The Orffyreus Wheel

In 1712, Johann Bessler unveiled an amazing invention. It was a perpetuum mobile - a perpetual motion device - a wheel that continually spun after being set into motion until it was stopped with no mechanical input. It was capable of sustaining this motion and producing enough energy to complete “work” - meaning, literally, that there was something from nothing. Bessler never revealed his secret. He was hounded, mocked, and chased through a very rough and adventurous life. His secret died with him. Except that it didn’t. Elly Kassel is the granddaughter and heir of Evelyn Kassel, though the two were not close. Elly is called into the offices of eminent London solicitors Ratliff & Brownridge, where she discovers that her grandmother was a rich woman. She also receives a trunk and an envelope, which she is not to open until she reaches New York City. In New York, she is told, all her questions about her grandmother and her inheritance will be answered. What follows is a series of harrowi