CHAPTER TWO
Death delivered
After the explosion within his domestic sphere an abysmal calm settled on Gyron de London. He had admitted to himself that the real reason for his unusual outburst could be traced to nerves, and the nerves to the threats he had received. It was necessary therefore to cut the thought of the notes right out of his consciousness. He must behave as though they had never existed.
He might possibly have succeeded in this intention, had it not been for the fact that upon reaching his office the following morning he found a further message awaiting him, bearing the customary Martian mail stamp.
Miss Turner made it plain what she was thinking though she did not actually comment. de London ripped open the envelope and read the message through quickly. It said:
MARCH 30th. THIS IS IN CASE YOU MAY HAVE THOUGHT THAT THE EARLIER MESSAGE WAS A JOKE. IT WAS NOT, AS IN THREE WEEKS YOU WILL HAVE AMPLE OPPORTUNITY TO DISCOVER. THE MASTER MUST DIE!
“Another?” Miss Turner asked quietly, and her employer gave her a bleak look.
“Damned well obvious, isn’t it? I can’t imagine what the Commissioner of Police is doing. It’s time he had got this absurd business in hand— Put me through to him.”
Miss Turner switched on the visiphone and within seconds de London was looking at the Commissioner’s face on the scanning screen. Miss Turner hovered, until she met her employer’s steely eyes.
“You can get out,” he said, and waited until she had done so; then he gave his attention to the ’phone. “I’ve had a fresh threat this morning, Commissioner. Whoever it is seems to mean it. How far have you got in solving the business?”
“Nowhere, sir. I’m not a magician, and these things take time.”
“I don’t want excuses, Commissioner; I want results. If I don’t get them there’ll be trouble— What happened in regard to my son and his half-breed wife? Did you locate them?”
“Yes, sir, I did. I engaged them in conversation in the lounge of the Trident Hotel. In the best unofficial way I could I tried to learn something from them, but was unsuccessful.”
“And that was the best you could do?” de London barked.
“I have not the power to do anything more, sir. I have nothing specific to hang on to either of them—”
“Then find something. I’m becoming more sure than ever that that wife of my son is back of it. She’s half-Martian, she hates me, and she’s damned clever behind her pose of youthful innocence. Pin her down somehow. Break her!”
“Yes, sir,” the Commissioner promised, patiently. “And I also have our interplanetary men checking up on the other leads you gave me.”
de London muttered something uncivil and switched off. As be sat thinking Miss Turner came in again.
“Your chauffeur, Rogers, wishes to see you, sir,” she announced.
“He what?” de London started. “What the devil’s he doing here? He ought to be back at the estate doing some work— All right, show the fool in.”
In a moment or two Rogers entered, peaked uniform cap in his hand. de London fixed him with an arctic stare.
“Well?” he demanded.
The chauffeur came forward, no expression on his wooden face. From his uniform he took an envelope, the flap of which was torn, and put it on the desk. It had the Martian mail stamp.
“I thought I’d better come back right away with this, sir. It had arrived by the second mail when I returned from bringing you here. It’s another…warning.”
Smouldering to himself the industrialist whipped the message from the envelope and scowled at it:
YOU HAVE NOT LONG TO WAIT FOR FREEDOM. YOUR MASTER WILL BE DEAD AS PROMISED BY MIDNIGHT ON MARCH 30th. THIS IS IN CASE MY EARLIER COMMUNICATION FAILED TO REACH YOU.
THE MASTER MUST DIE!
“I do not understand,” de London said slowly, “why this blasted upstart always has to communicate with you at the same time as communicating with me. What business is it of yours?”
“I don’t know, sir. I’m as puzzled as you are.”
“I wonder…” de London’s veiny eyes slitted. “This upstart keeps speaking of you getting your ‘freedom’. What kind of stories have you been spreading abroad about me? Been making me out to be a tyrant?”
“Certainly not, sir. I know my station.”
“It’s to be hoped you do. If you ever talk out of turn, Rogers, I’ll smash you into small pieces. You’ll never get another job anywhere on this planet. You’ll finish up as a space machine rocketman, maybe. There’s nothing lower than that.”
Rogers was silent, not as much as a flicker crossing his carven visage.
“I’ll keep this note,” de London decided, after a pause. “The Commissioner is handling things so he’ll need this one along with mine.”
