Many men would have killed to possess the
painting--for Tom Calhoun knew it held a key to
knowledge that would rock the scientific world!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
April 1957
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"Hold it, buddy," this fellow said, coming along the bar toward me. "I
want to talk to you."
The way he spoke set my teeth on edge. There was a whining, placating
tone in his voice, but under this was a growl which indicated that if
he had the chance, he would be glad to _order_ me to stop and talk to
him, instead of asking me. His clothes were expensive, but unpressed,
and he was wearing them in a way that I didn't like. There was another
thing about him that I liked even less--the slight bulge under his left
armpit.
All in all there was only one thing that I liked about him--the way his
lower jaw stuck out ahead of the rest of his face. It was a perfect
target for a left jab.
"You're Luke Shaw, ain't you?" he asked.
"I am. And so what?" He looked me over carefully after I spoke. A faint
flicker of grudging respect appeared on his face as his gaze crossed
my shoulders. He measured me for a hidden gun, which he didn't find
because I wasn't wearing it. He liked this. It made his job safer, if
not easier.
"Look, Luke, I'm not trying to stir up any trouble." The whining
tone was back in his voice. "I just wanted to know--you work for Tom
Calhoun, eh?"
I felt my back hair begin to raise as he mentioned Tom's name. So
far as I knew--and it was my business to know--Tom Calhoun didn't
have an enemy on Earth. He had me on his payroll for two reasons, the
first being that I was the best friend he ever had, with the possible
exception of Ann Briscoe, his laboratory assistant, the second reason
being that he knew he could trust me right down to his last chip.
Sometimes it gets important to have one guy you can really trust. My
job was to shoo away all curiosity seekers, who would invade his lab
by the scores just to get a glimpse of the great scientist, thus
making certain that Tom got all the privacy he wanted, which was about
all there was of this article. Also if the commies should come prying
around, I was supposed to meet them and roll out the carpet edged in
black. They had and I had.
Long Jaw didn't look like a commie, though in my experiences these
birds never look like what they are but always like something else. The
thing that makes them commies is inside, where it can't be seen, never
outside.
"Whatever you've got on your mind, get it off," I said. As I spoke a
couple of new customers came into the little saloon and lined up at the
back bar. Ned Kenro, owner of the place and my good friend, went back
to serve them.
"How would you like to make a couple of thousand bucks for yourself?"
His question staggered me. Two thousand dollars was a lot of money.
"What do I have to do for it?" I asked.
"Give me the key to the back door of Calhoun's laboratory," Long Jaw
said. As he spoke he watched my face. What he saw there, made him
realize he had said too much. He reached for the gun inside his coat.
He was fast, I'll give him credit for that. But not fast enough.
_Smack!_ My left jab caught him on the end of his protruding jaw, right
on the button. He got his feet tangled up with the bar rail and went
over backward. The gun, a nasty looking little .38, flew out of his
hand. I reached to pick it up. This movement probably saved my life.
A beer bottle came down across the left side of my head and struck
my shoulder a numbing blow. As I went to the floor, the whole saloon
seemed to turn upside down. Dazed, I tried to sit up and bring my eyes
into focus. I couldn't see very well but what little I saw, I didn't
like. The two joes who had lined up at the bar were coming toward me.
They didn't intend to kiss me.
I turned around to look for the gun that Long Jaw had dropped. It was
under the edge of the bar, out of reach. I tried to get to my feet.
My legs had rubber in them. Meantime Long Jaw's two pals kept coming
toward me.
Then the first one stopped coming. A stout length of hickory billy came
over the bar and went home against the skull of the first one with a
crack that was completely satisfying to me. I knew who was on the other
end of that billy: Ned Kenro! Never in the years had he owned this
little saloon, had he had to hit a man twice.
Nor did he have to hit this one the second time. The guy's eyes turned
upward into his skull as if he was trying to look inside his cranium
and see what had landed on his noggin. While he was trying to do this,
he fell flat.
I got the gun into my fingers. My eyes were back into focus. There had
been two men. The second one had seen Ned go into action with the billy
and he had also seen me get possession of the gun. He changed his mind
and headed for the rear exit, fast. Ned Kenro vaulted over the bar and
helped me to my feet.
"You hurt, Luke?" His round face beamed with concern.
"Not much, thanks to you."
"Don't mention it. Glad to do the same for a friend any day." He
hesitated, his delicacy preventing him from intruding into what might
be a private fight. "But would you mind telling me what this is all
about? Watch it, Luke!" Ned's voice grew tight with alarm.
* * * * *
I turned. Long Jaw wasn't coming toward me. He was heading out the
front door and he was in a hurry. I could have shot him, and perhaps I
should have smoked him, but I hate to shoot a running man. I followed
him outside just in time to see him jump into a car and roar away.
