The morning of the third day after the failure of the search, and of the sixth since McCarthy's disappearance, had arrived. During that time Percy Darrow, apparently insensible to fatigue, had maintained an almost sleepless vigil. His meals Jack Warford brought in to him; he dozed in his chair or on the couch. Never did he appear to do anything.
The very persistent quietude of the man ended by making its impression. To all questions, however, Darrow returned but the one reply, delivered always in a voice full of raillery:
"I couldn't bear to miss a single step of Eldridge's masterly work."
About half past nine of the morning in question, through the door to the wireless office, always half opened, somebody looked hesitatingly into the room. Instantly Darrow and Jack were on their feet and in the hallway.
"Helen!" cried Jack.
"What is it? Anything happened?" demanded Darrow.
She surveyed them both amusedly.
"You certainly look like a frowzy tramp, Jack," she told her brother judiciously, "and you need sleep," she informed Darrow.
The young scientist bowed ironically, his long lashes drooping over his eyes in his accustomed lazy fashion as he realized that the occasion was not urgent. Helen turned directly to him.
"When are you going to stop this?" she demanded.
Darrow raised his eyebrows.
"You needn't look at me like that. You said you could lay your hands onMonsieur X at any moment; why don't you do it?"
"Eldridge is too amusing."
"Too amusing!" echoed the girl. "All you think of is yourself."
"Is it?" drawled Darrow.
"Have you been out in the city? Have you seen the people? Have you seen men out of work? Families leaving their homes? Panic spreading slowly but surely over a whole city?"
"Those pleasures have been denied me," said Darrow blandly.
The girl looked at him with bright angry eyes. Her cheeks were glowing, and her whole figure expressed a tense vibrant life in singular contrast to the apparent indolence of the men at whom she was talking.
"You are insufferable!" She fairly stamped her foot in vexation. "You are an egoist! You would play with the welfare of four million people to gratify your little personal desire for getting even!"
"Steady, sis!" warned Jack.
Darrow had straightened, and his indolent manner had fallen from him.
"I have said I would permit no harm to come to these people, and I mean it," said he.
"No harm!" cried Helen. "What do you call this—"
Darrow turned to the window looking out over the city.
"This!" he said. "Why, this isn't harm! There isn't a man out there who is not better off for what has happened to him. He has lost a little time, a little money, a little sleep, and he has been given a new point of view, a new manhood. As a city dweller he was becoming a mollusk, a creature that could not exist without its shell. The city transported him, warmed him, fed him, amused him, protected him. He had nothing to do with it in any way; he didn't even know how it was done. Deprived of his push-buttons, he was as helpless as a baby. Beyond the little stunt he did in his office or his store, and beyond the ability to cross a crowded street, he was no good. He not only didn't know how to do things, but he was rapidly losing, through disuse, the power to learn how to do things. The modern city dweller, bred, born, brought up on this island, is about as helpless and useless a man, considered as a four-square, self-reliant individual, as you can find on the broad expanse of the globe. I've got no use for a man who can't take care of himself, who's got to have somebody else to do it for him, whenever something to which he hasn't been accustomed rises up in front of him!"
His eye was fixed somberly on the city stretching away into the haze of the autumn day.
"You blame me for letting this thing run!" he went on. "Of course it tickles me to death to see Eldridge flounder; but that isn't all. This is the best thing that could happen to them out there! I'm just patriotic enough to wish them more of it. It's good medicine! At last every man jack of them is up against something he's got to decide for himself. The police are useless; the fire department is useless; the railroads and street-cars are crippled. If a man is going to take care of his life and property, he must do it himself. He's buying back his self-reliance. Self-reliance is a valuable property. He ought to pay something for it. Generally he has to pay war or insurrection or bloody riot. In the present instance he's getting off cheap."
He turned back from the open window. His eye traveled beyond Helen's trim figure down the empty hall. "Wait right here, Jack," he shot over his shoulder, and rushed along the hall and down the stairway before either the young man or his sister could recover from their astonishment.
Without pause, and three steps at a time, Darrow ran down three flights of stairs. Then, recovering from his initial excitement somewhat, he caught the elevator and shot to the street. There he walked rapidly to the subway, which he took as far as City Hall Square. On emerging from the subway station he started across for theDespatchoffice as fast as he could walk. By the entrance to the City Hall, however, he came to an abrupt halt. From the open doorway rushed his friend, Officer Burns, of the City Hall Station. The policeman's face was chalky white; his eyes were staring, his cap was over one side, he staggered uncertainly. As he caught sight of Darrow he stumbled to the young man and clung to his neck, muttering incoherently. People passing in and out looked at him curiously and smiled.
"My God!" gasped Burns, his eyes roving. "I says to him, 'Mike, I don't wonder you've got cold feet.' And there he was, and the mayor—Heaven save—and his secretary! My God!"
Darrow shook his shoulder.
"Here," he said decisively, "what are you talking about? Get yourself together! Remember you're an officer; don't lose your nerve this way!"
At the touch to his pride Burns did pull himself together somewhat, but went on under evident strong excitement.
"I went in just now to the mayor's office a minute," said he, "and saw my friend Mike Mallory, the doorkeeper, settin' in his chair, as usual. It was cold-like, and I went up to him and says, 'Mike, no wonder you get cold feet down here,' just by way of a joke; and when he didn't answer, I went up to him, and he was dead, there in his chair!"
