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The Great Paradox of Science
 The Great Paradox
of Science
Why Its Conclusions Can Be Relied Upon
Even Though They Cannot Be Proven

M A N O SI N G HA M

1
 3
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the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
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address above.

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and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

Names: Singham, Mano, author.
Title: The great paradox of science : why its conclusions can be relied
upon even though they cannot be proven / Mano Singham.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, [2020] |
Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019021305 | ISBN 9780190055059 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780190055066 (updf) | ISBN 9780190055073 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Science—Methodology. | Science—Philosophy. |
Knowledge, Theory of.
Classification: LCC Q175 .S57225 2020 | DDC 501—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019021305

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
 To my daughters Dashi and Ashali

and

my grandsons Thomas and Benjamin

 Contents

Introduction 1

PA RT O N E : W H Y U N D E R S TA N D I N G T H E NAT U R E O F
S C I E N C E I S I M P O RTA N T

1. Did dinosaurs have tea parties? 11

2. The traps of scientific history 20
3. Misconceptions about the methodology and epistemology
of science 28
4. What is the goal of science? 41
5. The power of scientific theories and the problem of induction 53

PA RT T WO : C A SE S T U DY O F T H E AG E O F
T H E E A RT H

6. What the age of the Earth reveals about how science progresses 65
(a) Early models of the age of the Earth 66
(b) Young Earth theories 67
(c) The impact of young Earth beliefs on geology 69
(d) The impact of old Earth theories on religion 73
(e) The impact of geology, politics, and religion on evolutionary ideas 75
(f) The backlash to the theory of evolution 80
(g) The three-​way conflict of physics, biology, and geology 84
(h) The revolutions in physics in the twentieth century 90
(i) Consensus emerges on the age of the Earth 92
7. What we learn about science from the study of the age of the Earth 98

PA RT T H R E E : S C I E N C E A N D T RU E K N OW L E D G E

8. A brief history on the search for true knowledge 109

9. The role of doubt and faith in science 115
viii Contents

10. The basic features of science 122

(a) Science does not prove theories to be true 124
(b) Science does not prove theories to be false 128
(c) Scientific revolutions are the result of three-​cornered struggles 147
(d) Scientific theories are always underdetermined by data 152
(e) Scientific theories must be naturalistic and testable 159

11. The deep interconnectedness of scientific theories 166

12. How scientific theories get invented and that history
gets distorted 170

PA RT F OU R : T H E NAT U R E O F S C I E N T I F IC L O G IC

13. Truth in mathematics and science 179

14. The burden of proof in scientific and legal systems 187
15. Proof by logical contradiction 196
16. The role of negative evidence in establishing universal claims 203
17. Dark matter, dark energy, string theory, and the multiverse 207

PA RT F I V E : R E S O LV I N G T H E G R E AT PA R A D OX

18. How scientists choose between competing theories 215

19. Why some scientific controversies never die 228
20. How science evolves and the Great Paradox of science 242
21. The three trees of scientific knowledge 256
22. Resolving the Great Paradox 269

Supplementary Material 281

Acknowledgments 293
References 295
Index 305
The Great Paradox of Science
 Introduction

The great appeal of science has been its undoubted success in enriching our lives
not only in practical ways but also in showing how over time things that on the
surface once seemed so inexplicable became understandable, and how vastly
diverse phenomena are unified by being revealed to be based on a few under-
lying principles. All these seemed so fascinating to me from my early teens that
I could not imagine a better way of spending my life than studying science more
deeply. The world of physics, with its logical structure and underlying mathe-
matical elegance, seemed to promise unlimited frontiers for a lifetime of fasci-
nating investigation.
But upon graduating from high school in Sri Lanka, my hopes for entering
university to pursue a physics degree lay in serious doubt because I had failed to
pass a language requirement. Disappointed, I looked for a backup career to make
a living and went into accountancy. During the training program, it turned out
that I did quite well, mainly because the mathematics and logic involved came
easily to me. I was quite comfortable with double-​entry bookkeeping and could
distinguish assets from liabilities and debits from credits. But my heart was not
really in it. So when I overcame the language barrier at the last minute and thus
qualified for university, I was elated. I went to the head of the accountancy school
and told him that I was dropping out to pursue a physics degree. He tried to dis-
suade me, saying that he thought I was making a mistake and that I had a gift
for accountancy. He then added what he must have thought was the clinching
argument. He said that with accountancy, there is a fixed body of knowledge and
that with diligent study one could eventually have the satisfaction of having mas-
tered all of it. But when it came to science, one could never achieve that state and
would always be left with unanswered questions. He thought I would find that
extremely frustrating.
That well-​meaning educator did not realize that he had said exactly the wrong
thing. I can see why the prospect of a never-​ending search for new knowledge,
and the idea that one might never reach the goal of knowing everything in one’s
field of study, might be unsettling for some. But for me, that was the main allure
of science, to seek and find answers to interesting and important problems, but
yet never run out of fascinating questions to explore.
But after completing my undergraduate studies and then pursuing graduate
work toward a doctoral degree in theoretical physics, it seemed like my idea that
2 The Great Paradox of Science

