by Sax Rohmer
“In spite of admittedly high temperature at time of departure, I remembered that I was leaving town in the morning. I decided to take the job with me. If”—he glanced from face to face—“you suspect some attempt on the safe, all the burglar found was—Old Mother Hubbard. I carry peace to Falling Waters.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The library at Falling Waters was a pleasant room. It was panelled in English oak imported by Stella Frobisher. An open staircase led up to a landing which led, in turn, to rooms beyond. There were recessed bookcases. French windows gave upon a paved terrace overlooking an Italian garden. Sets of Dickens, Thackeray, Punch, and Country Life bulked large on the shelves.
There was a handsome walnut desk, upon which a telephone stood, backed by a screen of stamped Spanish leather. Leather-covered armchairs and settees invited meditation. The eye was attracted (or repelled) by fine old sporting prints. Good Chinese rugs were spread on a well-waxed floor.
Conspicuous above a bookcase, and so unlike Stella’s taste, one saw a large, glazed cabinet containing a colored plan of the grounds surrounding Falling Waters. It seemed so out of place.
On occasional tables, new novels invited dipping. Silver caskets and jade caskets and cloisonné caskets contained cigarettes to suit every palate. There were discreet ornaments. A good reproduction of Queen Nefertiti’s beautiful, commercialized head above a set of Balzac, in French, which no member of this household could read. A bust of Shakespeare. A copy of the Discus Thrower apparently engaged in throwing his discus at a bust by Epstein on the other side of the library.
A pleasant room, as sunshine poured in to bring its lifeless beauties to life, to regild rich bindings, on this morning following those strange occurrences in the Huston research laboratory.
Michael Frobisher was seated at the walnut desk, the phone to his ear. Stein, his butler-chauffeur, stood at his elbow. Michael Frobisher was never wholly at ease in his own home. He remained acutely conscious of the culture with which Stella had surrounded him. This morning, his unrest was pathetic.
“But this thing’s just incredible!… What d’you say? You’re certain of your facts, Craig? Regan never left a note like that before?… What d’you mean, he hasn’t come back? He must be in some clinic… The police say he isn’t? To hell with the police! I don’t want police in the Huston laboratory… You did a wise thing there, but I guess it was an accident… Bring the notes and drawing right down here. For God’s sake, bring ’em right down here! How do we know somebody hasn’t explored the plant? Listen! How do we know?”
He himself listened a while and then:
“To hell with Nayland Smith!” he growled. “Huston Electric doesn’t spend half a million dollars to tip the beans into his pocket. He’s a British agent. He’ll sell us out! Are you crazy?… He may be backed by Washington. What’s good that comes to us from Washington, anyway?”
He listened again, and suddenly:
“Had it occurred to you,” he asked on a note of tension, “that Regan could be the British agent? He joined us from Vickers…”
When at last he hung up:
“Is there anything you want me to do?” Stein asked.
Stein was a man who, seated, would have looked like a big man, for he had a thick neck, deep chest, and powerful shoulders. But, standing, he resembled Gog, or Magog, guardian deities of London’s Guildhall; a heavy, squat figure, with heavy, squat features. Stein wore his reddish hair cut close as a Prussian officer’s. He had a crushed appearance, as though someone had sat on his head.
Frobisher spun around. “Did you get it?”
“Yes. It is serious.” (Stein furthermore had a heavy, squat accent.) “But not so serious as if they have found the detail of the transmuter.”
“What are you talking about?” Frobisher stood up. “There’s enough in the lab to give away the whole principle to an expert.”
That grey undertone beneath his florid coloring was marked.
“This may be true—”
“And Regan’s disappeared!”
“I gathered so.”
“Then—hell!”
“You are too soon alarmed,” said Stein coolly. “Let us wait until we have all the facts.”
“How’ll we ever have all the facts?” Frobisher demanded. “What are the facts about things that happen right here? Who walks around this house at night like a ghost? Who combed my desk papers? Who opened my safe? And who out of hell went through your room the other evening while you were asleep? Tell me who, and then tell me why!”
