_ CHAPTER XXI. OUT OF THIN AIR
Except for the incident just related, when several pints of very real fluids were somehow "materialised" at a spot ten feet below where they had vanished, nothing worth recording occurred during the first seven days of our stay at Chatterton Place.
Seemingly nothing was to come of the Rhamda's warning.
On the other hand we succeeded, during that week, in working a complete transformation of the old house. It became one of the brightest spots in San Francisco. It cost a good deal of money, all told, but I could well afford it. I possessed the hundred thousand with which, I had promised myself and Harry, I should solve the Blind Spot. That was what the money was for.
On the seventh day after the night of Harry's going, our household was increased to three members. For it was then that Jerome returned from Nevada, whence he had gone two weeks before on a case.
"Not at all surprised," he commented, when I told him of Harry's disappearance. "Sorry I wasn't here. That crook, Rhamda Avec, in at the end?"
He gnawed stolidly at his cigar as I told him the story. Then, after briefly approving what I had done to brighten the house, he announced:
"Tell you what. I've got a little money out of that Nevada case; I'm going to take another vacation and see this thing through."
We shook hands on this, and he moved right into his old room. I felt, in fact, mighty glad to have Jerome with us. Although he lacked a regular academic training, he was fifteen years my senior, and because of contact with a wide variety of people in his work, both well-informed and reserved in his judgment. He could not be stampeded; he had courage; and, above everything else, he had the burning curiosity of which Harry has written.
I was upstairs when he unpacked. And I noted among his belongings a large, rather heavy automatic pistol. He nodded when I asked if he was willing to use it in this case.
"Although"--unbuttoning his waistcoat--"I don't pin as much faith to pistols as I used to.
"The Rhamda is, I'm convinced, the very cleverest proposition that ever lived. He has means to handle practically anything in the way of resistance." Jerome knew how the fellow had worsted Harry and me. "I shouldn't wonder if he can read the mind to some extent; he might be able to foresee that I was going to draw a gun, and beat me to it with some new weapon of his own."
Having unbuttoned his waistcoat, Jerome then displayed a curious contrivance mounted upon his breast. It consisted of a broad metal plate, strapped across his shirt, and affixed to this plate was a flat-springed arrangement for firing, simultaneously, the contents of a revolver cylinder. To show how it worked, Jerome removed the five cartridges and then faced me.
"Tell me to throw up my hands," directed he. I did so; his palms flew into the air; and with a steely snap the mechanism was released.
Had there been cartridges in it, I should have been riddled, for I stood right in front. And I shuddered as I noted the small straps around Jerome's wrists, running up his sleeves, so disposed that the act of surrendering meant instant death to him who might demand.
"May not be ethical, Fenton"--quietly--"but it certainly is good sense to shoot first and explain later when you're handling a chap like Avec. Better make preparations, too."
I objected. I pointed out what I have already mentioned; that, together with the ring, the Rhamda offered our only clues to the Blind Spot. Destroy the man and we would destroy one of our two hopes of rescuing our friends from the unthinkable fate that had overtaken them.
"No"--decisively. "We don't want to kill; we want to KEEP him. Bullets won't do. I see no reason, however, why you shouldn't load that thing with cartridges containing chemicals which would have an effect similar to that of a gas bomb. Once you can make him helpless, so that you can put those steel bracelets on him, we'll see how dangerous he is with his hands behind him!"
"I get you"--thoughtfully. "I know a chemist who will make up 'Paralysis' gas for me, in the form of gelatine capsules. Shoot 'em at the Rhamda; burst upon striking. Safe enough for me, and yet put him out of business long enough to fit him with the jewellery."
"That's the idea."
But I had other notions about handling the Rhamda. Being satisfied that mere strength and agility were valueless against him, I concluded that he, likewise realising this, would be on the lookout for any possible trap.
Consequently, if I hoped to keep the man, and force him to tell us what we wanted to know, then I must make use of something other than physical means. Moreover, I gave him credit for an exceptional amount of insight. Call it super-instinct, or what you will, the fellow's intellect was transcendental.
Once having decided that it must be a battle of wits I took a step which may seem, at first, a little peculiar.
I called upon a certain lady to whom I shall give the name of Clarke, since that is not the correct one. I took her fully and frankly into my confidence. It is the only way, when dealing with a practitioner. And since, like most of my fellow citizens, she had heard something of the come and go, elusive habits of our men, together with the Holcomb affair, it was easy for her to understand just what I wanted.
"I see," she mused. "You wish to be surrounded by an influence that will not so much protect you, as vitalise and strengthen you whenever you come in contact with Avec. It will be a simple matter. How far do you wish to go?" And thus it was arranged, the plan calling for the co-operation of some twenty of her colleagues.
My fellow engineers may sneer, if they like. I know the usual notion: that the "power of mind over matter" is all in the brain of the patient. That the efforts of the practitioner are merely inductive, and so on.
But I think that the most sceptical will agree that I did quite right in seeking whatever support I could get before crossing swords with a man as keen as Avec.
Nevertheless, before an opportunity arrived to make use of the intellectual machinery which my money had started into operation, something occurred which almost threw the whole thing out of gear.
It was the evening after I had returned from Miss Clarke's office. Both Charlotte and I had a premonition, after supper, that things were going to happen. We all went into the parlour, sat down, and waited.
Presently we started the gramophone. Jerome sat nearest the instrument, where he could without rising, lean over and change the records. And all three of us recall that the selection being played at the moment was "I Am Climbing Mountains," a sentimental little melody sung by a popular tenor. Certainly the piece was far from being melancholy, mysterious, or otherwise likely to attract the occult.
I remember that we played it twice, and it was just as the singer reached the beginning of the final chorus that Charlotte, who sat nearest the door, made a quick move and shivered, as though with cold.
From where I sat, near the dining-room door, I could see through into the hall. Charlotte's action made me think that the door might have become unlatched, allowing a draught to come through. Afterwards she said that she had felt something rather like a breeze pass her chair.
In the middle of the room stood a long, massive table, of conventional library type. Overhead was a heavy, burnished copper fixture, from which a cluster of electric bulbs threw their brilliance upward, so that the room was evenly lighted with the diffused rays as reflected from the ceiling. Thus, there were no shadows to confuse the problem.
The chorus of the song was almost through when I heard from the direction of the table a faint sound, as though someone had drawn fingers lightly across the polished oak. I listened; the sound was not repeated, at least not loud enough for me to catch it above the music. Next moment, however, the record came to an end; Jerome leaned forward to put on another, and Charlotte opened her mouth as though to suggest what the new selection might be. But she never said the words.
It began with a scintillating iridescence, up on the ceiling, not eight feet from where I sat. As I looked the spot grew, and spread, and flared out. It was blue like the elusive blue of the gem; only, it was more like flame--the flame of electrical apparatus.
Then, down from that blinding radiance there crept, rather than dropped a single thread of incandescence, vivid, with a tinge of the colour from which it had surged. Down it crept to the floor; it was like an irregular streak of lightning, hanging motionless between ceiling and floor, just for the fraction of a second. All in total silence.
And then the radiance vanished, disappeared, snuffed out as one might snuff out a candle. And in its stead--
There appeared a fourth person in the room. _