The Doomsday Men

by J. B. Priestley

  “Jimmy,” replied the other, in almost the same tone, “I’ll not only let you see the notebook but you can have it. But whatever you’re going to do—and I can’t see you can do much—don’t count me in. No, I’m not afraid—don’t think that—I’d have just as soon gone out when Phil did instead of still sitting here bellyaching. But I’m getting on—I’m tired—and I’ve seen too many queer things happen that nobody could get to the bottom of—they’re always happening in this man’s town—and though I’ll tell you anything I know, or try and find out if I don’t know, I’m not turning detective, not even for Phil’s sake.”

  “All right, please yourself about that, Rushy, but I must have that notebook as soon as possible. Where is it?”

  “Up at my place—one room above a mad Mexican widow just out of South Olive—I just sleep there, that’s all, and don’t always manage that. But you don’t want that notebook now, this minute, surely to God, Jimmy?”

  But Jimmy did, and after some further persuasion, and two more quick drinks, he almost dragged the unwilling Rushy out of his haunt, which was more his home than the one room above the mad Mexican widow, and moved him firmly towards South Olive Street.

  “Come to think of it,” muttered Rushy, as they went, “it isn’t a room. It’s just a damned upstairs piggery. Ten to one you won’t even be able to sit down.”

  “I don’t want to sit down,” said Jimmy, humorous but firm. “I’ve been sitting down too long, and I’m getting too wide behind. But I want that notebook.”

  “Christmas bells!” Rushy shouted, as he let them in, “but it can’t be as bad as this. Either I’ve never had a good look at it for months or there’s been a convention in here.”

  Jimmy had seen many untidy rooms in his time, had lived in them himself without much protest, but this room of Rushy’s beat everything. There was a bed and a chest of drawers; so much could be clearly seen; but the rest of the place was a crazy litter of shabby books, empty cigar boxes, bulging or overflowing old files, piles of newspapers, odd shoes, fishing tackle, and miscellaneous rubbish and muck.

  “I know I haven’t had as many as usual,” the owner muttered, looking bewildered, “but I’ll swear it wasn’t as bad as this last time I noticed it. Sit down on the bed, Jimmy. I know where I put that notebook, though you mightn’t think so.”

  He went to the chest of drawers, looked at the first small drawer, exclaimed in surprise, tried the next, gave another exclamation, and then, cursing himself, went rapidly through all the drawers. Blasting his eyesight, he then tried again, going through them all more carefully this time. Not finding what he wanted, he looked slowly about the room. Jimmy waited, smoking his pipe and saying nothing.

  At last, Rushy turned, and Jimmy saw that he was wearing a queer look, half-bewildered, half-frightened, and was suddenly cold sober. “Jimmy Edlin,” he began, in an odd quiet voice, “you’ve got to believe me. Yesterday, I know, that notebook of Phil’s was in that top drawer. I thought I might have shifted it somewhere else last night, so I’ve looked through all the drawers. It’s gone, Jimmy. Somebody’s taken it.”

  “Here, wait a minute. Let’s have a proper look.”

  “I tell you, somebody’s been here and taken it. I knew somebody had been in here the minute I came in. God knows it’s always a mess, but not just this kind of a mess. I tell you, Jimmy,” he asserted passionately now, “somebody’s been all through this room, looking for something. And the notebook’s gone.”

  There was panic in his voice. He looked at Jimmy hopelessly. And in the silence that followed, Jimmy heard the screeching of motor-car brakes outside, and an odd sinister sound it seemed at that moment.

  “Now wait, before we start getting all excited,” said Jimmy, with deliberate calm. “Are you going to tell me that a bunch of religious loonies sent somebody here to go through your room and take that notebook? It isn’t sense, Rushy.”

  “No? And it wasn’t sense that your brother Phil——”

  “That’s different.”

  “Well—is it? And if you can blow a hole in a feller, I suppose you can go through another feller’s room, can’t you? I tell you, Jimmy, they’ve been here—and it’s gone—and I don’t like the look of things at all.”

  “You’re getting the jitters, Rushy. Now why——”

  “Listen!” And Rushy held up his hand. Up the uncarpeted stairs, heavy footfalls were approaching. Even Jimmy did not feel quite calm, and Rushy was obviously perturbed. “Coming here,” he whispered, and held himself rigid. There was a sharp knock.

