The Eye of Allah

By C. D. Willard

On the fatal seventh of September a certain Secret Service man
sat in the President's chair and--looked back into the Eye of
Allah.


Blinky Collins' part in this matter was very brief. Blinky lasted just
long enough to make a great discovery, to brag about it as was
Blinky's way, and then pass on to find his reward in whatever
hereafter is set apart for weak-minded crooks whose heads are not hard
enough to withstand the crushing impact of a lead-filled pacifier.

The photograph studio of Blinky Collins was on the third floor of a
disreputable building in an equally unsavory part of Chicago. There
were no tinted pictures of beautiful blondes nor of stern,
square-jawed men of affairs in Blinky's reception room. His clients,
who came furtively there, were strongly opposed to having their
pictures taken--they came for other purposes. For the photographic
work of Mr. Collins was strictly commercial--and peculiar. There were
fingerprints to be photographed and identified for purpose of private
revenge, photographs of people to be merged and repictured in
compromising closeness for reasons of blackmail. And even X-Ray
photography was included in the scope of his work.

* * * * *

The great discovery came when a box was brought to the dingy room and
Mr. Collins was asked to show what was inside it without the bother
and inconvenience of disturbing lock and seals. The X-Ray machine
sizzled above it, and a photographic plate below was developed to show
a string of round discs that could easily have been pearls.

The temporary possessor of the box was pleased with the result--but
Blinky was puzzled. For the developer had brought out an odd result.
There were the pearls as expected, but, too, there was a small picture
superimposed--a picture of a bald head and a body beneath seated
beside a desk. The picture had been taken from above looking straight
down, and head and desk were familiar.

Blinky knew them both. The odd part was that he knew also that both of
them were at that instant on the ground floor of the same disreputable
building, directly under and two floors below his workshop.

Like many great discoveries, this of Blinky's came as the result of an
accident. He had monkeyed with the X-Ray generator and had made
certain substitutions. And here was the result--a bald head and a
desk, photographed plainly through two heavy wood floors. Blinky
scratched his own head in deep thought. And then he repeated the
operation.

This time there was a blonde head close to the bald one, and two
people were close to the desk and to each other. Blinky knew then that
there were financial possibilities in this new line of portrait work.

It was some time before the rat eyes of the inventor were able to see
exactly what they wanted through this strange device, but Blinky
learned. And he fitted a telescope back of the ray and found that he
could look along it and see as if through a great funnel what was
transpiring blocks and blocks away; he looked where he would, and
brick walls or stone were like glass when the new ray struck through
them.

Blinky never knew what he had--never dreamed of the tremendous
potentialities in his oscillating ethereal ray that had a range and
penetration beyond anything known. But he knew, in a vague way, that
this ray was a channel for light waves to follow, and he learned that
he could vary the range of the ray and that whatever light was shown
at the end of that range came to him as clear and distinct as if he
were there in the room.

He sat for hours, staring through the telescope. He would train the
device upon a building across the street, then cut down the current
until the unseen vibration penetrated inside the building. If there
was nothing there of interest he would gradually increase the power,
and the ray would extend out and still out into other rooms and beyond
them to still others. Blinky had a lot of fun, but he never forgot the
practical application of the device--practical, that is, from the
distorted viewpoint of a warped mind.

* * * * *

"I've heard about your machine," said a pasty-faced man one day, as he
sat in Blinky's room, "and I think it's a lot of hooey. But I'd give
just one grand to know who is with the district attorney this minute."

"Where is he?" asked Blinky.

"Two blocks down the street, in the station house ... and if Pokey
Barnard is with him, the lousy stool-pigeon--"

Blinky paid no attention to the other's opinion of one Pokey Barnard;
he was busy with a sputtering blue light and a telescope behind a
shield of heavy lead.

"Put your money on the table," he said, finally: "there's the dicks ...
and there's Pokey. Take a look--"

It was some few minutes later that Blinky learned of another valuable
feature in his ray. He was watching the district attorney when the
pasty-faced man brushed against a hanging incandescent light. There
was a bit of bare wire exposed, and as it swung into the ray the fuses
in the Collins studio blew out instantly.

But the squinting eyes at the telescope had seen something first. They
had seen the spare form of the district attorney throw itself from the
chair as if it had been dealt a blow--or had received an electric
shock.

Blinky put in new fuses--heavier ones--and tried it again on another
subject. And again the man at the receiving end got a shot of current
that sent him sprawling.

"Now what the devil--" demanded Blinky. He stood off and looked at the
machine, the wire with its 110 volts, the invisible ray that was
streaming out.

"It's insulated, the machine is," he told his caller, "so the juice
won't shoot back if I keep my hands off; but why," he demanded
profanely, "don't it short on the first thing it touches?"

* * * * *

He was picturing vaguely a ray like a big insulated cable, with light
and current both traveling along a core at its center, cut off,
insulated by the ray, so that only the bare end where the ray stopped
could make contact.

"Some more of them damn electrons," he hazarded; then demanded of his
caller: "But am I one hell of a smart guy? Or am I?"

