The Gadget Had a Ghost

II

All the taxicabs of Istanbul are driven by escaped maniacs whom the Turkish police inexplicably leave at large. The cab in which Coghlan drove toward the Hotel Petra was driven by a man with very dark skin and very white teeth and a conviction that the fate of every pedestrian was determined by Allah and he did not have to worry about them. His cab was equipped with an unusually full-throated horn, and fortunately he seemed to love the sound of it. So Coghlan rode madly through narrow streets in which foot-passengers seemed constantly to be recoil­ing in horror from the cab-horn, and thereby escaping annihila­tion by the cab.

The cab passed howling through preposterously narrow lanes. It turned corners on two wheels with less than inches to spare. It rushed roaring upon knots of people who dissolved with incredi­ble agility before its approach, and it plunged into alleys like tunnels, and it emerged into the wider streets of the more modern part of town with pungent Turkish curses hanging upon it like garlands.

Coghlan did not notice. Once he was alone, suspicions sprang up luxuriantly. But he could no more justify them than he could accept the situation his visitors had presented. The two had not asked for money or hinted at it. Coghlan didn’t have any money, anyhow, for them to be scheming to get. The only man a swin­dling scheme could be aimed at was Mannard. Mannard had money. He’s made a fortune building dams, docks, railroads and power installations in remote parts of the world. But he was hardly a likely mark for a profitable hoax, even if his name was mentioned in that memorandum so impossibly in Coghlan’s handwriting. He was one of the major benefactors of the college in which Coghlan taught. He had at least one other major philan­thropy in view right now. He’d be amused. But there was Laurie, of course. She was a point where he could be vulnerable, be hit hard.

Decidedly Mannard had to be told about it.

The cab rushed hooting down the wide expanse of the Grande Rue de Petra. It made a U-turn. It peeled its way between a sedate limousine and a ferocious Turkish Army jeep, swerved precari­ously around a family group frozen in mid-pavement, barely grazed a parked convertible, and came to a squealing stop pre­cisely before the canopy of the Hotel Petra. Its chauffeur beamed at Coghlan and happily demanded six times the legal fare for the journey.

Coghlan beckoned to the hotel Commissionaire. He put twice the legal fare in the man’s hand, said, “Pay him and keep the change,” and went into the hotel. His action was a form of Amer­ican efficiency. It saved money and argument. The discussion was already reaching the shouting stage as he entered the hotel’s large and impressive lobby.

Laurie and her father were waiting for him. Laurie was a good deal better-looking than he tried to believe, so he muttered, “Professor, president, so what?” as he shook hands. It was very difficult to avoid being in love with Laurie, but he worked at it.

“I’m late,” he told them. “Two of the weirdest characters you ever saw turned up with absolutely the weirdest story you ever heard. I had to listen to it. It had me flipped.”

A gleaming white shirt-front moved into view. A beaming smile caressed him. The short broad person who called himself Appolonius the Great—he came almost up to Coghlan’s shoulder and outweighed him by forty pounds—cordially extended a short and pudgy arm and a round fat hand. Coghlan noticed that Ap­polonius’ expensive wrist-watch noticeably made a dent in the fatness of his wrist.

“Surely,” said Appolonius reproachfully, “you found no one stranger than myself!”

Coghlan shook hands as briefly as possible. Appolonius the Great was an illusionist—a theatrical magician—who was taking leave from a season he described as remarkable in the European capitals west of the Iron Curtain. His specialty, Coghlan under­stood, was sawing a woman in half before his various au­diences, and then producing her unharmed afterward. He said proudly that when he had bisected the woman, the two halves of her body were carried off at opposite sides of the stage. This, he allowed it to be understood, was something nobody else could do with any hope of reintegrating her afterward.

“You know Appolonius,” grunted Mannard. “Let’s go to din­ner.”

He led the way toward the dining-room. Laurie took Coghlan’s arm. She looked up at him and smiled.

“I was afraid you’d turned against me, Tommy,” she said. “I was practising a look of pretty despair to use if you didn’t turn up.”

Coghlan looked down at her and hardened his heart. On two previous occasions he’d resolutely broken appointments when he’d have seen Laurie, because he liked her too much and didn’t want her to find it out. But he was afraid she’d guessed it anyway.

“Good thing I had this date,” he told her. “My visitors had me dizzy. Come to think of it, I’m going to ask Appolonius how they did their stunt. It’s in his line, more or less.”

The headwaiter bowed the party to a table. There were only the four of them at dinner, and there was the gleam of silver and glass and the sound of voices, with a string orchestra valiantly trying to make a strictly Near-Eastern version of the Rhapsody in Blue sound like American swing. They didn’t make it, but at least it wasn’t loud.

