankhead found it advisable to be very careful and cautious while
visiting him. However, the conversation that ensued ended in a pleasing
manner for both of them.
* * * * *
Walter Sills snapped out of an uneasy sleep with startled suddenness.
He listened anxiously for a while and then leaned over and nudged
Taylor. He was rewarded by a few incoherent snuffles.
“Gene, Gene, wake up! Come on, get up!”
“Eh? What is it? What are you bothering--”
“Shut up! Listen, do you hear it?”
“I don’t hear anything. Leave me alone, will you?”
Sills put his finger on his lips, and the other quieted. There was a
distinct shuffling noise down below, in the laboratory.
Taylor’s eyes widened and sleep left them entirely. “Burglars!” he
whispered.
The two crept out of bed, donned bathrobe and slippers, and tiptoed to
the door. Taylor had a revolver and took the lead in descending the
stairs.
They had traversed perhaps half the flight, when there was a sudden,
surprised shout from below, followed by a series of loud, threshing
noises. This continued for a few moments and then there was a loud
crash of glassware.
“My ammonium!” cried Sills in a stricken voice and rushed headlong down
the stairs, evading Taylor’s clutching arms.
The chemist burst into the laboratory, followed closely by his cursing
associate, and clicked the lights on. Two struggling figures blinked
owlishly in the sudden illumination, and separated.
Taylor’s gun covered them. “Well, isn’t this nice,” he said.
One of the two lurched to his feet from amid a tangle of broken beakers
and flasks, and, nursing a cut on his wrist, bent his portly body in a
still dignified bow. It was Peter Q. Hornswoggle.
“No doubt,” he said, eyeing the unwavering firearm nervously, “the
circumstances seem suspicious, but I can explain very easily. You see,
in spite of the very rough treatment I received after having made my
reasonable proposal, I still felt a great deal of kindly interest in
you two.
“Therefore, being a man of the world, and knowing the iniquities of
mankind, I just decided to keep an eye on your house tonight, for I saw
you had neglected to take precautions against house-breakers. Judge my
surprise to see this dastardly creature,” he pointed to the flat-nosed,
plug-ugly, who still remained on the floor in a daze, “creeping in at
the back window.
“Immediately, I risked life and limb in following the criminal,
attempting desperately to save your great discovery. I really feel I
deserve great credit for what I have done. I’m sure you will feel that
I am a valuable person to deal with and reconsider your answers to my
earlier proposals.”
Taylor listened to all this with a cynical smile. “You can certainly
lie fluently, can’t you, P. Q.?”
He would have continued at greater length and with greater forcefulness
had not the other burglar suddenly raised his voice in loud protest.
“Cripes, boss, dis fat slob here is only tryin’ to get me in bad. I’m
just followin’ orders, boss. A fellow hired me to come in here and
rifle the safe and I’m just oinin’ a bit o’ honest money. Just plain
safe-crackin’, boss, I ain’t out to hurt no one.
“Den, just as I was gettin’ down to de job--warmin’ up, so to say--in
crawls dis little guy wid a chisel and blowtorch and makes for de safe.
Well, natur’lly, I don’t like no competition, so I lays for him and
then--”
But Hornswoggle had drawn himself up in icy hauteur. “It remains to be
seen whether the word of a gangster is to be taken before the word of
one, who, I may truthfully say, was, in his time, one of the most
eminent members of the great--”
“Quiet, both of you,” shouted Taylor, waving the gun threateningly.
“I’m calling the police and you can annoy _them_ with your stories.
Say, Walt, is everything all right?”
“I think so!” Sills returned from his inspection of the laboratory.
“They only knocked over empty glassware. Everything else is unharmed.”
“That’s good,” Taylor began, and then choked in dismay.
From the hallway, a cool individual, hat drawn well over his eyes,
entered. A revolver, expertly handled, changed the situation
considerably.
“O. K.,” he grunted at Taylor, “drop the gat!” The other’s weapon
slipped from reluctant fingers and hit the floor with a clank.