There was no denying this fact. The pasty-faced man told Blinky with
lurid emphasis just how smart. He had seen with his own eyes and this
was too good to keep.

He paid his one grand and departed, first to make certain necessary
arrangements for the untimely end of one Pokey Barnard, squealer,
louse, et cetera, et cetera, and then to spread the glad news through
the underworld of Collins' invention.

That was Blinky's big mistake, as was shown a few days later. Not many
had taken seriously the account of the photographer's experiments, but
there was one who had, as was evident. A bearded man, whose eyes
stared somewhat wildly from beneath a shock of frowzy hair, entered
the Collins work-room and locked the door behind him. His English was
imperfect, but the heavy automatic in his hand could not be
misunderstood. He forced the trembling inventor to give a
demonstration, and the visitor's face showed every evidence of
delight.

"The cur-rent," he demanded with careful words, "the electreek
cur-rent, you shall do also. Yes?"

Again the automatic brought quick assent, and again the visitor showed
his complete satisfaction. Showed it by slugging the inventor quietly
and efficiently and packing the apparatus in the big suitcase he had
brought.

Blinky Collins had been fond of that machine. He had found a form of
television with uncounted possibilities, and it had been for him the
perfect instrument of a blackmailing Peeping Tom; he had learned the
secret of directed wireless transmission of power and had seen it as a
means for annoying his enemies. Yet Blinky Collins--the late Blinky
Collins--offered no least objection, when the bearded man walked off
with the machine. His body, sprawled awkwardly in the corner, was
quite dead....

* * * * *

And now, some two months later, in his Washington office, the Chief of
the United States Secret Service pushed a paper across his desk to a
waiting man and leaned back in his chair.

"What would you make of that, Del?" he asked.

Robert Delamater reached leisurely for the paper. He regarded it with
sleepy, half-closed eyes.

There was a crude drawing of an eye at the top. Below was printed--not
written--a message in careful, precise letters: "Take warning. The Eye
of Allah is upon you. You shall instructions receive from time to
time. Follow them. Obey."

Delamater laughed. "Why ask me what I think of a nut letter like that.
You've had plenty of them just as crazy."

"This didn't come to me," said the Chief; "it was addressed to the
President of the United States."

"Well, there will be others, and we will run the poor sap down.
Nothing out of the ordinary I should say."

"That is what I thought--at first. Read this--" The big, heavy-set man
pushed another and similar paper across the desk. "This one was
addressed to the Secretary of State."

Delamater did not read it at once. He held both papers to the light;
his fingers touched the edges only.

"No watermark," he mused; "ordinary white writing stock--sold in all
the five and ten cent stores. Tried these for fingerprints I
suppose?".

"Read it," suggested the Chief.

"Another picture of an eye," said Delamater aloud, and read: "'Warning.
You are dealing with an emissary from a foreign power who is an
unfriend of my country. See him no more. This is the first and last
warning. The Eye of Allah watches.'

"And what is this below--? 'He did not care for your cigars, Mr.
Secretary. Next time--but there must be no next time.'"

* * * * *

Delamater read slowly--lazily. He seemed only slightly interested
except when he came to the odd conclusion of the note. But the Chief
knew Delamater and knew how that slow indolence could give place to a
feverish, alert concentration when work was to be done.

"Crazy as a loon," was the man's conclusion as he dropped the papers
upon the desk.

"Crazy," his chief corrected, "like a fox! Read the last line again;
then get this--

"The Secretary of State _is_ meeting with a foreign agent who is here
very much incog. Came in as a servant of a real ambassador. Slipped
quietly into Washington, and not a soul knew he was here. He met the
Secretary in a closed room; no one saw him come or leave--";

"Well, the Secretary tells me that in that room where nobody could see
he offered this man a cigar. His visitor took it, tried to smoke it,
apologized--and lit one of his own vile cigarettes."

"Hm-m!" Delamater sat a little straighter in his chair; his eyebrows
were raised now in questioning astonishment. "Dictaphone? Some
employee of the Department listening in?"

"Impossible."

"Now that begins to be interesting," the other conceded. His eyes had
lost their sleepy look. "Want me to take it on?"

"Later. Right now. I want you to take this visiting gentleman under
your personal charge. Here is the name and the room and hotel where he
is staying. He is to meet with the Secretary to-night--he knows where.
You will get to him unobserved--absolutely unseen; I can leave that to
you. Take him yourself to his appointment, and take him without a
brass band. But have what men you want tail you and watch out for
spies.... Then, when he is through, bring him back and deliver him
safely to his room. Compray?"

"Right--give me Wilkins and Smeed. I rather think I can get this bird
there and back without being seen, but perhaps they may catch Allah
keeping tabs on us at that." He laughed amusedly as he took the paper
with the name and address.

* * * * *

A waiter with pencil and order-pad might have been seen some hours
later going as if from the kitchen to the ninth floor of a Washington
hotel. And the same waiter, a few minutes later, was escorting a guest
from a rear service-door to an inconspicuous car parked nearby. The
waiter slipped behind the wheel.

