"It seems likely," said the President, with singular irrelevance, "that there will be a slump in radium."

"All South Africans are down," remarked Chillingford gloomily. "What in the world are you fellows laughing at?"

"It isn't a mine, Tommy. It's a horse. Won the Nobel Stakes," Marmaduke Percy called out.

"Order, gentlemen, if you please," continued the President. "I was remarking on the probability of a slump in radium. This is what to-day's paper says:

"'£896,000 was recently quoted as the market price for a single pound of radium. We suggest that it would be advisable for any holder to realise promptly, as Professor Blyth has discovered a method of obtaining this remarkable element from a substance other than pitch-blende. He has already isolated one ounce avoirdupois—at yesterday's price worth £56,000—which has been exhibited to a select number of scientists at his laboratory at Harlesden Green.

"'It seems likely that radium will no longer remain the toy of the conversazione, but that it will take its place among the great forces of civilisation. As a moderate-sized cube of it is sufficient to warm the dining-room of an average ratepayer for something like two thousand years, we shall no doubt find in this element the motive power of the future. The smoke nuisance of our great towns will disappear, ocean coaling stations will no longer be necessary, and incidentally about a million workers in the coal trade will be thrown out of employment.'

"This, gentlemen, is from the Daily Argus of to-day."

"Take your word for it, old man," "Carried nem. con.," and sundry other similar cries greeted the speaker.

The Duke waved his hand disparagingly. "Our secretary informs me," he went on, "that the subscription of Major Everett Anstruther is now due. It is suggested that he should produce this £56,000 worth of radium at our next meeting in payment thereof; although I believe that is something less than the value of membership of our Club."

That is why, on April 4th last, Major Everett Anstruther climbed the wall at the back of Professor Blyth's house at Harlesden.

His methods were those of the average burglar. He forced back the catch of one of the windows, drew up the sash, and stepped gently down from the window-sill into the room.

He was in the Professor's laboratory, a one-storeyed building joined to the dwelling-house by a corridor.

Anstruther turned on his portable electric light, and took his bearings. He was in an ordinary scientific laboratory, surrounded by induction coils, Crookes' tubes, balances, prismatic and optical instruments, and other and more complicated apparatus, the use of which he could not guess.

He walked slowly round, observing every corner. Where was the radium? He had read up the subject, and had learnt of its power to penetrate almost any substance, and now he turned off his light, hoping to see its rays.

There was nothing but absolute darkness.

He resolved to explore further. He opened the door gently. In front of him was the passage leading to the house. At his left another door—wide open.

He stopped before it in mute surprise and admiration.

On a table in the middle of the room was a luminous mass. The wall behind was aglow with a dancing, scintillating light. The rest of the room was in darkness, save for the dim light cast by the glowing mass and the phosphorescent screen behind.

It was the radium! How could the Professor leave it in so exposed a place? No doubt it was there that it had been exhibited to the scientists—but £56,000 worth left on a table for anyone to handle! It was absurd. Only a professor would have done it.

But it wasn't for him to grumble at the peculiar methods of learned men, and with a cheerful heart Anstruther stepped lightly into the room.

As he did so the door closed behind him with a click. The Major paused. "That's queer," he thought. "I didn't feel a draught, and I didn't touch the door."

Luckily the laboratory was isolated from the rest of the house, so the slight noise would not have been heard. He waited for some minutes to reassure himself; then he stepped back to the door and gently turned the knob, without result. He pushed; pulled and pushed; lifted and pushed; pressed down and pushed; tried in every way he could think of, but the door would not open.

He examined it carefully. Save for its knob its surface was absolutely plain. There was no keyhole or latch.

"Trapped, by Jove!" Anstruther exclaimed under his breath; and as his unpleasant situation dawned upon him he felt more uncomfortable than he had ever done in his life before. In fact, he felt physically ill.

"Confound it!" he thought. "It's deuced annoying, but it isn't as bad as all that. I don't know why it should bowl me over. Perhaps there's another way out of this den."

