The Murderer Invisible

by Philip Wylie

  “Precisely.”

  “That’s a pretty heavy penalty for my treatment of you.”

  “Possibly. I have pride.”

  “And I hurt it? Well—I suppose if you must. And—again—business men ought not to provoke scientists, eh? Rather terrifying little trick, this. Where are you?”

  “Here.”

  “Or projected here?”

  “I’m here.”

  “You seem to be a little bit excited. I remember the same tone one afternoon not so long ago down on the floor of the Exchange. That occasional lapse into a higher note. Well—some people are nervous. Me——”

  With that, Bradley leaped from his chair, which fell backward to the floor. In an instant he had rounded his desk. If he had gone on the opposite side, he might have beaten Carpenter to the door. As it was, the knife picked itself up, shot like an arrow toward the broad back, poised, and settled between the shoulder blades. Bradley was a man of immense vitality. Mortally wounded, he nevertheless spun around and swept his powerful fist in a circle. It collided with something.

  Bradley’s ears began to roar. Dimly he heard a form fall. His face muscles slackened. He swore feebly and made a second swing which threw him off his feet. He tumbled to the carpet. Carpenter lay unconscious three feet away from him.

  That act was concomitant with Baxter’s descent for breakfast. He had finished his account to Daryl of Page’s murder and was embarking upon his theories relative to it while she listened white-faced, when he noticed a small hubbub in the dining room. Several of the men who were having their breakfast were called from the table. They returned to recruit others from the meal. Baxter was dimly conscious of it for a few seconds before he brought his thoughts to consider it. A possible explanation flashed through his mind.

  “Notice all the subdued excitement?”

  Daryl’s eyes ranged over the dining room. “I hadn’t.”

  “Those men who are getting up. From down town. I’ll bet that the wheat market is breaking. Mind if I look at the ticker?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Baxter left the dining room and crossed the hall. As he had imagined, the breakfasters were gathered in the brokerage office in the basement of the hotel. The murmur of their voices reached him as he descended the stairs. But it was not the wheat market which excited the men in the room, as Baxter speedily discovered. The ticker had just printed the news that “Mountain” Bradley had been found in his office—murdered precisely as Page had been.

  Baxter hurried back to Daryl. He put a bill on the table and said, “Come on.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’ll explain in a cab.” They were on the street, had found a taxi and had given directions. “Bradley was killed. Important broker. Friend of mine.”

  “Did he do it?”

  “That’s what I want to know. Looks like it. Bradley was one of the men, I think, who put Carpenter out of business.”

  Carpenter had been struck on the side of the head by his wounded victim with such force that it knocked him down. He lay limply on the floor for several minutes. Nothing happened. Finally he raised his head, shook it, felt the spot where the blow had landed and rose weakly. Blood was running down his face—invisible blood—and he sat on a divan until his strength returned. Then he walked across to the desk and bent over it. Bradley had been writing when he spoke. The last sentence of the letter was, “Carpenter is in the room with me.”

  The scientist picked up the paper and tore it into fragments. He went to the body of Bradley and searched in its pockets for matches. Finding a package, he carried the pieces of the letter to the hearth of an imitation fireplace and burned them. Then he sat down near the door.

  Someone knocked on it, opened it cautiously, looked in. He caught a glimpse of a girl’s face and watched its expression as it saw the body. The girl screamed. Several people rushed into the place. Carpenter went out, then, through the open door. He walked painfully up town until he reached 95 George Street, let himself through the gate, into the rear door, and proceeded to his room. Once there he dressed the leaking bruise on his face. On his right hand were red spots of Bradley’s blood and on his feet the dirt of the street. He washed and went to bed.

  There was a small crowd in the street outside the Amalgamated Trust Building. Baxter and Daryl made their way through it and took an elevator up to the twenty-sixth floor. In the halls was another crowd. Bradley’s outer office was jammed. Pine was being questioned by the police and they waited for him.

