"I'd hoped you'd feel that way, sir," Oxford said. "And that you might be willing to do something to help."
"Help?" Roosevelt demanded. "Help contravene the direct orders of the duly elected President of the United States of America? Help these scamps escape the consequences of their actions? Put myself in hazard merely because I believe the President is acting hastily and unfairly? Get involved in God knows what kind of a scheme that probably wouldn't work anyway? By George, I believe I will!"
This decision once taken, Mr. Roosevelt and Oxford worked out their plans with remarkable swiftness, while Dark, Ari, Valmis and I looked on. The details seemed fairly simple, and I supposed that any of us Explorers might have come up with an equally good idea had it been expected of us.
"That's it, then," Roosevelt said after a while, standing up. "I'll see to my end of it on my own, and you get these fellows ready for what they have to do. It'll all be set up for the right time and day—if there's any hitch about that, I'll get word to you some way. I'd rather not use the telephone any more, as I think you're on a party line here, even if there's no tapping. By Godfrey, this is a bully wheeze, so it is! And the best of it is, Edison'll thank me for it someday when he's seeing things clearer, just the way they all did after all that Panama business died down. They were all after my hide then, for slicing Panama out of Colombia and seeing to it that the new government gave us the rights to the Canal, but you don't notice anyone whining about it now, do you? This is one of those things—the man that's got the vision to see what needs to be done does it, and the consequences sort themselves out afterwards."
The ensuing weeks of inactivity were a strain on my nerves. This period did not differ in any substantial particulars from the months before, but the knowledge that it was soon to end—and end extremely actively—preyed upon me. It may have done the same on Ari, Dark and Valmis, but we found that we tended to be uncommunicative among ourselves during this time.
A visit from Mr. Roosevelt's son Kermit, ostensibly to present us with some large migrant birds his father had killed and wished us to eat, signaled that the end of our waiting was near. "Dad's got it all set," the youth told Oxford. "Five passages on the Pavonia, leaving Thursday from Pier Fifty-Six at four. So you work your end of it out to start at just about noon. Here's the schedule for everything." He handed Oxford a sheaf of papers. "Good luck!" he said, and left.
In accordance with the plan Roosevelt and Oxford had determined on, at about ten on the appointed morning we all repaired to the stable next to the house and hauled out the carriage stored there. It had been deprived of its animal motive power by our guards soon after they arrived, the beast having been sent off to enjoy a sort of holiday on a nearby farm, and our sole ordinary contact with the outside world had thereafter been the once-daily arrival from the nearby store of a wagon bringing ourselves and our guards necessary provisions, all this being considered needful to prevent us from entertaining ideas of unauthorized departure.
His mind having been bent to mistrust by his orders, it was only natural that Captain Thatcher should stroll over to us to ask, "What do you people think you're doing?"
"Tests, Captain," Oxford said genially. "I've finally got 'em out of their sulks, and they're willing to start in to work, the way the Commander in Chief wants. They've got some concepts that could revolutionize metallurgy, but they've got to test out the tensile strength of our steel, see? So what they've got to do is work out how strong these buggy springs are, as a starting point."
"Right," Dark said, slinging his equipment into the equipage. "I'll activate the parodbmnis here, and once the fleegle is adjusted, we'll set this other stuff going"—here he grabbed the cases containing our previously packed equipment and threw them into the body of the carriage—"and then we'll all get in and bounce in it a bit and see how strong the springs are. After that, we'll be able to invent up a storm for Uncle Tom."
"Well, you've got it in a pretty slim location there," the officer observed, giving Oxford a sharp look. "You get to jostling it, that buggy could roll right down the drive and into the road. And I kind of doubt you'd want that, Colonel. And I know for sure the C-in-C wouldn't, so why don't I just take a little security measure about that?" And within a moment or so he had fetched a length of chain and a padlock, with which he fastened the carriage to a stout tree.
"There, now," he said, standing back. "You can experiment all you want, and no bother about rolling away."
