Part 1

Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

HENRY HORN'S X-RAY EYE GLASSES

by DWIGHT V. SWAIN

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories December 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

[Sidenote: Henry Horn had a new invention; a pair of glasses that worked on the x-ray principle. But he didn't expect them to reveal Nazi secret agents and their works of sabotage!]

"It's not enough to have a nudist colony move in next door!" fumed Professor Paulsen. "No, indeed! That wouldn't disrupt things enough. Now, in addition, every ne'er-do-well in the county comes prowling over our farm in order to spy on the naked numbskulls!"

Scowling ferociously, the gaunt scientist stamped violently back across the meadow's lush verdure toward the little country home he shared with his partner, Henry Horn. Beside him, matching his own long strides, came the savant's old friend, Major Ray Coggleston of Army Intelligence.

"None of us can hope for a bed of roses all the time, Joe," Coggleston remarked, grinning at the professor's outburst. "'Into each life some rain must fall,' you know. You've got trespassers to bother you. Me, I'm responsible for protecting one of the biggest explosives laboratories in the country against Axis espionage and sabotage."

Instinctively, as he spoke, the officer's eyes sought out the long, low Ordnance experiment station, barely a mile away. Professor Paulsen, following the glance, nodded.

"You're right," he agreed. "And when you come right down to it, my worries over the nudist camp back there"--he jerked his head toward the high board fence which marked the boundary--"aren't very important. Not with a war in progress."

By now the two were in the yard and rounding the corner of the house.

The next instant they stopped dead in their tracks.

There, in the shade of the building, stood a slight, familiar figure. A figure which, at the moment, was the center of attention for a little knot of interested spectators.

"Oh, yes, gentlemen, it certainly does work!" cried Henry Horn enthusiastically, his scraggly goatee jerking spasmodically with each nod of emphasis. He waved the battered pair of binoculars he clutched in his right hand. "Yes, it's a marvelous invention. You can see everything you want to, just like you were right inside that camp. And only a dollar for a minute's look!"

The professor's face jumped to beet red, then apoplectic purple. His fists clenched, and the sound he made as he sucked in his breath closely resembled that of a cow pulling her foot out of a mudhole. He started forward.

Major Coggleston choked off an incipient frame-racking spasm of mirth barely in time. He caught the tall scientist's arm.

"See you later, Joe!" he snickered. "I've got to get back on duty. There's a new super-explosive being tested, and I'm supposed to be on hand."

"All right. Later." Professor Paulsen grated the words through clenched teeth, but it is doubtful that he was even conscious of speaking. His eyes were focussed straight at Henry in a horrible glare, and the smoke of indignation hovered about him in clouds.

* * * * *

"Only a dollar, gentlemen!" cried Henry, oblivious to all this new attention. "It's just like going inside the camp. Really it is!"

"He's right, boys!" broke in a burly, red-headed character. "Those glasses of his are better than a seat on the fence." And, turning to the little man: "I'll even buy 'em from you. How much'll you take?"

"You see, gentlemen?" whooped Henry, steel-rimmed spectacles nearly sliding off the end of his nose in his excitement. "The gentleman says my invention is everything I say it is--"

"_Henry!_"

The little man jumped as if a red-hot flatiron had just been applied to that portion of his trousers designed for sitting.

"Urghk!" he exclaimed profoundly.

"You prying Piltdown[1]!" flamed the professor. "Is there anything you won't do for money?" A moment of thunderous silence. "I'm surprised you're not doing a fan dance yourself, if these would-be Peeping Toms are willing to pay for nakedness."

The red-headed man guffawed.

"And you!" exploded the savant, turning on the spectators. "Get out of here! Yes, all of you, you riffraff! I won't have you on the place!"

Henry's potential customers fled before the Paulsen wrath like chaff before the wind, leaving the quaking little entrepreneur to face his fate alone. He stood braced against the verbal cloud-burst, eyes squeezed tight shut behind steel-rimmed glasses, goatee sticking straight out.

"For days these snoopers have driven me half-crazy!" raged the professor. "I've tried every trick I could think of to keep them out. I've put signs forbidding trespassing on every tree. I've threatened mayhem and murder. Yet still they come!"