But before Stein had time to answer these reasonable inquiries, Stella Frobisher fluttered into the library. She wore a Hollywood pinafore over her frock, her hands were buried in gauntlet gloves, and she carried a pair of large scissors. Her blond hair was dressed as immaculately as that of a movie star just rescued from a sinking ship.
“I know I look a fright, dear,” she assured Frobisher. “I have been out in the garden, cutting early spring flowers.”
She emphasized “cutting” as if her more usual method was to knock their heads off with a niblick.
“Allow me to bring these in for you, madame,” said Stein. His respectful manner was in odd contrast to that with which he addressed Frobisher.
“Thank you, Stein. Lucille has the basket on the back porch.”
She did not mention the fact that Lucille had also cut the flowers.
“Very good, madame.”
As Stein walked towards the door:
“Oh, Stein—there will be seven to luncheon. Dr. and Mrs. Pardoe are coming.”
Stein bowed and went out.
“Who’s the old man?” growled Frobisher, opening a box of cigars which lay on the desk.
“Professor Hoffmeyer. Isn’t it splendid that I got him to come?”
“Don’t know till I see him.”
“He’s simply wonderful. He will amaze you, Mike.”
“Don’t care for amazement at mealtimes.”
“You will fall completely under his spell, dear,” Stella declared, and went fluttering out again. “I must go and assemble my flowers.”
At about this time, Morris Craig was putting a suitcase into the back of his car. As he locked the boot he looked up.
“You know, Smith,” he said, “I’m profoundly conscious of the gravity of this thing—but I begin to feel like a ticket-of-leave man. There’s a car packed with police on the other side of the street Do they track me to Falling Waters?”
“They do!” Nayland Smith replied. “As I understand it, you are now going to pick up Miss Navarre?”
“That is the program.” Craig smiled rather unhappily. “I feel a bit cheap leaving Shaw alone, in the circumstances. But—”
“Shaw won’t be alone,” Smith rapped irritably. “I think—or, rather, fear—the danger at the laboratory is past. But to make sure, two carefully selected men will be on duty in your office day and night until you return. Plus two outside.”
“Why not Sam? He’s back.”
“You will need Sam to lend a hand with this radio burglar alarm you tell me about.”
“I shall?”
“You will. I can see you’re dying to push off. So—push! l trust you have a happy week-end.”
And when Craig turned into West Seventy-fifth Street the first thing that really claimed his attention was the presence of a car which had followed him all the way. The second was a figure standing before the door of an apartment house—a door he could never forget.
This figure wore spectacles, a light fawn topcoat, a cerise muffler, and a slate-grey hat with the brim turned up not at the back, but in front…
“Morning, boss,” said Sam, opening the door. “Happen to have—”
“I have nothing but a stern demand. It’s this: What the devil are you doing here?”
“Well”—Sam shook his head solemnly—“it’s like this. Seems you’re carrying valuables, and Sir Denis, he thinks—”
“He thinks what?”
“He t
hinks somebody ought to come along—see? Just in case.”
Craig stepped out.
“Tell me: Are you employed by Huston Electric or by Nayland Smith?”
Sam tipped his hat further back. He chewed thoughtfully. “It’s kind of complicated, Doctor. Sir Denis has it figured I’m doing my best for Huston’s if I come along and lend a hand. He figures there may be trouble up there. And you never know.”
Visions of a morning drive alone with Camille vanished. “All right,” said Craig resignedly. “Sit at the back.”
In a very short time he had hurried in. But it was a long time before he came out.
Camille looked flushed, but delightfully pretty, when she arrived at Falling Waters. Her hair was tastefully dressed, and she carried the black-rimmed glasses in her hand. Stella was there to greet her guests.
“My dear Miss Navarre! It’s so nice to have you here at last! Dr. Craig, you have kept her in hiding too long.”
