By Steve Hall
The cloak of invisibility could be a useful asset in many walks of life, but there would almost certainly come a time when the asset would become a liability...
* * * *
Have you ever heard the story about the billiard table maker who gets a call from an eccentric millionaire? The millionaire mentions who he is, and having established confidence in himself, asks for a special table to be made. He is told they will be delighted to produce whatever he wants, but that there will be extra charges, of course, depending on how special the requirements are. Well; he reels off: he wants the table to be round instead of oblong (considerable consternation at this but if he wants it, O.K.); then he says something about the table having only one pocket instead of six and that pocket to be in the middle (only mild shock at that one) and Mr. Moneybags also wants trimmed mink fur for the bed and cushions instead of green baize. There are other details, but you get the idea. The guy is a fruit-cake from way back, but who cares? If he’s got the money, they can make the table for ten thousand of the best. “O.K.,” says Mr. M., “go ahead, and let me know when it’s ready.”
The billiard table maker strains every nerve and finishes the job in three weeks. He rings up the millionaire to give him the good news—only to be told that the guy with the money has changed his mind. You finish your tale by looking your listener straight in the eyes and saying with a very confidential air: “So if you know of anyone who wants a round billiard table with one pocket in the middle and a mink fur bedding and cushions, I can tell them where there’s one going cheap.” Crazy isn’t it? Well, I was reminded of this yarn by something which happened to me a few months back.
There were delegates to the European Fiction Writers’ Convention at Amsterdam from all over and the whole function had gone like a bomb. On the third and last evening, a bunch of us were together in the bar and the conversation had got around to Wells’ Invisible Man. We continentals, including the contingent from Amsterdam itself, thought it was pretty good—an intriguing conception—and we were saying so. There were plenty of speculations about what you could do if you were invisible (some of them pretty ribald) when all of a sudden a new voice breaks into the conversation.
“That’s all very fine,” it drawls, “but if you were invisible you wouldn’t see a thing.”
We really take in the newcomer for the first time. He is a tall, languid type with a full, rather florid face and a guard’s moustache, and he has a built-in, fancy cigarette holder.
Oh-ho, I think, a chair-borne iconoclast, and I’d had just enough schnapps to be argumentative myself.
“Do go on,” I say, in my best English accent.
He gives me a condescending nod. “Well, it’s like this— to be invisible, an object must be completely transparent, I.e. light must pass straight through it without being reflected—are you with me?”
I play him along. “Not quite—why must light not be reflected?”
He raises his eyebrows at my ignorance. “Don’t you see? If light was reflected, only slightly, we’d see the thing it was bouncing off, just as we can see a sheet of glass.”
“So?” I prompt
“So if our subject is to be completely invisible, he’d inevitably be blind because his eyes would have to be absolutely transparent—and if they were,” he paused to puff at his cigarette before taking us into the secret, “if they were, he wouldn’t see a damned thing, because the light wouldn’t impinge on his retinas and form an image of what he had before him. It would seem to him as if he was in utter darkness.” He finished on a note of triumph for knowledge over ignorance.
“And so you think invisibility is the bunk ?”
I could see the rest of the crowd drifting off. They could tell the sort of purist he was and they knew the sort of joker I was, and they weren’t in the mood for either. I had the know-all to myself.
The Englishman fell into the trap. “Of course it is— completely so.”
I took a good swig of schnapps and let him wallow in his conviction for a moment. “What if I told you that I could make something invisible ?”
“Then I’d say you were trying to have me on, old boy.”
“You don’t think it’s even remotely possible?”
“I’ve told you,” he said, impatiently, “it’s right out of the window—and I’m prepared to bet on it.” He pulled out some travellers’ cheques and thumped them on the bar counter. “There you are.”
His type is always ready to try and ram their opinions down your throat by the argument of currency, to them money talks the loudest.
I appeared to hesitate. “I wouldn’t want to take your money, Mr...er...?”
“Lloyd,” he said, quickly, “and I insist you take it—it you can do what you say—is it a bet ?”
“All right,” I said, and covered his money. This took the wind out of his sails, he had been expecting me to back down. “The bet is that I can’t make some solid object of my own choice completely invisible.”
That seemed explicit enough so there was little he could object to.
“Right,” I said, “let’s go.”
“To where?” queried Lloyd, suspiciously.
“Around to the lab where I work—I’ll give you a demonstration and take my money,” I reached for the little pile on the bar.
