Jumping to his feet, Turner made for the filing room, turned up the issue of the Arrow in question, and searching through it, finally discovered the interview on the back page with Joan Wyngate’s byline.
The interview was of considerable length, and was, in essence, an indictment against Governmental red tape when it came to the consideration of really valuable scientific inventions. In the course of his statement, Abel Karton had touched with a highly technical accuracy on light-wave control, the fundamental states of matter, and synthesis, Turner was not a first-class scientist, but he did know enough to piece the interview together. It was not the science that really mattered, however, so much as Abel Karton himself.
Within ten minutes Turner was in the offices of the Clarion, searching for Joan. He found her at length in the canteen busy with her lunch.
“Well, light of my life!” she exclaimed in amazement, as Turner sat down opposite her across the table. “And what brings the Arrow’s mastermind into the enemy camp?”
Her blue eyes regarded him suspiciously under her pert little hat. Turner reflected it was a pity their rival positions precluded any demonstration of affection. Curiously enough, his collar always seemed too tight when he met Joan face to face like this.
“Well, well?” she prompted, as he sat gazing. “What’s the idea? Don’t mind me eating, will you?”
“Eh? Oh—no, go right ahead… Joan, do you ever remember interviewing a scientist called Abel Karton?”
“Do I!” the girl echoed with a whistle. “It was almost my last job on the Arrow. I spent one entire afternoon listening to him spout about light waves and planets and things. I was as dizzy as a top when I got back to the office.” She stopped suddenly, lowered her tea cup. “Why?” she demanded.
“Oh, I just wondered.” Turner tried to look casual. “You see, I’ve some work to do that may need Karton’s help. I came across your article and looked you up… What’s he like, this Karton? Where does he live?”
“Last I heard of him, a couple of years ago, he’d gone to France. I don’t know where he is now. He tried to sell some scientific ideas to the Government, you know, and when they didn’t bite he got the needle and went to the Continent.” The girl shrugged her slender shoulders. “Rather a funny old codger,” she murmured. “Short, white-haired, green eyed, and—”
She broke off suddenly at the change of expression on Turner’s face.
“Dave Turner, what are you driving at?” she asked coldly.
“Nothing, Joan—honest.” He got to his feet. “Since he’s on the Continent that rules him out for me. Pity! Well, thanks all the same. See you again sometime.”
Joan stared after his fast retreating form, then frowned at her plate.
“Now what did I say that might…” She looked up suddenly. “Good Lord! Dave Turner is a bright little boy after all! Maybe a bright little girl can do something too!”
She scrambled her things together and hurriedly departed.
* * * *
In the meantime, Turner was frantically searching Who’s Who. The current issue made no reference to Abel Karton, but an earlier edition referred to him at considerable length: Professor of physics, holder of the Mathematical Chair in the Vienna Scientific Institute, author of works on space, the phenomena of light, molecular fundamentals, and some subjects entirely unpronounceable. Residence: ‘The Willows,’ Littlehampton, Sussex.
That settled it for Turner. For the rest of the day he went off on the trail, rained inquiries on Littlehampton, tried every trick he could think of to extract information, and made copious notes. By late evening he returned to London in a complacent frame of mind.
There was not the slightest doubt, to his way of thinking, that Abel Karton—now apparently disappeared nobody knew where—was actually none other than Solivus Vass, the Martian. The clue of the green eyes had been an obvious one, and the coincidence between the profound knowledge of Abel Karton, clearly a century ahead of his time, and the Red Magician was too obvious to be missed.
No, there was little doubt about Karton being Vass, mysteriously altered to look like a Martian, but the discovery by no means explained the full puzzle.
His motives? His astounding stunts? His immovable space machine?
Turner shook his head in bewilderment. In finding evidence of Vass’s real identity he had, if anything, got himself in a bigger pickle than ever, for until he had definite proof of Vass’s motives and an explanation for his feats, he dare not breathe a word.
