It is useless to argue the point under these conditions, and I switch the conversation on to another line.
“May I ask,” I continue, “how you came to find out that Gaydon, the warder, was Simon Hart, the engineer?”
“I see no reason for keeping you in ignorance on the subject, my dear colleague. It was largely by hazard. We had certain relations with the manufactory in New Jersey with which you were connected, and which you quitted suddenly one day under somewhat singular circumstances. Well, during a visit I made to Healthful House some months before the Count d’Artigas went there, I saw and recognized you.”
“You?”
“My very self, and from that moment I promised myself the pleasure of having you for a fellow-passenger on board the Ebba.”
I do not recall ever having seen this Serko at Healthful House, but what he says is very likely true.
“I hope your whim of having me for a companion will cost you dear, some day or other,” I say to myself.
Then, abruptly, I go on:
“If I am not mistaken, you have succeeded in inducing Thomas Roch to disclose the secret of his fulgurator?”
“Yes, Mr. Hart. We paid millions for it. But millions, you know, are nothing to us. We have only the trouble of taking them! Therefore we filled all his pockets—covered him with millions!”