  They looked at one another, and Rushy shook his head. There was a second and a louder knock.

  “Go on,” said Jimmy. “Hell—there are two of us.” But Rushy did not move, so Jimmy went himself and threw the door open wide.

  A tall young man in a bright brown suit entered. “Good evening,” he began, in a smooth plausible tone. “Now I’d like to interest you gentlemen in our new day-by-day clothes pressing service, collecting coats, pants, tuxedos, or what-have-you, every morning, and returning everything the same afternoon. We guarantee good service——” But anything else he said was drowned by Jimmy’s sudden shout of laughter.

  “Well, that’s how it is, Rushy,” Jimmy roared, after they had got rid of the young man. “The big menace turns into a pants-pressing service. And now let’s find that notebook. It must be somewhere in this museum of yours.”

  But it wasn’t, and Rushy, who proved that he knew his way among this litter, was able at last to convince Jimmy that the notebook really had been taken, by somebody who had gone through the room very thoroughly.

  “But if they did,” said Jimmy, making his final protest, “how did they know it was here?”

  “How did they know poor Phil was on to them?”

  “Perhaps they didn’t,” Jimmy retorted. “I can think of a dozen more likely ways of being killed, down-town here. Phil goes into that back room because he’s made a date there with some fellow—”

  “No doubt about that, except I’ll bet the feller had suggested that place. It wouldn’t be a woman, because that wasn’t Phil’s line. Something to do with a story, you bet your life!”

  “Right! But while he’s waiting there—and it’s late and a tough neighbourhood—anything might have happened. A couple of Mexican stick-up men might have charged in——”

  “And not gone through his pockets? Guess again, Jimmy. That wasn’t any stick-up job. I knew that from the first, just as I knew it wasn’t any of these Brooklyn gorillas they talked so much about. No, sir.” He turned and looked about him, muttering, “Got a bottle of Seagram’s somewhere, and ought to be able to raise another glass besides that one with the tooth-brush in. Here we are. Help yourself, Jimmy, and hurry up, for God’s sake. I’ve got a mouth like Death Valley.” But that made him think of something else.

  “What’s got you?” asked Jimmy.

  “Death Valley reminded me. Jimmy, I think I can remember nearly everything he had in that notebook—I mean, about this Brotherhood of the Judgment—you remember, those were the birds he mentioned to me. There wasn’t much, all told. Now wait.” And he stood there, still holding the bottle of rye and a glass, with his eyes tightly shut, while Jimmy sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the astonishing muddle of the room, and hearing, from somewhere outside, a dance band lolloping away on the radio. “I’ll have to think this over when I’m alone,” Jimmy was telling himself. “Nothing makes any sense while this wet old file of headlines is around. He’s just as nutty as the people he talks about.”

  Then Rushy opened his eyes and grinned faintly. But before he spoke, he took a sharp pull at the rye. “Now then, if there’s anything I can’t remember, it’s something that wouldn’t mean a dam’ thing to you or me or anybody else. He’d written at the top of the page Brotherhood of the Judgment. Then something about there bei
ng four temples or arks——”

  “Arks!” Jimmy snorted. “And we’re sitting here, at our time of life, worrying about people who want to have arks.”

  “Jimmy,” the other warned him solemnly, “the folks who are nutty enough to want to have arks might be dangerously nutty. Anyhow, there was an ark, he thought, in London, one in New York, one in Chicago—and, believe me, that’ll be some ark, that one in Chicago—and one, the chief one, here in L.A.”

  “Where?” asked Jimmy, now with an old envelope and a pencil ready.

  “Wait! I’ll get it. He’d scribbled down—now what was it?—Redondo Boulevard and Centinela—you know, the avenue, out towards Culver City. All right then—that’s how he’d started. Then he’d written something about this lot looking different from the other nutty religionists. More dangerous. Something really going on there, behind the ordinary crazy front they were putting up. Not just singing hymns and praying and telling each other how good they are. He was sure about that. And Phil was no fool, y’know, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy agreed, and waited. So far he had put down nothing but the two streets. “Go on. That’s not all, is it?”