"But Joseph--"

"Keep quiet 'til I'm finished, you disgrace to science!" The lean scholar ran trembling fingers through his greying hair. Then:

"And now--today! Major Coggleston and I go down to the end of the meadow to drive three of the sneaking human dung beetles away from knot-holes. When we get back, what do we find?"

"Joseph, please--"

"We find you--my colleague, my partner, my friend! You--peddling the use of your binoculars to the slimy creatures!" He glared savagely at his victim. "If you were in Paris, Henry Horn, you'd be selling French postcards to tourists!"

* * * * *

Still purple with rage, the savant turned away. Stared dourly back toward the high board fence that surrounded the nudists.

The next instant he jerked as stiff as if an electric shock had jolted through him.

"Henry!"

"Yes, Joseph." The other's voice was meekly plaintive as he awaited a renewal of the diatribe.

"Henry, that fence is between us and the nudists! How could you see them, binoculars or not?"

Henry's face brightened. His goatee moved to a more confident angle.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you, Joseph," he explained. "It's my new invention--"

"Invention!" There was a hysterical note in the way Professor Paulsen exclaimed the word. "Please, Henry, not that! Don't tell me you've been inventing again--"

His little colleague bristled.

"And why shouldn't I be inventing, Joseph Paulsen?" he demanded querulously. "My inventions are mighty valuable. Why my new explosive--"[2]

"--Which you ran onto quite by accident, and which turned out not to be an explosive at all," the professor cut in grimly.

"Well, the government--"

"The government doesn't have to live with you. Nor to put up with your 'inventive' ways." Henry's tall partner was fierce in his vehemence. "You've cited one of your devil's devices that turned out well. Well, now let me mention a few. Remember what happened when you decided to find the universal solvent[3]?"

"But scientists all make mistakes sometimes, Joseph--"

"And how about that time you wiped out every peony within ten miles? Was that a mistake too?"

"Honestly, I didn't think it would kill anything but ragweed," Henry sniveled miserably.

"Of course it was all an accident when you rendered every one of our guinea pigs sterile, wasn't it?" sneered the other. "That was a nice invention, Henry. All it did was to cut off our income for months on end, and nearly destroy our reputation for reliability as breeders of laboratory guinea pigs."

"Oh, Joseph!" Henry's voice was an abject wail. His goatee hung limp and bedraggled. "You know I didn't mean any harm any of those times. Really I didn't. I just want to be a scientist--" Again he began sniveling.

Professor Paulsen, still glaring, opened his mouth to denounce his partner further. Then, thinking better of it, he relaxed and put his arm around Henry's quivering shoulders.

"Do you think I like to talk to you like this?" he asked, leading the way toward the porch. "Do you think it's pleasant for me?" Wearily, he shook his head. "I hate to be shouting at you all the time, Henry. It's just that patience will stretch only so far. Then it snaps."

A pause.

"I keep thinking you'll learn by experience, Henry. That you'll realize you can't be forever blowing the roof off the laboratory, or Lord knows what else, and quit fooling around with things you don't understand.

"But instead, you go right on. You dabble into some new branch of science, and a cloud of trouble sweeps down on us like a typhoon on Zamboanga."

* * * * *

Together, the friends climbed the porch steps and took seats on the ancient but comfortable wicker settee.

Henry darted a quick glance at his partner. Saw that the professor's face once more was placid; that the storm was over. Unconsciously, the little man's goatee perked up. He readjusted his steel-rimmed glasses to a more stable position.

"Honestly, Joseph, this time my invention can't do any harm," he ventured. "Really it can't."

For a moment fire flashed in the scientist's eyes. Then faded again.

"All right, Henry. What is it this time?"

Henry extended the binoculars.

"Here, Joseph. Look at the nudist camp."

"But the fence--"

"Please, Joseph. Go ahead and look."

"Oh, all right--"

The professor raised the field glasses.

The next instant he nearly dropped them.

"What on earth--!"

"See, Joseph?" shrilled Henry. "Isn't it a wonderful invention? Isn't it?"

His tall partner took down the binoculars and stared at them in blank amazement, his face a puzzled mask.

"I'd swear I saw right through that fence!" he gasped. "I looked right into the middle of a whole pack of nudists!"

"Of course!" Henry was bubbling with delight. "That's why I call them my X-ray eyeglasses. You can see through anything with them." He took the glasses from the professor. Again leveled them at the nudist colony.

