The Mad Scientist Megapack

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “Stop reading Myshkin’s mind and just recite facts.” I said.

  “Mind-reading only irritates illiterates,” he said. “These facts of mine are highly factual facts. Pour me another, fool. So Myshkin sneaked out, went for his clothes, just about found them—bango! he hears the front door close and you saying that you forgot something, and you’re coming back. Well, he knew by then that the clothes had been out in the open all the time—and even if he didn’t suspect why Nulty hadn’t said anything about them—the last thing he wanted then was you coming back. So he dropped the clothes and beat it back to the forge—

  “Wait a minute,” I said.

  “Shut up,” said Siegman. “Then you came into the room, turned on the light and started calling Myshkin’s name, and telling him it was all right, that it was safe to answer. Well, maybe he heard the front door opening again—it may be a lot easier to hear it from up front where the forge is than from back in the room where you were—or maybe he just wasn’t taking any chances with a moron who would expose him to such a risk after he narrowly escaped. Whatever it was, he just climbed up the chimney and the hell with you. He knew that hanging around in there with you whispering it was safe to come out—”

  “Enough,” I said.

  “Good,” said Siegman. “Logic has you by the throat?”

  “No, nausea,” I said. “So you say Myshkin went up the chimney?”

  “Unless I am to doubt your evaluation of Nulty’s thoroughness in searching that room, which seems like a pointless quibble. But that was the only way—up the chimney, across the roof, and down into the yard in the back. I will state frankly and freely that I don’t like the chimney-climbing angle very much, but we know it is unquestionably possible.”

  “And now may I have a few words?”

  “The fewer the better.”

  “In the first place,” I said, “if Myshkin was still in the room after I went out with Nulty he couldn’t possibly have come out of either the forge or the chimney, gotten to his clothes, then gotten back to the chimney and away—because he’d have had to do the whole thing in approximately ten seconds. Fifteen at most. It’s impossible to move around in that room with any speed at all, no matter how familiar one might be with what’s in it. Furthermore, after Nulty’s first search of that room, Myshkin’s familiarity—if it were at all possible—would only have been a handicap, because too many things are moved. You can’t tell me that Myshkin could do all that in the time it took me to walk to the front door and get back. Even if somehow he could, and had managed to get back to the chimney before I got the lights on again, I’d have heard him in the chimney. No human being can squeeze and climb his way up a chimney without making some slight sound. I admit that this sort of objection doesn’t have the brilliance of your theory—it merely destroys it. I say Myshkin didn’t have time. Okay?”

  “No,” said Siegman.

  “I’m glad we agree,” I said. “In the second place, your deductions about Myshkin’s preference of his clothes to that hospital robe and pajamas—you remember I objected—do not impress me.”

  “No?” said Siegman, with an elaborate show of disinterest.

  “No, I think there’s something doing with those clothes.”

  “For instance, what?”

  “I don’t know—” I began.

  “Next question,” said Siegman. “What else don’t you know that you’re willing to argue about?”

  “If you’ll recall Myshkin’s account of his supposedly magical escape from the hospital,” I said, “he made a point of remarking how everything had gone off beautifully except that his clothes weren’t where they were supposed to be. Now, ordinarily I wouldn’t have thought twice about that remark, except that when I got back to the room downstairs, it struck me that I could have said the same thing—those clothes were not where they were supposed to be. Doesn’t that indicate some sort of coincidence that’s meaningful?”

  “Now that you mention it,” said Siegman, “I’d say yes—it indicates a coincidence that’s meaningless.”

  “Furthermore,” I went on, “consider the circumstance of Boris returning here with a gunman—and for some reason bringing along Myshkin’s clothes. What a remarkable thing to do! Boris comes with an apparent intent to have Myshkin shot or tortured or something, but he bothers to bring back those rags! And not only that, but Myshkin was struck by it too. You remember how frightened he was when he first saw Boris’ killer? Of all the things to comment on, Myshkin said: ‘You didn’t forget my clothes.’ I don’t know why he said it, but when you begin to add up all the little side issues that one way or another involve those clothes, don’t you start wondering about them? Be honest, Al, don’t you?”

  After a moment, Siegman nodded and said, “All right, yes.”

  “Good. Now take everything I’ve said and start adding that up, and here’s what you get, I think: First, that Myshkin was already gone from the downstairs room by the time Nulty and I went in. I’ll go so far as to say that because of the cops outside, the chimney does seem to be the answer as to how he got out. But, second, he left those clothes behind on purpose. I don’t know why. Your argument that he’d be more conspicuous in his robe and pajamas than in his clothes can’t be refuted, but my feeling is that for one reason or another it was more important not to take the clothes, not to change into them, than it was to risk going around in pajamas.”

  “Wait,” said Siegman. “What if he knew where to get some other clothes on the outside? Didn’t he appreciate the fact that they’d be a dead give-away that he’d been back to the house? Why not take them with him and throw them away somewhere?”

  I said, “There’s only one answer: Myshkin wanted those clothes right there on the premises.”