The new menace surveyed the four others with a sardonic glance. “Well!
So there were two others trying to beat me to it. This seems to be a
very popular place.”
* * * * *
Sills and Taylor stared stupidly, while Hornswoggle’s teeth chattered
energetically. The first mobster moved back uneasily, muttering as he
did so, “For Pete’s sake, it’s Mike the Slug.”
“Yeah,” Mike rasped, “Mike the Slug. There’s lots of guys who know me
and who know I ain’t afraid to pull the trigger anytime I feel like.
Come on, Baldy, hand over the works. You know--the stuff about your
fake gold. Come on, before I count five.”
Sills moved slowly toward the old safe in the corner. Mike stepped back
carelessly to give him room, and in so doing, his coat sleeve brushed
against a shelf. A small vial of sodium sulphate solution tottered and
fell.
With sudden inspiration, Sills yelled, “My God, watch out! It’s
nitroglycerine!”
The vial hit the floor with the smashing tinkle of broken glass, and
involuntarily, Mike yelled and jumped in wild dismay. And as he did so,
Taylor crashed into him with a beautiful flying tackle. At the same
time, Sills lunged for Taylor’s fallen weapon to cover the other two.
For this, however, there was no longer need. At the very beginning of
the confusion, both had faded hurriedly into the night from whence they
came.
Taylor and Mike the Slug rolled round and round the laboratory floor,
locked in desperate struggle while Sills hopped over and about them,
praying for a moment of comparative quiet that he might bring the
revolver into sharp and sudden contact with the gangster’s skull.
But no such moment came. Suddenly Mike lunged, caught Taylor stunningly
under the chin, and jerked free. Sills yelled in consternation and
pulled the trigger at the fleeing figure. The shot was wild and Mike
escaped unharmed. Sills made no attempt to follow.
A sluicing stream of cold water brought Taylor back to his senses. He
shook his head dazedly as he surveyed the surrounding shambles.
“Whew!” he said, “What a night!”
Sills groaned, “What are we going to do now, Gene? Our very lives are
in danger. I never thought of the possibility of thieves, or I would
never have told of the discovery to the newspapers.”
“Oh well, the harm’s done; no use weeping over it. Now listen, the
first thing we have to do now is to get back to sleep. They won’t
bother us again tonight. Tomorrow, you’ll go to the bank and put the
papers outlining the details of the process in the vault (which you
should have done long ago). Staples will be here at 3 p.m.; we’ll close
the deal, and then, at last, we’ll live happily ever after.”
The chemist shook his head dolefully. “Ammonium has certainly proved to
be very upsetting so far. I almost wish I had never heard of it. I’d
almost rather be back doing ore analysis.”
AN UNEXPECTED SURPRISE!
As Walter Sills rattled cross-town towards his bank, he found no reason
to change his wish. Even the comforting and homely jiggling of his
ancient and battered automobile failed to cheer him. From a life
characterized by peaceful monotony, he had entered a period of bedlam,
and he was not at all satisfied with the change.
“Riches, like poverty, has its own peculiar problems,” he remarked
sententiously to himself as he braked the car before the two-story,
marble edifice that was the bank. He stepped out carefully, stretched
his cramped legs, and headed for the revolving door.
He didn’t get there right away, though. Two husky specimens of the
human race stepped up, one at each side, and Sills felt a very hard
object pressing with painful intensity against his ribs. He opened his
mouth involuntarily, and was rewarded by an icy voice in his ears,
“Quiet, Baldy, or you’ll get what you deserve for the damn trick you
pulled on me last night.”
Sills shivered and subsided. He recognized Mike the Slug’s voice very
easily.
“Where’s the details?” asked Mike, “and make it quick.”
“Inside jacket pocket,” croaked Sills tremulously.
Mike’s companion passed his hand dexterously into the indicated pocket
and flicked out three or four folded sheets of foolscap.
“Dat it, Mike?”
