Achmed Abdullah

“ Eventually Chester made him a proposition, and Spencer accepted it and joined. Then, when the club needed a man to pick up mining claims for them here and there, they naturally thought of Spencer. He proved clever and valuable, until in the course of time he became their confidential man, all the foreigns rights to the patents being registered in his name. Spencer kicked about from pillar to post these last years, without coming home; and these people never went abroad, because they were too poor and too much wrapped up in their Utopian dreams.”
“Utopian?” echoed the police commissioner. ”

“ This organization is largely composed of engineers and mechanics, many of whom have invented extraordinary devices, others of whom have doubtless helped with the perfecting and working out of these inventions, still others of whom—here's where I take a shot at the blue—are working at inventions and discoveries. They are not fools. But they seem to be idealists. For they have protected their brain children by patents—by the way, Bob, it takes money to get the right, waterproof sort of patent—and they have not made money out of their inventions, since they are all poor. ”

“ He had prepared for these eventualities, had retained beforehand the best legal talent in New York and Europe, felt quite safe. But the members of the Benefactors Club did——”
“What?”
“Nothing, Bob! And that's what first made him afraid.”
“Why should it?” asked the police commissioner.
“Because Spencer knew them. He knew what sort of people they were—idealists, terribly sincere, of single-track minds—and they did nothing. And, I repeat, he became frightened, nervous, uneasy. Do you know the old adage about the murderer who always returns to the scene of his crime? ”

“ Often he had to use a great deal of pull—pull which, on the other hand, cost him a great deal of money. With West African chiefs, for instance, and Manchu mandarins and Tartar Khans—and—oh, yes”—smiling reminiscently—“Russian grand duchesses who, if extra well paid, extra well bribed, might throw in a priceless sable coat as a commission. Isn't that so?”
“Absolutely!” admitted the other just a little grudgingly. “But I fail to see how——”
“I repeat,” said Ogilvie, “that two and two make five—and occasionally seven!”
“Don't be so supercilious!”
“Really, Bob, I didn't mean to be. ”

“ He either sold them for cash or took a certain amount in the stock of the new foreign corporations founded for the exploitation of these various patents and devices.”
“Perfectly correct,” admitted Gadsby, consulting a London cable which Miller had decoded and read:
“Martyn Spencer, chairman of the board of directors of Pulmotor Limited, Rhizopodin Produce Limited, Clapperton——” “Cream Separator Limited,” interrupted Ogilvie, “and a few more Limited!” ”