THE culprit in question had gone straight to the office of Special Agent Congreve. When that intelligent officer returned from the Malbrook tower Stover stood forth to give himself up.
“I’m doing this,” said Stover, “because I want to clear up things in my own way. You were close to arresting me under suspicious circumstances not long ago. I didn’t want that, but a free surrender is different. Well, why don’t you put me under arrest? A little while ago you were even offering a big reward for me.”
“Mr. Brome Fielding offered the reward, not the police,” replied Congreve, after a moment of enigmatic meditation. “Anyhow, Stover, we’ve changed our minds about you. The finger of suspicion has veered away—” “Toward Bee MacGowan.”
“I answer no questions,” said Congreve, thereby admitting that Stover was right, “and I don’t commit you to prison. I only desire that you remain in Pulambar. In fact, I’ll make sure that you do. Hold out your left hand.” Stover obeyed, and upon the skinned and abraded wrist Congreve snapped a bracelet of the sort Stover had already worn. Carefully the officer fitted the thing, so that it fitted almost as snugly as a noose of cord.
“You seem to have shaken one of these things off,” he observed. “You’ll not get rid of that one, Mr. Stover. And I don’t think I have to tell you about the peculiar and unpleasant properties of this little device. When things cool off, and if you stay in the clear, I want to hear from you just what happened since I saw you last.” “That’s a date,” agreed Stover. “Now may I see Miss MacGowan?”
“You may not.” That was even more of an admission that the police were holding her.
Stover shrugged and left.
He felt that he saw through Congreve’s new attitude toward him. Bee MacGowan had become the chief suspect while he, Stover, was only under mild suspicion. Either that, or Congreve had failed to heap up enough evidence to convict Stover. Bee MacGowan had already half-confessed as the murderer. If she proved innocent, Stover in the meantime might do more to convict himself. That was why he was left free within limitations. Clever man, Congreve.
Meanwhile, Bee MacGowan had complicated matters even more than the police considered. Yesterday Stover had escaped brilliantly and daringly. Now he had wanted to surrender, rebelling at the thought of retaining his freedom at the hands of the girl. He told himself this was not a romantic regard for her, but only what any self-respecting male should do.
She was wrong in taking responsibility for the quarrel, the murder, and Dillon Stover’s subsequent plight. True, the fight had started over her, but it might have started over any passably attractive girl, Malbrook and Stover being the men they were. Beyond that, Stover wished she had sat tight and let him do the thinking and fighting.
“Strong-headed, but a girl in a million,” he estimated her to himself. “No, in a million million. She feels that it’s her duty to take the fall, I suppose, but I wish she hadn’t surrendered. The charge would be bound to break down against me or any other innocent person.”
That new thought flashed like light in his mind. It was a rationalization that must have come to Bee MacGowan. She had invited arrest and indictment for the sake of giving him freedom—because she was really innocent. She had courage to risk trial on those grounds.
“I believe in her!” he decided. “I’ll make the rest believe in her, too. Meanwhile, what am I mooning about? The real killer’s swanking around free. I’m supposed to be after him. That,” he told himself with all the assurance in the world, “is what she set me free for—to clear us both and punish a cowardly assassin.”
HE reached a vestibule-restaurant, built like a great glassed-in balcony hanging high on the cliff of the same building that housed Congreve’s headquarters. Sitting down at a withdrawn table, he called for a late breakfast and a wireless telephone. Between bites, he contacted Buckalew’s apartment. The hired robot servitor answered metallically. Then came the voice of Buckalew.
‘‘Dillon, my boy! Don’t tell me where you are—the police are looking everywhere for you.”
“Not they,” replied Stover. “I just tried to give myself up to Congreve. All he’s doing is to hold me close to Pulambar. Bee MacGowan is the one they’re working on now.”
“I was present when she was arrested,” Buckalew informed him.
