Three to Conquer Read online

  "You've been reading the papers," he observed grimly. "But no matter. Has anything turned up?"

  "Turned. up?"

  "Look, Moira, pay no attention to those fat-butted dicks sitting on my desk. Listen to me: has anything come along in the mail that requires my personal handling?"

  "N-n-no, Mr. Harper."

  "Any complications I'm needed to clear up?"

  "N-n-no."

  "All right. Put one of those guys on the phone."

  She got into a worse tangle. "I don't understand, Mr. Harper. There isn't—"

  "Now, now, no lies!" he ordered.

  At that point, she gave up; he heard her say weakly to somebody else, "He knows you're here and insists on speaking to you."

  He heard a deep grunt that somehow conveyed disgust. Harper's screen suddenly cleared and showed a beefy face scowling at him.

  Before the other could speak, Harper said, "When I can't see a thing in my own office I know that somebody doesn't want me to look. I also know Moira's been told to keep me on as long as she can, while this call is being traced. Well, you're wasting time for which suffering taxpayers are paying; better pack up and get busy on the local sinners. Tell Riley I love him, despite all his faults."

  The face scowled more deeply. "Now, see here, Harper—"

  "Listen to me, for once," continued Harper impatiently. "I'm calling from Washington, and I'm making for F.B.I. headquarters to give myself up."

  Incredulity expressed itself on the distant features. "You mean that?"

  "Check with the F.B.I, in about fifteen minutes' time; they'll tell you they've got me. And don't celebrate by pawing Moira around. She draws her pay from me, not from you!"

  He pronged the phone, walked out and joined the crowds on the sidewalk. He had covered two blocks when a tall, dark-haired, neatly dressed young man threw him a brief but penetrating glance in passing; the man did a swift double-take, continued a few yards beyond, then turned and followed.

  Harper strolled steadily on, smiling to himself as he filched data out of the shadower's mind. Robert Slade, thirty-two, F.B.I. agent, was obsessed by the notion that Harper bore a very close resemblance to Wade Harper. The encounter was purely accidental, but the boy intended to stick to the opportunity until he was sure enough to make a pinch.

  Turning down a side street, Harper covered three more blocks and became a mite uncertain of his whereabouts. He was not very familiar with Washington. He stopped on a comer, lit a cigarette, gazed furtively over cupped hands and found Slade studiously examining a shop window.

  Ambling back, he touched Slade's elbow and said, "Pardon me; I'm looking for F.B.I, headquarters. Can you direct me?"

  It shook Slade more than if Harper had stuck a gun in his belly.

  "Why… er… yes, of course." His mind was saying, "Hell of a coincidence!"

  "You're Robert Slade, aren't you?" inquired Harper, pleasantly conversational.

  The other rocked back. "I am. You have the advantage of me, though; I don't recall knowing you."

  "Would it do you any good to make an arrest?"

  "What d'you mean?"

  "I'm seeking your H.Q. You can show me the way. If you would like to call it a pinch, it's all right with me. I'm Wade Harper."

  Slade took in a deep breath. "You're not kidding?"

  "Why should I? Don't I look like Harper?"

  "You sure do — maybe you're fed up being mistaken for him. If so, there's little we can do about it."

  "That can soon be settled. You have my prints on file." He felt under an arm. "Here's my gun. Don't let the comparison boys in the ballistics department lose it — I hope to get it back someday."

  "Thanks." Openly baffled, Slade shoved it into a pocket and pointed down the street. "This way."

  They moved along, side by side. Slade made no suggestion of using his handcuffs, nor was he particularly wary. Harper's attitude had put him into a state of skepticism; he was inclined to think that this capture would gain him no credit, because the captive was too self-possessed to be other than innocent.

  Reaching the big building, they went inside. Slade showed Harper into a small room, said, "Wait there a minute," and departed. The exit and the open street were within easy reach. There was no obstacle to an escape other than that provided by a hard-looking character on duty at the door.

