“I think not,” considered Denison. “As I remember there was a sort of insulating air cushion or something of the sort.”
Denison was quite eager to show us about. In fact ever since he had hustled us out to view the scene of the robbery, his high nervous tension had given us scarcely a moment’s rest. For hours he had talked radium, until I felt that he, like his metal, must have an inexhaustible emanation of words. He was one of those nervous, active little men, a born salesman, whether of ribbons or radium.
“We have just gone into furnishing radium water,” he went on, bustling about and patting a little glass tank.
I looked closely and could see that the water glowed in the dark with a peculiar phosphorescence.
“The apparatus for the treatment,” he continued, “consists of two glass and porcelain receptacles. Inside the larger receptacle is placed the smaller, which contains a tiny quantity of radium. Into the larger receptacle is poured about a gallon of filtered water. The emanation from that little speck of radium is powerful enough to penetrate its porcelain holder and charge the water with its curative properties. From a tap at the bottom of the tank the patient draws the number of glasses of water a day prescribed. For such purposes the emanation within a day or two of being collected is as good as radium itself. Why, this water is five thousand times as radioactive as the most radioactive natural spring water.”
“You must have control of a comparatively large amount of the metal,” suggested Kennedy.
“We are, I believe, the largest holders of radium in the world,” he answered. “I have estimated that all told there are not much more than ten grams, of which Madame Curie has perhaps three, while Sir Ernest Cassel of London is the holder of perhaps as much. We have nearly four grams, leaving about six or seven for the rest of the world.”
Kennedy nodded and continued to look about.
“The Radium Corporation,” went on Denison, “has several large deposits of radioactive ore in Utah in what is known as the Poor Little Rich Valley, a valley so named because from being about the barrenest and most unproductive mineral or agricultural hole in the hills, the sudden discovery of the radioactive deposits has made it almost priceless.”
He had entered a private office and was looking over some mail that had been left on his desk during his absence.