Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  “Very peculiar,” I said. “Was it just around your ship that you noticed it?” He looked at me in surprise.

  “That’s right. It was just like we were a flying lightning rod, attracting every bolt that appeared in the sky right smack to us.”

  I stood there undecided. It didn’t really make sense. But there was probably some very obvious scientific explanation of the phenomena. I might have stood there talking to the fellow until I had really gotten interested in his story, but just at that minute a startled, horrified squawk sounded behind me.

  I turned and saw that the bleat had originated from the little fellow who had been checking the list of the plane’s cargo when I arrived.

  He was staring in undiluted horror at the list in his hand and from his mouth were issuing incoherent gasps of dismay.

  “What’s the trouble?” I asked.

  “This is absolutely terrible,” he moaned. “I’ve never done a thing like this in all the years I’ve been working here. It’s the first blot on a blameless record.”

  “What is?” I asked.

  “I got two shipments mixed,” he explained breathlessly. “I gave the delegates from Ussar the wrong package and I gave Professor Stiles the package which the delegates were expecting.”

  “That was the gavel wasn’t it?” I asked hopefully.

  The little shipping clerk nodded miserably.

  “The Professor has the gavel now and has probably taken it back to the University by this time.” He paused to swallow and wring his hands together helplessly. “I shall never, never live this down. If it weren’t such an important matter it wouldn’t be so tragic.”

  He stopped suddenly and peered quickly about. The grease monkeys and the pilot had disappeared. My cab driver was parked out of earshot.

  After his careful inspection he breathed relievedly.

  “This just has to be kept under cover,” he whispered to me in a conspiratorial tone. It wouldn’t do to let the papers get hold of this.”

  I nodded seriously.

  “You’re absolutely right,” I said, “it just wouldn’t do.”

  I turned then and trotted over to my cab and climbed in.

  “University,” I snapped to the driver.

  The little man followed me bewilderedly.

  “W—who are you?” he asked tremulously.

  I smiled out of the cab window.

  “Delaney of the Standard,” I said sweetly. “Toodle-oo.”

  The little fellow collapsed quietly as the cab shot off toward the University.

  I DIDN’T really have a story, at least not one to get excited about, but I could do a yarn on the mix-up at the airport that would satisfy the boss. I’d have to get the facts from the Professor, find out what he had been expecting, what he thought when he discovered the mistake, etc.

  We drew up in front of the University a few minutes later and I paid the cabby and dismissed him. The University grounds flanked the new army training camp and I headed for a cluster of ivy-clad buildings which were just a few hundred feet from rows of canvas tents. By asking a few students I learned that Professor Stiles had just returned from the airport, was probably now working in the physics building over there.

  I thanked my informants and walked over to the building. Inside I followed a corridor until I came to an open door that led into a magnificently equipped laboratory. Standing next to a wide lab table in the center of the room was a tall, spare old man with straight white hair and keenly bright blue eyes.

  “Pardon me,” I said, “but I just wanted—”

  “Sssssshh,” he hissed. “I’m busy. Come back tomorrow. Or next week.”

  I saw then that he was holding a peculiarly-shaped hammer in his hand and peering intently at it. I guessed it must be the Ussarian good-will gavel.

  “Kind of surprised to find that, weren’t you?” I asked.

  Considering his age he wheeled on me with surprising alacrity.

  “Do you know something about this?” he demanded excitedly.

  “A little,” I told him. “It was shipped in from Ussar and is to be presented to the Senate in special ceremonies tonight to be used as a good-will gavel.”

  The Professor peered at the gavel in his hand and then back at me.

  “This is positively incredible,” he murmured. “I wouldn’t believe it unless I saw it myself. There is only one more thing necessary to make me positive that my conclusions are correct.”

  “What conclusions?” I asked blankly-

  “Wait here,” he said imperatively, disregarding my question. He laid the gavel carefully on the desk. “See that no one disturbs this. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  He bobbed his head at me and scuttled from the room like an excited crab.

  I SHRUGGED and picked up the hammer. It was curiously designed with a large, blunt mallet and a short staff. It was surprisingly light. I wondered why the Professor had gotten so excited about it. I was growing more disgusted by the minute on the prospects of getting a decent story from this business. Everything so far had merely been a welter of confusion and mixup.

  I noticed then something that irritated me as much as anything that happened all day. On the wall that faced the army camp was a picture hung at a screwy crooked angle. For some psychological reason I am nervously allergic to crooked pictures.

  I strode across the room and straightened the picture with a jerk. But I used a little more strength than judgment and the nail holding the picture pulled out of the plaster. I swore under my breath, picked up the nail from the floor and jabbed it back into the plaster. It stuck, but in such a wobbly fashion that I knew it wouldn’t hold.

  I was holding the good-will gavel in my hand and I decided to use it for a hammer. One little tap or two certainly wouldn’t hurt it. I raised it, drew a nice careful bead on the nail head and swung.

  But something went wrong. Some power other than the muscles of my arm hurled the hammer at the wall with tremendous speed. I had one kaleidoscopic view of the hammer head speeding past my eyes so fast that it registered as gray blur. There seemed to be mighty forces swirling around me.

