Obelists Fly High

by C. Daly King

  The latter sneered openly. ‘A very pretty case, no doubt. However, you’ve got the wrong man. I didn’t kill him.’

  The detective’s answer was cut short by the opening of the door behind him. Lanning said, ‘Oh, there you are. Here’s your message from Salt Lake City finally.’ Lord reached back again with his left hand, and felt a paper put into his palm. The paper said simply, ‘Weak solution HCN. Lethal.’ The case was complete.

  His eyes were dropped for a moment while he read it, and in that moment Tinkham acted. He sprang out of his seat, jerked Marjorie Gavin from hers. In the space at the rear, from behind the stewardess’s shielding body held before him, he raised Craven’s gun and fired.

  ACTUAL MOVEMENTS.

  In the instant before he was hit, the real explanation of the theft of the preceding night flashed across Lord’s mind. Then he fell backwards.

  The passengers sat aghast at the startling change of affairs. Craven, who was nearest Tinkham, turned in his chair, but it was only too plain that he could do nothing. The shots were going into the cockpit now, through the little window in the pilot’s door, and suddenly the ’plane began to sway; gradually at first, then with a dizzying rapidity it went into a spin. No one could do anything except hold on.

  The motors were cut and the sighing rush of the wind made an eerie prelude to the coming crash. At the foot of the whirling cabin the cockpit door jerked open and Lovett, clinging to one of its sides, raised his automatic, just as both motors roared again, full open. The junior pilot fired and missed, but the spin was lessening now, they seemed to Craven’s trained senses to be coming out of it.

  In the cockpit, Lannings had been staring ahead, watching the earth come toward them. They were over Carson Sink, a flat expanse of alkali desert, fifty miles long. Foolishly he thought of Reno, only thirty minutes away; they had nearly made it. Then he brought his attention to the turning transport; he was not dizzy, he recognised death grinning at him and his passengers, he summoned all the skill of his long flying experience to meet the sudden problem.

  He waited as long as possible, but there was not much time to wait. He knew what would happen when he opened the motors, shut off temporarily to let him perceive the action of the crippled ’plane. He thought, no more time – he gave ’em both the gun simultaneously.

  The ship jerked, shot downward with augmenting speed. The earth rushed up at him. He didn’t look at it but the air speed indicator registered over 300 m.p.h. when the spinning began to lessen. They were dangerously close and again he could wait no longer to straighten out, to try to straighten out.

  He pulled back his stick, the ship responded; the snout, still circling slowly, moved over the ground below, gradually toward the horizon. He had it now, it touched horizon, he had it. A zoom would be hopelessly dangerous, but he must try it; he lifted the transport’s head, cut the motors, the speed decreased rapidly. He levelled off and started a downward glide.

  Lovett, equally undizzied, was waiting another chance at the doorway. Marjorie had slipped away from in front of Tinkham, who still could do no more than cling to the rear seat, but this time he didn’t intend to miss. His gun came up, he steaded it and pulled the trigger. Tinkham staggered and fell to his knees, still clung to the back of the chair and was hidden from the rest of the cabin.

  The glide was not working out. The port ailerons, uncontrollable, refused to function; the port wing slid off. Then a lucky gust saved them, boosting the wing, levelling off the ship for a few seconds. And they were nearly down; a hundred feet below them lay the safe earth. It was the last chance and Lannings took it. The nose dipped, he touched the motors. The ’plane jumped toward the ground. Watch it, wait till the last instant; the tail controls were still working. Now! Once more the ship responded, but slowly, a little too slowly. The nose lifted, not quite enough. They came down hard as the senior pilot at the last moment switched off the ignition. There was a splintering crash as the landing gear hit. One wheel broke, the starboard wheel. The ’plane tried a lopsided bounce – thank God the angle had been enough for that. Ten or fifteen feet in the air it hopped, then pancaked down on the cushioning remains of its smashing landing gear. The nose dug into the dry dust of Carson Sink.

  Lovett, eager to get back to the cabin’s rear, loosed his hold on the doorway too soon. The final crash found him unsupported. He was thrown backwards against the cockpit partition and his head whacked soundly against the metal. He slid quietly down on the cockpit steps.

