The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  “And we’ll be on our way back to the island?”

  “Right. We’ll get there if we have to row.”

  “And then what?”

  “We’ll have to hide like a couple of earthworms until we can make contact with the Underground.”

  Dave’s arm tightened around Eudora’s slender waist. What a courageous girl she was. So unlike anyone he had ever known—so different from certain persons he had run away from. For a moment it flashed upon him that this whole desperate hoax—to make the Empress think they were planning to marry—might have been born of his own wish.

  With freakish luck they found themselves, a few minutes later, clinging to rope ladders that they had pitched to the side of the ship, peering through a porthole into a weird, green-lighted room, looking at the ghost of the sculptor.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” Dave whispered. That sculptor is alive. Look at him, working with his clay. There’s the beginning of a statue on the table—a clay mask—the image of the Empress.”

  “That is the sculptor,” Eudora echoed. That’s Reginald Keith. I’d know him anywhere.”

  “But Reginald Keith was hanged.”

  “We thought so.”

  “I saw him with my own eyes,” said Dave. “He was dangling from the scaffold, and he wore a white smock just like that—”

  “And a mask!” Eudora choked.

  They drew their heads back from the porthole and stared at each other. The dim green light showed the cold outlines of Eudora’s face, fixed, like marble. The horror of this fact was dawning on her—the supreme treachery of the Empress.

  Her lips trembled. “Do you realize what has happened?”

  “The Empress regretted her sentence,” said Dave. “She needed the sculptor. She couldn’t afford to hang him.”

  “But she doesn’t intend for the people to know she weakened—”

  “So she hid him here—”

  “And deliberately hanged a substitute—”

  “Yes—someone about his size and build—”

  “John Dennison!” Eudora’s eyes closed. She was sobbing softly. “She hanged Dennison, just to. pull the wool over everyone’s eyes—”

  Dave nodded slowly. It was a hideous thing to think about. The image of Sophia Regalope’s cruel face haunted him. Was there a chance, he wondered, that she had chosen John Dennison for more reasons than one? His likeness to the sculptor—yes. But there was also his suspicions of the past two years about his son’s “safe passage.” And more recently, his amazing recovery from the factory curse—

  A door sounded in the green-lighted room. Dave edged cautiously to the porthole, looked in, saw the sculptor standing, arms folded. The same wild, frenzied light was in his deep-set eyes that Dave had remembered from the trial. Before him stood a uniformed woman whom Dave knew to be Miss Blanchard, first secretary and chief assistant to the Empress.

  Miss Blanchard, short, highshouldered in her square-cut uniform, spoke in a voice that she had obviously cultivated for its masculine depth.

  “I’ll warn you before I spread the news to the rest of the ship, Keith. We’ve just had word from the Empress that two of the Underground may try to get aboard within a few minutes. They’ve slipped away from the island in the launch.”

  “Well?”

  “I’ll have to order the officers aboard to search every room till they’re found. You’d better get your clay and chemicals and wax out of sight and lock yourself in your secret compartment.”

  “But they can’t get in here,” said the sculptor. “I’ll lock the porthole and the door—”

  “That makes no difference,” Miss Blanchard said. “When I tell my officers to search everywhere for a couple of criminals, they search everywhere. They won’t spare this old storeroom. They’ll take this couple back for a hanging. The Empress’ll see to that.”

  “I wish to God she’d had the nerve to hang me. If it wasn’t for those London mummy crimes, I’d have killed myself long ago.”

  Miss Blanchard sneered. “What a set-up. You know how we’ll blacken your beloved little reputation in the scientific world if you ever get rash and commit suicide on our hands.”

  “All right. All right. Torture me.” Miss Blanchard growled another warning, and the deadly blackmail threat was in her hard, clipped words.

  “No slips, now. We can’t afford to have anyone ever know you’re alive—not even the officers—so, no slips!”

  He gave a surly answer. “You’ve forced me to commit so many crimes, you should know I’m your trained seal.”

