by Earl
Master George ate his dinner in abstract silence, with the far-away look that Mary had come to know meant he should not be talked to unless the subject was urgent. She had looked with mild interest at the six test tubes filled with gorgeously-colored liquids, and opened the shutters and raised the blinds in the laboratory in the early morning.
George Lockhart started the day’s work with a song in his heart. He decided to run through a complete synthesis of more of the parent body of the light-sensitive compounds, to see if he could get a better yield. The production of that small beakerful of yesterday had cost him something like five hundred dollars, not to mention the time consumed. But when evening came around, he shut off the various units, closed the windows again, and began working with the violet lamp and light-projector. He wanted to flash upon the impregnated paper a picture in natural colors embossed on a slide, to see how faithfully it would be reproduced.
Lockhart was waiting for the paper to dry, after he had dipped it into a bath containing all the six solutions that had each produced a color the night before, when he suddenly whirled to face the figure that had caught the corner of his eye. He couldn’t distinguish his features in the violet light clearly, but he saw the half-smile on the lips.
“What do you want?” said Lockhart coldly. “I suppose you’re the new boarder?” He felt a small rage at the insolence of the man, coming in without a knock or a word.
“Yes, I’m the new boarder, George Lockhart.”
“Well . . .?” Lockhart choked a little in anger. “Out with it, man, what do you want here? I’m in the middle of an experiment and . . . .”
“And my presence is obnoxious, you wish to say?” finished the stranger.
“Well, I don’t want to be rude, but. . . . I would rather have you go.” Lockhart was of a quiet nature and didn’t have the gruffness to demand the trespasser to get out in plain words.
The newcomer suddenly straightened up. “George Lockhart, I’m not a total stranger to you. We have met before . . . .”
There WAS something familiar about the figure after all, thought Lockhart. Then, as the light snapped on, he recognized him.
With wide eyes Lockhart looked at the tall, dark-skinned man. “Raymond Wickersham!” he stammered. The other nodded sardonically.
Suddenly Lockhart’s anger burst its bonds. He looked at the paper streaked with colors, the beaker with colored liquid, the ruination of his to-night’s project, and shouted at the figure by the door, “Damn you, Wickersham, you’ve ruined all this! Get out of here! I’m going to set the police on you; you’re an escaped convict . . . . I’ll . . . .” In his towering rage, Lockhart ordinarily a peaceful man, advanced on the trespasser with clenched fists.
He stopped and turned pale. Wickersham had whipped out an automatic and pointed it at him.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, Lockhart, nothing of the sort . . .
“Listen, Wickersham,” cried Lockhart in sudden fear of this man with the gun “if it’s money you want, I’ll give you anything you want . . . . anything . . . . I’ve got plenty . . . . if you’ll just go and leave me alone!”
“No, Lockhart, it’s not money I want!”
The chemist turned whiter. He looked around desperately. He was trapped! He could guess what it was the man hinted at, but it was too horrible a thought for him to dwell on it!
“No, don’t shout, Lockhart. It won’t do any good. You might wake up Mary, but you’ll have a bullet in your brain and I’ll kill her, too, and make a clean getaway.” His voice was cold and deadly. There could be no doubt about his threat. He would kill.
“Turn around, Lockhart,” he commanded.
When Lockhart had his back to him, almost too weak to stand, Wickersham hastily drew a damp handkerchief from his pocket, laid his gun quietly on the table, and suddenly grasped Lockhart around the middle, holding one hand with the damp cloth to his nose.
Lockhart struggled with the strength of desperation, but was no match for the powerful Wickersham. As his gasping lungs drew in the chloroform, he became weaker and weaker and finally collapsed in his captor’s arms.
Wickersham carried the limp form to the other side of the table, where there was a space between the table and the other wall, and laid it on the floor. With planned quickness, he picked up the arm-chair beside the desk and carried it around the laboratory bench away from the window. The table on which Lockhart set up all his apparatus, and which extended the width of the room, was on a sort of platform, thus standing on a higher level than the rest of the floor. Hastily Wickersham procured from the supply room a length of strong rope, and securely trussed up his victim in the chair, placing it up against the ledge. Then he busied himself with collecting certain pieces of apparatus and placing them in one place on the table.
