Chapter III

Prince Matani was certainly good-looking and _distingué_; slender and dark, with an absurdly small black mustache plastered over his rather thick and sensuous lips. Scrupulously dressed for dinner, every detail of him indicated the care he devoted to his person.

Bowing formally and stiffly on entering the hall, he looked past us and made a swift movement forward to Pat's side. He kissed her hand with dazzling grace. Then he turned his brilliant smile upon her, and beneath that smile, greatly to my alarm, she seemed as wax.

The cocktail prelude to dinner was unavoidably lengthened to a quarter of an hour, for Jane was called unexpectedly to the telephone. Her absence left Henry and Olinski still conversing earnestly at one end of the hall, while I sat patiently at the other end, under the staircase, fidgeting with my glass, and glancing around anxiously from time to time at Pat and the Prince, who were sitting informally, but luxuriously, on some cushions the Prince had placed on the lower steps of the stairs. Sipping at her cocktail Pat seemed to become more and more responsive to the young nobleman's flatteries.

Presently my position grew to be a most embarrassing one. While their voices came to me at first only in murmured undertones, I became suddenly conscious of hearing every word they said. Any attempt at eavesdropping is beneath my dignity, but confronting a situation so fateful and momentous in Pat's life, with the Prince exercising his fascinations upon her, I cast aside my principles and listened. And of all the fatuous, syrupy conversations, I had never heard the like before.

"It was so awfully, awfully sweet of you to ask me to dinner tonight," the Prince was saying in a low, rapturous voice.

"But I didn't invite you," Pat countered. "Uncle Henry did, for some reason or other."

"Some excellent reason, I hope," said the Prince. "He seems to appreciate my chivalrous devotion to you, my unselfishness and utter trustworthiness. And a truer help-mate I could never find. You are such a sweet-natured and lovable girl."

"You have said that before, Your Highness," Pat gently reminded him.

"And I shall say it a thousand times again," he answered. "True, I am well-born but penniless. But, please--please don't say that your regard for me is compounded more of pity than of love."

"We'll talk about that, after dinner, shall we?" Pat suggested artfully.

"Your pleasure is my pleasure," he said. "Yes; we'll talk about that after dinner. We'll take a stroll in the garden, where the night air is intoxicating with its rich aroma of flowers. Or on the terrace, whichever you like. It's such a terribly sweet night, we mustn't miss it."

"I love sweet nights, don't you?" Pat cooed.

"They are very useful at times," the Prince rejoined. "What would you say if, in the sweet darkness, I found a pair of sweet lips."

"Oh, Your Highness! You wouldn't dare!" Pat exclaimed, in a disturbed voice. "I've always found you so--so perfectly trustworthy in the dark. Besides, taking undue advantage of a helpless young lady is only done by bores of the lower classes."

"Oh dear, no!" the Prince responded. "You're quite wrong there. The most extraordinary things happen to people in our class. Sort of dignified things, you know." Then he laid his hand on hers. "My dear," he went on, "I think you have offered every excuse there is. What I want now is to be told exactly what you think of me."

"I will also tell you that, tonight--after dinner," Pat replied, evasively.

"But I cannot--I cannot possess my soul in patience," he said. "I must know now--at this very moment. But if you are cruel, and spurn me--you, so gentle-souled, who would never intentionally hurt a fly, I know,--I will leap off the cliff. Men of my race, in love or in war, always act on the spur of the moment. You don't want me to jump off your cliff?"

"Listen, Your Highness," answered Pat. "This is what I want you to do for me. Just nothing at all."

"I'm afraid you'll have to grin and bear it--this deed of violence. But it will be a happy death."

"It'll put us all to a lot of trouble," Pat sighed.

"That's true. I hadn't thought of that. You'll have to buy orchids and go to my funeral."

"No; I'll have to go to the autopsy, first," she corrected him.

To my great astonishment, she seemed perfectly informed on that subject, probably from reading so many murder mystery stories.

"Very well," the Prince concurred; "perhaps it would be foolish for me to jump off your cliff. Some perfectly innocent person, like--well, like your Uncle Livingston--might be accused of pushing me off, and there would be a murder trial, and all those horrid newspaper reporters and photographers would make your life miserable. No; I cannot let the innocent suffer."

