The Pulp Fiction Megapack

by Robert Leslie Bellem

  Admiral Clay looked keenly into the piercing black eyes of the Doctor.

  “I know something of you by reputation, Bird,” he said slowly, “and I will follow your advice. Will you tell me why you make this particular suggestion?”

  “So that I can work in that solarium to-night without interruption,” replied Dr. Bird. “I have some tests which I wish to carry out while it is still dark. If my results are negative, forget what I have told you. If they yield any information, I will be glad to share it with you at the proper time. Now get the President out of that solarium and tell me when the coast is clear.”

  The Admiral donned a dressing gown and stepped out of the room. He returned in fifteen minutes.

  “The solarium is at your disposal, Doctor,” he announced. “Shall I accompany you?”

  “If you wish,” assented Dr. Bird as he picked up his apparatus and strode out of the room.

  In the solarium he glanced quickly around, noting the position of each of the articles of furniture.

  “I presume that the President always sleeps with his head in this direction?” he remarked, pointing to the pillow on the disturbed bed.

  The Admiral nodded assent. Dr. Bird opened the bag which he had packed in his laboratory, took out a sheet of cardboard covered with a metallic looking substance, and placed it on the pillow. He stepped back and donned a pair of smoked glasses, watching it intently. Without a word he took off the glasses and handed them to the Admiral. The Admiral donned them and looked at the pillow. As he did so an exclamation broke from his lips.

  “That plate seems to glow,” he said in an astonished voice.

  Dr. Bird stepped forward and laid his hand on the pillow. He was wearing a wrist watch with a radiolite dial. The substance suddenly increased its luminescence and began to glow fiercely, long luminous streamers seeming to come from the dial. The Doctor took away his hand and substituted a bottle of liquid for the plate on the pillow. Immediately the bottle began to glow with a phosphorescent light.

  “What on earth is it?” gasped Carnes.

  “Excitation of a radioactive fluid,” replied the Doctor. “The question is, what is exciting it. Somebody get a stepladder.”

  While Bolton was gone after the ladder, the Doctor took from his bag what looked like an ordinary pane of glass.

  “Take this, Carnes,” he directed, “and start holding it over each of those panes of quartz which you can reach. Stop when I tell you to.”

  The operative held the glass over each of the panes in succession, but the Doctor, who kept his eyes covered with the smoked glasses and fastened on the plate which he had replaced on the pillow, said nothing. When Bolton arrived with the ladder, the process went on. One end and most of the front of the solarium had been covered before an exclamation from the Doctor halted the work.

  “That’s the one,” he exclaimed. “Hold the glass there for a moment.”

  Hurriedly he removed the plate from the pillow and replaced the phial of liquid. There was only a very feeble glow.

  “Good enough,” he cried. “Take away the glass, but mark that pane, and be ready to replace it when I give the word.”

  From the instrument case he had brought he took out a spectroscope. He turned back the mattress and mounted it on the bedstead.

  “Cover that pane,” he directed.

  Carnes did so, and the Doctor swung the receiving tube of the instrument until it pointed at the covered pane. He glanced into the eyepiece, and then held a tiny flashlight for an instant opposite the third tube.

  “Uncover that pane,” he said.

  Carnes took down the glass plate and the Doctor gazed into the instrument. He made some adjustments.

  “Are you familiar with spectroscopy, Admiral?” he asked.

  “Somewhat.”

  “Take a squint in here and tell me what you see.”

  The Admiral applied his eye to the instrument and looked long and earnestly.

  “There are some lines there, Doctor,” he said, “but your instrument is badly out of adjustment. They are in what should be the ultra-violet sector, according to your scale.”

  “I forgot to tell you that this is a fluoroscopic spectroscope designed for the detection of ultra-violet lines,” replied Dr. Bird. “Those lines you see are ultra-violet, made visible to the eye by activation of a radioactive compound whose rays in turn impinge on a zinc blende sheet. Do you recognize the lines?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Small wonder; I doubt whether there are a dozen people who would. I have never seen them before, although I recognize them from descriptions I have read. Bolton, come here. Sight along this instrument and through that plate of glass which Carnes is holding and tell me what office that window belongs to.”

