A deathly stillness had all at once fallen like a blanket, blotting out McCarthy's violent speech. The rattling typewriter in the next room was abruptly stilled. The roar of the city died as a living creature is cut by the sword—all at once, without the transitionary running down of most silences. Absolute dense stillness, like that of a sea calm at night, took the place of the customary city noises. In his astonishment McCarthy thrust a heavy inkstand off the edge of his desk. It hit the floor, spilled, rolled away; but noiselessly, as would the inkstand in a moving picture.
To have one's world thus suddenly stricken dumb, to be transported orally from the roar of a city to the peace of a woodland or a becalmed sea is certainly astonishing enough.
But this silence was particularly terrifying to both McCarthy and Jack Warford, though neither would have been able to analyze the reason for its weirdness. For silence is in reality a composite of many lesser noises. In a woodland almost inaudible insects hum, breezes blow, leaves and grasses rustle; at sea the tiny waves lap the sides and equally tiny breaths of air stir the cordage; within the confines of the human shell the mere physical acts of breathing, swallowing, winking, the mere physical facts of the circulation of the blood, the beating of the heart, produce each its sound.
Even a man totally deaf feels the subtle influence of these latter physical phenomena. And underneath all sound, perceptible alike to those who can hear and those who can not, are the vibrations that accompany every activity of nature as the manifestations of motion or of life. An ordinary deep silence is not so much an absence of sound as an absence of accustomed or loud sound. And in that unusual hush often for the first time a man becomes acutely aware of the singing of the blood in his ears.
But this silence was absolute. All these minor sounds had been eliminated.
For a moment Boss McCarthy stared; then shoved back his chair with a violent motion, and rose. He was like a shadow on a screen. The filching from the world of one element of its every-day life had unexpectedly rendered it all phantasmagoric.
As McCarthy shouted, and no sound came; as he moved from behind his desk, and no jar accompanied his heavy footfall, he appeared to lose blood and substance, to become unreal. As no sound issued from his contorted face, So it seemed that no force would follow his blow, were he to deliver one.
He stumbled forward, dazed and groping as though he were in the dark, instead of merely in silence; a striking example in the uncertainty of his movements of how closely our senses depend on one another.
Jack spoke twice, then closed his lips in a grim straight line. He held his elbows close to his sides, and looked ready for anything.
A look of mild triumph illumined Percy Darrow's usually languid countenance. He stepped quickly to the wall, and turned the button of the incandescent globe. The light instantly glowed. At this he nodded twice more. From his pocket he drew a note-book and pencil, wrote in it a few words, and handed it to the dazed and uncertain boss.
"I was right," Darrow had scrawled. "This proves it. It's by no means the end. Better be good."
McCarthy's bulldog courage had recovered from its first daze. He began to see that this visitation was not entirely personal, but extended also to his two companions. This relieved his mind, for he had suspected some strange new apoplexy.
"Did you expect this?" he wrote.
Darrow nodded.
Together the three ghosts left the phantom office, and glided down the phantom halls. Other ghosts in various stages of alarm were already making their way down the stairs. Some of them spoke, but no sound came. One woman, her eyes frightened, reached out furtively to touch her neighbor, apparently to assure herself of his reality. Urged by an uncontrollable impulse, a man thrust his hand through the ground glass of an office door. The glass shivered, and crashed to the tile floor. The pieces broke—silently. It was as though the man had been the figure in a cinematograph illusion. He stared at his cut and bleeding hand. The woman who had touched the man suddenly threw back her head and screamed. They could see her eyes roll back, her face change color, could discern the straining of her throat. No sound came.
At this a panic seized them. They rushed down the stairs, clambering over one another, pushing, scrambling, falling. A mob of a hundred men fought for precedence. Blows were struck. No faintest murmur of tumult came from their futile heat. It might have been the riot of a wax-works in a vacuum.
They fell into the lower hallway, and fought their way to the street, and stood there dazed and staring, a strange, wild-eyed, white-faced, bloody crew. The hurrying avenue stopped to gaze on them curiously, gathering compact in a mob that blocked all traffic. Policemen pushed their way in and began roughly to question—and to question in real audible words.
But for the space of a full minute these people stood there staring upward, drinking in the blessed sound that poured in on them lavishly from the life of the street; drinking deep gulps of air, as though air had lacked.
Darrow, and with him Jack Warford, had descended more leisurely. Before leaving the building Darrow placed the flat of his hands over his ears, and motioned Jack to do the same. Thus they missed the stunning effect of receiving the world of noise all at once; as a man goes to a bright light from a dark room. Furthermore, Darrow returned several times from the sound to the silence, trying to determine where the line of demarcation was drawn. Then, motioning to Jack, he began methodically to make his way through the crowd.
This proved to be by no means an easy task. Rumors of all sorts were afoot. Some bold spirits were testing a new sensation by venturing into the corridor of the building. The police were undecided as to what should be done. One or two reporters were already at hand, investigating. McCarthy, his assurance returned, was conversing earnestly with a police captain.
Percy Darrow, closely followed by Jack, managed to worm his way through the crowd, and finally debouched on Broadway.
"What was it? What struck us?" demanded Jack. "Do you know?"
"I can guess; in essence," said Percy. "I was pretty sure after last evening's trouble; but this underscores it, proves it. Also, it opens the way."
"What do you mean?"
"Along the lines of these phenomena there are two more things possible. Possible, I say. They might be called certain, were we dealing only with theory; but there is still some doubt how the practical side of it may work out."
"I suppose you know what you're talking about," said Jack resignedly. "I don't."
"You don't need to, yet. But here's what I mean. If my theory is correct, we are likely to be surprised still further."
Jack ruminated; then his engaging young face lighted up with a smile.
