Pulp - Popular Detective.38.03.Trapped by Astronomy - Ray Cummings (pdf)

  Popular Detective, March, 1938

  HEN did they say they

  would make it, a quarter past one. It’s lucky discovered it?” Dr. Feather

  you happened to be with us, Dr. Feather.”

  “W demanded.

  “Dear me, yes. Not quite so fast, Kit,

  “They telephoned us right away,”

  the other car’s close behind us. This is rough Sergeant Dolan said. “Ten minutes ago. That going. An astronomical murder! Good

  Popular Detective 2

  gracious!”

  “Oh, here you are, Sergeant Dolan,”

  “He’s lyin’ in his observatory right the son-in-law exclaimed. “We touched by the telescope, they say. There’s the place, nothing as you said, and we all came up there on the hill. See the dome against the downstairs. My wife is inside with old Jelks, sky?”

  our servant.”

  Horace Clyde, the well known, aged

  “Where’s the doctor?” Conway Nash amateur astronomer, discoverer of Clyde’s demanded. “We phoned twice. I thought that Comet some twenty years before, had been was his car with you.”

  murdered. The autumn night was cool, crisp, The sergeant quickly introduced Dr.

  with a cloudless sky. In the rarified Feather and Kit.

  atmosphere of this high altitude, the stars

  “The doctor?” Dr. Feather asked.

  were thickly strewn, like a great spread of

  “Mr. Clyde is dead.”

  sparkling gems on a purple-velvet

  “Good God, yes,” Murray Porter

  background.

  said. “Come in—come in, gentlemen. Yes, As Dr. Feather’s big limousine, with he’s dead, shot through the head. The doctor Kit, his daughter, at the wheel, wound up the is for my wife who’s pretty well prostrated rocky hill, the house of the murdered Horace by the shock.”

  Clyde was revealed at the summit. It was a

  “The—the body’s up in the

  two-story square building with its windows observatory,” Conway Nash added. He ran a like eyes gleaming yellowly into the night.

  nervous hand through his curly blond hair.

  The structure was perched alone on the

  “Good Lord, a thing like this to happen to rocky summit.

  us.” He was leading them into a big bare Beside it, connected, a circular turret lower hallway. “We were all asleep, Dr.

  rose up another two stories, terminating in a Feather, but we got dressed after we phoned big astronomical dome. The slit was open, you.”

  with a big telescope pointing diagonally at Dolan’s men were starting up the the glittering sky.

  stairs, but Dr. Feather checked them.

  “I wonder who’s up here,” Dr.

  Feather was saying. “Take it easy, Kit, these

  “JUST a moment, please. Your wife, Mr.

  curves are sharp.”

  Porter—”

  Behind them, one of Sergeant

  “Do you want to meet her? Come

  Dolan’s cars was bringing three of his men.

  in—come in, gentlemen.” The dark-haired

  “The old man’s daughter and son-in-young husband was nervously lighting a law, a cousin, and the family servant,”

  cigarette. “She’s in the library. This way—”

  Dolan said. “The family’s pretty well known Judith Porter, the murdered man’s married around here; the old man was independently daughter, clad in a lacy, frilly negligee, was rich. I guess his daughter’s his heir.”

  reclining on a couch. She was a vivid In the starlight the two cars pulled up blonde, a pretty woman of perhaps twenty-at the front entrance of the house. The five. Quite evidently the shock of her murdered man’s son-in-law, a dark-haired father’s death had very nearly prostrated her.

  young fellow named Murray Porter, was She had been weeping; her face was tear-nervously pacing the front veranda. Conway streaked, her hair awry. As the men entered Nash, his cousin, a handsome blond man of the room, she gazed up as though confused.

  thirty, was with him. They both rushed Beside her the grey-haired, smallish butler, forward excitedly.

  Jelks, stood with a towel and a bottle of

  Trapped by Astronomy 3

  smelling salts.

  “She is better now,” he said to the THEY passed the second floor of the turret girl’s husband.

  and climbed higher. Through the side

  “Dear me, I think we will not intrude,” Dr.

  windows of the winding staircase, the roof Feather said.

  of the house, bathed with starlight, was now

  “I guess I’m all right now,” the visible.

  young woman said. She smiled at him

  “He was shot through the head, you tearfully. “The police—of course you would say?” Dolan commented. “Way up here.

  have to come. If you want to question me—

  You wouldn’t hear a thing down in the

  ”

  house?”

  “Oh, no. Thank you very much.” Dr.

  “No, I guess not,” Conway Nash

  Feather smiled. He signaled to the old agreed.

  butler, drew him to the door where Murray

  “Nobody did hear anything?” Dr.

  Porter and Conway Nash were standing.

  Feather asked.

