by Don Wilcox
For Lord Lorruth was afraid of Lady Lucille, and Steve guessed there had been some narrow escapes from murder before this last fur-trading expedition.
And yet for all her faults and her madness, Lady Lucille Lorruth had had a share in overturning the lives of several of us. Unintentionally, perhaps, but none the less true.
The more years I spend in this strange sub-glacial world, the more I hope I live to be twenty thousand or so. That’s the influence of Veeva and her traditions. Being King isn’t a half-bad job when there’s a beautiful Queen like Veeva.
Do I ever get homesick for the faraway world of tall buildings and rushing traffic and bright lights? Well, perhaps I do. Perhaps I’ll send this account of my adventure back to the United States someday, just to keep contact with the busy surface world I used to know.
And if this should ever be printed, and should chance to be read by any of you who are contemplating a voyage into the Arctic, it carries an invitation to you to come down under the ice and see us.
Professor Peterson will have the world’s most interesting lectures ready for you. And you’ll want to get acquainted with Shorty and Steve and Lord Lorruth. You’ll want to visit Gandl, if he isn’t off on a jaunt to Newfoundland or New York.
You’ll want to meet Veeva, bless her heart, and all the family, bless their little hearts, and—well, anyhow drop in.
Fantastic Adventures
July 1943
Volume 5, Number 7
What was the secret of this tiny book with its mysterious white cards? Why were they so extremely valuable?
CHAPTER I
Six dazzlingly beautiful girls on a single float—what a parade!
To be fair about it, several floats besides Hamilton Craig’s were worth a second look; the military bands were good for a thrill any day; and the passing displays of streamlined architecture topped anything the crowds had ever seen.
But parades are a pretty girl’s excuse for being, no doubt, or vice versa. And this architect’s passing show was no exception.
“What do youse kids do the rest of the week?” some bumpkin shouted from the sidewalk.
“Howzabout a date?” his friend joined in.
Other lads gave surprised whistles, middle-aged business men took in the animated scenery with approving eyes, and here and there a tottering old grandpa would suddenly shake off ten years of age as the girls threw kisses at him.
Twenty blocks of continuous waving and smiling. Then the parade was over—all but the awarding of prizes. The contest judge beamed at Hamilton Craig’s perfect sextette. Their triumph was complete. They had won.
When the shouting was over and the crowds were dissolving, the judge mounted the prize float to engage the six lovely young things in a private conversation—in behalf of Craig.
“Hamilton Craig asked me to divide the prize money among you, one-sixth to each.”
“But we’ve no right to take all the money,” the girl with the snappy brown eyes protested.
“S-s-s-sh!” another girl broke in. “The judge knows what he’s doing.”
The contest judge acknowledged the compliment. “The prize money is nothing to Mr. Craig. Gather ’round, fair ones. One, two, three, four, five.
Where’s number six? Oh, there you are, buying an ice-cream bar. Come, young lady.”
“Speakin’ to me, Mistah?” Number Six asked in a soft Southern drawl,
“Ah’m comin’.”
The first girl, Hetty by name, was still in doubt. “Some of this money should be used to pay for the float. If we could see Mr. Craig—”
“You’re not to see him,” said the contest judge. “He was emphatic on that point. If you don’t know Hamilton Craig—well!”
Here the contest judge stepped out of his official role long enough to throw a few sidelights upon Craig the Bachelor. Between Craig’s wealth and his good looks he had been kept busy warding off aggressive females. He had been known to change his address more than once to throw followers off the trail.
“They say he turns his house into a chamber of horrors to scare away ambitious socialites,” the contest judge declared. “But getting back to the point, Mr. Craig does not want to see you. Only at the last minute did someone persuade him to enter a float in the parade. I’ll wager that none of you six ever met him before he chose you for this job.”
Hetty glanced at her companions. “Yes, all six of us are strangers to Mr. Craig, and to each other. He just picked us up to serve in this parade.”
“But we are going to stick together long enough to land a contract,” said one girl who had been very eager for the prize money.
The other five girls turned to her in surprise. What was this talk about a contract?
“If you can land any kind of contract from Craig,” said the contest judge, handing out the prizes, “I’m for you. Already you’ve got the photographers and news tattlers thinking you’ve been in vaudeville together somewhere. Craig could put you on Broadway if he took a notion. But for an architect he’s one mysterious guy, and I figure women are his blind spot.”
“We’ll open his eyes,” said one of the girls.
Ten minutes later the six of them were on their way to Hamilton Craig’s mansion.
Cornelia, the promoter of the contract scheme, was already talking in terms of big money. This event had been a break for her, judging from her eagerness. Hetty, carrying a small camera, snapped a close-up of her expression, thinking to entitle it, “Look out, Mr. Craig.”
The celebrated bachelor architect had a number of addresses. One of his hobbies was to acquire old houses and make them over. After some trial and error, the girls arrived at an old mansion on Southwest Boulevard.
“Mah heavens! What a place!” the Southern girl exclaimed. “Ah’ve nevah seen a bigger haouse in Chawleston.”