  And Tinkham was on his feet before any one else had recovered. His left arm hung limply but there was no unsteadiness in the hand that aimed the pistol down the aisle. ‘Bellowes!’ he barked sharply.

  The minister instinctively looked back, but had no voice to answer.

  ‘There’s a key in Lord’s vest pocket, Bellowes. Get it and throw it back here. No nonsense. I’ll drill your belly full of lead in five seconds unless you get that key!’

  Bellowes hesitated momentarily and the gun came up to cover him unerringly. He was paper-white as he bent shaking over the detective’s unconscious form, and with trembling fingers found the cabin key. He was making a peculiar, whimpering noise – ‘weh, wegh . . . weh.’

  The key came back. ‘His gun now. Right beside him. Pick it up by the muzzle.’ But Bellowes, collapsed in his chair, was capable of nothing more.

  ‘The hell with you,’ snapped Tinkham. ‘Stewardess! Walk down there and bring that gun back by the muzzle ... If any one tries anything, I’ll kill her first,’ he warned. They knew a killer; no one interfered as the girl hesitantly went down the aisle. ‘Do what he says,’ Pons grunted painfully as she passed him. ‘He’s on top now, but we’ll get him sooner or later.’

  She came back. Tinkham dropped his empty gun and took Lord’s full automatic from her hand, as she stared at him with trembling lips and hatred in her wet eyes. ‘Open that door. Throw the key out. Get away from it.’

  He stepped to the entrance, glanced down. With a final threatening look about the cabin, he jumped out. The door slammed shut.

  As Tinkham jumped, three things happened. Lord groaned and stirred in Fonda’s arms as she knelt beside him in the cramped aisle. An idling propeller swished outside and dust flew as the escort ’plane landed, rolling toward the grounded transport. And Lannings’ face, lined with effort, appeared over Lovett’s body in the doorway.

  The detective was on his feet, staggering. ‘Michael, you can’t,’ Fonda cried. ‘He has your gun. He took the key. We’re locked in.’ That last act of Tinkham’s appeared to her now as a godsend.

  ‘Key,’ Lord muttered, swaying around toward Lannings. ‘Gun.’

  Long ago, when the case first broke, he had told Darrow that the flyers could be relied upon in a pinch. He had been right. The pilot’s key and gun were in his hand a second later and he started toward the door.

  Lannings had slid back a glass panel in the cockpit. He was leaning out, waving frantically to the other ’plane, shouting, yelling. The army man was half out of his cockpit when, from the ground, Tinkham’s gun spoke twice – crack – crack! Just behind the lieutenant’s leg, two neat little holes drilled through the fuselage.

  The army flyer thought quickly, too, and his first thought was that he was a mighty poor revolver shot. The motor buzzed, then spat staccato sounds. The ’plane jumped ahead.

  Dust swirled about it as it shot a hundred yards forward. Then the nose tilted and it climbed almost vertically. One more shot Tinkham had at it as it passed him some thirty yards away, but no effect was apparent.

  From the ground beside the cabin entrance Lord and Fonda watched what ensued. He was leaning heavily on her shoulder, he was faint from loss of blood. Tinkham was running across the sandy ground, away from the transport, and above him the little combat ’plane circled (and seemed for a moment to pause.

  Then it dived. It streaked down out of the sky and a burst of machine-gun fire came faintly to their ears. Drup-drup-drup-drup-drup-drup. The dust kicked up behind th
e running figure; the loose ground made a perfect indication of the fire, more perfect than tracer bullets. Drup-drup-drup-drup-drup-drup! The spurts reached the man below, crumped him in an instant, clung about the splotch he made against the yellow earth. The ’plane skimmed on, rose, banked and came to a landing a few yards away from what had just been Tinkham.

  The pilot, after a moment’s survey, stood up in the cockpit. He raised one arm against the distant skyline. His thumb was pointing down.

  ‘Oh,’ sobbed Fonda. ‘Oh, Michael, Michael! You won’t have to do it. We’re safe, we’re all safe. Michael!’

