England caught on to that idea. The Continent thought it was going too far—but for all that, so fanatical is hero worship in its extreme form, the possibility of Solivus Vass, Martian, becoming lord of the Earth grew less and less unlikely as time went by.
Some saw disaster in that possibility; others saw world peace. Dave Turner, far his part, did not know quite what to think. He and Joan, checkmated in the intervening weeks by lack of angles to work upon, had let things slide a little.
Now this new notion to make Vass a World dictator by popular vote started them off on the trail again. Somehow the relationship between Solivus Vass and Abel Karton had got to be solved, to be substantiated before he had the whole world in the hollow of his hand.
One great handicap was that Vass never left the Temple. He lived there all the time, so that any hope of examining the place without his knowledge was out of the question. Nonetheless, that did not prevent Turner from studying the Temple from every angle, and comparing the measurements he made with his mind’s eye recollection of that earlier tour and his notes on the subject. All of which only served to shatter his theory of false walls, hidden spaces, and other tricks. The trouble was that every scrap of space occupied by the Temple could readily be accounted for. And with that discovery the idea of hidden apparatus went to the winds.
Turner was nonplussed, even more so when he came to compare notes with Joan. She had taken a different line of attack, working on the assumption that Vass perhaps used electrical effects to produce his tricks. She had probed every radio shop for a mile round the Temple to discover if any electrical interference had upset reception. In every case she had drawn blank. Still baffled, she questioned the Metropolitan Electricity Board and in her capacity as newspaper reporter was given the information that Vass’s Temple required no more electricity than an ordinary theatre. Blank—blank. Everywhere.
There remained only one course, to induce Vass to give a demonstration under conditions that would be humanly impossible, and thereon let the evidence rest. Turner made the decision, got into touch with Sir Gadsby Brough, and gained his immediate co-operation.
To Turner’s irritation their visit was delayed until seven-thirty in the evening through the absence of Joan at a local radio and TV exhibition she was covering. When she did join Turner and Sir Gadsby outside the Temple, she was flushed with running and clutched an attaché case in her hand.
“Sorry,” she panted, coming up. “I got delayed collecting these confounded gadgets.”
Turner grunted and led the way into the Temple hall. The commissionaire ushered them into Vass’s private office.
“Well, my friends, this is a surprise!” Vass exclaimed, rising from his desk amidst the mellow glow of the lamps. “Is there some little thing I can do for you?”
“Frankly, Vass, we’re not here for pleasantries,” snapped Brough. “You know I disbelieve you, and before I can be really convinced of your powers I demand certain evidence.”
“Such as?” Vass murmured imperturbably.
“In about an hour you will be giving one of your theatre demonstrations. Right?”
“Perfectly.”
“Very well. We demand that we examine the theatre before you start and seal it with private markings known only to ourselves. Then, if those markings are undisturbed at the end of your demonstration we will believe you.”
The magician smiled.
“That is quite reasonable, Sir Gadsby,” he said. “You will forgive me if I do not accompany you to the theatre? You know where it is, along the hall? Splendid!” He paused and dived into his desk. “Here,” he said dryly, “is sealing-wax and a reel of black cotton. Do whatever you wish, wherever you wish. I will continue with my work whilst you proceed with yours.”
Brough slowly took the wax and cotton, disarmed as before by Vass’s unexpected willingness. Turner glanced at Joan, then towards the slightly opened window of the office…
“Come on,” Brough growled. “We haven’t much time,” and he marched out purposefully.
As before, Brough, Turner, and Joan found only solid steel everywhere they examined, but none the less they smothered the stage draperies with secret black cottons, leaving a clear space only where Vass would have to walk during his manifestations. Then, out in the hall, they covered the ebony door with strings, cotton, special markings and seals, making absolutely certain that no mortal being could get into the theatre without their being aware of it before the demonstration began.
“That ought to fix it,” Turner said, but he still looked a trifle uncertain. “If he does anything with all these traps I’ll jump into the Thames.”
He broke off, picked up the girl’s attaché case, and glanced at her in wonderment.
“What the dickens have you got in this thing, Joan? It weighs about a ton.”
“Don’t I know it!” she replied. “They’re radio gadgets—samples from the Exhibition. I’ve got to do a write-up on them.” She broke off, glancing at her watch. “Come on, we’ve got to move and tell Vass what we’ve done.”
Vass, however, seemed in no way perturbed when they returned to his office.
“This is really all very foolish,” he smiled. “However, if it satisfies you its object is achieved… And now,” he got to his feet, “I believe I hear the first of my audience arriving.”
He went to the door and opened it, greeting the people as they entered, with special smiles for his wealthier clients. Brough, Turner, and Joan could do nothing but look on, counting the society and scientific notables who had fallen under the wizard’s sway.
Little by little the hall began to fill up, and at length Vass moved along to the ebony doors and regarded the seals amusedly.
“We still have doubters,” he explained cynically, and watched silently as the three examined their seals. They were quite undisturbed.
“May we go in now?” Vass asked dryly, and a titter of amusement ran through the assembled audience.
“Not yet,” Brough retorted. “I’ve the stage to examine yet.”
