...Or Your Money Back

Your Money Back, by Gordon
Randall Garrett

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Title: ...Or Your Money Back
Author: Gordon Randall Garrett
Release Date: November 18, 2007 [EBook #23534]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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... OR YOUR MONEY BACK
BY DAVID GORDON

Illustrated by Summers
[Transcriber note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales March
1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Illustration: There are lots of things that are considered perfectly
acceptable ... provided they don't work. And of course everyone knows
they really don't, which is why they're acceptable.... ]
There are times when I don't know my own strength. Or, at least, the
strength of my advice. And the case of Jason Howley was certainly an
instance of one of those times.
When he came to my office with his gadget, I heard him out, trying to
appear both interested and co-operative--which is good business. But I
am forced to admit that neither Howley nor his gadget were very
impressive. He was a lean, slope-shouldered individual, five-feet-eight
or nine--which was shorter than he looked--with straight brown hair
combed straight back and blue eyes which were shielded with
steel-rimmed glasses. The thick, double-concave lenses indicated a
degree of myopia that must have bordered on total blindness without
glasses, and acute tunnel vision, even with them.
He had a crisp, incisive manner that indicated he was either a man who
knew what he was doing or a man who was trying to impress me with a
ready-made story. I listened to him and looked at his gadget without
giving any more indication than necessary of what I really thought.
When he was through, I said: "You understand, Mr. Howley that I'm
not a patent lawyer; I specialize in criminal law. Now, I can
recommend--"
But he cut me off. "I understand that, counselor," he said sharply.
"Believe me, I have no illusion whatever that this thing is patentable
under the present patent system. Even if it were, this gadget is designed
to do something that may or may not be illegal, which would make it
hazardous to attempt to patent it, I should think. You don't patent new

devices for blowing safes or new drugs for doping horses, do you?"
"Probably not," I said dryly, "although, as I say, I'm not qualified to
give an opinion on patent law. You say that gadget is designed to cause
minute, but significant, changes in the velocities of small, moving
objects. Just how does that make it illegal?"
He frowned a little. "Well, possibly it wouldn't, except here in Nevada.
Specifically, it is designed to influence roulette and dice games."
I looked at the gadget with a little more interest this time. There was
nothing new in the idea of inventing a gadget to cheat the red-and-black
wheels, of course; the local cops turn up a dozen a day here in the city.
Most of them either don't work at all or else they're too obvious, so the
users get nabbed before they have a chance to use them.
The only ones that really work have to be installed in the tables
themselves, which means they're used to milk the suckers, not rob the
management. And anyone in the State of Nevada who buys a license to
operate and then uses crooked wheels is (a) stupid, and (b) out of
business within a week. Howley was right. Only in a place where
gambling is legalized is it illegal--and unprofitable--to rig a game.
The gadget itself didn't look too complicated from the outside. It was a
black plastic box about an inch and a half square and maybe three and a
half long. On one end was a lensed opening, half an inch in diameter,
and on two sides there were flat, silver-colored plates. On the top of it,
there was a dial which was, say, an inch in diameter, and it was marked
off just exactly like a roulette wheel.
"How does it work?" I asked.
He picked it up in his hand, holding it as though it were a flashlight,
with the lens pointed away from him.
"You aim the lens at the wheel," he explained, "making sure that your
thumb is touching the silver plate on one side, and your fingers
touching