"Well, you've seen dead men before. There's no occasion to lose your nerve, even if you did know him," said Darrow.
The brutality of the speech had its intended effect. Burns straightened.
"That's all very well," said he more collectively. "But the man was froze!"
"Frozen!" muttered Darrow, and whistled.
"Yes, and what's more, his little dog, setting by the chair, was froze, too; so when I stepped back sudden and hit against him, he tumbled overbang, like a cast-iron dog! That got my goat! I ran!"
"Come with me," ordered Darrow decisively.
They entered the building and ran up the single flight of stairs to the second-story room which the mayor of that term had fitted up as a sort of private office of his own. A sharp chill hung in the hallways; this increased as they neared the executive's office. Outside the door sat the doorkeeper in his armchair. Beside him was a dog, in the attitude of an animal seated on its haunches, but lying on its side, one fore leg sticking straight out. Darrow touched the man and stooped over to peer in his face. The attitude was most lifelike; the color was good. A deadly chill ran from Darrow's finger tips up his arm.
He pushed open the door cautiously and looked in.
"All right, Burns," said he. "The atmosphere has become gaseous again. We can go in." With which strange remark he entered the room, followed closely, but uncertainly by the officer.
The private office possessed the atmosphere of a cold-storage vault. Four men occupied it. At the desk was seated the mayor, leaning forward in an attitude of attention, his triple chin on one clenched fist, his heavy face scowling in concentration. Opposite him lounged two men, one leaning against the table, the other against the wall. One had his hand raised in argument, and his mouth open. The other was watching, an expression of alertness on his sharp countenance. At a typewriter lolled the clerk, his hand fumbling among some papers.
The group was exceedingly lifelike, more so, Darrow thought, than any wax figures the Eden Musee had ever placed for the mystification of its country visitors. Indeed, the only indication that the men had not merely suspended action on the entrance of the visitors was a fine white rime frost that sparkled across the burly countenance of the mayor. Darrow remembered that, summer and winter, that dignitary had always perspired!
Burns stood by the door, rooted to the spot, his jaw dropped, his eye staring. Darrow quite calmly walked to the desk. He picked up the inkstand and gazed curiously at its solidified contents, touched the nearest man, gazed curiously at the papers on the desk, and addressed Burns.
"These seem to be frozen, too," he remarked almost sleepily, "and about time, too. This is a sweet gang to be getting together on this sort of a job!"
Quite calmly he gathered the papers on the desk and stuffed them into his pocket. He picked up the desk telephone, giving a number. "Ouch, this receiver's cold," he remarked to Burns. "Hello,Despatch. Is Hallowell in the office? Just in? Send him over right quick, keen jump, City Hall, mayor's second-story office. No, right now. Tell him it's Darrow."
He hung up the receiver.
"Curious phenomenon," he remarked to Burns, who still stood rooted to the spot. "You see, their bodies were naturally almost in equilibrium, and, as they were frozen immediately, that equilibrium was maintained. And the color. I suppose the blood was congealed in the smaller veins, and did not, as in more gradual freezing, recede to the larger blood-vessels. I'm getting frost bitten myself in here. Let's get outside."
But Officer Burns heard none of this. As Darrow moved toward the door he crossed himself and bolted. Darrow heard his heels clattering on the cement of the corridors. He smiled.
"And now the deluge!" he remarked.
The crowds, terrified, inquisitive, sceptical, and speculative, gathered. Officials swept them out and took possession. Hallowell and Darrow conferred earnestly together.
"He has the power to stop heat vibrations, you see," Darrow said. "That makes him really dangerous. His activities here are in line with his other warnings; but he is not ready to go to extremes yet. The city is yet safe."
"Why?" asked Hallowell.
"I know it. But he has the power. If he gets dangerous we must stop him."
"You are sure you can do it?"
"Sure."
"Then, for God's sake, do it! Don't you realize what will happen when news of this gets out, and people understand what it means? Don't you feel your guilt at those men's deaths?" He struck his hand in the direction of the City Hall.
"The people will buy a lot of experience, at cost of a little fright and annoyance," replied Percy Darrow carelessly. "It'll do them good. When it's over, they'll come back again and be good. As for that bunch in there—when you look over those papers I think you'll be inclined to agree with what the religious fanatics will say—that it was a visitation of God."
"But the old, the sick—there'll be deaths among them—the responsibility is something fearful—"
"Never knew a battle fought yet without some loss," observed Darrow.
Hallowell was staring at him.
"I don't understand you," said the reporter. "You have no heart. You are as bad as this Monsieur X, and between you you hold a city in your power—one way or the other!"
"Well, I rather like being a little god," remarked Darrow.
Hallowell started once more to plead, but Darrow cut him short.
"You are thinking of the present," he said. "I am thinking of the future. It's a good thing for people to find out that there's something bigger than they are, or than anything they can make. That fact is the basis of the idea of a God. These are getting to be a godless people." He turned on Hallowell, his sleepy eyes lighting up. "I should be very sorry if I had not intellect enough and imagination enough to see what this may mean to my fellow people; and I should despise myself if I should let an unrestrained compassion lose to four million people the rare opportunity vouchsafed them."
He spoke very solemnly. Hallowell looked at him puzzled.
"Besides," said Darrow whimsically, "I like to devil Eldridge."
