They made their way out to the hall, then, knowing the set-up from the previous night’s visit, headed towards the room where the seance had been held. Lloyd moved slowly across to the table from where the demonstration had been controlled by Phalnack. He pulled out a torch, dimmed the light with his fingers, and gave a low chuckle.
“Here we are, Branson! A small, ultrasonic instrument. What a brain I’ve got! Amazing isn’t it?”
“Incredible,” Branson agreed, sourly.
Lloyd pulled some powder from his pocket and sprinkled it on the smooth arms of the chair. Instantly fingerprints came into view—
Then something else happened. A silk-clad arm came out of the shadows and closed under Lloyd’s chin and round his neck. He gave a yelp and struggled violently, but the arm increased with steely tension, forcing him backwards— So he relaxed abruptly, then jerked forward, flinging up his hand. With a violent ju-jitsu movement he dislodged the hold and lashed out with his tiny fist. It made little effect—
But Branson was on the job now, lunging out with ham-like paws. Gasps and grunts came from the gloom, then as a knife flashed wickedly Branson yanked out his revolver.
“Drop it!” he barked. “Drop it, or I’ll let you have it!”
The knife fell to the carpet. Panting Latin curses, Lloyd stumbled to the wall and found the light switch. The glare revealed the sullen face of Ranji, his dark eyes flashing.
“I guessed as much,” Branson growled. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“You have no right here!” the Indian shouted passionately. “They who seek to kill my honourable master must die! You have tried for too long to discredit him! He is a master-medium, en rapport with the unknown—”
“Yeah?” Branson eyed him suspiciously; then he looked up quickly as Dr. Phalnack himself came in, dressed in a lounge suit over which was a silk dressing gown. The napkin in his hand suggested he’d come from the dining room. He stared round him amazedly.
“Why, gentlemen, what is the meaning of this?”
Branson tried to think of a good lawful reason, but there was none. Lloyd simply went on comparing the chair fingerprints with those on the oriental knife he brought from his pocket. At last he straightened up and handed it over.
“This yours, doctor?” he asked quietly.
“Why—yes!” He took it, clearly surprised. “I lost it some time ago from this very room; from this table in fact. Where in the world did you discover it?”
“You should ask!” Branson said bitterly. “Somebody tried to kill Lloyd with it yesterday evening—”
“Silence!” Lloyd commanded; then he went on, “You’ll have to forgive this impromptu entry into your home, doctor. Or if you prefer, you can have me arrested. Branson here represents the law—I think. You see, I’d something to verify. These fingerprints on the chair are yours, of course?”
“Certainly. Nobody else ever uses that chair.”
“Uh-huh.” Lloyd looked at the Indian, and the look was returned with slumberous, vengeful eyes.
“I’m sure there is some mistake here,” Phalnack said. “Ranji naturally is concerned for my safety but he wouldn’t try to kill you!”
“You are wrong!” Ranji said hotly. “These accursed fools are trying to discredit you, doctor! I tried only this morning to be rid of this bumptious little Dr. Lloyd. I saw his car in town outside police headquarters when I went into the city to make your purchases, doctor. It saved me going to his home to settle accounts with him. I hoped I’d kill him—”
“With a gas bomb?” Lloyd asked sharply.
“Why not? I was going to throw it into your home; instead I found a better way. But you still live.”
“Shall I make out a warrant for—”
Branson stopped as Lloyd raised his hand. “No. Maybe Ranji was under the impression I was out to do Dr. Phalnack here an injury; his fanatical loyalty is rather touching—and illuminating in other ways.”
“I never realized—” Phalnack started to say; but Lloyd cut him short with a question.
“Naturally you have heard of Dr. Cortell’s interesting experiments in ultrasonics?”
“So you have tumbled to my psychic demonstrations?” Phalnack gave a slow, uneasy smile. “Yes, I’ve heard of him—and elaborated his ideas. I rather feared a scientist like you would grasp the idea. But I am psychic, too—to a degree.”
