The House that Stood Still Page 7

  Stephens scarcely heard. At first his mind was blank, but slowly he grew tense. “Are you crazy?” he said at last.

  She was cool. “Very sane, very determined, and to some extent dependent on your help. No one person can overcome a well defended fortress.”

  Stephens said wildly, “If you attack Lorillia, they’ll assume it’s the U.S., and counterattack instantly.”

  She looked at him with pursed lips, then shook her head. “These people are bold, but cunning; they planned to bomb by surprise, and then deny that they were responsible. You don’t understand how terrific an idea that is.”

  Stephens said, “They wouldn’t get away with it.”

  “Yes, they would.” Her tone was even. “If the U.S. had its principal cities wiped out, its industrial backbone and its heart would be broken. Who would declare war if the first bombs were dropped on Washington while Congress was in session.” Mistra shook her head, and her eyes glinted. “My friend, you’re not being realistic. I assure you that our group would not have considered leaving Earth for anything less than the danger I’ve outlined.”

  Stephens hesitated; and then he thought, almost blank again: I’m reacting as if I believe they have spaceships, as if—

  His gaze lighted on the paper she had in her hand. “Let me see that ultimatum.”

  She held it out, an enigmatic smile on her face. Stephens took it, and after a single glance realized why she was amused.

  The message was in a foreign language. He was not familiar enough with Lorillian to identify it definitely, but he presumed that was what it was.

  Mistra was speaking: “This is the cause of the split between the others and myself. They want to dismantle the Grand House and take it away from Earth till the storm is over. I believe that we have a responsibility to Earth—that we cannot continue to use our knowledge for private pleasure as we have before.”

  “Where would they go?” After he had asked the question, Stephens realized that he was leaning forward, waiting breathlessly for the answer.

  She seemed unaware of his excitement “To Mars.” Her tone was casual. “We have an underground center there, where the house would be safe.”

  “Would you all move there?”

  “Only during the war.”

  Stephens pursed his lips. “Aren’t you being unnecessarily fearful? Even granting Lorillia’s intentions, do you think they would waste a bomb on Almirante?”

  She smiled grimly. “No, but if the coastal waters opposite Los Angeles or San Francisco were made radioactive, we’d also be affected. Something like that might interfere with whatever it is in the marble that causes long life. Even those of us who opposed flight realize that that is a chance we cannot take.”

  Stephens was about to speak again, when it struck him that she had made an admission. He said quickly, “Then there were others besides yourself against leaving Earth? Why aren’t they helping you in the attack?”

  Her lips tightened. “Tannahill was opposed, naturally. Here, he is the legal owner of the house. On Mars, there isn’t any state militia to protect his property rights. He would lose the advantage he’s held over the rest of us.”

  “I see.” Stephens nodded. He could understand Tannahill’s dilemma. He frowned finally. “I don’t see how shooting him would break down his resistance.”

  “That had nothing to do with it.” She was slightly impatient. “The solution was more basic than that. The group offered to place itself at his mercy financially. Each individual was to sign over his entire property to the Tannahill estate, and in return was to receive an income. Any person later discovered accumulating money or property would be punished.”

  “But that’s only money,” Stephens protested. “If the house can do what you say, then it’s priceless.”

  “Don’t forget the plan was designed to protect the house from possible greater damage.” Mistra made a gesture of dismissal of his argument. “Oh, it’ll work all right. The others were so determined to stick to it that, after Tannahill was shot they waited till he was out of danger, then went through with the false burial, and proceeded to turn over their holdings to the estate, so that everything would be in readiness for the move the moment Tannahill regained consciousness and signed the release on the house.”

  A great light dawned on Stephens. “I see. Then Tannahill and his uncle are the same? And when he came to, he had forgotten his past?”

  “I did that.” She was cool. “I went to the hospital and drugged him. It caught them by surprise. They thought this just an argument on an intellectual level.”