  Then the hammer hit the wall.

  Instantly a tremendous blasting roar shook the foundation of the building and I felt the floor tremble under my feet.

  The effect of the explosion was devastating. The entire side of the building seemed to be blasted outward from the force of the detonation.

  I felt myself lifted bodily from the ground and hurled backward like a straw in a gale. Even while I was flying through the air I managed somehow to keep my eyes open, keep from losing consciousness. Through the heavy fog of brick dust and particles of stone I saw in one panoramic glance that a huge ragged hole had been torn through the heavy wall. In that one hectic instant of awareness I could see the army tents through the terrible demolition of the side of the lab.

  Then I struck the opposite wall with a bone-wrenching thud and fell to the floor. Plaster cascaded down on me in a thick white stream and delicate apparatus suspended from the walls and ceiling crashed about me with a jangling roar.

  A few moment after the crescendo of noise I could hear the thin wail of sirens growing to a full-throated scream. Voices from the hallway joined in the babel of sound. I tried to struggle to a sitting position, but something like a knife blade twisted in my shoulder and I must have passed out.

  THE next thing I remember strong arms were dragging me out of the debris of the demolished laboratory. Then I was deposited on a canvas stretcher and carried from the building. As I was being lugged down the steps I saw something that made me forget the pain in my shoulder. Maybe I was delirious, but I don’t think so.

  Out of the white sky I saw two jagged forks of brilliant lightning drive into the wrecked laboratory like two mighty golden swords. I struggled frantically to a sitting position, but one of the stretcher orderlies grabbed me and shoved me back.

  Everything swam for an instant and the next thing I was aware of was being slid i
nto a police ambulance. Before the doors slammed I saw one other thing that jarred me back into consciousness.

  A huge black car had rolled to the curb and stopped. From the tonneau jumped three heavily-whiskered, black-coated men. One of them showed an official card to a guard and then all three of them raced past the police lines and into the building which housed the demolished lab.

  I did a blackout then—

  WHEN I came to, I looked around and found myself in surroundings which were not exactly unfamiliar to me. I was in jail. I was lying on a narrow cot and above me I could see that the rays of the sun were sliced by a barred window. Turning my head I saw a door of barred steel. I sighed fatalistically. Moving my shoulder experimentally I discovered that the ache was gone, and that outside of a foggy sensation of bewilderment I felt as good as new.

  As my memory went back to work, a torrent of annoying questions flooded my brain. I sat up on the side of the bed and fumbled for a cigarette, but I couldn’t find any in my pockets. The most nagging question of all was what had caused the explosion in the lab? I remembered the peculiar sensation of losing control over the gavel as I swung it. As if some all-powerful hand had grabbed it from me just at that instant. It had seemed as if the blow of the gavel had been responsible for the destruction of the wall, but of course that was silly. What had probably occurred was that just as I swung the gavel the explosion happened, and I had imagined that one was a result of the other.

  That, of course, was stupid. How could a five- or six-pound hammer knock a wall down? Another thing occurred to me then. Had I been suffering delusions when I saw those two huge bolts of orange lightning blasting about the lab? I stretched back on the cot and tried to stop thinking about the incident. It was a scrambled, distorted nightmare from the start to finish and I wanted no more of it.

  With this fine resolution I closed my eyes and tried to doze. But before I could even start counting chorus girls another question popped into my head. A question that jerked me upright on the cot, and started icy beads of sweat all over my body.

  What was I doing in jail?

  I was no criminal! I hadn’t committed any crimes!

  I climbed angrily to my feet and shouted lustily for the guard. Who did they think they were pushing around? More things were popping into my head now. I had a story to do on the Ussarian good-will gavel and it was a cinch I’d never get it stewing in the local bastille.

  A guard, heavy set and belligerent, appeared at the door.

  “Whaddaya want?” he growled.

  “I want to get out of this fire trap.” I yelled.

  “Calm down,” he sneered. “You’ll be using more birthday candles when they do let you out.”

  “What do you mean?” I said uneasily.

  “You’re in for sabotage,” he snapped. “For trying to rub out that new training station next to the college. You’ll get a trial and I hope you get it—right in the neck!”

  I SAGGED down on the bed. What a sweet mess I’d stumbled into. Locked away as a saboteur, probably slated for a nice comfortable bunk at Alcatraz. I experienced a growing sense of outrage and indignation, but before I could do anything concrete about it two more guards appeared, dragging between them the excited, trembling figure of Professor Stiles.

  They unlocked the door of my cell and shoved him in, then slammed and locked the door again.

  “You stupid fools!” he shouted. He was trembling with anger and humiliation, and his blue eyes were gleaming frostily. “Can’t you see I’m telling the truth? If I am not released immediately drastic, terrible things may happen to important members of our government.”

  One guard shrugged and tapped his forehead meaningly. Then they both moved off shaking their heads.

  The Professor turned and saw me for the first time.

  “Who are you?” he demanded. Then recognition dawned in his eyes. “Y—you’re the man I’ve been looking for. You’re the man who came into my laboratory just before the explosion.”

  “That’s right,” I nodded.