“Very good, sir. I take it, from what you say, that you have had a second warning?”
“I have: this morning. Not so much a second warning as a reminder of yesterday’s. By God, if only I could get my hands on the swine who’s back of this…”
Rogers hesitated, then: “It is hardly my place to point an accusing finger at a possible suspect, sir,” he apologised, “but did you ever think of…your son’s wife?”
“Owena Tirgard, that used to be? Before the marriage?”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Harry’s wife. I just happened to think—she being of half-Martian origin, and then the things she said about you on the way home yesterday—”
“Eh? What’s that?” de London’s eyes sharpened. “Said about me?”
“Yes, sir. She must have known that I couldn’t help but hear her because it was when I picked her and Mr. Harry up at the spaceport in the helicopter to bring them home—”
“Be damned to that! What did she say?”
“I can’t remember the exact words, sir, but it was to the effect that you deserved blotting out—that was her expression—for the way you’d stopped Mr. Harry’s money. Your son remonstrated with her when he realised I must be listening, but she only repeated her statement and said that one day, and perhaps soon, you’d get all that was coming to you.”
“And then?”
“She said no more, sir. I drove her and Mr. Harry home in the helicopter after that.”
The industrialist nodded slowly, his lips tight; then looked at the chauffeur across the desk.
“Normally, Rogers, I wouldn’t dream of discussing private issue like this with you—but circumstances alter cases. You have received notes as well as me, so you knot all the facts. I am suspicious of Mrs. de London junior, yes—so much so I told her last evening to get out of my house, and my son too. I shall see to it that the Commissioner hears of this latest development. It strengthens the case against my son’s wife very considerably.”
“Yes, sir.” Rogers half turned to go; then turned back. “Am I permitted to make a suggestion, sir? Concerning your safety, I mean?”
“Suggest all you like. I don’t have to accept it.”
“Well, sir, if this Martian young lady is back of thin; she can very probably carry out her threat on the thirtieth of March. In fact she’ll be far more able to carry it out than any Earth person. The Martians are extremely clever scientists.”
“I know that, you damned fool.”
“Well, sir, that being so, this woman might find ways and means of killing you which would escape detection by Earth experts. Your one way of defeating anything like that would be to put yourself in an impregnable position on March thirtieth. It seems pretty clear nothing will happen before then, so why don’t you fix yourself so that during the twenty-four hours from midnight on the twenty-ninth to midnight on the thirtieth nothing can assail you?”
de London straightened up a little. “Go on talking. Rogers. Maybe you’re not such a wooden-faced bonehead as I’ve always thought.”
“No, sir, maybe not. My father was a scientist, remember, and I have a similar bent myself. I was just thinking, if this woman uses radiations or ultrasonics, or something like that, to kill you they’d be invincible and untraceable. Their effects might even be put down to heart failure. If, though, you put yourself in a radiation-proof chamber of tungsten steel, on the lines of a bank strong-room, and had the place surrounded by armed guards throughout the twenty-four hours, nothing could kill you.”
“Perhaps,” de London mused, “you really have an idea there, Rogers.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“The only thing which puzzles me is, why are you so anxious to save me from being killed? You don’t love me any more than anybody else does. What’s behind it?”
Rogers shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking of you particularly, sir, but the scientific angle. If a Martian is planning to kill you, it will be a great triumph for Earth’s foresight to defeat the intention. At least, that’s how I look at it.”
“I see. All right, I’ll think it over. Now get back to work.”
“Very good, sir.” Rogers turned and departed silently, leaving de London in deep thought. Finally he nodded to himself and pressed the intercom.
“Miss Turner? Send Dr. Matthews in to me right away.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dr. Matthews was head of the scientific division in the vast de London enterprises and had his quarters elsewhere in this enormous edifice. After a lapse of ten minutes he arrived—a tall, composed man with a beaked nose and deep-set eyes.
“’Morning, sir.” He hated de London as much as everybody else. “Anything wrong?”
“Nothing beyond the fact that my life has been threatened, and possibly by a Martian who may use ultra-scientific methods to dispose of me.”
“Indeed?” Matthews’ brows rose as he was motioned to a chair. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“No you’re not, so don’t waste time. I’ve just been thinking of a possible way to circumvent what appears to be a very genuine threat on my life. Suppose radiations were used, or ultrasonic vibrations: can insulation against them be provided?”
