"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.
Paul was surly and had evidently been drinking, for he shoved the servant roughly out of the way as he strode toward his father.
Apparently outside Paul had overheard and had gathered the drift of what Balcom had been saying. Or perhaps, from his own sources of information, he already knew. At any rate, as Balcom turned from the telephone, father and son faced each other angrily.
"Brent's lying," exclaimed Paul. "That marriage to me must take place to-morrow."
Talking angrily, sometimes in agreement, at others far apart, the two left the room.
Back in the dining-room by this time Brent had rejoined Flint and now watched him eagerly as he took the last wrappings from the package which he had carried so carefully.
As the last wrapping was stripped from it, on the table before them lay a small steel model, perhaps three feet high—a weird-looking thing in the miniature shape of a man, designed along lines that only a cubist could have conceived—jointed, mobile, truly a contrivance at which to marvel.
Brent gazed incredulously at the strange thing. "An automaton!" he exclaimed.