The Magic Talisman

by John Blaine

  “Something must have happened during the night,” Scotty guessed. “I’ll go downstairs. You take the phone on the landing.”

  “I thought you should know,” Derek reported grimly when they reached the phones. “We’ve called Captain Douglas of the State Police. The cleaning staff came in this morning and found blood on the kitchen floor!”

  “No body?” Scotty asked quickly.

  “Nothing but a small puddle and some streaks of blood.The police are on their way. Want to come up?”

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  “You bet,” Rick exclaimed. “Be there shortly.”

  They were out of the house in fifteen minutes, running for the boat landing, when Jan came through the orchard and hurried to catch up. Rick stopped short at the sight of her. The girl’s dark eyes were deeply shadowed and she looked terribly upset.

  “What is it?” he asked anxiously. “What’s wrong, Jan?”

  She was close to tears. “I had awful nightmares, but now I can’t remember what they were. I couldn’t stay in bed any longer, so I came to see if Barby is up. Where are you going?”

  “To the mainland.”Rick dodged the question.

  “Go wake up Barby,” Scotty suggested. “Have breakfast with her and you’ll feel better.”

  Her eyes locked with Rick’s. “You’re hiding something. Why would you go to Whiteside this early’.”

  If he didn’t tell her, imagination might make it worse. “Something happened last night. Derek phoned to say they found blood on the kitchen floor. The state troopers are on the way.”

  He expected a demand to be taken along, and was prepared to be stubborn, but Jan only nodded. “I knew it was bad. He’s hurt, but he’s still alive. I’d know if he weren’t. I won’t ask to go, but will you call as soon as you find out anything? I’ll be with Barby.”

  They promised, and ran.

  The House of Illusion was swarming with police officers when they arrived. Under Captain Douglas’

  direction the police searched the house room by room, from basement to attic. Technicians tapped walls and listened with electronic stethoscopes, and others dusted the kitchen for finger prints.

  By noontime, the police were through. Captain Douglas summed up as the boys and the twins sat with him in the kitchen, drinking coffee.

  “We’ve drawn a blank. No sign of blood except here in the kitchen. The watchman saw nothing, but claims to have heard an occasional thumping sound, regular like a heartbeat. We found nothing that could make such a noise. What the watchman didn’t know, and I guess no one else did, is there’s a cut in the fence through which people on the north side, almost fully screened by vines, can come and go.”

  “How about secret rooms?”Rick asked.

  “From what you and the Camerons have told us, there must be some, but there are no obvious oddities of construction, and listening for hollow spaces got us nowhere. Short of tearing holes in the walls, I don’t know what more we can do without the original house plans. I’m surprised you and Scotty haven’t dug them out, Rick.”

  “We thought about it,” Rick admitted, “but there just hasn’t been time. The record office won’t be open until Monday.”

  “I guess that’s right,” the captain agreed. “But suppose you give it a try? If you need any official backing, call me.”

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  “We’ll do it. Think the blood will tell us anything?”

  “Only if it was a human being that was wounded, and his or her blood type.If there’s any tissue, it may give us an idea of where the wound was. The fingerprints won’t help.Any bright ideas, anyone?”

  There were none.

  “I can put a man on guard here, if you want,” the captain offered. “Frankly, I’m sure it wouldn’t do any good. His presence would prevent any happenings. What’s the scientific principle, Rick?”

  “The very process of observation or measurement may disturb the phenomenon being examined so that you get false results. Somethinglike that.”

  “That’s it. Now I’m not assuming necessarily that someone just wandered in last night.”

  “Maybe someone stayed behind after the crowd left,” David suggested, “then found other thieves had stayed with the same idea.”

  “Or maybe your unknown intruder bumped into a thief, or maybe none of these ideas fit. I’m stumped until we get more information.”

  “Maybe we ought to design a man trap for the kitchen,” Scotty proposed with a grin.

  Rick changed the subject, taking advantage of the captain’s presence to ask, “How do you go about finding if a man really is dead six months after the death certificate was signed?”