He dove into the subway. Hallowell gazed after him.
"There goes either a great man or a crazy fool," he remarked to an English sparrow. He turned over rapidly the papers Darrow had found on the mayor's desk, and smiled grimly. "Of all the barefaced, bald-headed steals!" he said.
Darrow soon mounted once more the elevator of the Atlas Building. He found Jack and Helen still waiting. Before entering the wireless office Darrow cast a scrutinizing glance along the empty hall.
"It's all right," he said. "I'm surer than ever. Everything fits exactly. Now, Helen," he said, "I want you to go home, and I want you to stay there. No matter what happens, do not move from the house. This town is going to have the biggest scare thrown into it that any town ever had since Sodom and Gomorrah got their little jolt. In the language of the Western prophet, 'Hell will soon be popping.' Let her pop. Sit tight; tell your friends to sit tight. If necessary, tell them Monsieur X is captured, and all his works. Tell them I said so."
His air of languid indifference had fallen from him. His eye was bright, and he spoke with authority and vigor.
"You take her home, Jack," he commanded, "and return here at once. Don't forget that nice new-blued pop-gun of yours; we're coming to the time when we may need it."
Jack rose instantly to his mood.
"Correct, General!" he saluted. "Where'd you collect the plunder?" he asked, pointing to a square black bag of some size that Darrow had brought back with him.
"That," said Darrow, "is the first fruit of my larcenous tendencies. I stole that from the mayor's office in the City Hall."
"What is it?"
"That," said Darrow, "I do not know."
He deposited the bag carefully by his chair, and turned, smiling, toHelen.
"Good-by," said he. "Sleep tight."
They went out. Darrow seated himself in his chair, drew his hat over his eyes, and fell into a doze. In the meantime, outside, all through the city, hell was getting ready to pop.
Hell popped just as soon as the newspapers could get out their extras. Monsieur X had at last struck, and both interest and belief urged the managing editors at last to give publicity to all the theories, the facts, and the latest message from the fanatic Unknown.
The latter came about three o'clock:
"TO THE PEOPLE: You have defied me, and you have doubted my power. There is no good in you. I, who would have saved you, now must bring about your death as a stubborn and a stiff-necked generation. In humanity is no more good, and of this world I desire nothing more. Prepare within the next three hours to appear before a mightier throne than mine."
Percy Darrow, reading this, said to Jack Warford, "It is time to act," and, accompanied by the younger man, quietly left the room.
The reader of imagination—and no other will read this tale—must figure to himself the island of Manhattan during the next two hours. The entire population, nearly, tried to leave it at once. When only the suburban dwellers, urged simply by the desire for a hot dinner, attempt to return home between five and six, the ways are congested enough. Now, stricken with the fear of death, the human cattle fought frantically to reach the inadequate exits of the great theater of tragedy.
There was fighting in the streets, and panic, and stark rumor, of course; and there was heroism, and coolness, and the taking of thought. To the little group of men in the top floor of the Atlas Building the roar of riot came up like the thunder of the orchestra before the rise of the curtain. Most of the people in the streets fled from a danger they did not understand. This little group in the wireless office realized clearly what still and frozen dissolution the rising of the curtain would disclose. They were not many; and they did not know what they were to do, if anything; but they had not run away.
Eldridge was there, looking somewhat flustered for the first time in his life, and four of the large committee that had employed him. Simmons sat calmly at his post, and of all the reporters Hallowell alone had stood by. He had faith in Darrow, and he knew that in theDespatchoffice a little handful of men stood in the shadow of death on the off chance of the biggest scoop since Noah's flood.
The four solid citizens looked at one another. The oldest turned toEldridge.
"Then your opinion is that the city is doomed?"
"I can offer no other solution, sir," said the scientist. "It is at last evident that this man's power over ethereal vibrations extends to those forming heat-rays. If this is so, it follows that he can cut off all life by stopping all heat. If his threat is carried out, we can but look forward to a repetition on a large scale of the City Hall affair."
The aged financier now spoke to Simmons.
"And the last report from the searchers?" he asked formally.
"The search is being pushed, sir," replied the operator, "by twenty thousand men. There remain some fifty miles of country to go over, Mr. Lyons."
Lyons turned his shaggy head toward a younger, slim, keen-eyed man of fifty.
"And the city will, in your judgment, Mr. Perkins, take how long to empty?"
"Days—in the present confusion," said Perkins shortly. "We can move only a limited percentage. Thank God, most of our men are standing by. I think all our rolling stock is moving."
Lyons nodded twice.
"And you?" he asked the third of the party, a stout young man of thirty-eight or so.
"How many stations are on the job, Simmons?" asked this man.
"All but two, sir," replied the operator. "D and P don't answer. I guess they beat it."
"How do they report the bulletin men?"
"On the job," replied the wireless man.
The stout young man turned to Lyons.
"Well, sir," said he, "I don't know whether we or the hand of death will be called on to quiet them"—he paused for an instant with uplifted hand; the roar and crash and wail of the city-wide riot surged into the gap of his silence—"but if it is we," he went on, "our little arrangements are made. My men know what to do, and my men are on the job," he concluded proudly.
Lyons nodded again.
"We have all done our best," said he. "Now, gentlemen, I do not see how we can possibly accomplish anything more by remaining here. My automobile is in concealment in the old stable in the rear of 127. My yacht is standing off the Battery awaiting signal to come in. We have," he glanced at his watch, "over an hour before the threatened catastrophe."
