Obelists Fly High Page 5

  ‘Never have I known a man better safeguarded than this one,’ said the Commissioner. ‘He can’t be reached.’

  Part II – Operation

  SEA LEVEL

  The morning of 13th April was bright, cool and breezy. From the end of the Elevated Highway, just before it declined to the ground, the flat fields of Newark Air Port stretched away southward, while the Highway turned in a great loop to the west, meandering off into jersey distances. To the left, beyond the series of enclosed parking spaces that bordered the main approach, squatted the row of broad hangars, one behind the other, each with its western side merging into a low administration building of offices, ticket booths5 passengers’ lounges, pilots’ billets, recreation rooms. Some were brick, some stucco, one was modernistic concrete, but all possessed their porches or esplanades from which footways ran, past trim hedges, to the flagged areas in front, the embarkation points of the ’planes. In the early sunlight the names, painted large above the hangar doors, stood out clearly – Colonial Airways, United Air Lines, Amalgamated Air Transport . . .

  In the north-west corner of the field stood the buildings of an air school, two repair hangars, and a high control tower, like a lighthouse with its four glass walls. Between this cluster and the transport buildings opposite lay the brown expanse of the field itself, patched with the green of spring grass.

  Lord’s car, a hired limousine bearing non-official New York plates, rolled past the public parking spaces, turned right, sped on behind the first few hangars, turned right again and, picking its way between a big transport and two cabin ’planes already in front of the hangar doors, stopped beside the automobile entrance of the Amalgamated offices. Lord stepped down and held open the door for the rest of the party. Out they came, Fonda and Isa Mann first, then Tinkham, Cutter last of all. They stood for a moment in a small knot, while Lord paid off the chauffeur and then turned back to them; no other cars were near, no sightseers stood about, there was, in fact, no one else at all outside the Amalgamated building. It was just eight-thirty.

  ‘We might as well,’ said Lord, ‘go in.’

  They were already mounting the two low steps to the entrance when Fonda interrupted. ‘I’m going to take a look around,’ she announced in her clear, velvet voice. ‘Come on, Isa.’

  Isa’s voice was husky, without strain. She said,

  ‘O.K.’

  The three men made their way inside, to find a broad, empty lounge. Large wicker chairs on a parquet floor, several settees, three palms in tubs and cretonne hangings along the tall windows made a foreground for the long counter behind which a single clerk in uniform smiled cheerfully. Tinkham wandered to the counter where stacks of coloured folders drew his attention, while Lord and Cutter sought chairs. The surgeon lit a cigar.

  Now that they were out of sight, Lord found himself wondering about the two girls. Fonda was beautiful; she had a full figure and dark-yellow hair that glinted brightly when touched by light. But she was definitely not the small, pretty, blonde type; for one thing, she was too tall for that – a good five feet six, Lord conjectured – and, for another, her features were too regular for prettiness; despite this regularity, however, her face was animated, her blue eyes vivacious. She wore a smartly-tailored suit; about her neck a bright scarf relieved the sombre colour of her suit and was fastened in front by a large, spade-shaped clip in which a sapphire gleamed, matching her eyes. On her small hat another ornament responded to the clip. No, he decided, she was not pretty – she was beautiful.

  She had been petulant when she met them at the canopy of her imposing Fifth Avenue apartment house. The, for her, hurried change of departure, of course. Very petulant indeed, until Lord followed her uncle out of the car and was presented. She had given him a quick, attentive look, and the pouting frown had been instantly replaced by a wavering change, then a bright smile. ‘I’m glad we are going by ’plane,’ had said Fonda.

  Lord grinned with the wisdom of his twenty-eight years, and sought an adjective for her behaviour. He selected captivating. ‘I’ll lay my hat,’ he wagered, ‘that Pons labels her captivating before we’re up half an hour.’

