The Lost Master - The Collected Works

by Stanley G. Weinbaum

  They reached the Customs House long before the ship was through quarantine, and it was an hour before the first rush of disembarking passengers appeared. Bill spent the interval talking to Margrave, and then, assured of his cooperation, placed a chair for Arlene near the G-H section and waited for results.

  ESULTS came. The search was as thorough as one could hope for. The officers pried into the corners, probed the linings of bags, opened packages, shook bottles, and even, on occasion, placed hair-brushes and cakes of soap under the piercing eye of the fluoroscope. Many a perspiring passenger was left explaining that he had “forgotten to declare” some dutiable trinket, or had “overlooked” it. Results there were in plenty—but not the one result for which they hoped.

  Time passed. Arlene Lowell sat dolefully in her chair, at intervals smiling at Bill’s muttered encouragement. “Tormley’s still to come,” he reminded her.

  At one o’clock Oliver appeared, thin-featured and dark. Arlene faced him defiantly. “It’s gone,” she said bluntly. “It was stolen.”

  “What?”

  Bill cut in. “I’m from Simon’s,” he announced. “We expect to recover the stone. If you’ll wait until the search is finished—”

  “I’ll wait,” said Oliver, grimly. “Simons insured delivery to me here; if it isn’t found, they’d better be ready to pay.”

  “They’ve never defaulted on an indemnity yet,” growled Ketchall and turned back to watch the investigation. Oliver cast a hard glance at the miserable girl, lit a cigar, and seated himself in the background. The search proceeded.

  At a few minutes before two, Tormley and Hotchkiss appeared together. Bill nodded to Margrave, and the stage was set for a search that was to be a masterpiece. Even Ketchall admitted that it was. The investigators probed every corner; pierced bulges in trunks and valises with steel needles, and finally, exposed both Tormley and Hotchkiss bodily to the scrutiny of the x-ray. Every shadow on the fluoroscope was identified, and every shadow had its innocent counterpart in buttons, knives, coins, watch, or fountain pen. The second hour passed, and it seemed impossible that a single cubic inch remained unprobed, not only in the luggage of the pair, but in clothing as well, and for that matter, in internal organs.

  Oliver smoked silently, and Arlene slipped deeper into despair, but she only sighed resignedly when Margrave finally approached them.

  “Sorry, Ketchall,” he said briefly. “They’re not carrying anything undeclared, it seems, except that carton of French cigarettes. I can hardly hold them on that.”

  Bill agreed glumly. He saw or fancied he saw, a gleam of triumph in Tormley’s pale eyes, but he couldn’t think of anything further to do. The x-ray had told its story; surely nothing could be hidden from those piercing radiations. He watched the two gather their hand luggage and prepare to depart.

  Nothing could shield x-rays—or was there something? Lead, of course, but they weren’t carrying any leaden objects. Or other heavy metals. Heavy metals? Silver, platinum, gold.

  Gold! Bill gave a sudden cry after the vanishing pair. “Hey! Wait a minute, you two!”

  They looked back. “What the hell!” rasped Hotchkiss. “We’ve been here all afternoon now!”

  But Bill was pulling Tormley’s watch from his pocket, disregarding his growl of, “Be careful of that! That watch was carried by kings.”

  “We’ve had that open,” said Margrave.

  “I know.” Bill had pried open the back case. “Look there! Look at those works, will you? Fine as a lady’s wristwatch.”

  ITH HIS pen-knife he was unscrewing the plate. It loosened and came away, and Margrave grunted in quickly awakened interest. For the springs and cogs filled only the visible half of the case; below the plate was a hollow, and in that hollow a tiny, silk wrapped package!

  “Well!” said Bill, “what do you know?” A great, lambent crystal of green fire lay in his hand. “And what do you fine, upstanding thieves have to say to that?”

  “I’m as surprised as you are,” said Tormley calmly. “I didn’t know it was there.”

  “Huh? Tell that to your lawyer! Oliver, here’s your Waterbury. I make delivery!” He thrust the stone at the silent Oliver, and turned to meet Arlene’s ecstatic eyes.

  “Just a moment,” snapped the other; we’ll have it appraised for duty first.”

  He passed the glowing gem to the appraiser, and Bill’s eyes were fascinated by the cold green fire of it. “What a beauty!” he muttered.

