by Don Wilcox
“Two o’clock,” Strob grunted, dabbing at his white shoes.
“Boy! What a break, to get his eyesight back!” Eddie gloated. “As a wedding present, that’s something. But say—you don’t suppose that upset things, do you?”
“Why should it?”
“Well, I don’t know. I thought maybe, now that he’s over his blindness, he wouldn’t feel like marrying a blind girl. Ever think about that, Strob?”
Strob carried his shoes to the window to dry. “I thought the whole deal was a leap in the dark at first. Then I met the girl and changed my mind.”
“Yeah. You can’t make any rules on those things.” Eddie settled on an orange tie with green airplanes. “Say, what do I do at this wedding besides be the best man?”
“You the best man! Don’t be funny. That’s my job. Maybe Dave’ll let you give the bride away, or pay the preacher, or if you behave yourself maybe—” Strob broke off. Something he saw through the window froze him.
“Maybe he’ll let me kiss the bride, huh?” Eddie finished.
“By George!” Strob shouted. “Look here, Eddie! The robotcycle!”
Eddie jumped to the window. Across the street two men unloaded the battered craft from a truck.
“He’s had a crack-up!” Eddie flung the necktie to the chandelier and dashed out, Strob on his heels.
Dave answered the bell through the speaking tube.
“Are you hurt?” they called. “What happened? Let us in! What’s wrong, anyway?”
“I’m all right,” came Dave’s voice. “I’m resting. Come back later.”
“What about the wedding?”
“It’s off.”
They stood aghast. Dave’s brittle voice told them it wasn’t a good time to ask questions.
“The robotcycle just came in,” Strob said. “We’ll check it over and see you later.” He clamped a hand over Eddie’s mouth to stifle any further questions. They walked off dumbfounded.
Days passed. Dave did not invite them in. He talked with them only briefly through the speaking tube, seemed interested to know they repaired the robotcycle, but told them nothing. Only through his doctor did they learn what had happened.
It was a week of dark brooding for Dave. He moped about from room to room. He wearied of the radio, passed his hands listlessly over the organ keys, got his own meals, but had no appetite. He whiled away some time with the slick new visagraph that was to have been a surprise for Linda. It worked nicely. From ordinary print it brought forth large raised letters that the fingers could identify. But in his dazed state he found small comfort in it.
The volcano within him would not quiet, he could not rest. As the long hours passed, he grew impatient with himself for turning slave to such a heavy mood, tried to analyze himself. He wished he had socked Sleem on the jaw.
Clearer and clearer the details of that frantic hour came back to him, always with Sleem in the spotlight. His big chance to wallop that coward and he’d passed it by. Let him off from pity. Well, if he had another chance it would be different.
The more he thought of it, the more he was determined to make another chance. Give his fists one good orgy. Then maybe he could come back home and rest.
He unlocked his robotcycle and got in, unaware that Strob and Eddie saw him.
Never once did he tell himself, as he coursed southward, that he was growing closer to Linda. She was out of his thoughts.
He locked his craft—he’d have to take a chance on Dusty this time—and walked slowly in toward Mother Rafferty’s Home. Familiar notes of the robotcycle’s instruments wafted from a phonograph somewhere within. Disturbing. He extinguished the sentiment that gnawed at him. It was Sleem he came for. Sleem. Sleem. Sleem. He walked into the place in a cloud of red, asked for Sleem.
“Come into the reception room, please. I’ll call Miss Yost.”
“I want Sleem.”
“Wait here, please.”
Miss Yost came in. “Oh, it’s Mr. Melbourne!” In her friendly manner, the matron broke the news that dashed cold water over Dave’s flames. “Mr. Sleem is no longer with us. As soon as he fired me, I forced an investigation of his management, and now—well, briefly, he’s gone. I’m the new superintendent—and by the way, I’ve transferred Dusty to a more suitable institution. I presume you were interested in—” she hesitated—“collecting damages for your—”
“I simply want Sleem,” Dave said. “That’s all I came for.”