“Very simply, sir—yes. The most penetrative radiation that can be used is in the cosmic ray order and in these days Lead J2 is the answer to that. It’s a new type of lead composite, one-foot thickness of which will block all radiation, including cosmic. We use it on the space ships, as you’re aware.”
“I’ve heard of it,” de London admitted, though in truth he had not. He had never heard of anything much outside the jingle of money. “I take it, then, that if a chamber like a strong room were built entirely of tungsten steel, with a lining of Lead J2, nothing could get through it?”
“Nothing, sir.” Matthews shook his head with profound emphasis. “We know the range of nearly all Martians’ wavelengths and radiations and they certainly would not get through that!”
de London gave a grim smile. “That suits me fine. I want you to get engineers to work immediately to convert half of this office into the kind of strong, insulated room I have outlined. No windows, no anything—just an absolutely hollow cube with a small airlock for entry. Not even a ventilator. Put in an air-conditioning plant, same as are used on spaceships.”
“Very well, sir.” It was not Matthews’ job to question his employer’s orders. “I’ll put the outline to our chief draughtsman and have him draw a preliminary plan for your approval.”
“Do that,” de London nodded, and Matthews promptly left the office.
By late afternoon, by which time de London was in a much happier frame of mind, the sketch was finished. Matthews himself brought it and laid it on the desk. It was not a complicated layout by any means. There was the steel cube with its hollow interior, the inside area measuring twelve feet by twelve by twelve. Furniture consisted of a wooden table and a type of camp bed. Nothing more.
“Design’s all right,” de London said finally, “but I shan’t have any furniture. If I sit anywhere it’ll be on a rubber cushion which I can inflate myself.”
Matthews looked surprised. “But, sir, for twenty-four hours! You must have something on which to sleep, and a table at which to eat.”
“In that twenty-four hours, Matthews, I’ll be too damned uneasy to sleep. As for food, sandwiches can be brought by one of the guards, or something. Maybe not even that in case there is a chance to poison them. In regard to the furniture, it might leak out that I’m using it in the safety room and something might be concealed in the table or chairs to kill me. No! Just myself, the clothes I have on at that time, and a rubber cushion. That is the limit.”
“Very well, sir. You wish me to put this in hand for construction?”
“Make it tomorrow. I have somebody else yet who ought to see this plan—just to vet it.”
“As you wish, sir. I await your pleasure…” and the scientist went back to his quarters.
The ‘somebody else’ to whom de London had referred was, of course, Rogers. In normal circumstances de London would never have dreamed of taking the chauffeur- cum-handyman into his confidence but in this case he might be able to suggest even more ideas for defeating any lethal enterprise.
So he was shown the sketch before de London departed from the office in the helicopter. Rogers arrived in the normal way at 5.30 to announce to his employer that the helicopter awaited him.
“Apparently, sir, this will do all that is required,” he agreed, after considering the sketch carefully. “I notice one point has been neglected—an essential one.”
“Oh? What’s that?” de London looked surprised.
“I assume, sir, you do not wish to sit in the dark for twenty-four hours? When that airlock has been sealed from the inside by you there will be total darkness within the cube and no provision has been made for electric light.”
“I’ll be damned! Surprising how the vital spots get missed. I’ll have that attended to. Anything else?”
“Not that I observe, sir. If I might be permitted to think it over—”
“Yes, do that. Tomorrow morning let me know—”
“Oh, Mr. de London…”
The tycoon turned quickly. Miss Turner had been standing some little distance away, waiting for the conversation to finish. Now she came forward, as angular and unbeautiful as ever.
“Well?” de London snapped, annoyed that she had had a chance to see what was going on.
“That letter to Amalgamated Copper, sir. Is it to go electronically or ordinary mail?”
“Electronic—for speed. Anything else?”
“No, sir. I just wanted to be sure.”
de London compressed his lips as the secretary went back to her own quarters, then he picked up the sketch and thrust it into his pocket. Rogers held the door open for him and then followed up to the ’plane park on the roof.
