Murder Foretold

by Denis Hughes

  Bentick wasted no more time in speculation. He ran down the stairs two at a time, sprinting across the hall and making for the kitchen.

  As he entered the big, high-roofed room with its old-fashioned fittings and the remains of Bentick’s hasty breakfast on the table, he heard voices from near at hand. Halting just inside the door, he glanced quickly at the laboratory entrance.

  Professor Dale was standing in the partly open steel door. Facing him, back to Bentick, was Nargan.

  Dale said: “But of course, my friend. You are as welcome as anyone to visit my laboratory again. Come along down. Mr. Barringville is there already and I was about to give him a demonstration of some highly important apparatus. Please join us.” Dale beamed at Nargan.

  Bentick halted and waited, hardly daring to breathe. What, he wondered, had happened to force Nargan to overcome his fear of the Telecopter and seek out the scientist once more in this fashion? It was obvious that Nargan must have gone to the kitchen almost immediately after leaving Bentick on the upper floor. Was he, perhaps, expecting to learn some secret which would prove of value to himself or the country he represented? Bentick thought it likely. There was no other solution which fitted the facts, for a short time ago Bentick felt sure that nothing would have induced the foreigner to visit Dale a second time. Only the man’s inherent greed for information might have had the desired effect in steadying his nerves sufficiently to venture into the laboratory.

  Nargan did not hesitate in accepting Dale’s ready invitation.

  “I will follow you down, Professor,” he said calmly. “There is no need for you to worry about my feelings in making this visit. I can control them perfectly.”

  Bentick waited, still watching Nargan’s back as he moved in the wake of Dale. Dale himself had not noticed the agent in the doorway, being wholly absorbed with Nargan.

  The steel door was left ajar as Nargan and Professor Dale disappeared through the opening. Bentick could hear them moving along the stone flagged corridor till their footsteps faded as they reached the stairs leading down.

  Not till that happened did Bentick attempt to follow. Then he moved swiftly and certainly, eager to reach the laboratory not far behind the others. He wondered if Carol would be down there as he feared. He wondered if the Professor would try any more of his tricks on the girl’s vivid sensitivity. He wondered a whole lot of things as he went down the steps till he reached the gallery and halted, looking down into the brightly lighted vault below. He hardly knew what he expected to find when he got there, but in actual fact everything before his eyes was so prosaic and ordinary that he experienced a sense of flatness that startled him.

  Barringville and Nargan were standing together with their backs to the scientist’s crowded bench. Bentick saw that Nargan’s podgy hands were gripped on the edges of the leather seated cocktail stool he himself had sat on the previous night. Barringville stood without support, one hand in his trouser pocket and the other holding a smoking cigarette as he listened attentively to whatever the Professor was saying.

  Bentick closed his ears to what Dale was saying. He knew it was information about the broad principles involved in the working of the Telecopter, for Dale was resting a hand on the machine itself and emphasising his points with jabs of his other hand.

  Bentick went on standing at the junction of the gallery, his eyes raking every corner of the laboratory in search of Carol. There was so much material and apparatus packed on the floor that it was difficult to tell if she was there, but he did not think she could be. None of the three men below had as yet noticed his presence, so he could take his time about going down and wait for further developments. He decided to wait until Dale put out the lights and turned on the Telecopter, as he felt sure he would. Meanwhile he still hunted for Carol among the scattered blocks of shadow that filled the enormous vault in spite of its generally brilliant lighting.

  But look as he would he failed to see any sign of the girl.

  Her disappearance was a mystery that troubled him deeply, but he was glad that as far as he could tell she was not in the laboratory. Here, in this gloomy, sinister place, there was danger for Carol as for others, but Bentick thought that anywhere else she would be safe. The only trouble was that he was not even certain she was not there.

  As these and many other thoughts crossed his mind he became aware that Professor Dale, was finishing the initial part of his demonstration and would soon be proving to Barringville that the Telecopter was capable of doing all he claimed.

