Thus in an atmosphere like that of their own foggy planet, the dancers outdid themselves, their gliding gestures moving swiftly in faultless rhythms. Suddenly, with an almost deafening shout, they sprang into the air—and disappeared.
It was a tremendous effect. The water-spray died at once, leaving nothing but luminous air under the play of a pale light. Thunderous applause.
“I know how that is done,” Phogor said to his step-daughter Reynardine. ‘‘The atom-shift ray. It strikes any material into atomic silence, so that they fade from view. See, the light is being wheeled away. Those dancers, in the form of invisible atomic clouds, will go with it and re-mate- rialize in the green room. Scientifically simple, and very uncomfortable, I hear, to those involved. But the show must go on. Pulambar demands new thrills.”
Brome Fielding smiled, as if he, for one, found the new thrill acceptable. Only Amyas Crofts, in a remote corner, glowered.
For he had been looking toward the main entrance, and had seen the arrival of the two new guests who had just come to occupy the last reserved table.
Dillon Stover, towering and handsome in blue and scarlet, made a commanding figure even in that richly decked crowd. Behind him came Buckalew, more somber but quite as fashionable in black and silver. Where Stover’s expression was strained and defiant, Buckalew was absolutely calm
and unruffled of feature.
Others saw the pair, and stared as fiercely as Amyas Crofts. The Martian who had replaced Prrala as proprietor fumbled over the admission card. Others, including many guests, glowered at the recently jailed young man who returned so nervily to the very heart of society. And one figure swaggered up, a man in the uniform of a space-officer.
“Now I can believe all I hear of you, Stover,” said this person in a thick, disagreeable voice. “Only a man who is all brass and no heart would have the crust to come over here.”
He was almost as tall as Stover and heavier. His face might have been boldly handsome before dissipation coarsened it. As he spoke, his right hand slid inside the front of his tunic.
Stover met his stare. “Who are you?”
“Sharp. Captain Sharp. Retired. And,” the voice grew nastier still, “since you must have come here just to show us your face—”
Turning from Stover, he addressed the crowd that watched as expectantly as it had watched the encounter with Malbrook three nights before. “This man’s crust would blunt a rocket- kick!” he bawled. “Twice a murderer, and he coldly comes here.” He turned back to Stover. “What have you done to Gerda?”
“Nothing, if it’s any of your business,” said Stover, fighting to keep his temper.
The coarse face darkened. “I love her—and she’s disappeared. You,” he leveled a forefinger, “did away with her. Well, you were full of fight once before here. How about fighting now?”
“Careful, Dillon,” warned Buckalew. “He’s deliberately making trouble.”
“Maybe you’ll fight for this!” raged Captain Sharp.
HE SLAPPED Stover, open- handed. Then, as before with Malbrook, people were interfering. Among them was one who hadn’t been here on the earlier occasion—Congreve. He caught Sharp by the shoulders and thrust him back.
“Don’t you High-tower sparks do anything but hit each other?” he asked dryly.
The new Martian proprietor came towards Stover. “I feel, ssirr, that you had betterr go elssewherre. We cannot have ssuch brrawling around here.”
“I’m going,” growled Stover. “My enemies know I’m still in the running, for lightning to challenge twice in the same place.”
They went outdoors, and Buckalew signaled for an air-taxi.
“I’ve got it!” Stover exclaimed suddenly.
“Got what?”
“The key—half a key, anyway. This is a murder gone wrong. Just now this Sharp tried to force a quarrel on me.”
“Probably acting for the murderer,” chimed in Buckalew.
“Exactly. It was all fixed up. This Captain Sharp sneers at me and does his best to make a fight of it. That was what Malbrook did. Malbrook’s wasn’t a chance squabble. He engineered things to make a situation out of which a duel would come. For some reason, I was marked to be murdered.”
BUCKALEW gazed at Stover with what might have been critical wonder in his deep dark eyes. “You may be right. But Malbrook was killed first.”
“That’s it. First a plot to destroy men. Then someone kills Malbrook instead. I wonder who all are involved.”