He looked up expectantly. The men all glanced uneasily at one another, except Simmons, who stared at his batteries stolidly.
"Come, gentlemen," urged Lyons, after a moment. "There is really not much time to lose, for you know the yacht must steam beyond the danger zone."
"Beat it," spoke up Simmons, at last. "There ain't any good of you here. If anything comes in, I can handle it. It's just a case of send out orders to your bulletin men."
"I think I'd better stay," observed Paige, the stout young man, with an air of apology. "I know I'm not much use; but I've placed men, and they'll stick; and if this freeze-out proposition goes through—why, they're in it, and—"
"That's how I feel," broke in Perkins. "But you have done your full duty, Mr. Lyons, and you have no reason to stay. Let me get your car around to you—"
"Oh, I'm going to stay," said Lyons. "If you gentlemen feel it your duty, how much more is it mine! Professor Eldridge"—he bowed to the scientist—"you have done your best, which is more than any other mortal man could have done, I am sure; and you, sir—" he said to Hallowell.
Eldridge and Hallowell shook their heads.
"I have failed," said Eldridge.
"I am a reporter," said Hallowell.
"We are in the hands of God," announced Lyons with great solemnity, and folded his hands over his white waistcoat.
At that moment the door slowly swung open and Percy Darrow entered. He was smoking a cigarette, his hands were thrust deep in his trousers pockets; he was hatless, and his usually smooth hair was rumpled. A tiny wound showed just above the middle of his forehead, from which a thin stream of blood had run down to his eyebrows. He surveyed the room with a humorous twinkle shining behind his long lashes.
"Well, well, well, well!" he remarked in a cheerful tone of voice. "This is a nice, jolly, Quaker meeting! Why don't you get out and make a noise and celebrate, like your friends outside?"
"Thought you'd ducked," remarked Hallowell. The others said nothing, but looked a grave disapproval.
Darrow laughed.
"No, I had to come back to see how Eldridge is getting on." He cast a glance at the scientist. "How goes it, old socks?" he inquired.
The man's manner, the tone of his voice, seemed as much out of place in this atmosphere of solemnity as a penny whistle in a death chamber. Darrow refused to notice the general attitude of disapproval, but planted himself in front of Eldridge.
"All in?" he challenged. "Or do you still cherish any delusions that you will get your man inside of"—he looked at his watch—"eleven minutes?"
A visible stir ran through the room at these words. "Eleven minutes!" murmured Lyons, and held his watch to his ear. "It has stopped," he said aloud. "It seems, gentlemen, that the only possible hope for us lies in the doubt as to whether or not this Unknown will carry out this threat."
"He's a first-rate hand to carry out threats," observed Darrow.
"We have done our best," said Lyons calmly. "Let us compose ourselves to meet everything—or nothing—as the fates may have decided."
"That's all right," agreed Darrow, with unabated cheerfulness. "ButEldridge and I had a little agreement, or bet. He bragged he'd get thisMonsieur X before I did. I'd like to know how he feels about his end ofit. Give it up?"
Eldridge looked at him rebukingly.
"I have failed," he acknowledged formally, "from lack of time to carry out my investigation."
"From lack of brains," said Darrow brutally, "as I believe you once said in private conversation about my old master, Doctor Schermerhorn. Those things are remembered. I am delighted to hand this back to you." He eyed Eldridge, the brilliant smile still curving his lips.
"Enough of this!" cried Lyons with authority. "This is unseemly in the face of eternity."
Darrow looked again at his watch.
"We have still six minutes, sir; and this is an affair of long standing, and on which I feel deeply. The score is settled," he said with entire respect. "I am now at your command. I had intended," he went on in a frivolous tone again, "to kick to you on my gas bill. It is too large. You, as responsible head, know it is. But somehow, you know, the presence here of you gentlemen has disarmed me. You don't need to be here; you all have the facilities to get away. Here you are! I guess you can charge a dollar and a quarter for gas if you want to." He looked from one to the other, while he carefully wiped back the blood that was flowing from the little wound in his forehead. "Eldridge acknowledges he has failed," he repeated.
"I fail to see how you have improved upon that failure," snapped Eldridge, stung.
"No?" queried Darrow. "I call Hallowell to witness that the game has been fair. We had an even start; the data have been open to both." He raised his voice a little. "Jack!" he called.
Immediately through the open door from the hall outside came Jack Warford, leading by the arm a strange and nondescript figure. It was that of a small, bent, old-looking man, dressed in a faded suit of brown. His hair was thin, and long, and white; his face sharp and lean. His gaze was fixed straight before him, so that every one in the room at the same instant caught the glare of his eyes.
They were fixed, those eyes, like an owl's; or, better, a wildcat's, as though they never winked. From the pupils, which were very small, the little light-colored lines radiated across very large blue irises. There was something baleful and compelling in their glare, so that even Hallowell, cool customer as he was, forgot immediately all about the man's littleness and shabbiness and bent figure, and was conscious only of the cruel, clever, watchful, unrelenting, hostile spirit. As Jack dragged him forward, the others could see that one foot shambled along the floor.
"Gentlemen," observed Darrow in his most casual tones, "let me presentMonsieur X!"
