Part 17

"My first horrified thought was that he was coming after me," she went on, her voice still strained by excitement. "And to me that meant only one thing: that he was going to make an attempt on my life, using the same tactics as he had employed when he so cruelly killed my white cockatoo. He'd always seemed mild to me, and while I was afraid of him, I never considered him really dangerous. I had developed a sort of fondness for him, as I would for a big dog. But after killing my poor bird--well, that settled everything. I had decided not to spend another night in the castle while he was in it, and I was prepared to give Uncle Henry my ultimatum, and stay with friends in town, if he didn't rid the premises at once of that--killer.

"I was scared into a fit, too scared for a minute or so to think of anything to do. Then I thought of setting fire to the shanty. That's a thought that might occur to anybody in the same fix. I counted on the fire bringing someone, quickly, from the castle to the island, for I had told Aunt Jane I was going for a row, and I believed the fire would indicate that I was at the lighthouse, and in danger. I had been inside the shanty, and had noticed a barrel filled with waste paper and pasteboard boxes--probably gathered up from one of the picnic parties trespassing on the island during the summer. So I ran back, into the shack, and threw a burning match into the barrel. The flames leapt up so quickly, it was a close call getting outside without getting singed.

"I was pretty shaky by this time, so I decided to hide in the ruins. Mr. Zzyx was tying up at the dock. I could hear him chattering; he was acting very queerly. I got down, and crawled on my hands and knees, behind the rocks, until I reached the lighthouse doorway. I don't believe he saw me.

"When I got inside the ruins it was so dark I had to light a match to find my way. As I did so, something rushed at me from above, and struck me on the head. It was a big bat. I screamed, and ran up the winding, stone stairway as far as I could go. I crawled behind one of the larger stones that had fallen inside, on the third landing, and stayed there until I got my breath. The clouds were hanging so low over my head, I felt I could almost reach up and touch them. This feeling suggested something, so I climbed up on one of the dislodged stones, leaned over the broken ledge of the circular wall, and waved the white silk scarf I had been wearing under my wool jacket. Then I went back into hiding again. It wasn't any fun, hiding there, in all that uncertainty, and expecting every moment to see Mr. Zzyx coming up the steps.

"Then I heard a voice. Some one was calling me by name. Again, I climbed up on the stone, and peered over the ledge. I had only a second or two to see that it was Mr. McGinity calling, and to wave to him. It was long enough, however, and I never felt so relieved in my life before, as I thought my last hour had come."

Pat must have looked pretty ghastly when McGinity finally reached her side, according to what he told me afterwards. He had no idea, then, what had become of Mr. Zzyx, and was surprised not to encounter him inside the ruins.

I don't think either of them told me exactly what passed between them, when McGinity came to Pat's rescue. Perhaps it was too sacred to both of them to repeat, even for a devoted uncle's ears. Anyway, the reporter took her gently by the arm, and assisted her down the winding stairs. They had just reached the second landing when they heard Mr. Zzyx's labored breathing, as he came creeping up the steps below them.

Time was vital. McGinity's first thought was of Pat's safety. On this landing there was a closet in the wall, in which oil for the beacon lamp had been stored years ago. The heavy, studded oak door had defied the ravages of time. The hinges, though, were almost eaten away by rust. It required all the strength he possessed to open the door, and then to close it, once he had placed Pat inside. She was too frightened, it seems, to raise any protest against being shut up in the dark.

McGinity had just time to draw his revolver when Mr. Zzyx appeared at the top of the steps, and came at him, growling fiercely. He fired a shot to frighten off the creature, but it had not the slightest effect. Before he could get out of the way, Mr. Zzyx lunged at him in wild fury, caught him in his hairy arms, and held him with a grip like a vise. Luckily, his right arm was free, and he dealt the creature a heavy blow on the head with the butt of his revolver. This not only broke the clinch; it frightened off the maddened beast.

With a bound, Mr. Zzyx dashed up the steps to the peak of the ruins. McGinity quickly followed, firing three shots in the air in rapid succession. His idea all through had been to frighten and cow, and not to kill, and what occurred after they both reached the open landing certainly was not the act of wanton destruction on the reporter's part.