  “All right. Make it swift. I’ll put officers on the lookout as soon as—Keith!” Her masculine voice barked like a dog. “The porthole! You know better than that. Never, never, never open it! I’ve told you that before.

  No, don’t you close it. I’ll tend to it.” Breathlessly Eudora and Dave climbed down the rope ladders, waited. Clink. The porthole was closed.

  A moment later he helped Eudora into the launch. The motor chugged quietly, Dave turned the prow toward the twinkling lights of the island and plowed water.

  Eudora, close at his side, murmured, “Dave, I’m scared silly. Do you mind if I faint?”

  “Don’t do it,” said Dave. “In a couple of minutes we’re going to shoot this boat into the shore rocks for a nose-on crash.”

  CHAPTER X

  The Factory Secret

  It was high noon, two days later, and here came little Danny Downs, bless his loyal heart, with a lunch pail. He carried a, fishpole, just for an, excuse, in case any women motor cops should ask him what he was doing along this deserted bit of shore.

  He looked around to make sure no one was watching. He parked his fishpole. He clambered up the shore rocks, whistling and ducked into the mouth of the cave.

  “Good boy, Danny.” Dave helped him over the wide break in the floor rocks. Back in the shadows they sat down and lunched together.

  “Gee, you’re hungrier today than you were yesterday,” Danny grinned.

  “I’m hungrier for all the news,” said Dave. “First, is Eudora all right?”

  “Sure, she’s okay. She’s hiding right at home. Her poor Aunt Em is almost a nervous wreck. But whenever the police come to ask any questions, Aunt Em starts telling about her operations, and they go away.”

  “Good give her my love, Danny.”

  “Aunt Em?” said Danny with a wink.

  “Eudora, you rogue.” Dave bounced a pebble off the lad’s tousled head. “Next, what about the launch? What are the people saying?”

  “They pulled the wreckage back to the bay. The policewomen are still looking for your bodies, but they figure you’re drifting to sharkland. They can’t figure why you cracked into that end of the island, when there would have been so many easy places to land. The policewomen wonder if you were trying to locate an Underground meeting.”

  “Underground, huh?” Dave gave a low whistle. “They’re closing in. We’ll have to act fast or not at all. Have you been able to locate your friend, Happy?”

  The boy looked up from under his eyebrows. “I’ve got some bad news, Dave.”

  “Well?”

  “Happy and Jane have run away. They were on that same boat you and Eudora visited. They musta got passage from the Empress and not told anyone about it. They’re gone.”

  “Ye gods!”

  Dave put his food aside. He lay on the stone floor, resting his chin in his hands, and stared out at the glittering blue sea.

  “Do you think Happy’ll come back, Dave?” the tousle-headed boy asked.

  “We’ll never see him again, Danny. Folks just don’t come back from trips like that.”

  Danny turned his head. He looked away from Dave for several minutes, and when he rubbed his eyes with his fists he mumbled something about dust getting in his eyes. He thought he’d better go out to make sure his fishpole was all right.

  When he returned to Dave, his fighting spirit had come back. “It’s these darned girls that make all the t
rouble: Isn’t that true, Dave?” Dave reflected. At some time or other he had made statements of that kind. But Happy’s plight was a different story.—s “Let’s don’t feel angry toward Jane, Danny. She was a fine girl. She and Happy meant a lot to each other. But the laws of this island tend to make men and women hate each other. Do you blame them for wanting to go away?”

  “I don’t like women. I hate them,” Danny said.

  Dave patted him on the shoulder. “Maybe you’ll feel different when you grow up. If you don’t—well, it will be the Empress’ fault. She’s the one that stirs up all the hate. Are you going to let her get you under her thumb?”

  Danny had never thought of it that way. “The Empress is a woman,” he said, “and I don’t like women. . . . But maybe some are different—like Eudora. And maybe Jane—only I wish she’d bring Happy back.”

  Dave knew it was unwise to kindle any fires of hope along this line. He tried to turn the subject.

  “How long does it usually take the boat to make the round trip to the mainland?”

  “About two weeks . . . Well, I’d better go now, Dave.”