And by the next morning, since no new ideas seemed to have dawned on Rogers, the sketch was handed over to Matthews with instructions to have the engineers go to work immediately. There was no trouble about this: when the Master gave an order—and one of such urgency—no effort was spared to carry it out. And, since de London had given the deadline as two weeks, engineers worked night and day in order that there could be no delay.
With intense inner satisfaction the tycoon saw the steel room taking shape. The walls were a foot thick with radiation-proof materials, and utterly impenetrable. The electric light was of the standard variety, the wires passing through a tungsten steel tube in the roof of the cube, thereafter being connected to the normal supply wire.
The door was put on last, every bit as massive and difficult to hinge as the door of a strong room, but by the time the engineers had finished it swung with absolute smoothness and latched with easy silence.
During this constructional period the only two intruders to behold the strong room were Miss Turner—who could not help but see it anyway—and Rogers. Since he knew all about it in any case there was no point in hiding it from him. When, at rare intervals a business associate entered the tycoon’s private office he was told that the cube was a new type of strong room for the storage of valuable documents.
So the days passed. There came no more warnings, but nonetheless de London kept his eye on the calendar, and he also selected eight highly trusted men to act as guards during the twenty-four hour period of approaching ‘confinement’. By March 28th the strong room was complete. Nothing remained but for the tycoon to step inside it and shut himself in. Even the bolts of the hermetically sealing door were operated from the inside.
Strong man though he was, however, and despite the fact that he pooh-poohed all the threat that hung around his head, de London was nevertheless human enough to suffer from strain. By the 28th his nerves were in rags, so much so he began to wonder if death were, perhaps, going to come by natural causes and that the unknown had foreseen such a possibility.
On the 29th de London visited a specialist for a complete overhaul, fully fearing the worst from the diagnosis.
“Been having extra business worries recently, London?” the specialist asked, when he had finished probing with his instruments.
“Not exactly.” The tycoon hesitated. “Business is more or less satisfactory. What worries I have had have been domestic. My son has made an unfavourable marriage for one thing…”
“Mmmm. It’s something more than that. How about smoking?”
“No more than the usual ten cigars a day.”
“I feel,” the specialist said, shrugging, “that you are no being altogether frank with me, London. However, that’s up to you. As to your condition, you need rest. Severe overstrain of nerves and heart. Driving yourself too hard.”
“To keep up with my various commitments I have to, man. I don’t quite understand why this overstrain should suddenly develop. I thought such a condition came in gradually.”
“As a rule it does, which is why I am seeking the cause. Some sudden shock to the system has brought it about. You know in your heart what that ‘something’ is, but prefer not to tell me. That’s it, isn’t it?”
de London evaded the question and instead asked one himself:
“How bad am I? Am I likely to…die?”
“One day, yes—same as all of us. As you are now you’ll last many years yet, provided you take things a little more easily. That’s all I can tell you. There’s a new restorative medicine recently been produced which will do you a world of good. I’ll let you have the prescription before you go. Give me your word you will take it three times a day at ten, two and six o’clock without fail. If you don’t you may terminate your life quicker than I believe.”
The specialist was one man whom even de London could not brush aside, so he gave his promise and had the prescription made up the moment he returned home. Thereafter he delegated the task of being reminded about the times for the medicine to the ever-watchful Rogers.
So to March 29th, a day of tense expectancies and medicine dosages at the correct times. No further warning. Nothing except the grim inevitability of the calendar.
March 30th. Miss Turner, cool and efficient and, somehow—unless de London imagined it in his disturbed state of mind—she seemed to be secretly gloating. Rogers came at ten in the morning and two in the afternoon with the inevitable medicine and found his employer making a desperate effort to keep a grip on himself.
Time and again during the day de London went into the strong room and looked about him. Everything was normal. The walls, ceiling and floor were all radiation-proof steel. No windows. No ventilator. In one corner stood the standard air-conditioning equipment, of the exact type used on all space machines. Nothing suspicious there. Overhead, hanging from the steel tubing, was the electric light, extinguished at the moment of course. Yes, everything here was normal.
It was in mid-afternoon that Miss Turner came in with an announcement that made de London’s face set harshly.
“Your son and his wife to see you, sir.”
“Tell them I’m busy. I never felt less in the mood to see anybody—let alone them.”
“Very well, sir—” Miss Turner turned away to carry out her instructions, but before she could do so the office door opened wider and Harry de London came in, the quiet figure of Owena immediately behind him.
