CHAPTER IV

At nine o'clock that night Rocks was ready to drop from exhaustion. He was not only so tired that the hieroglyphics blurred before his eyes, but he had failed. That hurt worse than anything else. Everything depended on his cracking the lost language, and he had failed.

At nine o'clock it happened.

There were three officers on duty at the museum. They had been sent there as a guard detail and they had brought in a radio so they could listen to the police calls. They had the radio in a room on the first floor, so it would not disturb Rocks.

At nine o'clock one of them came stumbling downstairs. His face was ashen. "Hell's broken loose," he said tersely. "It's coming in over the radio. Come on upstairs if you want to listen. You might as well forget that language now."

Over and over again the announcer was droning. "Calling all cars--Calling all cars--Drop everything and be on the alert. Tragedy in burlesque showhouse. Over three hundred people dead. Cause of death not known. Manager went in to investigate sudden silence. Found audience and cast of show dead. Bodies livid color, as if they had been burned. Clothing falls to ashes when touched. Sergeant Kennedy of the homicide division suggests there is a definite connection between the death of these people and the death of the two Asian Museum archeologists last night. Be on the alert. Take over main intersections and prevent panic. Story already broken in general radio news flash. Cordon being thrown around the theater area. All special details canceled, all squad cars call your stations for definite orders--Be on the alert--Calling all cars--"

Death was walking through Chicago, a horrible, incredible form of death.

Rocks Malone stood without moving, listening to the operator repeat his message. He could scarcely conceive the meaning of the words. "Over three hundred people dead--" Dim pictures flashed to his mind. Out of nowhere, out of nothingness, silence had come. Three hundred people had died. Before they knew what struck them, death had washed over them. Millions of microscopic needles had plunged through their bodies, points of agonizing pain. Then death--

Jerkily, the telephone rang. One of the officers grabbed it. He listened, said "Okay," huskily, and turned to his fellows.

"Station calling. We're to report back there immediately for emergency duty. They're calling us off here. Come on."

The radio was still droning as they went out.

The telephone rang again. It was Penny this time.

"I'm coming down there," she said, "I'm scared. I'm coming down there with you."

"Stay away from here!" Rocks shouted. But she had already hung up. Desperately, he tried to call her back. There was no answer. She had already left. She was driving toward the museum, driving through a night in which death lurked.

Rocks groaned. He went back to the basement. There was nothing he could do. Nothing! The coffee pot was bubbling on its burner. He poured himself a cup of the scalding brew. It burned his throat but it cleared his head.

He went back to work. The language was out. He couldn't crack it. He didn't even have time to try to crack it any more. But there were Morton's notes. He hadn't studied them thoroughly. He had read only those portions of the notes that dealt with the language. He began to go over them again, starting with the section that dealt with the discovery of the box.

Jan. 10, 1940--Morton had written--Discovered today what is unquestionably the tomb of a Sumerian king. Located in a hillside. Cut out of solid rock. Landslide centuries ago had covered entrance. But even more important, in my opinion, than the tomb is the discovery of the strange metal box that we found in a niche at the back. We are unable to determine the metal of which the box is constructed. It is covered with mould but shows no sign of rust or corrosion, which is exceedingly unusual, for this tomb dates back into the past for at least six thousand years.

"Jan. 12, 1940. Box very heavy--must weigh more than a hundred pounds. Frankly, aside from its archeological interest, I am curious to know the contents of this box. There is a possibility of gold or gems. Guess I'm human after all, to be thinking about wealth. Am writing full details to the museum.

"Jan. 15, 1940. Unable to open box. Must have cunning combination lock. Also unable to decipher inscription on it. Don't know this form of writing. No record of it anywhere. This is exceedingly unusual. A completely forgotten language rediscovered."

Rocks Malone went through the notes, reading swiftly, searching, hoping for a clue. Outside in the night death was stalking. And there was a possibility that the clue to the death lay here, in the notes of the dead archeologist.

Penny came in. He went to meet her. She flew to his arms. "It's awful outside," she whispered. "Thousands of people must have heard the news broadcast. Half of them are trying to get to the theater where all those people were killed. The others are trying to get away. Oh, Rocks, have you discovered anything."

He shook his head. She looked again at his unshaven, haggard face, and said nothing.

He went back to the notes Morton had left. With Penny helping, he went through them, down to the last page. "It's no use," he groaned. "Morton didn't know anything about the thing that was in that damned box."

Then he turned the last page. Morton had written that page only yesterday, the day he died.

"Sept. 21, 1940. Succeeded in opening the box today. As I suspected it was closed by a combination lock. Deucedly clever thing, that lock. Not like any lock in use today. Patent rights on it might provide the museum with some of the cash it so badly needs.

"To my great astonishment, and regret, when I opened the box, I found it empty."

Rocks Malone started at the words Morton had written. Penny had been reading over her shoulder. He heard her catch her breath.