Mr. Zzyx wheeled, and rushed at the reporter. Again McGinity fired, a reckless shot. This time he stayed the onrush, and Mr. Zzyx turned in his tracks, leapt up on the dislodged stones, and gained the top ledge.

A wave of horror came over McGinity as he watched him waver a moment, to and fro, then, with a scream that sounded almost human, plunge to his death on the rocks below. If he was not instantly killed by the fall, he was drowned, for his body rolled off the rocks and was engulfed in the sea.

XXV

To this day, McGinity believes that when he fired that last shot, the bullet ricocheted off a stone and entered a vital spot in Mr. Zzyx's body; and that the creature was as good as dead when he plunged from the parapet. I never did believe that. For that matter, we had no means of knowing the truth, for the body was never recovered from its watery grave.

I doubt if Pat heard much of the stress and sound of battle. She insists that she did. She must have slipped off in a faint, and had had time to come out of it when McGinity burst the door open and released her. He found her crumpled up in the small closet space, like a pale flower broken in the storm. She gazed up at him dazedly, but with a faint smile.

By the time they got down to the island dock, the water seemed filled with private launches, wealthy residents living along the North Shore having been attracted to the scene by the fire. A belated fire-boat began spouting water on the smoldering ruins of the shanty as they cast off in the runabout for the mainland.

As soon as McGinity had given me a quick summary of what had happened, and Pat had enjoyed a good cry in my embrace, I advised keeping everything quiet until we could report to the proper police authorities. When we reached the castle, we were surprised to find village policemen all over the place. It seems that Jane, on being told of the fire, had ordered Schweizer to summon the village fire department, but the butler was so excited that he dialed the wrong number, and got the police station. Furthermore, he never mentioned the fire. A touch of comedy which is never far away from tragedy.

It was perhaps just as well, as everything had to come out eventually. To Chief of Police Meigs, of Sands Cliff village, I gave a clear account of the whole wretched affair, which caused even that big, grim-faced individual to shudder. McGinity was feeling pretty sick himself over the death of Mr. Zzyx. To hear him talk about it, and the way he carried on, you would think he was guilty of premeditated murder, and would have to answer to the law.

Something of his mental unrest must have reached the Chief of Police, for, just as the Chief was leaving, he put his hand gently on the reporter's shoulder, and said: "Now, you quit your worrying, son. We'll fix this up, all right."

There were more bad minutes for us both when Pat and Jane found out about Niki. It was pretty terrible to hear them go on. But an hour after the police had arrived, Niki's body had been removed to the village mortuary, and all signs of blood stealthily and carefully removed by the servants, while the furnishings of the various rooms and halls, which had sustained damage during the rampage, were replaced as far as possible, and some semblance of the former formality of things restored.

Naturally, we were again overrun by city reporters, to whom, acting as spokesman, I gave only the absolutely necessary facts. Unwittingly, McGinity had now got himself mixed up in the news, and for the first time in his brief reportorial career, publicity was the last thing on earth he wanted, or was at all interested in. I spared him as much as possible, for I quickly realized he was laboring under the delusion that to have his name linked to Pat's in his tragic encounter with Mr. Zzyx would cause her much embarrassment, if not unpleasantness. But I happened to know that Pat didn't mind in the least; in fact, that she was very proud of the association of their names, even in these most sordid and harrowing circumstances.

Henry returned from his long motor drive a little after five o'clock. I would have given a king's ransom to have avoided meeting him, and disclosing the drama of crime that had been enacted during his absence, involving the loss of two lives.

Fortunately, I was relieved of this very unpleasant duty. As it turned out, Chief of Police Meigs had met Henry on the road, recognized his car, and stopped him. So he had a rather fair idea of what had occurred. I could plainly see the news weighed on him heavily, betrayed by his white face, quivering hands, and the pathetic droop of his mouth.

