The Human Zero and Other Science-Fiction Masterpieces

by Sam Moskowitz

“Now listen, you guys, you’re actin’ like a bunch of kids. Even supposing there was some one in this room, where could he have gone? There ain’t any opening. He couldn’t have slid through those bars in the ventilator.”

  Some of the detectives nodded sagely, but it remained for Rodney to ask the question which left them baffled.

  “How,” he asked, “was it possible to get the foot out of that laced shoe?”

  Captain Harder turned away.

  “Let’s not get stampeded,” he said.

  He started to look around him.

  “Cooked food’s been brought in here at regular intervals . . . the man that was here was Dangerfield, all right. Those are his clothes. There’s the mark of the tailor, and there’s his gold-scrolled fountain pen. His watch has his initials on, even his check book is in the pocket.

  “I tell you, boys, we’re on the right track. This is the place Dangerfield’s been kept, and it’s that inventor who’s at the bottom of the whole thing. We’ll go knock his place over, and we’ll probably find where Dangerfield is right now. He was spirited away from here, somehow.

  “Those clothes were left here for a blind. Don’t get stampeded. Here, feel the inside of the cloth. It’s plumb cold, awfully cold. If anybody’d been inside those clothes within five minutes, the clothes’d be warm.”

  One of the officers nodded. His face gave an exhibition of sudden relief which was almost ludicrous. He grinned shamefacedly.

  “By George, Captain, that’s so! Do you know, for a minute, this thing had me goofy. But you can see how cool the clothes are, and this watch is like a chunk of ice. It’d be warm if anybody had been inside those clothes.”

  “Who,” asked Sid Rodney, “was it that was calling to us through the door?”

  Captain Harder stepped to the door, dragged in the bar.

  “I don’t know. It may have been a trick of ventriloquism, or it may have been a sound that was projected through the ventilating system. But, anyhow, I’m going to find out. If there’s a secret entrance to this room, I’m going to find it if I have to rip off every board of the walls one at a time.”

  He started with the bar, biting it into the tongue and groove which walled the sides of the room. Almost instantly the ripping bar disclosed the unique construction of that room.

  It consisted of tongue and groove, back of which was a layer of thick insulation that looked like asbestos. Back of that was a layer of thick steel, and the steel seemed to be backed with concrete, so solid was it.

  By examining the outside of the room, they were able to judge the depth of the walls. They seemed to be at least three feet thick. The room was a veritable sound-proof chamber.

  Evidently the door was operated by some electro-magnetic control. There were thick bars which went from the interior of the door down into sockets built in the floor, steel faced, bedded in concrete.

  Captain Harder whistled.

  “Looks like there was no secret exit there. It must have been some sort of ventriloquism.”

  Sid Rodney grunted.

  “Well, it wasn’t ventriloquism that made the jars on that door. It was some one pounding and kicking on the other side. And, if you’ll notice the toes of those shoes, you’ll see where there are fragments of wood splinters, little flakes of paint, adhering to the soles right where they point out into the uppers.

  “Now, then, if you’ll take the trouble to look at the door, you’ll find little marks in the wood which correspond to the marks on the toes of the shoes. In other words, whether those shoes were occupied or not, they were hammering against that door a few minutes ago.”

  Captain Harder shook his head impatiently.

  “The trouble with all that reasoning is that it leads into impossibilities.”

  Sid Rodney stooped to the vest pocket, looked once more at the gold embossed fountain pen.

  “Has any one tried this to see if it writes?” he asked.

  “What difference would that make?” asked the police captain.

  “He might have left us a message,” said Sid.

  He abstracted the pen, removed the cap, tried the end of the pen upon his thumb nail. Then he took a sheet of paper from his notebook, tried the pen again.

  Captain Harder grunted.

  “Listen, you guys, all this stuff isn’t getting us anywhere. The facts are that Dangerfield was here. He ain’t here now.

