by Rufus King
“I shall first start the generator of the transmitters,” Ramier was saying calmly.
“It is well,” answered the voice of Thyrus.
Billy heard the thin, sweet tune of the delicate mechanism’s whir.
“I shall next fix the adjustments of my propagated wave traps so that only the positive peaks will escape.”
“It is well.”
“I shall next select the same arrangement of keys that were pressed when I caused Drusilla and Mr. Duveen to disappear.”
A sharp intake of breath from the direction of the doorway caused the three to turn swiftly about and face it.
A heavy-set, worried-looking, well-dressed middle-aged man stood looking at them nervously from the threshold.
Ramier was the first to recover from the surprise.
“Mr. Wilkins,” he said, “good-afternoon.”
Then, with an impatient shrug, he switched off the generator and, crossing to Mr. Wilkins, shook hands.
“I came here as a result of the curious document that you left in our charge, Mr. Bellmy, and which my partners and I opened last evening.”
“Mr. Wilkins,” Ramier explained, as he introduced him to Billy, “is my lawyer.”
Mr. Wilkins bowed formally, and walking with legal dignity into the laboratory, selected a chair and sat down.
“The heat and the walk here were rather oppressive,” he said, continuing to eye Ramier covertly but with sharp interest, while removing a pair of gray silk gloves. “I drove over this morning, but could bring the car no closer than the mouth of this valley.”
“Did you drive yourself, sir?” asked Billy, with poorly veiled meaning.
“I always do,” said Mr. Wilkins. “I find that being alone in a car affords excellent opportunities for constructive thought and deliberation.”
“Oh,” said Billy. “Then that’s all right.”
Mr. Wilkins favored him, too, with a suspicious glance.
“I wonder whether you would object,” Mr. Wilkins said politely, “to my seeing Mr. Bellmy for a moment or two alone? There are several matters of a highly personal nature that I feel we should discuss.”
“Wouldn’t it be possible, Mr. Wilkins,” inquired Ramier, with almost peevish impatience, “to postpone this interview until tomorrow? I know it’s a rather discourteous request, in view of your having taken the trouble to run up here, but there is a vital matter on hand which imperatively demands my entire attention.”
Mr. Wilkins considered this proposition for a moment before answering—not that there was the slightest intention in his mind of acceding to it, but because it was an important part of his profession to ponder, and he always avidly seized the chance to do so whenever there was the least excuse for some heavy pondering to be done. “I am afraid not,” he said. “I strongly believe, Mr. Bellmy, that—for your interests I must confer with you at once and—in private.”
“But surely tomorrow will do as well?”
“It must be now.”
Ramier had had considerable dealings with Mr. Wilkins in the past, and knew that once the man had made up his mind upon a point he held to it doggedly. It was always quicker, in the end, to yield.
“Very well,” he said. “Billy, if you and Anna don’t mind going outside for a moment, Mr. Wilkins and I will get through with our business as rapidly as we can.”
Mr. Wilkins watched Billy and Anna thoughtfully as they went out through the laboratory doorway. Where, he wondered, did they fit in, in this extraordinary puzzle that he had come to solve. When Ramier and he were alone, he took a document from his pocket and held it unopened in his hands.
“We were naturally very much astonished when we examined this,” he said to Ramier, “and, I confess, more than a little alarmed. You must admit that it is a most unusual set of statements that you have made.”
“If I recall my own words correctly,” said Ramier, “I informed you that I was about to embark upon an experiment that would cause my body to become invisible and, hence, disappear.”
“That,” said Mr. Wilkins, both nervously and sympathetically, “is correct.”
“And that if you did not hear from me by the time you had opened the document, you were to proceed as if I were dead and settle up my estate. You were then told to hold the estate intact and in trust for a period of twenty years. At the termination of that time you were to dispose of it according to the direction outlined in my will, inasmuch as there would be no reasonable hope left that I should be able to return to life.”
Mr. Wilkins nervously cleared his throat.
“It was that last statement, in particular, which alarmed us,” he said.
“I’ll admit that I was facing a grave danger.”
“It wasn’t so much—er—bodily injury that we feared, Mr. Bellmy.”
“I infer that you thought me insane?”
“By no means—not at all!” Mr. Wilkins was inexpressibly shocked. “‘Insane’ is much too strong a word, not alone for a lawyer to use, but for a friend. You know I am your friend, as I was the friend and counselor of your father before you. We have not had very many opportunities for improving this friendship, Mr. Bellmy, and I feel that the fault is mine. I feel as if to some measure, I had betrayed an unspoken trust.”
Mr. Wilkins sighed profoundly and stared regretfully at his pink fingernails, as if they were so many betrayed and unspoken trusts.
“No,” he went on, “I do not mean you to infer any question in my mind as to your sanity. The point is simply this: I believed upon reading your document—and my partners concurred with me—that you had been working too strenuously along the scientific lines of research that you have selected as a career. There is no field of human endeavor, as we both realize, that preys so avariciously upon the reserve forces of the mind. It stands to reason that one’s mentality must constantly be under the influence of an excessive strain. Well, everything that is subjected to strain requires appropriate periods of relaxation or,” Mr. Wilkins paused, to choose his words with great care, “it is liable to break.”