  Isa was a contrast. She was as tall as her sister, maybe a little taller; she was slender, with an impression of hard muscles beneath her clothes. Not pretty, certainly not beautiful, just as certainly not homely. Lord fumbled about with his vocabulary. She was handsome, he decided finally, but not quite old enough to be handsome yet; about to be handsome, that was it. At that, she looked older than Fonda. And her attitude had made it clear that she was, if anything, bored – bored with the trip and not interested at all in young men, good-looking or otherwise. Assuredly not in Lord. Pons’ presumptive description could be left to Pons.

  With a start Lord wondered how long he had been thinking about those girls. It was his job to get acquainted with this party as soon as possible, and he had better make use of opportunities that were present rather than absent. Tinkham was present, and Tinkham even now was wandering away from the counter across the room. Lord got up and joined him where he had halted before one of the windows that looked across the flying field.

  ‘We’ve good weather for our start, at any rate,’ the detective opened.

  Dr Cutter’s assistant glanced briefly around, then looked back through the window. ‘Good, bright day. Excellent light for dissections.’

  ‘Dissections?’ Lord was puzzled. ‘Did you say dissections?’

  Tinkham did not smile; his voice, though he recognized the other’s bewilderment immediately, was entirely solemn. ‘I was thinking of the past few days. We have had to use artificial lighting for our dissections,’ he explained. ‘Sunlight is always better for microscopic work. To-day would have been excellent.9

  ‘Ah, I see.’ With an effort Lord brought his attention from flying to surgery. ‘I suppose you do a good deal of experimental work. I’ve often wondered what you use for the kind of research you and Dr Cutter do. The dead bodies of animals, or – er – real bodies?’

  ‘I suppose by “real” bodies you mean human bodies. We don’t use cadavers at all; we dissect living animals – rats, guinea pigs, sometimes cats or monkeys. We have two monkeys at P & S now with well-developed malign encephalitis. Except for this trip we would have been at them to-day.’

  ‘I see you believe in vivisection.’

  Tinkham shot the detective a glance as cold and impersonally appraising as if the latter had been himself under one of the assistant’s microscopes. ‘Naturally. It’s the greatest tool experimental surgery has ever been offered. Vivisection has solved many major problems already; its competent use will give us solutions to a great many more. Why, if we could trepan those monkeys today, by to-night we might be ready to confirm a major clue to the nature of lethargicus!’

  ‘I’ve no doubt it has value,’ Lord admitted doubtfully. ‘I’ve never like the idea of it myself.’

  ‘I fail to see what liking has to do with it. It is a technique for the acquirement of knowledge, without relation to emotional fancies. Knowledge is important, but all sorts of fools are emotional ... I am entirely in favour of extending the technique to human beings.’

  Lord speculated momentarily on the possibility that his leg was being pulled, although Tinkham’s tone, while emphatic, continued sober. He would explore further, he decided. ‘What do you mean by that last remark, about human beings?’

  ‘Why, just what I say!’ Behind their glasses, Tinkham’s eyes widened with frank, or assumed surprise. ‘I am in favour of extending vivisection to human subjects. Because of the silly prejudices of a lot of half-wits, we should have to begin with condemned criminals. We could put them under an anaesthetic, perform the indicated vivisections and then administer a lethal dose, that’s all. It is not important to me one way or the other, but for the sloppy humanitarians it would certainly be better than burning out their brain cells with electricity. And it would be of the utmost benefit to science. In addition to the condemned criminals, I can think of a good
many other subjects whose only usefulness can be achieved in the same way: idiots, incurables . . . That would have to come later, when public ignorance has become accustomed to a rational procedure.’

  There could no longer be any doubt that Tinkham was in earnest. The subject was evidently of special significance to him, for his voice had become slightly strained in speaking, and the detective, still somewhat surprised, asked if the view just expressed were his private one, or if it were generally held among his fellow-workers.

  Tinkham started to answer, then considered, as one who wishes to give exact weight to the strength of the opposition, for his own rather than his hearer’s benefit. ‘We are not so many as yet, but we are united and we are determined. The medical profession is full of old fogeys and some of them have great influence because of past reputations. Naturally our first struggle is on the floor of the national medical convention. The annual convention comes next month, and we must win there before going to the public. But not even all the old men are against us; Gesell at P & S is one of our strongest leaders, and plans to make an address for us.’

