The Second Mack Reynolds Megapack

by Mack Reynolds

  “Here we are, sir,” cried Alfred, closing the door and marching up to my friend, followed by his companions.

  “So I see,” the aged detective wheezed. “Mystery to me how you can manage to act so quickly.” He fumbled forth four florins from his pocket. “These shall be yours for what should be a simple task for such active young men.” He cackled as though he had made a humorous sally. “I want you to follow a rather elusive chap from the British Museum to his lodgings.”

  The old gaffer’s rheumy eyes almost gleamed. “And where the most cautious persons might suspect an adult, who is going to keep a suspicious eye on a shouting, playing lad?” He chuckled to himself again so that I suspected he had lost his train of thought, but then he said, “And now, lads, let us be off to assume a strategic point near the museum entrance.”

  “I don’t suppose,” I said, possibly a trifle wistfully, “that you need further assistance?” Could it be that, caught up in the excitement, I was reacting like an old fire horse?

  However, he said, “Not today, Doctor, not today. Afraid your arthritic joints are not quite up to the pace today.” His voice trailed off into utterly indistinct drivel, even as he left the door, and the last I made out was something pertaining to yogurt.

  I stared after him in some indignation, but they were gone, the boys’ feet clattering down the stairs.

  * * * *

  I heard no more of the case for three days, and then, suddenly, it came to a head, though not exactly to a conclusion. If there can be said to be a conclusion at all.

  We were seated early in the evening in our usual places, I with book in hand, my ex-detective friend tinkering with his .455 Webley, a weapon with which he was once remarkably accurate but which of recent years has caused me to wince each time he handles it. One of these days, I am going to throw away his supply of shells.

  “Ah,” he muttered finally, “our friend Peter Norwood is here for his report.” I must admit that his newfangled hearing device is effective; with it his ears are considerably better than my own.

  Even as he spoke, I could hear a knock at the door and faintly our landlady’s voice. In moments there was another knock, this time at our own door.

  I opened and welcomed the young man in, for indeed it was he. Peter Norwood’s face was slightly flushed, undoubtedly from a surfeit of good food and rare vintages, for it was shortly after the regular supper hour.

  He looked at us, the wine preventing him from disguising a somewhat belligerent attitude. “How long is this to take?” he demanded. “How long does it take to cook up a reasonable story for the old boy?”

  The former detective did not arise from his chair. He said, mildly I thought, “I sent my report to your father this morning, Mr. Norwood.” Which was lucid enough, but then he chuckled under his breath in what I can only describe as inane fashion.

  “Ah?” Norwood blinked at him, momentarily taken aback. “Well,” he said, reaching for a pocket, “I suppose then there is nothing more than to pay you off.” There was a contemptuous undertone in his words.

  “Unnecessary. No fee. I am retired, young fellow. No longer dependent upon my profession.” He waggled a bent finger at the other. “But if there had been, I should have submitted my bill to Sir Alexander. It was his commission, eh?”

  Peter Norwood scowled his incomprehension. Evidently, he began to smell a rat for his eyes narrowed and he growled, “What did you report, sir? Though I warn you, it will make no difference.”

  My aged friend fumbled through his pockets petulantly, finally coming up with a badly wrinkled carbon copy of a letter which he had obviously laboriously pounded out upon my typewriter. He handed it to me, obviously to be read aloud.

  This was the first I knew of it, however, I read.

  My dear Sir Alexander:

  This will convey to you my belief that your interest is well founded, and that your hobby, that of investigating the possibility of the existence of life forms on other planets and/ or in other star systems, is an intelligent one. I have uncovered sufficient data to indicate further investigation by yourself and the group with which you are affiliated would not be amiss.

  He had signed it very normally. Frankly, I had no idea he was capable of composing so coherent a letter, no matter how puerile the content.

  Peter Norwood was glaring at him. He stuttered, “I…I suppose you think you have thwarted me by this…this piece of lying nonsense?”

