The Last Days of Night(63)

He needed to get back to work.

—

Paul’s four associate attorneys were waiting for him when he entered their ramshackle offices on Greenwich Street the next morning. It was time for their weekly appointment. They appeared to have slept there the night before. The men’s shirt collars were loosened, their ties undone. The single room smelled of sweat and dried coffee. For once, he envied them.

With flair, one of them handed Paul a folder full of papers.

“Why don’t you summarize it for me, Mr. Beyer?” asked Paul as he opened the folder.

The associate exchanged a look with his fellows.

“What?” said Paul.

“It’s only…well…I’m Bynes.”

Paul looked up. He could have sworn that Beyer was the one with the mustache.

“Apologies. What do you have to show me?” asked Paul.

“Well, sir,” said whichever one of them it was. “I think we’ve got him.”

The associate gestured to the top document within the folder. “That is an interview with Thomas Edison in The New York Sun from October twentieth, 1878. In it, he clearly states that his new electrical lamp consists of a glass bulb, hollowed out into a vacuum, with a platinum filament inside. The filament is the part that glows.”

“I know what a filament is,” said Paul.

“Well, Edison’s patent, granted January twenty-seventh, 1880, refers to a glass bulb, hollowed out into a vacuum, with a cotton filament inside. He changed the filament.”

Paul realized what this meant. “He told the press he was using one kind of filament. But by the time he filed for the patent, he was already using a different kind. He hadn’t gotten the lamp to work as early as he’d claimed.”

“Yes,” said the boy.

“But,” added one of the associates who Paul was certain was neither Beyer nor Bynes, “that’s not even the best part. All that proves is that Edison lied to the press.”

“Which is not a crime,” said the one with the mustache.

“Right,” said the fourth of the associates. “So then what if we can show that Edison lied on the patent itself?”

“That would be something, Mr….?”

“I’m Beyer,” said the boy.

Paul had a hard time believing that to be the case, but it could not have mattered to him less.

Beyer continued. “The bulbs that have been coming out of Edison General Electric plants use bamboo filaments.” He showed Paul a sketch of the device in question. There was no mistaking the material that composed the filament, even to a layman’s eyes.

“First he told the press it was platinum,” said Paul. “Then he told the patent office it was cotton. But it’s actually bamboo.”

“Yes.”

“He was just making things up. He didn’t actually get the bulb working with bamboo till after the patent was granted.”

This was the moment Paul had been waiting for. The four associates tried to hide their proud smiles behind professionally blank expressions. They’d done well, and they knew it. But they seemed to feel that convincing Paul of their competence required masking their youthful exuberance. Watching these boys pretend to be older than they were made Paul feel even older himself.

“What will you do now?” asked the mustached associate, who was probably Bynes.

Paul did not try to hide his smile. “I think it’s time that we took the deposition of Mr. Thomas Edison.”





Everybody steals in science and industry. I’ve stolen a lot myself. But I know how to steal. They don’t know how to steal.

—THOMAS EDISON



FOR OVER A year, the name Edison had haunted Paul’s days. He had met Thomas Edison only once, and yet the inventor was ever present in his thoughts. His daily life was a groove in the invisible orbit around Edison’s solar mass. Practically every slip of paper that crossed Paul’s desk bore Edison’s name. Edison’s presence dominated the work of Paul’s waking hours and often his sleeping ones. He had spent many times more hours dreaming of Edison than speaking to him.

Paul arrived early for the deposition. At barely seven in the morning, he entered Grosvenor Lowrey’s Broad Street law offices. The wallpapered rooms crackled with activity. Assistants, apprentices, secretaries, and errand boys flitted about in preparation, bursting with energy. As Paul waited, the whole office primped itself for the great man’s arrival. The brass was polished with vinegar, the wood rubbed with alcohol and wax, and every stray paper was tucked into a drawer or filing cabinet.

When Edison finally arrived, late, Paul was instantly struck by the change in his appearance. He’d aged in the past year. His hair had gone almost completely gray. He’d grown plumper around the middle. His clothes had been applied haphazardly.

He was, in short, a human being. And that seemed strangest of all. The devil himself could barely knot his own bow tie.

Edison sat at the long table as if this deposition was but one of the many chores to which he would be forced to attend that morning. No doubt it was. He whispered a few words to Lowrey, his attorney, who took the seat to his left. To Edison’s right sat the court secretary, here to transcribe his every word.

“All right,” said Edison. “Let’s get this over with.”