He went inside the theatre, returning in a few minutes and pulling the ebony doors wide.
“All right,” he growled. “The traps are all set, Vass. Go ahead.”
“Thank you, Sir Gadsby,” Vass smiled and led the way into the theatre.
The commissionaire hove in view and marshalled the people to their seats. Brough, Joan, and Turner took the front row, Turner still holding the girl’s heavy case with obvious discomfort. Then he turned his attention to the stage as Vass quietly mounted it.
“A pity the powers of a Martian should be doubted,” he said softly, smoothing slender hands down his red clothing. “For, you see—” His hand waved slowly and a massive box suddenly merged into sight. It burst open suddenly, transforming itself into a mass of flags.
Sir Gadsby leant forward so far that he nearly fell out of his chair. Turner drew a sharp breath; Joan’s eyes opened to their fullest extent. The audience murmured softly to themselves.
Then Vass went into another of his amazing demonstrations, if anything surpassing all previous efforts. The mystery girl appeared again and disappeared as strangely, to be followed by still more amazing manifestations.
Turner gave himself up to watching until the Indian scenes came into view, then his attention was distracted by a soft, remote buzzing noise. Nobody else in their rapt attention seemed to have noticed it; but he sensed it distinctly. In fact he seemed to feel it more than hear it.
Baffled, he glanced round, seeing only the draped walls and the intent faces; then he glanced down at the case on his lap. Beyond question that was the source of the strange sound! He half-opened his mouth to speak to Joan, saw her eagerly gazing at the stage so, instead, softly opened the case and peered inside. It was filled with odd electrical and radio gadgets, but one in particular was showing a little red spotlight whilst a delicate needle quivered over a graded disc in the fashion of a stopwatch. For a long time he studied it frowningly, then a slow gleam came into
his eyes. Quietly he pressed the stud on the instrument and the buzzing stopped. The needle became rigid at a number on the dial.
Softly he closed the lid and looked up just in time to see Vass receiving his usual thunderous applause.
“Can’t be any doubt about it, Dave; he’s a genuine magician,” Joan muttered.
Turner did not answer. Vass moved to descend from the stage, then stopped as Sir Gadsby leapt to his feet.
“One moment, Vass!” he shouted. “The final part of my test is to take place now! I believe in the possibility of trickery in this hall; why is it we always leave it before being permitted to re-enter? How do we know the stage does not revolve? Or even that you don’t switch halls in some trick fashion?”
Vass smiled coldly.
“You do me an injustice, Sir Gadsby!” he retorted. “However, if that is how you feel, pray come up here before I move and satisfy yourself. All of you—you, Turner, and you, Miss Wyngate. Come along.”
Brough led the advance, striding up on to the stage with the girl and Turner behind him. The audience watched in contemptuous silence: their faith in the Martian was complete by this time. Turner did not trouble to examine the draperies, and merely stood aside as Brough and the girl conducted the examination.
At last they turned. Brough gave an uncertain sort of smile and shrugged his fleshy shoulder.
“Well, you win, Vass,” he said quietly. “Not a cotton is disturbed or a seal broken. I’ll question you no more.”
“You certainly took a lot of convincing,” was Vass’s curt response. Then he strode down from the platform to mingle with the people.
Gradually the crowd began to file out into the hall. A strained silence fell as Brough, Turner, and the girl came into view.
“Sorry, Vass,” Turner remarked quietly. “We should have known better. Good night.”
Vass’s huge head inclined a little and the three turned and moved away.
Only when they were on the steps did Turner suddenly emerge from his apparent mood of contrition.
He handed the surprised Joan her attaché case and said briefly:
“Don’t let this bag out of your sight for a single instant and don’t touch any of the gadgets inside. Go ahead with Sir Gadsby to the Corner House Café and wait for me. I’ll be with you within an hour.”
Joan stared amazedly.
“But, Dave, what on earth—?” she began.
“Don’t ask questions—get going!” he breathed, then he raced to the bottom of the steps, swiftly climbed the railings encircling the building, and dropped into the narrow space between the railings and the building wall.
In three minutes he had made his way to where Vass’s office window was situated. As he had noticed earlier in the evening, it was slightly open. It was only the work of a moment to swing it wide, slip into the dark office, and replace it in position. Softly he moved to the door, listening to the murmuring of voices. Vass was still in the hall with his devotees.
Turner was working to no haphazard plan. He had taken careful stock of the office furniture on his earlier visit, particularly the tall filing cabinet at an angle across one corner. He moved to it in the gloom, dropped gently down behind it, and waited…waited until he was stiff with cramp.
It seemed an eternity before at last the office door opened and the lights came on. Turner, crouching low and listening intently, heard the creak of a chair. There was an interval, then the door opened again. Immediately the voice of Vass spoke.
“What the devil went wrong tonight, Elsie? There was a power leak somewhere: I got several mild shocks.”
Turner crouched in puzzled silence as a young girl’s voice answered.
“Sorry, Dad, but it was quite impossible to tell you anything, of course. One of the insulator banks developed a fault. You’ll need to fix it. We were losing power all the time.”
