John Russell Fearn Omnibus

by John Russell Fearn

  “You know me better than that, Ron. I said we’d got to gain time. Stall. Promise anything!”

  “But why the devil should I? I’m out to fight Doone, not to kowtow to him. Do you think I care what he does to me?”

  “I wasn’t thinking of you. I’m thinking of Nan, for one thing — even myself for another. I’m not scared of anything Doone can do, but my elimination would lose you one trusted overseer, and well you know it.”

  “Wait a minute,” Ron said wonderingly. “Do you think for one moment that Doone would dare to drag Nan into this —”

  “Dare!” Clay laughed shortly. “He’d jump at the chance! He is too snaky to wipe you out personally, and besides that wouldn’t do him any good because you’ve got the formula he wants … That agent of his on the phone promised you plenty of anguish — That means making you comply because all those nearest and dearest to you will suffer if you don’t! So — stall! Give Nan warning to leave town and hide somewhere; give me time to get on my guard — Then we’ll pay Doone back in his own coin.”

  “I get it,” Ron nodded, calming. “Sorry I blew up on you, Clay. For that matter there’s nothing to stop me telling Nan right now to get away somewheres. Sooner she’s on the way to safety the sooner my hands are untied.”

  He turned back to the phone and depressed the home number tally button.

  It was the voice of Meadows, the manservant, which answered.

  “Oh, hallo there, Meadows? Sorry to get you up. Ask Mrs. Dawlish to come to the phone, will you?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, that’s impossible. Mrs. Dawlish has left — on a sudden visit, I gathered.”

  Clay looked in surprise towards the loud speaker.

  “Left? For where?” Ron asked blankly.

  “I don’t know, sir. She left a letter for you and instructed me to see that you got it.”

  “Oh,” Ron said, thinking. “Well, all right. I’ll see to it.”

  He rang off and clenched his fist. “Clay, this can only mean one thing. Somehow she must have got wind of danger and cleared off anyway.”

  “I suppose so,” Clay nodded slowly. “But it’s queer she did not ring you up here.”

  “Not altogether. She never disturbs me if she can help it. Yes, that’s it right enough,” Ron went on. “And it means that my hands are untied far quicker than I had expected. If you are ready for anything that might happen I’m going to tell this agent of Doone’s to go to the devil when he rings back again.” Clay nodded a silent assent. After that he and Ron waited in comparative silence until the stipuled forty minutes had finally expired. Right on the tick the bell rang.

  “Well, Dawlish, have you decided?”

  “Yes, I’ve decided,” Ron answered bitterly. “You can tell Doone I’m not afraid of him, you, or any of the damned set-up. See?”

  “You’re a fool, Dawlish, as you’ll very soon find out —”

  Ron cut him off savagely and got to his feet.

  “I’m through listening to those kind of threats,” he snapped, getting into his coat. “I’d better be getting home and see what kind of a note Nan left for me — What are you going to do?”

  “Stay here,” Clay shrugged. “Way things are looking it seems advisable to me for one or other of us to be on duty all the time. We’ve a fight on our hands now, Ron. Doone will strain every nerve.”

  Ron nodded slowly, tightened his lips. “Okay — I’ll be here by seven in the morning — and watch out for yourself.”

  With that he left and hurried out to his car. Inside ten minutes he was home, followed by the robed and tousled manservant into the lounge. He handed over the letter Nan had written.

  “Mrs. Dawlish left no other instruction than that I hand you this, sir,” he said.

  “Um,” Ron said moodily, tearing the flap. “Anybody call or ring up my wife during the evening?”

  “Not to my knowledge, Mr. Dawlish.”

  “Okay. You can get back to bed.”

  “Thank you, sir. Good night.” Ron didn’t answer: he was too busy reading the letter—

  “Dear Ron:

  I know you’ll forgive me, but I feel an urge to go away and rest up a bit. My nerves, as you know, have not been so good ever since we got back from Mars, and I feel I must rest. I’ll stay at an hotel somewhere in the country: I’ll have to let you know the address later on. I’ve taken Bouncer with me for company. Please don’t mind, will you?

