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Updated: June 8, 2025
And then it occurred to Hilliard that here, perhaps, was evidence of design; that this very difficulty had been deliberately caused by Mr. Coburn with the object of keeping himself and Merriman under observation and rendering them harmless. This, he recognized, was guesswork, but still it might be the truth.
He picked up one of them. He took it to the light of the headlights, standing there in the resonant darkness of a street in a city of stone houses. The leather was brittle. It was friable, as if it had been in a fire. Coburn plucked it open, and it came apart in his hands. Inside there was the smell of scorched things. There was a gritty metallic powder. Nothing else.
He felt that he ought, and yet the desire to remain in the hope of doing still better was overpowering. But as he hesitated the power of choice was taken away. The men in the cabin were making a move. Coburn finished his whisky, and he and Henri rose to their feet. "Well," the former said, "There's one o'clock. We must be off."
No man could make such leaps or travel so fast. He seemed almost to soar toward the village, shouting. Coburn and Janice saw him reach the village. They saw him rush toward the one man who had been going swiftly from one prone soldier to another.
Coburn agreed, continuing courteously: "I am glad at all events that your researches have brought you into our neighborhood. We do not come across many visitors here, and it is pleasant occasionally to speak one's own language to someone outside one's household.
"If you people had found the trick of space travel first, and you'd found us, would you have tried to conquer us? Considering that we're civilized?" Coburn said coldly, "No. Not my particular people. We know you can't conquer a civilized race. You can exterminate them, or you can break them down to savagery, but you can't conquer them. You can't conquer us!"
"I thought so, old man, and I can only say the best of luck! As you say, then, we mustn't call in the police, and as we can't leave the thing, we must go on with our own inquiry. I would suggest that if we find out their scheme is something illegal, we see Mr. Coburn and give him the chance to get out before we lodge our information." "I suppose that is the only way," Merriman said doubtfully.
Coburn. They've made it look as if they were trying hard to kill you, eh? But we know better, don't we? We know it's all a build-up for you to make a deal for them, eh? Well, Mr. Coburn, you'll find it's going to be a let-down instead! You're not officially under arrest, but I wouldn't advise you to try to start anything, Mr. Coburn!
Coburn," said an entirely new voice, "has gone to the suburbs to visit her fiancé's family. She is quite safe." There was dead silence. The figure it even moved like Helena got composedly to its feet. It got its coat. It put the coat on. Hallen stared with his mouth open. The pins hadn't convinced him, but the utterly different voice coming from this girl's mouth had.
Ordinarily she would have jumped up, exclaiming angrily in Greek, and then she would have pursued the fly vengefully with a folded newspaper until she killed it. But now she ignored it. Hallen came in, stamping. Coburn closed the door behind him. He felt queer at the pit of his stomach. For Helena to let a fly stay on her neck suggested that her skin was ... somehow not like its usual self.
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