THE breath of chloroform had been slight and in a half hour Lockhart came to, looking up with dazed interest. Wickersham was standing there looking at him, waiting for him to clear his head, an evil grin on his long, saturnine face.
“Wickersham, for God’s sake! What are you going to do?” Lockhart cried tragically.
“I’m going to kill you!”
“Kill me . . .? No . . . . no . . . . Wickersham . . . . have pity! My work . . . . what have I ever done to you?” Lockhart moaned in the anguish that tormented his quiet soul.
“What have you ever done to me? Lockhart, I’ll tell you. Fourteen years ago I was a promising young chemist, working in the same division as you in. the government laboratories. Today I’m a man with a prison record. I’m not an escaped convict; I was released a month ago on good behaviour. Do you know what I thought about for those fourteen long, bitter years, years when you prospered and inherited a small fortune? . . . I thought of REVENGE! Revenge on the one man who had ruined my life! YOU are that man, George Lockhart! I vowed to get out as soon as possible and then get you!” Wickersham glared at his victim with fierce hate.
“As there’s a God above us Wickersham, I did only my duty . . . . you tried to poison the chief and by accident I was the only one who saw you steal into the locker room . . . . I had to testify . . . . I couldn’t help myself!” Even in his agony, Lockhart wondered if anything he could say would seem reason to a man who had been in prison for fourteen years.
“Couldn’t help yourself . . . . bah! . . . . when I came to you secretly and told you to keep your mouth shut, that I’d give you a better job after the chief was out of the way . . . . you could have saved me by denying it was I you saw . . . . but, no, like a fool, you told me your duty was plain, that I would have to suffer the consequences of my misdeed. Now . . . . NOW . . . . you see how fate reverses things. You didn’t think fourteen years ago as you bid me good-bye . . . . a stony, hard-hearted goodbye . . . as they took me out in handcuffs, that I’d one day be free to come back . . . did you? Ha! ha! ha!” Wickersham laughed a mad laugh of triumph.
Lockhart lost his head then and began to scream in mad, unreasoning fear of this avenger from the past. Wickersham leaped to him and rapidly gagged him with his handkerchief.
“You’ll have to listen to the rest in silence, Lockhart. Listen to my story.” Wickersham spoke softly. He knew Mary was a sound sleeper and there had hardly been enough prolonged noise to awaken her, the only other occupant of the house.
“As I said before, for fourteen long years I dreamed of revenge while I was imprisoned for that little sin. You were the main and condemning witness. A month ago they let me free. I have a brother out west. I got in touch with him and got back from him the money I had entrusted to his care when I began my sentence. I easily traced you after you left the government laboratories and found you here. I handed Mary a cock-and-bull story about her reputation as a cook and she took me as a boarder. It didn’t take me long to find out how things were run in this house. I arranged my meals at hours different from yours, so as not to meet you too soon.
“At first I was insane with the desire to kill and was going to shoot you some night when you worked lat
e. But it’s hard to get away with a murder like that, and I planned out something unique. Out of curiosity I looked through your notebook and saw your work. I decided to let things go on for a while till you finished your research . . . . then I would kill you and take your secret with me. A sort of double revenge, eh, Lockhart?” Wickersham looked at his prisoner with mock humor.
Lockhart had become calmer. His large eyes stared hopelessly at his bitter enemy. Silently he cursed him up and down for every species of villain there was.
Wickersham continued. “Last night, in one of my regular nocturnal visits, I read of the culmination of your synthesis of the parent substance of the light-sensitive bodies of the eye. Very good work, Lockhart, I must say, but . . . . you shall never enjoy the honor and fame of having discovered them! That shall be MINE!”
Lockhart closed his eyes in misery and madly struggled in the chair, twisting and turning every which way, but to no avail. Wickersham looked on with undisguised joy, and chuckled at his discomfiture.