“I believe you overstate the case.”
“My boy, let me frankly tell you that you are in no position to judge. You must rely upon the advice of a disinterested outsider, a friendly outsider. Why, your very appearance has changed. Your face is thinner than I have ever seen it before. There are bad-looking circles showing beneath your eyes. There is a trace of unnatural brilliancy in the eyes themselves.”
“If you knew what I’ve gone through—” Ramier checked himself on the very point of confession.
Mr. Wilkins moved uncomfortably in his chair.
“That is another thing which I feel it is my duty to discuss,” he said quietly. “You will be able to tell me whether anything has or has not occurred, and I must ask you to speak with absolute frankness. You can place, as you know, implicit confidence in my discretion.”
Mr. Wilkins wiped his forehead with a large handkerchief before going on.
“When I arrived here just a few minutes ago, I found the door to this room open. I stood on the threshold for an instant, in order to accustom my eyes to the change in light. I then noted the curious tableau that the three of you were forming, and it was easy to see that something of an important nature was taking place. There was a certain tenseness not alone in your attitudes but, if you will permit me the extravagance, in the very air. I did not like to interrupt until some movement of relaxation on your part should offer me a sign that the business under foot was concluded.”
“Then you heard—”
“I overheard the rather strange conversation you were holding with whatever wireless telephone station you are connected with. I judge it to belong to some confrere with whom you are conducting an experiment. Now, in order to explain to you more clearly my reaction to certain of the remarks you made, let me state that, to find my bearings to get to this place, I stopped at an estate belonging to a Mr. Duveen.”
Mr. Wilkins paused an instant to note the effect t
hat the name would produce upon Ramier. He tabulated the slight start that Ramier gave, and then proceeded.
“The butler who answered my ring gave me proper instructions for the route as well as, upon my request, a glass of water. He also offered me certain voluntary information while I was sipping it. He explained that Mr. Duveen was not at home, that he had left suddenly in his motor, and that no word had been received from him since his departure yesterday morning. He further added, being conversationally inclined, that Miss Drusilla Duveen had also gone away and had not as yet sent any word—since yesterday morning. I thanked the man both for the water and for his courtesy, and continued on my journey here.”
Mr. Wilkins glanced conservatively around the laboratory and assured himself that he and Ramier were still alone. He then leaned forward in his chair and stared earnestly at Ramier.
“You can imagine,” he said, “the sensational shock it gave me while I stood in that doorway and overheard you say, ‘I shall next select the same arrangement of keys that were pressed when I caused Drusilla and Mr. Duveen to disappear!’”
Mr. Wilkins, having so succinctly stated his case, sat back and fixedly observed Ramier while the depth charge he had just dropped got in its very efficient work.
As a realization of Mr. Wilkins’s implications came over him, Ramier paled and then flushed hotly to the roots of his hair. There was nothing that he could say. And yet, he must say something at once; something that would immediately erase the suspicions that were growing stronger and stronger in Mr. Wilkins’s mind during every added second of the strained silence.
He glanced restlessly around, as if in search of help. His eye came to a pause upon the head and shoulders of Billy framed in one of the open windows. Billy was pressing his finger against his lips in a warning of silence. Ramier continued to stare at him. Billy next removed the finger from his lips, and then pointed it with unmistakable significance first at Mr. Wilkins and then at the battery of transmitters.
Never—not that—not that again!
But the seed of the idea was planted and insisted upon taking root. What else, Ramier asked himself helplessly, was there for him to do?
“Well?” said Mr. Wilkins, with a slow and deadly expectancy.
Ramier rose nervously from his chair. If he confessed exactly what had happened to Mr. Wilkins, Mr. Wilkins could pursue only one of two courses.
The first would be charted from a conviction that he, Ramier, was insane and should be shut up in an institution where he could be under observation and treatment.
The second course would be based on a complete disbelief in the story and a confirmation of Mr. Wilkins’s suspicions that Drusilla and Duveen had met with foul play, whereupon there would be no alternative for Mr. Wilkins but to place the matter before the proper authorities and cause Ramier’s arrest.
And if either of these alternatives were to take place, Drusilla, Duveen, and Thyrus the Greek, might be everlastingly doomed. There would be no one who could release them, no one to save them from the intolerable state in which they lay.
Billy would be held as an accomplice, and Anna, too. The priceless, delicate apparatus would rust, would become deranged during the dragging months that the trial for murder would consume, perhaps the verdict would be guilty and their fate the electric chair—his notes were incomplete and could not be followed out by any successor whom he might name—and these very notes would in any case be regarded as the ravings of a demented mind.
“I could answer your question better, Mr. Wilkins,” Ramier said softly, “if you would just be so good as to step this way.”
CHAPTER XVI
ONE TWENTY-FOUR-CARAT, PIERCING, TERROR-STRICKEN SCREECH
Mr. Wilkins was a very conservative man and used considerable deliberation not only with his thoughts but with his movements. He carefully mulled over Ramier’s request before complying.
