Success
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