by Don Wilcox
It was a certainty that the electromagnet would keep right on operating full blast. Weeks could pass before the power machinery would ever grind itself out for lack of oil. Of course, the heat of the magnet might do something—or that darned cat might be persuaded to cause a short circuit—or—But I was growing too wild from the swelling, throbbing pains in my head to hold myself down to any deliberate thinking. It was high time to act quickly or the time for action would be gone for good.
But what could I do?
What would you do?
[*] Peter Kapitza, a Russian, did some amazing work on magnetism in his special laboratory provided by Cambridge University, England. He employed liquid helium (near absolute zero) to cool the coils that produced powerful magnetic fields.
DWELLERS OF THE DEEP
First published in Fantastic Adventures, April 1942
Pierce went into the deep to find Bea Riley, kidnaped and drowned by a weird fish race . . .
CHAPTER I
Bill Pierce was hurrying up to the deck to keep a date when the alarm sounded.
“Girl overboard! Girl overboard!”
The whistles blew, the big liner churned waters, and began to circle. It would take several minutes for it to stop. Meanwhile everybody scampered to the rail to look for the girl who had gone over.
“It’s your gal friend, Pierce,” some fellow-passenger yelled.
Bill Pierce tore off his coat, kicked off his shoes, leaped to rail.
The girl was a full hundred and fifty yards away. Her arms were fighting the water frantically. Strange behavior for Beatrice Riley, swimming champion.
Bill dived. In a moment he was skimming through the waves with a powerful stroke.
“Hold on, Bea!”
His cry was probably lost in the clamor. Ringing in his ears were the cynical words of some passenger. “Publicity stunt!”
Bill Pierce didn’t believe it. The diving team of Pierce and Riley didn’t need publicity, and Bea Riley wasn’t one to pull a cheap hoax.
Bill caught sight of her. He was less than fifty feet away. He saw her eyes widened as if in pain. Her arms jerked upward helplessly, she sank down.
With all his championship speed Bill Pierce was too late. Or was he?
“That’s the spot!” someone yelled at him from an approaching boat.
He surface dived, combed the waters as far as his keen eyesight would reach.
Moments later he came up. But there was no sign of Beatrice Riley.
Sailors dived from the life boat, now, and Bill Pierce, catching half a breath, went down for another search.
He spiralled, downward, so deep now that green tropical waters grew black against his wide-open eyes. The hammering pressure of the water pounded at his brain. He was baffled by the strangeness of this occurrence.
Now and again he would catch sight of some vague form sliding past, deep beneath him, only to dart away at his approach.
He bounded to the surface gasping for breath.
“Muff said he saw her,” one of the sailors yelled. “He said some fish had her. They were pullin’ her—”
“That sounds like Muff,” another sailor growled. “He’d lie to you if your life depended—”
“Which way did he see her?” Pierce snapped.
Someone pointed, and Bill Pierce shot down again.
But when he was forced up he had failed once more.
“Who was it saw her?” he demanded.
“Just some o’ Windy Muff’s talk,” said a sailor deprecatingly.
“But I did!” a red-headed sailor declared hotly. “I saw a bunch o’ fish clap a glass barrel over her—”
The sailors roared him down. This was no time for any of his wild lies.
“But I saw it!” Windy Muff blazed. “Just like I said, the fish had a barrel—m”
Pop! Someone slapped him across the mouth, muttering, “Can’t you see this fellow’s cut up over her? Save
your damn’ jokin’ for another time.”
“But I’m not jokin’—”
They cut him off, and one of the sailors explained to Bill Pierce that anything the red-haired Windy Muff said seriously could be taken as a lie right out of thin air.
A whistle from the liner called them back. No more time could be spared on a lost cause. Thirty minutes had been lost.
Pierce tried to plunge again, but the sailors grabbed him, hauled him into the lifeboat . . .
Back in his stateroom again, as the liner’s engines rumbled into full speed ahead, Bill Pierce went through the routine of changing into dry clothes. He moved numbly. The sudden inexplicable tragedy had dulled his senses.
A knock sounded at his door. It was a steward.
“The captain wishes to see you in his office, sir.”
“The captain?”
“Can you make it right away, sir?”
“Yes. But first—get a wireless off for me.” Bill scribbled a brief message, addressed it to George Vinson in Honolulu. “My friend Vin will find this hard to believe. I can hardly realize it myself.”
A moment later Bill Pierce entered the office, dropped into the chair across from the captain’s desk, agreed to answer a few questions to the best of his ability.
“I’ve learned that the girl was pulled overboard,” said the captain. “Do you have any explanation?”
“Putted?” Pierce tried to shake the dizziness from his brain. The heavy weight of grief was on him.
“They tell me that a rope—or something resembling a rope—was looped around her” arms and waist, and the other end led down to the water.”
Bill Pierce gave a bitter snort. “That red-haired sailor is a swift liar, isn’t he? Out in the lifeboat he was seeing fish run away with her in a transparent tub.”
“Anything that Windy Muff says can be taken with barrels of salt,” said the captain. “We’ve heard too many of his stories. But this rope—well, three passengers saw it.”