“Just in case you decide against seeing us, dad,” Harry explained dryly, coming forward—and at that de London gave a head-jerk of dismissal to the secretary.
The door closed. de London sat back in his swivel chair, biting on his cigar.
“Well, sit down,” he invited gruffly. “What do you two want? I was under the impression you’d walked out for good to make your own lives.”
“That,” Harry admitted, settling Owena, “was the intention. But things are tougher than I’d expected. I haven’t managed to hold down that job I got.”
“So now you come bleating to me for help, eh?” de London grinned harshly. “I can give you the answer right now, Harry—you’ll not get a cent, or even a word of sympathy, until you throw out this half-breed wife of yours.”
“I expected that,” Harry said bitterly.
“Then why the hell did you come here? Let me remind you, too, that I’m busy. The sooner you both leave the better I’ll like it.”
Owena’s large eyes looked at the magnate steadily for a moment and then turned to Harry.
“You’ll have to do it, Harry,” she said, in her low, gentle voice. “No other course.”
“Afraid you’re right, Owena.” Harry looked at his iron-faced father. “It concerns the affair of Interplanetary Debentures, dad.”
“What about ’em? That matter’s years old.”
“Six years, to be exact. I happen to be the only other person in the world—outside Owena, who knows as well—who can prove that you milked the public of multi-millions on that deal and got away with it. You may remember that, six years ago, I did considerable secretarial work at home for you. I have kept confidence with you all that time—as a secretary should.”
“Well?” de London barked.
“Just this,” Harry replied simply. “I’m no longer a secretary, and I’m desperately short of money.”
The tycoon got slowly to his feet. “Are you daring to threaten me, Harry? Is that it?”
“Harry,” Owena explained, smiling, “is simply trying to make a business deal. It is surely worth say, half-a-million to you to keep the—er—odour of Interplanetary Debentures from reaching the nostrils of the public?”
de London swung on her, his veiny eyes glittering. “You put him up to this, you no-account Martian!”
“Yes,” Owena admitted, quite unshaken. “Harry told me about it some time ago when we were exchanging confidences. It occurred to me that since we need financial backing we must use force since you will not provide it voluntarily.”
“I should have thought,” de London sneered, “that a husband ought to be able to support his wife without recourse to his father!”
“I would be, but for you!” Harry flamed back. “I lost my job because it leaked out that I’m the son of the Master. I used another name, as you asked, but it didn’t do me any good. When the truth came out I was asked to leave. And why? Because you are the most hated man in the city, dad, and any relative of yours is plain poison.”
“So,” Owena added, shrugging, “it deflects the responsibility for our maintenance to you, Mr. de London. I’m sure the deal is a fair one. Five-hundred-thousand in return for silence upon a scandal which could crack your empire from top to bottom.”
“Blackmail,” de London whispered, clenching his fists. “No more than I might expect from a filthy Martian.”
Silence. Harry clenched his fists and his face reddened de London stood scowling and thinking. Owena’s bug eyes moved from the magnate’s sullen, vicious face to the strong room and its wide-open airlock. She gave a peculiar inward smile.
“All right,” de London snapped finally. “You have me in a corner and I have to comply. Frankly, Harry, I don’t believe that you would put such a blackmailing threat into action, but I can’t trust this wife of yours. Five-hundred thousand it is—and where is my guarantee you will be satisfied with that?”
“You have only our word,” Owena said; then she gave a gentle laugh. “How does it feel, Mr. de London, to be in the position of some of your victims? I realise now why you relish the feeling that you can crush, and crush, and crush—”
de London stared at her, his mouth working. He knew he could expect no pity from this woman who was half-Martian and half-Earthian. Though she had seemed to accept his earlier insults lightly she had evidently set herself out to find a method of hitting back—and in a business life such as de London had lived there was plenty to work upon. Now she had struck she had done so with shattering force. It was quite plain, even to de London, that Harry was nothing more than the instrument of Owena’s will.
de London swung, jamming his cigar back between his teeth. He returned to his swivel chair and dragged out his personal cheque book from the desk. Whilst he scribbled he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Harry and the girl drifted over to the strong room and peered inside it. Then they entered and vanished from view.
de London finished writing the cheque and waited, fuming. In a moment or two Harry and Owena reappeared.