When McGinity and I followed him into the library, he dropped into his desk-chair with a moan that stirred my deepest pity and sympathy. In his anguish of mind, he kept muttering: "Niki murdered ... in my house!" and glancing suspiciously at the reporter.

"It wasn't necessary, I'm sure, for you to drive Mr. Zzyx to his death," he said finally, addressing McGinity.

"No one regrets the occurrence more than I do, Mr. Royce, but it can't be helped now," McGinity said, in a low, apologetic tone.

"It seems such a senseless sort of murder," Henry said.

"But it wasn't murder," I promptly corrected him. "Pat's life was endangered, as well as McGinity's, and I think he would have been wise if he had shot Mr. Zzyx dead, on the spot, which, of course, he didn't. Mr. Zzyx's end, while horrible, was purely accidental."

"Oh, you think that, do you?" Henry turned on me savagely. "Well, it's a lie!" he quavered, as he came to his feet, shaking his fist at me. "It wasn't necessary for you, Livingston, to interfere in this matter at all, but it's the sort of thing you've done all your life--interfering in my affairs. You've never considered me in the least--thoughtless--selfish!"

Then, as suddenly as he rose, he collapsed over the desk. We both thought he had fainted, but he waved away our offers of assistance.

"I'm all right," he mumbled, sinking back in his chair. "Sit down, Livingston. Sit down, McGinity. I'm rather upset. At my age ... being met in my house with this dreadful news! Now, McGinity," he concluded, in a quiet voice, "tell me all about it."

McGinity told the story briefly, and Henry listened without interruption, believing when the reporter had finished that the subject had been brought to a definite conclusion. Unfortunately, there was something else to be cleared up. Matters had come to a crisis, and it was high time we convinced Henry that he had been made a victim of a hoax. But how were we to prove and justify our suspicions?

I had infinite faith in the capability of the reporter in meeting the situation, and I was greatly pleased when he rose to the occasion, and laid before Henry all the suspicious circumstances which he knew to be material to the point, particularly referring to the spurious scroll, which I produced immediately for my brother's inspection.

Henry seemed staggered by the disclosure. "Science has been a curse to me," he quavered. "I wish to God I had never dabbled in it."

"It looks to me now, Mr. Royce," McGinity observed, "that in all this careful preparation of the plot, there was only one slip, and that was in using this parchment paper containing a familiar water-mark, which you have just seen. If the scroll is counterfeit, then that radio message from Mars, which told of its being secreted in the rocket, was not legitimate. You will also recall that no mention was made in this message of any occupant of the rocket. How do you explain the presence there of the late, lamented Mr. Zzyx? Was he just a coincidence?"

"I've been keeping my mouth shut on that point," Henry answered, "but I will be quite frank now, and admit that Mr. Zzyx was a coincidence. I'd particularly like to know how he got into the rocket. If he was a species of the man-ape inhabiting the tropical zone of Mars, as described in the scroll, and depicted on the screen last night, and was captured and locked in the rocket, and sent earthwards in the interest of science--"

"Oh, come now, Mr. Royce!" McGinity interrupted, with a kindly smile. "If the scroll is not genuine, then its contents can only be false."

"Too true," Henry admitted, mournfully. "But it was so cleverly thought out--a masterpiece of invention. I'll go further, and say it was an inspiration. The most original and logical concept of life on Mars that has ever been given to the world. But the question that's agitating my poor brain now, is how did Mr. Zzyx get into the rocket?"

"There'll be no difficulty in finding that out, sir, although it may take a little time," McGinity said. "No more difficult than proving that the scroll was a fake. Truth will out, sir."

"But how are you going to find out the whole truth, young man?" Henry asked, his voice fairly wailing.

"I can only tell you this much," McGinity answered. "Things have started to break--first, the discovery of the water-mark in the scroll, and, secondly, the theft of the rocket from the Museum of Science--and they'll keep on breaking. That happens every day in newspaper reporting business. In all big newspaper, or police stories, like mystery murders, kidnappings, state and civic scandals the underlying motives, means and methods are so closely linked that to solve one automatically brings another to light. When things begin to break, it's like touching off a string of fire-crackers--one explosion sets off another."

