The Mystery Part 44

"In his grasp. Then comes a practical gentleman with a steel hook. A follower of dreams, too, in his way. Conflicting interests--you know how it is. One well-aimed blow from the more practical dreamer, and the greater vision pa.s.ses.... I'm getting ahead of myself. Just a moment."

His cigarette glowed fiercely in the dimness before he took up his tale again.

"You all know who Dr. Schermerhorn was. None of you know--I don't know myself, though I've been his factotum for ten years--along how many varied lines of activity that mind played. One of them was the secret of energy: concentrated, resistless energy. Man's contrivances were too puny for him.

The most powerful engines he regarded as toys. For a time high explosives claimed his attention. He wanted to harness them. Once he got to the point of practical experiment. You can see the ruins yet: a hole in southern New Jersey. n.o.body ever understood how he escaped. But there he was on his feet across a ten-foot fence in a ploughed field--yes, he flew the fence-- and running, running furiously in the opposite direction, when the dust cleared away. Someone stopped him finally. Told him the danger was over.

'Yet, I will not return,' he said firmly, and fainted away. That disgusted him with high explosives. What secrets he discovered he gave to the government. They were not without value, I believe."

"They were not, indeed," corroborated Barnett.

"Next his interest turned to the natural phenomena of high energy. He studied lightning in an open steel network laboratory, with few results save a succession of rheumatic attacks, and an improved electric interrupter, since adopted by one of the great telegraph companies. The former obliged him to stop these experiments, and the invention he considered trivial. Probably the great problem of getting at the secret of energy led him into his attempts to study the mysterious electrical waves radiated by lightning flashes; at any rate he was soon as deep into the subject of electrical science as his countryman, Hertz, had ever been. He used to tell me that he often wondered why he hadn't taken up this line before--the world of energy he now set out to explore, waves in that tremendous range between those we hear and those we see. It was natural that he should then come to the most prominent radio-active elements, uranium, thorium, and radium. But though his knowledge surpa.s.sed that of the much-exploited authorities, he was never satisfied with any of his results.

"'Pitchblende; no!' he would exclaim. 'It has not the great power. The mines are not deep enough, yet!'

"Then suddenly the great idea that was to bring him success, and cost him his life, came to him. The bowels of the earth must hold the secret! He took up volcanoes.... Does all this sound foolish? It was not if you knew the man. He was a mighty enthusiast, a born martyr. Not cold-blooded, like the rest of us. The fire was in his veins.... A light, please. Thank you.

"We chased volcanoes. There was a theory under it all. He believed that volcanic emanations are caused by a mighty and uncomprehended energy, something that achieves results ascribable neither to explosions nor heat, some eternal, inner source.... Radium, if you choose, only he didn't call it that. Radium itself, as known to our modern scientists, he regarded as the harmless plaything of people with time hanging heavy on their hands.

He wasn't after force in pin-point quant.i.ties: he wanted bulk results. Yet I believe that, after all, what he sought was a sort of higher power of radium. The phenomena were related. And he had some of that concentrated essence of pitchblende in the chest when we started. Oh, not much: say about twenty thousand dollars' worth. Maybe thirty. For use? No; rather for comparison, I judge.

"Yes, we chased volcanoes. I became used to camping between sample h.e.l.ls of all known varieties. I got so that the fumes of a sulphur match seemed like a draught of pure, fresh air. Wherever any of the earth's pimples showed signs of coming to a head, there were we, taking part in the trouble. By and by the doctor got so thoroughly poisoned that he had to lay off. Back to Philadelphia we came. There an aged seafaring person, temporarily stranded, mulcted the Professor of a dollar--an undertaking that required no art--and in the course of his recital touched upon yonder little cesspool of infernal iniquities. An uncharted volcanic island: one that he could have all for his own; you may guess whether Dr. Schermerhorn was interested.

"'That iss for which we haf so-long-in-vain sought, Percy,' he said to me in his quaint, link-chain style of speech. 'A leedle prifate volcano- laboratory to ourselves to have. Totally unknown: undescribed, not-on-the- chart-to-be-found. To-morrow we start. I make a list of the things-to- get.'

"He began his list, as I remember, with three dozen unders.h.i.+rts, a gallon of pennyroyal for insect bites, a box of a.s.sorted fish hooks, thirty pounds of tea, and a case of carpet tacks. When I hadn't anything else to worry over, I used to lie awake at night and speculate on the purpose of those carpet tacks. He had something in mind: if there was anything on which he prided himself, it was his practical bent. But the list never got any further: it ceased short of one page in the ledger, as you may have noticed. I outfitted by telegraph on the way across the continent.

