by Jerry eBooks
NOW he was getting results. Her big eyes flashed fire.
“Why,” gasped the girl. “I never thought of that. Her brother, maybe? It was a scandal around the place, really, and I heard he was wild with rage. Oh, Mr. Cochran, you don’t think it was that, do you? Poor Chauncey; whatever he may have done, he didn’t deserve that.”
“I wasn’t thinking so much about that,” Jerry said. “What I wanted to talk to you about concerns some papers I found in his office safe.” Both of which were lies. “A—a will? You found a will?”
“Yes.” Another lie. “A will.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised if he left a good deal of money to Marie,” she said warmly. “But that has nothing to do with the insurance, has it?”
“Not directly. But we have to have everything straight about all the circumstances of his estate. And there are some other papers there you’ll have to see before I go back to New York. That’s why I came.”
“Did you bring the papers?”
“I couldn’t. You see, I can’t take them without a court order. And you really should have them anyway. Will you come out to the plant with me to get them; then we can talk it all over?”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that. Wives never go there; at least not wives of those higher up. I’d be mortified to death.”
“We can go after working hours. Tonight. Okay?”
“Yes, if it’s so important.”
“It is, believe me. Suppose I call for you at eight.”
“Very well, Mr. Cochran,” she said smiling. “The chauffeur will drive us out in my car. That’s the easiest way.”
That was that.
At the door, the widow sighed feelingly and said:
“Oh, I’ll be glad when this is all over. I’m going abroad to forget it all. And please, Mr. Cochran, please don’t let anything happen to blacken poor Chauncey’s name, will you?”
“Not if I can help it,” Jerry assured her.
And he meant it. . . .
The big drafting room was deserted at DeLacey’s when they arrived. They had to go through it to reach the front offices. A few cleaning women were around, scrubbing amongst the covered tables.
“How intriguing,” said Sylvia MacDermott. “I’ve never been here before. Of course, Chauncey’s told me about it. But—”
“Here we are,” said Cochran, shoving open a door and nudging her through.
“But this isn’t Chauncey’s office,” she objected, seeing the name lettered on the door.
“No, it’s Luke Borden’s,” he said. Come on.”
Dragging back slightly, she went through with him to where the big, dark-mustached man stood in shirtsleeves over a drawing board.
“Sylvia!” exclaimed the debonair chief engineer, paling swiftly. “What are you doing here? How’d you know I was working late? And you, you—” He turned wrathfully on the investigator.
Jerry grinned.
“Surprise,” he said. “She didn’t know you were working, Borden. But I did. I checked up.”
The door opened again and Marie Coppola sidled in, flushing. She was pretty as a picture in the scornful look she tossed at the other woman.
“But the papers,” Sylvia was saying wildly. “Mr. Cochran, where are the papers?”
“There aren’t any papers, lady,” snapped Jerry. “This is the pay-off.”
HE walked over to Borden’s drafting table. Leaning down, he yanked the roll of tracing cloth from the brackets at its end. Just then, the Frankford cops walked in with Mike Coppola in their midst.
Marie threw herself on her brother, sobbing softly in surprise.
“Sorry, Sis,” he muttered. “It was for you. There was talk—”
“What’s all this about?” said Borden angrily. “Get out of here, all of you. Except you, Sylvia.”
“Forget the dramatics, Borden,” the investigator snapped. “You too, Sylvia MacDermott. You’re a pair of murderers, the two of you. It was you who killed the Super, Borden. And she put you up to it.” Borden laughed easily, almost naturally, plopping into the chair at his desk. Sylvia stood still, the baby-stare wider than ever. The cops said nothing, but they had let loose of Mike Coppola, who had an arm around his sister.
“You’re crazy, fellow,” said Borden, snarling. “Who do you think you are, anyway? You’ve got nothing on me.”
“I’m the undertaker,” said Jerry, mournfully. “The guy who finally caught up with you. I’ve got something all right—learned a lot here and a lot from your precious Sylvia.”