  He heard Dale ask Barringville to reach behind him and turn off the main lighting. At the same time he was aware of the hum of the generator starting up as Dale closed the switches.

  The laboratory was plunged in almost total darkness as Barringville did as the scientist requested. Then Bentick was once again watching with a fascinated gaze as the cloudy, opalescent screen of the Telecopter glowed and shimmered with its eerie radiance.

  Professor Dale adjusted the controls till pictures from the Past were built up and presented by the cosmic radiations and echoes on which he drew. Bentick, who had already seen some of these disjointed fragments from the pages of history, found himself just as enthralled as if he was seeing them for the first time. He saw those conspirators again, huddled in the ancient vault as they plotted and planned the coup which later on Dale would show to Barringville.

  It was that sudden thought—that the age-old murder would again be re-enacted—that troubled Bentick and awoke him from the grip of the emanations of the Telecopter.

  Taking a firm grasp on his nerves and forcing himself to move quietly and calmly, he started down the steps to the floor of the laboratory. Unconsciously his fingers tightened on the butt of his automatic as he reached the bottom and crept silently up behind Barringville. Keeping one eye on Nargan’s dark shape close at hand he listened to Professor Dale as the scientist talked tensely and clearly. Dale’s features were illuminated in the shifting, restless glow of the screen. It was hard to tell what manner of expression the man wore, but his voice though tense, was under control.

  “What you will witness in a moment,” said Dale, “is a scene that altered history. It is a scene of violence and death, treachery and murder. Hundreds of years ago the conspiracy you have already seen took place in this crypt. It was followed shortly afterwards by the political murder I shall now endeavour to bring from the mists of the Past!”

  Bentick, who knew what was coming, braced himself and tried in vain to keep his eyes from the opalescent screen before him. Nargan, too, was afraid of the picture he would see, and Bentick sensed his fear as an unseen influence in the darkness nearby.

  Only Barringville appeared to be enjoying himself. He made no murmur of protest as the Professor brought the screen to life again and two solitary figures were revealed. Bentick, despite his determination, found himself staring at them fixedly. All the emotions that had once before asserted themselves were there in his mind again. He knew the fear and uncertainty of the young man who would shortly be killed before his eyes. He felt the greed and cunning of the old, white bearded man. And he himself felt and fought the suddenly overpowering urge to kill as well.

  Completely under the spell of the Telecopter, he felt his fingers grip the automatic in his pocket. He was quite oblivious of other people around him in the gloom. He barely heard the drone of Professor Dale’s keyed-up voice as the scientist went on explaining how the Telecopter worked. No one was listening. Bentick knew that without bothering to find out. He had no mind of his own in any event. The gun in his hand came free of his He could not have held it concealed any longer had he wanted to. An overwhelming desire to absorb the entire emotions of those two ghostly figures on the screen entered his brain. In a moment now, he knew, the old man would strike at the other’s back with that glistening blade. The murder would be done.

  He was suddenly aware of Nargan’s stifled breathing close beside him in the shadows. Dale was nothing but a figure in ghostly light alongside the Telecopter.
Then to Bentick he swiftly grew to be a target for that dreadful impulse to kill.

  The screen flickered madly for an instant. Bentick saw the image of the old man raise his hand, grasping his knife as the young man turned away. In less than a second now...

  There was a swift, strangled cry from somewhere in the darkness beyond the Telecopter.

  Bentick gave a start and pulled himself together. The sound of the cry in the dark had an electric effect on him. But by then other things were happening, things entirely beyond his control.

  Following hard on the heels of the strangled cry came a harsh explosion of sound. Bentick realised too late that a gun had been fired. At the same time he heard a thud and a gasping, choking sob at his side. Professor Dale gave a shout that was a cross between triumph and fear. Then Nargan sagged and slumped to the ground in an untidy sprawl as Barringville turned on the main lights, flooding the laboratory with brilliance that was welcome.

