“I’ll show you.”
He ted the way down the corridor to the dining-room. I noticed that the dining-room floor creaked suspiciously as we stepped on it. Leander stood in the center of the room and stared gloomily about the piled-up crates.
“This floor is about ready to go,” he said.
“What?” I cried. I jumped back into the corridor. This was getting too much for me.
“I said this floor is about ready to give way,” Leander said calmly. He pointed to the intersection of the wall and floor. “Notice how the floor has sagged? It’s dropped a full inch already. This amount of gold is pretty heavy.”
I LOOKED and saw that Leander was right. I swallowed slowly. This was serious.
“We’ve got to do something,” I said.
“Sure,” Leander said, “but what?”
“I have an idea,” I said. “Do you have any paint handy?”
“I think there’s a can or two in the pantry,” Leander answered.
“Get it,” I said crisply, “there’s no time to wait. Then call a junk man.”
My plan was simple. We could paint the top layers in the boxes and then sell it as scrap metal. It wasn’t such a hot idea but it was all I could think of. At least it would relieve the pressure on the dining-room floor and then we could think of something else.
Leander returned with the paint, a scummy shade of brown. He listened to my plan without much enthusiasm, but he agreed that it was the only thing we could do.
I phoned a scavenger company while Leander ripped the lids of the gold-filled crates. We both pitched in on the paint job and we had barely finished when the back doorbell rang.
Leander started like a flushed rabbit.
“Who’s that?”
“I’ll get it,” I said. I walked through the kitchen and opened the back door. Two large gentlemen in overalls and blue denim jumpers were standing there.
“We’re from the junk yard,” one of them said. “You got some scrap iron here?”
“Why, yes,” I said, “come right in.”
“Thanks, bud. We thought it was some kind of a gag at first. This is the first pick-up we ever made on the Gold Coast.”
I winced. Couldn’t anybody talk without mentioning gold? I began to realize how Midas must have felt.
The two men followed me into the dining-room. I felt my nerves jump as their additional bulk was added to the already over-strained floor. We made a deal in a hurry. Already another idea was sizzling in my head and I wanted to talk to Leander about it. While the men carted the crates out of the room and down the back steps, I turned this idea over and over and I could find nothing wrong with it.
When the men had gone, taking with them five of the crates and the danger of an immediate debacle had been averted, I turned excitedly to Leander.
“Our problem is solved,” I announced with a pardonable touch of drama. “You will be bothered no longer with your gold machine.” Leander’s pale eyes lit up with a spark of hope. His fingers trembled excitedly.
“What have you figured out?” he demanded.
“The simplest thing in the world,” I said. “We’re going to ship it away.”
“Ship it away!” Leander echoed. His voice was a disappointed bleat. “What good will that do?”
“It is not merely shipping it away that will solve our problem,” I said, “but where we ship the gold machine is the master stroke that will relieve us of all responsibilities.”
“Well, where are we going to ship it?”
“Fort Knox, Kentucky,” I said dramatically.
“WHAT good—” Leander stopped in the middle of the sentence and gazed at me with dawning admiration. “I see,” he murmured. “The heart of the government’s gold reserve is at Fort Knox.”
“Exactly,” I said. “They can keep this machine a secret; in fact they’ll have to. They get a steady supply of gold to add to their stock and your problem is solved.”
“You’re a genius,” Leander said fervently.
“Quite probably,” I said. “Now let’s get moving. HI phone an express company and you start crating the gold machine. I’ll be back to give you a hand in a minute.”
I strode into the front room and made the call. Then I walked back through the apartment to Leander’s laboratory. Just as I reached the door I heard a loud metallic crash within the room.
I stepped into the room and found Leander picking himself up from the floor. The gold machine was lying in a heap beside the table on which it had rested.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I stumbled,” Leander explained apologetically. “I picked up the machine and my foot slipped and I fell. I don’t think it hurt the machine.”