“I’m going to take your notebook to a small laboratory I purchased in Salem, Colorado, and run through your syntheses to become familiar with them. Then I shall arrange to demonstrate the possibilities of the discovery to certain wealthy captains of industry, and sell out at my own figure. I shall become wealthy, George Lockhart, and you . . . will be dead!”
George Lockhart had gradually become resigned to his fate. He stared at his captor with dull eyes. Wickersham had the upper hand, now, and fourteen years of confinement had seared into his unscrupulous brain. There was no hope; Lockhart felt that deep down in his heart.
Wickersham had walked to the other end of the bench to get the trip scale and bring it to the table directly in front of the prisoner. Lockhart noticed he wore a pair of thin gloves.
“And now, George Lockhart,” began the man from the past “let me recall to you some of your elementary chemistry. Perhaps your intense work in the field of advanced organic chemistry has temporarily clouded your mind to the simpler things of that science. Now, suppose we take oxalic acid and treat it with concentrated sulfuric acid, heating it, what do we get? Ah! . . . I see a flash of understanding in your eyes . . . . we get CARBON MONOXIDE! One of the most deadly of poisonous gases, colorless and odorless!”
The tormentor grinned maliciously at the object of his venomous hatred. Lockhart shuddered violently and made little grunting sounds in his throat. The veins stood out on his forehead as he tried hopelessly to burst his bonds.
“Yes, Lockhart, carbon monoxide. I have carefully measured the dimensions of this room during one of my secret, nocturnal visits and find the total volume to be not over 150 cubic meters. Since a concentration of one volume in 800 of air is sufficient in a still atmosphere to kill in thirty minutes, it is simple to figure that about 400 grams of oxalic acid will produce enough of the deadly gas to send you to death.”
If there had been the least spark of humanity in Wickersham, he would have spared his victim this drawn-out discussion of his methods, but in unholy glee he watched the trapped man as a cat watches the mouse it has in its power, to enjoy to the full its terror of extinction.
WICKERSHAM then began the preparation for the production of the gas. As he worked, he spoke, knowing that every word he said tortured his victim that much more. “So, we take the oxalic acid bottle, measure out 450 grams . . . . just to make sure there’s enough . . . . long time since I’ve done this kind of work . . . . fourteen years! . . . and put it in this two-liter flask. We put the beaker on this asbestos wire gauze and under it the electric heater. Then the sulfuric acid . . . . something over 500 grams . . . . stir it with this glass rod. There . . . . all ready!” Wickersham turned to face the doomed man.
“George Lockhart, these have been the preparations for what will be a PERFECT CRIME! When I was in prison and talked with some of the lifers, I heard stories of how they had attempted “perfect crimes,” only to have some little mistake of theirs bring them to the law. But not me . . . . I’ve thought of everything. In the first place, Mary won’t be here until morning, long after you are a lifeless corpse. This automatic timer and shutoff on the electric heater is set for three hours. By that time all the oxalic acid will be decomposed. When Mary comes in to-morrow morning, she will open the door. The fresh air will sweep in from the hall and clear the laboratory. She will see you trussed up, call the police, and they won’t know what killed you! They’ll look for all sorts of poisoning in the stomach and throat, but not in a hundred years will they think of examining your lungs for carbon monoxide poisoning. They will find no weapons, no signs of death-dealing things. On the bench they will find your apparatus, among it a flask half filled with dilute sulfuric acid diluted by the water molecule of the oxalic acid. Mary, of course, will tell them that I must be the murderer because I will be gone, your notebook with me. But, Mary hasn’t the least idea in the world who I am, where I came from, or where I’ll go. I am wearing these gloves so that my fingerprints won’t convict me. I have a railroad ticket in my pocket for Salem, Colorado. Isn’t it great, Lockhart? The PERFECT CRIME! And I’ll benefit by it in two ways, your death and your discovery. There won’t be a single, solitary clue. It will baffle the police. They’ll attribute your death to heart failure, apoplexy, a dozen things, but they won’t know that the red blood cells in your lungs have been rendered useless as oxygen-carriers by the carbon monoxide so that you will starve for oxygen. . . .”