  Stephens said at that point, “You—drugged—Tannahill, and destroyed his memory!”

  It was not a question. He believed her. In talking to this iron-willed young woman, he had the continual sensation of being beyond his depth. Now, he thought: I’m a legal representative of Tannahill, and I’m listening to this.

  He had no thought of using the information against her. He guessed that it was probably unprovable, and besides it was something that must derive from some advanced chemistry. And who would believe it?

  Mistra said, “Actually, the forgetting mechanism of the mind is very easy to interfere with. It can be done at will with deep trance hypnosis. The drug I used is simply more lasting. I can give him the antidote at any time.”

  “Why don’t the others give it to him?”

  “Because,” she said, with a tight little smile, “they don’t know what dosage I gave or what drug I used. Interfering with that could do him damage.”

  Stephens shook his head wonderingly, but he was still puzzled. He asked, “But if you didn’t shoot Tannahill who did?”

  “It must have been a street shooting. The mind-reader established definitely that no one in the group is responsible.”

  Stephens remembered the mind-reader’s partial failure to read his mind, hesitated, and then said, “You seem to depend a lot on that mind-reader.” He paused again, reluctant to reveal that the telepath had missed a vital bit of information in his mind. Finally: “What I’m getting at is, it seems hard to believe that at such a crucial moment, an accidental shooting could have struck down the owner of the Grand House. Was no one else opposed to leaving Earth?”

  “One other, besides myself. But he changed his mind when Tannahill did.”

  “He apparently changed his mind, you mean.”

  “Triselle cleared him.”

  “Triselle—that’s the name of the telepath?”

  “Yes.” She broke off, “Don’t underestimate the danger from an accidental shooting. That kind of thing is our nightmare. Wrecks. Drunk drivers. Firebugs. Gang shootings. War.”

  “Still—” Stephens hesitated, and then stood up without finishing his thought. He said, “All this talk about Tannahill makes me feel that I’m being derelict in my duty. I’d better call him—even if it is Christmas Day.”

  Mistra turned and stared at him. Her expression was one of amazement, “Christmas Day!” she echoed. “That drug really hit you, didn’t it? This is the 26th. Don’t you remember?”

  “The what!” said Stephens.

  After the first shock had faded, he strained to bring back the memory. Nothing came except what he had already recalled. He remembered a long night broken only by an awareness of Mistra and her cries.

  He groaned inwardly. “Now, I’d better phone, and fast.”

  He hurried out to the living room, where he had seen a telephone. He called Tannahill first, mentally framing his apologies. None was needed. Tannahill said:

  “I was just about to phone you, Stephens. I’m bringing over somebody I want you to meet. We’ll be there in about an hour. Hope you had a good Christmas.”

  Stephens said that he had, explained that he was not at home but that he would be shortly, and rang off, relieved. Tannahill had sounded calm. Apparently, nothing unusual had happened.

  He began to feel a lot better. He dialed his office, heard the receiver lift, and then his secretary’s voice said, “This is Al
mirante 852.”

  Stephens began, “Miss Chainer. I want—”

  He was cut off. “Oh, Mr. Stephens, I’m so glad you called. There’s been a murder. Mr. Jenkins, the elevator man, was murdered on Christmas Eve.”

  IX

  “Murdered!” Stephens echoed. And then he was silent. Could this be related? Indirectly, Jenkins was a Tannahill employee. Just how he fitted into the vast picture that was beginning to shape up was hard to imagine. And yet—first a caretaker killed, now an elevator man.

  Somebody was acting in a grim and decisive fashion. If not the group, then who?

  He began to ask questions. The known facts, it turned out, were few. Jenkins had been found beside the elevator with a knife wound in his back. Since there was considerable ground for domestic jealousy, his wife had been arrested and was being held as a material witness.

  By the time he had the available details, Stephens was feeling badly. He had liked Jenkins.

  “Look,” he said finally, “I’ll be in later today. Good-bye for now.”