  The officer’s eyebrows went up.“Oh-ho! When Rick Brant asks a question like that, he has something in mind. What man, Rick?”

  “Anthony Wayland.The one who built this house.”

  “Old Mysto, eh?”At the surprised looks, the captain grinned. “Sure, I knew him. I used to patrol this beat. Is he dead or alive?”

  “That’s what we’re not sure of. He died in a sanitarium six months ago, according to the bank that controls the estate,” Rick explained. “There were also articles in Variety and Stage Annual. But we’re wondering. A lot of the strange things happening here could be explained more easily if he isn’t dead.

  How can we find out?”

  The captain took off his uniform cap and ruffled his hair. “Hot in here. The only sure way is to get a court order for disinterment and have a pathologist verify the body. But you have only a guess, no evidence, so that won’t work. What I can do is query the police in the town where he died, andask them to locate the doctor who signed the death certificate. Want me to?”

  “We’d appreciate it,” Derek said. “This business is getting us down. Anything that will help Rick and Scotty solve our mystery will put us ahead.”

  “Okay. Write down the dope, Rick. Place, dates, the works. “I’ll make a phone call to the State Police barracks nearest the sanitarium as soon as I get back. It shouldn’t take long. If we’re lucky, I’ll phone you.”

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  The chef and his assistants were already at work. Derek and David headed backstage to prepare for the night’s show. Rick wrote down the information in the captain’s notebook, then he and Scotty walked out to the entrance hall and were on the verge of leaving when Rick saw a heavy-set bald man at the doorway which led to the doors without keys.

  “Stand by a minute, Scotty. I see a man I want to talk to.” He had recognized Ah Boon, the Buddhist monk.

  The monk was just sitting down at an entrance table that would be occupied by the cloak room girl in the evening. He was in ordinary daytime clothes, a glen plaid suit with white shirt and tie, and was just opening the attache case.

  Rick walked over and said, grinning, “I didn’t know monks wore glen plaid suits, Mr. Ah Boon.”

  “Only monks who can afford one, Mr. Brant.”The pseudo-monk had an infectious smile. He took out of the case a flat, rectangular black box on which were a series of buttons. A wire was neatly coiled on its top. It was obviously a control box. There seemed to be only one object that would need the monk’s control-actually, four objects—the doors without keys.

  “I’m an electronics technician, Mr. Ah Boon,” Rick offered. “May I be of service?”

  “Thank you, but it isn’t necessary. I suspect it’s simply a loose connection that gave me a little difficulty last evening.”

  Derek came by and paused at the foot of the stairway.“Hi, Dick. I see you’ve met my friend Rick Brant.”

  “We met the other evening,” Rick told him.

  “Well, let me introduce you properly. Richard Auburn, this is Richard Brant.”

  Rick chuckled.“Ah Boon-Auburn. Qose. Have you ever been toBangkok ?”

  Over his shoulder, as he headed for the stairs, Derek said, “It’s hard to name a place Dick hasn’t been.

  You two have a lot in common.”

  “Actually, I have.You?”

  “Not ye
t. The closest I’ve been isHong Kong . You make a convincing monk, though. I’ve seen Buddhist monks inChina andTibet .”

  “Thank you. I hope you and your party enjoyed going through my doors.”

  “We did, but you baffled me. Obviously, someone had us in view, someone who had been briefed about us. I suspect that was you.”

  The “Monk” had removed the cover of his black box and was checking connections inside.“Yes, but all in fun. Karen had given me a rundown on your party and a few others. For people the Camerons don’t know, I just use my own best guesses. Actually, I’m pretty good at it.”

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  “I’ll bet you are,” Rick agreed. “But Karen couldn’t have guessed Jan and I would be inside at the same time, so the words must have been yours. May I ask a question?”

  “Sure.Why not?”

  “You said Jan and I would make our dreams come true together. Karen couldn’t have suggested that.

  What made you say it?”

  Ah Boon, alias Richard Auburn, gave him an understanding smile. “You heard me say I’m good at quick analysis. I saw how you were looking at that very pretty girl when she wasn’t looking at you, and I saw how she was looking at you when you weren’t looking at her. So I decided a bit of prophecy was in order.”

