by Don Wilcox
As Archie wandered back to the oaken reception room, he felt compelled to bring matters to a decision. Either he must walk out on this job or he must ally himself to Hamilton Craig, come what may.
“Darned if I can figure that guy out,” Archie said to himself. “He’s as jumpy as a grasshopper—always turning up in a new place. I can’t figure him out.”
Archie was recalling Craig’s words of that morning. “Was I drunk? . . . Never mind.”
It would seem that Craig had no recollection of his activities of the previous evening.
Was it possible that this successful young architect was a split personality? In his role as a business man, could he forget that he was harboring a group of criminals in these buildings? Or was he somehow innocent?
Archie needed the job, but it wasn’t that which made his decision take root so much as another factor. In his pocket was the mysterious book containing six cards—no, five—Cornelia was absent. At any rate, it was Archie’s natural curiosity regarding this strange phenomenon which determined him to stay on.
Heavy footsteps sounded outside the entrance, and the vast form of Carlo Verrazzano, the perfume salesman, appeared. He lifted his hat, made a graceful bow, and looked about eagerly.
“Ah, sir, you are the verree man I weesh to see!”
Archie placed himself back of the desk and prepared to resist a sales talk. The big man was smiling down at him, making grandiose gestures. Archie only stared at him coldly.
“What can I do for you?”
“The beeooutiful Cornelia—alas!—she has went. But I think she come here, maybee?”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, friend. I haven’t seen her. What makes you think she would come here?”
“Ah, she have a queeck talk with Mr. Craig. They make business plans. And when she come back to me she only talk money, money, money.”
Verrazzano’s face grew sad, and he touched his eyes with a handkerchief. “No longer she smile at me so sweet.”
“Well, what then? Did she walk out on you?”
“It all happen so sudden I do not know.”
“Where did you leave her? At Craig’s office?”
“No, no, no. It was while we were having dinner that Mr. Craig come and talk. When he was gone, she no more listen to my stories, how I sell ten thousand, twenty thousand dollars of the gorgeous perfume. I have her walk with me in the Italian garden. Ah, eet is beeoutiful. The heaven full of stars—sweet music. Dancing.”
“You were at a night club? She got away from you in the garden?”
“She disappears from me like that!” Verrazzano snapped his fingers.
Archie scowled. “I don’t like this, Verrazzano. I’m responsible for that girl. I’ll have to go and find her.”
The perfume salesman’s calf-like eyes brightened with hope. “You weel bring her back to me?”
“Let me get this straight,” said Archie. “Stars, music and dancing—and so you tried to kiss her.”
“Ah, you were there?”
“And then she disappeared.”
“So! You saw eet happen!”
“I saw nothing,” said Archie, “but I will go and find her if you will give me the address. Poor girl, she probably was trampled under foot.”
“The address, I have eet here. So I would remember, I queeck wrote eet on a card that I find on the floor.”
Archie scrutinized the card that the sadfaced Romeo was handing him.
“For safekeeping,” said Archie smiling, “I’ll pack it away in this little book. Run along, pal, and stop your sniveling. Your Cornelia is safe and sound.” Senor Verrazzano made three deep bows and gushed his appreciation that his Cornelia would not be lost. He offered to taxi Archie to the night club to effect the rescue and made other suggestions which Archie found equally ridiculous. In the end, Verrazzano had to be satisfied with leaving his telephone number, in hopes that Cornelia would call him.
When the temperamental Italian was gone Archie laughed to himself. Cornelia was again safe in the book . . .
That evening Craig came to the mansion to set forth some further instructions. As rapidly as these rooms could be made over into apartments, the business of renting them would proceed. And the six girls who made up the pages of Craig’s book had indeed landed a contract.
“We will use their picture in our newspaper advertisements,” said Craig. He laid before Archie a photograph that had been taken during the parade. The six girls, all dressed in colorful Oriental costumes would serve as an attractive eye-catcher in any ad.
“So Cornelia did put it over with you?” said Archie.
“Cornelia—yes. Do you know her? She’s a very fine business woman. Now if you will excuse me, I have some business calls to make.”
As Archie retreated through the copper-studded doorway to the reception room, he pondered the strangeness of Craig’s words.
Did not Craig remember the meeting of the three of them that morning? It was curious that his memory was so hazy.
Now Archie could hear a telephone chat, highly informal, as if between two old friends. And to Archie’s astonishment, Craig was reciting the full story of his adventure of the previous evening. This time his memory seemed to be fresh on every detail.
“They were just a pair of pick-up friends that I happened to meet at a bar . . . Mac Macklevitch and Krug. They’re all right. Darned good at table tennis . . . sure, I’ll be seeing more of them. Fact is, I’ve hired them to help around here . . . he told you? . . . oh, him . . . yes, he seems to be pretty reliable.”
And then Craig’s voice became so low that Archie could no longer hear.
As Archie retired to a third floor room which had been assigned him, he knew he was too confused over these growing mysteries to formulate any theory toward their solution. The last words he had heard Craig say over the ’phone were:
“We had better talk this over together. Can you risk coming out yet tonight? It’s late enough that no one will see you.”