  Bolton sighted as directed up at the side of the State, War and Navy Building.

  “I can’t tell exactly at this time of night, Doctor,” he said, “but I’ll go into the building and find out.”

  “Do so. Have you a flashlight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Flash it momentarily out of each of the suspected windows in turn until you get an answering flash from here. When you do, flash it out of each pane of glass in the window until you get another flash from here. Then come back and tell me what office it is. Mark the pane so that we can locate it again in the morning.”

  “It is the office of the Assistant to the Adjutant General of the Army,” reported Bolton ten minutes later.

  “What is there in the room?”

  “Nothing but the usual desks and chairs.”

  “I suspected as much. The window is merely a reflector. That is all that we can do for to-night, gentlemen. Admiral, keep your patient quiet and in a room with glass windows, preferably with the shades drawn, until further notice. Bolton, meet me here with Carnes at sunrise. Have a picked detail of ten men standing by where we can get hold of them in a hurry. In the mean time, get the Chief of Air Service out of bed and have him order a plane at Langley Field to be ready to take off at 6 A. M. He is not to take off, however, until I give him orders to do so. Do you understand?”

  “Everything will be ready for you, Doctor, but I confess that I don’t know what it is all about.”

  “It’s the biggest case you ever tackled, old man, and I hope that we can pull it off successfully. I’d like to go over it with you now, but I’ll be busy at the Bureau for the rest of the night. Drop me off there, will you?”

  At sunrise the next morning, Bolton met Dr. Bird at the entrance to the White House grounds.

  “Where is your detail?” he asked.

  “In the State, War and Navy Building.”

  “Good. I want to go to the solarium, put a light on the place where the President’s pillow was last night, and mark that pane of quartz we were looking through. Then we’ll join the detail.”

  Dr. Bird placed the light and walked with Carnes across the White House grounds. Bolton’s badge secured admission to the State, War and Navy Building for the party and they made their way to the office of the Assistant to the Adjutant General.

  “Did you mark the pane of glass through which you flashed your light last night, Bolton?” asked the Doctor.

  The detective touched one of the panes.

  “Good,” exclaimed the Doctor. “I notice that this window has hooks for a window washer’s belt. Get a life belt, will you?”

  When the belt was brought, the Doctor turned to Carnes.

  “Carnes,” he said, “hook on this life saver and climb out on the window ledge. Take this piece of apparatus with you.”

  He handed Carnes a piece of apparatus which looked like two telescopes fastened to a base, with a screw adjustment for altering the angles of the barrels.

  Carnes took it and looked at it inquiringly.

  “That is what I was making at the Bureau last night,” explained Dr. Bird. “It is a device which will enable me to locate the source of the beam which was reflected from this pane of glass onto the President’
s pillow. I’ll show you how to work it. You know that when light is reflected the angle of reflection always equals the angle of incidence? Well, you place these three feet against the pane of glass, thus putting the base of the instrument in a plane parallel to the pane of glass. By turning these two knobs, one of which gives lateral and the other vertical adjustment, you will manipulate the instrument until the first telescope is pointing directly toward the President’s pillow. Now notice that the two telescope barrels are fastened together and are connected to the knobs, so that when the knobs are turned, the scopes are turned in equal and opposite amounts. When one is turned from its present position five degrees to the west, the other automatically turns five degrees to the east. When one is elevated, the other is correspondingly depressed. Thus, when the first tube points toward the pillow, the other will point toward the source of the reflected beam.”

  “Clever!” ejaculated Bolton.

  “It is rather crude and may not be accurate enough to locate the source exactly, but at least it will give us a pretty good idea of where to look. Given time, a much more accurate instrument could have been made, but two telescopic rifle sights and a theodolite base were all the materials I could find to work with. Climb out, Carnesy, and do your stuff.”