  Lord summoned a twisted grin. He hardly knew what he was saying. What he said was, ‘Fonda, darling.’

  Prologue

  BOUDOIR

  Fonda Mann slipped off the backless evening gown and walked across to her dressing-table. It was two o’clock on the morning of April twelfth. As she crossed the room, she wondered for the hundredth time why lingerie was always so much more intriguing than any gown, no matter how low or how fashionably the latter might be cut. Not, as a matter of fact, that there was much lingerie; once out of her dress, there remained only the silver-heeled mules, sheer, clocked French stockings, a very brief pair of panties and the new, tricky bra.

  She regarded her face in the triple mirror without any pretence of denying its beauty. Thank God it was beautiful. Why did she always make it up at night before, instead of after, getting into her pyjamas? It was a queer habit, really. She supposed it came from the time when, as a young miss, she had first begun using nightly cosmetics and had hated those long, white nightdresses that Anne insisted on buying for her a half dozen at a time. If her father came in to kiss her good night, she wanted to be more fetchingly attired; and a young miss’s lingerie, while nothing to write home about, was still a cut above a shroud.

  She wished her father would come in now, although now, of course, he would knock discreetly on her door and wait to be admitted until she had thrown on one of her negligees. Which were not bad, either, and then he would kiss her hand instead of her cheek, and look as if he would so much rather have kissed her lips. Gallant restraint; always the right gesture, both entering and leaving. He was wonderful, that man, he really was; she was crazy about him.

  But now he was way off in Africa with that silly Mitzi. Not that Mitzi wasn’t all right; and Wotan was probably all right, too, for the time being, but he wanted Anne, she knew he wanted Anne terribly. Anne was as beautiful as any of these others and, besides, he was in love with her. Further, Anne was in love with him and didn’t really care, a bit more than did Fonda, about a few other women at a properly vague distance.

  An ugly look came over her face and one manicured hand commenced to clench. ‘Damn,’ she muttered, ‘people who get in the way of love, smelll I know it’s fair to put them out of it.’ What right, she continued, had that disagreeable old Amos to break up a real love affair, to make two sweet people miserable, just for his own damned selfish satisfaction. Fonda was glad she had sent him the anonymous note that afternoon; that would take him out to Reno, beyond any shadow of doubt, the obstinate old fool. And she was glad she had those two little, white tablets, so innocent-looking and actually so deadly.

  The young chemist from whom she had cajoled them would never give her away, no matter what happened, but poison in the home was so – indicatory. Especially in a home like Amos’. A trip was better, and a hotel, say at Reno, with lots of other people about. Almost anybody could logically be suspected of killing such a man. He had plenty of enemies in Reno, and none of them would be caught because she would have done it.

  But what if she were suspected? ‘Oh, hell,’ said Fonda with a reckless shrug, ‘I won’t be.’ And if she were, if some policeman or detective found her out, if she were really cornered, why she’d marry the man. ‘And that,’ opined Fonda, as she undid the bra and let it fall, ‘will settle him.’

  HOTEL

  He came out of the little shower bath, rubbed vigorously and pulled on a comfortable lounging robe. He lit a cigarette and crossed over to the table next to the window where breakfast had been laid by a waiter.

  Why should a playwright rise early? No reason at all; nine o’clock was plenty early enough. It had been quite a show at the Lamb’s Club the night before, and tomorrow he had to leave, to fly out to California for that confounded lecture tour. He regretted it now. One show playing on Broadway and another on the road somewhere; what a fool he was to have told the bureau he would talk and talk and talk to more of those dull-faced club women. Still, this was no time to turn down an honest quid. Just a morning slump, doubtless; he knew very well that all club women were not dull-faced. Sometimes one met very charming ladies. He remembered, even in the suburbs –

  New York was best, if one couldn’t be in London. Well, he had to go, anyhow; no use grousing about it now. He finished his breakfast, got up, strolled about the room, pulling contentedly on a pipe. Flying out tomorrow. Suddenly the snatch of conversation he had had with that physician the evening before came back to him. Amos Cutter was flying out, too; they might find themselves on the same ’plane.