  Albert Crome has this place rented. He has a grudge against Dangerfield. It’s an odds-on bet that we’re going to get the whole fiendish scheme out of him—if we get there soon enough.”

  There was a mutter of affirmation from the officers, even men who were more accustomed to rely upon direct action and swift accusation than upon the slower method of deduction.

  “Wait a minute,” said Sid Rodney. His eyes were flaming with the fire of an inner excitement. He unscrewed the portion of the pen which contained the tip, from the barrel, drew out the long rubber tube which held the ink.

  Captain Harder regarded him with interest, but with impatience.

  “Just like any ordinary self-filling pen the world over,” said the police captain.

  Sid Rodney made no comment. He took a knife from his pocket, slit open the rubber sac. A few sluggish drops of black liquid trickled slowly down his thumb, then he pulled out a jet-black rod of solid material.

  He was breathing rapidly now, and the men, attracted by the fierce earnestness of his manner, crowded about him.

  “What is it?” asked one.

  Rodney did not answer the question directly. He broke the thing in half, peered at the ends.

  These ends glistened like some polished, black jewel which had been broken open. The light reflected from little tiny points, giving an odd appearance of sheen and luster.

  Slowly a black stain spread along the palm of the detective’s hand.

  Sid Rodney set the long rod of black, broken into two pieces, down upon the tray of food.

  “Is that ink?” demanded Harder.

  “Yes.”

  “What makes it look so funny?”

  “It’s frozen.”

  “Frozen!”

  “Yes.”

  “But how could ink be frozen in a room of this sort? The room isn’t cold.

  Sid Rodney shrugged his shoulders.

  “I’m not advancing any theories—yet. I’m simply remarking that it’s frozen ink. You’ll notice that the rubber covering and the air which was in the barrel of the pen acted as something of a thermal insulation. Therefore, it was slower to thaw out than some things.”

  Captain Harder stared at Rodney with a puckered forehead and puzzled eyes.

  “What things do you mean?”

  “The watch, for instance. You notice that it’s started to run again.”

  “By George, it has!” said Charles Ealy. “It’s started ticking right along just as though nothing had happened, but it’s about six and a half or seven minutes slow.”

  Sid nodded silent affirmation.

  Captain Harder snorted.

  “You birds can run all the clues that you want to. I’m going to get a confession out of the bird that’s responsible for this.

  “Two of you stay here and see that no one comes in or goes out. Guard this place. Shoot to kill any one who disobeys your orders. This thing is serious, and there’s murder at the bottom of it, or I miss my guess.”

  He whirled and stamped from the room, walking with that aggressive swing of the shoulders, that forward thrust of his sturdy legs which betokened no good for the crack-brained scientist.

  CHAPTER 4

  A Madmans Laboratory

  They hammered on the door.

  After a matter of minutes there was an answer, a thin, cracked voice which echoed through the thick partitions of a door which seemed every bit as substantial as the door which Captain Harder had forced in order to enter that curious room where an empty suit of clothes had mocked him.

  “Who it is?”

  Captain Harder tried a su
bterfuge.

  “Captain Harder, come to see about the purchase of an invention. I’m representing the War Department.”

  The man on the other side of that door crackled into a cackling chuckle. “It’s about time. Let’s have a look at you.”

  Captain Harder nodded to the squad of grim-visaged men who were grouped just back of him.

  “All ready, boys,” he said.

  They lowered their shoulders, ready to rush the door as soon as it should be opened.

  But, to their surprise, there was a slight scraping noise, and a man’s face peered malevolently at them from a rectangular slit in the door.

  Captain Harder jerked back.

  The face was only partially visible through the narrow peephole. But there was a section of wrinkled forehead, shaggy, unkempt eyebrows, the bridge of a bony nose, and two eyes.

  The eyes compelled interest.

  They were red rimmed. They seemed to be perpetually irritated, until the irritation had seeped into the brain itself. And they glittered with a feverish light of unwholesome cunning.

