Valkusian spoke first. “Per l’amur da Dieu, Magnetron, is this what it seems? You assured us you would not pursue this undertaking, and yet it is clear you have deceived us! This is unconscionable, Magnetron! Unforgivable! Indefensible! You have crossed the Rubicon, sir!” Cerebelli, Satyros, even Coburn joined in, castigating me mercilessly until…
Another set of hooves approached at a gallop. I turned back again to check the doctor’s progress. My attentions were focused into a tight beam upon the good doctor and my most ambitious creation. The Caelestis was ascending at a thoroughly inadequate rate, but picking up speed toward a large stand of maples! All else faded away, and I ran off after the misadventuring craft. “Flap your wings, doctor!” I cried. “Flap your wings!”
The constable’s horse came to a dramatic halt, Hawkshaw himself flying from his saddle and landing at a running gait. Within seconds, he was surrounded by the Hogalum Society, each man playing a role in the misdirection of this determined officer of the law.
“Mr. Magnetron!” he bellowed from within the human quincunx. “I order you to bring that craft down or I shall have to shoot it from the sky!”
Hawkshaw unholstered and raised his pistol—and took aim.
Chapter 16 ~ Magnetron Held Harmless
“Hawkshaw heaved Coburn’s revolver back into firing position and pulled on the trigger. It wouldn’t budge. ‘You’ll have to squeeze a bit harder, mate,’ snorted Coburn.”
Coburn laughed derisively at Hawkshaw, goading him pitilessly. “I’ll wager fifty dollars you can’t hit that balloon from here,” he said. The constable’s fragile virility thus impugned, he disengaged his squinty scrutiny from the Caelestis and directed it at Coburn in a thoroughly ineffective attempt at intimidation.
“Do not mock me, sir!” he menaced. Coburn replied with matter-of-fact nonchalance. “I’m not mocking you, mate, I am mocking your thoroughly inadequate weapon. I find it scandalous that an officer of the law such as yourself should be so modestly equipped.”
Evidently, Hawkshaw perceived Coburn’s stratagem and began aiming at the Caelestis once again. “It gets the job done,” he growled. Coburn continued. “Look, mate, if you manage to defy gravity and actually hit your target with that pea shooter, the pea will simply bounce from the balloon and fall harmlessly to Earth.”
“We shall see,” said Hawkshaw through clenched teeth. “Here, constable,” continued Coburn, “I insist you use my revolver.” He unholstered an enormous Belgian-made twenty-chamber revolver from an elaborately tooled leather holster and held it by the barrel, waving the grip in Hawkshaw’s line of sight. The constable found himself quite unable to resist. “May I?” he asked with childlike incredulity. Coburn nodded, and they exchanged weapons. Hawkshaw’s arms wavered and bobbed under the burden of the fully loaded revolver. “Make that a hundred dollars,” said Coburn.
The Caelestis was hastening her ascent as the wind accelerated her departure. I ran along, barking out commands to Dr. Hogalum, although I have no idea whether he could hear me. Pung had escaped Mrs. Mackenzie’s grasp and joined the chase, exhorting the doctor to “fly away!” The Caelestis brushed aside a few pliable top branches as she barely cleared the last maple tree in her path.
The constable had his own problems as he was still surrounded by the four Hogalum Society members, each of them offering their own peculiar brand of assistance.
“Mind your trajectory, constable,” admonished Cerebelli before beginning a lengthy explanation of momentum and gravity. “Yes, yes, a little higher...”
“Perhaps it is not your weapon which is wavering,” advised Valkusian in a soothing voice. “Perhaps it is your target which is moving, eh? Or perhaps both? Or perhaps your mind is playing tricks on you.”
Hawkshaw lowered his weapon as his confusion gave way to a heated outburst. “Be quiet! All of you! Do you think I don’t see what you are doing? Do you think I am some kind of fool?” He heaved Coburn’s revolver back into firing position and pulled on the trigger. It wouldn’t budge. “You’ll have to squeeze a bit harder, mate,” snorted Coburn.
Satyros began to apologize profusely. “Terribly sorry! We are only trying to help, you see?” Satyros adopted an air of conspiratorial disclosure, whispering apologetically. “We’re all ardent devotees of law enforcement and we often find ourselves unable to contain our enthusiasm in the midst of dedicated practitioners such as yourself.”
