midnight
I examined the results of the disintegration , and when you came in and showed me that gold , I recognized at once that someone had discovered the secret I have been trying to fathom for the last ten years . I thought that perhaps you had come from Keely . I am now convinced that the explosion you speak of in the Treasury was caused by myself . This machine , which you so recklessly threatened to throw out of the window , accidentally slipped from its support when I was working here some time after midnight on the seventeenth . I placed it immediately as you see it now , where it throws its rays into mid-air , and is consequently harmless ; but I knew an explosion must have taken place in Vienna somewhere within the radius of half a mile . I drew the pencilled semi-circle that you saw on the map of Vienna , for in my excitement in placing the machine upright I had not noticed exactly where it had pointed , but I knew that , along the line I had drawn , an explosion must have occurred , and could only hope that it had not been a serious one , which it seems it was . I waited and waited , hardly daring to leave my attic , but hearing no news of any disaster , I was torn between the anxiety that would naturally come to any humane man in my position who did not wish to destroy life , and the fear that , if nothing had occurred , I had not actually made the discovery I thought I had made .