Every one exclaimed at once. Above the hubbub came Lyons' voice, clear and commanding.
"The proof!" he thundered. "This is too serious a matter for buffoonery.The proof!"
Percy Darrow raised his hand. Through the roar of the maddened city the bell of the Metropolitan tower was beginning its chimes. By the third stroke the uproar had died almost away. The people were standing still, awaiting what might come.
The sweet-toned chimes ceased. There succeeded the pause. Then the great bell began to boom.
One—two—three—four—five—sixcame its spaced and measured strokes. The last reverberations sank away. Nothing happened. Percy Darrow let his hand fall.
"The proof," he repeated, "is that you are still here."
From the night outside rose a wild shriek of rejoicing, stupendous, overwhelming, passionate. Paige sprang across the room. "Release!" he shouted fairly in Simmons' ear. The spark crashed. And at a dozen places simultaneously bulletins flashed; at a dozen other points placarded balloons arose, on which the search-lights played; so that the people, hesitating in their flight in thankfulness over finding themselves still alive, raised their eyes and read:
Monsieur X is captured. You are safe.
At that a tumult arose, a tumult of rejoicing.
Darrow had sauntered to the window, and was looking out. From the great height of the Atlas Building he could see abroad over much of the city. Here and there, like glowing planets, hung the balloons.
"Clever idea," he observed. "I'm glad you thought of it."
Hallowell was on his feet, his eyes shining.
"I've got the only paper on the job!" he fairly shouted. "Darrow, as you love me, give me the story. Where was he? Where did you get him?"
Darrow turned from the window, and sardonically surveyed Eldridge.
"He was in the office next door," said he, after a moment.
When, three hours previous, Darrow had arisen with the remark before chronicled, Jack Warford had followed him in the expectation of a long expedition. To the young man's surprise it lasted just to the hall. There Darrow stopped before the blank door of an apparently unused office. Into the lock of this he cautiously fitted a key, manipulated it for a moment, and turned to Jack with an air of satisfaction.
"You have your gun with you?" he asked.
Jack patted his outside pocket.
"Very well, now listen here: I am going to leave the key in the lock. If you hear me whistle sharply, get in as quickly as you know how, and get to shooting. Shoot to kill. If it happens to be dark and you can not make us out, shoot both. Take no chances. On your quickness and your accuracy may depend the lives of the whole city. Do you understand?"
"I understand," said Jack steadily. "Are you sure you can make yourself heard above all this row?"
Darrow nodded, and slipped inside the door.
He found the office chamber unlighted save by the subdued illumination that came in around the drawn shades of the window. Against the dimness he could just make out the gleaming of batteries in rows. An ordinary deal table supported a wireless sender. A figure stood before the darkened window, the figure of a little, old, bent man facing as though looking out. Through the closed casement the roar of the panic-stricken city sounded like a flood. The old man was in the attitude of one looking out intently. Once he raised both arms, the fists clenched, high above his head.
Darrow stole forward as quietly as he could. When he was about half-way across the room the old man turned and saw him. For the briefest instant he stared at the intruder; then, with remarkable agility, cast himself toward the table on which stood the wireless sender. Darrow, too, sprang forward. They met across the table. Darrow clutched the old man's wrists.
Immediately began a desperate and silent trial of strength. The old man developed an unexpected power. The table lay between them, prohibiting a closer grip. Inch by inch, impelled by the man's iron will, his hand forced his way toward the sending key. Darrow put forth all his strength to prevent. There was no violent struggle, no noise; simply the pressure of opposing forces. Gradually the scientist's youth prevailed against the older man's desperation. The hand creeping toward the sender came to a stop. Then, all at once, the older man's resistance collapsed entirely. Darrow swept his arm back, stepped around the table, and drew his opponent, almost unresisting, back to the window.
"Jack!" he called.
At the sound of his voice the old man gathered his last vitality in a tremendous effort to jerk loose from his captor. Catching Darrow unawares, he almost succeeded in getting free. The flash was too brief. He managed only to rap the young man's head rather sharply against a shade-fitting of the window.
The outer door jerked open, and Jack Warford leaped into the room, revolver in hand. Darrow called an instant warning.
"All right!" he shouted. "Turn on the light, next to you somewhere. Shut the door."
These orders were obeyed. The electric flared. By its light the office was seen to be quite empty save for a cabinet full of books and papers; rows and rows of battery jars; the receiving and sending apparatus of a wireless outfit; the deal table, and one wooden chair. Darrow looked around keenly.
"That's all right, Jack," said he. "Just get around here cautiously and raise the window shade. Look out you don't get near that table. That's it. Now just help me get this man a little away from the table! Good! Now, tie him up. No, bring over the chair. Tie him in that chair. Gently. That's all right. Whew!"
"You're hurt," said Jack.
Darrow touched his forehead.
"A bump," he said briefly. "Well, Jack, my son, we've done it!"
"You don't mean to say—" cried Jack.
Darrow nodded.
"Now, my friend," he addressed the huddled figure in the chair, "the game is up. You are caught, and you must realize it." He surveyed the captive thoughtfully. "Tell me, who are you?" he added. "I should know you, for you are a great discoverer."
The old man stared straight at his interlocutor with his expressionless eyes, behind which no soul, no mind, no vitality even seemed to lie.
Darrow asked him several more questions, to which he received no replies.The man sat like a captured beast.