Lloyd expanded at the flattery. “Tell me, why do you practice your—er—phony art in a lonely spot like this? Why not a city?”
“Later perhaps. To begin with, I prefer to test the stunt on unsophisticated people. Ranji, of course, provides ‘noises off’.”
Lloyd shrugged. “Well, what you choose to do with phony spiritualism is no direct concern of mine: the law will handle that. I’m looking for monsters—and I’ve got all I need here. If you think of pressing the trespass charge, remember what this Indian of yours did to me. I’ll lodge counter-charges. Good night!”
But in the dark roadway again heading to their car, Branson gave a grunt of impatience. “You crazy, Lloyd? If that Indian tried to have you gassed, he sure threw that knife also!”
“Humph!” was Lloyd’s illuminating answer.
“Anyway,” Branson said aggrievedly, “Phalnack must be crazy to admit his ultrasonics that easily.”
“Either that, or else he believes like many criminals that the best defence is admission of apparent guilt. As to the knife, it is his and he admits it. But the fingerprints were not his on the knife; nor were they Ranji’s.”
“Gloves!” Branson grunted.
“But the fingerprints belong to somebody, you dope....” Then Lloyd relapsed into silence, thinking, clambered back into the car at Branson’s side. He turned the car round.
“Where to?”
“Home. I want an Evening Clarion.”
Once back in New York Lloyd got the first copy he came across and hurried with it into headquarters beside Branson. Together they went through the classified advertisements carefully, page after page of them. An hour passed; an hour and a half— Then Lloyd gave a yelp.
“Flammo fumo est proxima! Where there’s smoke, there’s fire! A possible motive at last, Branson! Listen to this— ‘Monsters! Why not insure yourself against possible attack? Small premiums. Absolute cover guaranteed. Write Box 42/2’.”
Branson scowled. “But what the heck? Who’d want to insure themselves against monsters on the strength of that stunt this morning?”
“Probably dozens of people! Think of the weird things that are insured! It’s possible after this morning that hundreds of New Yorkers—more nervous ones anyway—may answer this ad, and be willing to pay for supposed safety. That’s human nature—and damned clever psychology on the advertiser’s part. Later it could build up into quite a racket, especially if monsters—or other terrifying things—reappear! Money for ultrasonics!”
“Lord!” Branson gasped. “You mean somebody—probably Phalnack—is having the face to create monsters just so he can insure against them? Make money out of premiums, knowing he will never have to pay out anyway?”
“Exactly—a streamlined version of an old insurance racket. Supply a demand: then make the supply. This is where we go to town. Ah, masterful mind that I have! Ecce homo, Branson—behold the man! But come—to the Evening Clarion offices.”
They were soon there and Branson’s official capacity opened sesame to many things. In a few minutes they had the address of the advertiser—a remote spot in the country, but significantly it wasn’t very far outside Trenchley.
“Whoever is the advertiser is our man,” Lloyd said exultantly, as they came out on the sidewalk again.
“Phalnack for sure,” Branson growled. “This spot is only about a mile from his place. Let’s see—Hawthorn Filling Station, Trenchley Main Road. Damned funny spot to have an insurance office!”
“Not if it’s worked on the mail order system. Nobody will question the address much as long as they get insurance. An insu
rance actuary doesn’t always have a high-class office.”
Branson nodded thoughtfully, then got into the car. For the second time that evening they headed out of New York—and the place they sought demanded a good deal of wandering, of searching by headlamps; then at last they located it. It was a rather decrepit filling station well off the main highway in Trenchley and apparently deserted. Certainly no lights were on. How anybody could hope to keep the business flourishing in such a dead-alive hole was problematical.
“Stop here,” Lloyd ordered finally; and with all the car lights switched off they halted a hundred yards from the garage. Then together they moved towards it. From one window they caught a glimpse of light through an imperfectly drawn shade.
“Here we go!” Lloyd murmured, and suddenly raising his bass voice he bawled, “Hey there, any gas? Give us some service!”
Instead of a response there were the sounds of shuffling from inside the building and the light snapped out.