  My friend chuckled his affirmation, obviously as pleased as punch with himself.

  “You realize, you old fool,” the young man snapped, “that no court in the land would fail to commit my...”

  But the other was wagging an age-bent finger at him, his watery eyes still capable of a dim spark of fire. “It will never come to court, young fellow. Eh? This case has taken a full week of my time. I didn’t spend it all in chasing elusive extraterrestrials. I warn you, young man. I warn you that if Sir Alexander is brought before the courts in an attempt on your part to secure management of his affairs, I shall reveal your own secret.”

  And with that he leered in a most senile fashion.

  He could not have been more effective had he struck the other across the face. Peter Norwood staggered back, obviously deeply distressed. His flushed features went pale.

  The former detective chortled. “Yes, yes. My time was not wasted. I have no intention of making a report on the subject to your father, eh. Nor to, shall we say, others who might be concerned. I bid you to take heed”—he leered again, the obscene leer of an old man beyond vice himself—“and now, to take your leave.” His voice dribbled off into a chuckle again, as though in thinking of young Norwood’s secret.

  Without another word the young man staggered from our rooms.

  “Confound it,” I blurted. “This whole thing escapes me. I am in the dark. What sort of secret of that bounder’s were you able to ferret out?”

  He wheezed his inane laugh, until I began to suspect all over again complete dotardism, but finally he chortled, “Come now, my dear Doctor. We have here a young whelp obviously the victim of his sensual vices, eh? In spite of what must be a considerable allowance in view of his big cars and his fine clothing.” And then with a return to the terminology of yesteryear, “You know my methods. Utilize them.” He began his idiotic chuckling again.

  “You mean...”

  “I mean I haven’t the slightest idea what the young hound’s secret might be. Gambling, a young woman, or whatever. But I would wager that there is such a secret, or more than one.”

  I chuckled myself, seeing the humor of the situation. “But my dear fellow, that report you submitted to Sir Alexander. Do you think it well to encourage him in his delusions?”

  He had found his pipe and now loaded it, probably, in his childish cunning, thinking that in the discussion I would fail to notice his smoking at this late hour. “I submit, Doctor,” he prattled, “in the first instance it is a harmless hobby that will fill the hours for an old man whose mind is still keen.”

  “And in the second instance?” I prompted.

  “Ah. In the second instance, the report was in good faith.” He chuckled again, vaguely, and for a moment I thought he had lost the thread, but it came back to him.

  “I assume you have deduced from my activities that I located an individual at the museum who was making an extensive collection of photographs, eh? Photos of periodicals, books, pamphlets.”

  I nodded encouragingly.

  “Well,” he babbled, “with the assistance of my Baker Street Irregulars I was able to trace him to his rooms.” He watched me slyly from the side of his eyes. “Eventually, I was even able to search them. Eh?”

  I leaned forward, my interest manifest. “And what did you find?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? You, the outstanding sleuth of our era, found nothing?”

  He had lit his pipe and now waggled the extinguished match at me. “Negative assistance, Doctor. Negative evidence, but not without v
alue. The man’s—I use the term with reservations, eh?—the man’s apartment was devoid of any records, personal effects, or anything whatsoever which might give a clue to his identity.”

  “A spy!” I blurted.

  He wheezed his disgust at my opinion. “A spy for whom, eh? Anyway it was too late. Our bird had flown.

  “A spy for some foreign power…”

  He chuckled. “Very foreign indeed.”

  “…Some power such as Russia, or Germany. Possibly France or the United States. Each nation has its quota of agents.”

  His rheumy eyes held an expression of contempt. “I submit, Doctor, that none of the nations you name need sneak into the British Museum for such information as is there. It is open to the public, which includes the members of the diplomatic corps of these countries.”