"I'm sorry," said Darrow to Jack. "I should like to have talked with him.Such a man is worth knowing; he has delved deep."
"He'll talk yet, when he gets over his grouch," Jack surmised.
But Darrow shook his head.
"The man is imbecile," he said. "He has been mentally unbalanced; and his disorder has grown on him lately. When I drove back his wrist just now the cord snapped in his brain."
Jack turned to stare at the captive.
"By Jove, I believe you're right!" said he at last.
Darrow was standing looking down on the deal table.
"Come here, Jack," said he. "I want you to look at the deadliest engine of destruction ever invented or wielded by mortal man. I suspect that if you were to reach out your hand and hold down the innocent-looking telegraph key there you would instantly destroy every living creature in this city."
Jack turned a little pale, and put both hands behind him.
Darrow laughed. "Feel tempted?" he inquired.
"Makes me a little dizzy, like being on a height," confessed Jack. "How's the trick turned?"
"I don't know," said Darrow. "I'm going to find out if I can."
Without attempting to touch anything, he proceeded to examine carefully every detail of the apparatus.
"The batteries are nothing extraordinary, except in strength," he told Jack, "and as near as I can make out the instrument is like any other. It must be some modification in the sending apparatus, some system of 'tuning', perhaps—it's only a surmise. We'll just disconnect the batteries," he concluded, "before we go to monkeying."
He proceeded carefully and methodically to carry out his expressed intention. When he had finished the task he heaved a deep sigh of relief.
"I'm glad you feel that way, too," said Jack. "I didn't know what might not happen."
"Me, either," confessed Darrow. "But now I think we're safe."
He proceeded on a methodical search through the intricacies of the apparatus. For a time Jack followed him about, but after a while wearied of so profitless an occupation, and so took to smoking on the window-ledge. Darrow extended his investigations to the bookcase, and to a drawer in the deal table. For over two hours he sorted notes, compared, and ruminated, his brows knit in concentration. Jack did not try to interrupt him. At the end of the time indicated, the scientist looked up and made some trivial remark.
"Got it?" asked Jack.
"Yes," replied Darrow soberly. He reflected for several minutes longer; then moved to the window and looked out over the city. Absolutely motionless there he stood while the night fell, oblivious alike to the roar and crash of the increasing panic and to the silent figures in the darkened room behind him. At last he gave a sigh, walked quietly to the electric light, and turned it on.
"It's the biggest thing—and the simplest—the world has ever known in physics, Jack" said he, "but it's got to go."
"What?" asked Jack, rousing from the mood of waiting into which he had loyally forced himself in spite of the turmoil outside.
"The man has perfected a combined system of special tuning and definite electrical energy," said Darrow, "by which through an ordinary wireless sender he can send forth into the ether what might be called deadening or nullifying waves. You are no doubt familiar with the common experiment by which two sounds will produce a silence. This is just like that. By means of this, within the radius of his sending instrument and for a period of time up to the capacity of his batteries, a man can absolutely stop vibration of either heat, sound, light, or electricity length. It is entirely a question of simple formulas. Here they are."
He held out four closely written pages bound together with manuscript fasteners.
"No man has ever before attained this knowledge or this power," went on Darrow, after a moment; "and probably never again in the history of the race will exactly this combination of luck and special talent occur. These four pages are unique."
He laid them on the edge of the table, produced a cigarette, lighted it, picked up the four pages of formulas, and held the burning match to their edges. The flame caught, flared up the flimsy paper. Darrow dropped the burning corners as it scorched his fingers. It fell to the floor, flickered, and was gone.
Jack leaped forward with an exclamation of dismay. The old man bound to the chair did not wink, but stared straight in front of him, his eyes fixed like those of an owl or a wildcat.
"For God's sake, Darrow!" cried Jack Warford. "Do you know what you have done?"
"Perfectly," replied Darrow calmly. "This is probably the greatest achievement of the scientific intellect; but it must go. It would give to men an unchecked power that belongs only to the gods."
For his share in the foregoing Percy Darrow was extensively blamed. It was universally conceded that his action in permitting Monsieur X to continue his activities up to the danger point was inexcusable. The public mind should have been reassured long before. Much terror and physical suffering might thus have been avoided—not to speak of financial loss. Scientific men, furthermore, went frantic over his unwarranted destruction of the formulas. Percy Darrow was variously described as a heartless monster and a scientific vandal. To these aspersions he paid no attention whatever.
Helen Warford, however, became vastly indignant and partisan, and in consequence Percy Darrow's course in the matter received from her its full credit for a genuine altruism. Hallowell, also, held persistently to this point, as far as his editors would permit him, until at last, the public mind somewhat calmed, attention was more focused on the means by which the man had reached his conclusions rather than on the use of them he had made.
The story was told three times by its chief actor: once to the newspapers, once to the capitalists from whom he demanded the promised reward, and once to the Warfords. This last account was the more detailed and interesting.
It was of a late afternoon again. The lamps were lighted, and tea was forward. Helen was manipulating the cups, Jack was standing ready to pass them, Mr. and Mrs. Warford sat in the background listening, and Darrow lounged gracefully in front of the fire.
"From the beginning!" Helen was commanding him, "and expect interruptions."