EMPTY! The single word seemed to leap out at him. How on earth could Morton make a mistake like that!

There was another line of writing. "Weighed box. Find that it weighs nine pounds less than it did when I brought it here."

In the fleeting flash of a second, Rocks saw the whole picture. Or almost all of it. There were parts that needed clearing up. But he knew at last the real significance of the fact that Morton had weighed the box a second time.

"There's somebody coming!" Penny whispered.

A step had sounded on the stairs outside the room. The door opened. Sharp entered.

He had a traveling bag with him.

Rocks shoved the last page of Morton's notes out of sight, got to his feet. "Hello," he said. "Have you heard the radio?"

"I'll say I have," the business manager answered. "That's why I've got this bag along. I'm getting away from here while I have a chance. It's terrible--what happened to all those people at the theater. For all I know, it might happen to me next. Have you," he paused, "have you found anything that might--might lead to the capture of that horrible beast? That's why I stopped here, before I left town."

"No," Rocks answered. He walked across the basement toward the business manager. He was ten feet away, he was five feet away. He stopped. "One thing we have discovered. Morton's notes. He said in his notes that when he opened the box he found it empty. What do you suppose he meant by that?"

Sharp looked perplexed. "Why, I have no idea. Perhaps he decided that what we saw was an illusion after all."

"I think not," Rocks contradicted. "He would certainly have mentioned any creature such as you described if he had found such a thing in the box. No, I think he meant exactly what he said. When he opened the box, it was empty. That surprised him greatly. It also made him suspicious. So he weighed it, to determine if somebody had already opened it and removed its contents. _What did you find in that box, Sharp!_"

His words were hard and flat. There was no mistaking their challenge.

Behind him he heard Penny whisper. "Oh, Rocks--"

He knew he had made a mistake. He should have waited, let the law handle the situation, let men trained for the task do the job. But Morton had been his friend. And so had McCumber. And Morton and McCumber were dead. And Rocks Malone was not a man to wait for someone else to do what he considered his job.

Sharp stood without moving, his close-set eyes drilling into the young archeologist facing him. A second ticked into nothingness, and another, and another. He was estimating the situation, considering the odds and the chances.

"I'm waiting," Rocks said grimly.

"All right, snoopy," Sharp snarled. "This is what I found in it."

He jerked his bag open. His hand dived into it. It came out of the bag with the strangest looking instrument Rocks had ever seen. Constructed of pale silvery metal, fitted with a series of faceted lenses, it glinted evilly under the lights.

Because of the very nature of the instrument, Sharp handled it clumsily. But there was no mistaking its purpose. He brought it up. Penny screamed.

Rocks stepped forward. His left hand flicked out. All the weight of his body was behind that blow. He drove it straight at Sharp's chin. It would have made Joe Louis bat his expressionless eyes. It would have knocked Sharp's head almost off his shoulders--if it had landed.

That was the trouble. It didn't land. Sharp saw it coming. He ducked down and to one side, fumbling with the instrument he had taken from his bag. The fist skidded across the top of his head. It sent him staggering backward.

"The next time," Rocks gritted. "I won't miss. I'll knock your damned head off, you dirty murderer." He charged.

Sharp brought the instrument up. Pale, scarcely visible flame lanced from it, like a heat wave moving through air. It spurted forward, soundlessly. As it leaped it seemed to absorb, to blot out all sound. There was a sudden heavy silence in the museum basement, the sort of silence that is so real it registers on the ear drums.

Rocks saw the instrument coming up. He kicked himself to one side, in a dancing step. The fringe of lambent flame barely touched him. But that touch sent needles of agony through his body, sucked the life out of him, turned his muscles into lumps of lead, threw him off balance, so that his charge, instead of striking Sharp, barely grazed him. His arms closed around the business manager's body. To keep himself from falling, Rocks clinched.

They wrestled. Sharp could not use the instrument. Rocks was so groggy he could barely hold on. Sharp dug into him with his elbows, kicked viciously at his shins.

If he could only hold on, Rocks thought. The agony was lessening. The groggy shadows were going from his mind. If he could only hold on for another minute.

He was holding on. He was winning. Soft living had made a weakling of Sharp. He would be no match for the rugged, youthful muscles of Rocks Malone, in a fair fight.

Then Sharp struck upward. His fist hit Rocks in the chin. Malone sagged downward. Shaking his head, he grabbed at Sharp again. And missed. And fell to the floor. Before he could move, Sharp had leaped around a table. He had brought the instrument up.

"All right," he husked. "You asked for it, with your snooping. You're going to get it. You and this girl."

Rocks staggered to his feet. He leaned against the edge of the table, panting, fighting for breath and strength. Sharp was across the table from him. He was aiming the instrument.

This time there would be no escaping it. It would point at him and those almost invisible tongues of light would flash out, the deadly silence would smash all sound into nothingness, and millions of microscopic needles would tear through his flesh.

