Obelists Fly High
Page 26
The elevators. ‘Fifth floor, blease.’ A white corridor. An archway – ‘Physiological Pathology and Chemistry’.
His little laboratory was small, but it was bright and beautifully equipped. A range of shelves bearing bottles of chemicals, liquid and solid, retorts, pipettes, the most newly developed microscope; even a spectroscope, rather cumbersome, at the end near the corner. Below, a copper basin set in a broader, zinc-covered shelf, waist high; hot and cold water, two gas outlets to one of which was attached a Bunsen burner, several electric outlets. Various instruments were stacked neatly against the wall at the back. An electric stopwatch, in its metalled motor case, was attached by a slender cord to one of the outlets. At the end of the shelving a window looked down on the broad thoroughfare beneath.
Dr Gesell beamed his approval of this orderly room.
He hung his overcoat on a hook and followed that by his bowler hat. Stripping off the coat of his suit and donning a laboratory apron, he got to work without delay. ‘This bulb; only one inch for diameter.’ He pressed a bell and pouring three powdered chemicals into a retort, set it above the Bunsen burner.
There came a knock at the door. ‘Come,’ said Dr Gesell without turning around. ‘Three glass bulbs, blease, one inch diameter. Number two glass.’ He plugged in a small electric clock and set it going as the bottom of the retort began to glow with heat. Another retort went over an electric grill.
As he worked, he muttered to himself . . . ‘What for obbortunity. This Gott must give . . . Once I have let it slip: not now . . . Ach, Anne, for this I subbose I have lived . . . Anne . . . What was that boy who love you, that Franz? Hardtly could I remember him now; how he thought, what he do, how he suffer. Nein, he is not I; that boy is deadt, many years now is he deadt. Quite another is it what now make a bulb for Amos Cutter . . . Come in, blease.’
The door opened. ‘Bitte. Thank you, blease.’ He laid the bulbs carefully beside the retorts. He crossed the room and locked the door to the corridor.
‘When that Franz die, what is left give himself to Science. Science, I subbose, is my mistress; but she is a coldt bedfellow, too.’ Dr Gesell took up two pipettes; carefully he annealed to their ends two one-way, glass valves, as carefully manipulated two of the bulbs, annealing the valve to these. He bent over the retorts, sniffed gently, turned down the gas beneath the first one after a brief glance at the electric clock . . . ‘Something there is much wrong with this Science; power she give but not knowledge. A mistress what is coldt and also deceive you, what good is that mistress? . . . Nein, I leave her now; that Franz is deadt, but now I do somethings for that Franz what so many year is deadt . . . What is it to me, to cut them ub or not to cut them ub? It is nothing. Brob-ably it will now be cut them ub.’
With precise fingers he inserted a pipette into the first retort. He sucked in and a bluish vapour filled half the first bulb. The second retort yielded a yellow gas, but when they blended in the bulb, it became quickly clear and transparent. The pipette was broken off skilfully at the valve, the valve annealed.
‘This young man what come for a bulb to put Amos Cutter into a trance, Gott has sent him . . . Or berhaps it was Eros; vengeance also belong to Eros, berhaps . . . What could put him into such a trance? He is a foolish young man . . . From this trance Amos Cutter will come out – never!’
Unlock the door, ring the bell. He walked to the window and stood gazing downward; a police car was drawing up to the curb. Dr Gesell started nervously. Then recovered himself. ‘But this can with me nothings have to do.’ He walked back across the room.
Two little boxes, cotton wadding, the bulbs on the wadding. More wadding, then the boxes were covered and neatly tied. One into Dr Gesell’s pocket. For the other, ‘You will sendt this, blease, at once to Cabtain Michael Lordt, by the Bolice Headtquarters, Center Street. Here is the address written. This goes, blease, at once.’
APARTMENT
11.15 p.m. on April 13th. Dr Gesell paced the floor of his sitting-room, to which a tiny hallway made a preface from the second floor landing. The apartment was untidy and unkempt, in complete contrast to his spick and span laboratory.
