By Tom Curry
[Illustration: _He began to twist and turn, as though torn by some
invisible force._]
From twenty miles away stabbed the "atom-filtering" rays to Allen
Baker in his cell in the death house.
The shrill voice of a woman stabbed the steady hum of the many machines
in the great, semi-darkened laboratory. It was the onslaught of weak
femininity against the ebony shadow of Jared, the silent negro servant
of Professor Ramsey Burr. Not many people were able to get to the famous
man against his wishes; Jared obeyed orders implicitly and was generally
an efficient barrier.
"I will see him, I will," screamed the middle-aged woman. "I'm Mrs. Mary
Baker, and he--he--it's his fault my son is going to die. His fault.
_Professor! Professor Burr!_"
Jared was unable to keep her quiet.
Coming in from the sunlight, her eyes were not yet accustomed to the
strange, subdued haze of the laboratory, an immense chamber crammed full
of equipment, the vista of which seemed like an apartment in hell.
Bizarre shapes stood out from the mass of impedimenta, great stills
which rose full two stories in height, dynamos, immense tubes of colored
liquids, a hundred puzzles to the inexpert eye.
The small, plump figure of Mrs. Baker was very out of place in this
setting. Her voice was poignant, reedy. A look at her made it evident
that she was a conventional, good woman. She had soft, cloudy golden
eyes and a pathetic mouth, and she seemed on the point of tears.
"Madam, madam, de doctor is busy," whispered Jared, endeavoring to shoo
her out of the laboratory with his polite hands. He was respectful, but
firm.
She refused to obey. She stopped when she was within a few feet of the
activity in the laboratory, and stared with fear and horror at the
center of the room, and at its occupant, Professor Burr, whom she had
addressed during her flurried entrance.
The professor's face, as he peered at her, seemed like a disembodied
stare, for she could see only eyes behind a mask of lavender gray glass
eyeholes, with its flapping ends of dirty, gray-white cloth.
She drew in a deep breath--and gasped, for the pungent fumes, acrid and
penetrating, of sulphuric and nitric acids, stabbed her lungs. It was
like the breath of hell, to fit the simile, and aptly Professor Burr
seemed the devil himself, manipulating the infernal machines.
* * * * *
Acting swiftly, the tall figure stepped over and threw two switches in a
single, sweeping movement. The vermillion light which had lived in a
long row of tubes on a nearby bench abruptly ceased to writhe like so
many tongues of flame, and the embers of hell died out.
Then the professor flooded the room in harsh gray-green light, and
stopped the high-pitched, humming whine of his dynamos. A shadow picture
writhing on the wall, projected from a lead-glass barrel, disappeared
suddenly, the great color filters and other machines lost their
semblance of horrible life, and a regretful sigh seemed to come from the
metal creatures as they gave up the ghost.
To the woman, it had been entering the abode of fear. She could not
restrain her shudders. But she bravely confronted the tall figure of
Professor Burr, as he came forth to greet her.
He was extremely tall and attenuated, with a red, bony mask of a face
pointed at the chin by a sharp little goatee. Feathery blond hair,
silvered and awry, covered his great head.
"Madam," said Burr in a gentle, disarmingly quiet voice, "your manner of
entrance might have cost you your life. Luckily I was able to deflect
the rays from your person, else you might not now be able to voice your
complaint--for such seems to be your purpose in coming here." He turned
to Jared, who was standing close by. "Very well, Jared. You may go.
After this, it will be as well to throw the bolts, though in this case I
am quite willing to see the visitor."
Jared slid away, leaving the plump little woman to confront the famous
scientist.
For a moment, Mrs. Baker stared into the pale gray eyes, the pupils of
which seemed black as coal by contrast. Some, his bitter enemies,
claimed that Professor Ramsey Burr looked cold and bleak as an iceberg,
others that he had a baleful glare. His mouth was grim and determined.