Perhaps I should have gone back into the saloon and kicked the truth
out of the third man, but all I could think of at that moment was that
Tom had to know about this. Yelling at Ned to take care of the third
man, I jumped into my own car and burned rubber getting out to the edge
of town where the lab was located. A car was parked in the driveway
and a man was coming out the door. Picking up Long Jaw's gun from the
seat beside me, I braked to a stop.
"Who are you and what the hell--" I got this far before I recognized
him. Samuel Herker, president of the company that had been organized to
develop Tom's inventions commercially. He had gotten rich off of Tom's
discoveries, but his main ambition in life was to get richer. "Sorry,
Mr. Herker," I called out.
He came across the drive to me. He was hot. "I want to tell you one
thing, Shaw!" His voice grated like a dull file being drawn across
tough metal. "Either this criminal expenditure of company funds comes
to a stop or I'm going into court and ask for the appointment of a
referee to conserve the assets of the company, then I'm going to ask
for a lunacy hearing to determine if Calhoun is mentally fit to order
equipment on company credit without my prior authorization!"
His feet kicked gravel as he stalked across the drive to his own car.
The door slammed. The rear wheels spun as he jammed the accelerator to
the floorboard. I headed into the lab.
Tom and Ann were there. Their heads close together, they were so
deeply engrossed in the papers spread all over the big lab table that
they did not hear me enter. How many times had I come in and found
them like this, deep in some problem? The sight always made me feel
good. Here were two people who were doing their dead-level best to
solve some of the problems that confront the human race. All day long
and as far into the night as he wanted her, Ann was always in the lab
with him, slipping away to steal a few hours of badly needed sleep so
that she could return to work bright-eyed and eager the next morning.
She was head over heels in love with Tom, and had been since the first
day she came to work. So far as I had been able to see, he had never
even discovered that she was a woman. A competent research worker, a
thorough technician with a keen brain, yes; but a woman, no. He had not
noticed that.
"Tom, I didn't want to interrupt, but I just met Herker outside--"
He looked up. A grin came over his face at the sight of me. "Would you
like to see what Sam is so upset about?" Without waiting for an answer,
he rose and moved to the back wall. New drapes had been hung there.
With an expression on his face that said Earth's last secret was about
to be revealed, he pulled the drapes aside.
I don't know what I was expecting, but I guess my jaw dropped. Behind
the drapes was a painting, of a girl. Her features were even and
regular, her eyes looked upward, and her face had a slightly oriental
cast. What held my gaze was the haunting quality of her smile. Leonardo
Da Vinci had gotten something of this same haunting quality in the Mona
Lisa. The girl in this painting smiled out at the world as if she knew
everything that had ever been, or ever would be--and was laughing at
the efforts of mere mortals to fathom her secret.
"I see it's getting you too," Tom said.
"It's a good job," I said. "But what is there about it to upset Herker?"
"The price I paid for it."
"What was that?"
"One hundred thousand dollars!"
* * * * *
I rocked back on my heels and whistled softly. At that moment, I was of
the opinion that maybe Herker had something when he said Tom had gone
nuts.
"Did you ever hear of the Dead Sea Scrolls?" Tom asked.
"Um. Yes. Manuscripts a couple of thousand years old that have been
discovered near the Dead Sea in the last few years." I felt pleased
that I knew the answer to his question. "But what do they have to do
with this, if anything?"
"This painting came from a sealed jar hidden inside a cave in the same
region," Tom answered. "It was sold to a dealer in Egypt. I learned
about it from a friend."
"So far so good," I said.
"You sound like Sam," he answered. "Honest, Luke, I'm not nuts." A
strained expression crossed his face. "At least I don't think I am."
"To me, whatever you say is right," I said, loyally. "But what's the
pitch on this painting? Why is it worth so much money?"
"Because there is a secret hidden in it," he answered. "And I'm trying
to re-discover it."
"Ah?" I said.
"Luke, you mustn't think that science came into existence this
generation," he said. "There were men ahead of us who were just as
interested in solving Nature's secrets as we are. Some of them came
close to doing it. I think the man who painted this girl was one of
them. I think he hid his knowledge in this painting, hid it because he
did not dare reveal it. It is my hope that if I can discover his secret
and perhaps add it to the knowledge of modern science, I can come up
with something that may be as startling as the atom bomb, only in a
different way." He frowned and a far-away look crept into his eyes. I
knew he was dreaming of the future as he saw it, a better, healthier,
happier world. He was just the man to make that dream come true!
"I've already uncovered part of the secret." He nodded toward the pages
of paper on the big table. "Enough to know that the man who painted
that picture was a real genius even if recorded history has no record
of him! The geometry of the painting itself has meaning, the distance
between the eyes, the angle of the chin, the way the hair is dressed--"
He went on at some length but I had stopped listening. I knew nothing
of the more obscure aspects of cryptography but I knew enough to know
that Tom could be right. I had never seen such a glow in his eyes or
such an eager expression on his face during all the years I had known
him. If he was dreaming, I hoped his dream came true.