“Go for ’em!” Lloyd snapped; and brought his umbrella down on the window with shattering force. Branson was just as quick, thrusting his revolver and torch through the smashed pane, tearing the shade down the centre.
“Hold it!” he ordered, as two figures twirled in the torch beam; then as they slowly raised their hands he began to clamber through—
But the shade got in his way and finally fell on top of him. The two still unidentified men took instant advantage, dodged into the dark, and were gone. Cursing furiously Branson stumbled into the little badly furnished office with Lloyd behind him. They had hardly got themselves disentangled before the sound of a car’s engine starting up assailed them.
“They’re getting away!” Branson yelled. “Come on—after ’em—”
Lloyd swung round and bumped into the table. He stopped, seized Branson’s torch.
“The evidence!” he exclaimed, and indicated a portable ultrasonic equipment on the table, not unlike the one he had himself devised. “Probably a small-scale model of the one they’ve got in that truck of theirs.... Okay, let’s go. We’ve got Exhibit A anyway.”
He whisked it up and they pelted outside to their own car. Lloyd sat with the portable instrument on his knees as the car whisked out of the dark down the solitary road. For safety’s sake, the fleeing truck had to use its headlights, identifying itself instantly. Branson jammed down the accelerator and tore out onto the main road like a rocket, continued on whistling tires through the dark. His headlights began to show the truck up. It was dove-grey, all right, streamlined—
“That’s it!” Branson snapped. “Same licence number!”
Then things began to happen. The road in front of them started to blur, seemed to shift in two directions. There were two grey trucks now and four sets of headlights! A thin hum was in the air—Branson shook his head confusedly, pinched his eyes momentarily.
“They’re using that ultrasonic stuff to ditch us,” Lloyd said quickly. “But maybe we’ve a trick left ourselves—!” He began fumbling with the apparatus on his knees, found a power lead and clamped it into the socket usually used for the car radio. Power of sorts surged into the instrument, for it glowed. Scowling at it, directing the lens ahead, Lloyd concentrated.
In a moment or two he got results—surprising ones, for the truck went careening off the main road into a field, bounced, turned right over and finished on its side. Instantly they hopped from their own car and chased after it.
“What did you do?” Branson panted, as they ran.
“Same as he did to us! Concentrated on two roads. They didn’t know I had apparatus to do the trick and took it as the real thing!”
They’d arrived at the truck now. A figure was crawling from the driving seat; yet another was making frantic efforts to get out of the back doors. Branson went to the front; Lloyd to the back. He paused as he was about to grasp the metal handle on the door, and instead yanked a card and powder from his pocket. He gave a grim smile at what he found, then pulled the door open.
It was Ted Hutton who came staggering out, disheveled, a bruise on his head where he’d struck the instruments in the truck.
“Say!” Branson exclaimed, appearing with the other man, “this guy is Murgatroyd, the travelling salesman. He was disguised with a phony mustache and cap pulled down—Hutton!” he exclaimed, staring at him.
“Hutton,” Lloyd acknowledged grimly. “And the fingerprints tally with those on the knife. Okay, Branson—the bracelets.”
* * * * * * *
“To sum up,” Lloyd said, towards midnight when he and Branson were at precinct headquarters after taking Hutton’s full confession of an effort to launch a super-insurance racket; “A—I suspected Hutton when I suspected ultrasonics, because being an electrician he would probably know about them. B—his story of being present in the village for Government reasons—in a village with only gaslight—sounded phony. C—he cut his wife short when she said she had bad static on her radio on the night of the monsters. But I was quick enough to see static was impossible in a village devoid of electricity; therefore, the monsters were probably electrical in basic origin. D—his wife made a remark that she’d heard of Phalnack in a newspaper. Hutton knew that too; and as he has since confessed, moved in to Trenchley because he had heard Phalnack was an expert in ultrasonics. He figured, knowing his wife’s weakness for spiritualism, that he might get ideas from Phalnack. Which he did....