Hawkshaw wedged as many fingers as would fit inside the trigger guard and was beginning to make some headway.
“Please accept this token of our esteem,” said Satyros, gesturing at an empty point in space directly in front of Hawkshaw.
The next three occurrences transpired more or less simultaneously…
Chapter 17 ~ Magnetron and Aftermath
“Hawkshaw was exploding with a passionate wrathfulness. ‘Do you hear me? I hereby arrest you in the name of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania!’”
Dr. Hogalum and the Caelestis were nearly out of pistol range when Satyros exclaimed, “Hey Presto!” Perhaps one thousandth of one second elapsed between this theatrical ejaculation and the appearance—seemingly from thin air—of a large bouquet of carnations directly in front of Constable Hawkshaw’s face. Another millisecond later, the constable finally succeeded in overcoming the intractable action on Coburn’s revolver, firing wildly. He threw down the weapon and grabbed his own from Coburn, whose hands were going limp in preparation for a great whooping belly laugh. Hawkshaw emptied every chamber in rapid-fire futility as the Caelestis continued her ascent into the heavens.
“Damn, damn, damn! You are all under arrest!” Hawkshaw was exploding with a passionate wrathfulness. “Do you hear me? I hereby arrest you in the name of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania!”
Valkusian held forth at this critical juncture, smiling thinly and emitting mellifluous streams of mollifying fiddle-faddle, transfixing the constable in a gossamer mental snare. “You are angry at us, yes? Why do you not tell us why, hmmm?”
“Because you wouldn’t shut up! You-you-you were obstructing justice! You-you-you—”
“Come now, Constable, Atticus has already explained our over-enthusiasm, has he not? We have all been as helpful as we are able in our own bumbling maladroitness, wouldn’t you agree, constable? Now tell me, what is your name?”
“Hawkshaw, but do not—”
“Your given name?”
“Pardon?”
“Your first name?”
“Oh, it’s Kenneth.”
“Kenneth! A fine name. Now, as I was saying, Kenneth, we have tried to be helpful, but you remain unappreciative, even hostile. Does this situation remind you of a time, oh, say, from your childhood when well-meaning adults upset you? Your parents, perhaps?”
This exchange continued well into the evening, Valkusian and Hawkshaw eventually retiring to my study. Coburn and Satyros recounted to me their efforts in confounding the constable while Cerebelli surveyed my laboratory. The constable left in the late evening, his eyes red and puffy, a wan smile on his exhausted countenance. Valkusian offered his card and a generous law enforcement discount to the departing lawman. “Thank you, doctor,” said Hawkshaw through his handkerchief.
We regrouped in the drawing room. I felt like a schoolchild caught in the act of some misdemeanor, certain the headmaster would administer a painful and humiliating lashing. “Magnetron,” said Valkusian, “We shall have a word with you now.”
Chapter 18 ~ Magnetron Runs the Gauntlet
“Anton Karswell Valkusian was many things, but he was rarely sarcastic. And yet, there was something about his inflection on the word ‘skiing.’”
I was silent for a very long time as the Hogalum Society members interrogated me at length, attempting to apprehend the nature of my perverse transgressions. “Why have you undertaken such a berserk and yet clearly premeditated deed?” asked Cerebelli. “Why have you defied us?” asked Valkusian. �
�Where do you keep your scotch?” asked Coburn.
I kept mute for as long as I could endure. I could think of nothing that would extricate me.
Satyros sprawled with double-jointed fluidity over his favorite overstuffed chair. He engaged in an annoying exercise with a coin, causing the silver disk to tumble end over end, somersaulting over each finger of his hand in turn, and then—when it seemed it would fall to the floor—he reversed the process, walking the damnable thing in the other direction across his outstretched digits.
I could bear it no longer. “It worked!” I exclaimed suddenly. “Is that not justification enough? You all thought I was mad, but Dr. Hogalum believed in me. We worked as a team, we did. And now he has realized his greatest dream, to visit distant worlds! No, gentlemen. I apologize for deceiving you, but I will not apologize for what I have done!”