"All right," said he; "I'm enlisted for the war. What have you got to do with it?"
"I'll explain this much," said Darrow; "more I'll not tell at present, even to you. If one breath should get out that any one suspected—well, this is a man-hunt."
"Who's the man?"
"An enemy of McCarthy."
"Whom you are going to find for him?"
"Perhaps."
"And you were putting up that job for me as part of your pay!"
Percy Darrow smiled slowly.
"As all of my pay—from McCarthy," said he. "I was just bedeviling him."
Jack Warford started to say something, but the scientist cut him short.
"This is bigger than McCarthy," he said decisively. "We are the only people in this city who suspect a human origin of these phenomena. Other men are yet working, and will continue to work, on the supposition that they are the results of some unbalanced natural conditions. The phenomena are, as yet, harmless. It will not greatly injure the city, once it is prepared, to be without electricity or without sound for limited periods. I doubt very much whether the Unknown can continue these phenomena for longer than limited periods. But conceivably this man may become a peril. He has, if I reason correctly, four arrows in his quiver; the fourth is dangerous. It is our duty to find him before he uses the fourth arrow—if indeed he has discovered the method of doing so. That is always in doubt."
Jack's eyes were shining.
"Bully!" he cried.
"He may conceivably possess the power to launch the fourth and dangerous arrow, but may withhold it unless he believes himself suspected or close pressed. His probable mental processes are obscure. At present he directs himself solely against McCarthy." Percy Darrow had been thinking aloud, and realized it with a smile. "This is one of your jobs, fellow detective," said he. "You've got to be a mark for me to think at."
"I wish you'd think a little more clearly," observed Jack. "It sounds interesting, but jumbled. I feel the way I did when I began to read Greek."
"McCarthy's incidental," observed Darrow in his detached tone.
"Eh?"
"Oh, I thought we might as well worry McCarthy by asking him for that job on the side. It's amusing."
"What do you want me to do?" asked Jack.
"This," said Darrow, with an unusual rapidity of utterance. "See that thick-set, quick man in gray clothes? He's a policeman. In a moment he'll arrest me."
"Arrest you—why?" demanded Jack, in tones of great astonishment.
"I reason that McCarthy will come to that conclusion. He is beginning to think I have something to do with what he calls his annoyances. I saw it in his eyes. This last curious manifestation came along too pat. You remember, it cut off the dressing-down he was going to give me." Darrow chuckled in appreciation. "Didn't the humor of that strike you?"
"Me? Oh, I was scared," admitted Jack.
"I want you to go home and tell Helen just what happened in the Atlas Building. Do not tell her that I believe the phenomena are due to any human agency. Say simply that if it is repeated, and she happens to be within the zone of its influence, to keep calm, and wait. It will pass, and it is not to be feared. Tell her I said so."
"Lord!" cried Jack. "You don't think it's going to happen again!"
"Within the next twenty-four hours," said Darrow.
"Oughtn't we to warn the people?"
"And let our hidden antagonist know we are aware of his existence?" inquired Darrow.
"Anything else?"
"No—yes. Buy a gun. If I bring you into any trouble, I'll see you clear.You understand?"
"I do."
"I rely on your being game."
"To the limit," said Jack. "Here comes your friend. Won't this arrest ball things up? Shall I rustle bail?"
"No," said Darrow. "I want to think. All I need is all the papers. I'll be out by ten to-morrow morning, sure."
"Why are you sure of that?"
"Because by that hour McCarthy will have disappeared," said Percy Darrow.
The man in the gray suit, having finished his scrutiny, lounged forward.
"You are Mr. Darrow," he stated.
"Sure I am, my amiable but obvious sleuth," drawled that young man. "Lead on." He nodded a farewell to Jack, and linked his arm in that of the officer. After a few moments he burst into an irrepressible chuckle.
"The fat, thick-necked, thick-witted, old fool!" said he.
Percy Darrow in the police station, where he had been assigned an unused office instead of a cell, amused himself reading the newspapers, of which he caused to be brought in a full supply. Theories had begun to claim their share of the space which, up to now, the fact stories had completely monopolized. Darrow, his feet up, a cigarette depending from one corner of his mouth, read them through to the end. Then he indulged the white walls of his little apartment with one of his slow smiles. The simplest of the theories had to do with comets. The most elaborate traced out an analogy between the "blind spot" in vision and a "point of rest" in physical manifestations—this "point of rest" had just now happened to drift to a crowded center, and so became manifest.
"Ingenious but fantastic youth," was Percy Darrow's tribute to the author,Professor Eldridge of the university.
The "human-interest" stories of both the evening before and those in the extras describing the latest freak in the Atlas Building, Darrow passed over with barely a glance. But certain figures he copied carefully into his notebook. When he had found all of these, and had transcribed them, they appeared about as follows:
Atlas—Wednesday, 5:25. 3:00 (about): 9 hr. 35 min.
General—Thursday, 6:00. 7:56 (exact): 1 hr. 56 min.
Atlas—Friday, 10:10. 10:48 (exact): 38 min.
On the basis of these latter figures he made some calculations which, when finished, he looked on with doubtful satisfaction.
"Need more statistics," said he to himself, "before I can pose as a prophet. Just now I'm merely a guesser."
By now it was afternoon. An official came to announce visitors, and a moment later Helen and her brother came in. As Percy's case was merely one of detention, or for some other obscurer reason, known only to those who took their orders from McCarthy, the three were left alone to their own devices.
At the sight of Helen's trim tailor-clad figure Percy's expression brightened to what, in his case, might almost be called animation. He swept aside the accumulation of papers, and made room for both. After the first greetings and exclamations, Helen demanded to know particulars and prospects.
