“Like I say,” George said, “I haven’t seen Mrs. Welles today. I’ve been on this desk since Sadie, the receptionist, left at five P.M. Before that, I was in the security office on the eighteenth. I’ve got Sadie’s phone number-you could call her.”
Gibson took the number, writing it down in the notebook he carried to record plot brainstorms and to write descriptions of people and places he happened upon.
The “War of the Worlds” broadcast was piped in onto this floor, too-right now the two Shadows were in a scene together, Shadow-Number-One Frank Readick playing a reporter asking Shadow-Number-Two Orson Welles various questions about Mars.
“Professor, for the benefit of our listeners, how far is it from Mars to Earth?”
“Approximately forty million miles.”
“Well, that seems a safe enough distance.”
The security guard was shaking his head. “Mr. Gibson, I’m sure I haven’t seen this Balanchine character, or those hoodlum types, neither.”
“Why so sure, George?”
George shrugged. “First of all, I haven’t seen anybody this evening who I don’t recognize as one of the actors or other production personnel, on one show around here or another. And second…” Another shrug. “… I would’ve stopped anybody I didn’t recognize. Mr. Gibson, nothing gets past me.”
Gibson nodded. “Thank you, George.”
George grinned and nodded.
Gibson stepped back onto the elevator, wondering how long it would be before George was asleep again.
In upstate New York, at the state troopers’ HQ, Rusty was puffing away, his corncob pipe pluming like a tugboat smokestack.
On the radio, reporter Carl Phillips was reading the listeners an urgent telegram that had just arrived for Professor Pierson at Princeton Observatory.
“ ‘Nine-fifteen p.m. eastern standard time. Seismograph registered shock of almost earthquake intensity occurring within a radius of twenty miles of Princeton. Please investigate. Signed, Lloyd Gray, Chief of Astronomical Division.’ ”
Frowning at the word “earthquake,” which echoed his earlier fears about his parents in New Jersey, Rusty turned the volume dial up on the radio, even louder.
The professor was confirming that this meteorite was of an “unusual size,” and that the disturbances on Mars had no bearing on the event-it was merely coincidental.
“However,” the professor was saying, “we shall conduct a search….”
Rusty wondered if he should notify the corporal, who was at the duty desk, two floors below, particularly when the next bulletin reported “a huge, flaming object, believed to be a meteorite,” falling on a farm near Grovers Mill, not far from Trenton.
The flash in the sky (the radio said) could be seen within a radius of hundreds of miles, the impact heard as far north as Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Somehow, when the reporter turned the air back over to the New York studio, where a pianist was tinkling away at “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows,” Rusty was even more convinced something was wrong, really wrong….
Thinking about his folks, the teletype trooper began to tremble; his eyes teared up, and it wasn’t from the smoke his corncob pipe was producing.
He would tell the duty corporal to turn on the radio and hear for himself. Who knew? They might need to start mobilizing, to help the New Jersey troopers out, any time now.
Slight, spectacled Sheldon Judcroft, a student member of the University Press Club at Princeton, was at a desk in the student newspaper office, working on an editorial protesting the radical-right radio preachings of Father Coughlin, preferring the quiet here to the hubbub of his fraternity.
The phone rang and something amazing happened: the city desk editor of a real newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, was on the line.
“We have a radio report of a meteorite that has hit near Princeton,” the voice said (male, urgent, yet matter-of-fact). “Place called Grovers Mill. What do you know about it?”
“Nothing-I don’t even have the radio on.”
“Oh. Okay.”
And the phone clicked dead.
Sheldon thought about the call. He felt he’d somehow failed to measure up, faced with a real newspaper story. He turned on the radio and switched the dial until he found the report and listened.
Indeed, a meteor did seem to have struck in New Jersey, a big one that had been heard for miles around (though, oddly, Sheldon hadn’t heard it himself, nor felt the impact…too wrapped up in the Father Coughlin piece, maybe).
Then something else amazing happened: Sheldon found himself calling Arthur Barrington, Chair of the Princeton Geology Department, at home.
