by Don Wilcox
I saw, against the wild array of purple sparks, that the barrel had stopped, pointing a few feet to one side of me. Buffler’s nervous hands whirled a wheel, and the gun gradually nosed upward—toward the stairway!
For halfway down the stairs were four uniformed men, and back of them Dr. Ramsell.
I couldn’t hear their guns. I could only see them blaze away at the humpty-dumpty figure at the death-ray controls. Jonathan Buffler’s pear-shaped head was suddenly streaked with red. The black blindfold leaped from his forehead, fluttered above the delta of purple sparks—then flash!—and it was transformed to a puff of white smoke.
Buffler fell, his fat white hands clutching his blood-streaked jowls. His lips wrenched in agony. I could not hear his cry, but I could see it in his face.
The officers advanced down the stairs cautiously, making sure they were well in the clear from the death ray. Evidently they had arrived in time to see the houseman go down.
But before anyone reached Jonathan Buffler, he pushed himself up heavily on his elbows, and seemingly with superhuman effort crawled—crawled toward the path of the gun’s invisible ray. With one last agonized burst of strength, he rose before the barrel.
Then he fell, as the houseman had fallen, completely lifeless . . .
Almost as soon as the echoes of the motors had died away, my gag was removed, my bonds were slit, and the welcome sting of circulation shot through my wrists and ankles.
For the remaining hours of the night, the doctor stayed with me in my bedroom, dressing my wounds and giving me some of the psychological as well as physical care that my condition required. I hadn’t realized until it was all over that I had been on the verge of hysteria.
Bit by bit, I told him my story.
When I had finished, the doctor said, “So there was a death’s-head among the mirrors!”
“Yes,” I conceded. “The only mirrors he really needed for his murder were the ones in Gertrude Becker’s office. The rest were all a part of his ruse, so that the ones he needed wouldn’t attract undue attention. But he saw to it that they were an individual color, so that his filtered light detector could direct the death ray to the right window.”
“And he kept those mirrors swaying,” the doctor observed, “so that the ray couldn’t miss fire. Those swinging quartz mirrors must have reflected that ray through the whole sweep of the room.”
I thought that over for a moment, shuddered. And then one of the most puzzling questions of all came back to my mind.
“But this houseman of Buffler’s—he seemed a cross between an inventor and a cold-blooded executioner. Not brutal—just cold as ice. Wonder who the man was.”
Dr. Ramsell stroked his chin. “Well, maybe we can check through the Patent Office in Washington. Just in case somebody in the last few years invented a machine even generally similar to the one in the basement. Of course, he might have had a criminal record, and we could check on his fingerprints.”
“You may have something there,” I said. “He certainly was tough enough. But at any rate, we’ll never know the big scheme they were planning. As far as I can judge, this whole thing boils down to this proposition:
“Somewhere in his career, Jonathan Buffler came across this fellow, and the two found they had a lot in common. They got to work on this death ray, which can be focused at either a near or far object, made certain plans for its use—and then Buffler botched up the whole works.”
Dr. Ramsell nodded grimly. “Yes, he was better at that than anything else.”
“But I’m still at sea on how he got his wires crossed,” I said. “It was Becker he was after. She knew he killed his wife, and so held a gun at his head, so to speak. But it was Jewel he killed, eh?”
“Becker can thank Jewel’s selfish scheming for that,” said Dr. Ramsell, a slight smile back of his lively black eyes.
“Jewel returned from her recent visit with Buffler bearing the news that he had appointed her to be Secretary Number One. She forced Becker to move out at once, and little Jewel took over the Number One office, pink mirrors and all.”[3]
The doctor picked up the pocket mirror that lay on the floor just under my bed.
“Is this your dot-and-dash instrument?”
“Yes. You caught my message?”
“I didn’t, but a cruising police car did. The officers caught the reflected dots and dashes from the Tower and phoned me. I came right out. Rather clever of you, Olin,” he grinned.
“I take after my great-uncle,” I said with a wink. Then, more seriously, I asked,
“Dr. Ramsell, was Jonathan Buffler just a bungling murderer—or was he crazy?”