  There was suddenly a pleading, desperate look in the old Professor’s eyes. He grabbed both my lapels with thin, veined hands in an imploring gesture.

  “Where is the hammer?” he gasped. “You’ve got to tell me. You must know.”

  I took him by the arms and shoved him gently down on the cot.

  “Take it easy,” I said. “I don’t know where the hammer is for sure, but my guess is that the Ussarian legation has it safe in their legation now. What makes you so worried about that?”

  “Listen to me, boy,” the Professor said weakly. He drew a deep shuddering breath before he went on. “That hammer is as dangerous, more dangerous in fact, than a thousand pounds of dynamite. Its destructive potentialities are practically unlimited. It is made double dangerous and vicious by the fact that its destructive power can be brought about by accident, as it did when you used it.”

  “Now, take it easy,” I said unbelievingly. “You’ll have me believing that I actually did knock that wall out with a blow of the hammer.”

  “My boy,” the Professor said with desperation in his voice, “that’s exactly what did happen. After the accident I searched the laboratory thoroughly but I could not find a trace of the hammer. Now you say the Ussarian legation has it. Why should they have it? Why do they want it? How did they get it from the laboratory?”

  His last question jogged my memory to something I had forgotten. As I was being tossed into the ambulance I had seen three be-whiskered figures—obviously from the Ussarian legation—pile out of an embassy car and dash into the demolished lab. That explained the mystery of the disappearing gavel. That is if you could call it a mystery. The hirsute gentlemen from the Ussarian embassy certainly had a right to the gavel, inasmuch as they shipped it over three continents to get it here in time for the presentation.

  I LOOKED closely at the Professor.

  I was beginning to feel that he was out of place in a jail. He belonged in a mental ward.

  He was looking at me beseechingly, desperately.

  “Why,” he repeated again, “does the Ussarian legation want that hammer? You must tell me.”

  “Okay,” I said patiently, “I’ll talk. The Ussarian government, as a gesture of friendliness and good will, is presenting that gavel to the United States Senate tonight. It will be used to bring the Senate to order, then to discuss the passage of the new war-aid bill.”

  The Professor clapped both hands to his head in despair and from his lips issued a dismayed moan.

  “My boy,” he cried frantically, “I see the whole diabolic picture now. It is a devilishly clever, horribly simple scheme. We must stop them. We must!”

  “Stop them from doing what?” I asked dubiously.

  Professor Stiles wiped his forehead with a trembling hand and seemed to be making an effort to steady himself.

  “Listen to me, my boy,” he said slowly, “and do not stop me until I am through. What I am about to tell you will sound as utterly weird and fantastic as anything you have heard in your life, but believe me it is the absolute living truth.”

  In spite of myself I was impressed. There was an unmistakable ring of sincerity to the old duck’s voice, and an unmistakable gleam of truth and terrible earnestness in his intelligent eyes.

  “Okay,” I said, “shoot.”

  He drew another deep breath before he started to speak.

  “I was expecting a shipment of instruments today,” he said quietly, “and I met the plane to save any loss of time. You probably know that there was a mix-up at the port and that I received the wrong package. I, however, was not aware of it until I reached the lab. When I discovered the mistake I started to call the airport, but then something about the unusual hammer arrested my attention. I have made a deep and thorough study of anthropology and archeology and I was immediately impressed with the almost incredible age of the hammer.

  “Curious, I examined it carefully and discovered that the handle was actually a hollow co
mpartment which served as a repository for several sheets of ancient yellowed parchment. I took them out and was able to read a word here and there although the language they were written in belongs to a race of people who flourished thousands of years before the dawn of Egyptian civilization.” I hunched forward on the edge of the bunk. The Professor’s excitement-charged voice was contagious. My hands were clenched into fists.

  “The few words I was able to decipher,” Professor Stiles continued deliberately, “convinced me that I had accidentally stumbled on something men have dreamed of so long and so fruitlessly that it has come to be regarded as a childish myth. I checked my findings from every angle and there was not the slightest room for mistake or error in my translation. All indications pointed unswervingly to the same astounding conclusion.”

  Professor Stiles’ piercing eyes were searching mine with a steady, intent gaze as he finished speaking. I swallowed with difficulty.

  “And what conclusion was that?” I asked weakly.

  “That the good-will gavel which the Ussarian government is to present to the United States Senate tonight,” Professor Stiles said softly, “is actually the invincible Hammer of Thor, mighty thunder God of Teutonic mythology!”

  I DIDN’T know whether to laugh or not.

  The Professor must have seen the amusement in my face for he jumped to his feet excitedly.

  “You’re skeptical, of course,” he said quickly, “but listen to me a minute. You yourself experienced the terrible destructive power of that hammer a few hours ago. You saw what fury is dormant in it. The Ussarian government will stop at nothing to prevent or delay the passage of the present war-aid bill. They won’t even stop at the wholesale execution of the legislative body which will pass that bill.

  “Think! It is impossible to carry any package into the Senatorial chambers these days. What more perfect way to accomplish their end than to place a deadly instrument of destruction into the hands of the Vice-President himself.”

  Professor Stiles gripped my shoulders with both his bony hands and his eyes met mine with a simple, eloquent plea.