As for the broadcast—well, everybody had heard of the Three, had read what they had said, and now they could see them and hear them. And they said plenty. They told of the big yellow war of seventy years from now. They told . . . But I guess you heard the broadcast. About this New Era business; and this year being the first of the New Era, the beginning of a slow, unbroken march toward genuine civilization. And how they said a man by the name of Doctor Michel Stoner was the one to take the first big step forward. Michel Stoner, the next President of the United States, they said.
Let me tell you, Sarge, that rocked the great American public back on their heels. Who was Doctor Michel Stoner? Nobody’d ever heard of him. Yet the Three said he was going to be the next President!
The papers—you remember, Sarge—played it up big. Michel Stoner, the Man of Destiny! Who was he? Where was he?
So they started hunting for Michel Stoner, M.D. Some reporter found out that about twenty-five years ago he’d practiced medicine in a little Pennsylvania town, and that he’d dropped that to take over a professor’s chair in a college so small they didn’t even have a paid football team—and that was all. He’d simply disappeared.
The search went on until at last they found him in a little four-room cabin in the Massachusetts hills about a hundred miles from nowhere. Didn’t even have a radio. Hadn’t seen a newspaper in two months. Nobody around there knew anything about him except that about once every three months or so he drove out of the hills in a dilapidated flivver to buy some gasoline, food and books. The books they remembered most, ’cause there was always a lot of them waiting in the Post Office marked M. Stoner, General Delivery. I think it was through the publishers he was finally located.
Well, if nobody knew anything about him at first, it didn’t take them long to find out. Oliver P., himself, drove up there in a platinum plated Rolls and carried him back to Mawson Manor. And of course there was another big world broadcast, with Mawson the master of ceremonies. The Three Wise Men were there with bells on. And Stoner—well, Sarge, if you saw and heard that broadcast, you’ll have to admit he made some impression.
I DON’T care if you do have him behind the bars! I told you he’s innocent—and I’m here to prove it to you.
I have another clipping . . .
Now wait a minute, Sarge. Just this one. This’ll be the last one I’ll read. You see, I make scrap books of the things I’m interested in—helps me keep a record . . . Listen!
WORLD BROADCAST STARTLES
VAST AUDIENCE
Dr. Michel Stoner Makes Amazing
Impression
WILL RUN FOR OFFICE
New York City, Aug. 22—Dr. Michel Stoner, the recluse from the Massachusetts hills, will be an independent candidate in the forthcoming Presidential election. He revealed that last night, after a world television broadcast in which he proved to be one of the most impressive figures ever to reach the telescreens. Despite his earlier decision to leave politics to others, Dr. Stoner found the American public so overwhelmingly insistent on his running for office, that he felt impelled to yield to their demands.
Dr. Stoner faced an audience burning with curiosity to see the man mentioned by the Three Wise Men as the first President of the New Era. Of average height and rather slender in build, he is at once a figure of quiet power, impressive dignity, and magnetic personality. His head is crowned with a mass of snow white hair. And his voice—never has such a resonant voice borne so much of wisdom on the one hand and beauty of diction on the other. In Dr. Michel Stoner, America has discovered a genius.
For the past twenty years Doctor Stoner has been engaged in the writing of a voluminous and comprehensive work tentatively entitled “Man and the Way of Man.” In his manuscript, already more than two million words in length, Doctor Stoner has discussed in full detail the development of Man since the dawn of reason, up to the present, and into the future. If the numerous quotations from his work are an indication, he possesses a rare insight into human behavior and character.
New Era Dawning
“Man,” he said, “has reached the threshold of vast new truths. The doors of knowledge are swinging aside. Old thoughts and methods of thinking are passing away, displaced by a newer, more rational consciousness. Long-standing fears, disorders and superstitions are yielding to an imposing array of new knowledge, like a tidal wave sweeping everything before it. And Man rides like foam on its crest!
“A New Era is dawning, a new age when all mankind will be welded into one vast spiritual whole, one tremendous world community in which the term ‘war’ will have no meaning. Someone with cosmic understanding, someone in whom the world consciousness has awakened into fulness of life, will lead you, but it should be someone wiser far than I—someone whose name I do not know.”
