The Gadget Had a Ghost

V

The driver had evidently been instructed to wait. ‘When Coghlan got out of the car he smiled politely, set his handbrake, and turned off the motor. Coghlan nodded and went into the court­yard below his windows. He felt a very peculiar dogged anger, and was not at all certain what he felt it toward.

He headed for the stairway to his apartment. Across the flagstoned courtyard, a plump figure came disconsolately out of that stairway. It was Appolonius the Great. He was not twinkling as usual. He looked desperately worried. But his expression changed at sight of Coghlan.

“Ah, Mr. Coghlan!” he said delightedly. “I thought I had missed you!”

Coghlan said politely:

“I’m glad you didn’t. But I’m only here on an errand—”

“I need only a moment,” said Appolonius, beaming. “I have something to say which may be to your advantage.”

“Come along,” said Coghlan.

He led the way. Appolonius, a few hours back, had looked as deeply concerned as any man could look. Now he appeared more nearly normal. But he was still not his usual unctuous self. He came toiling up the stairs with his customary smile absent as if turned off by a switch. When Coghlan opened the door for him, however, the smile came back as if the same switch had been turned again. Coghlan had a sudden startled feeling that Appo­lonius might be dangerous.

“Just a moment,” he said.

He went into the bath and washed out the small cut and put antiseptic on it. It was not much deeper than a scratch, but he wanted to avoid a scar if possible. A scar would mean that the fingerprint on that seven-hundred-year-old page of sheepskin was authentic; was actually his. And he was not willing for that to be true. He came back into the living-room to find Appolonius sitting in a chair on the far side of the room from the open win­dows.

“Now I’m at your service,” said Coghlan. “That was a bad business today—about Mannard.”

Appolonius looked at him steadily, with a directness and force that was startlingly unlike his usual manner.

“I have information,” he said evenly. “May I show you my information?”

Coghlan waited.

“I am a professional illusionist,” said Appolonius, that odd force now in his voice. “Deceptions are my profession. My fame is considerable.”

“So I’ve heard,” agreed Coghlan.

“Of course,” said Appolonius, “I do not use all my knowledge of illusion on the stage. Much of it would be lost upon theatrical audiences.” His voice changed, became deliberately sarcastic. “In my native country there is a superstition of evil spirits. The Magi—the priesthood—the holders of the traditions and lore of—ah—Neoplatonism, make use of this belief. They foster it, by driving away numerous evil spirits. The process is visible. Sup­pose I assured you that there was an evil spirit in this very room, listening to our talk?”

“I’d be a trifle doubtful,” said Coghlan gently.

“Allow me,” said Appolonius politely, “to demonstrate.”

He glanced about the room as if looking for some indication which only he would see. Then he pointed a pudgy finger across the room, toward a table near the open windows. His wristwatch showed itself, indented in his fat wrist. He uttered a series of cryptic syllables in a round, authoritative voice.

There was a sudden roaring noise. Smoke rushed up from the table. It formed a ghostly, pear-shaped figure inside the room.

It hovered a moment, looking alive and menacing, then darted swiftly out the window. It was singularly convincing.

Coghlan considered. After a moment he said thoughtfully:

“Last night you explained the principle of magic. You do some­thing in advance, which I know nothing about. Then, later, you do something else which seems to produce remarkable results. And I am supposed to think that what you do later produced the results which you had arranged earlier.”

“That is true. But this particular demonstration?”

“I’d guess,” suggested Coghlan, “that you put a little smoke­squib on the table there—I hope in an ashtray. It had a fuse, which you lighted from your cigarette. You did this while I was bandaging my finger in the other room. You knew how long the fuse would burn. And you have a sweep-second watch on your wrist. Still, you must have had long practise timing a conversation to lead up to your effect at just the instant the fuse will set off the squib.”

Appolonius’ eyes grew intent. Coghlan added:

“And the table’s by the window and there’s a draft going out. It looked like an evil spirit leaping up from my ashtray, and then flowing out the window and away. Effective!”

“A compliment from you, Mr. Coghlan,” said Appolonius, un­smiling, “is a compliment indeed. But I penetrate your illusions as readily as you do mine. More readily!”

Coghlan looked at his bandaged thumb, and then up. “Now, what do you mean by that?”

“I think it would be well to consider,” said Appolonius, harshly, “that I can unmask you at any instant.”

“Oh!” said Coghlan, in lively interest. “You think I’m in a con­spiracy with Duval and Lieutenant Ghalil to swindle Mannard out of some money?”

“I do,” said Appolonius. “I could explain to Mr. Mannard. Shall I?”

Coghlan found himself amused.

“So you know everything! Tell you what, Appolonius. If you’ll explain the refrigeration business I’ll let you in on everything else!” He explained carefully: “I mean the refrigeration at 80 Hosain, where we went last night. Elucidate that, and I’ll tell you everything I know!”

