Chapter XIX

Five years after Michael Annarly left the great firm of Galhardy’s, the designs for an aerial torpedo were offered to the British Government. A good many designs had been put forward during those years; a good many torpedoes, to meet the demand of the altered conditions of warfare, had been invented, manufactured, modified, improved, discarded in favour of others. It was no new thing for governments to be offered one; but this was a new thing; it was not merely a torpedo, it was _the_ torpedo—that for which all the civilised nations had been looking, the perfect thing. As was that of Galhardy’s disaster to that originally designed for them by Michael Annarly, so was this to Michael Annarly’s design. There was no doubt about it, no room for two opinions, it was perfect. Not closely related to any which had been produced before, probably worked out from first principles by one who had not kept in touch with the course of development in this branch of arms. But none the worse for that; better perhaps, since it was the design of a master unhampered by the convention of other men’s ideas—one who, by rare insight, much work and the knowledge and application of obscure and complicated laws, had arrived at a result simple in its completeness, however complex in its origin—and fulfilling all requirements.

This torpedo, protected by a provisional patent, was offered to the British Government; that is to say, the English rights were offered to them, the inventor reserving to himself the liberty to sell the foreign rights elsewhere, if he chose.

The offer was considered by the War Office, no doubt carefully considered, since some time elapsed before an answer was returned. Indeed, the time of protection allowed a patentee under a provisional patent was almost expired before the reply was given. When it was, it was to the effect that the Government could not entertain the inventor’s suggestion that they should buy the English rights only. They would give him one thousand pounds for all rights, English and foreign, they could not consider any other terms.

The proportion of the sum to the magnitude of the invention was rather interesting—to those who think the sciences lucrative professions and governments good paymasters. It did not interest the inventor, he had no such delusions, nor yet much surprise him. He declined the offer, withdrew his design, and for a little was heard of no more. When the time arrived to file a complete patent for the torpedo and the heads for it he filed one; or, rather, a very comprehensive and expressive series of patents, in which, as law required, every detail of the invention and manufacture was fully described and made plain. Then he approached the Government again, this time with another suggestion—that he should give them the right to use his invention; license them to manufacture in England and the Colonies, subject to no royalty to him, no fees or restrictions whatever; he himself retaining, as he naturally would retain until he agreed to part with it, the right to sell or give licences elsewhere, at home and abroad.

The offer was perhaps a little bald; it might have been kinder to the dignity of a Government department if he had asked a nominal hundred or two for the invaluable concession. But he did not think of that, he made his offer simply and baldly. And after a decent interval, as short as decency allowed, it was accepted. Polite things were said about generous patriotism, and nothing whatever about the copy of the specification of the complete patent, giving the details of manufacture, which lay in the official desk at the time. There was no need to talk of that, the inventor knew it might be expected to be there; he had had some experience of the world, and also knew that governments, being tender of the taxpayers’ money, naturally take what they can get free, the brains of inventors among other things. And the official knew that he knew—else he would not have given what, though nominally protected from them as from others, they could have taken free and unmolested, except by an action which he could not have afforded to bring, and would not have won if he had. Nothing was said of that, the relative positions, though perfectly understood, were decently handled, courteous things were said, and the matter settled; the Government received free licence to manufacture the matchless torpedo, and the inventor received nothing and was satisfied.

Next, he turned his attention to foreign patents and foreign rights, a costly and tedious business. He borrowed the money from Nan Barmister for it, and devoted as much time and energy to the work as he could spare. After a while, he got it settled; and, after a greater while, began to get some returns, enough to feel satisfied that he would be able to repay the money within a reasonable time. Beyond that he did nothing; there was really nothing to do. It did not occur to him to read a paper on aerial torpedoes, or to speak of them to anyone, or in any way to lay claim to having solved that problem of modern warfare. He did not desire a paragraph in the papers, nor yet, even if it were attainable and the war party in the ascendant, knighthood or an honorary degree; he wanted to make the torpedo, to finish the work he had begun long ago. He had always wanted to do it, the problem had fascinated him long before that day five years ago when he told Lady Sibyl Carson he had solved it. He believed then that he had. He had learnt a good deal since of obscure laws and abstruse physical things, also something of psychical values too. He had only solved the problem up to a point then, by no means produced the perfect torpedo, though no one since had produced a better. He had long ago recognised the limit to which he had then attained, and at the back of his mind there had always been a something which worked upon the problem in season and out of season, a species of mental discomfort which would never quite rest until it was done. It was done now: that was all. The life of a creator is in creating, not in making a fortune or securing a peerage; those are by-products that occur to few and extinguish some who, dazzled, lose their way there.

