by Don Wilcox
Hetty up in his arms, crossed onto the ladder, facing forward and leaning back to take full advantage of its angle.
Archie and Hetty were halfway down when they heard some very conclusive shots from the floor above.
“That ought to get him!” It was the voice of Archie’s sergeant. It was accompanied by a low, guttural groan that was unmistakably Marcus M. Drake.
The shooting and shouting and running had now come to a stop. The voices that Archie could hear were those of policemen who were feeling pretty well satisfied that they had cleaned house; and occasionally the bated words of wounded or handcuffed prisoners. Everything seemed so quiet.
So quiet that Hetty looked up at Archie with a curious smile, which reminded him that he was still standing on the seventh rung of the ladder.
It wasn’t a particularly safe place to stop and talk, for the low snapping of purple sparks continued close by.
“Look down there, Archie,” said Hetty, pointing to the stage floor. “Isn’t that my camera?”
“Which one?” said Archie. “I see two of them.”
“It won’t take long to tell which is mine,” Hetty said. “Mine has some pretty valuable films in it—and something else a whole lot more valuable. Did you ever miss one of your cards, Archie?”
“You mean Grace?”
“I was afraid we’d lose her that night in the tunnel, so I slipped her into my camera. I meant to tell you. I do hope she’s all right.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
Saturday Noon
The hour had arrived. A warm sun shone down upon the garden. Radio music from one of the mansion windows provided a spirited background for the excited talk of four Craigettes dressed in bridesmaids’ gowns. They were sitting at a card table sipping cokes.
Everyone in a gay and happy mood? Well, not exactly. What with no wedding in sight, no decorations, no bride, and no groom, they were not professing any raptures of delight.
But the excitement of the recent days gave them more than enough to talk about.
Carlo Verrazzano hailed them from across the path, and approached with many a deep bow and profuse apology for breaking in upon so lovely a foursome. However, he had some news that he thought should be conveyed to Cornelia without delay.
“Eet ees like you say, Meess Corneelia. Everee time I put one bottle of our most wonderful perfume into the machine, two bottles come out. When I put in two, four come out.”
“That’s the very idea,” said Cornelia. “I’m going to get rights on that machine, and we’ll organize a big manufacturing concern. Now don’t start getting tired, Carlo.”
“She calls him Carlo,” Genevieve whispered.
“But what I must tell you,” Verrazzano continued, “I find a seegar box weeth money. Maybe counterfeet, maybe not. I take beeg magnifying glass out of macheene to look at eet. Veree good money. So I put seegar box in next, why not?”
“Well?”
“It never yet come out. I think macheene must be very broke.”
“What about that magnifying glass?” Cornelia snapped. “Did you put it back where you got it?”
“Ooooh! Such bad luck. It slip out of my hands, break all to pieces.”
“Oh-oh!” Cornelia caught her breath, and for a moment the other Craigettes thought she was going to turn into a card. But the effects of the original transformation were beginning to wear off. “There goes my last financial empire. I’m glad I didn’t throw away that bond salesman’s telephone number.” Cornelia made a sharp gesture with her index finger. “As for you, Verrazzano, march right back and pick up the pieces. And don’t speak to me again till you’ve put them back together.”
“She doesn’t call him Carlo,” Genevieve whispered.
Verrazzano marched.
The habits of transforming into cards were definitely passing, the girls agreed. And Linda Lee said she had known all along it would be that way. The doctor had told her lots of things.
What other inside information had she been holding out? Well, there was the doctor’s strange disappearance. She believed he might be gone for good. Maybe he wanted to live in some more spiritual realm or something. Yes, she practically saw him go. Honestly, he was the most miraculous person. He could duplicate anything with that wonderful machine. He admitted having performed experimental favors for Hamilton Craig. And it wasn’t his fault if Craig had had a burst of bad temper and had torn out all those pretty copper ornaments in the office doorway.
Genevieve kept glancing at her watch.
“Getting nervous?” said Cornelia. “I’ve known all along that you were Craig’s mysterious one-time love.”