Coghlan waited for the hors d’oeuvres, his face unconsciously growing gloomy. Appolonius the Great was lifting his wine-glass. The deeply-indented wristwatch annoyed Coghlan. Its sweep second-hand irritated him unreasonably. Appolonius was saying blandly:

“I think it is time for me to reveal my great good fortune! I offer a toast to the Neoplatonist Autonomous Republic-to-be! Some think it a lie, and some a swindle and me the would-be swindler. But drink to its reality!”

He drank. Then he beamed more widely still.

“I have secured financing for the bribes I need to pay,” he explained. All his chins radiated cheer. “I may not reveal who has decided to enrich some scoundrelly politicians in order to aid my people, but I am very happy. For myself and my people!”

“That’s fine!” said Mannard.

“I shall no longer annoy you for a contribution,” Appolonius assured him. “Is it not a relief?”

Mannard chuckled. Appolonius the Great was almost openly a fake; certainly he told about his “people” with the air of one who does not expect anybody to take him seriously. The story was that somewhere in Arabia there was a group of small, obscure villages in which the doctrines of Neoplatonism survived as a religion. They were maintained by a caste of philosopher-priests who kept the population bemused by magic, and Appolonius claimed to have been one of the hierarchy and to be astonishing all Europe with the trickery which was the mainstay of the cult. It sounded like the sort of publicity an over-imaginative press-agent might have contrived. A tradition of centuries of the de­velopment and worship of the art of hocus-pocus was not too credible. And now, it seemed, Appolonius was claiming that somebody had put up money to bribe some Arab government and secure safety for the villagers in revealing their existence and at-least-eccentric religion.

“I’d some visitors today,” said Coghlan, “who may have been using some of your Neoplatonistic magic.” He turned to Man­nard. “By the way, sir, they told me that I am probably going to murder you.”

Mannard looked up amusedly. He was a big man, deeply tanned, and looked capable of looking after himself. He said:

“Knife, bullet, or poison, Tommy? Or will you use a cyclo­tron? How was that?”

Coghlan explained. The story of his interview with the har­assed Duval and the skeptical Ghalil sounded even more absurd than before, as he told it.

Mannard listened. The hors d’oeuvres came. The soup. Cogh­lan told the story very carefully, and was the more annoyed as he found himself trying to explain how impossible it was that it could be a fake. Yet he didn’t mention that one line which had most disturbed him.

Mannard chuckled once or twice as Coghlan’s story unfolded. “Clever!” he said when Coghlan finished. “How do you sup­pose they did it, and what do they want?”

Appolonius the Great wiped his mouth and topmost chin.

“I do not like it,” he said seriously. “I do not like it at all. Oh, the book and the fingerprints and the writing . . . one can do such things. I remember that once, in Madrid, I—but no matter! They are amateurs, and therefore they may be dangerous folk.”

Laurie said, “I think Tommy’d have seen through anything crude. And I don’t think he told quite all the story. I’ve known him a long time. There’s something that still bothers him.”

Coghlan flushed. Laurie could read his mind uncannily.

“There was,” he admitted, “a line that I didn’t tell. It mentioned something that would mean nothing to anyone but my­self—and I’ve never mentioned it to anyone.”

Appolonius sighed. “Ah, how often have I not read someone’s inmost thoughts! Everyone believes his own thoughts quite unique! But still, I do not like this!”

Laurie leaned close to Coghlan. She said, under her breath, “Was the thing you didn’t tell—about me?”

Coghlan looked at her uncomfortably, and nodded. “Nice!” said Laurie, and smiled mischievously at him. Appolonius suddenly made a gesture. He lifted a goblet with water in it. He held it up at the level of their eyes.

“I show you the principle of magic,” he said firmly. “Here is a glass, containing water only. You see it contains nothing else!”

Mannard looked at it warily. The water was perfectly clear. Appolonius swept it around the table at eye-level.

“You see! Now, Mr. Coghlan, enclose the goblet with your hands. Surround the bowl. You, at least, are not a confederate! Now . . .

The fat little man looked tensely at the glass held in Coghlan’s cupped hands. Coghlan felt like a fool.

“Abracadabra 750 Fatima Miss Mannard is very beautiful!” he said in a theatrical voice. Then he added placidly, “Any other words would have done as well. Put down the glass, Mr. Coghlan, and look at it.”

Coghlan put down the goblet and took his hands away. There was a gold-piece in the goblet. It was an antique—a ten-dirhem piece of the Turkish Empire.

“I could not build up the illusion,” said Appolonius, “but it was deceptive, was it not?”

“How’d you do it?” asked Mannard interestedly.

“At eye-level,” said Appolonius, “you cannot see the bottom of a goblet filled with water. Refraction prevents it. I dropped in the coin and held it at the level of your eyes. So long as it was held high, it seemed empty. That is all.”

Mannard grunted.

“It is the principle which counts!” said Appolonius. “I did something of which you knew nothing. You deceived yourselves, because you thought I was getting ready to do a trick. I had al­ready done it. That is the secret of magic.”

