While Eva made Brent comfortable, Locke went immediately to the laboratory, where he had something which he considered very important.
"Quentin," remarked Eva, as she joined him, "your father spoke the truth, I believe, when he said that it was Balcom in the Automaton, But if that was the case, who is in it now?"
Locke shook his head dubiously. "I give it up," he replied. "It's too deep for me. But whoever it is, he won't trouble us long, I'll wager. I've been perfecting a special gun and an explosive-gas bullet. No one can shoot the monster. Nothing seems to stop it. But this weapon, I think, will at last prove a match for it."
Eva, who had always had the deepest interest in Quentin's work, listened attentively as he explained in detail the working of the new weapon.
"And now we come to the actual loading of these asphyxiating-poison bullets," concluded Quentin. "I really must ask you, Eva, to go into another room, for it is dangerous work and you must not risk your life here."
"But, Quentin," remonstrated Eva, "we've risked our lives so often together that I have ceased to be afraid of anything."
Quentin was insistent, and finally Eva agreed.
As Doctor Q and Zita neared the former's laboratory, they saw that all the lights in the house were out. Doctor Locke, against Zita's advice, insisted on going in, and told his daughter to wait outside. It was then that Zita disobeyed her father for the first time, for she flatly refused to be left behind.
"No," she insisted. "I found a father to-night and what we must risk we risk together. It is no worse than the peril from which I once escaped."
There was no reasoning with Zita, and they let themselves into the little yard and went up the back steps. When they came to the door of the laboratory they listened intently.