by Pavel Kornev
I returned the aluminum cylinder to the inventor and reminded him:
"First of all, you have to fill it."
"Why not?" the inventor shrugged his shoulders and took the top off a tank in the corner. After scooping some water out with a little shovel, he filled a cavernous porcelain mortar, poured a bit of boiling water in and started setting out his tools: pincers, a scalpel, and some kind of strange clips.
It put me beside myself.
"This all seems very dangerous."
"Not at all," Alexander Dyak reassured me. "You just need to observe certain safety procedures. For example, cutting white phosphorus must only be done underwater. And in no case should it be touched with the bare skin. It can burn."
The store owner pulled on a rubberized glove and deftly pinched up a bar from the water tank with his pincers. It was yellowish white and strongly reminiscent of everyday wax. The phosphorus was dropped into the porcelain mortar. The inventor measured out the necessary amount with an iron measuring stick and cut away the extra with his scalpel.
"Unscrew the body," he commanded after laying the shortened bar on a piece of soft scruffy fabric.
I hurried to carry out his order and unscrewed the cover. Inside the case, I discovered a rubber puck with an ignition aperture.
"The hermetic seal is very important," the store owner told me, wiping little droplets off the bar. "And it's also very important not to allow the white phosphorus to crumble. Even the tiniest piece could start a fire."
With the same scalpel, he placed the white phosphorus into the thick-walled body and set the dense rubber puck on top. He then stuck the elongated detonator into the top and screwed it in tight. After a slight shake, he was left satisfied with his work.
"Take a look, Leopold Borisovich," he said as he extended me the incendiary grenade.
I gave it a shake with a certain apprehension, but the rubber disk was holding everything firm.
"Try it out!" allowed the inventor.
"Thank you," I smiled, stashing the grenade in my jacket pocket. But I immediately got it out and placed it in my coat. Then, I asked: "When will the others be ready?"
"I can make up another five right now," the store owner told me. "The rest depends on your ability to pay."
"Wait up, Alexander," I said, not understanding. "You mentioned the number two dozen!"
"Sure, I’ve got the white phosphorus for two dozen, but the bodies and detonators cost a pretty kopeck. Uhh... I meant to say they are quite expensive. I can make more if you're prepared to pay."
I winced. After the ruinous settling of accounts I'd just had with Ramon, I didn't want any new expenses now. On the other hand – I'd already paid for the white phosphorus, and it would be at the very least wasteful to throw the investment to the wind. At my next meeting with Lazarus, a lack of ammunition could be a truly fatal mistake.
But that reminded me! My ammunition!
"Alexander, could you fill any round with white phosphorus?" I asked the inventor.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Within the bounds of reason," he said, drawing out his words tentatively. The light bulbs on the ceiling suddenly started flickering. The shop owner shuddered and gave a sniff. "It can't be another short, right?"
I also tried to smell, but didn't detect any notes of burnt rubber.
"A power fluctuation," I supposed, donning my derby cap. "I'll leave you for five minutes. I'll be right back."
"Alright, alright," the inventor nodded. "You go, Leopold Borisovich, and I'll take care of the electricity. I'll check the wire. Don't take off the sign saying we're doing an experiment, though!"
"Sure thing."
I went outside, slamming the door behind me and hurried to the armored car. All the running around today had left me fairly fatigued, but driving the police carriage up to the back door of the shop seemed an overly brave tack. In the inventor's place, I personally wouldn't have considered such a suggestion, and would have thrown whoever asked me out by the neck.
The trunk unlocked, I pulled out the already open box of hand-held mortar rounds, counted them and decided that twenty-two would be more than enough. I didn't need to start a war, after all.
The box wrapped in my canvas coat, I hurried back to the shop, muttering curses to myself the whole way back, damning the rain falling from the sky, the weight of the rounds and my poor mangled leg. But mainly, of course, the rain.
On the way back, I got soaked through; I even had to take off my jacket.
"Here Alexander, look," I said, setting the box of rounds on the workbench. "Just be careful, they're already armed, and the detonator is very sensitive."
"What is this for?" the shop owner asked in amazement.
I gave a condensed description of how the hand-held mortar worked; the inventor got one of the rounds, spun it in his hands and snorted in confusion.
"How interesting!" he muttered as he tightened it in the clamps. "This must be the propellant charge, and here’s the main explosive, which gets primed by the launch. I can't imagine it will be a problem to replace the main combustibles with white phosphorus. Just remember: the rounds have to be stored at a temperature below thirty-five degrees. I cannot possibly guarantee the requisite level of hermetic seal otherwise."
"I'll figure something out," I decided and looked at my time-piece.
I still had two hours left before the meeting with my uncle, but I didn't plan on spending them in the shop. Alexander Dyak confidently dismantled the round. Next to it, there were another twenty of the explosive goodies, and I didn't even want to think about what would happen to us if the inventor made a mistake.
"I'll probably be going then," I muttered.
"Of course, of course," the inventor called back, deeply immersed in his work. "Close the door on your way out."
"Naturally," I promised and took the cane I'd left against the wall. But before I reached the hanger, the lights went out with a loud thud.
