by Earl
This disastrous, but profitable, venture left me again in the air, with a future to think of. I tried various things, to find my hypervision a perfect dampener. It gave me no rest, revealed too much, crowded my tired brain with sordidness and unwanted impressions. I passed from job to job, never able to stand my fellow workers for more than a few months. At the end of that time I knew too much about them to look at them with any degree of composure. Fortune came my way once; a lucky investment brought me such huge returns that I had no need to work if I lived frugally.
THEN came the War. I w-as drafted, sent across, ordered to help the sandbags stop ballets. I was captured, brought to a German prison camp, and stayed there till the end. But I did not leave when freed, because I became acquainted with a German chemist and for the first time in my life formed a friendship of any permanent sort. He died; he had been gassed. Before his death, however, I told him of my secret and he urged me to return to a university career and follow science. “Your hypervision,” he said, “will be invaluable to science!”
That made me think. I returned to the States and fell into a slough of inactivity. A returned soldier, who has seen carnage and bloodshed, does not always feel ambitious. And the scenes carried with me, painted in a brightness and clarity that I alone can know, had well-nigh burned my brain out. My hypervision was proving to be more torturesome than it had been even when, as a child. I felt an ebon, chilling unknown pressing on my spirit.
However, the seed that my German friend had sowed grew and eventually blossomed. I went to the University of Chicago and expanded my scientific knowledge. At times I startled the professors with little bits of what to them was wizardry—tricks of my power of seeing the ultra-violet without the instruments they had to use. Perhaps they suspected at times—although I never committed myself—that I had extraordinary powers of observation. Gradually, a small fame built itself around me, and numerous offers came my way to collaborate in research in physics and chemistry.
But a man shrinks from candidly exposing to the news-hungry public a gift that will set him a little off from all others. I was afraid of becoming an object of circus-freak renown. I pictured dozens of reporters hounding me, photographers. curious stares wherever I went, brazen headlines and sensation-reeking columns of print. I thought of biographers ferreting the painful details of my life, shaking my scarred soul before a calloused world. I thought of clever scoop artists cornering me with bits of gaudy-colored paper and maliciously asking me what hues they were, so that next day they could tell the millions that I had called crimson, brown!
I am a sentimentalist? My imagination runs riot? My friend, could you but know how raw my spirit had been worn by my unfortunate childhood. Go back in history and see how childhood afflictions affect the course of manhood: Lord Byron and his lameness; Demosthenes and his lisp; Napoleon and his short stature; Kaiser Wilhelm and his wilted arm.
To leave these digressions, and to emphasize what they refer to, my secret remained locked in my mind. A full-fledged Ph. D., I traveled to rest from my concentrated four years of study. For two years I wandered aimlessly, and as economically as possible, viewing the scenic spots of the world eagerly, drawn by a terrible fascination for the bizarre results from my multiple-colored spectrum.
World-famed beauty spots were often abhorrent to me, dabbed with gaudy smears. But the first time I saw a desert I fell prostrate in worship. Those rolling, monotonous wastes of drab sand, in the world’s eyes, are like the waves of a lake in Paradise to me, subtly tinted in delicate, shimmering hues. Cacti seem like celestial fruits. But the oasis I came to was a jarring note—a searing splash of bright, unsoothing colors. Perhaps you can realize from that how different the world looks to me.
BACK from my wanderings, the obscure idea that had been seething in my mind ever since my German friend had spoken to me about it, crystallized into action. Impelled both by a desire to make a comfortable living, because my money was running low, and by an urge of conscience to put my hypervision to some use, I undertook chemical analysis.
I broached my idea to an acquaintance of college days—a pleasant fellow who had never irked me with too much curiosity. I told him I had had an inspiration for a totally new method of analysis, and needed an assistant. That was true, only he didn’t know then that I needed him as a check on my results. That is, since my new method would be largely optical. I needed his standard methods to check my new ones.
In collaboration, we finally developed the method to a useful point. We worked out a system of analysis both for organic and inorganic chemistry, purely qualitative, in which my hvpervision replaced much of the cumbersome test methods. I say “we,” because not many months had passed before my helper guessed my secret. But he was a quiet sort and readily promised never to divulge it without my permission.
Armed with this weapon. I invaded the business world. I went directly to a big dye concern in New York and offered to do their trickiest and lengthiest analyses in one third, or less, time than usual. Of course, they were skeptical, but my confidence and persistence won me a trial.
They picked out a routine analysis that ordinarily took three days for two chemists. Jack and I started at eight in the morning and presented our results by seven in the evening. To say the dye people were astonished would be putting it mildly. I was then and there tendered a contract and offered high pay.
I accepted, but with a stipulation of my own: that I be given a private laboratory and that no one attempt to steal my new methods. Of course, they couldn’t have in any case, but I wanted to be left strictly alone. Thus, for three years I lived as a privileged chemist with handsome wages.