Thus it happened that the great invention was produced without noise or acclaim; the newspapers did not hear of it, the Government made no talk about it, there was no object in their doing so, and the inventor made none either. Certain people, of course, got to know about it, people whose business it was. Some of them got to know the name of the inventor, for it appeared on his patent, and there were those who mastered every detail of the patent very thoroughly—and those who infringed it where they dared. The remedy for infringing a patent is an action at law, a costly proceeding, also not one to be embarked upon until it is possible to show that the infringer has made profit by his use of the patentee’s invention. Profit is not made from the manufacture of aerial torpedoes in a month; it takes time to make the plant, and time to make the torpedoes, even when both are done with speed and effrontery, and an open, if quiet, disregard for the patents protecting them. Further, it takes much money to prosecute firms rich enough to do such things. Michael had not the money. Also, he was deeply interested in the problem, one which had fascinated him for long, of large scale internal combustion engines, and he had not enough leisure of body or mind to divide between two interests.

He lived quietly in the small Midland town, superintending the warp dyeing works for old Milligen. For four years and more he had done that, first working under the old man, then with him and George Foregood; later they had worked with him, finally under him, though none of the three quite realised that. George was dead now, old Milligen hopelessly crippled with gout, Michael was more obviously in command. The dyeing works, under his control, were not; perhaps, quite like any others in the country, but they were on the whole profitable. George’s invention had not ruined his old employers, they had one nearly as good evolved out of his earlier apparatus—the fact, when he came to realise it, was a blow he never got over. Still, the apparatus set up at Milligen’s was a good one, really the best, and it and Michael’s improvements and general management, aided by the start given by the handsome compensation received from the council for the power station accident, made the old place more prosperous than it had been for long. It was still a warp dyer’s; Michael, with the vein of conservative solidity inherited from his City forebears, never thought of making it into anything else, even if old Milligen had been willing. In some respects it was much as it had always been; the buildings still looked in serious need of repair—except the over-magnificent new ones put up by the council. Dyeing was still considered to be the sole industry, and if in the course of time Michael had accumulated machines strange and unexpected at a small dyer’s (he generally borrowed money from Nan to get them), he honestly believed of each one as he imported it that it was in some way connected with the work. Milligen believed it too, and George when he was alive; they had wonderful flights of fancy occasionally, both of them, though few of their ideas were practicable, and none of them were ever put into practice. Michael’s ideas were different, they were all practicable, though few were put to profitable practice—only those that were expressed in advice or comment to men who showed him new machines or old processes, and profited by what he said. The rest were seldom spoken of; occasionally to Milligen, more often to Nan, always to Nan when he happened to see her.

Thus, one understands, the fame of the torpedo designer did not spread, and the man himself troubled no whit about it.

But after two years something happened. It was in September, two full years after His Majesty’s Government had accepted the free licence to manufacture the perfect torpedo. It befell on a certain Sunday, late in the month. Michael usually spent Sunday evenings with Mr. and Mrs. Milligen; he had grown to be something like a son to them, more to them, perhaps, than any son of their own could have been, for he had quicker perceptions and a gentler tolerance and patience, begotten maybe of the years. He spent that Sunday evening with them, having tea and supper, and hearing the tale of the week’s doings—difficulties, work, and jests, and after supper listening to the prayers the old man insisted on reading, though he could hardly see now.

That evening he chose to read, as the lesson before the prayer, the part of the book of Daniel which describes Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and its fulfilment. Michael listened intermittently, his own thoughts coming here and there between the words and obscuring sentences and passages: “I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and, behold, a Watcher and an holy one came down from heaven; he cried aloud, and said thus, Hew down the tree, and cut off his branches, shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit ... nevertheless leave the stump of his roots in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field.... Let seven times pass over him.... To the intent that the living may know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men.”

