[Jan Darzek 01] - All the Colors of Darkness

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  Carl Miller, a small, dark, intense-looking man, asked matter-of-factly, “What’s being done about the freight business?”

  Watkins concealed his amusement. Miller was a late-comer to the Board, by virtue of a large block of stock he had purchased during the Universal Transmitting Company’s darkest days, as well as his control of an impressive number of proxies. He’d had faith in the company, and he’d made himself useful, but he was something of a fanatic on the subject of freight. Watkins preferred to develop the passenger service first. The company would show a greater profit on passenger operations, and there were fewer related problems. Passengers accepted the responsibility for transporting themselves to and from the terminals, and they didn’t have to be stored until called for.

  “Right now we haven’t fully solved the problem of passenger luggage,” Watkins said. “But we aren’t forgetting the freight potential. Arnold has a special transmitter on the drawing boards, designed to handle freight. My feeling is that the freight operation should be kept entirely separate from our passenger operations. I’m certain that in the long run we can set up freight terminals more easily than we can expand and adapt our passenger terminals to handle freight. We also have inquiries from the postal authorities and from several large corporations about the possibility of leasing transmitters from us. The whole matter should be thoroughly explored. Would you like to head a committee to look into it, Miller?”

  Miller nodded. “I agree that it wouldn’t be wise to jump into it without extensive planning. On the other hand—”

  The door opened. Watkins turned with a smile, and waved. “Come in, Ted. We were just—what’s the matter?”

  Grossman took one look at Arnold’s face, and threw up his hands despairingly. “Here it is. I thought things were going too well.”

  Arnold wearily pulled up a chair and sat down to tell them about the missing passenger.

  “How is that possible?” Watkins asked.

  “It isn’t possible,” Arnold said.

  “But it happened.”

  “It seems to have happened.”

  “Where could a passenger go?” Miller demanded. “Into the ninth dimension, or something?”

  “Put it another way,” said Vaughan, a vice president. “How many dimensions are there between transmitter stations? If you engineers really understood how the thing works—”

  Arnold interrupted angrily. “We know how the transmitter works. Let’s get that straight right now. We don’t know why it works, but we have the how completely under control. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be moving passengers today. There is no ‘between’ when you transmit. You are either at your point of departure or at your destination. If something happens before you leave, you don’t go. If something happens after you arrive, you’re already there. Look.” He snatched a blank piece of paper from Grossman, and drew large squares in two diagonal corners. “These are your two transmitter stations.” He brought the corners together, so that the squares were adjacent. “This is what the transmitter does. As long as it is operating properly, the two stations are locked together. If it doesn’t operate properly—” he smoothed out the paper “—the passenger doesn’t go anywhere.”

  “But one has gone—somewhere,” Watkins said.

  “One seems to have gone somewhere. We have not lost a passenger. We have apparently lost a passenger.”

  “The passenger would no doubt find that distinction very consoling,” Vaughan said dryly.

  “Good Lord!” Grossman exclaimed. “Another lawsuit!”

  Watkins turned to a man at the far end of the table. “Harlow, what are the legal implications of this?”

  “There aren’t any,” Harlow said promptly. “The legal aspects are already taken care of. The company’s liability is clearly stated upon each ticket, and is covered by the free insurance given to the passenger. The liability is the insurance company’s headache. You don’t need a lawyer for this. You need a scientist—or the police.”

  “If we’d started out with freight,” Miller said, “we wouldn’t have had problems like this.”

  “What police?” Grossman wanted to know. “New York or Honolulu? Or any of three thousand places in between?”

  “The FBI?” Harlow suggested.

  Watkins shook his head. “No. No police. Not if we can help it. We can’t afford bad publicity just when we’re getting started.”

  “The publicity will be a lot worse if we don’t handle this properly,” Miller said.