He paced the floor nervously, his small legs carrying him now to the window overlooking the street, now around the table in the middle of the room. ‘What, then, could it be? One telegram have I this noon to Chicago sent; already before noon the bulb was to be given . . . Why do I wait? Have I not decided? Never alive will I be taken; only then Anne’s name into everything must come.’
He placed the little box from his pocket on the table; cut the string, took off the cover. On its bed of cotton the second bulb reposed comfortably. Dr Gesell looked at it, then resumed his pacing.
Out the window a patrolman was making his way down the street, flashing his light into the darkened area-ways as he passed along. Gesell drew back, trembling, as the patrolman passed the house. He muttered, ‘Everything I have decided alreadty. If to the telegrams there no answer is, then must the crime be discovered. Without reply alreadty have I telegraphed Chicago; berhaps for some reason only after Chicago is the bulb given, but at six-thirty I telegraphed Cheyenne and still no answer do I get.’ He pulled out a large, gold watch with a hand that shook. ‘Halb zwölf. No reason could there be but it is found out. Berhaps even that young man he see at once that Cutter is deadt. Or some one tell him there is no such trance . . . He telegraph the bolice, perhaps, instead of me ... I am lucky not yet they have come.’
Up the front steps ran a telegraph boy, in his hand a yellow envelope addressed to Dr Gesell; in the envelope Lord’s telegram from Medicine Bow through Cheyenne – ‘All O.K. according to plan.’ As the boy approached the front door, a fellow lodger of Gesell’s came out. The boy went in, after inquiring from the lodger the number of the chemist’s apartment. He mounted to the second floor and rang the bell.
Gesell stiffened sharply; with difficulty he walked back to the table and stood leaning against it heavily with both arms. ‘It is the bolice. Never will I alive be taken. Courage, Franz, this is for Anne. Courage.’ Outside the door the telegraph boy was writing on a blank form from his pad; ‘An effort was made at 11.35 p.m. to deliver – ‘ He finished writing, waited a moment for any sounds from within. Then he gave the bell a long, insistent peal.
Dr Gesell bent over his handkerchief. ‘Good-bye, Anne. Fare you well, liebe Anne.’ He broke the bulb.
There was only a slight thud as his body struck the floor.
The telegraph boy, tired of waiting, slipped the printed form under the door sill and departed, whistling through his teeth.
The Clue Finder
Do not peruse until after you finish the story.*
*Isn’t there enough cheating in the world without this sort of thing?
As is his custom
the author seeks permission to impose upon the reader’s patience by hinting that the arch-criminal hereinbefore has been suggested by sundry indications:
As to the murderer’s relations with his victim:
PAGE LINE
Definitely hostile 51 9
An opponent professionally 59 last
As to the murderer’s motive:
He has a strong attachment 97 4
It is described 183 15ff
Evidence of its strength 184 4
A relative’s testimony 165 20
An absent, but important person 180 13
The murderer listed among others 190 35
His motive possibly permanent 190 15
Insistence upon actual motive 192 12
Motive reiterated 215 23
Those who may have had it 215 36
The detective mentions the matter 244 20
As to the murderer’s ingenuity:
The possibility of an agent 208 8
Who the agent wasn’t 192 13
Who the agent was 123 15
As to the detective’s mistake:
He is deceived by the murderer 51 13
And by the corpse 103 14
&nb
sp; A common credulity mentioned 117 22
Repeated 128 29
Once again 232 29
An illuminating circumstance 158 11
Which is noticed by another 138 last
And pointed out by a third 234 7
A mistaken assertion denied 260 25
As to the murderer’s anxieties:
. PAGE LINE
He seeks information 97 11ff
He seeks it again 121 36
His information is delayed 122 13
But finally given 140 9
And is never corrected 143 29
A to the time of the victim’s death:
Another suffers ill effects at the same time 80 17
And asserts their origin 88 29ff
Still another is puzzled 103 30
Stating his reasons 104 3
One admits the truth 123 27
But qualifies it considerably 124 10
And refers to the essential time 160 19
To which he sticks 233 16
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