Time Travel Omnibus, page 410
Charles Dana Gibson had vanished in favor of something very akin to the ideal of George Petty. This Alison Dwight still had copper-colored hair, yes—but it fell alluringly in soft waves to her shoulders. She wore a white blouse with a plunging neckline, very brief shorts and moccasins. She seemed at once older and younger than the girl of less than a minute before.
“How long were you away, Ally?” Houghton asked her.
“About six months,” she told him. She sighed and added, “Oh, Dwight, it was so wonderful—and so terrible, all at once. All that marvellous freedom, all that ease of living for almost everyone—yet all that horrible fear and tension!”
They stood, arms linked, Enoch Dwight’s summons forgotten. Houghton could not take his eyes off the girl and what she had become so swiftly through the paradox of time travel.
She said, “And, darling, I’ve missed you so. If I hadn’t known I could get back to you so quickly I’d never have stuck it out as long as I did. I have no idea my cousin-once-removed was such a glamourpuss. And so important! Darling, everyone I met swears by you.”
“When they’re not too busy swearing at me,” he replied with a trace of apprehension. “Listen, Ally, how did you arrange things—I mean, how did you get along in my time?”
“It was a snap,” she replied with a proud little smile. “My arrival kicked up considerable stir, of course. But when I told Bart Forsythe who I was and fibbed him into believing you wanted me to get acquainted with your world, he made everything smooth as silk.”
“Good old Bart,” said Houghton. He let his mind dwell briefly on the selfless devotion of his former school and college roommate, who had given up a promising business career to become his personal agent and trouble shooter. “Yes, Bart would have seen to it. Did you get a look at all you wanted?”
“More, much more,” she told him, “and not enough, of course. Dwight, I’ll never again be happy back here in this stuffy old world. When I think of the clothes I’ll have to wear if I stay here and . . . Darling, you won’t leave me here, will you? I don’t think I could bear it. How long was I gone?”
“About ninety seconds,” Houghton told her. “You handled the vessel beautifully.” He looked at her with mock-fierceness. “But don’t try to make me believe you’ve been a good girl in a free and alien world for all of six months. I won’t believe it—you’re much too beautiful.”
“I managed,” she said simply and he believed her. Jermyn appeared from the trees then, carrying a long cloak, which Dwight promptly draped about his cousin-once-removed.
“I don’t pretend to understand any of this, Miss Alison,” the butler told the girl. “But if the Master were ever to see you like that . . .”
“Enough said, Jermyn,” Houghton told him in reply. “Let’s go, Ally. I forgot about your father.”
THE millionaire had a new and complex set of questions about debentures to ask his grandnephew, questions which endured through an interminable hour and a half. Somehow Houghton managed to answer them although he was almost unbearably impatient to be again with the older man’s daughter. Finally, when it was approaching time to dress for dinner, Enoch Dwight pronounced the inquisition finished.
“Young man,” he said, after looking at his heavy and ornate gold watch, “since your arrival here you have been of immeasurable assistance to me and my affairs. Whether or not you are actually my grandnephew I am scarcely prepared to decide at present. But you seem very definitely to be somebody and your strange fore-knowledge has helped me greatly. I am not a man who likes to leave his pets undaid—your pardon.”
“Yes, sir,” said Houghton, who was becoming used to the older man’s word-twisting propensities.
“Now—I am going abroad for six months to look after my foreign interests in the new light of your information,” Enoch Dwight stated. “During that time you are free to stay here as a guest if you wish—or you may return whence you came.” He paused.
“Naturally,” he said after a moment, “I am taking my daughter with me on this trip.” He eyed Houghton keenly and seemed to derive some obscure enjoyment from the perturbation which his grandnephew was unable to conceal. “I have not,” he added drily, “been entirely unaware of the attachment that seems to have developed between you.”
“There has been absolutely no attempt at concealment,” Houghton told him, feeling his own color rise.
