The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 43
"Somehow," put in Lanigan, doubtfully, "I can't imagine any make-up artist as supremely good as this one would have to be. Why, he was positively identified as Old Josh by folk who have known the old geezer for years. One of them was a small-holder to whom Josh had sold a dry cow, and out in the country you don't forget the man who sells you a big mouth and no milk. That's not mere acting ability—it's genius too good to believe?"
"I can hardly believe it myself," McKechnie retorted. "In fact I'll admit I've difficulty in converting myself to my own theory. But, at present, it appears to be the only one that'll fit the known facts. I'm wide open to receive a more plausible alternative."
"There isn't one, unless ... unless ..." Lanigan broke off, looked confused.
"Unless what?" McKechnie prompted.
"Nothing, really. I was toying with notions of the supernormal. It's too foolish to be worthy of consideration." Lanigan pondered gloomily, then spoke up with a note of sudden defiance that surprised himself. "The more I think of the whole affair, the more I'm convinced that we're facing something never before faced in the history of crime."
"I've faced some damn funny things in my time," said McKechnie reflectively, "but all the lot of them proved astonishingly straightforward after I'd traced them to the bitter end. Three times does it—I'll concede that I've got a humdinger in my mitts directly something just as whacky links up with these two jobs."
He didn't know it, of course, but item number three was on its way to him right then. It came from Bermondsey, running along wires, through telephone exchanges, into the switchboard of Scotland Yard, thence to his desk. His phone yelled for attention.
McKechnie whisked up the phone, holding the earpiece as if it were an underweight dumb-bell. He rammed the thing against a big area of ear.
"Well? I'm busy—can't you deal with him. Oh, all right then, put him on." He sat for a moment, tapping his teeth with a silver pencil. "Yes, yes, go on, I'm listening." Then he uttered, "What?" several times, his voice rising one note higher each time. An expression of slow surprise crept into his normally phlegmatic features. Finally, he said, "I'd like you to come up right away. How soon? In about half an hour—good!"
Breathing heavily, he cradled the phone. He ignored the others, searched hurriedly through the deep litter of papers on his desk. In the end he found what he sought in the pocket of his raincoat, hanging in one corner. It was the morning paper. Spreading it over the mess on his desk, he scanned it eagerly.
"When you opined that we are facing something too tough to laugh off, you were a paragon of veracity and the holiest of prophets," he informed Lanigan. He jerked a beefy finger at the paper, then at the phone. "We got Fairbrother identified by running his picture in the morning papers. Now this chap rings up and says, "My name's Onions, and it ain't funny!" After which he says that he recognizes time photo as that of a man who made news yesterday afternoon, a mere half-hour after that train drew in at Euston."
"Made what news?" put in Kelly, curiously.
Holding up the sheet, McKechnie pointed to a small paragraph headed: FIRE VICTIM VANISHES.
"The caller says he was one of the several witnesses. He's coming here to tell precisely what he saw." He permitted himself an unofficial grimace. “I’ve a lousy idea that what Mr. Onions intends to tell us will clear up this case just like stirring a mud-bottomed pond."
Chapter Three
MR. ONIONS proved to be an emaciated individual with a straggling, black mustache and bat's ears. He had watery eyes that never looked with love on anything other than booze. His derby hat was decidedly cute, his attire had plenty of zoot and exuded a faint smell of horse manure. McKechnie mentally classified him as a race-course tipster, a stable hanger-on or a bookie's tout.
"I was coming over Lambeth Bridge," reported the equine-colored Mr. Onions, "when I saw this stallion whose picture's in the papers. He was trotting toward me, making a good pace, and I wouldn't have noticed him particularly if it hadn't been for his eyes."
"What about his eyes?" encouraged McKechnie.
"So help me, they were awful!" said Mr. Onions fervently. "The; made you feel as if all your insides were missing. Directly I noticed them I said to myself, 'There's a fiend straight from the guts of Hell!' "
The speaker didn't look capable of any thought so dramatically expressed, yet it was plain to see that he'd been considerably shaken. He eyed his listeners with the apprehensive air of a known liar who, for once, is voicing the gospel truth and doesn't expect to be believed.