Yeah, Sarge, I suppose that is enough. Seems like everybody else thought so, too, for it was only about ten minutes after he left the air that demands started pouring in for him to run for President.
What a howl went up in certain quarters when the Doc started his campaign. After all, this guy’s speeches were the kind that got practically anything they asked for, and with the Three Wise Men on his side, it looked like a sure thing for the dark horse. The Democrats kicked because they figured they had had the thing in the bag; and the Republicans kicked because they thought—or, at least hoped—that this time they’d be able to upset the mule.
But the howls were only straws in a cyclone. No one paid much attention to the other candidates. A blind man could see that Stoner was slated to go in with the biggest majority in history. What was the use in voting against a man who, future records showed, had been elected? And with the Three for him, and Mawson’s millions behind him—well, Sarge, it was some set-up.
I DIDN’T see much of the three little big-shots those days, nor much of Stoner or Mawson, either. They still made the big Long Island mansion their headquarters, but they were too busy to spend much time with a flock of perpetual house guests. I figure they’d have given us our walking papers if it hadn’t been for the scientists, but they made company for the Three, and good copy for the tabloids. Anyway, I was in, and enjoying it.
But after awhile my conscience started working. I remembered Joe Wallace, and here I was, swimming and playing tennis with a pair of swell dames, eating so much that I’d put on an average of two pounds a week, and—well, I decided to get busy.
It took about a week for me to get the hang of the place; then one night when I was playing detective I stumbled on something big. There’d been some big doings in Philadelphia—Stoner given the keys to the burg, a big parade, speeches and everything that went with it. They’d come back to Mawson Manor all played out.
I was sliding along one of those big corridors when I heard voices. Mawson’s bark, Stoner’s smooth, deep baritone, and the flat creaking voices of the Three. And they didn’t sound like they were chinning just to pass the time away.
“Get this, Stoner,” I heard Mawson say, and his words sort of cut like a knife, “you’re not backing out! You couldn’t, even if I’d let you. And I’m not letting you, see! There’s too much involved in this for things to topple now. So forget it.”
“I can’t forget it,” Stoner said, as solemn as a funeral. “I’m tired of the whole thing. I wish you’d never found me.
Then one of the Three spoke—I think it was Lon.
“We’re tired, too.” And he certainly sounded tired; like a guy with insomnia, who hadn’t slept for months.
“Tired!” Mawson’s voice cracked. “Then go to bed—get some sleep. Tomorrow you’ll be over this nonsense. I’ve got enough to worry about without this. Got another threatening letter today—this one, I think, from the Ernisto mob. The politicians are back of ’em, I’m certain, but I can’t prove it. The police—they can’t do a damn’ thing! And where’d we be if the Three Wise Men were kidnaped!”
I heard a door slam, and I beat it down the hall—fast.
I didn’t sleep so well that night.
What I’d heard took heavy thinking. Stoner was tired of the whole thing. Tired of what? Of running for President? Or of a big fake? Then I thought of those strange big-headed little men with their young eyes and old voices, and I didn’t know what to think . . . And this talk of kidnaping—there hadn’t been even a whisper about it in the papers. Big things were starting to break, and I could only wait.
I dragged through the next two days in a sort of fog, waiting for something to happen. And when I woke up on the morning of the third day, it had happened all right—cracked wide open.
THE THREE WISE MEN KIDNAPED!
The tabloids screamed it in the biggest headlines since the Lindbergh case. The telescreens sort of snapped, or roared it at a wholesale rate. I’d been half expecting it, yet it knocked the wind out of me.
It seemed Doctor Stoner and the Three had been returning late from a trip to the studios. Mawson had been delayed. On a lonely stretch of road they’d run out of gas—how, was a mystery, ’cause the gauge registered “full.” Must’ve been tampered with. The chauffeur had walked back toward the last gas station they’d passed, and when he’d come back, car, Wise Men, and Presidential candidate had disappeared.