  “Yes,” said the expert, “a beauty,” and then, squinting narrowly at it, “A beauty,” he repeated, but in altered tones.

  He moved toward a table by the window, holding a lens over the gem. Arlene rose, and she and Bill stood beside him.

  “It’s a beauty”, he said finally, looking up, “but it isn’t the Waterbury.”

  “What?”

  “I said it isn’t the Waterbury. It’s an emerald, but not a natural stone; it’s synthetic!”

  Bill Ketchall stared in utter consternation; Arlene Lowell gave a little moan at his side, and sagged suddenly against the table.

  RLENE sank weakly into a chair, and Bill Ketchall spun to face the group about them. Hotchkiss was twitching and Tormley’s mouth was puckered as if to whistle, though no sound issued. Strangely, neither of them were staring at the false Waterbury. Their eyes were fixed on Oliver’s sharp face, and Oliver himself was gazing steadily back at them with an expression very much like grim anger.

  The appraiser was speaking. “You see, emeralds made synthetically aren’t completely imitation. They’re emeralds, just the same as natural stones, but there’s one difference. The little microscopic flaws in a synthetic stone are round like bubbles; in a natural stone, created under great pressures, they’re angular. This one’s beauty, all right; I’d value it at two thousand dollars.”

  Two thousand dollars! And the Waterbury, wherever it was, insured for nearly a million! Ketchall groaned, and drove his spinning mind at top speed in search of something—something in the affair that just eluded him.

  “Arlene,” he asked suddenly, “was this the stone you received from the bank?”

  “I—I don’t know. It’s the same size and cutting.”

  Oliver spoke up. “It’s the same size and shape as the real Waterbury,” he said gruffly, “but I bought the real one, and that’s what I insured. Simon’s own man appraised it.”

  “I know,” said Bill. “You there, Tormley—how’d this thing get into your watch?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” growled the other. “Been in there since I bought it, probably.”

  “Yeah, since the time of Louis XVIII, I suppose,” snapped Bill. “Maybe they knew how to make synthetic emeralds a hundred years ago. Is that your story? And how does it happen this is a twin of the Waterbury?”

  “You tell me!” grunted Tormley. “I didn’t know it was there, but I’ll pay the duty to end this damned affair. What’s the rate on synthetic stones?”

  “You’ll wait till we’re through!” Ketchell blazed. Something eluded him in the tangled mess, something that might provide the key to the snarl. Why, for instance, should Oliver be staring so angrily at Tormley? And why had neither of the pair expressed any surprise over the revelation of the stone’s falsity?

  “I’m going,” said Oliver, abruptly. “The Waterbury was to be delivered to me here; and since you can’t deliver it, I won’t waste any more time. I’m putting in my claim for indemnity immediately.”

  Bill had nothing to say to that. “If you’ll give me a little time,” he muttered.

  “You’ve had enough time. And Miss Lowell needn’t report for work tomorrow either.” He turned away, and Bill watched him go in helpless despair.

  ND THEN he got it! He reached the agent at the door, seized his arm, and jerked him to an indignant halt. “Oliver,” he said softly, “you don’t want any publicity on this, do you?”

  “There’ll be no publicity!” snapped the other. “Your firm will pay; that’s all!”
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  “I don’t think so. Bromberg isn’t an easy man to cross, Oliver. He doesn’t want publicity about his purchase, and if it comes into court through you, it won’t be pleasant for you, will it?”

  “What the devil do you mean?”

  “I mean this. Wouldn’t it be safer for you just to drop this indemnity claim? Simon’s won’t prosecute you. You can get out of your tangle with Tormley and Hotchkiss the best you can— and you’d better get out of it, because one of ‘em’s going to stand for murder!”

  “Murder!” echoed Oliver, in a voice suddenly bleak. “Murder!”

  “That’s what I said; are you going to press that indemnity claim?”

  A thin, scared smile twisted Oliver’s lips. “No,” be said, and walked out of the door.

  RLENE AND BILL sat in their same deck-chairs on the Arcturus, watching the great, glittering rollers move past as the ship swept over the curving world toward England. They had been married just one day, barely long enough to turn their thoughts to other matters than themselves.

  But they did. “You see,” said Bill, “this was the scheme. It wasn’t a jewel robbery at all; it was an insurance swindle. Oliver had the false Waterbury transferred to you through the bank, purely for the purpose of having it stolen. The real stone was carried over by himself on an earlier ship, uninsured and unsuspected. He probably entered through Philadelphia, so the New York Customs men wouldn’t remember the gem, paid his duty there, and delivered the Waterbury safely to Bomberg.