“Of course not—since I have made no effort to put obstacles in your path—until now,” said the millionaire. “My trip is going to be chiefly occupied by business. When I return here, if what you have told me is true, I am going to die and my daughter is going to vanish mysteriously. Is that correct?”
“According to the records,” said Houghton, feeling lost. “But, sir—”
“Records can be fixed,” snapped the older man. “I happen to be in most excellent health and I have no intention of dying this year. Is that dear, young man? As for my daughter, I have already acquired some ideas as to how her disappearance is to come about. I think you will understand.”
“I think perhaps I do,” said Houghton uneasily. “But perhaps if you could be more explicit . . .”
“I think you understand well enough, young man,” the older man told him. He cleared his throat, added, “Now—when I return here on the eleventh of December I want both you and your—er—ship here. By the way, I believe you told me that you can direct her to any destination you wish on earth—as well as to any time?”
“That is correct,” the younger man told him, feeling as if the entire play had been usurped by his greatuncle. “At any rate it’s worked perfectly so far. Of course, when it comes to dealing with the space-time continuum there is always a margin of—”
“I detest speculation, young man,” said Enoch Dwight severely. “If you are here when we return I shall feel certain that your vessel is safe for me to enter. At that time I shall want you to transport me to a certain place in your own time that will be prepared for me. I take it you can carry passengers?”
“A reasonable number, sir,” said Houghton, feeling as if a mule had planted its hoofs in his solar plexus. “But, sir, is it really necessary for you to keep Ally—your daughter and myself apart for so long? After all, I am eminently eligible in my world at any rate and we have only just—”
“Naturally, young man, you wish to improve your mutual acquaintance,” said Enoch Dwight with a chuckle that made Houghton want to hit him.
“Naturally,” he said, muffling the impulse.
“Very well, young man, if you are here when we return to this house in December—and if you and my daughter are still of the same mind—and if you can take me where and when I wish to be taken at that time—then I shall have no objections. No objections whatever.” He concluded with an airy gesture, “I have already informed you that I do not like to leave any debts unpaid—and I feel, young man, that I owe you much.”
“Very well,” said Houghton in turn. He sighed, added, “I suppose it’s fair enough—but hard. I trust you understand fully the reasons why you must alter the nature of your business affairs if the world is to be saved.”
“Don’t worry about that, young man,” said the millionaire, rising sprily from behind his immense desk. “There are going to be plenty of changes made: Now—shall we doin my jaughter at table?”
* * *
“YENOCH Dwight and Alison were gone the next morning before he awoke—and Houghton wondered if perhaps his greatuncle hadn’t put a drop or two of something into the after-dinner brandy to make sure he overslept. He sat on the side of the bed and smoked a cigarette and thought things over, not entirely liking the course of recent events.
The idea of a six-months wait for Alison was unbearable—for what if Enoch Dwight were to maneuver her into marriage with some dissolute princeling overseas? What if the girl’s disappearance were some underhanded contrival of her father? He wished he had an inkling of what the millionaire was planning to do on his return. Less and less did he feel able to trust his greatuncle.
Then he took a mental reef in himself and tamped out his cigarette. With the time vessel waiting his period of separation from Alison could be one of minutes rather than months. He was humming faintly when he summoned Jermyn and asked the butler to fetch him the clothes in which he had arrived at the great house. After breakfast, feeling comfortable for the first time in days, he strolled alone across the lawn toward the ship in the woods.
Bart Forsythe was relieved and overjoyed to see him. He answered Houghton’s endless questions about Alison and her visit to his own time with an amiability that bespoke his fondness for his employer’s supposedly vanished cousin-once-removed.
“What do you suppose did happen to her?” Forsythe asked when Houghton at last seemed satisfied.
“I’m not sure—yet,” said Houghton. “But I intend to have a hand in it if she’ll let me.”
“I don’t think you’ll have any trouble about that,” said Forsythe, smiling. “If ever I saw a girl in love it was Alison.”