"All right, I'll tell you," agreed Darrow. "I'm thought out; and I want to hear it myself."
Jack looked about him uneasily.
"Is it wise to talk here?" he asked. "I don't doubt they have arrangements for overhearing anything that is said."
"I don't think they care what we say," observed Darrow. "They are merely detaining me on some excuse or another that I haven't even taken the trouble to inquire about."
"That must astonish them some," said Jack.
"And if they do overhear, I don't much care. Now," said he, turning to Helen, "we have here three strange happenings comprising two phenomena—the cutting off of the electricity, first in the Atlas Building, second in the city at large; and the cutting off of sound in the Atlas. Although we are, of course, not justified in generalizing from one instance, what would you think by analogy would be the next thing to expect?"
"That sound would be cut off in the city," said Helen; "but Jack has already delivered me your warning or advice," she added.
"Precisely. Now as to theories of the ultimate cause. Naturally this must have been brought about either by nature or by man. If by nature, it is exceedingly localized, not to say directed. If by man, he must have in some way acquired unprecedented powers over the phenomena of electricity and sound. These he can evidently, at will, either focus, as on the Atlas Building, or diffuse, as over the city. For the moment we will adopt the latter hypothesis."
"That it is a man in possession of extraordinary powers," said Helen, leaning forward in her interest. "Go on."
"We have, completed, only the phenomena of electricity," continued Darrow; "the phenomena of sound remain to be completed. We observe as to that (a)"—he folded back his forefinger—"the Atlas manifestation lasted about nine and a half hours; and (b)"—he folded his middle finger—"the city manifestation was a little less than two hours."
"Yes," cried Jack, "but then this second—"
"One minute," interrupted Darrow; "let me finish. Now, let us place ourselves in the position of a man possessed of a new toy, or a new power which he has never tried out! What would he do?"
"Try it out," said Jack.
"Certainly; try it out to the limit, to see just what it could do in different circumstances. Now, take the lapses of time I have mentioned, and assume, for the sake of argument, that these powers are limited."
"Just how do you mean—limited?" asked Helen.
"I mean exhaustible, like a watering-pot. You can water just so much, and then you have to go back and fill up again. In that case, we can suppose this man's stream will last nine hours and a half when he dribbles it down on one spot, like the Atlas Building; but it will empty itself in about two hours when he turns her upside down over a whole city. There remains only the length of time necessary to refill the water-pot to round out our hypothesis. That is something more than nine hours and something less than fifteen."
"How do you get those figures?" demanded Jack.
"The Unknown is anxious, after the Atlas success, to try out his discovery on the larger scale. He will naturally do so at the first opportunity after his water-pot is refilled. But he wishes to do so at the first effective opportunity. What is the most effective moment? The rush hours. What are the rush hours? From eight to ten, and at six. Since he did not pull off his show in the morning, we are fairly justified in concluding, tentatively, that the water-pot was not full by then, and, as the Atlas phenomena subsided at three of the morning before, the inference is obvious."
"But isn't the most effective time at night, anyway, on account of the lights?" asked Jack.
"Good boy!" approved Darrow. "He might have waited for that. But the city-wide phenomena ceased at eight the night before; and the Atlas sound phenomena did not occur until ten the next morning—fourteen hours. Now, the most effective time to scare McCarthy was any time after nine. McCarthy arrives as the clock strikes."
Jack shook his head.
"Oh, it's not proof; it's idle hypothesis," admitted Darrow. "We shall have to test it. But let's go on with it, anyway, and see how it works out."
"What's McCarthy got to do with it?" demanded Helen.
"That's so, you aren't in touch there." Darrow sketched briefly the situation as it affected the boss. Helen's eyes were shining with interest.
"Now," continued Darrow, "having tried out his new power to the limit, our friend would begin to use it only as he needed it. There is now no reason to empty the water-pot entirely. All he wanted to do this morning was to scare McCarthy, and impress the public. He did that in thirty-eight minutes. On the basis of fourteen hours to fill the water-pot, it is evident that he would be rehabilitated, ready for business, in an hour. Therefore, all he is waiting for now is the most effective moment to try out his city-wide experiment of silence. I imagine that will be about six."
"Sounds reasonable," admitted Jack.
"Reasonable! It's certain!" cried Helen.
Darrow smiled. "No, only a wild hypothesis."
"It'll scare people to death," observed Jack.
"They're scared already; and they're somewhat prepared by the performance this morning. Besides, I don't see yet that human agency is suspected."
"Don't you think you'd better warn people what is going to happen, and tell them there's nothing to be frightened of?" pleaded Helen.
"No," said Darrow, "I do not. It would confuse the phenomena, and they must be unconfused in order that I can either prove or disprove my hypothesis. If this lasts about two hours, the fact will go far to prove me right. If the next manifestation comes at about ten the next morning, we shall have established a periodicity, at least. But if the man realizes that his existence is suspected, he will purposely vary in order to mix me up."
"The next manifestation!" cried Helen. "Then you think they will continue—"
"Why not," smiled Darrow, "until he has scared McCarthy out?"
"Which will it be next time, do you think?"
"Whatever happens, don't be frightened," said Darrow enigmatically.
"It seems to me there is something absurd about all this," said Helen. "A man with such a discovery, such powers, using them in such a manner, for such a petty purpose!"
"He is, of course, crazy," Darrow said quietly; "the methodical logical lunatic—the most dangerous sort."
"What is it he has discovered?" asked Jack.
"I do not know, yet."
"But you suspect?"
Darrow nodded, but would not explain.
"What will be the outcome?"
"I am going to cut loose from science and guess wildly," said Darrow, after a moment. "To-morrow morning, somewhere about ten, McCarthy will disappear."
"You said that before!" cried Jack.