“But I’m not,” Genevieve said. “Benjamin Dodge and I—er—” she smiled and all at once her haughtiness was melting. “We have a date as soon as this is over.”
“Oh? I thought you two had quarreled over ancestors.”
“When I tell you the latest you’ll really laugh,” said Genevieve, coming down off her snobbish high-horse. “I can take it. I’m through being stuck up over ancestors. Ben showed me the records.”
“She still calls him Ben,” said Patsy. “He showed me that my ancestors and his ancestors both missed the Mayflower by ten minutes because my ancestors were too slow getting his ancestors’ boots blacked.”
“Not really!”
“When I get to be Mrs. Benjamin Dodge,” said Genevieve, “I’ll never hear the last of that.”
“Then who is Craig going to marry? If it’s one of us—”
“Maybe me,” said Patsy with a toss of her red head. “He was awful proud of me when I knocked out that gangster with a brick.”
“Don’t worry,” said Cornelia. “He’d never trust you with the crockery.”
“He’ll never get the chance,” said Patsy, her hopes giving way to a flash of anger. “You think I’d ever be sap enough to love, honor, and obey a guy who’d marry to save a fortune?”
“For my part,” said Cornelia, “that would depend on the size of the fortune. What about you, Linda Lee? You’ve been so quiet there must be something on your mind.”
“Ah don’ think Ah’ve got a mind,” Linda Lee said sadly. “An’ if you-all think Ah’m Craig’s suppressed desiah yo’ wrong. Ah’m off to college as soon as Ah can get packed. An’ when Ah leahn my lessons Ah’m goin’ to fall in love with a professah—one that knows all the big wohds.”
“What Craig needs,” said Genevieve, “is a nice, steady, devoted girl who will worship him all her life. I’m thinking of Grace—”
“She and Hetty are lost,” said Cornelia. “We’ll never see either of them again.”
The girls fell silent. The blithe radio music sounded a discordant note upon their gloom. In recent days their hopes for their missing companions had been choked by unspoken terrors.
“Wait a minute,” said Patsy. “Didn’t I see Hetty the other night when the shooting was on? Sure I did. But I was so excited I—”
“You’ve been having those dreams too,” said Genevieve.
“Ah have big wondahful dreams,” Linda Lee mused, “whenever Ah come back from bein’ a cahd. The doctah wouldn’t tell me why. But I wondah if it isn’t yo’ mind floatin’ round waitin’ fo’ yo’ brain to get regravitated.”
“I dreamed I was hearing Grace and her Uncle Phil talking,” said Genevieve. “It all happened so quick that Grace couldn’t believe he was dying.”
“Dying?” said Cornelia. “Why, I caught the same dream—just as I was returning from my card state.”
“That’s what Ah was sayin’,” Linda Lee gasped. “Ah was listenin’ in, an’ Ah heahd Whiskey Phil say—”
“That he was sorry for all the harm he had done Grace,” Patsy interrupted. “But I don’t believe in dreams.”
“These dreams are different,” said Genevieve. “It’s like Linda Lee said—for a minute your mind is sort of free. But all four of us couldn’t have had that dream at the same time. What we overheard must have hung in the air or something. I wonder—”<
br />
“Ah wish we could ask the doctah.”
“I wish we could talk with Grace and Hetty,” said Patsy.
On comparing, Genevieve found that she had caught a fuller dream than the others. And they listened spellbound as she brought back the clear details.
There had been something heart-rending in Whiskey Phil’s last words. He had glanced back over his wrecked life. He kept apologizing for the way he had embarrassed Grace once—a long time ago—in the presence of Hamilton Craig—and it was awful.
“But she never knew Craig before,” said Cornelia.
“I only know what I dreamed,” said Genevieve staunchly. She was perfectly convinced that Grace had been Hamilton Craig’s one-time love. All of Grace’s preoccupation with morals had developed as her defense against her Uncle Phil’s grotesque exhibitions of sinfulness.