"Oh no!" Alexander Dyak gasped out with unhidden fear.
By then, he was already messing with the insides of the disassembled round. The hair on the back of my head started standing on end in horror. One false move and we'd be blown sky high!
"Hold up! Don't move!" I said in alarm and started looking for the kerosene lighter in one of my pockets. "I'll give you some light!"
"That's not the problem," the shop owner muttered. Even in the uneven flickering of the flame, it was becoming clear just how quickly his face was filing with lifeless pallor. "The generator..."
"What generator?" I asked and almost fell when the floor beneath my feet started shaking.
Lots of little knick-knacks fell off the shelves. Tools flew about the room, and another bump immediately followed. And another, and another! With every thud, the bashing became stronger, as if some force was in a hurry to burst out of the shop basement straight through the floorboards.
What the devil? An earthquake?!
"Get out of here!" Alexander Dyak ordered, turning on his electric torch. "Get out of here at once, if life is precious to you!"
Huge drops of sweat were rolling down his dead pale face, and it became clear to me that it was some new invention of his going haywire and threatening to destroy the whole building.
After putting out my lighter, I leaned on the wall and demanded an explanation:
"What is happening? What the hell is this? Tell me now!"
The inventor pointed his torch beam at the back-room door and exhaled:
"This is what I get for my pride."
"What's down there?" I grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him toward me. "The steam boiler? A generator of the most modern construction? A dynamo?"
"Get out of here! Get out of here while you still can!"
"What's down there?!"
"A poltergeist," replied Alexander Dyak, blindsiding me with the unexpected answer. "It’s trying to get free. When it’s done, there won't be two stones left of this building to stack together."
"Leopold Borisovich!" the shop owner hurried me along. "Go on then, out!"
But I just moved him aside. Now, with the risk of the unrecognized genius's invention exploding suddenly past, I calmed down and demanded:
"Just give me some light!"
"What are you planning to do?" Alexander was taken aback.
"I've faced off against a poltergeist before," I said, remembering Inspector White's words of encouragement, he being a man with the custom of latching on to the most doubtful affairs. "Just give me light and stay out of the way."
"But, what are you pla...?"
I pushed the inventor aside and broke the cane he'd once made me in two. And though I no longer had the police electric baton, this shock device had made a very strong case for itself.
"How were you holding the spirit in place?" I asked, opening the door of the back room.
A hatch interred in the floor was bouncing up and down furiously, shaken by the terrible blows of the infernal creature trying to escape from below.
"I surrounded it with a chain of electric shock devices," Alexander Dyak told me. "You have to get it back and hold it there until I can get the generator started."
"Wonderful!" I snorted, not at all burning with the desire to go rooting around this basement with a spirit enraged by prolonged confinement.
Devil, I didn't like empty basements as it was, but this one had a poltergeist!
The next blow nearly blasted the hatch off. The latch was bending up in a sharper and sharper angle. The iron loops it was attached to were almost half way out of the concrete. One of them even totally broke out with a whole piece of crumbling flooring.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" the inventor asked in surprise when I took off my dark glasses and froze near the hatch with the cane held out in front of me.
"I want to let it blow off a little steam," I called back and then the hatch flew off and slammed full force into the wall.
After that, I got straight to work. I took a step forward and jabbed my cane into the black hole of the hatch. I was immediately pulled down as if some unseen creature had latched into the stick and was attempting to rip it away, but an electric shock sparked up between the steel needles, and the poltergeist was sent abruptly backward. Following it, I ran down the rickety wooden stairs into the basement and shouted to Alexander:
"Light!"
The evil spirit was hiding among the huge mechanisms. For normal people, it was practically invisible, but my colorless illustrious eyes could discern a lot that wasn't there to the vision of mere mortals. The electric light helped too. Probably more than anything else.
From up above, Alexander Dyak pointed the torch into the small room with beaten-up leaden sheets for walls, and the evil spirit's former prison immediately caught my eye. It took the form of a jutting stockade of electrodes arranged around a copper ball hanging down on a chain from the ceiling. There was a bundle of wires that led down from it to the generator. And the generator, for the record, was still puffing away, it's pistons in motion. The damaged component was the dynamo.
I only got distracted for a moment, but the poltergeist chose that very moment to dash for the exit. From behind the iron body of the incomprehensible device, a cloudy stripe dashed to the stairs, and I sharply waved the cane, blocking its path. A blinding shock flashed. The spirit dodged sharply to the side, and nearly managed to knock me down with a gear sent flying at my head. The improvised thrown weapon hit the wall and left a deep mark in the lead lining.
The spirit gave a malicious, reverberating howl. My teeth started aching, and the device screwed to the floor shook with the impotent rage of the ghostly being. The walls rocked, the generator started jumping around, and the store owner spoke up:
"Quick, before he turns the whole place upside-down."
The inventor ran off the stairs and started trying to find the gear the spirit had thrown on the floor. I, meanwhile, tried to chase the poltergeist into the corner. He easily dodged the sparking needles of the cane and went the other way.