"Well, I say it again," drawled Darrow.
Percy Darrow sat quite calmly, though a little hungrily, through the first of the two hours of the Great Silence. As it fell, he looked at his watch; then went on reading. Strangely terrified faces flitted by the open door of his little room. About seven o'clock Darrow, struck by a sudden idea, arose, walked down the corridor outside, and quite deliberately set to work to force the light door. As has been intimated, either by direct order of McCarthy or because of some vagueness of the orders, the young man had been confined, not in the jail proper, but in one of the living apartments of the wing.
Few realize how important a role sound plays in what might be called the defensives of our every-day life. Sight is important, to be sure, but it is more often corroborative than not; it is more often used to identify the source of the alarm that has been communicated through other channels. When we are told of the hero—or the villain—that he stood "with every sense alert", our mental picture, in spite of the phrasing, is that of a man listening intently for the first intimations of what may threaten.
So it is in prison. The warders can, of necessity, remain within actual view of but a few of the prisoners a small proportion of the time. But through those massive and silent corridors sound stands watch-dog for them. The minute scratch of a file, the vibrations attendant on the most cautious attempts against the stone structure, the most muffled footfall reports to the jailer that mischief is afoot. Instantly he is on the spot to corroborate by his other faculties the warnings of the watch-dog of the senses.
Now the watch-dog was asleep. Percy Darrow reflected that, were it not for the terror of these unexplainable hours, the prisoners within or their friends without could assail their confines boldly and formidably, even with dynamite, and none would be the wiser if only none happened to be within actual visual range of the operations. He himself quite coolly used the iron side piece to his bed as a battering-ram to break the locks of the door. Then he walked down the long corridor and out through the police station, bowing politely to the bewildered officers. The latter did not attempt to stop him.
The people in the streets were, for the most part, either standing stock-still, or moving slowly forward in a groping sort of fashion. Darrow, for the second time, noticed how analogous to the deprivation of sight was the total deprivation of hearing and feeling vibration.
Traffic was at a standstill. People's faces were bewildered, for the most part; though here and there one showed contorted with the hysteria of fright, or exalted with some other, probably religious, emotion. The same impression of ghostliness came to Darrow here as in the Atlas Building. Visual causes were not producing their wonted aural effect.
On the street corner a peanut vender's little whistle sent aloft bravely its jet of steam; the bells on a ragpicker's cart swung merrily back and forth on their strap; a big truck, whose driver was either undaunted or drunk, banged and clattered and rattled over the rough cobbles of a side street—but no sound came from any one of them.
This complete severance of one cause and effect was sufficient to discredit all natural laws. No other cause and effect was certain. Everywhere people were touching things to see if they were solid, or wet, or soft, or hard, as the case might be. Even Darrow felt, absurdly enough, that it would not be greatly serious to jump off the top of any building into the street.
Darrow swung confidently enough down the street. He was the only person, with the exception of the drunken truck driver, who moved forward at a natural and easy gait. The effect was startling. Darrow seemed to be the only real human being of the lot. All the rest were phantasmagoric.
But as he proceeded down-town the spell was beginning to break. People were communicating with one another by means of pencil and paper. Darrow was amused, on crossing the park, to see against the lighted windows on Newspaper Row the silhouetted forms of activity. Evidently, the newspaper men were already at work on this fresh story.
Near the corner of the park Darrow saw standing a policeman of his varied acquaintance. The scientist walked up to this man, who was standing in the typical vacant uncertainty, smiled agreeably, clapped him on the back, and shook his hand. The patrolman grasped Darrow's hand, but the look of groping uncertainty deepened on his face.
Darrow slipped his note-book from his pocket, and scribbled a few lines, which he showed to the officer. The latter read, inwardly digested for a moment, and smiled.
"Keep your hair on," ran Darrow's screed. "This will pass in a few minutes, and it won't hurt you, anyway. Don't look like all these other dubs."
He stood there companionably by the patrolman. They looked about them. All at once, with this touch of normal, unafraid, human companionship, the weird horror of the situation fell away. Darrow and his companion were seeing humanity disjointed from its accustomed habit, as one looks on a stage full of men hypnotized into belief of an absurdity.
Where the blotting out of electricity had been tragic, this, as soon as its utter harmlessness was realized, became comic. All about through the park men were meeting the situation according to the limited ideas developed by a crustacean life of absolute dependence on the shell of artificial environment. A considerable number of all sorts had fallen on their knees and were praying. One fat man in evening dress, with a silk hat and a large diamond stud showing between the lapels of a fur-lined coat, was particularly fervent. By force of habit Darrow remarked on this individual.
"I'll bet he hasn't been to church since he was a kid," he observed, of course inaudibly.
The policeman caught the direction of his look, however, and grinned with understanding.
Some stood frozen to one spot, their faces agonized, as a man would stand still were the earth likely to yawn anywhere. Darrow would have liked to reassure these, for their eyes expressed a frantic terror. One red-faced individual with white side-whiskers, looking exactly like the comic-paper caricatures of the trusts, had evidently refused to accept any arbitrary dictates of natural forces. Probably he had never accepted any dictates of any kind. He was going from one taxicab to another, trying to command a driver to take him somewhere, talking vehemently and authoritatively, his face getting more and more purple with anger. The taxicab drivers merely stared at him stupidly.
"That old boy's kept his nerve," Darrow remarked, of course inaudibly, to his companion. "But he'll die of apoplexy if he doesn't watch out."
Again the policeman caught the direction of Darrow's glance, and grinned in understanding. He reached his huge gloved hand for the young man's pencil and paper, on which he wrote the name of a man high in railroad circles, and grinned again with evident relish.
