Boy's Cinema (1939-40)

Every Tuesday lu'lp my brother," Elcniior Siiid with ■iiitiihle eagerriHss, thoiiffh actiiully ciuilc rrit(h(('ii('(l. "VV<!ll, I'vo spt'ciulisod in shock luiiuc^ia and nave had sonic small succcsn," staled Cai'tiM. ■■ but some <'ascs do not respond. ] can ti'll better after an examination." "Th(!n would you examine him, doctor?" iTsked John's supposed mother. "I coidd do so at once if that's convenient to you." Ele.-mor assured him that il was convenient. Madelon Martin took her departure, and .lohn was led ,ivvav nito some othei- room. Within ten irutuites Carter brought him back into the office, and he said to Kleaiior and her mother: "The examination was most eneonraKinK." lOleanor cla.sped lier hands. "Then you can cure him'/" she questioned. "We'll do all wo can," promised Carter. "Of roiir.se, it will bo necessary for him to live hero in the sanitiirium under close observation. Is that agreeable to you?" Mrs. Baxter nodded. Eleanor said: "(Ml, yes, anythinfl: that will help him! He likes the sunshine, especially in the afternoons. Could you give him a nice, sunny room?" Dr. Carter said that he would take <are of that, and he summoned Mason. "Take Professor Leonard to Onethirty- eic-lu." he instructed. The sanitarium was a larne, white-walled bidlding, with an eastern wins and a western wing. Most of the extensive grounds were at the baok of it, atid its front wall faced south. On the opposite side of Elm Street there \va> an apartrnent-house, and an agent from the War Department had taken a first-floor flat in it the day before. Ted Hall had slipped into that tiat late at night, and it was in accordance with plan that Eleanor had asked for John to be jjiovided with a sunny room. The one to which he was conducted was in the front of the building, and as soon as he was alone he went to a window, took a tiny circular mirror from his pocket, and with it shone a light upon a french window across the street. The light flickered about the room in which Ted was waiting for just such a signal, and Ted Sfied to the french window and pulled its blind up and down. John thereupon flashed a message in code as well as in Morse, and Ted jotted it down and decoded it. "Watch for my signal.—J. B." Footstep^ ontside the door of Room 138 were steahiy. hut John heard them, and the mirror was (lack in his pocket and he was swinging a bunch of keys when Mason walked in at the door. " You'd better put those keys away now, professor," he said. "The doctor wants to see you." Carter was in his office. "Well, professor, how do you like your room?" he asked as his new patieirt» stood facing him .stolidly across the desk. "Very pleasant," muttered John. "Fine." Carter took him by the arm aiul led him away into the room with the long table. "Sit right down." The portable projector was on the desk; the screen was on the wall. Mason became seated at the projector, and Carter sat on John's left near the top of the table. "I'm going to show you a moving picture. profes.sor," he said impressively. "I want you to watch it closely, think hard, and see if it recalls anything to you. Do you understand?" It was as though he were talking to a child, and almost like a child John responded: "Yes, I understand." Mason started a film running after the room had been plunged into darkness, and John needed all his self-control to maintain the role ho was playing, for on to the screen came a picture of t,he "demonstration" ho himself liad conducted, and he knew that a spy must have taken it. "That picture," pointed Carter, "was taken at a proving ground. One of those men is you. That one there is vour assistant, a man named Hall." "Hall?" repeated John wondoringly. "Hain" "Do you remember him?" "No, I—I don't know." "There, that's Hall, your assistant, going out BOY'S CINEMA He hoisted the prone body of his chum over his shoulder and staggered out from the gas with his burden on to the field. You've sent him theie. He signals to the jihine. There, that's a gas bomb. See the ga.s? See?" "Gas?" murmured John; and then, in a startled voice repeated the word. "Do you remember that?" insisted Carter. "Do you?" "Oh, a dream—a bad dream!" • "It wasn't a dream," corrected Carter. "It really happened." "No, no." Carter pointed to the screen again. "There, that's Hall, signalling for the second bomb. See, he's ruiming. The bomb falls. It bui-sts. He's enveloped in gas. You run into the gas. You come out canving Hall —Ted Hall." "Ted Hall?" John appeared to be striving to remember. "You took him to the hospital." "W'hat happened to him?" "Unfortunately, he died. Died from the gas you invented." "Oh!" The screen became blank, the projector was stopped, and Mason pulled back heavy curtains from two windows. "Can't you remember?" Carter's eyes were on John's impassive face. "Think, think!" "I remember Ted Hall." said John slowly. "That's right. And the .gas—the gas you invented." John shook his head. "I don't remember that." "Never mind." Cartel- stood up. masking his disappointment. "You do remember Hall. That's a stait--a good start. Oh, Mason, take him back to his room." John h:id been ati inmate of the sanitarium for the better part of a week, and had become cpiite familiar with the lay-out of the buildinsj. when late one evening the female nurse in charge of him found his room deserted and reported the circumstance to the doctor. John was in the laboratory with an electric torch, searching for evidence that would in- criminate Carter, and he had opened a cabinet in which X-ray plates were kept, and was holding one of the plates in his liand when the handle of the door was turned. l{p switched off the torch and crouched against the cabinet as the door was opened and the nurse became •silhouetted against the light of a corridor. The laboratoiy being in darkness, however, tryin"- to steal switcned on a 1 the girl took it for granted that the niissirig patient was not there, and she closed the door and went off to look elsewhere for him. John knew, then, that his absence from his ovvn loom had been discovered and that it could be a matter only of minutes before he was found. He felt pretty sure that Carter and most of the members of his stafY were searching for him, and he did not want to be night leaving the laboratory. Instead of out from it, therefore, he ight over a bench, v.ashed a beaker under a tap, and took a bottle from one of the shelves. Presently Carter looked into the laboratory, and Mason was with him. John was holding the beaker, half-filled with fluid, and was saying to himself, as though racking an elusive memory: "Hydrochloric acid, pota.ssiuni permangan- ate, phosphorus — phosphorus — phosphorus An expression of rage faded from Carter's face, gave i)lace to one of elation. "Oh, here you are!" he exclaimed, hasten- ing across to the bench. "■(Jo ahead, professor. You're . mixing your formula. Hydiochlorio acitl, potassium permanganate, phosiihorus What else?" John screwed up his eyes, put down the beaker, and held a hand to liis brow. "I don't know." he said dully. "I can't remember. I—I don't fi^el very well." The nurse was staring in at the door, and Carter beckoned to her. "Anna will take you back to your room, piofessor." he said: and after nurse and patient had disappeared he turned jubilantly to" his assistant. "Did you .see that. Mason? He almost remembered!" FACE TO FACE MADELON :MARTIX. in a highly decorative wrap, was peering- round the half-open front door of her flat one morning that week when Eleanor and her mother emerged from their flat and went off" along the corridor to a lift. The lift was round a corner, and directly they were out of sight the star of the Chib International flitted across to the <loor that had been slammed and reopened it with a key. She made straight for John's bedroom and began to open the drawers of a tallbnv there. ■Tacuary 6th. TO-iiO.