“Can’t you revive him again?” she asked.
“No use trying the ammonia yet. It seems to have too great a reaction and sends him into a deeper sleep. We’ll have to wait till he comes to himself for a moment naturally. You know what it is now, don’t you?”
She nodded. “And I found it out, curiously, only from the dictionary. I looked up the word ‘assassin,’ and found that it came from Hashashin or hashish eater. Then I looked up about the Old Man of the Mountain who used to drug his followers with bhang till they would commit any crime, and that led me, of course, to Cannabis Indica, or Indian hemp, and I found out all about the effects of hashish.”
“Yes, I thought these amateur assassins were innocent enough, only a club to experiment with hashish; for with a moderate dose the sensations are wonderful, and well worth trying, but there’s more in this than that. What is Beimer up to? That’s what I want to know.”
“Is he really unconscious now?” Valeska asked, watching the prostrate form of the lieutenant as he lay flushed and breathing, but otherwise inert.
“Not really. He may be dimly aware that we are here; but his will is gone. He won’t speak until he rises to the level of volition again. It’s a sort of double consciousness, a rhythmic process of alternate sinking into apathy, where he sees visions, and rising into full consciousness when he can talk for a moment. I wish I knew what dose he had. The intervals are about three minutes. I tried hashish when I was in college; but I took such an overdose the last time that I have dreaded to use it again.”
The lieutenant now began to mutter, as if talking in his sleep. “I’m tottering on the tops of tall pendulums.… The world is full of spiralated mucilages… lovely color.… In a tunnel now, twisting, turning, violet, green, orange… floating… floating like a spirit… tops of tropic trees… ”
Suddenly he gasped and sat up, staring hard at them. “What did I say? What was it? Quick! Before I go off again! I was saying something.”
“Find the drawer,” Astro suggested, leaning to him.
“Draw—draw—What was it? Drawings!” he exclaimed. “Beimer wants the drawings! For God’s sake, help me! I’m losing it again! Drawings! What is it about drawings?”
“Where did you put them?”
“Drawings! Yes. Un-der the—mat—” His eyes closed.
Astro tried again. “Under the mat in the little room?”
The lieutenant stared stupidly. “I forget. Mat—that meant something. I can’t get it. Wait till I come up again.… All snaky now, like live wires… pink and green… Ah!” The rest was inaudible.
The moment he had again succumbed to the effects of the drug Astro sprang to the window. He paused there to say sharply:
“Beimer is trying to get some of the lieutenant’s navy drawings, that’s evident, and has given Cameron a big dose of hashish to keep him quiet till the papers can be found. I think Cameron must have suspected it, and has hidden the blue-prints or whatever they are. I’m going to go through that bedroom and see if they’re under the mat. You wait here. He is likely to be unconscious for two or three minutes more now, and I’ll just have time.” With that, he had leaped out on the roof and was off.
The lieutenant still muttered in a whisper so low that Valeska could make out nothing. She went to the window just as Astro reappeared.
“No mat, nothing but a carpet. Beimer must have got away with them. You’ll have to get after him, Valeska, while I pull the lieutenant through. If I know anything about hashish, he’s had a terrific dose, and is going to have the worst case of nausea he ever had in his life. I took a look at those hashish sandwiches—they were fairly loaded with the stuff. His first voyage wasn’t a circumstance to the seasickness he’ll have in about half an hour. You get right out to Beimer’s place and see what you can do with him!”
As Valeska threw on her furs, the lieutenant was beginning to rouse again. As she slipped out of the door and ran down-stairs, he sat up on the bed, his eyes glassy, his fists clenched. The effort he was making to gain possession of his mental faculties was evident in his writhing mouth and wild staring eyes.
“What was it?” he demanded.
“It’s all right,”’ said Astro. “Beimer has the drawings; but we’ll get them for you.” He turned for the glass of water on the table.
The lieutenant clutched his arm in a fierce grip. “Gods!” he cried. “Help me! The papers were secret plans for fire control. Man, it’s ruin for me!”
