“But he didn’t get anything from your husband. Outland’s papers and apparatus were delivered to his executor, as was inevitable.”
“That was a poor subterfuge,” said Mrs. Crane, with deep meaning. “You know how unworldly Robert is, and as an old friend you might have warned us.”
“Of what, Mrs. Crane?”
“Why, that Marsellus saw there was a fortune in the gas my husband and his pupil had made, and we could have asked for our equity before we gave your son-in-law a free hand with everything.”
St. Peter felt very unhappy. He began walking up and down the little room. “Heaven knows I’d like to see Crane get something out of it, but how? How? I’ve thought a great deal about this matter, and I’ve blamed Tom for making that kind of will. I don’t think it occurred to the boy that the will would ever be probated. He expected to come back from the war and develop the thing himself. I doubt whether Robert, with all his superior knowledge, would have known the twists and turns by which the patent could be commercialized. It took a great deal of work and a special kind of ability to do that.”
“A salesman’s ability!” Mrs. Crane was becoming nasty.
“If you like; but certainly Robert would have been no man to convince manufacturers and machinists, any more than I would. A great deal of money was put into it, too, before any came back; every cent Marsellus had, and all he could borrow. He took heavy chances. Crane and I together could never have raised a hundredth part of the capital that was necessary to get the thing started. Without capital to make it go, Tom’s idea was merely a formula written out on paper. It had lain for two years in your husband’s laboratory, and would have lain there for years more before he or I would have done anything about it.”