  Grossman banged on the table. “Look here. What if the insurance company should decide to cancel our policy? We convinced them there wouldn’t be any claims, and here we are only in the second day, and—bang! If we had to stop giving free insurance because we couldn’t get anyone to underwrite it, that would kill us.”

  “We should have started with freight,” Miller said.

  “How about a private detective?” Arnold asked. “I know a good one.”

  Watkins looked around the table. “What do you think? If there’s no scientific explanation for this, a detective certainly wouldn’t do any harm.”

  Four heads nodded. Miller said, “I still think we should call in the police.”

  “Not yet,” Watkins said. “Get your detective, Ted.”

  Arnold telephoned Darzek’s office, alerted the Paris Terminal of Universal Trans, and was waiting for Darzek when he stepped through to New York. “Come along,” he said. “I have a job for you.”

  “Leggo!” Darzek protested. “I don’t want a job. I’ve had a long evening with a very untractable young lady, I’m tired, and I’m late for an appointment.”

  “Evening?”

  “In Paris it’s evening. Night, now.”

  “Oh,” Arnold said. “You can use the phone in my office to cancel your appointment, and then I’ll take you upstairs.”

  Black would have been an appropriate color for the room, Darzek thought. The faces were glum except for Arnold’s, which was angry. Watkins seemed calmly rational, but his pallor was deathlike.

  Arnold spoke, and then Watkins. Darzek listened and watched the faces around the table. Grossman, the plump treasurer, was working at being heroic in the face of adversity. Miller, after one outburst on the virtues of the freight business, sulked in silence. Harlow, the company’s legal advisor, had lost interest and was looking at Monday’s market reports. The two vice presidents, Vaughan and Cohen, were not listening so much as waiting for an opening to deliver their own gloomy pronouncements.

  Arnold was speaking again. “Everything was clear on both ends. She walked through the transmitter here in New York. Plunk, her handbag came sailing through in Honolulu. We haven’t found a trace of her since.”

  “Anything in the handbag?” Darzek asked.

  “A billfold with identification and fourteen bucks, plus the usual feminine clutter.”

  “I’d like to see it.”

  “I’ll get it,” Arnold said.

  The handbag was produced, and placed on the table. Darzek took one glance at it and started to laugh. The others stared at him, shock and indignation blended in their expressions—exactly, Darzek thought, as if he’d just told an obscene joke in church.

  “Now I’ll tell you what happened,” Darzek said. “You’ve been had. First this woman stirred up enough fuss to get herself noticed by a lot of people. She did that so you couldn’t claim afterwards that she’d never been here. Then she walked up to the transmitter, chucked her handbag through, and went back to the gate for another round of arguments. After that she ran out on you. Ducked over into another line, maybe, and left you with a monstrous mystery on your hands.”

  The room was silent. Harlow had laid aside his newspaper, and Miller leaned forward and gazed at Darzek, open-mouthed.

  “It may be that we were making the mystery overly complicated,” Watkins said finally, “but you’re making it too simple. You’re assuming—”

  “I’m assuming nothing. I was there. I stood behind that woman when I bough
t my ticket, and I had a good opportunity for a close-up of this handbag. It’s unusual, and it interested me. I was waiting in line at Gate Nine while she was waiting at Gate Ten, and I was watching when her turn came. I saw her start down the passageway towards the transmitter. She had this handbag, not over her shoulder, but in her hand. I saw her come back without it. Obviously she shifted it around in front of her, so your gate attendant couldn’t see what she was doing, and tossed it through. I wanted to wait and see what the hell was going on, but my turn came, so I dropped it. I don’t know how she managed the disappearing act, but I’m certain it was managed.”

  Murmurs of approval came from around the table. “How do you like that?”

  “Lucky thing for us—”

  “Bright fellow, to spot that.”

  Watkins rapped for order. “You’re an extremely observant young man, Mr. Darzek.”

  “I earn my living by being observant.”

