The Murderer Invisible

by Philip Wylie

  “You’ve been watching me?”

  “I denied that once. Couldn’t help seeing you swig your medicine, though.”

  “And you said I believe, that you expected results.”

  “I am accustomed to seeing you produce them, Carpenter.”

  “What did you expect?”

  “I am also accustomed to surprises. I did not presume to guess.”

  “Suppose I told you that by six o’clock this evening I expected to become an albino.”

  “I would not be astonished in the least.”

  “You’re cool, Baxter.”

  “One needs to be.”

  “And you are still cool?” The alteration in his voice caused Baxter to look up from the lighting of a cigarette. In Carpenter’s hand was a revolver.

  Baxter smiled. “In the vernacular, I might say that I am very nearly cold.”

  Carpenter shook his head in agreement. “Very nearly. I have no intention of killing you, however.”

  “I’m relieved.”

  “Unless you are not amenable to my very moderate demands.”

  “One must ask their stipulation.”

  “I shall stipulate. It will be necessary for me first to lock you in the cellar under the laboratory for some time.”

  “How long?” Baxter’s face was calm. Its expression was not unlike that which preceded his periods of deep thought.

  “Twenty-four hours, I would say.”

  “I can make no choice. Life, contrary to the adage, is usually found to be dearer than honor in a crisis.”

  “Ah. You’ve learned something, Baxter. One does not like to commit murder. And you have been of great assistance to me. I would be first to admit it. The particular reason I have for detaining you is—Miss Carpenter.”

  Still Baxter was unmoved. “I fail to see the connection. If you feared I might lose my head when you lose your pigments and that I might call the police—I could understand the precaution of—as you say—detaining me.”

  “Baxter! I wouldn’t try to pick up that briquet! If you are so unfortunate as to have dropped it accidentally, I am sorry.”

  “Ah,” Baxter said. He straightened up and resumed his position on the work stool.

  “Miss Carpenter. We were discussing her. It may not have occurred to you that I have the feelings of an ordinary man. An opening, I think, for one of your feeble rejoinders—an opening I elide. The females of our species have been inclined either to ignore or to insult me in the past. They have given me every reason to believe that I was revolting to them. Miss Carpenter is an exception. She has, I think, perceived the warmer side of my nature. My time is getting so short that I cannot encourage her affections. I am a poor swain. Hence I am compelled to steal them for the nonce and win them afterward.”

  “You will kidnap her?”

  “It is a poor word.”

  “Your niece is a person of some stubbornness.”

  “I shall eventually prevail.”

  “And”—Baxter stood up while the scientist backed away a few steps, still pointing the gun—“it may interest you to know that her affections, as you call them, are already promised.” Carpenter seemed to falter for an instant. Baxter would have rushed him, but the gun did not waver.

  The scientist’s delayed answer was in a soft, determined bass. “A girl’s heart is fickle, Baxter. But I love you less for borrowing hers. Now, in the corner behind you is a trap door. Underneath a flight of stairs that leads to a cellar without doors or windows. Get up.”

  “I feel disinclined.”

  “I’ll count ten. Then, if you sit there, as sure as there are angels in heaven and devils in hell, I’ll kill you. I’ve worked fifteen years for this hour. It’s complicated with an extra—prize. As for you—it is of little consequence whether you walk out of my life alive, or are buried in that cellar. I shall soon be beyond investigating. One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight—nine——”

  Baxter had been watching his eyes. On the count of nine he stood languidly and walked to the corner. He followed Carpenter’s directions and lifted the trap door. He sauntered down the stairs. “You’ll regret, Carpenter, that you haven’t studied women; as well as you have organic chemistry.” The scientist kicked the door shut above his head, locked it, and put the key and the revolver into his pocket.

