by Lin Carter
“I don’t get it, boss,” he admitted. “What d’you mean, you stuck a pin in everybody’s clothes?”
“You should get it, Nick,” said Zarkon with just the slightest trace of a grin. “Because it was you who taught me the magicians’ tricks of misdirection. While they were distracted by a significant question or a steady look or hand-gesture, I inserted one of these pins somewhere in their clothing. The cuff of a jacket, for instance; or the lapel of a coat; sometimes in the shoulder-padding ...”
“But what for?” asked Nick Naldini, his voice squeaking on the last word with exasperation.
“Because the head of each pin contains a miniaturized radio-sender, each tuned to a different wavelength,” said Zarkon. Nick looked blank with amazement.
“In the head of a pin?” he gasped. “Is it possible? A whole sending-set? Wow! Chief, I know you and Menlo have been working on techniques of super-miniaturizing some gadgets for months, but that really beats all!”
“Not really a sending set,” confessed Zarkon. “An energy cell like a tiny electric battery; but a cell that radiates energy in the radio frequencies. We should be able to trace the movements of any of Streiger’s servants on the location-finder. I asked Doc and Menlo to bring it in the cargo chopper; they should have it set up at Streiger’s by now,” he added grimly. “At least, let’s hope they do ... if not, all of this has been time wasted —”
He broke off as, just at that moment, a second alarm signal joined voices with the first. Zarkon regarded the pocket set with worried eyes.
“Now what’s up?” asked Nick bewilderedly.
“That means someone else has left the estate,” Zarkon said tonelessly.
“But how do you know? Wouldn’t these dang pins all be broadcasting steadily?” asked Nick querulously: radio was something beyond him. It was all the lanky ex-vaudevillian could do to change the batteries in a flashlight.
“They are all broadcasting continuously, of course,” said Zarkon. “But I installed another sender at the gatehouse which blankets and neutralizes their signal while they remain on the estate. Once one of the servants leaves the property with one of my little trick pins in his clothes, he gets out from under the blanketing effect of the sender at the gate, and his signal trips an alarm in this set I’ve been carrying.”
“I begin to get it,” Nick nodded with satisfaction. “One sweet little gadget to have, chief, when you gotta house full of murder suspects. Just sit tight and wait for the guilty party to cut and run, eh?”
“That’s about it,” smiled Zarkon. “I’m going to put through a call to Scorchy and Ace in the Vanzetti now, and tell them to come back to Streiger’s. We may need the whole team to follow these suspects, since we now have two on the move.” He dialed the mobile unit in the second car and spoke to his lieutenants, who had just concluded their interview with Dr. Ernestine Grimshaw.
As soon as he hung the phone up, it rang again.
“Zarkon speaking,” he said into the receiver. He listened intently to the voice at the other end, making no comment, then thanked his informant with a quiet word and hung up and sat there staring out into the night, frowning slightly, his brows creased with thought.
Nick glanced at his chief from time to time as he twirled the car furiously down the moonlit lanes, then voiced a rude snort. Zarkon looked up questioningly.
“You’re doin’ it again, chief,” said Nick, plaintively. “For the luvva Houdini, who was that on the phone, and what’s the latest?”
“It was Sherrinford,” said the Ultimate Man thoughtfully.
“Okay: Streiger’s butler, right? So what’s the news?” Nick prodded.
Zarkon blinked, coming out of his meditation. “I’m sorry, Nick, I was busy with my thoughts. Wondering if I had lost my knack of judging people ...”
“Why? What did Sherrinford tell you?”
“I had asked him to alert Pipkin in case anyone tried to leave the estate, for any reason. They would have to go by the gatekeeper, you understand, because there is no other exit from the estate save for the front gate, which Pipkin would have to open, since it is invariably kept locked and only he has the keys.”
“Yeah, I remember all that,” drawled Nick. “That’s why you gave Jeeves the Butler there the phone number of the mobile unit. So what did he have to say?”
“That Pei Ling, the new gardener’s boy, just rode into town on his bicycle, to get something for the gardener.”
Nick shrugged, hunched over the wheel.
