I brought him a slug of rum. “That won’t do any good,” he said, and drank it down as if he were washing down aspirins. He’d never done that in his life before. “Godfrey, I’ve got to do something. Can’t we go down and case that shop, anyway?”
“That’s the first solid thing I’ve heard in a week,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Carole came downstairs just then. “Call Marie, will you, honey?” I said half over my shoulder. “Tell her Henry is O.K. and he and I have gone to a wedding, or to get drunk, or something clever, will you?”
She nodded, and when we got the door she said, “And where are you going?”
I blew her a kiss, and she caught it and put it in her pocket, the way she always did. As long as I live I shall never forget her standing there in the light, worried, and loving, and beautiful.
Out in the garage, we swung into the jalopy and I kicked the starter. As the motor roared, Henry leaned forward and shut off the ignition. “Has it occurred to you that we just might get into that place?” he asked. “Just in case, don’t you think it would be smart to take a tool or two?”
“What do you know!” I said admiringly. “And I thought I was the brains of this combo!” We climbed out and raced back to my bench. My toolbox, a couple of wrenches, a flashlight, and a battery-operated trouble lamp with an extension cord. The little power supply gave me an idea; I pulled a small black case out of the rack.
“Inductance bridge,” I said. “Might be nice to have along. If that hair drier is what’s caused this thing, it’ll use power. It must be something new and it would be nice to know what’s in it and where it’s coming from.”
“Good. Take your multi-tester, too. And here’s a little slice bar.”
Arms full, we staggered back to the car, loaded the gear into the back seat, and at last ground out of the garage.
We pulled up a block from the beauty shop, parked, and strolled up to have a look at it. The shop was on a side street. It was a sleazy-looking brick wart stuck on the off-corner of what looked like a block-long warehouse. There was a yard around its two open sides, and a brick wall with a silly-looking archway of wrought iron over the gate, forming the word “FRANCY’S” in tortured letters.
“Snazzy,” said Henry disgustedly.
We paused outside the gateway. The side street was comfortingly dark except for a street lamp which was planted exactly in line with the gateway and the front door of the shop, throwing a path of brilliance up the cinder walk.
“That won’t do,” I said.
“It’ll have to.” He gave a quick look up the street. There were only two pedestrians in sight and both of those were walking away from us.
I hesitated. “I don’t—” There was something niggling at the back of my mind, but I couldn’t place it. Something about a wall. Heck with it. “Come on.”
We walked up to the door as if our intentions were honorable. A sign there said “Closed until further notice.”
“That ties it,” said Henry. “There is definitely something ungood about this thing.”
“Why?”
“Ever see a rented place close up without some information as to who to call for purchase or rental or emergency or something?”
“Hm-m-m. Not till now.”
The door was locked. It was a great big solid door. “The window?” Henry breathed. We went down the couple of steps that led up to the door. There was so much light from the street lamp outside the wall that when we turned off the path, the darkness was like tar and seemed almost as hard to move through. We felt along the wall, blinking, until we came to a window.”
“Barred,” said Henry, and swore. “Godfrey—can you stand by while I get some tools? No sense in both of us marching in and out of this place as if it were a gentlemen’s lounge.”
“O.K. A pinch bar, screwdriver, and … oh. Get the jack out from under the front seat, in case the window’s clinched. The flashlights, the battery case, and the bridge.”
“Holy smoke,” said Henry. “You’re a real second-story character.”
“I’m a boy scout gone wrong, that’s all.”
He disappeared into the gloom. I lost him, then saw him silhouetted against the bright light from the open gateway. He went swiftly to the gateway, peered out to each side, and went through it. Behind me, in the dark, I heard the unmistakable sound of a relay.
If it had been a hand on my shoulder it couldn’t have startled me more. I felt my way to the window, pushed my hand through the bars. There seemed nothing out of the ordinary about it. Feeling carefully along the lower sash, I touched three countersunk nail heads. I listened carefully, but could hear nothing else.