CHAPTER 4
For a month after his discovery Turner found himself busy on trivial, irritating assignments, and did not take up the old thread again until Vass reappeared before the public eye in the early New Year with the announcement that his Red Temple was finished, and that he was now ready to demonstrate Martian science as never before.
The public swallowed his every statement with the same gullibility as before, and Turner permitted no hint of the real truth to escape. His main task now was to solve the reason for all this hocus-pocus. His request to be the first to examine the Temple was readily granted.
In shape it was circular, built in red brick, with a roof that went up to a triangle. This general architecture, the triangular windows, and the neon-sign— ‘Red Temple’—gave just the right hint of mystery top appeal to a credulous public.
Inside the building, Vass keeping him company, Turner wandered along the cool, circular hall entirely enclosing the central circle of the main building. The hall walls were liberally supplied with arresting-looking doors in burnished metal, designated as ‘Meditation Room,’ ‘Consulting Room,’ and so forth. Each of them was cool, light, and tastefully furnished. But Turner’s main attention centred on a doorway larger than the others, composed of material resembling polished jet, almost facing the entrance way.
“Something special?” he asked quickly.
Vass smiled.
“My demonstration theatre,” he explained. “Please enter.”
He swung the black doors wide and switched on clusters of yellow globes. Turner gazed over numberless orderly rows of raised seats, and walked slowly along the central aisle gazing at the heavy, ornate draperies on the walls, until at last he came to the raised platform with its black-velvet backdrop curtains.
He mounted the steps and regarded the smooth steel floor, then drew back the draperies and surveyed the metal walls.
“You mean you are going to perform feats in here?” he asked, frowning.
“Exactly,” Vass nodded. “Rather an interesting place, is it not? Entirely metal save for the ventilation grilles in the ceiling. On this stage I will perform all my magical feats, and I believe I will fully convince the world of the power of mind.”
“If you can do it with walls and floor like this you certainly will,” Turner confessed. “It’s as solid as the Bank of England’s vaults.”
“Do you doubt my prowess?” Vass asked slowly.
“Eh? Why, no, of course not. It’s just that I’m rather mystified as to how you do it… However, thanks for the story. I’ll splash it in the Arrow. When do you demonstrate?”
“Tonight at eight.” Vass gave a faintly cynical smile. “I have invited all the famous scientists in Europe to come along. They of all others are the hardest to convince… Strange indeed how obtuse the earthly mind can be.”
“So I imagine,” Turner observed quietly, then with a final nod of thanks he turned and left the stage, puzzling to himself as he walked out of the building.
He could not rid himself now of the impression that his theory had a flaw somewhere. Facing Vass again, sensing his compelling personality, surveying his mighty dome and odd shoulders and chest, he began to wonder. Martian or Earthman? Magician or fake? It ran as a tempo in his brain as he wrote up the story of the Red Temple and its impregnable construction.
The rest of the day was an annoyance to him: the evening was the only thing that interested him, and when he did step out of the Arrow offices into the biting east wind t
o head for the Temple he found the trim form of Joan Wyngate waiting for him in a nearby doorway.
“Ah, the scoop king in person!” she smiled, deliberately hooking her arm through his. “Do you mind taking a nice, attractive girl to the spook house? Otherwise the Red Temple?”
“Well, no, but—” Turner paused uneasily, looked at the girl doubtfully in the lights from the shop windows as they walked along. “What’s the idea, Joan?” he asked shortly.
“You have the idea that I’m an addle-brained girl who can’t possibly compete with masterful males, haven’t you?” she asked sweetly. “Well, that’s where you’re wrong. You gave yourself away all over the place when you questioned me in the canteen. I’ve not forgotten a single word you said, but my main recollection is your amazement at learning Abel Karton had green eyes. So, says little girl, has the Red Magician. Connection obvious. Is he a fake or is he a Martian? Joan Wyngate gets to work and decides to find out—without much success, so far,” she finished, sighing. “But think what a great scoop it will make for the Clarion when I do solve the mystery!”
“So that’s it!” Turner breathed fiercely. “You confounded little— Oh, well, I suppose it’s my own fault,” he growled. “I might have known you’d guess the idea. All the same, I wanted the story for the Arrow.”