  “That’s all right as far as it goes,” Arnold said. “Smith says—Smith was the attendant on Gate Ten—Smith says, and I quote.” He took a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and read. “‘I had my eyes on her every minute. She wasn’t an easy dame to take your eyes off. She started up there as if she was going on through, and then she turned around and came back, and said, “Are you sure everything is all right? I mean, it’s a long way to Honolulu, and I’d hate to fall in the ocean. Salt water isn’t good for my hair.” And lots of crap like that. I said, “Lady, if you don’t want to make the trip, just step aside. There’s people waiting.” Finally I called Mr. Douglas, and he asked her if she wanted her money back, and all of a sudden she turned and walked on through as if nothing had happened, but Honolulu didn’t give me an acceptance light. I waited, and then I called Mr. Douglas again.’ So we’re all right up to where Darzek left for Paris. She walked up to the transmitter and got rid of the handbag. Why, incidentally?”

  “To magnify the mystery,” Darzek said.

  “Of course. If she’d disappeared without a trace, we might not have known we had a mystery. A handbag without a woman attached screams of foul play. She got rid of the handbag, and then she turned around and came back. Darzek left at that moment, but it wouldn’t have helped us if he’d stayed to watch. Only the gate attendant could see the transmitter, and Smith swears he saw her step through. And she couldn’t have gone anywhere but into the transmitter. She couldn’t leave the passageway without coming back through the gate.”

  “What about Honolulu?” Darzek asked. “Could she have got through there without being seen?”

  Arnold shook his head. “I’ve checked. Believe me, I’ve checked. I’ve been onto everyone who was anywhere near that Honolulu receiver. The only way she could have got through there without being seen was to turn invisible. For the time being I’m ruling out that possibility.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Darzek asked Watkins.

  “Find her.”

  Darzek shook his head emphatically. “Now you are oversimplifying things. By this time she could be anywhere. I run a small agency, and the world is a rather large place.”

  “Hire as many men as you need.”

  “She probably was disguised,” Darzek said. “I suspect that her long blond hair was a wig, and also that she wasn’t accustomed to high heels. I’m certain I’d recognize her if I saw her again, disguised or not, but I’ve had practice. I’d have a tough time describing her so someone else could recognize her with her disguise off, or with another disguise on. What if she were to change to a red wig, unpad her figure, put on low heels, turn the mole on her cheek into a fancy birthmark, and do another disappearing act—say from your Los Angeles Terminal? Then you’d have two missing passengers, and there’s nothing to prevent her from keeping that up indefinitely. I’d suggest that you forget about the blonde, and concentrate on figuring out how she did it.”

  “Good Lord!” Grossman moaned. “This is worse than I thought.”

  “There may be another way to look at this,” Darzek said. “If you’d be interested—”

  “Certainly,” Watkins said. “What is it?”

  “It seems to me that this problem has two angles. One is the mechanics of the disappearance—how the woman worked it, and where she went. If she actually stepped into that transmitter and didn’t come out where she was supposed to, that’s Arnold’s problem. I wouldn’t know where to start on it.”

  “I wouldn’t either,” Arnold said. “But I agree. It’s my problem.”

  “The other angle is that someone is obviously trying to embarrass Universal Trans. I’ll give you odds that the woman didn’t think this trick up all by herself. The question of who is doing it, and why, is a proper one for my type of investigation, and if you want me to take it on I will.”

  “It seems a logical approach to the problem,” Watkins said. “I think we should accept.”

  There were frowns around the table, but no objections.

  “All right, Mr. Darzek,” Watkins said. “We’ll give you every assistance within our power, and naturally we all wish you a speedy success.”

  “Do you have some kind of procedure in mind?” Miller asked.

  “I have a number of moves in mind.”

  “What kind of moves?”

  “If you don’t mind,” Darzek said, “I think the fewer people who know about them the better.”

  Miller flushed. “This is ridiculous!”