At this juncture, their voices trailed off again into indistinctness, leaving me in a mood to give the Prince all the encouragement he needed in his threat to jump off our cliff. Most unjust of me, but most human, I fear. At any rate, their tête-à-tête was soon interrupted by the return of Jane, and, a few minutes later, by Orkins' dignified announcement that dinner was served.

I was further agitated in mind when Henry linked arms with Pat and the Prince, and, walking between them, escorted the romantic pair to the dining room. The definite warmth with which he treated the Prince seemed to settle the matter. The announcement of their engagement seemed an assured thing. When we were finally seated at the candle-lit table, I began to pray silently, though desperately, that something might happen to stay Pat's unfortunate romance with the Prince, in what I felt to be its penultimate stage.

Luckily something did happen. Altogether, it was an extraordinary meal. We had just passed from soup to fish, when the telephone in the library, adjoining the dining room, began to trill, and what occurred after that, so disturbed Henry's peace of mind that the affair between Pat and the Prince became of secondary importance to him.

Niki, Henry's slim but powerfully muscled valet and bodyguard, was relieving Orkins and the second man during the serving of dinner. From my place at the table, I watched him through the wide connecting doorway as he answered the persistent telephone calls in the library, and curtly dismissed them with a quick hang-up of the receiver. Finally, when the bell began to trill at five minute intervals, he left the hook off the receiver, and stepped into the dining room and approached Henry.

"Pardon," he said, in his smooth, suave manner, and bowing low, "but there have been many telephone calls for you. The same voice in each case. The gentleman says it is veree important, but he will not give his name."

Henry nodded thoughtfully, and said: "And what does the gentleman require of me, Niki?"

"An appointment for an interview, sir, if you would be so kind," said Niki. "A very agitated gentleman, I gathered, sir."

"Very good, Niki," said Henry. "Tell the agitated gentleman that I will make an appointment to see him at nine o'clock tonight. Say that I am at dinner and cannot be disturbed at present."

Niki bowed, and started to withdraw.

"On second thought, Niki," Henry called after him, "tell the gentleman that I will make the appointment only on condition that he identifies himself--now."

Returning in a few moments, Niki said: "The gentleman says to tell you his name is Meester Robert McGinity."

Henry looked at him in quick astonishment, and then made a face expressive of extreme displeasure. "Is Mr. McGinity still on the wire? Yes; well, then, go back and tell him that under no consideration will I grant him an interview. You understand?"

Niki bowed understandingly, and re-entered the library, where he delivered Henry's ultimatum, which silenced the telephone during the remainder of the dinner.

Although Henry strove mightily to pretend unconcern, I could easily see that McGinity's telephone call had upset him terribly. His face became more drawn and whiter than it had been. I sensed at once that he had been thrown into a state of perturbation and dismay, in the belief that the reporter had somehow obtained inside information on the result of his and Olinski's research work in interplanetary radio communication, as he had on the comet.

Olinski seemed equally perturbed. "McGinity! The reporter?" he gasped. "Do you think he's found out anything?"

Henry smiled grimly, and replied: "He must have some knowledge of our discovery or he wouldn't have called up. As our first move, we must find out where the leak is, and stop it."

As he finished speaking, he glanced over his shoulder at Orkins, who was standing at his side with a bottle of sherry in his hand. Orkins, whom I had always regarded as a secretive, suspicious person, despite his dignified appearance as a well-trained butler, leaned over and spoke to Henry, which was an unusual proceeding on his part.

As he refilled Henry's glass with sherry, I heard him mutter: "If you've any suspicions about any of the servants in the house, sir, it's your plain duty to say so."

Henry looked coldly at the butler out of the corner of his eye, and replied, in a low voice: "I have no suspicions at all, Orkins, in that direction." Then his attention was attracted to Olinski, who said: "Your best move will be to continue to exercise the utmost caution, and to prevent any possible personal contact with this reporter."

Henry wagged his head defiantly. "He's certainly a mono-maniac on the subject of news, but I've got my eye on him now, and I'll give him something to try his teeth on. He'll never get the best of me again--never!"

At that point, Pat chimed in. "What's all this fuss about a reporter?" she asked. "Is this Mr. McGinity, who just called, the same reporter who got the first news about the comet?"