  He did not go to work. He seated himself before the mirror in which Baxter had watched him. A half hour passed. He crossed the floor and listened at the trap door. He could hear nothing. He went close to the mirror and pulled down his lower eye-lid, inspecting the iris of his eye. Another half hour. His eyes had been closed. They opened slowly and he went to a closet. From it he brought shaving materials. He proceeded slowly to undress and then to shave every vestige of hair from his body. While he worked his skin began to blanch. His abdomen took on a marble whiteness. The scalp he had bared became like snow.

  The contours of his head, boldly revealed, would have startled a phrenologist. It was an uneven skull, with ridges and depressions, and it seemed to have been designed like an Egyptian casket so that it retained the gross anatomy of the convolutions of the brain it covered. He shaved his face last. The pale grey of his irises was changing into a delicate pink. He observed the phenomenon with minute care.

  Afterward he dressed and went back to his seat. Again he shut his eyes. A pulsing symphony, a monstrous ecstasy surged through his soul. His hour was approaching. In a contemplation of the clinical majesty of his achievement, he overlooked the grotesque and revolting effect it would have an another person. He probed into the dizzy conquest of the future. Human semblance had deserted those thoughts.

  His six feet and six inches of once hirsute flesh became as white as paper. The pale eyes that had stared through his thick spectacles became like the eyes of a white rabbit—the irises pink, the pupils a lush red. He had been odd, at times repulsive in appearance. He was now horrible.

  It was thus that he presented himself to Daryl, coming alone from the laboratory at dinner time. In her anxiety to see her lover, hampered by the gloominess of the hallway, she did not notice Carpenter until she had asked, “Where’s Mr. Baxter?”

  Then she saw. Her face went almost as white as the face of the scientist. The pink eyes, the bare head, the utter, deathly whiteness of his skin. During the first second of incalculable terror she realized the truth: that Carpenter had taken his drug and that this was the result—or the first part of the result. The scientist tried to save the situation, tried to ignore the expression of abject horror she wore.

  “How do you like it?”

  By the valiance of need she summoned her voice. “Where is he?”

  “Going on working.”

  “Not coming to supper?”

  “No.”

  She fought against panic. He walked into the kitchen. Mrs. Treadle caught sight of him then and screamed with a frankness and vehemence that partly relieved Daryl.

  “A change,” Carpenter was saying immediately. “Temporary, Mrs. Treadle. Do not be alarmed.”

  “It’s leprosy!” Mrs. Treadle shouted. This new notion added to the power of her lungs. Leprosy was the nearest to any definition the housekeeper could find. The idea grew and she gave it the publicity of her hysteria. “Now I know. You got leprosy. You’ve been trying to cure it. And it’s got you.” The laughter that followed was unbearable.

  Daryl walked to the woman. “Be quiet! He has not! That’s better. For heaven’s sake—don’t whoop again!” Mrs. Treadle subsided in a corner. Daryl addressed Carpenter. “Get Baxter.”

  Carpenter, somewhat astounded by the violence of these manifestations, had backed toward the hallway.

  “He won’t be able to come out.”

  “You’ve done something to him!”

  “Daryl. Be calm.” He approached her. She recoiled. “I tell you, he is in the middle of an operation so delicate that he cannot leave it.”

  “Then take me to him.”

  “Don’t be so wild. He c
annot be disturbed. Here—” Mrs. Treadle had started for the door. He caught her arm and she sent a shrill wail through the kitchen.

  “Let me go! Let me go! Leper!”

  “It is not leprosy. I give you my word.”

  “Let me go.”

  She jerked herself free and threw open the back door. In another instant she was on the porch. She cleared the steps with two floundering leaps which would have been impossible to her under normal conditions. She scuttled around the house. Carpenter made a motion of following her and stopped.

  “Let her go. She’s a nuisance. And we don’t need her any more.”

  He stood on the porch, breathing a little heavily. Suddenly Daryl ducked under his arm.

  “Where are you going?”

  The girl did not answer. She ran swiftly around the house. Instantly he pursued her. She was in the car when he caught up. He still made every effort to retain his composure.

  “What were you going to do, Daryl?”