  The name had meant nothing to him at first. He had only remembered later that this must be the fellow who was the enemy of his friend, Mann. Yes, there couldn’t be much doubt of it, a surgeon and with that name. And Mann had saved his life, not once but twice. ‘I’ll look out for that chap. Maybe I – ’

  Another thought flashed abruptly across his mind. He stepped over to one of his bags, unlocked it and took out the curious little pistol he had picked up in Germany last year. It was small; the whole thing fitted into his own large hand as he stood weighing it with speculation in his eyes. It had a built-in silencer; also – and this was the significant point – it was demountable in such a fashion that none of its small parts, when disassembled, bore any likeness to a pistol. Even the tube broke open at one end. It had taken him half an hour under competent instruction to learn how to put it together. He had bought it as a curiosity and had never even taken the eight bullets from their carrying compartment in the grip. Of course, he only had the eight bullets. One would be enough.

  The idea added to itself, grew automatically without special effort. On a ’plane. No need to make a fool of himself; he wouldn’t do any public shooting, but he had flown enough to realise that opportunities might arise, were sure to arise, in fact, and to know, also, how to dispose of small objects in such a milieu. The pistol would never be assembled, or probably recognised, even if found. It was untraceable, too. Life was pretty much of a joke at best and he had never thought it worth the value solemn asses put on it. He had seen too much murder, not general slaughter but cold-blooded individual murder, during the war to be greatly concerned over that. Rather a temptation to do a real friend a turn.

  It could never be proven that he had any connection with Cutter, for he hadn’t. Never seen the man ... A crime without a weapon. It reminded him of something. Yes, that was it; it reminded him of Charles Fort’s stuff. Lots of cases in those books of the very thing. Entirely circumstantial accounts, as he recalled them.

  ‘I think I’ll take it with me,’ he said; and locked the bag.

  He walked over and bent down beneath the tablecloth by the window. From the shelf below he selected, after a moment, a book and sat down in one of the chairs, turning the pages attentively. Hugh L. Craven was familiarising himself with the accounts of uncanny deaths contained in Wild Talents.

  PRIVATE CHAMBLER

  Fonda had gone to the hairdresser’s and by ten o’clock the maid had finished her dusting in this section of the apartment. With an assured three hours of solitude Isa sat writing in her very personal diary under the date of ‘April 12th.’

  ‘I shall burn this page when I have finished’ (she wrote) ‘but most good minds think better on paper. I am getting very tired of Amos and his overbearing insolence. He is interfering more and more between Anne and me. He will be better out of the way. We are going by ’plane, to-morrow,
and it would be best if he did not reach Reno at all. The divorce is practically settled; I can carry it through without him. James? He will do as well with MacKenzie as with Amos. Fonda is quite right about that. What difference does it make which clumsy male works over him? Either he will get well or he won’t, that is the size of it. No, Amos had better not reach Reno. God, why does he come between dear, dearest Anne and me? Oh, I know why; he wants her to himself. Men are foul animals. I think Amos is the foulest I have ever seen. I would put out his light – like that! Of course I have supported him in the divorce; there’s a point in my favour. No one would suspect me, anyhow. I should be the last suspected, but how to do it? We are going by air. Well Lowenstein, that Belgian, fell out of a ’plane. They said he couldn’t, and they made tests, but the fact remains he did. Some fool men made the “tests,” probably. They are such fools, proving that what is so, can’t be so. I don’t believe I need worry being caught out by that sort of dunce. Could I get him to open a door and give him a shove? I have never been in a ’plane, but I suppose it’s a possibility. No one could prove he hadn’t slipped himself. Then there must be airports where you get out and walk around to change ’planes. Probably there will be a good many people about but that won’t hurt anything. It might be better. There will be a chance. If I watch carefully, I shall find it. God knows, all women are cleverer than men, and certainly I am; and every time I think of Anne, I will be strengthened. Yes, I have decided now. I shall watch for my chance, and I shall get it, somehow . . . ‘

  LABORATORY

  Dr Gesell entered the new quarters of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, far uptown, and passed the entrance desk with its little calendar proclaiming ‘April 12th.’ He nodded to the girl who sat behind it in her white nurse’s uniform.