A hasty appraisal and a nod, “Yeh, we got it. All right. Baldy, on your
way!” A sudden shove and the two gangsters jumped into their car and
drove away rapidly, while the chemist sprawled on the sidewalk. Kindly
hands raised him up.
“It’s all right,” he managed to gasp. “I just tripped, that’s all. I’m
not hurt.” He found himself alone again, passed into the bank, and
dropped into the nearest bench, in near-collapse. There was no doubt
about it; the new life was not for him.
But he should have been prepared for it. Taylor had foreseen a
possibility of this sort of thing happening. He, himself, had thought a
car had been trailing him. Yet, in his surprise and fright, he had
almost ruined everything.
He shrugged his thin shoulders and, taking off his hat, abstracted a
few folded sheets of paper from the sweatband. It was the work of five
minutes to deposit them in a vault, and see the immensely strong steel
door swing shut. He felt relieved.
“I wonder what they’ll do,” he muttered to himself on the way home,
“when they try to follow the instructions on the paper they _did_ get.”
He pursed his lips and shook his head. “If they do, there’s going to be
one heck of an explosion.”
Sills arrived home to find three policemen pacing leisurely up and down
the sidewalk in front of the house.
“Police guard,” explained Taylor shortly, “so that we have no more
trouble like last night.”
The chemist related the events at the bank and Taylor nodded grimly.
“Well, it’s checkmate for them now. Staples will be here in two hours
and until then, the police will take care of things. Afterwards,” he
shrugged, “it will be Staples’ affair.”
“Listen, Gene,” the chemist put in suddenly, “I’m worried about the
ammonium. I haven’t tested its plating abilities and those are the most
important things, you know. What if Staples comes, and we find that all
we have is pigeon milk.”
“Hmm,” Taylor stroked his chin, “you’re right there. But I’ll tell you
what we can do. Before Staples comes, let’s plate something--a spoon,
suppose--for our own satisfaction.”
“It’s really very annoying,” Sills complained fretfully. “If it weren’t
for these troublesome hooligans, we wouldn’t have to proceed in this
slipshod and unscientific manner.”
“Well, let’s eat dinner first.”
* * * * *
After the mid-day meal, they began. The apparatus was set up in
feverish haste. In a cubic vat, a foot each way, a saturated solution
of Ammonaline was poured. An old, battered spoon was the cathode and a
mass of ammonium amalgam (separated from the rest of the solution by a
perforated glass partition) was the anode. Three batteries in series
provided the current.
Sills explained animatedly, “It works on the same principle as ordinary
copper plating. The ammonium ion, once the electric current is run
through, is attracted to the cathode, which is the spoon. Ordinarily it
would break up, being unstable, but this is not the case when it is
dissolved in Ammonaline. This Ammonaline is itself very slightly
ionized and oxygen is given off at the anode.
“This much I know from theory. Let us see what happens in practice.”
He closed the key while Taylor watched with breathless interest. For a
moment, no effect was visible. Taylor looked disappointed.
Then Sills grasped his sleeve. “See!” he hissed. “Watch the anode!”
Sure enough, bubbles of gas were slowly forming upon the spongy
ammonium amalgam. They shifted their attention to the spoon.
Gradually, they noticed a change. The metallic appearance became
dulled, the silver color slowly losing its whiteness. A layer of
distinct, if dull, yellow was being built up. For fifteen minutes, the
current ran and then Sills broke the circuit with a contented sigh.
“It plates perfectly,” he said.
“Good! Take it out! Let’s see it!”
“What?” Sills was aghast. “Take it out! Why, that’s pure ammonium. If I
were to expose it to ordinary air, the water vapor would dissolve it to
NH₄OH in no time. We can’t do that.”
He dragged a rather bulky piece of apparatus to the table. “This,” he
said, “is a compressed-air container. I run it through calcium chloride
dryers and then bubble the perfectly dry oxygen (safely diluted with
four times its own volume of nitrogen) directly into the solvent.”