  “No. I read this page a good many times. Hell!—it was the least I could do, wasn’t it? Then there were some queries—you know, the way a feller does when he’s trying to puzzle something out. One or two I couldn’t read. But I remember what I could read—that is, if I read ’em right. Tall man—Abram Lincoln with a squint—real leader?—don’t think so. Who is Father John? Why Barstow—Granite Mountains—Death Valley? What are the—now, wait a minute, what was the word?—I was never sure about that—but might have been initiates—y’know, the inner circle—anyhow, we’ll say it was—What are the initiates really expecting? What duties are they taking turns at? Are you putting these down?”

  “No. I can remember ’em, and anyhow they don’t seem to amount to much,” said Jimmy, rather sulkily. “I don’t see why Phil was bothering about ’em. Duties! They could be taking turns with the collection bag, couldn’t they?”

  “Sure! But they might also be taking turns at putting nosey reporters out of the way. Use your imagination, Jimmy, for Pete’s sake.”

  “Trouble is, you’ve got too much, Rushy. Is that all?”

  “No, at the bottom of the page was something about a clock.”

  “Oh!—clocks are coming into it now, are they? If you ask me, we might as well be doing a cross-word puzzle.”

  “This is it. Question and answer. When does the clock strike? Then below, the answer: You won’t hear it. Better put that down,

  Jimmy.”

  “I’ve got it down, though God knows why.” Jimmy looked at his scribbles in disgust. “When does the clock strike? You won’t hear it. Well, Rushy, I think we might just as well go out now and play Red Indians. We’re on the wrong track. I’ve thought so all along. Some dirty little down-town rat killed Phil and daren’t stay long enough afterwards even to snatch his wallet. You lost his notebook. And nobody’s been in this room except you—and I’m not sure even about you.” He was very contemptuous.

  Rushy was annoyed. “Okay, Mr. Wise Guy, you know it all. But I’ll tell you again what I think—just because you are Phil Edlin’s brother—and then that lets me out. He was killed because he was getting to know too much, and I know for a fact that the only thing he was deep in was this Brotherhood of the Judgment story, because he told me so himself. He wasn’t a fool; he’d plenty of sense and he was a dead keen newspaperman; and he wasn’t playing at Red Indians when he went round with that notebook. I may be a fool, but I’m not such a goddamned fool that I don’t know where I left something important, like that notebook, or that I don’t know when somebody’s been and turned over every single thing I possess. Forget it—if you like. I’m not going to do anything, and I’ve told you why. But don’t come round again to me, Jimmy, to tell me you’re going to find out who killed Phil, because I’ll know you’re just talking big. And now that I am here, I might as well stay here. Want another drink?”

  “No, thanks, Rushy.” Jimmy was a bit stiff but also vaguely apologetic. “I’ll get along. Sorry if I sounded too sharp and sure, but all that stuff just didn’t seem to fit in, that’s all.”

  “We’d know better what fitted in and what didn’t, if we knew more about the whole cockeyed business here in this world than we do. I’m an old-timer, and I’ve seen plenty, and, believe me, Jimmy, most of it’s taken me by surprise. If somebody had told me ten years ago that Franklin D. Roosevelt would be the Czar of these states, I’d have had a good big laugh. And Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin weren’t exactly expected either. You don’t know what’s coming next. Well—I may be seeing you, Jimmy.”

  Oddly enough, Jimmy, thinking it all over in his hotel that night, staring now and again at the envelope on which he had scribbled his notes, and remembering not only everything Rushy had told him but also the character of his brother Phil, was far less confident than he had been up in Rushy’s room. There might be nothing in it; but now he felt that at least it was his duty to make sure. If Phil had thought this Brotherhood of the Judgment was worth his time and attention—and Phil was not the fellow to chase wild geese, unless under orders—then he, Jimmy, with time on his hands and a brother’s death on his mind, could not afford to ignore completely this trail, broken, dim, fantastic though it might appear to be. No, the least he could do was to have a look at the Brotherhood, even though he still could not come near convincing himself that its members—probably a lot of idle women and retired Bible-reading farmers—were capable of house-breaking, robbery and murder.