“Oh, they must be mistaken,” Pierce clipped his words with temper. “If they’re trying to cook up a suicide—”
“Not so fast, Mr. Pierce,” the captain cut in with a heavy scowl. “Nobody’s trying to cook up anything. We’re after the facts. What kind of rope do you think Miss Riley might have used?”
Pierce narrowed his eyes. “Begging your pardon, but I think you’re off your nut.”
The captain’s scowl tightened. “Maybe I am, Pierce, but I can’t ignore the evidence. Three passengers substantially agreed on their stories. Miss Riley was standing at the rail, they said, when they suddenly noticed a cord stretching up from the surface of the water. They saw the loop jerk tight around her shoulders and pull her over the rail into the ocean.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Pierce paced the floor, snapping his fingers.
“By the time the alarm sounded her arms had evidently fought free of the rope—”
“That proves it was no suicide.”
“But the cord evidently caught her feet and the weight pulled her to the bottom.”
“What weight?” Pierce was angry. “Did anyone see a weight? . . . Did anyone see her pull the loop around her arms? . . . Well, what’s the answer?”
“We’re obscure on those points,
Pierce. I’ve got my men searching for anything that might have been used for a drop-weight.”
“Drop-weight, hell. How, in broad daylight, could Beatrice Riley or anyone else drop some object into the ocean without anyone seeing it fall?”
The captain had no ready answer. But he faced Pierce with an accusing look. His suspicions were running rampant.
“Answer me carefully, Pierce,” he said. “Did you and Beatrice Riley quarrel last night?”
“Well, I’ll be dam—your honor, what’s the sense of that question?”
“Calm down, Pierce,” said the captain. “What you say is being recorded by my secretary in the next room. I won’t pry into your personal affairs any deeper than necessary. But if—as a few passengers have tes
tified, you and Beatrice Riley were arguing—”
“It was nothing serious—just a discussion—”
“You’ll be doing yourself a service,” said the captain, “if you’ll relate to me what you can recall of that discussion. That’s the simplest way to clear yourself of any suspicion of murder.”
For a moment Bill Pierce was white with rage, tensing his muscles to hold himself in check.
Then he saw his reflection in a panel mirror, and the fury in his cold eyes rebuked him. An outburst of temper was no way to ward off the captain’s suspicions.
Pierce drew a deep breath, sat down, after a moment managed to speak calmly.
“Okay, captain. I’ll tell you what we talked about. I might as well. I’d be thinking about it anyhow, now that she’s gone . . . Last night when I met her on the deck I told her I’d just received a radiogram . . .”
CHAPTER II
That previous evening when Bill Pierce had received a radiogram he had hurried around the deck to find Beatrice.
She wasn’t going to like this, he was sure. The telegram was from his friend George Vinson. Beatrice had no use for Vinson. She held an unaccountable dislike for him.
“Just my luck,” Bill Pierce had said to himself.
Bill was madly in love with Beatrice Her mysterious nature always held him at a distance. But he was determined to slip a ring on her finger before they reached Honolulu.
Now with the Hawaiian Islands less than two days off, this had to happen.
George Vinson had radiographed from Hawaii. He would be there to meet them. Moreover, he wanted to take them on to South America on his yacht.
Bill Pierce knew Bea would never hear to it.
Now Bill came upon Beatrice lounging in a deck chair. She was dressed in her sporty blue and white, looking” as beautiful as Bill Pierce had ever seen her—and that was saying a lot,
“A surprise radiogram for us, Bea.”
“Not from George Vinson?” she asked apprehensively.
“Good old Vin,” Bill smiled. “Are you in the mood? There, there, don’t frown so. It spoils your pretty face.”
He handed her the radiogram, watched her expression as she read it.
The mystery in Beatrice Riley’s face was ever present. It was something Bill would dream about at night and read about in the Sunday sports reviews. It was something that everyone remarked about.
Beatrice Riley was a mystery. She was one of those rare persons who never talk about themselves. She had blossomed into a celebrity after a brief round of bathing beauty contests. The reporters, inquiring where she came from, discovered that no one knew—and the girl positively-refused to talk about her past.
Before Bill met her he was skeptical of the stories of her sensational diving. Some smart promoter must be hoaxing the public, he thought. A man might risk his life in a few of those daredevil dives—himself, for example. But he was tops, or darned near it. But no woman would dare—
Then came the momentous sports show that he and Bea Riley were asked to appear in together. And that changed everything. Bill Pierce saw for himself.
Yes, and he came so near to being outclassed that it wasn’t funny. Bea Riley could have walked off with the show. But she didn’t. She shared honors with him.
That was the beginning of the team of Pierce and Riley, headed straight for international fame. For Bea was everything the reporters had claimed and more.
From the west coast they had flown the Pacific to appear in expositions in the Philippines and Australia. Now they were sailing back to the States. New York was already building them up for a summer season appearance, only three months away . . .
Beatrice reread the radiogram three or four times, then passed it back to Bill without a word. She looked out over the waters pensively.
“You see, Bea,” Bill said in the hearty manner of a salesman with a bill of goods to sell, “good old Vinson has worked up some engagements for us down in South America. You know Vin—always looking out for us. He’s got business contacts down there, and they’re pulling for us—”
“Bill, you’re not considering going?”
