I
As a staid and wealthy New York family, of distinguished but remote
English ancestry, we moved formally and rather arrogantly within our
small, exclusive circle, holding on grimly to the traditions and
elegancies of the past. During the winter season, we viewed the outside
world placidly, and with the respectful composure of middle-age, from
the dignified privacy of our red brick mansion in Washington Square.
On May first, as regular as clockwork, year in and year out, and
with all the solemnity of a ritual, we put our elaborate upholstered
furniture in linen shrouds, veiled the somber, scowling family
portraits in their dull gold frames with fly-netting, boarded up the
windows and doors, and went to the country. Our summer home is called
The Castle, and it is situated at Sands Cliff, Long Island. As a family
we resembled nothing so much as this embattled stone fortress, of
old-world design, in which we spent more than half the year.
As long back as I can remember, we had successfully preserved the
family's seclusion from the living world. Wherever we happened to
be, in town or country, we had protected our privacy with shuttered
windows, and massive iron gates that were secured both day and night
with heavy chains. Numerous signs of "Private" and "No Trespassing
Allowed" dotted our grounds like grave markers.
And then, quite suddenly, our lives became incredibly transformed.
A series of weird events brought us out of our privacy and
seclusion--brought us plenty of excitement and trouble and even horror.
But that was not to be wondered at, with Henry, my elder brother,
suddenly developing a mania for research in scientific matters,
especially the science of heavenly bodies and the phenomena of radio.
He did not pretend to be a scholar, although he had cultivated
scholarly habits most of his life. Inexplicably, this mania had seized
him late in life; a sort of bursting out of the abnormal repression
which held us all in thrall, no doubt as the result of our long
seclusion from the outside world and following the drab and barren
routine of our lives with such punctilious rigidity.
Ample means had enabled him to completely outfit an observatory, with a
powerful telescope, at our summer residence. Here he would spend hours
gazing into the abyss of space. He saw things up there the trained,
professional astronomer never saw, or ever hoped to see--colliding
suns, formation of temporary stars, the rejuvenescence of dying worlds,
and gaseous explosions in the Milky Way.
One of his pet theories was that the planet Mars was inhabited by a
race of people like ourselves, and that their men of science had long
been trying to establish radio communication with the earth. The static
on our radio set which annoyed me intensely, would galvanize Henry with
delight and hope, and his eyes would glisten almost frenziedly behind
their horn-rimmed spectacles.
"Those are distinctly electro-magnetic waves," he would say, "that
come from some point far off in space, and they are not due to any
terrestrial disturbance like thunderstorms, local or distant."
There was no opening, no escape, from Henry once he got started on the
galactic radio waves as differing from the cosmic rays and from the
phenomenon of cosmic radiation.
"I'm telling you, Livingston," he once declared in an excited,
high-pitched voice, "that man has only begun his conquest of time and
space. There are no limitations to human achievement. The world is on
the threshold of things unheard of, undreamed of. I have no doubt that
we will soon be able to establish radio communication with Mars, and
with my leisure, money and the required taste for science, I feel that
I am admirably fitted to make it come true."
And from that day he was changed, secretive. He refused to tell me what
he had discovered. Again and again I begged him to explain and always
it was the same vague answer, the same shake of the head, and tightened
lips.
It all seemed fantastic and visionary then, Henry's theories about
Mars and interstellar communication, but when unusual things began to
happen and our peaceful and ordered living was suddenly and violently
disturbed, I realized, as never before, that visions often come to
reality in an unbelievable way.
At the time we were thrown into such turmoil, and the dread spotlight
of publicity centered upon us, our family consisted of Henry and
myself, both bachelors; Jane, our spinster sister, and Patricia Royce
Preston--Pat for short--a very fascinating young person, who had come
to live with us at the tender age of fourteen, after the shocking death
of her parents, our youngish sister, Virginia Royce Preston, and her
husband, Allston, who were killed in an air-liner crash near Paris.
There is something strangely lovable about a young girl in the process
of growing up. The advent of Pat meant, of course, less privacy and
the trampling down of staid personal habits and family customs which
we held virtually sacred. The fact that we were old and queer and our
household drab and rather grotesque, in comparison to the modernistic
and rather barbaric splendor of our more fashionable friends, scarcely
troubled her. Nothing seemed to matter but that this bright-eyed,
brown-haired girl should concentrate all her love and devotion on a
trio of old fossils. A warm affection grew between us and our pretty
niece. As she blossomed into young womanhood our lives became centered
in her. She was now eighteen.
Although we were born rich, and received a huge income from the
heritage of vast and various real estate holdings on Manhattan Island,
both Henry and myself, strangely enough, had never splurged, and never
married. I am sure the thought of matrimony never entered Jane's mind.
Our natural emotions seemed to be stirred and exalted only by the
importance of our family name and our wealth. Romantically, we were
strangely neutral, as though, in the pursuit of riches, the family
stock had been sort of washed out.