“And to think he has all this house to himself,” another girl said. “It’s a shame.”
Cornelia, the contract promoter, gave out with some last minute instructions. “Remember, girls, he’s shy of women. He’ll probably try to close the door in our faces. We’ve got to take him by storm. Leave the talking to me. I’ll give him a line about all the circuits we’ve played.”
“I don’t like lying to him,” Hetty protested.
Genevieve, sophisticated beauty, edged in front of Cornelia haughtily as they came to the entrance.
“Oh, you want to ring the doorbell?” There was jealousy in Cornelia’s tone. “You think Mr. Craig prefers platinums?”
Genevieve’s answer was a cold shoulder. She rang the doorbell.
No answer.
The Southern girl, who had perched herself in the window ledge, was sure someone was inside.
“All right,” said Cornelia, “we’ll try once more. If they don’t answer, we’ll barge in.”
“Please. We mustn’t break moral laws.” This came from a girl who had had little to say heretofore. There was deep moral conviction in her tone. “Only by righteousness can we win.”
“Righteousness?” said Cornelia. “We’ll talk about that later. The contract’s the important thing.”
Still no answer from the doorbell.
“Come on, girls,” said Cornelia. But it was Genevieve who cut in ahead of her to open the door.
“Don’t forget the moral laws,” said the quiet one with the sensitive conscience.
“And don’t forget Craig’s chamber of horrors,” Hetty added. She had her camera ready as they entered. If there were any trapdoors or dancing skeletons, she meant to snap them.
The girls found themselves within a large oaken hallway. Clusters of little round blue lights glowed like dominoes from the paneled walls. At the farthest corner of the room was a desk with a table-lamp, where the Southern girl thought she had seen someone a minute before.
The bare walls gave back weird echoes. And the girls were chilled by the resounding of their own footsteps. They drew back into a huddle.
Cornelia suggested that someone should explore
the crooked corridor beyond the desk. No one volunteered.
“But there’s his room!” Hetty suddenly exclaimed. “Stay back till I get a picture of it.”
The entrance off the hallway was a half-open door in the shape of a Gothic arch. Bright new copper letters formed the words:
HAMILTON CRAIG
Private Office
DO NOT ENTER
Not much could be seen through the opening other than the pink wall beyond, brightened by late afternoon sunshine.
“Mr. Craig! . . . Mr. Craig!” Cornelia called. Her voice faded to a whisper. “I don’t think he’s there. This
place sounds awful empty.”
“Oh, Mr. Craig!” Genevieve sang out in a saccharine tune. “Oh, Mr. Cra-a-a-aig! We’ve come to see you!”
There must have been electric eyes in the wall. As Genevieve walked toward the door it softly swung closed.
Both Cornelia and Genevieve fell back, but the red-haired girl, named Patsy, marched ahead angrily.
“Nobody’s going to slam a door in my face!” Patsy tossed her head. She was in a fighting mood. She flung the door wide open.
On the instant, a thousand bars of light stabbed in from all sides of the Gothic arch. A thousand electric sparklers seemed to be going off at once. The rattle and hum were terrifying at first, and the light was blinding.
Then Patsy called back, “Come on, girls. I think he’s back this way.”
The straight bright bars of light continued to vibrate through the doorway, but there was still an opening in the center where Patsy had disappeared. Patsy was still calling, now from a distance. There was no terror in her voice. “Come on, we’ll show him he can’t scare us:”
“It’s just a trick,” said Genevieve haughtily, and she walked through the opening within the fan of electric bars.
Cornelia followed her. Both girls disappeared.
“Wheah did they all go?” the Southern girl asked, starting forward.
“Better wait,” Hetty advised, “until we see what this is all about.”
“Ah nevah befo’ saw a thunderstorm in a haouse.”
“We have no business in the house,” Hetty declared.
“We departed from the path of righteousness,” said Grace, the girl with the moralistic outlook. “This thunderstorm is a warning.”
“I think it is a practical joke,” said Hetty, “but if they don’t hurry back we had better take a chance and follow them.”
The voices of the others faded in the distance. If they were still talking, the snap of electric sparks drowned them out.
As the minutes passed, Hetty and her two companions grew too curious to wait any longer. They approached the electrified opening.
“Did you see which way they went?” Hetty asked.
“As fah as mah eyes could tell,” said the Southern girl, “they turned into nothing.”
“They must have gone to the right,” Hetty decided. “Well, here goes.”
The trio filed through the electrically charged opening and, like the others, “turned into nothing.”
Or, as a certain observer of the transformation afterward declared, “almost nothing.”
CHAPTER II
Archie Swings Round the Block
The single observer who took in the scene of transformation at the Gothic doorway was Archie Burnette, a young man of twenty-six who needed a job.
Archie Burnette was in Craig’s private office on business, but no one knew he was there. He had come two hours before, with the purpose of fulfilling an assignment for the Overton Employment Agency. If he made good, he had been told, he might land a job with Hamilton Craig himself.
The instructions from Overton’s had been brief. Archie guessed that the agent himself was mystified over the nature of this errand.
