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He was about to pick it up when he realized that all were looking at him. Quickly he covered his discovery and faced them. "This man is the stranger in the house," cried Balcom, in anger. "Arrest him and make him explain." It was the work of only an instant for the chief detective to step up to Locke and slip the bracelets on his wrists. "Don't!" cried Eva.
She, too, now heard the inventor exact a promise from Eva and Locke not to fail to be at his workshop at eight that night. Zita had but a second to glide backward from the door as the inventor came out into the hallway where she stood. He gazed at her in such a strange, fixed manner that an uncanny feeling came over her. Then he passed out, just as Balcom came down the stairs.
Balcom," she repeated, breathlessly, as the junior partner answered, "Flint has returned. I have seen him." "The devil!" exclaimed Balcom, angrily, then checked himself before he said any more. "Keep me informed." Abruptly he hung up. It was scarcely a moment later that Paul Balcom entered the Balcom apartment, admitted by a turbaned black suggestive of the Orient.
"I trust the ailment is but temporary." As he spoke Eva thanked him mechanically for his solicitations, while Balcom glanced at his son in admiration. Locke, who was still engaged in looking at the candle drippings through his pocket magnifying-glass, paid slight attention to Paul, but glanced up in time to see that there was a look of insincerity on his face.
Locke threw a chair to impede the progress of the monster, and then, as he saw that all the others were safe, he lightly vaulted out of the window himself, to find them waiting for him in the little yard below. "What do you make of it now father?" asked Locke of Doctor Q. "Balcom is dead. Who is now in the iron man?" Doctor Q shrugged.
But Brent insisted on explaining that at least he had had a desire to right the great wrongs. "I can remember it all now," he continued. "I was about to make restitution when a man connected with the company I am sure now that he was an adventurer, a crook, in the pay of Balcom, although Balcom probably tried to hide it came to me. His name, as I remember it, was Flint.
The terror caused by the explosion, as well as the loss of Balcom, for the time, at least, had evidently cowed the emissary band. While Eva made Brent comfortable, Locke went immediately to the laboratory, where he had something which he considered very important.
As she sobbed she bent over his hand and pressed it to her lips. Peter Brent sat staring into space, staring like a graven image. After her brief encounter with Balcom in the hallway Zita stealthily mounted to Flint's room. Flint's condition was unchanged.
Balcom and Paul, however, were slower in going, and paced the hallway in earnest conversation. Once they came to a dead halt close to the stairway leading down to the Graveyard of Genius. They listened intently. Evidently they came to a decision on something, for they left the house very hurriedly. Immediately Locke called for the runabout.
Locke tried to rescue them, but by this time the deadly fumes had reached him and he, too, fell to the floor, coughing his life away. At that moment Balcom got up from the divan and, stepping over Locke's prostrate body, left the place, forgetting to close the door behind him.
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