  “Who discovered the murder?” Dr.

  “No,” Nash said.

  Feather asked.

  “I didn’t, certainly,” Porter said. “I

  “I did, sir,” the butler responded.

  was asleep.” He stopped on the staircase to

  “We were all asleep,” Porter

  light another cigarette; in the gloom it explained; they were starting up the stairs flashed an eerie glow on his face.

  now. “Jelks,” he added, “you stay with Mrs.

  “We all went to bed about twelve-Porter. You won’t need them, Dr. Feather?”

  thirty,” Conway Nash said. “The next thing

  “My goodness, no,” Dr. Feather

  we knew, Jelks was yelling.”

  answered, adding softly to Sergeant Dolan, They had reached the top of the

  “Have your men stay down here. Sergeant.”

  staircase.

  His glance was significant.

  “Just a moment,” Dr. Feather said

  “Sure,” Dolan agreed.

  abruptly. “My girl Kit and I will look this With the silent little Kit following over.”

  them, the party of men climbed the winding At a big doorway where the iron grid stairs. Conway Nash and Porter were of the staircase terminated, they stood for a explaining what had happened. Old Horace moment regarding the strange scene of the Clyde had been working every night this murder. The turret top was a big circular week. At midnight his daughter, Porter and windowless room, roofed by the huge iron Nash were all in the observatory with him. It dome. The crescent slit of the dome was was an ideal night. He was making a open with some four-foot width so that the photograph of a segment of the star-field.

  pallid starlight flooded in.

  “I’ve been working with him quite a To the sides, there were a few chairs bit this summer,” Conway Nash explained.

  and tables, shelves of apparatus and books.

  “Jelks served us all with coffee and But the big telescope and its mechanism sandwiches up there.”

  dominated the scene. It was mounted with

  “Mr. Clyde started the exposure its driving power in the center of the room, exac
tly at midnight,” Porter said. “It was upon a large concrete base some ten feet sort of a ceremony, he was trying for square. Its sloping thirty-foot-long tube something important. He was so happy—we extended nearly to the dome-slit. The were all so jolly, and now this terrible starlight gleamed on the burnished brass.

  thing.”

  A small table, a tiny hooded light,

  Popular Detective 4

  and a chair, were on the concrete dais near Dr. Feather said. “If he were sitting at that the eye-piece of the instrument. Beside them finder, then the murderer would be off there, on the stone, the body of Horace Clyde lay across the room to the left. He fired past the crumpled. He was a man of seventy, with a telescope.”

  great mane of snow-white hair, a frail body

  “I think so,” Kit agreed.

  clad in trousers and a heavy sweater. The

  “Come in, Sergeant.” Dr. Feather little hooded light from the table shone turned. “Let’s get some light here and take a down on his goggling face, on the gruesome look around.”

  bullet wound in his left temple.

  The two young men lighted a big Dr. Feather and Kit stood over him central light, flooding the observatory with a for a moment. Then they were bending over soft illumination.

  the wound, closely examining it.

  “How did Jelks happen to come up

  “Queer,” Dr. Feather murmured.

  here and discover the body?” Dr. Feather In the wound, mingled with the

  said. “What time was it?”

  clotted blood, a few little black shiny flecks

  “He woke us up about ten past one,”

  were apparent. Kit had turned away in a Conway Nash answered. “We phoned you moment.

  right away—just took the time to rush up

  “Here’s something, Father,” she said here—”

  presently.

  “He was lying just as you see him,”

  She was at the telescope. A small Porter added. “Nobody touched—”

  plate holder was in place behind its eye-

  “You haven’t answered Dr. Feather’s piece lens.

  other question,” Dolan said. “What made the

  “He had just finished the star

  butler come up?”

  picture,” Dr. Feather said. “See, Kit? The The two young men stared at each shutter is closed. Evidently much of his other.

  apparatus is his own contrivance; but it

  “Well,” Porter said, “my father-in-looks efficient.”

  law wouldn’t take any coffee when we had it At the eye-piece, a small upstanding served up here at midnight. Jelks said that at metal lever with a tab on it, controlled the one o’clock, he was just getting ready for camera shutter. It was sloping to the right bed then, he came up to see if Mr. Clyde now. The shutter was closed.

  wanted anything.”

  “He could have been sitting at this

  “You three were on the second floor finder eye-piece when he was shot,” Kit said downstairs?” Dr. Feather asked.

  suddenly. “The position of the body looks

  “Yes,”

  they

  agreed.

  like that. He fell, and knocked that little

  “You, Mr. Porter, you and your wife chair around.”

  were in the same room? Was she asleep?”

  Again the two young men regarded TO the right hand side of the telescope tube, each other.

  a small parallel tube was attached; it was a

  “What difference could that make?”