“I can name one,” said Buckalew. “Bee MacGowan.”
Stover started and tried to gesture the idea away.
“But she was what you fought over, Dillon,” Buckalew pursued. “She was at your table just as Malbrook came over and used her to make a scene. I said once not to forget any single figure in this mess. That goes for Bee MacGowan, as well. Here’s our taxi.”
Stover nodded, but not as a sign of defeat.
“I’ll have the solution inside of another day,” he vowed.
CHAPTER XIV Three Calls at Midnight
CONSIDERING that Captain Sharp had just left the expensive and exclusive Zaarr, the sleeping quarters he sought were shabby. They consisted of two small rooms, little larger than cupboards, in one of the lofty, blocky buildings that underlay the high towers among which he had spent a few hours. He entered the front cubicle, and flung himself down in the one chair.
His coarse face bore the look of one angry and worried.
Almost at once his radio phone buzzed. He approached it as a diver approaches a cold plunge. “Yes,” he said into the transmitter, “this is Captain Sharp.”
“You have failed me,” came a cold whisper he knew.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Sharp began to plead.
“Do not palter. Do not argue. I was there and saw. You handled the situation foolishly. I felt like telling Mr. Congreve the truth about you, that you’re guilty of many offenses against the Space Laws, and letting him carry you off to jail. I am through with you now.”
“Give me a chance!” Sharp cried vehemently. “I need that money you offered me. Let me meet Stover again. I promise—”
“Your promises are nothing, Sharp. Less than nothing.”
A noise behind. Sharp set down the phone and turned.
The door to the rear room, where his bed was located, swung open. A towering shape in blue and scarlet stepped into the light.
Sharp swore shrilly, and his hand dived into the bosom of his tunic. But Dillon Stover’s right hand, its sprained knuckles lightly bandaged, leveled an electro-automatic.
“Freeze,” he commanded, and Sharp obeyed. Stover crossed to him and with his left hand drew the weapon that Sharp carried in an armpit holster.
The captain found the spirit to answer. “You aren’t going to give me anything like a fighting chance, I suppose.”
“You suppose correctly.” Stover studied him with his bright blue eyes. “Well, Sharp—Captain Sharp, discharged—”
“How did you know that?” wheezed Sharp, badly shaken.
“I looked through your papers while I waited here for you. As to how I got in—you were going to ask that next? I hired the room next to you and cut through the wall with an MS-ray. Your address? I got it at the Zaarr, where all guests are required to register. Why did I come? To settle accounts. That handles everything you’re thinking to ask me. Now I’ll do the questioning.”
“You’ve got the guns,” snarled Sharp. “Ask me whatever you want to.”
Stover sat down, but did not grant a similar relaxation to his captive. “You were set on me like a mangy dog,” he charged. “To pick a fight and kill me. Who hired you?” Sharp shook his head. “I can’t tell you that.”
“You mean you won’t?” Stover’s eyes narrowed, and the pistol seemed to tense itself in his bandaged hand.
“I can’t. I never saw the bird.” Sharp was suddenly earnest. “Listen, you must believe that. I saw only a big shape wrapped in a cloak, with the face covered.”
“Gray cloak? Veil? Gloves? Was it man or woman?”
AGAIN Sharp shook his head. I can’t say. He—or she—whispered. I couldn’t tell a thing about the voice.” He glanced furtively around. “I’m risking my life with every word I speak.”
“You’re risking your life with every word you hold back,” Stover informed him. “When were you given this job?”
“Today about noon.” Sharp gulped and his voice trembled. “I came to Pulambar a week ago, hoping to make a connection—a space-job.”
Stover nodded. He knew how discredited space-men sometimes signed with outlaw vessels in such big, lax communities.
“The job didn’t come through,” Sharp went on, “and I was pretty desperate. Then about noon, as I say, there was a buzz at my door bell. In stalked this bird in the cloak and veil.”
“Asking you to kill me,” supplied Stover. “And you agreed.”
Sharp spread his hands in appeal.
“I’m broke. I’ll starve. Don’t I have to live?”
