The Inventor's Son

Chapter 7: In Which Our Hero Learns a New Skill

ETHAN HAD A START, as the man who walked in was the very image of his dear father. But alas, he could tell immediately that it was not Marcus. "Uncle Malcolm! What are you doing here?" Ethan asked, unable to keep his fear completely out of his voice.

"Oh, my dear Ethan! Where is my brother?" Malcolm asked. "Where is Marcus? Is he here? Marc?" Malcolm called out while practically dashing through the foyer, right past the helicopter prototype, and into the drawing room.

"Uncle Malcolm, Father is missing! A claw-handed man killed Mr. Timmons! What is going on?" Ethan approached Malcolm and looked up into his uncle's eyes.

"You mean Marcus never came back?" Malcolm asked frantically, placing his hands on Ethan's thin shoulders. Ethan's profound despair at seeing how elaborately his uncle could manage to lie to him nearly undid his mind.

"You know he didn't," Ethan finally accused him, prying himself out of Malcolm's grasp.

"What do you mean?"

"I know you both had a fight this morning! Stop lying!" Ethan spat.

Malcolm seemed genuinely stunned. "If Marcus never came back here, how could you possibly know about that?"

"I have my ways. I just know. I could even hear my father asking you, 'How could you do this, Mal? How could you?'" Ethan reminded him.

Malcolm looked about as stricken as one could ever look. "Ethan, please, listen to me! There's a man named Dr. Colbourne. He used to be one of Marc's professors at Cambridge. The man was sacked years ago for ethical reasons, and he's had it in for Marcus ever since.

"The reason we were fighting was because I had inadvertently gotten involved in investing in Colbourne's new company. You may know that I have been pondering the idea of becoming Prime Minister. If I do, I must make certain that I have as clean a record as humanly possible. That would mean not having investments in a business where the individual operating it is a madman. Surely this makes sense to you, does it not?"

"Yes," Ethan admitted. "But that still doesn't explain where my father is. And that still doesn't explain what you want with the helicopter design!"

"Ethan! We cannot have anything that Marcus has invented merely floating around for God-knows-who to get a hold of it! That thing must be securely hidden away!" Malcolm argued. Then, his uncle leaned against the hearth in the drawing room. He wore a sulky face that reminded Ethan painfully of his father's very same expression whenever he was deeply troubled about something.

Like almost all the Stanwood men, Malcolm and his twin were both not overly tall, had the same color of deep brown hair like Ethan's, but unlike Ethan, they both had the more typical Stanwood hazel eyes. Somewhat atypically for identical twins, Malcolm and Marcus were nearly impossible for most people to tell apart. Ethan recalled a lot of funny tales Marcus had told of how much mischief he and Malcolm would get into while impersonating one another.

"How do you even know this Colbourne?" Ethan eventually asked Malcolm.

"As you might have guessed, I had attended a few of the man's lectures in Marc's place," Malcolm admitted. "Lectures! Harrumph! They were more like rants sometimes!"

"Rants about what?" Ethan asked.

Malcolm shook his head. "I cannot even tell you. Marcus understood them far more than I ever could have hoped to. Things about the brain. Like I've said, Colbourne's a madman! Brilliant, which is why Marcus venerated him, but his mind had become twisted from his experiments..."

"I shall have you know that two of his henchmen were here to kidnap Ethan and take Marcus' journals and inventions," Sophia told him.

"My dear Ethan! Are you truly unharmed?" Malcolm asked.