At this moment an entirely self-possessed young man swung across the street. He surveyed the two men sharply a moment, then approached, producing a sheaf of yellow paper as he did so.
"Professor Darrow?" he wrote.
Darrow nodded.
The young man pointed to himself, then to the Despatch Building.
"Cause?" he wrote, and waved his hand.
Darrow shook his head.
"Dangerous?"
Darrow shook his head again.
The reporter was about to add another question, when Darrow reached for the paper. It was thrust eagerly into his hand. Darrow consulted his watch.
"If," he wrote, "you will wait here four minutes, I'll give you an interview."
The reporter read this, and nodded.
"You're on!" he added to the written dialogue. Then he produced a cigarette, lighted it, and joined the other two men in their amused survey of the public's performances.
During the four minutes that ensued Darrow examined the reporter speculatively. Finally his eye lighted up with recollection.
The spell lifted. The city broke into a roar. People sprang into rapid and violent motion, as though released from a physical lethargy.
"All over?" asked the reporter. He asked it in a loud shout.
"All over," replied Darrow. "You don't need to yell. I'm not deaf."
The reporter grinned.
"I guess that's what everybody else in town is doing," he surmised.
Certainly this remark was justified by the sample in the square. Every man was shouting at his neighbor to the lung-straining limit of his ability. Three exhorters, their eyes ablaze with fanaticism, began to thunder forth dire warnings of the wrath to come—and gained a hearing. Men rushed to and fro aimlessly. The gentleman with the side-whiskers, who looked like the caricatures of the trusts, having at last succeeded in making his imperial wishes known, clambered into a taxicab, and sat back, apparently unimpressed. After a moment the driver recovered sufficiently to fall into the habit of obedience, and so drove away.
While the three men watched, a burly individual with a red face came hurtling directly at them. If they had not dodged hastily to one side, they would have suffered a collision.
"The end of the world is at hand!" this man was shrieking. "Repent!Repent!"
"That's Larry Mulcahey," remarked the reporter, with a grin. "He keeps bar."
"I'm hungry," observed Darrow. "Haven't eaten since noon."
"Free lunch," suggested the reporter practically. "You won't be able to get any service anywhere. How about that interview? Got anything to say?"
"You're the busy little bee to-night," said Darrow. "But I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you a tip. Be at the Atlas Building at not later than nine to-morrow morning, and stay at least until ten. If you can fix it, be on the tenth floor. Hunt up the United Wireless man and make him talk. Then come to me."
"That's afternoon paper stuff—unless it's exclusive," said the reporter instantly.
"If you'll obey my orders the most important part of it will be exclusive," said Darrow.
The reporter eyed him keenly.
"Why?" he asked.
"You're Hallowell, aren't you? I thought I wasn't mistaken. I saw you at work on that Duane Street murder case. Your work was good. Besides, I like theDespatch—and the afternoon papers are too soon for what I want."
"Last reason accepted. Others received and placed on file."
"All right," agreed Darrow. "Have it your own way—only obey orders." He entered the door of the bar and advanced on the lunch counter.
At nine o'clock the following morning five men grouped in McCarthy's office, talking earnestly. Darrow and Jack Warford had been the first to arrive. McCarthy did not seem surprised to see them; nor did he greet them with belligerence.
"Well?" he demanded.
"Well?" repeated Darrow, sinking gracefully to one corner of the table. "You're an old fool, McCarthy. What good did you think it would do you to arrest me?"
"I intended to sweat you," confessed the boss frankly, "but I was too busy."
"Sweat me, eh?" demanded Darrow, with some amusement. "So you decided not to, did you—hence the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the police in effecting my recapture. You didn't imagine I caused all this, did you?"
"I don't know," growled McCarthy. "But if you, or the other fellow, or whoever or whatever it is, think you can bluff me out, you or he or it's left! That's all!"
"So you've been getting more wireless, have you?" surmised Darrow.
McCarthy cast a surly glance toward Jack, whom previously he had ignored.
"Yes," he admitted grudgingly.
Darrow held out his hand. After a moment's hesitation McCarthy thrust forward a single yellow paper, and Darrow read aloud in spite of the boss' warning gesture:
"McCarthy: The sign has been sent you and sent your people. You are stubborn, but it shall not avail you. You must go; and within twenty-four hours. It will not avail you unless you go. TheCelticleaves to-morrow at noon. You must go on that ship. I shall know whether or not you obey me. Once more I shall warn you; one more sign shall I send. Then I shall strike!"
"He's getting garrulous," remarked Darrow reflectively; "but he's relieved my mind. You'd better go."
"Go!" cried McCarthy, half starting to his feet. "Not on your life!"
Darrow surveyed him calmly.
"You're getting rattled," said he, "and it doesn't pay you particularly to try to bluff me. A jack-rabbit of average firmness could stampede you in your present state of mind."
"You think so?" sneered McCarthy.
"I know so. And you're quite right. If you attempt the game too long, he'll destroy you."
"How?" demanded McCarthy.
"Take my word for it,he can do it!" replied Darrow.
McCarthy ruminated, drumming his thick fingers on the desk.
"Find him," said he, at last.
"I intend to," replied Darrow.
"That'll be all right about your friend's job," conceded McCarthy, with a nod toward Jack.
"I fancy you won't have anything to do with it," returned Darrow pleasantly.
At this moment the door opened and Hallowell entered. He nodded to Darrow, and greeted McCarthy.
"Nothing for you," growled the latter.
Darrow glanced at his watch.
"He will have in about five minutes," said he to the reporter.
The fifth member of the party now entered in the person of Simmons, the United Wireless operator. On seeing the number gathered in McCarthy's office he came to a halt.
Darrow immediately detached himself from the group and approached this man.
"Anything new?" he inquired in a low voice.