“But in his last whispers he was trying to set things right,” said Genevieve. “He told Grace she must forget him and be happy and bring back her sense of humor.”
“An’ she said she would try,” said Linda Lee. “Ah remembah now.”
“And then—the strangest thing,” Genevieve went on. “Hetty’s voice came into the conversation. And she promised that she and all of us Craigettes would help Grace. And finally, when Grace told her Uncle Phil goodby, she was happy in her resolve. There. What do you make of it?”
Cornelia shook her head. “All I make of it is, Grace and Hetty are both dead.”
“Don’t you believe it,” came Hetty’s voice from the mansion path. “Or am I just the new maid bringing you girls some more cokes?”
Eventually a minister made his appearance on the scene—and a very dubious appearance it was—a supreme demonstration of confusion and helplessness. For with him came two identical grooms, both named Hamilton Craig, who were escorting two identical brides named Grace. The minister for the life of him couldn’t get it through his head that he was sure to marry the right Grace to the right Craig, even though he couldn’t tell either couple from the other. Both Craigs kept bombarding the poor fellow with confusing instructions, and both Graces were laughing so hard that they never thought to question the rights and wrongs of this unprecedented situation.
Tenants crowded down to the arcade doorway to see what was happening, and the Craigs shouted to them to come on and get in on the wedding party.
“Just one big happy family,” said Patsy to the other exasperated bridesmaids.
And before any state of order could be attained and the bridesmaids could be made to understand where the duplicates had come from and the gathering cameramen and curiosity seekers could be quieted, one bridesmaid had been led away to a quiet corner for a few private words with the one lone best man.
“We may as well get into the spirit of this event,” said Archie Burnette as he took Hetty’s hands, “because as soon as it’s over I’m going to go get a license. But first I’ve got to know whether you’re going to turn into a card every time I kiss you. It would be darned inconvenient.”
Hetty laughed. “That happened a few times because I was so surprised. But now—well, the truth is, I’m afraid I almost expect it.”
Archie believed in putting theories to a practical test. And not a hasty test either. He removed the camera that hung from her shoulder, took her in his arms and kissed her.
“There. So you’re not going back into a book?”
“At a time like this?” Hetty breathed. “If I do you can pack me on ice for life.”
[1] The doctor’s atom-building plant must have been so elaborately constructed that it was expected not only to form billions of atoms instantly ; it would make all atoms exact duplicates of the pattern atoms—those comprising the body which entered the machine; it would construct two complete sets of these duplicate atoms, each set being formed with the same relationships as the original. Thus the pattern object, instantly disintegrated as it supplied its myriad impulses to the machine, was instantly reformed in each of two compartments within the machine, to emerge through the two chutes as two identical objects.
Fantastic Adventures
January 1947
Volume 9, Number 1
The city lay deeply hidden beneath the water, safe from all things it seemed—until one day . . .
CHAPTER I
If you were one of the few persons invited to enter the study of J.J. Wellington, that fabulous financier of New York City, you would notice at once that everything in the room was highly polished—including Mr. Wellington himself. It would be a question which of the two very round objects would catch your eye first—the four-foot globe or Mr. Wellington. Many points of similarity might be observed between these two. Mr. Wellington was not quite as large as the globe. He was not quite immobile. And to be sure, he was not quite as round. If he sat huddled over his desk glaring at a sheaf of papers you would be more likely to turn your attention to the globe.
You would not find the continents of North and South America on this highly colored four-foot sphere. At the slightest touch it would rotate but you would look in vain for any familiar landmark—unless you were already acquainted with the continent of Venus. On this particular August afternoon J.J. Wellington, restless with suppressed energy, paced around the tripod which held the globe. Whenever he gave the sphere a spin, in his manner of working off his tense nerves, he would watch it slow down, his bulbous eyes following the red triangular marks which represented the American colony on this remote planet.
A servant entered.
“Shall I serve you a drink now?”
