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

  Feather expostulated. “Yes, come in,

  “Yes,

  Father.”

  Doctor. You’ll find he died from a bullet

  “A

  what?”

  wound in the left temple. Fired from some Sergeant Dolan was peering with twenty feet perhaps, from over there about awe at the negative.

  where Sergeant Dolan is kneeling. Come in,

  “A shooting star, Sergeant A tiny bit Mrs. Porter, if you like.”

  of stardust hurtling through space. Maybe it

  “What’s happening?” she asked.

  was only as big as a pea. When it hit the

  “Nobody came down to tell me.”

  atmosphere, the friction of the air raised its

  “Just our routine investigation,” Dr.

  temperature, turned it to glowing gas, and Feather said. “It’s necessary, but we’ll be burned it up.

  through presently.” He led her to a chair

  “But for a few seconds it flared from where the body was not directly in her across the sky as it fell. This one went right view. “Now then, Sergeant, what’s all this across the picture, a black line in the about a key?”

  negative; but in the print, it would be a

  “Here in this radiator, it was

  streak of white light.”

  evidently dropped. I can’t get it out.”

  “We saw that meteor,” Porter said impulsively. “My wife and I—downstairs.

  THE space under the grillework was about You saw it, Jelks. And you, Conway.”

  six inches deep. A long, flat key lay at the

  “It was unusually bright,” Nash bottom.

  agreed. “Mr. Clyde called out to me and we

  “You figured the shot was fired from tried to clock its duration, but we missed it.”

  about here?” the sergeant added excitedly.

  “Well, here’s something anyway,”

  “Maybe the murderer dropped this key!”

  Sergeant Dolan suddenly exclaimed. He had

  “Fish it out,” Dr. Feather said. “My been poking around the room again, and was goodness, yes, maybe he did. We ought to now stooping to the floor. “Come here, Dr.

  be able to discover what it fits. You’ll need a Feather. Take a look.”

  bit of wire, Kit, to get that key out, unless Dr. Feather and Kit were staring at you remove the grille. I’ll be back in a each other.

  moment—I’ve got to go downstairs.” At the

  “I’ve got all the calculations, child,”

  door he added, “You all wait here. I won’t

  Trapped by Astronomy 7

  be long.”

  silencer on its muzzle was in the drawer.

  Kit and the sergeant removed the And there was a man’s black glove.

  grille. Gingerly Dolan lifted the key. “Don’t

  “He used the glove to avoid

  seem to be any fingerprints on it, though of fingerprints,” Dolan said. “He fired the shot course you can’t tell for sure,” he observed from just about here. It’s all pretty obvious.

  as he carefully examined it under Kit’s What would he do? Well, he had to rush glass.

  downstairs. Here was a drawer with a key in The room was tense—the butler,

  it, right at his elbow. He locks the gun and Jelks, Porter, the pallid young son-in-law—

  glove in the drawer. He’s nervous. He drops the blond Conway Nash—the vivid Mrs.

  the damn’ key. Then he can’t get it out, so Porter, and the young doctor by the body.

  he leaves it and runs.”

  All of them stared silently as Kit and the Dr. Feather stared. “Well, that sergeant again searched the room.

  sounds reasonable,” he said at last. “That

  “What are you looking for?” Porter glove—”

  impulsively demanded. “May I see that Jelks, Nash and Porter had crowded key?”

  excitedly forward. They were all staring

  “Looking for some place that might tensely at the glove.

  be locked around here,” the sergeant said.

  “Why—why—Mr.

  Porter—your

  “A cabinet? A cash box?”

  glove?” Jelks murmured.

  “Well,” Nash began. “It might—”

  The murdered man’s son-in-law was Then on a shelf, Kit saw a little nest white to the lips. He gasped, turned as of drawers built into the wall.

  though impulsively to bolt from the room, A litter of books on the shelf partly but Sergeant Dolan pounced on him. The hid them.

  blond young wife was on her feet; she gave

  “This might be it, Sergeant.” Nash a little cry of terror, but Dr. Feather jumped and Porter were looking at the key which up and waved her away.

  was lying on the taboret.

  “Your glove?” Dolan demanded.

  “Don’t touch it,” Dolan admonished

  “Why—why, I didn’t know—”

  sharply.

  “Dammit, we can find the other

  “If you had asked us,” Nash said, one!” the sergeant explained. “Go look

  “we’d have told you that it opens the among his things, Miss Kit. We’ve got you, drawers of that shelf filing case. There’s Porter!”

  nothing in them of any importance, the key is usually in one of them.”

