“And you just happened to be there? That’s rotten luck, kid.”
“I’m not saying it was an accident that I was there.”
“How do you mean?”
“How do you think they found Tesla?”
“Christ,” said Westinghouse. “He had you followed.”
The two men looked around at the churning East River. “As soon as you leave here,” said Westinghouse, “you’ll likely be followed again.”
“The bad news is that we don’t know where Tesla is. But hopefully neither does Edison.”
“How will either of you find him? Tesla has no family in this country. You said that his one friend, Stanford White, believes he’s dead.”
“Which means there’s only one other person we know about who’s been in touch with Tesla since he left your employ. And, helpfully, he and I already have a good bit of history together.”
No matter how many instances of white swans we have observed, that does not justify the inference that all swans are white.
—KARL POPPER
BY THE TIME Paul stepped into Lemuel Serrell’s office two days later, he’d shed his plaster-of-paris cast. His limp wasn’t terrible, but it was annoying. He still required the wooden cane. He came to see Tesla’s patent attorney hours after being discharged from the hospital, making only a brief trip back to his apartment for fresh clothes. The hospital rags had made him feel weak. Returning to the de rigueur deep-black coat and tall white shirt collar of his professional life, Paul felt instantly stronger.
Serrell was smoking behind his desk when Paul entered. He did not offer greetings as Paul sat. Serrell remained in his chair, a hard expression across his face.
“I’m surprised you’ve the gall to walk right in here,” said Serrell.
“Good morning,” said Paul, surprised by the cross tone. “I’m feeling much healed, thank you for asking.”
Serrell raised an eyebrow. He was the sort of man who knew the communicative value of a carefully raised eyebrow.
“I’m here to find Tesla. To make sure he’s safe.”
“You, of all people, want to make sure that Tesla is safe?”
Paul stared at the angry face before him. It took a long moment to realize that Serrell was making a dreadful accusation. “You think that I set the fire in Tesla’s lab? Why on earth would I do such a thing?”
“Two dollars and fifty cents per unit is quite a bit of money for your client, Mr. Cravath.”
Paul had never before been accused of attempted murder. The sensation was not pleasant.
“Listen to me very carefully, will you?” said Serrell. “I can assure you that Mr. Tesla’s demise will not help you in the slightest. His mother is in Serbia. In the event of her son’s death, she will receive the entirety of the royalties owed him. I prepared his will myself. So whatever attempts you are making to finish the vile job you started, they are pointless.”
“Mr. Serrell,” said Paul in what he hoped was a reasonable tone, “do you see my cane? I was with Mr. Tesla when the fire started. I almost died.”
“The police have been here. They told me you were with Tesla—which is precisely my point. If you knew where Tesla’s laboratory was located, I do believe that makes us the only two men who did. Only one of us had a reason to want Tesla buried.”
“What of Thomas Edison?” suggested Paul. “He had more reason to harm Tesla than any of us.” Serrell had prepared patent applications for Edison years before. Perhaps their work together had not concluded a decade past.
“Edison?” Serrell smirked. “But that’s stupid.”
“Why?”
“Because if Thomas Edison had wanted Nikola Tesla dead, then he damn well would be.”
Serrell directed Paul’s attention to the door. “I’d ask you kindly to leave, though I’ve little intention of being kind. What convinces me of your culpability in the plot to murder my client is that I believe he’s very much alive. And based on my previous dealings with you, I think you’re the only one incompetent enough to botch it up.”
Paul’s injured leg wobbled a bit as he rose, but he remained unflinching. He would not be bested by Lemuel Serrell. Not again.
“I don’t know whether you are Edison’s knowing accomplice or his unwitting pawn,” said Paul. “But I know he’s responsible for what happened. And I will not allow him, or you, to frame me for it.”
With that, Paul turned and walked out the door. It was only after crossing the threshold that he realized he wasn’t even using the cane.
Normal science does not aim for novelties of fact or theory and, when successful, finds none.
—THOMAS KUHN, THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS
IN THE WEEK following his confrontation with Lemuel Serrell, Paul paid visits to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers; the offices of the journal Electrical World, where he spoke to its editor, Thomas Martin; Westinghouse’s laboratory in Pittsburgh, where he spoke with Fessenden; and the labs of half a dozen smaller New York outfits that might have employed engineers who’d worked with Tesla previously. None of these visits—despite Paul’s beseeching, despite his charms, despite his two-dollar bills folded into serious handshakes—bore fruit.
No one had spoken to Tesla since weeks before the fire. No one had known, they told him frankly, what in God’s name Tesla had ever been going on about anyhow. And no one had seen him since he’d fled Westinghouse’s operation in August. As far as anyone guessed, he must have been living in his new laboratory, before it burned down.
Paul tried hotels. He made the run of cheap flophouses on the Bowery, though he had a hard time picturing the maniacally clean inventor staying anywhere in which one might hear the rats not only at night, but at midday. He greased a half month’s worth of wages into the palms of the city’s concierges, but it was no use. No giant with a thick Serbian accent and a habit of misplacing verbs had been spotted. Paul considered venturing to the disreputable alehouses and even less reputable gentlemen’s clubs—places known to provide some manner of sanctuary to men who preferred not to be found. But then he imagined Tesla attempting to speak with the inhabitants of one of Chelsea’s infamous “boardinghouses,” and the thought seemed so comical as to be easily disregarded.
By the end of a week’s searching, Paul was no closer to finding the vanished genius. His labors had served only to further delay the healing of his hurt left leg. His boots were worn, and his shins pulsed with a dull ache.
He also exchanged brief letters with his second client. Or clients. His correspondence had been entirely with Fannie Huntington, not her daughter. Shortly after Paul’s release from Bellevue, Mr. Foster wrote to Fannie directly. As any blackmailer would, he cautioned her against involving lawyers in the matter before them. The more people who became involved, he said, the harder it would be for him to keep the details of this business quiet. He tried to depict Paul’s involvement as the Huntingtons’ biggest problem.
Paul assured Fannie by post that he was working on the situation. Privately, he didn’t know exactly what he was going to do, but he knew he’d better think of something soon. It pained him to think of the precariousness of Agnes’s position, and of how little he’d done to help her.
Moreover, there remained the small matter of the billion-dollar patent suit. And the business of defending George Westinghouse’s right to manufacture electric lamps was not going well.