Henry shook his head, and rose abruptly. He appeared to have reached the limit of endurance. "I'm going out for a little air," he announced. As he went slowly out of the room, he looked pathetically old and broken.

As soon as he had gone, the reporter turned to me. "Well, what do you say, Mr. Royce? Shall we continue to go through with this business?"

"Of course," I replied. "And the sooner the next break comes, the better it'll suit me."

"All right, Mr. Royce," said the reporter, with a broad grin. "That suits me down to the ground. Now," he continued, glancing at his watch, and walking towards the radio, "let's tune in, shall we? It's just six o'clock."

A fraction of a second after he had tuned in, the stentorian voice of the announcer of the NRC radio press bureau broke the silence of the room. This is what he said:

"Late this afternoon, the police recovered the rocket from Mars, stolen last night from the New York Museum of Science. It was found on the bottom of the East River, at the foot of East Sixty-fourth Street. But nothing else so far has been uncovered by the police. Not the slightest clue to the identity of the thieves. Any person listening in, who may have information regarding this theft, and the subsequent disposal of the rocket in the river, will stand a good chance of winning a $5,000 reward by communicating at once with Police Headquarters in Manhattan, or at any police station in the greater city."

"Well, McGinity," I said, after the announcer had signed off, "that's break number three. You're a pretty good guesser. Now, perhaps, you can predict when the next break will come."

"Oh, I don't know," the reporter answered, half musingly. "I'm chuck full of funny ideas, you know." He thought a moment, then said: "Well, I've a good hunch that the next break will come by telephone, and that it'll bring some startling information."

He had hardly uttered the last word when the telephone on Henry's desk began to trill. I strode quickly to the instrument, and as I picked up the receiver, McGinity came to the side of the desk, making no attempt to hide his amusement.

"Good Lord!" he remarked, laughing. "I'd no idea that break number four would come so quickly."

I silenced him with a wave of my hand. The voice on the telephone was weak and trembling--a woman's voice.

"Is this the home of Henry Royce?" inquired the voice. "Can I speak to Mr. Henry Royce, or to his brother, Livingston?"

"This is Livingston Royce, speaking," I replied.

"Oh, Mr. Royce! For God's sake, come to me at once! This is--"

The voice broke off abruptly, in a low gurgling sound that conveyed a sense of its being strangled in the speaker's throat. Then, curiously enough, I heard the voice again, miles off, it seemed--a smothered, muffled cry of "Help! Help!" Then it trailed out into indistinctness, and there was complete silence on the telephone. The voice was familiar, but for the moment I could not place it.

Cradling the receiver, I sat staring up at the reporter. He spoke first--it seemed as if a long time had elapsed before he did speak.

"Who was it?" he asked. "Somebody that we want?"

"Yes; I think so," I replied, almost breathlessly. "Yes; I'm sure it is."

The voice on the telephone had set my memory working; stimulating my forgetful mind. I had a sort of vision. In fancy, I could see the outline of an old house, silhouetted against the night sky. But there was not a speck of light to be seen in any of the windows.

And then, suddenly, as my mind groped in the darkness, a light dawned on me.

XXVI

I quickly recovered from the amazement which had momentarily possessed me. I had no doubt, hearing the mysterious voice on the telephone, that at last I had hit on something of a clue to the mystery of the Martian hoax. The voice, faintly familiar, had stirred up my recollections, and had established at once in my mind a positive suspect. Why this individual had not entered into my suspicions before is just one of those things that can't be explained. There was every chance now that he was mixed up in this. If so, I was convinced we were reaching the climax of the case.

"Well," I said, finally, turning to McGinity, "I think the stage is being set for the last interesting act of this affair."

He smiled a little dubiously. "Don't make me laugh, Mr. Royce," he said.

Having made an important discovery, I thought McGinity ought to know, so I told him briefly what had been said on the telephone, and my suspicions. He was silent for a moment, then he said: "Why didn't you think of this person before?"