  “Good Lord!” Grossman said. “If the company officers can’t be trusted—”

  The door opened. Perrin, of the engineering staff, stumbled into the room, breathing heavily. He did not speak. He did not have to speak.

  “Another one?” Arnold asked.

  Perrin nodded. “Some old dame left on a Chicago hookup. All that got to Chicago was her umbrella.”

  “Umbrella?” Darzek said quickly.

  CHAPTER 6

  Several of the directors were quickly enmeshed in a violent argument, and Darzek sat back calmly and began to study and classify them. Too many times in the past he’d had greater difficulties with the client than with the client’s problem, and the longer he listened the less he liked the idea of working for Universal Trans.

  Watkins was the philosopher, the man of vision, who was at the same time intensely competent and practical. Watkins was unique. The rotund treasurer, Grossman, swung from bland optimism to dire pessimism, and instantly translated either into monetary terms.

  Harlow, the attorney, had already dispensed with the legalities of the situation to his own complete satisfaction, and was unable to understand what all the fuss was about. Miller harped on his freight theme with such single-minded intensity that Darzek suspected unplumbed depths to his character—or no depths at all. Cohen and Vaughan, the two vice presidents, each sought bitterly and transparently to expose the other as a dunce, and both were successful.

  Darzek pried the argument apart sufficiently to insert a question. “How many directors are there?”

  “Twelve,” Watkins told him.

  Darzek got to his feet. “I thank you for your consideration, gentlemen, but I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want the job.”

  He pushed his chair back, and started for the door.

  Arnold, who had lost himself in a perspiring, stricken meditation, snapped to attention. “What’s the matter, Jan?”

  Darzek turned. “Gentlemen, I am a Universal Trans stockholder. After listening to you for fifteen minutes, I can understand only too well why the company has had problems. It is said that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. This Board would talk while the building was being pulled out from under it. All you have to do is sit here and argue until some police authority gets wind of what has happened, and you’ll have no further responsibility for either the investigation or the company.”

  Watkins rapped the table sharply, and silenced the ensuing uproar. “Mr. Darzek is right. This talk is getting us nowhere. I’ll deal with the matter myself, and see that you are kept informed.”


  “Just a moment,” Cohen said. “We didn’t even find out what the guy’s fee would be.”

  “The meeting is adjourned,” Watkins said icily. “I’m sure I don’t have to remind you to make no statements on this matter, public or private.” He hurried after Darzek, and drew him aside. “Just what is the difficulty?”

  “I don’t work well with a crowd looking over my shoulder,” Darzek said.

  “There won’t be. You’ll co-operate with Ted to whatever extent seems feasible, and answer only to me. Is that satisfactory?”

  “Perfectly satisfactory—provided that I don’t have to attend any more board meetings.”

  Arnold caught his eye, motioned to him and Perrin, and ambled out. He led them on a reckless dash along a corridor and down two flights of stairs, and pulled up at the door of his own office panting and fumbling with a bunch of keys.

  “If I could spare a few transmitters,” he said, “I’d put one in here and spot the others around the building. For my personal use. I’ve supervised the development of a revolutionary means of transportation, and I still spend half of my time going up and down stairs or waiting for elevators.”

  “It’s good for the waistline,” Darzek said, following him into the room. “The stairs, I mean, not the elevators. For heaven’s sake—no swimming pool?”

  The office was enormous, and virtually empty. A desk stood in one corner, flanked by empty bookcases. There was a swivel chair at the desk, and a battered sofa misaligned in the center of the room, as though the movers had dropped it and fled. Sundry electronic equipment was piled along the walls.

  “Swimming pool?” Arnold said. “Oh, you mean the room. The corporate status system is to blame. My office has to be larger than any of the other engineering offices, but it can’t be quite as large as the office of a vice president. I don’t do much here except try to think.”

  “Watkins must have an entire floor to himself.”

  “Just a little cubbyhole. He’s beyond status. Well, Perrin, the question of the moment is how to keep it from happening again.”