The Doomsday Men

by J. B. Priestley

  The inspector, who had a very long and reddish nose, looked pleased. “Caught him right on the job, sir,” he observed, mysteriously.

  “What’s the idea?” asked Hooker pleasantly.

  This appeared to amuse the policeman. The one at the back suddenly guffawed. The inspector’s nose came down to split a wide grin.

  “They’re all the same,” he said, still grinning, to the grim Henry. “Catch ’em right on the job, with the stuff in their ’ands, and they ask you what the idear is. English, American—all alike—it seems. Can you beat it? Now,” he said, turning sternly on the bewildered young man, “I’ll tell you what the idear is, my lad. You’re caught, fairly caught, not only ’ouse-breaking, but with stolen goods in your possession—if I might call your attention to them things on the table.”

  “Here, wait a minute,” Hooker shouted, suddenly finding himself in a lunatic world, “I was invited here, and that bag was given to me to bring down here.”

  “Oh? And who gave it to you?”

  “He did.” And Hooker pointed to Engelfield’s brother, coolly standing there.

  “I did?” The unspeakable Henry coolly laughed.

  “We don’t want any lip,” said the inspector sternly to the amazed young man. “Must think we’re fools. Invited here!”

  “And so I was. By his brother.”

  “And that’s why you climbed into an empty house by the kitchen window, eh? Come off it, lad. You’re doing yourself no good, trying to brazen it out this fashion.”

  “But I tell you,” Hooker shouted, “I was with them yesterday, at the Savoy Hotel——”

  “You were at the Savoy Hotel all right,” said the inspector, with satisfaction. “We know all about that. And a nice bagful you got too.”

  “And they asked me to come here to-night——”

  “Just a minute, inspector,” said Henry, as the policeman was about to interrupt. “We can soon settle this. I don’t know you—but you say you know me, eh?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Well, what’s my name then?”

  “Henry——”

  “Yes—but what?”

  “Well——” said Hooker desperately, “Engelfield, I guess.”

  “You see,” the other said calmly to the inspector. “Claims he knows me and doesn’t even know my name.”

  “Oh—you needn’t tell me, sir,” replied the inspector. “It’s as clear a case as ever I saw.”

  This was the moment when Hooker came to life again. So far he had been like a man struggling to overcome some nightmare growth in the world about him. If he looked at these crazy events hard enough, he had felt that they would turn ordinary and sensible again. As if he had invented this new Henry and the policemen. But now it was as if he suddenly realised that they were outside himself, actual, and menacing. He must do something, and immediately. In another minute these two beefy cops would be marching him off somewhere. They had no real case; the frame-up was monstrous enough to be almost childish; but he could not help feeling that once he was marched off, it might take him weeks, possibly months, to clear himself; and even at that there would be some people at the Institute telling each other that Hooker must have been behaving queerly, that there’s no smoke without fire, and all the rest of it. He had no idea what happened to you here in England when the police laid hands on you—something very leisurely, he imagined—but whatever it was, it must not happen to him. Something had to be done—quick.

  He was standing close to the table, the narrow side, not far from the open window. The inspector and Engelfield’s damnable brother were standing together, about three yards away, with most of the table between them and him and the window. The ordinary policeman was still just inside the doorway. Hooker was long and lean, but no weed; in fact, very active and quite strong; and it was only a few years since he had been one of the star men in his college basket-ball team. And when it was required of him, he could both think and act very quickly.

  He appeared to droop miserably and at the same time contrived to edge a little farther round, nearer the window, and let his hands fall until they were underneath the edge of the table, which was long and fairly wide but not a very massive piece of furniture. “I suppose you know,” he muttered mournfully to the inspector, still drooping, “I’ve been framed.” His hands were gripping the under edge of the table now, and his knees were bent, to give him a good purchase. He talked slowly, miserably, feeling sure that the sound of his voice would have a lulling effect. “I’d met his brother before. He was a professor. He asked me to come down here, and to climb in at the back if he wasn’t here first. So I did, and I was just looking at some notes——”