"Directly I thought that to myself," Mr. Onions continued, "he stabbed me with a look I could feel. Then he bust into flames." He stopped, took a long breath, added, "Strike me dead if it ain't the truth!"
"And what then?"
"He flamed like a bale of hay. Half a dozen people came running. They were too late. There wasn't anything."
"What d'you mean, there wasn't anything?" prompted McKechnie.
"The flame just went. It puffed out. Then there was nothing. We all searched around but couldn't find even a pants button. A cop came along and took all our names. He searched around too. He found nix."
"Go on."
Onions licked his lips, began to look desperate. "Last night a kid reporter called at my house. He put all the stuff down in his book, grinning while he did it. I hope he backs all the sitters! Then he left, saying he'd interview the other witnesses. So they stuck that bit about it in the paper."
"We're very much obliged to you, Mr. Onions," said McKechnie, smoothly. He leaned back in his chair, let his speculative eye wander over the silent Lanigan and Kelly. Then he studied the ill-at-ease Onions. He continued the thoughtful and deliberate study so long that the subject began to fidget. Suddenly he said, "I've a firm idea that you've been holding something back. Don't be afraid to tell us—we won't laugh at you."
"It's crazy," protested Onions, not bothering to deny McKechnie's guess.
"My dear man, you couldn't recount anything crazier than the cases we're stuck with right now!"
SHUFFLING his feet around, Onions was half ashamed, half apologetic. He hesitated, pulled at one of his bat ears, met McKechnie's penetrating eyes, blinked his own uncertainly.
"It was only a delusion."
"Never mind—out with it."
"Well, just as this flame went out, thought for a moment that it looked like the ghost of an old hayseed with a beard."
"Hah!" snapped McKechnie.
"But it was only my fancy, because it was a flame. Then, for a second after the flame went out, I thought I saw a big purple cabbage with squirming things like snakes sticking out from between its leaves." With astonishing bellicosity, Mr. Onions went red in the face and shouted, "See if you can believe that!"
"I do," McKechnie replied evenly.
Onions was dumfounded by this ready acceptance. He stared around with the bewildered air of one who finds such faith far more surprising than the story.
"Did the other witnesses see the same?"
"No. I asked them. They thought I was drunk. But I was sober—cold sober." Then, in added justification, "I was much nearer than them. In fact there wasn't anything nearer than me except for a fool of a dog."
"A dog?" put in Lanigan. "Did you notice it before this incident happened?"
"Can't say I did," admitted Mr. Onions. "It was messing around my feet just afterward. It popped up in the general excitement, like dogs do."
"Thanks," approved McKechnie. He was about to add something more when a knock at the door silenced him. A uniformed policeman inserted his head and spoke in tones of mock solemnity.
"Inspector, a druggist out in Balham says he's caught a werewolf. It's got his poet's bones, and he wants to know what we're going to do about it."
"Werewolf? Poet's bones?"
"Yes, sir."
McKechnie's heavy frame shuddered from head to feet. He stood up slowly, stared at the now grinning cop, the gaping Onions, the puzzled Kelly, and the apparently daydreaming Lanigan. Then he said, "When I get out of bed I'm going to swear off late suppers." He offered Kelly a hairy forearm. "Pinch me."
Kelly pinched. McKechnie blinked and rubbed the arm. His temper finally evaporated, and he roared at the cop in the doorway.
"Tell that guy in Balliam we're on our way there. Get the car out."
"Yes sir." The other's grin vanished. He gulped twice, departed dazedly.
"Werewolf!" said McKechnie insanely. "Damn!"
THE DRUGGIST was one Georges Papazoglous, a Greek. He lay prostrate in the room behind his small, unpretentious store. Perspiration beaded his plump, olive face which was being carefully fanned by a buxom wench of strong resemblance to himself. He sat up as McKechnie's elephantine tread made the floor-boards squeak. McKechnie was wearing a deep scowl that boded ill for whoever was behind this sudden flood of twaddle, the like of which had never been known in the peculiar annals of Scotland Yard.