“Well, it must be a good thing or he wouldn’t suggest it. He’s going to meet us at Honolulu and take us on to Argentina in his big sea-going yacht.”
Bill saw the disapproval cloud Beatrice’s face.
“Did you tell him we’d do it?” she asked.
“Certainly not. I always talk these things over with you.”
“And then you do what George Vinson wants you to.”
Bill’s hot temper wasn’t good for moments like these, and knew it. He saw red whenever his path was crossed. And counting to ten didn’t help.
“Just remember something,” he snapped. “Wait for me.”
He struck off around the deck. He had to work off steam somehow. Maybe by the time he came back Bea would be reasonable.
But no, she was never reasonable when George Vinson was concerned. Bill couldn’t understand it. She was such a swell, fair person to work with in every other way.
Only six months ago Bill had introduced Bea Riley to Vinson. And what a feud he’d started! All the fine things he’d ever said for his old friend had been wasted. Bea Riley had shunned George Vinson like poison.
Vinson had simply thrust his white-gloved fingers through his mane of fine black hair and walked away, ignoring the insulting treatment.
“What in thunder went wrong between those two?” Bill had asked himself after that meeting of six months ago. Then he had tried to apologize to Vinson. Bea Riley, he said, musn’t be misjudged for her seeming coolness. She was a mystery to everyone.
Bill had also apologized to Bea for his old friends manners. The important little man couldn’t help his extreme dignity. His wealth, together with his penchant for profound thought, gave him an air of exaggerated importance.
As for Vinson’s strange habit of always wearing white gloves, indoors as well as out—well, he must possess scarred and unsightly hands. That was what Bill concluded. And after knowing him for six years Bill took the white gloves to be as much a part of Vin as his face or his pompadour of fine black hair. . .
Bill returned to Beatrice and she looked up at him with a quick smile.
“What about it, Bea?” he said.
“Whatever you want to do, we’ll do,” said Beatrice.
“Gee, honey,” he caught her in his arms, kissed her. “You know me. What I want is a honeymoon. In Canada, if you say so.”
He looked at her steadily. Her eyelids lowered.
“Are you taking me to South America, Bill?” she asked.
“No. I’ll wire George Vinson it’s off. From this minute on we’re independent. How’s that?”
Beatrice searched his eyes. “I hope you mean it, Bill.”
“I’ll send him a radiogram yet tonight.”
“Think it over till morning,” said Beatrice. “I want to be sure you don’t change your mind . . . Let me know at lunch . . .”
CHAPTER III
Now, near mid-afternoon of the day that was to have brought Bill Pierce and Beatrice Riley to a moment of decision, the diving champion sat before the desk of the captain, reciting his story of the previous evening.
“That’s about all,” Bill said in a low voice. He touched his handkerchief to the corners of his eyes.
“Thank you, Pierce,” said the captain.
“If that’s all, I’ll go,” said Bill. “I want to talk with Windy Muff.”
The captain sat silently, frowning. “Pierce,” he said, “that girl was the most remarkable swimmer and diver I ever saw. I watched the slow motion movie of her novel waterfall dive from two hundred feet. I saw her start at the top, dive down fifty feet to the first elevated pool, shoot over the edge with the cascade and down another fifty to the second pool, and so on. Four successive dives in one—all in the midst of that roaring artificial waterfall. When I think of that, Pierce, and the long underwater swim she did—”
Bil
l Pierce slapped his hand on the table. “You’re seeing it my way now, Captain. There’s a chance she’s not drowned. She could fight water for hours. How far off were those volcanic islands when she went over?”
“About eight miles.”
“Let me go back, Captain. Give me your launch. And a compass—”
“Could you keep on a course?”
“Let me take a sailor along. Windy Muff. I’ll start at once.”
“You’re taking a big risk. How’ll you get back?”
“I’ve got a friend in Honolulu—George Vinson. He’s got a big yacht—”
“Better send him a radiogram at once,” said the captain. “If he puts to sea this afternoon he should overtake you by morning. I’ll round up Windy Muff for you and check the log.”
There was not a minute to lose.
Miles of waters were piling up for the back-track cruise.
Bill shot his radiogram off to Vinson.
Meanwhile a note came to him from the captain stating that Windy Muff was seen entering Stateroom Number 90, occupied by one Jean Maribeau.
Bill dashed down the corridor, knocked at number 90. He was admitted by a sturdy immaculate little man with a bristling black mustache and a square jaw.
“Pardon me,” said Bill. “Is there a sailor here by the name of—”
“Ah, it is the famous Mr. Pierce. We are honored.” Jean Maribeau might have been greeting a long lost brother.”
“Have a chair, Mr. Pierce. Mr. Muff and I have something interesting—”
“I want a quick word with Windy Muff,” Bill said bluntly. “I’m starting back in a launch to try to find the girl that fell overboard.”
The red-haired sailor looked up from the desk where he had been preoccupied with some pencil sketches. “Not a half bad idea.”
“Has Mr. Pierce heard of your remarkable observation, Mr. Muff?” Maribeau asked.