  THEY made him admit it at last, it was his The little drawers were all locked glove. He remained terrified and sullen as now. The key fitted them all. There was the sergeant seized him.

  nothing of any interest in the three top ones.

  “And why he did it is obvious, too,”

  The bottom one, just as Dr. Feather returned Dolan said. “His wife inherits everything.

  to the observatory, was being opened by the And he was alone, a different room from his sergeant and Kit. And the sergeant wife, so he had a good chance to sneak up triumphantly swung around.

  here about one o’clock.”

  “Well, we’re making progress, Dr.

  “How does it happen you and your Feather!” he exclaimed, “Here’s the murder wife have different rooms, Porter?” Dr.

  weapon!”

  Feather asked abruptly.

  A long-barreled revolver with a

  “Why—why—”

  Popular Detective 8

  “What difference does that make?”

  better as a streak than just a tiny point of the woman interrupted tremulously.

  light. Doubtless it is very faint.”

  “They quarreled,” Jelks murmured.

  “How do you know all this?” Porter

  “All right, I’ll tell you,” Porter said murmured.

  abruptly. “My wife and I did have a quarrel.

  “Well, I’ll tell you in a moment,” Dr.

  We—we decided to separate.”

  Feather retorted. “The starfield shifted just

  “And now we know it all,” Dolan five degrees during the making of the finished. “You had some additional picture. My girl Kit measured a dozen of the evidence, Dr. Feather? You talked so much tiny star lines. Five degrees out of a circle of about that photographic plate, I guess it has three hundred and sixty. That is one seventy-something to do with this, hasn’t it?”

  second of the circle. Then the camera lens

  “Dear me, yes, it has,” Dr. Feather was shut off. The picture was finished. But agreed. “You see, all big telescopes are just before it ended, a meteor flashed across driven by a clockwork mechanism. The stars it. The meteor line is unmistakable: Not a all move across the sky in this Northern segment of a circle, it’s a hyperbola, Hemisphere. They all rotate around the extending the whole diagonal length of the North Star. The telescope has to follow them plate.”

  in their movement, so it shifts with them, Dr. Feather gazed at the intent group driven by a clockwork. But when Mr. Clyde of men. A sudden menace came to his tone.

  made this picture, he didn’t us
e the

  “You all saw that meteor? You all admitted clockwork. That’s true, isn’t it, Porter?”

  it to me a while ago.”

  “Why, yes,” Porter said. “He

  “Yes,” Porter murmured. “My wife wanted—”

  and I were by a hall window downstairs.”

  “A picture where the stars, instead of

  “What time was it then?”

  being points of light, would be streaks

  “Between fifteen and twenty minutes showing the arc of their movement,” Dr.

  after twelve. We had just come down from Feather finished. He was holding up the the observatory.”

  little negative now. “All this tracery of black lines,” he went on, “each line is a star. If you

  “WHERE were you Jelks?” Dr. Feather measure them, you’ll find each line is the demanded. “You saw the meteor, too, didn’t same segment of its circle as all the others.

  you?”

  The shifting stars—because the telescope

  “I—yes, sir, I did,” the butler wasn’t following their shift.”

  admitted. “It was about a quarter past

  “A lecture on astronomy,” Dolan twelve, I think. I heard the hall clock chime.

  said.

  An important meteor like that—I knew Mr.

  “Well, my goodness, it does sound Clyde would like the time noted. I heard Mr.

  that way, Sergeant. But you asked for my Porter down in the hall exclaiming to his evidence. Why did Mr. Clyde want to make wife.”

  this sort of picture? Well, I can guess. He

  “The starfield moved five degrees had made the discovery of some new during the making of the picture,” Dr.

  heavenly body in this section of the starfield.

  Feather interrupted. He was talking swiftly,

  “That would be important to science.

  tensely now. “The stars make a circle in His name would ring around the world, just twenty-four hours. Approximately that—I’m as it did when he discovered Clyde’s Comet.

  just giving approximate figures. That means He figured his new star would show up their apparent movement is one degree every

  Trapped by Astronomy 9

  five minutes. So we know the exposure meteor appeared, Nash. Up here alone with lasted twenty minutes. Everyone told me it Mr. Clyde. You volunteered it a while ago.

  started at midnight—”

  That’s when you gave yourself away, telling

  “It did,” Porter murmured.

  me Mr. Clyde wanted you to clock the

  “Then it ended at twelve-twenty,”

  meteor.”