“It’s a lie!” screamed the widow. “I never told—”
Borden was looking at her coldly, as if he’d never seen her before. His hands gripped the desk edge in front of him. He thought she’d spilled the beans, as Cochran had anticipated.
“Shut up, you!” yelled Jerry as Sylvia started whimpering. “Borden, being an expert engineer, you’re also an expert draftsman. You traced that original drawing line for line, even copying the signatures. Then you destroyed the original, the one that had ‘C.S.’ in the corner the way it should be. How do I know? Because this tracing cloth you use here in private is different from that in the drafting room. It’s a better grade.
“You knew the test schedule for that pump; knew to a second when the ten minute half speed test’d be finished. You knew it’d take the Super almost exactly eight and a half minutes to walk from here to the test block; you’d timed it a dozen times to be sure. So you phoned him just at the right instant to get him there when they were beginning to come up for the full speed run.
“Being an engineer, you knew that that coupling stress would be four times as great at full speed as at half—way beyond the tensile strength of cast iron. Also the vibration that appears at full speed does not at half. You knew Mac’d want to feel around those bearings for the vibration you’d lied about for a minute or so anyway. He’d wait there for the full speed vibration. But the coupling wouldn’t last up to full speed.
“So you had him just where you wanted him when it ripped itself to hell.
And he got his, poor devil. Also it was you who argued the Super into that big insurance policy in the beginning. You had this planned for six months. And Sylvia was in on it with you. You’ve booked passage on the Empress of India—with her. You were counting on that hundred grand from Hercules to—”
Quick as lightning, Borden’s hand flicked up from the middle drawer of his desk. In it was clutched a stubby automatic. Cochran flung sidewise toward Marie Coppola just as the gun barked-twice. It was Sylvia MacDermott who screamed. A crimson fountain cascaded up from the low cut neck of her black dress as she slumped down. But Jerry’s gun was already out. He fired just once.
LUKE BORDEN, with a neat round hole in his temple, laid his head very slowly and deliberately on the desk. It jerked once and was still. Then Jerry bent down and held Sylvia close to him to see if she was still alive. But she was quite dead. He stood up then.
“Cripes!” gasped one of the coppers. “That was quick. We didn’t expect anything like this when they told us to bring Mike over. But maybe it’s better. Saves the state a trial.”
Strangely, Jerry found he had both Coppolas in his embrace. He pushed Mike away gently but kept his other arm around the girl. He got a big thrill right now, feeling her palpitate against him, sensing her eventual calming down. Poor kid! This killing was brutal.
“Mike,” Jerry said, grinning, “take good care of this swell sister of yours. But don’t go around all your life bopping guys on her account. It’ll keep you too busy and too often in the hoosegow.”
“Withdraw your charges, Cochran?” asked one of the cops.
“I did already. All you have to do now is ring for the morgue buggy.”
Starry black eyes looked up at Deacon Cochran, who didn’t look or feel at all like a deacon now.
“But how did you know all those things?” the girl asked admiringly.
“Some of it I guessed,” Jerry admitted. “But mostly it was your memory tha
t helped me. I’d hate to have you taking my phone calls.”
Impulsively, he bent down and kissed her on those ripe, carmined upturned lips.
Mike growled deep in his throat.
“Forget it, Mike,” advised Cochran. “This little girl is aces. And she was meant to be kissed. Kisses’ll never hurt her.”
MAN FROM THE WRONG TIME-TRACK
Denis Plimmer
It was the first time the cop had cut down a man from another Time-track—it was the first time he’d sent that kind of a corpse to the morgue!
For immediate release!
The statement which follows concerns the entire world, and for that reason I, Paul Dicey of Irving Place, New York City, am sending copies of it to the world’s leading newspapers. What I have to say herein must be considered carefully by all who can read, for in it may lie their salvation and the salvation of billions of their descendants yet unborn!
For this is an account of the mysterious visitation of the stranger, Mok; of my meeting with Carlton Jervis, M.D., and of the enormous consequences thereof.
I shall begin with the night of the great storm in mid-September, 1941.