He walked round the room, feeling the wall for some shutter, even searching the floor for a trap-door. There was none. Save for a telephone and the table, he encountered nothing but plain surface.

"Of all the infernal holes to be in," he muttered. "Trapped like this, and all through my own carelessness." And then it occurred to him that he, Everett Anstruther, late a major of his Majesty's Horse Guards Blue, and now member of Parliament for Helston, would in a few hours be haled away to prison on a charge of attempted burglary. A pleasant situation, truly!

He felt ill—worse than before. His head ached, and his temples throbbed. What on earth did it mean? He had been in tight places before—once in Italy, when his life wasn't worth a moment's purchase, and then he was absolutely cool. But now——

He started as if a pistol had been fired. A bell had rung behind him—an electric bell. It was the telephone bell, and it was still ringing. He watched it in dismay. It would rouse the whole house. Lift down the receiver, of course. He did so. The bell stopped. He put the receiver to his ear.

"Are you there?" a voice asked.

He did not reply. There was no need. While the receiver was off the bell wouldn't ring.

"If you don't answer I shall wake the house," came the voice, as if in answer to his thoughts.

The Major groaned inwardly. "Yes, I'm here," he replied.

"Good. How do you feel?"

"Oh, pretty tollollish," he answered. "Must be the doctor," he thought.

"What is your name?"

"Smithers," said the Major, with a sudden inspiration. "John Smithers."

"John Smithers," came the slow response. "Thank you. Your age last birthday?"

"It seems to me he has been examining Blyth's factotum for life insurance," thought the Major. "Lucky I caught on so well. But what an extraordinary idea to collect these statistics at something after midnight."

"Age last birthday, please," came down the wire again.

"Thirty-five," replied the Major. "Nothing like the truth in an emergency," he added to himself.

"John Smithers, aged thirty-five," was repeated. "Late occupation?"

"Soldier."

"Good. Very good. Late occupation, soldier. Any pension?"

"Yes."

"What a fool you are to risk it for a bit of radium."

The Major stepped back in sheer amazement. "What did you say?" he asked.

"Whatever made you risk your pension for a bit of radium?"

"Don't know what you mean."

"Then I'll explain. You are a thief, locked up in Professor Blyth's dark room. Isn't that so?"

"Who are you?" asked the Major in dismay.

"Professor Blyth."

"The devil!" Anstruther ejaculated.

"No, sir—Professor Blyth," came the response.

"Where are you?" asked the Major.

"I am in the room at the end of the corridor. I can observe the door of your room from where I stand, and I have a loaded revolver in my hand."

"What are you going to do?"

"That depends upon you. I can either send for the police, and give you in charge, or I can take scientific observations with your assistance—whichever you prefer."

"What do you mean by scientific observations?"

"You are locked up in a room twelve feet square with an ounce of radium."

"Well?"

"You are the first man in the world who has been locked up with an ounce of radium in a room twelve feet square, and your sensations would be of scientific value. If you care to describe them to me by telephone so long as you are conscious, I will not prosecute; otherwise I will place the matter in the hands of the police. Which do you prefer to do?"

"You are remarkably kind to offer me the alternative. I think I prefer to describe my sensations."

"Thank you. I am really very much obliged to you, John Smithers; but I ought to warn you beforehand that you will be put to great personal inconvenience. If you decide to try the experiment I shall not release you for some hours. I shall certainly not break off in the middle, however ill you feel."

"I have told you my choice," said Anstruther curtly.

"Right. Stop, though. What sort of a heart have you?"

"Strong."

"Good. You'll need it. Got a watch?"

"Yes."

"Can you take your pulse?"

"Yes."

"You are a real treasure, John Smithers. I'm glad you called. You've been fifteen minutes in the room. What is your pulse?"

"Seventy-three."

"Thank you. Can you read a clinical thermometer?"

"Yes."

"On the ledge of the telephone, where the paper is, you will find a tube. Got it? There's a thermometer inside. Please take it out, and read it carefully."