physics provided unlimited frontiers for exploration might be mistaken. The

last quarter of the twentieth century saw one spectacular success in physics after
another that raised the possibility that we were getting close to uncovering the
fundamental particles that make up the universe and the underlying laws that
govern their behavior. There was even talk of finding the “theory of everything”
and even of “the end of science.”
Similar talk had emerged a century earlier, before the physics revolutions in
relativity and quantum mechanics in the first few decades of the twentieth cen-
tury shattered those expectations and opened up radically new ways of viewing
the world. But hubris is part of human nature and tempts us to think that this
time things are different, that we have finally got it right, and are not prone to
the same errors as our predecessors. So while the scope of scientific knowledge
is now so vast that no single individual can know everything, as the head of the
accountancy school seemed to think was possible in his field, it seemed like as
a community of scientists we were approaching a time when we would know all
there is to know, at least in their broad outlines, with only mopping-​up opera-
tions remaining. We seemed tantalizingly close to uncovering the ultimate truths
about the nature of the universe.
I had mixed feelings about this. Scientists are puzzle-​solvers at heart and while
there is something exhilarating about sensing that one is close to cracking open a
difficult puzzle and arriving at a solution, achieving such success, like coming to
the end of an ingenious mystery novel, also brings with it a sense of anti-​climax,
a wistful feeling of “Is that all there is?” and the wish for more. The thought that
future generations of scientists would not have the same excitement of tackling
major open questions brought with it a tinge of sadness, similar to the sentiment
expressed by eminent physicist Paul Dirac in 1939 that “In 1926 it was possible
for people who were not very good to solve important problems, but now people
who are very good cannot find important problems to solve” (Livio 2013, 159).
But after obtaining my doctorate and anticipating playing my own small role
in what might possibly be the twilight of science, I stumbled upon the book The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn (Kuhn 1970) that looked
more deeply at the history and philosophy of science. I was startled by Kuhn’s
claim that while the progress of science was undeniable, there was no reason to
think that there was any final frontier at all that science was progressing toward,
let alone that it was a finite distance away and that we were close to it.
My prior ignorance of the work of Kuhn and other philosophers of science is
not surprising. The formal study of the history and philosophy of science does
not form part of the curriculum in science graduate programs. Instead, what
scientists acquire is folklore about the nature of science that practicing scientists
share amongst themselves and pass on to their students. This folklore is then
spread to the general public via popular books, articles, and talks by scientists.
 Introduction 3