  Lord’s notice was caught by the familiar name. So that mild old gentleman who had helped him yesterday, he remarked with a slight feeling of wonder, was engaged in this crusade for the right to dissect living human bodies. From his experience with psychological cliques (or ‘schools,’ as they liked to call themselves) he knew to what lengths some of these scientific controversies could go; this one, perhaps, was more than usually bitter, inasmuch as it was not mere theory that was in question, but a definite course of action. He found it difficult to visualise the role of a man like Gesell . . . But Cutter, he considered suddenly, what a fighter he would be, on one side or the other, with his aggressive disposition and his great surgical reputation. He found himself momentarily curious as to Cutter’s allegiance, and made a mental note to inquire. Without much question, though, Cutter must have aligned himself with the vivisectionists. Lord caught the end of the assistant’s continuing words.

  ‘ . . . We can and must prevail,’ he was concluding. ‘Nothing can be allowed to stand in our way. The history of science is the overwhelming of just these sentimental prejudices. From Galileo on we have fought and we are still fighting. Nothing can prevent for long the free search for knowledge.’

  At some loss as to a fitting response to these assertions Lord was beginning, ‘And what position does Dr – ?’ when a subdued roar drew their attention through the window beside them. One of the big Boeing transports was taxi-ing up to the flagging in front of the building with intermittent spurts of explosions from its twin motors. Porters appeared beside the runway as if by magic, and a small mail truck whirled around the corner. The cabin door was opened, and down the accommodation steps now before it climbed half a dozen sleepy-looking travellers. Behind them appeared a stewardess, wideawake and neat, carrying three Thermos flasks in her arms.

  Lord, scanning the expanse of the field, saw another big ’plane circling for a landing half a mile away across the level earth.

  Fonda pointed a slim finger at the spark plug that a grease-covered mechanic had just withdrawn from one of the nine cylinders of the motor he was working on. ‘Does it explode?’ asked Fonda.

  The man turned, hesitated, suddenly realised he had been addressed.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Does that little thing explode?’

  The mechanic gaped. ‘No, lady, it don’t.’ Fonda was no more bewildered by this small part of the motor than was he by the abrupt sight of the two girls before him. His whole expression indicated clearly that he would have liked to stay and hear some more; but habit prevailed, and he walked away toward a repair bench across the hangar. From there he continued to look over his shoulder as long as they remained on the floor.

  The girls also walked on, although not until Fonda had tried several times in vain to open the locked cabin door of the transport whose spark plug had been found wanting. They were examining a small cabin ’plane, almost a sport model, at the other end of the hangar when they became aware of the approach of another man, this time in a well-cut business suit. ‘Are you young ladies interested in anything particular?’ Mr Wiley inquired pleasantly. ‘I am the manager; if there is anything I can do?’

  They both looked up, and Isa said, ‘No, my sister always likes to poke around. Our name is Mann. We are going out on one of your ’planes in a few minutes.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I remember your – ’

  Fonda favoured him with a deep blue stare. ‘We are going out because my uncle is very ill. But Uncle Amos will fix him up all right.’

  ‘Of course Amos will fix him up.’ Isa’s matter-of-fact words were plainly addressed to her sister. ‘And while we’re out there we’ll see that Anne goes straight through with her divorce.’

  Fonda chose this moment to decide on one of the lightning-changes she found so effective; from the naïve ingénue she became in the twinkling of an eye the woman-of-the-world. So tiny a tinge of hauteur might have been in her tone that one could never be really sure, as she said, ‘You know perfectly well, Isa, that I do not consider the fault entirely on one side regarding the divorce. And I am sure that this gentleman can scarcely be interested in mother’s plans.’ She smiled at Mr Wiley as one sophisticate to another.

  The manager was, in fact, not interested in the divorce of whose incidence he had just been apprised; he was a happily, if a bit prosaically, married man, but at the moment, it must be confessed, he was thinking neither of his wife nor of Mrs Mann. He was thinking, as most men in his position did think, of Fonda. In addition, he was astonished and rather embarrassed.