It was on the tip of my tongue to reply: "Too stupid;" but I refrained from showing up my asinine denseness. Instead, I said: "The first thing to think of now is to trace that phone call."

"That'll be dead easy if the speaker used one of those old-time manual phones," he said; "but if the call was made on a dial instrument, there's no way of tracing it. You're sunk!"

A few minutes' conversation with the information operator proved the reporter's contentions to be true; I was "sunk." But not entirely.

"McGinity!" I exclaimed, "I must go to this place at once, and you must go with me. I'll lay anything I'm on the right track. I have a feeling too that every minute may be of importance."

To my surprise, the reporter hesitated. "Are you sure you recognized the woman who phoned by her voice?" he asked. "You may be mistaken, and with break number five liable to come any minute now, we can't afford to go off on some wild goose chase."

"Dead certain," I affirmed. "I'll stake all I've got on it. However, if you're so sure of number five breaking, we can stop at the Sands Cliff Police Station on our way, and you can notify them where we can be found."

"Queer doings, and not very plausible," McGinity remarked, after agreeing to my plan. "Yet--you may be right."

Feeling certain that on this expedition we should meet with some probably perilous adventure, I took good care to put one of Henry's revolvers in my pocket. It was an old-fashioned weapon, heavy and cumbersome, and just to prove that it was in good working order, I fired it off, up in the air, as we drove along the dark, unfrequented road bordering on our estate. McGinity, who was driving, gave vent to an exclamation of mingled surprise and amusement. Heretofore, he had been the one inclined to the impetuous, while I was always of a more cautious nature.

"That old horse-pistol has certainly got a bang to it," he remarked, laughing. "But we're not going to hunt elephants, you know."

"You never can tell," I countered. "I've an idea--instinct--McGinity," I went on, "that we've a night's work before us. And it's quite possible that we may encounter an elephant, or a lion, before we get through;" my mind slipping back to my thrilling encounter with the grizzly bear on the LaRauche estate. "Now, for the police station."

Fortunately, we found Chief of Police Meigs at his desk, and to him I poured out my suspicions.

"Oh! so you believe old Rene LaRauche to be implicated in this Martian fake?" he said.

"LaRauche was obsessed with a jealous hatred of my brother, Henry," I replied, "and his motive may have been revenge. He's heaven high above my brother in his knowledge and application of science, and mentally equipped to perpetrate a hoax like this. Besides, he's always had the reputation of being brutally cruel to his wife, and apparently he had some good reason for choking her off when she sought aid from the outside on the phone. She's always been very friendly and charming to Henry and myself."

"Sounds like the act of a crazy man," the Chief offered. "If my belief's correct, he'll probably show fight if you start any inquiry, and go nosing about his place."

"As a matter of protection, McGinity and I are both armed," I informed him, "as this is hardly a case for police investigation. The perpetration of this hoax, as I understand it, is quite within the law, and while not something to be called a crime, it is none the less dastardly."

"I have a hunch that before you get through with it, you'll have to call in the police," said the Chief. "I'm very much interested in the case. I drove past LaRauche's place yesterday, and I noticed it was all locked up, like he had closed the house, and gone to the city for the winter. I believe he has one manservant."

"A snoopy, unreliable person, who answers to the name of Orkins," I said; "formerly in our employ as a butler."

"He's been pointed out to me," said the Chief, "but I never knew his name. He often comes to the village for groceries. I haven't noticed him around lately. Come to think of it, I haven't laid eyes on LaRauche for several months."

At that juncture, a motorcycle policeman, who had been standing by, evidently listening in, motioned his chief to step to one side. After a few minutes' conversation, Chief Meigs returned to us, and said:

"I've just been informed that LaRauche hasn't been seen around these parts for three months, at least. Looks like he's been in hiding. This motorcycle policeman also tells me that in passing the LaRauche house, on his daily route, two days ago, he saw a woman looking out of a top-story window, and waving. As there was no indication that she was in distress, or even signaling to him, he passed on. She was scantily clothed, he says; looked like she was wearing a nightgown. If that may be of any interest to you."