Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 Part 21

He was picturing vaguely a ray like a big insulated cable, with light and current both traveling along a core at its center, cut off, insulated by the ray, so that only the bare end where the ray stopped could make contact.

"Some more of them d.a.m.n electrons," he hazarded; then demanded of his caller: "But am I one h.e.l.l of a smart guy? Or am I?"

There was no denying this fact. The pasty-faced man told Blinky with lurid emphasis just how smart. He had seen with his own eyes and this was too good to keep.

He paid his one grand and departed, first to make certain necessary arrangements for the untimely end of one Pokey Barnard, squealer, louse, et cetera, et cetera, and then to spread the glad news through the underworld of Collins' invention.

That was Blinky's big mistake, as was shown a few days later. Not many had taken seriously the account of the photographer's experiments, but there was one who had, as was evident. A bearded man, whose eyes stared somewhat wildly from beneath a shock of frowzy hair, entered the Collins work-room and locked the door behind him. His English was imperfect, but the heavy automatic in his hand could not be misunderstood. He forced the trembling inventor to give a demonstration, and the visitor's face showed every evidence of delight.

"The cur-rent," he demanded with careful words, "the electreek cur-rent, you shall do also. Yes?"

Again the automatic brought quick a.s.sent, and again the visitor showed his complete satisfaction. Showed it by slugging the inventor quietly and efficiently and packing the apparatus in the big suitcase he had brought.

Blinky Collins had been fond of that machine. He had found a form of television with uncounted possibilities, and it had been for him the perfect instrument of a blackmailing Peeping Tom; he had learned the secret of directed wireless transmission of power and had seen it as a means for annoying his enemies. Yet Blinky Collins--the late Blinky Collins--offered no least objection, when the bearded man walked off with the machine. His body, sprawled awkwardly in the corner, was quite dead....

And now, some two months later, in his Was.h.i.+ngton office, the Chief of the United States Secret Service pushed a paper across his desk to a waiting man and leaned back in his chair.

"What would you make of that, Del?" he asked.

Robert Delamater reached leisurely for the paper. He regarded it with sleepy, half-closed eyes.

There was a crude drawing of an eye at the top. Below was printed--not written--a message in careful, precise letters: "Take warning. The Eye of Allah is upon you. You shall instructions receive from time to time. Follow them. Obey."

Delamater laughed. "Why ask me what I think of a nut letter like that.

You've had plenty of them just as crazy."

"This didn't come to me," said the Chief; "it was addressed to the President of the United States."

"Well, there will be others, and we will run the poor sap down.

Nothing out of the ordinary I should say."

"That is what I thought--at first. Read this--" The big, heavy-set man pushed another and similar paper across the desk. "This one was addressed to the Secretary of State."

Delamater did not read it at once. He held both papers to the light; his fingers touched the edges only.

"No watermark," he mused; "ordinary white writing stock--sold in all the five and ten cent stores. Tried these for fingerprints I suppose?".

"Read it," suggested the Chief.

"Another picture of an eye," said Delamater aloud, and read: "'Warning.

You are dealing with an emissary from a foreign power who is an unfriend of my country. See him no more. This is the first and last warning. The Eye of Allah watches.'

"And what is this below--? 'He did not care for your cigars, Mr.

Secretary. Next time--but there must be no next time.'"

Delamater read slowly--lazily. He seemed only slightly interested except when he came to the odd conclusion of the note. But the Chief knew Delamater and knew how that slow indolence could give place to a feverish, alert concentration when work was to be done.

"Crazy as a loon," was the man's conclusion as he dropped the papers upon the desk.

"Crazy," his chief corrected, "like a fox! Read the last line again; then get this--

"The Secretary of State _is_ meeting with a foreign agent who is here very much incog. Came in as a servant of a real amba.s.sador. Slipped quietly into Was.h.i.+ngton, and not a soul knew he was here. He met the Secretary in a closed room; no one saw him come or leave--";

"Well, the Secretary tells me that in that room where n.o.body could see he offered this man a cigar. His visitor took it, tried to smoke it, apologized--and lit one of his own vile cigarettes."

"Hm-m!" Delamater sat a little straighter in his chair; his eyebrows were raised now in questioning astonishment. "Dictaphone? Some employee of the Department listening in?"

"Impossible."

"Now that begins to be interesting," the other conceded. His eyes had lost their sleepy look. "Want me to take it on?"

"Later. Right now. I want you to take this visiting gentleman under your personal charge. Here is the name and the room and hotel where he is staying. He is to meet with the Secretary to-night--he knows where.

You will get to him un.o.bserved--absolutely unseen; I can leave that to you. Take him yourself to his appointment, and take him without a bra.s.s band. But have what men you want tail you and watch out for spies.... Then, when he is through, bring him back and deliver him safely to his room. Compray?"

"Right--give me Wilkins and Smeed. I rather think I can get this bird there and back without being seen, but perhaps they may catch Allah keeping tabs on us at that." He laughed amusedly as he took the paper with the name and address.

A waiter with pencil and order-pad might have been seen some hours later going as if from the kitchen to the ninth floor of a Was.h.i.+ngton hotel. And the same waiter, a few minutes later, was escorting a guest from a rear service-door to an inconspicuous car parked nearby. The waiter slipped behind the wheel.

A taxi, whose driver was half asleep, was parked a hundred feet behind them at the curb. As they drove away and no other sign of life was seen in the quiet street the driver of the taxi yawned ostentatiously and decided to seek a new stand. He neglected possible fares until a man he called Smeed hailed him a block farther on. They followed slowly after the first car ... and they trailed it again on its return after some hours.

"Safe as a church," they reported to the driver of the first car.

"We'll swear that n.o.body was checking up on that trip."

And: "O. K." Delamater reported to his chief the next morning. "Put one over on this self-appointed Allah that time."

But the Chief did not reply: he was looking at a slip of paper like those he had shown his operative the day before. He tossed it to Delamater and took up the phone.

"To the Secretary of State," Delamater read. "You had your warning.

Next time you disobey it shall be you who dies."

The signature was only the image of an eye.

The Chief was calling a number; Delamater recognized it as that of the hotel he had visited. "Manager, please, at once," the big man was saying.

He identified himself to the distant man. Then: "Please check up on the man in nine four seven. If he doesn't answer, enter the room and report at once--I will hold the phone...."

The man at the desk tapped steadily with a pencil; Robert Delamater sat quietly, tensely waiting. But some sixth sense told him what the answer would be. He was not surprised when the Chief repeated what the phone had whispered.

"Dead?... Yes!... Leave everything absolutely undisturbed. We will be right over."

"Get Doctor Brooks, Del," he said quietly; "the Eye of Allah was watching after all."