  As his voice trailed along to the end, he summoned all his strength, then heaved the table over, with a crash of books and bag and files and a scattering of papers, so that it fell towards the other two, who instinctively jumped back. Before they could recover and run round, while they were still shouting, he had swung himself out of the window and taken a wild leap into the dark. He went sprawling in the soft earth below, but was soon up and racing down the drive. As he went he could hear shouts behind him. At the entrance a large roadster had been parked. He hesitated a moment, then saw a bicycle leaning against the gatepost. He had not ridden a bicycle for years, but he had had one when he was a boy, and now he wheeled this out, jumped on, not noticing which way he was taking it, and after a few wobbles went sailing down the road at a fair speed. Fortunately, it was big enough for him, and he guessed it to be the property of the police constable. He was adding to his crimes every minute, it appeared, but didn’t give a hoot. What did give a hoot, however, in fact several menacing hoots, was that big roadster, which was now undoubtedly coming after him.

  He heard again the cheerful noises of the fair and saw its lights glittering before him. Another turn of the road, and there it was, a few hundred yards in front, just to the left of the road, with most of the village beyond. He decided not to take the chance of riding the full length of the village street on that bicycle; even now one of them might be telephoning from the house to have him stopped; so just before the entrance to the fair, where the crowd began and the hawkers were plying their trade, he dismounted, hastily leaned the bicycle against the low stone wall, looked back down the road and saw powerful headlights coming round the corner, so walked briskly into the fair.

  Passing a row of coconut shies and hoop-la and other stalls, he came to a small side-show, labelled Nirobi the Mystic Girl, paid his threepence and quickly dived into the tent, where about twenty people were staring without noticeable enthusiasm at a beery man in a turban that didn’t belong to him and at Nirobi herself, a very thin, dirty-looking, bored girl, who was dancing, in a very perfunctory fashion, with the equally bored and perfunctory assistance of a large snake. Hooker was in no mood, however, to criticise the performance. The point was, it was dark in there; and perhaps by this time the roadster and its policeman were a mile or two farther down the road. Nirobi came to the end of her dance; the snake retired into its basket; and the beery man in the turban announced that for an additional threepence any member of the audience could purchase the wonderful Indian girl’s mystic prophecies. As he held up some smudgy little pamphlets, the mechanical organ outside exploded into song, and a voice was heard saying that another performance by Nirobi was about to commence. This had not lasted long enough. As they went out, Hooker made himself as small as possible, and felt very sorry that he had left his hat behind at the Old Farm. It seemed unpleasantly bright outside, too many lights altogether. And one of the first things these lights showed him, above the crowd only about twenty yards away, between him and the entrance, was a policeman’s helmet.

  Hooker edged himself away in the opposite direction, and was lucky enough to run into a fellow who was selling black-and-white paper caps that had large bright yellow cardboard peaks. Wit
h one of these monstrosities on his head, and the peak pulled well down, Dr. George Glenway Hooker of the Weinberger Institute of Technology felt a little better. Fortunately, a good many youths were wearing them. Some of the youngsters, who walked round arm-in-arm, screaming, were also wearing false noses and imitation spectacles, and for the first time for twenty years Hooker felt a keen desire to possess a false nose, with or without imitation spectacles. On the other hand, he was convinced that it would not do at all if a man his size and age solemnly enquired, in an American accent too: “Say, where can I buy a false nose?” He moved slowly round with the crowd, a nice silly innocent lot, mostly very young, and began to wonder if after all he had much to worry about. That policeman, whose helmet he had seen, might be on duty here, and not know anything about him. On the other hand, trailing round like this, not knowing who might be ahead of him, at any moment he might come face-to-face with one of his pursuers. And his knees were aching now: it was hard work trying to be several inches shorter than Nature had made you. But then he had another stroke of luck. There, not two yards away, was a basket filled with false noses, imitation spectacles, and sets of celluloid teeth. He treated himself hastily to a very bulbous nose, which had imitation tortoise-shell spectacle frames attached to it; and now behind these he felt there was very little of his former appearance left. His best plan was to have a good look round the fair.

