The Gadget Had a Ghost

IV

It was preposterous. Mannard stood up abruptly, raging, with the smashed handle of the coffee-cup in his hand. He did not seem to realize that by rising he became an even better target. There was an instant’s stunned immobility, on the part of every­one but Coghlan. He plunged forward, toppling the flimsy table in a confusion of smashed china and scrambled silverware.

“Get down!” snapped Coghlan.

He pushed Laurie’s father back into his seat. All about was absolute tranquillity save for the white-faced men who picked themselves up with stiff, frightened movements after Coghlan’s rush had toppled them. The hillsides were green and silent save for the minor cries of insects. The water was undisturbed. Some sailors began to run ashore from the yacht.

“Everybody gather round here!” commanded Coghlan an­grily. “The shot was at Mannard! Get close!”

Laurie was the only one who seemed to obey. She was white-faced as the rest, but she said:

“I’m here, Tommy. What do we do?”

“Not you, damn it! Somebody shot at your father! If we get around him and get him to the yacht, they can’t see him to shoot again. You get in the center here too!”

He commanded the Turkish-speaking sailors with violent ges­tures, and they obeyed his authoritative manner. He and Laurie and the sailors fairly forced the sputtering, angry Mannard off the wharf and onto the craft moored at its end. The other mem­bers of the picnic-party were milling into action. The lawyer scuttled aboard. The owner of the land was even before him. Only Appolonius sat where his chair had toppled, his face gray and filled with an astounded expression of shock. The professor from the American College went on board and disappeared en­tirely. Coghlan went back and dragged at Appolonius. The fat man scrambled to his feet and went stiffly out the wharf and on board.

“Somebody who can talk Turkish,” snapped Coghlan, “tell the sailors to help me hunt for whoever fired that shot! He’s had a chance to get away, but we can look for him, anyhow!”

A voice, chattering, said unintelligible things. Sailors went ashore, Coghlan in the lead. They obeyed Coghlan’s gestured commands and tramped about with him in the brushwood, hunt­ing industriously and without visible timidity. But Coghlan fumed. He could not give detailed commands. He couldn’t be sure they were watching for footprints or a tiny ejected shell which would tell at least where the would-be murderer had been.

There were shouts from the yacht. Coghlan ignored them, searching angrily but with an increasing sensation of futility. Then Laurie came running ashore.

“Tommy! It’s useless! He’s gone! The thing to do is to get back to Istanbul and tell the police!”

Coghlan nodded angrily, wondering again if the marksman who had missed Mannard might not settle for Laurie. He stood between her and the shore, and shouted and beckoned to the sailors. He led them back to the yacht, in a tight circle around Laurie.

The yacht cast off with unseemly haste. It sped out from the shore and headed back for Istanbul. Mannard sat angrily in a deck-chair, his eyes hard. He nodded to Coghlan.

“I didn’t see the point of protecting me,” he admitted grimly, “not at the time. But that crazy business you were telling me last night did hint at this.” Then he said with explosive irrita­tion: “Dammit, either they meant to kill me without asking for money, or they don’t care much whether they kill me or not!”

Coghlan nodded. “They might figure on being reckless with you,” he said coldly, “so if you get killed that’ll be all the more reason for Laurie to pay up if something happens. Or—they might figure that if they’re reckless enough with you, you’ll pay up the more quickly if they threaten Laurie.”

“What’s that?” demanded Mannard sharply.

“I don’t know what the scheme is,” Coghlan told him. “It looks crazy! But though the threat seems directed against you, the danger may be even greater for Laurie.”

Mannard said grimly:

“Yes. That’s something to watch out for. Thanks.”

The yacht ploughed through the water back toward Istanbul. The sun shone brightly on the narrow blue sea. The hills on ei­ther side seemed to shimmer in the heat. But the atmosphere on the yacht was far from relaxed. The sailors bore high interest beneath a mask of discretion, most of them managing to occupy themselves near the Turkish guests, who huddled together and talked excitedly.

Laurie put her arm in Coghlan’s.