“I fail to see the necessity. And you won’t live long if you don’t get on with this yarn. Talk fast, and don’t lie.”
There was no danger of Sharp lying. “I was told that you’d be at the Zaarr tonight—you’d made reservation—and that there’d be an admission card in my name there,” he rattled on. ‘‘I was told how to pick the scrap by mentioning a woman named Gerda.”
“You don’t know Gerda?” put in Stover.
“Never heard of her before today.” Sharp was almost in tears. “Mr. Stover, all I can say is that I’m sorrier than—”
“You’ll be sorriest if you try to fool or forestall me,” Stover promised grimly. “And just now, I judge that the whisperer was on your phone.”
“Yes, telling me that I’d failed, was through, wouldn’t get paid anything.”
Stover had relaxed a trifle. Sharp sprang at him. Without rising from his seat, Stover lifted a leg and kicked his assailant in the chest. Sharp fell, doubled up and gasping. Stover laughed shortly, and rose.
“I’m going,” he said. “By the way, do you realize your phone never tuned off?”
He stepped to the instrument and spoke into it. “Hello, are you there? . . . I heard the connection break, Sharp. The whisperer’s been listen- ing.
Sharp started moaning. “We’ve been heard. I spilled the dope. Now I’m done for.”
“Good night,” said Stover, and moved toward the door. Sharp got to his feet. “Wait!! What’s to become of me?”
“That’s problematical, Sharp. I can’t do anything. I carry my life in my hand everywhere I go.”
“What had I better do?”
Stover thought. Then:
“Go to police headquarters. Look for a special agent named Congreve. Tell him any dirty thing you’ve done, and it’ll land you in a cell. You should be safe there. Later on, I’ll get in touch with you. We may make a deal if you’ll talk in court.”
Reynardine Phogor and her stepfather looked up in irritated wonder as the robot servitors in the reception hall buzzed and rasped in protest. There was a clanking scuffle as a robot was being pushed aside. Then a blue and scarlet giant stalked in.
“Dillon Stover!” exclaimed Reynardine.
Phogor’s frog-face was distorted with fury. “What new violence—” he began angrily.
Stover gestured for quiet. “I’m trying to help. About the murder of Malbrook and its effect on you.”
The girl drew herself up. She was magnificently dressed, with a little too much sparkle. Her fine eyes glittered disdain. “How can you help?” she demanded.
“By turning up the real murderer. That would help you—unless one of you did it.” Stover looked at each in turn. “Don’t call any robots, Phogor. They’ll get smashed all out of working order. Listen to what I have to say, and then I’ll go.”
Phogor and Reynardine looked at each other. Then: “Say what you wish,” granted Phogor.
“It’s about this alleged will,” said Stover. “You, Miss Reynardine, are very confident of its existence.”
She nodded her head, and the light played on its onyx streakings. “I am confident. That is, unless Brome Fielding destroyed it.”
“You saw the will?”
“I heard it. You see, it’s a televiso record, picturing Mace announcing his bequests verbally. In it he recognized me as his intended wife, and considers me his principal heir-at- law.”
“Perfectly legal,” seconded Phogor in his mighty voice.
“Would he have kept the will in his fortified room?” asked Stover. “If he did, it’s probably destroyed. Everything was smashed by the explosion.” “That may have happened,” sighed Reynardine, as though she disliked to shift the blame for the will’s loss from Fielding.
Stover asked one more question. “You hate Fielding, Miss Reynardine?”
“That is an insolent remark,” began Phogor, but his stepdaughter waved him to silence.
“Why not tell Mr. Stover? All the rest of Pulambar seems to know. Mr. Fielding wants to marry me.”
“Oh,” said Stover. “And has he ever suggested marriage or made love before?”
She shook her head. “He doesn’t put it on an emotional basis. Says that he and I were the closest two persons to Mace, and that we should marry because of that relationship. Rather fantastic. And,” she smiled a little at Stover, “I don’t find him attractive.”
“I think Mr. Stover’s unwarranted inquisition has gone far enough,” contributed Phogor. “We are both tired. We have been frank. Let him be considerate, and leave us.”