"Ninety-seven," said the Major.

"Thank you. I had no idea the army was so intelligent. How the papers do deceive us! Now put the thermometer under your tongue for two minutes, and then let me know what it registers."

"Ninety-nine," came the eventual response.

"Thank you. Horse or foot soldier, Smithers?"

"Horse."

"Horse. Thank you. Married?"

"No."

"Good again, Smithers. No one dependent upon you, I hope? Have you a headache?"

"It's enough to give me one, answering all your questions."

"Please describe symptoms, and not attempt to diagnose them. Have you a headache?"

"Yes."

"How's your heart?"

"Beats irregularly."

"Probably it will. Respiration?"

"It's rather choky here. Can't you let me have a breath of fresh air?"

"On no account, Smithers—on no account. I'm surprised at your suggesting such a thing. That will do for the present. I'll ring up again shortly, and I'm always here if you want me. You might take a little gentle exercise now."

The major hung up his receiver. The room seemed to be much lighter now. The radium glowed more brightly, and the scintillations on the wall behind had increased in intensity. He advanced towards the radium, and was immediately conscious that his discomfort increased. There was a smarting sensation on the front of his body, as if it were exposed to fire. His breathing became more difficult, his headache increased. He drew back to the wall, and the symptoms became less marked.

The bell rang again. "I ought to inform you, Smithers," said the voice, "that no good at all would result from your attempting to destroy the radium. As a matter of fact, if you broke or crushed it you would feel very much worse. The particles would fly all over, and you would inhale them. The symptoms would be intensely interesting if you would care to experience them, but I won't answer for the consequences. I just want you to understand that you can't possibly escape from this important new element when once you are imprisoned in a room with it, especially when the room is only twelve feet square."

The major did not reply. He hung up his receiver in silence.

At the other end of the telephone was Robert Blyth, F.R.S., D.Sc., etc., etc., a little red-haired man, whose researches on the Mutilation and Redintegration of Crystals are of world-renown.

He was a grave little man as a rule. Only when on the verge of some discovery, or when watching the successful progress of an experiment, did he wax cheerful. He did this now as he surveyed his notes of the report of John Smithers, a horse-soldier, in durance vile in the adjoining room.

"Pulse, 73; temperature, 99; heart, irregular. Good. Respiration difficult. Well, that's understandable. He's been in there thirty-one minutes. Thanks to a strong constitution, he's scarcely felt anything yet; but now he'll have trouble. John Smithers, you are going to have an exceedingly bad time of it. If you weren't a criminal I should hesitate in giving it you. As it is, you must suffer for the cause of science. Your experience will, no doubt, make you hesitate before you attempt another crime."

The professor tilted back his chair. "Strange," he mused, "how brain controls matter to the end. Here's John Smithers in the next room—a strong man admittedly—cribbed, cabined, and confined by a man he could probably crumple up with one hand. It was a stroke of genius to advertise my discovery in the papers. The criminal classes all read them now, and I thought I should probably attract a thief. I placed the radium in the middle of the room, and painted the wall behind with sulphide of zinc so that he couldn't possibly miss it. I easily constructed a threshold that closed the door when stepped upon. And then I had only to wait."

Here the bell rang. "Aha, Smithers, you are growing impatient. Well?"

"Are you a Christian?" came the reply.

"I hope so. Why?"

"Do you call this Christian conduct, to imprison me here with this infernal block of fire? I tell you, man, it's poisoning me. It's choking me. It's getting to my brain. If you are a Christian, come down and let me out."

"None of that hysterical sort of talk, Smithers," said the Professor sternly. "It's no good appealing for mercy. You are a thief, and you've got to be punished. Pull yourself together, and show what you are made of. You don't know what a lot of good your sufferings may do to humanity. I shall publish a full account of them in the British Medical Journal, and I am sure your family will be proud of you when they read it."

"I haven't got a family, and if I had they shouldn't read your jibberings. I tell you that if you don't let me out I shall do something desperate!"