After Sheldon’s apologies and explanation, the Department Chair said, “I haven’t heard anything about this either, son…but it sounds big.”
“Yes it does, sir.”
“Mr. Judcroft, are you by nature adventurous?”
“Of course,” Sheldon squeaked. “I’m a newsman!”
“Good. I’ll swing by and pick you up.”
“Pick me up?”
“If ever there was a job for journalism and geology, this is it…. Put on something warm.”
“Yes, sir!”
Sheldon hung up, and got his notebook.
And a sweater.
At 8:12 P.M., Edgar Bergen turned his microphone over to a guest artist, Nelson Eddy.
The host of The Chase and Sanborn Hour-thanks to the vocal gymnastics required to keep such characters as Charlie McCarthy, Mortimer Snerd and Effie Clinker as vivid and real as himself (more so, some would say)-needed a nice break after each week’s opening monologue, which he and Charlie (which is to say, Bergen himself) did alone.
So tonight, while Bergen sipped a glass of water, Eddy-singing star of radio and film-began to warble “Neapolitan Love Song.”
Bergen felt confident about this booking-Eddy, half of a wildly popular screen team (the other half, of course, was Jeanette MacDonald), would surely keep listeners rapt at their radios. The singer seemed a fine preventative, if not cure, for that spreading disease of dial-turning (pushbuttons and airplane dials made it so easy!) that especially plagued a rigidly formatted show like Bergen and McCarthy. Listeners knew just how long they could sample the wares of other stations, before returning for the next dose of humor from the ventriloquist and his dummy-unless, of course, some other show caught the dial-turner’s attention and held it….
Still, Bergen figured he didn’t have much to worry about. In addition to Eddy, he had Madeline Carroll and Dorothy Lamour, two top actresses, and Dottie Lamour would sing several of her biggest hits.
So even in the unlikely event that Eddy lost a listener, momentarily, that listener would be back.
After all, who would want to miss out on all that excitement?
CHAPTER SEVEN
JOURNEY INTO FEAR
At 8:11 P.M., E.S.T., in Studio One, Bernard Herrmann’s undistinctive dance-band music was interrupted by announcer Kenny Delmar, saying: “We take you now to Grovers Mill, New Jersey.”
After a long, rather ominous beat, the sound of the remote location kicked in, as all of the actors, on their feet, circling about a single microphone like Indians around a campfire of war, created a convincing aural approximation of a much larger, milling crowd.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Frank Readick said into another mike, reading from his script, “this is Carl Phillips again, out at the Wilmuth farm, Grovers Mill, New Jersey. Professor Pierson and myself made the eleven miles from Princeton in ten minutes.”
Ora Nichols had already dropped the needle on a disc that layered police sirens and the sound of wind into background of the “Carl Phillips” remote report.
Readick, as Phillips, was describing the scene as being like something out of a modern Arabian Nights.
“…I guess that’s the thing, directly in front of me, half buried in a vast pit. Must have struck with terrific force. The ground is…covered with splinters of a tree it must have struck on its w
ay down. What I can see of the object itself doesn’t look very much like a meteor…at least not the meteors I’ve seen. It looks more like a huge cylinder. It has a diameter of…of…what would you say, Professor Pierson?”
All of that had been heard by Grandfather Chapman and his three grandchildren in the living room of the Chapman farmhouse, just outside Grovers Mill, the airplane dial having been turned to avoid a boring song by Nelson Eddy.
Even Grandfather, who wasn’t keen on much that was current, knew after weeks and weeks of Charlie McCarthy just how long the family could get away with cruising rival stations, looking for something more interesting to pass a few minutes than a sissy tenor.
“Grandpa,” the younger boy, Leroy, said, “we’re Grovers Mill!”
Grandfather, sitting forward on his armchair, said, “We sure are, Leroy. Did he say Wilson farm?”
Les said, “I think he said Wilmuth.”
