Boy's Cinema (1939-40)

BOY'S CINEMA Every Tuesday The eventful drama of a resesurch chemist who stumbles upon a deadly new explosive in his search for a formula to prevent death from burns. Adapted from the Columbia picture in ^vnich Jack Holt is starred as Dr. Stephen Garfield A FATAL EXPERIMENT THE girl at the desk just inside the main entrance to the research laboratory of Olobo Cliemical Products, Incorporated, put down the telephone into which she had spoken, rose fi'orn her chair, and walked across the big- and irre^darlj' shaped room to a bench at which Dr. Stephen Gartield was studying' the action of a j-ellowish fluid in a burette. "Dr. Garfield," she said, "Mr. Weston wants you in his office right away." "Thank you, Miss Winters." The chief chemist did not turn his head, or even shift his gaze from the graduated scale of the tall glass tube. The girl went back to her desk, too used to the experiments that went on in the labora- tory to be interested in any of them, and Stephen Garfield picked up a pencil and jotted some notes upon a. writing-pad. Two assistants were with him, watching the behaviour of the yellowish fluid. Leonard Scott, the younger of the pair, was leaning upon the bcuich with folded arms; Ernest Bayard, a tall, dark-haired, and more strongly featured man, was standing on Stephen's right. Weeks of effort had been in vain, but the disappointment Stephen Garfield felt was not visible upon his face as ho looked up again at the scale. "Just wh;it I thought," he said slowly. " This would be u perfect agent for the formula, but I'm afraid of it. It's too im- stable." He turned a glass tap in the glass tube, and the fluid trickled into a flask. " But, doctor," Scott began eagerly, " if we heated the mixture to about four hundred degrees centigrade the quick evaporation of the nitrogen would " "Il's to<} dangerous, Scott," Stephen inter- rupted. " I won't take a chance. The sub- stance in this flask, in itself, is harmless. So is that." He indicated a brown fluid in a flask under another burette attached to the .same stand. "But if we mix them together I don't know what might happen." Scott frowned. "I don't want to seem stubborn," he salt!, "but if we could only try it out—iust a niimite quantity—to sec if heat would stabilise it " "We're dropping the whole thintj. Scott." Stephen's tone was sharp and definite. " We'll find a much less dangerous agent. Under- stand?" "Yes. sir," nodded the assistant. The bell of the telephone oi> Miss Winters' desk rancr noisily, and Stephen called across to the e'rl as she reached out a hand to the insti-ument. "Tf that's Weston tell him I'm on my way up." He made another note on the pad, then tore ofT the sheet of paper and stowed it in a pocket of his lone chemist's coat. " "•>,„. 1 r.. I t,..«l^ ,^.£.>]J J,.y Jy gyj {jnOthCV February 24th, 1040. azo compound," he said, and deserted his stool to inaKe lor the door. His two assistants looked at one another after he had gone. "Don't take it so hard, Scott," uiged Bayard. "Alter all, Garfield's the cnief cheimst around here." "1 know," growled his obstinate colleague, "but there's such a thing as being too daiued cautious. Now what would be tne harm m taking a tiny quantity of the mixture and trying it out '!" "You'd better forget it!" Bayard wandered off to another bench, but Scott perched on the stool Stephen had vacated, poured a little of the yellowish fluid into a clean flask, and added an equal quantity of the brown fluid. He was shaking the mix- ture when Bayard looked round, saw what he was doing, and hurried back to him. "Take it easy, Scott!" Scott held up the flask. "You see?" he asked triumphantly. "I wasn't so far wrong after all. It can be mixed. Now let's see what heat will do." "Now, wait a minute!" barked Bayard. Scott did not wait. He slid from the stool and went over to a bench on which there was an electric furnace, and he put the flask inside the furnace, closed the circular door, and sot tlie control Bayard was half-inclined to retrieve the flask, but refrained because he did not want to cause a scene. "How many degrees did you set it for?" he asked. "Four hundred," was the defiant reply. Stephen by this time had crossed a big yard in which the laboratory occupied an isolated position and had entered the oflice building. The man who had telephoned twice for him was Gilbert Weston, president of Globe Chemical Products, Incorporated, and his private room was on the first floor. Three other men were with him when Stephen walked in at the door, and Weston said com- plainingly: "We've been waiting for you, doctor!" "Sorry." returned Stephen calmly, "but I've been busy." Two middle-aged directors, smoking cigars in hide-covered easv-chairs facing the massive desk at which Weston was seated, frowned at the self-possessed chief chemist. Henry Downey, the spectacled and ugly general manager of the concern, started up from a chair at the far end of the desk as though to administer a reproof, but sat down again in response to an impatient gesture on the part of the president, who said: "We've been talking about cutting down pvoduction costs—and that brings us to j'our department." "Always brings us to my department," com- mented Stephen dryly.. "Gentlemen, if you cut down my staff you'll juBt be slowing up the work." "We'd like to speed up your work, not slow it down," retorted Weston. "Now, some of those experiments that take .so much timo and money " "I spent a long time experimenting on that odourless chloride," Stephen broke in, "and I think you'll admit it was timo and money well spent." One of the directors nodded, and Weston changed his tone. "I'm not critic'sing j-ou, doctor," he mode haste to say. "We're only looking for ways and means to cut down costs." "I'm sure Garfield understands," purred Downey. "How's your serum coming along?" "It isn't a serum," Stephen informed him. "Well, whatever it is." "It's a chemical formula to be used againsi toxic poisonings that develop in cases of severe bums." "Well, how's it coming along?" demanded Weston. "That's the point." "Slowly," admitted Stephen, "but it's coining along. This morning we thought we had it. Instead, we ran into a high-explosive." "All anti-toxa?mia turns into an explosive?" scoffed Downey. "That sometimes happens. We'll have to find a less dangerous mixture. Then we'll have to proceed along the usual coui-se—test it on animals first, then human beings." Weston worried a grey moustache that was almost as small as Steplien's brown one. "You've been at it some weeks now," he said discontentedly. " How much longer will it take?" Stephen shrugged his broad shoulders. " I'm sorry, but I can't answer that one." "You scientists don"'t get it through your heads that time is money!" Weston looked across the room at a voung accountant who was sitting in the background with a notebook on Jiis kne6. "Mr. Howard, how much has that experiment cost us so far?" "I'll have to get the figures on that," said the accountant "Well, get them!" '■ Yes, sir." In the laboratory. Scott opened the circular door of the electric furnace—and backed away from it with a gasp of dismay. f