Admiral Heyworth, a little bald-headed man with beetling brows and a humorous mouth, took the hand held out to him.
"Pleased to meet you," said John Dene, then without a pause he continued: "I want your promise that this is all between us three, that you won't go and breeze it about." He looked from Sir Lyster to Admiral Heyworth. Sir Lyster bowed, Admiral Heyworth said, "Certainly."
"Now," said John Dene, turning to the Admiral, "what's the greatest difficulty you're up against in submarine warfare?"
"Well," began Admiral Heyworth, "there are several. For instance——"
"There's only one that matters," broke in John Dene; "your boats are blind when submerged beyond the depth of their periscopes. That so?"
The Admiral nodded.
"Well," continued John Dene, "I want you to understand I'm not asking a red cent from anybody, and I won't accept one. What I'm going to tell you about has already cost me well over a million dollars, and if you look at me you'll see I'm not the man to put a million dollars into patent fly-catchers, or boots guaranteed to button themselves."
Sir Lyster and the Admiral exchanged puzzled glances, but said nothing.
"Suppose the Germans were able to sink a ship without even showing their periscopes?" John Dene looked directly at the Admiral.
"It would place us in a very precarious position," was the grave reply.
"Oh, shucks!" cried John Dene in disgust. "It would queer the whole outfit. You soldiers and sailors can never see beyond your own particular backyards. It would mighty soon finish the war." He almost shouted the words in the emphasis he gave them. "It would mean that troops couldn't be brought from America; it would mean that supplies couldn't be brought over here. It would mean good-bye to the whole sunflower-patch. Do you get me?" He looked from Sir Lyster to the Admiral.
"I think," said Sir Lyster, "that perhaps you exaggerate a lit——"
"I don't," said John Dene. "I know what I'm talking about. Now, why is the submarine blind? Because," he answered his own question, "no one has ever overcome the difficulty of the density of water. I have."
Admiral Heyworth started visibly, and Sir Lyster bent forward eagerly.
"You have!" cried Admiral Heyworth.
"Sure," was the self-complacent reply. "I've got a boat fitted with an apparatus that'll sink any ship that comes along, and she needn't show her periscope to do it either. What's more, she can see under water. If I don't deliver the goods"—John Dene rummaged in his pocket once more and produced the envelope containing the cheque—"here's fifty thousand pounds you can give to the Red Cross."
Sir Lyster and Admiral Heyworth gazed at each other wordless. John Dene sat back in his chair and chewed the end of his cigar. Sir Lyster fumbled for his eye-glass, and when he had found it, stuck it in his eye and gazed at John Dene as if he had been some marvellous being from another world. The Admiral said nothing and did nothing. He was visualising the possibilities arising out of such a discovery.
It was John Dene who broke in upon their thoughts.
"The Huns have got it coming," he remarked grimly.
"But——" began Admiral Heyworth.
"Listen," said John Dene. "I'm an electrical engineer. I'm worth more millions than you've got toes. I saw that under water the submarine is only a blind fish with a sting in its tail. Give it eyes and it becomes a real factor—under water." He paused, revolving his cigar in his mouth. His listeners nodded eagerly.
"Well," he continued, "I set to work to give her eyes. On the St. Lawrence River, just below Quebec, I've got a submarine that can see. Her search-lights——"
"But how have you done it?" broke in the Admiral.
"That," remarked John Dene drily, "is my funeral."
"We must put this before the Inventions Board," said Sir Lyster. "Let me see, this is Friday. Can you be here on Tuesday, Mr. Dene?"
"No!"
Sir Lyster started at the decision in John Dene's tone.
"Would Wednesday——"
"Look here," broke in John Dene, "I come from T'ronto, and in Can'da when we've got a good thing we freeze on to it. You've got to decide this thing within twenty-four hours, yes or no. Unless I cable to my agent in Washin'ton by noon to-morrow, he'll make the same offer I've made you to the States, and they'll be that eager to say 'Yep,' that they'll swallow their gum."
"But, Mr. Dene——" began Sir Lyster.
"I've been in this country fourteen hours," proceeded John Dene calmly, "and I can see that you all want gingering-up. Why the hell can't you decide on a thing at once, when you've got everything before you? If a man offers you a pedigree-pup for nothing, and you want a pedigree-pup, wouldn't you just hold out your hand?"
John Dene looked from one to the other.
"But this is not exactly a matter of a pedigree-pup," suggested Admiral Heyworth diplomatically. "It's a matter of—er——"
"I see you haven't got me," said John Dene with the air of a patient schoolmaster with a stupid pupil. "You," he addressed himself in particular to Sir Lyster, "have said in public that the most difficult spot in connexion with the submarine trouble is between the Shetlands and the Norwegian coast. You can't help the U-boats slipping through submerged. Suppose the Destroyer—that's the name of my boat—is sort of hanging around there, with eyes and some other little things she's got, what then?"
"Both Sir Lyster and I appreciate all you say," said the Admiral; "but, well, we are a little old fashioned perhaps in our methods here." He smiled deprecatingly.
"Well," said John Dene, rising, "you lose the odd trick, that's all; and," he added significantly as he took a step towards the door, "when it all comes out, you'll lose your jobs too."
"Really, Mr. Dene," protested Sir Lyster, flushing slightly.
John Dene swung round on his heel. "If you'd spent three years of your life and over a million dollars on a boat, and come three thousand miles to offer it to someone for nothing, and were told to wait till God knows which day what week, well, you'd be rattled too. In T'ronto we size up a man before he's had time to say he's pleased to meet us, and we'd buy a mountain quicker than you'd ask your neighbour to pass the marmalade at breakfast."
Whilst John Dene was speaking, Sir Lyster had been revolving the matter swiftly in his mind. He was impressed by his visitor's fearlessness. A self-made man himself, he admired independence and freedom of speech in others. He was not oblivious to the truth of John Dene's hint of what would happen if another nation, even an allied nation, were to acquire a valuable invention that had been declined by Great Britain. He remembered the Fokker scandal. He decided to temporise.
"If," continued John Dene, "I was asking for money, I'd understand; but I won't take a red cent, and more than that I go bail to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars that I deliver the goods."
He strode up and down the room, twirling his cigar, and flinging his short, sharp sentences at the two men, who, to his mind, stood as barriers to an Allied triumph.
"If you will sit down, Mr. Dene," said Sir Lyster suavely, "I'll explain."
John Dene hesitated for a moment, then humped himself into a chair, gazing moodily before him.
"We quite appreciate your—er—patriotism and public-spiritedness in——"
"Here, cut it out," broke in John Dene. "Do you want the Destroyer or don't you?"
Sir Lyster recoiled as if he had been struck. He had