The doctor laughed lightly. “What do you think?”
[1] Schizophrenia—A form of mental derangement, characterized by the simultaneous presence in the mind of contradictory ideas, resulting in inaction or the simulating of qualities which one does not possess.
[2] The most sensitive area on the human retina is a small yellow spot, which has a central depression (the fovea centralis) in the middle back part of the eyeball. No rods but only cones are found in this fovea centralis. No fibers of the optic nerve overlie it, and upon it the image at which the eye is directed is focused for acute vision.
[3] The science of light is quite a complex one, and there is much about the nature of light we do not know. However, it is well-known that light itself consists of many colors, differing in wave-length ranging from the infra-red (which is invisible) to the ultra-violet (also invisible). Thus, if anything is said to be of a certain color, such as the pink of the mirrors in the murder room, it is pink only because its composition is such that it reflects only the pink rays, of that particular wave-length, and absorbs the others.
It is this principle of light that Buffler employed in singling out his murder room in the tower, thus insuring that the death ray would be reflected only in the desired room, and not in every room of the tower. Since the death ray was pink, or could be set for any other color if desired, the room with the pink mirrors was the only one that did not absorb it and render it harmless.
THE GIRL IN THE WHIRPOOL
First published in Fantastic Adventures, August 1940
What sort of a price do you put on salvage when it turns out to be a girl whose very presence means death?
“Great jumpin’ oysters, it’s a human!” Ebbtide Jones shouted within his space helmet.
The floating object spiralled closer. Sure enough, it had arms and legs and a chromium-bright space helmet, and a limp-space-suited body with a chest that bloused out like a girl.
It had small black space boots—that kicked!
“Alive! Well, I’ll be soaked in salt water!” Ebbtide blinked through his visor.
In spite of its kicking and squirming, the object circled leisurely. Around the gravitational whirlpool it sailed until it was within thirty feet of the pole of the tiny planet. Ebbtide drew himself up on one elbow and kicked the signboard JONES to one side so he could see the sunlit object float past.
On its next round he picked up his improvised fishing pole and cast the clothesline rope. The hook caught the floating body around the ankle. A yank from Ebbtide’s wrist and down it came, light as a feather.
“Take it easy, fellow,” Ebbtide yelled. “No use to kick.”
He didn’t expect his words to be heard and they weren’t. The space suited visitor struggled like a hooked fish, kicked a clump of meteoroids, and bounced outward—just as Ebbtide himself had done the first time he had tried to find solid footing on this flimsy sky formation.[*]
“Take it easy! We’re fresh out of gravity!” he cackled. The fellow’s antics were a riot.
Another yank on the rope and Ebbtide had his hands on the struggling creature. He clutched the bright helmet and looked through the visor into a pair of blue eyes.
“Good lookin’ helmet,” he muttered. “Somethin’ here worth salvaging I reckon.” He scrutinized the space suit and the late model oxygen tank, and felt the slick black boots. Then
the squirming visitor landed a swift kick on his chest and Ebbtide did a hyperbola twenty feet out in space.
“Gol-darn it, why do they have to come alive?” Ebbtide growled as he floated back. “They’re trouble enough dead.” (He remembered the difficulty he had had salvaging the uniforms of twelve murdered Zandonian cops who had floated in a few weeks earlier.) “Come here, you—ugh—slippery eel—now I got you!”
He threw a rope around the arms and legs, hooked his own arm around the head, and dragged the form a fourth of the way around his planet. (He called it a planet.) He stopped before the airlocks of his space shack.
“This way in, fellow.”
Inside the warm, air-filled cabin he removed his own space helmet. He untied his captive and took pains in removing the helmet so as not to mar its lustre. It was a beauty. Latest model. Worth at least $150 cash.
Inside it was a girl.
“Humph,” said Ebbtide.
Some men would have caught their breath. Some men would have gasped, “Damned beautiful!” or “Where’ve you been all my life!” But Ebbtide Jones had been a beach comber all his life. He was a beach comber to the core. It was his beach combing urge that had brought him to this heavenly whirlpool where the wreckage from the spaceways floated in.
