Florence Wood looked up from her little desk and cried, "Why, Captain
Schnell! How nice to see you!"
"Hello," I said with a smile. "I hope you won't mind my company for a
while."
"I'm not likely to go for a stroll in--Captain Schnell! Don't--"
Seven and one-half tons of finely wrought and polished tool-steel
alloy swung on delicately balanced hinges, coming to rest with the
metal-to-metal sound of machined surfaces sliding into a perfect fit
with its precision-matched receptacle. Its piston-fit made a pressure
on our eardrums. Then the automatic switches took over and motors
whirred in solid muffled harmony as the massive bars slid out of their
nests into the polished slots.
The ponderous operation that sealed the two of us off from the outside
world behind a barrier of drill-proof and burglar-proof and blast-proof
solidity concluded not with the mechanical fanfare it deserved, but
with a gentle little _click_ that was as final as the Word of God.
"--do that!" gasped Florence Wood, weakly finishing her admonition.
She stared at me.
The knowledge that this bank vault door was equipped with a time-lock
that would not permit it to be opened except in the interval between
nine-fifteen and nine-thirty in the morning of any working weekday
ceased to be mere information and became vitally important to Florence
Wood.
So did the secondary knowledge that the bank vault was also contrived
in available volume to limit the breathable air. There was not enough
to support the average human adult overnight until opening time
tomorrow morning. Now there were two of them entombed in it--_and she
was one of them_!
"We'll die!" she screamed.
"Trust me, Florence?"
She looked dubious. She was not at all willing to regard anyone as
competent who was so foolish as to lock himself into a bank vault--and
her with him.
Florence was still struggling through her sea of mixed thoughts when
the telephone rang. It was Chief Weston and he bellowed almost loud
enough to hear through the yards of concrete and steel that separated
us.
"Schnell--what in the bloody hell have you done?"
"I've shut the vault," I said.
"You'll die!"
"I doubt it."
"How do you propose to get out?" he demanded with heavy sarcasm.
"Just ask Edward Hazlett Wood--the Psi-man in our midst."
"Schnell, if you get out of there alive, I'm going to ask for your
resig--"
"If I get out of here alive, you'll need every faculty I have to keep
our Psi-man jugged for good."
"You and your extra-sensory--"
"Chief, get it through your thick skull that I am so convinced I'm
right that I am betting my life on it!"
"And can you tell me why he is going to give himself away to rescue
you?"
"Because I have his daughter right here beside me."
"Schnell--"
"Stop yacking, Chief. Call me when Wood arrives. I have an emotional
problem on my hands down here."
"How do you know Wood's coming?"
"He's been following my every move by telepathy," I said. "And he's
been trying to block me all the way. Oh, he knows all right."
* * * * *
Then I hung up to stop a lot of senseless gab. I turned to Florence,
who was just beginning to understand what I had said and what it meant
to both her and her father. She stood there with shocked eyes regarding
me, and with one hand pressed back against her teeth. She said, "I
don't believe it," in a barely audible voice.
"It's true, and I'm sorry it's true," I told her.
"It can't be true."
"That's what you'd like to believe," I said softly. "But the fact
remains that your father is a killer."
"I'd rather die."
"Florence, the choice between death and dishonor is not yours to make.
Whether you live or die is up to your father, who is guilty of placing
you in this awkward position by turning his talents to evil."