  “Psh! The police!” said the voice, sounding startlingly clear through the opening of the door.

  “Open in the name of the law!” snapped Captain Harder.

  “Psh!” said the man again.

  There was the faintest flicker of motion from behind the little peephole in the door, and a sudden coughing explosion. A little cloud of white smoke mushroomed slowly out from the corner of the opening.

  The panel slid into place with the smooth efficiency of a well oiled piece of machinery.

  Captain Harder jerked out his service revolver.

  “All together, boys. Take that door down!”

  He gathered himself, then coughed, flung up his hand to his eyes.

  “Gas!” he yelled. “Look out!”

  The warning came too late for most of the squad of officers who were grouped about that door. The tear gas, a new and deadly kind which seemed so volatile as to make it mix instantly with the atmosphere, spread through the corridor. Men were blinded, staggering about, groping their way, crashing into one another.

  The panel in the door slid back again. The leering, malevolent features twisted into a hoarse laugh.

  Captain Harder flung up his revolver and fired at the sound of that demoniac laughter.

  The bullet thudded into the door.

  The panel slid shut.

  Sid Rodney had flung his arm about the waist of Ruby Orman at the first faint suggestion of mushrooming fumes.

  “Back! It may be deadly!”

  She fought against him.

  “Let me go! I’ve got to cover this!”

  But he swept her from her feet, flung her to his shoulder, sprinted down the hallways of the house. A servant gazed at them from a lower floor, scowling. Men were running, shouting questions at each other, stamping up and down stairs. The entire atmosphere of the house took on a peculiarly acrid odor.

  *

  Sid Rodney got the girl to an upper window on the windward side of the house. Fresh air was blowing in in a cooling stream.

  “Did it get your eyes?”

  “No. I’m going back.”

  Sid held her.

  “Don’t be foolish. There’s going to be something doing around here, and you and I have got to have our eyes where they can see something.”

  She fought against him.

  “Oh, I hate you! You’re so domineering, so cocksure of yourself.”

  Abruptly, he let her go.

  “If you feel that way,” he said, “go ahead.”

  She jerked back and away. She looked at him with eyes that were flaming with emotion. Sid Rodney turned back toward the window. Her eyes softened in expression, but there was a flaming spot in each cheek.

  “Why will you persist in treating me like a child?”

  He made no effort to answer the question.

  She turned back toward the end of the hallway, where the scientist had maintained his secret laboratory with the door that held the sliding panel.

  Men were struggling blindly about that door. Others were wrapping their eyes in wet towels. Here and there a figure groped its way about the corridor, clutching at the sides of the banister at the head of the stairs, feeling the edges of the walls.

  Suddenly, the entire vision swam before her eyes, grew blurred. She felt something warm trickling down her cheek. Abruptly her vision left her. Her eyes streamed moisture.

  “Sid!” she called. “Oh, Sid!”

  He was at her side in an instant. She felt the strong tendons of his arm, the supporting bulk of his shoulder, and then she was swung toward the window where the fresh air streamed into the house.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Now it’s got me.”

  “It probably won’t bother you very long. You didn’t get much of a dose of it. Hold your eyes open if you can, and face the breeze. They’ll have the house cleared of the fumes in a few minutes.”

  There was the sound of a siren from the outer street, the clang of a gong.

  “Firemen to clear the house,” said Sid.

  They stood there, shoulder to shoulder, cheek to cheek, letting the fresh morning breeze fan their faces. Out in the yard were hurrying shadows. Men came running to stations of vantage, carrying sawed-off shotguns. More cars sirened their way to the curb. Spectators gathered.

  Electric fans were used to clear the corridor of the gas. Men were brought up carrying bars and jimmies. They attacked the door. Captain Harder’s eyes were still disabled, as were the eyes of the others who had stood before that door.

  Sid Rodney touched the girl’s shoulder.