Valkusian regarded me coldly, a sneer playing about his face. “Yes, of course,” he said. “No doubt Dr. Hogalum is now skiing in the Leibnitz Range and quaffing lunar toddies. Indeed, you have outdone yourself, Phineas.”
Anton Karswell Valkusian was many things, but he was rarely sarcastic. And yet, there was something about his inflection on the word “skiing.”
“You do not believe me?” I probed. The men spoke hideous volumes by remaining absolutely silent. “You do not believe me! Did you not see him waving his tail in farewell?”
“Magnetron—” began Satyros.
“My God! You think I have decapitated the corpse of our beloved Dr. Hogalum and merely disposed of his lifeless head as so much evidence! You think—” I shuddered to my very core, unable to continue. “Leave me!”
“Magnetron, we believe you,” offered Satyros, his eyes darting back and forth at the other Hogalums. “Isn’t that right, gentlemen? Yes, yes, of course we do. Now, I believe what Phineas needs is a hot bath and a good night’s—”
“Leave me!” I demanded once again, but they moved not a muscle. I removed myself from the drawing room rather hastily, whereupon I collided with Mrs. Mackenzie in the hallway. “Mrs. Mackenzie! They do not believe me! They think me a crackpot and a criminal, puttering with the head of a corpse! They—”
“I know,” she consoled, “I know.” She had been eavesdropping again.
At that moment I heard a familiar ticking sound emanating from within my laboratory down the corridor. The wireless telegraph! Ha-hah! Dr. Hogalum would have his say at last!
Chapter 19 ~ Magnetron Gets the Message
“Was he hopelessly adrift, unable to direct his course through the cold vastness of space, upside-down perhaps, or flying around in useless circles?”
I dispatched Mrs. Mackenzie to retrieve the Hogalums from the drawing room so that they might hear Dr. Hogalum’s communiqué for themselves, and raced toward my Masterstroke Mill. I heard a great clamor and much scuffling as the group was assembled and directed down the corridor to join me.
As I transcribed, a great burden lifted from my weary soul. The details of the doctor’s transmission were but prosaic minutiae compared with my relief that he was well. Up until that moment, I had been consumed by a terrifying dread. I knew that Dr. Hogalum lived—of that I had no doubt. But what if the Caelestis herself had failed? What if I had consigned my dearest friend to a fate worse than death? Was he hopelessly adrift, unable to direct his course through the cold vastness of space, upside-down perhaps, or flying around in useless circles?
The doctor’s signal was rapidly fading, but I was able to discern some heartening snippets:
Dah-dah dih-dah dih-dah-dih dah dih-dih dih-dah dah-dih…
“… Martian people are lovely… cannot equal our science of course… send their regards… difficulty communicating… excellent liquor…”
The Hogalum members burst into my laboratory as I was attempting my own transmission. Dih-dah-dah dih-dih-dih-dih dih dih-dah-dih… “Where will you go next?” I asked.
Silence. The signal was faded to nothing. We waited expectantly for a response, but none was forthcoming. At some length, Mrs. Mackenzie broke the silence.
“You see, gentlemen. Mr. Magnetron has done what he set out to do. Like you, I can’t say I approve of his deceit, and the thought of a man’s head rollin’ about in me home is unsettlin’ to say the least. But the experiment was most certainly a success. I saw it with me own horrified eyes.”
Valkusian’s eyes remained cemented to the wireless telegraph. “Science! You strange and unpredictable animal! Once again, you make nonsense of our human notions of morality.”
Cerebelli nodded vigorously as he disagreed. “Here is a science which has granted a hero his wish of further heroism. Can there be a more sensible or desirable result of scientific inquiry?”
“I think not,” said Satyros. “Besides, it’s a hell of a trick.”
Coburn spoke last. “Right! I’d say this calls for a scotch, eh, mates?”
“I’ll go fetch us all some Dr. Hogalum’s Inebriol,” volunteered Mrs. Mackenzie. “A fitting toast, I’d say.”
Everyone nodded in the affirmative and fell silent. “I wish he could have answered,” I said. “Where he’s going next, that is.”