  The second member of the firm was frightened. He, together with the police and the public, saw a connection between the murder of Page and that of Bradley. It was obvious to Baxter that Pine feared for himself. He plucked continually at his military moustache and he answered questions with long, irrelevant statements.

  “Oh, hello, Baxter. Sad. Terribly sad. Fiendish. Some demon at work. Why—I saw him two hours ago. Fifteen minutes before he was discovered. No one about. No one seen. Only one entrance. We’re not doing any business to-day. Yes.”

  “I wondered if I could have a look?”

  “Good God! Whatever for? I suppose so. The police are there.”

  “I can’t quite explain my reason. It’s imperative, however. This is my fiancée—Mr. Pine.”

  “Pleased to meet you. Delighted. Trying times. Here’s the man in charge. Inspector Mulligan—Mr. Baxter.”

  “I wondered, Inspector, if I could be permitted to look over the room where Bradley is?”

  The Irishman stared at Baxter dourly. “Why?”

  “Because I have a theory that depends entirely for confirmation on my own observations.”

  Pine interrupted. “Mr. Baxter should be shown every courtesy, Inspector. Good customer of ours. And a good man for you to know at this time. Famous scientist and all that. Yes.”

  “Give me your address, Mr. Baxter. If you have a theory, the police will call on you and if it’s any good, the police will investigate it.”

  Baxter spoke earnestly. “Sorry, Inspector, but this theory of mine can’t be investigated by the police.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I am a trained bio-chemist and it requires a bio-chemist to make that investigation.”

  “Amateur detective stuff, eh?”

  “Not at all. Science. I think——”

  “To hell with what you think.” The Inspector raised his voice. “You employees here! Clear out this mob. Coughlin! Kick out those lousy reporters. The police have to work alone on this.” He turned his back on Baxter.

  Mr. Pine smiled nervously. “Too bad. Sorry. Can’t be helped. Police in absolute control. I suppose they know best.”

  Baxter picked up his hat. “Possibly. But I would hate to have an important job in the police department in the next few weeks. Thank you, Mr. Pine.”

  Daryl and Baxter were in a cab again. The young scientist was smiling moodily.

  “Nice fellow, that Mulligan.”

  “I was so mad I almost cried.”

  “But that gives us a general idea of what it means to try to talk to the police. When they’re puzzled, they get indignant and loud. It’s the favorite system of politicians. They won’t solve these murders. Naturally. The public and the press will clamor. And in defense the police department will close Fifth Avenue to private cars or do some other damn fool thing to take attention from this scenario. Now what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Baxter stared at the lawns and fountain in Washington Square Park. “Neither do I. It would be worth a lot to know where he stays. You can’t follow him any more than you can the wind. And he can stick near you. He might be riding up there with the driver right now. Can’t be sure. Got to take a chance and pretend that he isn’t around.”

  His thoughts reverted to the Inspector. “Amateur detective! I’d like to see any detective, amateur or professional, working on this. Without our foreknowledge—he’d be nowhere. He’d try to find something that didn’t exist. I had a m
ind to put a bullet in Carpenter the day he went albino by a large majority. Wish I had. The possibilities of being invisible—the opportunities it gives—are just becoming clear to me. Carpenter certainly foresaw them. But I didn’t think he’d start eliminating people from society so soon.”

  Daryl covered her face with her hands. “I won’t be able to go on much longer. I’m—I’m getting sick.”

  “Poor Daryl!”

  She moved away. “Don’t try to comfort me. I can’t understand you. He’s committing murder. Killing people. And you won’t tell anybody. Somebody ought to know. Somebody ought to be able to help. And your own life! If you’d heard him say last night that he was going to kill you for being near me—and then if you got all this dreadful news this morning—wouldn’t you——”

  “Yeah,” he replied softly. “I would. Damn if I wouldn’t.”

  “Then do it!”

  “I’m waiting for an idea.”

  “Leave the country. Take me. I don’t want to be here. I can’t bear it. Every minute, every hour——”

  “All right,” he said.

  “You mean it?”

  “If you insist.”