Then, giggling:

"Doesn't that blonde girl have the cutest--"

"Henry!"

"Oh, all right." The little man returned the binoculars to his partner, who studied them with interest.

"Just what principle do these things work on, Henry?" he asked curiously.

Henry beamed. His goatee was at its jauntiest, most confident angle. The light of triumph played in his eyes.

"Really, Joseph, it's quite simple," he proclaimed. "There are lots of rays that go through anything, you know, except maybe lead. So I just developed a special glass that translated those rays into images, instead of just using the light rays. It was easy. The only thing you have to be careful of is to focus real close, because otherwise you'll look right through the thing you want to see--"

"Simple!" choked the scientist. "Easy! Henry, I hope you kept complete notes this once." He raised the glasses again. Studied a signboard on the nearby road.

"Oh, yes, I've got good notes, Joseph--"

"And you still need a concave eyepiece, so that the images won't reverse," Professor Paulsen interrupted. "The way it works now, pictures are all right, but 'CAMELS' are spelled 'SLEMAC'."

* * * * *

Henry sniffed contemptuously.

"That's nothing," he retorted. "I've got it figured out already. Only it'll take a special lens, not just a concave one. Because now it doesn't just reverse letters like a mirror; it transposes them--"

"All right, all right!" The professor threw up his hands in despair. "This is one time you've invented something worth while, and you seem to have some kind of notion of how it works, for a change."

"How you talk!" Henry was suddenly cocky. He sneered. "I always know how my inventions work--"

His gaunt friend glowered.

"I was afraid of this," he grunted. "Give you half a compliment and there's no living with you." Then: "However, I won't waste time and energy bringing you down to earth right now. The main thing is, get your notes together. I want you to show them to Major Coggleston tonight; I think maybe the army can use this invention of yours."

And, as Henry again raised the glasses in the direction of the nudist camp:

"But get rid of those glasses for now. I don't want to catch you ogling blonde beauties, or any other kind. Those people in that camp put up that fence because they wanted privacy. So put those binoculars away right now. Do you understand?"

"Oh, all right," fretted Henry. "I'll get rid of them."

Dinner was a thing of the past, and Major Coggleston, Professor Paulsen and Henry were settled comfortably on the front porch, enjoying the quiet of the summer evening.

"If these glasses of yours work as well as you say they do, the Army certainly can use them," commented the major thoughtfully. "Such an invention would completely revolutionize espionage and its counter-measures. Nothing would be safe! Why, a spy could stand half-a-mile from the laboratory I'm supposed to be protecting, look through the walls to the records room, and steal the formulae for our latest explosives right from under our noses, with none of us the wiser."

"Yes." The professor nodded. "I can see how much it would mean. That's why I had you over tonight--wanted you to have a chance to investigate." A pause. "By the way, how's the work coming at the laboratory?"

"Better than we'd hoped for, Joe. We've got a young fellow in charge who's a genius on explosives." The major hesitated for a moment, then continued: "Confidentially, I understand he's just developed a new powder that makes TNT look like something to use for loading firecrackers. It's the greatest thing in years. The Nazis and Japs would give their eye-teeth for it. It's simpler to make than gunpowder, even--"

_Brrrnng!_

"I'll answer," said Henry. He skittered inside to the telephone.

A minute later he was back.

"It's for you, Major Coggleston."

* * * * *

The officer hurried to answer. When he returned, his face was tense with worry.

"Something's wrong!" he rapped. "It looks like the Nazis have made a play for that formula already! I've got to get right back to the laboratory!"

Henry and the professor still were excitedly discussing this news when, half an hour later, the 'phone rang again. This time the tall scientist answered. He returned to the porch frowning.

"That was Coggleston," he reported. "Apparently the spy didn't get the formula, but he made a clean getaway, and he killed a sentry to do it."

"Oh, that's terrible!" Henry was afire with indignation. "Of all things! Killing a sentry--"

"Yes." The professor nodded. "The trouble is, Coggleston says they don't have much to go on. No description, except that he was big and had red hair--"

"Red hair!"

"Yes. Red hair." The savant eyed Henry suspiciously. "Why does that surprise you so?"

"Why ... er ... oh, it doesn't. I mean--"

"What do you mean?"