“Quite a solid job, Mr. de London,” Owena commented, still with that baffling smile. “It wouldn’t be for storing your more—er—doubtful documents in, would it?”
“Nothing to do with either of you what it’s for. Take this cheque and get out!”
Harry took it, and Owena examined it. They both nodded and then without another word left the office and quietly closed the door.
“That I should have a son like that,” de London whispered. “Lets that damned woman bend him round her little finger. Be different if she had me to deal with— Now what?” he demanded, as Miss Turner came in.
“There are six men here, sir. They say you asked them to report for duty by four this afternoon.”
“Men?” de London struggled to get things into focus. “Oh, yes! My bodyguard! Send them in.”
The secretary departed and presently the six entered. They were all of them six-footers, in the uniform of the city police, and heavily armed. Every man thoroughly to be relied upon. de London had made absolutely sure of that.
“Your orders, men, will not be difficult to carry out,” de London said, eyeing them. “As you are already aware a threat has been made on my life. It may or may not be carried out. At six o’clock this evening I shall enter that strong room yonder and seal it from the inside. Once I have done that two of you will remain in this office, outside the strong room, until I emerge tomorrow morning. Two others will be in the reception office outside, and another two on the main corridor leading to this office suite. That understood?”
The men nodded promptly.
“That’s all,” de London said briefly. “Take up your positions at five-thirty. In the meantime you can pass your time in one of the ante-rooms.”
The men withdrew, and for the rest of the afternoon the tycoon found himself fully engaged in dealing with business matters. It was six o’clock almost before he realised it and the two men who had the task of guarding the exterior of the strong room entered. Miss Turner, picking up the last of the signed letters, glanced at them, then back to de London.
“It’s all right,” the magnate said. “See you in the morning, Miss Turner.”
“I hope so, sir,” she said quietly, giving him a long look—and then she went out.
The tycoon braced himself a little and switched on the intercom. He ordered sandwiches and a drink and then sat back in his chair. The two guards took up a standing position on either side of the open strong room airlock and remained as immovable as sentries.
The sandwiches and tea arrived. de London ate and drank moodily. Many things would perhaps have happened before he had another meal… if he had another meal. He got to his feet and absently pulled a cigar from his case, then remembering the air-conditioning apparatus would not stand up to smoking he put the weed back again regretfully.
He had reached the airlock of the strong room when the office door clicked. Rogers came in, as wooden-faced as ever. de London turned and frowned at him.
“Damn it all, Rogers, you of all men should know I’m not returning home tonight. What do you want?”
“Your medicine, sir. Six o’clock. I have my orders.”
The tycoon smiled wryly. “Of course, the medicine! I’d forgotten it All right. Let me have it.”
He wandered into the strong room and seated himself on the big cushion on the floor, the only comfort he allowed himself. Rogers crossed to the desk, removed the medicine glass from the desk drawer, and from the phial he had with him he poured out the required measure. This done he went into the strong room, the glass in his hand.
Five minutes later he emerged again, still with the glass in his hand, but this time it was empty.
“I will report in the morning, sir,” he said, standing in the airlock. “Seven o’clock, as you have ordered.”
“There are times, Rogers, when I wonder if you’re not the only friend I’ve got,” came de London’s voice.
“Thank you, sir.” For a moment Rogers’ face relaxed into a half-smile, then with a nod to the guards he went on his way.
After a second or two de London appeared in the airlock, grim-faced and sweating.
“This is where I close the hatch,” he said, switching on the solitary electric light. “I’ll come out again tomorrow morning.”
The two men saluted and helped to pull shut the mighty door. They dimly heard the clamps being slammed home, and then there was silence.
Nothing disturbed the peace from there on. The guards remained on duty throughout the still night, guardians of the dark emptiness of the great building.
Seven a.m. came, but there was no sign of the airlock being opened. Rogers arrived, and waited for a while—until 7.30. Then with the guards he tried to make de London hear through the thick walls—without avail.
Engineers were summoned and after two hours the door was burned through far enough to permit of entry. One glance was enough for the men who forced their way in. de London lay on the floor, his head on the fat cushion and the remainder of his gross body on the metal floor.
But one thing was plain to see: he was quite, quite dead.