Miss Yost understood perfectly, perhaps better than Dave understood himself. “Please wait here a moment, Mr. Melbourne. I’ll—” She left.
A minute later Linda was in his arms.
“Oh, Dave, it’s so good to see you again,” she breathed as her trembling hands swept over his face.
“It’s good to see you, Linda.” He passed his fingers eagerly over her eyes, cheeks, lips. “You’re looking very beautiful.”
“‘Miss Yost just now told me that you are again—”
“Yes,” said Dave, “again—”
“When did it happen?”
“That night I left you. Dusty followed me out and struck me across the head . . . I must have staggered away. The police found me and got my doctor. It wasn’t so bad. Anyway, Linda, I’ve learned there are lots worse things than being blind, especially when you and I have—everything.”
“Yes,” said Linda, burying her face against him.
Miss Yost answered the doorbell, recognized the two excited looking gentlemen to be Strob Rezabek and Eddie Biddle.
“We’re sort of looking after our friend, Dave Melbourne,” Strob explained. “He’s blind again—so we followed him out here—”
“We picked up a preacher on the way,” said Eddie, “just in case—”
Miss Yost smiled. “Bring him in.”
[*] The Talking Books are recordings of printed books read by professional readers, loaned exclusively to blind persons, a benefit made possible by a Congressional appropriation. They are played on slow speed phonographs. Titles are both in ordinary print and in braille. Most books require several records; thus Lindbergh’s North to the Orient requires 8; Huckleberry Finn, IQ. A splendid variety of books is available; may come from England. The Chicago Public Library, one of the nation’s 27 distribution centers, had a circulation of nearly 400,000 Talking Books in 1938.
AN ANGEL WITH FOUR FACES
First published in Fantastic Adventures, September 1942
Because Red saw four faces when he looked through the strange glasses, the fate of the Allied Nations forces in the Pacific was in his hands!
CHAPTER I
“It wouldn’t be a firing squad,” the big cool Englishman observed. “These Japs don’t waste bullets. They’ll run us through with bayonets. It’s simpler.”
The young copper-complexioned American shuffled nervously, clanking the long ground chain to which his feet were fastened.
“Relax, buddy,” the Englishman said. “In ten minutes it’ll all be over.”
The young American nodded. The ragged strips of what had once been a shirt kept slipping off his shoulders. Anyway his hands had something to do besides twitch. He was the last man in the line of doomed men.
He studied the big Roman-nosed Englishman with curiosity. A fine looking guy, all right. Soft, though. Whatever part he’d had in this Pacific clambake, it was a cinch he’d kept in the shade. His hands were white, and his thoughtful face hadn’t even been sunburnt.
He was getting it now, though, on the back of the neck. The hot forenoon sun was reflecting off a temple wall that served as an execution ground.
“What charges did they hook on you?” the American asked.
“Spy. Yours?”
“I don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me anything, the damned rats,” the American sneered bitterly. “My memory’s all shot. I don’t even know how I got here. Anyway I wish t’hell they’d get it over with . . . You’re cool, fellow. How do you manage?”
“Guess I’ve got it coming,”
said the Englishman.
“You were a spy?”
“No. But I should have been, instead of skylarking around putting on entertainments for soldiers.”
Steamy clouds passed across the sun, sweeping the line of prisoners under a blue shadow. The bomb-ragged towers and spires of Singapore changed color under the coasting patches of light. But the bayonets of the Japanese guard milling about on the dusty temple walks lost none of their hard glitter.
Two more squads of the little brown soldiers approached, marching beside a bright canvas-topped vehicle drawn by three natives. Those, the Englishman guessed, would be Axis aristocrats coming to witness the morning show.
“You seem to know all about this place,” said the American.
“They’ve been executing us for the last three mornings,” said the Englishman. “It’s their regular bayonet drill. They use up about twenty of us at a time and save the rest for tomorrow. But now we’re down to eighteen, including you. By the way, where’d you come from?”
