They scrambled out and raced back to the roadway. But by the time they had reached it the monster had disappeared. There was nothing visible—but there was a faint sound, a dull purring slowly receding into distance.
“Well, well?” Branson snapped impatiently, as Lloyd pondered.
“That noise...,” he meditated. “A car’s engine— Yes, here are its tracks! Unique sort of tread too— Notice the wet gravel here? Here’s our track where we turned off.”
He stooped, pulled a white card from his pocket, and in the light of the moon made a pencil design of the tyre tread.
“So what?” Branson snorted, glancing round the landscape. “I’m not interested in tyre treads; I want that monster!”
“Spero meliora—I hope for better things,” Lloyd sighed. “The monster doesn’t exist, I tell you. But the tyre tread does! And it is recent—so obviously it was a car following us. Look, did you hear a queer sound before the monster turned up?”
“Yeah—sure I did; like a wet finger squeegeeing glass.” Branson had his imaginative moments. “But the sight of that thing put me right off answering you—”
“Clearly,” Lloyd said, “the monster was intended to hurl us off the road and involve us in a nasty accident. Thanks to my everlasting coolness in taking the wheel we are still here.... Hmm, this gets more fascinating as it goes on. And if it was the same monster as seen by the villagers, it was a diplodocus. That puts it out of court straight away, since the diplodocus is a marsh and water dweller— Come on, back to the car. The sooner we get to my laboratory, the better.”
They went back through the field to the car.
Branson said, “Look, you mean that whoever followed in that car was deliberately trying to bump us off with a phony diplo—doplo— Whatever you called it?”
“Naturally,” Lloyd growled impatiently.
They climbed back into the car, bumped back to the road, and in the glare of the headlamps followed the trail of the unknown car as far as the wet road carried it. Then they lost it on macadam. Lloyd grunted and relapsed into thought. Around midnight they were back in New York.
“What happens now?” Branson asked, as he followed the little scientist through his cozy home to the laboratory.
“Please yourself,” Lloyd shrugged. “I’ll be working for the rest of the night. Maybe you’d better give your brain a rest and come and see me in the morning.”
“Okay!” Branson knew better than take offense, or stay on where he wasn’t wanted....
III. MONSTERS OVER NEW YORK
Branson turned up again at eight the next morning, was admitted to the laboratory to find Lloyd wrapped in his oversize smock and huddled over coffee and toast. A bench was littered with odds and ends, and scientific instruments, testifying to the kind of night he had spent.
“Brain refreshed?” he asked sardonically, glancing up; and added, “It’ll need to be to absorb what I’m going to throw at it.”
“You found something definite then?”
“I am Brutus LIoyd! Have some coffee....”
And as Branson helped himself Lloyd went on, “The hatband fingerprints and those on the oriental knife don’t tally. It was not the Indian who threw the knife at me in the wood. Not that that is any surprise to me. Remember the tree branch? The Indian is only shortish—he could not, despite your fanciful ideas of leaping into the air with a turban on, have hit his head on that branch. It was somebody taller, posing as him.”
“Whom?”
“I don’t know, you damn fool! Might be anybody we’ve met—even Phalnack hímself, who though short is taller than Ranji. Or, it may be somebody we have not yet encountered. Once I’ve found who owns the prints on the knife I’ll get someplace— For the moment we can skip that. What really is of interest is the solution of the monsters.”
“You’ve got it?” Branson cried eagerly, and was rewarded with a droop of insolent eyelids. Then Lloyd swung off his high stool and crossed to the complicated apparatus he’d assembled on his workbench. Now as Branson looked at it closely he decided it was rather like a camera, only it had dynamos attached to it.
Lloyd switched on the power, then turned the instrument so it faced Branson. He looked uneasy for a moment but Lloyd grinned his fears away. A thin irritating hum began to pervade the air almost at once.
“Take a look!” Lloyd ordered suddenly—and instantly Branson dropped his coffee cup with a yell and dragged out his revolver. He backed to the wall hastily, fired desperately—three times at the form of a tiger slinking toward him!