My curiosity was piqued by the fact that there was a vast discrepancy between
that folklore and what historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science were
uncovering. This resulted in my pursuing two parallel tracks of study, physics on
the one hand and philosophy of science on the other. In so doing, I became in-
creasingly convinced that philosophers of science were shedding important light
on the nature of science that needed to be better known both by scientists and the
general public (Okasha 2016).
The major question that came to the fore in my investigations was how it could
be that science seemed to be progressing so rapidly and the knowledge it pro-
duced so successful in revolutionizing our lives if it was not, as so many of the
philosophers claimed, approaching something that we could call “the truth.”
While deeper knowledge about the nature of science is not essential for the
actual practice of scientific research, which is why scientists have done very well
without bothering too much about it, I have two other, much more practical,
goals for this book as well. The first is that the methods and reasoning by which
scientists arrive at their conclusions would enable people, if they became fa-
miliar with it, to make much better decisions in all aspects of their lives, what we
can call “practical rationality.” The second arises from the fact that science has a
huge impact on public policy, and when we enter that area of intersection, the
misconceptions, lack of understanding, and outright distortions about the logic
and nature of science become increasingly significant. I am concerned that the
lack of general awareness of how scientists arrive at their knowledge and why
that knowledge is so reliable and has proven to be so powerful has enabled those
who have agendas that go against the scientific consensus, such as those groups
opposed to vaccinations or the teaching of evolution or who are climate change
skeptics or who market questionable products, to sow confusion and doubt and
prevent meaningful action that can save lives and the planet. These groups use
anecdotal evidence or cherry-​pick data or rely on people who are not credible
experts to advance their causes, whereas the reliability of science arises because
of the creation of consensus conclusions by credible experts using comprehensive
bodies of evidence that are systematically acquired and evaluated using scientific
logic and must pass through institutional filters such as legitimate peer-​reviewed
publications.
Successfully combating powerful groups that seek to undermine the scientific
consensus on important issues requires much more than knowledge of the folk-
lore of science because the more sophisticated members of those groups exploit
that folklore, with its shaky epistemology, to their advantage. Supporters of sci-
ence need to understand the weaknesses of their folkloric understanding of sci-
ence and then go beyond them and reach deeper levels, as this book seeks to do,
in order to better combat the false narratives of science’s opponents. As philoso-
pher of science H. M. Collins wrote:
4 The Great Paradox of Science

So long as scientific authority is legitimated by reference to inadequate philos-

ophies of science, it is easy for laymen to challenge that authority. It is easy to
show that the practice of science in any particular instance does not accord with
the canons of its legitimating philosophies. The fears of those who object to
relativism on the grounds of its anarchic consequences are being realized, not
as a result of relativism, but as a consequence of an over-​reliance on the very
philosophies that are supposed to wall about scientific authority. Those walls
are turning out to be made of straw. If new walls are to be constructed, they will
have to have their foundations laid in scientific practice—​in our understanding
of the role of the tacit elements of scientific expertise, and the way this exper-
tise, not a philosophical system, can give justification to an opinion about the
natural world. (Collins 1983, 99–​100)

If we are to more effectively counter the misunderstandings and distortions,

some deliberately fostered, that surround public understanding of science, a
deeper understanding of the logic of science is required and this necessitates
coming to grips with profound questions of proof, theories, laws, and how we
establish the existence and nonexistence of entities.
I have written this book to address both philosophical and practical needs.
My book seeks to help build a firmer foundation for science by taking the
conclusions of the philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science seriously
and addressing the resulting paradox of how scientific theories can be so suc-
cessful in explaining the world around us despite the lack of any assurance that
those theories are true or have an increasing level of correspondence with re-
ality. I argue that those two requirements are unnecessary for understanding the
success of science and rather than buttressing its credibility, are actually a hin-
drance and a distraction because they raise metaphysical questions that cannot
be resolved, where I use the word “metaphysical” not in its original sense of first
principles or ultimate causes but in the more common and slightly pejorative
sense of being abstruse and undecidable using standard methods of reasoning.
Furthermore, the new understanding of science that will replace the folkloric
knowledge will provide people and policymakers with better tools to make
sound rational decisions on matters that they encounter in their everyday lives
and in public policy areas, using the same methods that scientists use to arrive at
judgments on important questions.
This book is aimed at those people who are interested in science even if they
have little or no formal training in it, but practicing scientists will, I hope, also
gain a deeper understanding of the underlying knowledge structure of their own
work. It starts by dispelling many of the myths and misconceptions and folklore
surrounding the nature of scientific knowledge, thus laying the groundwork for
why we need a deeper understanding of how science arrives at its knowledge
 Introduction 5

structures and why we are justified in having such trust in them. This leads to the
formulation in ­chapter 20 of what I refer to as the Great Paradox, the fact that de-
spite what many believe, the success of science need have little to do with truth or
correspondence with an objective reality. The last two chapters provide a model
for the resolution of that paradox.
In order to guide the reader, I will start by laying out the outline of the argu-
ment in the book, and each chapter summary will be reproduced at the begin-
ning of each chapter to aid in following the argument.