Joan smiled.
“All’s fair in—in war,” she said. “We both want it and we’re both on newspapers. Since we’re rivals we can’t officially cooperate, but unofficially…” She smiled captivatingly. “I’m not a hard girl to take out to dinner sometimes,” she murmured; then, becoming serious again: “Honestly, though, I can’t quite identify Abel Karton with Solivus Vass. The size of Vass’s head for one thing. Karton had a pretty good one, but not quite like a top hat. Besides, if Vass’s head is false there’d be a join round his forehead, and there isn’t.”
“Humph!” Turner growled moodily. “I’ve got doubts, too, after what I saw this morning.” Briefly he related the details of the demonstration theatre, and when he had finished Joan wrinkled her nose in puzzlement.
“Must be a catch in it,” she commented; then they ceased talking as they reached the Temple, and went slowly up the steps with the crowd.
Inside the brightly lit hall Vass himself and a burly commissionaire were marshalling the people into order as they moved into the demonstration theatre. The scientists, with Sir Gadsby Brough well in evidence, were already in the front row. To the left, whither Joan and Turner moved, was the press section. The rest of the theatre was filled to the great doors with eagerly talking people.
“Creepy, isn’t it?” Joan whispered, tugging out her notebook and gazing across at the black-draped stage.
Turner nodded, then settled down to watch as the doors were closed and Vass slowly mounted the platform, holding up a hand for silence. The murmuring died away.
“My Earthly friends,” he said softly, “I have dedicated this Temple to you. The feats that will take place here are demonstrations of Martian mind science. Once you are convinced—once you are all convinced—my work is over. You can have my knowledge in return for certain valuable Earthly possessions, valuable, that is, to Mars. Now, shall we begin?”
He stood for a moment in silence, his huge head catching the yellow light of the globes. Gently he waved his right hand, then the audience gasped a little as a slender girl, clothed in Grecian style, began to merge out of the empty air, took on solidity, and finally bowed and smiled. Gradually, she walked forward to Vass, but even as she did so she became a wraith, then melted into emptiness. Vass clapped his bands sharply and a birdcage appeared to instantly disappear in a cloud of vanishing smoke.
The audience, already blinking at the rapidity of the first changes, became even more astounded as the Red Magician proceeded. He drove mysteriously produced knives into equally mysterious cubes of solid steel, vanished the lot abruptly, then produced two balls of some transparent metal which visibly passed right through one another, multiplied, subtracted, and finally disappeared in a flash of brilliant fire.
He went on to reproduce his rope trick, appearing out of a box secured with heavy chains. The same box suddenly became full of green water from which emerged the former Grecian girl, now in modem bathing-costume. Vass regarded her steadily. Very gradually she rose into the air, remained suspended upright without a trace of support.
“Mind power,” he smiled. “Sir Gadsby Brough, your reputation is beyond reproach. Please be so good as to come up here and satisfy yourself as to the absence of wires and gadgets.”
The scientist, driven on by curiosity, obeyed the injunction, and waved his hands and his walking stick above and around the motionless girl. He returned to his seat with a mystified expression on his face.
Vass gave a slow smile, waved his hand idly. As before the girl grew transparent, vaporised, and vanished. A deep intake of breath passed through the audience.
Hardly pausing. Vass went on and on, producing effect after effect. He produced dazzling backgrounds of India and the Orient, rolling oceans, screaming hurricanes, limpid lagoons, flaming sunsets of eye-wrenching colour—even convinced everybody they were staring down into the blazing maw of Vesuvius’ greatest depths. Then a flash and the stage was empty.
He stood smiling in the soft lights, bowing gently at the thunderous applause.
“Elementary mind science, not to be confused with hypnotism,” he murmured. “I do it merely to prove to you that my powers are in no way decreased. At various times other demonstrations will take place: in the meantime, every day, I am at your service.”
Again the applause raged through the theatre and he descended slowly from the stage. Little by little the people began filing out of the theatre into the hall, with Vass coming up in the rear. Out in the hall he smiled round on the talkative crowd, his back to the ebony doors.