The conclusions he drew, after the mulling, were that Ramier had something to show him which would bear upon, if not explain, the set of questions that he had propounded.
Just what it was he expected to see, Mr. Wilkins did not know. For a shocking moment he suspected corpses, but brushed the idea aside as an outrageous improbability. He was quite certain by now, however, that there was some definite link between Ramier’s peculiar activities and the unexplained absence of Miss and Mr. Duveen.
“You—er—know Miss and Mr. Duveen?” he inquired, rising.
“Very well,” said Ramier. “Miss Duveen and I are engaged to be married.”
Mr. Wilkins expelled a sigh of relief. The explanation for the whole matter might lie in that single, simple fact. He knew from experience with other clients that there was no rational accounting for the actions of young people who are in love.
He would have given the whole business no further thought had it not been for the disturbing and insane document his firm had received from Ramier and which now, once more, reposed in his pocket. The poor boy was undoubtedly a bit touched. And in any case, love or no love, the exact whereabouts of Miss and Mr. Duveen must be established beyond the slightest peradventure of a doubt.
“You have something to show me?” he said kindly, advancing toward Ramier.
“Yes,” mumbled Ramier. “It is something that will make everything perfectly clear to you. It will answer all of your questions much more fully than I myself could ever do.”
“Good!” said Mr. Wilkins heartily, as he eyed with but scant interest the strange maze of apparatus into which he had wandered.
“If you will just stand where you see those chalk marks on the floor,” urged Ramier nervously, “you will have a complete answer in a minute.”
Mr. Wilkins hesitated, and then thought it best to comply. Something might, and something might not, develop from his acquiescence. And at any rate, if Ramier really was unbalanced mentally, the very best possible course he could pursue would be to soothe him.
“I almost feel as though you were going to take my photograph,” he said, with the nearest approach to levity that he ever permitted himself.
“Stand just where you are,” Ramier muttered abstractedly, as he changed the adjustment of his wave traps and switched on the generator of the transmitters.
“What are you doing now?” asked Mr. Wilkins pleasantly.
“You’ll see,” said Ramier, as his hand reached for the keyboard.
Mr. Wilkins was debating in his mind the advisability of pushing his levity an inch farther by asking whether or not he was to catch a glimpse of “the little birdie,” when Ramier pressed the keys.
“G-good work, old man,” cried Billy unsteadily from the window, as he watched the last ineffable mist of Mr. Wilkins’s body dissolve from ‘view.
“A very neat job, Mr. Bellmy,” commented the voice of Thyrus from the loud speaker. “Mr. Wilkins has joined our ranks. He is still a trifle shaken and confused as to just what it was that has happened to him, but I dare say he will shortly adjust himself to his new state. Shall we proceed now with our work?”
Ramier looked at his watch. About twenty minutes had elapsed since the appearance of Mr. Wilkins. The visit had been decidedly upsetting, and he attempted to recapture a measure of calmness in order to steady himself for the ordeal still before him. He requested Billy and Anna, who had come back into the laboratory, to make as little noise and to move about as little as possible.
“I shall first readjust the wave trap again,” Ramier said.
“It is well,” said the voice of Thyrus, as before.
“Drusilla, are you in your proper place?”
“Miss Duveen has taken her stand.”
“I am now selecting the proper combination of keys to press on the control board.”
“Wait!” warned the voice of Thyrus. “Your power input is not strong enough. Increase it by one eighth of one thousandth of a milliampere.”
“I shall do so.”
Ramier carefully made the proper adjustment.
“Then,” continued the
voice of Thyrus, “focus the third transmitter—counting from your left as you face the battery—two inches lower toward the floor.”
Ramier did so.
“And now,” said the voice of Thyrus, becoming curiously metallic in quality, “press!”
Just what it was that caused Billy to leap forward and seize Ramier’s hand, he does not know. It was the sudden reaction from a sickening wave of terror and fear that had surged up from somewhere in his subconscious mind and drenched him. He could offer no logical reason for what he had done. He had simply jumped forward and swerved Ramier’s hand from the keys—impulsively—blindly—as its fingers were about to press down.
Ramier looked at Billy in astonishment.
“Good Lord, don’t do that!” he said sharply. “What made you?”
“I can’t tell you,” said Billy, stubbornly keeping his grip on Ramier’s hand. “It is a feeling that I can’t explain, but I know that if you press those keys the jig is up.”
“Come, come!” said the voice of Thyrus, impatiently. “Do not listen to him, Mr. Bellmy. His head is affected by the heat. Tell him not to interfere.”
“And it is that very voice that makes me suspicious,” continued Billy earnestly, as he pointed an accusing finger toward the loud speaker. “I have had the feeling ever since we first heard it that something was wrong. I tell you, Ramier, that voice is misleading you.”
“Misleading me?” Ramier frowned. “Why should it mislead me?”
“Precisely,” said the voice of Thyrus, mockingly. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know why, I tell you,” went on Billy heatedly. “But I’m so darn convinced of what I say that I’m going to do something you may never forgive me for.”
With set lips, Billy dropped Ramier’s hand and almost ran to the receiver. He grasped the dials and, simultaneously with Ramier’s cry of anger, spun them.