Part 10

"Oh, Niki will do anything, now, short of murder, to please Henry," I said; "he's hot after that $25,000 reward. But the whole matter to me--now prepare yourself--'ain't what you'd call natural.' If putting a big chimpanzee in our bedchamber de luxe, and giving it valet service, isn't the act of a lunatic, I don't know what is."

"I agree with you," Pat rejoined, "but I'm afraid, as far as Uncle Henry is concerned, the matter is hopeless. We must try to get his point of view."

"No; I'll be darned if I will!" I said to myself. Then I said, aloud: "Anyway, you will lock your door carefully, Pat?"

"I always do," she replied, laughing, and left me.

She had no sooner gone, when McGinity came downstairs, and we had breakfast together. He didn't say very much; apparently he was lost in thought. My mind was too confused to work properly, but while we ate, in strained silence, I was trying to think a way out of all the mess as best I could. Presently, McGinity broke the silence by exclaiming, partly to himself: "That terrible ape in the same house with Pat! Think of it!"

"I have thought, to my own shame, and to the shame of our house," I returned. "But Henry seems to think this visitor from Mars the gentlest thing alive."

"My hands are tied," he said, despondently. "Can't you suggest something?"

"The only thing I can suggest is that you stay on with us, if you can arrange to do your writing here," I said, "as a sort of personal guard for Pat. As Henry seems to have grown rather fond of you, I'm sure he can hold no objection. Of course, not a word to Pat about it."

McGinity sat up suddenly in his chair. "That's a great idea," he exclaimed. "My City Editor just ordered me to stick on the job, and I was planning to stay at a hotel in the village."

"If you were to act as personal guard for Pat," I remarked, "there would be nothing sentimental about it, of course."

"Oh, of course, nothing like that," McGinity replied; and he colored and looked at Pat's white cockatoo, on its perch, by the window, the furniture, the ceiling--anywhere but at me.

"I'm sure I can arrange it with Henry to have you stay," I said. "If he insists on keeping this Teddy Bear, as Pat jokingly calls it, in the house, I'm afraid, I'm sadly afraid, there's going to be trouble. Unpleasantness, at any rate."

McGinity looked me square in the eyes. "Pardon me, Mr. Livingston," he said, "but--is there any insanity running in your family?"

Recalling Jane's admonishment, I hesitated a moment before replying. "Isn't there a chance of an abnormal state of mind bobbing up in any family?" I said at last, and let it go at that.

"Anyway, we've got to keep Pat safe," McGinity said. "And as long as this creature is kept in the house, she should be instructed never to wander round alone, upstairs or downstairs. Why, I've got nerves of steel, myself, but I'll confess that if I bumped unexpectedly into a creature like that, in the dark, I'd run like hell."

At this, Henry entered the picture, remaining just long enough to dash down a cup of black coffee, and to invite McGinity and me down to the beach for a more detailed study of the rocket, and to search for the parchment scroll concealed therein, the deciphering of which he felt would help solve the riddle of Mars.

"I'm mighty glad to have your assistance, McGinity," he said, over his hasty cup of coffee, "and I've been wondering if you could arrange with your newspaper to remain with us, and write your stories here."

McGinity gave me a significant side glance, then replied: "I'm sure I can fix it, Mr. Royce. Thanks a lot for the honor and compliment."

On our way out, Henry further informed us that he had called in the best physician in the neighborhood, who was now at the bedside of the visitor from Mars, rendering every possible medical aid. He seemed rather disgruntled when Pat met us on the terrace, and insisted on accompanying us to the beach. But this mood was quickly offset by the appearance of Olinski, who had raced from the city to the castle as fast as a taxi-cab could get him there, in response to Henry's urgent telephone call.

XV

All that had transpired, of course, was of astounding revelation to Olinski. He could hardly contain himself when we showed him the rocket; in fact, he didn't contain himself. He threw his arms around Henry, and kissed him explosively on both cheeks, after the French manner, much to my brother's embarrassment. Then he began to act half-dotty. But, thanks to his half-dottiness, it was from him, and not from Henry, that we got our first intelligible explanation of the mechanism of this metal messenger from the far reaches of interstellar space.