BUT you know all that, Sarge, better than I do—and you know how they found Stoner the next day lying in the back of the car as sick as a dog, and the smell of chloroform strong enough to choke an elephant. He told how a big sedan had pulled up and four men with tommy-guns had ordered the Three into their machine, and had doped him. That was all he knew till the cops found him. And the mileage gauge had been smashed . . .
Oh, I know it’s all old stuff to you, but I’ve got to tell this in my own way. I don’t want to skip anything important, see?
Well, in Mawson Manor things resembled a first-class madhouse. The big boss tore things wide open. Doctor Stoner was confined to his room, almost prostrated by shock. And then the police came in droves, and sort of suddenlike I got the idea that it was time for Tom Dorion to scram! I was the uninvited guest, and I’d have a tough time talking myself out of this spot if the police caught up with me.
In town, I hung around my room waiting to see what would happen next. There wasn’t much—just the delivery of that first ransom note demanding one million dollars for each of the Three. Letters clipped out of newspapers and pasted on a sheet of bond paper by a guy wearing gloves. No fingerprints—no nothing!
You picked up a lot of mobsters that first week, didn’t you, Sarge? And you looked for a house guest who had disappeared on the day after the kidnaping a guy nobody seemed to know much about—only you couldn’t find him. And after a little while you found out you hadn’t accomplished anything. The papers made it hot for the police commissioner, and he made it hot for everybody under him. You sweated a flock of mobsters—and it didn’t mean a thing.
It was about that time that I decided I’d better get busy. Joe Wallace had told me to stick with the Three Wise Men till I’d signed ’em up for his shows, and here I’d let ’em be kidnaped under my very nose. I sort of thought things over and I got a hunch. You see, I couldn’t get that little conversation between Mawson, Stoner, and the Three out of my dome. So I hired a flivver and headed for the Massachusetts hills.
That little cabin of Michel Stoner’s wasn’t the easiest place in the world to find, but I found it. I guess I was about two blocks from the place when I parked the rattling wreck I was driving and sort of crept up toward the joint. It was a nifty little hideaway.
It took me about a half an hour to cover a couple hundred yards. I didn’t figure there was much danger, if my hunch was right. But I couldn’t be sure, so I didn’t take any chances. If those hardboiled boys with the hair grease and the tommy-guns were mixed up in this—well, it might not be so healthy for Tom Dorion!
But I finally got there and sort of eased my eyes up over a window sill. There they were—the Three Wise Men and nobody else. It took me just about one second to get around to the door. Let me tell you, Sarge, I felt good. This was a break. Here was my chance. If I didn’t get their names on some kind of a contract, it wouldn’t be my fault.
WHEN I knocked on the door and one of them answered, “Come in,” some of the pep went out of me. Honest, Sarge, I never heard anything as—as lifeless as that voice. So flat and dull. Almost like I was hearing the dead talking, if you get what I mean.
There they were, sprawled out across a cot bed, hardly moving. They always were queer-looking birds, but now it seemed like they were centuries old, as though they were shrinking, drying up before my eyes.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” I said cheery-like. “Thought I’d stop in an’ say hello.”
Anders answered, and he didn’t even move his head. “We are glad you came. We are so—tired. We have lived beyond our—allotted span. Soon we shall die. And it is not good to die alone.”
If you don’t think that just about floored me, Sarge, you’re crazy. There I was with the best attraction that ever hit the show game, practically in the palm of my hand, and they were dying! For a second I didn’t say a word, just stared from one to another. I still remember half seeing the rest of the room—a little stove with an empty frying pan on it, and a coffee percolator; rows and rows of books.
Lon pulled himself up on one elbow. “There can be no mistake,” he whispered, and that’s all it was, a hoarse whisper. “We know we have but little time in this life. That is why we left. Doctor—Doctor Stoner arranged it—though he did not realize—how it was with us. We would like to see him before—we die.”
Ken, the third little man, sat up, and I could see it took a terrific effort. His eyes burned out at me like two hot coals out of two hollow pits; coals that were burning to ashes.