Jack left me one day—we had never been close friends—to accept another and better position. I procured another assistant, but never took him into my confidence. I had him do the ordinary routines. The final—the hypervisual—tests, I did myself, in seclusion. I became known as the “wizard analyst” and the “chemical hermit,” and offers came from different concerns which had gotten wind of my revolutionizing analytical methods. I disregarded them. I was perfectly satisfied with the dye people and wanted just as little molestation and notoriety as possible. Gradually the hubbub died away.
Perhaps it would not be out of place here for me to describe in general terms my time-saving analytical methods. There are hundreds of “colorless” chemicals, especially liquids, that to me have a distinct tint or hue! For instance, to me alcohol has a color—also benzine and other organic liquids. In other words, they reflect certain of the ultraviolet rays that to me are colors.
In chemical analyses, as you may know, many tests depend on visual observation: copper and its blue solutions; the borax-bead tests; the flame tests for barium, strontium, potassium, etc. But there were other tests like that which dealt in the ultra-violet range. My hvpervision, naturally, allowed me to exploit them. Where another chemist might get a colorless liquid whose properties he would have to test in laborious ways, I would see with my eyes a characteristic color that would immediately reveal its identity. My notes, the careful listing of characteristic colors—for which I had to devise names of my own—would he meaningless to any other chemist. To me they are the means of quick and accurate analysis.
DURING those three years I was with the dye people, I gradually improved my methods and simplified them. And in spare moments I devised tests for chemicals outside of the dye field. Then I decided to strike out for myself, entirely on my own. I had built for myself a complete laboratory, covering anything from mineralogy to perfumery, and left the dye field.
I established myself there and discreetly advertised that I would do only special work—long analyses where the time element was important, research analyses, and analyses that were practically impossible to orthodox chemistry. I made my fees high, so as not to be flooded with work.
You can well believe, my friend, that my challenge was accepted. Requests poured in, most of which I turned down. I took only tasks that intrigued me by their intricacy.
Later people began calling on me, offering me this and that job for almost fabulous remuneration. A famous European scientist once called and pleaded with me to collaborate with him in some obscure research.
I turned a deaf ear. Perhaps my attitude seems selfish—as that scientist put it when I politely shook my head: “You have the means of immeasurably benefiting science. To refuse, sir, is a crime!”
Why did I refuse to dedicate myself to science—and to immortal fame? That was but a fantasy. I knew, more than any one else, that I could never accomplish original research. You see, the scientists thought my new analytical method due to some clever genius of my brain. They did not know at all that I had merely a hypervision. If a man like Faraday, or Crookes. Einstein, Langmuir—any man of true genius—had had my hypervision—yes, then science could have been benefited. But I, with a keen mind, have not the brain that makes great intellectual discoveries. I am but a man who has capitalized his peculiar attribute, as a comedian does his knack for amusing people, or as a circus freak does his ability to interest the masses.
It was ten years ago that I became independent. In that time I did what little chemical work I needed to make a living and traveled whenever the mood seized me. I have strictly avoided marriage and close friendships because of that keenness of vision that reveals to me so much of human nature under the conventional mask of culture—too much for my own peace of mind. I have come to take my lot philosophically, and to forget as often as possible that I live in a different world—both physically and mentally—than others. Of late I have sometimes sat for hours, pondering my strange hypervision—wondering——
Well, let such things be.
Thus, my friend of the hour, you have a sketch of my life. I see it is ten thirty. If you would care to hear a little incident? . . . Thank you.
IT HAPPENED just three years ago in this same Kassway Club, of which I have been a casual member for some five years. In explanation of which I will say that in my later years I have sought the company of other men more than ever before in my life—not to form tying friendships, but to enjoy an evening cigar and a drink along with idle conversation. Time mellows all and it has mellowed my harsh, blunt spirit, so that an evening with quiet, cultured men has come to mean enjoyment to me.
My custom is to run down to the city here every few days, indulge in a bit of running around—big city life is exciting in a way—and then return to my laboratory for a few days’ work, more from a sense of duty than the need for funds. During one of my periodical jaunts—three years ago—I went to the opera with George Stuart of this club, who is now dead. Ours was a casual acquaintance.
Returning to the club after the opera, Stuart took me up to see another member, who had a room on the third floor. Stuart knocked at No. 318. A loud voice invited us in.
Michael Torpaque was his name—a large, bluff man with a florid face. I knew little of him except that he was a heavy drinker. He had celebrated the Repeal in ’33 by being drunk for one solid week.
I wandered about the room curiously, as he and Stuart began talking earnestly. Being a wealthy man, Torpaque had fitted the room up to suit his fancy. It was a startlingly clever approach to the bridge of a steam yacht. A gilt hand-rail on each side of the door narrowed to the prow of shiny metal that reposed against one wall. The walls had been painted to represent the openness of empty ocean. Realistic waves seemed about to splash over one. Near the prow, which was the back of the room, was an authentic bridge with actual helm and compass and nautical instruments. Even a life preserver, gilt-covered, hung at the rail.
The table at which they sat was a yacht fixture, bolted down. Against the wall, within reach, was a seaman’s closet with swinging doors. One of them was wide-swung and revealed a store of liquors and wines that made me gasp. And on the table itself stood several bottles and glasses, and a cut-glass decanter with a glass stopper. It was half full of what to me was a richly tinted liquid. It was gin, for which Torpaque had a particular affinity.