  “Anyway, you’ll have busy days ahead of you and maybe you will get along quicker if you know I’m trying to recuperate myself.

  “Always yours,

  “Nan.”

  “Queer,” Ron muttered to himself, frowning. “But probably I’m worrying over nothing. Doesn’t sound here as though she got any hints about Doone. Must be just coincidence …”

  He thought for a moment. She had not explained why she had not used the phone. She hardly could, considering she had not wanted to argue the matter of her going. But it baffled Ron just the same.

  At last he shoved the note in his pocket and stood staring at the rose bowl, plucked out the dead one and wondered why Meadows had not seen it. Odd for that one rose to be dead and the rest of them flourishing …

  Then as he stood twirling it in his fingers the phone rang. In a moment his troubled face lighted up. He lifted the receiver.

  “Yes, yes, that you, Nan —?” Then he stopped and gave a grunt as the voice of the night watchman came over the wire from his city headquarters.

  “You’d better come over at once, Mr. Dawlish. Something awful has gone and happened. It’s Mr. Reynolds, sir. He’s gone and fallen down the elevator shaft and —”

  “He what?” Ron shouted hoarsely, coming to life and clutching the phone tightly. “What did you say?”

  “I don’t rightly know what happened, Mr. Dawlish. I was in the office doing a bit of tidying up when Mr. Reynolds got a call to go over to the factory. He said he’d come right away and went for the elevator. Next thing I heard was a scream — I found the elevator was at the top floor. Somebody must have planned it.”

  “Did you call the police?” Ron asked dully.

  “No, sir. Matter of fact I didn’t know what to do. I found Mr. Reynolds lying dead so I rang you up and —”

  “All right,” Ron interrupted him. “I’ll be right over.”

  Chapter IV

  Walter Moorland, the real estate dictator of Newingham, a village “somewhere” outside of the city’s boundaries, was distinctly puzzled by the woman in the veil who, accompanied by a Scotch terrier on a leash, arrived in his office the moment it was open the following morning.

  “Good morning, madam!” He held out a cordial hand, tried not to look slighted when it was ignored. With eyebrow raised he tried to pierce the veil to the features beyond. All he could see was a worn face and alabaster-white complexion.

  “You have a villa for sale with six acres of land — just down the main road? Or rather just off it …”

  “That’s right, madam. I can assure you it is —”

  “I’m not interested in the sales talk, thanks. What’s the price?”

  Nan didn’t hesitate at the steep figure Moorland gave. “Have the deed of sale drawn up immediately,” Nan said. “I’ll write you out a check.”

  She pulled off her gloves and Moorland found himself gazing fascinatedly at her hands. Dead white they were, superbly manicured, but totally bloodless. Except for their smoothness he could have said they were the hands of a corpse.

  “I have not much time,” Nan said, looking up momentarily from writing the check.

  “Eh? Oh, I’m sorry.” Moorland came to himself with a start, busied himself with the details of the deed. Within ten minutes, bar the official stamping, the negotiation was complete.

  Moorland studied the check. “Is the name — Dawlish?” he asked finally.

  “Nancy Dawlish,” Nan acknowledged. “Heard it before?”

  “Somewheres, I think …” Moorland shrugged. “Not that it matter
s. I’ll get you the keys …”

  He brought them over from a pegged board and held them out. Nan said briefly,

  “Drop them on the desk, please.”

  Staring at her he complied, then his jaw sagged a little as he noticed something. In reaching for them Nan’s costume sleeve brushed the fresh sweet peas on top of the desk. For some incredible reason they all turned black, then wilted into dryness. It was the most astounding thing Moorland had ever seen. Nan had seen it too and frowned in annoyance at herself. Then she straightened up and put the keys in her handbag. Her voice was quite composed.

  “Thanks, Mr. Moorland. There is just one other thing …”

  “Yes?” he whispered, staring at her in sober wonderment.