  He hung up and sat frowning. Things were happening. Where they would lead was not clear. But from what Mistra had said, the group did not attach importance to the murder of the caretaker, except insofar as it affected Tannahill.

  It might not occur to them that the death of Jenkins had any relation. Possibly it didn’t, but that had yet to be proved. Stephens consciously felt himself to be in a key position to prove it, and prove many other things as well.

  He walked back along the hall, knocked on Mistra’s door and entered after a moment’s wait. Mistra looked at him questioningly, and Stephens explained that he had to leave for an interview with Tannahill. He finished anxiously, “What about you?”

  “I’ll be all right.” She sounded casual.

  “Perhaps you could come along.”

  “No.” She was cool. “It was getting in here I was worried about. As I told you before, I’m safe now.”

  Stephens hesitated, struck by the fact that he still didn’t know what she had feared. He said, “Why was getting in hard?”

  “Because,” said Mistra, “they don’t want me to have a ship.”

  Stephens parted his lips to speak, closed them again, and then changed his mind. “Ship!” he said. He felt baffled, and—curiously—reluctant to pursue the matter further. He said, “I could come back here later, and escort you in or out.”

  “Thanks.” Her tone was indifferent. “But I won’t be here.”

  It seemed to Stephens, ruefully, that he was receiving just about the most thorough brush-off of his life. He stared at her curiously. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll tell somebody what you’ve told me?”

  “And have people think you’d gone mad.” She laughed.

  Still, he was reluctant to go. “Will I see you again?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Stephens said good-bye, and walked out of the bedroom, half hoping that she would call him back or call a friendly farewell. She didn’t. He opened two outer doors then and shut them behind him. The elevator took him down to the street floor, and presently he was outside blinking up at an early afternoon sun.

  His watch had stopped, but he guessed it was one o’clock.

  He arrived at his bungalow without further incident.

  Tannahill arrived less than ten minutes later, alone. Stephens opened the door to him and realized with a start that this was their first daylight meeting. And yet he would have recognized the other anywhere. A pale, slim young man with hollow cheeks, who walked with the aid of a cane—the picture in the newspaper combined with what he had seen in the darkened cemetery to make the identification easy.

  Stephens offered a helping hand, but Tannahill brushed it aside. “We decided to come separately,” he said, “so I arrived early.”

  He did not explain who the person was he had said he would bring with him, but limped into the living room and sat down. Stephens studied him as unobtrusively as possible. He was trying to imagine him as he had been before he had been shot. Tanequila the Bold, the steely-minded captain of a seventeenth century Spanish vessel hundreds of years old. It seemed unreal, for this man was bewildered and unhappy. It had to be unreal.

  Tannahill looked down at the floor, drew a deep breath, and said, “I have to confess, Stephens, you got more out of me the other night than I intended to give to anyone. It sort of places a pressure on me to tell you more.”

  He paused and looked expectantly at Stephens, who shook his head, and said, “I can only repeat: I have your interests at heart.”

  Tannahill went on, “I’m going to tell you something I had determined to keep as the deepest secret of all.” He stopped again, then: “Stephens, I have memories of being in a coffin.”

  Stephens waited silently. It seemed to him that even one word might break the spell. Tannahill said, “I’d better hurry, or we’ll be interrupted.”

  In a few words, he told how he had been removed from the hospital bed, taken by spaceship for a long distance, buried alive, and, finally, returned to the hospital.

  Tannahill’s voice ceased, and there was silence in the large living room of Stephens’ bungalow. Stephens hesitated, then: “What floor were you on? In the hospital?”

  “When I finally woke up, I was on the fifth. Before that, I don’t know.”

  Stephens nodded, frowning. “We could check,” he said. “It would be interesting if you were lowered out of a fifth story window. The problem would be, how did they do it?”

  He would have liked to ask about the ship, but that seemed too dangerous in view of what he knew. He felt strangely reluctant even to think of the possibility of spaceships and yet an immortal group could be technologically advanced enough to have gotten the jump on the rest of the world. He realized he was still believing all that Mistra had told him.