“It’s not Alison I’m worried about,” said Houghton. “Now here’s what I want you and the boys to work on. We need some sort of tracer beam on the vessel—something that will give you at this end an accurate idea of where and when we are. And we’re going to need a system of signals along with it—in case of trouble. Now here’s roughly the principle I have in mind for it. If you take a new-model radar detector and involute its function with.
Later, when his ideas had been digested, he held consultation with the small group of top-flight scientists he employed for research and development in his private laboratories. As always they were quick to scent what he wanted, to propose more practical methods of accomplishment. He told them when he wanted it and left the rest of it up to them.
In spite of his desire to return for Alison, he had many things to attend to in his own time. His motion picture interests demanded a flying trip to Hollywood. He was called before a board of Congressional inquiry that was seeking to indict him for the indissoluble ties and trends to which Enoch Dwight had fastened the ever-growing Houghton-Dwight estate.
Then there was a high-pressure jaunt to a Midwest plant which was manufacturing a new type of turborocket engine. A snag in labor-management had developed which had stalled the work and it was up to Houghton himself to get things running again.
By the time he got back to New York his scientists had installed both tracer-beam and laboratory listening post. He congratulated them, checked their work and found it satisfactory. Then, again in casual sports clothes, he locked himself in the time vessel and headed it for the clearing in the grove—the date set for midmorning of December n, 1901.
HE arrived a little late. They were waiting for him when he rematerialized in the grove—Alison, her father and a distinctly foreign-looking lady wrapped in furs and a veil beneath an ostrich plume hat. Enoch Dwight regarded him sardonically, watch in hand.
“Thought you weren’t going to get here,” he snapped. “Well, now that you are here, let’s get going. Have you room for the luggage, young man, in this insane contraption of yours?”
“Plenty,” said Houghton curtly. He glanced at Alison, who was revealing a mixture of joyous relief and outright panic. She looked pale and thin and tired and he decided she had had a rugged time of it in Europe. He went to her and kissed her boldly.
“Time for that later,” said Enoch.
Dwight nervously. He presented the lady in the ostrich plumes. “Countess Zarinka—my self-proclaimed grandnephew, Dwight Houghton. He’s our chauffeur.”
Evidently Enoch Dwight was in a hurry. He actually helped Houghton to get the dozen heavy pieces of luggage inside the vessel although he was clearly unused to manual labor. Houghton obeyed orders with a sense of mounting bewilderment.
“Watch Dad—I’m terrified,” Alison managed to whisper as she passed him to enter the vessel. Houghton managed what he hoped was a reassuring smile and set about dosing the port-locks. Finished, he turned toward the instrument board—to be checked by a cold female voice with a harsh Middle-European accent.
“You will please sit down—in the rear,” said the Countess Zarinka. From her leather handbag she had produced a revolver—a pearl-handled affair—which she was pointing straight at Alison.
“Daddy!” the girl cried in horror. “You’re not going to . . .”
“I’m not having either of you killed if that’s what you mean,” snapped the millionaire, who had seated himself at the instrument panels. “Alison, I warned you to forget him and stay in Europe. You could have married that Russian lad—the prince.”
“Thanks, kid,” said Houghton warmly to the girl. Now that things were in the open and coming to a head he felt better. The oppression that had lingered since his last sight of Alison was gone. He glanced at Enoch Dwight and said, “All right, what’s the plan?” He all but called it a caper.
“I want direction to Burberry Lodge in New Mexico,” said the older man. “You must know where it is if you’re truly my grandnephew. Then sit back with my daughter. I’ll do the rest; Alison has taught me enough to run this contraption.”
“Oh, Dwight—I’m sorry!” said the girl. “I had no idea.”
“Steady, darling,” Houghton told her. He obeyed orders implicitly, not forgetting the cold-voiced “countess” and her pistol pointed at Alison. While the millionaire might not wish harm to his daughter Houghton had no illusions about his woman friend.
“This will get you there,” he said, straightening from the panel. “When do you wish to arrive there?”