He fished out the gold-piece and put it in his vest pocket, and Coghlan thought sourly that this trick was not quite as convinc­ing as his own handwriting, his own fingerprints and most private thoughts, written down over seven centuries ago.

“Hm . . . I think I’ll mention your visitors to the police,” said Mannard. “I’m mentioned. I may be involved. It’s too elab­orate to be a practical joke, and there’s that mention of some­body getting killed. I know some fairly high Turkish officials ... you’ll talk to anyone they send you?”

“Naturally.” Coghlan felt that he should be relieved, but he was not. Then something else occurred to him.

“By the way,” he said to Appolonius, “you’re in on this, too. There’s a memorandum that says the ‘adepts’ were inquiring for you!”

He quoted, as well as he was able, the memo on the back of the page containing his fingerprints. The fat man listened, frowning.

“This,” he said firmly, “I very much do not like! It is not good for my professional reputation to be linked with tricksters. It is very much not good!”

Astonishingly, he looked pale. It could be anger, but he was definitely paler than he had been. Laurie said briskly:

“You said something about a gadget, Tommy. At—80 Hosain, you said?”

Coghlan nodded. “Yes. Duval and Lieutenant Ghalil said they were going to make inquiries theme.”

“After dinner,” suggested Laurie, “we could take the car and go look at the outside, anyhow? I don’t think Father has any­thing planned. It would be interesting—”

“Not a bad thought,” said Mannard. “It’s a pleasant night. We’ll all go.”

Laurie smiled ruefully at Coghlan. And Coghlan resolutely as­sured himself he was pleased—it was much better for him not to be anywhere with Laurie, alone. But he was not cheered in the least.

Mannard pushed back his chair.

“It’s irritating!” he grunted. “I can’t figure out what they’re driving at! By all means, let’s go look at that infernal house!”

They went up to Mannard’s suite on the third floor of the Petra, and he telephoned and ordered the car he’d rented during his stay in Istanbul. Laurie put a scarf over her head. Somehow even that looked good on her, as Coghlan realized depressedly.

Appolonius the Great had blandly assumed an invitation and continued to talk about his political enterprise of bribery. He believed, he said, that there might be some ancient manuscripts turned up when enlightenment swept over the furtive villages of his people. Coghlan gathered that he claimed as many as two or three thousand fellow-countrymen.

The car was reported as ready.

“I shall walk down the stairs!” announced Appolonius, with a wave of his pudgy hand. “I feel somehow grand and dignified, now that someone has given me money for my people. I do not think that anyone can feel dignified in a lift.”

Mannard grunted. They moved toward the wide stairs, Ap­polonius in the lead.

The lights went out, everywhere. Immediately there was a gasp and a crashing sound. Mannard’s voice swore furiously, halfway down the flight of curving steps. A moment ago he had been at the top landing.

The lights came on again. Mannard came storming up the steps. He glared about him, breathing hard. He was the very op­posite of the typical millionaire just then. He looked hardboiled, athletic, spoiling for a fight.

“My dear friend!” gasped Appolonius. “What happened?”

“Somebody tried to throw me downstairs!” growled Mannard balefully. “They grabbed my foot and heaved! If I’d gone the way I was thrown—if I hadn’t handled myself right—I’d have gone over the stair-rail and broken my blasted neck!”

He glared about him. But there were only the four of them in sight. Mannard peered each way along the hotel corridors. He fumed. But there was literally nobody around who could have done it.

“Oh, maybe I slipped,” he said irritably, “but it didn’t feel like that! Dammit— Oh, there’s no harm done!”

He went down the stairs again, scowling. The lights stayed on. The others followed. Laurie said shakily:

“That was odd, wasn’t it?”

“Very,” said Coghlan. “If you remember, I said I’d been told that I’d probably murder him.”

“But you were right by me!” said Laurie quickly.

“Not so close I couldn’t have done it,” said Coghlan. “I sort of wish it hadn’t happened.”

They reached the lower floor of the hotel, Mannard still bris­tling. Appolonius walked with a waddling, swaying grace. To Coghlan he looked somehow like pictures of the Agha Khan. He beamed as he walked. He was very impressive. And he’d been thinking as Coghlan had thought, for in the lobby he turned and said blandly:

“You said something about a prophecy that you might mur­der Mr. Mannard. Be careful, Mr. Coghlan! Be careful!”

He twinkled at the two who followed him, and resumed his splendid progress toward the car that waited outside.

It was dark in the back of the car. Laurie settled down beside Coghlan. He was distinctly aware of her nearness. But he frowned uneasily as the car rolled away. His own handwriting in the book from ancient days had said, “Make sure of Mannard. To be killed.” And Mannard had just had a good chance of a serious accident. . . Coghlan felt uncomfortably that something significant had taken place that he should have noticed.

But, he irritably assured himself, it couldn’t be anything but coincidence.