Sixty Days to Live by Dennis Wheatley

I’ll buy the British rights in their patents. As to manufacture, Sam’s factories will rush through the parts, if I say they’ve got to. The next point is, where’ll we build it?’
    ‘Somewhere in Wales,’ Derek suggested, ‘on the highest hilltop the workmen can get the parts up to.’
    ‘No.’ Gervaise shook his grey head. ‘If we did that, a great wave might roll it over and smash it before it could get properlyafloat. It would be much better to construct it on a lakeside and launch it so that it is actually floating when the time of the emergency arrives.’
    ‘Then why not build it on the lake here?’ Margery put in.
    ‘Why not?’ Hemmingway agreed. ‘This place is within easy reach of London for when we have to get out; but it’s so shut away that we’re unlikely to be interfered with by crowds of terrified people. It’s an ideal spot from every point of view.’
    ‘What about the chappies you’ll have to send down to build it?’ Roy asked. ‘When they know what it’s for, won’t they want to come, too?’
    ‘We ought to take them with us if we can,’ Gervaise said at once.
    Hemmingway’s broad forehead wrinkled. ‘I’d like to, but there won’t be room. It wouldn’t hold more than eight or ten people if we’re to take the stores we’d have to carry to keep ourselves going for any length of time. Goodness knows, I’d like to take every man, woman and child in Britain if we could, but I’m afraid the engineers who construct this thing will have to take their chance with the rest when the time comes. To prevent trouble later we’d better not let them know what we’re up to. After all, it won’t look like any kind of boat, so our best plan would be to say it’s some sort of scientific experiment in which Mr. Oliver Stapleton is interested. He’d better come down here to stay, and pretend to superintend things.’
    Oliver frowned. ‘It’s asking a lot of me to leave Greenwich just now. Naturally, I’m intensely interested in all that is taking place at the Observatory.’
    ‘When will the comet become visible to the naked eye?’ Derek inquired.
    ‘Not for ten days or more yet. You see, it is approaching along a track which passes within three degrees of the sun so, until the last phase, the sun’s glare will make it invisible in daylight except to those using special instruments. At night you should be able to observe it, if the weather is good, from about the 18th, first as a tiny pin-point of light and later as a fiery ball; but, even then, it will only be visible very low in the heavens for a short time, as it passes under the horizon eleven-and-a-half minutes after sunset. My only regret is that so many of us wish to observe the comet at Greenwich each evening now that we have to takeour turn and I get much less time at any of the telescopes than I could wish.’
    ‘I’m afraid we couldn’t get a telescope anything like the size of those at Greenwich,’ Hemmingway smiled, ‘but I’m game to buy you the biggest that can be procured in London; so that you could install it down here and have it all to yourself. How would that be?’
    ‘A very generous offer, I’m sure.’
    ‘Not at all. But we need your presence here to give colour to the building of the Ark. If a big telescope is being erected at the same time, that will help a lot in persuading the mechanics the Ark is only some new invention to do with your astronomical research.’
    ‘In that case I’m quite agreeable. As it happens, one of my colleagues died only about ten days ago and he had a very fine telescope in his private observatory. It would take some moving, of course, but if we could buy it off his widow I could get it set up in a steel scaffolding, which would serve for temporary purposes, in the course of two or three days.’
    ‘Good. That’s the drill, then. Get in touch with the lady at once. See her this evening if possible and make it a cash transaction. I’ll supply the funds and men to