“So was I,” Stover admitted. “Inside the shell of that Martian’s robot helper—why gulp like that, Robert?” “I didn’t gulp, Dillon. I never do. So you were disguised as a robot? Remarkable. Only somebody close to your grandfather could have thought of that. As to being held in Pulambar, so am I, the Phogors, Amyas Crofts, and one or two others. If you’re not under danger of arrest, Dillon, come home where we can talk more fully.”
“As soon as I’ve finished eating,” promised Stover. “I have something of interest to offer, a theory of Bee MacGowan’s innocence — there, you gulped again!”
“It was you that time,” charged Buckalew. “I heard you plainly. Here, don’t ring off yet.”
“I heard a click, too,” said Stover. “Maybe some third person was tuned in on our wave-length. “I’ll come to you at once, Buckalew. Wait there for me.”
“Take care of yourself,” admonished Buckalew.
Finishing his breakfast, Stover sought an outside balcony and hailed a flying taxi. The driver was the same who had served him on the night of the murder. He stared at Stover in astonishment.
“Say,” he accused, “the law wants you. There’s a reward—’’
“Not any more,” Stover shut him off. “I’m not on the preferred list at headquarters.”
But the driver insisted on a quick radio-phone conversation with police before he would listen to Stover’s directions.
Flying back and landing on the balcony of his lodgings, Stover had a sense of unreality, as though he had been gone for months. Enough adventure had befallen him to fill a month, at that. Stover pondered a moment on the relativity of time’s passage. Then he went in.
“Robot!” he called. “Get me some fresh clothes. And where’s Mr. Buckalew?”
No answer. The front room was dim, but not dark. A couple of lesser radium bulbs still burned. By their light he saw the robot leaning against a wall.
“I gave you an order,” said Stover sternly. “Why don’t you obey it? Clothes, I said.”
The robot did not move. He crossed the floor toward it, putting a hand on its shoulder-joint.
THE thing seemed stuck to the wall, as though bolted there. Stover exerted his strength, but could not budge it. He braced the heel of his left hand against the wall to get more leverage, and felt a tug at his wrist. Congreve’s bracelet seemed trying to fasten itself beside the robot. Stover jerked away.
“Magnetism. The metal wall’s magnetized!” Again he lifted his voice. “Buckalew! Aren’t you here? What’s going on?”
Turning back toward the center of the room, he saw Buckalew for the first time. His host was seemingly lounging in a corner opposite. Buckalew neither moved nor spoke.
“Don’t tell me they’ve magnetized you, too,” cried Stover impatiently. “Speak up, what’s happened?”
He took a step toward his friend. At the same time, there was a crash at his elbow. The robot, evidently released from its magnetic bonds, had fallen forward and lay writhing, trying to recover itself.
Stover bent and helped the metal servitor to its flat feet. Then Buckalew’s voice was raised in a warning shout that filled the room:
“Look out, Dillon—danger of some kind! Duck!1*
So startled that he forgot his touchy mystification, Stover released his hold on the robot’s arm and again turned toward the corner opposite. Buckalew was falling as the robot had fallen, but more slowly and gently, almost floating downward toward the floor.
“Just what’s going on here?” began Stover.
Something dark flashed upon him, seized him and hurled him flat. A moment later, it was as if lightning and thunder had concentrated in the room.
Dillon Stove
r’s senses were fairly ripped out of him.
CHAPTER XI And Then the Third
STOVER’S hearing came back first; his ears rang and roared. Then his feelings; he ached from head to foot. He opened his eyes to a scene of confusion that still blurred and quivered before him.
“Sit up and drink this,” Buckalew was commanding hini.
Stover got up slowly. Buckalew fastened a silver collar with one hand, while the other extended a glass.
“Thanks,” said Stover, sipping. The drink was full of bite, but it cleared his head and steadied his knees. “How long was I like that?”
“Quite a while. Long enough for me to change my clothes. My others were almost torn off me by the blast.” Sure enough, rags of the brown fabric lay on the floor. Stover glanced sharply at Buckalew. Wasn’t it a trifle callous of the other to think of dressing before giving aid to an injured man? But Buckalew gave him no opening to complain, gesturing instead to the tumbled furniture and the soot-fogged walls of their once splendid parlor.