  In the centre of the fairground, its masterpiece, was a blaring, shining switchback, in which cars shaped like gilded dragons and vast staring cockerels went whirling round and round and up and down. It stopped for more passengers just as he was making up his mind. Hastily he climbed into the interior of some glittering farmyard monster, and noticed with satisfaction that it would be easier to look out of this curved car than to see, from any distance, who was in it. They began to move, slowly at first, up and down; and there, below, looking about him sharply, was the inspector. No mistake about that: it was the inspector all right. They had guessed he had come in here. Just as the switchback was gathering speed, and before the whole fairground had turned into a whizzing puddle of light, Hooker had time to notice that the inspector was glancing up at the whirling cars. After that he could not tell where the inspector was looking, was not even sure he was still there. Up and down, round and round, they went, with the organ bleating and blaring, the girls screaming, the whole fair a changing scribble of colour and light. And here he was, Dr. George Glenway Hooker, holder of a research fellowship in physics, and just at the very time he had seen himself following Engelfield’s trail into the most distant exploration of deuterons, electrons, neutrons, photons and nuclei, here he was, wearing a black-and-white check paper cap with a bright yellow peak, imitation spectacles and a false nose, careering round and round, like an electron himself, in the middle of a country fair. And, police or no police—by heck!—enjoying it too.

  But he had to make sure about that inspector, so every time the switchback stopped, he slumped back into his seat, which was at the back of the car, where the monster’s tail curved round and threw a dark shadow; and he stayed slumped until they were moving fast again. This he did five times altogether, and during the last three rides he was trying to decide what to do. Either he must sneak away across the fields at the back of the fair and risk having to wander about out there for several hours more, or he must try and hide himself in the crowd returning to the main road, in the hope of getting away sooner. And whatever he did, he had made up his mind that he would not return to London but would try and make for Southampton and his ship. That too was a risk, but Engelfield and his brother did not know exactly when he was sailing; and he had too an obscure conviction that they would not try to prevent his sailing, even if they could, and that the fantastic trap they had set for him, which still seemed to him childish and almost idiotic, was simply to pay him out for what they considered his impudent curiosity. But he could think about all that later, he decided; what was worrying him now was how to escape from this neighbourhood. Then he saw, in a flash, that his very best plan was to attach himself to some other person or people, for it would be a solitary young man that the police would be looking for, and probably they would not pay much attention to a noisy group.

  There were plenty of noisy groups, but now the problem was—and Dr. Hooker considered it carefully—how to attach himself to one of them. He was well acquainted with several delicate techniques, but the technique by means of which one young American scientist, hiding from the police, became an accepted member of a gang of Oxfordshire lads and lasses playing the fool at a fair was quite unknown to him. He cautiously descended from the switchback, but could not see the inspector. There was no blue helmet in sight anywhere. So far, so good. And now what? He stood hesitating at the entrance to another side-show (Demo—the Electric Wonder Man), among a little crowd who were being roared at by Demo’s showman, when he discovered that somebody was talking to him. It was a young man with a round red face, tousled fair hair, and a canary-coloured pull-over. He was arm-in-arm with two giggling young women, and he was genially but definitely drunk.

  “Ol’ boy,” he was saying solemnly, “tha’s a hell of a nose you got there, ol’ boy. For moment, put wind up me that nose did, ol’ boy. Thought it was—real. Didn’d I, girls? Ab-so-lulely true, ol’ boy.” And he wagged his blond tousled head with great solemnity.

  This was Hooker’s chance, and, feeling less shy than usual behind this nose, he snapped at it. He invited the trio to see Demo the Electric Wonder Man with him, hinting that he knew all about electricity and could see through fifty Wonder men. So in they went, with a warm, moist, giggly girl hanging on to Hooker’s arm. Demo’s tricks were stale stuff to the American, who explained them to his party. Unfortunately the blond young man insisted on repeating these explanations at the top of his voice, with the result that they were asked to leave, and the blond young man nearly had a fight, and both girls clung hotly and moistly to Hooker, and it looked like being unpleasant. But Hooker got the three of them safely out, brought them to a comparatively quiet dark place behind the show tent, and there they held a meeting. The girls, who had been scared, were rather indignant now with their friend, the blond young man, whose name was Ronnie. They now declared he had had too much.

  “Properly over-stepped the mark, that’s what you’ve done, Ronnie,” cried one of them angrily. “And how you’re going to drive us home, I don’t know—what you say, kid?”