The bullets whanged right through it, however— Then, miraculously, the tiger was an ape; then a rabbit; finally a cat! Lloyd switched off and the manifestations vanished utterly.
“What the sweet, suffering hell....” Branson relaxed and mopped his sweating face; then glared at Lloyd as he gave a slow, impish smile. “What was it, man? Movie film?”
“No—I hypnotized you! A trifle when a brain like mine is pitted against a withered walnut like yours.”
“Hypnotism?” Branson started. “Now wait a minute—”
“Joking apart,” Lloyd said grimly, “this business is the most ingenious scientific trick I’ve struck! It is perfectly clear now—ignoring the monsters for the moment—that Dr. Phalnack has utilized the method used by Professor Cortell at the British University of Sound Research. Professor Cortell made a thorough research—mainly for discovering how to make cities quieter—into sound problems. He produced an array of decibels ranging from airplane motors to leaves on a windless day....
“But he also went deeply into the higher researches of sound, and discovered what he tentatively called the ‘ultimate vibration’. He suggested it as a war weapon to the British authorities, but it was turned down or else pigeon-holed. That doesn’t matter. But it is clear that Dr. Phalnack has used the system for his own psychic demonstrations. You see, Branson, Professor Cortell stated quite accurately that the highest audible sound to the human ear is twenty-five thousand vibrations a second. Anything outside and above it is in the ultrasonic range—”
“But we heard that hum!” Branson protested, trying to grasp the idea.
“No: we felt it! Just as certain aids for the deaf rely solely on an instrument contacting the maxillary bone. Vibration—not sound. Anyway, Professor Cortell’s instrument generated a wave of twenty-five and a half thousand vibrations a second, and at that pitch it affects the brain-centres. Even as unheard noises—to us that is—can stampede the different hearing range of a herd of animals or flock of birds, so a wavelength of twenty-five and a half thousand vibrations can upset a human brain completely. There Professor Cortell ended his research—but obviously Dr. Phalnack had other ideas about the matter.”
Lloyd pondered a moment before he went on. Then,
“By means of electrical amplification he is able to direct his thoughts into the minds of those who have been semi-paralyzed by that ultrasonic hum. Thereby, unconscious of the fact that their normal power of perception is haywire, they believe what he wills they shall believe. Mass hypnotism, Branson. And I know it is correct. Last night at the seance I had an inkling of the truth by the insistence of everybody on a thin hum accompanying their visions of the monsters. I felt ultrasonics might play a part somewheres.
“When it became evident at Phalnack’s, and the spectral visions appeared simultaneously, I dived for them to see if they were solid. When they were not, I suspected hypnotism on a scientific scale. Getting back here, I looked up researches into ultrasonics and found Professor Cortell’s theory in the files. I duplicated the method—a simple matter of vibrating flanges with air current between them—and produced the desired pitch. I turned it on you and at the same time thought hard of a tiger—and the rest of the animals. As I had hoped, a subsidiary electrical beam directed towards you amplified my thoughts to you. Easy enough, for a brain is only an electrical machine. Thought amplification is done any day at the National Physics Laboratory for that matter.... But don’t mix it with
telepathy. That would be something! This is only plain, but clever, hypnotism.”
“So that’s it!” Branson gulped the rest of his coffee from another cup. “That phony occultist just makes his audience see things, huh? But why? As I said, what’s the use of trying out such ideas on a lot of villagers? And anyway, what’s the idea of the prehistoric monsters? You’ve made it clear that anything could be induced—so why monsters? What’s the motive?”
“There,” Lloyd sighed, fingering his forelock, “you’ve got me! But having found the method, I don’t doubt we’ll find the rest—”
He broke off and picked up the phone as it rang sharply. He listened, then tossed it to Branson.
“What!” Branson yelped, after he’d listened for a moment or two; then with a startled, “Okay, I’ll be right over!” he flung the instrument down and turned a dazed face.
“Pterodactyls—over New York!” he gulped. “Over my precinct!”
Lloyd stared blankly for an instant, genuinely astounded for once in his life. Then his little chin set firmly. He wheeled round and tore off his smock, bundled into his coat.