  * * * *

  Had the matter ended here and without further development, I must be truthful with my readers, it is unlikely that I should have recorded this last of the famed sleuth’s adventures. For I had come increasingly of the opinion that he had slipped irrevocably over the edge of the precipice of senility, and it was painful enough to report these activities of a once great mind. However, the postscript of the whole matter is such that I am left admittedly unsatisfied and pass on to other followers of the career of the world’s most immortal detective the bare facts, without final conclusion.

  For it was but the night following the above mentioned conversation that a knock came upon the door. There had been no preliminary ringing of the bell, no sounds of our landlady answering the door below. Nothing save the knock.

  My friend scowled, fiddled with his hearing device petulantly, his once hawklike face in puzzlement such as he seldom admitted to. He muttered something under his breath, even as I answered the summons.

  The man at our threshold was possibly thirty-five years of age, impeccably dressed, and bore himself with an air of confidence all but condescending. Perhaps still miffed at my unsatisfactory conversation with the aged sleuth the night before, I said snappishly, “Yes, my good man?”

  The other said, “My business, sir, is with...”

  “Heh!” the aged detective cackled. “Señor Mercado-Mendez. Or should I say, Herr Doktor Bechstein? Or, still again, Mr. James Phillimore? So, we meet again, eh? How long has it been since our confrontation on the cutter Alicia?”

  To say I was startled would be understatement. I have recorded, long since, the mysterious episode of the Alicia which sailed one spring morning into a small patch of mist from where she never again emerged, nor was anything further heard of herself and the crew. One of the few adventures of my detective friend, while still in his prime, which he had failed to solve. Nor could I have failed to place the name Phillimore, who, long years since, had stepped back into his own house to get his umbrella and was never more seen in this world. Another adventure never solved.

  But, as I have said, our newcomer was at most in his mid-thirties and the two cases I mention took place during the Boer War, when the other could have been but a child.

  However, he bowed and, ignoring me, addressed my companion, though never stepping within the limits of our rooms.

  “Congratulations, sir. I did not expect recognition or would have taken precautions.”

  The aged detective grunted. “Precious good they would have done you, eh? I never close a case, Señor. Even that of Isadore Persano still rankles me.”

  And once again it came back to me. The third adventure never solved by the greatest brain ever to concentrate upon the science of criminal detection. Isadore Persano, the well-known journalist and duelist, who was found stark raving mad with a matchbox in front of him which contained a remarkable worm said to be unknown to science.

  And now I could but note that Señor Mercado-Mendez, if that was his name, stood in the shadows for good cause. His visage was such as to be that of a poorly embalmed corpse, waxlike in complexion so that I wondered if it could be a mask. Only the unnatural sharpness of his eyes indicated his face lived.

  He bowed again. “In the past, sir, it has not been necessary to contact you directly, though on the several occasions you mention you came dangerously near stumbling upon information not meant for you—nor anyone else.”

  There came a tension in the air, and the mouth of my old friend worked. “I deduce, Señor Mercado-Mendez, that you are not of this world.”

  I would have expected that bit of drivel to have been enough to send anyone off, without further discussion, but our newcomer merely stared for long moments, as though considering the old duffer’s words.

  Finally, still ignoring me, he said, “I have come to warn you, sir, that the Galactic Council cannot permit you to continue interfering with legitimate student research conducted with all care not to upset the internal affairs of your, shall we say, somewhat unique culture.”

  Obviously, the man was as mentally incompetent as was my friend, who could at least claim the infirmity of age. I began to take issue. However, he turned but briefly and his eyes gleamed warning as a cobra’s eyes gleam warning, and I grew still again.

  * * * *

  The once great detective shifted in his chair, petulantly. “So far as I am concerned, the case was closed. However, I cannot speak for Sir Alexander and the World Defense Society.”

  There was a glint of amusement in the other’s startling eyes. “We will not worry about Sir Alexander’s group, sir. We have had our Sir Alexanders before.” There returned the element of condescension to the stranger’s voice. “Nor need you worry about preserving the integrity of your planet. Your desire in that direction is as nothing compared to that of the Galactic Council’s Bureau of Archaeology and Ethnology, Department of Research in Living Primitive Cultures.”