"That's dished us," Oxford whispered to me.
"Don't worry," muttered Dark, who had overheard him. "Just carry on as planned."
Accordingly, we all climbed into the carriage and began jouncing up and down in it, as if to test the strength of the springs. Dark clambered into the rear seat, fumbled in his pocket, and brought out his writing instrument. He twisted the barrel slightly, then leaned over and held it against the chain stretched taut between the carriage and the tree. A portion of it glowed white, and it parted and fell away.
The Marine captain called, "Hey, what're you—"
Dark sprang to the ground, gave the carriage a mighty shove, and leapt aboard again as it began to roll down the slope of the drive.
As we gathered speed, confused shouts came from behind us.
"It'll take Thatcher's men a while to get organized,
Oxford told us. "That's the advantage of surprise. TR said—"
A sharp crack sounded, followed by the sound of something whipping through the air over our heads.
"They recovered fairly fast," Dark said.
"Well, that's just a warning," Oxford said. "They wouldn't want to take a chance on harming us—you're too important to the—"
Another couple of cracking noises came, and Oxford jerked his hand away from the side of the carriage, where a large splinter of wood had sprung up, quite near his fingers.
"On the other hand," Ari observed, "they might well feel that they would be better off having us on hand severely damaged than not at all."
"Well, we'll be out of their line of fire in a second—hold on!"
The rapidly moving carriage encountered a turn and struck the low wall which lined the drive a glancing blow, thus changing its direction. The curve put a screen of trees between us and our now running pursuers.
The remainder of the drive was steeply pitched and led to the main road; we gathered speed at an alarming rate as we approached it.
"Isn't this faster than you figured?" Dark called.
"Some," Oxford answered grimly, holding on tightly—as we all were—as the carriage bounced over the rough surface of the drive.
"How are we going to stop?" Dark asked.
"From the looks of it, by crashing into that tree on the other side of the road! Lord, TR and I calculated it'd be just a fast sort of coast down here, not a runaway!"
"Well, we don't want that, do we?" Dark said. He leaned over first the right rear side of the carriage, then the left, and straightened up. "I think we'll be—"
The carriage suddenly gave a lurch, then tipped backwards, the rear of its body slamming onto the driveway with a force that sprang several of its parts and jarred us all horribly; it scraped along a few feet farther and stopped.
Ahead of us, two detached wheels ran crazily down the drive and across the road and into the trees.
We untangled ourselves and our possessions from the wreckage and at Oxford's urging ran down the short remaining length of the drive. "I didn't think it'd go far without a full set of wheels," Dark panted, running beside me. "So . . . zip!" He flourished his writing tool, then tucked it back into his pocket.
True, it had been a quick and effective solution to the immediate problem, but it did seem to me that a person of Dark's mechanical ingenuity might have come up with something that did not involve quite so many bruises as those I was now becoming aware of.
I was gratified to see, as we came onto the road, a large closed automobile with a figure in the driver's seat, waiting a few yards past the drive; it quivered an
d rumbled, a welcome indication of its readiness to move.
We piled into it; Oxford sprang to the seat next to the driver and called out, "Drive like hell!"
With a jerk the machine started off, and we were soon fairly flying down the long hill. Dark twisted to look behind us. "Those Marine fellows got down the drive just in time to get a glimpse of us—now they'll know what kind of car we're in!"
"Good," Oxford said. "Be a shame if they didn't."
I was not particularly interested in this cryptic observation, being more concerned with the discomfort and alarming nature of our journey. The car bounced and swayed, and made quite an unsettling screaming sound as it made the sharp turn at the bottom of the hill without noticeably slackening its excessive speed.
We tore along the shore road, in the direction away from Roslyn, and were soon in a sparsely inhabited, heavily wooded area. Perhaps five miles—and about four minutes, as I calculated it—along, we drew up at a deserted pier and were instructed to leave the vehicle.