  She shook her head slowly. “I guess I don’t. I guess I’m losing my nerve. I’d be ashamed of you if you took me away. Now.”

  Baxter took her hand and patted it. “That—is what I knew you would say. And that, my dear, is why I’m continually fond of you.”

  “But there must be some defense.”

  Baxter leaned forward and spoke to the driver.

  Professor Howard Quail lived with his wife in a brick house not far from the Gracie Mansion on the East Side. His intellect, his wife’s fortune, his popularity among students had contributed equally to make his long academic career both successful and celebrated. When he had retired at the age of sixty-five, gentle, pacific, still active in research and study, the university world had lost one of its great exponents.

  He was a well proportioned man and in his stride was still much of the springiness of youth. His face was ruddy and wrinkled, his hair snow white. He played tennis and golf. His gardens at his country place in Connecticut were part of the ritual of the display of Madison. Mrs. Quail, whose hospitality to students had been famous for three decades, whose energy belied grey hair which she bobbed as short as fashion would allow, devoted her life after they left the campus to the amenable task of keeping her husband comfortable and to the entertainment of those friends from the bygone days who still kept up a contact.

  Professor Quail was not surprised when the maid knocked on the door of his study and said that Mr. Baxter was downstairs. He was somewhat astonished, however, to hear that Baxter was accompanied by a young lady. He rose at once and descended to the hall, his face bright with the anticipatory relish so invariably satisfied by Baxter’s sporadic visits.

  “Well, Bombshell! This is a treat!”

  “I’d like to present my fiancée, Miss Carpenter. Professor Quail.”

  “Not a treat—a godsend. A veritable tipping of the celestial cornucopia. My dear, I’m happier than you know. Bombshell calls on his old classroom tyrant once in a cerulean moon—but he always brings good and exciting tidings. This is the best yet.”

  Baxter smiled. He saw by the way Daryl took the Professor’s hand, by their expressions of mutual approval that a potential friendship of great magnitude had been commenced. He hastened, at the same time, with an explanation.

  “Bombshell was my nickname at school. Comes from Bromwell.”

  Professor Quail winked at Daryl. “So modest. It comes from what he did to about thirty football teams over a period of three years. We never could decide whether Bombshell Baxter was a better quarterback or a better chemist. A moot point that nearly brought the coaches and laboratory instructors to blows.

  “Mrs. Quail is shopping. She was asking about you only a few days ago. She’ll go into a trance when she sees you safe and sound. Where the devil have you been? Take off the hats. Come on up to the study. I’ll have Amy set places for luncheon. An occasion, by the false beard of the falser prophet!”

  On the stairs Daryl whispered to Baxter, “I think he’s a darling!”

  Baxter nodded. “You don’t know him yet.”

  They took chairs in the study. Quail’s merry eyes rested transiently on the sharp and intense contours of Baxter’s face and then upon the girl.

  “Bombshell,” he said, “you were always a lucky man. But right now—luck is a poor word——”

  Daryl smiled. The phrase in another man’s mouth might have made her blush. Baxter answered.

  “And the tragedy is—I haven’t had time to appreciate my immense good fortune.”

  “You didn’t go off on one of your trips and leave her!”

  “No. She was with me. But we’ve been busy.”

  The Professor nodded. “So. I gathered as much. In fact you both look a shade strained.” He turned to Daryl. “You’ll have to sober him down for married life. He’s much too fantastic for a husband. And it doesn’t do to accompany or encourage him. What has he been up to?”

  Baxter leaned forward. “It’s a long story. Shall I begin?”

  “We have an hour and a half before lunch. If Mrs. Quail comes in—she’s a good listener.”

  “How’s your credulity?”

  “Ready for anything—from you. Been to the moon?”

  “No.” Baxter glanced at Daryl and she nodded to him. “What would you think if I told you that, in order to get up here in the eighties from about Madison Square we’ve taken five taxis, three subways, one trolley car, walked through two moving picture houses in the dark and through as many dense crowds as we could find?”

