The disappearance of His Britannic Majesty’s battleship Dreadnought
Number 8 sent the world wild. Two great nations had suffered severe
blows, and lay in quivering expectation of the future. The chief of my
paper smiled at me more amicably than ever before, as I entered the
office the third day after the British battleship disappeared utterly
in the channel.
“You’d better run that prophecy of yours about the French battleship
to-day,” he said, “and then keep out of the office. I don’t want you to
be in evidence. We’ve got too good a thing to take any chances. Work as
hard as you want to on the assignment, but don’t appear publicly.”
I nodded acquiescence.
“By the way,” he went on, “just how many people outside our own staff
know of the second letter?”
“Seven,” I answered. “The President, the Secretary of War, the two
Haldanes and their cousin Mrs. Hartnell, Richard Regnier and John King.
The former Secretary of the Navy did know, but he’s dead. They are all
pledged to secrecy, and all have kept the story wholly to themselves.”
“That’s all,” said the chief, and I left.
That night I sent in a prediction that a French battleship would
sink within a week, and then spent the next few days going over the
naval registers of the nations, and in correlating the mass of data
concerning the navies of the world, which had been collected at the
office by my request. I wanted to get all the information concerning
the subject in hand that I could possibly obtain.
Immersed in masses of data, struggling with theory after theory that
arose only to be rejected, I passed the week. Weary from my labors, one
afternoon I left my work to go to the Haldanes to report progress. Tom
and Dorothy were both immersed in a research Tom was carrying on, but
they always had time to discuss the great question.
“I had a letter from Dick Regnier yesterday,” said Dorothy, the first
words over. “He says he is doing some work he has long wanted to do. He
speaks of seeing John King at Cowes. John had his new yacht down there.”
I followed every word intently. “Nothing at all about the loss of the
Alaska or the Dreadnought Number 8?” I asked significantly.
“No,” answered Dorothy.
“When was the letter mailed?” I asked.
“Two days after the British ship went down,” she answered. “But--” She
stopped as Tom came in. I continued the conversation no farther.
As I left, Tom called after me. “I’ve been fooling with some
phosphorescent paint,” he said, “and I’ve run down a few interesting
results. Don’t you want to come up to the laboratory to-morrow morning
about three o’clock? We’re going to run some tests between twelve
midnight, and five in the morning, so as to have the least current and
vibration that the city can give.”
“I’ll be glad to come,” I answered instantly. No chance to be near
Dorothy was ever to be refused.
The last revellers were just passing from the great white way, as I
rode up town in a late surface car, which held, beside myself, only a
few dull and sleepy workers. I was ahead of time and, as I came up near
Riverside Drive, I jumped off the car and walked down towards the Drive
and up by the river. Below me, in the full moonlight, lay an American
fleet. The white sides and lofty turrets of the ships stood sharply
outlined against the other bank. They seemed to personify the might
of the nation resting there in huge impassive stolidity, fearful of
nothing, ready for all. Yet as I remembered Joslinn’s words, “vanished
like a breaking soap bubble,” spoken of the Alaska, I shuddered at the
helplessness of those floating forts, massive as they were. I looked
at my watch in the moonlight. Quarter of three. I turned and made my
way to the gray stone building on the height, which held the research
laboratory.
I found Tom and Dorothy bending over a series of instruments under a
big incandescent light. I watched them for a moment silently, then, as
they rose from their task, I greeted them. Never had Dorothy looked
more charming than in this setting of bare walls and severe tables,
hooded instruments and wires, glass cases and shelves. Most girls whom
I had seen at three o’clock in the morning, as they left a ballroom,
were sorry spectacles, worn and dishevelled. Dorothy, in her trim
working clothes, was as fresh as a summer’s morn. Her first greeting
over, she turned to her work again, adjusting a micrometer levelling
screw.
“What are you doing?” I asked idly.
“Adjusting a reflectoscope to detect the presence of radio-active
waves. Tom is just going to have his assistant test the radium he is
to use to-night, and has half a dozen reflectoscopes here,” and she
waved her hand at the bench before her, where half a dozen similar
instruments were placed.
“They are a good deal like the old electroscopes, only infinitely more
sensitive. You see that gold leaf,” she pointed to two tiny ribbons
of gold that hung limply together, “when a wave from a radio-active
source, such as radium, comes along, those ribbons fly apart. All our
reflectoscopes are discharged now, but they’ll be charged later.”
As we spoke, Tom joined us. “I’ve sent Jones down-stairs for the radium
in the safe, Dorothy,” he said, and we three stood looking silently
at the instruments before us. Through the open windows a fresh breeze
fluttered in, and the soft night gave back but the slightest hum, a
minimum of that sound that never ceases in the quietest hours of the
great city. A church tower rang out--One, Two, Three, Four. Tom glanced
at the chronometer. “Just right,” he said, and looked back. A strange
hush filled the air. Again a terrific force seemed to be pulling me
towards Dorothy, but my eyes never turned from the reflectoscopes.