  “finder” with an eye-piece through which Conway Nash demanded sharply. “He said the star-field could be viewed while the he was asleep.”

  photograph was being taken. Its eye-piece

  “In the room with his wife?” Dolan was only a few inches to the right of the retorted. “Dr. Feather asked—”

  plate holder.

  “I wasn’t,” Porter said. “She and I

  “The bullet entered his left temple,”

  have separate rooms.”

  Trapped by Astronomy 5

  “Adjoining each other,” Nash

  photographic darkroom?” he demanded.

  explained.

  “Just under us,” Porter, the son-in-

  “So each one of you,” the sergeant law, said. “What’s the idea?”

  said meaningly, “was alone from twelve-

  “Take it down, Kit. I imagine you’ll thirty to about one fifteen.”

  find a full equipment.”

  “You mean—” Porter began.

  With the little plate holder in her

  “Dear me, we’re only trying to get hand, the girl darted from the observatory.

  the thing straight,” Dr. Feather interrupted.

  “You found something?” Dolan

  “Anything interesting, Kit?”

  asked again. “What—”

  The girl had been prowling like a

  “Don’t bother me now, Sergeant. It little hound around the observatory.

  just happens to be a little technical point.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be, Father. Except Dr. Feather smiled faintly. “You take a look here. Come here, will you?” She led him to around; you may find some routine police the lower lens of the big telescope. “The evidence. If you did, it might help a lot.”

  shutter lever—take a look at it.”

  He drew a small chair up to the little The upstanding lever, sloping now to finder eye-piece, and peered intently at the the right, was of lacquered black metal. At imaged segment of star-field. Then he drew the top, on its left-hand side, there was a tiny the table to his elbow, produced a paper and spot where the lacquer was gone from the pencil, and began scribbling notes. Soon the tab, and the bright metal underneath was paper was covered with mathematical visible.

  formulae. At intervals he peered intently at

  “Queer,” Dr. Feather murmured. “It the starfield, recording what he saw. The doesn’t look worn; it looks more like an sergeant, for a moment, stared at him abrasion.”

  blankly, and then began searching the room.

  Kit had a magnifying glass and her

  “You must have a chronometer

  hand searchlight on it, examining it closely.

  here,” Dr. Feather said abruptly. “My watch Across the room the pale, dark-haired is far from astronomically accurate.”

  Porter, and the blond, handsome Nash were Conway Nash brought a chronometer both nervously, tensely staring.

  from a table across the room.

  “What is it, a clue?” Sergeant Dolan

  “Here you are.”

  said. “Let’s see it, Dr. Feather.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Just a minute, Sergeant. It’s

  “I can’t imagine what—” the puzzled somewhat technical. What do you see, Kit?

  Porter began.

  Your eyes are better than mine.”

  “Just some calculations,” Dr. Feather

  “The lacquer isn’t worn, Father.

  said. Again he peered intently into the There are still flakes of it here.”

  telescope finder. “Mars looks beautiful

  “A sharp abrasion,” Dr. Feather tonight.”

  murmured. “A bump.”

  “Are you thinking you might find the

  “Exactly, Father. The metal, just at the top, answer in the stars, Dr. Feather?” Sergeant is bent a little.”

  Dolan said sarcastically from across the Dr. Feather had been leaning

  observatory.

  forward. He straightened, and an alert

  “Dear me, that’s just about what I am tenseness appeared in his manner.

  thinking, Sergeant.” Little Dr. Feather

  “I think we’d better develop that looked up from the telescope and smiled plate, Kit.” He turned sharply. “Where is the quizzically. “Oh, here’s Kit. You’ve

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  finished,
child?”

  he murmured. “It really looks to me—”

  “Yes,

  Father.”

  “Oh, Dr. Feather, come take a look.”

  “Dear me, Sergeant, what is it?”

  THE grey-haired butler Jelks had come with

  “A key, caught here in the hot-air her.

  radiator. I can’t seem to get it put.” The

  “The doctor is with Mrs. Porter,”

  bulky sergeant was kneeling, poking into the Jelks said. “May I come in?”

  iron grille of a radiator which was set in the

  “Of course,” Dr. Feather said. He floor. . “Did you want me to examine the took the dripping negative from Kit, held it body, Sergeant Dolan?” a new voice said up to the light. On the white, almost clear from the observatory door.

  background, innumerable, crisscrossing, tiny It was the young physician who had lines were etched in black. There was one been summoned. Behind him the vivid, long diagonal line, much wider and much blond, lacy figure of Mrs. Porter hovered in blacker than the others that crossed the the doorway.

  negative from corner to corner.

  “Dear me, these interruptions,” Dr.

  “A meteor!” Dr. Feather exclaimed.