"What do you think has happened?" he interrupted.

"Can't tell. Screwed the top on tight, which would make the connection,
and then forgot the time. It was set for twenty minutes. On the other
hand, the time contact being made, a sharp shock would bring about the
explosion at once. He either ran the time too close, or simply let the
thing fall. The contact was made all right--that's clear to me at any
rate. The system's worked perfectly. And yet you would think that a
common fool in a hurry would be much more likely to forget to make the
contact altogether. I was worrying myself about that sort of failure
mostly. But there are more kinds of fools than one can guard against.
You can't expect a detonator to be absolutely fool-proof."

He beckoned to a waiter. Ossipon sat rigid, with the abstracted gaze of
mental travail. After the man had gone away with the money he roused
himself, with an air of profound dissatisfaction.

"It's extremely unpleasant for me," he mused. "Karl has been in bed with
bronchitis for a week. There's an even chance that he will never get up
again. Michaelis's luxuriating in the country somewhere. A fashionable
publisher has offered him five hundred pounds for a book. It will be a
ghastly failure. He has lost the habit of consecutive thinking in
prison, you know."

The Professor on his feet, now buttoning his coat, looked about him with
perfect indifference.

"What are you going to do?" asked Ossipon wearily. He dreaded the blame
of the Central Red Committee, a body which had no permanent place of
abode, and of whose membership he was not exactly informed. If this