  “They’re getting ready to smash in the door. Can you see now?”

  She nodded.

  “I think they’ve got the hallway pretty well cleared of gas. Let’s go and see what happens.”

  She patted his arm.

  “Sid, you’re just like a big brother—some one to take care of me, some one to scold; but I like you a lot.”

  “Just as you would a brother?” he asked.

  “Just exactly.”

  “Thanks,” he said, and the disappointment of his voice was lost in the sound of splintering wood as the door swung back on its hinges.

  They stared into a great laboratory and experimenting room. It was a scene of havoc. Wreckage of bottles, equipment and apparatus was strewn about the room. It looked as though some one had taken an ax and ruthlessly smashed everything.

  Here, too, was another room without windows. Such light as there was in the room was artificial. The ventilation came through grilles which were barred with heavy iron. It was a room upon which it was impossible to spy.

  There was no trace of Albert Crome, the man whose malevolent face had been thrust through the aperture in the doorway.

  The police crowded into the room.

  Bottles of various acids had been smashed, and the pools upon the floor seethed and bubbled, gave forth acrid, throat-stinging fumes. In a cage by the door there were three white rats. These rats were scampering about, shrilling squeaky protests.

  There was no other sign of life left in that room, save the hulking shoulders of the policemen who now moved about in a dazed manner.

  Captain Harder’s voice bellowed instructions. He was blinded, but he was receiving reports from a detective who stood at his side and giving a rapid summary of conditions in the room.

  “He’s escaped some way. There’s a secret passage out of this room. Get the guards about the place to establish a deadline. Let no man through unless he has a pass signed by me. Those instructions are not to be varied or changed under any circumstances . . .”

  A man approached the officer.

  “You’re wanted on the telephone, Captain. I can plug in an extension here in the laboratory.”

  A servant, surly-faced, resentful, impassively placed a telephone extension in the hand of Captain Harder, plugged in the wires.

  The blinded officer raised the receiver to his ear.


  “Yeah,” he said.

  There came a rasping series of raucous notes, then the shrill cackle of metallic laughter and the click which announced the party at the other end of the line had hung up.

  Captain Harder started fiddling with the hook of the receiver in a frantic effort to get central.

  “Hello, hello. This is Captain Harder. There was a call just came through to me on this line. Trace it. Try and locate it . . . What’s that? No call? He said he was calling from a downtown drug store . . . All right.”

  The captain hung up the receiver.

  “Well, boys, I guess he’s given us the slip. That was his voice, all right. He was calling from a downtown drug store, he said. Told me to look in the northeast corner of the room and I’d find a secret passage leading down into his garage. Said he ran right out in his car without any trouble at all. He’s laughing at us.”

  One of the men picked his way through the wreckage of the room to the northeast corner. The others shuffled forward. Broken glass crunched under the soles of their feet as they moved.

  CHAPTER 5

  A Fantastic Secret

  The man who was bending over the wainscoting emitted a triumphant shout.

  “Here it is!”

  He gave a pull, and a section of the wall slid back, disclosing an oblong opening.

  Captain Harder was cursing as a detective led him toward this oblong.

  “I’m blinded . . . the outer guard let him slip through! What sort of boobs are we, anyhow? I thought I had this place guarded. Who was watching the outside? Herman, wasn’t it? Get me that guy. I’ve got things to say to him!”

  Men went down the steep flight of stairs which led from that secret exit, and came to the garage. Here were several cars, neatly lined up, ready for instant use, also several vacant spaces where additional cars could be kept.

  “Big enough!” grunted one of the men.

  Sid Rodney had an idea.

  “Look here, captain, it took time to smash up that laboratory.”

  Captain Harder was in no mood for theories.

  “Not so much! What if it did?”

  “Nothing. Only it took some little time. I don’t believe a man could have looked out of the door, recognized the police, turned loose the tear gas, and then smashed up this laboratory and still have time enough to make his escape by automobile from the garage.