“There’s your gun,” he said. “It must have dropped out of your pocket when you did the Brodie.” “Yes,” agreed Donovan, as he turned and recovered the weapon, still further mystified by the fact of its return to him.
In the hallway he met his father coming from the third floor, and called him aside. “I think I’m next to something,” he whispered in a low tone. “Don’t ask me any questions. I’ll tell you what I want and then you tell me if you’ll do it.”
“Shoot,” said Lieutenant Donovan.
“I want every light above the first floor shut off and a stall made that will kid anyone who may be listening into believing that all of you have gone downstairs. But instead post three or four men in this hall, in the dark, and have one close to each of the doors on this side — mine, Saran’s and his daughter’s, with orders to nab anyone who comes out unless they give a countersign that we’ll agree upon.”
“How can anyone come out when there ain’t nobody in any of these rooms?” demanded Terrance Donovan.
“I don’t know,” replied his son. “That’s what I want to find out. The countersign can be Three Gables. Whisper it and all your instructions to your men — if walls ever had ears it’s these walls.”
“What are you goin’ to do?” asked the father. “Never mind — I told you not to ask me any questions.”
The older man shook his head. “Mackie,” he said, “there’s something about all this night’s business that I’ve got a hunch is hooked up with something I can’t tell you about, yet. If I’m right it’s all got more to do with you than it has with Mason Thorn. I wish you’d get out of this house an’ go home. I’ll send a couple of the boys with you.”
Young Donovan laughed. “I supposed you’d laugh,” said his father, “but I wish you’d do it, Mackie. I don’t think your life’s safe here.”
The younger man placed a hand affectionately on his father’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Dad,” he said, “I can take care of myself, and even if I can’t, you don’t want a son of yours running away from his post, do you?”
Lieutenant Terrance Donovan turned slowly away. “The lights’ll be out an’ the men posted in two minutes,” he whispered, “an’ God be with you!”
In less than the brief time he had stipulated the upper floors of the penthouse were in darkness and Lieutenant Donovan with several of his men were descending to the first floor with considerable show of noise, so that any listener might think a greater number were descending than actually were. Behind him he left three burly policemen silently guarding three doorways in the blackness of the second-floor hallway. What had become of Macklin Donovan, he did not know.
CHAPTER VII Across Space
DONOVAN stood still until after the lights had been extinguished, then he crept noiselessly through the darkness toward the room where he knew lay the road to that strange place of a world within a world, of rooms where no rooms were in this solid real world of which he now was a part. He reached it and entered softly, his gun ready. The closet door he found closed, and his heart throbbed as he laid a hand on the knob.
It was like placing a hand on the knob of a door that led to infinity. Beyond was a space no more than four feet square, and yet, it opened into an unseen universe. But where ?
Nariva Saran was there, and where she was, he wanted to be, to prove to himself at least, her innocence or her duplicity. Whatever it was, he must know the truth.
Abruptly he turned the knob and opened the door. The interior of the closet was black as ink. No dim bluish radiance now, of a weird encroaching world. No ghostly radiation from nowhere. An eerie sense of appalling danger gripped him as he nerved himself to step over the threshold. Was anyone lurking there, ready to kill? But he reasoned it was just as dark to anyone else, and if they were there, he had an equal chance.
He stepped forward, waved a hand about — four walls, all blank! The closet was empty. He released the pent-up breath in his lungs and closed the closet door behind him. Then his searching fingers sought the hangers on the wall. He found one, rested his fingers lightly upon it, his body suddenly chill. There, beneath his hand, lay the unknown. Some weird science should spring out as he pulled it down.
Stiffening, he pulled suddenly. Nothing happened. The hanger did not move. No dummy, this, but the real thing. He felt for another, found it, and once more pulled it down. It gave, and abruptly the weird blue light sprang forth. A second of time he had to observe it, hear its uncanny crackling sound, then it winked out. As simple, as quick as that!
