He has not heard, nor has he seen me.
“Thomas Roch!” I repeat.
He raises his head, turns and gazes at me.
“Ah! it is you, Simon Hart!” he replies calmly, even indifferently.
He knows my name. Engineer Serko must have informed him that it was Simon Hart, and not Keeper Gaydon who was watching over him at Healthful House.
“You know who I am?” I say.
“Yes, as I know what your object was in undertaking such a position. You lived in hopes of surprising a secret that they would not pay for at its just value!”
Thomas Roch knows everything, and perhaps it is just as well, in view of what I am going to say.
“Well, you did not succeed, Simon Hart, and as far as this is concerned,” he added, flourishing the phial, “no one else has succeeded, or ever will succeed.”
As I conjectured, he has not, then, made known the composition of his deflagrator.