  “If anybody should inquire as to my whereabouts — though I don’t altogether expect it — you know nothing of me.”

  “Yes, yes, madam — of course. But look, can’t I show you round the villa —?”

  “Thank you, no. I’ve seen it already through the windows … Good morning.”

  Again Moorland found his proffered hand ignored, but as he pulled the door open for Nan, her fingers, reaching for the knob, inadvertently touched his wrist. With a terrific effort he mastered a scream, smiled her out from a deadly pale face.

  When he looked at his wrist a moment later the back of it had three white spots where she had touched him — spots ice cold to the tapping of his other hand. Ice cold and without feeling. He stared after her as she went down the pathway, then his gaze swung to the dead sweet peas … Suddenly he realized he was wet with perspiration. Death had come into his little office this morning —

  *

  Within three days Nan had her villa duly furnished and fitted out, and everywhere she had been her strange manner and deliberate avoidance of contacting anybody had been noticeable. Only when at last she had settled in the place and locked the doors on the outer world did she feel safe, and for that matter able to fully analyze the strange sensation that had been governing her ever since her recovery from the initial paralysis. To Bouncer she summed things up, and with a solemn black face he sat and listened.

  “Bouncer, I think we know now what the Martians meant, don’t we?” she whispered, stroking his head and staring moodily out of the window onto the countryside. “Only you and I can touch each other and still live — but to other living things, human, animal, or vegetable, we’re deadliest poison … We’re outcasts, Bouncer. Eternal but damned!”

  She smiled faintly. “Odd to think that we can live forever — and yet because of that very fact we must never touch anybody, never contact a living thing. But because we suffer from the same thing we’re immune from each other …” Nan’s face saddened as she thought of Ron. “Never, never must I see him again, Bouncer. That would mean his death …”

  She stopped, reflecting. Once again she was swept by unfathomable emotions, those same emotions she had noticed so often lately. At first, upon her initial recovery from the paralysis, they had been unformed stirrings in her consciousness—dim, complex glimpses of a vast and overwhelming science. As she had been then, terrified at her physical condition, it had signified but little — but now she had realized the crushing fact that she and Bouncer were eternal outcasts in a world of the living she felt it was imperative to encourage these enigmatic conceptions struggling to be born.

  Perhaps a heritage of some kind — a Martian heritage? As yet she did not know. The main obsession in her mind at the moment was to determine why she was eternal, and if possible find a way to neutralize the terrifying bequest. Eternality, at the price of bringing death to everything else that lived, was the cruelest, most terrible of jests. If it came to that, why did she bring death to those that lived if her heritage was eternal life?

  Her thoughts moved on to the realization that she needed a laboratory. If indeed eternity was her heritage, there were many scientific occupations with which she would have to fill up her lonely life.

  Turning, she picked up the telephone directory, looked up the numbers of the nearest construction companies.

  *

  For nearly two weeks after the death of Clay Reynolds, which Ron had not the least doubt had been deliberately engineered — though it was impossible for him to find the exact culprit — there was a continuous series of mysterious happenings which came close to driving Ron to distraction.

  In the first space ship factory that was under construction there was constant sabotage and bad workmanship. Time and again steel girders collapsed without warning, bringing a gradually mounting death roll among the workers. This in turn precipitated unrest, and in some cases blank refusal to work at all. Desperately Ron argued with the men but got little satisfaction; nor was it a matter that he could refer to the State, for the workers had powerful labor combines on their side who fully supported their complaints.

  On top of this things began to go wrong with the transports. One half of them found their gasoline tanks full of “treated” spirit. The great storage tanks were immediately examined and found to be full of doctored fuel.

  Bitter, grim, Ron sent for the works manager. He had taken the place vacated by the highly efficient Clay and Ron had felt at the initial interview that he was the right man for the task — big, husky, genial, intelligent …

  He looked rather puzzled as he faced the haggard Ron across the desk.

  “Look here, Benson, where did you buy that latest consignment of steel?” Ron demanded.

  “Why, from Rolinac’s Syndicate, sir.”