  To relieve the latter emotion he pulled out his watch and, without considering the consequences fully, proposed, ‘Your ’plane is leaving in about ten minutes. I must get up to the control room. Would you care to come with me?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ cried Fonda brightly, before Isa could object. The ingénue had returned; she did not spring into the air, or even move at all, but the impression was of a very lovely little girl jumping up and down with glee. ‘Can we, really?’

  A rather strangled noise came from Isa’s throat, an inhibited snort at these tactics of Fonda’s which always affected her unhappily, no matter how often she witnessed them; but the manager, as he led the way toward a side door with a smiling, ‘Come along, then,’ felt unquestionably relieved; his masculine egotism was suddenly bolstered by the display of childishness, which was Fonda’s intended result, along with getting into the control room.

  At the end of their climb into the cupola atop the administration building they found a relatively small room, almost entirely large windows. There were several desks, on two of which Teletype machines were clicking busily, reporting ’plane positions and miscellaneous data. The Amalgamated plane dispatcher sat at one of the other desks and two men in pilots’ uniforms stood looking at the six a.m. weather bureau synoptic map spread across one section of the sharply sloping ceiling; on the section next it were a series of eight smaller maps, the winds aloft charts of the weather bureau, showing by numbered arrows the direction and velocity of the wind from sea level to 13,000 feet, over the whole United States.

  ‘But you don’t go up that high, do you?’ asked Fonda, who was looking at the numerals on the last of the charts.

  The manager indulged a superior smile. ‘Our transports have a ceiling of 20,500, Miss Mann, and an ordinary service ceiling of 18,400. Of course, flying west we ride much lower because, as you will notice, the prevailing winds at high altitudes are west winds. They always are.’

  He glanced at the large chronometer in the panel between two of the windows, and abruptly called, ‘Time!’ The two pilots left the weather map and walked across to join him at one of the Teletype desks. ‘The hourly weather report comes in at 8.50,’ he explained in an aside to the girls.

  Suddenly the Teletype ceased chattering. For thirty seconds it was silent; and then the reports started coming in. In turn the fourteen stations between N
ewark and Cleveland reported the conditions as observed within the last five minutes – Whitehouse, N.J., Northampton, Pa., Numidia, Sunbury, Hartleton, Woodward Pass, Bellefonte, Kylertown, Greenwood Club, Brookville, Lamartine, Mercer, Bristolville, O., Cleveland. They reported, thought Isa, as she watched the Teletype figures transferred to the clearance sheet, plenty: general condition, ceiling, ground visibility, wind direction and velocity, temperature, barometric pressure and miscellaneous, including sometimes the dew point. It came over the Teletype in symbols and she couldn’t understand most of it, but she did make out that the weather was clear except at Cleveland (where it was overcast but clearing), the barometer ranging around 30.1 and the ceilings almost all ‘unlimited.’

  The pilots’ expression made it plain that they considered the reports propitious. ‘Duck soup,’ murmured the younger. The manager bent over a typewritten form which read, ‘I, Frank Wiley, consider conditions suitable for the scheduled flight. Signed —, Manager,’ and signed it. The senior pilot, an older man with a tanned, wind-bitten face, affixed his name to a similar slip.

  ‘All right,’ said Wiley, ‘let’s get below. Five minutes to departure.’

  In the passengers’ lounge bustle had replaced calm. Not only had several of the incoming passengers lingered at the counter on various errands, but one of the enormous Amalgamated limousines had stopped at the entrance simultaneously with the arrival of the ’plane from the west and discharged the outgoing passengers who were to leave with Lord’s party.

  With the entrance of the first newcomer the detective had hurried back to Cutter’s side; in the midst of company he considered his position to be beside the man he was guarding. The note, of course, had specified ‘noon, Central Time,’ but that was no excuse to take chances regarding a possible anticipation. Closely but covertly he scrutinised all who came into the room, and his right hand had dropped carelessly into the side pocket of his coat. Captain Lord was on duty and, from now on, it was up to him.