“You are to go out to Hamilton
Craig’s new house,” the agent had said. Mr. Craig wants some more information before he moves in. The address is 7599 Southwest Boulevard. You will find a series of buildings. There used to be an old hospital in that block. The mansion that fronts on the street was the doctor’s home. You’re to count the rooms.”
“In the mansion or the hospital?” Archie had asked.
“All the rooms. The three or four buildings on the block are all connected. Some of them are still occupied, I think. But you must walk right in and survey the whole block and list the number of rooms on every level.”
And so Archie Burnette had missed the parade. He had taken a car to the suburb on the outer limits of Southwest Boulevard. He had circled the block two or three times before nerving himself to walk in at one of the brick-walled Gothic entrances.
With pencil and notebook he had followed through one room after another. Along the west side a wing of the old hospital had been converted into an apartment hotel. Off the small lobby there was a cafe a few steps below the street level. The tables were empty. At the bar three or four men were dozing over their drinks.
The attendant at the bar gave Archie the approximate floor plan, informing him which of the rooms were occupied.
“Business is bad,” the bartender said. “Nobody wants to live in an old broken-down building. Look at those walls. The south wing is worse. It’s vacant except for the laboratories on the second and third.”
“What kind of laboratories?”
“Search, me. I’ve never paid any attention, but I see Dr. Silverhead go by every day or two. He’s one of these long-haired professors that you read about. I suppose he’s happy.”
Archie felt uneasy over the bartender’s disclosures. It seemed that most of the tenants of these buildings were in arrears on their rent, and every reference to Dr. Silverhead heightened Archie’s suspicions.
“He never pays nothin’,” the bartender said, “but he’s in that side of the hospital that nobody could use anyhow. When the roof falls in on him, maybe somebody will rebuild on this spot. That’s why I’m holding on here. It’s a damn good location.”
“I’d better get over and see the doctor,” said Archie.
The doors were locked, and no one would answer his knock. He passed along the windows and got what he could of the laboratory interior. The largest room on the ground floor of the south side had been an auditorium. The seats were piled up with lumber and rolls of canvas, and unopened crates of glistening scientific apparatus.
From what Archie could see of the stage, it, too, was a strange mixture of battered scenery and bright metal paraphernalia that Archie could not readily classify.
Beyond the south wing of the old hospital Archie found his way through a passage into a courtyard. Someone had tended a garden here. In recent weeks the lawn had been mowed and apparently a new fence had been built around an old well in the center of the court. However, much of the rambling shrubbery had been neglected. He walked along the graveled paths, almost hidden from the surrounding arcades.
He found his way into the old mansion through a window. He walked softly now. Voices were echoing through the corridors that joined the laboratories.
Archie preferred to avoid company. He carried a statement from the employment agency and could explain his presence if necessary. But the bartender had given him a suspicion toward the scientist who occupied these premises.
The voices soon were out of hearing. Each new room he entered greeted him with a glow of electric lights. Obviously, some recent electric wiring had been done in this place. Electric eyes were turning on these lights whenever he crossed a threshold.
Now he entered a corner chamber where the light of the afternoon sun brightened the pink walls. The door ahead was half opened. He could see a sign on it—“Hamilton Craig—Private Office—Do Not Enter.”
Here for the first time he had discovered something familiar. But the room itself showed no signs of being occupied by Craig. Dusty linen covers were over the furniture. The floor had not been swept. The only foot tracks in the dust were those near the door. Obviously, these copper letters had been nailed on within the las
t day or two.
But there was something more that caught Archie’s curiosity. The Gothic arch of the doorway itself was studded with a row of tiny copper points, like a string of sharp-pointed beads. A well insulated wire was attached to the lower end of this border of points.
Archie frowned and backed away. The automatic lighting of rooms had put him on his guard.
He was debating how to get out of Craig’s private office without crossing that threshold when he heard the chatter of female voices in the room beyond.
Archie ducked back into an alcove. He listened. From the hallway of soft blue lights these girls were daring each other to enter this private office.
“Ye gods!” Archie thought. “If they come in here looking for Craig and find me—” Archie’s thoughts turned a series of flipflops. It would be funny, he thought, to pose as Craig. If he only had a little more nerve—but things like that only happened in plays. He edged back into the next room and vowed he would not emerge no matter what happened.
Then before his eyes the strangest, most unbelievable things occurred.
First of all, the door went closed.
Next, someone flung it open, and he saw a beautiful red-haired girl come through. Instantly there was a shower of electrical sparks from the sides of the doorway. To Archie it was like a thousand tracer bullets shooting straight at the girl.
But she came on and turned to call to the others. She was still calling when she vanished in thin air.
A second and a third girl followed. The brilliant shower of electrical sparks threatened them as they passed through the doorway. And yet Archie thought that they were not touched, for after they were safely within the room he could see an open space in the center of the door framed by the cracking little bolts of lightning.
The light was blinding, and Archie was reluctant to trust his eyes; but what he seemed to see now was a little white card fluttering in the air. It drifted across a table and dropped down upon the dusty linen cover.