Mary typed the contract on my portable as dictated by Mr. Eammer.
"Put in a clause," I said cautiously, remembering his ethics, "that the contract is effective only when the million is deposited in my account."
Mr. Eammer frowned. "Put in a clause for me, too," he said. "He can't draw on the million without a signed receipt from me saying he's delivered all his blueprints and technical notebooks on the invention—and a full-size camera model, big enough to hold people."
"I agree," I said. "I'll have it built and delivered immediately."
I shook Mr. Eammer's clammy hand and he departed with Mary to get the million dollars out of his secret safe-deposit boxes.
I stared dreamily after them, mentally spending that money on all the wonderful things I'd always wanted. A scintillometer. A centrifuge. Maybe I could even build my own private cyclotron. And I could visualize Mary cooking dinner in a little white cottage with a picket fence.
Within the week, I had delivered the full-size camera to Mr. Eammer's studio. As he left me, whimpering with joy and carefully locking the iron doors of the room he'd set aside for my equipment, I stared at the signed receipt in my hand. A million dollars. I was rich.
At this moment, Mary appeared at the studio gate and ran toward me, her face deathly pale.
"What's the matter?" I cried.