* * * * *
Yet, with her woman's eyes, Mrs. Baker, looking at the professor's bony
mask of a face, with the high-bridged, intrepid nose, the passionless
gray eyes, thought that Ramsey Burr would be handsome, if a little less
cadaverous and more human.
"The experiment which you ruined by your untimely entrance," continued
the professor, "was not a safe one."
His long white hand waved toward the bunched apparatus, but to her to
the room seemed all glittering metal coils of snakelike wire, ruddy
copper, dull lead, and tubes of all shapes. Hell cauldrons of unknown
chemicals seethed and slowly bubbled, beetle-black bakelite fixtures
reflected the hideous light.
"Oh," she cried, clasping her hands as though she addressed him in
prayer, "forget your science, Professor Burr, and be a man. Help me.
Three days from now my boy, my son, whom I love above all the world, is
to die."
"Three days is a long time," said Professor Burr calmly. "Do not lose
hope: I have no intention of allowing your son, Allen Baker, to pay the
price for a deed of mine. I freely confess it was I who was responsible
for the death of--what was the person's name?--Smith, I believe."
"It was you who made Allen get poor Mr. Smith to agree to the
experiments which killed him, and which the world blamed on my son," she
said. "They called it the deed of a scientific fiend, Professor Burr,
and perhaps they are right. But Allen is innocent."
"Be quiet," ordered Burr, raising his hand. "Remember, madam, your son
Allen is only a commonplace medical man, and while I taught him a little
from my vast store of knowledge, he was ignorant and of much less value
to science and humanity than myself. Do you not understand, can you not
comprehend, also, that the man Smith was a martyr to science? He was no
loss to mankind, and only sentimentalists could have blamed anyone for
his death. I should have succeeded in the interchange of atoms which we
were working on, and Smith would at this moment be hailed as the first
man to travel through space in invisible form, projected on radio waves,
had it not been for the fact that the alloy which conducts the three
types of sinusoidal failed me and burned out. Yes, it was an error in
calculation, and Smith would now be called the Lindbergh of the Atom but
for that. Yet Smith has not died in vain, for I have finally corrected
this error--science is but trial and correction of error--and all will
be well."
"But Allen--Allen must not die at all!" she cried. "For weeks he has
been in the death house: it is killing me. The Governor refuses him a
pardon, nor will he commute my son's sentence. In three days he is to
die in the electric chair, for a crime which you admit you alone are
responsible for. Yet you remain in your laboratory, immersed in your
experiments, and do nothing, nothing!"
* * * * *
The tears came now, and she sobbed hysterically. It seemed that she was
making an appeal to someone in whom she had only a forlorn hope.
"Nothing?" repeated Burr, pursing his thin lips. "Nothing? Madam, I have
done everything. I have, as I have told you, perfected the experiment.
It is successful. Your son has not suffered in vain, and Smith's name
will go down with the rest of science's martyrs as one who died for the
sake of humanity. But if you wish to save your son, you must be calm.
You must listen to what I have to say, and you must not fail to carry
out my instructions to the letter. I am ready now."
Light, the light of hope, sprang in the mother's eyes. She grasped his
arm and stared at him with shining face, through tear-dipped eyelashes.
"Do--do you mean it? Can you save him? After the Governor has refused
me? What can you do? No influence will snatch Allen from the jaws of the
law: the public is greatly excited and very hostile toward him."
A quiet smile played at the corners of Burr's thin lips.
"Come," he said. "Place this cloak about you. Allen wore it when he
assisted me."
The professor replaced his own mask and conducted the woman into the
interior of the laboratory.
"I will show you," said Professor Burr.
She saw before her now, on long metal shelves which appeared to be
delicately poised on fine scales whose balance was registered by
hair-line indicators, two small metal cages.
Professor Burr stepped over to a row of common cages set along the wall.
There was a small menagerie there, guinea pigs--the martyrs of the
animal kingdom--rabbits, monkeys, and some cats.