“Big deal!” he snorted. “So what’s so suspicious about that? You wouldn’t expect the gardener to run his own errands for himself, wouldja? Not when he’s got a kid workin’ for him, anyway?”
“No, that’s true,” Zarkon said quietly. “On the other hand, Nick, I wouldn’t expect anyone to go into town to buy a special brand of fertilizer for orchids — not at ten o’clock at night, at least.”
Nick’s mouth fell open. He blinked stupidly; after a moment, he remembered to close it.
“Must be gettin’ dense in my old age,” he muttered shamefacedly. “You’re right, I guess. The kid’s gettin’ out of there, what with more and more men from Omega moving in all the time — if Doc and Menlo got there already, that is.”
He pursed his lips judiciously.
“Pei Ling, eh? That’s the Chinese kid, right? The one they hired just recently, isn’t he? Remember you askin’ Jeeves there which of the staff had only joined in the last few months; there was that little redhead, one of the maids, and the Chinese kid —”
“Yes. The boy was hired through the Herrolds Employment Bureau, but the maid was recommended by the State Employment Service,” Zarkon murmured.
“Um. Kid sure was young, though; chief, you think he was really the murderer?”
“Not necessarily, but it remains a possibility. The fact that he’s only a boy suggests, to my mind, that he might well have been panicked by the arrival of Doc and Menlo into so imprudent a flight. An older man would have stayed on for another week or ten days, and then quit. This way, sneaking off at night, with an excuse that is so obviously a fabrication, certainly looks suspicious.”
“Um-hmm!” Nick nodded with a wolfish leer. “It does that! Well, about time something broke on this case. ‘The game’s afoot,’ then, like they say in the Sherlock Holmes stories!”
“A-bicycle, anyway,” said Zarkon without inflection in his voice. Nick did a double-take; for Zarkon actually to make a joke was so rare as to be unheard of.
“I don’t get it, though,” the lanky magician grumbled, a moment later. “What you said back there, I mean, about wondering if you had lost your ability of judging character. Did you think Pei Ling was probably straight, then?”
“No; actually, he was the most likely suspect on the entire staff — for reasons I will give later on, when we have more time. I was referring to the second signal ... I have a list of the frequencies of the pins I attached to each of the servants, you see, and their names written down beside each frequency. So I knew who the two were even before Sherrinford called in confirming it.”
“So who was Number Two?” inquired Nick interestedly.
Zarkon looked glum. He was very seldom wrong in his estimate of a man’s trustworthiness; but maybe this was one time when he had been taken in.
“Streiger’s Hindu valet,” he admitted. “Chandra Lal. He was the other man who left the house — and without any reason at all. In fact he just pushed the gatekeeper aside, grabbed a car, and drove off with Pipkin shouting after him to stop.”
CHAPTER 10 — Following the Trail
After his conversation with Prince Zarkon in the study at Twelve Oaks, Chandra Lal returned to his cramped little room in the servants’ wing fired with a sense of mission and purpose. The Hindu valet was fiercely determined to prove himself worthy of Zarkon’s trust. Entering his quarters, he donned a dark suit of Western manufacture, although retaining his turban. Hesitating at the door for a moment, he made up his mind and crossed ov
er to his bed. From beneath the mattress Chandra Lal withdrew a long steel knife in a handsome leather sheath This weapon he secreted about his person, then left the room.
Chandra Lal was a familiar figure about the big house, and none of the servants took any particular notice of him. The hawk-faced Hindu had always kept very much to himself, seldom mingling with the other servants to any particular extent. And, as Jerred Streiger’s personal valet and bodyservant, his duties were separate and apart from those of the others who worked about the huge estate. For this reason, too, his comings and goings were unobtrusive and unnoticed.
For some time, then, Chandra Lai strolled about the property without arousing anyone’s attention or curiosity. He quietly ascertained the exact location of each and every member of the staff during these seemingly-aimless perambulations, and periodically checked back upon each person to make certain the other servants were properly employed about their ordinary routine.
When the young Chinese boy, Pei Ling, headed for the front gate some while later in the day, it was therefore Chandra Lal alone who observed the fact and found it odd. Evening had fallen, all stores in town would be closed hours ago, and the tall Hindu could think of no conceivable legitimate errand on which the gardener’s boy could possibly be bound at such an unlikely hour.
