It is probable that all in the room held their breaths as David laid his hand upon the lever. Betsey was certain that she held hers and that she felt all dry and hollow inside, so tense was her anxiety. She listened for the familiar sound of turning wheels, the smooth rising note as they spun into motion. Every one listened—but the machine remained silent.
“There is something wrong, sir,” she heard David say huskily.
“Perhaps you have not thrown the proper switch,” Garven suggested, but the boy shook his head miserably.
“I have started it a hundred times,” he answered; “there was never anything simpler. No, the machine is not as it used to be. There must be some parts missing.”
They went over it minutely, inch by inch, all four of them, while Betsey and Miss Miranda still waited by the door.
“Certain parts have been taken out,” David declared at last, “the jets are missing and these valves have been unscrewed. The machine can never go without them.”
There followed a search in every drawer, on every shelf, in each nook and cranny of the whole room.
“He seems to have put them away in some very safe place,” an assistant said. “It is unfortunate that he did not think that some one else might wish to use them without him. Very unfortunate and very strange.”
David was standing in the middle of the room, his eye on the table, once such a litter of papers but now quite bare.
“He has burned all his drawings and plans,” he observed, “and he must have destroyed those missing parts. Do you remember, Betsey, he said the machine should never run again!”