I can't remember much that he said. I often think back and try to recall his clever explanations of this and that, but with little result. I suppose my mind lacks the scientific twist to understand such matters. I do recall, however, a few of his remarks.

After he had completed his first inspection, he turned to Henry, and said: "There isn't a screw or bolt, in the makeup of this rocket, that resembles those we make on this earth. Their screw-thread runs in reverse order to ours."

"In other words," said Henry, "to drive in a Martian screw you've got to use a reverse motion to ours."

"Precisely," Olinski agreed. "And their bolts are not cylindrical like ours, either, but square-shaped," he continued. "They wouldn't serve their purpose if they were round for the Martians seem only to drill square holes, and they don't use nuts to fasten their bolts. Instead, their bolt seems to have a peculiar form of polarity, capable of attracting to itself a magnetizable substance; in this instance, steel caps, which secure the bolts as firmly in place as our nuts do."

There was a brief pause, following this amazing elucidation, during which I whispered to McGinity: "Do you think it all seems possible?" And he quickly replied: "Screws and bolts cannot speak false."

"Now, it looks to me," Olinski said to Henry, as we gathered closer around him, "as though your contention that all things were created alike in the universe, would also apply to the creative works of men. This rocket, if constructed on Mars--and I certainly believe it was--proves that the minds of human beings, whether they're inhabitants of the earth, or Mars, or any other planet in our universe, run in the same channel, or along similar lines."

"But why should they drive their screws in backwards?" I asked. "I can't understand it. It's so much easier the way we do it here, on earth. It sounds screwy."

Olinski smiled, but could give no explanation. "Now, this rocket," he went on, "is constructed of aluminum, and its cone-shaped nose contains a tiny bulbous chamber, in which the liquid fuel, which appears to be a mixture of highly volatile gasoline and liquid oxygen, burns to form the propulsion gases which shoot downward, like the gases from gunpowder in the ordinary fire-works rocket.

"It may be that this fuel is something we know nothing about," he went on. "Interplanetary travel involves the production of a substance that will produce more energy per pound than is required to lift that pound out of the earth's gravitational pull. We haven't been able as yet to produce such a fuel. Looks like the Martian scientists have put one over on us.

"There, you see," as he spoke, he pointed, and we all looked, "at the sides of this cone are two parallel tubes, which serve a double purpose. They are the fuel containers, and are also the standards on which are mounted the fins, or control tail, which apparently keeps the rocket on its course."

"I see it has asbestos insulation," Henry put in.

"Yes; and a circulating system that beats anything I've ever seen," Olinski said. "This creature you rescued from this rocket, practically sailed to earth in a vacuum, with the air inside trying to get out, while the oxygen he took out of the air was replenished by tanks. There they are! See?"

Henry nodded. "It's all perfectly understandable to me," he said, "and all marvelous, beyond measure."

"I'm afraid it doesn't seem perfectly all right to me, Mr. Olinski," I interposed. "You and Henry are both acting in great sincerity, but you are asking us to accept explanations that cannot be verified."

Henry turned to me, and said brusquely: "All facts so far advanced conflict in no way with the truth."

"But your facts may be wrong," I persisted. "In the first place, it is perfectly fantastic to even imagine that the Martians are so scientifically advanced that they could send a rocket like this, safely and unerringly through space to the earth."

"Fantastic?" Olinski exclaimed, heatedly. "No more so than Colonel Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic would have appeared to the world in the time of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella."

Our discussion was suddenly arrested by a cry of surprise from Pat, who had been inspecting the rocket, unnoticed by us.

"Oh, look! See what a pretty box I've found!" she exclaimed.

A very few steps brought the four of us to her side. She handed the box to Henry. It was a small, oblong box of some strange wood, beautifully made, the lid embellished with the design of a gold star. A most unusual looking box, which somehow had been overlooked. There was some trickery about opening it, which Olinski soon solved.

