en to render useless already existing
patents, necessitating the scrapping of millions of dollars' worth of
machinery, vested interests must be protected.

Thus, Brent and his partner, Herbert Balcom, had evolved a simple method
of protecting corporations against troublesome inventors and inventions.
They had formed their own corporation, International Patents,
Incorporated.

Their method was effective--though desperate. It was to suppress the
inventor and his labor. They bought the sole rights from the inventor,
promising him glittering royalties. The joker was that the invention was
suppressed. None were ever manufactured. Hence there were no royalties
and the corporations went on undisturbed while Brent and Balcom
collected huge retainers for the protection they afforded them.

Thus Brent Rock had come to be hated by scores of inventors defrauded in
this unequal conflict with big business.

The inventor looked about at the library, richly paneled in oak and
luxuriously furnished. Through a pair of folding-doors he could see the
dining-room and a conservatory beyond. All this had been paid for by
himself and such as he.

"Sit down, sir," nodded Brent, suavely.

The man continued to stand, growing more and more excited. Had he been a
keener observer he would have seen that under Brent's suavity there was
a scarcely hidden nervousness.

Finally Brent leaned over and spoke in a whisper, looking about as
though the very walls might have ears.

"My dear fellow," he confided, "for some time I have been considering
your water-motor. I will return the model to you--release the patent to
the world."

He drew back to watch the effect on the aged inventor. Could it be that
Brent was lying? Or was it fear? Could it be that at last his seared
conscience was troubling him?

At that exact moment, up-stairs, in a private laboratory in the house,
sat a young man at a desk--a handsome, strong-faced, clean-cut chap. All
about him were the scientific instruments which he used to test
inventions offered to Brent.

A look of intent eagerness passed over his face. For Quentin Locke was
not testing any of Brent's patents just now. Over his head he had the
receivers of a dictagraph.

It was a strange act for one so recently employed as manager of Brent's
private laboratory. Yet such a man must have had his reasons.

One who was interested might have followed the wire from the
dictagraph-box in the top drawer of the desk down