  “Watch out for the police, Danny.” The boy grinned. “I’ll have to. I smashed a street-light the other night.” Dave’s eyes followed him unconsciously as he departed, fishpole and lunch pail in hand.

  Sometimes a thought strikes through the brain like a meteor crashing to earth. It may be an old thought left hanging in the air. It may burst into consciousness with the suddenness of light.

  A streetlamp smashed. A sunlamp shattered. A sunlamp over the head of John Dennison.

  Dave leaped to his feet, bounded to the entrance of the cave, cupped his hands to his lips, and called, “Danny! Danny! Come back! Hurry!”

  The youngster dropped everything and came on the run.

  “Sit down, Danny, and listen to me. Don’t miss a word, because I want you to tell it all to Eudora, and have her tell the Underground.”

  “I’m listening,” Danny said breathlessly.

  “I know what makes the factory men dopey. I know it as sure as I’m sitting here. It’s those sunlamps. They’re not like any other sunlamps. They’re something the Empress had the sculptor fix. But the superintendent, herself doesn’t know what they are.”

  With Danny listening in open-mouthed wonderment, Dave explained. He remembered perfectly that John Dennison’s improvement had begun after the lamp had been broken. At first, he had supposed it was the blow to Dennison’s head that had started the change. Later he thought it had been the food.

  But it couldn’t have been either. “When I fell victim to the dopey state,” Dave said, “I tried the same food experiments that we thought had cured Dennison. But they had no effect on me. However, when I took over Dennison’s machines where there was no violet-white sunlamp, lo and behold, the miracles began to happen. Within two weeks, Danny, all the devilish effects of those weird light rays were out of my system.”

  “Gee. Suppose we’d bust all the sunlamps in the factory?” said Danny.

  Dave gave him a handshake that was man-to-man. “You’re right on the beam, Danny. I’m convinced that the superintendent won’t be able to replace those lights. And neither will the Empress, until the boat comes back”

  “I don’t get it,” Danny said, frowning.

  “Take my word for it, there’s someone hidden on that boat who is more of a scientist than anyone knows. I’ve had just a glimpse-of his hideout, but from what I saw—chemicals, plastics, electronics, test tubes—I have a sure hunch that the Empress has played his genius to the limit.”

  “You think those sunlamps give off some sort of ray?”

  Dave nodded. “I’m sure of it, Danny. The men keep absorbing it day after day. If they were to take a two weeks’ vacation or go on a strike, the effects would leave them.”

  “Oh, boy! I’m gonna like this! Danny swung his hands through the air as if he were smashing overhead lamps. “I’m good at busting street lights. And I know a way to slip into the factory after dark.”

  “Take it easy, Danny. We’re not going to let them make a target out of you. When the factory officials find their shop full of broken glass, they’ll start shooting.”

  “Gee, I never thought of that.”

  “And if they see no chance of keeping the workers dopey they’ll start locking them up.”

  Danny sat down, crestfallen and disappointed. “Then I don’t get to bust those lamps after all?”

  “I’m afraid not, Danny.”

  Dave considered. There were two or three members of the Underground who had the technical skill to turn the trick.

  If Danny could show them the way in, they could splice the sun-lamp circuit with faulty wires. By a series of tricks they might cause the factory superintendent a good two weeks of grief.

  “We’ve got to work it so that they’ll find the lamps on the blink every morning, but think they can have them back in working order the next day. As for breaking them—well, maybe, but only as a last resort.”

  Danny smiled. “I get it.”

  “Okay. Tell Eudora everything. And I’ll be with her at the next Underground meeting and we’ll plan our next move. You’re on the beam, Danny.”

  CHAPTER XI

  Men on the March

  It was a historic day that dawned a fortnight later, over Woman’s Island. Pink mists hung heavy over the shores. The three thousand men who had gathered before Dave’s cave were ghostly forms in the fog—three thousand bare, heads and chests, three thousand pairs of brown muscular arms. Their slacks were more gray than orange until the morning sun stiffened its beams through the mist.