  “I’m leaving. Get off the running board.” Her foot stabbed at the starter.

  Carpenter saw the uselessness of words. He reached into the car and wrapped his arms around her. She opened her mouth to bite him, caught a glimpse of his red eyes, and averted her head. He was four or five times as strong as she. Even so, it was at the cost of a dozen bruises and scratches that he managed to drag and carry her back to the house.

  There was no longer a thought of persuasion in his mind. He had determined to take the world into his own hands. The idea of sharing this seizure with Daryl had been growing in his mind; it became instantly the idea of forcing himself upon her when she put up physical resistance. The very act of carrying her in his arms had been a catalyst to his last iota of restraint.

  He dropped her into a chair, standing in front of her with his hands gripping the chair arms so that she could not escape. He was panting and between indrawn, rumbling gasps he spoke to her.

  “I have no time now to tell you that I love you, I want you, I am determined to have you. That I am going to take you. I didn’t intend to use force. But don’t be afraid.”

  “Baxter!” She shouted at the top of her lungs.

  “He cannot hear you,” Carpenter gasped. “In three hours we will be ready to leave. In two, it will be dark.”

  “You can’t do it.”

  “There is nothing on earth that will stop me.”

  She hit him with all her strength.

  He grinned. “So. Well—there is another room in the cellar.”

  She did not understand. She called again for Baxter.

  “Shout your head off.” He picked her up.

  “Let me go!”

  She began to struggle again. And once more he wrenched her along. With extreme difficulty he brought her to the cellar. He was almost compelled to knock her senseless in order to get her through the door of what had been the fruit pantry. It was dark inside. She stumbled and fell. Carpenter took the rusty key from the inside of the door, locked it and went up stairs.

  Daryl lay in the darkness. Spasmodic quivers racked her. By and by she stood up on her trembling legs and groped for a light. After an interminable time she found a switch. Turning it lighted the small room. She was grateful for that. First she tried the door, which she could not budge. The room was lined with shelves. It was musty, cobwebby. A heap of junk lay on the cement floor. She began to look through it, tottering, murmuring with fear. She sought for an instrument with which she could kill Carpenter if he came through the door. When the time of her captivity grew longer, she began to look for some tool with which she could effect an escape. She found the heavy handle that had been used to shake a furnace, and a broken rake.

  Carpenter locked the door that led to the cellar as an added precaution. The cellar windows had been covered with iron gratings when the house was built. He thought that his two captives would starve before they could escape. Daryl was a woman and weak. The chamber occupied by Baxter had been designed for the purpose it was serving.

  He washed himself at the kitchen sink. Gradually he caught his breath and regained his composure. He arranged his disordered clothes. For a little while he looked out the window toward the road. There was no one in sight. Satisfied, he opened the metal door of the laboratory and went inside. He listened again at the trap door and could faintly hear the footsteps of Baxter as he walked back and forth in the darkness. There was a smell of cigarette smoke in the air and he wondered if it remained from Baxter’s last smoke or if Baxter was so imprudent as to smoke in his unventilated prison.

  After that Carpenter walked across to his desk. The result of his last experiment, an opaque, wine-colored fluid, had been poured into an ordinary six ounce bottle and corked. He picked up the bottle, measured out a small amount in a graduated glass, poured water into a tumbler from the cold tap at the sink and went to his chair with the two liquids.

  Tentatively he smelled the dark red compound. He had never given it to any invertebrate animal. He knew nothing about its taste, its immediate actions, the sentiments that would accompany the taking of a dose. He had told part of the truth: his experiments were not complete although the essence he now possessed was, according to his calculations, the thing he had sought. His last work would have been to try it on cats, dogs, perhaps a horse, and to watch them ebb from sight while they remained alive and well a few feet away.

