“That’s what I was thinking. Hooker, you’ve got to find out about this. Why did he send for you?”
Hooker described his morning with Paul, the calculations and the promised experiment. And all this seemed to Malcolm a confirmation of Andrea’s wild statement, and he told his companion so.
“The ironical thing is, of course,” he added, “that we haven’t the least chance of persuading anybody else—say, the authorities, if we told them—that we’re not simply off our heads ourselves. They simply wouldn’t believe a word of it.”
“Sure thing!” said Hooker. “That fellow Edlin told you that, if you remember, when you asked him why he didn’t try the police. Say—his yarn fits in pretty well with this stuff you’re telling me. I wonder what became of that fellow. If they brought him up here, they’re keeping him pretty close.”
Malcolm suddenly shuddered. “Do you suppose—they might have killed him? My God!—we sit here, coolly talking it over—and we don’t know what’s happening. Hooker, we’ve got to do something. I know—I swear—there’s some kind of evil madness here.”
“I believe there is,” said Hooker gravely. He waited a moment. “Listen! There’s a car.”
Looking over the balustrade, they saw five men getting out of the car. One of them, the tallest, was carrying a bundle of some kind. “I wonder if that’s what Paul’s been waiting for,” Hooker whispered, as they continued to stare down. “Hello! Who’s that? The fellow who’s limping and cursing. Is it Edlin?”
Jimmy Edlin did not see them. He was far too busy now, limping and cursing and groaning. So they were going to take him to Father John, were they? Father John couldn’t understand how one of his brethren could have given away secret information to a stranger, couldn’t he? And he wanted to ask Jimmy all about it, did he? Well, Jimmy decided, Father John would get a piece of his mind if it was the last thing he ever did. And he went limping into the house, guided by the bleached young man. Kaydick had hurried off at once with that precious piece of apparatus. Told to wait in the entrance hall, Jimmy looked about him, with grudging appreciation. Some money had been thrown around here! A small fortune just in tiles and rugs and curtains and furniture and carved woodwork! Like a little Spanish palace. And a lot of damned fine games they were up to inside it, weren’t they? Pretending to be religious, probably pulling gold like mad out of the hill-side, and cheerfully kidnapping and murdering! A nice crowd! And wouldn’t he tell the reverend Father so!
Meanwhile, above on the balcony, before they could decide how to get into touch with Edlin, who had plainly gone into the house under escort, Hooker had received a message from Paul MacMichael asking him to go to the tower at once. Left alone, Malcolm at once thought of Andrea, only to find her standing farther along the balcony, outside her room. These two were now in that highly-magnetised state which irresistibly draws two persons together, compels their eyes to meet, instantly entangles their hands; and now they came together on the balcony, and Malcolm explained what had happened to Hooker and what had been said before he went. They were still whispering, standing outside the little sitting-room but in the light from its open window, when they were disturbed by a heavy, fierce-looking, oldish man, whom Malcolm guessed at once, before he was hastily introduced, to be Andrea’s father, the fabulously rich Henry MacMichael. Like Andrea, he was dark, and in his older, heavier, masculine fashion, he had something of her square build, but otherwise Malcolm in that light could see no resemblance. He was undoubtedly a formidable personage, obviously used to command, but Malcolm made up his mind to stand up to him. But would Andrea stand up to him? This, he felt instantly, would be the final test of her feeling.
It came almost at once, just after Andrea had hurriedly introduced them. “Well, Mr. Darbyshire, it’s interesting to know that you’re one of Andrea’s friends, but as I’ve never given her permission to bring her friends here—as she’s never even asked if you might come along—I don’t quite understand why we’re having the pleasure of your company.” He said this in a rough, heavy tone, as formidable as his whole weighty personality.
“I appreciate that, sir,” said Malcolm steadily. “And I feel I ought to explain at once. Is that all right, Andrea?” And he looked at her.
“Yes, Malcolm,” she replied, very quietly.