  Taking his ease. in a pneumatic chair, Harper amused himself tracking Slade's mind. The agent went along a short corridor, entered an office, spoke to somebody there.

  "I've just picked up Wade Harper. He's in room number four."

  "By himself?"

  "Are you cracked? He can make a dive, and—"

  "He was on his way here when I found him," interjected Slade, honestly refusing the credit for the grab. "He wanted to come."

  "Holy smoke! There's something mighty funny about this." A pause, then, "Bring him in here."

  Harper got up, walked along the passage, and arrived at the door just as Slade opened it. For the third successive time, Slade was taken aback. He stood aside, silent and puzzled, while Harper marched boldly in, took a seat and gazed at the lean-faced man behind the desk. The latter returned his gaze and gave himself away without knowing it. William Pritchard, thirty-nine, area supervisor.

  " 'Morning, Mr. Pritchard," said Harper, with the cheerful air of one who has not a worry in the world.

  Pritchard blinked, marshalled his wits and said, "There's a call out for you. You're wanted for the murder of Jocelyn Whittingham."

  "Yes, I know. I read the papers."

  "Somebody's blundered," thought Pritchard, impressed by this coolness. "He's got an alibi." Clearing his throat, he asked, "Well, do you wish to say anything about it?"

  "Plenty — but not to you."

  "Why not to me?"

  "No personal reason, I assure you. I'd like to talk to Sam Stevens."

  "Go see where he is," Pritchard ordered, after a little hesitation.

  Slade went away, came back and said, "Stevens is in Seattle."

  The phone rang shrilly. Pritchard picked it off his desk, said, "Yes? How did you know? Oh, he told you himself, did he? No, he wasn't fooling; he's here all right. He's in front of me right now." He racked the phone, stared hard at Harper. "You can't see Stevens. He isn't available."

  "A pity. He could have got me somebody high up. I want to talk as high as I can get."

  "Why?"

  "I refuse to say."

  Frowning disapproval, Pritchard leaned forward. "Did you or did you not shoot this Whittingham girl?"

  "Yes, I did."

  "All right. Are you willing to sign a confession to that effect?"

  "No."

  "You admit shooting her, but you refuse to sign a confession?"

  "That's right."

  "Care to offer a reason?" Pritchard invited, studying him carefully.

  "I have a good reason. I didn't kill her."

  "But she's dead. She's as dead as mutton. Didn't you know that?"

  Harper made two waves of his hand in a manner suggesting that this was a minor point.

  "So you shot her, but didn't kill her?" Pritchard persisted. "You put a dozen steel beads through her skull, but somehow refrained from committing homicide?"

  "Correct."

  That did it. Pritchard's and Slade's minds reached a simultaneous verdict: not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

  Sighing deeply, Harper said, "Sam Stevens is the only one I know in this outfit. He made a check on my plant once, about two years ago. He entered it on some sort of national security list which you people keep on file. He gave me a gun-permit and a bunch of bureaucratic instructions, the chief of which says I'm federal property the moment war breaks out. I become confiscated lock, stock, and barrel."

  "So?" prompted Pritchard, seeing no point in this.

  "The Whittingham business has to do more or less with the same issue — namely, national security. Therefore, I can talk only to somebody who'll know what I'm talking about. />
  "That would be Jameson," promptly whispered Pritchard's thoughts.

  "Such as Jameson," Harper added.

  They reacted as though he had uttered a holy name in unholy precincts.

  "Or whoever is his boss," said Harper, for good measure.

  With a touch of severity, Pritchard demanded, "You just said that Stevens is the only member of the F.B.I, known to you. So how do you know of Jameson? Come to that, how did you know my name?"

  "He knew mine, too," put in Slade.

  "That's a problem I'll solve only in the presence of somebody way up top," said "Harper. He smiled at Pritchard and inquired, "How's your body?"

  "Eh?"

  Out of the other's bafflement Harper extracted a clear, detailed picture, and said in helpful tones, "You have a fish-shaped birthmark on the inside of your left thigh."