"Really, Joseph, it's nothing." The little man squirmed nervously, his goatee hanging guiltily to one side. "I'm not surprised at all. Really I'm not!"

"Oh, you're not, aren't you?" Professor Paulsen started across the room with grim determination, his eyes sharp. "Well, then--"

"Joseph--"

The scientist reached for his colleague's shoulder. But the shoulder slipped away. Henry dived frantically for the doorway.

"Oh, no, you don't!"

* * * * *

Spinning about with surprising agility, the professor's hand speared out. It stabbed home to its goal on Henry's chin with deadly aim. Caught the little man's goatee in a grip that stopped his headlong rush dead still.

"Joseph!" screamed Henry, his eyes filling with tears. "Stop it! You're hurting!"

"And I intend to keep right on hurting until I get the truth out of you, you amoeba-brained atom!" thundered the other. "I can smell your lies a block away--and this is one time you're not going to get away with it! Now: tell me who the red-headed man was."

"I don't know, Joseph! Really--"

Professor Paulsen gave his colleague's chin-whiskers a savage jerk.

"I want the truth!" he rapped. "Hurry up! Tell me!" He jerked again.

"Oh! Ow! Joseph, please! Oh, let me go! I'll tell--"

"You bet you'll tell!" grated his friend. "It's one thing to let you get away with making a fool of me. But when it comes to tampering with the United States Army--" And then, breaking off: "All right. Why did you jump so when I mentioned the spy was believed to have red hair?"

"Well...." Henry squirmed some more. He tried hard to look dignified despite the professor's grip on his goatee, but failed miserably.

"Out with it!"

"It's really nothing, Joseph--"

"Out with it, I say!"

"Ow! Joseph, stop!" And then: "It's just ... the man who bought my X-ray glasses had red hair--"

"The man who bought your X-ray glasses!"

"Joseph! You're hurting!"

"What do you mean, 'the man who bought your X-ray glasses'?" The professor thrust his gaunt face to within an inch of Henry's, his eyes like steel gimlets. "If you tell me you've sold those glasses, you misbegotten moron--"

"But Joseph!" Henry struggled to free himself. "You told me to get rid of them. You warned me not to use them."

"I never told you to sell them! You knew I wanted to talk to Coggleston about their use to the army--"

"Yes, but you didn't tell me _not_ to sell them. And I had all my notes, and knew just how to make another pair, and so when the red-headed man offered me fifty dollars for them--"

But Professor Paulsen had ceased to listen. Already he was on the telephone and calling Major Coggleston. Tersely he explained the situation.

Then:

"Could he have gotten the formula, Ray? Was it anywhere he could see it through those devil's glasses?" And, a moment later: "Oh. Coggleston, I can't tell you how sorry I am--"

"What did he say?" Henry demanded excitedly as the other hung up. "Is it all right, Joseph--"

"No." The scientist shook his head, eyes dark with worry. "Coggleston says we can be practically certain the spy got that formula. He says the man in charge was having a staff meeting of his aides, and they had it written out on a blackboard for discussion."

"Joseph--"

"Ray's on his way over now. He wants to ask you some questions about the man's description--"

* * * * *

Even as the words left the savant's mouth, they heard a car roar up the driveway. Major Ray Coggleston hurried in the door, a sergeant at his heels. He wasted no time on preliminaries.

"What did he look like?" he demanded.

"Well, he had red hair...."

"Yes, yes. We know that."

"He was pretty big. Almost as tall as Joseph."

"Yes. Go on."

"I guess he talked sort of loud."

"Got it."

Henry hesitated. Tugged at his goatee, his face screwed with concentration.

"Really, Major Coggleston, that's about all I can remember about him," he said at last.

The officer swore. He paced the floor in a frenzy of anxiety.

"We've nothing to go on!" he fumed. "The description's meaningless. It could fit any one of a thousand men in this area. We don't even know where to start to hunt."

"Excuse me, major--" gulped Henry.

The military man whirled on him.

"What is it? Have you thought of something else?"

"Why, about where to start to hunt--"

"Yes?"

"Why don't you try the nudist camp?"

"The nudist camp?" Professor Paulsen exploded. "Are you completely crazy, Henry? Why would a spy be in a nudist camp?"