“I don’t know.”
The American said it carelessly. He was preoccupied with watching the native-drawn carriage as it ground along over the temple promenade. The two well-dressed passengers, a man and a woman, were inspecting the short row of prisoners as a staff might review troops.
The big thoughtful Englishman kept on talking.
His name was Longworth, he said. He had been conducting miscellaneous entertainments at the soldiers’ and sailors’ recreation camps in the Philippines, Hongkong, and Australia. He was an oldtime song and dance man, and could lead group singing. Theft, too, he tried a little magic on the side, and wasn’t half bad for an amateur.
“I was a sap to get caught here in Singapore. That’s what a hobby will do for you. You know Singapore’s reputation. Oriential mysteries by the thousands. There’s supposed to be an underground world of magic and evil and all such rot.”
The American didn’t answer. He was scarcely hearing. Maybe he was watching the preparation for action. Maybe he was pondering about life—the strangeness of leaving it without memories.
“Anyway,” said Longworth, “I was underground, trading gossip with a fakir who claimed to be a couple centuries old, when the Japs bounded in on us. What happened? The old mystic tried to weave a spell with a revolver. Maybe it was two centuries old, too. The Japs cut him up. They took me in for questioning. I didn’t have any answers. “Did you have any weapons?”
“No. All I had was—Longworth gave a short bitter laugh. “Funny thing. They never bothered taking any of my junk away from me.”
From his pocket he took a small pack of pictures.
“Want to look at a few decent faces?” He handed them to the American. “Those are some snaps of the old dance band and the chorus gals brought from Canada—”
“Who’s this good looker?”
“That blonde? Some American kid down in Australia. Can’t remember her name. She wasn’t a regular, but we needed a singer—”
“I’ve seen her before.”
“Could be. Where?”
“Hell, I don’t remember. But I’ve seen her.”
“Buddy, your past is heavy on the dim side.’
“Toe damned dim. I musta got a bump.”
The Englishman brought a pair of thick-lensed spectacles from his pocket, fitted them to his eyes, and gave the American a penetrating look.
“Where did you say you came from?”
“I said I didn’t remember.”
“By George, you’re not lying. You don’t remember.”
The American frowned. He needed his last minutes to think. He was trying to bring back that mad fight in the jungle—and that flight. Where had he learned to fly?
Why had he flown here?
But he couldn’t have known. The name of Singapore, when Longworth had first spoken it, had failed to bring any clear recollections. Wasn’t Singapore supposed to be friendly—not a place where Japs lined you up for bayonet practice?
Longworth removed his spectacles and handed them over.
“Try these, buddy. You’ll be surprised—Hsssh.”
The native-drawn vehicle stopped before them, and the brightness of its striped canvas top glared in the American’s eyes. The woman passenger was staring at him.
“By George,” the Englishman muttered under his breath, “that looks like Hester Wembridge—you know—the philanthropist—”
“Wembridge?” the American whispered. “I don’t know the name.” Unconsciously he slipped the spectacles into his pocket.
“What the devil’s she doing here? If they find out who she is, she’ll be lined up with us. She’s the one who’s given wads of money for military recreation halls. She was in Hongkong when I was there. She flies around—but how’d she get caught here?”
“Or is she caught?” the American whispered skeptically. “She had a Japanese escort, you know.”
The carriage went on, stopping at the gate where Japanese officers were stationed.
“That fellow with her—I’ve seen him too. He’s her business manager. I’ll bet they’re pulling a fast one on the Japs.”
“Or the Allies?”
“You’re a cynical cuss,” said the Englishman with his puzzling coolness. “But I don’t blame you, lined up for death when you don’t know what it’s all about . . . Did you try those spectacles? Might as well entertain yourself.”
“Here come the bayonets,” said the American, and he didn’t bother to pull the ragged strips of shirt over his bronzed shoulders . . .
The charge came hard and fast. Right down the line. One prisoner after another went down. The American would be the last.
The dull swishes came closer. Steel through flesh.