  “The point of the scheme was the guarantee of secrecy. We weren’t supposed to know who bought the stone; Oliver paid for it and Oliver insured it; and if it were stolen, Oliver would collect. So he arranged to have it stolen in proxy.

  “Tormley and Hotchkiss were to steal it. I’d think it was stolen, and so would you; and Oliver could put in his claim with our support. We might never have contacted Bromberg at all— probably wouldn’t, because both he and the seller in England wanted absolute secrecy. Simon’s would more than likely have offered Oliver a substantial settlement, if not the full amount.”

  “But—that stone in Tormley’s watch! He could have simply tossed it overboard!”

  “And doubtless that’s what he was told to do. Where Oliver went wrong was in using a cheap crook like Tormley. The two thousand dollar phony in his hand looked bigger to him than the hundreds of thousands still in the bushes, and so he tried to smuggle it in with his trick watch!”

  “And Carnes?”

  “I think Carnes was an unconnected link. He was probably just going about his usual business of stateroom looting when he encountered Tormley and Hotchkiss. The first time you saw him he was doubtless just playing drunk, but the second time he en-tered your room he met the two others and got himself killed. My hunch is that Hotchkiss did it.”

  And so it proved. Strangely enough, Oliver’s name never entered the case at all, though Arlene and Bill Ketchall followed it very closely in the New York papers in Paris, all through their honeymoon.

  THE IDEAL

  "This," said the Franciscan, "is my Automaton, who at the proper time will speak, answer whatsoever question I may ask, and reveal all secret knowledge to me." He smiled as he laid his hand affectionately on the iron skull that topped the pedestal.

  The youth gazed open-mouthed, first at the head and then at the Friar. "But it's iron!" he whispered. "The head is iron, good father."

  "Iron without, skill within, my son," said Roger Bacon. "It will speak, at the proper time and in its own manner, for so have I made it. A clever man can twist the devil's arts to God's ends, thereby cheating the fiend - Sst! There sounds vespers! Plena gratia, ave Virgo."

  But it did not speak. Long hours, long weeks, the doctor mirabilis watched his creation, but iron lips were silent and the iron eyes dull, and no voice but the great man's own sounded in his monkish cell, nor was there ever an answer to all the questions that he asked-until one day when he sat surveying his work, composing a letter to Duns Scotus in distant Cologne-one day-

  "Time is!" said the image, and smiled benignly.

  The Friar looked up. "Time is, indeed," he echoed. "Time it is that you give utterance, and to some assertion less obvious than that time is. For of course time is, else there were nothing at all. Without time-"

  "Time was!" rumbled the image, still smiling, but sternly, at the statue of Draco.

  "Indeed time was," said the monk, "Time was, is, and will be, for time is that medium in which events occur. Matter exists in space, but events-

  The image smiled no longer. "Time is past!" it roared in tones deep as the cathedral bell outside, and burst into ten thousand pieces.

  * * *

  "There," said old Haskel van Manderpootz, shutting the book, "is my classical authority in this experiment. This story, overlaid as it is with medieval myth and legend proves that Roger Bacon himself attempted the experiment and failed." He shook a long finger at me. "Yet do not get the impression, Dixon, that Friar Bacon was not a great man. He was - extremely great, in fact; he lighted the torch that his namesake Francis Bacon took up four centuries later, and that now van Manderpootz rekindles."

  I stared in silence,

  "Indeed," resumed the Professor, "Roger Bacon might almost be called a thirteenth-century van Manderpootz, or van Manderpootz a twenty-first-century Roger Bacon. His Opus Majus, Opus Minor, and Opus Tertium-"

  "What," I interrupted impatiently, "has all this to do with - that?" I indicated the clumsy metal robot standing in the corner of the laboratory.

  "Don't interrupt!" snapped van Manderpootz.

  At this point I fell out of my chair. The mass of metal had ejaculated something like "A-a-gh-rasp!" and had lunged a single pace toward the window, arms upraised. "What the devil!" I sputtered as the thing dropped its arms and returned stolidly to its place.