“There’s such a thing as courage, Tommy,” she said, “and such a thing as recklessness. You took chances, searching on shore. I wouldn’t like you to be killed.”

“It could be,” he said harshly, “that the whole idea is to scare one or the other of you so completely—even if one of you had to be killed—that you’ll be ready to pay hugely at the first demand for money.”

“But how—”

He said fiercely: “If you were kidnapped, for instance! Be careful—hear me? Don’t go anywhere in response to a note of any kind.”

He went impatiently away and paced up and down, alone, un­til the yacht docked once more.

Then there was more confusion. Mannard was intent upon an immediate conference with police. Coghlan and Laurie went with him to headquarters, in a cab.

Presently, there was some embarrassment. Mannard could not bring himself to tell so incredible a tale as that a book seven hundred years old had had a seven-hundred-year-old message in it which said he was to be killed, and that the shot which had so narrowly missed him today seemed to be connected with it.

He doggedly told only the facts of the event itself. No, he had no enemies that he knew of. No, he had not received any mes­sage, himself, that he could consider a threat. He could not guess what was behind the attempt on his life.

The police were polite and deeply concerned. They assured him that Lieutenant Ghalil would be notified immediately. He had been assigned to a matter Mr. Mannard had mentioned be­fore. As soon as it was possible to reach him.

That affair, inconclusive as it was, took nearly an hour of time. Mannard fumed, in the cab on the way back to the hotel.

“Ghalil’s mixed up in this all the way through!” he said darkly. “It could be on orders, or it could be something else.”

“I know he has orders,” said Coghlan briefly. “And I think I know where he’ll be. I’ll hunt him up. Now.”

The cab stopped before the Hotel Petra. Mannard and Laurie got out. Coghlan stayed in. Laurie said:

“Take care of yourself, Tommy. Please!”

The cab pulled out into traffic and bounded for 80 Hosain with the mad, glad disregard for all safety rules which is the life­blood of Istanbul taxicabs.

80 Hosain, by daylight, was even less inviting to look upon than it had seemed the night before. The street was narrow and unbelievably tortuous. It was paved with worn cobbles which sloped toward its center in the vain hope that rain would wash street-debris away. Because of its winding, it was never possi­ble to see more than fifty feet ahead. When the building at last appeared, there was a police-car before it and a uniformed policeman on guard at the door. His neatness was in marked con­trast to his squalid surroundings—but even so this section might have been a most aristocratic quarter in the times of the Byzan­tine Empire.

Coghlan was admitted without question. There was already an extensive process of cleaning-up under way. It smelled much less offensive than before. He went up the stairs and into the back room which was mentioned in the message he simply must have written, and simply hadn’t.

Duval sat on a campstool in one corner, more haggard than before. There were many books on the floor beside him, and one lay open in his hand. Ghalil smoked reflectively on a window­sill. The blank stone wall of the next building showed half-a-dozen feet beyond. Only the grayest and gloomiest of light came in the windows. Ghalil looked up and seemed pleased when Coghlan entered.

“I hoped you would come after the boat-trip,” he said cor­dially. “M. Duval and myself are still exchanging mutual assur­ances of our lunacy.”

“Up in the Sea of Marmora,” said Coghlan curtly, “somebody tried to kill Mannard. Since that’s supposedly a part of this af­fair, it may be crazy but it’s surely serious! Did Headquarters tell you about it?”

“There was no need,” said Ghalil mildly. “I was there.”

Coghlan stared.

“I have believed Mr. Mannard in danger from the begin­ning,” Ghalil explained apologetically. “I underestimated it, to be sure. But after you told me of the affair of last night—when even he believes he tripped—I have taken every possible precau­tion to guard him. So of course I went on the yacht.”

Coghlan said incredulously, “I didn’t see you!”

“It was stifling below-decks,” said Ghalil wryly. “But most of the sailors were my men. You must have noticed that they were not skilled seamen?”

Coghlan found all his ideas churned up again.