  “I have no more to say to you until Eudora returns,” Dave spoke to a handful of the leaders, “except to repeat my warning about your discipline.”

  “We’ll hold our gang in line, don’t worry,” one of the leaders said. He was a trifle annoyed that a newcomer to the island should be playing the commander to these reconstructed worms.

  But another of the leaders urged full cooperation. “It’s up to us to take your advice, Silbert, until we get our bearings. After all, we’ve been in the dark for years, under the curse of those factory lamps.”

  “We might have stayed under that spell all our lives,” another said.

  “Does your wife realize you’ve come out of it?”

  “I’ve tried to keep it a secret from the moment I realized what was happening to me. I haven’t talked with her. But she’s been watching me suspiciously. All at once she sees that I’m taking an interest in a lot of things I’d forgotten.”

  Others of the group had similar tales to tell. It was a shaky house of cards—this organized secret among three thousand men. Dave knew that the rumors of changed husbands must already be flying among the women-folk of the island’. Now was the time to strike, before the Empress realized that three thousand dopey slaves had changed to rebels almost overnight.

  “It’s lucky that boat got back on schedule,” Dave said. “I’ll feel a lot surer of our ground if Eudora and her three friends get the goods they’re after.”

  “Were they actually going aboard?”

  “You know the Underground. After, all these killings and whippings, they’ll stop at nothing. Eudora was determined to see that sculptor again in flesh and blood. If she succeeds, we’ll know damned well it was John Dennison who swung from the rope.”

  “For my part, I’m convinced,” the big, bald, brown-mustached leader said. Several others nodded. An empress who would subject them to years, of mental darkness for the crime of resisting her schemes would not hesitate to take stronger measures, for any reason that suited her convenience.

  Now the little motor boat chugged through the waters and beached to unload Eudora and three men. It was the same motor that had very nearly accomplished the sculptor’s escape a few weeks before. The Underground had made the most of that wreckage.

  Dave ran down to greet Eudora. But little Danny Downs reached the shore two bounds ahead of Kim.
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  “Did Happy come back with the boat, Eudora?” the little fellow cried. She shook her head, patting the lad on the shoulder. “We couldn’t be sure, of course. We didn’t have time to see anyone. We didn’t want to be seen, you know. You’d better forget about Happy and Jane.”

  Danny took it like a man. “Maybe they’re safe in the United States.”

  “Maybe.” Eudora looked to Dave, and he did what he could.

  “Danny and I,” Dave said, “and three thousand other men are all right here waiting for you to tell us what to do. We’re ready to smash everything the Empress stands for.”

  “Good,” said Eudora. “We’ll start with the statues.”

  The three thousand men who marched through the pink mists of that morning were not a mob. They were a well regulated army of obedient men. Their chance for life and liberty depended upon the strength of their brown muscular arms and bare backs. But it also depended upon their strength of obedience and restraint.

  They marched ten abreast. Only the first twenty men were armed with axes and clubs. The others were unarmed.

  “Remember,” Eudora had repeated in the final words of her speech in front of the cave, just before the march began, “you will not strike at any woman.”

  “We will remember,” the leaders had called back.

  “Even when they begin to fire upon you, you won’t fight. They will kill some of you, but the rest of you will go on breaking statues.”

  Dave and Eudora, Happy, and several of the youth of the Underground now marched alongside the foreranks of the factory army. Dave kept saying Eudora’s courageous words over to himself.

  Would these men contain the stamina to go on breaking statues when death crowded in on them?

  The time was at hand.

  In the distance the whistles of the hall of industry blew. At this hour the factory workers were supposed to be filing through the aisles silently, taking their places at their machines. In a few minutes the whole island would know that a revolt was on.

  The false gold of two statues at the south end of the boulevard caught the blaze of the morning sun. The mist had dissolved. Dave looked over the heads of the army leaders, beyond the semi-tropical foliage along the parking, toward the center of the city. The women of the island, dressed in their finery, were on their way to the palace courtyard. A bell rang out, summoning them to ia meeting.