"In da yard," announced Papazoglous, waving a fat and sweaty hand. "I find him in da yard. I shut da door. I bolt da door. I lock da door. An' then I phone the police." He lay down again. The girl resumed her fanning. Papazoglous uttered a string of names of persons considered holy in the Levant. "You kill him, my god, such quick!"
McKechnie considered the fateful door. Werewolf, bunkum! Fine fool he'd have looked, coming along with a stake, a mallet, and the conventional bouquet of garlic. All that had brought him, in fact, was a queasy feeling behind which lay that incident concerning the "fool of a dog". Maybe it was the same dog.
IT WAS the same dog. McKechnie didn't know that, of course, but his whim had not led him astray. So he stood there with a mere couple of inches of wood between him and that eerie something that was neither human nor divine, that alien invader who was Spiro the Spy. Instinct did not warn him that the deadliest peril on earth waited just beyond that door. Inwardly, he felt that he had been somewhat stupid in giving his personal attention to a futile happening that could have been investigated by the cop on the beat. But, having been stupid, he might as well be thorough about it.
With the uniformed driver of his car standing ready behind him, he unlocked, unbolted and opened the door. He went into the yard. It was a small, brick-floored yard holding a tumbledown fuel-shed, half a dozen skeleton crates marked: Non-returnable, three old and very dirty carboys with the word: Acid faintly discernible through their grime, an ashcan stuffed with crumpled cardboard cartons, a greenish-black shrub-tub harboring a thing that looked like a weary castor-oil plant, and, finally, a rusty, neglected bicycle. Nothing else.
McKechnie snorted loudly, said. "Well, where's your blasted dog?"
Springs creaked as Papazoglous heaved himself off his sofa. He appeared at the door, his eyes wide and round. The eyes searched the yard cautiously, apprehensively. They went wider and rounder. Nothing! It took half a minute for the sheer nothingness to sink in. Then Papazoglous began to wave his hands to the accompaniment of a veritable flood of words in his native language. Disgusted, McKechnie went in, pushing past the excited Greek.
"Speak English," he said curtly.
"I finda man in my store," shouted Papazoglous, semaphoring frantically. "I catch him pokin' aroun', lookin' at da bottles, bustin' up da packets. I come at him an' shout, 'Hey, you!' and he run like hell t'rough to yard, me after him. When I get to yard, he is a dog." He crossed himself, mopped perspiration. "Maria, I swear it! He is a dog—so!" He lowered a flat hand to show the animal's height. "Wit' eyes like tiger. They burn. God, how they burn!"
"He's not there now."
"Doan' care. Was there when I phone! A werewolf; Christos yes! I lock door an' phone."
Pensively, Papazoglous gazed through the window at the silent undisturbed yard. The girl who had fanned him came through with a bucket of water, put it down while she opened the door to the yard.
"Helena," breathed Papazoglous, in a voice strangely low and tense, "from where have we got this plant in da yard?"
"Ain't no plant," contradicted Helena.
"Helena, you got eyes, hah?"
"Ain't our plant anyway," declared the unruffled Helena. "Maybe somebody dumped it." To show her contempt for the subject under discussion she lifted her bucket, took aim, tried to douse the plant.
McKechnie shouted, "Great heavens!"
Papazoglous' scream went skidding halfway down the street.
THE WATER sloshed out in a sloppy, glistening arc. It never reached the plant. It merely curved toward it, the motion of the liquid column appearing absurdly slow by contrast with the speed of the amazing reaction.
Like some dreadful djinn released from a bottle after one thousand brooding years, the plant writhed its leaves, contorted itself in mock agony, then shot up to a height of ten feet. Here, for a moment almost too brief to register on the shocked vision of the onlookers, it poised and wavered in the form of a long, leering, caterpillarish thing of extreme horror and supreme obscenity. Next, it was a flaming snake twisting grotesquely in mid-air a few feet above its former haunt. Even as the sluggish water splashed upon the now empty tub, the snake had closed in upon itself, solidified hardened, become a large black cat with optics that were pools of extra-mundane hate.