“Unfortunately, it probably didn’t,” I said.
I dragged an empty crate to the center of the room and, with Leander’s help, hoisted the gold machine into it. We wadded newspapers on all four sides and then nailed a top onto the crate.
“That’ll do it,” I said. “Your worries are pretty close to being over.”
We paced up and down the floor until the truck driver from the express company arrived. The machine wasn’t very heavy but the express charges came, to fourteen dollars and twenty six cents. I paid it cheerfully.
Leander and I lifted the crate to the shoulders of the expressman and he staggered down the back stairs with it, taking the gold machine out of our lives forever.
Leander was so excited and jubilant that it was positively pathetic. I felt fine too, except that I was developing what seemed to be a bad toothache. I mentioned this to Leander and he went into the laboratory to get me something for it.
He wasn’t gone more than twenty seconds before I heard his shrill shout blasting through the apartment.
I forgot my toothache and dashed toward the laboratory.
Leander was standing in the middle of the room, gazing wildly at the crates lining the wall.
“What the hell’s the matter?” I demanded.
“Look!” he pointed to the crates with a trembling finger.
I stared and my heart seemed to stop. My stomach turned a leisurely flip-flop.
For the crates were completely empty!
THE gold bars, with which the crates had been more than half-filled, had vanished into thin air.
“What happened?” I asked weakly. I had the feeling however that I would rather not know.
“I’m afraid to even guess,” Leander whispered. He stared at me, stricken and frightened. “I think the gold machine started working in reverse, decomposing the gold it had created. Maybe the fall did it.”
“You’re talking nonsense,” I said. “There’s a perfectly logical explan—”
I stopped and very slowly raised my hand to my mouth. My finger touched the tooth that had started aching. The gold filling was gone!
“I think you’re right, Leander,” I said very quietly. “Undoubtedly the gold machine is working in reverse.”
“And we sent it to Fort Knox,” he said in a tragic whisper. “‘What will happen to the twelve billions of dollars in gold the government has stored there?”
I sat down and put my head in my hands.
“If you don’t mind, Leander,” I said, “I would prefer not to think about that just now.”
“But what will the government do?” I lifted my head from my hands. I thought about that and my spirits began to rise. The greatest government in the world shouldn’t have any difficulty with this problem. Hell, they’d probably never even miss the twelve billion dollars.
THE TIRELESS LEG
First published in the November 1942 issue of Fantastic Adventures.
There was one thing about this leg—it was ambitious. It had a world of energy!
CHAPTER I
THE man lying on the bed in the dingy room was flabby and pale; his bloated cheeks were shadowed with two days’ growth of beard; his eyes were a weak watery blue.
A sharp, insistent knock sounded suddenly on the door and
the man on the bed raised himself on one elbow. He was wearing cheap, flashy clothes that were now baggy and wrinkled.
“Who is it?” he said.
“You know right enough who it is,” an angry feminine voice shouted back. “It’s Mrs. MacDougal and I want none of your fine airs, Silas Harker. You can’t lay around in my rooms day after day and give me nothing but your malarkey when it comes time to pay-up. If you don’t pay up today, out you go and no mistake.”
Silas Harker climbed to his feet and slouched across the room, his face set in bitter lines. He opened the door. Mrs. MacDougal was standing in the narrow, dirty hall, arms akimbo. She was a solid, stout woman with a red face and graying hair.
“I want my rent money,” she said bluntly. “You owe me now for three weeks. If you can’t pay up, out you go and no mistake. I’m tired of your shilly-shallying. It’s hard enough to run an honest—”
“Let’s don’t go into that,” Silas Harker said wearily. He fished into his vest pocket and brought forth the carefully preserved stub of a cigarette, lit it and blew a cloud of smoke toward the dirty ceiling. He ran a pale thin hand over his whiskered, sallow cheeks and regarded his landlady with bitter eyes.