Eager now, for action, he turned to the door. But he halted abruptly as he heard muffled voices from beyond. They seemed far away, as though more than one door intervened. Cautiously he turned the knob and opened the door a fraction of an inch. The voices came louder now, raised in altercation. But the room beyond was dark and empty.
Opening the door wide, Donovan advanced across the room, conscious of its strangeness. Beneath his feet was no carpet, as had been the case beyond the closet of the room he should have been in. It was a bare floor, uncarpeted, of stone.
He found a door, ajar, leading into a hallway, and slipped through it. Here was light, dim, coming from outside through several windows and a partly transparent glass wall. Passing a window he gazed out in all-consuming curiosity. Would a glimpse of the familiar roof-top of the Thorn building, the gardens beneath the tiny balconies, give him a clue as to the location of these rooms and halls?”
But at the sight that met his eyes, he gasped aloud. There was a roof-top, but a strange one. And beyond its rails was New York, as he had always seen it, with its giant skyscrapers. A mile away loomed a giant one — and his heart failed within him as he recognized it. It was the Thorn Building! “Great God!” he whispered.
He, Macklin Donovan, had been transmitted in an instant of time, across a mile of space, to the twin tower he had looked upon so many times already this night! Incredible, fantastic occurrence! What weird science was back of it all? What great thing had he stumbled upon? No petty attempt on a millionaire’s money, this, but something colossal, something far ahead of the science of even that great city out there.
The beat of angry voices broke through his amazement now, and he realized with a start what his mission was. Here, in this giant building of mystery was Nariva Saran. And somehow, he knew now, she was a helpless tool, in the grip of strange sciences.
He came to a door. Beyond it were the voices. He listened.
A MAN was speaking — the voice was coarse and uncultured. He spoke in the Assurian tongue. Young Donovan understood it well, and he was glad now that his father had insisted upon his learning it. He had never understood why so much stress had been laid upon languages in his education — he did not understand now. He merely was glad that he had learned Assurian as well as French, Spanish and German.
“There is a traitor among us,” the man was saying.
“Or Thorn divulged the secrets of the penthouse to others,” suggested a second voice; “that, you know, is very possible and would explain much.” At the sound of the second voice Donovan raised his eyebrows, for he recognized the tones — they belonged to Greeves.
There was some grumbling, as though of dissent from the suggestion, and then the first voice spoke again. “This girl — how long have you known her, Saran? There is something about her that reminds me of someone else. Are you very sure of her?”
“You ought to be sure of me — I have been working with you for more than a year,” said a feminine voice. It was Nariva!
“The Committee recommended her,” came a man’s voice — Saran’s. “Beyond that I know nothing of her. Until tonight I have had no reason to mistrust her; but now! By God, someone is double-crossing us — someone tried to kill me. She is the only one who could have had a motive.”
“What motive?” demanded the gruff voice of the first speaker.
“The fool is in love with him."
There was a long silence and then, suddenly, an exclamation from him of the c
oarse voice. There was the scraping of a chair and other sounds indicative of a seated man rising excitedly to his feet. Donovan kneeled and placed an eye close to the key-hole, revealing, in the thus circumscribed range of his vision, three of the occupants of the room.
Seated at a table, her back partially toward him, Nariva Saran was nearest the door beyond which he knelt; upon the opposite side of the table from her he could see two men. One of them was Saran, who, seated, was looking up at the man at his right — the one whom Donovan had heard rise from his chair. The latter, a coarse, heavy man, leaned forward across the table and shook a trembling finger in the face of Nariva Saran. He appeared inarticulate with rage.
Donovan could not see Greeves, nor the other occupants of the room, if there were others, except a man’s hand and part of a coat sleeve resting on the table to the right of the bearded figure. There might be a dozen men in the room, for aught that Macklin Donovan knew to the contrary, and he sincerely hoped that, however many constituted the gang, they were all in that room — it would have been most embarrassing to have had one of them come up behind him at that moment.