A taxi, whose driver was half asleep, was parked a hundred feet behind
them at the curb. As they drove away and no other sign of life was
seen in the quiet street the driver of the taxi yawned ostentatiously
and decided to seek a new stand. He neglected possible fares until a
man he called Smeed hailed him a block farther on. They followed
slowly after the first car ... and they trailed it again on its return
after some hours.

"Safe as a church," they reported to the driver of the first car.
"We'll swear that nobody was checking up on that trip."

And: "O. K." Delamater reported to his chief the next morning. "Put
one over on this self-appointed Allah that time."

But the Chief did not reply: he was looking at a slip of paper like
those he had shown his operative the day before. He tossed it to
Delamater and took up the phone.

"To the Secretary of State," Delamater read. "You had your warning.
Next time you disobey it shall be you who dies."

The signature was only the image of an eye.

* * * * *

The Chief was calling a number; Delamater recognized it as that of the
hotel he had visited. "Manager, please, at once," the big man was
saying.

He identified himself to the distant man. Then: "Please check up on
the man in nine four seven. If he doesn't answer, enter the room and
report at once--I will hold the phone...."

The man at the desk tapped steadily with a pencil; Robert Delamater
sat quietly, tensely waiting. But some sixth sense told him what the
answer would be. He was not surprised when the Chief repeated what the
phone had whispered.

"Dead?... Yes!... Leave everything absolutely undisturbed. We will be
right over."

"Get Doctor Brooks, Del," he said quietly; "the Eye of Allah was
watching after all."

Robert Delamater was silent as they drove to the hotel. Where had he
slipped? He trusted Smeed and Wilkins entirely; if they said his car
had not been followed it had not. And the visitor had been disguised;
he had seen to that. Then, where had this person stood--this being who
called himself the Eye of Allah?

"Chief," he said finally. "I didn't slip--nor Wilkins or Smeed."

"Someone did," replied the big man, "and it wasn't the Eye of Allah,
either."

The manager of the hotel was waiting to take them to the room. He
unlocked the door with his pass key.

"Not a thing touched," he assured the Secret Service men; "there he
is, just the way we found him."

In the doorway between the bedroom and bath a body was huddled. Doctor
Brooks knelt quickly beside it. His hands worked swiftly for a moment,
then he rose to his feet.

"Dead," he announced.

"How long?" asked the Chief.

"Some time. Hours I should say--perhaps eight or ten."

"Cause?" the query was brief.

"It will take an autopsy to determine that. There is no blood or wound
to be seen."

* * * * *

The doctor was again examining the partly rigid body. He opened one
hand; it held a cake of soap. There was a grease mark on the hand.

Delamater supplied the explanation. "He touched some grease on the old
car I was using," he said. "Must have gone directly to wash it off.
See--there is water spilled on the floor."

Water had indeed been splashed on the tile floor of the bath room; a
pool of it still remained about the heavy, foreign-looking shoes of
the dead man.

Something in it caught Delamater's eye. He leaned down to pick up
three pellets of metal, like small shot, round and shining.

"I'll keep these," he said, "though the man was never killed with shot
as small as that."

"We shall have to wait for the autopsy report," said the Chief
crisply; "that may give the cause of death. Was there anyone in the
room--did you enter it with him last night, Del?"

"No," said the operative; "he was very much agitated when we got
here--dismissed me rather curtly at the door. He was quite upset about
something--spoke English none too well and said something about a
warning and damned our Secret Service as inefficient."

"A warning!" said the Chief. The dead man's brief case was on the bed.
He crossed to it and undid the straps; the topmost paper told the
reason for the man's disquiet. It showed the familiar, staring eye.
And beneath the eye was a warning: this man was to die if he did not
leave Washington at once.

The Chief turned to the hotel manager. "Was the door locked?"

"Yes."

"But it is a spring lock. Someone could have gone out and closed it
after him."

"Not this time. The dead-bolt was thrown. It takes a key to do that
from the outside or this thumb-turn on the inside." The hotel man
demonstrated the action of the heavy bolt.

"Then, with a duplicate key, a man could have left this room and
locked the door behind him."

"Absolutely not. The floor-clerk was on duty all night. I have
questioned her: this room was under her eyes all the time. She saw
this man return, saw your man, here"--and he pointed to
Delamater--"leave him at the door. There was no person left the room
after that."

"See about the autopsy, Doctor," the Chief ordered.

And to the manager: "Not a thing here must be touched. Admit only Mr.
Delamater and no one else unless he vouches for them.

"Del," he told the operative, "I'm giving you a chance to make up for
last night. Go to it."

And Robert Delamater "went to it" with all the thoroughness at his
command, and with a total lack of result.

* * * * *

The autopsy helped not at all. The man was dead; it was apparently a
natural death. "Not a scratch nor a mark on him," was the report. But:
"... next time it will be you," the note with the staring eye had
warned the Secretary of State. The writer of it was taking full credit
for the mysterious death.

Robert Delamater had three small bits of metal, like tiny shot, and he
racked his brain to connect these with the death. There were
fingerprints, too, beautifully developed upon the mysterious
missives--prints that tallied with none in the records. There were
analyses of the paper--of the ink--and not a clue in any of them.

Just three pellets of metal. Robert Delamater had failed utterly, and
he was bitter in the knowledge of his failure.

"He had you spotted, Del," the Chief insisted. "The writer of these
notes may be crazy, but he was clever enough to know that this man
_did_ see the Secretary. And he was waiting for him when he came back;
then he killed him."

"Without a mark?"

"He killed him," the Chief repeated; "then he left--and that's that."

"But," Delamater objected, "the room clerk--"

"--took a nap," broke in the Chief. But Delamater could not be
satisfied with the explanation.

"He got his, all right," he conceded, "--got it in a locked room nine
stories above the street, with no possible means of bringing it upon
himself--and no way for the murderer to escape. I tell you there is
something more to this: just the letter to the Secretary, as if this
Eye of Allah were spying upon him--"

The Chief waved all that aside. "A clever spy," he insisted. "Too
clever for you. And a darn good guesser; he had us all fooled. But
we're dealing with a madman, not a ghost, and he didn't sail in
through a ninth story window nor go out through a locked door; neither
did he spy on the Secretary of State in his private office. Don't try
to make a supernatural mystery out of a failure, Del."

The big man's words were tempered with a laugh, but there was an edge
of sarcasm, ill-concealed.

* * * * *

And then came the next note. And the next. The letters were mailed at
various points in and about the city; they came in a flood. And they
were addressed to the President of the United States, to the Secretary
of War--of the Navy--to all the Cabinet members. And all carried the
same threat under the staring eye.

The United States, to this man, represented all that was tyrannical
and oppressive to the downtrodden of the earth. He proposed to end
it--this government first, then others in their turn. It was the
outpouring of a wildly irrational mind that came to the office of the
harassed Chief of the United States Secret Service, who had
instructions to run this man down--this man who signed himself The Eye
of Allah. And do it quickly for the notes were threatening. Official
Washington, it seemed, was getting jumpy and was making caustic
inquiries as to why a Secret Service department was maintained.

The Chief, himself, was directing the investigation--and getting
nowhere.

"Here is the latest," he said one morning. "Mailed at New York."
Delamater and a dozen other operatives were in his office: he showed
them a letter printed like all the others. There was the eye, and
beneath were words that made the readers catch their breath.

"The Eye of Allah sees--it has warned--now it will destroy. The day of
judgment is at hand. The battleship _Maryland_ is at anchor in the
Hudson River at New York. No more shall it be the weapon of a despot
government. It will be destroyed at twelve o'clock on September
fifth."

"Wild talk," said the Chief, "but today is the fourth. The Commander
of the _Maryland_ has been warned--approach by air or water will be
impossible. I want you men to patrol the shore and nail this man if he
shows up. Lord knows what he intends--bluffing probably--but he may
try some fool stunt. If he does--get him!"

* * * * *

Eleven-thirty by the watch on Robert Delamater's wrist found him
seated in the bow of a speed-boat the following morning. They
patrolled slowly up and down the shore. There were fellow operatives,
he knew, scores of them, posted at all points of vantage along the
docks.

Eleven forty-five--and the roar of seaplanes came from above where air
patrols were-guarding the skies. Small boats drove back and forth on
set courses; no curious sight-seeing craft could approach the
_Maryland_ that day. On board the battleship, too, there was activity
apparent. A bugle sounded, and the warning of bellowing Klaxons echoed
across the water. Here, in the peace and safety of the big port, the
great man-of-war was sounding general quarters, and a scurry of
running men showed for an instant on her decks. Anti-aircraft guns
swung silently upon imaginary targets--

The watcher smiled at the absurdity of it all--this preparation to
repel the attack of a wild-eyed writer of insane threats. And yet--and
yet-- He knew, too, there was apprehension in his frequent glances at
his watch.

One minute to go! Delamater should have watched the shore. And,
instead, he could not keep his eyes from the big fighting-ship
silhouetted so clearly less than a mile away, motionless and
waiting--waiting--for what? He saw the great turreted guns, useless
against this puny, invisible opponent. Above them the fighting tops
were gleaming. And above them--

Delamater shaded his eyes with a quick, tense hand: the tip of the
mast was sparkling. There was a blue flash that glinted along the
steel. It was gone to reappear on the fighting top itself--then lower.

* * * * *

What was it? the watching man was asking himself. What did it bring to
mind? A street-car? A defective trolley? The zipping flash of a
contact made and broken? That last!

Like the touch of a invisible wire, tremendously charged, a wire that
touched and retreated, that made and lost its contact, the flashing
arc was working toward the deck. It felt its way to the body of the
ship; the arc was plain, starting from mid-air to hiss against the
armored side; the arc shortened--went to nothing--vanished.... A puff
of smoke from an open port proved its presence inside. Delamater had
the conviction that a deadly something had gone through the ship's
side--was insulated from it--was searching with its blazing, arcing
end for the ammunition rooms....

The realization of that creeping menace came to Delamater with a
gripping, numbing horror. The seconds were almost endless as he
waited. Slowly, before his terrified eyes, the deck of the great ship
bulged upward ... slowly it rolled and tore apart ... a mammoth turret
with sixteen-inch guns was lifting unhurriedly into the air ... there
were bodies of men rocketing skyward....

The mind of the man was racing at lightning speed, and the havoc
before him seemed more horrible in its slow, leisurely progress. If he
could only move--do something!

The shock of the blasted air struck him sprawling into the bottom of
the boat; the listener was hammered almost to numbness by the
deafening thunder that battered and tore through the still air. At top
speed the helmsman drove for the shelter of a hidden cove. They made
it an instant before the great waves struck high upon the sand spit.
Over the bay hung a ballooning cloud of black and gray--lifting for an
instant to show in stark ghastliness the wreckage, broken and twisted,
that marked where the battleship _Maryland_ rested in the mud in the
harbor of New York.

* * * * *

The eyes of the Secret-Service men were filled with the indelible
impress of what they had seen. Again and again, before him, came the
vision of a ship full of men in horrible, slow disintegration; his
mind was numbed and his actions and reactions were largely automatic.
But somehow he found himself in the roar of the subway, and later he
sat in a chair and knew he was in a Pullman of a Washington train.

He rode for hours in preoccupied silence, his gaze fixed unseeingly,
striving to reach out and out to some distant, unknown something which
he was trying to visualize. But he looked at intervals at his hand
that held three metal pellets.

He was groping for the mental sequence which would bring the few known
facts together and indicate their cause. A threat--a seeming spying
within a closed and secret room--the murder on the ninth floor, a
murder without trace of wound or weapon. Weapon! He stared again at
the tangible evidence he held; then shook his head in perplexed
abstraction. No--the man was killed by unknown means.

And now--the _Maryland_! And a visible finger of death--touching,
flashing, feeling its way to the deadly cargo of powder sacks.

Not till he sat alone with his chief did he put into words his
thoughts.

"A time bomb did it," the Chief was saying. "The officials deny it,
but what other answer is there? No one approached that ship--you know
that, Del--no torpedo nor aerial bomb! Nothing as fanciful as that!"

Robert Delamater's lips formed a wry smile. "Nothing at fanciful as
that"--and he was thinking, thinking--of what he hardly dared express.

"We will start with the ship's personnel," the other continued; "find
every man who was not on board when the explosion occurred--"

"No use," the operative interrupted; "this was no inside job, Chief."
He paused to choose his words while the other watched him curiously.

"Someone _did_ reach that ship--reached it from a distance--reached it
in the same way they reached that poor devil I left at room nine
forty-seven. Listen--"

* * * * *

He told his superior of his vigil on the speed-boat--of the almost
invisible flash against the ship's mast. "He reached it, Chief," he
concluded; "he felt or saw his way down and through the side of that
ship. And he fired their ammunition from God knows where."

"I wonder," said the big man slowly; "I wonder if you know just what
you are trying to tell me--just how absurd your idea is. Are you
seriously hinting at long-distance vision through solid
armor-plate--through these walls of stone and steel? And wireless
power-transmission through the same wall--!"

"Exactly!" said the operative.

"Why, Del, you must be as crazy as this Eye of Allah individual. It's
impossible."

"That word," said Delamater, quietly, "has been crossed out of
scientific books in the past few years."

"What do you mean?"

"You have studied some physical science, of course?" Delamater asked.
The Chief nodded.

"Then you know what I mean. I mean that up to recent years science had
all the possibilities and impossibilities neatly divided and
catalogued. Ignorance, as always, was the best basis for positive
assurance. Then they got inside the atom. And since then your real
scientist has been a very humble man. He has seen the impossibility of
yesterday become the established fact of to-day."

The Chief of the United States Secret Service was tapping with nervous
irritation on the desk before him.

"Yes, yes!" he agreed, and again he looked oddly at his operative.
"Perhaps there is something to that; you work along that line, Del:
you can have a free hand. Take a few days off, a little vacation if
you wish. Yes--and ask Sprague to step in from the other office; he
has the personnel list."

* * * * *

Robert Delamater felt the other's eyes follow him as he left the room.
"And that about lets me out," he told himself; "he thinks I've gone
cuckoo, now."

He stopped in a corridor; his fingers, fumbling in a vest pocket, had
touched the little metal spheres. Again his mind flashed back to the
chain of events he had linked together. He turned toward an inner
office.

"I would like to see Doctor Brooks," he said. And when the physician
appeared: "About that man who was murdered at the hotel, Doctor--"

"Who died," the doctor corrected; "we found no evidence of murder."

"Who was murdered," the operative insisted. "Have you his clothing
where I can examine it?"

"Sure," agreed the physician. He led Delamater to another room and
brought out a box of the dead man's effects.

"But if it's murder you expect to prove you'll find no help in this."

The Secret Service man nodded. "I'll look them over, just the same,"
he said. "Thanks."

Alone in the room, he went over the clothing piece by piece. Again he
examined each garment, each pocket, the lining, as he had done before
when first he took the case. Metal, he thought, he must find metal.

But only when a heavy shoe was in his hands did the anxious frown
relax from about his eyes.

"Of course," he whispered, half aloud. "What a fool I was! I should
have thought of that."

The soles of the shoes were sewed, but, beside the stitches were metal
specks, where cobbler's nails were driven. And in the sole of one shoe
were three tiny holes.

"Melted!" he said exultantly. "Crazy, am I, Chief? This man was
standing on a wet floor; he made a perfect ground. And he got a jolt
that melted these nails when it flashed out of him."

He wrapped the clothing carefully and replaced it in the box. And he
fingered the metal pellets in his pocket as he slipped quietly from
the room.

* * * * *

He did not stop to talk with Doctor Brooks; he wanted to think, to
ponder upon the incredible proof of the theory he had hardly dared
believe. The Eye of Allah--the maniac--was real; and his power for
evil! There was work to be done, and the point of beginning was not
plain.

How far did the invisible arm reach? How far could the Eye of Allah
see? Where was the generator--the origin of this wireless power; along
what channel did it flow? A ray of lightless light--an unseen ethereal
vibration.... Delamater could only guess at the answers.

The current to kill a man or to flash a spark into silken powder bags
need not be heavy, he knew. Five hundred--a thousand volts--if the
mysterious conductor carried it without resistance and without loss.
People had been killed by house-lighting currents--a mere 110
volts--when conditions were right. There would be no peculiar or
unusual demand upon the power company to point him toward the hidden
maniac.

He tossed restlessly throughout the night, and morning brought no
answer to his repeated questions. But it brought a hurry call from his
Chief.

"Right away," was the instruction; "don't lose a minute. Come to the
office."

He found the big man at his desk. He was quiet, unhurried, but the
operative knew at a glance the tense repression that was being
exercised--the iron control of nerves that demanded action and found
incompetence and helplessness instead.

"I don't believe your fantastic theories," he told Delamater.
"Impractical--impossible! But--" He handed the waiting man a paper.
"We must not leave a stone unturned."

Delamater said nothing; he looked at the paper in his hand. "To the
President of the United States," he read. "Prepare to meet your God.
Friday. The eighth. Twelve o'clock."

The signature he hardly saw; the staring, open eye was all too
familiar.

"That is to-morrow," said Delamater softly. "The President dies
to-morrow."

* * * * *

"No!" exploded the Chief. "Do you realize what that means? The
President murdered--more killings to follow--and the killer unknown!
Why the country will be in a panic: the whole structure of the
Government is threatened!"

He paused, then added as he struck his open hand upon the desk: "I
will have every available man at the White House."

"For witnesses?" asked Delamater coldly.

The big man stared at his operative; the lines of his face were
sagging.

"Do you believe--really--he can strike him down--at his desk--from a
distance?"

"I know it." Delamater's fingers played for a moment with three bits
of metal in his pocket. Unconsciously he voiced his thoughts: "Does
the President have nails in his shoes, I wonder?"

"What--what's that?" the Chief demanded.

But Delamater made no reply. He was picturing the President. He would
be seated at his desk, waiting, waiting ... and the bells would be
ringing and whistles blowing from distant shops when the bolt would
strike.... It would flash from his feet ... through the thick rug ...
through the rug.... It would have to ground.

He paid no heed to his Chief's repeated question. He was seeing, not
the rug in the Presidential office, but below it--underneath it--a
heavy pad of rubber.

"If he can be insulated--" he said aloud, and stared unseeingly at his
eagerly listening superiors--"even the telephone cut--no possible
connection with the ground--"

"For God's sake, Del, if you've got an idea--any hope at all! I'm--I'm
up against it, Del."

The operative brought his distant gaze back to the room and the man
across from him. "Yes," he said slowly, thoughtfully, "I've got the
beginning of an idea; I don't see the end of it yet.

"We can cut him off from the ground--the President, I mean--make an
insulated island where he sits. But this devil will get him the
instant he leaves ... unless ... unless...."

"Yes--yes?" The Chief's voice was high-pitched with anxious
impatience; for the first time he was admitting to himself his
complete helplessness in this emergency.

"Unless," said Delamater, as the idea grew and took shape, "unless
that wireless channel works both ways. If it does ... if it does...."

The big man made a gesture of complete incomprehension.

"Wait!" said Robert Delamater, sharply. If ever his sleepy indolence
had misled his Chief, there was none to do so now in the voice that
rang like cold steel. His eyes were slits under the deep-drawn brows,
and his mouth was one straight line.

* * * * *

To the hunter there is no greater game than man. And Robert Delamater,
man-hunter, had his treacherous quarry in sight. He fired staccato
questions at his Chief.

"Is the President at his desk at twelve?"

"Yes."

"Does he know--about this?"

"Yes."

"Does he know it means death?"

The Chief nodded.

"I see a way--a chance," said the operative. "Do I get a free hand?"

"Yes--Good Lord, yes! If there's any chance of--"

Delamater silenced him. "I'll be the one to take the chance," he said
grimly. "Chief, I intend to impersonate the President."

"Now listen-- The President and I are about the same build. I know a
man who can take care of the make-up; he will get me by anything but a
close inspection. This Eye of Allah, up to now, has worked only in the
light. We'll have to gamble on that and work our change in the dark.

"The President must go to bed as usual--impress upon him that he may
be under constant surveillance. Then, in the night, he leaves--

"Oh, I know he won't want to hide himself, but he must. That's up to
you.

"Arrange for me to go to his room before daylight. From that minute on
I am the President. Get me his routine for that morning; I must follow
it so as to arouse no least suspicion."

* * * * *

"But I don't see--" began the Chief. "You will impersonate
him--yes--but what then? You will be killed if this maniac makes good.
Is the President of the United States to be a fugitive? Is--"

"Hold on, hold on!" said Delamater. He leaned back in his chair; his
face relaxed to a smile, then a laugh.

"I've got it all now. Perhaps it will work. If not--" A shrug of the
shoulders completed the thought. "And I have been shooting it to you
pretty fast haven't I! Now here is the idea--

"I must be in the President's chair at noon. This Allah person will be
watching in, so I must be acting the part all morning. I will have the
heaviest insulation I can get under the rug, and I'll have something
to take the shot instead of myself. And perhaps, perhaps I will send a
message back to the Eye of Allah that will be a surprise.

"Is it a bet?" he asked. "Remember, I'm taking the chance--unless you
know some better way--"

The Chief's chair came down with a bang. "We'll gamble on it, Del," he
said; "we've got to--there is no other way.... And now what do you
want?"

"A note to the White House electrician," said Robert Delamater, "and
full authority to ask for anything I may need, from the U. S. Treasury
down to a pair of wire-cutters."

His smile had become contagious; the Chief's anxious look relaxed. "If
you pull this off, Del, they may give you the Treasury or the Mint at
that. But remember, republics are notoriously ungenerous."

"We'll have to gamble on that, too," said Robert Delamater.

* * * * *

The heart of the Nation is Washington. Some, there are, who would have
us feel that New York rules our lives. Chicago--San Francisco--these
and other great cities sometimes forget that they are mere ganglia on
the financial and commercial nervous system. The heart is Washington,
and, Congress to the contrary notwithstanding, the heart of that heart
is not the domed building at the head of Pennsylvania Avenue, but an
American home. A simple, gracious mansion, standing in quiet dignity
and whiteness above its velvet lawns.

It is the White House that draws most strongly at the interest and
curiosity of the homely, common throng that visits the capital.

But there were no casual visitors at the White House on the seventh of
September. Certain Senators, even, were denied admittance. The
President was seeing only the members of the Cabinet and some few
others.

It is given to a Secret Service operative, in his time, to play many
parts. But even a versatile actor might pause at impersonating a
President. Robert Delamater was acting the role with never a fumble.
He sat, this new Robert Delamater, so startlingly like the Chief
Executive, in the chair by a flat top desk. And he worked diligently
at a mass of correspondence.

Secretaries came and went; files were brought. Occasionally he replied
to a telephone call--or perhaps called someone. It would be hard to
say which happened, for no telephone bells rang.

On the desk was a schedule that Delamater consulted. So much time for
correspondence--so many minutes for a conference with this or that
official, men who were warned to play up to this new Chief Executive
as if the life of their real President were at stake.

* * * * *

To any observer the busy routine of the morning must have passed with
never a break. And there was an observer, as Delamater knew. He had
wondered if the mystic ray might carry electrons that would prove its
presence. And now he knew.

The Chief of the U. S. Secret Service had come for a consultation with
the President. And whatever lingering doubts may have stifled his
reluctant imagination were dispelled when the figure at the desk
opened a drawer.

"Notice this," he told the Chief as he appeared to search for a paper
in the desk. "An electroscope; I put it in here last night. It is
discharging. The ray has been on since nine-thirty. No current to
electrocute me--just a penetrating ray."

He returned the paper to the drawer and closed it.

"So that is that," he said, and picked up a document to which he
called the visitor's attention.

"Just acting," he explained. "The audience may be critical; we must
try to give them a good show! And now give me a report. What are you
doing? Has anything else turned up? I am counting on you to stand by
and see that that electrician is on his toes at twelve o'clock."

"Stand by is right," the Chief agreed; "that's about all we can do. I
have twenty men in and about the grounds--there will be as many more
later on. And I know now just how little use we are to you, Del."

"Your expression!" warned Delamater. "Remember you are talking to the
President. Very official and all that."

"Right! But now tell me what is the game, Del. If that devil fails to
knock you out here where you are safe, he will get you when you leave
the room."

"Perhaps," agreed the pseudo-executive, "and again, perhaps not. He
won't get me here; I am sure of that. They have this part of the room
insulated. The phone wire is cut--my conversations there are all
faked.

"There is only one spot in this room where that current can pass. A
heavy cable is grounded outside in wet earth. It comes to a copper
plate on this desk; you can't see it--it is under those papers."

* * * * *

"And if the current comes--" began the visitor.

"When it comes," the other corrected, "it will jump to that plate and
go off harmlessly--I hope."

"And then what? How does that let you out?"