  He did not start at once, however, in the morning. He felt dubious, troubled, with an uneasy night behind him, and so, wearing nothing but shirt, pants and slippers, and puffing away at his pipe, he spent the morning painting from memory a scene he thought he remembered from the voyage, completely ignoring the golden, early October morning outside, which was flooding the whole wide city with its own heavy and hazy sunlight. Even among the world’s most mistakenly enthusiastic, untrained daubers, Jimmy could be considered unique. He was so bad that he was almost great. He neither knew nor cared much about drawing; what he liked to do was to lay on plenty of colour; but it was the quality of his colour that gave Jimmy’s efforts their astounding character. His blues and greens, pinks and purples, all seemed to have come out of some horrible chemical works; they looked like poisonous acids; they had a metallic sheen that set the teeth on edge; they suggested neuralgia in pigment; and when Jimmy had worked away with these nightmare hues, composing them into what looked like lumps of coloured cotton wool until at a closer inspection they revealed their full metallic hideousness, the result was downright terrifying. Canvases presented solemnly by him to wincing friends were to be found, after a hard search at the back of lumber-rooms, all over the world; for though Jimmy liked nothing better than to paint and then to look with pleasure at his creation, he was no hoarder of his pictures; he gave them away freely; and it is a tribute to his friendly soul that so many people had accepted them and even forced up a smile of welcome for the framed horrors. All this morning, then, he spent happily conjuring the Pacific into what appeared to be a dreadful vat of copper sulphate solution, and creating above it an electric-blue sky that instantly suggested a blinding headache. And he was able to finish this monstrous libel in time to give his widowed sister-in-law a farewell lunch.

  Afterwards, strolling idly down Figeroa, deciding again to try and see what Phil had been after among the Brotherhood of the Judgment, he found himself regretting that he was alone; not just alone at that moment, but with no companion on this adventure—if it was to be an adventure, which he still doubted. Rushy Drew was clearly no use; even if he had not made it plain himself, Jimmy would have rejected him. Jimmy reflected that he knew at least a dozen fellows round the town, but not one of them could be considered a friend. He had made a great many friends, the
real thing, on his various travels, for he was a companionable soul, as gregarious as a starling, but they were all thousands of miles away. A shame too, for some of them would have been useful at this sort of investigation, though Jimmy, who had never suffered from any sense of inferiority, considered that he was pretty good at it himself. It would not take him long to find out if there was anything in this Brotherhood nonsense. And he went over Phil’s queries again.

  But it was not until the middle of the evening that he actually found his way to the local Ark of the Brotherhood. Phil’s directions, just the mention of Redondo and Centinela, had not been too clear, for the building was certainly not at the corner where the two roads met. It was somewhere between them, and it took some finding, for it turned out to be at the end of a narrow side-turning. It looked like any other chapel, and might have once belonged, Jimmy thought, to some other sect. There was nothing suspicious and secret about the outside of the building. Apparently he was just in time for some sort of service, for a few people were going in. An illuminated sign told him that everybody was welcome. He went in, but told himself he was a fool to let himself in for some dreary hymn-singing service.

  A rusty little man, with thick spectacles, stopped him just inside the entrance. “Good evening, brother,” he said, in a melancholy voice. “Are you a member of our Brotherhood?”

  “No,” said Jimmy cheerfully. “Just looked in. All right, isn’t

  it?”

  “Most certainly,” said the little man. “All are welcome to our public services. But kindly seat yourself at the side there—anywhere at that side—because the other seats are reserved for our members.”

  So Jimmy went down an aisle, between rows of yellow little wooden chairs, and as he had come to see as much as he could, he went as far down as possible. It was a longish narrow building, with a great deal of yellow wood about it, not too brightly lit. Here at this end was a carpeted platform, with a small organ behind it, and in the middle of the platform there was a reading-stand covered with black velvet. The only decoration was an immense dark banner, hanging down above the organ, and on it had been painted, very vividly and imposingly, an immense single eye, which appeared to look down on the scattered congregation with no enthusiasm. Jimmy was not intimidated by that eye. “You’re phoney, my lad,” he told it. At his side of the platform, just behind the three or four steps that led down from it, there was a door in the back wall, before which two middle-aged and rather large brethren were standing, as if on sentry duty.