The structure of the book

Chapter 1 introduces the main themes of the book and argues that it is science
that enables us to go well beyond the world that we can access purely via our
senses, but that doing so requires the use of advanced equipment and technology
to gather data and deep inferential reasoning to extract useful information from
that data.
Chapter 2 looks at how popular accounts of scientific history tend to be viewed
through the lens of present-​day science, focusing largely on those developments
that led to the current state and presenting that history as a more-​or-​less linear
process toward that end. By largely ignoring all the cross-​currents and confu-
sion that are almost always present in science, the resulting accounts tend to be
seriously distorted and should be treated with a great deal of skepticism, even
though they can serve useful pedagogical purposes.
Chapter 3 examines popular misconceptions about the nature of science. The
notion of scientific truth as correspondence with reality is argued to be not nec-
essary to do science but is helpful in communicating the ideas of science amongst
scientists and the general public. Scientists are always seeking what works and
thus tend to be philosophical and methodological opportunists, quite willing to
abandon one approach and shift to an alternative if they think that it will produce
better results.
In ­chapter 4, I discuss how science investigates phenomena that lie outside
our direct sensory experience and the difference in the logical arguments used to
infer the existence of entities from those used to establish nonexistence. Applying
the same logic and reasoning that scientists have used to establish the nonexist-
ence of many things would enable people to rid themselves of many unsupported
and superstitious beliefs.
Chapter 5 deals with how despite the counterintuitive nature of many scientific
conclusions, it is because science works so well that people accept them. While
the problem of induction prevents us from generalizing from a few instances and
predicting the future purely by what we have observed in the past, it is the belief
6 The Great Paradox of Science

that the laws and theories of science are the best that we have and getting better
with time that gives us confidence in their predictions. The importance of having
a better understanding of the way that the scientific community uses the words
“law,” “theory,” “hypothesis,” and “fact” is emphasized.
Part Two of the book begins with ­chapter 6, in which a detailed case study of
the search for the answer to the question of how old the Earth is serves as a para-
digm for how scientific “facts” need not be unchangeable. The age has oscillated
wildly before settling on the currently accepted value of 4.54 billion years, with
religion, politics, and other nonscience factors influencing the search along the
way. The final consensus involves a complex interplay of theories from geology,
biology, physics, chemistry, and paleontology.
In ­chapter 7, I discuss how the way we arrived at the current age of the Earth
shows that reversals of seemingly firm conclusions are the norm in science, not
the exceptions, and form an integral part of its process. They are thus not a cause
for alarm and the community of scientists has over time developed ways to arrive
at consensus judgments that, while not infallible, can command considerable
confidence.
Part Three of the book begins with c­ hapter 8, which takes a historical look
at the search for true knowledge and how scientific consensus conclusions have
changed from being thought of as unchanging and infallible to now being con-
sidered as just provisionally true, the best we have at any moment. Establishing
the validity of scientific propositions has become so difficult that it is now the
preserve of a few specialists who have the time, resources, and expertise to carry
out the required investigations.
Chapter 9 deals with the importance for all of us to understand the episte-
mology of science in order to better counter those who selectively use such
knowledge to advance dangerous anti-​science agendas, such as arguing that sci-
ence is just another species of opinion and requires faith. While doubt is always
present in science, even in the absence of absolute certainty we can still have a
high degree of confidence in scientific consensus judgments.
Chapter 10 addresses some popular misconceptions about the nature of scien-
tific theories. It discusses why they cannot be proven true or false, that scientific
revolutions always involve at least a three-​cornered struggle involving at least
two theories and experiment, and that experimental data are never sufficient to
uniquely determine a theory. Although we have not been able to specify both
necessary and sufficient criteria to distinguish science from nonscience, there
do exist necessary conditions that any scientific theory and law must satisfy, and
that is that they must be both naturalistic and testable.
Chapter 11 expands upon the point touched on in the previous chapter of how
scientific theories are so deeply interconnected that they cannot be investigated
in isolation, and how this prevents individual theories from unequivocally being
 Introduction 7