“Not my fault, Mrs. Frobisher. She’s a self-effacing type.” Then, as Frobisher appeared: “Hail, chief! Grim work at—”
Frobisher pointed covertly to Stella, making vigorous negative signs with his head. “Glad to see you, Craig,” he rumbled, shaking hands with both arrivals.
“You have a charming house, Mrs. Frobisher,” said Camille. “It was sweet of you to ask me to come.”
“I’m so glad you like it!” Stella replied. “Because you must have seen such lovely homes in France and in England.”
“Yes,” Camille smiled sadly. “Some of them were lovely.”
“But let me take you along to your room. This is your first visit, but I do hope it will be the first of many.”
She led Camille away, leaving Frobisher and Craig standing in the lobby—panelled in Spanish mahogany from the old Cunard liner, Mauretania. And at that moment Frobisher’s eye rested upon Sam, engaged in taking Craig’s suitcase from the boot, whilst Stein stood by.
“What’s that half-wit doing down here?” Frobisher inquired politely.
“D’you mean Sam? Oh, he’s going to—er—lend me a hand overhauling your burglar system.”
“Probably make a good job of it, between you,” Frobisher commented drily. “When you’ve combed your hair, Craig, come along to my study. We have a lot to talk about. Where’s the plan?”
Craig tapped his chest. He was in a mood of high exaltation.
“On our person, good sir. Only over our dead body could caitiffs win to the treasure.”
And in a room all daintily chintz, with delicate water colors and lots of daffodils, Camille was looking out of an opened window, at an old English garden, and wondering if her happiness could last.
Stein tapped at the door, placed Camille’s bag inside, and retired.
“Don’t bother to unpack, my dear,” said Stella. “Flora, my maid, is superlative.”
Camille turned to her, impulsively.
“You are very kind, Mrs. Frobisher. And it was so good of you to make that appointment for me with Professor Hoffmeyer.”
“With Professor Hoffmeyer? Oh! my dear! Did I, really? Of course”—seeing Camille’s strange expression—“I must have done. It’s queer and it’s absurd, but, do you know, I’m addicted to the oddest lapses of memory.”
“You are?” Camille exclaimed; then, as it sounded so rude, she added, “I mean I am, too.”
“You are?” Stella exclaimed in turn, and seized both her hands. “Oh, my dear, I’m so glad! I mean, I know I sound silly, and a bit horrid. What I wanted to say was, it’s such a relief to meet somebody else who suffers in that way. Someone who has no possible reason for going funny in the head. But tell me—what did you think of him?”
Camille looked earnestly into the childish but kindly eyes. “I must tell you, Mrs. Frobisher—impossible though it sounds—that I have no recollection whatever of going there!”
“My dear!” Stella squeezed her hands encouragingly. “I quite understand. Whatever do you suppose is the matter with us?”
“I’m afraid I can’t even imagine.”
“Could it be some new kind of epidemic?”
Camille’s heart was beating rapidly, her expression was introspective; for she was, as Dr. Fu-Manchu had told her (but she had forgotten), a personable woman with a brain.
“I don’t know. Suppose we compare notes—”
Michael Frobisher’s study, the window of which offered a prospect of such woodland as Fenimore Cooper wrote about, was eminently that of a man of business. The books were reference books, the desk had nothing on it but a phone, a blotting-pad, pen, ink, a lamp, an almanac, and a photograph of Stella. The safe was built into the wall. No unnecessary litter.
“There’s the safe I told you about,” he was saying. “There’s the key—and the combination is right here.” He touched his rugged forehead. “Yet—I found the damned thing wide open! My papers”—he pulled out a drawer—“were sorted like a teller sorts checks. I know. I always have my papers in order. Then—somebody goes through my butler’s room.” He banged his big fist on the desk. “And not a bolt drawn, not a window opened!”
“Passing strange,” Craig murmured. He glanced at the folded diagram. “Hardly seems worthwhile to lock it up.” Michael Frobisher stared at the end of his half-smoked cigar, twirling it between strong fingers.