“Just a minute,” said her father. “We’ll go inside for this. Can’t see out here.”
This made it much harder, of course, and probably he knew that, but as Malcolm followed them both into the little sitting-room, he kept his courage tightly strung.
“Well?” enquired Mr. MacMichael looking curiously at them both, for involuntarily they had drawn closer together and now stood facing him. He did not appear any the less formidable in the light, with his heavy-jowled brooding face, like that of some ancient and incredible despot, some conquering emperor who had watched a thousand enemy cities sacked and burnt and was weary of all such spectacles, weary of everything.
“You see, I’m not just one of Andrea’s friends. I’m—well—I’m in love with her.”
“You might easily be that,” said her father, shrugging his heavy shoulders. “It’s of no consequence, but I might point out that at one time it used to be quite a habit of good-looking young Englishmen, with not very bright prospects, to find themselves falling in love with rich young American girls——”
“This is different, Father,” Andrea flashed at him. “And I love him too.”
“How long’s this been going on? All news to me.”
“It started when I went down to Beaulieu, you remember,” she explained rapidly, not blushing but very bright-eyed, “and Malcolm and I played together—and I knew, of course, it was useless—and I tried to discourage him—and myself too—but that wasn’t any good, for either of us, because we’ve both been thinking the same things all the time, as we discovered to-day. If people possibly could be happy together,” she ended wistfully, “we’d be happy, I know.”
He shook his head, but the heavy hard look softened a little as he regarded her eager young face. He was clearly very fond of her in his own fashion. “If this had come earlier, it might have been troublesome,” he said, it seemed more to himself than to them, “but now—what does it matter—what can it matter? A day or two, to be happy in, young, and thinking that love’s everything and lasts for ever. Perhaps this is a good thing in its way, Andrea, if Paul’s in such a hurry as he seems to be. I shan’t have to wonder what you’re doing and thinking, if this young man is what he says he is. Young man,” and he looked hard at Malcolm, and his tone was very grim, “if you’re not as good as gold to this girl, if she’s not happy with you every minute, if she’s one complaint against you, d’you know what I’ll do? I’ll have you shot.”
A little white-jacketed brown servant appeared, to say that Mr. Paul wished to speak to Mr. Henry at once in the tower. At the door, Henry MacMichael turned and looked again at Malcolm. “Or I’ll shoot you myself. And don’t take that as a joke, because it isn’t one.”
Left to themselves, the lovers looked at one another with pride and joy and moved out again on to the balcony, entirely forgetting for the moment that the world might be coming to an end.
In another part of the house, in a small room, closely-curtained, hung about with mysterious signs and symbols, a room that had nothing to do with the American South-West and the Twentieth Century, Jimmy Edlin stood and glared at the other MacMichael brother, known to his followers as Father John. They were alone; though Jimmy had a shrewd notion that the bleached young man who had brought him along here had only retired to the other side of the door, where he waited, with his gun handy.
John MacMichael was a man about Jimmy’s own age, but there all likeness ended. He was dark, and his longish hair, with one lock falling across his right temple, was streaked with grey. His nose was rather long and pointed. His face had the dull flabby look of those who
spend too much time indoors. He was a naturally slender and small-boned man now rapidly putting on unhealthy weight. He wore a dark-blue kind of blouse. His hands, Jimmy noticed, were quite unusually small, with the thin pointed little fingers of a woman. But his eyes were more remarkable; they were much lighter than his hair and eyebrows, almost yellow; and they had a strange blind look, as if they were not used to observe the world but only to see with in dreams and visions. They made Jimmy feel as if he were not quite there, solid and real, standing in front of them. On the other hand, a great many other things, invisible to him, were there, he felt, to those eyes.
“Kaydick reports,” John was saying, in a small precise voice, “that you had information that could only have been given you by one of our servers, who are bound by a solemn oath of secrecy. It is necessary for me to know which of them it was who broke that oath, so that I may pray and demand his eternal damnation. And do not foolishly imagine we have neither the means nor the will to make you speak. We are the instruments of the divine vengeance.”