A strange old story, Michael found himself thinking—“Seven times?” What were the seven times that passed over the dethroned king before he came again to his kingdom, and the knowledge of Who ruleth in the kingdom of men? Seven years, perhaps? It was just seven years since he himself left Galhardy’s. The thought recurred to him for a moment as it seldom did now; but it passed quickly again, it never troubled, and he thought of Nebuchadnezzar until the reading was finished.

When prayers were over he went to the sideboard to mix whisky and water for himself and his host. While they drank it, Mr. Milligen spoke of local matters and the question of a new sewer; it was a question he felt strongly upon, as he did on all local matters. Michael, on his way home, thought about it, though principally about the here approved method of trapping, which he considered more costly and less efficient than it need be. He tried to think out an improvement as he walked along, stopping once to make a note on the subject.

Arrived at his rooms—he lodged, as he had done ever since leaving town, at the house of a respectable foreman not very far from the works—there he found a letter waiting for him. There was no Sunday delivery in the town, but, by applying at the post office, it was possible to obtain letters which would otherwise be delivered on Monday morning. The foreman, it would seem, had applied on his own behalf, and also thought to ask on his lodger’s too.

The letter, Michael saw, was from Nan, and he guessed its contents before opening it. It could tell of nothing but the death of Mr. Cordover; he had been ill some while, and Nan’s last letter spoke of the approaching end. Michael was sorry; he knew she would miss the old man, almost her closest friend, as well as her nearest neighbour—she lived with Miss Janet and Josiah in the long house embowered in trees.

The letter proved to be as he thought. Nan wrote to say Mr. Cordover was dead after so painful an illness that she could hardly wish it otherwise. But she also gave another piece of news, a very surprising one.

“_The day before he died,_” she wrote, “_he sent for me and told me he had left me nothing but the sideboard with the fruit carved on it because he thought I had enough money for a woman. I have, too much, I said so, I said I did not want money or anything. Whereupon he told me to stop talking and listen, he was going to do what he liked with his own, in just the old way, so I took his hand and told him to go on. Then he said, ‘I have left nothing to you, but I have left something for you—a chance of having Michael Annarly’s name cleared. In spite of all the rubbish you’ve talked about it’s not mattering, I don’t believe but what you really wanted it all the time, and you shall have it if it can be got. I’ve left Michael ten thousand pounds to spend on clearing himself, reinstating himself, making his name somehow. It’s down in my will, but you tell him about it too, and see he does it.’_”

So Michael read, and sat staring. Ten thousand pounds to be spent on clearing his name, reinstating himself somehow!

Reinstating himself after seven years? To be again what he had been. To have the same situation, the same hopes and ambitions. To go back seven years in time, unmake the torpedo, which was the accomplishment of the hopes and ambitions; unlearn what he had learnt of the relative values and importance of things; be once more Galhardy’s insatiable genius demanding all the kingdoms of the earth and the empiry of sense, and believing himself equal to dealing with them and but inadequately rewarded by attaining them! Buy back the reputation of being the great firm’s promising and trusted engineer for the man who might have had—had he thought it worth the taking—the reputation of the inventor of the perfect torpedo! One wonders if Nebuchadnezzar, when he came back to his palace, found the walls a little narrow and the roof a little low after the stretching earth and the canopy of stars that housed him what time he was wet with the dew of Heaven.

But the ten thousand pounds had to be spent, and on a given object; as much was indicated in Mr. Cordover’s will, though not in detail. That was supplied by Nan, and she and Michael held consultations over it, in some considerable difficulty as to how to spend the money so as to accomplish the testator’s wish.

“I might bring an action against Galhardy’s for infringing my torpedo patent,” Michael suggested doubtfully. “I am not at all sure that would do the business, but it might, I can’t think of anything better.”

“Have you a case against them?” Nan asked.

