Chapter XXX

After the concerted gasp of surprise over LaRauche's weird method of escape from the roof had died away, McGinity put another important question: "How did you first discover that your husband was implicated in these Martian revelations, and that they were a fraud? Did you find anything--papers?"

"Something like that," she replied.

She took out of the little bag, which lay in her lap, a charred slip of paper, which she handed to McGinity; and while he passed it round for our inspection, she continued: "I found this paper in the charred rubbish, in the log fire-place, in my husband's laboratory, which Orkins had neglected to clean out. You'll recognize the lettering it contains as a portion of the code used for the radio messages from Mars, and its deciphering into English. After I had studied this, I began a secret investigation on my own, and gradually the scheme was unveiled to me."

"This detecting business must have been a new and novel experience," Henry remarked, good humoredly.

"Not exactly," Mrs. LaRauche replied. "You probably don't know--not many do--that I have written several mystery novels under the pen name of Martha Claxton."

This disclosure was followed by another concerted gasp of surprise. After it had subsided, McGinity exclaimed: "Well, that's certainly a knockout, Mrs. LaRauche! Why, I've read all of your novels, including the latest one, 'The Country House Mystery,' and I consider Martha Claxton--you--a close runner to the English Agatha Christie--a feminine J. S. Fletcher. No wonder your husband, with his jealous temperament, had this constitutional antagonism against any rival in his household, in the field of fame."

"Combine jealousy and revenge," Mrs. LaRauche said, "and in these two forces you have the most perverse evil in the world. Rene was not only intensely jealous of Henry Royce for his successful findings as an amateur scientist and astronomer, but he nursed a revenge against him for the exposé of those faked African jungle films, and his subsequent expulsion from the Exploration Club. He blamed--"

"Officially, I had nothing to do with it," Henry interrupted, vehemently. "I simply voiced my belief to a fellow member of the club that the films looked like fakes to me."

"What raised your suspicions?" Mrs. LaRauche asked.

"Well, I recognized, among those African jungle midgets," Henry replied, "a Negro dwarf I had seen years ago at a circus side-show. She was exhibited as a human crow. She had the remarkable physiognomy and jet blackness of a crow, and she could caw like one. She must be an old woman by now. In your husband's faked film, she took the part of a chattering, pigmy grandmother, who was thrown into the river and drowned because of her great age and uselessness. As she was engulfed in the river torrent, and sank, I recognized her pitiful 'caw-caw'."

"Fancy your remembering that," Mrs. LaRauche remarked.

Again Chief Meigs spoke abruptly. "Pardon me, Mrs. LaRauche," he said, "but how long do you reckon your husband has been out of his mind?"

She looked startled for a moment, then calmly replied. "He was silent and brooding for some months past, but I attributed this to his being deeply engrossed in some new scientific research. It's rather difficult to say when he passed into the stage of actual insanity. It's my opinion that all inventive scientists are a little bit cracked." She hesitated a moment, and smiled apologetically at Henry. "It's my belief, though," she went on, "that he became definitely deranged when the success of his scheme centered the attention of the world upon Henry Royce, and raised him to the heights of fame. Rene had not figured on this. It was like a boomerang. When he realized that his scheme was reacting to his own damage, then, perhaps, something in his brain snapped."

"Have you any personal knowledge of the implication of your husband and Orkins in the theft of the rocket?" McGinity asked.

She shook her head. "Only a suspicion," she replied. "There were many, many nights, while I was locked in the attic, when I couldn't sleep, so I used to listen for sounds from the lower part of the house. The night the rocket was stolen, I remember distinctly the house was as quiet as a tomb. I remained awake all night, terrorized at the thought of being left alone. Towards morning, I heard familiar sounds again--footfalls in the hall--voices--and went to sleep."

"I wonder what motive prompted LaRauche to do a crazy thing like that?" I interrogated.

"Dispose of the rocket, and he would be less liable to detection," Mrs. LaRauche replied. "He must have become suddenly fearful of some one tracing the workmanship of the rocket to him. It was public knowledge that he had made considerable progress in the creation of a metal rocket, which he hoped, eventually, to catapult to the moon. No doubt he reconditioned this rocket to meet the requirements of his mad Martian scheme."

"It's one of the most intricate and puzzling pieces of craftsmanship and mechanism I've ever seen," I said, glancing at Chief Meigs, who punctuated my remark with a smile and a wink, and the silent mouthing of "Screws!"