“But—”

“He was in no danger from the bullet,” Ghalil assured him. “I was concerned about the luncheon. In Istanbul when we think of an impending murder we think not only of knives and guns, but of poison. I took great pains against poison. The cook on the yacht tasted every item served, and he has a talent for de­tecting the most minute trace of the commoner poisons. An odd talent to have, eh?”

“But Mannard was shot at?” protested Coghlan.

Lieutenant Ghalil nodded. He puffed tranquilly on his ciga­rette.

“I am an excellent marksman,” he said modestly. “I watched. At the last possible instant—and I am ashamed to say only by accident—it was discovered that his coffee was poisoned.”

Coghlan found suspicion and bewilderment battling for pri­macy in his mind.

“You recall,” said Ghalil carefully, “that Mr. Mannard talked absorbedly and at length. When he went to drink his coffee, he found it cold. He sent his cup to be refilled. I am disturbed,” he interjected vexedly, “because only by accident he is alive! The cook—my talented man—poured aside the cooled coffee and re­filled Mr. Mannard’s cup. And he has a fondness for tepid cof­fee, which I find strange. He went to drink the coffee Mr. Man­nard had returned—and something had been added to it. More might remain in the cup. He told me instantly. There was no time to send a message. Mr. Mannard already had the cup in his hand. There was need for spectacular action. And I was watching the dinner-party, prepared to intervene in case of such need. I am an excellent marksman and there was nothing else to do, so I shot the cup from his hand.”

Coghlan opened his mouth, managed to close it again. “You—shot the cup . . . Who tried to poison him?”

Ghalil pulled a small glass bottle from his pocket. It was un­stoppered, but there was a film of tiny crystals in it as if some liquid had dried.

“This,” he observed, “fell from your pocket as you hunted in the brushwood for the marksman who actually was on the yacht. One of my men saw it fall and brought it to me. It is poison.”

Coghlan looked at the bottle.

“I’m getting a little bit fed up with mystification. Do I get ar­rested?”

“The fingerprints upon it are smudged,” said Ghalil. “But I am familiar with your fingerprints. They are not yours. It was slipped into your pocket—not fully, therefore it fell out. You do not get arrested.”

“Thank you,” said Coghlan with irony.

His foot pushed aside one of the books on the floor beside Du­val. They were of all sizes and thickness, and all were modern. Some had the heavy look of German technical books, and one or two were French. The greater number were in modern Greek.

“M. Duval searches history for references which might apply to our problem,” said the Turk. “I consider this a very impor­tant affair. That, in particular—” he pointed to the wet spot on the wall—”seems to me most significant. I am very glad that you came here, with your special knowledge.”

“Why? What do you want me to do?”

“Examine it,” said Ghalil. “Explain it. Let me understand what it means. I have a wholly unreasonable suspicion I would not like to name, because it has only a logical basis.”

“If you can make even a logical pattern out of this mess,” said Coghlan bitterly, “you’re a better man than I am. It simply doesn’t make sense!”

Ghalil only looked at him expectantly. Coghlan went to the wet spot. It was almost exactly square, and there was no trace of moisture above it or on either side. Some few trickles dripped down from it, but the real wetness was specifically rectangular. Coghlan felt the wall about it. Everywhere except in the wet spot the wall had the normal temperature of a plaster coating. The change of temperature was exactly what would have been apparent if a square-shaped freezing unit had been built into the structure. The plaster was rotten from long soaking. Coghlan took out a pocket-knife and dug carefully into it.

“What rational connection can this have with that stuff in the book, and with somebody trying to kill Mannard?” he demanded as he worked.

“No rational connection,” admitted Ghalil. “A logical one. In police work one uses reason oneself, but does not expect it of events.”

An irregularly shaped patch of wetted plaster cracked and came away. Coghlan looked at it and started.

“Ice!” he said sharply. “There must be some machinery here!”

The space from which the plaster had come was white with frost. Coghlan scraped at it. A thin layer of ice, infinitesimally thin. Then more wet plaster, which was not frozen. Coghlan frowned. First ice, then no ice—and nothing to make the ice where the ice was. A freezing coil could not work that way. Cold­ness does not occur in layers or in thin sheets. It simply does not.