“Oh, yes, they infringed that patent almost from the first; they are manufacturing from it pretty largely and quite deliberately now. They know it’s mine, and that I couldn’t afford to fight them, even if I wanted to; there’s case enough. Of course, I might not win; though with ten thousand pounds to spend I might, especially as the Government, having a free licence of their own, would not back Galhardy’s up. That possible advantage occurred to me at the time I gave the licence, though I didn’t suppose it would ever really come to it. There’s good enough ground for an action; though, whether by bringing one I should be fulfilling the terms of the will, is another matter.”

“You would be establishing your reputation, in a way,” Nan said. “I mean your reputation for ability, since everyone would then know you had invented the torpedo.”

“That’s so,” he admitted; “and I dare say one could arrange to drag in the old affair if one wanted to, and have it more or less thrashed out in court—if it is possible to thrash it, which I rather doubt, after all this time.”

“Perhaps Galhardy’s would drag it in themselves,” Nan suggested, “to discredit you and prove you an untrustworthy person, and your invention likely to be really theirs. Don’t you think there’s a chance of their laying some sort of claim to your torpedo?”

“They can’t. I had left them five years before I put it forward; they have no claim whatever after five years. Moreover, it is perfectly obvious to everyone that my torpedo is a different one and on different lines from any they had, either before or since I left them. That will be all right; still, of course, they may drag in the old affair for some purpose. It’s to be hoped they will, else there is hardly justification for spending the money this way—though I can’t think of another that would better meet the requirements, can you?”

Nan could not; indeed, this way commended itself to her, it seemed suitable and fitting. “I think it is the best we shall devise,” she said. “I believe we had better decide on it.”

So they decided.

It was in this way that there arose one of the most famous patent infringement cases in modern times. Famous not so much on the technical and legal side or on account of great scientific complications, as on account of the popular interest felt in the comparatively new arm, and in the hitherto unknown man who had perfected it. Also on account of the wealth and importance of the firm attacked by an insignificant individual, labouring under the further disadvantage of being a dismissed employee of theirs.

That fact, by the way, was one he seemed quite as anxious to bring to notice as ever they were. Several rather surprising things were brought to notice before judgment was given, after a comparatively short hearing. Seeing that the actual case was decided as quickly as it was the expenses of both sides were heavy; the prosecution must have spent the better part of ten thousand pounds, the defence very much more. Indeed, that side must have drawn heavily on the reserve fund the firm kept to meet such contingencies. And to no purpose, for judgment was given against them, with heavy damages for the prosecution and some rather scathing remarks from the judge.

* * * * *

“Well, what do you think of it?” Carson nodded towards the morning’s sheet of _The Times_, where a report of the case and judgment was given.

Lee-Brendon, he who had been at Redstoke the night long ago when Michael Annarly had dined there, folded his glasses slowly.

“It’s rather hard to know what to think,” he said. In that corner of England and that company it was difficult to regard Galhardy’s quite as one would anything else; it was too much part of the general life to be judged dispassionately on abstract moral grounds.

But one man present had less connection with it than the rest, a man, Dawling, who had also been there that night seven and a half years ago. He spoke more frankly now.

“They’ve come out of it pretty rottenly,” he said, “hanged if they haven’t! Annarly must be a queer chap to have held his tongue all this time, I wouldn’t! Though I suppose it’d have done no good to speak. What brains and what persistence too! Seven years and more. A bit uncanny—what?”

“He was always rather queer,” Lee-Brendon recalled.

“Queer?” Carson said. “That’s your estimate? Mine is that he’s a different size to the rest of us, and some of us tried to measure him up in our little pint pots, and got rather badly left in the process.” He glanced towards the door which Casterman, the scientific member of Galhardy’s board of directors, was holding open for Lady Sibyl. “Not that he’s to blame for what happened,” he added in an undertone, nodding towards the director; “he always stood to it they ought to have kept Annarly at any price. He’s the only man in this part of the country who had any real understanding of what they’d got.”

Casterman came back towards the fire; he had not heard what was said, but his face was thoughtful. He was the only one present who had not been there that night seven and a half years ago, when Annarly had been discussed after dining there. There was one absent who had then been present: that one was Brett. The little party now gathered studiously avoided speaking of Brett; his part in the long-past transaction had not been made quite plain, certainly not in the newspaper reports; still, they instinctively avoided speaking of him; they would always have to; it did not seem quite decent.