While I had been wandering about the interesting room, I had heard my companions’ voices becoming testy. I knew Torpaque to be generally irritable, and his voice indicated that he had been sampling his liquid wares quite freely. The matter they were discussing seemed trivial, but their voices clashed like swinging sabers.
Finally Stuart arose, frowning. “Let it pass, Torpaque,” he said. “But you’ll have to come with me some evening and see about it. We could go right now for that matter——”
“No!” burst out Torpaque loudly, “And get out!”
Stuart flushed violently, then turned on his heel with a scornful curl of his lips. As I followed him from the room, I saw Torpaque reach an eager hand for one of the bottles.
In the corridor I found Stuart talking sharply to one of the butlers. The latter seemed flustered, apparently having been caught by Stuart listening at the keyhole.
“Oh no, sir!” the butler was saying. “Mr. Torpaque rang for me, sir.”
Already in a vile mood, Stuart seemed about to report the fellow, but changed his mind and motioned me to come along. I might say right here that I saw something in the butler’s face—due to hypervision—that struck me as odd. It was a combination of fear and relief. Fear that Stuart would report him as a keyhole-listener, and relief that he had not? Or was it more than that?
At the landing of the second floor, Stuart suddenly decided he had to go back to see Torpaque for a moment. He asked me to wait there. When he came back he was smiling grimly.
Stuart and I then descended to the drawing room, buried ourselves in a secluded corner such as this, lighted cigars and had some drinks. With disattached geniality we discussed the opera, enjoying more the peace of the moment than any interest in each other or in the topic.
SUDDENLY the peace was shattered. The buzz and hum of conversation in the room ceased, leaving an ominous silence. Stuart and I sat up in wonder. Then I saw the manager of the club. Bangs, weaving his way to us with a shocked look on his fat face.
“Gentlemen,” he whispered, bending over our heads, “come along with me immediately, please. Michael Torpaque is—dead!”
As we followed the nervous Bangs out of the room, several of the other members attempted to follow. Bangs turned to face them, putting his huge bulk in the door. “Gentlemen, please! Remain here. None of you can do any good upstairs.”
We three then ascended to the third floor, where Stuart and I had been just an hour before. At Room 318. outside the open door, stood the club detective, the three butlers, and several of the club’s clerks.
“What’s it all about?” asked Stuart, as Bangs, puffing from his exertions, halted us near the group.
“Adams here”—Bangs pointed to the same butler whom we had accosted when leaving Torpaque—“went in to Torpaque five minutes ago and found him dead! He called me and mentioned that you two gentlemen had been in there last. You understand, Mr. Stuart, no offense meant—just that you might tell us how he was when you last saw him and——”
Stuart walked boldly into the gaudy room. I came behind him and looked at the sprawling body, slumped over the table. One hand still clutched an empty glass. All the bottles were uncorked, as was the cut-glass decanter, and it was obvious that immediately after we had left him Torpaque had begun an orgy of drinking, as was his almost nightly habit.
“Well.” said Stuart firmly, facing the frightened faces in the doorway, “I knew it would come some day. He drank himself to death!”
Bangs looked relieved. “You’ll vouch to that. Mr. Stuart? You’ll tell the authorities that it was drink? You’ll impress upon them that when you left he was already half drunk? Oh. such trouble in my club! Never has this happened before! They’ll think of murder right away. He was rich. But you will tell them, Mr. Stuart——”
“Yes, yes,” cut in my companion testily. “Of course I will. Everybody in the club will vouch him a heavy drinker—and that he had a weak heart. It’s a plain case. You have nothing to worry about, Bangs.”
Stuart turned, with disgust, from the sight of the limp body, and from the strong odor of liquor. “Come on,” he said to me, “we can go down again. When the medical examiner and police come, they can call us up here if they need our testimony to convince them Torpaque was a drunkard.”
I HAD BEEN silently looking at the liquid-smeared table top. the bottles, and the wide-open liquor cabinet, and thinking. queerly enough, of my laboratory. I was about to turn and follow Stuart when my eye fell upon the decanter. I have said it was unstoppered. More than that, it was less full than before, showing that Torpaque had drunk from it. But it was with a start that I noticed its color—the color that I alone could see.
That color was not the same as it had been an hour before, when Torpaque had been alive! Suddenly something clicked in my mind—that color there now was the color of pure gin! My thoughts went on—then that other color had been of gin with some strong impurity in it!
My mind raced on——
Stuart, noticing my hesitation and my fixed gaze at the gin decanter, touched my arm and looked at me quizzically. I, in turn, looked at him and at the butler, Adams, searchingly. I knew that one of them was a murderer, a poisoner—but——
Furthermore, I knew which one it was. It was written on his face plainly enough—to my hypervision—a look of veiled triumph and craftiness.
But how to prove it! To do that I would need something damning in the way of evidence—for instance, the other decanter with the doped gin in it, if it was not already spilled. Who had taken it out? Stuart or Adams? Both had had the opportunity.