  The sound of a car brought him out of his preoccupation. The machine turned into the driveway, and shifted audibly into medium gear to climb the small hill that led up to the house. Stephens glanced questioningly at Tannahill, who said hastily:

  “When I was in Los Angeles, I hired a detective. That must be him now. How much shall I tell him?”

  “A detective!” said Stephens. It was the last thing he had expected, and he had a sense of disappointment It did seem to prove that Tannahill’s story was true—but the disappointment continued. He answered Tannahill’s question cautiously, but actually without interest.

  “Depends,” he said, “on what he’s like.”

  The car outside was silent now. Footsteps sounded on the gravel, and then climbed the steps. The doorbell rang. A moment later, Stephens was being introduced to a small, sturdy looking man.

  “Bill Riggs?” Stephens echoed the name.

  “Bill Riggs,” agreed the be-freckled individual.

  It was scarcely a name one could miss. Stephens shook the other’s extended hand, and then stood by lackadaisically, as Riggs said:

  “Both of you will have to listen to me for a minute, and see how I size up.”

  Tannahill nodded, but Stephens was not interested. He listened with vague attention as Riggs gave his background. He braced up for a few moments when Tannahill turned to him, and said, “Well, what do you think, Stephens?”

  Stephens said, “Did you know Mr. Riggs before you hired him?”

  “Never saw him before in my life.”

  It made Riggs a remote, objective figure unconcerned with local issues. If he could find the person who had written the note to Howland, he might even be valuable. “I think,” said Stephens, “you’d better tell him everything.”

  Tannahill accepted that, apparently without reservations. He paused once to ask Stephens to quote the contents of the note the district attorney had shown him. And when he reached the point of his subsequent discovery that the date of the burial of Newton Tannahill coincided with his own absence from the hospital, his voice grew hesitant. But he told it.

  When the story was finally finished, Riggs said, “What about fingerprin
ts?”

  Stephens hesitated. If Mistra’s account were true, it might be that the fingerprints would actually match. He said, “So far none has turned up.”

  Riggs nodded, and said slowly, “If this thing comes to trial, try to stay clear of that amnesia stuff as much as possible. It’s common enough, but in a murder trial it sounds awful fishy.” He broke off: “Well, I guess it’s up to me to get busy.”

  He turned towards the door, then faced them again. “Naturally,” he said slowly, “I made some inquiries about you down in the town, cautious and casual, of course. I learned that the Tannahills own about a quarter of California, but I discovered, like you told me, that you are practically unknown in Almirante.”

  He paused. Tannahill said, “Yes?”

  “Well, sir,” said Riggs, “not being known is bad. The first reaction that people have to a guy with money is envy. They’ve got to sort of feel a community of interest with him. My advice is, dish out some of the dough you’ve got. Make people think they’re going to share your good luck. Then if a trial should come along they’ll be looking at the thing from the point of view that their profits are being interfered with.”

  Tannahill glanced at Stephens, who nodded and said, “It’s a good suggestion. I’d start spending money immediately, Mr. Tannahill.”

  Riggs opened the door, and then turned again. “I’ll phone you,” he said, “first clues I get.”

  From the window, Stephens watched the detective’s old sedan come into sight on the paved driveway below, then swing around a clump of busy trees and disappear. The meeting had left a better impression on him than he had anticipated. “I think we’ve got a good man there,” he said.

  Not until he had spoken did he realize how unconsciously he had used the plural “we.” It was a good remark to make, just what might be expected of a loyal attorney. And yet it meant that some part of his brain was trying to pretend that life could go on as before.

  It couldn’t, of course. He had been told that there was a house in which human beings could live forever. If so, he could see that the legal ownership of the Grand House was of basic importance. In striking at the registered owner, Mistra had dislocated the entire pattern of existence of the immortal group.