All that day heat hung sultry and ominous over Manhattan, and about ten that night the storm broke—a wild weird electrical fury striking vicious blue tongues of lightning through the black and swollen sky.
I slammed down my window as the driving rain broke against it in vicious inimical waves. Around the four walls of the old rooming-house on Irving Place the wind tore and rattled and clutched and scraped like a vast invisible giant with clawing importunate fingers. For the sake of coolness I had left my door open. Across the hallway was the only other room on the floor, a room at that time unoccupied.
I was studying for my Doctorate in applied psychology and so deep was I in my books that at first I didn’t hear footsteps mounting the crazy ancient staircase, so deep that I noticed nothing until a light glowed suddenly in the hall. Looking up, I saw Mrs. Rafferty, my old Irish landlady, emerge from the stairs. She was followed by a stranger. Unlocking the door of the vacant room, she switched on the light within and beckoned the stranger to follow her.
In view of subsequent events, I have always been piqued at the thought that the new lodger did not strike me more vividly at the moment. As it was, in the uncertain light of the hall lamp I perceived only a tall, stooping heavy-set man with an indefinable air of shagginess about him. His back was turned to me the entire time so I had no glimpse of his face. But I did see wide muscular shoulders, long swinging arms, stained and rain-soaked clothing, and twining hair darkly tangled which escaped beneath his hat to cover his thick neck.
I returned to my work with hardly a thought for the newcomer. Minutes passed. The door across the hall closed. A hand touched my shoulder.
“Mr. Dicey!”
It was my landlady who spoke so timidly and in such low tremulous tones.
“Can I talk to you?” she was pleading. “Of course, Mrs. Rafferty.”
Furtively she locked the door. Her expression was a queer blend of fear and horror. She said:
“Did you see him?”
“Whom?”
“The new roomer?”
I stared at her, puzzled. “Only from the back, Mrs. Rafferty.”
Her anxious eyes watched me.
“Then you didn’t see his face?”
I shook my head.
Suddenly she collapsed into an armchair. “I shouldn’t be tryin’ to run this place alone, I shouldn’t,” she moaned. “It’s not a woman’s task!”
Fiercely she gripped my hand. “He wouldn’t sign the register, Mr. Dicey! He wouldn’t hardly speak a word. His English is funny. I can’t think what country he’s from. I don’t know his name. Oh, Lord, I don’t know anything about him!”
“Then why did you let him in?”
Mrs. Rafferty stared at the carpet. “Because I was afraid,” she breathed. “Of what?”
“His face.”
“What about it?”
Through Irving Place the wind screamed desolately. The rain washed over the screaming windowpanes.
“It’s the face of an animal!”
I stared, saying, “What kind of an animal?”
Mrs. Rafferty sucked in her breath. “I don’t know, Mr. Dicey. Some kind that don’t know kindness nor gentleness, some kind that does things quiet and secret, that does them at night!”
To my instant suggestion that she have a policeman evict this obviously undesirable tenant, the old lady demurred. After all, she might be mistaken in her judgment and Lord knew she wouldn’t turn a dog out into such a night as this . . .
“Did he pay you anything in advance?”
Mrs. Rafferty displayed a crushed five-dollar bill bunched up tightly in her palm.
“Well,” I persisted, not having much desire to share a lonely top-floor with so bizarre a creature, “how would it be, Mrs. Rafferty, if I went in and saw him? Maybe I could form an opinion of my own.”
“Oh, don’t, Mr. Dicey,” she begged. “Please, don’t! There’s something about him tonight that warns me to leave him alone! I said he had a face like an animal. Well, tonight the animal’s come far, he’s hungry and tired, his temper is short! Let him alone, Mr. Dicey, let him alone!”
But by this time my curiosity was afire. I had already started for the door when, distant and faint, a shrill stabbing scream soared from the rainy street.
“Eileen!” Mrs. Rafferty gasped. “That’s Eileen’s voice!”
