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

Sid Rodney got the girl to an upper window on the windward side of the house. Fresh air was blowing in a cooling stream.

“Did it get your eyes?”

“No. I’m going back.”

Sid held her.

“Don’t be foolish. There’s going to be something doing around here, and you and I have got to have our eyes where they can see something.”

She fought against him.

“Oh, I hate you! You’re so domineering, so cocksure of yourself.”

Abruptly, he let her go.

“If you feel that way,” he said, “go ahead.”

She jerked back and away. She looked at him with eyes that were flaming with emotion. Sid Rodney turned back toward the window. Her eyes softened in expression, but there was a flaming spot in each cheek.

“Why will you persist in treating me like a child?”

He made no effort to answer the question.

She turned back toward the end of the hallway, where the scientist had maintained his secret laboratory with the door that held the sliding panel.

Men were struggling blindly about that door. Others were wrapping their eyes in wet towels. Here and there a figure groped its way about the corridor, clutching at the sides of the banister at the head of the stairs, feeling the edges of the walls.

Suddenly, the entire vision swam before her eyes, grew blurred. She felt something warm trickling down her cheek. Abruptly her vision left her. Her eyes streamed moisture.

“Sid!” she called. “Oh, Sid!”

He was at her side in an instant. She felt the strong tendons of his arm, the supporting bulk of his shoulder, and then she was swung toward the window where the fresh air streamed into the house.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Now it’s got me.”

“It probably won’t bother you very long. You didn’t get much of a dose of it. Hold your eyes open if you can, and face the breeze. They’ll have the house cleared of the fumes in a few minutes.”

There was the sound of a siren from the outer street, the clang of a gong.

“Firemen to clear the house,” said Sid.

They stood there, shoulder to shoulder, cheek to cheek, letting the fresh morning breeze fan their faces. Out in the yard were hurrying shadows. Men came running to stations of vantage, carrying sawed-off shotguns. More cars sirened their way to the curb. Spectators gathered.

Electric fans were used to clear the corridor of the gas. Men were brought up carrying bars and jimmies. They attacked the door. Captain Harder’s eyes were still disabled, as were the eyes of the others who had stood before that door.

Sid Rodney touched the girl’s shoulder.

“They’re getting ready to smash in the door. Can you see now?”

She nodded.

“I think they’ve got the hallway pretty well cleared of gas. Let’s go and see what happens.”

She patted his arm.

“Sid, you’re just like a big brother — some one to take care of me, some one to scold; but I like you a lot.”

“Just as you would a brother?” he asked.

“Just exactly.”

“Thanks,” he said, and the disappointment of his voice was lost in the sound of splintering wood as the door swung back on its hinges.

They stared into a great laboratory and experimenting room. It was a scene of havoc. Wreckage of bottles, equipment and apparatus was strewn about the room. It looked as though some one had taken an ax and ruthlessly smashed everything.

Here, too, was another room without windows. Such light as there was in the room was artificial. The ventilation came through grilles which were barred with heavy iron. It was a room upon which it was impossible to spy.

There was no trace of Albert Crome, the man whose malevolent face had been thrust through the aperture in the doorway.

The police crowded into the room.

Bottles of various acids had been smashed, and the pools upon the floor seethed and bubbled, gave forth acrid, throat-stinging fumes. In a cage by the door there were three white rats. These rats were scampering about, shrilling squeaky protests.

There was no other sign of life left in that room, save the hulking shoulders of the policemen who now moved about in a dazed manner.

Captain Harder’s voice bellowed instructions. He was blinded, but he was receiving reports from a detective who stood at his side and giving a rapid summary of conditions in the room.

“He’s escaped some way. There’s a secret passage out of this room. Get the guards about the place to establish a deadline. Let no man through unless he has a pass signed by me. Those instructions are not to be varied or changed under any circumstances...”

A man approached the officer.

“You’re wanted on the telephone, Captain. I can plug in an extension here in the laboratory.”

A servant, surly-faced, resentful, impassively placed a telephone extension in the hand of Captain Harder, plugged in the wires.

The blinded officer raised the receiver to his ear.

“Yeah,” he said.

There came a rasping series of raucous notes, then the shrill cackle of metallic laughter and the click which announced the party at the other end of the line had hung up.

Captain Harder started fiddling with the hook of the receiver in a frantic effort to get central.

“Hello, hello. This is Captain Harder. There was a call just came through to me on this line. Trace it. Try and locate it... What’s that? No call? He said he was calling from a downtown drug store... All right.”

The captain hung up the receiver.

“Well, boys, I guess he’s given us the slip. That was his voice, all right. He was calling from a downtown drug store, he said. Told me to look in the northeast corner of the room and I’d find a secret passage leading down into his garage. Said he ran right out in his car without any trouble at all. He’s laughing at us.”

One of the men picked his way through the wreckage of the room to the northeast corner. The others shuffled forward. Broken glass crunched under the soles of their feet as they moved.

The man who was bending over the wainscoting emitted a triumphant shout.

“Here it is!”

He gave a pull, and a section of the wall slid back, disclosing an oblong opening.

Captain Harder was cursing as a detective led him toward this oblong.

“I’m blinded... the outer guard let him slip through! What sort of boobs are we, anyhow? I thought I had this place guarded. Who was watching the outside? Herman, wasn’t it? Get me that guy. I’ve got things to say to him!”

Men went down the steep flight of stairs which led from that secret exit, and came to the garage. Here were several cars, neatly lined up, ready for instant use, also several vacant spaces where additional cars could be kept.

“Big enough!” grunted one of the men.

Sid Rodney had an idea.

“Look here, captain, it took time to smash up that laboratory.”

Captain Harder was in no mood for theories.

“Not so much! What if it did?”

“Nothing. Only it took some little time. I don’t believe a man could have looked out of the door, recognized the police, turned loose the tear gas, and then smashed up this laboratory and still have time enough to make his escape by automobile from the garage.

“I happened to be looking out of a window after that tear gas was released, and I saw your additional guards start to arrive...”

Captain Harder interrupted. He was bellowing like a bull.

“What a bunch of boobs we are!” he yelled at the men who had clustered around him in a circle. “He didn’t get away at all. He stayed behind to smash up the laboratory! Then he sneaked out and telephoned me from some place in the house. No wonder central couldn’t trace the call.