“You must drink this, first of all,” Astro replied, holding the glass to the man’s lips. “It’s an emetic. We must get this hemp out of your stomach before you can recover.”
It was too late. The lieutenant dropped back, now as rigid as a marble statue, only his wild eyes moving. He spoke painfully through his clenched teeth.
“Oh, God!” he murmured. “Take it away! I can’t drink it! I’m going through hell!” His brow was furrowed with tense lines as he fought with the deathly nausea that was working in him.
Astro put down the glass and waited. It was evident that nothing could help now, and the drug which had thoroughly impregnated the man’s system must work off its own effects.
“It works so—so fast… All black now… Oh, God!… I’m afraid!… Afraid… ” He began to moan.
“You’re all right; there’s no danger. You’re just a little sick, that’s all.”
“I’m dying! It’s no use… Tell Violet… I’m dead… Don’t you see, man? I’m dead already… The world is full of spiralated mucilages—that’s the inner secret of Death—spiral… I’m whirling through space… Dead!”
Astro smiled. It was, he knew, a common symptom of an overdose of Cannabis Indica. There was, as he said, no danger. He waited for the crisis, attending to his patient like a trained nurse. For a while the moaning continued; then Cameron began to curse wildly, like a man with the delirium tremens. Then of a sudden he sat up in bed, and the convulsion came. His outraged stomach revolted at the burden it had to bear. During this Astro waited on him kindly, and when the active stage of nausea had passed he laid the lieutenant back on the bed and waited till he sank into a natural sleep. Then he took a small book from his pocket and began to read.
For half an hour he read the little volume of the Morte d’ Arthur; for another half-hour he sat in a brown study, his eyes fixed on the pattern in the worn carpet. There was a zigzag figure in it which resembled the letter M.
The lieutenant moaned in his sleep, and felt under his bed mechanically with one hand. Astro’s eyes followed him.
Then, with his face suddenly illumined, he rose quietly, threw up the window, and passed out on the roof. In less than five minutes he returned with a smile on his lips. He took up the book again and began reading.
* * * *
It was after midnight when Valeska returned in great disappointment. She took off her coat and looked sadly at the lieutenant, who was now sleeping peacefully.
“It was no use,” she said. “Herr Beimer wasn’t in, and no one knew when to expect him. I waited as long as I dared; for I hated to come back unsuccessful.”
“It was too bad I was so stupid as to send you away out there,” said Astro quietly. “I should have taken time to think it over, first. It came to me an hour after you had left. Here are the blue-prints, safe and untouched.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed joyously. “Did he tell you where they were after I left?”
“No, before you left. Didn’t you hear him?”
“Under the mat? But I thought you looked and found none there.”
“My dear,” said Astro, with a whimsical expression on his face, “you should learn to concentrate, to focus your subconscious mind upon itself. The psychic state of receptivity—”
“Oh, bother!” Valeska exclaimed. “Where were they, if they weren’t under the mat?”
“Under the mattress,” he answered.
The lieutenant sat up, now fully recovered, and looked at the two. Astro handed him the blue-prints. He grasped them exultantly. For a while he lay weakly looking at them, saying nothing. Astro put on his overcoat and helped Valeska into her wraps. Just before he opened the door, he turned and said:
“I don’t think I need give you any advice, Lieutenant. Go to sleep now, and you’ll be all right in the morning. If you have gone through what I did the last time I was an ‘assassin,’ there is no danger of your ever trying it again. I think that Miss Mannering needn’t know about this, certainly I shall not tell her.”
“What does she know? Did she send you to help me?” the lieutenant asked anxiously.
“She asked my advice, that’s all. Unfortunately she saw the name ‘Assassins’; but I think you can explain that easily enough, if you don’t care to confess the truth.”
“How can I explain it?” Cameron said thoughtfully.
“Why, tell her that the club met to kill—time,” said Astro, “and that at that you are a tolerably successful assassin.”
