Manly Wade Wellman - Chapbook 02 (10 page)

 
          
Stover
bent and helped the metal servitor to its flat feet. Then Buckalew’s voice was
raised in a warning shout that filled the room:

 
          
“Look
out, Dillon—danger of some kind!
Duck
!
¹
*

 
          
So
startled that he forgot his touchy mystification, Stover released his hold on
the robot’s arm and again turned toward the corner opposite. Buckalew was
falling as the robot had fallen, but more slowly and gently, almost floating
downward toward the floor.

 
          
“Just
what’s going on here?” began Stover.

 
          
Something
dark flashed upon
him,
seized him and hurled him flat.
A moment later, it was as if lightning and thunder had concentrated in the
room.

 
          
Dillon
Stover’s senses were fairly ripped out of him.

 
          
STOVER’S
hearing came back first; his ears rang and roared. Then his feelings; he ached
from head to foot. He opened his eyes to a scene of confusion that still
blurred and quivered before him.

 
          
“Sit
up and drink this,” Buckalew was commanding hini.

 
          
Stover
got up slowly. Buckalew fastened a silver collar with one hand, while the other
extended a glass.

 
          
“Thanks,”
said Stover, sipping. The drink was full of bite, but it cleared his head and
steadied his knees. “How long was I like that?”

 
          
“Quite a while.
Long enough for me to
change my clothes.
My others were almost torn off me by the blast.” Sure
enough, rags of the brown fabric lay on the floor. Stover glanced sharply at
Buckalew. Wasn’t it a trifle callous of the other to think of dressing before
giving aid to an injured man? But Buckalew gave him no opening to complain,
gesturing instead to the tumbled furniture and the soot-fogged walls of their
once splendid parlor.

 
          
“Not
quite as powerful an explosion as the one at Malbrook’s,” went on Buckalew
weightily, “or it would have torn off the whole top of this tower, and blown
you to atoms.” Stover, swiftly regaining his full strength and sense, now
looked down at his own clothes. They were not damaged in the least. Buckalew
spoke true words, but enigmatic ones. First of all, how much did Buckalew know
about the Malbrook death-blast that he was able so glibly to compare this one
with it? Second, why did he speak of Stover only as being “blown into atoms?”

 
          
Hadn’t
he, Buckalew, been in danger as well? Or had he perhaps operated and directed
the danger from a position of safety? The thought seemed ungrateful. Buckalew
had been the friend of Stover’s grandfather, was now the friend of Stover.

 
          
“It’s
got the poor servitor,” the younger man made reply, pointing to the shattered
mass of metal that had been the robot. “I suppose he got between me and the
blast.
If so, I can thank a robot for saving me.”

 
          
“Yes,”
agreed Buckalew, in a tone that seemed almost bitter. “You can thank a robot
for saving you.”

 
          
“You
sound as if you’re sorry!” Stover could not help protesting. “Tell me just what
happened here. You were here waiting after you answered my phone call. What
happened in the meantime?”

 
          
“I
haven’t the slightest idea,” replied Buckalew.

 
          
“But
you must have!”

 
          
“I
can only say again that I do not. My—my mind went blank.”

 
          
Stover
eyed him narrowly.
“You mean, something stunned you?”

 
          
“Yes,
something
like
that.”

 
          
Stover
could not see any sign of a cut or bruise upon Buckalew. His hair was as sleek
as ever. Only his manner was weary and solemn. Again Stover made a deliberate
effort to banish suspicion. He volunteered the story of his recent adventures,
finishing with an account of how he had come home to find the robot servitor
stuck by magnetic power to the wall and Buckalew himself motionless in a
corner.

 
          
“I
don’t remember being in the corner,” said Buckalew when he had finished. “I
was—overcome in my dressing-room back there. As I remember, I regained
consciousness just in time to sense danger and warn you.”

 
          
“What
danger?” Stover demanded. “You knew there would be an explosion?”

 
         
IF
he hoped to startle or trap Buckalew, he was disappointed. The other made
steady reply.

 
          
“All
that I knew was that I had been attacked in some way, and that you had come.
After that, the bomb or gun or whatever went off.”

 
          
They
inspected the room, setting up the furniture again and checking damage. Stover
ran for a chemical kit, testing the atmosphere that still had a slight murk.

 
          
“Old-fashioned
nitroglycerin, as in the other case,” he announced. “And here, on the floor—”

 
          
He
knelt in the corner where he remembered seeing Buckalew. There was a stain
there. As Girra had done in his presence only a few hours before, Stover made
tests. This, too, yielded a trace of synthetic rubber.

 
          
Meanwhile,
Buckalew was talking on the radio phone.

 
          
“No,”
he was saying, “nothing at all.
A trifling accident, no
damage.
Not worth your notice.” He switched off and turned toward
Stover. “A police call. Some neighbor gave an alarm.”

 
          
“Why
not call them in?” almost shouted Stover. “Do you want to hide anything from
them?”

 
          
“Yes.
Don’t you?” And Buckalew crossed the floor to him. “You want to expose the real
murderer by yourself—you told me that. I thought I was helping you.”

 
          
That
should settle suspicions, even if Stover lyingly told himself that he had none.
Buckalew continued: “Undoubtedly the attempt was aimed at you by the real
murderer. He will think you destroyed until he hears otherwise.”