proven true or false and creates difficulties when choosing between two com-
peting theories.
Chapter 12 looks at how we have a natural propensity to invent theories all
the time based on our experiences, and it is the testing of these theories and their
refutation and replacement with new theories that more accurately represents
scientific practice.
Part Four of the book begins with ­chapter 13, which looks at what we can
learn from axiomatic systems and the role of proofs in arriving at truths. It
discusses why there are limits to what we can prove to be true even in mathe-
matics because we cannot construct a framework that is both complete and con-
sistent for any nontrivial system. Science is slightly different in that we deal with
quasi-​axiomatic systems with the additional element of experimental data or
observations that we can compare with the predictions of theories, but it faces
the same problem.
Chapter 14 looks at how scientific logic has strong similarities to the way that
the legal system uses logical arguments and evidence to arrive at judgments. The
logic used depends on whether a proposition is an existence claim or a universal
one, and this determines where the burden of proof lies. That same kind of logic
is used also in everyday life, though many people may not consciously realize
that they are doing so.
Chapter 15 looks at mathematical proofs that use the method of logical con-
tradiction and examines how far this can be taken in science. While the existence
of any entity can never be proven by this method, the nonexistence of certain
entities can.
Chapter 16 looks at the important role that negative evidence, the things we do
not observe, plays in scientific logic. This is illustrated by the example of why we
so strongly believe that only two kinds of electric charges exist, to the extent of
basing our entire modern technology on it, even though we have not proved it to
be so, and indeed cannot even hope to do so.
Chapter 17 uses what we have learned about scientific logic to evaluate the status
of four theories that are currently at the frontiers of physics and command much
attention in the media: dark matter, dark energy, string theory, and the multiverse.
Part Five of the book begins the process of weaving together all the ear-
lier threads, with this chapter looking at what historians, philosophers, and
sociologists of science have uncovered about the way that the scientific commu-
nity chooses between competing theories and how the process proceeds ration-
ally and systematically even if questions of truth are not determinative.
Chapter 19 looks at why achieving consensus in science can be slow and
getting unanimity of views on some scientific questions is almost impossible, be-
cause those who are determined to find ways to preserve their beliefs can always
find ways to do so.
8 The Great Paradox of Science

Chapter 20 finally confronts the Great Paradox: If science is progressing, what

could it possibly be progressing toward if not the truth? It argues that the way that
scientific paradigms evolve is analogous to the process of biological evolution, in
that both are conditional on the environment that exists at any time and thus
there is no reason to believe that the evolution of scientific theories is heading
toward a unique truth. The strong impression of directionality is because scien-
tific history in textbooks is reconstructed after the fact. Scientific evolution, like
biological evolution, is not teleological.
Chapter 21 builds on Charles Darwin’s metaphor of the Tree of Life to con-
struct two other tree metaphors that illustrate the nonteleological nature of
science. One is the Tree of Scientific Paradigms that exemplifies the process by
which scientific paradigms evolve, with new ones emerging over time that have
resulted in their present variety and diversity. The other is the Tree of Science that
represents the evolution of scientific knowledge as a whole.
Chapter 22 uses the Tree of Science to resolve the paradox of how scientific
theories can work so well and be so successful in explaining the world around us
despite the lack of any assurance that those theories are true, that they are even
approaching something that we can call the truth. It argues that the ideas of truth
and correspondence with reality are unnecessary for understanding the success
of science and are actually a hindrance and a distraction, because they raise met-
aphysical questions that cannot be resolved.
 PART ONE
W HY U N DE R STA NDI NG
THE NAT U R E OF S CI E NCE I S
IMP ORTA NT
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Angel Esquire
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
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Title: Angel Esquire

Author: Edgar Wallace

Release date: December 4, 2023 [eBook #72316]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: A. L. Burt Company, 1908

Credits: Emmanuel Ackerman, David E. Brown, and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
(This book was produced from images made available
by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANGEL

ESQUIRE ***
 A Superlatively Good Mystery
Story by a Writer of Thrillers.

Angel Esquire
By EDGAR WALLACE
Angel Esquire, of Scotland Yard, has his hands full in
helping Jimmy Stannard, as he is known to the criminal
element of London, solve the puzzle of the great safe
which held the fortune of Old Reale who had placed it
there, and who had taken the precaution to hide the
combination in a bit of doggerel verse that served as a
cryptogram.
When Old Reale’s Will was read it was found that four
people might benefit by it. Two of them, known as
members of the famous “Borough Lots” gang would stop
at nothing to gain possession of the fortune. Jimmy and
his friend are pitted against them in a story that constitutes
the finest entertainment for the person liking excitement,
love and mystery combined.