"Then we will see," said the presidential figure. "And you've been
here long enough, Chief. Send in the President's secretary as you go
out."

"He arose to place a friendly, patronizing hand on the other's
shoulder.

"Good-by," he said, "and watch that electrician at twelve. He is to
throw the big switch when I call."

"Good luck," said the big man huskily. "We've got to hand it to you,
Del; you're--"

"Good-by!" The figure of the Chief Executive turned abruptly to his
desk.

There was more careful acting--another conference--some dictating. The
clock on the desk gave the time as eleven fifty-five. The man before
the flat topped desk verified it by a surreptitious glance at his
watch. He dismissed the secretary and busied himself with some
personal writing.

Eleven fifty-nine--and he pushed paper and pen aside. The movement
disturbed some other papers, neatly stacked. They were dislodged, and
where they had lain was a disk of dull copper.

"Ready," the man called softly. "Don't stand too near that line." The
first boom of noonday bells came faintly to the room.

The President--to all but the other actors in the morning's
drama--leaned far back in his chair. The room was suddenly deathly
still. The faint ticking of the desk clock was loud and rasping. There
was heavy breathing audible in the room beyond. The last noonday chime
had died away....

The man at the desk was waiting--waiting. And he thought he was
prepared, nerves steeled, for the expected. But he jerked back, to
fall with the overturned chair upon the soft, thick-padded rug, at the
ripping, crackling hiss that tore through the silent room.

* * * * *

From a point above the desk a blue arc flamed and wavered. Its unseen
terminal moved erratically in the air, but the other end of the deadly
flame held steady upon a glowing, copper disc.

Delamater, prone on the floor, saw the wavering point that marked the
end of the invisible carrier of the current--saw it drift aside till
the blue arc was broken. It returned, and the arc crashed again into
blinding flame. Then, as abruptly, the blue menace vanished.

The man on the floor waited, waited, and tried to hold fast to some
sense of time.

Then: "Contact!" he shouted. "The switch! Close the switch!"

"Closed!" came the answer from a distant room. There was a shouted
warning to unseen men: "Stand back there--back--there's twenty
thousand volts on that line--"

Again the silence....

"Would it work? Would it?" Delamater's mind was full of delirious,
half-thought hopes. That fiend in some far-off room had cut the
current meant as a death-bolt to the Nation's' head. He would leave
the ray on--look along it to gloat over his easy victory. His
generator must be insulated: would he touch it with his hand, now that
his own current was off?--make of himself a conductor?

In the air overhead formed a terrible arc.

From the floor, Delamater saw it rip crashingly into life as twenty
thousand volts bridged the gap of a foot or less to the invisible ray.
It hissed tremendously in the stillness....

And Delamater suddenly buried his face in his hands. For in his mind
he was seeing a rigid, searing body, and in his nostrils, acrid,
distinct, was the smell of burning flesh.

"Don't be a fool," he told himself fiercely. "Don't be a fool!
Imagination!"

The light was out.

"Switch off!" a voice was calling. There was a rush of swift feet from
the distant doors; friendly hands were under him--lifting him--as the
room, for Robert Delamater, President-in-name of the United States,
turned whirlingly, dizzily black....

* * * * *

Robert Delamater, U. S. Secret Service operative, entered the office
of his Chief. Two days of enforced idleness and quiet had been all he
could stand. He laid a folded newspaper before the smiling, welcoming
man.

"That's it, I suppose," he said, and pointed to a short notice.

"X-ray Operator Killed," was the caption. "Found Dead in Office in
Watts Building." He had read the brief item many times.

"That's what we let the reporters have," said the Chief.

"Was he"--the operative hesitated for a moment--"pretty well fried?"

"Quite!"

"And the machine?"

"Broken glass and melted metal. He smashed it as he fell."

"The Eye of Allah," mused Delamater. "Poor devil--poor, crazy devil.
Well, we gambled--and we won. How about the rest of the bet? Do I get
the Mint?"

"Hell, no!" said the Chief. "Do you expect to win all the time? They
want to know why it took us so long to get him.

"Now, there's a little matter out in Ohio, Del, that we'll have to get
after--"




THE "TELELUX"


Sound and light were transformed into mechanical action at the banquet
of the National Tool Exposition recently to illustrate their
possibilities in regulating traffic, aiding the aviator, and
performing other automatic functions.

A beam of light was thrown on the "eyes" of a mechanical contrivance
known as the "telelux," a brother of the "televox," and as the light
was thrown on and off it performed mechanical function such as turning
an electric switch.

The contrivance, which was developed by the Westinghouse Electric and
Manufacturing Company, utilizes two photo-electric cells, sensitive to
the light beam. One of the cells is a selector, which progressively
chooses any one of three operating circuits when light is thrown on
it. The other cell is the operator, which opens or closes the chosen
circuit, thus performing the desired function.

S. M. Kintner, manager of the company's research department, who made
the demonstration, also threw music across the room on a beam of
light, and light was utilized in depicting the shape and direction of
stresses in mechanical materials.




[Illustration _"The globe leaped upward into the huge coil, which
whirled madly."_]