But finally he made it! His head reached the level of the grating of the laboratory outlet. He heard the voices of Southworth and Steel Jeffers. Peering through the grating, he almost uttered an exclamation of exultance. For Southworth held poised in one hand a hypodermic needle, and in the other a diaphragm capped bottle. By sheer luck, Adams had finally obtained sure proof of the fact that Jeffers was being inoculated regularly with the strange substance in the bottles.
Holding his breath tensely, he watched Southworth jab the needle into Jeffers' arm. The President, his coat off, and his sleeves rolled up, jerked his slim, unmuscular arm back with an exclamation, then laughed nervously.
'Guess I'll never get up enough backbone to take that needle without wincing,' he remarked a bit hoarsely.
The injection was completed in silence that remained until Jeffers had again donned his coat. Then, with an almost curt shortness, he left the laboratory, his lips tight, and his face set in an expression of stoniness and determination.
Southworth went about cleaning up the laboratory, restoring the needle and bottle to its place. Adams remained motionless in his position behind the grating.
A sound at the laboratory door attracted his attention, and he turned his gaze to see the Prussian, Vierecke enter. Southworth turned to face him.
On Viereck's face was a triumphant grin as he closed the door carefully behind him, then drew a gun from his pocket.
Southworth stiffened. 'What does this mean, Franz?' he asked.
'It means, we haf come to der parting of der ways, Southworth. No longer are you necessary to my blans.'
In a voice level but charged with emotion, Southworth replied, 'Go ahead and kill me; but, as sure as God made little fishes, you'll lose by it. You still don't know the complete formula.'
'Don'd I? Vell, lissen to dis.' There followed a string of chemical language, quite meaningless to the man concealed in the chute.
Admiral Southworth gasped; and that gasp was a complete admission that his assistant had at last learned the whole of the secret which the Admiral had thus far so jealously guarded.
'Ha!' rang out the triumphant voice of Franz Vierecke, followed by a shot, a thud, and a gurgling groan.
CHAPTER VIII
With a sudden resolution Adams groped within his overalls with his left hand for the automatic pistol on his right hip, then shifted it to his right hand. Quietly opening the grating of the ventilator, he peered out.
The bullet-headed Franz Vierecke was standing with his back to the grille, holding a smoking thirty-eight, as he stared down at the sprawled corpse of the Admiral.
Adams reached out, leveling his automatic. Remembering Secretary Dougherty's bulletproof vest, he took careful aim at Vierecke's head: 'Hands up, Doctor!' he commanded.
The white-coated Prussian wheeled catlike, firing as he turned. But Adams fired first. Both weapons roared, and the laboratory assistant fell backward across the body of the Admiral. Adams scrambled hastily out of the shaft and thrust his gun into its holster. The two bodies still lay inert. He had to work fast! He unbuckled his climbing irons, stripped off his overalls, and thrust them all down the shaft. He took all the small bottles from the ice chest, emptied them in the laboratory sink, and threw them after his discarded equipment. He hastily wiped the dirt from his face and hands on a towel at the sink. Taking the key from the pocket of the dead Admiral, he unlocked the door, stepped out, and locked it behind him.
As he turned, and slid the key into his pocket, one of the White House guards came pattering around the corner. The man halted and raised his arm in salute. 'I thought I heard shots, Sir.'
'Correct,' Adams grimly replied. 'Vierecke and Southworth have killed each other. I go to report to the President.'
Stunned horror widened the man's eyes. Then they narrowed suspiciously, and he reached for his hip. But Adams' fist caught him on the point of the jaw. Down he went in a heap. Adams ran along the corridor toward the stairs.
In the Blue Room he found Steel Jeffers and the Secretary of State conversing together at the big desk in the bay window.
Raising his arm in salute, Adams panted, 'Things will be popping around here in a few moments, and I want to report before they pop.'
Dougherty glared at him, but Jeffers calmly said, 'Go on, Lieutenant.'
'I 'ened to be in the basement,' Adams replied, 'when I heard Admiral Southworth and Dr. Vierecke quarreling in the laboratory. The door was ajar, so I looked in. Vierecke was pointing a pistol at the Admiral, and the Admiral was saying, 'The injections are all gone. If you kill me, there will be no more.'
