himself into an invisible man like in a movie I saw once, he’d still have had to open the door. And the door didn’t budge. I was watching it every single-”
“And that,” Merlini said thoughtfully, “leaves us with an invisible man who can also walk through closed doors. In short – a ghost. Which brings up another point. Have any of you noticed that there are a few spots of something on those smashed glasses that look very much like – blood?”
Malloy growled. “Yeah, but don’t make any cracks about there being another guy in that booth who sapped Keeler – that’d mean
“If there can be one invisible man,” Merlini pointed out, “then there can be two.”
Gavigan said, “Merlini, that vanishing gadget you were demonstrating when I arrived… It’s just about the size and shape of this phone booth. I want to know-”
The magician shook his head. “Sorry, Inspector. That method wouldn’t work here under these conditions. It’s not the same trick. Keeler’s miracle, in some respects, is even better. He should have been a magician; he’s been wasting his time on the bench. Or has he? I wonder how much cash he carried into limbo with him in that suitcase?” He paused, then added, “More than enough, probably, to serve as a motive for murder.”
And there, on that ominous note, the investigation stuck. It was as dead an end as I ever saw. And it got deader by the minute. Brady, returning a few minutes later, reported that all station exits had been covered by the time Keeler left the Oyster Bar and that none of the detectives had seen hide nor hair of him since.
“Those men stay there until further notice,” Gavigan ordered. “Get more men – as many as you need – and start searching this place. I want every last inch of it covered. And every phone booth, too. If it was Keeler’s voice Malloy heard, then he was in one of them, and-”
“You know, Inspector,” Merlini interrupted, “this case not only takes the cake but the marbles, all the blue ribbons, and a truck load of loving cups too. That is another impossibility.”
“What is?”
“The voice on the telephone. Look at it. If Keeler left the receiver in this booth off as Malloy and Hicks found it, vanished, then reappeared in another booth and tried to call this number, he’d get a busy signal. He couldn’t have made a connection. And if he left the receiver on the hook, he could have called this number, but someone would have had to be here to lift the receiver and leave it off as it was found. It keeps adding up to two invisible men no matter how you look at it.”
“I wish,” Malloy said acidly, “that you’d disappear, too.”
Merlini protested. “Don’t. You sound like Zyyzk.”
“That guy,” Gavigan predicted darkly, “is going to wish he never heard of Judge Keeler.”
Gavigan’s batting average as a prophet was zero. When Zyyzk, whom the Inspector ordered brought to the scene and who was delivered by squad car twenty minutes later, discovered that Judge Keeler had vanished, he was as pleased as punch.
An interstellar visitor from outer space should have three eyes, or at least green hair. Zyyzk, in that respect, was a disappointment. He was a pudgy little man in a wrinkled grey suit. His eyes, two only, were a pale, washed-out blue behind gold-rimmed bifocals, and his hair, the colour of weak tea, failed miserably in its attempt to cover the top of his head.
His manner, however, was charged with an abundant and vital confidence, and there was a haughty, imperious quality in his high, thin voice which hinted that there was much more to Mr Zyyzk than met the eye.
“I issued distinct orders,” he told Gavigan in an icy tone, “that I was never, under any circumstances, to be disturbed between the sidereal hours of five and seven post-meridian. You know that quite well, Inspector. Explain why these idiots have disobeyed. At once!”
If there is any quicker way of bringing an inspector of police to a boil, I don’t know what it is. The look Gavigan gave the little man would have wrecked a Geiger counter. He opened his mouth. But the searing blast of flame which I expected didn’t issue forth. He closed his mouth and swallowed. The Inspector was speechless.
Zyyzk calmly threw more fuel on the fire. “Well,” he said impatiently tapping his foot. “I’m waiting.”
A subterranean rumble began deep in Gavigan’s interior and then, a split second before he blew his top, Merlini said quietly, “I understand, Mr Zyyzk, that you read minds?.
Zyyzk, still the Imperial Roman Emperor, gave Merlini a scathing look. “I do,” he said. “And what of it?”
“For a mind-reader,” Merlini told him, “you ask a lot of questions. I should think you’d know why you’ve been brought here.”
That didn’t bother the visitor from Outer Space. He stared intently at Merlini for a second, glanced once at Gavigan, then closed his eyes. The fingertips of one white hand pressed against his brow. Then he smiled.
“I see. Judge Keeler.”
“Keeler?” Gavigan pretended surprise. “What about him?”
Zyyzk wasn’t fooled. He shook his head. “Don’t try to deceive me, Inspector. It’s childish. The Judge has vanished. Into the Outer Darkness – as I foretold.” He grinned broadly. “You will, of course, release me now.”
“I’ll – I’ll
Zyyzk spread his hands. “You have no choice. Not unless you want to admit that I could sit in a police cell surrounded on all sides by steel bars and cause Judge Keeler to vanish off the face of the earth by will power alone. Since that, to your limited, earthly intelligence, is impossible, I have an impregnable alibi. Good day, Inspector.”
The little man actually started to walk off. The detectives who stood on either side were so dazed by his treatment of the Inspector that Zyyzk had gone six feet before they came to life again and grabbed him.
Whether the strange powers he claimed were real or not, his ability to render Gavigan speechless was certainly uncanny. The Inspector’s mouth opened, but again nothing came out.
Merlini said, “You admit then that you are responsible for the Judge’s disappearance?”
Zyyzk, still grinning, shook his head. “I predicted it. Beyond that I admit nothing.”
“But you know how he vanished?”
The little man shrugged. “In the usual way, naturally. Only an adept of the seventh order would understand.”
Merlini suddenly snapped his fingers and plucked a shiny silver dollar from thin air. He dropped it into his left hand, closed his fingers over it and held his fist out toward Zyyzk. “Perhaps Judge Keeler vanished – like this.” Slowly he opened his fingers. The coin was gone.
For the first time a faint crack appeared in the polished surface of Zyyzk’s composure. He blinked. “Who,” he asked slowly, “are you?”
“An adept,” Merlini said solemnly, “of the eighth order. One who is not yet satisfied that you are what you claim to be.” He snapped his fingers again, almost under Zyyzk’s nose, and the silver dollar reappeared. He offered it to Zyyzk. “A test,” he said. “Let me see you send that back into the Outer Darkness from which I summoned it.”
Zyyzk no longer grinned. He scowled and his eyes were hard. “It will go,” he said, lifting his hand and rapidly tracing a cabalistic figure in the air. “And you with it!”
“Soon?” Merlini asked.
“Very soon. Before the hour of nine strikes again you will appear before the Lords of the Outer Darkness in far Antares. And there-”