* * * * *
The man of science reached in and dragged out a mewing cat, placing it
in the right-hand cage on the strange table. He then obtained a small
monkey and put this animal in the left-hand cage, beside the cat. The
cat, on the right, squatted on its haunches, mewing in pique and looking
up at its tormentor. The monkey, after a quick look around, began to
investigate the upper reaches of its new cage.
Over each of the animals was suspended a fine, curious metallic
armament. For several minutes, while the woman, puzzled at how this
demonstration was to affect the rescue of her condemned son, waited
impatiently, the professor deftly worked at the apparatus, connecting
wires here and there.
"I am ready now," said Burr. "Watch the two animals carefully."
"Yes, yes," she replied, faintly, for she was half afraid.
The great scientist was stooping over, looking at the balances of the
indicators through microscopes.
She saw him reach for his switches, and then a brusk order caused her to
turn her eyes back to the animals, the cat in the right-hand cage, the
monkey at the left.
Both animals screamed in fear, and a sympathetic chorus sounded from the
menagerie, as a long purple spark danced from one gray metal pole to the
other, over the cages on the table.
At first, Mrs. Baker noticed no change. The spark had died, the
professor's voice, unhurried, grave, broke the silence.
"The first part of the experiment is over," he said. "The ego--"
"Oh, heavens!" cried the woman. "You've driven the poor creatures mad!"
* * * * *
She indicated the cat. That animal was clawing at the top bars of its
cage, uttering a bizarre, chattering sound, somewhat like a monkey. The
cat hung from the bars, swinging itself back and forth as on a trapeze,
then reached up and hung by its hind claws.
As for the monkey, it was squatting on the floor of its cage, and it
made a strange sound in its throat, almost a mew, and it hissed several
times at the professor.
"They are not mad," said Burr. "As I was explaining to you, I have
finished the first portion of the experiment. The ego, or personality of
one animal has been taken out and put into the other."
She was unable to speak. He had mentioned madness: was he, Professor
Ramsey Burr, crazy? It was likely enough. Yet--yet the whole thing, in
these surroundings, seemed plausible. As she hesitated about speaking,
watching with fascinated eyes the out-of-character behavior of the two
beasts, Burr went on.
"The second part follows at once. Now that the two egos have
interchanged, I will shift the bodies. When it is completed, the monkey
will have taken the place of the cat, and vice versa. Watch."
He was busy for some time with his levers, and the smell of ozone
reached Mrs. Baker's nostrils as she stared with horrified eyes at the
animals.
She blinked. The sparks crackled madly, the monkey mewed, the cat
chattered.
Were her eyes going back on her? She could see neither animal
distinctly: they seemed to be shaking in some cosmic disturbance, and
were but blurs. This illusion--for to her, it seemed it must be
optical--persisted, grew worse, until the quaking forms of the two
unfortunate creatures were like so much ectoplasm in swift motion,
ghosts whirling about in a dark room.
Yet she could see the cages quite distinctly, and the table and even the
indicators of the scales. She closed her eyes for a moment. The acrid
odors penetrated to her lungs, and she coughed, opening her eyes.
* * * * *
Now she could see clearly again. Yes, she could see a monkey, and it was
climbing, quite naturally about its cage; it was excited, but a monkey.
And the cat, while protesting mightily, acted like a cat.
Then she gasped. Had her mind, in the excitement, betrayed her? She
looked at Professor Burr. On his lean face there was a smile of triumph,
and he seemed to be awaiting her applause.
She looked again at the two cages. Surely, at first the cat had been in
the right-hand cage, and the monkey in the left! And now, the monkey was
in the place where the cat had been and the cat had been shifted to the
left-hand cage.
"So it was with Smith, when the alloys burned out," said Burr. "It is
impossible to extract the ego or dissolve the atoms and translate them
into radio waves unless there is a connection with some other ego and
body, for in such a case the translated soul and body would have no
place to go. Luckily, for you, madam, it was the man Smith who was
killed when the alloys failed me. It might have been Allen, for he was
the second pole of the connection."