“Come on—let’s go!” he shouted to the half stunned Inspector; and with that he recovered and raced after Lloyd’s hurrying form. Outside they each went to their own cars. Then with siren blaring noisily Branson led the way through the city streets into the precinct where he held sway—but on the outermost edges of it he began to slow down as he became aware again of that hum that was felt rather than heard.
Lloyd’s roadster drew alongside. Both he and Branson looked about them. People on the sidewalk were staring up into the morning sky, astounded—some of them frightened. Certainly there was a flock of birds circling up there—monstrous bat-like objects flying in and out of the lofty buildings.
“Same stunt—more power,” Lloyd summed up tensely. “That hum has got us, man. Force yourself against it—”
“But how? Unless I stop my ears—”
“No dam’ good! It’s inaudible sound. That’s what is so smart about it. Got the people too from the look of ’em. Use your will power, man—what there is of it!”
“Yeah—I get it!” But Branson had an obvious struggle with himself to drive onwards. So for that matter had Lloyd himself, though he’d never have admitted it.
Somehow they managed to keep going and by the time they’d gained the precinct headquarters the flying monsters had gone from the sky. People were moving again, talking excitedly to one another.
Confused, bewildered, Branson floundered after Lloyd into the private office.
“Get busy,” Lloyd ordered curtly. “Have all traffic from this section of the city barred on its way out of the city There’s a chance the culprit we want will try and get out of New York—and we’re going to stop him! Go on.”
“But what’s the use of—?”
“Get on that phone!” Lloyd yelled, slamming his umbrella on the desk emphatically. “Time’s precious, you dope!”
Branson obeyed; then looked at Lloyd in puzzlement. His little face was puckered.
“We can consider the facts,” he mused, pushing up his Derby. “A—whoever’s back of this knows you are on the job and knows your precinct, therefore the act was staged in your area. Maybe as an effort to convince you that the monsters are real by providing so many other witnesses of them. B—our unknown friend used pterodactyls no doubt so they’d be up in the air and beyond examination; and also to avoid having to leave traces for later study—as in the case of the wood-made footprints. C—a vast increase in the power of the mass-hypnotism is evidenced, for to get so many people under the influence for even a short time points to plenty of juice. And D—that car which followed us last night was obviously heading this way.”
“Then,” Branson said, “he must have come here for other reasons than to upset me. He no doubt figured he’d disposed of both of us!”
“Unless he came here to be certain of his work....”
Lloyd began to pace up and down, clutching his forelock savagely. “Dammit, there must be a motive behind this monster business, but I can’t figure what it is! At spes non fracta—but hope is not yet crushed! Right now our job is to find a car with the particular tyre tread of last night. Let’s be off.”
They hurried outside, Branson to his squad car and Lloyd to his roadster. In three minutes they were threading their way through the busy city traffic, Branson clearing a track with the siren. Presently speed cops moved up in front and assisted him.
Lloyd, a little way behind, sat thinking as he drove swiftly along—thinking so much he had to put the brakes on suddenly several times. Then he looked ahead of him uneasily as the road seemed to shift horribly before his vision. At the same moment an uneasy tickling sensation burned his throat. Blurred of eye, dazed, he could scarcely see where he was going.
He glanced down, alarmed now at the vision of curling vapour coming up through the car floorboards, enveloping him. He gave a strangled cry, fell back helplessly in his seat. Uncontrolled, his car slewed round in a wild half circle, slammed into a taxi, then rebounded and drove its gleaming radiator into a lamp standard....
Lloyd returned to consciousness to find his shirt open and collar loosened while brandy was still searing his throat. He opened his eyes to a doctor’s surgery, then beheld the doctor himself and a burly police officer.
“What the—?” He sat up with a jerk, winced at unexpected bruises. “What the devil happened?” he demanded aggressively.