OTHER BOOKS
BY THIS AUTHOR:
THE BLACK ABBOT
THE CLUE OF THE NEW PIN
THE DOOR WITH SEVEN LOCKS
THE MELODY OF DEATH
A KING BY NIGHT
THE RINGER
THE SINISTER MAN
THE TERRIBLE PEOPLE
TERROR KEEP
TRAITOR’S GATE
 A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers · New York
See Reverse Side of Jacket for Complete
List of 75c Fiction
 ANGEL ESQUIRE

By EDGAR WALLACE
Author of
“The Girl from Scotland Yard,” “The Traitors’ Gate,”
“The Clue of the New Pin,” “The Green Archer,”
“The Hairy Arm,” “Blue Hand,” “The Black
Abbott,” “The Sinister Man,” “Terror
Keep,” “The Ringer,” “The Door with
Seven Locks,” “A King by Night,”
“The Melody of Death,” “The
Four Just Men,” “Jack
O’Judgment,” etc.

A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York

Published by arrangement with

Lincoln Mac Veagh, The Dial Press

Printed in U. S. A.
 Copyright, 1908,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

Copyright, 1927,
BY
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
(Incorporated)

Printed in the United States of America

ANGEL ESQUIRE
 CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
THE LOMBARD STREET DEPOSIT 1
CHAPTER II.
THE HOUSE IN TERRINGTON SQUARE 10
CHAPTER III.
ANGEL ESQUIRE 35
CHAPTER IV.
THE “BOROUGH LOT” 59
CHAPTER V.
THE CRYPTOGRAM 85
CHAPTER VI.
THE RED ENVELOPE 107
CHAPTER VII.
WHAT THE RED ENVELOPE HELD 129
CHAPTER VIII.
OLD GEORGE 149
CHAPTER IX.
THE GREAT ATTEMPT 172
CHAPTER X.
SOME BAD CHARACTERS 202
CHAPTER XI.
THE QUEST OF THE BOOK 223
CHAPTER XII.
WHAT HAPPENED AT FLAIRBY MILL 238
CHAPTER XIII.
CONNOR TAKES A HAND 260
 CHAPTER XIV.
OPENING THE SAFE 283
CHAPTER XV.
THE SOLUTION 306
ANGEL ESQUIRE
 CHAPTER I
THE LOMBARD STREET DEPOSIT