"You can't," said the Professor. "There's nothing in the room except the radium and the telephone. If you knock the radium about you'll only make things worse for yourself, and if you damage the telephone you cut off your only link with the outside world. Be a man, Smithers. You've read of the Black Hole of Calcutta. The sufferings of the prisoners there were far worse than yours."

"You are a scientific vampire—a howling chemical bounder!" came the response.

"Tut, tut!" said the Professor serenely. "Do try and be calm. Take a stroll round. You might put the thermometer under your tongue again, and let me have the record. Nothing like filling your leisure moments with useful occupation."

"Poor beggar!" he said to himself. "He's just beginning to realise things. Five centigrammes of radium chloride killed eight mice in three days; how long will it take an ounce of radium bromide to render a strong man insensible? That's the problem in rule of three, and it's high time that someone worked out the answer.

"Well?" in reply to the bell.

"Temperature, 102; pulse, 100. Look here, Blyth, I'm going dotty. If you won't have pity on me as a Christian, I appeal to you as a family man. Your people wouldn't like to hear of this, I'm sure."

"Pulse 100," repeated the Professor. "Jerky, I suppose?"

"Did you hear my appeal to you as a family man?"

"Now, Smithers, you agreed to help me with my scientific observations, and I wish you'd keep to the letter of the agreement. Is your pulse jerky?"

"It is, and my hands are fairly itching to close round your throat, and my toes would like to kick you into eternity. Blyth, if I die, I'll haunt you and your family to the fifth generation. If you don't end up in a madhouse it won't be my fault. You scoundrel! You contemptible——"

Again the Professor hung up the receiver. "Strange," he soliloquised, "how mentally unbalanced these common men are! I can't imagine myself giving way to such ravings, whatever situation I was in. That's the advantage of birth and education. Yet, judging from the way in which Smithers expresses himself, he must be a man of very fair education. It's birth alone that tells in the long run," and the Professor stroked his stubble chin complacently.

The minutes passed. "He ought to be feeling it now. I'll ring him up." The Professor did so, but there was no reply. "He can't have collapsed already—a horse-soldier of thirty-five." Once more he rang. This time there was a slow response.

"Why didn't you come before?" said the Professor irately.

"I'm not your servant. I was thinking how I'd like to chop you into mincemeat, Blyth, and scatter you to the crows. My head's splitting—splitting, do you hear? I shall go dotty, looking at this infernal heap of fire. Those moving specks of light behind are all alive, Blyth. They're grinning at me. They're choking me. And there you sit like a scientific panjandrum with a little round button on top. And you call yourself a Christian and a respectable family man. You are a disgrace to your country. Come down and let me out. Send for the police. I don't care."

"Smithers," said the Professor, "I'm ashamed of you. A horse soldier going on like a nurserymaid! I shall not send for the police. You agreed to this experiment, and you've got to see it through. Please remember that. How's your pulse?"

"Blyth, it's 120! It's ticking like a clock. I believe it's going to strike."

"Keep cool, Smithers. Have your hands a bluish tinge?"

"They seem to be green."

"Green? Preposterous!"

"They may be blue really. I'm colour blind."

"Colour blind, Smithers, and a soldier? I'm surprised at you. I suspect they're only dirty. Do you feel a tingling at the finger tips?"

"Yes, and at my toe-tips too."

"Excellent! And your temperature?"

"One hundred and three. Man, I'm in a fever. I can't breathe. My head's on fire."

"You've only been in there an hour and a quarter. You're just beginning to get acclimatised, Smithers," said Professor Blyth callously, as he hung up the receiver.

"I wish Cantrip were here," he soliloquised. "'Deoxygenation of the blood corpuscles, followed by coma.' Bah! Radium acts on the nerve centres, and will ultimately produce paralysis. Cantrip is an ass. I always told him so."

The bell rang. "Blyth," said the prisoner, "listen to me. If you don't let me out, I'll swallow the radium. It can't make me feel worse, and it may finish me off quicker."

