The Sign at Six Part 23

Burns stood by the door, rooted to the spot, his jaw dropped, his eye staring. Darrow quite calmly walked to the desk. He picked up the inkstand and gazed curiously at its solidified contents, touched the nearest man, gazed curiously at the papers on the desk, and addressed Burns.

"These seem to be frozen, too," he remarked almost sleepily, "and about time, too. This is a sweet gang to be getting together on this sort of a job!"

Quite calmly he gathered the papers on the desk and stuffed them into his pocket. He picked up the desk telephone, giving a number. "Ouch, this receiver's cold," he remarked to Burns. "h.e.l.lo, _Despatch_. Is Hallowell in the office? Just in? Send him over right quick, keen jump, City Hall, mayor's second-story office. No, right now. Tell him it's Darrow."

He hung up the receiver.

"Curious phenomenon," he remarked to Burns, who still stood rooted to the spot. "You see, their bodies were naturally almost in equilibrium, and, as they were frozen immediately, that equilibrium was maintained. And the color. I suppose the blood was congealed in the smaller veins, and did not, as in more gradual freezing, recede to the larger blood-vessels. I'm getting frost bitten myself in here. Let's get outside."

But Officer Burns heard none of this. As Darrow moved toward the door he crossed himself and bolted. Darrow heard his heels clattering on the cement of the corridors. He smiled.

"And now the deluge!" he remarked.

The crowds, terrified, inquisitive, sceptical, and speculative, gathered.

Officials swept them out and took possession. Hallowell and Darrow conferred earnestly together.

"He has the power to stop heat vibrations, you see," Darrow said. "That makes him really dangerous. His activities here are in line with his other warnings; but he is not ready to go to extremes yet. The city is yet safe."

"Why?" asked Hallowell.

"I know it. But he has the power. If he gets dangerous we must stop him."

"You are sure you can do it?"

"Sure."

"Then, for G.o.d's sake, do it! Don't you realize what will happen when news of this gets out, and people understand what it means? Don't you feel your guilt at those men's deaths?" He struck his hand in the direction of the City Hall.

"The people will buy a lot of experience, at cost of a little fright and annoyance," replied Percy Darrow carelessly. "It'll do them good. When it's over, they'll come back again and be good. As for that bunch in there--when you look over those papers I think you'll be inclined to agree with what the religious fanatics will say--that it was a visitation of G.o.d."

"But the old, the sick--there'll be deaths among them--the responsibility is something fearful--"

"Never knew a battle fought yet without some loss," observed Darrow.

Hallowell was staring at him.

"I don't understand you," said the reporter. "You have no heart. You are as bad as this Monsieur X, and between you you hold a city in your power--one way or the other!"

"Well, I rather like being a little G.o.d," remarked Darrow.

Hallowell started once more to plead, but Darrow cut him short.

"You are thinking of the present," he said. "I am thinking of the future.

It's a good thing for people to find out that there's something bigger than they are, or than anything they can make. That fact is the basis of the idea of a G.o.d. These are getting to be a G.o.dless people." He turned on Hallowell, his sleepy eyes lighting up. "I should be very sorry if I had not intellect enough and imagination enough to see what this may mean to my fellow people; and I should despise myself if I should let an unrestrained compa.s.sion lose to four million people the rare opportunity vouchsafed them."

He spoke very solemnly. Hallowell looked at him puzzled.

"Besides," said Darrow whimsically, "I like to devil Eldridge."

He dove into the subway. Hallowell gazed after him.

"There goes either a great man or a crazy fool," he remarked to an English sparrow. He turned over rapidly the papers Darrow had found on the mayor's desk, and smiled grimly. "Of all the barefaced, bald-headed steals!" he said.

Darrow soon mounted once more the elevator of the Atlas Building. He found Jack and Helen still waiting. Before entering the wireless office Darrow cast a scrutinizing glance along the empty hall.

"It's all right," he said. "I'm surer than ever. Everything fits exactly.

Now, Helen," he said, "I want you to go home, and I want you to stay there. No matter what happens, do not move from the house. This town is going to have the biggest scare thrown into it that any town ever had since Sodom and Gomorrah got their little jolt. In the language of the Western prophet, 'h.e.l.l will soon be popping.' Let her pop. Sit tight; tell your friends to sit tight. If necessary, tell them Monsieur X is captured, and all his works. Tell them I said so."

His air of languid indifference had fallen from him. His eye was bright, and he spoke with authority and vigor.

"You take her home, Jack," he commanded, "and return here at once. Don't forget that nice new-blued pop-gun of yours; we're coming to the time when we may need it."

Jack rose instantly to his mood.

"Correct, General!" he saluted. "Where'd you collect the plunder?" he asked, pointing to a square black bag of some size that Darrow had brought back with him.

"That," said Darrow, "is the first fruit of my larcenous tendencies. I stole that from the mayor's office in the City Hall."

"What is it?"

"That," said Darrow, "I do not know."

He deposited the bag carefully by his chair, and turned, smiling, to Helen.

"Good-by," said he. "Sleep tight."

They went out. Darrow seated himself in his chair, drew his hat over his eyes, and fell into a doze. In the meantime, outside, all through the city, h.e.l.l was getting ready to pop.

CHAPTER XXI

IN THE FACE OF ETERNITY

h.e.l.l popped just as soon as the newspapers could get out their extras.

Monsieur X had at last struck, and both interest and belief urged the managing editors at last to give publicity to all the theories, the facts, and the latest message from the fanatic Unknown.

The latter came about three o'clock:

"TO THE PEOPLE: You have defied me, and you have doubted my power.

There is no good in you. I, who would have saved you, now must bring about your death as a stubborn and a stiff-necked generation. In humanity is no more good, and of this world I desire nothing more.

Prepare within the next three hours to appear before a mightier throne than mine."

Percy Darrow, reading this, said to Jack Warford, "It is time to act,"

and, accompanied by the younger man, quietly left the room.