"The same cheeky rascal," Olinski replied; "and now, apparently, he's bent on getting some advance information about our experiments in interplanetary radio communication."

"And aren't you going to oblige him, Uncle Henry?" Pat inquired.

Henry's eyebrows went up. "Oblige him? Certainly not."

"It will be the perfect imbecility on this reporter's part to try and get anything out of your Uncle, or me, on our latest discovery," Olinski explained. "The time is not yet ripe for any sort of public announcement."

"If he's a live-wire reporter," I offered, "and he seems to be just that, I'm afraid he'll go the limit in getting what he's after."

"Of course he will," Pat smiled. "Now that Uncle Henry has refused to be interviewed, he'll try some other means to get at him. Oh, the life of a reporter must be terribly thrilling! One reads so much about them in detective and mystery stories." She paused for a moment, and then continued, half musingly. "I wonder what he's like--this Mr. McGinity--this mono-maniac on the subject of news. Did you ever meet him, personally, Uncle Henry?"

Henry nodded, and replied grudgingly: "I met him personally, not long after he had tricked me into giving him the news of the comet. I was acting as toastmaster at the annual banquet of the Colonial Lords of Manors, and he was reporting the dinner. He tried to be friendly, but I squelched him good and plenty."

"Oh, how interesting!" Pat enthused. "Tell me, please! Is he young and good-looking?"

Henry's head jerked up. He did some rapid thinking, and then he lied firmly: "He's an oldish person, fat and awkward, and almost bald."

Pat smiled faintly, and did not have much to say after that. I divined that her little bubble of romantic anticipation had been pricked, but as she had no suspicions then, and had accepted Henry's description of the reporter as truthful, I passed it up. Considering Henry's position at the moment, I could not very well cross purposes with him and enlighten her. I happened to have been present at the same banquet, and I could have offered her a vastly different picture of the reporter from the fraudulent one Henry had painted.

An uncomfortable silence followed. The Prince was looking at Pat quizzically. "Well, what about it?" he said suddenly.

"About what?" she replied.

"I should have thought you almost the last person in the world to become interested in a news writer," he said. "To me, the most repugnant of persons is a nosey newspaper reporter."

"Reporters are not repugnant to me," Pat replied quickly. "I've never met one in my life, so why should I feel any contempt for them?"

"Thanks," said the Prince. "That's what I wanted to know."

"Don't be a cad," Pat retorted. "There is no more harm in my knowing a reporter than in knowing you."

"Well," said the Prince, "it's like this. If I ever caught you talking to a reporter, I'd lead you away by the ear."

"Really," Pat smiled dryly, as the color mounted her cheeks. "If any one but you, Prince Matani, had made such a threat, I should refuse to have anything more to do with him. As it is--oh, why be so fussed over something that hasn't happened, and may never occur?"

I wondered why the Prince should make such a silly and indiscreet remark. I could see that this little flash of petty jealousy and cruelty that lay hidden under his formal and polite exterior had annoyed Henry, although his voice was very kind as he continued to exchange pleasantries with the princeling. In fact, Henry conversed on every topic save that nearest his heart. It was only with the entry of dessert and the departure of Orkins that he came back to realities.

"Now, listen, everyone," he said. "Olinski and I have kept something to ourselves as long as possible, and now, assuming that some ungrateful, treacherous culprit has betrayed our secret to the Daily Recorder, we have decided to announce our discovery privately tonight."

"I see," the Prince commented, with a disdainful edge to his voice; "you are going to tell us something important, and we are supposed to know nothing until, of course, this McGinity, the reporter, gets the story, and his paper is adorned with your portraits."

Henry fixed a cold and disparaging gaze on the Prince for a moment, and then continued, with an even voice. "The servants are to know nothing, and no one present here must breathe a word of it." He paused a moment. "No one has anything to say? Very well. Instead of having coffee served in the library, we shall dispense with that formality and proceed at once to the observatory."

It was not long before we were gathered in the dome-ceilinged room in one of the peaked towers, where Henry carried on his astronomical observations. I was in an exultant mood, not because we were to be let in on a great secret, but rather on account of Pat. My heart sang with glee, and I suppressed a desire to whistle and whoop; and I thanked my stars that McGinity was up to his favorite tricks again. Unwittingly, by his telephone call, I felt sure he had forestalled the announcement of Pat's engagement to the Prince.