Henry glared back at him.

"No, I'm not completely crazy," he snapped peevishly. "And I don't know what a spy is doing in a nudist camp, but that's where he was when I sold him my glasses." He sniffed. "Really, Joseph, I get awfully tired of your acting like you were the only one around here who was half smart."

But Major Coggleston interrupted.

"Let's get this straight," he pleaded. "Where did you meet this red-headed man? How'd you come to sell him the glasses?"

"Oh, that?" Henry sniffed so hard his glasses slid down his nose. "Why, he was one of the men who was out peeking at the nudists." He turned to Professor Paulsen. "You remember, Joseph. He's the one who said I was telling the truth about my X-ray eyeglasses being able to look through the fence."

"Yes, heaven preserve me, I remember!" groaned the professor. "But why didn't I think--"

"So he asked me to sell him my glasses," Henry continued. "And when Joseph told me to get rid of them, I took them over to the nudist camp and sold them to him for fifty dollars."

"But how'd you know he was in the nudist camp?"

"How?" Henry's goatee jerked with contempt. "How would I know anyone was there? I saw him. He was right behind the blonde with the cute--"

"Henry!"

"Oh, all right. Anyhow, he was right behind a blonde girl. I saw him when I looked through my glasses while I was showing Joseph how to use them."

* * * * *

Again Major Coggleston paced the floor. His face was lined with worry. He bit nervously at his lip.

"I'll be damned if I know what to do!" he exploded. "I've got to find that spy. But I can hardly seize a whole nudist camp just because a red-headed man bought a pair of binoculars."

"Couldn't you ask that all red-headed men be brought to the gate?" suggested Professor Paulsen.

"No." The officer shook his head. "If the man we want is there, that would tip him off."

"Excuse me, sir," broke in the sergeant who accompanied Major Coggleston, "but why not just search the whole place with the men you've got detailed for guard duty? It wouldn't be much of a job."

The major nodded.

"If I have to, that's just what I plan," he replied. "However, there are women in that camp. Nude women. And, frankly, I don't hanker after any of the kind of publicity which undoubtedly would result from such a search. So I want to avoid it if I can."

"Then what--"

"I'll go in alone! That's it!" Major Coggleston straightened, suddenly decisive. "Sergeant, go back to the laboratory and round up all but a skeleton guard. Bring them back to the nudist camp and surround it. Don't let anyone escape! Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir. I am to surround the nudist camp with our men as soon as possible, leaving only a skeleton guard on the laboratory."

"Right. On your way."

The sergeant strode out, and a moment later the car in the driveway roared to life. And back in the house, the major drew a deep breath.

"Well, I'm off!" he snapped. "Wish me luck!"

"Wait!" bleated Henry, his goatee waggling excitedly.

"What's the matter?"

"I'm going with you!"

"You?" Major Coggleston stared. "What for?"

Henry started in indignation at the other's tone. He drew himself to his full height and thrust his chin out aggressively.

"'What for?'" he mimicked. "Hmmph! Let me ask you a question, Mister Officer: how are you going to identify the man who bought my glasses if I'm not along?"

The major considered this. Then, at last:

"All right. I guess you'll have to come."

"Then so do I."

It was Professor Paulsen.

"Joe, there's no need to talk like that," Major Ray Coggleston began.

"If Henry goes, I go," the savant reiterated stubbornly. "He gets in enough jams with me around to look after him. Lord knows what he'd do if he got away from me."

* * * * *

And so it was, ten minutes later, that the three appeared at the main gate of the Sunset Glow Nudist Colony: Let Old Sol Bring You Health. From within the fenced enclosure came the glow of firelight and the sound of festivities. A burly short-clad gateman was on duty.

"Well?" he demanded.

Major Coggleston displayed his credentials.

"You've got a man in there whom we suspect of being a spy," he explained. "We've got to come in and investigate."

The gateman hesitated and chewed his lower lip.

"O.K.," he said finally. "Ditch your clothes in the brush, over there."

"Ditch our clothes!"

"Sure." The gateman nodded determinedly. "You didn't think you could come in the way you are, did you?"

"But we represent the United States Government--"

"I don't give a damn who you represent." The gateman was adamant. "If you want to enter Sunset Glow, you'll do it in bare skin or not at all."