“You’ll get your money,” he said. “And when I pay you I’ll leave this flea-infested fire trap so fast your eyes will blink. When I say goodbye to this hole and to your fish-wife nagging I’ll be the happiest man in the city of Chicago. Don’t think I’m staying here because I like it.”
“Well,” Mrs. MacDougal said, slightly taken aback by the venom in his voice, “that’s a fine way to repay my goodness to you. Here I’ve let you stay in my house, trusting you ’till you found some work, and now you flare at me like an ungrateful dog. I like your crust, I do.”
“Well, thank you for your charity,” Harker said with heavy sarcasm. His face tightened and his eyes changed to a wild, angry gleam. “I could buy fifty hovels like this,” he snarled, “if it weren’t—”
“More of your big talk,” Mrs. MacDougal broke in impatiently. “I’ve heard enough of it and no mistake. If you had a rich father and he did cut you out of the will, like you’re always claimin’, I can surely understand why. You’re nothin’ but an ungrateful pup, Silas Harker, and I’ve had enough of your alibis and airs. Out you go tonight unless you pay-up in full. And no mistake about it.”
WITH a final glare Mrs. MacDougal turned and clumped off down the corridor. Silas Harker stared after her bitterly, before re-entering his room and stretching out again on the bed. He reached automatically for the bottle on the night table and poured himself a drink of the cheap whisky it contained.
He drained the glass at a single gulp. The fiery liquor burned his throat, almost gagging him. He lay back on the bed, gasping, feeling the warming effect of the whisky coursing through his body. A spot of color tinged his cheeks and he felt stronger.
“Damn her,” he said, “damn her to hell.”
There was a dry chuckle from the doorway.
“So,” a soft voice said, “you do not approve of our excellent landlady, t-h?”
Silas Harker raised himself on an elbow and squinted at the man standing in the doorway of his room. He was a small man, stooped and bent, with a bald, domed head and bright, piercing eyes. Harker recognized him as one of the tenants of the rooming house, a Dr. Something-or-other, who occupied a room a few doors from his own.
Harker lay back on the bed and reached again for the bottle.
“No I don’t,” he said. He finished his drink and looked at the Doctor, who was still standing in the doorway, watching him with his hard bright eyes. “But I can’t see where it’s any of your business,” he added.
“You are in a charming mood, today,” the Doctor said with mild irony. “Do you mind if I come in?”
Silas Harker shrugged.
“Come ahead if you care to. But if you’re here to borrow money, save your breath.”
The Doctor entered the room and closed the door carefully behind him. He seated himself on the spare chair.
“That is not the purpose of my visit,” he said.
“Then what’s the angle?” Harker asked, squinting cynically at him. “Don’t tell me yours is an errand of mercy, comforting the forlorn and needy, or something like that?”
“Hardly,” the Doctor said. “I’m not a philanthropist. My presence here is the result of a very mundane and materialistic idea. There is nothing noble or altruistic in my idea; but there might be a handsome profit in it—for both of us.”
Harker looked at him to make sure that he was serious. The Doctor’s small pinched face was perfectly grave and his eyes were as sharp as daggers. Harker sat up and swung his feet to the floor.
“Okay,” he said, “I’m listening. But I am not in the mood for jokes.”
“This is no joke. First, let me introduce myself. I am Doctor Henrich Zinder. During the last war I was with the Imperial German Army’s medical corps. Since then—”
HARKER nodded. “You’ve been on your uppers.” His glance touched the Doctor’s frayed clothes briefly. “You look it. Now get to the point. What’s this profitable deal you spoke about?”
“You are right,” Doctor Henrich Zinder said. “I have been, as you say, on my uppers. But I have not been idle. I have continued to work on my experiments, but the stupid morons of the medical world refuse even to listen to what I have accomplished. And X have accomplished miracles.”
“Okay,” Harker said, “granting all that, I’m still waiting to hear your proposition. The world is full of crackpots, Doctor, who think they’ve accomplished miracles; so you’re sales talk had better be convincing.”
