Эрл Гарднер - The Human Zero. The Science Fiction Stories of Erle Stanley Gardner

The pencil, moved by some faint puff of languid air, dropped to the table. Nickers gave his attention to rebalancing it.

“And, while you may not have noticed it,” muttered Forbes, speaking now in a tone so low that the words could hardly be distinguished, “Jean Crayson and Audrey Kent were very much of a type. Both of them have blond hair, blue eyes, a milky skin, red lips, a full face, rounded figure.”

Nickers let the pencil roll to the floor.

“Yes?” he asked, looking full at Forbes.

“Yes,” said Forbes, arising after the manner of one whose work has been done. And, without so much as a word of good night, walked abruptly from the room.

The American extinguished the light, moved his chair to the window. There was much food for thought in what he had heard. In the main, it merely corroborated what he had heard before, what had previously been communicated to him as a basis upon which to work. But the similarity in the appearances of the two girls was something new to him. The thought flitted in and out of his mind, and bothered him. What had Forbes meant? What had he been trying to intimate?

And it bothered Nickers that the elaborate precautions he had taken to conceal the real object of his visit should so easily have been ripped aside.

He read for two hours, disrobed, and dropped into fitful slumber. The air was heavy, warm, oppressive. Nickers’s body was bathed in a slime of perspiration. Straggling thoughts lodged in his mind long enough to breed nightmares.

The drone of an airplane became the buzzing of a giant bee, settling, about to attack. Nickers gave an exclamation, made a great effort to ward off the huge insect, and stirred his limbs from the lethargy of sleep to the weariness of unrested awaking.

The sound was plainer now; an airplane was actually dropping to earth not far away. Phil Nickers ripped the covers apart and hit the bare floor. Padding to the window he saw a late moon, pale, distant stars, a steely glow of cold light in the east. And a plane, glinting silver from its moon-tipped wings, banked sharply, settled, and made a three-point landing in a field some five hundred yards distant.

As the plane came to rest dark shadows flitted to the wings. A man climbed wearily from the cockpit, walked stiffly toward the house. The black, flitting shadows slipped a cloth hood over the motor, wheeled the plane toward a low shed. The moonlight caught the features of the man who strode toward the house.

The man was Murasingh.

Phil Nickers sighed and went back to bed. The air was cool, but still oppressive. The sheets were damp with perspiration. Phil folded himself into the sheets and tossed upon the pillow, his mind seething with unanswered questions.

At length he fell into fitful and unresting slumber. A dark-skinned servant, attired in white, aroused him with a cup of steaming coffee. Forbes followed the servant, looking as fresh as a dew-touched flower.

“Get your cold tub, and I’ll have a chin-chin with you.”

Nickers owned a great curiosity. His tub occupied but a few minutes. Dressed, shaved, with fresh linen, he felt better. A casual glance from the window told him the plane had been wheeled into the shed, the doors closed. But the field showed plainly what it was, a private landing field.

Forbes followed his glance.

“The colonel has it for his guests. Murasingh, for instance, is a regular visitor. He flies over whenever he takes a notion. Has several planes, that chap. Saw him this morning. He said he didn’t sleep well so he got his plane out and went for a joy ride in the late moonlight. Come on down for breakfast. We’ll probably be alone. Murasingh is making up for the sleep he lost last night. The colonel’s had a cup of coffee and gone for a ride. Miss Jean’s still in her room.”

Phil ate a silent breakfast, aware of the ceaseless scrutiny of black eyes from behind. Aware, also, that Arthur Forbes had something on his mind.

“Like to take a look at the field?” asked Forbes, his eyes squinting meaningly.

Nickers nodded.

The two men strolled into the sunlight. The glare was eye-wearying.

Forbes glanced swiftly about him.

“I happen to know he took off shortly after midnight,” he muttered. “Funny thing was he took off in one plane and came back in another. I was watching with the night glasses.”

“But what’s that got to do with” — Nickers checked himself — “with the high price of tobacco?” he concluded, irritably.

Forbes laughed.

“Maybe nothing. Perhaps a lot. Let’s take a look at the plane.”

The plane turned out to be a Waco 9, powered with a Curtiss OX5.

“Funny thing about Murasingh,” genially remarked Forbes, “he uses American planes entirely. He’s got a cabin plane powered with a Wright J4. It’s got more speed than this job. Then he’s got another, a monoplane. That’s what he took off with last night. He brought this job back.”

The plane was deserted. A dark-skinned servant squatted in the shade some fifty feet away. From time to time he turned his turbaned head in careless appraisal. But he said no word, made no move.

Forbes leaned over the rear of the fuselage, then climbed to the wing step and peered down at the gasoline gauges. Of a sudden he cocked his head to one side, listening.

Nickers jerked a thumb toward the back of the pilot’s seat.

“It’s coming from in there,” he said.

Both men listened, their ears attentive to the chattering noise which emanated faintly from some part of the plane.

Forbes gave a swift glance at the squatted native, then pulled the back cushion away from the frame. There appeared a small door, cunningly fashioned. Nickers used his knife blade to obtain a purchase, pulled the door away from its frame.

Instantly the chattering grew louder. Phil Nickers saw two small points of light glittering, a flash of white, a splotch of red. He drew back in surprise as there came a motion from within the compartment, and a monkey thrust his chattering countenance out into the light.

The eyes were wide, round, moist. The lips were stretched back from glistening teeth. The red mouth showed as a frame for the clicking tongue that chattered with a shrill, metallic note.

Phil noticed that the compartment had been fitted as a little room with a mattress, a cup of water, a little food. He saw also, a collar about the monkey’s neck, a gold collar, studded with rubies.

And then the animal was out, sitting on the back of the pilot’s seat, his tail curled around the edge of the cowl. The chattering arose in volume until it became a shrill patter of protest.

Phil Nickers glanced to one side. What he saw surprised him. The native watchman had become a dynamo of action. He was running swiftly toward them. In his right hand the sun caught the glint of cold steel.

From the other side came the pound of swift steps, and Murasingh shot around the corner of the shed, saw the two men, and came to an abrupt stop.

His face was cold with rage. His eyes were as two pools of red, uncontrolled fire. His lips drew back from white teeth that were as menacing as the fangs of a beast.

For a moment he stood so, apparently meditating attack, then he took a deep breath, regained control of his manner and features. But his eyes still glowed with red rage.

“Really, gentlemen , this is rather unusual.”

The native with the knife slipped beneath the wing.

Murasingh sharply clapped his hands, rattled out a few swift words of a tongue Phil Nickers did not understand. The man instantly became motionless, waiting. But there was a tense menace about his pose.

Nickers squirmed. After all, his invasion of Murasingh’s property had been unwarranted. He felt suddenly ill at ease, not sure of himself.