William McGivern - The William P. McGivern Fantasy MEGAPACK™ - 25 Classic Fantasy Stories from the Pulps

It was as if the jar had shaken off its cloak of invisibility. And Albert, pop-eyed in astonishment, gazed down at the same oriental lamp that was seen on the print he held in his trembling hand!

“Presto,” Albert gasped. “First I didn’t see it, now I do!”

Handling the lamp carefully, Albert turned it over in a sort of stupefied curiosity. His mind was frantically trying to change gears, to adjust itself to the realization that here was an object which a moment before hadn’t been visible for the naked eye to view. An object which he had unwittingly photographed, even though he hadn’t been able to see it at the time.

Albert shook his head. An oriental lamp whose properties of remaining unseen had been destroyed by its fall to the floor. But the camera had seen it, even though he himself hadn’t. Suddenly the furrows in Albert’s brows lessened somewhat, and he almost grinned triumphantly at what he considered to be a swiftly arrived at solution.

“The infra-red film filter I had on the camera,” he said aloud. “That’s what did it!” Hazily, he had a mental vision of infra-red cutting through invisible cloaks like a classroom diagram. It was simple. The special filter, about which Albert knew absolutely nothing, had revealed an invisible object, about which he knew absolutely nothing. The two things had much in common, in that he knew nothing about either of them. Q.E.D. The infra-red film had penetrated the invisibility of the oriental lamp, and when the lamp fell to the floor, the shock had destroyed its invisibility.

The shock was gone, now, and Albert was left with only a vast pride at the clever way in which he had arrived at the nub of mystery.

“Pip, pip,” he told himself. “Took a bit of clever thinking, eh wot?”

And suddenly, as he looked again at the lamp in his hand, Albert was struck by another staggeringly clever thought.

“This lamp,” he declared brightly to the silence, “will make a tremendous hit with Margot’s Aunt Annabelle. If I remember correctly, she collects old junk along this line.”

So saying, Albert returned to the bedroom, stuffed the lamp into one of his bags, and turned to get his hat and coat. If there was any question in the back of his brain as to the origin of the lamp, or as to why it had been invisible, he wasn’t concerned with such small matters at the moment. The thing had been invisible, now it wasn’t. Aunt Annabelle would be delighted with it, and — besides, he’d have to hurry to catch his train.

Margot Mastiff, looking blond, demure, and lovely in the white tennis costume she was wearing, met Albert at the railroad station of the little village several miles from Mastiff Manor.

They were jouncing along in the station wagon which Margot piloted with much daring and little skill, some twenty minutes later. Having made his greetings, congratulated his loved one on her finesse in smoothing the troubled waters, and commented on the weather, Albert was now sitting back smoking a cigarette and watching the outlines of Mastiff Manor rise in the distance.

“Got a present for your Aunt Annabelle,” Albert said in a sudden surge of recollection, as Margot narrowly missed running down a chicken which had tried to cross the dusty country road. “A little antique, a mere bauble, which I’m certain she’ll go for.”

“Oh, Albert, that’s marvelous!” Margot turned to give him a glance of breathless admiration, almost running the car off the road. “She’ll be so pleased.”

“Don’t doubt it, old girl. But can’t you watch where we’re going a little more closely?” Albert was about to launch into a recounting of the mysterious circumstances under which he gained possession of the oriental oddity, but gave up the idea on the realization that the tale might end up with Margot’s driving them into a ditch. Time enough for that later. Besides, the tale would make fine conversational fodder at the dinner table.

Then they were turning up the long drive leading into the estate of Mastiff Manor. The Manor was exactly as Albert remembered it. Huge, rambling, stone, a wing here and a wing there. The place was bedded in a vast sward of green lawn, and the lawn was spotted with tall, shade-giving oak trees. The largest of these trees, a gigantic one just off the porch and closest to the Manor, Albert remembered as being Major Mastiff’s favorite shade spot.

“Ahhh,” Albert breathed deep of the keen country air. “The old Mastiff Oak, eh? Brings back recollections.”

Yes,” Margot nodded pleasantly, narrowly missing a hedge on the side of the gravel drive. “Father will probably be out there sitting under it, waiting for us. He’s had a stone bench built beneath it since the last time you were here.”

Major Mastiff was, indeed, sitting on the stone bench beneath the Mastiff Oak, holding a tall, cool glass in his hand and waiting for them after they’d parked the station wagon.

Like the Mastiff Oak, Major Mastiff hadn’t changed perceptibly since the last time Albert had seen him. Like the oak, he might have been a little bit more gnarled around the trunk, but otherwise he seemed the same. His blue eyes, hiding behind triplet pouches, were just as cold, just as blue, just as frostily appraising as they had been before. His white hair and well-trimmed white moustache still gave him an air of dignified, iron-fisted authority. Even the fact that he possessed a vast middle and waddled slightly as he rose to meet them, didn’t detract from patrician austerity of Major Mastiff’s appearance.

Albert extended his hand and smiled cheerfully, unable to still the pounding of his heart. He could never face the major without feeling that he was being examined by a Star Chamber tyrant.

“Hah,” Major Mastiff said unyieldingly, ignoring young Addin’s hand. “Hah, I see you’re here, Addin!”

Albert gulped.

“Yes, arrived pronto, eh wot? Deuced nice of you to ask me up, Major. Especially after—”

Albert was about to say, “after what happened,” but a nasty kick on the side of his shin from Margot warned him that there was no sense in probing old wounds. So he reddened uncomfortably and finished lamely, “Deuced nice and all that!”

Major Mastiff, after nodding and muttering something about persons with limited vocabularies, returned to his stone bench under the shade tree with the attitude of a man who has completed an unpleasant duty. Margot’s tug on Albert’s arm told him that the first encounter was at an end.

“Father’s still a little touchy about you, Albert,” Margot explained as they entered Mastiff Manor. “But you’ll win him over completely before you leave. I’m sure you will.”

Albert gulped.

“I can try, pet. I can only try.”

They had paused in the center of the hallway of the Manor, and were immediately conscious of a shrill voice coming from atop a staircase to their left.

“Margot, Margot?”

Albert’s recollection of Aunt Annabelle’s buzz-saw tones gave him a sudden additional uncomfortable twinge, and unconsciously he braced himself.

“Yes Aunt Annabelle?” Margot trilled in reply.

“Have you been to the station to pick up that, that, that, pusillanimous pup yet?” Aunt Annabelle’s voice came down.

“Aunt Annabelle!” Margot said sharply, face reddening. “Albert is here. He’s with me now.”

“Oh,” Aunt Annabelle’s voice floated back. There was no confusion or apology in her tone. Just the grim satisfaction of one who has made her position clear.

“He’s brought you something that you’ll like especially well, Aunt Annabelle,” Margot said quickly.

“Bring it up!”

“His bags aren’t unpacked yet, Aunt Annabelle. He’ll give it to you at luncheon,” Margot said, after Albert whispered to her, pointing to his still unpacked luggage.