He set the lighter down and noticed yet another strange property—the ruby egg was smoothly rounded at the bottom, yet it sat upright, with no tendency to topple over. His magnifier showed an ornate letter P engraved in the base, but provided no clue as to how the balancing act was achieved.
Connor gulped the remainder of his drink and, with eyes suddenly sober and watchful, took a fresh look around the room. He discovered a beautiful clock, apparently carved from solid onyx. As he had half-expected, there was no way to open it, and the same elaborate P was engraved on the underside.
There was also a television set which had a superficial resemblance to an expensive commercial model but which bore no maker’s name plaque. He checked it over and found the now-familiar P inscribed on one side where it would never be noticed except by a person making a purposeful search. When he switched the set on, the image of a newscaster which appeared was so perfect that he might have been looking through a plate glass window into the man’s face. Connor studied the picture from a distance of only a few inches and could not resolve it into lines or dots. His magnifier achieved no better results.
He switched the television off and returned to the armchair, filled with a strange and powerful emotion. Although it was in his nature to be sharp and acquisitive—those were attributes without which he could never had entered his chosen profession—it had always remained uppermost in his mind that the world’s supply of money was unlimited, whereas his own allocation of years was hopelessly inadequate. He could have trebled his income by working longer and pushing harder but had always chosen another course simply because his desire for possessions had never taken control.