"Well," began Darrow, "it's a little difficult to get started. But let's begin with the phenomena themselves. I've told you before, how, when I was in jail, I worked out their nature and the fact that they must draw their power from some source that could be exhausted or emptied. You have read Eldridge's reasoning as to why he thought Monsieur X was at a distance and on a height. He took as the basis of his reasoning one fact in connection with the wireless messages we were receiving—that they were faint, and therefore presumably far distant or sent by a weak battery. He neglected, or passed over as an important item of tuning, the further fact that the instrument in the Atlas Building was the only instrument to receive Monsieur X's messages.
"Now, that fact might be explained either on the very probable supposition that our receiving instrument happened in what we may call its undertones to be the only one tuned to the sending instrument of Monsieur X; or it might be because our instrument was nearer Monsieur X's instrument than any other. This was unlikely because of the quality of the sound—it sounded to the expert operator as though it came from a distance. Nevertheless, it was a possibility. Taken by itself, it was not nearly so good a possibility as the other. Therefore, Eldridge chose the other.
"There were a number of other strictly scientific considerations of equal importance. I do not hesitate to say that if I had been influenced only by the scientific considerations, I should have followed Eldridge's lead without the slightest hesitation. But as I told him at the time, a man must have imagination and human sympathy to get next to this sort of thing.
"Leaving all science aside, for the moment, what do we find in the messages to McCarthy? First, a command to leave within a specified and brief period; second, a threat in case of disobedience. That threat was always carried out."
Darrow turned to Mrs. Warford.
"With your permission, I should like to smoke," said he. "I can follow my thought better."
"By all means," accorded the lady.
Darrow lighted his cigarette, puffed a moment, and continued:
"For instance, at three o'clock he threatens to send a 'sign' unless McCarthy leaves town by six. McCarthy does not leave town. Promptly at six the 'sign' comes. What do you make of it?"
Nobody stirred.
"Why," resumed Darrow, "how, if Monsieur X was a hundred miles or so away, as Eldridge figured, did he know that McCarthy had not obeyed him? We must suppose, from the probable fact of that knowledge, that either Monsieur X had an accomplice who was keeping him informed, or he must be near enough to get the information himself."
"There is a third possibility," broke in Jack. "Monsieur X might have sent along his 'sign' at six o'clock, anyhow, just for general results."
Darrow nodded his approval.
"Good boy, Jack," said he. "That is just the point I could not be sure about. But finally, at the time, you will remember, when I predicted McCarthy's disappearance, Monsieur X made a definite threat. He said," observed Darrow, consulting one of the bundle of papers he held in his hand:
"'My patience is at an end. Your last warning will be sent you at nine-thirty this morning. If you do not sail on theCelticat noon, I shall strike,' and so forth. TheCelticsailed at noon, without McCarthy. At twelve thirty came the first message to the people calling on them to deliver up the traitor that is among you.' How did Monsieur X know that McCarthy had not sailed on theCeltic? The answer is now unavoidable: either an accomplice must have sent him word to that effect, or he must have determined the fact for himself.
"I eliminated the hypothesis of an accomplice on the arbitrary grounds of plain common sense. They don't grow two such crazy men at once; and one crazy man is naturally too suspicious to hire help. I took it for granted. Had to make a guess somewhere; but, contrary to our legal friends, I believe that enough coincidences indicate a certainty. But if Monsieur X himself saw theCelticsail without McCarthy, and got back to his instrument within a half-hour, it was evident he could not be quite so far away as Eldridge and the rest of them thought."
"One thing," spoke up Jack, "I often wondered what you whispered toSimmons to induce him to pass those messages over to you. Mind telling?"
"Not a bit. Simmons is an exceptional man. He has nerve and intelligence. I just pointed out to him the possibility that Monsieur X might have control over heat vibrations. He saw the public danger at once, and realized that McCarthy's private rights in those messages had suddenly become very small."
Jack nodded. "Go ahead," said he.
"I had already," proceeded Darrow, "found out where the next wireless station is located. Monsieur X must be nearer the Atlas station than to this other. It was, therefore, easy to draw a comparatively small circle within which he must be located."
"So far, so good," said Helen. "How did you finally come to the conclusion that Monsieur X was in the next office?"
"Do you remember," Darrow asked Jack, "how the curtain of darkness hung about ten or twelve feet inside the corridor of the Atlas Building?"
"Sure," replied Jack.
"And do you remember that while the rest of you, including Eldridge, were occupied rather childishly with the spectacular side of it, I had disappeared inside the blackness?"
"Certainly."
"Well, in that time I determined the exact extent of the phenomena. I found that it extended in a rough circle. And when I went outside and looked up—something every one else was apparently too busy to do—I saw that this phenomenon of darkness also extended above the building, out into open space. At the moment I noted the fact merely, and tried to fix in my own mind approximately the dimensions. Then here is another point: when the city-wide phenomena took place, I again determined their extent. To do so I did not have to leave my chair. The papers did it for me. They took pains to establish the farthest points to which these modern plagues of Manhattan reached."
Darrow selected several clippings from his bundle of papers.
"Here are reports indicating Highbridge, Corona, Flatbush, Morrisania, Fort Lee, Bay Ridge as the farthest points at which the phenomena were manifested. It occurred to nobody to connect these points with a pencil line. If that line is made curved, instead of straight, it will be found to constitute a complete circlewhose center is the Atlas Building!"
The audience broke into exclamations.