"Nonsense, Smithers, don't talk like a fool. It would only add to any—er—inconvenience you are now experiencing."

"I don't care what it would do. I——"

The Professor cut him off impatiently. "I'm disappointed in John Smithers," he thought. "He has no stamina. A man of low birth, evidently. A mere mountain of muscle. I know the species."

For a while he paced the room. Then he rang the bell, but this time there was no coherent response. The gasps sounded like, "Sit on her head, Blyth—keep her down, man. Whoa, mare!—mind that fencing—snow again—what ho! she bumps—all down the road and round the corner——"

"For heaven's sake, keep cool, Smithers," cried the Professor. "I want some more observations. Don't lose your head yet. You've all the night in front of you."

"Squadron, right wheel! Draw swords! Charge! Down with 'em! Boers, Japs, and Russians. Get home, lads! Give it 'em hot! Hurrah! I've killed a sergeant-major." Then indistinct mumbling and cackling laughter came through the telephone.

The Professor was disturbed. The end had come sooner than he had expected, for John Smithers had only been there an hour and a half, and he had calculated on a much longer time. But the symptoms were, on the whole, what he had expected. Green hands, though. What if the extremities were blue after all, and Cantrip right?

He rang the bell. There was no response. Once more, and yet again. Still there was silence.

The Professor hung up the receiver gloomily. "I'm afraid I shall have to go to him. He's unconscious, and continued exposure might be serious."

He went down the corridor, pulled back the bolts, and opened the door. The room was in absolute darkness. The Professor was intensely surprised. "What on earth has he done with the radium?" he thought. "Good heavens! Surely he hasn't really swallowed it!"

He stepped carefully across the threshold towards the electric pendant in the centre of the room. He started. The door had closed behind him with a loud click. He switched on the light, and peered round the floor for John Smithers. He was alone. Neither Smithers nor the radium was there!

At that moment the telephone rang.

"Are you there?" came a voice.

"Is that you, Smithers?" said the Professor, in blank amazement.

"It is, Blyth. How's your temperature? You'll find the thermometer on the telephone where you left it."

"You scoundrel! You consummate scoundrel! How did you get out?"

"For goodness' sake, Blyth, keep cool."

"If you don't release me immediately I'll hand you over to the police."

"You can't get 'em, old man. You can only talk to me."

"What have you done with the radium?"

"Got it here, Blyth; and I'm taking ever such a lot of care of it. I read all about it before I came, and I know just what it fancies. I brought a nice quarter-inch thick lead case, with a smaller one fixed inside, and the half-inch of intervening space made up with quicksilver. I've had the radium in the inner case most of the time, and it's as quiet as a lamb, nicely bottled up with its rays. In fact, I think it's gone to sleep. I've had quite a cheerful time with you to talk to, Blyth. You don't know how amusing you've been."

"Smithers," stuttered the Professor, "you are an insolent fellow as well as a consummate scoundrel."

"Tut, tut, Blyth! Do keep cool. Think how humanity will benefit from your present inconvenience. I'll look out for your article in the British Medical Journal, and I won't contradict it, though my pulse never went above seventy-three nor my temperature over ninety-nine, and wouldn't have done that if I'd bottled the radium at once instead of stopping to chatter with you. But you really ought to have kept a smarter look-out as you went in. I nearly brushed against you as I closed the door behind me. Well, bye-bye, old man, and many thanks for the radium. It will help my pension out nicely. I'll leave the receiver off the telephone, so that you don't disturb your family. I wouldn't worry, Blyth. Think of the Black Hole of Calcutta, and be a man!"

Before Anstruther had reached the laboratory the Professor was hammering on the wall, and shouting at the top of his voice. The Major hurried through the window, climbed the garden wall, and had found his bicycle before the prisoner was released. By the time that the police were informed, he was well on his way to town.

And that is how Major Everett Anstruther was able to renew his subscription to the Burglars' Club.