A larger one, with a boxlike body bearing in ornate gold letters the legend OSTERMAIER'S—THE ALE THAT PUT FLATBUSH ON THE MAP, stood at the side of the road. We were ushered hastily into the interior, which was crowded with large pungent-smelling barrels, among which we were hard put to find space; the driver swung the rear doors to, and in a moment we were once more being jolted uncomfortably, only this time in total darkness and with a very penetrating, though not unpleasant odor.
"Where's that lamp?" I heard Oxford ask. "That fellow was told to leave one—ah, here it is." There was a rattling, a clinking, and a scraping sound; a light flared and then steadied as Oxford adjusted the oil lamp and set it on the floor of the vehicle.
"It's going just fine," he announced. "They'll find that car within an hour or so, and they'll have to cover the chance that we got away by boat—that'll give 'em some extra trouble and cover our trail a bit. We'll cut over to Glen Cove and head back for New York by the high road. If the truck's stopped, we'll duck into those empty barrels toward the front there, but I don't think we'll need to do that. Now you better start getting into these."
He dragged forward some paper-wrapped bundles, which proved to contain native clothes of a style distinctly different from what we were wearing, and we followed his instructions. After we were garbed, he surveyed us. "You look like a bunch of farmers in from upstate who've been snagged by a sidewalk tout for a Grand Street clothes store—great! Nobody'll give you a second glance, even supposing there's somebody watching out for us." Oxford did not bother to assume a different costume, contenting himself with affixing a large moustache to his face, this item having been included in the bundles, along with our clothes.
"Say," Dark said, "isn't Roosevelt going to get in trouble over this? I mean, he and his son were the only ones to visit us, and I don't see Edison not thinking that that's something that has to be looked into."
"For one thing, TR and Kermit sailed for Africa yesterday," Oxford replied, "so it'd be pretty hard to ask him any embarrassing questions just now. But the main thing is, I've left behind a pretty ripe red herring for Edison and his people. When they search the house, they'll find all sorts of scraps of paper left behind in my room, covered with mysterious jottings and lots of telephone numbers. Aha! they'll say, and go about finding who's on the other end of those numbers—and they'll learn that most of 'em are foreign consulates. Germany, Austria-Hungary, Japan, Servia, Russia—lots more, too. I made calls to all of 'em, the last couple of days—asked 'em a few dumb questions—so the local operator'll remember having placed them. And to add to the fun, I put down a number I happen to know—a New York City cop, a high-up fellow, who's known to be in with some of the gangs. So when they piece this all together, won't they have a nice Conan Doyle plot all laid out for them? Turncoat Oxford solicits help from foreign agents anxious to get U.S. secrets, makes contact with corrupt policeman, and contrives escape with aid of gangsters! They can't help swallowing that, or at least spending most of their effort looking into it for a long time. Especially," he added thoughtfully, "as the car that picked us up belongs to a dead rabbit."
"Pull yourself together, Oxford," Dark said severely. "What would even a live rabbit want with a motorcar? You're driveling, man!"
He was not, though, as it developed. The persons actually responsible for the confusion were a group of criminals who had chosen to call themselves the Dead Rabbits. We were all of us seasoned enough to Earth's ways not to bother inquiring into their motives for this; if they were by chance known, we probably would not understand them. The car had been appropriated clandestinely in New York earlier that morning through the agency of an officer whom Roosevelt had known while in charge of the police force some years previously and whom he was able to bring into the scheme in confidence.
"He was tickled to do it," Oxford said. "The Pinker-tons or whoever Edison uses will trace its ownership in no time, so that way, the Rabbits'll have an awful lot of pressure on them from the Federal government, which will please the cops mighty well—at least the honest ones, and they won't mind a bit if Lieutenant Becker, the one whose phone number I jotted down, gets a bit of a grilling, too."
He fingered his moustache morosely. "Of course, I don't like it that this casts me as the twentieth-century Benedict Arnold. But I guess it'll blow over sometime, and the fellows that know me won't believe I've sold out, and I don't much care what anybody else thinks. And anyway, what the hell; you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs."