Simmons glanced toward McCarthy.
"New about what?" he demanded stolidly.
"Any more messages from our mysterious friend out in the ether to our equally mysterious friend at the desk?"
"I don't know what you mean."
Darrow surveyed him reflectively.
"This is a pretty big story," he said at last, "and affects a lot of people. If you really haven't leaked—well, he"—with a jerk of his head toward McCarthy—"must bribe high, or have a strangle hold on you for fair."
He looked around to see the boss' eye fixed intently on him, smiled pleasantly, and moved to one side. Simmons stepped forward, handed McCarthy a paper, and went out. The boss read the message slowly, and turned a little pale. After a moment or so he surreptitiously drew out his watch. Percy Darrow smiled. He, too, held his watch in his hand.
"Thirty seconds more—about," he remarked pleasantly. The boss looked up startled. The last thing he saw was the faintly smiling, triumphant face of the young scientist. Then absolute blackness fell on him.
For several seconds astonishment held the inmates of the room chained to their places; and for that space of time no sound broke the deathly stillness. Then Percy Darrow spoke, in his natural voice.
"Well, Jack," he remarked, "it worked out, to a second, almost. Now I'm certain."
As though this breaking of the silence had released a force hitherto held in repression, the room filled with tumult and clamor, with crashing, banging and scurrying of heavy bodies. A final concussion shook the air, and then, again abruptly, silence fell.
"Say!" Hallowell's voice spoke up, a trifle uncertainly. "I'll stand for most any kind of a dark seance, but this particular spook business is getting on my nerves. Are you there, Darrow?"
"Yes, I'm here," answered the scientist.
"Well, can you explainthatphenomenon?"
"That," drawled Darrow, a slight note of laughter in his voice, "was that extraordinary upheaval of natural forces known as Brother McCarthy going away from here—hastily."
Jack chuckled.
"He hit me on the way out," remarked that young man. "I'll testify he was a solid spook."
The reporter was methodically striking match after match, but without result. After a moment the acrid smell of burning woolen rose in the air.
"Are you dropping those matches?" asked Darrow.
"Sure; they're no good."
"Well, they're good enough to burn holes in McCarthy's rugs. Stamp around a little to put them out; and quit it."
"What next; and how long?" asked Jack. "What is it? Have we gone blind, or is it a total eclipse, or what?"
"I don't know how long," came back Darrow's voice calmly. "Next we will get out of the building. I want to make some observations. Get hold of my hand; we'll have to grope our way out."
"If we could only get a light," muttered Hallowell.
"You can't," stated Darrow.
They felt their way down the ten flights of stairs like blind men. A few inmates of the building they jostled, or passed, or picked up on the way.
"This settles it," one remarked profanely. "My lease quits. They can sue and be damned. I decline to have anything more to do with any freak-lined skyscraper of this description."
In the lower corridors Darrow halted them.
"Here's another thing," said he: "if I'm right, we should run out of this just eleven feet beyond the last elevator cage."
He felt his way along the grill, made four paces forward, and uttered a little cry of satisfaction. The two men followed him blindly. As though stepping from one room to another they emerged into glaring daylight!
Both involuntarily looked back. The darkness hung there like a curtain, just inside the outer walls of the building. Already a crowd had gathered to observe this new and strange phenomenon of the now celebrated Atlas Building. It was a curious and a facetious crowd, but not awestricken, as it had been at the first manifestations of this freakish upset of natural forces.
A man observing the flight of an aeroplane for the first time loses his sense of strangeness inside of a few minutes; and yet flying has been since the days of Icarus considered one of the impossible achievements. So the general public of Manhattan were becoming accustomed to reversals of form in the affairs of the physical world. The frivolous majority, having discovered nothing to be apprehended from the phenomena save a few hours' helplessness of a sort, and much to be gained through the savor of novelty, were inclined to an amused or irritated attitude, depending on the extent to which its occupations were interfered with. The minority took to religious meetings and interpretations.
Darrow's exit, and that of his companions, was greeted uproariously.
"'Please go 'way an' let me sleep!'" sang one, at the blinking men.
"Here's another!" shrilled a gamin. "Get up! The porter wants to make up your berth!"
Several of the crowd, pending the usual arrival of the police to clear the corridor, had ventured through the wide portals, and were experimenting with this strange palpable quality of darkness. One or two popped inside the curtain, but emerged quickly, looking a little scared.
A bright youth made the discovery that if one lighted a match and stepped within the blackness, the match was immediately extinguished, but that upon emerging into daylight the flame came up again. Some one happened along with a plumber's gasoline torch. Immediately this was lighted and the experiment repeated. The bearer of the torch, astonished at the instant extinguishment of the flame, felt with his hand to see what could be the matter. Instantly he uttered a yelp of pain, and leaped outside, displaying a badly burned palm.
"There wasn't no flame; I swear it!" he explained excitedly, "but she burned, just the same!" He rushed about from one to another, displaying his injured palm to whoever would look.
Darrow paid little attention to this gathering crowd. First of all, he scanned a paper he held in his hand; then plunged back again into the blackness.
Jack Warford and Hallowell, left together, hesitated uncertainly.
"He'll be back," the reporter decided finally, "and he's the man to tie to."
While waiting, he proceeded to pick up what information he could from the bystanders. It seemed that the first intimation of anything wrong was followed very shortly by the emergence of McCarthy, disheveled, hatless, staring, gasping. The boss had stumbled into the street, hesitated, then started south on a run. Before any one could stop him, he had turned a corner and disappeared. The excitement at the Atlas Building had distracted attention from him. Nobody wondered at his getting rattled and running away. The few tenants remaining in the building had stumbled forth, vowing never to return to such a—assorted adjectives—building. That was all there seemed to be to say.