Wickersham was in an ecstasy of gratification. His fourteen year wait for vengeance was about to be fulfilled to his complete satisfaction . . . . and safety. Beneath his conscious reason for revenge against Lockhart, there was also the desire for repayment to the law for the fourteen years of insults and servitude. It would gratify his ego to read in the papers about the murder that couldn’t be solved.
“You may wonder why I don’t dispatch you in a simpler, quicker way, Lockhart. I thought of stabbing you, shooting you, choking you; but there is something crude about those methods that goes against me. Much rather would I leave you alive, knowing that within an hour after I leave you will be as surely dead as if I had myself smashed your head. You, Lockhart, are a refined gentleman; it is fitting that you depart in a refined way. You won’t suffer. You will gradually get sleepier and sleepier as the fumes fill the air, till you have finally breathed enough to destroy a good part of the hemoglobin in your blood. Then will come the last and final sleep. But I give you a word of cheer, Lockhart, your discovery will live after you. What will it matter to you that my name will go down in the ages as the discoverer of the light-sensitive bodies, rather than yours? You can console yourself with the thought that, after all, you made the discovery—while you feel your lungs gasping for fresh air!”
Wickersham was a coward; George Lockhart knew that. That Was why he chose this method of murder. It eliminated those grewsome details that the cowardly heart of the beast that stood over him could never face. And he was as cruel as he was cowardly. His hissing tongue was cutting Lockhart’s nerves to shreds. Every word was a burning coal to the fire that was consuming the soul of the scientist. At times a vast rage shook him that fate could be so cruel as to loose this monster on him just when he was prepared to deliver to the world a great discovery.
Wickersham was speaking again; he had just turned on the electric heater under the beaker and checked the timer. “So, George Lockhart, I must say good bye. Good luck to you, wherever you are going after death. You made a mistake when you tried to ruin Raymond Wickersham fourteen years ago. Fourteen years is a long, long time, Lockhart; you can’t realize how much mental suffering I went through in that time. I determined to make you pay, and pay you will. There is no hope for you, none whatever. I’ve figured the whole thing out too carefully. It’s the perfect crime! Look . . . . the stuff is beginning to work already . . . .”
From the beaker came small streamers of vapor. Wickersham looked like some evil genii of ages gone by, conjuring forth evil forces by secret incantation as he pointed a dr
amatic finger at the pot of death. Then he walked to the door. He turned to the scientist, holding up the notebook.
“Here’s to you, George Lockhart, discoverer of the parent substance of the light-sensitive bodies of the eye!”
There was a snap as the lights went out, and Lockhart heard Wickersham’s chuckle as he opened the door, stepped out into the hallway, and grinned at him a moment in triumph. Then the door closed . . . . and he was alone in the dark with . . . . DEATH!
FOR a long time Lockhart was quiet. There was a vast stillness in the room. As his eyes adjusted themselves to the darkness, the outline of the beaker and the rising curls of water vapor came to him, silhouetted dimly by the glowing coils of the electric heater. Fascinated, he watched the vapors arise and disappear into the darkness. In a short time, perhaps even now, the deadly odorless, invisible carbon monoxide would arise, and poison the atmosphere of the small room.
In a sudden mighty rage at his impotence, the rat in this ingenious trap flung his body about in a mad attempt to get at the beaker, to free himself. He knew that if he could somehow knock over the ringstand, spilling the contents, he would be saved. He might get severely burned by the strong acid, but what was that compared to slow, certain death! But Wickersham had thought of everything. The ledge between the chair and the bench made it an impossibility to get within reach of the apparatus. His legs were tied securely to the chair away from the floor so that he couldn’t use them as levers. Lockhart rocked the chair back and forth in the hope that the thumping noise would awaken Mary. But how futile a hope that was! Mary’s room was away up in front, upstairs, and she was a sound sleeper, as she herself avowed. Nothing short of a cannon shot would get to her. And the neighbors, it was still more impossible that they should awaken.