Stover bowed, and left.
IN THE reception hall that had been Malbrook’s, Congreve and Fielding faced each other above the body of Gerda.
“Thank heaven I asked you to come with me,” said Fielding, shaken.
Congreve looked at the corpse again. “It would have been hard to frame you with this. She’s been dead for hours. Now tell me again.”
“A radio phone call. A whispering voice told me to come here alone. But I had the inspiration, a lucky one, to ask you to come with me. You say this was one of your undercover people? Was she working on this murder case?”
Someone else entered. It was Stover, who gave only one look at Gerda. To Fielding he said: “They told me at your place you’d come here.”
“Get out,” Fielding said.
“No,” demurred Stover. “I’m in this case up to my neck. Mr. Fielding, do you love Reynardine Phogor? Did you ask her hand in marriage?” “You’re insolent.” That was Congreve, not Fielding. “You’re officious, too. And you’re still under suspicion.”
“I know that,” said Stover. “That’s why I want to help.”
“Leave it to the police,” snapped
Fielding. “I ought to demand your arrest now, Stover. Get out, I say.” Stover turned to the door. “Tonight,” he said over his shoulder, “I’ve stood face to face with the murderer of Mace Malbrook.”
It was hard to say which started the most violently, Congreve or Fielding.
Stover laughed, and was gone.
CHAPTER XV Captain Sharp
“PSSST! Mr. Stover!"
Dillon Stover, stepping out on the balcony of Malbrook’s old quarters, stopped in the very act of summoning a flying taxi. He looked in the direction of the muttered signal.
At one end of the balcony was a service stairway. Upon that stairway, at a level so that only his head and shoulders were exposed, stood someone whose outline in the gloom was vaguely familiar.
“This way, Mr. Stover!”
He turned and approached, cautiously. Four days of desperate action, of chasing and being chased, had made Stover give much attention to every possibility of danger. If this was an assassin he was going to be sorry.
But the man who had hailed him turned and ran swiftly and furtively down the stairs. Stover followed, his body tense and ready for any sort of action—to fly, to strike out, to beat off an attack. No such need came. The two men gained a balc
ony below Malbrook’s, and here Stover came close enough to recognize his companion.
“Captain Sharp!”
“I c-came here because—”
Stover waved away the words. “You’re in danger, Sharp. Mortal danger. I warn you, not because I value your precious carcass, but because you may be able to give evidence for me. Your best chance is to do what I told you. Go and confess some minor crime and get locked up in the police detention cells."
Sharp shook his head furiously. "I found that I can't do that. There's too much fire on me."
The man, for all his coarseness, had appeared strong to Stover at the earlier meetings. Now he seemed ready to crumble, to collapse. His considerable size made him the more unwieldy in the grip of whatever terror had him.
"You see," Sharp continued, "the whisper-voice got back on the phone again after you were gone and I was making ready to leave. That fellow, whoever he was, had heard plenty. He said that the police were being warned about some real dirty things I'd done —killings."
"And so you can't face the music?" finished Stover for him.
"Not when it plays that sort of tune."
"It's playing the Dead March now," Stover informed him grimly. "Well, so you came to me. How did you know I was here?"
"I didn't. I came here after I heard at Mr. Brome Fielding's place he'd headed this way. But when I found that a police officer was with him—"
"Why are you so anxious to see Brome Fielding?" Stover interrupted.
"Because he's the partner of Mace Malbrook. Because he wants to clear up the murder. Because he's got enough influence to hide me and guard me, if I can convince him it's worth his while."
There was the whirr of rockets above. Sharp stepped to the balcony and looked upward.
"The police flyer's leaving," he reported, "with only that cop in it. Fielding's still up above. Let's go talk to him."
STOVER put out a hand to stop Sharp, but the captain was already heading for the stairway. Stover followed him. Their heads rose into view of the upper balcony. Fielding stood there, elbows on the railing, looking moodily skyward. At that very moment, an air-taxi curved in and hovered.
Manly Wade Wellman - Chapbook 02 Page 9
