"Yes, but what object?" Henry demanded. "What? He couldn't possibly profit by anything Orkins gained by snooping round. LaRauche knows more about science than I shall ever dream of knowing."
"Well, there is this to be thought of," I remarked, after thinking a bit: "Perhaps, in relation to your latest achievement, he's going to come forward with something he hopes will throw your accomplishment in the shade, like a rocket to the moon, and we both know that's been a bee in his bonnet for some years. Or he's going to try to prove that your discovery is not genuine, and will denounce you as a fakir, as you exposed him, unwittingly, in those faked motion pictures of the African midgets, he claimed to have discovered."
"Either way there may be something in what you suggest," Henry answered. "Both are possible. But I think—"
"But why think," I interposed; "why trouble yourself, or ourselves, any longer about LaRauche's affairs, now that things have turned out as they have? Why should you fear his opposition? The last connecting link has been broken, now that you've got your precious book on Mars back. Let him do his damnedest! Good riddance. I don't care; you don't, I'm sure."
Henry saw the value of my proposition at once; and so matters were settled as far as LaRauche and Orkins were concerned. We never spoke of them again. They passed out of our consciousness as though they never existed.
Other things became of greater concern. So many things, strange things, happened, I didn't know whatever to expect next. It was as if the world was being turned upside down. I never knew such times, nor expected to know such.
X
McGinity had lunch with us, on Henry's invitation, on the day following my visit to Dr. LaRauche's house. In the preparation of his story in advance, it was necessary that he should obtain from Henry all the scientific technicalities relating to the discovery. It was his task to make copious notes while Henry talked.
Seated at his desk in the library, Henry talked on and on for several hours; he never seemed to tire. While I sat by an open window, the weather being exceptionally hot, reading and smoking by fits and turns, and occasionally listening in to what Henry was saying. Whenever I turned to gaze at him, it was with frank bewilderment.