  Dr. Feather said. “Without the starting time,

  “I didn’t—I mean—well—” the

  I could still check it. I recorded the starfield confused, terrified Nash could only position as it was at the end of the picture stammer.

  and also, the starfield at one-forty. The stars

  “Oh, yes, you did!” Dr. Feather had moved for an hour and twenty minutes, cried. “The others were all downstairs.”

  so I got the same answer as Kit.”

  “He was up here,” Porter exclaimed.

  “Why, Dr. Feather, I’m beginning

  “You damned dirty rat, you can’t deny it.

  to—” the tense, pallid Porter murmured.

  All of us left you up here. You didn’t come

  “Understand me?” Dr. Feather

  down until nearly twelve-thirty.”

  finished. “It’s very simple. Mr. Clyde was

  “That’s true, sir,” Jelks agreed.

  gazing through the eyepiece finder. His head

  “It is true!” Mrs. Porter exclaimed.

  was just to the right of the plate holder. The

  “Oh, I understand so much now.” Tearfully little tab of the lever controlling the shutter she turned to Dr. Feather. “I’ve been a vain, projected up, a few inches from his left silly woman. He—Conway—he’s so

  temple. The bullet hit the tab of the shutter-conceited. I didn’t mean anything serious—”

  lever and closed the lens! No argument on

  “Thinks any woman will fall in love that. It bent the tab, and drove flakes of the with him,” Porter said. His arm went around lacquer into the wound. The murder time his sobbing wife.

  was twelve-twenty! That was when the

  “I believe you, Judith dear. Don’t exposure of the negative ended. And you you understand, Dr. Feather? That’s what were up here, at that time, alone with him, we quarreled about; I was jealous. And this Nash.”

  damned fellow was so conceited, he thought For a second the big, handsome

  he could get Judith and her money. With me Conway Nash stood numbed, the blood out of the way—”

  draining from his face. Then he whirled, but

  “But he had still another motive,”

  little Kit jumped in to confront him with a Dr. Feather interrupted. “I took a look tiny revolver leveled in her hand.

  through his belongings downstairs a while

  “I wouldn’t try that,” she said.

  ago. That’s how I knew Mr. Clyde had

  “Why, he did it!” Porter exclaimed.

  discovered something in the starfield. A new

  “Good God, I might have known! He used planet, a planetoid, a new little world my glove, to blame it on me! Making encircling our Sun, out between Mars and trouble between me and Judith—”

  Jupiter. Good gracious, if you could Mrs. Porter was staring; then with a appreciate the importance of such a little cry she ran to her husband.

  discovery!

  “Murray, forgive me! It was all my

  “Fame and fortune for its discoverer!

  fault! Our quarrel—”

  Conway Nash appreciated it. Down in some

  “He did it?” Sergeant Dolan gasped.

  private papers of his desk, there’s a notation

  “Not Porter? Why—”

  of a cablegram he was planning to send

  “Of course he did it,” Dr. Feather tomorrow to the Royal Astronomical retorted. “You were up here at the time the Society. The announcement of Nash’s

  Popular Detective 10

  Planet!”

  grille. That’s what Nash figured we’d think.

  Even when the sullen Nash had been But the key is almost as wide as those grille led away, Sergeant Dolan was still blankly spaces. Not once in a million times, astonished.

  accidentally dropped, would that key go

  “Well, what about that key, Dr.

  down point first and slip into the grille. A Feather?” he demanded. “And Porter’s glove key weighted at one end might occasionally with the murder weapon ?”

  drop through, but not this one! Try it. You’ll

  “A glove is easy to steal,” Dr.

  be all night dropping it, Sergeant. Nash had Feather said. “A natural planted clue. And to poke it through.”

  that key—don’t you see that it isn’t Dr Feather was faintly, quizzically weighted on one end? It’s the same smiling as he faced Dolan.

  thickness at both ends.”

  “You asked me if I was reading the

  “What the devil?” the sergeant

  answer to this in the stars. Well, that implies looked blank.

  astrology, Sergeant. But this was the cold,

  “Try dropping it from your hand to hard mathematical facts of astronomy. My the floor, Sergeant. The assumption was that goodness, yes, it certainly was.”

  Porter had accidentally dropped it into the

 

 

 
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