Henry got back in a couple of minutes, loaded to the ears with assorted equipment. I realized that the little guy just had to be doing something, whether it was useful or not. He came puffing and blowing through the darkness toward me.
“This way, Henry,” I called softly. He bumped the side of the building with something of a clatter, and edged along until I said whoa. “Sweet Sue,” he gasped. “Ain’t I the eager beaver?”
“Why didn’t you just drive in with the lights on and the horn blowing?” I griped. “You’d’ve had more fun with less effort. The blasted window’s locked behind these bars, and nailed down to boot.”
“Give me a flashlight,” he said to himself, as he got from under his load.
“Oh; you don’t believe me?” I asked again, and just then the relay clicked again. Henry grunted, found the light, hooded it with his fingers and aimed it at the window. “Did I hear a relay?”
“You did. I heard it a couple minutes ago.”
“Just fine,” said Henry. “Any second now this place will be all bells and lights and cops. That was a burglar alarm you heard.”
I clapped a hand to my head. “Burglar alarm! How could I be such a dope?”
“Godfrey; what are we gonna do?”
“Just say ‘Open Sesame’,” I grinned. “Watch.” He swung the light on me and I made a magician’s pass at the window. Nothing happened.
“Well?” he said impatiently, and then the sash slid quietly up, there was a click, and the whole section of bars swung out from the wall.
“Cut off my shorts and call me leggy!” gaped Henry, a phrase reserved for really special occasions. “Our burglar alarm!”
“Things begin to shape up,” I said slowly. “Not in any way I like.”
Henry’s mind was evidently racing off on another tangent. “Wickersham installed this himself after we built it,” he said. “He must know who owns the place. Hey—let’s call him up and get the score!”
“No!” I said violently. You had to be violent with Henry when he went off half-cocked. Harder to stop than any man I ever saw. “Figure it out for yourself. He wouldn’t let us know where this installation was going when he put it in. So I don’t think he’d let us know now.”
“Why not?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Henry, he ties into all this business some way. Marie’s hallucination is about him. The ‘chromium helmet’ hair drier smells very much like one of his psychosomatic snivvies; and here we find a device built in his shop and installed by him, guarding that hair drier—”
“—or where that hair drier was. I see what you mean. The crumb!” Henry clutched at my arm suddenly. “Godfrey! Remember the day he seemed to think it was so funny when he overheard us talking about the girls?”
“I should forget that. I don’t think there’s any doubt about his knowing something about whatever’s wrong with them.”
“The trouble we had trying to figure out who own this joint,” said Henry reminiscently. “I’d like to corner that guy and find out what makes.”
“Tempting,” I said. “But I think it would be smarter to find out everything we can before we do that. We’ve got to crack our own safe, here.”
“You were psychic when you thought of bringing the jack,” Henry said. “We can stick it under the sash and run it up. Som
ething’s got to give, and whatever it is it’ll let us in.”
“Yep; bust the window frame and swing a piece of it in front of the black-light beam inside, huh?”
“I forgot about that. Let’s see; why hasn’t the alarm gone off yet, anyhow?”
“Don’t you remember, dopey? It isn’t designed to ring an alarm until that sash comes down—preferably on someone’s lunch hooks.”
“Oh, yes. And the beam behind is in case someone thinks to cut out the pane instead of forcing the catch. What happens if it’s broken?”
“Conventional alarm; bell, lights, and so on. Hard to say how he’s hooked it up. The window comes down anyway; maybe in time to catch some part of Joe Burglar. We also don’t know exactly where in the window the inside beam is placed. It might be horizontal, vertical, diagonal, or any combinations of ’em. Fortunately, there’s only one projector.”
“No wires on the glass, huh?” said Henry, throwing a thin beam up to the window. “Hm-m-m. You wouldn’t have a glass cutter in your bag of tricks?”
“No, but I have something just as good.” I rummaged in the tool kit and came up with a small three-cornered file. I broke it in two, cutting my thumb in the process. “We now have six glass cutters. Henry, see if you can find me a hacksaw.”