The officer answered, “Guess somebody made an attempt on your life, Dr. Lloyd. You were lucky to get away with it! Some wise guy had fixed a small gas bomb under your brake pedal. When you put the brake on the bomb was crushed and the fumes escaped. The rush of wind stopped them doing serious injury to you, though—”
“And my car?” Lloyd got groggily to his feet, fumbled with the collar the doctor handed him.
“Smashed badly. It’s in the Excel Garage—”
“Hic labor, hoc opus est,” Lloyd growled in fury, scrambling back into his big overcoat and clutching at his Derby. “This is the labour, this is the toil! Where’s Branson, anyway? How long have I been unconscious?”
“About an hour, sir. Inspector Branson is back at his headquarters if you—”
“Quick—drive me to him. It’s urgent! Oh—and thanks, doctor. Send the bill in—Brutus Lloyd. All know me.”
He whisked outside with the officer to the waiting car, and inside a few minutes was back in Branson’s precinct headquarters. The Inspector looked relieved when he saw him.
“Lloyd! Thank goodness you’re okay. I was afraid—”
“Be damned to that! What are you doing here? I thought I told you to stop all traffic!”
“Sure—but that was over an hour ago. I couldn’t hold things up indefinitely until you recovered so I—”
Lloyd slammed his gamp down savagely on the desk. “Did you find what we were looking for? That tyre tread?”
“Well, searching the tyres of some hundreds of cars isn’t easy.” Branson scratched his bullet head. “But I found one that might have been it: you had the pattern card so I couldn’t be sure. It was a grey truck, streamlined. Nothing we could pin on the driver, though. Clean licence and so on— But I took a print of his tyres for confirmation.”
“Hm! What did he look like?”
“Middle-aged apparently, mustached, cap, scarf—”
“And what happened to the truck?”
“We let it go with the rest of the traffic—but I had tabs kept on it. It was followed but did nothing suspicious. Went round some of the streets, then retraced into New York and stopped finally outside the Evening Clarion offices.”
“Then?” LIoyd insisted.
“What is this?” Branson asked irritably. “We couldn’t keep on tagging it when it was harmlessly occupied. We let it go— But I took the licence number.”
Branson stopped at Lloyd’s cold glare, then tossed down the tire tread impression card on the desk, together with
the license number. Lloyd compared the former with his own card, took off his hat, then tore savagely at his J-forelock.
“And you let the car go!” he groaned. “Hiatus valde defiendus! A deficiency greatly to be deplored! Fool! Imbecile! It’s the very truck we want! Don’t you understand, man? He must have had portable ultrasonic equipment in that truck and produced those pterodactyls—and the monster we saw on the country road last night—by that method!”
“But the driver was a stranger!” Branson shouted hotly.
“Naturally,” Lloyd sneered. “The guy we want was probably inside that truck—but that wouldn’t occur to your clogged brain.”
Branson looked uncomfortable. Lloyd drummed his fingers on the desk irritably for a time.
“The motive?” he reiterated. “Just what can be the sense of throwing a fright into people this way? It doesn’t even— Did you say the Evening Clarion?” he broke off sharply. “Which department?”
“Classified advertisements.”
“Hmm....” Lloyd cooled off a little. “Maybe we’ll find something when the paper comes out. In the meantime, we have work to do. I have got to find the tallying fingerprints to those on the oriental knife; and since it was not the Indian, we’ve to check on Phalnack himself. Guess we’ll grab some lunch, then motor over to Trenchley and wait for nightfall. Soon be dark this time of year.”
IV. TRAIL’S END
Lloyd was right. The short autumnal day had closed into frosty night when they parked the squad car outside the village near Phalnack’s isolated home. Silently they moved toward it in the gloom.
“I suppose you know you’re figuring on burglary—anyway, house-breaking?” Branson asked grimly. “Can’t investigate without a warrant.”
“But I can,” Lloyd retorted. “And I’m going to! None can baulk the will of Brutus Lloyd. You can arrest me afterwards for trespass if you like. Here we go....”
They had come to the rear of the sombre residence. With his penknife he opened a window and they slid silently into a gloomy, deserted library. The whole place was deathly quiet, apparently deserted.
A Case for Brutus Lloyd Page 10