At that moment, the wireless telegraph sprang to life once again, rapping out the last known words of the incomparable Dr. Hogalum. Dah-dah-dah dah-dih dih…
“One…” Cerebelli translated aloud, “world… at… a… time.”
Epilogue ~ Magnetron Regains Strength
“I began to grow restless... It was some other bit of unfinished business that irritated like a splinter embedded in one’s dermis, the stub protruding from the tiny wound at times and yet evading a tweezers’ grasp.”
Enfeebled by the sustained exertion and sleep deprivation I had just endured, I took to bed at my earliest opportunity and slept nearly twenty continuous hours. I awoke in the evening to find that the Hogalum Society members had taken their leave and gone their individual ways. Mrs. Mackenzie prepared a late supper and explained that they had departed in some haste shortly after I had retired in the wee hours of the morning. They had left considerable business unattended to in order to investigate why I had not returned their telegrams and, having resolved the matter, were obliged to depart forthwith. Before leaving, Valkusian had advised Mrs. Mackenzie he intended to muster the group again shortly pursuant to a forthcoming mission, the details of which he was not at liberty to discuss.
Setting aright my laboratory kept me well-occupied over the following fortnight, as my exquisite Masterstroke Mill was in frightful disarray. I also devoted an extravagant portion of my time to more slumber, a luxury I had not enjoyed for the preceding three weeks.
Pung was distraught over the apparent disappearance of Mozi, the most recent addition to his feline omnium gatherum. He displayed an anthropomorphic indignance toward the other cats for not joining the search, reserving his most denunciatory reprimands for Confucius, the haughty white Persian mix tom. “Why you not help Pung, you lazy good-for-nothing!” he exhorted. Confucius steadfastly ignored Pung, devoting each day his two or three waking hours to eating, cleaning, and other inoffensive diversions. I resolved to emulate this creature. But it was not to be.
Mrs. Mackenzie was also distraught, but not by the wayward Mozi. She was consumed by worry at Anders’ continued absence. He had estimated he would return early in October, but near the middle of that month the big Swede had not yet returned. Unable to duplicate the profound disinterest displayed by Confucius, I tried unsuccessfully to calm Mrs. Mackenzie. I reminded her that Anders had the strength of three ordinary men and that—at nearly seven feet tall—he was unsuitable prey for robbers and other scurvy rogues. She remained inconsolably querulous, demanding that I launch a search, despite the fact that none of us had the least hint where his family resided. It was nettlesome, yes, but I hadn’t the mistiest notion how to effect his return. Several days passed during which I received not the most fleeting respite from her vigorous ap
peals, and in the end I consented to allow her to rifle my personal household records for any of Anders’ documentation, a task which she undertook with great gusto.
I began to grow restless. I was unconcerned about Anders, for the reasons stated above. It was some other bit of unfinished business that irritated like a splinter embedded in one’s dermis, the stub protruding from the tiny wound at times and yet evading a tweezers’ grasp. I became convinced that there was more to Dr. Hogalum’s death than perhaps even he knew. How could I reconcile Petión’s compelling intuition that Hogalum had been murdered with the doctor’s own perfunctory account of an accidental fatality?
The answer was that I could not. There was more to this mystery, and I determined then to unravel it. I promptly arranged to meet Dr. Hogalum’s personal physician, Dr. Glockenholz, one of two men who were the last to see him before his death.
At that time I apprehended not the most infinitesimal fraction of the bizarre mysteries then just beginning to unfold, nor the depth and breadth of treachery I would soon encounter. Looking back, I can say with utmost certainty that but for my stalwart companions in the Hogalum Society I would have gone completely mad, as indeed, I nearly did. As I was then blissfully ignorant of the perils yet to come, I felt not trepidation, but rather the invigorating discomposure of a new mystery, a new journey, a new adventure.
But that is a story for another time…
Afterword
Magnetron’s secret emprise has both surmounted probability and surpassed the limits of previously known science, but he is now being drawn into compelling new mysteries: Was Dr. Hogalum’s death truly an accident, or was he the unwitting victim of foul play? What has become of Anders, Magnetron’s faithful servant? And what is the nature of the next mission of the fabled Hogalum Society?
Find out in the next exciting installment of The Magnetron Chronicles!
The Last Adventure of Dr. Yngve Hogalum Page 4