The Disintegration Machine

by Arthur Conan Doyle

Professor Challenger was in a very bad mood. As I stood at the door of his room, I heard him shouting at someone on the telephone. When I came in, he turned and looked at me, still very angry. His proud grey eyes looked me up and down.

"Young Malone, you arrive on a bad morning. Are you here as a friend, or are you here as a journalist to interview me? As a friend you are welcome; as a journalist you are not. Come in, sit here! What's the reason for your visit?"

I had to be careful, because I knew how easy it was to make him angry again. I opened McArdle's letter. "May I read you this, sir? It's from McArdle, my editor."

"What does he want?"

"I'll read you his note to me. He says:

" 'Please visit our friend, Professor Challenger, and ask for his co-operation in a case. There's a foreign gentleman named Theodore Nemor living in London. He says he's made a machine which can disintegrate anything and then bring it back. This is difficult to believe, but there's some evidence that he's telling the truth.

" 'I don't need to tell you what a dangerous weapon this machine would be. It's important for the country's safety that we find out about this machine as soon as possible. Please can you and Professor Challenger visit Nemor and look at his machine and then write a report about it? I expect to hear from you tonight.'

"That's it, Professor," I said, as I put the letter back in my pocket. "I hope you'll come with me. I can't look at the machine on my own. I need a great scientist like you to give me his expert opinion."

"True, Malone! True!" said Professor Challenger. He was very pleased. "You're an intelligent man, but you are not a scientist. I'll be happy to visit Nemor with you."

Nemor lived in a comfortable flat in London, and he kept us waiting for half an hour while he talked with a group of visitors, whose voices showed that they were Russians. When his visitors left, Nemor came into the room. He stood with the sunlight on him, his long, thin hands together and looking at us with his big smile and his cunning yellow eyes. He was ugly, but looked very intelligent.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, in a calm voice, "you've come here to learn more about the Nemor Disintegration Machine. Is that right?"

"Exactly."

"May I ask if you work for the British Government?"

"Not at all. I'm from the Gazette newspaper and this is Professor Challenger."

"Professor Challenger is very famous." He smiled and showed his yellow teeth. "I was about to say that the British Government has lost its chance. You'll find out later everything else it has lost. If another government buys the machine, you have only yourselves to blame."

"Then you have sold your secret?"

"At my own price."

"Do you think the buyer will have the only machine like this?"

"Of course he will."

"But others know the secret as well as you."

"No." He touched his forehead. "It's in my head. No-one knows the secret of the machine except me."

"And these gentlemen who have bought the machine?"

"No, sir. I will not tell them the secret until they've paid me." He gave an evil smile."

"Excuse me, sir," said Challenger. His face showed that he strongly disliked Theodore Nemor, "Before we talk about the machine, we need to make sure that there's something to talk about. Lots of people say they've made new weapons, and then we find out they are lying. I am a scientist. I need proof."

Nemor looked angry but tried to smile.

"Don't worry, Professor. I'll show you that the machine works, but I must tell you a little about it first.

"The machine I have made is just a model and cannot be used as a weapon. It works well, but only for small things. For example, it's easy to disintegrate you and then bring you back. You need a much bigger machine to use as a weapon."

"May we see this model?"

"You will not only see it, Professor Challenger, but - if you are brave enough - I will use it on you."

"If!" Professor Challenger was angry. "Are you calling me a coward?"

"Of course not. Are you ready for the machine?"

Challenger shrugged his shoulders. "I am quite ready for the test."

"Then please follow me," said Nemor. He took us down the stairs and across a small garden. There was a small building behind, which he unlocked and we entered.

Inside was a large room painted white with lots of wires from the ceiling. To the right was a chair with heavy wires joined to it. At the side were numbered slots and a handle which was in the slot numbered zero.

"Nemor's Disintegration Machine," said this strange man, pointing towards it. "Whoever owns this machine and its secret will rule the world. Now, Professor Challenger, will you sit on that chair and let me show you how well the machine works?"

Challenger moved towards the machine, but I held him back.

"You must not go," I said. "Your life is too important. How do we know the machine is safe?"

"Don't worry," said Challenger. "If anything happens to me, Nemor will be arrested for murder."

"If you die, all your important scientific work will be left unfinished. Let me go first. Then, when you see it's safe, you can follow."

Before Challenger could make up his mind, I rushed forward and jumped into the chair. I saw Nemor put his hand on the handle. I heard a small noise. Then for a moment I had a feeling of confusion and there was a fog in front of my eyes. When they cleared, Nemor, with his horrible smile, was standing in front of me. Challenger, with his face completely white, was staring over his shoulder.

"Well, get on with it!" I said.

"It is all over. It worked," Nemor replied. "Come out. I'm sure Professor Challenger will now be ready."