“Just a minute,” objected Lloyd, “you haven’t won it yet—I’ll take it.” He took a long look at me, evidently working out whether I was likely to roll him for his roll, then decided that he was enough bigger than me to rule out that angle.
We went around to the lab at the Tech. Old Willi, the caretaker, let us in, grumbling a little at the lateness of the hour. I promised that we’d let ourselves out and lock up safely, which mollified him somewhat.
“See that you do, Professor Schroeder,” he mumbled, and tottered off to his quarters.
Lloyd looked around the experimental electrical lab. “Well, let’s see your vanishing trick.”
I searched around in a drawer for what I wanted. “Are you a scientist yourself ?”
“No,” he admitted, “but it’s a demonstration I want not a lecture.”
“That you shall have,” I promised. “Do you want to call off the bet before I do it!”
He’d been getting more apprehensive, but my apparent willingness to let him back out hardened his resolve. He thought, now, that my game was to spoof him into submission without doing anything.
“No,” he said, “the bet stands.”
“So be it,” I said, and showed him what I’d taken out of the drawer. “If I make these two glass marbles invisible, will you be satisfied ?”
He took them from me and examined them closely looking for the catch. There wasn’t one, they were ordinary marbles; hard, spherical, and with the faintest tinge of green about them—and easily visible.
I handed him the tray of a match-box.
“Put them in there and hold them for a moment.”
On the bench to my right was the Multiple Polariser which we’d developed.
I opened the door to its operating chamber and motioned to Lloyd. “Put them in there yourself.”
He squinted inside before he did so, but there’s not much to see except the turns of the high frequency coils in the sides; the electrostatic plates are at the top and bottom of the chamber.
I closed and dogged shut the door, then went to the control panel and switched on the juice.
“Five minutes ought to do it.”
Lloyd didn’t say anything while the seconds ticked away. Beads of nervous perspiration formed on his forehead, though, and he lit a cigarette, forgetting even to use his holder.
The time was up so I opened the door.
“Take the box out yourself,” I offered.
“It’s not hot in there, is it ?”
“No.”
Gingerly, he reached in and took hold of the little tray. I could hear the marbles rolling and clicking as he brought it out. He thought the sound effects were coming from somewhere else, though, when he saw the tray apparently empty.
“Feel them,” I said, quietly.
“I’ve seen this trick before,” he said, “the marbles are not in there, are they?”
“Feel them,” I repeated.
Lloyd poked around with his forefinger until he did so and the expression on his face was incredulous as he located the invisible spheres. His hands shook only too visibly.
“Don’t tip it,” I said, “or we’ll lose them.” I spread my handkerchief on the bench. “Put the tray down here.”
He did as I told him.
“Now turn it over slowly.”
Again he followed my instructions, feeling gently over the cloth and picking up the transparent, invisible marbles one at a time between thumb and forefinger and holding them up to the light.
“All right,” he said finally, “you win—how’s it done?”
I took the marbles and my handkerchief back and put them in my jacket pocket.
“It’s a laboratory curiosity,” I said. “As you said earlier, if you make something perfectly transparent you can’t see it—that’s what we’ve done. An ordinary piece of glass is really highly translucent. This gadget of ours rotates the planes of the glass molecules so that light will pass between them without reflection—hence invisibility q.e.d.”
“But what are you doing with it ?”
“Nothing,” I said flatly, “it’s just a laboratory freak that works with translucent materials, and it’s only a temporary effect anyway.”
“You mean that the marbles will become visible again?”
“Yes. In about forty-eight hours the molecules will slip back to their normal positions rather like induced magnetism will disappear from a piece of soft iron in fairly short order.”
Lloyd parted with the stake money after I’d reminded him and I ushered him out. And that, I thought, was the last I’d see of him.
However, two days later, just as I was about to pack up for the evening, he turned up again with another man, a sneaky-looking runt with ferret eyes.
“Good evening, Professor Schroeder,” said Lloyd heartily, sticking out his right hand.
“What brings you here ? “
He winked. “I’ve got a friend of mine who doesn’t believe in invisibility, and we’ve got a bet on—will you demonstrate again for us ?”
“I haven’t got time for any more jokes,” I said.
“Oh, come on—you took my money, give me a chance to get some back—play the white man.”
It’s probably simpler to do it than argue, I thought. “All right, come in.” I led the way to the Polariser and fumbled in the drawer for the marbles which were back to normal again.
“Don’t bother,” said Lloyd. “My friend’s brought some samples of his own.”