'What!' Dougherty's face went white. 'Did he–'
But Adams interrupted. 'Just a moment. I heard Vierecke retort, 'I know the formula!' He recited a lot of chemical gibberish. The Admiral nodded and admitted, 'Yes, you've got it right.'
Dougherty settled back in his chair, the color flooding his cheeks again. Steel Jeffers was watching Adams like a cat.
Adams continued, 'And then Vierecke shot the Admiral. I dashed in, but too late to save him. Of course I shot Vierecke. You'll find the two bodies lying in a heap on the floor of the laboratory. Here is the key.' He flung it down on the desk. 'And here is my gun, Sir, with one cartridge exploded.' He pulled it from its holster, laid it down beside the key, and drew himself up to attention. 'Private Jones tried to arrest me, Sir, but I thought I had better report to you.'
The two men at the desk stared at him with fascinated horror. Then suddenly Dougherty reached inside his coat, and yanked out a gun.
'The Presidency is ended!' he shouted, as he fired at Steel Jeffers.
But a split second ahead of his shot, another shot roared forth in the echoing Blue Room. Adams had snatched up his own weapon from the President's desk, and fired. The impact of its forty-five-caliber bullet smashed the forehead of the Secretary of State and hurled him backward.
There was a tinkle of glass behind the President as two black-uniformed guards crashed in through the French windows. 'Are you all right, Excellency?' they cried.
'Perfectly,' Jeffers calmly replied. 'He never touched me.'
'I — I'm glad,' breathed Adams.
'Take out the body!' the President crisply ordered. Then, as the two guards departed with their grisly burden, he turned to his aide, and said sharply, 'They do not live long, who stand in the way of Steel Jeffers. And, now, Adams, I want the truth about what happened in the laboratory. The truth, mind you!'
Suddenly, as it dawned on Adams that Dougherty's death had removed the only reason for not killing the President, he leveled his gun at Steel Jeffers. 'The truth is that I destroyed all the little bottles.'
Watching the President intently, keeping him covered with the automatic, Adams backed toward the main door of the Blue Room. He groped behind him for the knob. But suddenly the door was flung open. He was seized from behind, and his arms were pinioned to his sides. Like a flash, Jeffers dashed around the desk, and disarmed him. His captor was the guardsman whom he had slugged in the basement corridor.
The President now fired three shots in the air, and other soldiers came running.
'Take him to the War Department,' Jeffers commanded, and lock him in a cell. Don't let any harm come to him. I want him saved for public execution.'
Manacles were snapped onto Adams' wrists, and he was dragged, kicking and struggling away.
CHAPTER IX
Adams soon saw that there was no use to struggle, and so he went peaceably. 'Let's buy some peanuts,' he proposed, as they reached the street.
'What!' exclaimed the Sergeant in charge, halting.
The old Italian on the corner shuffled up, with a couple of paper bags of nuts in his hand. 'Peanuts, Meester?' But Adams shrugged his broad shoulders, and held up his manacled hands. 'You see, Giuseppe, I can't buy. I'm a prisoner.'
'Whata for, Signore Adams?'
As they dragged him away, Adams shouted, 'For killing Southworth and Vierecke and Dougherty. They're all dead, Giuseppe! All, all
dead!'
'Shut up!' shouted the Sergeant, felling him with a blow from his automatic.
Adams awoke in a windowless unlit cell. His head ached terribly. For a while he sat in darkness, and nursed his throbbing head. Then a soldier came, and brought him some food, and turned on a light. 'Well, fellow,' said the man, 'you certainly started something!'
'What do you mean?' Adams asked.
'Say!' the voluble soldier replied. 'There's hell broke-loose already, all over the country. Some crazy yap, who thinks he's Abraham Lincoln, has sent out a bunch of hooey, hollering for all patriots to rally to his standard, or some such rot. And are they rallying?'
'Well, I'll bite. Are they?'
'I'll say they are! Several Governors have seceded from the Union already, and it's funny — these were Governors who stayed loyal in the last ruckus.'