“Humph.” His eyes swerved from the girl to the chromium-bright helmet. He took it and the oxygen tank to the window and examined them in the sunlight. He fished a notebook out of his pocket and made two entries: Helmet—$150. Oxygen Tank—$40.
Then he turned back to look at the space suit and the black boots that were walking around the room—or rather, half dancing, half floating. Undoubtedly that outfit had late model temperature conditioning.
The girl that stood before him took a deep breath and stretched out her arms and wiggled her fingers and shouted in a healthy musical voice, “I’m alive! I’m alive!”
“Yeah,” said Ebbtide in the tone he had often used when a fellow beach comber would remark that a hail storm was coming.
“You’ve saved me!” The girl danced around as light-headed as a soap bubble. “You’ve saved my life!”
“Shush! Snail soup!” Ebbtide pushed her into a chair. “You just drifted in like all the wreckage does.”
The girl glanced out the window at the sharply curved horizon.
“What is this, a halfway house, or something? How soon do I catch the next space bus back to earth?”
“It ain’t, and you don’t,” said Ebb. He registered the space boots in his notebook: Space Boots (ladies)—$50. “Where’d you drop from?”
“Somewhere up that way, I think.” She pointed upward speculatively. “Or maybe it was that way. Space all looks alike to me.”
“Wreck?” said Ebbtide hopefully. His instincts were always on the alert like a hungry fish.
“Nervous wreck,” said the girl pointing to herself. She swallowed the drink of water Ebbtide set out for her and helped herself to the food pills. “I got scared of him so I walked out on him. That is, I stepped out.”
“On who?”
“The fresh guy that picked me up for a joyride.”
“From where?”
“Where I work. Down at the Chaw-Chaw Cafe. I thought he meant an airplane ride. Just a harmless spin over the city. I got in and we zoomed off. He said I’d better slip into this suit just in case of trouble, but I still didn’t get it. I thought it was a parachute outfit, ’cause we were just supposed to be goin’ for a spin. But when I looked out the window and saw the earth was gone I got suspicious. Wouldn’t you be?”
“I am,” said Ebbtide, writing. Space Suit—$110. More or less.
“Anyways when I looked over his shoulder and saw he had a dial set for some place a quarter way to Mars I knew that little Trixie Green had done the wrong thing. And that’s when little Trixie Green got scared and jumped. I though I was still around home some place.”
“Didn’t this guy try to stop you?”
“He was dozing over a couple too many drinks, or I wouldn’t have got away with it, ’cause Check—that’s his name, Check Checkerton—he’s nine-tenth’s devil. He only showed the decent tenth at the Chaw-Chaw Cafe, but in the space ship I soon found out what kind of a guy he was. And I had to fight to keep my distance. You don’t suppose he’ll come here after me, do you?”
“I dunno,” said Ebbtide. “He might figure this place out from his instruments.”
The girl gulped another drink and loosened her space suit at the throat. She scrunched down in the chair comfortably.
Ebbtide scowled and voiced his disappointment. “So there ain’t any wreck where you came from?”
“No, just me,” the girl chortled. “Gee, I guess I’m lucky to be here. If I can eat and sleep here till a boat comes along—”
“Maybe he was a girl snatcher,” said Ebbtide thoughtfully. “They’re operatin’ from Venus. I read the warning in the papers.”
“Girl snatcher. Gee. No wonder . . . You get a paper here?”
“I get all kinds of paper here,” Ebbtide said dryly. “I get everything. Delivered. F.O.J”
“You got Trixie Green all right,” the girl laughed coyly. “What’s F.O.J.?”
“Free on Jones.” Ebbtide hung the shiny helmet and oxygen tank on the cabin wall. JONES. That’s the name of this planet.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s a new one. Named after me. Ebbtide Jones. I named it myself. I’m the President here. ‘Course, I’m the only one here, but I’m still the President.”
“Ebbtide,” the girl breathed. “It’s a nice name.”