Suddenly, as I gazed, the golden ribbons sprang to life, parted and
stood stiffly separate.
“Good heavens!” cried Tom. “What did that? They were perfectly
insulated. What did that, Dorothy? It must be Jones bringing the
radium.”
Dorothy’s eyes glowed with excited interest. “I don’t think it was
Jones,” she said eagerly. “I believe I know what it was, but anyway,
let’s go first and see where Jones is. There’s absolutely nothing else
in the laboratory that could have charged them, insulated as they were.”
Down the stairs, flight after flight, four in all, we trooped, and
found Jones in an office on the first floor, seated in a chair before
the safe, and looking disconsolately at its closed door. At Tom’s
voice, he rose.
“Professor, I’ve forgotten the combination again. I was sitting here
trying to bring it to mind.”
“Then you haven’t taken the radium from the safe at all?” shouted Tom,
in wild excitement.
“No,” answered Jones, staring in amazement.
“Then how in blazes did those reflectoscopes get charged?”
Jones showed a sudden interest, “Have they got charged again?”
“Yes, have they been charged before?”
“Twice before, and I meant to speak to you about it, but it slipped my
mind.”
“When did it happen?” Dorothy broke in.
“I’ve got full particulars noted down, up-stairs,” said Jones. “But how
about the combination?”
“Never mind that,” cried Tom. “Let me see your data.”
Rapidly we ascended, the slower Jones following some way behind. In the
laboratory the assistant turned to a littered desk and fumbled among a
mass of papers. I could see that Dorothy was burning with impatience
which I could not understand. Jones fumbled on, picking up paper after
paper, peering at them blindly through his black-rimmed spectacles.
Tom seized my arm and walked me down the room impatiently.
“That man will drive me mad some day,” he exclaimed. “He’s the most
accurate investigator and observer we ever had, but he keeps his desk
in an unspeakable mess. He’s got that data somewhere, and when he
finds it, it will be correct, but he’ll take perhaps an hour to find
it. There, thank the Lord!” he remarked, as we turned back, “Dorothy’s
taking a hand.”
Then came order from chaos, regularity from irregularity. Paper by
paper was read, rejected and placed in its appropriate place, while
Jones looked on, by no means displeased. Scarcely five minutes had
passed, and the desk had assumed an order foreign to its nature. Ten
minutes passed, and Dorothy turned. “It isn’t here, Mr. Jones. Now
think, where did you put it?”
Jones seized the knotty problem, bent his mind to it, struggled with
it, emerged victorious. “I know,” he said. “It’s in the middle of that
black, leather note-book in the third right-hand drawer.”
Before he had finished, the note-book was in Dorothy’s hand, was open,
and a paper fluttered out into her lap. She picked it up and read,
“July 3d, 19--. Reflectoscopes charged without apparent cause at
3.45-30 P. M.; July 11th, 19--. Reflectoscopes charged without apparent
cause between 9.35 and 10.10 P. M.”
“I thought so, I thought so,” said Dorothy, jumping from her chair.
“Tom, it’s as straight as a die. Oh, Jim, it’s a big step.”
Tom looked as bewildered as poor Jones had seemed before the safe, or
as he did now. I was thoroughly puzzled. The only thing that struck me
forcibly was that Dorothy had called me by my first name. That was a
big step surely, but evidently it was not the step she meant. Dorothy
saw our bewilderment, and went on emphatically.
“You are stupid. I’d like to know how far you men would get in this
world without women to find things out for you. What happened on July
3d in the afternoon, and what occurred sometime in the evening, our
time, on July 11th?”
Tom and I stood still, looking at each other in bewilderment. Suddenly
I saw a great light.
“Why, those were the times the Alaska and the Dreadnought Number 8
disappeared!” I shouted, in wildest excitement, “and just now.”
“A French battleship went down,” said Dorothy gravely. “And,--” she
broke her sentence with a brief sob, “the poor wives and children.”
We had turned instinctively to watch the golden ribbons that told of
the sinking of the proud battleship, and of the death of hundreds, and
I bowed my head as when the death angel comes close beside us in his
flight. A moment’s silence, and Tom turned to Jones.
“If you don’t mind, Jones, I wish you would say nothing of this, no
matter what you see or hear. We shall do no more to-night; you may go
home.”
With Jones’ departure, we began another council. Tom drew out his pipe.