  The octopus had vanished rapidly. With a human circulatory system, the process might be expected to be faster. He wondered if it would hurt, or if it would impair his mental functions. There was no time now to determine that. The events of the day had forced him to be the first vertebrate on which the experiment was tried. If it failed, there was no alternative. He knew it was right by his computations. The chance for error was infinitesimal. Yet he hesitated. Suppose it sent him to the floor, writhing in agony. Suppose it made him invisible and yet reduced him to an imbecile. The octopus did not writhe—and its invisible life had been normal and unimpaired.

  Cold reason was not enough. He held the fluid to the light. His eyes traveled around the majestic room. Thoughts ran through his mind like fire. All this—all this glittering intricacy to produce a quarter of a glassful of reddish liquid. A remote sentiment for the workroom stirred him. Then he thought of Daryl. How beautiful she was, how quiet, how desirable. Afterward—long after this—she would love him. She could not see him then—the ugly and detested body would have vanished. Her lover would be like the wind, like the thin air. So warped had his mind become, so romantic had the picture of invisibility grown in his dreams that he no longer thought of that condition as being ten thousand times more dreadful than any ugliness.

  When he went down to the cellar for her—she would hear him. She would have found something with which to strike him. He would open the door—and not be there. Come, a voice would say. Then she would understand that the miracle had taken place. The thought made him feverish.

  He ran over details which he had anticipated. When he was dressed and muffled he would pass for an ordinary man. The food he ate would be dissolved by the compound in his veins—turning grey even as it was arrested in mid-air and eventually vanishing. He had watched this process in the octopus a dozen times. There were other problems to be solved—many others. He would solve them. On a warm night, such as this, unclad, he would be able to go wherever he pleased. And he would go, in his car—a car that seemed to drive itself—with Daryl.

  Time was speeding! Abruptly he stood up. For one long moment he regarded himself in the mirror. That mighty, naked head, those long legs, the great hands—he would not see them again. He lifted the rubicund potion.

  “To the gods,” he whispered. He drained it.

  Now, nervously, he focused his attention on the mirror. A second passed. The stuff reached his stomach. It left in his mouth a taste at once tart and salty. He drank a little of the water cautiously. Then he sat down. But he was unable to remain seated; he rose again and paced back and forth across the floor. At intervals he
walked close to the mirror. Once he felt a prickling sensation and thought that it was the onset of the first symptom. He realized almost with chagrin that it was gooseflesh—gooseflesh that broke out on his thighs and ran in ripples across the small of his back.

  It was five minutes from the time he had swallowed the drug. Still no effect. He wished that he had left something to do, some small and patient task that would occupy those moments of dreadful suspense. Perhaps it would be a good idea to run over the calculations he had made for certain proteins once more. He sat at his desk and then realized that he could not see himself in the mirror.

  Ten minutes. He held out his hand and stared at it. The whiteness he had induced was there—nothing more. The drug that had removed all color from his body and made him an albino had been taken over a period of days. Its effect was cumulative. The action had been slow—an easy preparation for this dramatic step.

  Fifteen minutes. He peered again at the mirror and a hoarse shout escaped his lips. The pink was fading from his eyes! Instantly he was at the glass, separating his lids. He watched with breathless fascination. The fact was unquestionable. The irises swiftly lost their pinkishness. The retreat of that color seemed to be accompanied by a stirring, swirling motion that involved the entire eyeball.

  He shook his hands up and down in excitement. He was—fading. The skin on his cheeks became translucent, like gristle. In a few moments more it was like a faintly tinted jelly and he could see the shadows of the bones beneath it.

  Now, with the utmost haste, he undressed himself. The flesh on his legs, his arms, his shoulders, was beginning to glisten and to thin. He pulled a drop light close to him and held his hand in front of it. The bones were as sharp as bones seen through a fluoroscope. A moment later the glare from the bulb penetrated his arm. He watched the motion in his elbow joint as he flexed it.

  The process accelerated. He breathed rapidly. His eyes no longer glistened, for they had become dim blurs, but his immense excitement was still visible in his fantastic gesticulations. The arm which he regarded was presently like a bone sheathed in a pale gelatin.