“City reporter musta got it wrong,” Grandfather said. “They must be at the Wilson farm…. Turn that up, a shade.”
The children all looked toward their grandfather with surprise-usually he demanded just the opposite. With caution, Les raised the volume on the glowing magic box.
“What would you say,” the reporter was asking the professor, “what’s the diameter of this?”
“About thirty yards.”
Les and Grandfather exchanged glances. Thirty yards was a lot. Thirty yards was…big.
“The metal on the sheath is, well, I’ve never…seen…anything…like it. The color is sort of…yellowish-white. Curious spectators now are pressing close to the object in spite of the efforts of the police to keep them back, uh, getting in front of my line of vision. Would you mind standing to one side, please?”
Leroy asked, “That other man? The professor?”
Somewhat impatiently, Les said to his kid brother, “What about him?”
“I think he’s the Shadow.”
“Leroy, be quiet.”
“The old Shadow, the good Shadow.”
Sharply, the grandfather said, “Leroy!”
Sitting up on his knees, the little boy looked at the adult with earnest eyes. “Grandpa, I think this is just a story.”
“Leroy, be quiet.”
“But-”
“Shush! They’re interviewing Wilson….”
“Grandpa!”
Grandfather, irritated by the younger boy’s lack of sophistication, raised a hand, signaling him to stop. The child did-folding his arms, smirking in sullen silence.
The farmer was answering Carl Phillips’s questions. “I was listening to the radio and kinda drowsin’, that professor fellow was talkin’ about Mars, so I was half-dozin’ and half…”
“Yes, yes, Mr. Wilmuth. And then what happened?”
Les said, “He said ‘Wilmuth’ again, Grandpa.”
Grandfather said, “Cityslickers always get it wrong.”
“I was listenin’ to the radio kinda halfways….”
“Yes, Mr. Wilmuth, and then you saw something?”
“Not first off. I heard something.”
“And what did you hear?”
“A hissing sound. Like this-” The farmer hissed for the reporter. “Kinda like a Fourth of July rocket.”
“Yes, then what?”
“I turned my head out the window, and would have swore I was to sleep and dreamin’.”
“Yes?”
“I seen that kinda greenish streak and then, zingo! Somethin’ smacked the ground. Knocked me clear out of my chair!”
Leroy was staring at the side wall, turned away from the radio, as if it had betrayed him. He said, firmly for such a little boy, “That…is…just…a…storeee!”
Grandfather had never struck any of his grandchildren (though of course their father, also an insolent pup, had met the razor strop many a time, as a boy), and he told himself tonight would be no exception. He rose and knelt by the child and put a kindly hand on Leroy’s shoulder.
“Not everything on the radio is a story, my boy. You have to learn to know the difference between the news commentators and the storytellers.”
“Look who’s talkin’.”
Grandfather felt red rise into his face. But he said nothing more, and merely returned to his armchair.
Carl Phillips was saying, “Hundreds of cars are parked in a field in back of us, and the police are trying to rope off the roadway, leading into the farm, but it’s no use. They’re breaking right through. Cars’ headlights throw an enormous spotlight on the pit where the object’s half buried.”
With the exception of Leroy, the Chapmans sat forward. Little Susie had cuddled up next to her older brother and was holding his hand. Tight.
“…some of the more daring souls now are venturing near the edge. Their silhouettes stand out against the metal sheen. One man wants to touch the thing-he’s having an argument with a policeman. Now the policeman wins…. Ladies and gentlemen, there’s something I haven’t mentioned in all this excitement, but…it’s becoming more distinct. Perhaps you’ve caught it already on your radio. Listen, please…”
The Chapmans leaned forward-and even Leroy turned back toward the radio. A scraping sound, faint but distinct, crackled over the air waves.
The reporter was asking, “Do you hear it? Curious humming sound that seems to come from inside the object. I’ll move the microphone nearer. Here…now, we’re not more than twenty-five feet away. Can you hear it now?”
The Dorn sisters had heard all of it.