“Not quite as powerful an explosion as the one at Malbrook’s,” went on Buckalew weightily, “or it would have torn off the whole top of this tower, and blown you to atoms.” Stover, swiftly regaining his full strength and sense, now looked down at his own clothes. They were not damaged in the least. Buckalew spoke true words, but enigmatic ones. First of all, how much did Buckalew know about the Malbrook death-blast that he was able so glibly to compare this one with it? Second, why did he speak of Stover only as being “blown into atoms?”
Hadn’t he, Buckalew, been in danger as well? Or had he perhaps operated and directed the danger from a position of safety? The thought seemed ungrateful. Buckalew had been the friend of Stover’s grandfather, was now the friend of Stover.
“It’s got the poor servitor,” the younger man made reply, pointing to the shattered mass of metal that had been the robot. “I suppose he got between me and the blast. If so, I can thank a robot for saving me.”
“Yes,” agreed Buckalew, in a tone that seemed almost bitter. “You can thank a robot for saving you.”
“You sound as if you’re sorry!” Stover could not help protesting. “Tell me just what happened here. You were here waiting after you answered my phone call. What happened in the meantime?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” replied Buckalew.
“But you must have!”
“I can only say again that I do not. My—my mind went blank.”
Stover eyed him narrowly. “You mean, something stunned you?”
“Yes, something like that.”
Stover could not see any sign of a cut or bruise upon Buckalew. His hair was as sleek as ever. Only his manner was weary and solemn. Again Stover made a deliberate effort to banish suspicion. He volunteered the story of his recent adventures, finishing with an account of how he had come home to find the robot servitor stuck by magnetic power to the wall and Buckalew himself motionless in a corner.
“I don’t remember being in the corner,” said Buckalew when he had finished. “I was—overcome in my dressing-room back there. As I remember, I regained consciousness just in time to sense danger and warn you.”
“What danger?” Stover demanded. “You knew there would be an explosion?”
IF he hoped to startle or trap Buckalew, he was disappointed. The other made steady reply.
“All that I knew was that I had been attacked in some way, and that you had come. After that, the bomb or gun or whatever went off.”
They inspected the room, setting up the furniture again and checking damage. Stover ran for a chemical kit, testing the atmosphere that still had a slight murk.
“Old-fashioned nitroglycerin, as in the other case,” he announced. “And here, on the floor—”
He knelt in the corner where he remembered seeing Buckalew. There was a stain there. As Girra had done in his presence only a few hours before, Stover made tests. This, too, yielded a trace of synthetic rubber.
Meanwhile, Buckalew was talking on the radio phone.
“No,” he was saying, “nothing at all. A trifling accident, no damage. Not worth your notice.” He switched off and turned toward Stover. “A police call. Some neighbor gave an alarm.”
“Why not call them in?” almost shouted Stover. “Do you want to hide anything from them?”
“Yes. Don’t you?” And Buckalew crossed the floor to him. “You want to expose the real murderer by yourself—you told me that. I thought I was helping you.”
That should settle suspicions, even if Stover lyingly told himself that he had none. Buckalew continued: “Undoubtedly the attempt was aimed at you by the real murderer. He will think you destroyed until he hears otherwise.”
“But a report to the police, not necessarily public—”
“Have you the slightest doubt that the aforesaid murderer doesn’t know everything the police know? For instance, was any public announcement made of your release from the order of imprisonment?”
“No, but we both heard noises that suggested someone listening in on our phone wavelength,” reminded Stover, scowling. “That was the probable tipoff.”
“Why would an enemy listen in unless he knew you were free and would call me here? No, Dillon. The murderer has access to police records and secrets.”