  "That's enough for me!" Pritchard stood up, badly worried. He said to Slade, "You keep an eye on this Houdini while I go see what Jameson says." He departed hurriedly.

  Harper asked Slade, "May I have a sheet of paper, please?"

  Extracting one from the desk, Slade slipped it across. He watched Harper take out a pen and prepare to write. The confession after all, he thought. Definitely a nut who'd refuse a thing one moment and give it the next.

  Ignoring these uncomplimentary ideas, Harper waited a few moments, then began to write. He scribbled with great rapidity, finishing a short time before Pritchard's return.

  "He won't see you," announced Pritchard with a that-is-that air.

  "I know." Harper gave him the paper.

  Glancing over it, Pritchard popped his eyes and ran out full tilt. Slade stared after him, turning a questioning gaze upon Harper.

  "That was a complete and accurate transcript of their conversation," Harper informed. "Want to lay any bets against him seeing me now?"

  "No," said Slade, developing the willies. "I don't care to throw away good money."

  * * *

  Jameson proved to be a middle-aged bull of a man with a thick mop of curly, gray hair. His eyes were blue and cold, his manner that of one long accustomed to the exercising of authority. Sitting erect in his chair, he kept one strong forefinger firmly planted on the sheet of paper lying on the desk before him.

  "How did you do it?"

  "Easily enough. I took aim, fired, and down she slid."

  "I'm not asking about that." The finger tapped impatiently. "I am referring to this."

  "Oh, the eavesdropping." Harper pretended to gain an understanding that he had not lost in the first place. "I did it in the same way the enemy might be able to do it, whenever he wants to know what we're up to."

  "You may go," Jameson said to Pritchard. "I'll call you when I want you." He waited until the door had closed, then fixed his full attention on Harper. "Are you categorically asserting that agents of other powers are able to read our minds at-will?"

  "No."

  "Then, why make such a suggestion?"

  "I'm merely proposing that what one can do, another can do," said Harper. "It's a notion I've nursed for years. So far, I've been unable to find any evidence in support."

  "Obviously you are talking about something you can do. What can you do?"

  "That," said Harper, pointing to the paper.

  Jameson was no fool. He had grasped the idea at the start, but still found considerable difficulty in absorbing it. The manifest explanation was proving indigestible.

  "It would take a telepath to play these sort of tricks."

  "Nothing else but," agreed Harper.

  "Who ever heard of one?"

  Harper merely shrugged.

  Switching on his little intercom-board, Jameson spoke into its mike. "Is Miss Keyes there? Put her on. Miss Keyes, I want you to type a column of twenty eight-digit numbers, chosen at random. Bring it to me immediately you have finished." He switched off, gave Harper a challenging look, poked the paper toward him and said, "See what you can do with that." '

  "Now I've got to search through the general mess for somebody concocting meaningless numbers," Harper complained. "I may miss the first one or two while I'm feeling around."

  "Never mind; do the best you can. If you get only a quarter of them, it will convince me that the age of miracles has not passed."

  Harper wrote down eighteen of them, plus the last two digits of the nineteenth. Taking the paper without comment, Jameson waited for Miss Keyes. She arrived shortly, gave him her list and departed with no visible surprise. Jameson compared the two columns.

  Finally he said, "This is worse than a bomb in the Pentagon. Nothing is private property any more."

  "I know."

  "How did it happen?"

  "Can a man with a harelip tell you how it happened? All I know is that I was born that way. For a few years, I assumed that everyone else was precisely like myself. Being a child, it took quite a time to learn that it was not so; to learn that I was a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind; to learn that I could be feared, and that the feared are hated."

  "There must be a reason for it," said Jameson. "Does it matter?"

  "It matters a hell of a lot. You are a freak created by some very special arrangement of circumstances. If we could detail those circumstances fully and completely, we could estimate the likelihood of them being duplicated elsewhere. That, in turn, would give us a fair idea of whether there are any more like you — and, if so, who's got them."

  Harper said quietly and soberly, "I don't think that matters a damn — not any more."