He introduced the nozzle into the solution just beneath the spoon and
turned on a slow stream of air. It worked like magic. With almost
lightning speed, the yellow coating began to glitter and gleam, to
shine with almost ethereal beauty.
The two men watched it with beating heart and panting breath. Sills
shut the air off, and for a while they watched the wonderful spoon and
said nothing.
Then Taylor whispered hoarsely, “Take it out. Let me feel it! My
God!--it’s beautiful!”
With reverent awe, Sills approached the spoon, grasped it with forceps,
and withdrew it from the surrounding liquid.
What followed immediately after that can never be fully described.
Later on, when excited newspaper reporters pressed them unmercifully,
neither Taylor nor Sills had the least recollection of the happenings
of the next few minutes.
What happened was that the moment the ammonium-plated spoon was exposed
to open air, the most horrible odor ever conceived assailed their
nostrils!--an odor that cannot be described, a terrible broth of Hell
that plunged the room into sheer, horrible nightmare.
With one strangled gasp, Sills dropped the spoon. Both were coughing
and retching, tearing wildly at their throats and mouths, yelling,
weeping, sneezing!
Taylor pounced upon the spoon and looked about wildly. The odor grew
steadily more powerful and their wild exertions to escape it had
already succeeded in wrecking the laboratory and had upset the vat of
Ammonaline. There was only one thing to do, and Sills did it. The spoon
went flying out the open window into the middle of Twelfth Avenue. It
hit the sidewalk right at the feet of one of the policemen, but Taylor
didn’t care.
“Take off your clothes. We’ll have to burn them,” Sills was gasping.
“Then spray something over the laboratory--anything with a strong
smell. Burn sulphur. Get some liquid bromine.”
* * * * *
Both were tearing at their clothes in distraction when they realized
that someone had walked in through the unlocked door. The bell had
rung, but neither had heard it. It was Staples, six-foot, lion-maned
Steel King.
One step into the hall ruined his dignity utterly. He collapsed in one
tearing sob and Twelfth Avenue was treated to the spectacle of an
elderly, richly-dressed gentleman tearing uptown as fast as his feet
would carry him, shedding as much of his clothes as he dared while
doing so.
The spoon continued its deadly work. The three policemen had long since
retired in abject rout, and now to the numbed and tortured senses of
the two innocent and suffering causes of the entire mess came a roaring
and confused shouting from the street.
Men and women were pouring out of the neighboring houses, horses were
bolting. Fire engines clanged down the street, only to be abandoned by
their riders. Squadrons of police came--and left.
Sills and Taylor finally gave up, and clad only in trousers, ran
pell-mell for the Hudson. They did not stop until they found themselves
neck-deep in water, with blessed, pure air above them.
Taylor turned bewildered eyes to Sills. “But how could it emit that
horrible odor? You said it was stable and stable solids have no odors.
It takes vapor for that, doesn’t it?”
“Have you ever smelled musk?” groaned Sills. “It will give off an aroma
for an indefinite period without losing any appreciable weight. We’ve
come up against something like that.”
The two ruminated in silence for a while, wincing whenever the wind
brought a vagrant waft of ammonium vapor to them, and then Taylor said
in a low voice, “When they finally trace the trouble to the spoon, and
find out who made it, I’m afraid we’ll be sued--or maybe thrown in
jail.”
Sills’ face lengthened. “I wish I’d never seen the damned stuff! It’s
brought nothing but trouble.” His tortured spirit gave way and he
sobbed loudly.
Taylor patted him on the back mournfully. “It’s not as bad as all that,
of course. The discovery will make you famous and you’ll be able to
demand your own price, working at any industrial lab in the country.
Then, too, you’re a cinch to win the Nobel Prize.”
“That’s right,” Sills smiled again, “and I may find a way to counteract
the odor, too. I hope so.”
“I hope so, too,” said Taylor feelingly. “Let’s go back. I think
they’ve managed to remove the spoon by now.”
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the July 1940 issue of
_Future Fiction_ magazine.]
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