He fumbled for a while and finally found it. I began to work cautiously on the bottom sash, cutting upward through the wood on each side until I heard it nick the glass, and being careful to keep the saw well outside, so that it would not move in across the black-light beam. Then I took a piece of the file, and starting from one saw cut in the sash, scribed up, across and down to the other cut.
“Bright boy,” murmured Henry. “Now you break loose the cut-out piece of the sash, and most of the pane comes with it.”
“In one piece, if I’m lucky,” I said. “We’ll have all kinds of fun if any of it falls inside. Window glass’ll stop UV like crazy.” I held my breath and tugged gently at the lower part of the sash, trying to keep the pressure even on each side. The little molding that was left came away with a gentle crackling; and then, with a very satisfactory single crick! the pane gave. It was quite cool that night, but as I put it gently down I wiped sweat out of my eyes. “That’s my boy did that,” Henry said.
“Now for that beam,” I said. Wrapped in black cloth in the top tray of my tool kit was a glass tube containing several wires coated with fluorescin, which I used to test UV projectors. I took one out, a small one about eighteen gauge, and holding it by the extreme end, thrust it into the gaping window. “The wire shouldn’t block enough of the beam to activate the alarm,” I said. “And we just might be able to find out which is the projector side, and which the receiver.”
I moved it slowly, keeping my hand well back; and suddenly the tip of the wire glowed greenish white, and I heard Henry’s breath whoosh out. I circled the wire carefully, spotting the beam from edge to edge. It was, I decided, diagonal across the window; the beam had a rectangular cross section, and by watching the fluorescence of the coated wire very carefully, located the projector end of the beam. It was at the top.
“Made to order,” I said. “Did you bring the … yes, you did. Good heavens, Henry; did you leave anything in the car?”
“Did you leave anything in your shop?” he countered, grinning. “Now, is there any way we can skin past that beam?”
“Nope. It’s too wide. We’ll have to cancel it.”
“Easy to say.”
“Easy to do.” I had been plugging in wires to the battery case.
“What is that … a little UV projector?”
“It is.”
“Oh. You’re going to aim it at the cell. But—the intensity won’t be the same.”
“Doesn’t matter. This gizmo doesn’t measure intensity. It’s strictly an on-off proposition.” I switched on the projector, tested it with the fluorescent wire, and then aimed it carefully down the place where the alarm’s black-light beam should be. I took a flashlight in the other hand, and craning over the sill, saw the photocell built in down near the floor of the room. I put my projector up against it, stood aside, and said “Come on in.”
Henry, chuckling, hopped up on the sill and dropped inside. I handed up all of the junk we had brought, and then followed him.
“Let’s find out where to shut this thing off,” whispered Henry, casting his light around.
“No you don’t,” I said. “Shutting it off might actuate something too. Let the silly thing sit there and watch for intruders like it was told to.” I carefully slipped my projector aside; keeping the beam on the cell until it was clear of the other projector, up over the window.
“Now let’s have a look at this place.” Henry swept his light around, keeping it low.
It was a small beauty parlor, rather lavishly fixed up for its size. There were several curtained booths, very tiny, all open, each with its chair and mirrored cubby-hole table. A half-partition separated the front part, which proved to be an office, from the rear; otherwise the place was one big room. Against the back wall had been wheeled an array of permanent-wave machines, two manicure racks, and a hose and spray gadget for shampooing.
“And there’s the dewjaw that’s caused all this trouble,” I said, pointing my light at a lone electric hair drier.
We pounced on it. The headpiece was simply an aluminum shell with an open throat inside; this led down through a pipe to a casing in the base, in which, supposedly were heating elements and a blower. “Turn it on,” I said grimly, and went back to the window for some gear. Henry hunted over the drier until he found the switch. The quiet room filled with a low, rising whine which settled into a steady hum. “Better not stay too near it,” I cautioned. I examined it from a distance. There was a chair under the headpiece; I tried to shove it aside with my foot, but it was bolted to the floor. “That’s funny.”