"Malone, it's true," he said. "You disappeared. There is no doubt about it. There was a fog for a moment and then emptiness."

"How long was I away?"

"Two or three minutes. I was very upset. I thought that you wouldn't return. Then he put this wire into a new slot and there you were on the chair, looking a little bit surprised but the same as always."

"Now, sir," said Nemor. "Or are you afraid?"

Challenger sat on the chair. The handle went into number three. He was gone.

I would have been shocked, but Nemor was completely calm. "It's interesting, isn't it?" he said. Professor Challenger is now just a cloud of fog somewhere in the building. I can do anything I like to him. If I want to leave him as a cloud, there's nothing to stop me."

"I'd find a way to stop you."

The smile again became angry. "Of course I would never do anything like that. Still, I think I will teach Professor Challenger a little lesson."

"That's not a good idea."

"Let's just call it an experiment. I have found out that you can bring someone back without his hair. Let's see what Professor Challenger looks like."

A moment later Challenger was sitting on the chair again. But what a Challenger! It was difficult for me not to laugh.

His huge head was as bald as a baby's and his chin was as smooth as a girl's. It may have been the look on our faces, but Challenger's hand went up to his head and he became aware that he was bald. The next moment he jumped out of his chair, took Nemor by the throat, and threw him to the ground. Knowing Challenger's great strength, I thought that the man would be killed.

"Be careful!" I shouted. "If you kill him we can never get things right again!"

Challenger jumped up from the floor, pulling Nemor with him. "I give you five minutes," he shouted to Nemor. "If in five minutes I'm not back the way I was, I'll kill you."

Nemor was very scared. His face was pale. His arms and legs were shaking and he could hardly speak.

"Really, Professor!" he mumbled, with his hand to his throat, "You don't need to be violent. It was just a joke. I only wanted to show you what the machine could do!"

Challenger climbed back into the chair.

"Watch him carefully, Malone. Don't let him do anything funny."

"I"ll see to it, sir."

"Now then, make everything right."

The terrified inventor went nearer to his machine. The power was turned on full, and in a moment, there was Challenger with his hair. He passed his hands over his head to be sure that all his hair was back. Then he got out of the chair.

"Very good," he said. "Now, may I ask you a few questions about this machine?"

"I'm ready to answer anything except what the source of the power is. That's my secret."

"And do you seriously mean that no-one in the world knows this except yourself?"

"No-one at all."

"No assistants?"

"No, sir. I work alone."

"Mr. Nemor, you've proved that your machine works, but I don't understand how to use it as a weapon."

"The machine has two parts. Anything that comes between the two parts can be disintegrated. If you made a big machine you could put the two parts very far apart and disintegrate huge things. For example, if one part was on one ship and one on another, a third ship between them would turn into a cloud. The same with an army."

"And you've sold this secret to a European country?"

"Yes, sir, I have. When the money is paid, they'll have more power than any other nation. Imagine! You could disintegrate every single person in the city!"

The words made me very afraid, but Professor Challenger smiled and held out his hand to Nemor.

"Well, Mr. Nemor, we have to congratulate you," he said. "It's a wonderful machine. Do you mind if I have a good look at it?"

"Of course not. The only secret is the power source and you will never find that out."

"Of course. But I still want to look at the machine." For some time he walked round it and touched its parts. Then he sat in the chair again.

"Would you like to be disintegrated again?" asked the inventor.

"Later, perhaps! But the machine is leaking electricity. I can feel it."

"Impossible."

"But I promise you I can feel it." He got out of the chair.

Nemor quickly went and sat there.

"I can feel nothing."

There was a noise and Nemor disappeared. I looked with amazement at Challenger. "Did you touch the machine, Professor?"

He smiled at me and looked surprised.

"I may have touched the handle by accident," he said. "It's very easy to have accidents with a machine like this."

"It's in number three slot. That's the slot which causes disintegration."

'so I saw when you were in the chair."

"But I was so excited when he brought you back that I did not see which was the slot to bring someone back. Did you notice it?"

"I may have noticed it, Malone, but I don't worry about details. There are many slots and we don't know their use. We'll make things worse if we experiment. Perhaps it's better to leave things alone."

"And that's what you want to do?"

"Exactly. It's better this way. Mr. Theodore Nemor has been turned into a cloud and his machine is useless. Now no government will use this machine to kill millions of people. Not a bad morning's work, Malone. Your newspaper can write a story about how Mr. Nemor has disappeared. I have enjoyed our visit, but it's time for me to go back to work."

Looking back, it seemed that a cloud was still around the chair.

"The first duty of a good man is to prevent murder," said Professor Challenger.

"I've done this. Enough, Malone! I've got more important things to think about."