In the meantime the crowd had increased from a few hundred to thousands. Police appeared. The corridors were cleared of all but a few. Among these were Hallowell and Jack Warford; the former as a reporter, the latter as the reporter's companion. Doctor Knox and Professor Eldridge arrived shortly. After a time Darrow reappeared, sauntering quite calmly from the pall of darkness, as though emerging from behind a velvet curtain.
It will now become necessary to glance in passing at the personal characteristics of Professor Eldridge. This man was in about his fortieth year, tall, spare, keenly intellectual in countenance, cold, possessed of an absolute reliance on the powers of science, beyond which his mental processes did not stray. His manner was distinguished by a stiff unbending formality; his expression by a glacial coldness of steel-gray eyes and a straight-line compression of thin lips; his dress by a precise and unvarying formalism, and his speech by a curious polysyllabic stiffness.
This latter idiosyncrasy would, in another, have seemed either priggish or facetiously intended. With Professor Eldridge it was merely a natural method of speech. Thus, arriving once at the stroke of the dinner hour, he replied to compliments on his punctuality by remarking:
"I have always considered punctuality a virtue when one is invited to partake of gratuitous nourishment."
Withal, his scientific attainments were not only undoubted, but so considerable as to have won for him against many odds the reputation of a great scientist. His specialty, if such it might be called, was scientific diagnosis. The exactness of scientific laws was so admirably duplicated by the exactitudes of his mind that he seemed able, by a bloodless and mechanical sympathy, to penetrate to the most obscure causes of the strangest events. It might be added that practically his only social ties were those with the Warfords, and that the only woman with whom he ever entered into conversation was Helen.
At sight of him Percy Darrow's lounging gait became accentuated to exaggeration.
"Hello, Prof!" he drawled. "On the job, I see. Good morning, Doctor," he greeted Knox. "What do you make of it?"
"I make of it that the Atlas Building will shortly be without tenants," replied the doctor; "me, for one."
Eldridge surveyed Darrow coldly through the glittering toric lenses of his glasses.
"The cause of these extraordinary phenomena is self-evident," he stated.
"You mean their nature, not their cause," replied Darrow. "In nature, they refer back to the interference with etheric and molecular vibrations. That," he added, "is a fact that every boy in the grammar-school physics class has figured out for himself. The cause is a different matter."
"I stand corrected," said Eldridge. "Such lapses in accuracy of statement are not usual with me, but may be considered as concomitant with unusual circumstances."
"Right-o!" agreed Darrow cheerfully. "Well, what about the causes?"
"That I will determine when I am satisfied that all the elements of the problem are in my hands."
"Right-o!" repeated Darrow. "Well, I'll bet you a new hat I'll land the cause before you do. Be a sport!"
"I never indulge in wagers," replied Eldridge.
"Well," said Darrow to Jack and Hallowell, "come on!"
Without waiting to see if he was followed, the young man again plunged into the black and clinging darkness.
"Get hold of my coat," his voice came to the others. "We're going to climb."
Accordingly they climbed, in silence, up many flights of stairs, through the cloying darkness. At last Darrow halted, turned sharp to the left, fumbled for a door, and entered a room.
"Simmons?" he said.
"Here!" came a voice.
"I thought you'd be on the job," said Darrow, with satisfaction. "How's your instrument? Going, eh? We are in the wireless offices," he told the others. "Sit down, if you can find chairs. We'll wait until the sun is shining brightly, love, before we really try to get down to business. In the meantime—"
"In the meantime—" repeated both Jack and Hallowell, in a breath. "Go on, my son," conceded the latter. "I bet we have the same idea."
"Well, I was going to say that I'm not in the grammar-school physics class, and I want to know what you meant by your remark to Eldridge," said Jack.
"That's my trouble," said Hallowell.
"It's simple enough," began Darrow. "We have had, first, a failure of all electricity; second, a failure of all sound; third, a failure of all light. The logical mind would therefore examine these things to see what they have in common. The answer simply jumps at you:Vibration. Electricity and light are vibrations in ether; sound is vibration in air or some solid. Therefore, whatever could absolutely stop vibration would necessarily stop electricity, light and sound."
"But," objected Jack, "if vibration were absolutely stopped, why wouldn't they all three be blotted out at once?"
"Because," explained Darrow, "the vibrations making these three phenomena are different in character. Sound is made by horizontal waves, for example, while electricity and light are made by transverse waves. Furthermore, the waves producing electricity and light differ in length. Now, it is conceivable that a condition which would interfere with horizontal waves would not interfere with transverse waves; or that a condition which would absolutely deaden waves two hundred and seventy ten-millionths of an inch long would have absolutely no effect on those one hundred and fifty-five ten-millionths of an inch long. Am I clear?"
"Sure!" came the voices of his audience.
"That much Eldridge and any other man trained in elementary science already knows. It is no secret."
"It hasn't been published," observed Hallowell grimly.
"Well, go to it! The task of the independent investigator, of which we are some, is now to discover, first, what are those conditions, and, second, what causes them. With the exception of Mr. Hallowell, we all know what this guiding power is."
"Don't get it," growled Simmons.
"Now, look here, Simmons, you are very loyal to McCarthy, for whatever reason, but your loyalty is misplaced. For one thing, your man has disappeared, and will not return. That last message scared him out. For another thing, we're going to need you in our campaign, the worst way."
"I'm from Copenhagen; you got to show me," said Simmons.
Darrow laughed softly.
"We'll show you, all right," said he. He sketched briefly for Hallowell's benefit the reasoning already followed out, and which it is therefore unnecessary to repeat here. "So now," he concluded, "we will consider this hypothesis: that these phenomena are caused by one man in control of a force capable of deadening vibrations in ether and solids within certain definite limits."