  "Why doesn't it?"

  "Because I made mental contact with Jocelyn Whittingham, and she promptly called me an insulting name. So I shot her."

  "You considered that adequate motive for murder?" prompted Jameson.

  "In view of the name, yes!"

  "What did she call you?"

  "A Terrestrial bastard."

  6. Unheralded Return

  For a full two minutes Jameson sat there like one paralyzed. His thoughts milled mildly around, and he was momentarily oblivious of the fact that Harper could read them as easily as if they were in neon lights.

  Then he asked, "Are you sure of that?"

  "The only person in the world who can be positive about someone else's mind is a telepath," assured Harper. "I'll tell you something else: I shot her because I knew I couldn't kill her. It was a physical impossibility."

  "How d'you make.that out?"

  "No living man could harm Jocelyn Whittingham — because she was already dead."

  "Now see here, we have a detailed police report—"

  "I killed something else," said Harper. "I killed the thing that had already slaughtered her."

  Jameson promptly went into another whirl. He had a cool, incisive mind used to dealing with highly complicated problems, but essentially normal ones. This was the first time within his considerable experience that he had been slapped in the face by a sample of the supernormal.

  One thing surprised the observing Harper — namely, that much of the other's confusion stemmed from the fact that he lacked certain information he could reasonably be expected to possess. High up in the bureaucratic hierarchy Jameson might be; but evidently he was not high enough. All the same, he had enough pull to take the matter further and get some action.

  Harper said, "You've got the bald account from police sources. It isn't enough. I'd like to give you my side of the story."

  "Go ahead," invited Jameson, glad to concentrate on something that might clear up the muddle.

  Commencing with his pick-up of the dying Alderson's broadcast, Harper took it through to the end.

  Then he said, "No ordinary human being is ever aware of his mind being read. He gains no sense of physical contact that might serve to warn him; he remains completely unconscious of being pried into. I have been absorbing your thoughts the entire time we've been here together; your senses have not registered the probe in any way whatever, have they?"

  "No," Jameson admitted.

  "And if
I had not told you that I'm a telepath, and satisfied you as to the truth of it, you'd have found no cause to suspect that your mind is wide open to me, would you?"

  "No."

  "Well," went on Harper reminiscently, "the instant I touched the mind inside Jocelyn Whittingham, it felt the contact; that mind knew whence it came, took wild alarm, and hated me with a most appalling ferocity. In the same instant I detected all its reactions and recognized it as non-human. The contact did not last a fiftieth of a second, but it was enough. I knew it as nothing born of woman, as surely as your own eyes can tell you that a rattlesnake is not a mewling babe."

  "If it wasn't human," inquired Jameson, with much skepticism, "what was it?"

  "That I don't know."

  "Of what shape or form?"

  "The shape and form of the Whittingham girl. It had to be that; it was using her body."

  Disbelief suddenly swamped Jameson's brain. "I will concede that you are either a genuine telepath, or the practitioner of some new and superb trick that makes you look like one. But that doesn't mean I have to swallow this murder story. What your defense boils down to is that you shot a corpse animated by God knows what. No jury on earth will give such an incredible-plea a moment's consideration."

  "I'll never face a jury," Harper told him.

  "I think you will — unless you drop dead beforehand. The law must take its course."

  "For the first time in my naughty life I'm above the law," said Harper, impressively confident. "What's more, the law itself is going to say so."

  "How do you reach that remarkable conclusion?"

  "The law isn't interested only in the death of Jocelyn Whittingham. It is even more concerned about the slaying of Trooper Alderson, he having been a police officer. And you can't pin that one on me, because I didn't do it."

  "Then who did?" Jameson challenged.

  "A-a-ah!" Harper eyed him meaningfully. "Now you're getting right down to the heart of the matter. Who killed Aider-son — and why?"

  "Well?"

  "Three men in a Thunderbug. Three men who, in all probability, resented Alderson's intrusion at a critical moment, when the Whittingham girl was being taken over."

  "Taken over?"