They, too, had turned up the volume (the younger sister, Miss Eleanor, doing the honors) and their knitting was dropped to their laps, unattended, as their wide eyes stared toward the radio.
Ironically, neither woman had much interest in the news, normally-they took pride in not reading much of anything in the local paper except the church news. Neither sister read current magazines; why waste their time reading trash? History, the Bible, education, religion.
Miss Jane’s hands were folded. “God is in His Heaven,” she said.
Having resumed her chair, Miss Eleanor said, “And all’s right in the world.”
But neither of them sounded terribly sure of either statement.
In the modest living room of an apartment in Brooklyn, an out-of-work housepainter named Dennis Chandler, 36, sat with his wife, Helen, listening to the radio. The childless couple had guests-Helen’s younger brother Earl and his wife Amy and their five-year-old Douglas. Dennis and Helen had neither a car nor a telephone. He and his wife went to a local Methodist church about once a month. They’d gone this morning.
Like many listeners, Dennis had switched from Charlie McCarthy only to accidentally land on the station reporting the fall of a meteor. He and his wife and their guests had heard exactly the same thing that the Chapmans had, and most of what the Dorn sisters had.
Dennis, too, was excited and concerned, though not as frightened as his wife and their guests, who were sitting forward, trembling. Douglas was on his mother’s lap, arms draped around her neck.
“You know, Earl,” Dennis said, “we could drive out in your car to where the meteor hit. Could be something to see.”
Earl, who was in his late twenties, said he wouldn’t mind. “Sounds like an adventure,” he said.
But then, when the radio announcer said that he and the Princeton professor had travelled eleven miles in ten minutes, Dennis sat forward in his armchair and said to his wife Helen, “That wasn’t any ten minutes, was it? They were just on!”
Helen said, “It’s hard to keep track of time, but…you might be right.”
“It was ten minutes,” Amy said. “Wasn’t it, Earl?”
Earl wasn’t sure.
Dennis said, “Anyway, with all these news flashes, the streets around Princeton would be packed-they couldn’t get there that fast, even if it was ten minutes!”
Helen, frowning in thought, suggested, “Why don’t you check the listings, in the paper?”
Dennis snapped his fin
gers. “Good idea, honey.”
The husband went to the kitchen where the Sunday Daily News lay on a counter, waiting to wrap garbage. He shuffled through to the radio listings and found that CBS was offering The Mercury Theatre on the Air’s presentation of H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds at eight P.M.
Chuckling to himself, he returned to the tiny living room, settled back in his armchair and said to all assembled, “It’s just a silly play! What knuckleheads we are-shall we switch back to Charlie McCarthy?”
“No!” Helen said. “If it could fool us like that, then it’s well done. Let’s keep listening!”
Everybody agreed that was a good idea, so they indeed kept listening, and really enjoyed the show, laughing heartily at times, little Douglas smilingly shrieking with safe fear.
But the Chapmans (with the notable exception of young Leroy) were legitimately terrified.
Carl Phillips’s excited voice crackled out of the console:
“… do you still think it’s a meteor, Professor?”
“I don’t know what to think. The, uh, metal casing is definitely extraterrestrial…uh, not found on this earth. Friction with the earth’s atmosphere usually tears holes in a meteorite. This thing is…smooth and, as you can see, of cylindrical shape…”
Leroy said nothing.
But in his mind, hearing Professor Pierson’s voice, the boy heard himself scream: “That…is…the…Shadow!”
His little sister was hugging Les, shivering with fear, and Les looked pretty scared, himself.
Normally, Leroy would’ve been sympathetic. He loved his siblings, though the three had the usual kid squabbles. But right now, he relished their discomfort.
“Just a minute!” the announcer yelled. “Something’s happening! Ladies and gentlemen, this is terrific! This…end of the thing is beginning to…flake off. The top is beginning to rotate like a screw, and the thing must be hollow…”
And Leroy laughed out loud-a deep laugh, in imitation of his favorite radio avenger.
The War of the Worlds Murder d-6 Page 15