After our college days, Henry and I grew into old-fashioned, mellow
bachelorhood, aloof from the world and very self-sufficient, and glad
to have it so. Henry had just observed his sixty-fifth birthday when
our lives became so tempestuous and convulsed. I was two years his
junior. Jane had just turned sixty. As progeny, we seemed to have come
into this world in swift successiveness, as though the marriage of our
revered parents had fulfilled its promise in a bunch.
For an entire summer Henry lived virtually in seclusion in his
observatory without any tangible result. Sweeping the sky with his
telescope for anything that might happen. But nothing transpired. Yet
he persisted. Finally, he detected a tiny comet, apparently on its way
to the earth. At first it appeared no larger than a pin-prick of light,
with a small, meteoric tail.
The night he made the discovery, he got me out of bed to see it, but
I was in no mood or condition for sky gazing. In addition, looking
into the eye-piece of the telescope made me a little sick and dizzy. I
couldn't see a thing. Deciding that he was suffering from a delusion, I
went back to bed.
The odd thing was that Henry was right. He had actually witnessed the
phenomenon of impact of two small planets which produced the comet.
As he explained it afterwards to a group of eminent scientists, this
collision of two celestial bodies had produced a distinct flash
of light, out of which had grown a spiral swarm of very brilliant
particles, and he had watched them as they took on orbital motion.
The comet soon became the most impressive and magnificent sight I have
ever seen, stretching its scimitar-like form half across the heavens.
Its wonder and beauty dragged New Yorkers up in the small hours, to
gaze at it with fascinating awe. Many regarded it with terror, others
with superstitious dread. In churches throughout the land, the people
prayed: "Lord save us from the devil, and Royce's comet!"
The comet was not only named after Henry but his discovery was
acclaimed by scientists the world over, and he was chosen a fellow of
the two leading scientific bodies of America and England. While still
rated as an amateur in science, nevertheless, many learned men began
to look upon him as the depository of authority and authenticity in
matters relating to the mysteries of the solar system.
Having disclosed something to the world in the order of creation, Henry
became imbued with an overpowering sense of his own importance as a
man of science; his ambitions soared to unsurmountable heights. The
discovery of the comet having been far easier than he had dared dream,
he now turned with profound intentness to establish radio communication
with Mars. He began talking in a familiar and chatty way about the
people on Mars, and to hear him talk one would think that he was going
there for a week-end of golf.
In this project, he had enlisted the able assistance of Serge Olinski,
assistant research engineer of the National Radio Corporation, whose
unexceptional qualifications included an honor degree in cosmic ray
research, with distinction in astronomy. Their experimental activities,
in trying to pick up and decode the galactic radio waves, which both
believed constituted some kind of interstellar signaling, were carried
on behind locked doors, either at Henry's observatory in the country,
or in Olinski's laboratory in the NRC Building, in the new Radio Center
Annex.
Olinski was a queer shrinking soul, and any sort of publicity to Henry
was equally distasteful. They were two of a kind, in this respect.
Notwithstanding all the praise and attention given to Henry by the
press during the comet furore, he treated reporters with the utmost
contempt, and accused them of being dishonest rogues. One reporter in
particular he hated and feared. Just mention to him the name of Robert
McGinity of the New York Daily Recorder, and his correctly chiselled
and aristocratic features would crinkle up in rage and horrible
chuckles would issue from his thin lips like unnamable profanities.
He had never forgotten his first encounter with McGinity on the
telephone, nor had he ever forgiven the reporter for what he called an
utterly disreputable transaction in news. But the business of reporting
is at least an honorable one, and reporters have to get their stories,
somehow.
This fellow, McGinity, published the first report of Henry's discovery
of the comet, and scored a beat by calling him up and giving the
impression that he was one of the assistant astronomers at Harvard
University. I had no suspicions then how the information had trickled
into the office of the Daily Recorder, but I believe now that our
solemn-visaged butler, Orkins, who afterwards turned out to be so
mercenary and treacherous, tipped off this morning paper, which paid
liberally for exclusive stories.
It was the night following Henry's detection of the comet when he
was aroused out of a sound sleep to answer an important telephone
call. If I hadn't been up and overheard the conversation, I wouldn't
have believed it possible for any man to be so easily deceived.
But gullibility is one of Henry's weaknesses. I switched into the
conversation from an extension on the second floor.
Henry seemed to have some recollection of the name of the Harvard
professor, as it came over the telephone, and at first was a little
taken aback and curious that the news of his discovery should have
become known. Despite this, he told all about his detection of the
new comet, and proudly, omitting no detail. It would have been
ungrateful on his part to have distrusted the man at the other end
of the wire, after he had gone to the trouble and expense of calling
up, obviously from Boston, and it seemed so unlikely that any one
outside astronomical circles would be interested in the discovery. Up
to that time, Henry had had no dealings with reporters. By exercising
extraordinary discretion, he had managed all his life to keep out of
the news, except for occasional real estate transactions, and had
always avoided any encounter with the press.