“This business will kill Sir Joseph,” Lee-Brendon observed—Sir Joseph’s part had been made plain—“he is an old man for such a thing; I doubt if he will get over it.”

“That’ll be satisfaction for Annarly, anyway,” Carson said.

“What will?” Casterman asked. “That Sir Joseph won’t get over this affair? He won’t, that’s true. I saw his face after the judgment yesterday; I don’t give him a month. But that won’t be any satisfaction to Annarly—or any dissatisfaction either, it’s”—he laughed rather grimly—“a by-product.”

“A by-product?”

He nodded. “Do you think it was any satisfaction to Darwin that the Mosaic Cosmography fell to pieces when he proved the theory of evolution? I don’t think it was, nor yet any dissatisfaction either; he was possibly sorry to flutter the theological dove-cotes, but it didn’t concern him, it was a by-result, an accident which might happen to anyone out looking for truth in a world where things aren’t all based on truth. Annarly was out for truth, or, rather, out to establish a few things; certainly not for vengeance or to get Sir Joseph. Good Lord! he was probably the man in court with the highest opinion of the old gentleman when he started! It’s no satisfaction to him that Sir Joseph came down, possibly he’s a little sorry, but it’s no concern of his—a by-product of the proving business, that’s all.”

Dawling looked sceptical. “He must be a good deal more indifferent than most of us, that’s all I can say.”

“He has a different standard of what’s important,” Casterman said. “Also, he remembers different things and forgets different. Reece spoke to him in court yesterday—you know Reece, one of the steamship Reeces, Annarly was with them on the Clyde for a short time after he left Galhardy’s. I don’t know what Reece said to him, something congratulatory about winning the case and clearing himself, possibly something graceful about their own treatment of him—it wasn’t first-class, I believe. Annarly looked at him as if he had never seen him before, and had no idea what he was talking about. Then suddenly something must have tied the man up with steamships in his mind. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘I remember, you were interested in internal combustion engines for big liners. I have done a certain amount of work on that problem during the last two years; I think I have solved it.’ He spoke much as if he were saying he had tried a certain brand of cigarettes. Reece simply collapsed; I nearly laughed outright.”

Dawling looked puzzled. “Brag or bravado?” he asked.

“Neither,” Casterman answered, “simply the one fact that occurred to him in connection with the man. I have very little doubt but what it is a fact too; in all probability he has worked out that gigantic problem, if he says he has; though whether or not he’ll do anything with it is another matter.”

“Of course he will,” Dawling said. “Why not? He can’t muck things now, if he tried. I wish I’d half his chance! He’ll fairly race ahead, he can’t help it, with the start he’s got.”

“He may,” Casterman said, “but I’m not sure. You don’t understand—we none of us understood when he was here, that that’s not what he really cares for; it’s doing the thing he cares about, not what comes next; the importance of a thing should be stated for him in terms of interest and difficulty, not money value and what we call success. Oh, yes, I know he made a fight for reward and recognition those years ago when he was here; but I believe it was more from some queer sense of justice than ordinary ambition, a youthful exuberance long gone. Even then, had we understood, I believe we could have dealt with it; we both overrated and underrated him in those days.”

Carson nodded. “I believe you are right,” he said. “I believe you are. Where is he now?”

Casterman did not know. “I never got to speak to him while the case was on,” he said, “though I tried several times; he always disappeared at lunchtime. Somebody told me he was seen once or twice with an insignificant-looking woman. There’s a story that he and she used to get food somewhere and then wander away to one or other of the City churches. I don’t know if it’s true, but when the court rose yesterday and he had got through with congratulations and all that, I did see some such person with him. They passed close to me, and I heard her say, ‘Are you satisfied with the judgment?’ And he answered, ‘Yes,’ and then, ‘It, the whole business, rather makes one think of that fellow Nebuchadnezzar and his finding out that all the inhabitants of the earth are as nothing; things are a bit small, aren’t they?—including oneself.’ Next minute he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. ‘I believe it should be possible to make a reversible turbine,’ he said. ‘It’s always bothered me, but I believe I saw a way to do it in court to-day. To think I was ever such an ass as to say it couldn’t be done!’”

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH