Chapter V
The address for Alma Dakin turned out to be a small three-story walk-upapartment building on a quiet residential street near the outskirts oftown. At two in the afternoon hardly anyone was visible on the sidewalksand only an occasional automobile passed.
Kirk parked his car half a block further on down and got out into thechill November air. He entered the building foyer and looked at the nameplates above the twin rows of buttons. The one for Alma Dakin told himthe number of her apartment was 3C.
He pushed the button several times but without response. The foyer wasvery quiet at this time of day, and he could hear the faint rasp of herbell through the speaking tube.
Kirk was on the point of shifting his thumb to the button markedSUPERINTENDENT when a sudden thought stayed his hand. It was not thekind of thought a conscientious, rule-abiding police officer wouldharbor for a moment. The lieutenant, however, was fully aware he had nobusiness working on a closed case to begin with--and when you'rebreaking one set of rules, you might as well break them all.
He rang four of the other bells before the lock on the inner door beganto click. Pushing it open, he waited until a female voice floated downthe stairs. "Who is it?"
"Police Department, ma'am. You folks own that green Buick parked out infront?" There was no Buick, green or otherwise, along the streetcurbing, but Kirk figured she wouldn't know that.
"Why, no. Officer. I can't imagine--"
"Okay. Sorry we bothered you, lady," Kirk let the door swing into placehard enough to be heard upstairs. But this time he was on the right sideof it.
There was a moment of silence, then he caught the sound of retreatingfeet and a door closed. Without waiting further, the Lieutenant mountedthe stairs to the third floor, his feet soundless on the carpetedtreads.
The entrance to 3C was secured by a tumbler-type lock. From an innerpocket Kirk took out a small flat leather case and a thin-edged toolfrom that. Working with the smooth efficiency of the expert, he loosenedthe door moulding near the lock and inserted the tool blade until itfound the bolt. This he eased back, turned the door handle and, a momentlater, was standing in a small living room tastefully furnished inmodern woods.
His first action was to enter the tiny kitchen and unbolt the doorleading to the rear porch. In case Alma Dakin arrived at an inopportunemoment, he could be half way down the outer steps while she was stillengaged with the front door lock. Since he had pressed the moulding backinto place, there would be nothing to indicate his presence.
* * * * *
Within ten minutes Kirk had ransacked every inch of the living room insearch of something, anything, that would point to Alma Dakin as beingmore than a nine-to-five secretary. And while he found nothing, no one,not even the girl who lived here, could tell that an intruder had beenat work.
The bedroom seemed even less promising at first. Dresser drawers gave uponly the pleasantly personal articles of the average young woman. MissDakin, it turned out, was almost indecently fond of frothy undergarmentsand black transparent nightgowns--interesting but not at all importantto the over-all problem.
Kirk, his search completed, sat down on the edge of the bed's footboardand totaled up what he had learned. It didn't take long, for he knewabsolutely no more about Alma Dakin than he had before entering herapartment. No personal papers, no letters from a yearning boy friend inthe old home town, no savings or checking-account passbook. Not even ascrawled line of birthday or Christmas greetings on the fly leaves ofthe apartment's seven books.
To Kirk's trained mind, the very lack of such things, the fact that AlmaDakin lived in a vacuum, was highly significant. It smacked of herhaving something to hide--and his already strong suspicion of her wassolidified into certainty of her guilt. But certainty was a long wayfrom rock-ribbed evidence--and that was something he must have toproceed further.
He was ready to leave when it dawned on him that he had not yet lookedunder the bed. Kneeling, he pushed up the hanging edge of the greenbatik spread and peered into the narrow space. Nothing, not even adecent accumulation of dust. The light from the window was too faint,however, to reach a section of the floor near the footboard. Kirkclimbed to his feet and attempted to shove that end to one side.
The bed failed to move. He blinked in mild surprise and tried again. Itwas only by exerting almost his entire strength that he was able toshift the thing at all, and then no more than a few inches.
He felt his pulse stir with the thrill of incipient discovery. Once hemade sure nothing was anchoring the bed to the floor, he began to taplightly against the wood in an effort to detect a possible false panel.
Within two minutes he located an almost microscopic crack in theheadboard cleverly concealed by a decorative design running along thebase. He ran his fingers lightly along the carvings until theyencountered a small projection which gave slightly under pressure.
Kirk pressed down harder on the knob. A tiny _click_ sounded against thesilence and a section of wood some three feet square swung out. Liftingit aside, the detective found himself staring at an instrument board ofsome kind with a series of buttons and dials countersunk into it. Theboard itself formed a part of what was obviously a machine of some sortwhich evidently contained its own power, for there seemed to be nolead-in cord for plugging into a wall socket.