Appolonius’ eyes wavered. He said contemptuously:

“I am not to be trapped so easily! That is a foolish question!”

“Try to answer it!” Coghlan waited with a dry patience. “You can’t? My dear Appolonius! You don’t even know what I’m talk­ing about! You’re a faker, trying to cut in on a swindle by a bluff! Clear out!”

There were sounds out in the courtyard. Footsteps. Appolonius looked more menacing still. Coghlan snapped:

“Clear out! You bother me! Get going!”

He opened the door. There were footsteps at the bottom of the stairs. Appolonius said nastily:

“I have taken precautions! If anything should happen to me— you would be sorry!”

“I’d be heart-broken!” said Coghlan impatiently. “Shoo!” He pushed Appolonius out and closed the door. He went to the small room in which he kept his private experimental equip­ment. As an instructor in physics he worked on a limited budget at the college. He had his classes build much of the apparatus used, both to save money and because they would learn more that way. But some things he had to build himself—again to save money, and for the plain satisfaction of the job. Now he began to pack stray items. A couple of thermometers. Batteries and a couple of coils and a headset that would constitute an induction balance when they were put together. A gold-leaf electroscope. He got out the large alnico magnet that had made a good many delicate measurements possible. He was packing a scintillometer when his doorbell rang.

He answered it, scowling. There stood Mannard and Laurie, studying the scowl. They came in and Mannard said genially:

“Our little friend Appolonius is upset, Tommy. He’s not him­self. What’d you do to him?”

“He thinks,” said Coghlan, “that everything that’s happened in the past thirty hours is part of a scheme to extort money from you—the scheme operating from the fourth dimension. He de­manded a cut on threat of revealing all. I put him out. Did he expose me as a scoundrel and a blackmailer?”

Mannard shook his head. Then he said:

“I’m taking Laurie home. I wouldn’t run away myself, but you may be right—she may be the real target of this scheme when it gets in good working order. So I’m taking her away. How about coming along?” He added bluntly: “You could pick out some real equipment for the physics laboratory at the college. It’s needed, and I’ll pay for it.”

It was transparent. Coghlan looked at Laurie. She protested reproachfully:

“It’s not me, Tommy! I wouldn’t ply you with cyclotrons!”

“If you want to make a gift to the lab, I’ll give you a whopping list,” said Coghlan. “But there’s a gadget over at 80 Hosain that I’ve got to work out. It produces a thin layer of cold in air. I think it’s a force-field of some sort, but it’s a plane surface! I’ve got to find out what makes it and how it works. It’s something new in physics!”

Laurie muttered to herself. Coghlan added:

“Ghalil’s there now, waiting for me—he and Duval.”

“I want to talk to that Lieutenant Ghalil,” said Mannard, grumpily. “The police were going to refer this morning’s shoot­ing business to him, but I guess he wasn’t too concerned! He hasn’t tried to get in touch with me!”

Coghlan opened his mouth and then closed it. It would hardly be tactful to tell Mannard who had shot the cup out of his hand. If he heard that news before he got the full story, it might create a certain indignation. And it was Ghalil’s story to tell. So he said:

“I’m headed back with this stuff now. You can pile in the police-car with me and talk to him right away. He’ll see you get back to the hotel.”

Mannard nodded. “Let’s go.”

Coghlan packed his equipment into a suitcase and headed for the door. As they went out, Laurie caught his arm. She said breathlessly:

“Tommy! You cut your thumb! Was it—will it—”

“Yes,” he told her. “It was in the place the scar showed, and I’m afraid it will leave that scar.”

She followed him down the stairs, was silent on the way across the courtyard. Her father went to dismiss the car that had brought them here. Laurie said in a queer voice:

“That book came from the thirteenth century, they said. And your fingerprints are in it. And this gadget you’re talking about . . . could it take you back to the thirteenth century, Tommy?”

“I’m not planning to make the trip,” he told her dryly.

“I don’t want you to go back to the thirteenth century!” she said fiercely. She was even a little bit pale. “I know it’s ridiculous. It’s as impossible as anything could be! But I don’t want you to go back there! I don’t want to have to think of you as—dead for centuries, and buried in some mouldly old crypt—just a skele­ton—”

“Stop it!” he said harshly. She gulped. “I mean it!”

“I wish things were different,” he said bitterly.

Then she grinned, still pale.

“I’ll wear you down,” she promised. “Won’t that be nice?” Then her father came back from the other car and they got into the police-car. It headed back for 80 Hosain.

In the room on the second floor, Ghalil was painstakingly pull­ing down plaster. He had not touched the wall on which the wet spot showed. That remained as Coghlan had left it. But there had been places on the other walls where bits of plaster had fallen away. Dim colors showed through. It was becoming clear, from Ghalil’s work, that the original plaster of the room had been elab­orately decorated, with encaustic, most likely—wax colors laid on the wall and melted into the plaster. He had already uncovered a fragment of what must have been a most spirited mural. It appeared to deal with nymphs and satyrs, from the irregular space so far disclosed. Duval was agitatedly examining each new portion of the scene as the removal of the overlying plaster showed it. But Ghalil stopped his labor when Coghlan and the others arrived. He’d met Mannard the night before, of course.