Coghlan dug angrily, stabbing with the point of the knife. The knife grew very cold. He wrapped his handkerchief about it and continued to dig. There was wetness and rotted plaster for an­other inch. Then the heavy stone wall of the building.

“The devil!” he said angrily. He stood back and stared at the opening.

There was silence. He had made a hole through rotted plaster, bind found nothing but a thin layer of ice, and then more rotted plaster. He looked at it blankly. Then he saw that though the frost had been cut away, there was a slight mist in the opening he had made. He blew his breath into the hole. He made an as­tonished noise.

“When I blew my breath there, it turned to fog when it went through the place where the plaster layers joined!” His tone was unbelieving.

“There is refrigeration?” asked Ghalil.

“There’s nothing!” protested Coghlan. “There’s no possible explanation for a cold space in the middle of air!”

“Ah!” said the Turk in satisfaction. “Then we progress! Things which are associated with the same thing are associated with each other. This associates with the impossibility of your fingerprints and your handwriting and the threat to Mr. Man­nard!”

“I’d like to know what does this trick!” said Coghlan, staring at the hole. “The heat’s absorbed, and there’s nothing to absorb it!”

He unwrapped his handkerchief from the knife, and scrubbed the cloth at the wall until a corner was set. He poked the wetted cloth into the hole he’d made. A moment later he pulled it out. There was a narrow, perfectly straight line of ice across the wetted linen.

“There’s never been a trick like this before!” he said in amaze­ment. “It’s something really new!”

“Or extremely old,” said Ghalil mildly. “Why not?”

“It couldn’t be!” snapped Coghlan. “We don’t know how to do it! You can bet the ancients didn’t! It couldn’t be anything but a force-field of some sort, and there’s no known force-field that absorbs energy! There just isn’t any! Anyhow, how could they generate a force-field that was a plane surface?”

He began to dig again, nervously, at the edge of the wet spot. The plaster was harder here.

Duval said hopelessly, “But what would such a thing have to do with the history of the Byzantine Empire, and fingerprints, and M. Mannard—”

Coghlan jabbed at the plaster.

There was a sudden, brittle sound as the knifeblade snapped. The broken end tinkled on the floor.

Coghlan stood frozen, looking down at his thumb. The break­ing blade had cut it. There was dead silence in the room.

“What is the matter?”

“I’ve cut my thumb,” said Coghlan briefly.

Ghalil, eyes blank, got up and started across the room toward him. “I would like to see—”

“It’s nothing,” said Coghlan.

To himself he said firmly that two and two are four, and things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other, and— He pressed the edges of the cut together, closed his fist on it, and put the fist firmly in his pocket.

“This business of the wall,” he said casually—too casually— “has me bothered. “I’m going back to my place and get some stuff to make a couple of tests.”

Ghalil said quickly:

“There is a police-car outside. I will have the driver take you and bring you back.”

“Thanks,” said Coghlan.

He thought firmly: two and two is always four, without excep­tion. Five and five is ten. Six and six is twelve . . . There is no such thing as a fingerprint showing a scar that does not exist, and then that scar being made afterward. . .

They went down the stairs together. Ghalil gave instructions to the driver. From time to time he glanced very thoughtfully at Coghlan’s face. Coghlan climbed in the car. It started off, headed for his home.

He sat still for minutes as the trim car threaded narrow streets and negotiated sharp corners designed for donkey-traffic alone. The driver was concerned only with the management of his car. Coghlan watched him abstractedly. Two and two. . .

He took his hand out of his pocket and looked at the cut on his thumb very carefully. It was probably the most remarkable cut in human history. It was shallow, not a serious matter at all, in itself; but it would leave—Coghlan could not doubt—a scar exactly like the one on the print on the sheepskin page which chemical and spectroscopic examination said was seven-hundred years old.

Coghlan put the impossible hand back in his pocket. “I don’t believe it!” he said grimly. “I don’t believe it!”