  “If he wanted them on the premises, and if he knew they’d be a giveaway, why didn’t he do something intelligent about them? Why let them lay around in full view of anyone coming into that room? Why not at least hide them in that room?”

  “Exactly,” I said. “And my theory is that he did hide them.”

  “But you said they weren’t hidden.”

  “Let me put it this way: Myshkin hid them, but they didn’t stay hidden.”

  “Oh,” said Siegman, “we’re back to that, are we?”

  “Yes—that bundle of clothes not only moved by itself in between the two times I went into that room—but they also moved by themselves after Myshkin had taken some slight trouble, at least, to hide them.”

  “It’s a theory worthy of Nulty,” said Siegman, and he finished his drink and got up. “Personally, I’m still strong for finding out where Boris developed that odd vocabulary of his. Now if you could get an idea about that—”

  “If you don’t like the way I’ve worked this clothes angle—”

  “Forget it. It’s a dead end.”

  “—There’s always the alternative,” I went on. “Suppose there was something to what Myshkin said about invisibility? That way he might still have been in the room, and the clothes wouldn’t necessarily have had to move by themselves. It isn’t so much—”

  “It’s less than that. Why don’t you listen to what you’re saying? What kind of ideas are you operating on? One is that clothes go waltzing around of their own free will; the other is invisibility.”

  “Well, where do you stop in an affair like this?”

  “At the first convenient stop. For me it’s a small common sense problem based on trying out something about Boris’ vocabulary.”

  “And how do you go about it?”

  “I have an idea,” said Siegman. “You hold down the fort, I’ll go out a minute and get some newspapers. Maybe there’ll be something in it for me.”

  “Look in the obituaries,” I said.

  Siegman went out then and I mixed up a batch of new drinks and brought it in to the girls. Harriet was feeling considerably better, a co
ndition I felt was largely due to the fact that Gladys was sitting off by herself at the window, staring out into space almost as blank as she. The drinks were sweetly welcomed by both, but did nothing about promoting conversation with either, and I found a chair and went on thinking about things.

  The key that Nulty had given me was an interesting piece of business but it led me nowhere. The fact that it had been found, according to Nulty, in the pile of yellow dust outside the door, seemed to indicate that it had been connected one way or another with Boris’ entrance to Myshkin’s house. Of course, Boris was too small to have been able to use the key himself—which meant that his gunman friend had used it, but why it should have been dropped… There I was going off on one of those tangents again. Why did everything that had happened have to be part of some great plan? Didn’t people accidentally drop keys? Why couldn’t this key have been dropped by accident?

  But of this I was sure—that Nulty hadn’t just returned the key to me with such sweetness and light, because it didn’t belong to him. If that key was useful to him in his theorizing about Myshkin, it was still useful in any further plans he might have. He’d told me about the key because it would have come out anyway—Siegman had seen him using the key to get back in—but I could be sure that before Nulty returned it, he’d made a copy of it, a wax impression or a drawing or something. Nulty would have a duplicate of that key, for later use, when it suited him. His turning the key over to me was meant only to throw me off guard and make his secret possession of a key worth something.

  Well, I was playing with that kind of unprofitable speculation when the phone went off. Harriet looked at me, I started to get up, and Gladys, who was closest to the darkroom where the phone was, but who seemed farthest away, shot out of her chair and went to answer it. I still had enough respect for Gladys not to want to get into a darkroom with her, so I let it go. But not Harriet. Harriet left the couch and took up an unabashed listening post with her ear to the door, which Gladys had immediately closed.

  She listened briefly, then carefully turned the knob and opened the door a trifle. A few seconds more of that and she burst into the room.

  “Now, darling, please don’t!” I heard Gladys say.

  “Darling, you give me that phone!” said Harriet.

  “But Mr. Myshkin’s explaining something very important, darling!”

  That was all it took to get me there fast, but I arrived in time to see Harriet holding the phone, delivering: “Mr. Myshkin, you must have gotten a wrong number!” and slamming the connection shut with a bang.

  Without another word, Gladys marched out of the darkroom. I stepped to one side and let Harriet handle it. She caught Gladys halfway across the living-room and sat her down with a certain amount of friendly firmness, then took the seat opposite on the couch.

  “Where are you going, darling?” she asked.

  “Darling, I know you won’t approve. You know, we’re different people.”

  “No, darling, we’re people, but you’re different. I make no bones about eavesdropping, darling, and I heard you tell Mr. Myshkin you’d be there as soon as you could make it. Darling, make what?—and where?”

  Gladys smiled mysteriously. “To that wonderful, wonderful house on Forcible Tub Drive. Oh, dear, that sounds wrong, doesn’t it, darling?”

  “Yes, darling you’ve got it backwards. It’s Tubicle Forks Boulevard.”

  “It doesn’t matter, darling, I remember how to get there.”

  “Do you, darling? And why were you going to go there?”

  “Oh, I wasn’t going to go, darling—I’m going.”

  “Yes, of course, you dear sweet girl, but why?”

  “I promised Mr. Myshkin I wouldn’t say a word to anyone, darling.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you won’t, darling, but why were you going?”

