Ed:
“Look these up. I’m bound for the mountain. No time to explain. There’s a car outside. Stay with the lens. Don’t leave it. If the earth goes up you will know that I have not reached the mountain.”
Beside the note he placed one of the maps that he had in his pocket—with his pencil drew a black cross just above the center. Under the map were a number of computations.
It is interesting to note that in the stress of the great critical moment he forgot the professor’s title. It was a good thing. When Williams read it he recognized the significance. All through their life in crucial moments he had been “Ed.” to Charley.
But the note was all he was destined to find. A brisk wind was blowing. By a strange balance of fate the same movement that let Huyck out of the building ushered in the wind and upset calculation.
It was a little thing, but it was enough to keep all the world in ignorance and despair. The eddy whisking in through the door picked up the precious map, poised it like a tiny plane, and dropped it neatly behind a bookcase.
CHAPTER VI
A RACE TO SAVE THE WORLD
Huyck was working in a straight line. Almost before his last words on the phone were spoken he had requisitioned that automobile outside; whether money or talk, faith or force, he was going to have it. The hum of the motor sounded in his ears as he ran down the steps. He was hatless and in his shirt-sleeves. The driver was just putting some tools in the car. With one jump Charley had him by the collar.
“Five thousand dollars if you can get me to Robold Mountain in twenty hours.”
The very suddenness of the rush caught the man by surprise and lurched him against the car, turning him half around. Charley found himself gazing into dull brown eyes and sardonic laughter: a long, thin nose and lips drooped at the corners, then as suddenly tipping up—a queer creature, half devil, half laughter, and all fun.
“Easy, Charley, easy! How much did you say? Whisper it.”