  Carnes climbed out on the window and fastened the hooks of the life saver to the rings set in the window casings. He sat the base of the instrument against the pane of glass and manipulated the telescope knobs as Dr. Bird signalled from the inside. The scientist was hard to please with the adjustment, but at last the cross hairs of the first telescope were centered on the light in the solarium. He changed his position and stared through the second tube.

  “The angle is too acute and the distance too great for accuracy,” he said with an air of disappointment. “The beam comes from the roof of a house down along Pennsylvania Avenue, but I can’t tell from here which one it is. Take a look, Bolton.”

  The Chief of the Secret Service stared through the telescope.

  “I couldn’t be sure, Doctor,” he replied. “I can see something on the roof of one of the houses, but I can’t tell what it is and I couldn’t tell the house when I got in front of it.”

  “It won’t do to make a false move,” said the Doctor. “Did you arrange for that plane?”

  “It is waiting your orders at the field, Doctor.”

  “Good. I’ll go up to the office of the Chief of Air Service and get in touch with the pilot over the Chief’s private line. There are some orders that I wish to give him and some signals to be arranged.”

  * * * *

  Dr. Bird returned in a few minutes.

  “The plane is taking off now and will be over the city soon,” he announced. “We’ll take a stroll down the Avenue until we are in the vicinity of the house, and then wait for the plane. Carnes will take five of your men and go down behind the house and the rest of us will go in front. Which building do you think it is, Bolton?”

  “About the fourth from the corner.”

  “All right, the men going down the back will take station behind the house next to the corner and the rest of us will get in front of the same building. When the plane comes over, watch it. If you receive no signal, go to the next house and wait for him to make a loop and come over you again. Continue this until the pilot throws a white parachute over. That is the signal that we are covering the right house. When you get that signal, Carnes, leave two men outside and break in with the other three. Get that apparatus on the roof and the men who are operating it. Bolton and I will attack the front door at the same time. Does everybody understand?”

  Murmurs of assent came from the detail.

  “All right, let’s go. Carnes, lead out with your men and go half a block ahead so that the two parties will arrive in position at about the same time.”

  Carnes left the building with five of the operatives. Dr. Bird and Bolton waited for a few minutes and then started down Pennsylvania Avenue, the five men of their squad following at intervals. For three-quarters of a mile they sauntered down the street.

  “This should be it, Doctor,” said Bolton.

  “I think so, and here comes our plane.”

  They watched the swift scout plane from Langley Field swing down low over the house and then swoop up into the sky again without making a signal. The party walked down the street one house and paused. Again the plane swept over them without sign. As they stopped in front of the next house a white parachute flew from the cockpit of the plane and the aircraft, its mission accomplished, veered off to the south toward its hangar.

  “This is the place,” cried Bolton. “Haggerty and Johnson, you two cover the street. Bemis, take the lower door. The rest come with me.”

  Followed closely by Dr. Bird and two operatives, Bolton sprinted across the street and up the steps leading to the main entrance of the house. The door was barred, and he hurled his weight against it without result.

  “One side, Bolton,” snapped Dr. Bird.

  The diminutive Chief drew aside and Dr. Bird’s two hundred pounds of bone and muscle crashed against the door. The lock gave and the Doctor barely saved himself from sprawling headlong on the hall floor. A woman’s scream rang out, and the Doctor swore under his breath.

  “Upstairs! To the roof!” he cried.

  Followed by the rest of the party, he sprinted up the stairway which opened before him. Just as he reached the top his way was barred by an Amazonian figure in a green bathrobe.

  “Who th’ divil arre yer?” demanded an outraged voice.

  “Police,” snapped Bolton. “One side!”

  “Wan side, is it?” demanded the fiery haired Amazon. “The divil a stip ye go until ye till me ye’er bizness. Phwat th’ divil arre yer doin’ in th’ house uv a rayspictable female at this hour uv th’ marnin’?”

  “One side, I tell you!” cried Bolton as he strove to push past the figure that barred the way.