“I told you I’d take care of that,” said Enoch Dwight testily. Houghton shrugged and went back to the girl and sat beside her on a settee with his arm about her. The countess regarded them with open contempt as they kissed.
“Verrrrry touching,” she said in heavily-accented tones.
“This, I take it,” said Houghton, to Alison, with a nod toward the countess, “is something your father picked up on the side?”
The girl nodded and, without warning, burst into tears. “Darling,” she sobbed, “I’m terrified. Daddy’s changed. Ever since we left home he’s been planning things—awful things with awful people. And now he’s arranged to die—officially, I mean—back in our time and hide out in the future with her.”
“I’m afraid the countess is going to be up against a level of competition she never dreamed of,” said Houghton quietly.
“Taisez-vous!” said the countess angrily. She shifted her considerable hips uneasily under the casual contempt of his regard.
In the brief interval of their voyage Houghton began to acquire a glimmering of what was happening. He began to understand for the first time both the magnitude and malevolence of his greatuncle’s plan—and it had plenty of both.
What or who was to be buried in Enoch Dwight’s coffin the younger man neither knew nor cared at the moment. But the folly of his own role was all too glaringly evident. By going back to the past and attempting to swerve his greatuncle from his acquisitive course, he had merely enabled Enoch Dwight to make his plans foolproof. He himself had charted the entire uncanny course of successful investments that were to make the Houghton-Dwight estate one of the most powerful influences in the entire world.
Dwight, of course, was planning to hide out with this woman as his companion until he selected a propitious moment to reappear and claim his billions of dollars in winnings. He was counting on his immense wealth to clear him of any legal difficulties in connection with his false burial.
THEY reached their destination according to the instruments and at an order from his greatuncle Houghton opened the port. They had not come in perfectly—they were deep in sand—but the rambling Lodge and its outbuildings were clear and hot before them in the sunlight. The whole vast desert estate had a stripped desolate appearance that seemed to cause Enoch Dwight concern.
“Dammit, where are the servants?” he said, staring at the huge house and tugging his mustaches. “I left orders . . .”
“The Lodge hasn’t been used for years,” Houghton told him with a flicker of amusement. “In fact, while you were abroad—”
“Never mind—they’ll be here.” Enoch Dwight cut him off irritably. Then, surperciliously, “It doesn’t always require a time machine to control the future, young man. Planning can achieve the same results. Very well, since the staff hasn’t arrived, get the luggage into the Lodge. All save that black satchel.”
Alison gave him a hand and Houghton knew her pride too well to ask her not to. The countess and her weapon stood guard over them until the job was done. Once in the lodge Enoch Dwight, who seemed vastly pleased with his newfound ability as a time pilot, got out some ancient London Dock brandy.
“Some heads are going to roll over the servants not being here,” said the tycoon. “But until they come . . .” He eyed the countess and there was no mistaking either the import of his look or the invitation he received from the ample adventuress.
Alison, at Houghton’s side, whispered, “I’d like to—oh, Dwight, he isn’t fit to live! I hope you don’t think I’m horrible, darling, but if you knew some of the things he tried to have me do abroad . . .”
“Relax,” Houghton told her softly. “This isn’t over yet.”
“Take your licking like a man, young fellow,” said Enoch Dwight not unkindly. He looked at Alison, added, “I’m afraid I’ll have to detain you both here for awhile—not that it will be exactly a house party for any of us. But in a whittle lile you may go wherever you wish.”
He studied them, shaking his head as if wondering how such soft-fibred creatures could stem from the same seed as himself. Then he said, “You have the freedom of the house and the walled compound in back. But I hardly think you’ll find it easy to get away across the desert. So if I were you—”
He was interrupted by a sudden dull explosion from outside. Through a fogged front window Dwight saw that the vessel was lying at _an odd tilt in its sandy bed. Suddenly he recalled the black satchel his greatuncle had ordered left inside it.