Adams chuckled. He could have named the exact Governors. For they were men who had been in touch with the Washington group of conspirators, and so had the sense to lay off until Liam Lincoln gave the word. Quite evidently Giuseppe had passed along the news of the triple killing, and the conspirators had at once sent out instructions that the time had come.
'Well, how are they making out?' Adams asked.
'Not so hot!' stoutly declared the soldier. 'You just wait until Steel Jeffers gets hold of 'em! He'll shoot 'em all against a wall! '
'How long was I unconscious?'
'You were out cold for about four hours.'
'And all this has happened in that short time?'
'Yes.'
'Phew! Lincoln certainly worked quickly!'
'Say,' asserted the soldier suspiciously, 'I'll bet you was in cahoots with that guy.' He refused to talk any further, and left.
Adams was much surprised when, later in the day, the soldier returned, all eyes, and informed him that the Dictator wanted to see him. Manacled, he was led to the White House.
As he walked with his guards the short distance from the War Department to the executive mansion, he noted a marked overnight change in the city. No street cars were running. The streets were practically deserted, except for patrolling soldiers, and an occasional marching contingent of troops. And these troops were clad in khaki service uniforms, in place of the snappy peacetime black.
In the sky above, planes circled through the cloudless blue.
Adams could hear in the distance the occasional crack of rifles, and the boom of cannons.
Sixty or so enlisted men lay on the White House lawn beside a row of neat stacks of rifles. Two armed guards marched back and forth across the front step. A khaki-clad figure on a motorcycle roared up the circular drive, delivered a dispatch to one of the sentries, and roared off again.
Indoors the White House was a strictly military headquarters. Gone were all the civilian attendants and clerks and stenographers. In their stead were khaki-clad members of the military, tense and precise.
Adams was taken direct to the Blue Room. Here again were guards. Soldiers rushed in and out with messages. And, seated at the large desk in the bay window beside the Dictator, was a leonine Army Officer with bushy gray mustaches, and four silver stars on each shoulder. The two men were busily engaged in arranging pushpins on a map.
'As Adams entered under guard, Jeffers looked up. To Adams's surprise, the Dictator appeared perfectly well — in fact, younger and in better health than when Adams had been taken to prison. But, looking more closely, Adams noticed that the Dictator's checks had a slightly feverish tinge, and that his eyes were unduly bright.
'Sorry I can't salute, Sir,' said the prisoner. 'But, with these contraptions on my wrists, it's a bit difficult.'
Steel Jeffers laughed, but his face remained grave. 'The usually immaculate Jack Adams seems to have slept in his uniform, and to have gone without shaving. I may have to get myself a new military aide.' Then, to the Sergeant in charge of the squad, 'Unlock him, and withdraw.'
'But, Excellency–'
'Unlock him!'
'Yes, Excellency.' The Sergeant removed Adams's handcuffs, and then marched his men out of the room. Adams promptly held up his arm in salute.
'General Peters,' said Jeffers, 'would you mind receiving your dispatches in the next room for a few minutes? And please give orders that I am not to be disturbed. I wish a few words alone with the prisoner.'
The General stood up, gave a stiff Roman salute, and strode out.
As the doors closed behind him, the Dictator snapped, 'Sit down, Lieutenant!' Adams took a chair across the desk from Steel Jeffers. The latter continued, 'Did you know that your fanatical comrade Liam Lincoln has invited England and France to invade this country, to help suppress my Dictatorship?'
'I don't believe it, Sir,' Adams levelly replied.
The Dictator's eyes narrowed, and the flush left his cheeks for a moment. 'You wouldn't!' he crisply asserted. 'But it's so. Why do you tie up with an erratic ass like Liam Lincoln? He hates you. The two of you have quarreled.'
A look of startled surprise flashed into Adam's eyes.
Steel Jeffers smiled coldly. 'A mere random guess of mine, but it struck home. Lincoln would double-cross you in a minute, to further his own ambitions. So why not side with me? I have the situation well in hand. The Regular Army is concentrating in Virginia, and the loyal Navy will soon be in the Chesapeake to clear the way for me to join the Army. Adams, I can offer you–'
'I'm sorry, but nothing you could offer, would interest me.'