As Archie was about to fall asleep, he heard a car stop in front of the mansion. He peered out the window. Coming up the walk was a tall, straight young man that Archie would have sworn in court was none other than Hamilton Craig.
CHAPTER XI
The Literal Doctor
There should have been traffic lights in the reception room to handle the crowds in the days that followed. The mansion suddenly became the busiest place on Southwest Boulevard.
The carpenters and plasterers and decorators were supposed to use a side entrance, but they continually found their way into the front office, as the white tracks on the oak flooring attested.
And prospective renters—they came in droves. Nine-tenths of them came merely out of curiosity. Many were attracted by the clever advertising in the daily papers.
The north wing of the old hospital was being transformed rapidly. A few sample apartments were already being exhibited.
As the advertisements had promised, visitors were conducted through the building by beautiful girls—the “Craigettes.”
Archie was amazed to see how this advertising scheme worked. He had supposed that these six girls in his book would rebel at the idea of remaining prisoners, so to speak, of Hamilton Craig. In their readiness to assume their duties as usherettes, they were virtually automatons. That is, they would emerge from hiding whenever they were needed. Archie had only to remove a card from the book, toss it into the air, and count to ten. A beautiful usherette would appear before him.
Craig was unquestionably pleased with the way things were going. But he was by no means complacent. He had an eye out for troubles, and Archie soon realized that he was worried on two counts.
One of these worries had to do with the usherettes, the other with Dr. Silverhead. He would frequently call Archie in for conference.
“Who is the new girl who was on duty this morning?”
“The platinum blonde? Her name’s Genevieve.”
“Genevieve—oh, yes. I remember choosi
ng her for the parade. Hollywood stuff, that gal. What’s she like when you get to talking with her?”
Archie shrugged. “We’re not speaking. She can’t see me.”
“That’s strange. Whenever she passes this door she sends me a smile that would do for a toothpaste ad.”
“That’s because you’re Hamilton Craig,” said Archie. “Besides, she’s practicing for movie close-up, or I miss my guess. When she first materialized she walked straight to a mirror. That’s where she’s been most of the time since. S-s-s-sh!”
The platinum blonde was passing just outside the office door, leading a party of wealthy sightseers.
“Look at her give ’em the cold shoulder. She’s a snob, if I ever saw one.”
“What happened? Did you two quarrel?”
“I laughed at her,” said Archie. “You see when Benjamin Dodge, the electrician, came in to inspect our wiring, Genevieve took him for a prospective tenant. She showed him all around and brought him down and tried to sign him up for an apartment. Then he told her who he was, thanked her and walked out. He took the wind out of her sails. I sat there laughing, and she hasn’t seen me since.”
Craig nodded, mildly amused. He walked to the office door, and his eyes followed Genevieve out of sight.
Another party arrived. Archie caught his cue. He opened the book, tossed out a card, and presently Hetty was before him, her snappy black eyes facing him accusingly.
“Archie, have you straightened out that matter—?”
“The customers are waiting, Hetty.”
“But Archie, I have got to talk with you.”
“The customers—Miss Hildreth,” Craig cut in.
Obediently Hetty went on her way. Craig had been disturbed before by Hetty Hildreth’s behavior. She seemed always to have some personal problem for which she demanded Archie’s attention.
“It’s about a picture she took,” Archie started to explain. “I think we ought to talk about it. Once you suggested that we have luncheon together, the three of us.”
Craig frowned. “Did I suggest that? Well, I’m much too busy.”
There was Craig’s memory gone rusty again. All right, let him forget his former interest in Hetty. Archie would not be the loser.
That afternoon Craig had a long conference with Dr. Silverhead. When the office door finally opened and the white-haired doctor shuffled away mumbling to himself, Archie was called in. He found Craig smoking nervously, looking haggard.
“Sit down, Archie.” Craig paced from one window to another, rarely facing Archie. “It beats the devil how a man can be as smart as that doctor and still too dumb to talk straight English.”
“Can’t you get him to pay his rent?” Archie asked. “Or are you trying to move him out?”
Craig crushed his cigarette in the ash-tray.
“It goes much deeper than that. What I’m about to tell you is strictly confidential. A slick lawyer could do me plenty of damage if he got next to this.”
Archie waited, choked with silence. Could it be that Craig had let himself in for a share in this murder racket?
“It all started innocently enough,” Craig said. “Being a bachelor with money, I found myself subject to all sorts of intrusions—solicitors and agents for charity, social butterflies, and what not. I suppose I should have hired a hard-boiled doorman, who would simply turn people away. But I took a notion to have some fun, and that was the fatal step.”
Craig chuckled lightly as he recalled his first experiments in equipping his house with mechanical ghosts, black cats and hoot owls.
“I wanted a dancing skeleton, and someone referred me to Dr. Silverhead. That’s where I got in bad.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He took me too literally. He came through with a living skeleton. Where he got the poor fellow, or how he got him, I don’t know. It still gives me the creeps when I think of entering my house to discover that gruesome heap of skin and bones dancing to his death in my doorway.”