It was then that Sir Gadsby Brough emerged from the press, his round, fleshy face frankly cynical.
“Vass,” he said slowly, “I don’t pretend to know how you do these conjuring tricks of yours. I don’t know how you produce distant scenes, make a girl float in mid-air and fade from sight; but I do say that I’m not convinced. I believe you’re a fake, sir—a fake!”
“So?” Vass’s black eyebrows rose questioningly. “I rather thought I had convinced you, Sir Gadsby.”
“Not a bit of it! Mystified me, yes, but nothing else. What is more, if you maintain you have nothing to hide, I demand to examine this theatre of yours.”
Vass smiled faintly, gazing round on the watching people.
“Friends, we have a doubter in our midst,” he observed. “Are there any others who would like to examine the theatre and satisfy themselves?”
“Yes, I would!” Turner moved forward resolutely with Joan by his side. Nor were they the only ones—several others advanced.
“How surprising!” Vass exclaimed. “At least I thought you were satisfied, Mr. Turner. However, please enter,” and he flung the black doors wide open.
Brough was clearly surprised at the ready acceptance of his demand. He went forward slowly into the theatre with Turner and Joan beside him. Vass came up in the rear with other people trailing curiously behind.
Brough made no pretence of being cursory. He pulled aside the draperies and thumped the wall, even went down on his knees and banged the floor. Turner and the girl divided their labours by covering the wall inch by inch, examining the metal closely for the least sign of a flaw. For nearly thirty minutes, helped by Sir Gadsby and other doubters, they examined the place from end to end. They reached the doorway again with somewhat ashamed faces.
“Well, I’m damned if I can understand it!” Brough snorted, rubbing his bald bead. “Floors and walls solid metal. No sign of apparatus or machinery—unless it was mass hypnotism!”
“Controlling all these people?” Vass asked quietly. “Really, my dear sir!”
Sir Gadsby shrugged and bit his lip.
“It’s clever,” he growled; “infernally cle
ver, but you can do your tricks until Doomsday before I’ll admit you’re a Martian magician. Faker, sir! Blasted faker!” and swinging round be strode out with pouting lips.
Vass watched him go, then turned back to his adherents.
“Thank you, my friends,” he murmured. “You have satisfied yourselves. Tomorrow I shall be ready to help you in every way I can. Good night—good night…”
He herded the people slowly out. Turner and Joan went down the front steps together into the busy whirl of the night traffic. It seemed genuinely stimulating after the weird nature of the theatre. Wordless, they looked at one another.
“Joan,” Turner said presently, “we’re either a couple of prize idiots or else Vass is a genuine miracle worker with mind creations. What else but mind force could produce those effects in a steel theatre?”
“Don’t ask me,” the girl sighed. “Better try some supper and talk it over.”
But talking it over did no good. The more they examined the problem the more they saw the hopes of their joint scoop receding. They still faced that inexorable question—Martian scientist or brilliant charlatan?
CHAPTER 5
The Clue of the Needle
With the passing days it became an obvious, even a disturbing fact that the Red Magician had the capital of the country entirely under his sway. His extraordinary personality, his feats of wizardry, his uncanny occult powers at beholding things denied to ordinary men were quite sufficient to master the main bulk of London’s population, and those who travelled to see him were usually convinced after one interview.
Day after day his Temple was packed—endless streams of money flowed into his lap. Wealthy women in particular came in droves for him to satisfy their every little worry; which he did, for a fabulous price. His streak of generosity in giving poor people free opinions for their guidance was something that endeared him at once to the general public.
The Continent began to reveal interest. Vass invited a deputation of European scientific experts to London and thereby vastly extended the sphere of his subtle influence. The United States were less ready to accept him, more prone to scepticism; but at length even they succumbed and with typical fervour hailed Vass as the eighth wonder of the world. Why not make him President? Why not even make him World ruler and have his strange powers sort out the complex difficulties of a sadly-troubled planet?
The John Russell Fearn Science Fiction Megapack Page 48