  There was a long moment of silence and when my friend spoke again there was a slow care in his voice which brought me to memories of long years before, when the famed sleuth was feeling his way to the solution of a problem beyond the ken of ordinary minds.

  “I deduce further,” he said, “that your own position is similar to that of a police official…perhaps guardian is the better term.”

  The other made a very human shrug, twisted his mouth wryly and bowed. His eyes came again to me and I had the impression of being quickly weighed and rejected as an element to be considered in this nonsensical verbal duel. He said agreeably, “The Council is desirous of protecting such planets as your own; admittedly there are elements who would exploit your culture, in its infancy. I am the Council’s servant.”

  Perhaps it was that the aged detective was growing weary of the condescension in the other’s tone. He took on a snappish quality. “I begin to suspect, Señor Mercado-Mendez, the solution to many of the great unsolved crimes of the world. The disappearance, for example, of the Great Mogul diamond, eh? The spiriting away of the Aztec treasure following the noche triste of Hernando Cortés. The theft of the sarcophagus of Alexander the Macedonian, eh? The unbelievable tomb robberies of the Pharaohs. The...”

  Had the stranger’s face been capable of a flush, it was manifest that one would have appeared at this point. He held up a hand to quell the cataloguing. “Admittedly, the best of guardians can sometimes fail.”

  The great detective’s face sharpened in such wise that I knew, from long past experience, that he had arrived at a conclusion satisfactory to him. I snorted inwardly. He was having his delusions again.

  He said, his voice resisting wavering, “I submit the following. In this world today, the nations are deep in international intrigue, war threatens, and all prepare. Major nations send agents to every continent. Is it not manifest, Señor, that a British undercover operative masquerading as an Arab would have immense difficulty detecting a first-rate German undercover agent masquerading as an Arab in the same town? But an Arab native would be much better equipped to detect the slight flaws in the German’s disguise, eh?”

  All of which was obviously beside what little point there had seemed to be in the conversation be
fore, so far as I could see, and I had about decided to suggest to the newcomer that he was trying the strength of my companion with all this claptrap, and that it might be well for him to be on his way.

  However, Señor Mercado-Mendez, if that was truly his name, seemed to find meaning where I had not. His tone had now lost the amused tolerance of his earlier words. He said, “You suggest…”

  The aged detective nodded as he relit his pipe. “Manifestly.”

  The other was quietly thoughtful. “In what capacity would you expect to act?”

  “Heh,” my companion snorted. “As you should well know, my following has been that of a consulting detective, Señor. And my fees, I might add, not minimal.”

  From whence the old codger was drawing his resources I shall never know, though I will admit that by this time my own were giving out to the point that my bed’s attractions were wooing me. I said, “Hasn’t there been quite enough of this drivel? Neither of you makes sense to me. If I gather anything at all, it is that my octogenarian, ah, patient is offering himself as an employee. I submit...” But they were ignoring me.

  There was condescension again in the younger one’s tone. “Fifty years ago, sir, perhaps your offer would have had its elements.”

  The once great sleuth lifted an age-bent hand and waggled it negatively. “Señor, I need hardly point out the manifest answer to that.” He cackled his inane amusement. “Your own appearance after all these years is ample indication that your people have, shall we say, discovered what Friar Roger Bacon once named the Elixir Vitae.”

  There was a lengthy silence. Finally, “I see. And you are correct; your fees, sir, are far from minimal. However, it is not the practice of the Galactic Council to interfere with the natural progress of primitive planets by introduction of medical techniques beyond...”

  The bent hand was waggling negatively again.

  I suppressed a yawn. Was this to go on forever? What in the world were they getting at?

  My friend said, “Obviously, Señor Mercado-Mendez, all rules must have their exceptions. If your council’s work is to be successful, you need a”—his chuckle had the inane quality to which I object—“shall we say, aborigine, agent on your staff. Come, Señor, you know my abilities, my methods.”