“Ah, Mr. Mannard!” he said cordially. “We perform archaeo­logical research!”

Mannard bristled at him.

“I’ve been trying to reach you to tell you about an attempt on my life today! At Police Headquarters they said they’d try to find you. They implied that all my affairs were in your lap!”

Ghalil glanced at Coghlan.

“Your affairs have at least been on my mind,” he admitted. “Did not Mr. Coghlan explain the measures I took?”

“No,” said Coghlan dryly. “I didn’t. I’m going to work on this refrigeration affair. You tell it.”

He went over to the incredible patch of moisture on the wall. Laurie went with him. Behind them, Ghalil’s voice droned as Coghlan opened the suitcase of apparatus, began to fit together the induction balance. Suddenly Mannard said explosively:

“What? You shot the cup out of my hand?”

Laurie reared up in amazement.

“Go listen,” commanded Coghlan. “I’m going to work here.”

Laurie went away.

Coghlan got busy with the induction balance. There was, he soon discovered, no metal behind the wet spot on the wall. Nor above it. Nor below or on either side. There were no wires running to the place that had stayed cold “since always.” There was no metal of any sort in the wall. Coghlan sweated a little. There could not be a refrigeration apparatus without metal.

He put the induction balance away. He stuck a thermometer into the hole he’d made earlier. He moved it carefully back and forth, watching the mercury shrink. He swallowed when he saw its final reading. He hooked up the thermocouple—infinitely thin wires, of different metals, joined at their tips. He hooked on the microvoltometer. He soon found a particular spot. It was a very particular spot indeed. The tips of the wires had to be at an exact depth inside the hole. A hundredth of an inch off made the microvoltometer sway wildly. He changed a connection to get a grosser reading—millivolts instead of microvolts—and found that exact depth in the hole again. He went pale.

Laurie said:

“Tommy, I’m back.”

He turned and said blankly, “A hundred and ninety millivolts! And it’s below the temperature of dry ice!”

Laurie said wistfully, “I can’t even raise the temperature of that, can I, Tommy?”

He didn’t notice. He put down the thermocouple and brought out the alnico magnet. He wrestled the keeper off its poles.

“This doesn’t make sense,” he said absorbedly, “but if it is a field of force . . .“

He turned again to the wall and the hole he’d made in it. He put the heavy, intensely strong magnet near the opening.

The opening clouded. It acquired a silvery sheen which had the look of metal as the magnet neared it. Coghlan pulled the magnet away. The look of metal vanished. He put the magnet back, and the silvery appearance was there again.

He was staring at it, speechless, when Mannard came over with Ghalil and Duval. Mannard carried the thick, ancient vol­ume with the battered ivory medallions in its cover—and Coghlan’s seven-hundred-year-old fingerprints on its first page.

“Tommy,” said Mannard uncomfortably, “I don’t believe this! But put one of your fingerprints alongside one of these, dammit!”

Ghalil matter-of-factly struck a match and began to make a deposit of soot on the scraping-tool which he’d used to pull down plaster. Coghlan ignored them, staring at the hole in the plaster.

“What’s the matter with him?” demanded Mannard.

“Science,” said Laurie, “has reared its ugly head. He’s think­ing.”

Coghlan turned away, lost in concentrated thought. Ghalil said mildly:

“A finger, please.” He took Coghlan’s hand. He paused, and then deliberately took the bandage off the thumb. He pressed the thumb against the sooted scraper. Mannard, curious and uneasy, held up the book. Ghalil pressed the thumb down.

It hurt. Coghlan said: “Wait a minute! What’s this?” as if startled awake.

Ghalil took the book to a window. He looked. Mannard crowded close. In silence, Ghalil passed over his pocket magnify­ing-glass. Mannard looked, exhaustively.

“That’s hard to explain,” he said heavily. “The scar and all...”

Coghlan said:

“All of you, look at this!”

He moved the alnico magnet to and fro. The silvery film ap­peared and disappeared. Ghalil looked at it, and at Coghlan’s face.

“That silvery appearance,” said Coghlan painfully, “will appear under the plaster wherever it’s cold. I doubt that this magnet alone will silver the whole space at once, though—and it’s twenty times as strong as a steel magnet, at that. Apparently a really powerful magnetic field is needed to show this up.”

The silvery film vanished again when he pulled back the mag­net.

“Now,” said Ghalil mildly, “just what would that be? A—what you would call a gadget?”

Coghlan swallowed.

“No,” he said helplessly. “There’s a gadget, all right, but it must be back in the thirteenth century. This is—well—I guess you’d call this the gadget’s ghost.”