“Then,” Lloyd proceeded; “we come to Point E. Hutton decided on ‘monsters’ because their unusual and terrifying nature would be best calculated to scare people into insurance. F—his colleague owned the truck in which he put the equipment; and I suspected Murgatroyd because he lived outside the village. G—Hutton did his best to blacken Phalnack as much as possible, hence his early theft of the oriental knife owned by Phalneck—but in his urgency to throw it he did nothing to save his fingerprints getting onto the hilt as well as Phalnack’s numerous ones from normal handling of the knife. Phalnack’s were blurred and numerous: Hutton’s new and distinct. Obviously he’d had plenty of chances to steal that knife at earlier séances. H—the appearance of the monsters in the village was, as Hutton has admitted, his first test. To his consternation it brought me on the job, and he tried to get rid of me by various clumsy expedients. He resorted to the knife, the turban disguise, a make-believe evil spirit in the wood, and running us off the road. Accidentally, his ‘turban’ caught the tree.”
Lloyd sighed, gave a shrug. “Altogether, Branson, an ambitious young scientific adventurer who took the wrong turning.... A last word: Phalnack probably is somewhat psychic, even as he said. The evil presence at the séance was doubtless Hutton....”
“By and large,” Branson commented, “we cleaned everything up in fine style.”
Lloyd’s eyelids drooped. “Veni, vidi, vici,” he growled. “I came I saw, I conquered. Now get the hell out of here and let me get on with my diatomic culture research!”
THE COPPER BULLET
Dr. Henry Bland, chief of the Atomic Research Centre, was in one of his moods again. Probably overwork. Certainly he looked pale and troubled as he paced up and down the laboratory annexe wherein he and two members of the staff were working.
“Death and destruction to millions,” Dr. Bland muttered, coming to a halt and musing. “That’s the thing I can’t get over! Here are we in here, working out the complicated equations necessary for nuclear fission, and we don’t give a thought to the deeper issues.”
“Wouldn’t do much good if we did, sir,” remarked the younger of his two colleagues—Jeffrey Travers, research scientist. “We have experiments to carry out in this pile where we’re all imprisoned, so what more is there to be said?”
Dr. Bland did not reply. The third man did not speak, either. He was essentially a mathematician, cold-faced and pale-eyed. He did not indulge in the scientific arguments that often brought Bland and young Travers to high words and short tempers.
“I don’t mean the possible destruction an atomic mishap
here on earth might cause,” Bland said presently, “though heaven knows that is appalling enough. I’m thinking of the possible effects on other universes every time we indulge in atom-splitting! I’ve thought about it a lot these last few days,” he continued, rubbing his forehead. “Funny thing, but I think about it most when I get these confounded headaches of mine. Never had one in my life until recently.”
“You surely don’t mean,” the third man said incredulously, “that every time we split atoms we might be destroying other worlds and universes?” He shook his head. “I know that years ago some unscientific people used to think that the atomic world was simply the microcosm, that the electron was analogous to a planet, that the proton was the central attraction like our own sun—and that the atom itself, the molecular structure, could be likened to a solar system. That we lived in the macrocosm, and—” he smiled thinly, “—every time we indulged in atom-splitting we destroyed countless solar systems and maybe millions of living beings, so small that....” He broke off as Bland glared at him.
“Stop talking such damned nonsense, man!” Bland demanded irritably, his thin face working. “Everybody knows in these days of quantum theory—or they should—that matter as we know it is only a very small portion of our universe, and that if one universe exists, there must be many—perhaps an infinite number of other universes. Our universe is just one component of a vast array of universes, a cosmic mosaic. We’ve no real idea of what happens at the inter-atomic level, and it’s possible that these universes are connected, at the tiny atomic level, through higher dimensional tunnels through spacetime....” He broke off broodingly. “...a kind of cosmic umbilical cord. Who’s to say that the vast energies released by our atom-splitting experiments might not travel along those cosmic umbilical chords into a neighbouring universe? It is the thought of this merciless destruction which worries me.”
A Case for Brutus Lloyd Page 11