As it turned out, this was a discovery of first importance. The box contained a scroll of parchment, which, when unwound, was about three feet long. The parchment contained tiny tracings, the most minute writing I've ever seen, and apparently written in purplish ink. The tracings, or cuneiform writings, or whatever they were, were wholly unintelligible; to me they resembled myriads of fly-specks. Unfortunately, Henry and Olinski had forgotten their microscopic glasses, but they both accepted the scroll and its contents instantly as the "key of knowledge," mentioned in the Martian radio message, the deciphering of which, they predicted, would disclose the complete truth about Mars.

Looking back on that day, with all its strange and exciting revelations, I cannot help marveling at how really peaceful it was, in view of what was to come.

McGinity remained as our house guest. Before the afternoon was over, he had typed and sent off the bulk of his copy by messenger to the Daily Recorder. Every precaution had been taken by Henry to prevent any news leaking out about the landing of the Martian rocket, and the discovery of its strange occupant, so that McGinity might score another "beat," which was, I thought, mighty decent of him. On the other hand, he put his foot down firmly on the reporter's plea to have photographs taken. He felt the popping of photographic flashlights might unduly excite the creature from Mars, in its present state of collapse.

McGinity was rather silent about his work, but Olinski nearly drove me wild. If he went half-dotty on first seeing the rocket, he went completely dotty when Henry ushered him into the presence of the horrible thing that had come in it. When he had worn Henry out, talking, he began following me around, and insisting on discussing the awful thing, and his various suppositions connected with it. He would have kept on talking indefinitely, I believe, if Henry, finally, had not locked him in the library and forced him to settle down to the laborious task of decoding the Martian code-message contained in the scroll.

The evening passed with intolerable slowness. After dinner, Pat and McGinity contrived to meet on the terrace. I watched them from a window in the entrance hall as well as I could, not that I felt there was anything wrong about their meeting secretly. When they strolled in, nonchalantly, about half an hour later, I was pretending to read the evening newspaper.

By ten o'clock, the castle was quiet and dark, everything locked up for the night, and we were all settled upstairs; Jane with a novel and her smelling salts. She had not come down for dinner; one of the servants reported that she looked like a ghost.

I was very uneasy myself. I had no sooner entered my bedroom when a queer apprehension seized me. I was shivering all over. Restlessly, I paced up and down, trying to diagnose my case. The strange experiences and the excitement of the day had been a little too much for my nerves, perhaps. No; it wasn't that; something deeper, something harrowing, possessed me.

No sound came from within the castle. Everything seemed enveloped in a weird-like silence, the silence that often precedes a storm. I was unable to set my thoughts in order. The whole affair did not ring entirely true. What was the meaning of all that had happened? Surely, some one held the secret.

I tried to think these things out slowly, but try as I would, I couldn't make my cogitations run along prescribed paths. I kept asking myself questions. What would the world think of this latest, incredible revelation? But was it so incredible? Were not scientists agreed that there are probabilities in interplanetary travel which do not overstep the boundaries of accepted natural laws? And what about this frightening creature from Mars, Henry had brought into the castle and put to bed, across the hall from me? What was it doing? For I was certain, in my present disturbed state of nerves, that it was up to something.

Niki, I knew, had been relieved as guard for the night by the two chauffeurs, George and William, whom Henry had assigned to take turns in keeping watch at the bedside of this uncouth stranger within our gates.

The creature interested me more and more as I thought about it; by midnight, it had become a fearsome obsession. In my temporary aberration, I imagined it creeping about the castle, in the dark, trying doors--Pat's door. I wondered if she had taken my advice to have an extra lock put on her bedroom door.

In my anxiety about her, I finally turned off the lights in my room, and opened my door just a crack, to satisfy myself that everything was as quiet and secure as the deep silence denoted.

My room is one of six sleeping rooms on the second floor, which opens on a broad hall, reached by a short flight of stairs, leading from the landing in the gallery of the main staircase. Four of these were now occupied by members of our family. Henry's suite is at the east end of the hall, and mine at the west end. Between us, with bright southern exposure, are Jane's and Pat's bedrooms.