Suspicious though he was, Chandra Lal wished to check with the gardener first, before taking an action that might make him seem foolish in the eyes of Prince Zarkon. While young Pei Ling was still wheeling his bicycle toward the gatekeeper’s cottage, the Hindu tracked down old Rumford, the gardener, to inquire on the boy’s errand. He found the gardener locking up the potting shed.
“What’s that you say?” demanded Rumford puzzledly. “Errand? But I didn’t send th’ kid on no errand; not at this-here time o’ night! You crazy er sumpin, Chandra? Stores in town don’t none of ‘em stay open past nine. I’d hafta be drunker’n a skunk to send th’ kid ina town — it’s past ten aw-ready!”
Chandra Lal said nothing, but his eyes gleamed with that same fierce light that shines in the eyes of a hunting dog when he has picked up the scent of his prey. Without a word, the tall, dark-skinned man in the immaculate turban turned on his heel and sprinted down the drive for the front gate. As he reached it, old Pipkin was just closing it. The silver-haired man regarded the Hindu with bafflement.
“Why, sure, the kid just left a minute ago — headin’ that way, into town, he said. What about it — hey! You can’t take that car! Get away from there, you crazy Indian!”
There was no time for explanations, no time to be wasted in fruitless conversation. With every moment that passed, the Chinese boy was speeding down the road into the night on his bicycle. To catch up with the fleeing culprit before he made good his escape, Chandra Lai required something faster than a bicycle —
And there, parked right beside the gatekeeper’s cottage, was a battered old Ford pickup truck. The keys were still in the ignition. Pushing the old man aside, the Hindu sprang behind the wheel. With a cough and a grunt, the engine grumbled into life. Chandra Lal drove the old rattletrap out of the half-open gate and vanished down the road with Pipkin yelling after him, shaking an impotent fist in the air.
The night was dark and, thus far, at least, moonless. The tree-lined country lane curved and coiled its way through the impenetrable gloom. Nowhere ahead did Chandra Lal spy the glimmer of his headlights sheening off the tail-reflector of Pei Ling’s bicycle. He drove with grim concentration, hunched over the wheel. It was only a short trip into town, and Chandra Lal saw no slightest trace of the fleeing boy on the way.
Of course, there were many other routes the boy might have chosen, private roads that led to neighboring estates, and many a short cut the lad might have taken without Chandra Lal’s knowledge. Tooling through the streets of the town of Holmwood, which were all but deserted at this hour, Chandra Lal felt his heart sink hopelessly within his breast. Had the fleeing one in his flight already eluded his pursuer? What would the sahib think of his servant, once this failure became known? He would think that his trust had been misplaced! Chandra Lal groaned and gritted his teeth together in a grimace of desperation —
And then it was that Chandra Lal’s roving eyes espied the bicycle leaning against a fence in the parking lot in front of the Holmwood railway station. He recognized the vehicle at a glance, and with a tigerish quickness the Hindu slammed on the brakes and brought his truck to a squealing, shuddering halt.
He sprang out of the cab and ran to the tracks. The train was still there, just about to pull out of the station. Pei Ling was nowhere in sight, and Chandra Lal knew that the boy might only have abandoned his bicycle here to throw any possible pursuit off his trail. The mere fact that the bicycle was in the station lot did not prove that the boy had taken the train. For a single moment Chandra Lal hesitated in an agony of indecision. Then, trusting in Vishnu and Shiva, the loyal servant threw decision to the winds and took a wild chance. He sprinted for the train, which was already chugging underway and moving out of the station.
Springing up, the hawk-faced Hindu seized the handhold and drew himself onto the train. A startled conductor nearly jumped out of his skin when the bearded and turbaned figure with the flashing eyes materialized like an apparition out of the gloomy night.
“Hey! Gosh-a-mighty, mister, you c’d break your neck, jumping on a movin’ train that way,” the surprised conductor yelped. Then, grumblingly, “Dunno but what it’s against the law, too, dag-nabit!”