The ratty little man took a match-box from his pocket, pushed out the tray and showed the contents to me. Inside, six identical cut-glass beads winked and sparkled.
I opened the door. “O.K. put them in.”
The little man did so and watched like a hawk while I closed it again.
“Those are hard glass crystals,” I commented, “better give them eight minutes to cook.”
Finally, the little man took his match tray back and peered in. The contents were invisible on schedule. He wasn’t satisfied, though, until he had felt each one carefully and then he stowed them away in a little velvet sack. Next, he made his one and only comment to Lloyd: “You were right.”
I let them out. “Look,” I said to Lloyd, “don’t make a habit of this, we’re not here to perform to order.”
“Of course, my dear chap, of course.”
And that really is the last of Lloyd, I thought. “Don’t forget,” I repeated, “don’t come again.”
“I’m going home on tonight’s flight,” he replied, “don’t give it another thought.”
They hurried off.
* * * *
A week later, old Willi came into my study and told me that there were two gentlemen to see me.
“What do they want?”
“I don’t know, Professor, they said it was a private matter.”
“Bring them in, then.”
A few seconds later, Lloyd and the runt stalked in, both looking a little haggard.
“What the devil do you want?” I expostulated. “I told you not to come back.”
Lloyd waved a placating hand.
“We won’t keep you a moment—I hope.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Those glass beads you made invisible for us—they’re still invisible.”
“Nonsense,” I snorted, “that was seven days ago, they’d have reverted by now.”
By way of answer, the little man silently took a matchbox from his pocket and shook it gently. It rattled. He pushed the drawer open and let me look inside. I couldn’t see anything, and felt with my fingers. There were six objects inside—faceted objects.
“You’ve got some freak glass there,” I commented, as innocent as a new-born babe, “maybe it’ll take a little longer to switch to normal again—harder glass always does.”
They exchanged curious glances.
At length, Lloyd beat his companion by a whisker in asking the sixty-four dollar question. “How long?”
“I don’t know exactly,” I said irritably, fed up with their concern over a few cut-glass crystals. “A few weeks, maybe.”
“Suppose it wasn’t glass?” persisted Lloyd.
The runt shot him a warning look, but the Englishman ignored it.
“How long would it take, say, if it was diamond?”
I got the message at last. “Were they?”
Again they exchanged looks, this time more soul-searching ones, and this time the little man nodded his agreement to Lloyd. The Englishman hesitated for a moment longer and then shot the whole works.
“Look, I’m in the gem business at Hatton Garden—I’m not the owner or anything like that, but I buy and sell stones for the company. I was combining business with pleasure when I came over for the writers’ convention last week.”
“And you thought up a little extra-curricular business after my demonstration,” I finished. “Like smuggling some invisible diamonds into England?”
“That’s about the size of it,” admitted Lloyd. He gestured to his undersized companion. “We’re partners in the operation—we’ve sunk all our cash in it.”
“And it’ll stay sunk,” I said, baldly. “You’re a pair of fools.”
Lloyd ran a nervous finger around his collar. “Why do you say that?”
“As far as I know, the rotation of the molecular planes is a one-way process,” I explained. “They slip back to normal of their own volition—nothing we have ever been able to do has hastened it or slowed it down in glass.”
“Then you haven’t experimented with diamonds?” queried Lloyd, doubtfully.
I shook my head, amazed that a man in the diamond business could fail to see the obvious. “Hard glass takes longer to revert than the ordinary variety, and the harder it is the longer it takes. Now, as you know, the diamond is the hardest substance known—would you take any chances on experimenting with them?”
His face whitened. “But can’t you reverse the process somehow?”
I shook my head definitely.
“You’d better think of one,” said the little man in an ugly voice.
“And you two had better think of this,” I said, getting to my feet. “You’ve just admitted smuggling, now you’re adding threats to your repertoire—I wonder what the boys in blue will think of that?” I walked over to the door, opened it, and jerked my thumb. “Out!”
Lloyd wasn’t a fighter really, and as I’ve said, the other one was just a runt, mentally as well as physically, once his bluff was called. They drifted out uncertainly like a couple of collapsing detergent bubbles on a slow stream.
* * * *
Sometimes I see Lloyd wandering around—he’s always got the matchbox with him and he always sidles up to me to ask if I know of a way to help him. He never mentions the runt and I’ve never seen him. But my answer’s always the same: “Sorry.”
So if you know anyone who’d like to buy half a dozen invisible diamonds...