I dashed to the window and threw it up, leaning far out into the stormy night. What I saw drove me back and, followed closely by Mrs. Rafferty, I dashed down the shaky staircase. When we arrived in the street less than a minute later, Eileen Rafferty and a little rain-coated knot of passers-by were bending over a stricken form.
Eileen was my landlady’s granddaughter. “What is it, child?” cried the old lady.
The rain-drenched girl indicated the huddled figure on the pavement.
“It’s Delia,” she explained in a quivering tone of raw fright. “I think her throat’s cut!”
I bent closer to look. Delia was the colored maid of the house. From her sepia throat a dark river of blood still poured, gradually mingling with the dancing rain.
“She’d left the house through the cellar twenty minutes ago,” Eileen was narrating. “We’d given her an advance on her salary. I think she was going to buy some shoes. She must have been caught in the cellar entrance. Afterwards, she managed to stagger out this far.”
Mrs. Rafferty said, “But why didn’t we hear her scream?”
Eileen shook her head. “All the doors and windows were shut, gran,” she replied. “The storm was raisin’ such a howl you couldn’t have heard an army passin’. Then the bell rang, remember, and you took the new fellow upstairs to show him the room.”
“Ah yes,” I said. “The new lodger. I’m going to talk to him. Eileen, get the police.”
And leaving the two women I hurried back up the stairs and knocked on the stranger’s door. I heard a grunt, pushed the door open, and entered the room.
The new lodger sat with his back to me. His shaggy head drooped in his hands. Carelessly in the center of the floor lay his damp coat and hat. In one corner, muddied shoes and socks made a grotesque heap.
“Pardon me,” I said.
For a moment the drooping figure remained still. Then—slowly—the head swung around. I choked back a cry of terror. The face was infinitely more horrible than Mrs. Rafferty had described it. Although basically feature for feature it was human, its expression of eyes and mouth was that of a wild, hungry man-driven ape, resting from pursuers in a cave under a desolate hill.
For a space we stared at each other stupidly. Several times the stranger opened his great maw of a mouth inarticulately. Finally:
“You want—something?”
The words were uttered with difficulty. The voice, as if unused to human speech, grated rustily.
“Yes,” I replied
. “Mrs. Rafferty tells me that you failed to sign her register.”
Under their shadowy brows the harassed eyes roved about the room helplessly.
“Cannot—write,” the creature muttered finally. “You haven’t been taught to write?”
“Nobody write. Forgot—long ago. Five hundreds of—years.”
“Your people haven’t been able to write for five-hundred years? Why?”
The monster stared at me. In its eyes a tiny red flame flickered, the same flame which glows in the eyes of a jungle beast goaded into a trap by its enemies.
“Only priests write,” he said finally. “Why others—learn?”
From what country did the creature come? He shook his head. And his name?
“Mok.”
“What’s your other name?”
The response to this was unexpected. With lightning speed Mok heaved his giant bulk from the chair. Hands swinging ape-fashion, eyes red with rage, he tottered towards me.
“Tired,” he bellowed, towering above my head. “Go! Sleep! Tired! Sleep! Sleep! See?”
Before this onslaught I fled to the hallway. The door slammed. A metallic fumbling within was accompanied by heavy breathing. The lock clicked. Something told me that locks were strange affairs to this outlandish animal.
“SLEEP!”
The word welled up within the room, spiraled through the house. Another grunt, and the bed groaned as that prodigious body fell upon it. Suddenly I realized that the thing called Mok had been unbelievably exhausted.
Downstairs the two women were pallid and trembling. Mrs. Rafferty, huddled in an armchair, was staring white-faced at Eileen. Delia had just been taken to the morgue. I told them of my experience.
When I had done, Mrs. Rafferty extended her hand. In it still lay the five-dollar bill. “Look at it, Mr. Dicey!” Eileen whispered. Wonderingly I unfolded the note, smoothing out the grimy creases. Of a sudden, nausea rose within me.
The bill’s upper left-hand corner was blood-soaked.
For a while the room was heavy with silence. I said:
“Eileen, did you give Delia a five-dollar bill?” Eileen nodded dumbly. “This five-dollar bill?”