Determined as he was to put on a brave front and to take this opportunity of telling Father John what he thought of his murderous Brotherhood, Jimmy could not avoid feeling the cold grasp of fear as he heard these words, which reminded him unpleasantly of what Kaydick had said, that afternoon at the ranch. They had the same cool, considered and total inhumanity. Jimmy felt that if ants or spiders could make speeches, they might be in a similar vein to this. No ordinary human contact at all. It was like trying to have a chat somewhere on the moon.
“I can soon settle that,” said Jimmy hoarsely. “The information I had—the password about the clock striking, and all that—I didn’t get from any of your fellows. It came from my brother.”
“And who and where is your brother?” the other enquired softly.
“He’s dead,” cried Jimmy, more boldly now. “He was found murdered in the back room of a little café down-town in Los Angeles. Yes, and the people who killed him were these big-nosed retired farmers and tight-mouthed warehouse hands that you’ve roped in and talked out of their senses. And don’t tell me that you—a man of your education and position—really believe this old-fashioned Bible-belt dope you’ve handed out to these poor brainless louts. I went to a meeting, and know what the stuff’s like. And it wouldn’t go down any longer even in a tent in Arkansas. If you ask me, you’re not even an honest fanatic.”
John MacMichael smiled, but only with his mouth, not with those yellow blind eyes. “You are wrong. I have an honesty that you have never dreamed of. But the people must be taught according to the reach and grasp of their understanding. That was always the way, and in this our time is no different from other times. What matters is not what the intellect can perceive but in what the soul may believe and rest. As for your brother, he died not because we delight in the shedding of blood, but because the divine spirit has its plan and chooses its instruments and workmen. Across the road by which you came here to-night, some little creature of the desert, perhaps a rat trying to return to its nest, may have scurried, only to be crushed by one of the wheels, set in motion by a plan, a scheme of things, far away from and unknown to the little creature. So your brother died; and so too, very soon, may you, and indeed all of us die in this corrupt body, a little of which dies every moment.”
“But God’s truth!” cried Jimmy, exasperated by this calm dismissal of downright murder, this lofty disdain of all ordinary human values, “who are you to talk as if you were God’s right-hand man, in all His secrets?”
“Who am I?” He smiled again, then his strange eyes seemed to contract and his tone grew sharper. “I am the one who has listened and so has heard, who has looked and seen, who has asked through hours and hours of silence for a command and has at last received it. You have travelled far. I know that, you see, though you are a stranger to me. I have some powers almost lost now in this Western world. So, you have travelled. What would you say if you were describing the distant places you have seen to a man whom you knew had never left his village, and he refused to listen, denied your knowledge, and asked who you were to talk as if you had seen all the earth?”
“That’s not the same thing,” Jimmy growled, though he found himself oddly impressed. “Not the same thing at all——”
“It is. For I have spent my time travelling too, not along the surface of things, as you have, but penetrating them, moving into another world altogether, that of the enduring spirit. And what I have seen and heard there, what has been taught me, what I have received as a command, these give me the right to talk as if you were a child, which indeed you are——”
“I may be a child according to your twisted way of thinking,” cried Jimmy, with some violence, “but I happen to know the difference between right and wrong, and it’s my opinion you don’t any longer. You’ve spent so much of your time sitting by yourself in rooms like this, with everything shut out, just imagining things and talking to yourself, that you’ve got all mixed up, and fancy God’s talking to you——”
“Be quiet,” the other commanded sharply, not because he did not want to hear any more from Jimmy, though there were distinct signs of that too, but because the house telephone on the table beside him was now ringing. “Yes, Paul,” he replied, and then as he listened to what followed his face lit up and the strange yellow eyes seemed to glow.