  Not until then did Bentick fully realise what had happened. He saw Carol swaying as she crossed the floor towards them. He saw the Professor. He saw Nargan, dead at his feet. They were all like unreal beings. Only Barringville was calm and solid. And Barringville suddenly yelled a warning.

  “Look out!” he rapped. “Bentick! Look out or there’ll be another murder!”

  CHAPTER 16

  FUTURE TURNED TO PRESENT

  Bentick tore his eyes from Nargan’s body. His gaze met that of Professor Dale, and Dale had a smoking gun in his right hand. There was madness in the scientist’s face and the threat of coming death in the way he crouched at the side of his Telecopter.

  Barringville started towards him impulsively. It was then that Bentick acted. He grabbed at Barringville’s arm and whirled him aside impatiently. The gun in Dale’s hand spat flame once more but the bullet sung between Bentick and the statesman. Bentick fired in turn and knocked the gun from the Professor’s grasp. With the coming of light in the laboratory the urge to kill was dying within him. He could see clearly now, and Dale had done a dreadful thing in shooting Nargan. But Bentick himself had been under the spell of the machine and could have murdered Dale with just as much detachment as Dale had murdered the foreigner. Even in the heat of the moment Bentick found himself wondering what reaction Barringville had experienced,

  Barringville said: “Thank heaven for that! Watch him, Bentick, while I see if Nargan’s alive.”

  But Dale was not finished yet. As Barringville moved behind Bentick, the Professor, letting go of his injured hand, grabbed up a slim bladed screw-driver and rushed forward in a mad, impetuous attack that was blind to danger.

  Bentick waited till the last possible moment. Dale reached him and grasped his throat, at the same time making a dangerous stab with his improvised weapon. Bentick hit him in the stomach. He heard Carol scream from not far away. Then the Professor, now completely insane, tried to kill him again.

  How it happened Bentick was never entirely sure, but Barringville rushed forward, gripping Dale by the shoulders. Then Bentick’s gun went off as Dale struck his hand a paralysing blow. In a moment it was all over.

  Bentick staggered clear, standing there on the floor of the underground laboratory with a still smoking gun in his hand. Dale lay dead. Barringville, his face clouded with the deepest worry, stared at Bentick.

  “He killed Nargan,” he announced in an unemotional voice. “What will happen now I can’t bear to think.”

  “And I killed Dale,” said Bentick grimly. “I don’t know how, but it’s done.”

  Barringville shook his head. “I should never have listened to Dale,” he said. “This thing must have been on his mind for a long time. I see now that he hated Nargan and meant to destroy him no matter what the consequences.”

  Bentick was hardly listening to what the statesman was saying. His eyes had sought out and met those of Carol.

  She stood to one side, one hand to her mouth as if to stifle a cry that would not come. She was shaking in every limb.

  Bentick went towards her. He felt tenderness welling up within him. She swayed and almost fell, her eyes dilated as they stared at the body of Dale. Nargran did not matter to her. But with the Professor it was a different thing. Despite her inherent fear of him, her knowled.ee that he had always been a little unbalanced, she was still under the spell of her loyalty towards him. Now the scientist was dead and she had seen him die with her own eyes.

  But suddenly Bentick was beside her, his arm round her shoulder protectively, driving away all the terror from her being and leaving only weakness.

  Without a word she turned to him, burying her face against his coat and quivering as he held her closely.

  He glanced up and met Barringville’s eyes across the body of Dale.

  “You’d better take her upstairs out of this,” said Barringville. “Send a couple of men down, will you? I’ll wait here till they come. I’ve got to have time to think, Bentick. This is a frightful business, but there may be some way over the crisis.”

  Bentick only nodded slightly. Then he lifted Carol in his arms and carried her to the foot of the steps leading up to the gallery.

  As he went he remembered all that had happened, and how the Telecopter had foretold the grim events of the past few minutes. Or if not the actual events the air and atmosphere of violence. He recalled how he was even now carrying Carol in his arms. How he had stood with a smoking gun in his hand. Why had he not known more? Had he done so he might have been in a position to prevent Nargan’s death as well as Dale’s. But he realised that if he had seen them portrayed on the Telecopter screen they would have happened with the same inevitability as all the smaller, less important details had happened.