  Ron leaped up. “What! What the devil do you mean by taking things into your own hands in this fashion? Didn’t I give you implicit instructions to get all steel from Meredith’s?”

  Benson was silent, his square jaw firming.

  “And the gasoline?” Ron barked. “That, I suppose you got from Meadows’ Oil Company?”

  Benson shrugged. “Only because they’re both the biggest men in the business. So I thought —”

  “Your job is to act, not think! You’d better come clean, Benson, and admit that you’re in the employ of Calver Doone — that you are here with the express intention of trying to wreck my space ship projects. That’s right, isn’t it?” Ron reached out and caught the works’ manager by the lapel of his overall.

  “Okay, it’s right.” He grinned cynically. “And we’re making a pretty good job of it, aren’t we?”

  Ron snatched his hand away. “Get out!” he blazed. “And stay out!”

  Benson shrugged, then with a grim smile silently departed. For a moment or two Ron glared at the closed door bitterly, then sat down again at his desk. For several minutes he sat thinking, brows down, faced with ticklish problems. The worries connected with trying to start his space ship factories were legion — but back of his mind was a greater anxiety — the peculiar silence of Nan after her promise to send him further word.

  So thick and fast had his troubles piled upon him he had hardly noticed the lapse of time. Surely she must have found an hotel by now? Two weeks! That she hadn’t sent him a single word or even phoned him was the oddest thing out. More, it was alarming. Perhaps a matter for the police —

  “Excuse me, Mr. Dawlish —”

  “Well, what is it?” He looked up with a start as a clerk came in.

  “There’s a Mr. Doone to see you, sir —”

  “Calver Doone!”

  “Do you mind so much, Mr. Dawlish?” Doone himself came in behind the clerk, hands clasped tightly behind his back. He only unclasped them to take off his hat and gloves.

  “You can get out,” he said, to the hesitant clerk.

  “That might apply just as well to you, Doone,” Ron said, glaring at him.

  Doone’s response was to sit down. He leaned back in the chair with an acid smile.

  “Suppose we get down to business, Mr. Dawlish? I think that there is little doubt that I have you just where I want you.”

  “Yeah?” Ron gave a grim smile. “Killing off Clay Reynolds and fixing a phony works’
manager isn’t the end of the world, Doone.”

  Doone was silent while he lighted a cigarette.

  “I was lucky enough to find out about your phony dealing in time,” Ron went on savagely. “Inside two hours I’ll have my own steel company — Meredith’s — back on the job, and my tanks will be emptied and filled with first-grade gasoline.”

  “Somehow,” Doone said calmly, “I think you’re going to be disappointed.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “I realized that I left too many loopholes before, my friend. There were too many independent sources from which you could buy steel and oil, too many sources from which to get the resources for space ship building. So I decided it would be worth my while to use every influence I possess to secure controlling interests in all concerns likely to be of use to you. I confess it has been an expensive job, but well worth the investment. By tomorrow at the latest the final ratification of a giant merger will take place.”

  “By God, Doone, if you mean —”

  “I mean, Mr. Dawlish, that you are powerless!” the financier snapped. “Though the final signature will not be given until tomorrow the merger is in force and you cannot get away from its influence! Oil, steel, and base metal industries are nominally unchanged so far as outside orders are affected — but where your contracts are concerned special attention will be given. Do I make myself clear?”

  Doone leaned forward and slapped a thin hand on the desk. “You are cornered, Dawlish! You will only get the right materials and smoothly executed contracts when you cooperate with me — not until! And it isn’t just me that you are fighting now but the commercial dictators of the day.”

  “Of which you are the supreme one,” Ron breathed, clenching his fists. “Everybody knows you are pretty well the master mind that tells Wall Street what to do. Well, you’re not getting that formula of mine! I’ll get through if I have to drill for my own gasoline, mine my own ores, and build the factories nail by nail. I didn’t brave a space ship journey to Mars just to hand the formula to you. When a Space Corporation comes into being I will be the President of it. Make no mistake!”