'No?' Watching him like a cat, the Dictator's eyes narrowed. An amused superior smile played upon his lips, as — he studied his victim calculatingly. Then he purred, 'Adams, I offer you — my sister Helen.'
Adams flushed eagerly, stammered, then resolutely asserted, 'Even that wouldn't tempt me!'
'I wonder.' Jeffers seemed to be speaking to himself. 'How can you admire her, yet hate me so much?'
'She had ideals–'
'And I had those same ideals. You and the rest of your gang of young radicals were once followers of mine. Why did you desert me?'
'It was you who deserted us, Sir. Secretary Dougherty made a fascist out of you.'
Jeffers swung slowly around in his swivel chair, and stared moodily out through the big bay window. Then he turned slowly back again. 'Secretary Dougherty is dead, Adams,' he said in a low voice.
'You mean– That, if you succeed in putting down this rebellion, there will be no reprisals, no more frightfulness?' Adams felt himself weakening, hypnotized. 'What do you wish me to do?'
The Dictator leaned forward, his eyes shining eagerly. 'Give me back those bottles!' he demanded.
The spell was broken. Adams laughed grimly. 'I poured every one of them down the sink,' he explained. 'You can find the bottles themselves in the ventilator shaft, to prove it.'
The Dictator's face contorted with rage. He sprang to his feet, but instantly calmed as the door burst open, and General Peters rushed in, exclaiming, 'Excellency, all is lost! The Virginia State troops have captured Fort Monroe, and have taken over the coast defense guns and the mine fields. The Navy can't get into the Chesapeake. We're bottled up here in Washington!'
'General,' Jeffers sternly replied, 'I told you that I did not wish to be interrupted.'
Stunned and sputtering, the old war horse withdrew.
Jeffers turned back to Adams, and passed a hand across his eyes with a weary gesture. 'It's all over, Jack,' he asserted 'What would you think of my abdicating?'
'It would avoid further bloodshed.'
Steel Jeffers shook his head. 'Not if I fall into the hands of Liam Lincoln, it wouldn't. And once he tasted my blood, other heads would fall by the hundreds. No. Help me to safety. Then, with me out of the picture, let General Peters negotiate for a general amnesty.'
'Why should I do this for you?'
'You will not be doing it for me. It will be for America and for Helen.'
For Helen? Adams leaned forward eagerly. Then clamped his jaw and shook his head. 'Not for either you or Helen,' he
declared levelly, 'but to put an end to the war. I may be making a terrible mistake, but — well, what are your plans?'
'I want you to communicate with your fellow conspirators, and arrange for safe conduct for yourself and a girl through their lines. Then I shall disguise myself as a girl — you have already had proof of my abilities in that line — and you will take me in your car. I have friends who will protect me until the storm blows over.'
'All right,' Adams agreed. 'I'll shave, and get my uniform pressed. Meanwhile you write me out a pass. Then I'll go to my own quarters, phone some of my pals, arrange for passes through their lines, and bring my car back here for you. Oh, and by the way, try to look less like your sister Helen than you did that time before.'
'For the sake of your peace of mind?' Jeffers taunted him.
'Please don't joke!' begged Adams seriously. 'No, it's for the sake of your own safety. The conspirators are all familiar with your sister's picture — Your name will be 'Mary Calvert'.'
'Why not phone to your friends from here?'
'And have your Secret Service operatives listen in? No thanks. Besides I have to go home to get the car. I'll let you know, when everything is ready.'
He arose, extended his arm in salute, and left the room. The Dictator's eyes were filled with a strange amused light, as they followed the Lieutenant's departure.
A half hour later, Lieutenant Adams left the White House, all shaved, cleaned, and pressed, with a Presidential pass in his pocket. Giuseppe Albertino was at his peanut-stand at the corner, the only civilian in sight. Adams bought a bag of nuts, but left no message. If he were being watched or followed, as he half suspected, he had no intention of implicating this ally.
Steel Jeffers must have wondered why Adams should fear to be overheard if he telephoned from the executive mansion, and yet should not realize that it would be equally easy for the Secret Service to plug in on his home telephone.
The Lost Master - The Collected Works Page 81