  “Oh, ye wud, wud yer, little mann?” demanded the Irishwoman as she grasped Bolton by the collar and shook him as a terrier does a rat. Dr. Bird stifled his laughter with difficulty and seized her by the arm. With a heave on Bolton’s collar she raised him from the ground and swung him against the Doctor, knocking him off his feet.

  “Hilp! P’lice! Murther!” she screamed at the top of her voice.

  “Damn it, woman, we’re on—”

  Dr. Bird’s voice was cut short by the sound of a pistol shot from the roof, followed by two others. The Irishwoman dropped Bolton and slumped into a sitting position and screamed lustily. Bolton and Dr. Bird, with the two operatives at their heels, raced for the roof. Before they reached it another volley of shots rang out, these sounding from the rear of the building. They made their way to the upper floor and found a ladder running to a skylight in the roof. At the foot of the ladder stood one of Carnes’ party.

  “What is it, Williams?” demanded Bolton.

  “I don’t know, Chief. Carnes and the other two went up there, and then I heard shooting. My orders were to let no one come down the ladder.”

  As he spoke, Carnes’ head appeared at the skylight.

  “It’s the right place, all right, Doctor,” he called. “Come on up, the shooting is all over.”

  Dr. Bird mounted the ladder and stepped out on the roof. Set on one edge was a large piece of apparatus, toward which the scientist eagerly hastened. He bent over it for a few moments and then straightened up.

  “Where is the operator?” he asked.

  Carnes silently led the way to the edge of the roof and pointed down. Dr. Bird leaned over. At the foot of the fire escape he saw a crumpled dark heap, with a secret service operative bending over it.

  “Is he dead, Olmstead?” called Carnes.

  “Dead as a mackerel,” came the reply. “Richards got him through the head on his first shot.”

  “Good business,” said Dr. Bird. “We probably could never have secured a conviction and the matter is best hushed up anyway. Bolton, have two of your men help me g
et this apparatus up to the Bureau. I want to examine it a little. Have the body taken to the morgue and shut up the press. Find out which room the chap occupied and search it, and bring all his papers to me. From a criminal standpoint, this case is settled, but I want to look into the scientific end of it a little more.”

  “I’d like to know what it was all about, Doctor,” protested Bolton. “I have followed your lead blindly, and now I have a housebreaking without search-warrant and a killing to explain, and still I am about as much in the dark as I was at the beginning.”

  “Excuse me, Bolton,” said Dr. Bird contritely; “I didn’t mean to slight you. Admiral Clay wants to know about it and so does Carnes, although he knows me too well to say so. As soon as I have digested the case I’ll let you know and I’ll go over the whole thing with you.”

  * * * *

  A week later Dr. Bird sat in conference with the President in the executive office of the White House. Beside him sat Admiral Clay, Carnes and Bolton.

  “I have told the President as much as I know, Doctor,” said the Admiral, “and he would like to hear the details from your lips. He has fully recovered from his malady and there is no danger of exciting him.”

  “I cannot read Russian,” said Dr. Bird slowly, “and so was forced to depend on one of my assistants to translate the papers which Mr. Bolton found in Stokowsky’s room. There is nothing in them to definitely connect him with the Russian Union of Soviet Republics, but there is little doubt in my mind that he was a Red agent and that Russia supplied the money which he spent. It would be disastrous to Russia’s plans to have too close an accord between this country and the British Empire, and I have no doubt that the coming visit of Premier McDougal was the underlying cause of the attempt. So much for the reason.

  “As to how I came to suspect what was happening, the explanation is very simple. When Carnes first told me of your malady, Mr. President, I happened to be checking Von Beyer’s results in the alleged discovery of a new element, lunium. In the article describing his experiments, Von Beyer mentions that when he tried to observe the spectra, he encountered a mild form of opthalmia which was quite stubborn to treatment. He also mentions a peculiar mental unbalance and intense exhilaration which the rays seemed to cause both in himself and in his assistants. The analogy between his observations and your case struck me at once.