“That’s the kind of thing we have to look out for,” I said. “It wasn’t done for nothing.” I paused. “And another thing. Seems to me that even though this is a small place, it ought to have more than one drier. Does that mean that the one we’re looking for has been moved out? Or is the one we’re looking for one they couldn’t move easily?”
“By gosh, it’s bolted to the deck like the chair,” said Henry.
“Let’s do a job on it.” We switched it off, got out some tools, and began to take the drier down. Off came the headpiece, the pipe, the support rod. I got the bolts off the casing and lifted the cover. Perfectly conventional blower and a half a dozen heavy nichrome elements. The switch gear was, it seemed to me, a little heavier than it had to be, and so was the power line; but the Underwriters would never kick about that. The power cable looked ordinary enough, but something prompted me to nick it with my knife. I was surprised to find that under the flexible rubber insulation, it was web-shielded. I followed it to the wall; it was plugged into a standard socket, but there was a four-place receptacle next to it on the wall with two sockets unused. Why a special outlet for the drier?
Henry sat down in the chair and mopped his face. “Looks like a false alarm to me,” he said, leaning back.
“I dunno. There’s a couple of things—not too wrong, but—” I went back to the motor and blower assembly. It was still hooked up. I switched it on. It revved up, louder without the cover, a bit faster without the curved tube to resist the air flow. I stood up and walked around it. “Nothing wrong with it that I can see,” I said. Henry didn’t answer.
“Henry!”
No answer. I turned my light on him. He was sprawled back in the chair, fast asleep.
“Well, I’ll be flayed and flustered. Get up out of there, you lazy ape!” I went and shook his shoulder. His head rolled limply, and sudden panic crawled under my belt. “Henry!” I pulled him out of the chair. His legs half took his weight, and then buckled, and he fell with a thump to his knees. Instantly his head snapped up. He blinked foolishly into the flashlight beam. “Wh … what goes on? Hey?”
“Are you all right?”
He climbed slowly to his feet, passed his hand over his eyes. “Must’ve dozed off. Hm-m-m! Sorry, Godfrey.” He yawned. “My knees hurt.”
“Henry, what happened to you?”
“Hm-m-m? I’m all right. Tired, I guess. Look, let’s go home. The pursuit of knowledge is all very jolly, but there’s no sense us getting jailed for it.”
“Pursuit of knowledge? What are you gibbering about? Here we’re on the track of the thing that’s possesses our wives and my kid, to say nothing of Wickersham—”
“Aw, why be vengeful about it? Nil nisi, and stuff like that there. Let’s go home.”
“Nil nisi … ‘speak well of the’ … Henry, I don’t get you!”
“Well, gee; Wickersham dead, and the girls all right again—what are we hanging around here for?”
“What?”
He sighed with an exaggeration of patience. “Wickersham is dead and Marie and Carole and the Widget are all right again. So why bother?”
“Wicker … wait a minute. How do you know? Who told you?”
“Why it was—He kicked off—Well, what do you know! I can’t remember. He’s dead, that’s all. And the girls are all right.”
“Are they though? And what was wrong with them?”
“I don’t know. Something they ate, no doubt. Why the third degree?”
“Henry, it just isn’t so. If it is, you couldn’t possibly have found out about it.”
“Are you trying to make a liar out of me?”
“Here … here, Shorter-than-me; don’t get your back hair up.”
“Well, I don’t have to stand here and listen to you tell me that something I know isn’t so.”
“You dreamed it!”
“I did no such thing!” he said hotly. “I know when I know something!”
I stared at him, and gradually I realized what had happened, though I hadn’t the faintest idea how. The thing Henry had wanted most in the world had come true—for him. And it was infinitely important that he keep the memory, even if it could be proved that it never happened. Like the Widget’s doll. Like Marie’s wish-fulfillment that the little guy take a poke at someone bigger and stronger than himself, someone who awed him. Like Carole’s … what was Carole’s wish-fulfilling memory?
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