He wondered what it was all about — the obviously overmastering excitement and anger of the man facing Nariva Saran — the trembling, accusing finger — the tense silence of the others in the room. Presently the bearded one found his voice.
“Spy!” he screamed. “I know you now.”
He turned excitedly to the right and left toward the others in the room. “You are fools!” he cried. “We are all fools, dupes. The scientists have tricked us nicely. Do you not know who she is?” His voice rose almost to a shriek, as he turned upon the girl again. He leaned so far forward that his pudgy finger almost touched her face as he pointed it at her.
“You are Sanders’ daughter!” he cried, accusingly.
“Think of it,” he exhorted the others, “the daughter of Michael Sanders, the acknowledged war leader of the scientists, admitted for more than a year to our inner circle.” He turned upon the girl again:
“You deny it?” he demanded.
“Have I denied it?” she asked. Her voice was level, her mien dignified; but Donovan could see that her cheek was pale.
“You know the fate of spies?” the man continued.
The girl nodded. The man faced Saran. “The responsibility for this is more yours than another’s,” he said. “Is it possible that there are two spies among us?”
“There may be two, Danard; but I am not one of them,” replied Saran, whose facial muscles were working in nervous anger. “She tricked me, as she did all of you; but she did not try to kill any of you. She tried to kill me, the —” he applied a foul name to her. “For the safety of the cause, she must die. Let me, then, be her executioner.”
Danard held up a restraining hand. “Let this thing be carried out in order,” he said. “Have you anything to say, Spy?”
“What could I say to you, Danard, betrayer of the Science Ruler’s trust, murderer, exploiter of your fellow country-men, traitor, that would influence you from the decision that you reached the instant that you recognized me. I am ready tonight, as I have always been, to die for Assuria and the science empire.”
“Then die!” cried Danard, flushing angrily, and nodded to Saran.
THE latter rose and as he did so he drew a pistol from his pocket. The girl rose, too, and stood facing them haughtily, her head high. At the same instant Macklin Donovan pushed the door aside and stepped into the room just as Saran raised his weapon. The secret-service-man fired first. Saran grasped at his breast, slumped forward upon the table, and then slipped to the floor.
The other occupants of the room turned surprised eyes upon the intruder — there were five men and the girl.
Danard uttered an exclamation of surprise as his eyes fell upon Donovan.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, exultantly, “it is he!”
“Who?” demanded another — “not—?”
“Yes,” cried Danard—“Alexander!” and then: “For Assuria! For the New Freedom!” he screamed and leveled his needle pistol.
Donovan raised his own weapon and pulled the trigger — with no result, for the empty shell had jammed after he had shot Saran. Simultaneously Greeves drew a gun and fired, dropping Danard in his tracks. Nariva leaped past Macklin to the switch beside the door and plunged the room into darkness. Someone grasped him by an arm on one side and an instant later he was seized by a second person upon the other.
Danard was groaning.
A voice cried: “Stop them! Kill them!”
There was the sound of heavy shoes on stone floor, and furniture pushed about and overturned. Nariva’s voice sounded in Donovan’s ear.
“Come quickly! ” she urged in a whisper. “You can trust me — you must trust me! ” He felt himself rushed along through the darkness, turning first this way and then that.
Suddenly he felt hands seize for him from out of the darkness before him as he collided with an invisible form.
“Halt!” commanded a deep voice, and then. “I got ’em; give a hand here.” Heavy footsteps sounded, running. An instant of flickering, crackling blue, then more darkness. Then someone switched on lights and the astonished Donovan found himself in the second floor hallway of the Thorn penthouse, a burly policeman grappling with him, while two more came running to the assistance of the first. On one side of him was Nariva Saran and on the other, Greeves.
The officer who held him looked hurt. “Why didn’t ye give the counter-sign?” he demanded.
Terrance Donovan, leaping up the stairs from the library three at a time, came down the hall at a run. “Hang on to those two,” he ordered, indicating Greeves and the girl. “Good boy, Mackie, you got ’em! That’s the boy!”