Across the hall, with windows fronting on the Sound, are the two principal guest rooms. The Blue Room, formerly occupied by McGinity, a nobly proportioned apartment, and the State Apartment, in which was ensconced the visitor from Mars. These two apartments are separated by an archway, spanning the landing of the short stairway from the gallery.

Practically the same arrangement holds on the third floor; that is, the six sleeping rooms open on a broad hall--rooms almost never used. But two of them were in use this night--McGinity in one, and Olinski in another. The servants sleep in a back wing, which is built on a lower level than the second floor. A rear stairway, rather awkwardly placed, connects the service wing with the second floor.

When I poked my head out through the crack in my bedroom door, two things became obvious. One was, that all the lights in the hall had been turned off; the other, that the door of the bedchamber across from mine, where the Martian creature had been placed, was slightly ajar; the room itself seemed to be in complete darkness.

This was enough to startle any one with strong nerves and a normal heart. With my nerves jumpy, and my heart likely to go back on me at sufficient provocation, I experienced a strong emotional shock. Fear clutched me that the terrifying creature had escaped from its room, probably while its guard slept, and was now roaming about the castle.

Presently I heard a sound; it came from the far end of the hall, where Pat's room was. A sound of soft footfalls and of heavy breathing. I sensed at once that something terrible was going on. My first thought was to fly upstairs and rouse McGinity; then I decided to meet the situation single-handed. I was so scared that I was almost entirely incapable of thought.

The darkness of the hall was broken dimly at the stair landing by the reflection of light from the lower hall, where a lamp is kept burning all night. I do not consider myself at all a cowardly character, but when I saw a huge, black something moving stealthily in the vicinity of Pat's room, I experienced a shock that left me, for a moment, spineless and breathless.

I have no clear recollection of what happened immediately after this, save that the huge, black something I chased along the hall, and partly down the rear staircase to the servants' wing, turned out to be Mamie Sparks, our fat Negro laundress. She had done some late ironing, and had brought up the necessary fripperies for Pat, leaving the bundle of laundry outside her door.

I was never so glad to see any one as I was to see Mamie. Her jet black skin had gone a ghastly yellow.

"Lawzee, Mr. Livingston, w'at's de mattah?" she asked, faintly. "Yuh near scered de life out o' me. Ah t'ought yuh was dat big monkey-man chasin' me."

I had to explain then what I thought I had seen from my bedroom door. As it developed later, the chauffeur on watch in the Martian's bedroom, had purposely turned off the lights, and opened the door slightly, to get a circulation of air, for which I did not blame him.

Mamie looked very solemn when she spoke, almost weird, as her great eyes rolled around, and her voice fell to a low whisper.

"Ah nevah did like monkeys, nohow," she said, "an' Ah reckon Ah'se nevah goin' to git us'd to havin' one round de house."

"Don't think about it, Mamie," I admonished; "and please forgive me for frightening you so."

"Yessah--yessah," she said, and went down the back stairs.

That is all that happened that night.

XVI

I shall go as little as possible into detail of what occurred on the day following the landing of the Martian rocket on the water-front, and the discovery of its terrifying occupant, who had been our guest over-night. By nine o'clock, the general demoralization of our household was utter and complete. Several of the servants had handed in their resignations, declaring they wouldn't sleep in the place another night, "with that thing in it!" Mamie Sparks, the colored laundress, had vanished at dawn. Jane had collapsed, which helped further to upset the household routine.

There was nothing I could do but to face it out. One thing I was thankful for, the calm and unruffled physiognomy of our new butler, Schweizer, who had taken Orkins' place, a middle-aged, round-faced German, who apparently had the proverbial goose's back, upon which rain has no effect.

In the midst of startling events, Jane's collapse really concerned me most. In a poor state of nerves myself, I finally induced Pat to accompany me to Jane's apartment, in an early forenoon gesture to cheer her up. As she was in bed, I did not make my presence known at first, choosing to remain in an adjoining room, where I could easily hear everything that was said between her and Pat.

Pat had no sooner entered the bedroom when Jane showed the nervous tension under which she was laboring. "I shan't sleep a wink as long as that thing stays in the castle," she said.