His comment on cookery, though irrelevant to what he had been saying, as was so often the case in his conversation, was an unwanted reminder that, out of nervousness, I for one had eaten skimpily of breakfast and had had nothing since. There seemed to have been no food brought along for this journey, though I should have thought it would have occurred to Oxford to make such a provision, and I was obliged to make shift by inhaling the vapors emanating from the empty barrels, which, while not satisfying hunger, at least after a while induced a sense of well-being and indeed a tendency to slumber during the remainder of the trip.
I was awakened to be deposited with the others on a stone-paved street in the city, lined with large sheds and the prows of ships.
"Let's hustle!" Oxford said, and, grabbing our belongings, we followed him into the nearest shed, while the ale truck sped away down the street. We then climbed a slanted sort of walkway and found ourselves on board a large vessel, in which we were led to assigned sleeping compartments.
As was the case with the train on which we had traveled, the Pavonia was staffed with persons willing to perform a number of personal services, especially bringing some food and drink to those who desired it; and I was soon happily combining my modest unpacking with a needed light meal and a quantity of ale—the aromatic journey in the truck had made me curious about this substance, which I had not encountered before, but it proved to be not dissimilar to the Würzburger I had previously enjoyed. To test out this perception, I requested the servitor to bring me some Würzburger, and by judicious alternation I was able to arrive at a clear understanding of both the similarities and the distinctions between them.
The sky was darkening as the Pavonia steamed out into the city's harbor and passed the statue we had visited so many months before. Standing at the rail, as seemed to be the obligatory custom, though I should have been quite happy to be reposing in my sleeping place, I recalled the phrase in the inscription on the statue's base about "yearning to breathe free," and had to admit its aptness; now that I was departing from this alarming America, with its rapid journeys, weapons-using guards, complex ruses, and really quite unreasonable President, I was certainly beginning to breathe more freely.
"Just look at that, would you!" Dark caught my upper arm in a painful grip as he spoke. With his free hand he pointed to one side, where another vessel lumbered over the broad waters. It was facing pretty well at us, though not, I was glad to see, moving at a speed which carried any suggestion that it might run into us; and
I could see, on either side, a large wheel turning about and dipping into the water.
"That damned fellow in the tavern!" Dark growled. "He's gone off and sold the idea on his own, and cut us out completely! Well, that does it! If Ari wants to get these chaps shooting and blowing each other up, more power to him! It might not be a bad idea, even if it doesn't get us off the planet, just on general principles."
15
Of our journey, which occupied some six days, there is little of note to Record. One stretch of the ocean looked much like another, and the regular succession of ample meals, two out of the daily three accompanied by an interesting variety of wines, marked the passage of time in a soothing but not especially lively manner.
On Oxford's advice, we mainly avoided contact with our fellow passengers, as he did not seem confident that we could sustain an extended conversation without revealing that we were other than we purported to be. "It was hard enough getting you on board under fake names," he observed, "without chancing blowing it now. Lucky the U.S. don't have a passport system, the way they do in Russia and other places, or we could never have done it."
Dark may have been unlucky, or perhaps less conscientious than the rest of us, for he found himself in frequent conversation with a female who, seated at a table next to us at meals, gradually insinuated herself into our group, concentrating her attention upon Dark. It appeared that she had lost, or perhaps mislaid, her mate—whether voluntarily or otherwise was unclear—and so was perhaps one of those "cheerful widows" I had heard the song about, in the "garden" atop the "Garden."
On the third night of the voyage, Ari, Valmis and I were relaxing in the smoking lounge when Dark, whom we had not seen since dinner, approached us. "Damned woman wanted me to take her for a walk on the deck to look at the moon. I told her it was no great shakes, all a lot of rocks and dust—you remember, fellows, we got a close look at it as we came in?—and that anyhow it was confoundedly cold outside. And she said the weather wasn't the only thing that was cold and flounced off to her cabin. Now, what was that all about?"
And Having Writ . . . Page 12