“May I inquire as to the destination of this conveyance?” inquired Chandra Lal in the deferential manner he invariably employed when speaking to sahibs in positions of official authority, and in his best Oxford-trained English. The trainman gawped, then closed his month. Mumbling something about “danged furriners,” the conductor admitted surily that they were bound for Penn Station in Knickerbocker City.
“Stops at Holmwood, Herkwell, Winster, Roslyn, Hollis, and Jamaica,” he said, rattling off the names of communities thoroughly unfamiliar to the Hindu valet. “How far you goin’, anyway?”
Chandra Lal, of course, had no way of knowing the answer to that question, so he simply said that he would continue in passage to the terminal itself.
“Hmmph. Don’t s’pose you bought yerse’f a ticket back at Holmwood station,” grumbled the other. “They never do. Dollar forty-five to Penn Station. And I ain’t got change!” Chandra Lal obligingly produced sufficient currency; grudgingly, the conductor handed him his ticket, after taking snippets out of it with his hole-puncher.
“Smokin’ car down thet way, no smokin’ up ahead,” grumbled the other, nodding in the directions he had indicated verbally.
“This person does not imbibe of tobacco,” said the Hindu keenly. “Can the estimable officer answer one question?”
“Guess so,” said the other.
“Has a young Chinese person boarded the conveyance? At Holmwood station?” asked Chandra Lal.
“Hmmph,” grunted the conductor sourly. “Can’t ‘spect a man t’ see ever’ last body gits on th’ train! ‘Sides, I ain’t been through the cars collectin’ tickets yet. Hafta find yer friend f’yourself, mister!”
Chandra Lal bowed silently and began making his way through the cars. A few youths in faded denims, wearing longish hair, dozed, using backpacks for pillows; obviously, these were college boys who had spent the weekend on the beaches of the Hamptons and were now returning to their dorms. Besides these there were a few Negro women in print dresses, slumped wearily in their seats — probably cleaning women or weekend domestic help on their way home after work. There were very few men on the train at this hour.
Chandra Lal controlled his impatience and continued to prowl the train car by car. He was careful to scrutinize each passenger without fail, and tried the doors of the washrooms as he passed them.
It was going to take a while. But Chandra Lal had all night.
Finally, just as they were pulling into the Roslyn station, the Hindu spied his quar
ry. The Chinese boy was huddled in a corner seat in front of the first car. His back was turned on Chandra Lal, so that the Hindu could not see his face. Neither could Pei Ling see the hawk-faced Hindu, either, and this was fortunate, for the Chinese youth would probably have recognized the tall, turbaned man with the coffee-colored skin and jutting nose.
Chandra Lal recognized him without difficulty from the clothing the boy wore; but just to make certain he lingered until the conductor came through this car, then asked him if the boy in the front seat had boarded the train at Holmwood station.
The conductor, a younger man than the one with whom Chandra Lai had spoken earlier, shrugged boredly. “Can’t say, mister, unless I look at his ticket. See, there it is, stuck in the little catch in back of his seat. When they get on, we punch the box with their origin printed in it, and also their destination. That way, nobody can pretend to be goin’ only one stop, and ride to the end of the line without payin’ extra.”
Chandra Lal nodded seriously. One lean brown hand dipped into his trouser pocket. When it emerged, a five-dollar bill was folded between the fingers. The young conductor regarded the bill with alert and friendly interest.
“Would you be so kind as to examine the ticket of the youth, and return here to inform me of his origin and destination?” murmured the Hindu.
“Yes, sir!” said the conductor smartly. He went down the aisle, checking tickets casually until he came to the seat in which Pei Ling reclined. The Chinese boy looked up quickly as the conductor paused by his seat to glance at his ticket.
“Is anything wrong?” the boy inquired.
“Nossir, just routine,” said the conductor brightly. “Hollis station next stop.” Turning about, he ambled back to where Chandra Lal sat hunched over, ready to duck down in case the boy looked around again. As he came to where Chandra Lal sat, the conductor bent down and whispered in a conspiratorial tone: “Got on at Holmwood, sir; goin’ all the way to Penn Station.”