"Why do you limit it?" cried Hallowell.
"Because we have had but one manifestation at a time. If this Unknown were out really to frighten—which seems to be his intention—it would be much more effective to visit us with absolute darkness and absolute silence combined. That would be really terrifying. He has not done so. Therefore, I conclude that his power is limited in applicability."
"Isn't that a little doubtful?" spoke up Jack.
"Of course," said Darrow cheerfully. "That's where we're going to win out on this sporting proposition with our dear Brother Eldridge. He won't accept any hypothesis unless it is absolutely copper-riveted. We will."
"I think you underestimate Eldridge," spoke up Hallowell. "He's the only original think-tank in a village of horse troughs."
"I don't underestimate him one bit," countered Darrow; "but we have a head start on him with our reasoning; that's all. He's absolutely sure to come to the conclusions I have just detailed, only he'll get there a little more slowly. That's why I want you in on this thing, Hallowell."
"How's that?"
"We'll publish everything up to date and cut the ground from under him."
"What's your special grouch on Eldridge, anyway?" asked Jack.
"I like to worry him," replied Percy Darrow non-committally.
At this moment the darkness disappeared as though some one had turned a switch. The reporter, the operator and the scientist's young assistant moved involuntarily as though dodging, and blinked. Darrow shaded his eyes with one hand and proceeded as though nothing had happened.
"Here are the exclusive points of your story," he said to Hallowell, handing him a sheaf of yellow wireless forms. "I got them in McCarthy's office. They are messages from the unknown wielder of the mysterious power to his enemy, the political boss. There will be plenty who will conclude these messages to be the result of fanaticism, after the fact; that is to say, they will conclude some wireless amateur has taken advantage of natural phenomena and, by claiming himself the author of them, has attempted to use them against his enemy. Of course, the answer to that is that if the Unknown—let's call him Monsieur X—did not cause these strange things, he at least knew enough about them to predict them accurately."
"You just leave that to me," hummed Hallowell under his breath. The reporter had been glancing over the wireless forms, and his eyes were shining with delight.
"Here is the last one," said Darrow, producing a crumpled yellow paper from his pocket. "I went back after it."
"McCarthy: My patience is at an end. Your last warning will be sent you at nine thirty this morning. If you do not sail on the Celtic at noon I shall strike. You are of a stubborn and a stiff-necked generation, but I am your lord and master, and my wrath shall be visited on you. Begone, or you shall die the death."
"That bluffed him out," said Darrow, "and I don't blame him. Now, Simmons," said he, turning to the operator, who had sat in utter silence, "how about it? Are you with us, or against us?"
"How do you mean?" demanded Simmons.
"This," said Darrow sharply. "The time has passed for concealment. Every message through the ether must now reach the public. We must send messages back. The case is out of private hands; it has become important to the people. Will you agree on your honor faithfully to transmit?" He leaned forward, his indolent frame startlingly tense. "Are you afraid of McCarthy?"
"He's been good to me—it's a family matter," muttered the operator.
"Well—" Darrow arose, crossed to the operator, and whispered to him for a moment. "You see the seriousness—you are an intelligent man."
The operator turned pale.
"I hadn't thought of that," he muttered. "I hadn't thought of that. Of course I'm with you."
"I thought you would be," drawled Percy Darrow slowly. "If you hadn't decided to be, I'd have had another man put in your place. Hadn't thought of that, either, had you?"
"No, sir," replied Simmons.
"Well, I prefer you. It's no job for a quitter, and I believe you'll stick."
"I'll stick," repeated Simmons.
"Well, to work," said Darrow, lighting the cigarette he had been playing with. "Send this out, and see if you can reach Monsieur X.
"'M,'" he dictated slowly. "'Do you get this?' Repeat that until you get a reply."
Without comment the operator turned to his key. The long ripping crashes of the wireless sender followed the movements of his fingers.
"I get his 'I—I,'" he said, after a moment. "It's almighty faint."
"Good!" said Darrow. "Give him this:
"'McCarthy has disappeared. Can no longer reach him with your messages.'"
"He merely answers 'I—I,'" observed the operator.
"By the way," asked Darrow, "what is your shift, anyhow? Weren't you on at night when this thing began?"
"I'm still on at night; but Mr. McCarthy sent me a message, and asked me to stay on all this morning as a personal favor to him."
"I see. Then you're still on at night?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, tell Monsieur X that fact, put yourself at his disposal, and tell him he'd better get all his messages to you rather than to the other operators here."
"All right."
"There's your story," said Darrow to Hallowell; "it's in those messages. The scientific aspect will probably be done by somebody for the evening papers. You better concentrate on Monsieur X's connection with McCarthy."
"Say, my friend," said Hallowell earnestly, "do you think I'm a reporter for theScientific Americanor a newspaper?"
All three rose. The operator was busy crashing away at his Leyden jars.
"What next?" asked Jack.
"That depends on two things."
"Whether or not McCarthy takes theCeltic," interposed Hallowell quickly.
"And whether Monsieur X will be satisfied with his mere disappearance, if he does not take theCeltic," supplemented Darrow. "In any case, we've got to find him. He's unbalanced; he possesses an immense and disconcerting and a dangerous power; he is becoming possessed of amanie des grandeurs. You remember the phrasing of his last message? 'I am your lord and master, and my wrath shall be visited on you. Begone!' That is the language of exaltation. Exaltation is not far short of irresponsible raving."
"What possible clue—" began Jack Warford blankly.
"When a man is somewhere out in the ether there is no clue," repliedDarrow.
"Then how on earth can you hope to find him?"
"By the exercise of pure reason," said Darrow calmly.