“Dorothy, I know Jim and I need to smoke over this, do you mind?” and
at her word we filled our pipes and invoked the help of that great aid
to philosophers, tobacco. Dorothy was at the desk, her brow knotted in
deep thought. Tom and I sat on a side bench against the wall, facing
her. The dawn was coming in through the wide windows, and the city
stirred as we talked.
“Your theory about the disintegrating steel of the battleships was
evidently wrong, Tom,” said Dorothy. “The wave that charged the
reflectoscopes was a wave definitely projected from some definite
place.”
“Yes,” said Tom musingly. “I was wrong. The man who is trying to stop
all war must have some radio-active generator, some means of wave
disturbance greater than anything we have yet attained. As a man starts
a dynamo, and uses the electricity it furnishes to do work, so this man
starts this unknown engine of destruction, and its waves destroy the
ship.”
“But how could he possibly cause a ship to vanish without a sound?” I
asked.
“Of course, I’m not perfectly sure,” answered Dorothy. “But the moment
the reflectoscopes were charged, I thought of a possible theory.
His force, so powerful that it affects our reflectoscopes thousands
of miles away, may be able to resolve the metal which makes up a
battleship into its electrons, which would disappear as intangible gas.”
“What are electrons?” I persisted. “I’ve heard of them, of course, but
I’m not quite sure what they are.”
“They’re the very smallest division of matter, the infinitely small
particles that make up the atom. If a man could find a way to break
matter down to them, it’s entirely possible that they would then go
off as a gas. The waves the man sends out must be terrifically strong,
anyway. One thing I don’t see, though, is how he could break down
organic matter. He could break down everything metallic, perhaps, but
I don’t see how he could break down wood--or human beings,” she ended,
with a shudder.
“Part of that’s easy,” said Tom, with a long whiff at his pipe.
“Absolutely no wood for the last two years on any battleship. All
nations have taken out what wood they had on their new ships and put
in metal of some sort. I don’t know about the action on man; it’s not
essential to settle that now.”
The excitement of the moment had been so great, standing in the midst
of history making had been so poignant, that for the nonce my newspaper
instinct had been lost in the stronger thrill. Now it suddenly awoke.
“Great Scott!” I cried. “I must get this to the paper instantly.
Where’s the telephone?”
Without a word, Tom pointed to the desk ’phone on his own desk, and I
rushed over to it. Again and again I rang, with no response. “I can’t
get Central,” I said.
Tom looked at the clock. “It’s a branch exchange, but there’s usually
some one on our exchange board by now. I’ll try.”
Five more precious minutes were lost in his attempt to gain the board.
At last he looked up. “No use, Jim.”
I waited for no more, but grabbed my hat and ran down the long flights.
Out across the square I sped and down the street. A blue bell showed
on the corner in a small store. I ran to it--locked. Another block,
and I had the same experience. At the third, a corner drug store, I
met success. A yawning boy, sweeping out the store, gazed with open
mouth as, hot and perspiring from my run, I hurried in and rushed to
the booth. In a moment I had the office and the night editor’s desk,
had told him who I was, and began to dictate. “At one minute past four
by our time (see what time Paris time is for that, and put it in) a
French battleship was sunk by the man who is to stop all war. Probably
no one on board escaped.” That last was a guess based on the experience
of the past. The night editor’s voice came back.
“Feel sure of this, Orrington?”
“Very sure,” I said.
“I hate to run a thing like this on a chance.”
“The chief said to run anything I sent, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” said the night editor.
“Well, rush it in then, before word comes.”
“All right, if you insist,” came back, and I hung up the ’phone, paid
my fee, and departed.
I slept like a log until eleven, then rose to gather in the file of
morning papers outside my door. My statement was in big headlines in my
own paper. No other morning paper had a single word of it. I paused at
the news-stand, as I went down to breakfast. Staring from every paper
was the headline, “La Patrie Number 3 disappeared. French battleship
follows the Alaska and the Dreadnought Number 8.”
They had the news from France five hours after we had published it.
Leisurely I ate my breakfast, the while I read the late news of my
rivals, turning with especial interest to an editorial of my own paper,
commenting on my work and reviewing the situation. “This should mean
another big jump in circulation,” I thought to myself, “and another
jump in salary, too.” My salary was really getting up to a point where
marriage was the only sensible thing for a man to do. I was to meet
the Haldanes at three. I wondered how long an acquaintance should last
before one could propose.
As I sipped my last cup of coffee, I saw two men in the dining-room
door speaking to a waiter, who nodded, and led them my way. They were
not the type of men who usually breakfasted in the restaurant. Just
before me they stopped.
“Mr. Orrington?” said one inquiringly.
“I am James Orrington,” I answered. The waiter had gone back to the
kitchen. We were left alone in the rear of the dining-room. The man who
had spoken opened his coat and showed a silver shield.
“We are secret service officials. You are under arrest.”