Mr. Wellington took the glass from the tray and drank. With a flick of his heavy fingers he dismissed the servant. He glanced at his watch. Three o’clock. Captain Meetz would be waiting in the conference room. He must have a few words with Captain Meetz before Smith and the others arrived. It was important that Smith should not know . . .
As Stupe Smith and his diminutive friend walked down the street that afternoon on their way to the office of J.J. Wellington, they were not aware that people turned to comment.
“Isn’t that Stupe Smith?”
“Well by George, so it is. Looks just the same as in the newsreel.”
“I wonder what he has been doing since that rescue in the Andes. The papers have not said much about it recently, he’s a great guy, all right, but he sure had a bad break on that South American deal.”
Stupe Smith did not notice the passers-by because he had gotten used to being the subject of comment where ever he went. As his little friend Hefty Winkle would say, it was like water off a duck’s back.
“You don’t reckon you could wangle a way for me to get in?” Hefty asked for the twelfth time.
“Sorry, Hefty. The Invitation was just for me. You know, but I’ll tell you all about it the moment the conference is over. It must be a big deal of some sort. You know Wellington.”
“Everybody knows Wellington,” Hefty commented with a slight snort of disdain. Money had never come easy for little Hefty Winkle, and perhaps it was his natural jealousy toward the financiers who tolled in millions. His own dough had come the hard way. He had been a professional Wrestler and boxer at the county fair. A hundred and forty pounds of nerve and muscle, he had taken on all comers. And as he had proved to Stupe Smith on several occasions he packed a hidden wallop that was almost inhuman.
“Don’t let ‘em give you any wooden nickels, Stupe,” said Hefty, giving his partner a farewell wave.
“See you in an hour.”
Stupe Smith sauntered up the marble steps into the lobby of the Wellington offices. Hefty watched him with his usual hero worship. He admired Stupe for more reasons than he often bothered to define. Stupe had played fair with him—had given him the breaks when he needed them. More than that, there was Stupe’s attitude toward life: forever looking forward, trusting in the future, believing the best of his fellow men.
“He’ll wow ‘em,” Hefty said to himself. “Whatever this adventure is that they’re hashing up, they know he is the m
ost reliable guide they could find anywhere. He proved that down in the Andes—even though the honors went to someone else. But that was only a bad break . . .”
Seven guests were assembled around the conference table. J.J. Wellington stood before them. In spite of his bulk, he was a handsome and commanding figure. His large, severe eyes, straight nose, his trim black mustaches, the forward thrust of his hard jaw, gave solidity to his every word.
“Captain Meetz, and gentlemen—” Wellington’s eyes moved slowly from one to the other of his guests—“I shall state my proposition. Each one of you is an expert in his own field. That is why I have brought you here. I am planning a most unique expedition to the planet of Venus. I am basing my plans upon the report of an explorer, about whom all of you have read accounts in the newspapers.” Wellington glanced toward the door. “Mr. Vest will arrive in a few minutes.”
A servant rolled the tripod that supported the globe across the floor to the open end of the table.
“Gentlemen,” Wellington resumed, “You may be familiar with the map of the American colony on planet Venus. Captain Meetz, will you tell us something about the region surrounding this colony?”
Captain Meetz, a man of some reputation for his inter-planetary travels, rose and walked to the end of the table. He was a stocky man, dressed in a gray uniform trimmed in blue that matched his deep-set blue eyes. His face bore some resemblance to that of a bulldog—heavy jowls, sagging cheeks. He was a man of forty, a trifle old for his age, with a sprinkling of gray in his brown hair and thick brown mustache. He turned the globe to the best-known continent where the red ten-inch triangle was visible.
“I am honored, Mr. Wellington, to say a few words about this region—particularly if I am to have the opportunity of heading an expedition to this planet. Any wayfarers to this land are sure to pay their respects to the American colony, represented here by these red boundary lines. As you know, most of the civilization—civilization in our sense of the word—is to be found within these limits. The more or less human natives who dwell in this vicinity have made their peace with our own representatives. We maintain an American embassy here and our own government insists—”