"The doctor didn't ask me whether I'd go. He took it for granted. That's probably why I didn't back out. Nor did I tell him that the three life insurance companies which had foolishly and trustingly accepted me as a risk merely on the strength of a good const.i.tution were making frantic efforts to compromise on the policies. They felt hurt, those companies: my healthy condition had ceased to appeal to them. What's a good const.i.tution between earthquakes? No, there was no use telling the doctor. It would only have worried him. Besides, I didn't believe that the island was there. I thought it was a myth of that stranded ancient mariner's imagination. When it rose to sight at the proper spot, none were more astounded than the bad risk who now addresses you.

"Yet, I must say for the island that it came handsomely up to specifications. Down where you were, Slade. you didn't get a real insight into its disposition. But in back of us there was any kind of action for your money. Geysers, h.e.l.l-spouts, fuming fissures, cunning little craterlets with half-portions of molten lava ready to serve hot; more gases than you could create in all the world's chemical laboratories: in fact, everything to make the place a paradise for Old Nick--and Dr.

Schermerhorn. He brought along in his precious chest, besides the radium, some sort of raw material: also, as near as I could make out, a sort of cage or guardians.h.i.+p scheme for his concentrated essence of cussedness, when he should get it out of the volcano.

"In the first seven months he puttered around the little fumers, with an occasional excursion up to the main crater. It was my duty to follow on and drag him away when he fell unconscious. Sometimes I would try to get him before he was quite gone. Then he would become indignant, and fight me. Perhaps that helped to lose me his confidence. More and more he withdrew into himself. There were days when he spoke no word to me. It was lonely. Do you know why I used to visit you at the beach, Slade? I suppose you thought I was keeping watch on you. It wasn't that, it was loneliness.

In a way, it hurt me, too: for one couldn't help but be fond of the old boy; and at times it seemed as if he weren't quite himself. Pardon me, if I may trouble you for the matches? Thanks....

"Matters went very wrong at times: the doctor fumed like his little craters; growled out long-winded, exhaustive German imprecations: wouldn't even eat. Then again the demon of work would drive him with thong and spur: he would rush to his craters, to his laboratories, to his ledger for the purpose of entering unintelligible commentaries. He had some peculiar contrivance, like a misshapen retort, with which he collected gases from the craterlets. Whenever I'd hear one of those smash, I knew it was a bad day.

"Meantime, the volcano also became--well, what you might call temperamental.

"It got to be a year and a quarter--a year and a half. I wondered whether we should ever get away. My tobacco was running short. And the bearing of the men was becoming fidgetty. My visits to the beach became quite interesting--to me. One day the doctor came running out of his laboratory with so bright a face that I ventured to ask him about departure.

"'Not so long, now, Percy,' he said, in his old, kind manner. 'Not so long. The first real success. It iss made. We have yet under-entire- control to bring it, but it iss made.'

"'And about time, sir,' said I. 'If we don't do something soon we may have trouble with the men.'

"'So?' said he in surprise. 'But they could do nothing. Nothing.' He wagged his great head confidently. 'We are armed.'

"'Oh, yes, armed. So are they.'

"'We are armed,' he repeated obstinately. 'Such as no man was ever armed, are we armed.'

"He checked himself abruptly and walked away. Well, I've since wondered what would have happened had the men attacked us. It would have been worth seeing, and--and surprising. Yes: I'm quite certain it would have been surprising. Perhaps, too, I might have learned more of the Great Secret ... and yet, I don't know. It's all dark ... a hint here ... theory ... mere glints of light.... Where did I put.... Ah, thank you."

IX

THE ACHIEVEMENT

For some moments Darrow sat gazing fixedly at the table before him. His cigarette tip glowed and failed. Someone suggested drinks. The captain asked Darrow what he would have, but the question went unnoted.

"How I pa.s.sed the next six months I could hardly tell you," he began again, quite abruptly. "At times I was bored--fearfully bored. Yet the element of mystery, of uncertainty, of underlying peril, gave a certain zest to the affair. In the periods of dulness I found some amus.e.m.e.nt in visiting the lower camp and baiting the n.i.g.g.e.r. Slade will have told you about him; he possessed quite a fund of b.a.s.t.a.r.d Voodooism: he possessed more before I got through with him. Yes; if he had lived to return to his country, I fancy he would have added considerably to Afro-American witch- lore. You remember the vampire bats, Slade? And the devil-fires? Naturally I didn't mention to you that the devil-fire business wasn't altogether as clear to me as I pretended. It wasn't, though. But at the time it served very well as an amus.e.m.e.nt. All the while I realised that my self- entertainment was not without its element of danger, too: I remember glances not altogether friendly but always a little doubtful, a little awed. Even Handy Solomon, practical as he was, had a scruple or two of superst.i.tion in his make-up, on which one might work. Only Eagen--Slade, I mean--was beyond me there. You puzzled me not a little in those days, Slade. Well....

"Did I say that I was sometimes annoyed by the doctor's att.i.tude? Yes: it seemed that he might have given me a little more of his confidence; but one can't judge such a man as he was. Among the ordinary affairs of life he had relied on me for every detail. Now he was independent of me.