Mr. William Spedding, of the firm of Spedding, Mortimer and

Larach, Solicitors, bought the site in Lombard Street in the
conventional way. The property came into the market on the death of
an old lady who lived at Market Harborough, who has nothing to do
with this story, and it was put up to auction in the orthodox fashion.
Mr. William Spedding secured the site at £106,000, a sum sufficiently
large to excite the interest of all the evening papers and a great
number of the morning journals as well.
As a matter of exact detail, I may add that plans were produced and
approved by the city surveyor for the erection of a building of a
peculiar type. The city surveyor was a little puzzled by the interior
arrangement of the new edifice, but as it fulfilled all the requirements
of the regulations governing buildings in the City of London, and no
fault could be found either with the external appearance—its façade
had been so artfully designed that you might pass a dozen times a
day without the thought occurring that this new building was anything
out of the common ruck—and as the systems of ventilation and light
were beyond reproach, he passed the plans with a shrug of his
shoulders.
“I cannot understand, Mr. Spedding,” he said, laying his forefinger on
the blue print, “how your client intends securing privacy. There is a
lobby and one big hall. Where are the private offices, and what is the
idea of this huge safe in the middle of the hall, and where are the
clerks to sit? I suppose he will have clerks? Why, man, he won’t
have a minute’s peace!”
Mr. Spedding smiled grimly.
“He will have all the peace he wants,” he said.
“And the vaults—I should have thought that vaults would be the very
thing you wanted for this.” He tapped the corner of the sheet where
was inscribed decorously: “Plan for the erection of a New Safe
Deposit.”
“There is the safe,” said Mr. Spedding, and smiled again.
This William Spedding, now unhappily no longer with us—he died
suddenly, as I will relate—was a large, smooth man with a suave
manner. He smoked good cigars, the ends of which he snipped off
with a gold cigar-cutter, and his smile came readily, as from a man
who had no fault to find with life.
To continue the possibly unnecessary details, I may add further that
whilst tenders were requested for the erection of the New Safe
Deposit, the provision of the advertisement that the lowest tender
would not necessarily be accepted was justified by the fact that the
offer of Potham and Holloway was approved, and it is an open secret
that their tender was the highest of all.
“My client requires the very best work; he desires a building that will
stand shocks.” Mr. Spedding shot a swift glance at the contractor,
who sat at the other side of the desk. “Something that a footling little
dynamite explosion would not scatter to the four winds.”
The contractor nodded.
“You have read the specification,” the solicitor went on—he was
cutting a new cigar, “and in regard to the pedestal—ah—the
pedestal, you know——?”
He stopped and looked at the contractor.
“It seems all very clear,” said the great builder. He took a bundle of
papers from an open bag by his side and read, “The foundation to be
of concrete to the depth of twenty feet.... The pedestal to be
alternate layers of dressed granite and steel ... in the center a steel-
lined compartment, ten inches by five, and half the depth of the
pedestal itself.”
The solicitor inclined his head.
“That pedestal is to be the most important thing in the whole
structure. The steel-lined recess—I don’t know the technical phrase
—which one of these days your men will have to fill in, is the second
most important; but the safe that is to stand fifty feet above the floor
of the building is to be—but the safe is arranged for.”
An army of workmen, if the hackneyed phrase be permitted,
descended upon Lombard Street and pulled down the old buildings.
They pulled them down, and broke them down, and levered them
down, and Lombard Street grew gray with dust. The interiors of
quaint old rooms with grimy oak paneling were indecently exposed to
a passing public. Clumsy, earthy carts blocked Lombard Street, and
by night flaring Wells’ lights roared amidst the chaos.
And bare-armed men sweated and delved by night and by day; and
one morning Mr. Spedding stood in a drizzle of rain, with a silk
umbrella over his head, and expressed, on behalf of his client, his
intense satisfaction at the progress made. He stood on a slippery
plank that formed a barrow road, and workmen, roused to unusual
activity by the presence of “The Firm”—Mr. Spedding’s cicerone—
moved to and fro at a feverish rate of speed.
“They don’t mind the rain,” said the lawyer, sticking out his chin in the
direction of the toiling gangs.
“The Firm” shook his head.
“Extra pay,” he said laconically, “we provided for that in the tender,”
he hastened to add in justification of his munificence.
So in rain and sunshine, by day and by night, the New Safe Deposit
came into existence.
Once—it was during a night shift, a brougham drove up the deserted
city street, and a footman helped from the dark interior of the
carriage a shivering old man with a white, drawn face. He showed a
written order to the foreman, and was allowed inside the unpainted
gate of the “works.”
He walked gingerly amidst the debris of construction, asked no
questions, made no replies to the explanations of the bewildered
foreman, who wondered what fascination there was in a building job
to bring an old man from his bed at three o’clock on a chill spring
morning.
Only once the old man spoke.
“Where will that there pedestal be?” he asked in a harsh, cracked
cockney voice; and when the foreman pointed out the spot, and the
men even then busily filling in the foundation, the old man’s lips
curled back in an ugly smile that showed teeth too white and regular
for a man of his age. He said no more, but pulled the collar of his fur
coat the tighter about his lean neck and walked wearily back to his
carriage.
The building saw Mr. Spedding’s client no more—if, indeed, it was
Mr. Spedding’s client. So far as is known, he did not again visit
Lombard Street before its completion—even when the last pane of
glass had been fixed in the high gilded dome, when the last slab of
marble had been placed in the ornate walls of the great hall, even
when the solicitor came and stood in silent contemplation before the
great granite pedestal that rose amidst a scaffolding of slim steel
girders supporting a staircase that wound upward to the gigantic
mid-air safe.
Not quite alone, for with him was the contractor, awed to silence by
the immensity of his creation.
“Finished!” said the contractor, and his voice came echoing back
from the dim spaces of the building.
The solicitor did not answer.
“Your client may commence business to-morrow if he wishes.”
The solicitor turned from the pedestal.
“He is not ready yet,” he said softly, as though afraid of the echoes.
He walked to where the big steel doors of the hall stood ajar, the
contractor following.
In the vestibule he took two keys from his pocket. The heavy doors
swung noiselessly across the entrance, and Mr. Spedding locked
them. Through the vestibule and out into the busy street the two men
walked, and the solicitor fastened behind him the outer doors.
“My client asks me to convey his thanks to you for your expedition,”
the lawyer said.
The builder rubbed his hands with some satisfaction.
“You have taken two days less than we expected,” Mr. Spedding
went on.
The builder was a man of few ideas outside his trade. He said again
—
“Yes, your client may start business to-morrow.”
The solicitor smiled.
“My client, Mr. Potham, may not—er—start business—for ten years,”
he said. “In fact, until—well, until he dies, Mr. Potham.”
 CHAPTER II
THE HOUSE IN TERRINGTON SQUARE