Archie shuddered. “What—what happened?”
“Never mind,” said Craig, “that’s all past. I resolved not to repeat that mistake. But having located Dr. Silverhead here on Southwest Boulevard, I saw my chance to take over these buildings as a real estate investment. Of course, I want to get rid of the doctor.”
“Won’t he go peaceably?”
Craig shook his head dubiously. The conference with the doctor had left him even more uncertain.
“He leaves all business matters to this gardener, Drake. But I certainly don’t want to get mixed up with hint. I’d fire them out of here yet today if I could be sure the action would not boomerang. But if the doctor knows it, he has a choke-hold on me. In fact, a couple of them.”
“The skeleton in the doorway . . .”
“The other matter was the transformation of these girls into cards. Maybe there aren’t any specific laws to cover such unusual cases, but I’d hate to stand trial in the courts for what happened when they walked through this copper-studded doorway.”
At last Archie knew he was getting next to the source of this strange phenomenon. Was it true that Craig had deliberately conceived this scheme and employed a scientist to carry it out?
“Again I protest my innocence,” Hamilton Craig said. “It was that doctor’s damnable habit of interpreting orders literally. I thought I was giving him a harmless instruction. I said, ‘All I want you to do is to fix something in this office doorway to make people go away.’ Note my words: ‘make people go away.’ ”
“I get it,” said Archie.
“So did the doctor. But I. didn’t. Even when he wrote my words down on paper and had me sign my name, I didn’t guess the vicious thing that was in his mind. I remember that he inquired whether I meant to get rid of them for good. I replied that they could leave their cards—that would be sufficient. Then he jotted down something more and said I should leave it to him; he would fulfill my orders to the letter.”
Archie found himself gazing in awe at the row of copper points in the Gothic doorway. “And so—”
“And so a few weeks later, as I was making ready to move in here, I received a written report from the doctor, informing me that the experiment had been successful. Rats and guinea pigs were two-dimensionalized, as he called it, by this new instrument, and he had now installed it in my office doorway. Anyone who entered while the switch was on would immediately undergo a molecular transformation, being reduced in size to a card that would fit neatly into an address book.”
“Ye gods!” Archie gasped.
“I received this word—er—by telephone soon after the parade. I was told that the six girls were already on their way out to see me. When I came in and snapped the switch off, I found here on my desk six cards waiting for me. The deed had been done.”
Craig was pacing the floor again. Archie found himself in a mental whirlpool.
“If I understand you correctly, Mr. Craig, you did not intend it to happen this way—in spite of your plan to choose from these six girls for your marriage.”
“My marriage!”
Craig turned sharply. And there was anger in his surprised query. “Who said anything about marriage?”
Archie drew back defensively. “But you told me yourself that within thirty days you expected to marry one of these—”
“Did I say that? Oh . . .” For a moment Craig stood speechless, shifting his eyes from Archie to the telephone and to the office door. He regained his poise.
“All right, I seem to have told you everything. Anyway, you can see I’m in a devil of a jam until I get rid of this devilish doctor. No telling what he’ll do next. I have tried to put him to work on this problem of bringing the girls back to their normal state permanently.”
“Evidently he can do anything,” Archie commented sarcastically.
“He wouldn’t give me any satisfaction,” said Craig. “He said it would take lots of experimenting before he could undo what he has done. And he rambled on with some th
eories that all living matter may have progressed from a two-dimensional state into a three. He thinks the guinea pigs he transformed have a strong instinct to lapse back into the two-dimensional state whenever they face a crisis.”
“Does Marcus M. Drake know about all this?” Archie asked anxiously.
“I doubt it. The doctor is not communicative. But the minute I put him under too much pressure he may confide in Drake. When that happens, they will build a fire under me.”
CHAPTER XII
Vision of Murder
Would Hamilton Craig marry before his thirty days were up?
As long as Archie kept busy at the mansion he could almost forget that that question was hanging fire. But when he was called downtown for a private conference in the architect’s studio, he would come away realizing that this matter outweighed everything else.
“Out of any half dozen good looking girls,” Craig had repeated on this particular visit, “there ought to be at least one that could endure being married to a stubborn bachelor like me.”
“The wrong attitude,” Archie had commented mentally, but not aloud. “Any one of those girls could go for you in a big way if you’d quit acting like women are poison.”
For Hamilton Craig did act that way, Archie thought. When it came to snobbery, that platinum blonde named Genevieve had nothing on Hamilton Craig. Wasn’t it a bit absurd, thought Archie, that in spite of all the time Craig spent in the mansion, while these usherettes were coming and going on all sides of him, he should call Archie downtown to discuss these girls, one by one?
“You should know them as well as I do,” Archie had said bluntly on this occasion.
“I think I’m best acquainted with Hetty, from what you’ve told me. But you’d better name them over again. Not too fast, Archie.”
“Hetty . . . Cornelia . . . Genevieve . . . Grace . . . Patsy . . . and Linda Lee. There you are. Take your choice. They’re six of a size, all beautiful, and all probably in love with you.”