  “He said he’s expecting Boris,” said Gladys, looking around with a conspiratorial expression that could have gotten her a job on the spy staff of half a dozen Balkan embassies. “And,” she whispered, “that perfectly adorable friend of his will be along!”

  Harriet let out a deep sigh, said “Really, darling?” and looked at me.

  “And,” Gladys went on, scarcely able to contain herself, “there may even be some others, darling, who are just as romantic and dashing as Boris’ friend. Now aren’t you sorry you didn’t let me finish talking to him?”

  “Yes, darling,” Harriet said softly. “I think under the circumstances the only thing for me to do is telephone him immediately and apologize. Henry—”

  “But he said there was no time to lose, darling! Let’s just go!”

  “Darling, it’s so much more comfortable here. I’ll tell you what. You go to the kitchen with Henry and start making a very special drink Henry told me about. It’s Mr. Myshkin’s favorite, and I’m sure all his friends will just love it, darling. Won’t they, Henry?”

  “Harriet—” I said, and got no further.

  “Meanwhile, darling, I’ll do all the necessary telephoning,” Harriet had gone right on, turning to me with a smile that finally let me understand she was up to something. “Henry, lover-man, you do remember how to mix that very special drink, don’t you?”

  “Like it was yesterday,” I said. “Come, Gladys, baby…”

  I felt like the witch in Hansel Und Gretel when I led Gladys into the kitchen. It took me five minutes just to assemble the ingredients. I started by mixing vodka and Benedictine, added a dash of Pernod, chili powder, Greek brandy, Haitian rum so thick a spoon would stand in it, a touch of paregoric, claves, and with that for a beginning, I decided to go on more imaginatively. Pretty soon I had a champagne bucket full of a liquid that was apparently eating into the silver. At this stage I opened two bottles of Mexican beer and instructed Gladys how to pour it into the general mixture a few drops at a time, never letting up the stirring, and cautioned her that the whole magnificent creation would go flat unless she repeated the proper incantation.

  With that I left her, and I could hear her dutifully repeating in an awed voice: “Hark, hark, the lark at heaven’s gate sings…”

  Harriet was at the door to the darkroom, busy on the phone. She looked as if things weren’t going too well for her. “Can’t find him,” she said, dialing.

  “Who, Myshkin?”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m trying to track down Roscoe. You remember him, don’t you—Roscoe Cramwell, the actor?”

  “Yes, the fat one? The one who was outside on Gladys’ fire-escape?”

  She nodded. “Hello, Armand’s? Is Roscoe Cramwell there, please? No? Well, do you know where he is? No idea at all? If he should come in, will you tell him to call Gladys at Harriet’s home, please? Thank you.” She hung up.

  “Why Roscoe?” I said.

  “You want Gladys to go to Myshkin?” she asked, dialing again.

  “Certainly not.”

  “Do you know what it’s like trying to stop Gladys when she’s got her wee mind set on something—particularly something like going to Myshkin’s house?”

  “I see. That’s for Roscoe to do?”

  “He’s the only one who can handle her, if I can find—Hello, Tony? This is Harriet Hopper…?” She went through it again with no success and left the same message. “Fifth place I’ve tried,” she said, concentrating with a frown on her lovely forehead. “One saw him this afternoon. He’s evidently been on a bat since early this morning. By now there’s no telling what condition he’s in or even where he’s likely to be. How are you doing with what you’re doing?”

  “I’m afraid to look at it.”

  “You’re a darling,” she said, and leaned over and kissed me lightly on the chin. “Try to get a pint of it into Gladys. I’ll keep phoning.”

  She was dialing again when I started back to the kitchen, and when I got there, Gladys was pouring the last of the Mexican beer.

/>   “Try it, darling?” she sang.

  I dipped a measuring cup into the stuff, came up with three ounces and drained it with no trouble. The kiss on my chin was still moist, and after that no drink on Earth could mean a thing. But as a matter of fact, the drink tasted fine and I said so.

  “Yes, darling,” said Gladys. Her eyeballs looked quite odd.

  “You tried it?” I asked.

  “Of course, darling,” she trilled. Now I could see what it was about her eyeballs—they were bulging and receding, undulating gently. “I knew if it was Mr. Myshkin’s favorite drink, it must be wonderful, and it is, darling. Darling, I’ve known all along I was mixed up with a bunch of geniuses!”

  Down the hall I heard the door open. I looked and saw Siegman coming in, then a moment later, Harriet came out, spoke to him, and Siegman said something and went out again. Then Harriet came down the hall, carrying the newspapers Siegman had brought back.

  “Success?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “The bartender says it may be days before he can move under his own power. Al went down to get him.”

  “How far from here is he?”

  “Third Avenue—not far.”

  Gladys stuck her head out of the kitchen and peered at us.

  “Darling, what is Mr. Myshkin doing on Third Avenue?”

  “He’s in a hock shop,” I said.

  “On Sunday night, darling?”

  “It’s an emergency hock shop,” I said. “Open day and night.”

  “Hock, hock, the lark!” said Gladys.

  “Congratulations, Henry, darling,” said Harriet.