"But," she began faintly, "how can this mad experiment have anything to
do with saving my boy?"
He waved impatiently at her evident denseness. "Do you not understand?
It is so I will save Allen, your son. I shall first switch our egos, or
souls, as you say. Then switch the bodies. It must always take this
sequence; why, I have not ascertained. But it always works thus."
Mrs. Baker was terrified. What she had just seen, smacked of the
blackest magic--yet a woman in her position must grasp at straws. The
world blamed her son for the murder of Smith, a man Professor Burr had
made use of as he might a guinea pig, and Allen must be snatched from
the death house.
"Do--do you mean you can bring Allen from the prison here--just by
throwing those switches?" she asked.
"That is it. But there is more to it than that, for it is not magic,
madam; it is science, you understand, and there must be some physical
connection. But with your help, that can easily be made."
* * * * *
Professor Ramsey Burr, she knew, was the greatest electrical engineer
the world had ever known. And he stood high as a physicist. Nothing
hindered him in the pursuit of knowledge, they said. He knew no fear,
and he lived on an intellectual promontory. He was so great that he
almost lost sight of himself. To such a man, nothing was impossible.
Hope, wild hope, sprang in Mary Baker's heart, and she grasped the bony
hand of the professor and kissed it.
"Oh, I believe, I believe," she cried. "You can do it. You can save
Allen. I will do anything, anything you tell me to."
"Very well. You visit your son daily at the death house, do you not?"
She nodded; a shiver of remembrance of that dread spot passed through
her.
"Then you will tell him the plan and let him agree to see me the night
preceding the electrocution. I will give him final instructions as to
the exchange of bodies. When my life spirit, or ego, is confined in your
son's body in the death house, Allen will be able to perform the feat of
changing the bodies, and your son's flesh will join his soul, which will
have been temporarily inhabiting my own shell. Do you see? When they
find me in the cell where they suppose your son to be, they will be
unable to explain the phenomenon; they can do nothing but release me.
Your son will go here, and can be whisked away to a safe place of
concealment."
"Yes, yes. What am I to do besides this?"
Professor Burr pulled out a drawer near at hand, and from it extracted a
folded garment of thin, shiny material.
"This is metal cloth coated with the new alloy," he said, in a matter of
fact tone. He rummaged further, saying as he did so, "I expected you
would be here to see me, and I have been getting ready for your visit.
All is prepared, save a few odds and ends which I can easily clean up in
the next two days. Here are four cups which Allen must place under each
leg of his bed, and this delicate little director coil you must take
especial pains with. It is to be slipped under your son's tongue at the
time appointed."
* * * * *
She was staring at him still, half in fear, half in wonder, yet she
could not feel any doubt of the man's miraculous powers. Somehow, while
he talked to her and rested those cold eyes upon her, she was under the
spell of the great scientist. Her son, before the trouble into which he
had been dragged by the professor, had often hinted at the abilities of
Ramsey Burr, given her the idea that his employer was practically a
necromancer, yet a magician whose advanced scientific knowledge was
correct and explainable in the light of reason.
Yes, Allen had talked to her often when he was at home, resting from his
labors with Professor Burr. He had spoken of the new electricity
discovered by the famous man, and also told his mother that Burr had
found a method of separating atoms and then transforming them into a
form of radio-electricity so that they could be sent in radio waves, to
designated points. And she now remembered--the swift trial and
conviction of Allen on the charge of murder had occupied her so deeply
that she had forgotten all else for the time being--that her son had
informed her quite seriously that Professor Ramsey Burr would soon be
able to transport human beings by radio.
"Neither of us will be injured in any way by the change," said Burr
calmly. "It is possible for me now to break up human flesh, send the
atoms by radio-electricity, and reassemble them in their proper form by
these special transformers and atom filters."
Mrs. Baker took all the apparatus presented her by the professor. She
ventured the thought that it might be better to perform the experiment
at once, instead of waiting until the last minute, but this Professor
Burr waved aside as impossible. He needed the extra time, he said, and
there was no hurry.
