The baffled coroner had superintended the removal of the body to the morgue. The police and Cantrell had departed. Grandpa, the three Lybblas, and Gallegher sat in the laboratory and looked dazedly at one another.
“Time machine,” Gallegher said, pressing buttons on his liquor organ. “Bah! Why do I do these things?”
“They can’t prove you’re guilty,” Grandpa suggested.
“Trials cost money. If I don’t get a good lawyer, I’m sunk.”
“Won’t the court give you a lawyer?”
“Sure, but that isn’t the way it works out. Jurisprudence has developed into something like a chess game these days. It takes a gang of experts to know all the angles. I could be convicted if I overlooked even one loop-hole. Attorneys have the balance of political power, Grandpa. So they’ve got their lobbies. Guilt and innocence doesn’t mean as much as getting the best lawyers. And that takes money.”
“You won’t need money,” the fattest Lybbla said. “When we conquer the world, we’ll set up our monetary system.”
Gallegher ignored the creature. “You got any dough, Grandpa?”
“Nope, never needed much up in Maine.”
Gallegher cast desperate eyes around the laboratory. “Maybe I can sell something. That heat-ray projector — but no. I’d be sunk if anybody knew I’d had the thing. I only hope Cantrell keeps it under cover. The time machine—” He wandered over and stared at the cryptic object. “Wish I could remember how it works. Or why.”
“You made it, didn’t you?”
“My subconscious made it. My subconscious does the damnedest things. Wonder what the lever’s for.” Gallegher investigated. Nothing happened. “It’s fearfully intricate. Since I don’t know how it works, I can’t very well raise money on it.”
“Last night,” Grandpa said thoughtfully, “you were yelling about somebody named Hellwig who’d given you a commission.”
A light came into Gallegher’s eyes, but died swiftly. “I remember. A pompous big shot who’s a complete nonentity. Terrific vanity complex. He wants to be famous. Said he’d pay me plenty if I could fix him up.”
“Well, why don’t you?”
“How?” Gallegher demanded. “I could invent something and let him pretend he’d made it, but nobody’d ever believe a pothead like Rufus Hellwig could do more than add two and two. If that. Still—”
Gallegher tried the televisors. Presently a large, fat white face grew on the screen. Rufus Hellwig was an immensely fat, baldheaded man with a pug nose and the general air of a Mongolian idiot. By virtue of money, he had achieved power, but public recognition eluded him. To his intense distress. Nobody admired him. He was laughed at — simply because he had nothing but money. Some tycoons can carry this off well. Hellwig couldn’t. He scowled at Gallegher now.
“Morning. Anything yet?”
“I’m working on something. But it’s expensive. I need an advance.”
“Oh,” Hellwig said unpleasantly, “you do, eh? I gave you an advance last week.”
“ You could have,” Gallegher said. “I don’t remember it.”
“You were drunk.”
“Oh. Was I?”
“You were quoting Omar.”
“ What part?”
“Something about spring vanishing with the rose.”
“Then I was drunk,” Gallegher said sadly. “How much did I hook you for?”
Hellwig told him. The scientist shook his head.
“It just runs through my fingers like water. Oh, well. Give me more money.”
“You’re crazy,” Hellwig growled. “Show results first. Then you can write your own ticket.”
“Not in the gas chamber I can’t,” Gallegher said, but the tycoon had broken the beam. Grandpa took a drink and sighed.
“What about this guy Cantrell? Maybe he can help.”
“I doubt it. He had me on the spot. Still has, in fact. I don’t know anything about him.”
“Well, I’m going back to Maine,” Grandpa said.
Gallegher sighed. “Running out on me?”
“Well, if you’ve got more liquor—”
“You can’t leave, anyway. Accessory before the fact or something of the sort. Sure you can’t raise any money?”
Grandpa was sure. Gallegher looked at the time machine again and sighed unhappily. Damn his subconscious, anyway! That was the trouble with knowing science by ear, instead of the usual way. The fact that Gallegher was a genius didn’t prevent him from getting into fantastic scrapes. Once before he remembered he’d invented a time machine of sorts but it hadn’t worked like this one. The thing sat silently in its corner, an incredibly complicated gadget of glistening metal, its focus of materialization aimed somewhere in the backyard.
“I wonder what Cantrell wanted with that heat ray,” Gallegher mused.
The Lybblas had been investigating the laboratory with interested golden eyes and twitching pink noses. Now they came back to sit in a row before Gallegher.
“When we conquer the world, you won’t have to worry,” they told the man.
“Thanks,” Gallegher said. “That helps a lot. The immediate need, however, is dough, and lots of it. I must get me a lawyer.”
“Why?”
“So I won’t be convicted for murder. It’s hard to explain. You’re not familiar with this time sector—” Gallegher’s jaw dropped. “Oh-oh. I got an idea.”
“What is it?”
“You told me how to make that heat ray. Well, if you can give me an angle on something else — something that’ll bring in quick money—”
“Of course. We’ll be glad to do that. But a mental hookup would help.”
“Never mind that. Start talking. Or let me ask questions. Yeah, that’ll be better. What sort of gadgets do you have in your world?”
The doorbell sang. The visitor was a police detective, Mahoney, a tall, sardoniclooking chap with slick blue black hair. The Lybblas, undesirous of attracting attention before they’d worked out a plan for world conquest, scuttled out of sight. Mahoney greeted the two men with a casual nod.
“Morning. We ran into a little snag at Headquarters. A mix-up — nothing important.”
“That’s too bad,” Gallegher said. “Have a drink?”
“No, thanks. I want to take your fingerprints. And your eyeprints, if you don’t mind.”
“O.K. Go ahead.”
Mahoney called in a lab man who had accompanied him. Gallegher’s fingertips were pressed against sensitized film, and a specially lensed camera snapped the pattern of rods, cones and blood vessels inside his eyes. Mahoney watched, scowling. Presently the lab man showed the result of his labors to the detective.
“That tears it,” Mahoney said.
“What?” Gallegher wanted to know.
“ Nothing much. That corpse in your back yard—”
“Yeah?”
“His prints are the same as yours. And his eye-pattern too. Even plastic surgery couldn’t account for that. Who was that stiff, Gallegher?”
The scientist blinked. “Jumping tomcats! My prints? It’s crazy.”
“Crazy as the devil,” Mahoney agreed. “Sure you don’t know the answer?”
The lab man, at the window, let out a long whistle. “Hey, Mahoney,” he called. “Come over here a minute. Want to show you something.”