  Rick swallowed. “Thank you, Mr. Auburn, very much. I hope you’re as good a prophet as you are an analyst. Would it be impertinent to ask how you spoke to us?”

  “Not since you’re a friend of the Camerons, and I know you won’t give me away. My real specialty is ventriloquism, as you’ll see if you come to the show in two weeks. A ventriloquist can subvocalize , like this: ‘enter the doors without keys.’” Rick barely heard the last five words, even from three feet away.

  “Actually, I said that one louder than normal so you could hear. With a throat microphone, inside the ivory Buddha, and my little black box keyed to receiver-speakers, I can talk to people in the tunnel even with others waiting. For most, I push a button and a tape goes on.”

  “I’ll be sure to catch your ventriloquism act,” Rick assured him. “And if I don’t do better than I’m doing at the moment, I might even volunteer to sit on your knee as dummy.”

  The pseudo-monk offered his hand. “Good luck, Mr. Brant. If I need help with my electronics I’ll give Spindrift a call.” He returned his attention to the control box.

  Rick walked to where Scotty was waiting. “Just had a nice conversation with a Buddhist monk,” he reported. He gave Scotty the gist of it. “You know, Karen must have briefed the whole staff about the Spindrift group, complete with pictures. After you briefed her, pal!”

  Scotty laughed.“Just part of the service. No extra charge.”

  Rick had called home and talked with Barby and Jan, so they knew there was really no news. “Let’s get back to Spindrift,” he said. “I want to put some time in on my new machine.”

  For the rest of the day Rick worked on his project while Scotty, Jan and Barby wandered in and out of his room, alternately helping and slowing him up. After dinner, Rick went back to work while the three settled down to Chinese checkers.

  The phone rang shortly after nine and Scotty answered. He called to Rick to get on another extension.

  “It’s the captain.”

  The captain had two pieces of information.“Human blood, boys, type O. No other information. I queried the New York State Police and they found the doctor who signed the death certificate. He’s the physician who is called to the sanitarium to treat any sick people. The residents are all psychiatrists and psychologists. Anyway, the doctor told the police he couldn’t understand why there was any question.

  He knew old Mr. Wayland and personally examined him after death.Sounds air-tight, Rick.”

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  The boys thanked the officer, then reported to the girls.

  “That settles it,” Barby said sadly. “It was such a good idea, too.”

  Jan disagreed. “I don’t think it settles it. With anyone else it would, but remember who this man was!”

  Rick’s eyes met Scotty’s.

  “No ordinary man,” Scotty agreed.

  “No,” Rick finished. “This was Mysto, the Master of Illusion!”

  CHAPTER VIII

  The Infrared Indians

  Barby was cleaning her room the following morning when Rick stuck his head in the door. “Hey, Barb, have you seen my old football helmet?”

  She looked at her brother in surprise.“What for? Are you going to hunt Mysto by butting the walls?”

  “It would be about as useful as anything we’ve done so far. Have you seen it?”

  “Try the attic stairs. I think I saw it with some stuff Mother was planning to store in the attic.”

  “Thanks, Sis. I’ll look.”

  Barby followed him as he went to the stairs and opened the door to the attic. The helmet wasn’t on the stairs, but he found it just inside the attic itself. He carried it into his room, Barby close on his heels.

  Scotty was at Rick’s workbench, removing an odd-looking searchlight from the top of a motion picture camera.

  Barby watched for a moment, then said suddenly, “Now I get it. You two are going hunting tonight at the Mirella estate!”

  “Don’t you think it’s about time?” Scotty asked. “When deductive methods fail, take direct action.

  That’s my motto.”

  “Uh-huh. And you’re going to use the infrared unit off the camera. But what’s Rick doing with the helmet?”

  “Don’t ask me, Golden Girl. Inquire of thy boy genius brother.”

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  “Any more of that Golden Girl stuff and I’ll put Crazy Glue on your chair seat. Come on, Rick. What’s the helmet for?”