She glanced about the room, and her eye took in the giant switches of
copper with their black handles; there were others of a gray-green metal
she did not recognize. Many dials and meters, strange to her, confronted
the little woman. These things, she felt with a rush of gratitude toward
the inanimate objects, would help to save her son, so they interested
her and she began to feel kindly toward the great machines.
* * * * *
Would Professor Burr be able to save Allen as he claimed? Yes, she
thought, he could. She would make Allen consent to the trial of it, even
though her son had cursed the scientist and cried he would never speak
to Ramsey Burr again.
She was escorted from the home of the professor by Jared, and going out
into the bright, sunlit street, blinked as her eyes adjusted themselves
to the daylight after the queer light of the laboratory. In a bundle she
had a strange suit and the cups; her purse held the tiny coil, wrapped
in cotton.
How could she get the authorities to consent to her son having the suit?
The cups and the coil she might slip to him herself. She decided that a
mother would be allowed to give her son new underwear. Yes, she would
say it was that.
She started at once for the prison. Professor Burr's laboratory was but
twenty miles from the cell where her son was incarcerated.
As she rode on the train, seeing people in everyday attire, commonplace
occurrences going on about her, the spell of Professor Burr faded, and
cold reason stared her in the face. Was it nonsense, this idea of
transporting bodies through the air, in invisible waves? Yet, she was
old-fashioned; the age of miracles had not passed for her. Radio, in
which pictures and voices could be sent on wireless waves, was
unexplainable to her. Perhaps--
She sighed, and shook her head. It was hard to believe. It was also hard
to believe that her son was in deadly peril, condemned to death as a
"scientific fiend."
Here was her station. A taxi took her to the prison, and after a talk
with the warden, finally she stood there, before the screen through
which she could talk to Allen, her son.
"Mother!"
Her heart lifted, melted within her. It was always thus when he spoke.
"Allen," she whispered softly.
They were allowed to talk undisturbed.
"Professor Burr wishes to help you," she said, in a low voice.
* * * * *
Her son, Allen Baker, M. D., turned eyes of misery upon her. His ruddy
hair was awry. This young man was imaginative and could therefore suffer
deeply. He had the gift of turning platitudes into puzzles, and his
hazel eyes were lit with an elfin quality, which, if possible, endeared
him the more to his mother. All his life he had been the greatest thing
in the world to this woman. To see him in such straits tore her very
heart. When he had been a little boy, she had been able to make joy
appear in those eyes by a word and a pat; now that he was a man, the
matter was more difficult, but she had always done her best.
"I cannot allow Professor Burr to do anything for me," he said dully.
"It is his fault that I am here."
"But Allen, you must listen, listen carefully. Professor Burr can save
you. He says it was all a mistake, the alloy was wrong. He has not come
forward before, because he knew he would be able to iron out the trouble
if he had time, and thus snatch you from this terrible place."
She put as much confidence into her voice as she could. She must, to
enhearten her son. Anything to replace that look of suffering with one
of hope. She would believe, she did believe. The bars, the great masses
of stone which enclosed her son would be as nothing. He would pass
through them, unseen, unheard.
For a time, Allen spoke bitterly of Ramsey Burr, but his mother pleaded
with him, telling him it was his only chance, and that the deviltry
Allen suspected was imaginary.
"He--he killed Smith in such an experiment," said Allen. "I took the
blame, as you know, though I only followed his instructions. But you say
he claims to have found the correct alloys?"
"Yes. And this suit, you must put it on. But Professor Burr himself will
be here to see you day after to-morrow, the day preceding the--the--"
She bit her lip, and got out the dreaded word, "the electrocution. But
there won't be any electrocution, Allen; no, there cannot be. You will
be safe, safe in my arms." She had to fight now to hold her belief in
the miracle which Burr had promised. The solid steel and stone dismayed
her brain.
* * * * *
The new alloy seemed to interest Allen Baker. His mother told him of the
exchange of the monkey and the cat, and he nodded excitedly, growing
more and more restive, and his eyes began to shine with hope and
curiosity.
"I have told the warden about the suit, saying it was something I made
for you myself," she said, in a low voice. "You must pretend the coil
and the cups are things you desire for your own amusement. You know,
they have allowed you a great deal of latitude, since you are educated
and need diversion."
"Yes, yes. There may be some difficulty, but I will overcome that. Tell
Burr to come. I'll talk with him and he can instruct me in the final
details. It is better than waiting here like a rat in a trap. I have
been afraid of going mad, mother, but this buoys me up."
He smiled at her, and her heart sang in the joy of relief.
How did the intervening days pass? Mrs. Baker could not sleep, could
scarcely eat, she could do nothing but wait, wait, wait. She watched the
meeting of her son and Ramsey Burr, on the day preceding the date set
for the execution.
"Well, Baker," said Burr nonchalantly, nodding to his former assistant.
"How are you?"
"You see how I am," said Allen, coldly.
"Yes, yes. Well, listen to what I have to say and note it carefully.
There must be no slip. You have the suit, the cups and the director
coil? You must keep the suit on, the cups go under the legs of the cot
you lie on. The director under your tongue."
The professor spoke further with Allen, instructing him in scientific
terms which the woman scarcely comprehended.
"To-night, then at eleven-thirty," said Burr, finally. "Be ready."
* * * * *
Allen nodded. Mrs. Baker accompanied Burr from the prison.
"You--you will let me be with you?" she begged.
"It is hardly necessary," said the professor.
"But I must. I must see Allen the moment he is free, to make sure he is
all right. Then, I want to be able to take him away. I have a place in
which we can hide, and as soon as he is rescued he must be taken out of
sight."
"Very well," said Burr, shrugging. "It is immaterial to me, so long as
you do not interfere with the course of the experiment. You must sit
perfectly still, you must not speak until Allen stands before you and
addresses you."
"Yes, I will obey you," she promised.
Mrs. Baker watched Professor Ramsey Burr eat his supper. Burr himself
was not in the least perturbed; it was wonderful, she thought, that he
could be so calm. To her, it was the great moment, the moment when her
son would be saved from the jaws of death.
Jared carried a comfortable chair into the laboratory and she sat in it,
quiet as a mouse, in one corner of the room.
It was nine o'clock, and Professor Burr was busy with his preparations.
She knew he had been working steadily for the past few days. She gripped
the arms of her chair, and her heart burned within her.
The professor was making sure of his apparatus. He tested this bulb and
that, and carefully inspected the curious oscillating platform, over
which was suspended a thickly bunched group of gray-green wire, which
was seemingly an antenna. The numerous indicators and implements seemed
to be satisfactory, for at quarter after eleven Burr gave an exclamation
of pleasure and nodded to himself.
Burr seemed to have forgotten the woman. He spoke aloud occasionally,
but not to her, as he drew forth a suit made of the same metal cloth as
Allen must have on at this moment.
* * * * *
The tension was terrific, terrific for the mother, who was awaiting the
culmination of the experiment which would rescue her son from the
electric chair--or would it fail? She shuddered. What if Burr were mad?
But look at him, she was sure he was sane, as sane as she was.
"He will succeed," she murmured, digging her nails into the palms of her
hands. "I _know_ he will."
She pushed aside the picture of what would happen on the morrow, but a
few hours distant, when Allen, her son, was due to be led to a legal
death in the electric chair.
Professor Burr placed the shiny suit upon his lank form, and she saw him
put a duplicate coil, the same sort of small machine which Allen
possessed, under his tongue.
The Mephistophelian figure consulted a matter-of-fact watch; at that
moment, Mrs. Baker heard, above the hum of the myriad machines in the
laboratory, the slow chiming of a clock. It was the moment set for the
deed.
Then, she feared the professor was insane, for he suddenly leaped to the
high bench of the table on which stood one of the oscillating platforms.
