"You cannot say, however, that it is impossible that Gray, after leaving, crept back into the laboratory and struck you down and took the projector?" Wade pursued.
Gray Did Not Return
Dr. Grantham considered. "No," he said slowly, "but I would say that it sounds impossible to anyone who knew Gray."
Wade was silent, apparently revolving something in his mind, but before he could ask another question there entered the officer he had sent below, who spoke to him briefly in low tones. When he had done, Wade turned again to the physicist.
"How is it, then, that Gray did not return to his rooms when he left here, and has not been seen there since he left yesterday morning.”
"Good Lord!" Carton burst in excitedly. "Then it's Gray that—"
Dr. Grantham's face showed his astonishment and trouble. "Gray was not a criminal type," he persisted. "I simply cannot believe that it was he. More likely by far some thief who found the building's door open and who, seeing me about to lock up the projector, struck me down to get it."
"Well, Gray or another," Wade remarked, "someone is loose in New York at this moment with a thing which, if you're right, can give him the power to walk its streets unseen."
"But you'll endeavor to catch him?" President Ellsworth interposed anxiously. "I know but little about Grantham's mechanism, but surely it will be a terrible threat until whoever has it is captured?"