Doctor Zinder smiled faintly.
“I know what you are thinking,” he said, “but if you will hear me out I think I can change your opinion of me. First, let me ask you, Mr. Harker, what are your plans for the immediate future?”
“Why?” Harker said surlily. “My plans happen to be my own business. Oh, I guess it doesn’t make any difference anyway, though.” He lit a cigarette with a nervous hand. “I’m going into the army, I suppose. There’s nothing else to do. I’m thirty-five, in fair health, so I’ll be inducted in a few months.”
Doctor Zinder leaned forward. The light from the window gleamed on his high-domed bald head. His little eyes were sharp and speculative.
“Do you want to go into the army?” he asked. “Do you want to trade your freedom for a miserable pittance each month? Are you looking forward to wearing coarse woolen uniforms, eating slop, drilling under hot suns until you’re ready to collapse? Will it be pleasant to have some illiterate sergeant order you about like a dog?”
Harker sucked slowly on his cigarette.
“That’s dangerous talk in these times,” he said softly. “Supposing I reported you for what you’ve just said?”
“I don’t think you will,” Dr. Zinder smiled. “You see, I know you pretty well. I know how you feel about these things. And you may trust me, Silas Harker.”
“Why should I trust you?” Harker said coldly.
“Hear me out. It is true, is it not, that your father was a very wealthy man?”
“Yes,” Harker said with savage bitterness, “that’s true. My father’s estate right now is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I’m forced to live in a hovel like this, hardly knowing where my next miserable meal is coming from. But what’s that to you?”
“I feel for you, my boy,” Doctor Zinder said gently. “I appreciate what a grave injustice has been done you. So touched was I by your plight that I determined to do something about it. And I think possibly I have hit upon a scheme which might help you to regain what is rightfully yours. That is the profitable idea I have mentioned.”
“If you’re thinking about breaking my father’s will, it’s impossible,” Harker said. “I’ve seen the best lawyers in the country about that and none of them has given me the slightest hope. My father disowned and disinherited me for—” He broke off and glared at the Doctor. “Why
he disinherited me is none of your business.”
“I know why he disinherited you,” Doctor Zinder said, smiling. “I mentioned that I knew you rather well. I have gone to considerable trouble to look up your background. It was that little matter of the disappearance of quite a sum of money from his wall safe, wasn’t it? That, plus your drinking and gambling and other ungentlemanly habits you picked up here and there.”
SILAS Harker ran a hand over his slack jaw. The muscles in his pale face twitched uncontrollably. The strength seemed to flow from his veins. His thin courage melted and he stared nervously at the Doctor.
“You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to look me up,” he said weakly.
“Yes,” Doctor Zinder said carefully, “I have. But do not be alarmed, my boy. My investigations were for our mutual benefit. Let me ask you this: Have you ever read your father’s will?”
“Yes. The entire estate is willed to an elderly couple who kept house for him. They are having rather a hard time getting along while the will is being probated, but in a few months they come into all of his money and they’ll be set for life. A stupid, senile pair of fools, that’s what they are.”
“That is right,” Doctor Zinder said. “And you are left, as you say, out in the cold. However, there is one important clause in the will which is interesting. If,” the doctor tapped his finger carefully on his knee, “you are in any way incapacitated and unable to earn a living for yourself, the property reverts to you. You are aware of that?”
“Of course,” Harker said irritably. “But there’s nothing wrong with me. Just my luck to be good army-bait and nothing else.”
“Now we are finally getting around to my little proposition,” Doctor Zinder said. “What would be your reaction if I were to tell you that it is possible for me to arrange things so that you will come into your rightful inheritance and stay out of the army?” Harker stared at the Doctor and a slow excitement crept through his thoughts.
“Do you realize what you’re saying?” he said hoarsely. “If you could fix things—but no! It’s impossible. It can’t be done.”
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 137