"Faster!" Dyak cried again as he started messing with the generator, placing some element back in place.
The poltergeist flew at his back, but I was on guard and caught the ghost with a counterstrike. The cane nearly flew out of my hands, but the unquiet spirit was flung into the corner with its deactivated prison.
The ghostly shadow grew thicker and darker and, just then, the wheels of the dynamo started spinning, and the electrodes in the floor rained forth sparks. The spirit shot up to the ceiling, but unfortunately for it, the copper ball hanging from that chain was already enshrouded with a whole cloud of manmade lightning. Then, the poltergeist collapsed onto the floor and began to dart rapidly from one electrode of its prison to the next.
"I still think you should draw a pentagram in blood on the floor, just to be safe," I joked, wiping the sweat from my face. "Next time, I might not be available."
Alexander Dyak turned on the light on the ceiling and just shook his head:
"I do not understand how such a thing could have happened! The spirit couldn't have pulled the gear out! That's impossible!"
"Mechanisms do tend to work themselves free," I said with a shrug of my shoulders. Just then, a hand-rolled cigarette caught my eye, and I ground it into the floor with my boot. I chose not to share my guess on the true cause of this incident.
"A surprising coincidence!" the inventor gasped, sitting on a stool and pressing his hand to his heart. "The electricity was shut off because of the thunder, and the generator broke at the same time. Simply astonishing!"
I laid out the cane and asked:
"Where'd you get the poltergeist?"
"Leopold Borisovich!"
"Don't worry, I'm gonna run to the police."
Alexander Dyak sighed and answered unwillingly:
"Your friend Albert has introduced me to some reliable people. And no, I didn't bring them here. I'm not that naive. We met in the city."
I took a seat on a strange iron box and continued my interrogation:
"Why do you need it? And why are the walls covered in lead sheets? Why all the precautions?"
"Would you be opposed to us going back upstairs?" the inventor suggested.
I didn't object. When I returned to the workshop, Alexander immediately pulled a bottle of Russian vodka from a secret drawer and poured himself fifty grams.
"Not to get drunk, just to calm the nerves," he joked nervously, then gulped it down.
I threw a mint ice drop in my mouth and repeated my question again:
"Why do you need a poltergeist?"
The inventor sighed heavily, put the bottle back in the cabinet and warned me:
"It's a long story."
I looked at my timepiece and sat down on the chair.
"I've got time."
Alexander Dyak walked from corner to corner, then asked:
"Do you know how a telegraph works?"
"In essence – yes."
"Well, I'm working on a device that can send signals without wires."
"Is such a thing possible?" I asked, not impressed at the inventor's discovery.
"Is it ever!" he said, throwing up his hands. "I’ve even made a few prototypes. Just imagine the possibilities such an invention could reveal! We could communicate with dirigibles from land, or even ships! We simply wouldn't need wires any longer!"
I threw one leg over the other and wondered with unhidden skepticism:
"Why has no one heard of this miracle invention then? Why have you not shared it with society?"
"I have!" Alexander flared up. "Fifteen years ago, I published a work in Russia under the nam
e 'Device for detecting and registering electronic disturbances!' And do you know what happened? Department Three issued a warrant for my arrest! I had to flee! I left my work and my house! Can you imagine it?"
It took a bit of effort to believe it.
"You are sure that your supposed arrest was connected with these findings precisely, and not a sympathy for socialists, for example?" I wondered.
"Leopold Borisovich!" the shop owner said with unhidden reproach. "They wrote whatever they wanted in the arrest warrant, but I know perfectly well what the true reason was!"
"Is that so? Another conspiracy theory, like with Mr. Diesel?"
"It all started with Hertz," Alexander Dyak sighed, ignoring the sarcasm coming through in my words. "He proved Maxwell's theory on a vortex magnetic field or, if you will, on electromagnetic waves. After that was Branly with the radio-conductor, Lodge, Rutherford and Marconi. Do these names mean anything to you?"
"Marconi?" I frowned. "I seem to remember a big trial fifteen years ago in Italy. One of the first accusations that someone was working as an Egyptian spy?"
"Complete nonsense!" the inventor snorted. "It's just that, after sixty-two, the topic was made top secret. Lots of the facts surrounding Hertz’s death were suspicious, and then the accidents and arrests became business as usual. It was as if someone had opened Pandora's box. The only people untouched by the scandals were Tesla and Edison. By a strange series of coincidences, they managed to remain entirely distanced from the topic. Coincidence? Not likely."
I couldn't resist a vexed grimace and looked down at my timepiece.
His words did nothing to convince me. As I'd already managed to notice, Alexander had an unhealthy tendency to see the threads of conspiracy in everything. And also, imprisoning an evil spirit in the basement of your own home was an idea that would never occur to a normal person.
I was far from convinced that Dyak had lost his mind, but the boundary between eccentricity and madness, beyond all doubt, had been crossed. And I really didn't want to be near if tight-lipped Department Three officers came by or, even worse, if the store was launched sky-high.
Alexander noted my skepticism and was insulted to the depths of his soul.