  The Professor whistled. “I wouldn’t think. I’d know that some one was following you—and that you were very anxious to interrupt the process.”

  “Exactly. Well—we’ll begin with a letter I received some time ago after I’d published my monograph on the optical properties of protoplasm.”

  The professor lit his pipe. Baxter had reached the point of his journey to the Mortland Farms with Daryl when Mrs. Quail came in. Introductions were made and he continued. Step by step he followed the history that had surrounded and involved Daryl and himself. Step by step he followed the evolution of Carpenter’s process and the changes it wrought in himself. The Professor did not stop him, although he made an occasional interjection of a word. “Dichlormanine-T, eh?” “Wouldn’t attack calciums at the same rate.” “Great Scott!”

  Baxter finished. “We left the office and we started up town. I decided to come to you. So, to make sure that Carpenter would not sit in on this conference, we did a series of dodges. I am positive that we have a temporary sanctuary.”

  The Professor was staring at Baxter with unblinking eyes. Mrs. Quail spoke to Daryl.

  “I don’t see how you stood it.”

  “He helped me through,” she said.

  Quail rose and knocked out his pipe. “You know, Bombshell, if any one in the world but you had told me that, I’d say it was a peach of a yarn and invite them to hunt for some other sucker.”

  Baxter laughed. “So would I. And there’s no proof. A ruined house in Sinkak. And a story that the natives could tell—which would be baffling, but meaningless without the rest of the facts.”

  “Exactly. One other small but important proof. The fingerprints on the knife that stabbed Bradley will be the same as those on Page’s knife. We can count on the police to discover that.”

  “It occurred to me.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Baxter shook his head. “I happen to be human. I don’t know what to do. I haven’t an idea. Daryl is three quarters of a nervous wreck—and she started out in the flush of health. I am four fifths of a nervous wreck. I thought of setting traps for him. I tried to think of ways of locating him. He must live somewhere. But what can you do? I wasn’t going to say anything about it—but I will. Last night before he went to Page’s house he stopped at m
y door and said good night.”

  “Carpenter did?” Daryl asked hoarsely.

  “Yes.”

  “Then he’d been standing in the hall?”

  “Listening at the keyhole, I presume. He could have done anything he pleased when I walked to my room. I was at his mercy. His good night, I suppose, was partly to show me that and partly a gesture. A joke.”

  Professor Quail seated himself again. His voice was placid and amiable. There was in it a note of the dry fluency that had once accompanied his lectures.

  “The only way to fight invisibility, as I see it, is to be invisible yourself.”

  “But—” his wife interposed.

  “Don’t be literal, Dorothy. We may safely assume that Carpenter does not know you are here. We know that he has expanded his field of activity to such an extent that he is a trifle over-sure of himself. He intends to make love to Daryl at some future date and eventually to possess her. A curious complication of his psychology—but we can pass over that. In any case, he is so jealous of Bombshell that life is not carefree for him, and a thing you consider too lightly is that you both know all about Carpenter. With the increase of his enterprises—invisible or not—his danger will increase. And it will occur to him that the business of letting two people go free when they have the secret of his—success—is a very foolish business.

  “I’ve seen your friend Carpenter a dozen times and I’ve always been impressed with two things—his collossal conceit and the immense amount of latent passion in the man. He is a born gloater. I presume if he were psychoanalyzed it would be found that he lets our Bombshell live out of a sort of cat-and-mouse complex. He told you that when he became invisible he would rule the world. I imagine that he already believes he is in power. He killed two prominent men with the utmost ease and safety—a thing that would insure the cleverest mundane murderer of a life of jeopardy and fear. That feat has bloated his ego tremendously—beyond a doubt.

  “I mentioned that he was a passionate man. I should have said a man of mighty repressions. Passion has no reason and now that the lid is off, those emotions are bursting out. Hence the discrepancies of his behavior. We must see Carpenter, always, as a man. He has a truly great mind—a magnificent mind. I’d give all my fortune to have had it.”