“We are old—so terribly old,” he croaked, “yet we are so—young. And the end is close.” A thin hand pointed toward the desk. “There, in the upper drawer on that side, is a little book. Get it.”
In a sort of trance I went over to the desk, I found the book.
“That explains things—which should be known.” And Ken slumped back on the bed.
“Look,” I said, “isn’t there something I can do?” My thoughts were going around in circles, but I felt I had to do something.
Ander moved his head from side to side. “No one can help us. We know. But you can get Doctor Stoner to—come here—before we pass on. There may be time—if he hurries.”
I sort of slid toward the door. “Okay, okay, I’ll rush,” I said. “I’ll get him. Just hang on.”
The next thing I knew, I was hotfooting it up the winding road toward the flivver. And, let me tell you, I sent that old can rolling like she never rolled before. I’d passed through a little town about fifteen miles back, and I headed that way with the accelerator jammed against the floor-board.
I guess I reached the place in about twenty minutes, though it seemed like hours. But I got there, finally, and I put in a long distance call for the Mawson estate. A cop answered, I think. It didn’t take him long to get Doc Stoner on the wire when I bellowed it was a matter of life or death.
I SPILLED the story to Stoner in a few words, but he didn’t even let me finish. I heard a sort of choking cry, then I heard the receiver crash on the hook. I got out of there in a hurry. I didn’t want to be around when the fireworks started.
You know what happened better than I do. Stoner tearing out of the mansion like a lunatic, grabbing that big Rolls Royce of Mawson’s and roaring away before anyone could even think of stopping him.
Nobody but Stoner knows what happened up to the time the cops arrived, about an hour behind him. I have a good idea, but it’s only an idea. Anyway, when the police got there, as you know, Sarge, they found the Doctor sitting on a stump in the weed-grown garden behind the cabin. And the cabin—it was half burned down by that time. A little later there were only smoking ashes.
And Doctor Stoner just sat there and stared. And he’d only say in a sort of dull, dry voice:
“They’re dead, and that’s their funeral
pyre. No one will ever know.”
But he didn’t kill ’em, Sarge. I tell you, he’s innocent. They just died!
Here’s how I dope it out, Sarge. Oliver P. Mawson was behind the whole thing. You ought to be able to see that yourself with my telling you about that argument I heard. He got the big idea when he stumbled across Stoner’s cabin while driving through the hills up there. Those three little guys with their big heads must have started his imagination working.
Huh? Sure, they were there all the time. Don’t tell me you fell for that time-traveling bunk! Mawson staged the whole thing. I’ll bet when you check on it, you’ll find he had the “time-machine” built in his automobile factories. And, of course, since he couldn’t very well fake a time-traveling engine, he had to have that explosion to destroy it. It was good publicity stuff, too. Made a swell spectacle, with a little chemical of some sort spilled on the ground.
It was power he wanted! Power! He had so much money he couldn’t keep track of it, and that could buy quite a bit of power—but not enough. He’d been a little guy who had worked himself up from nowhere, and it had gone to his head. He wanted to be dictator of America—and he almost got what he was after!
Sure! With these fake men from the future, he planned to have Stoner elected to the Presidency, with himself, of course, the power behind the throne. And a little later on, with those same Three Wise Men paving the way, he’d take over the control of the government. It was a perfect setup; only something bigger than Oliver P. stepped in.
Where’d the Three come from? That’s where that little black book comes in—my ace in the hole. That’s what will save Michel Stoner from the chair or the bug-house. I’ve got it here. It’s Stoner’s diary, with a daily record covering the last twenty years.
Of course I’ll give it to you, Sarge—but you can’t read shorthand, can you? I can. Listen to this—the first entry that interests us, years back:
March 3, 1930. Ann is dead. It was too much for her. God forgive me, but I did all a man could do. She was always so frail, and those endless hours of travail were more than she could bear. What will I do? I can hardly see the page before me. And those three mites, they’re such pitiful little things. Their heads are enormous. Victims of hydrocephalus, obviously. I must save them—or her death will be completely futile.
Forgotten Fiction Page 53