"Going back to my former impressions, I remembered that the pall of blackness extended this far and that far in the various directions, so that it required not much imagination to visualize it as a sphere of darkness. And strangely enough the center of that sphere seemed to be located somewhere near the floor on which were installed the United Wireless instruments. It at once became probable that what we may call the nullifying impulses radiated in all directions through the ether from their sending instrument.
"Next I called upon the janitor of the Atlas Building, representing myself as looking for a suitable office from which to conduct my investigations. In this manner I gained admission to all unrented offices. All were empty. I then asked after the one next door, but was told it was rented as a storeroom by an eccentric gentleman now away on his travels. That was enough. I now knew that we had to do with a man next door, and not miles distant, as purely scientific reasoning would seem to prove."
"But Professor Eldridge's experiments—" began Jack.
"I am coming to that," interrupted Darrow. "When Eldridge began to call up Monsieur X, that gentleman answered without a thought of suspicion; nor was he even aware of the very ingenious successive weakenings of the current. In fact, as merely the thickness of a roof separated his receiving instrument from the wires from which the messages were sent, it is probable that Eldridge might have weakened his current down practically to nihil, and still Monsieur X would have continued to get his message."
"Wouldn't he have noticed the sending getting weaker?" asked Jack shrewdly.
"Not until the very last. Our sending must have made a tremendous crash, anyway, and he probably read it by sound through the wall."
"But at about the fifty-mile limit of sending we lost him," objected Jack.
"You mean at about two o'clock in the morning," amended Darrow.
"Eh? Yes, it was about two. But how did he get on to what Eldridge was doing?"
"He read it in the paper," replied Darrow. "At twelve the reporters left.At a little before two our enterprising friend, theDespatch, issued anextra in its usual praiseworthy effort to enlighten the late Broadway jag.Monsieur X read it, and knew exactly what was up."
"How do you know?"
"Because I read the extra myself."
"But even then?"
"Then he began to pay more attention. It was easy enough to fake when he knew what was doing. For all I know, he could hear Eldridge giving his directions."
The company present ruminated over the disclosures thus far made.
"About the City Hall affair?" asked Helen finally.
"I used to sit where I could command the hall," said Darrow, "and, therefore, I was aware that Monsieur X never left his room. To make the matter certain, I powdered the sill of the door with talcum, which I renewed every day after the cleaners. You remember we got to talking very earnestly in the hall, so earnestly that I, for one, forgot to watch. When I realized my remissness, I saw that the powder on the sill had been disturbed, that Monsieur X had gone out.
"My first thought then was to warn the people. To that end I was on my way to theDespatchoffice when sheer chance switched me into the City Hall tragedy. I possessed myself of the apparatus—"
"That was the square black bag!" cried Jack.
"Of course—and hustled back to the Atlas Building. You can bet I was relieved when I found that Monsieur X had returned to his lair."
"Talcum disturbed again?" asked Jack.
"Precisely."
"And the black bag?"
"Contained merely a model wireless apparatus with a clockwork arrangement set to close the circuit at a certain time. That is why Monsieur X was not involved in his own catastrophe."
"I see!"
"Then all I had to do was to sit still and wait for him to become dangerous."
"How did you dare to take such chances?" cried Helen.
"I took no chances," answered Darrow. "Don't you see? If he were to attempt to destroy the city, he must either involve himself in the destruction, or he must set another bit of clockwork. If he had left his office again I should have seized him, broken into the office, and smashed the apparatus."
"But he was crazy," spoke up Mrs. Warford. "How could you rely on his not involving himself in the general destruction?"
"Yes, why did you act when you did?" seconded Helen.
"As long as he held to his notion of getting hold of McCarthy," explained Darrow, "he had a definite object in life, his madness had a definite outlet—he was harmless. But the last message showed that his disease had progressed to the point where McCarthy was forgotten. His mind had risen to a genuine frenzy. He talked of general punishments, great things. At last he was in the state of mind of the religious fanatic who lacerates his flesh and does not feel the wound. When he forgot McCarthy, I knew it was time to act. Long since I had provided myself with the requisite key. You know the rest."
There remains only to tell what became of the various characters of the tale.
McCarthy, on whom the action started, returned, but never regained his political hold. Darrow always maintained that this was only the most obvious result of his policy of delaying the denouement. People had been forced to think seriously of such matters; and, when aroused, the public conscience is right.
Darrow demanded, and received, the large money reward for his services in the matter. Pocketing whatever blame the public and his fellow scientists saw fit to hand out to him, he and Jack Warford disappeared in command of a small schooner. The purpose of the expedition was kept secret; its direction was known only to those most intimately concerned. If it ever returns, we may know more of it.
Eldridge went on being a scientist, exactly as before.
Simmons received a gold medal, a large cash sum, any amount of newspaper space, and an excellent opportunity to go on a vaudeville circuit.
Hallowell had his salary raised; and received in addition that rather vague brevet title of "star reporter".
Helen Warford is still attractive and unmarried. Whether the latter condition is only pending the return of the expedition is not known.
As for the city, it has gone back to its everyday life, and the riffles on the surface have smoothed themselves away. In outside appearances everything is as before. Yet for the present generation, at least, the persistence of the old independent self-reliance of the people is assured. They have been tested, and they have been made to think of elemental things seriously. For some time to come the slow process of standardization has been arrested.