After he had answered heaps and heaps of questions, the voice at the
other end said: "Thanks, Mr. Royce. Thanks a lot. Darned good of you to
tell me all this."
An oppressive silence descended. By that time, Henry must have guessed
that he had been gulled. I got his voice but I missed the play of
expression on his face.
"Who is this speaking?" he asked again. "Who the devil are you?"
"Bob McGinity of the Daily Recorder," came the prompt reply.
Henry gave a nervous jump. "What?" he gasped angrily. It was evident
that he was utterly taken by surprise. "I--I find your action in
calling me up quite incomprehensible, Mr. McGinity. I imagined
that--that--"
"Pardon me," the reporter retorted with some dignity. "I never said I
was an assistant professor of astronomy at Harvard. I simply asked if
you knew of such a person, and you said you did, and then you proceeded
to tell me exactly what I wanted to know."
"But surely you're not going to publish this," Henry fumed. "It's too
immature. You must keep it out of the newspaper."
"I'm sorry but I have no power to do so, Mr. Royce," the reporter
replied. "And no inclination, Mr. Royce."
Henry clawed at the telephone instrument with trembling fingers. "If I
had you here, young man," he shouted, "I'd break your damned neck."
He hung up with a bang, and I don't think he slept a wink the rest of
the night. And it was entirely due to this experience that he and
Olinski took every precaution that nothing should leak out concerning
their research in interstellar signaling, which, as far as I could
learn, at the time, had entered on the final and exciting stage of
their experimental work.
Henry's actions indicated that his mind was still working feverishly
on this subject; he even raved about it in his sleep, according to his
Filipino valet, Niki. But about his and Olinski's doings, not a word to
me. When I would ask him if they had found anything worth finding, he
would reply: "Just you wait, and see;" a vague term which he refused to
make more definite.
In the silent watches of the night, he would sit at his telescope, his
eyes trained on that beautiful, reddish planet, Mars. One morning,
at four o'clock, I found him there, clad only in his pajamas, and he
strongly resented my intrusion. But I had a task to perform, and that
was to see that he got his proper rest. I had no wish that any member
of our family should become psychopathic.
"Henry!" I exclaimed, rather harshly; "you've only a few hours before
breakfast-time. Go to bed and get a bit of sleep."
I think he realized, instinctively, that I was not in sympathy with
this business of trying to pick up radio signals from Mars. It all
seemed so useless and incredible. His secret experiments had been in
progress now for about a year. The tumult aroused by the discovery of
the comet seemed a thing long past and forgotten. The memory of the
public is short. Newer sensations had taken its place.
In this latest mad, scientific quest, Henry reminded me of one of
Jane's goldfish, which swims in its bowl, and swims and swims,
thousands of miles, perhaps, and then finds itself a few inches from
its starting point. So one day I resolved to bring the matter to an
issue. I slipped into his room just after he had disrobed and donned a
dressing-gown, preparatory to taking a bath and dressing for dinner.
"Henry," I began, rather abruptly, "study and action are worth while,
only when they lead you some place." But I was not destined to finish
what was in my mind to say.
"I beg pardon, Livingston, if I disturb you," he interrupted in his
meekest accents, and then went into his bathroom, and closed the door.
Determined to have my say, I followed him to the door, and knocked. The
door opened, and his face, meek and anxious, looked out at me through a
narrow crack.
"Henry!" I implored. "If I could only see you for a few minutes--"
"No!" he said, and shut the door. A second later, I heard the bar
shoved into its slot.
There was nothing unusual in Henry locking himself in his bathroom,
for he had the distressful habit of sitting in his bath-tub, by the
hour, smoking and thinking. His bathroom seemed to be the only quiet
retreat in the castle which afforded the complete solitude and privacy
necessary for the employment of his brain cells. He felt that here
he could relax, just as Napoleon did, after undue fatigue, dictating
letters and giving important military orders from his steaming bath-tub.
I have often wondered where Sir Isaac Newton was sitting, at his home
in Woolsthorpe, England, when the fall of an apple, so legend tells us,
suggested the most magnificent of his discoveries, the law of universal
gravitation. There is no evidence to refute that he was sitting in one
of those queer, early English bath-tubs, looking out of the bathroom
window, at his apple orchard.
I never see Rodin's famous sculpture, "The Thinker," but I am reminded
of Henry, sitting in his bath-tub, thinking and thinking, especially
during the early part of the eventful summer of which I write.
Evidently some fresh idea had come to him while in his bath on the
evening I persisted in assailing his peace of mind. With startling
suddenness he donned his bath-robe, rushed to the telephone, and
communicated with Olinski. As quickly as possible, the next day,
they got to work on Henry's idea. Then problems began to straighten
themselves out. As to what they had discovered, they said nothing at
the moment.
Soon after, however, an avalanche of adventure, mystery and excitement
came thunderously down upon us, throwing our lives into chaos.