“Stan Kendrick and I discovered this place. Kendrick figured it out from some rules of gravity or something. He was busy with other things so he let me have it for my own. It ain’t very big, and it ain’t very old, but by jumpin’ oysters it’s the richest planet for its size you ever saw.”
“Gee, Ebbtide. I’m sure glad I dropped this way.” There was a silence. “Aren’t you glad too? You must get lonesome here all by yourself.”
“Nope,” said Ebbtide. He picked up his own helmet. “I’d better go take my monthly inventory.”
“Then you—you aren’t glad I came?” He laid down his helmet and examined his notebook. “I’m glad somewhere around three hundred and fifty dollars’ worth. It depends.” He squinted an eye at her open collar, trying to see how well the space suit was lined.
“You’re a funny fellow, Ebbtide,” said the girl. “Most men, the minute they lay eyes on little Trixie Green start in to tell her what pretty hair she has, or something.”
“That hair ain’t bad,” Ebbtide admitted, jotting in his notebook again. “It might sell for a little somethin’.”
“Say, are you a woman hater?”
Trixie Green demanded. “The men at the Chaw-Chaw Cafe are always glad to see me, but maybe you’re different . . .
“That’s a swell space suit,” said Ebbtide, coming closer. “Let’s see how it’s lined.” He caught the corner of the open collar.
“Say-a-ay,” said Trixie, “maybe you ain’t so different after all.” Just then, as Jones twisted around the label, the girl snapped: “Fresh guy!” and her hand swung out to slap him.
She swung and she missed. The effort threw her off balance and she bounced to the floor. Ebbtide grabbed her, threw her into a chair, and she went tumbling into the corner—chair, space suit, flying yellow hair and all.
“Listen, you,” said Jones, tersely. “I don’t want no trouble with you. You brought me enough so far. How long you think it’s goin’ to take that Romeo of your’n to figure out you’re here? As far as I’m concerned, you’re a dime a dozen, but that stuff you’re totin’ may make up somewhat for the mess I’m expectin’ any minute.”
The girl gulped and stared. Her eyes followed Jones’ lanky figure as he marched about in his space suit, wearing a purple and gold military cap, going about his business methodically and paying her no more attention. He hung tags on her chromium-bright helmet, on the boots an
d on the collar of her suit. Then, around her neck he hung a little tag, saying: $7.50—Clearance.
“I’m goin’ out to take my monthly inventory,” he said, reaching for his helmet.
“Hey, wait a minute!” she squealed. “When do you take your salvage back to earth?”
“Whenever my buddy Kendrick comes by in his ship to pick me up,” said Ebbtide.
“Okay, I’ll be ready.”
“Don’t bother. You ain’t goin’ this trip.”
“I—er—huh?”
“’Course not,” said Ebbtide. “I’ve only got so much space on that ship and I got contracts to fill all the space I can get. If I go back on the contract, that’s the end of me. Space is valuable.”
“H-m-m-m. So I’m not valuable!” The girl clambered to her feet and shook the hair out of her eyes and planted her hands on her hips.
“No,” said Ebbtide, grinning, “not that I can figure out. If you’ve got any gold watches or rings I can make room for them. But I’ve got a pile of jewels out here, and space contraptions that’ll sell high. There won’t be room for everything. The best I can do for you is maybe cut your hair and take your space clothes and your gold teeth—if you’ve got any—”
“Why you nasty thing! I hate you! I just plain hate you!”
Ebbtide walked back to the belligerent creature without a word and calmly marked her down from $7.50 to $3.50. Then he went out to take his monthly inventory.
Several hours later, Ebbtide Jones was sitting near the equator of his planet, lazily casting his fishing line at the flock of small meteoroids that coasted in from the void, when Trixie Green came out and sat down near him.
He glanced at her, mumbled, “Have a nice nap?” and went on casting. She worked with the radio dial on her space suit until she got his wave length. She could hear his gentle breathing.
“Ebbtide,” she said plaintively, “did you get your inventory finished?”
“Yep.”
“Couldn’t you get it figured out that you can take me back to earth with you?”
“Nope. It didn’t figure out that way.”