Dad? Turner tensed, longing to look over the cabinet. Breathless, he listened for more, but all he heard was a grunt. Then a long sigh—
“Ah, that’s better!” It was Vass’s voice.
Turner wondered what was better, then listened keenly to a faint creaking noise, the sound of hollow footsteps.
“Well, come on, Elsie, we’ll see what we can do,” Vass remarked. “Where’s Benson, by the way?”
“Locking up. I left him going round closing the windows…”
The voice of the girl faded strangely and finally ceased. Her footfalls and those of Vass also expired mysteriously.
Gently, Turner began to rise up, and the first thing that met his eyes over the top of the cabinet was the surprising sight of a great forehead, topped with smooth black hair, standing on the desk!
Turner stood blinking at it, then recalled Vass’s sigh of relief. So that was what had been better! Silently, he eased himself over the cabinet, and saw for the first time that a normally flawlessly-concealed section of the floor had slid smoothly aside. Metal steps led down into the gloom.
Swiftly he went to the false forehead and examined it. The thing was not metal nor rubber, it was actual flesh with an elastic consistency so identical with the real thing that no possible flaw could be detected in the matter of join. Synthetic flesh? So that was one of the magician’s secrets!
Turner swung round, looked uneasily at the door, then backed to the trap door. No sounds reached him from below. Gently he began to step down, taking care that his feet made no sound. As he went lower a faint reflection of light from somewhere below reached him.
He came at last within view of an enormous underground cellar, evidently stretching the entire length of the Temple base and probably much farther than that. In dazed astonishment he could do nothing but stare. He caught sight of Vass, amazingly different without his false head—white-headed and active—moving about among enormous electrical machines, accompanied by the slim form of a girl. Here and there were men in blue overalls obeying the inaudible orders the scientist snapped out to them.
Turner recognised enormous turbo-generators and dynamos, electro-magnets, banks of insulators, massive switchboards and, in particular, an incessant flooding stream of water racing through giant sluices. His eyes narrowed with thought.
“Of course! The Temple’s space is accounted for,” he breathed. “The trouble was nobody thought of a basement like this. Or the water for power…”
He smiled slowly, gave a final look round the wilderness of scientific achievement, then hastily retreated as the scientist and his daughter began to approach. Two minutes later he was through the office window and out into the night.
Rejoining Brough and Joan in the Corner House, Turner lost no time in recounting his experience.
“Then—then he is Abel Karton?” Joan asked breathlessly.
Turner nodded.
“No doubt of it now,” he said. “The girl’s his daughter—she looked to me like the one in the Grecian costume. However, that doesn’t matter at the moment. The point is this, he’s a scientist of the highest possible status, a literal wizard of electricity. But what he’s driving at we still don’t know. Tonight, though, something happened that he didn’t expect. There was an electricity escape, normally unnoticeable but detectable by instruments such as those in your attaché case, Joan. Hand it over, I’ve a few ideas to put forward. You, in particular, Sir Gadsby, can probably be the undoing of Karton, working from my basic plan. Now listen carefully…”
Brough leaned forward over the table, his expressions changing to a final one of profound interest as he studied first the contents of the girl’s case and then listened to Turner’s scheme.
“Of course I can do it!” he breathed. “Nothing simpler! And if you’re right Abel Karton will be trapped.”
“It can’t miss,” whispered Joan exultantly. “Thank goodness I brought this case along with me instead of dropping it at the office on my way.”
Turner smiled. “You can thank a leak in Karton’s apparatus for the entire thing,” he said quietly. “Otherwise I’m afraid we’d be his sta
unch devotees by now. Well, let’s be moving.”
CHAPTER 6
The Exposure of Abel Karton
During the ensuing week, Turner, Brough, and Joan were in almost daily contact, evolving their final plan for the downfall of the Red Magician. Turner was guarded in his hints to his editor, though he left him in little doubt that he intended to scoop the biggest story in hoax history before very long. Joan Wyngate told her editor the same thing, and it became an increasingly difficult problem for the girl and Turner to determine how their individual stories were both going to be scoops. One or the other would have to be first.
A good deal of time was spent by Turner in issuing invitations to the word’s greatest scientists—many of them believers in Vass’s powers—to be present at the magician’s next demonstration. In consequence, by the time the following Wednesday evening came around, every possible space in the Temple was packed with notables.
The scientist, as big-headed and suave as ever in his role of Vass, regarded the invasion with some delight, not entirely divorced from bewilderment, until Turner explained that he had felt it his duty to make amends for his previous doubts.
“Exactly that,” beamed Brough, disarmingly pleasant for once.
“I’m going to see that my paper gives you the space you deserve, too,” Joan put in, holding her attaché case firmly until Turner took it from her.
“Well, at least I am assured of complete co-operation this time,” the wizard smiled, halting at the theatre doors. “Even so, though, I’d be glad if you would enter and examine the stage as usual.”
The audience filed in, Turner, Joan, and Brough taking their former places on the front row. The stage having been proven solid, Vass quietly mounted it. As he did so, Turner idly opened the lid of his attaché case, shifted something inside, and closed it again. A vague, hardly detectable humming note began to proceed from it.
The John Russell Fearn Science Fiction Megapack Page 49