The Home Secretary stood by, and the great men of science clustered round him, watching Lord Malvin's actions.
The peer went to the silent, soulless machines, which had been the medium through which such wonder and terror had passed, and raising the hammer about his head, he destroyed each one severally, with a sort of ritual, as some priest carries out the ritual of his Faith.
This old man, whose name and personality stood so high, so supreme indeed, in the modern world, was like some ancient prophet of the Lord, who, fired with holy zeal, strode down the pagan avenues of the ancient world and tore and beat the false idols from their pedestals in the frenzy of one who kills and destroys that truth may enter and the world be calm.
It was done, over. The politician shook hands with Lord Malvin, and resumed his dry, official manner, perhaps a little ashamed or frightened at the emotion which he had exhibited.
"Good-bye, Lord Malvin," he said. "This terrible business is now over. I have to return to the palace to tell His Majesty that this—this devilish invention is destroyed. Good-night, good-night."
Then a tall man with a pointed beard came into the laboratory, saluting the Home Secretary as he was leaving, with several of the other scientists who had witnessed the whole thing from first to last and now felt that they must go home.
The man with the beard was the man who had been sent from Scotland Yard.
He walked up to Lord Malvin and saluted.
"I think, my Lord," he said, "that everything requisite has now been done. I have all the servants in my charge, and we have fifteen or twenty men in the house, seeing that nothing is disturbed until official inquiry is due."
By this time nobody was left in the laboratory but the detective inspector, Lord Malvin, and Herr Schmoulder.