“There’s been nothing since I installed the alarm system. But I don’t trust anybody. I want you to test it. Meanwhile”—he laid his hand on the paper—“how long will it take you to finish this thing?”
“Speaking optimistically, two hours.”
“You mean, in two hours it will be possible to say we’re finished?”
“Hardly. Shaw has to make the valves. Wonderful fellow, Shaw. Then we have to test the brute in action. When that bright day dawns, it may be the right time to say we’re finished!”
Frobisher put his cigar back in his hard mouth, and stared at Craig.
“You’re a funny guy,” he said. “It took a man like me to know you had the brains of an Einstein. I might have regretted the investment if Martin Shaw hadn’t backed you—and Regan. I’m doubtful of Regan—now. But he knows the game. Then—you’ve shown me things.”
“A privilege, Mr. Frobisher.”
Frobisher stood up.
“Don’t go all Oxford on me. Listen. When this detail here is finished, you say we shall be in a position to tap a source of inexhaustible energy which completely tops atomic power?”
“I say so firmly. Whether we can control the monster depends entirely upon—that.”
“The transmuter valve?”
“Exactly. It’s only a small gadget. Shaw could make all three of ’em in a few hours. But if it works, Mr. Frobisher, and I know it will, we shall have at our command a force, cheaply obtained, which could (a) blow our world to bits, or (b) enable us to dispense with costly things like coal, oil, enormous atomic plants, and the like, forever. I am beginning to see tremendous possibilities.”
“Fine.”
Michael Frobisher was staring out of the window. His heavy face was transfigured. He, too, the man of commerce, the opportunist, could see those tremendous possibilities. No doubt he saw possibilities which had never crossed the purely scientific mind of Morris Craig.
“So,” said Craig, picking up the diagram and the notes, “I propose that I retire to my cubicle and busy myself until cocktails are served. Agreed?”
“Agreed. Remember—not a word to Mrs. F.”
When Craig left the study, Frobisher stood there for a long time, staring out of the window.
* * *
But Morris Craig’s route to his “cubicle” had been beset by an obstacle—Mrs. F. As he crossed the library towards the stair, she came in by another door. She glanced at the folded diagram.
“My dear Dr. Craig! Surely you haven’t come here to work?”
Craig pulled up, and smiled. Stella had always liked his smile; it was so English.
“Afraid, yes. But not for too long, I hope. If y
ou’ll excuse me, I’ll nip up and get going right away.”
“But it’s too bad. How soon will you be ready to nip down again?”
“Just give me the tip when the bar opens.”
“Of course I will. But, you know, I have been talking to Camille. She is truly a dear girl. I don’t mean expensive. I mean charming.”
Craig attention was claimed, magically, by his hostess’s words.
“So glad you think so. She certainly is—brilliant.”
Stella Frobisher smiled her hereditary smile. She was quite without sex malice, and she had discovered a close link to bind her to Camille.
“Why don’t you forget work? Why don’t you two scientific people go for a walk in the sunshine? After all, that’s what you’re here for.”
And Morris Craig was sorely tempted. Yes, that was what he was here for. But—
“You see, Mrs. Frobisher,” he said, “I rather jibbed the toil last night. Camille—er—Miss Navarre, has been working like a pack-mule for weeks past. Tends to neglect her fodder. So I asked her to step out for a plate of diet and a bottle of vintage—”
“That was so like you, Dr. Craig.”
“Yes—I’m like that. We sort of banished dull care for an hour or two, and as a matter of fact, carried on pretty late. The chief is anxious about the job. He has more or less given me a deadline. I’m only making up for lost time. And so, please excuse me. Sound the trumpets, beat the drum when cocktails are served.”
He grinned boyishly and went upstairs. Stella went to look for Camille. She had discovered, in this young product of the Old World, something that the New World had been unable to give her. Stella Frobisher was often desperately lonely. She had never loved her husband passionately. Passion had passed her by.
In the study, Michael Frobisher had been talking on the phone. He had just hung up when Stein came in.
“Listen,” he said. “What’s this man, Sam, doing here?”
