“Ah, yes! I had forgotten your status in this life. You have lived a hundred years; why may you not have known him?” murmured the old man, as if reasoning with some doubt in his mind as to Cobb’s sincerity of expression. “You must tell me of him,” with an eager look; “for I reverence the name of him who conceived this wonderful agent of communication, and placed its power subject to the will of man. To-night, to-night, Mr. Cobb, you must tell me of yourself and of him.”
“With pleasure, Mr. Doane,” returned Cobb.
“Be it so. And now I will go on with my story,” continued the superintendent. “As I was saying, in 1892, when Jean Colchis made his discovery, the government bought the invention from him, and selected my grandfather, who was a Major in the army, to be the superintendent of the system. I do not know what were the terms of sale, or what were the conditions imposed, excepting that only one man was to know the secret of sympathizing the needles; that that man was never to commit the secret to writing or to tell it to any living soul until at death’s door; then it was to be transmitted to only one other, verbally. It is believed that this great stipulation on the part of Jean Colchis was to prevent France from reaping any benefit from his discovery, as he was said to have been an exile from that country.”
Cobb smiled as he uttered the latter words, for the political secrets of Colchis were fresh in his memory.
“For thirty-seven years my grandfather sympathized, in his laboratory, all the needles used in the system. Upon his death-bed, in 1929, at the ripe age of eighty-five, he communicated the secret to his son, who was his assistant in the system. The government made my father superintendent to succeed my grandfather. I was born in 1937, and at twenty years of age became my father’s assistant. It was his intention to leave the secret with me; but, from a stroke of paralysis preventing speech and motion, he died on the 6th of September, 1963, and the secret died with him. On account of my knowledge of the system I was, upon the death of my father, immediately appointed superintendent, and have occupied the position ever since.”
“And has no effort been made to rediscover this secret?” asked Cobb.
“Oh, yes. Scientists throughout the world have worked assiduously, but without success. The government has standing rewards of five millions of dollars for the lost secret.”
They had reached the house, and the drag stopped at the door.