Henry constituted himself both host and lecturer. Pat and the Prince seemed quite happy together again, their little tilt at the dinner table apparently forgotten. But the evening had not progressed very far before I was again struck by the curious mixture of impudence and rashness in the Prince. I wondered if all men of his social caste possessed this overbearing consciousness of superiority.

After we were comfortably grouped about the room, Henry touched a button in the wall, and a section of the dome-shaped glass roof slid back. Simultaneously, the electrically propelled telescope moved majestically into place. A click of an electric switch and the room was partially darkened. We gazed upward into a bright field of twinkling planets, stretching above us like a dark blue velvet canopy, studded with gilt paper stars.

At Henry's invitation, Pat and the Prince viewed the ruddy-hued planet Mars through the telescope. As they enjoyed the close-up of this most famous of faraway planets, he grew discoursive.

"Mars is now at the nearest point to the earth for the first time in one hundred years," he said, "and its south-pole is turned towards us. It is one-half the diameter of the earth, and its day is but half an hour longer than our own."

"And you really think the planet is inhabited by people like ourselves?" Pat said, her imagination seemingly enthralled by the gorgeous night spectacle of the planet.

"Why not?" Henry smiled. "Mars has oxygen, the breath of life, diluted with nitrogen, the same as the air of the earth. Its physical conditions for life closely resemble our own."

"Do I understand you to say that you believe life on Mars is similar to our own, and as far advanced as our own civilization?" the Prince interrogated.

"First, let me explain more fully the physical conditions on the planet," Henry said. "Mars has its seasons, which essentially resemble the earth's. That white spot you observed in the neighborhood of its south-pole is a polar cap of ice and snow, just now reforming after shrinking and melting away during the summer. Those greenish-blue areas you saw in the planet's southern hemisphere, parallel to the equator, are the vegetated sections--the tropical jungles."

"And what's all this tommyrot about canals being distributed like a network over the planet's surface, and supplying water from the melting polar snow-caps for the vegetation of Mars?" the Prince asked, a little impudently.

"Dr. Percival Lowell made the first study of these strange geometric tracings, on the regularity of the 'canal' patterns," Henry responded quietly. "On his studies was based largely the theory that the planet is inhabited.

"If your little country of Georgia, in southern Russia," he continued, "was slowly drying up and there were available large quantities of water from melting snow and ice at certain locations in your northern and southern boundaries, you would soon build canals, or ditches, for irrigation purposes, wouldn't you? You would--if you had any brains."

The Prince eyed him speculatively, and replied, "But I have failed to see any markings of these so-called canals on Mars, through your telescope. Why is that?"

"Objects on Mars less than ten miles in size cannot be seen clearly except through the largest telescopes," he answered. "These patterns follow the curves of great circles. Several of them appear to pass through the same point. At these spots 'lakes' are observed."

"Isn't there the possibility of an optical illusion about all this?" the Prince persisted. "Isn't it possible that you and other astronomers let your imagination run riot, and create in your mind these conditions on Mars necessary to sustain life, patterned after those existing on earth?"

"Nothing of the sort," Henry replied in exasperation. "The existence of life there is evidenced by the presence of free oxygen in the atmosphere."

"Do you mean to say that men and women of flesh and blood, with brains, like those who walk the earth, populate this dried-up planet?" the Prince said. "Ah, it is too impossible!"

"Yes, Uncle Henry, it does seem almost beyond human conception," Pat interjected.

"Furthermore," the Prince went on, "authoritative sources claim that no creature with warm blood could survive there, with the temperature ranging between 150 and 250 degrees. A cold-blooded creature might freeze and then thaw out, but a warm-blooded one would freeze and remain dead as a door nail. The indications, I fear, are that your inhabitants of Mars are in the order of--of sublimated lobsters."

"Lobsters!" Pat repeated, laughing.

"Don't be an ass, Your Highness," Olinski interposed at that point. "Or, at any rate, try not to be an ass."

