Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 28, No. 3, November 12, 1927
- Автор: Alexander R. W., Ames John
- Год: 1927
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 28, No. 3, November 12, 1927». Краткое содержание книги:
Thanks to those sudden changes of mood which overtake crowds without any one knowing just how or why, there came an abrupt lull in the shouting, and in the dead silence which followed, Henry continued:
“I am Henri Henry, one of the editors of the Gazette de Paris. I was supposed to be dead, and if I ask you to listen to me, it’s because I have something to say.”
This romantic appearance of a man who was believed to be in the grave produced a change in the public attitude. The party which had taken Henry’s side now gained adherents until it was almost unanimous. The same people who a moment ago had shouted, “Put him out!” now called, “Let him speak! Let him speak!”
Brancion shrugged his shoulders and pretended to appear indifferent, though a secret fear was beginning to grip him. What did this accursed newspaper man know, and what was he going to reveal?
Henry did not keep them waiting.
“The learned discoverer of ‘brancium’,” he began in a clear, pleasing voice, “has concealed from you, with inconceivable modesty, one of the properties of his excellent apparatus. It is that property, since I know about it, which makes me hesitate to stick my head in one of those holes as much as if they were the guillotine.
“For my personality would be beheaded as surely as the public executioner could behead my body. I shan’t talk in parables, however. I am going to ask you, the public, to act as judge in a strange case.”
Henri Henry’s mysterious words produced a state of bewildered astonishment in the audience. There was a murmur of approval, however, when he called upon those present to act as judges. The public was obviously flattered by this appeal. Brancion, who was determined to play his role to the end, forced a smile:
Henry continued:
“The unknown property of this apparatus, to which I have just referred, is as follows: any person, who subjects himself to the activity of the brancic rays, loses, as long as he under their influence, his own freedom of will. In other words, his brain acts merely as a resonator.
“He is incapable of giving out psychic rays himself, and can vibrate only under the influence of those given out by the apparatus. That is to say, the possessor of the apparatus cannot only communicate his thought to those whose psychic wavelengths he has measured, but can also impose his own will upon them. Is that not true, Mr. Brancion?”
Brancion made a gesture of denial, but Henri Henry went on:
“Now, in the light of that, ladies and gentlemen, suppose for a moment — merely as a hypothesis! — that some unscrupulous rascal were to steal Mr. Brancion’s marvelous apparatus.
“Suppose he were to force Robert Brancion himself to submit to its activity, and be measured psychically. Suppose, in short, that the true inventor were under the domination of a scoundrel, who claimed all the merit of the discovery, and reaped all the profits! If all of that were the case, what do you think: Should one save the invention, or the inventor?”
From all sides, voices responded:
“The inventor! The inventor!”
A few elderly scientists in the front row of seats, and the seven escaped victims of Bus 519 were the only ones to shout:
“The invention!”
Their voices, however, were lost in the uproar. Henri Henry raised his hand for silence, and when a hush fell, he continued:
“So you believe as I do that a human life, a human personality is worth all the machines in the world, even the most marvelous?”
“Yes! Yes!”
“Then I act according to your judgment.”
And with one blow of his cane the reporter shattered the twelve glass tubes of the “object with a rectangular base.”
Seven persons at once climbed upon the platform. They were the escaped victims of Bus 519, at last delivered from the domination of Brancion. Professor Muret sobbed as he groped on the floor among the wreckage of the apparatus. André and Cécile helped him in his task. Germaine and Juliette cried out against the scoundrel who had made a criminal of Germaine.
Brancion dashed toward the rear of the platform, hunting in terror for a way to flee. But Charron, the printer, leaped upon him and, catching him by the shoulders, threw him to the floor. Chalgrin gripped him in a blind fury, and sank his fingers into his throat.
In a moment a realization of Brancion’s crime spread through the audience. There was a rush toward the stage, and Charron, Brancion, and Chalgrin were buried beneath a mass of attacking bodies.
When the police had reached the spot and dragged off those on top, Robert Brancion was dead.
Epilogue
The shock of the tragic events in which he had taken part proved too great for Professor Muret, who had already been weakened by years of work, grief, and anxiety. He was carried from the hall in a fainting condition, and died the following morning without having regained consciousness. With him perished the secret for extracting the metal which gave out the psychic rays, the only part of his great labors which had been accomplished before André became his pupil.
André Gilbert, now the husband of Cécile, is seeking in vain to rediscover, from the memory of talks on the subject with the professor, the first steps of this work which had made possible his own extraordinary application of the principles involved.
Mainfroy and Germaine were married quietly soon after the wedding of André and Cécile; and Brunnel, while honoring the young couple with many lectures on the advantage of being a bachelor, has asked Juliette Praline, so it is said, to become Mrs. Brunnel.
Henri Henry carried on in the Gazette de Paris a campaign to raise a fund for the purchase and preservation of the old house in the Avenue de Suffren. The name of Martin du Pont appeared among those of the first subscribers, and to-day the building has been turned into a public museum.
The faithful negro who saved the journalist’s life, survived his wounds, and has remained the devoted servant of Henry.
The fate of Brancion’s other slaves has never been known.
Whitcher Takes Pictures
by Harold de Polo
“W’ot ’n tarnation y’ tryin’ t’ do?” Del demanded of Whitcher. “All this pictur’ takin’ o’ y’rs latty ’as turned into cussed serious business!”
I
It was after sunrise before the men of Noel’s Landing were fully satisfied that the final spark had been stamped out around the charred remains of Augustus Borden’s barn.
Perhaps all this scrupulous care had not actually been necessary, yet in a section where growing pine is king — where the greater majority gain their livelihood by the marketing of it, in fact — fire is a mighty serious problem. A gust of wind may take a single burning ember and ruin thousands of acres of valuable timber.
Now that the danger in this particular case was past, however, every one breathed easier — breathed easier as well as did their laughing with that forced gayety that invariably follows acute relief. Naturally, too, Borden was again asked to tell precisely how the unfortunate business had started.
“Up in m’ bedroom sleepin’ when the first crack o’ thunder woke me,” explained Gus Borden. “Well, I says t’ m’self, I says, I guess we’re in for another o’ them durn lightnin’ storms.
“Allus hated’em, I have, ever since I see Ben Gedney’s home over t’ Hallowell struck ’bout five-six year ago.