"Oh, nonsense! You are acting perfectly absurd, Aunt Jane," Pat returned, in a manner light and gay, but even the casual listener could have noted that Pat herself did not favor the idea of Henry's harboring this monstrous creature. "Why, this funny man-ape is as harmless as a poodle dog."

"Doesn't he frighten you?" Jane asked, in an awed whisper.

"Frighten me? I should say not! Why, Uncle Henry took me into its room this morning, before breakfast, and the creature was as gentle and affectionate as a kitten. It fascinates me. I'm really growing fond of it."

"But how is Henry going to manage it?" asked Jane.

"Oh, in several ways," Pat replied. "One is to dress it up in the latest style, and entertain it as befits a good-will ambassador from another planet. Niki, you know, is already acting as its valet, and teaching it good manners. The other, is to leave it 'as is,' and exhibit it before the leading scientific societies. Now, which do you advise?"

"Oh, stop, Pat!" Jane said, in an annoyed voice. "That's going too far. I know it's silly of me to be so afraid of the thing, but you're worse to play with it like that. It's right in Henry's line, though, and he's welcome to it. But, my dear, please, try and make him give it to some zoo, where it rightfully belongs, not in one of our best bedrooms. Anything to relieve us of the creature's unwanted presence."

"But it isn't a creature so much as we thought at first," Pat explained, sitting on the edge of Jane's bed, and patting her waxy, yellow hand. "The doctor from the village says it's almost genuinely human, like ourselves. It chatters now; says things you can't make head or tail of, in a strange tongue, of course. And--we've given it a name. At least, Mr. McGinity suggested one, which has met with Uncle Henry's approval, a name formed by the letters of the radio signal station of Mars. From now on our guest is a 'him,' and not an 'it,' and we're to address him as Mr.--" She paused, and then spelled the name--"Z-Z-y-x."

"Gracious!" Jane exclaimed. "How will you ever pronounce a name like that?"

"It's pronounced something like--Sykes. Like the name of Bill Sikes, in Dickens' 'Oliver Twist.'"

"All this doesn't matter," Jane groaned. "I tell you, I won't sleep another night in the castle with that ugly, hairy thing in it! I'll--I'll pack up and go--"

"Where could you go?" asked Pat, amusedly.

"I'd go somewhere," Jane declared, desperately.

"But I'm sure things will manage themselves," Pat went on, with a kindly smile; "and I don't think Uncle Henry will agree to presenting Mr. Zzyx to a zoo. Neither do I apprehend any trouble at all. But if trouble arises, we've got some one now who will tackle it when it comes--Mr. McGinity!"

At this I took my courage in my hands, if only to save Pat from embarrassment in any further discussion of the reporter. Poking my head through the half-open door, I said: "And how are you, dear Jane? Brave as ever I can see."

"Oh, Livingston!" she said. "I hope you and Henry are not being bothered to death by all these horrid reporters in the house?"

"Oh, no," I replied; "they are all very polite, and nice enough. The police people are here, too, and a perfect army of cameramen. Strangers tramping all through the house, and over the grounds--over your nice rugs and lovely flowers. And the servants are leaving, one by one. Mamie Sparks stole away at the crack of dawn. Too bad, really, that we haven't someone, some strong-minded woman, to take the helm."

Jane remained silent for a moment, in deep reflection, then she sat up suddenly in bed, and exclaimed, as she thumped her pillow: "I'll get at these reporters and cameramen and police, and they shan't bother poor Henry any longer! Tramping over my lovely rugs and flowers, indeed!" She turned to Pat, and added: "Call Fifi at once, my dear. I'm getting dressed and coming downstairs."

Everything was comparatively quiet when Jane finally came down, pale and a little shaken, but now firmly resolved to preserve the routine and dignity of our house. I said to her: "After all, Jane, it's none of our business to interfere in Henry's affairs." And to my great surprise, she agreed; and from that time on, we both joined in all the fuss and clamor, but with a good deal of misgiving, and not without some trepidation.