           
“But a report to the police, not
necessarily public—”

 
          
“Have
you the slightest doubt that the aforesaid murderer doesn’t know everything the
police know? For instance, was any public announcement made of your release
from the order of imprisonment?”

 
          
“No,
but we both heard noises that suggested someone listening in on our phone
wavelength,” reminded Stover, scowling. “That was the probable tipoff.”

 
          
“Why
would an enemy listen in unless he knew you were free and would call me here?
No, Dillon. The murderer has access to police records and secrets.”

 
          
Stover
nodded. Buckalew was right. “Then,” he announced, “I can limit the suspects to
people in pretty high places—the Upper-tower set. People like Malbrook,
himself, his partner Fielding, his fiancee Reynardine Phogor, or her
stepfather, the Venusian. Or even Amyas Crofts.”

 
          
“Or
me,” added Buckalew with the slightest of smiles.

 
          
Stover
jumped and stared. Buckalew’s smile broadened.

 
          
“Or
me,” he repeated. “I’m an old- timer in Pulambar. I have friends and a
position. I might be able to get an in at police headquarters. Don’t forget
that Congreve himself has been conferring with me lately. And I have as good a
motive for killing Malbrook as any of the others.”

 
          
“And
a motive for trying to kill me?” asked Stover in spite of himself.

 
          
Again
Buckalew smiled. “You wouldn’t expect me to tell you that, if I wanted to kill
you and had failed. Well, to sum up, you have reason to suspect me, and I to
suspect you. After all, we were both present when this second explosion was
touched off.”

 
          
“You
don’t believe in me, then?” demanded Stover.

 
         
BUCKALEW
cocked his head, apparently trying to remember something. At last:

 
          
“In
an ancient but most readable work, called
Alice
in Wonderland
, the heroine is addressed by a unicorn.

 
          
Know
what a unicorn is? Well, this one said, ‘If you believe in me, I’ll believe in
you. Is that a bargain?* All right, Dillon, is it?”

 
          
He
offered his hand. Dillon took it, regretting whole-heartedly that he must make
a secret reservation.

 
          
“Your
little friend Bee MacGowan is cleared by this,” Buckalew resumed. “She’s in
prison even while this murder attempt is made.”

 
          
“Let’s
tell the police that,” said Stover stepping toward the phone. “They’ll release
her at once.”

 
          
“And
probably arrest you again,” added Buckalew. “Say nothing. She’s giving you a
chance to clear her and yourself. Use it.”

 
          
Stover
fell into a silence, almost a stupid silence. In the midst of it the front door
opened and two figures fairly dashed in. They came to a halt.

 
          
“Mr.
Stover—er—” stammered the voice of Amyas Crofts.

 
          
Stover
felt almost grateful for this opportunity to change the subject. He strode
across to the gilded youngster, glaring a challenge.

 
          
“Why
do you rocket in like that?” he growled. “What do you want here?” A light
seemed to dawn inside his head and stop the aching. “Perhaps you didn’t expect
to find me alive?”

 
          
The
companion of Amyas Crofts had turned to dart out again, but Buckalew, moving
with amazing speed, gained the door and fastened it. Then he turned to confront
the would
- be fugitive. It was the girl with red- dyed
hair whom Stover knew as Gerda.

 
          
“Let
me out,” commanded Gerda as from under her cape she whipped an
electro-automatic pistol.

 
          
Without
even lifting an eyebrow, Buckalew seized it and wrenched it from her hand.

 
          
“Go
there sit down,” he told her, pointing toward one of the least damaged chairs.
“You might have shot me just then.”

 
          
Gerda
sullenly obeyed, eyes flashing. Meanwhile Stover waited bale- fully for Amyas
Crofts to explain. “It’s this girl,” Crofts attempted at last. “Gerda, she
calls herself. She came to my apartment, told me she knew that I was crazy
about Bee MacGowan, just the same as you are—”

 
          
“Never
mind
who
I’m crazy about,” snapped Stover, his blood
seething. “Your affairs, not mine, are being looked into. Gerda told you that.
What next?”

 
          
“She
said that if I came here I'd see for myself that there was no more reason to
think you’d stand in my way with Bee. When I hesitated, she begged me to come.
Said she’d come with me.”

 
          
“He’s
lying,” contributed Gerda from where she sat under Buckalew’s guard.

 
          
Stover
did not know which to believe. He laid a big hard hand on Croft’s shoulder.
“I’ve got a mind to knock your teeth out through the back of your neck,” he
said angrily. “So you busted in here without asking permission.”

 
          
“Gerda
said it was all right, that you were expecting me,” explained Crofts, “and keep
your hands to yourself. I’m not so sure you could knock my teeth anywhere.”

 
          
“Gentlemen,”
interposed Buckalew smoothly, “you’re clouding some rather important issues
with these personalities. Dillon, I venture to say that one of these visitors,
and perhaps both, thought to find us dead.”

 
         
CROFTS’S
white anger turned to white panic. “Dead?” he repeated. “You think we were
going to kill you?”

 
          
“He’s
putting on an act,” accused Gerda, and Buckalew waved \'7bor her to keep quiet.

 
          
Stover
had cooled down a trifle, telling
himself
that the
mere mention of rivalry over Bee MacGowan must not be enough to drive him so
crazy with wrath. He saw that Crofts wore a bracelet like his. This man, too,
would be kept in Pulambar by Congreve for possible further investigation. Let
him go, decided Stover, and keep an eye on him.