ontinued, paying no attention to the other's
protestations of innocence. "You're paying me too much to want to block
me now. The crook you sent out to get the stuff turned in only this
much. Do you suppose he is holding out on us?"

"No. You know Perkins and his methods."

"He missed the main bottle, then. That's where your methods make me
tired. When I want anything done, I believe in doing it myself, then I
know it's done right. As to what I suggest, that's easy. I will take
three or four of Perkins' gunmen tonight. We'll go out there and raid
the place. We'll shoot Seaton and anybody else who gets in the way.
We'll dynamite the safe and take their solution, plans, notes, money,
and anything else we want."

"No, no, Doctor, that's too crude altogether. If we have to do that, let
it be only as a last resort."

"I say do it first, then we know we will get results. I tell you I'm
afraid of pussyfooting and gumshoeing around Seaton and Crane. I used to
think that Seaton was easy, but he seems to have developed greatly in
the last few weeks, and Crane never was anybody's fool. Together they
make a combination hard to beat. Brute force, applied without warning,
is our best bet, and there's no danger, you know that. We've got away
clean with lots worse stuff."

"It's always dangerous, and we could wink at such tactics only after
everything else has failed. Why not work it out from this solution we
have, and then quietly get the rest of it? After we have it worked out,
Seaton might get into an accident on his motorcycle, and we could prove
by the state of development of our plans that we discovered it long
ago."

"Because developing the stuff is highly dangerous, as you have found
out. Even Seaton wouldn't have been alive now if he hadn't had a lot of
luck at the start. Then, too, it would take too much time. Seaton has
already developed it--you see, I haven't been asleep and I know what he
has done, just as well as you do--and why should we go through all that
slow and dangerous experimental work when we can get their notes and
plans as well as not? There is bound to be trouble anyway when we steal
all their solution, even though they haven't missed this little bit of
it yet, and it might as well come now as any other time. The Corporation
is amply protected, and I am still a Government chemist. Nobody even
suspects that I am in on this deal. I will never see you except after
hours and in private, and will never come