  “Protection, if Mysto is armed with a baseball bat,” Rick said, grinning.

  “Are you asking for the glue treatment, too?”

  “Seriously, Sis, I’m going to mount the radiometer on it. I’d planned it as a surprise for you, but you’ll have to take it without the surprise, because I need a mount right now that will leave both hands free.”

  “Golly, big brother, that’s greatThen , when I wear it, I’ll have both hands free for the infrared camera!

  Thanks real much.”

  Both the unit on which Scotty was working and Rick’s new project allowed night vision by infrared radiation, but the two worked on different principles. The camera unit was one Rick had adapted from a military surplus sniperscope , designed originally for soldiers to use at night as a sight on a rifle. A small search-light projected a beam of infrared light, the invisible light that falls below ordinary visible light in the electromagnetic spectrum. An object struck by the beam was illuminated in “black light” which could be seen through the rifle scope as a greenish visible light. The scope through which the soldier sighted contained an image tube as a converter, but with his dad’s help, Rick had found a special glass that served the same purpose, and mounted it as lenses in a pair of sun glasses.

  The new infrared radiometer on which Rick worked was solely a receiving unit. Its operation depended on the fact that nearly everything emits infrared radiation to some extent. In simplest terms, infrared is heat radiation, emitted by any object with a degree of warmth.

  Because different objects have different capacities to retain heat, the radiometer could distinguish between them. For example, flowers in water in a bowl would keep heat longer than an empty bowl.

  Wooden objects hold heat much longer than metal ones, and so on.

  The radiometer itself was a small aluminum rectangular cake tin, its bottom covered with black polka dots, the infrared sensors. Inside the tin, the filling consisted of myriad nairlike wires, each connected to one of the black dots at one end, and with several of its fellow wires to a terminal at the other. Rick had been making soldered connections between the terminals and a small, flat image tube.

  He had bought a sheet of aluminum of the kind sold by hardware stores for do-it-yourselfers, a de
scription that certainly fit Rick. From it he fashioned a rectangular collar about six inches wide. The radiometer sensor dish fitted into one end and the image tube into the other.

  Another purchase was quarter-inch aluminum rod, from which he was to fashion a suspension system so the combined units could be hung on the football helmet with the image tube the proper distance from his face. The remaining purchase was a cylinder of clear plastic, just big enough in diameter to contain nine-volt batteries.

  As Rick told Barby, his intention was to surprise her with the helmet-mounted radiometer. The gadget was his project, but Barby was planning to use it in a project of her own. A family of raccoons had moved into the grove on the back side of Spindrift, and Barby intended to keep a log of their activities, with photos for her biology class. Because the appealing little masked animals are largely nocturnal, observation required ability to watch in darkness. In Rick’s radiometer, the warm-blooded animals would shine like animated moons. The helmet would enable Barby to use both hands to operate a Page 51

  camera loaded with infrared film and an IR flashgun.

  Barby watched for a bit, then asked, “Will it bother you if Jan and I watch? She’s still upset about that blood on the floor, and she’ll feel better if we’re all together.”

  “You can both help.”

  “Good. I’ll finish cleaning my room, then go get Jan. We’ll come over in a while.”

  Rick finished the connections, made a temporary battery hookup, and threw the toggle switch. The tube screen lit up. It was working.Now for the battery containers and the mount. But before he started cutting tubing, Rick paused to see how Scotty was doing. His pal was making a hookup, too, connecting a battery pack to the infrared searchlight.

  “All okay?”

  “It checks out. How’s the radiometer?”

  “Seems all right.We’ll try it in the closet when I get the thing mounted and the batteries installed.”

  “The only thing that worries me,” Scotty began, “is that the tube is pretty fragile. If we get into a roughup

  ...”

  “Hold it!” Rick had heard a voice that he recognized. “That’s Winston, just leaving the library. I want to catch him.” He hurried to the head of the stairs and called, “Dr. Winston? Can you spare Scotty and me a few minutes, or are you in a rush?”