A man turned into Terrington Square from Seymour Street and

walked leisurely past the policeman on point duty, bidding him a curt
“good night.” The officer subsequently described the passer, as a
foreign-looking gentleman with a short pointed beard. Under the light
overcoat he was apparently in evening dress, for the officer
observed the shoes with the plain black bow, and the white silk
muffler and the crush hat supported that view. The man crossed the
road, and disappeared round the corner of the railed garden that
forms the center of the square. A belated hansom came jingling past,
and an early newspaper cart, taking a short cut to Paddington,
followed; then the square was deserted save for the man and the
policeman.
The grim, oppressive houses of the square were wrapped in sleep—
drawn blinds and shuttered windows and silence.
The man continued his stroll until he came abreast of No. 43. Here
he stopped for a second, gave one swift glance up and down the
thoroughfare, and mounted the three steps of the house. He fumbled
a little with the key, turned it, and entered. Inside he stood for a
moment, then taking a small electric lamp from his pocket he
switched on the current.
He did not trouble to survey the wide entrance hall, but flashed the
tiny beam of light on the inside face of the door. Two thin wires and a
small coil fastened to the lintel called forth no comment. One of the
wires had been snapped by the opening of the door.
“Burglar-alarm, of course,” he murmured approvingly. “All the
windows similarly treated, and goodness knows what pitfalls waiting
for the unwary.”
He flashed the lamp round the hall. A heavy Turkish rug at the foot of
the winding staircase secured his attention. He took from his pocket
a telescopic stick, extended it, and fixed it rigid. Then he walked
carefully towards the rug. With his stick he lifted the corner, and what
he saw evidently satisfied him, for he returned to the door, where in a
recess stood a small marble statue. All his strength was required to
lift this, but he staggered back with it, and rolling it on its circular
base, as railway porters roll milk churns, he brought it to the edge of
the rug. With a quick push he planted it square in the center of the
carpet. For a second only it stood, oscillating, then like a flash it
disappeared, and where the carpet had lain was a black, gaping
hole. He waited. Somewhere from the depths came a crash, and the
carpet came slowly up again and filled the space. The unperturbed
visitor nodded his head, as though again approving the
householder’s caution.
“I don’t suppose he has learnt any new ones,” he murmured
regretfully, “he is getting very old.” He took stock of the walls. They
were covered with paintings and engravings. “He could not have
fixed the cross fire in a modern house,” he continued, and taking a
little run, leapt the rug and rested for a moment on the bottom stair. A
suit of half armor on the first landing held him in thoughtful attention
for a moment. “Elizabethan body, with a Spanish bayonet,” he said
regretfully; “that doesn’t look like a collector’s masterpiece.” He
flashed the lamp up and down the silent figure that stood in
menacing attitude with a raised battle-ax. “I don’t like that ax,” he
murmured, and measured the distance.
Then he saw the fine wire that stretched across the landing. He
stepped across carefully, and ranged himself alongside the steel
knight. Slipping off his coat, he reached up and caught the figure by
the wrist. Then with a quick jerk of his foot he snapped the wire.
He had been prepared for the mechanical downfall of the ax; but as
the wire broke the figure turned to the right, and swish! came the ax
in a semicircular cut. He had thought to hold the arm as it
descended, but he might as well have tried to hold the piston-rod of
an engine. His hand was wrenched away, and the razor-like blade of