“I didn’t get them, though,” replied young Donovan, ruefully; “they got me.”
Greeves was smiling. “You needn’t worry about us, now, Lieutenant Donovan,” he said. “We won’t elude you again — there’s no more need for it.”
“I’ll say you won’t!” exclaimed Terrance Donovan; “not if I know myself, you won’t. I’ve got you, now, and I’m goin’ to keep you.”
“There’s something about this, Dad, that we don’t understand,” said Macklin. “Greeves and Miss Saran just saved my life. But before we go into it any farther we’ve got to get the rest of the gang.” He turned to Greeves. “Will you show Lieutenant Donovan and his men how you get back and forth between these two buildings so easily and so quickly?” “Certainly, sir,” said Greeves, “but I doubt if you find your men now. We got the ones who counted. The other three do not count for much — they were only tools working for hire, and, as far as I know, they have committed no crimes.”
“Who in hell are you, anyway?” demanded Macklin Donovan of the butler.
“Wait until we come back and I will tell you everything,” replied Greeves.
“Go ahead, then,” commanded Lieutenant Donovan, “but I’ll keep a good hold on you — you may be all right but you’re too damned slippery to suit me.” Greeves laughed. “All right, Lieutenant, I don’t know that I can blame you,” he replied.
“Mac, you stay here and see that this woman don’t get away again,” Terrance Donovan instructed McGroarty, “the rest of you come along with us.” Greeves led them into the room formerly occupied by Macklin. The closet door now stood open, as the lights revealed after Greeves had switched them on. Crowding them all into the closet the butler closed the door and took hold of a hanger at the end of the closet and pulled on it—the blue radiance flared. Although nothing seemed changed Greeves opened the door, leading them into a chamber corresponding with the one they had left, except that it was unlit. He switched on the lights, revealing an unfurnished room.
“My God!” rapped Lieutenant Donovan, leaping forward and staring out of the window. “Where are we and how did we get here?”
“You are in the penthouse of the tall building a mile from the Thorn building,” Greeves explained. “And you have just been tr
ansmitted by means of radio waves3 from a closet in the Thorn building to this room.* The apparatus is built into the walls. Assurian science has gone far in twenty years.”
Lieutenant Donovan startled, glanced at his son. “Yes.” he said slowly. “It has!”
The police crossed the hall, entered the room and switched on the lights. Saran’s dead body lay upon the floor, where it had fallen. With the exception of a few pieces of furniture, some of which was overturned, the room was vacant and unoccupied. Greeves appeared puzzled. He turned to Macklin Donovan.
“I thought Danard was mortally wounded,” he said. “I expected to find him dead.”
Donovan nodded. “The others must have helped him to get away; but they can’t be far. You’d better search, Dad.”
“You’ll find a trap door leading to the building proper,” Greeves told them, “but it will be useless to follow. They’ve gotten away by this time. It’s too bad we lost Danard — he’s the man you want.” “Why?” demanded Lieutenant Donovan.
“It was Danard who murdered Mr. Thorn.”
CHAPTER VIII A Prince of Science
AS Macklin Donovan entered the Thorn library a few moments later with Greeves, Nariva Saran and his father, he spoke pleasantly to the Glassocks and the Thorns. Percy Thorn returned his greeting cordially, Miss Euphonia, crushed and weeping, was too buried in her own grief to notice anyone. Genevive Glassock nodded indifferently and looked in another direction, while Mrs. Peabody Glassock, looking directly through him, failed apparently to perceive either him or his salutation; unless a slightly increased elevation of her patrician chin denoted aught to the contrary.
“It is strange,” she whispered later to her daughter, “that the Thom’s should have tolerated such people; but then poor Mason could not have known. It is Percy’s fault — he must have gotten it from his mother; her grandfather, you know, had nothing — absolutely nothing. Ah, blood will tell — always! One can see it in that Donovan person — common, very common.”
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