Wires led out from this, and Burr sat gently upon it, a strange figure
in the subdued light.
Professor Burr, however, she soon saw, was not insane. No, this was part
of it. He was reaching for switches near at hand, and bulbs began to
glow with unpleasant light, needles on indicators swung madly, and at
last, Professor Burr kicked over a giant switch, which seemed to be the
final movement.
For several seconds the professor did not move. Then his body grew
rigid, and he twisted a few times. His face, though not drawn in pain,
yet twitched galvanically, as though actuated by slight jabs of
electricity.
* * * * *
The many tubes fluoresced, flared up in pulsing waves of violet and
pink: there were gray bars of invisibility or areas of air in which
nothing visible showed. There came the faint, crackling hum of machinery
rather like a swarm of wasps in anger. Blue and gray thread of fire spat
across the antenna. The odor of ozone came to Mrs. Baker's nostrils,
and the acid odors burned her lungs.
She was staring at him, staring at the professor's face. She half rose
from her chair, and uttered a little cry.
The eyes had changed, no longer were they cold, impersonal, the eyes of
a man who prided himself on the fact that he kept his arteries soft and
his heart hard; they were loving, soft eyes.
"Allen," she cried.
Yes, without doubt, the eyes of her son were looking at her out of the
body of Professor Ramsey Burr.
"Mother," he said gently. "Don't be alarmed. It is successful. I am
here, in Professor Burr's body."
"Yes," she cried, hysterically. It was too weird to believe. It seemed
dim to her, unearthly.
"Are you all right, darling?" she asked timidly.
"Yes. I felt nothing beyond a momentary giddy spell, a bit of nausea and
mental stiffness. It was strange, and I have a slight headache. However,
all is well."
He grinned at her, laughed with the voice which was not his, yet which
she recognized as directed by her son's spirit. The laugh was cracked
and unlike Allen's whole-hearted mirth, yet she smiled in sympathy.
"Yes, the first part is a success," said the man. "Our egos have
interchanged. Soon, our bodies will undergo the transformation, and then
I must keep under cover. I dislike Burr--yet he is a great man. He has
saved me. I suppose the slight headache which I feel is one bequeathed
me by Burr. I hope he inherits my shivers and terrors and the neuralgia
for the time being, so he will get some idea of what I have undergone."
He had got down from the oscillating platform, the spirit of her son in
Ramsey's body.
"What--what are you doing now?" she asked.
"I must carry out the rest of it myself," he said. "Burr directed me
when we talked yesterday. It is more difficult when one subject is out
of the laboratory, and the tubes must be checked."
* * * * *
He went carefully about his work, and she saw him replacing four of the
tubes with others, new ones, which were ready at hand. Though it was the
body of Ramsey Burr, the movements were different from the slow, precise
work of the professor, and more and more, she realized that her son
inhabited the shell before her.
For a moment, the mother thought of attempting to dissuade her son from
making the final change; was it not better thus, than to chance the
disintegration of the bodies? Suppose something went wrong, and the
exchange did not take place, and her son, that is, his spirit, went back
to the death house?
Midnight struck as he worked feverishly at the apparatus, the long face
corrugated as he checked the dials and tubes. He worked swiftly, but
evidently was following a procedure which he had committed to memory,
for he was forced to pause often to make sure of himself.
"Everything is O. K.," said the strange voice at last. He consulted his
watch. "Twelve-thirty," he said.
She bit her lip in terror, as he cried, "Now!" and sprang to the table
to take his place on the metallic platform, which oscillated to and fro
under his weight. The delicate grayish metal antenna, which, she knew,
would form a glittering halo of blue and gray threads of fire, rested
quiescent above his head.
"This is the last thing," he said calmly, as he reached for the big
ebony handled switch. "I'll be myself in a few minutes, mother."
"Yes, son, yes."