It could, Kirk thought, be a short wave radio transmitter. If it was, itlooked like none he had ever come across before. On the other hand itcould be some sort of infernal machine, ready to blow half the city tobits at the turn of a dial.
* * * * *
Even as his mind was weighing the advisability of tampering with thething, his fingers were reaching for the various controls. Gingerly hemoved one or two of the dials but nothing happened. A little more boldlynow, he began to depress the buttons. As the third sank in, a lowhumming sound began to fill the room. Before Kirk could find a cut-offswitch of some kind, the faint light of day streaming through the room'sone window winked out, plunging him into a blackness so infinitely deepthat it was like being buried alive.
Nothing can plunge a man into the sheerest panic like the absence oflight. Even a man like Martin Kirk, who had walked almost daily withdanger for the past fifteen years. And since the form panic takes varieswith the individual, the Lieutenant's reaction was an utter inability tomove so much as a finger.
Abruptly the low humming note ceased entirely, replaced immediately bythe sound of a human voice. "Mythox. Contact established. Proceed."
Almost as though the words had tripped a lever in his brain, Kirk'sparalysis ended. Both his hands seemed to swoop of their own volition tothe invisible control panel and their fingers danced across the dialsand buttons.
"Mythox," said the voice again. It seemed to swell and recede, like adirect radio newscast from half around the world. "Contact estab--"
The word ended as though it had run into a wall. The humming note cameback, then ceased--and without warning daylight from the window washedover the bewildered and thoroughly frightened police officer.
Not until five minutes had passed was Martin Kirk sufficiently incontrol of his nervous system to even attempt replacing the loose panelin the headboard. When at last he managed to do so, he returned the bedto its original position, closed and bolted the kitchen door, took onelast look around to make sure nothing was out of place, then slunk outof the apartment.
By the time he was back behind the wheel of his car and had burned uphalf a cigar, Kirk's brain was ready to function with something like itsnormal ability. He sat limp as Satan's collar, trying to piece togetherthe significance of the last half hour's events.
There was no longer any doubt that Alma Dakin was in this mess up to herbangs. Linked as she was to the murders (and Kirk was convinced heartdisease had nothing to do with it) of those scientists, he would havesworn she was a foreign agent bent on weakening America's defenses.Except for one thing. That machine. The kind of mind that could designand put tog
ether a mechanism like that was not of this planet. No longerdid Paul Cordell's story of a girl who floated in a ball of blue firesound like the ravings of a deranged brain. And the seeming miracle ofNaia North's escape from a cell block now passed from fantasy to thefactual.
What to do about it? Martin Kirk, at this moment undoubtedly the mostbewildered man alive, put his head in his hands and tried to reach adecision. Take his story to the Police Commissioner? It would mean apadded cell--and without even bothering to see if Alma Dakin possessed amachine more complicated than an electric iron. Some government agency?By the time the red tape was unsnarled the former secretary could havereached Pakistan on foot.
Slowly from the depths of his terror of the Unknown, Martin Kirk'straining in police procedure began to make itself felt. A plan startedto form--hazy at first, then in a sharp and orderly pattern.
* * * * *
He left the car and returned to the apartment building. A glimpse of hisbadge and a few incisive orders masked as requests reduced thesuperintendent to a state of almost obsequious co-operation. Nor wasthe tenant of apartment 3D, a middle-aged spinster, any less anxious toassist the law. It seemed she had an older sister living on the otherside of town who would be happy to put her up for a few days. Shedeparted within the hour, a traveling bag in one fist.
Before that hour was gone, Chenowich, in response to a sizzling phonecall, skidded a department car to a stop at the curb a block from thebuilding. He delivered a dictograph to his superior, listened to a grimwarning to keep his mouth shut about this at Headquarters, asked acouple of questions that drew no answers, and departed as swiftly as hehad come.
The next step was the dangerous one. The superintendent admitted Kirk tothe Dakin apartment and went down to the foyer to ring the bell in casethe girl arrived at the wrong time. He soothed the Lieutenant's anxietysomewhat by explaining that she seldom returned to the place beforeseven o'clock, over three hours from now, but Kirk was taking nochances.
By five o'clock he had Alma Kirk's bedroom bugged and the instrument inworking order and thoroughly tested. He was painstaking about removingall traces of plaster and sawdust and bits of wires before pushing thedresser back into place to cover the dictograph's receiver.
He found the superintendent stiffly on guard in the foyer and gave himhis final instructions. The man listened respectfully, repeated themback to Kirk to convince him there would be no slip-up, and theLieutenant went back upstairs to 3D to take up his vigil.
He was in the spinster's bedroom, working out a crossword puzzle,earphones in place, when he heard the sound of the bedroom door closingin the next apartment.
The time was 7:18.