"But it all sounds so deuced silly," exclaimed the Prince, in some heat. "You know yourself, Mr. Olinski, that science has definitely proved that Mars cannot support life as we know it. You may as well admit," he continued, turning again to Henry, "that you really have no proof except your own imagination that there is life on Mars. Providing there is some sort of living organisms there, it is utterly absurd and preposterous to claim that life is as much advanced, physically and intellectually, as our own."

"But I have proof," Henry announced firmly. "Mr. Olinski and I have demonstrated that fact."

"I don't catch the point, really," said the Prince.

"Then listen attentively, Your Highness," said Olinski, "and you'll get an earful." Motioning to Henry, he added: "Let's have it."

"Yes," said Henry, in a deeply serious voice, "we have completely proved that life not only exists on Mars, but that in some respects civilization there is more advanced, especially in the sciences, than on earth."

"Life as we know it here on this sphere?" Jane inquired. "How extraordinary."

Henry nodded, and said: "It is information on our discovery, which has leaked out in some mysterious way, that this reporter, McGinity, apparently, is seeking. But we are not yet ready to divulge our secret findings until we have arranged to give a public demonstration."

"Oh, how thrilling!" Pat ejaculated. "And when will that be?"

"Probably within a week," Henry replied.

The Prince whistled. "Well, somebody's going dotty," he said. "That's all I've got to say. It's too utterly absurd--impossible."

"But it is possible," Henry said. "Radio has made it technically possible. Radio has successfully bridged the hitherto impassable sidereal abyss between earth and Mars--annihilated space."

"I'm not an authority on radio," the Prince grumbled.

"Every American schoolboy knows with what tremendous velocity radio spins round the earth, seven and one-half times in one second," Henry went on. "Now, we know it jumps from planet to planet. Its echo actually has come back to us from outside the orbit of the moon."

"I dare say the Martians have been listening in to our short wave broadcasts, symphony orchestras and jazz?" the Prince remarked. "Am I right?"

"Quite," answered Henry.

"Nevertheless," said the Prince, "I've read on good authority that our short waves can't possibly penetrate the outer layer of the earth's atmosphere, and so reach outer space. However, tell us what you and Mr. Olinski have discovered."

"And remember," Olinski broke in, "no one is to breathe a word of this to any one but the five of us who already know of it."

"Except to this reporter, McGinity, of course," the Prince added, with a sarcastic note.

"Keep calm, Your Highness," Olinski murmured, impatiently.

"H'm," said Henry, and then he began. "After many months of intense application, we have at last established direct radio communication with Mars by the use of short, high frequency waves, with which, as I said before, there is no limit to distance.

"The registering of mysterious galactic radio waves from outer space has long been puzzling the scientific world. As the intensity of these waves is very low, we constructed a very delicately-strung apparatus for their reception. At first, we got a strange group of sounds which baffled us completely. Less than a month ago, however, one night, about ten o'clock, our apparatus began to register a series of distinct dots and dashes. But these signals were in no known code, beginning on a low note and ending with a sort of 'zipp.'

"Outstanding were four distinct groups of four dashes, which convinced us that some form of intelligence in the upper atmosphere was striving for inter-galactic communication. They registered regularly, night after night, about the same time, ten o'clock. Now, here comes the amazing part. While I was busily engaged making measurements, and taking photographs, Mars, at present, being on its periodic parade past the earth, Mr. Olinski succeeded in decoding these four dashes. They turned out to be the signal of the transmitting station on Mars. We could not very well be mistaken, because when we replied, giving our station signal, in the same code, we got an answer.

"Last night, at the same hour, we established definite connection with this station on Mars, after considerable difficulty in making ourselves known to them. You see, the Martians do not know this planet by the name of 'Earth,' as we call it. They have given this world the appellation of the 'Blue Sphere,' which is quite natural, as the earth to Mars appears to be veiled in blue.

"On the other hand, we made the mistake of calling their planet, 'Mars.' Apparently, by their signaling, they were curious as to the meaning of the word. This gave us cause to think that it might be known to its inhabitants under an entirely different name. Later, it was proved that we were right, because the Martian station said so. They call their own planet, the 'Red Sphere.'"

At that point, Henry brought his startling disclosures to an abrupt conclusion. A sort of awe fell among us. The news of this wonderful scientific achievement had petrified us all in complete silence.