MR. CLACKWORTHY TELLS THE TRUTH, by Christopher B. Booth
Mr. Amos Clackworthy, glancing up from a sheaf of papers which littered the rosewood table in the center of the big living room, smiled. Tilting back in his chair, he lighted one of his expensive cigars, and waited for the outraged monologue which he knew was to follow. It was given without invitation.
“Eighteen seeds for these kicks yesterday—and look at ’em!” exploded James Early. “Cast an eye on ’em; look like they’d been in a battle royal with a couple of hayrakes. You’d think I’d been tryin’ to kick down th’ door of th’ sub-treasury.”
“Let me try my hand at deduction, James,” chuckled Mr. Clackworthy. “My first guess would be that you have ridden home on a surface car during the rush hour.”
“Yeah,” agreed The Early Bird sourly, “all th’ strap-hangers must wear iron cleats on their gunboats; a sardine can is a forty-acre field alongside them street snails.”
Mr. Clackworthy nodded gravely.
“Sit down, James. You will be pleased to know that we are about to capitalize the city’s transportation shortcomings.”
The Early Bird’s gloom disappeared in the sunshine of a spacious smile, as he realized that the master confidence man had designs upon some improperly chaperoned bank account; that they were about to plunge into the exciting whirl of another of Mr. Clackworthy’s delectable adventures.
“Maybe I don’t getcha, but th’ old bean gets th’ notion that you’re gonna grab some coin from th’ sandbag artists what makes th’ long sufferin’ public dig down for eight Lincolns for th’ priv’lege of havin’ their shoes massaged by their fellow passengers. Do I go to th’ head of th’ class?”
“I regret to say that you have guessed wrong, James. Nothing would, I assure you, give me more undiluted pleasure than to coat my fingers with glue, and dip them into the treasure chest of the so-called street-car barons. Possibly we may at some future time devise ways and means of realizing that laudable ambition, but at present no plan presents itself.”
The Early Bird sighed regretfully and again gazed sadly at his mutilated shoes.
“It’s cheaper to ride in taxicabs,” he mourned. Mr. Clackworthy reproved him with a glance; he liked undivided attention when he was about to outline one of his schemes.
“Speak th’ piece, boss; don’t you see my ears quiverin’?” apologized The Early Bird.
“James, I do not believe that any one will deny that the city’s transportation is wholly inadequate. The surface and elevated lines themselves admit it; the population has grown beyond them. High costs of construction preclude any plans of extension, because the banks refuse to accept present inflated values as a fair basis.”
“Shoot lower,” pleaded The Early Bird. “You are three syllables beyond my range.”
“There has been considerable agitation for a subway,” pursued Mr. Clackworthy, “but a ‘tube’ is expensive even in normal times; and now, with labor and material costs sky-high, no popular-priced fare would permit a subway company to pay the interest on its bonds. The subway plan has been rejected as financially unfeasible.”
“You mean th’ nickel-grabbers couldn’t drag in enough jack t’ keep th’ subway out of hock?” paraphrased The Early Bird.
“Precisely, James. The popular demand, as you know, is for a five-cent fare. The city administration has been struggling with all sorts of schemes, municipal ownership being most prominently mentioned, to keep the fare within a nickel.
“Several months ago, you may recall, there was considerable publicity given to the proposed monotrack system which is used in some of the European cities.”
“I gotcha,” agreed The Early Bird. “I seen th’ pictures in th’ papers. A car hangin’ up in th’ air on a wire rope—sort of reminded me of th’ stunt we used to play when I was a kid in Allen’s Alley. We used to give th’ cat a ride by slidin’ a basket along ma’s clothesline.”
Mr. Clackworthy chuckled.
“A bit like that, perhaps, James,” he admitted. “But to get to the point, the strong feature of the monotrack system was the small cost of construction. The single track would be suspended by the support of an iron framework, the power being supplied by the third-rail system. It would mean much less expense in securing right of way, as much less space would be needed. The heavy roadbed required by the elevated would be unnecessary, and the streets would not be darkened by overhead track structure, simply iron posts at the curbing to support the overhanging rail.”