Displaying all the agility characteristic of the feline tribe, the big cat ran along the top of the wall on which it stood, turned once to sear the watchers with the utter evil of its stare, then dropped from sight. Its black tail vanished, and for an instant something spawned beyond that wall, a leafy, rich-hued object that might have belonged to a huge, purple cabbage. But that, too, went—a vision so brief that it might have been only the figment of a sickly dream.
The clatter of Helena's bucket was the final shock to nerves already stretched to the limit. Even the steel-hard McKechnie jumped. Her face a ghastly white, Helena had flopped in the doorway, falling without a murmur. McKechnie picked her up, bore her indoors. Papazoglous was back on his sofa. He was incoherent, hysterical, and looked like a corpse. The driver who had brought McKechnie used a quarter of an hour and much sal volatile to get the Greek into talkative condition.
"Now," demanded McKechnie, firmly, "where do the poet's bones come in?"
"Da right finger bones of eternal Homer," moaned Papazoglous, dully. "So real, so true, what you call authentic. Mine family have them for centuries."
"That," declared McKechnie, contorting his face, "makes everything as plain as daylight. I see it all, now. It is a revelation to me." His voice went harsh. "What the devil have these tomfool relics of your to do with the matter?"
Papazoglous winced, pointed a trembling finger at an ornately decorated silver casket standing on the sideboard. "I put them in a place ver' safe, or so I t'ink. This man, he snatch da casket an' run. I chase. He drop it. I lock door, save bones, make call to you."
"So," said McKechnie, "he didn't know what the silver box contained. He took it because it appeared to hold the most valuable item in the place, such as ... such as ..."
"Such as which?" Papazoglous asked.
"I don't know." McKechnie's irefulness swiftly gave way to a morbid mood. "It's now obvious that we're trying to deal with something likely to have standards very different from ours, something with totally different notions of what is valuable and what is not. It might," he went on, with a touch of ghoulish satisfaction, "think blood more precious than gold."
"Maria!" shouted Popazoglous, frantically. "Take me from this accursed place!" He lay back, rolled his eyes until only the whites showed, sweated from every pore.
Chapter Four
THE BULBOUS-browed experts ended their profound argument, not because the discussion was settled to the entire satisfaction of all, but for the better and peculiarly British reason that it was now time for tea. They claimed their black Homburg hats, departed with pedantic dignity. War Minister Stevenson, carefully folded the plans over which the dispute had raged, just as carefully placed them in a small but exceedingly heavy steel box, double locked the box, handed it to the pair of watchers at his side.
The two accepted their charge as if it held the Crown Jewels. They left the room, one cuddling the box in a beefy embrace, the other fondling a lump of metal in his right-hand jacket pocket. Solemnly they paraded downstairs, descending several floors below ground level. Here, a uniformed attendant swung aside an immense steel grille, permitted them to enter. They crossed a small, metal-sheathed room, and stopped before the great, circular door of an underground vault.
Producing a bunch of keys, the attendant selected four of them, inserted them in a certain order, twisted each of them to a certain degree. After that, he spun dials and did other complicated things. All this took a full minute, during which the waiting pair stood braced and silent. The attendant pressed a hidden button, a concealed dynamo whined distantly, the door emitted the juicy sounds of metal moving in a bath of oil. Then its seven-ton bulk swung ponderously open.
Carrying the box through the steely maw, the escort unlocked one of a long row of metal compartments, slid the box inside and locked it up again. The compartment bore a label inscribed with a seemingly meaningless code; but in another building near to hand, similarly barred and bolted from curious eyes, was a code-book in which this label was registered opposite a brief entry: Thorsen’s Five Thousand Mile Atomic Rocket.
Still with rocklike pose and equal dumbness, the guardians watched the attendant lock the vault, re-set the dials, extract the keys, shut and secure the grille. Then, and only then, did they go, their thick-soled boots clumping along the passage towards the stairs.
At ten o'clock in the evening, a large black cat slipped through a side door in the Ministry building, dodged a scrubwoman's mop, scampered past the police guard at the nearer end of a long passage, and sinuously evaded the guard at the other end. Like a sable shadow, unseen, unheard, it padded through a room in which the former guardians of the box were boredly perusing the evening papers. It reached the stairs, paused a moment, stared round with eyes that burned ferociously. Then it fled down the stairs.