Independent! I doubt if he remembered my existence at times. Even in his blackest moods of depression he was sufficient unto himself. It was strange.... How he did rage the day the chemicals from Was.h.i.+ngton went wrong! I was was.h.i.+ng my s.h.i.+rt in the hot water spring when he came bolting out of the laboratory and keeled me over. I came out pretty indignant.

Apologise? Not at all. He just sputtered. His nearest approach to coherence seemed to indicate a desire that I should go back to Was.h.i.+ngton at once and destroy a perfectly reputable firm of chemists. Finally he calmed down and took it out in entering it in his daily record. He was quite proud of that daily record and remembered to write in it on an average of once a week.

"Then the chest went wrong. Whether it had rusted a bit, or whether the chemicals had got in their work on the hinges, I don't know; but one day the Professor, of his own initiative, recognised my existence by lugging his box out in the open and asking me to fix it. Previously he had emptied it. It was rather a complicated thing, with an inner compartment over which was a hollow cover, opening along one rim. That, I conjectured, was designed to hold some chemical compound or salt. There were many minor openings, too, each guarded by a similar hollow door. My business was with the heavy top cover.

"'It should shut and open softly, gently,' explained the Professor. 'So.

Not with-a-grating-sound-to-be-accompanied,' he added, with his curious effect of linked phraseology.

"Half a day's work fixed it. The lid would stand open of itself until tipped at a considerable angle, when it would fall and lock. Only on the outer sh.e.l.l was there a lock: that one was a good bit of craftsmans.h.i.+p.

"'So, Percy, my boy,' said the doctor kindly. 'That will with-sufficient- safety guard our treasure. When we obtain it, Percy. When it entirely- finished-and-completed shall be.'

"'And when will that be?' I asked.

"'G.o.d knows,' he said cheerfully. 'It progresses.'

"Whenever I went strolling at night, he would produce his curious lights.

Sometimes they were fairly startling. One fact I made out by accident, looking down from a high place. They did not project from the laboratory.

He always worked in the open when the light was to be produced. Once the experiment took a serious turn. The lights had flickered and gone. Dr.

Schermerhorn had returned to his laboratory. I came up the arroyo as he flung the door open and rushed out. He was a grotesque figure, clad in an unders.h.i.+rt and a worn pair of trousers, fastened with an old bit of tarred rope in lieu of his suspenders, which I had been repairing. About his waist flickered a sort of aura of radiance which was extinguished as he flung himself headforemost into the cold spring. I hauled him out. He seemed dazed. To my questions he replied only by mumblings, the burden of which was:

"'I do not understand. It is a not-to-be-comprehended accident.' It appears that he didn't quite know why he had taken to the water. Or if he did, he didn't want to tell.

"Next day he was as good as new. Just as silent as before, but it was a smiling, satisfied silence. So it went for weeks, for months, with the accesses of depression and anger always rarer. Then came an afternoon when, returning from a stalk after sheep, I heard strange and shocking noises from the laboratory. Strict as was the embargo which kept me outside the door, I burst in, only to be seized in a suffocating grip. Of a sudden I realised that I was being embraced. The doctor flourished a hand above my head and jigged with ponderous steps. The dismal noises continued to emanate from his mouth. He was singing. I wish I could give you a notion of the amazement, the paralysing wonder with which.... No, you did not know Dr. Schermerhorn: you would not understand....

"We polkaed into the open. There he cast me loose. He stopped singing and burst into a rhapsody of disjointed words. Mostly German, it was--a wondrous jumble of the scientific and poetic. 'Eureka' occurred at intervals. Then he would leap in the air. It was weird, it was distressing. Crazy? Oh, quite. For the time, you understand. If any of us should suddenly become the most potent individual in the world, wouldn't he be apt to lose balance temporarily? One must make allowances. There was excuse for the doctor. He had reached the goal.

"'Percy, you shall be rewarded,' he said. 'You haf like-a-trump-card stuck by me. You shall haf riches, gold, what you will. You are young; your blood runs red. With such riches nothing is beyond you. You could the ancient-tombs-of-Egypt explore. It is open to you such collections-as- have-never-been-gathered to make. What shall it be? Scarabs? Missals?

Prehistoric implements? Amuse yourself, _mein kind_. We shall be able the- bills-with-usurious-interest to pay. What will you haf?'

"I said I'd like a vacation, if convenient.

"'Presently,' he replied. 'There yet remains the guardians.h.i.+p to be perfected. Then to-a-world-astonished-and-respectful we return. To-night we celebrate. I play you a rubber of pinochle.'

"We played. With the greatest secret of science resting at our elbows, we played. The doctor won; my mind was not strictly on the game. In the morning the doctor sang once more.... I shall never hear its like again.