“You knew! Did he tell you?”
“No. I haven’t seen him, as I said. But I know Biff. Even in his most extreme mood of heroism Biff would do his best to maintain a glamorous background. Something the ladies would like.”
“Is there anything wrong with that?”
Jimmie turned toward his father. “Well, it’s flashy. Still, he’d make a peach of a flier.”
“You’re just a damned puritan,” Mr. Bailey said. Jimmie looked at him and suddenly laughed. His laugh was almost merry. “Gee! That I should live to see the day you called me a puritan! Maybe I am, though.”
The older man grunted. “You damn’ well are. Say, Jimmie. What really happened—the night of the fire? That was the thing that changed Biff. He won’t ever be the same again. But he wouldn’t tell me. I asked him, and he said never to ask him again. He said you had more insides than a herd of elephants. But that’s all. I—I’m your father, Jimmie—sort of, after all.”
Jimmie felt the touch of compassion. Mercy, in Jimmie’s present state of mind, was cheap enough. He wanted only to avoid all signs of drama. “I’ll tell you—if you’ll never repeat it. Somehow I think you won’t. And I think you’ll understand too. Other people would fail to. You know, I loved old Willie Corinth like a father.” His eyes lifted gravely. “Sorry. Willie was the greatest man Muskogewan ever had—maybe ever will have. Biff and I were scouting around behind the fire and we saw the old boy trapped in there. He could have jumped out the window, and we could have run fast and grabbed him—and I was set to try that. But he spent a lot of time burning the stuff in his safe. Took him forever to open it. I suppose—it was hot in there.” Jimmie halted. “Never thought about that!”
He was grimmer when he went on. “There was a chance of hauling him out—a ladder on a vat, a short jump to the roof, a flock of skylights. Biff saw that chance—and tried to get me to go. He was too rocky or he’d have tried. I realized that. I wouldn’t.
“I knew that if I tried Willie and I might both be lost. I knew what was in the papers that Willie was burning. It was the beginning of a very great idea. A new idea.
Something that would go a long way toward winning the war. I knew that Willie was scared the fire might not cook the stuff in the safe; scared that the idea—the principle—might become public. It was one of those things that, once conceived, any good chemist can develop.”