  The other agreed, and would not accept Ronnie’s assurance that he was quite all right. “Quite all nothing!” she said emphatically.

  Again, this was Hooker’s chance, and he took it. “Let me drive you all home,” he said. The girls instantly agreed, for now they had great confidence in the tall stranger with the false nose.

  “But it’s Newbury,” they told him, doubtfully. “How’ll you get home?”

  He waved this aside, made them all link arms again, and steered the party towards the entrance. They were a noisy little group all right, and looked no different from dozens of others. And they passed within two yards of a policeman at the entrance. Hooker never looked at the face under the helmet; he was taking no chances; so he never knew if it was the same policeman who had seen him at the Old Farm. Whether it was or not, the group system worked; and five minutes later they were rattling down the road in Ronnie’s little old open car, with Hooker at the wheel reminding himself to keep to the left; and during the next dozen miles they successfully passed several policemen. All the way to Newbury, Ronnie and the girl at the back with him flirted and quarrelled, slapped and kissed, while the girl at Hooker’s side talked without ceasing, telling him about her two sisters, her brother, her brother’s wife, her uncle in Australia, and all the people she worked with in the shop. At Newbury, which appeared to have gone to bed, Hooker removed his comic nose and hat, was suddenly and very tenderly embraced by the young woman who had sat by him, and was then shown where to wait for a late cross-country bus th
at would take him nearer to the coast. He sat there in the little waiting-room, wearing an old cloth cap that Ronnie had found at the back of the car and had insisted upon his taking. The only other people, a sleepy elderly country couple, sitting among a host of paper packages, did not seem to notice anything surprising about his appearance. No policeman came to disturb them. When the almost empty bus arrived, and he was able to stretch himself out on the back seat, with the cap almost covering his face, no questions were asked and there were no sudden halts. The bus rumbled steadily through the night towards the sea.

  And Hooker, going again over the events of the evening, remembered now a last shout he had heard from the inspector, addressed to Engelfield’s brother Henry. The name he had heard then was one vaguely familiar to him at home, and he dozed off muttering it to himself: MacMichael.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE MURDERED MAN’S BROTHER

  Jimmy Edlin, who had been in many of the strange cities of this world, had now returned to the newest and strangest of them all, that vast conglomeration and gaily-coloured higgledy-piggledy of unending boulevards, vacant lots, oil derricks, cardboard bungalows, retired farmers, fortune-tellers, real estate dealers, film stars, false prophets, affluent pimps, women in pyjamas turning on victrolas, radio men lunching on aspirin and Alka-Seltzer, Middle-Western grandmothers, Chinese grandfathers, Mexican uncles, and Philippino cousins, known as Los Angeles. It was not Jimmy’s native city: he had no native city; he was the son of a wandering Irish-American father and an English mother; and since his late teens, thirty years ago, he had roamed the world trying this and that, and had prospected for gold, dredged for platinum, sold advertising space, imported watches and cheap bracelets and fountain-pens, exported rubber and ivory and Chinese pigtails, been a ship’s purser, newspaper proprietor (in Alaska), publicity man, general merchant, owner of a restaurant (Shanghai), made tidy fortunes and lost them, and had a roaring good time. For the last few years he had been in China, chiefly in Shanghai, but had cleared out when the Japanese came, after converting a great many Mexican dollars and similar currency into two respectable banking accounts, one in London, the other here in Los Angeles. He had not returned at once to California, however, but had gone down to Honolulu, to taste the first fruits of his temporary retirement, and would still have been there if he had not received startling and very bad news. His only brother, Phil, who for years had been on the staff of the Los Angeles Herald-Telegram, had been discovered in the back room of a small down-town café—murdered. Jimmy had caught the first boat—there was only the boat, for the Clipper was not available—but had landed days after the funeral, and now the story of the Phil Edlin murder had vanished from the front pages, there having been two more murders, a prominent suicide, one large and two small political scandals, a juicy film star divorce with “love-nest revelations,” since then to blacken those pages. Phil Edlin, in that back room with a great hole in his chest, was now old news, and was being rapidly forgotten. Yet there were some, of course, who remembered.