<HTML>Anthony,
"Bob told me Ed would never work until after he had left... Bob chuckled and said, 'Ed doesn't need to worry about me learning any of his secrets. I'm not going into competition with him'."
And
"Ed is doing a colossal job of moving, but he wants no help, thank you. He will decline your neighborly gesture, courteously, but firmly."
Now you're not going to tell me that there weren't a lot of curious people around, who wanted to know about Ed's "secrets".
Surely there must have been a tremendous amount of gossip.
If it was described as a secret, there would have been no way for him to keep it, lots of opportunities to play "peeping Tom".
Now let's assume he did have a special lifting device, a Herodotus machine.
Did he destroy it before he died?
Is it still around?
Could it easily be overlooked / not recognised as such?
Still in doubt, but very curious,
Jeff</HTML>