  Bentick took Carol straight to her room and set her on the bed. She was silent and dry-eyed now, but shaken by some inner emotion that could find no escape for the moment. That, thought Bentick with relief, would come later on.

  Neither of them spoke a word. Bentick stayed by the bed looking down at her, his face revealing the mingled feelings that wracked him. Then he turned away and went from where she lay, one arm across her forehead, The very faintest of smiles suddenly crinkled the corners of her mouth, Bentick opened the door and went outside, closing it softly behind him.

  His mind was full and seething with a dozen different thoughts. There was the death of Nargan to cope with; the disastrous effects it might have; and the death of Professor Dale as well. That was another awkward thing to handle. What would happen to the Telecopter now that its inventor was dead? Would Barringville have any notions on that score? Bentick could not imagine that the Telecopter would prove of much material use to the country. Directly due to its evil influence it had already caused the death of two men. It might go on doing that sort of thing until someone smashed it up and destroyed Dale’s plans for its building. He had half a mind to do the smashing himself.

  In the hall downstairs he located the police officer who had been standing guard during Barringville’s and Nargan’s conference.

  Not having heard the shots, he looked at Bentick’s grim face in astonishment A few brief words sent the man running outside the house to fetch one of his companions. Together they accompanied Bentick through the kitchen and headed for the laboratory.

  Barringville was still standing moodily looking down at the two dead men. At the sounds of their approach he raised his head sharply as if shaking himself to wakefulness.

  “Glad you got back, Bentick,” he said calmly. “This is bad. In fact, I fail to see how it could be worse, but I’m hoping that everything will turn out in a less tragic fashion than I feared at first.” His words sounded almost stilted to Bentick, who glanced at him keenly. But the statesman was giving nothing away.

  He spoke to the police officers, handing over the disposal of the bodies to them. Then he and Bentick started up the steps side by side. Both men were silent till they reached the kitchen and walked to the library. Then Barringville gestured to a chair and Bentick sat down with a feeling of acute un
easiness.

  Barringville stood with his back towards him, staring through the windows at the rolling moorland outside and the long, twisting, overgrown driveway that led to the house.

  His first words gave Bentick something of a shock. “If I’d had a weapon I’d have killed someone down there myself,” said Barringville in a flat tone of voice. “It was as much as I could do to keep any control on myself at all. Only that girl screaming suddenly broke the spell. I can understand how Dale came to murder Nargan. It’s the influence of the Telecopter, of course. I wish now I’d taken more notice of your warning, Bentick. What will happen I hate to think, but you need attach no blame to yourself. All the responsibility rests on me.” He turned and met Bentick’s steady gaze.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Bentick, “but after all it was my job to guard the man. I’ve fallen down on it. There are no two ways about it.” He pulled a rueful face. “My chief won’t be as generous as you are; but that’s not the point.”

  Barringville eyed him steadily. Then he nodded his head in a slow, judicial fashion.

  “I’ll have a word with Cain myself,” he said quietly. “In the meantime you’d better make your report in the usual manner. Use the dining room; I shall need this room and the telephone for a while myself.” He hesitated. Then: “How is the girl?” he asked, watching Bentick closely.

  “She was all right when I left her,” answered Bentick.

  “Make sure she’s still all right,” said Barringville. “Convey my sympathy to her, will you? It must be a shock for her to realise that her guardian is dead, though I feel that living here with Dale must have been a strain on a girl so young.”

  Bentick contented himself with a murmured word of thanks, then he left the room and paused in the hall. The house was very quiet. It might have been a tomb. He made for the stairs, but before he reached them a telephone bell started shrilling stridently. Bentick hesitated. The bell stopped ringing as Barringville lifted the receiver in the library. Bentick went on upstairs without interrupting.