  "A car must have passed in the alley," said van Manderpootz indifferently. "Now as I was saying, Roger Bacon-"

  I ceased to listen. When van Manderpootz is determined to finish a statement, interruptions are worse than futile. As an ex-student of his, I know. So I permitted my thoughts to drift to certain personal problems of my own, particularly Tips Alva, who was the most pressing problem of the moment. Yes, I mean Tips Alva the 'vision dancer, the little blonde imp who entertains on the Yerba Mate hour for that Brazilian company. Chorus girls, dancers, and television stars are a weakness of mine; maybe it indicates that there's a latent artistic soul in me. Maybe.

  I'm Dixon Wells, you know, scion of the N. J. Wells Corporation, Engineers Extraordinary. I'm supposed to be an engineer myself; I say supposed, because in the seven years since my graduation, my father hasn't given me much opportunity to prove it. He has a strong sense of the value of time, and I'm cursed with the unenviable quality of being late to anything and for everything. He even asserts that the occasional designs I submit are late Jacobean, but that isn't fair. They're Post-Romanesque.

  Old N. J. also objects to my penchant for ladies of the stage and 'vision screen, and periodically threatens to cut my allowance, though that's supposed to be a salary. It's inconvenient to be so dependent, and sometimes I regret that unfortunate market crash of 2009 that wiped out my own money, although it did keep me from marrying Whimsy White, and van Manderpootz, through his subjunctivisor, succeeded in proving that that would have been a catastrophe. But it turned out nearly as much of a disaster anyway, as far as my feelings were concerned. It took me months to forget Joanna Caldwell and her silvery eyes. Just another instance when I was a little late.

  Van Manderpootz himself is my old Physics Professor, head of the Department of Newer Physics at N. Y. U., and a genius, but a bit eccentric. Judge for yourself.

  "And that's the thesis," he said suddenly, interrupting my thoughts.

  "Eh? Oh, of course. But what's that grinning robot got to do with it?"

  He purpled. "I've just told you!" he roared. "Idiot! Imbecile! To dream while van Manderpootz talks! Get out! Get out!"

  I got
. It was late anyway, so late that I overslept more than usual in the morning, and suffered more than the usual lecture on promptness from my father at the office.

  Van Manderpootz had forgotten his anger by the next time I dropped in for an evening. The robot still stood in the corner near the window, and I lost no time asking its purpose.

  "It's just a toy I had some of the students construct," he explained. "There's a screen of photoelectric cells behind the right eye, so connected that when a certain pattern is thrown on them, it activates the mechanism. The thing's plugged into the light-circuit, but it really ought to run on gasoline."

  "Why?"

  "Well, the pattern it's set for is the shape of an automobile. See here." He picked up a card from his desk, and cut in the outlines of a streamlined car like those of that year. "Since only one eye is used," he continued, "the thing can't tell the difference between a full-sized vehicle at a distance and this small outline nearby. It has no sense of perspective."

  He held the bit of cardboard before the eye of the mechanism. Instantly came its roar of "A-a-gh-rasp!" and it leaped forward a single pace, arms upraised. Van Manderpootz withdrew the card, and again the thing relapsed stolidly into its place.

  "What the devil!" I exclaimed. "What's it for?"

  "Does van Manderpootz ever do work without reason back of it? I use it as a demonstration in my seminar."

  "To demonstrate what?"

  "The power of reason," said van Manderpootz solemnly.

  "How? And why ought it to work on gasoline instead of electric power?"

  "One question at a time, Dixon. You have missed the grandeur of van Manderpootz's concept. See here, this creature, imperfect as it is, represents the predatory machine. It is the mechanical parallel of the tiger, lurking in its jungle to leap on living prey. This monster's jungle is the city; its prey is the unwary machine that follows the trails called streets. Understand?"

  "No."

  "Well, picture this automaton, not as it is, but as van Manderpootz could make it if he wished. It lurks gigantic in the shadows of buildings; it creeps stealthily through dark alleys; it skulks on deserted streets, with its gasoline engine purring quietly. Then - an unsuspecting automobile flashes its image on the screen behind its eyes. It leaps. It seizes its prey, swinging it in steel arms to its steel jaws. Through the metal throat of its victim crash steel teeth; the blood of its prey - the gasoline, that is - is drained into its stomach, or its gas-tank. With renewed strength it flings away the husk and prowls on to seek other prey. It is the machine-carnivore, the tiger of mechanics."