It was the last agonizing moment. The big Englishman’s turn had come. Feet rushed toward him, knives plunged. The ground chain clanked and jerked.
The young American felt the jerk at his feet and knew Longworth had gone down. He closed his eyes and waited.
But the sudden yelling of the Japs forced him to look to his left. The bayonet drill had stopped. The soldiers who had rammed Longworth were in a frenzy. Longworth was gone.
Other Jap soldiers came running out to the end of the line, jabbering wildly. They were pointing at the spot where the big Englishman had fallen—where he had vanished.
The young American gazed dumbfounded. There was not even a drop of blood to mark his friend’s fall. He had completely disappeared.
A minute later a squad marched up to escort the American off the field. Officers had countermanded the order for his execution, he was told, as a special favor to “some honorable friends.”
CHAPTER II
They took off in Hester Wembridge’s private plane, and not a single ack-ack disturbed the peace of the wide open skies. The young American was as bewildered as if he had been lifted out of a coffin and shaken back to life.
“As soon as I catch my breath I’ll thank you,” he mumbled. He was more than a little embarrassed to find himself in the presence of such well-dressed and nicely mannered people as Hester Wembridge and her business manager, the suave, sleek, mountain-sized Mr. Jalbeau.
“We’re going to call you Stephens,” Hester Wembridge said in a friendly manner. “From now on you’ll answer to that name.”
“Is—is that my real name?”
“We’re naming you. Whatever name you used to have, forget it.”
“I have,” Stephens said, and his strange words made Miss Wembridge smile skeptically. He added, “You’ve rescued me. I was as good as dead till you came along. I guess you’ve got the right to name me whatever you want to.”
“That’s precisely the point, Stephens,” said Hester Wembridge with a possessive air. “We have bought your life. It wasn’t easy. Never mind how we worked it. You can see for yourself that the Japs fell for it. Do you mind if we call you Red Stephens?”
Stephens grinned. “You’ve bought me.”
“All right, Red Stephens. This may all b
e a little mystifying to you at first, but you’ll soon understand it’s for the best.”
“For the Allies, she means,” Jalbeau put in dryly. He was a massive person, the image of cold silence. He spoke with scarcely any movement of his lips, and his face might have been a wax mask. It was a self-satisfied face that bagged with overfed complacency, if not dissipation. His nose resembled a shoe. His ringed eyes were like thin slits through silver dollars.
“We’ll hose you down right away, Red,” Jalbeau said.
“I need it. I haven’t had a bath since—” Red Stephens finished with a gesture that expressed his indefinite memory. “Whatever this is all about, it was awfully decent of you to pull me out of that hole.”
“You’d be flattered if you know how we searched for someone just like you,” said Hester Wembridge. “You see, I know this corner of the Pacific. And I often have ideas for helping the military staff. Building these recreation halls isn’t the only thing I’ve done. Though it’s probably all you’ve ever heard my name mentioned for.”
Her charming smile was touched with questioning. She waited for Red Stephens to answer. But he only grinned and gathered his torn shirt together to feel more completely dressed in the presence of this handsome woman.
She was thirty-five, perhaps; a decidely youngish thirty-five, with quick black eyes, and lots of aggressiveness in the thrust of her slightly double chin. Except for this impression of a strong character with hidden powers she might have been something out of a fashion window. She wore her immaculate white suit and pillbox hat with a restrained swagger that would have done justice to a Hollywood actress.
The pillbox hat, however, placed her in the Orient. Its brocaded design, complete with two little pearl-studded elephant ears, doubtless came from pre-Japanese Singapore.
“You see, Red Stephens,” she continued, “we need a man with your face, your hair, jour features.” She scrutinized him as she talked on, comparing him with the colored photograph from her pocketbook. “We’ll have to touch you up a little. We’ll add a trifle more red to your hair, and thin your eyebrows a bit. But we can make you do. Of the thousands of men we’ve looked over in the past week, you’re the only one who comes close.”