Sharp fumbled for the firing button.

Penny, crouched on the other side of the room, grabbed the handiest object she could find, and threw it. It was the alarm clock. It struck Sharp full in the face, and the alarm, jarred by the impact, went off.

Probably the clang of the alarm bell started Sharp as much as the impact of the clock. Certainly it did not hit him hard enough to harm him. But it did startle him, scare him. He reeled backward.

Rocks cleared the table with a single leap. He went up into the air like a kangaroo and leaped, feet foremost, at Sharp. His feet struck the business manager full in the stomach. Sharp doubled up like a jackknife, and went to the floor. Rocks fell on top of him. He struck viciously with his fists. Sharp cried in pain and Rocks struck harder. The man was down, but he wasn't out. Rocks drew back his fist for the final blow.

It never landed. Down over his shoulder the barrel of a gun flashed. Where it had come from, Rocks did not know. It struck the business manager across the skull.

His head popped like the breaking of a rotten egg. He went limp.

Rocks looked up. Kennedy stood there. He was holding the pistol with which he had struck Sharp, in his hand. He looked to see if he would need to use it again. He saw he wouldn't.

He whirled the gun around on its trigger guard.

"Damn me for a fool," he said. "I could kick myself from here to the Loop and back again. I missed a trick and it cost three hundred people their lives."

"What trick?" Rocks gasped.

"I should have known this gazabo was lying," Kennedy snarled. "I should have known his long cock and bull story about some incredible creature coming out of that box was too fantastic for belief. I should have known he was lying, out damn it, the sight of Morton's body so addled my wits that I was willing to believe the story Sharp told. Oh, he was smooth enough about it. He knew how the weapon he found killed. He knew what it did to Morton's body, and he had to have a fantastic story to account for the way Morton looked. He solved the secret of that box soon after it was brought here. He had a reason for it too. He had been playing the market and he was down on his uppers. If there was a treasure in that box, he wanted first crack at it. He didn't find any treasure in it. Instead he found some kind of a damned weapon in it that came from God alone knows where. When he found Morton had opened the box and was about to catch up with him by weighing the box, he took the obvious out--by killing Morton, using the weapon he had found in the box. He killed McCumber because the old man knew there was something fishy about the box being on the scales. So he killed McCumber--to shut him up."

"But those people in the theater?" Rocks whispered.

Kennedy exploded. "He needed money, needed it bad. I dug this all up in my investigation today. He was trying to sell the weapon he had discovered to the agents of a foreign power. They wanted a demonstration before they would pay off. So he gave them a demonstration. He showed them how efficient a weapon he had for sale--by killing all the people in a theater."

The detective was furiously angry. "And I let myself get taken in by a story of a monster."

Rocks had already picked up the instrument Sharp had found in that box. He was studying it, looking it over. The principle on which it operated, he couldn't begin to guess, but he saw one thing that startled him enormously. He showed it to the detective.

"Great Jehosophat!" Kennedy gasped. "A place for six fingers. Whoever built that damned thing had six fingers."

The Lord of the Silent Death was not an extra-dimensional monster. It was a weapon that killed in utter silence.

* * * * *

The instrument that came out of the box from the tomb of the forgotten Sumerian King is now in Washington, in the secret vaults of the War Department. The experts are studying it, trying to fathom how it works. They have begun to get hints of the principle involved. Only hints, but something to go on. They have discovered that it kills in two ways. The first, and obvious way, is by pointing it directly at its victim. At the theatre he had sprayed the power, full on, across the audience, then across the ensemble on the stage, then as he went out the back had caught all others.

The second way is worse. In Sharp's bag was found a sack of small round objects that look like marbles. All the owner of the weapon needs to do to kill an enemy is to drop one of those bits of glass in the enemy's pocket. Then he can go off several miles and start the weapon. The force it generates is concentrated in the bit of glass, and the silence is instantly generated, the bit of glass being destroyed in the process.

That was the method Sharp used to kill McCumber. As they left the museum, Sharp dropped one of the bits of glass in the pocket of the old archeologist's coat. McCumber had found it, but had attached no significance to it.

The experts hope that the War Department of this country will never need such a weapon. But if it does, it will have it.

But the thing that plagues the experts, that frets the archeologists, that has caused Rocks Malone to tear his hair, is the fact that the weapon was designed to be used by a creature who had six fingers. Not five fingers. Six. And the archeologists are having drizzling fits trying to decide whether there was once a race of six-fingered creatures here on earth, a race that reached tremendous scientific heights, and vanished.

Or was earth once visited by creatures out of space, who left a weapon behind them?

Nobody knows. Possibly nobody will ever know.

But Rocks Malone is preparing to leave for Asia Minor, to dig in the ruins of lost and gone civilizations, searching for another clue to the identity of the lost race.

Penny is going with him.