Stover nodded. Buckalew was right. “Then,” he announced, “I can limit the suspects to people in pretty high places—the Upper-tower set. People like Malbrook, himself, his partner Fielding, his fiancee Reynardine Phogor, or her stepfather, the Venusian. Or even Amyas Crofts.”
“Or me,” added Buckalew with the slightest of smiles.
Stover jumped and stared. Buckalew’s smile broadened.
“Or me,” he repeated. “I’m an old- timer in Pulambar. I have friends and a position. I might be able to get an in at police headquarters. Don’t forget that Congreve himself has been conferring with me lately. And I have as good a motive for killing Malbrook as any of the others.”
“And a motive for trying to kill me?” asked Stover in spite of himself.
Again Buckalew smiled. “You wouldn’t expect me to tell you that, if I wanted to kill you and had failed. Well, to sum up, you have reason to suspect me, and I to suspect you. After all, we were both present when this second explosion was touched off.”
“You don’t believe in me, then?” demanded Stover.
BUCKALEW cocked his head, apparently trying to remember something. At last:
“In an ancient but most readable work, called Alice in Wonderland, the heroine is addressed by a unicorn.
Know what a unicorn is? Well, this one said, ‘If you believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?* All right, Dillon, is it?”
He offered his hand. Dillon took it, regretting whole-heartedly that he must make a secret reservation.
“Your little friend Bee MacGowan is cleared by this,” Buckalew resumed. “She’s in prison even while this murder attempt is made.”
“Let’s tell the police that,” said Stover stepping toward the phone. “They’ll release her at once.”
“And probably arrest you again,” added Buckalew. “Say nothing. She’s giving you a chance to clear her and yourself. Use it.”
Stover fell into a silence, almost a stupid silence. In the midst of it the front door opened and two figures fairly dashed in. They came to a halt.
“Mr. Stover—er—” stammered the voice of Amyas Crofts.
Stover felt almost grateful for this opportunity to change the subject. He strode across to the gilded youngster, glaring a challenge.
“Why do you rocket in like that?” he growled. “What do you want here?” A light seemed to dawn inside his head and stop the aching. “Perhaps you didn’t expect to find me alive?”
The companion of Amyas Crofts had turned to dart out again, but Buckalew, moving with amazing speed, gained the door and fastened it. Then he turned to confront the would- be fugitive. It was the girl with red- dyed hair whom Stover knew as Gerda.
&
nbsp; “Let me out,” commanded Gerda as from under her cape she whipped an electro-automatic pistol.
Without even lifting an eyebrow, Buckalew seized it and wrenched it from her hand.
“Go there sit down,” he told her, pointing toward one of the least damaged chairs. “You might have shot me just then.”
Gerda sullenly obeyed, eyes flashing. Meanwhile Stover waited bale- fully for Amyas Crofts to explain. “It’s this girl,” Crofts attempted at last. “Gerda, she calls herself. She came to my apartment, told me she knew that I was crazy about Bee MacGowan, just the same as you are—”
“Never mind who I’m crazy about,” snapped Stover, his blood seething. “Your affairs, not mine, are being looked into. Gerda told you that. What next?”
“She said that if I came here I'd see for myself that there was no more reason to think you’d stand in my way with Bee. When I hesitated, she begged me to come. Said she’d come with me.”
“He’s lying,” contributed Gerda from where she sat under Buckalew’s guard.
Stover did not know which to believe. He laid a big hard hand on Croft’s shoulder. “I’ve got a mind to knock your teeth out through the back of your neck,” he said angrily. “So you busted in here without asking permission.”
“Gerda said it was all right, that you were expecting me,” explained Crofts, “and keep your hands to yourself. I’m not so sure you could knock my teeth anywhere.”
“Gentlemen,” interposed Buckalew smoothly, “you’re clouding some rather important issues with these personalities. Dillon, I venture to say that one of these visitors, and perhaps both, thought to find us dead.”
CROFTS’S white anger turned to white panic. “Dead?” he repeated. “You think we were going to kill you?”
Manly Wade Wellman - Chapbook 02 Page 7