The switch connected, and Allen Baker, in the form of Ramsey Burr,
suddenly cried out in pain. His mother leaped up to run to his side, but
he waved her away. She stood, wringing her hands, as he began to twist
and turn, as though torn by some invisible force. Eery screams came
from the throat of the man on the platform, and Mrs. Baker's cries of
sympathy mingled with them.
* * * * *
The mighty motors hummed in a high-pitched, unnatural whine, and
suddenly Mrs. Baker saw the tortured face before her grow dim. The
countenance of the professor seemed to melt, and then there came a dull,
muffled thud, a burst of white-blue flame, the odor of burning rubber
and the tinkle of broken glass.
Back to the face came the clarity of outline, and still it was Professor
Ramsey Burr's body she stared at.
Her son, in the professor's shape, climbed from the platform, and looked
about him as though dazed. An acrid smoke filled the room, and burning
insulation assailed the nostrils.
Desperately, without looking at her, his lips set in a determined line,
the man went hurriedly over the apparatus again.
"Have I forgotten, did I do anything wrong?" she heard his anguished
cry.
Two tubes were burned out, and these he replaced as swiftly as possible.
But he was forced to go all over the wiring, and cut out whatever had
been short-circuited so that it could be hooked up anew with uninjured
wire.
Before he was ready to resume his seat on the platform, after half an
hour of feverish haste, a knock came on the door.
The person outside was imperative, and Mrs. Baker ran over and opened
the portal. Jared, the whites of his eyes shining in the dim light,
stood there. "De professah--tell him dat de wahden wishes to talk with
him. It is very important, ma'am."
The body of Burr, inhabited by Allen's soul, pushed by her, and she
followed falteringly, wringing her hands. She saw the tall figure snatch
at the receiver and listen.
"Oh, God," he cried.
At last, he put the receiver back on the hook, automatically, and sank
down in a chair, his face in his hands.
* * * * *
Mrs. Baker went to him quickly. "What is it, Allen?" she cried.
"Mother," he said hoarsely, "it was the warden of the prison. He told me
that Allen Baker had gone temporarily insane, and claimed to be
Professor Ramsey Burr in my body."
"But--but what is the matter?" she asked. "Cannot you finish the
experiment, Allen? Can't you change the two bodies now?"
He shook his head. "Mother--they electrocuted Ramsey Burr in my body at
twelve forty-five to-night!"
She screamed. She was faint, but she controlled herself with a great
effort.
"But the electrocution was not to be until morning," she said.
Allen shook his head. "They are allowed a certain latitude, about twelve
hours," he said. "Burr protested up to the last moment, and begged for
time."
"Then--then they must have come for him and dragged him forth to die in
the electric chair while you were attempting the second part of the
change," she said.
"Yes. That was why it failed. That's why the tubes and wires burned out
and why we couldn't exchange bodies. It began to succeed, then I could
feel something terrible had happened. It was impossible to complete the
Beta circuit, which short-circuited. They took him from the cell, do you
see, while I was starting the exchange of the atoms."
* * * * *
For a time, the mother and her boy sat staring at one another. She saw
the tall, eccentric figure of Ramsey Burr before her, yet she saw also
the soul of her son within that form. The eyes were Allen's, the voice
was soft and loving, and his spirit was with her.
"Come, Allen, my son," she said softly.
"Burr paid the price," said Allen, shaking his head. "He became a martyr
to science."
The world has wondered why Professor Ramsey Burr, so much in the
headlines as a great scientist, suddenly gave up all his experiments and
took up the practice of medicine.
Now that the public furor and indignation over the death of the man
Smith has died down, sentimentalists believe that Ramsey Burr has
reformed and changed his icy nature, for he manifests great affection
and care for Mrs. Mary Baker, the mother of the electrocuted man who had
been his assistant.
+--------------------------------------+
| BY NO MEANS |
| _Miss the Opening Installment of |
| the Extraordinary Four-Part Novel_ |
| MURDER MADNESS |
| _By Murray Leinster_ |
| |
| _Starting In Our Next Issue_ |
+--------------------------------------+
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