“And whatever this is,” Jimmy thought grimly, “I’ll bet it’s damned bad news for everybody but this gang of loonies.”
“You see, Paul,” John was saying, “that is how I told you it would be. I knew.” He was triumphant. Then he listened again, frowning a little. “But why such haste?” he enquired, at length. “You are certain? Well, that’s your concern. But I will send out the messages to-night, and tell Kaydick to summon all who can make the journey out here. There’s one thing more. We’ve no time now to do as we planned originally, to justify ourselves before the world. Yes, too dangerous now, you may be right. But I still feel compelled towards that justification, and there is at least one man here, with me in this room now, and you have another with you, I think, and we may take these to represent that world. . . . Yes, later, of course. . . .”
Jimmy stared and listened hard, and suddenly found himself in a sweat of anxious bewilderment. It was the triumphant tone and look, and above all the wild visions flaring in those eyes, that frightened him. What in the name of hell-fire was brewing here?
Near the other end of that telephone, where Paul was still talking, Hooker wandered about restlessly, looking dumbfounded. They were in the laboratory, immediately beneath the platform of the tower, and a very fine little lab. it was too, as Hooker had admitted at once. The experiment had just taken place; hence Paul’s triumphant and urgent messages to his brothers, and Hooker’s bewildered dismay. While Paul was still talking, Hooker examined everything again, feeling a fool, not like a fellow physicist but rather like one of those open-mouthed fellows from the audience who gape at the trick properties on the stage. Yes, the heavy lump of granite, which he had handled himself, had gone. The thick lead screens, the thickest if not the largest he had ever known, were unbelievably scarred and blasted. A little more force, and that would have been the end of those screens, perhaps the end of everything and everybody in the lab. itself. He looked around as carefully as he could, for he did not trust MacMichael, too dramatic altogether, too queer, too conceited, to be a completely trustworthy experimenter; but he was still feeling dazed. Gee—what an experiment! More like a little volcanic eruption! And what an eruption, what an earthquake, unless there was some catch in it he couldn’t see, it was going to cause in the world of physics! Boy—oh boy! But he still couldn’t make head or tail of it.
“No deception, Dr. Hooker,” cried Paul, now coming across the lab., “no deception at all, dear doctor, I assure you.”
That emphasised “doctor” was just a sneer, of course, and Hooker wished to heaven he could p
ut his finger on some flaw or trick that would wipe the sneering smile off MacMichael’s dark face, now alight with triumph.
“I don’t get this at all,” he grunted.
“Quite a small voltage. Get that?”
“Yes, I know.”
“A mere speck of the bombarded element, the tiniest possible. You saw it?”
“Yep. I saw it all right. But what is it?”
“One that we seemed to have carelessly overlooked, Dr. Hooker. Of course it has no commercial value, and we live in a world that cherishes commercial value. But oddly enough, it’s also been overlooked by all you fellows experimenting in transmutations, perhaps because you’re all so busy instructing the young about spectra and isotopes. But of course I’ve been busy some time myself on transmutations, and I hardly need tell you that this is an artificial element, very difficult to produce. It happens, however, that tunnelling under this tower, deep down, we found a rich deposit of a certain heavy mineral, also of no commercial value—what a pleasure it is to say that, Hooker, in this greedy world!—that was of great assistance to me. I don’t feel inclined at the moment to give you the atomic number of my element—it’s very high, of course, though curiously enough this element is only unstable under certain conditions, but then it can behave very queerly—but let’s give it a name, shall we? I wonder if you’d think me egoistical if I called it, just for reference, paulium?”
“All right,” grumbled Hooker, who disliked the tone of all this. “Go on.”
“And I have another new name for you to learn, if you don’t mind, Dr. Hooker, another little coinage of my own. I know you’re well acquainted—I remember one or two little discussions we had——”
“So do I, MacMichael,” muttered Hooker, angrily.
“Well, what about them?”
The Doomsday Men Page 24