“Why don’t they go ahead and build it?” demanded The Early Bird. “With shoes costing eighteen beanos and—”
“The city administration was much in favor of the plan, and even went so far as to grant a franchise to the Monotrack Transit Company,” interrupted Mr. Clackworthy. “The company was incorporated for two hundred thousand dollars—just for preliminary organization, you know, and its prospects were so bright that the stock sold for par, and went quite readily, too.
“But you can’t float a company on optimism and a franchise, James; when the big bankers turned down the scheme, the price of Monotrack tumbled to ten dollars a share and no takers.
“James, I propose that you and I revive poor, dying Monotrack, as it lies at the door of the stock market, gasping its last.”
The Early Bird’s eyes bulged.
“Great Goshen!” he exclaimed. “You mean your gonna build a car line!”
“How you do jump at conclusions, James. I didn’t say that I intended to build a monotrack system—I am merely going to revive the stock.”
“I getcha,” grinned The Early Bird. “You ain’t gonna build it, you’re just gonna make some of these rich birds think you’re gonna build it.”
“Yes, that’s what I propose to have them think—about one hundred thousand dollars worth,” said Mr. Clackworthy.
II.
Mrs. Clara Cartwright was a sweet but not nearly so trusting a woman as she had been six months before. The reason for her recently developed skepticism regarding the sincerity of mankind reposed carelessly in a bureau drawer of her modest home. Four highly engraved and very prosperous looking stock certificates showed her to be the possessor of two thousand shares of stock in the Monotrack Transit Company.
She had come into possession of this stock upon the payment of sixty thousand dollars in cash, which was every cent that her deeply lamented husband had left her through the medium of a life insurance policy, to smooth the rocky road of otherwise impoverished widowhood. She had purchased the stock upon the advice of Cyrus Prindivale, president of the Suburban Trust Company, who had been her husband’s banker and who, naturally enough, became her trusted business adviser.
Cyrus Prindivale was a moneymaker,
attesting to the soundness of his business judgment; but, the vital point which Mrs. Cartwright overlooked was that Mr. Prindivale was quite in the habit of counting his gain, while some one else was tabulating corresponding loss. The suburban banker, to be extremely charitable, was not governed by any exalted rules of ethics, and, except for the rich cloak of respectability that he had wrapped about him, one might have been tempted to charge, in the plainest of words, that he was a crook. Other bankers and business men were accustomed to scrutinize carefully the commas, semicolons, and periods of all papers and documents which involved them in any sort of transaction with Mr. Prindivale.
The financial genius of the somewhat fashionable suburb had been one of the prime movers in the organization of the Monotrack Transit Company. As new corporations are allowed twenty percent of their capital for the floating of their stock and organization purposes, Mr. Prindivale had purchased two thousand shares at a generous discount. It had, in fact, cost him only twenty dollars per share, while others not in on the ground floor, were forced to write their checks for its par value of a hundred dollars.
For a time Mr. Prindivale shared the optimism of the scheme’s other promoters, that Monotrack was going to be a bonanza, but his shrewd little gimletlike eyes, accustomed to looking considerable distances into the future, soon saw the handwriting of the city’s big financiers across the resplendent, gilt-sealed Monotrack certificates, and he read: “Nothing doing.”
At almost precisely the same moment he recalled the sixty thousand dollar balance on the books of his bank, to the credit of Mrs. Clara Cartwright, the full amount of her check from the life insurance company. The very same day Mrs. Cartwright, in her widow’s weeds, happened into the bank, and Mr. Prindivale, in his soft, suave voice, painted a glowing and enticing picture of the wealth that was to be made out of Monotrack Transit. So cleverly did he bait his gold hook that Mrs. Cartwright was pleading with him to be allowed to invest.
The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ™: 28 Classic Tales Page 161