By this time, McGinity was showing signs of impatience. "If there is no reason why we shouldn't," he said, emphatically, "I think we'd better get through with this business now, as quickly as possible. Mrs. LaRauche is under a great strain, and we must spare her all we can. So why not let her tell us, in as few words as she can, all she knows. I leave it to her."

"Very well, Mr. McGinity," she assented, nodding her head two or three times. Then she began. "There are a great many things I know nothing whatever about. Some things I say may be true, or partly true; the rest will be based on my deductions.

"As I've already told you," she continued, "my husband carried on this work in the greatest secrecy. My curiosity, rather than suspicion, was aroused when he began to collect scientific books on Mars, and studies of the ancient inscriptions, cuneiforms and hieroglyphics, of Babylon and Egypt. He began sending Orkins on frequent visits to the city. It was Orkins, no doubt, who ordered the making of the scroll. He fits the old bookseller's description to a nicety--'middle-aged, well-dressed, well-bred.'

"The time came when Rene dropped his preliminary studies and research, and applied himself wholly to his work, in the laboratory, and at his workshop in the hangar. He worked at all hours of the day and night, in a kind of frenzy. Finally, late in the summer, as I reconstruct it, matters began to take shape. He must have had in his possession by that time all the information Orkins had obtained, surreptitiously, in relation to Henry Royce's and Serge Olinski's experiments in trying to establish radio communication with Mars.

"Early in August, he did a lot of night flying, always accompanied by Orkins. The trust he put in that scoundrel, and the money Orkins must have bled him for! They were usually in the air from nine to eleven. When I quizzed Rene on the purpose of these night flights, he said he was conducting a series of meteorological experiments. But what he was really doing--if my surmise is correct--was flying high over the Royce castle, or Radio Center, and testing his carefully thought out Martian code on Mr. Royce and Mr. Olinski, wherever they happened to be conducting their radio experiments; sort of baiting them.

"He was perfectly able to do this with the powerful wireless sending outfit with which he had equipped his plane. Apparently Mr. Royce and his co-worker were finally satisfied that these signals in code came from Mars, for we next heard of Mr. Royce erecting two stations, one designed for transmitting, the other for receiving Martian radio messages.

"Now, comes the strange story of the public demonstration of direct radio communication with Mars, at Radio Center. I happened to be in town that night, having gone there to visit friends, over the week-end, at Rene's persistent urging that I take a holiday, which was a rather strange attitude for him to adopt. Up to that time, I was not in the least suspicious, and listened in that night with a great deal of enjoyment, although I thought the Martian message, as decoded and broadcast--well, somehow it seemed perfectly incredulous to me.

"If any man was pleased with the success of this undertaking, Rene must have been. He achieved it with great risk, in a hazardous flight into the sub-stratosphere. We must at least give him credit for this daring feat, also for the cleverness of his Martian code, which he sent by wireless from this great height, and the perfect artistry of English into which it was so easily transcribed by Mr. Olinski. My suspicions of Rene's sub-stratosphere performance, in his plane, were confirmed after I had discovered a visored aluminum helmet, and a rubber fabric suit, in which he had received oxygen, hidden under some rubbish in the hangar.

"It is perfectly amazing to me how he accomplished two such remarkable feats in one night, transmitting the Martian message from the sub-stratosphere, garbling it and fading out, to indicate ethereal disturbance, and dropping the rocket on the water-front. Oh, he must have dropped it from his plane while flying low over the beach! There can be no other explanation. He had plenty of time in which to return to the field, after the altitude flight, attach the rocket under the plane, on the principle of a bomber, with Orkins' assistance, of course, and soar off again. The rocket appears heavy, but, as you know, it is constructed of comparatively light metal, and, without fuel, is easily handled. The exterior of the rocket was purposely fired in advance, I found, to give the effect of its having traveled through the earth's atmosphere at great speed.

"In this stunt, he had the spectacular accessory of the falling meteors, and he added to the realism by sending off a great quantity of fire-works from the plane when he dropped the rocket on the beach. There was little chance of his plane being detected at this time of night; he was just another strange traveler in the sky. He carried enough fire-works to equip a Fourth of July celebration. In my investigation, I found a dozen or so burned out Roman candles, and other unused fire-works, which he had secreted under his work-bench in the hangar.

"His mission achieved, he went into retreat. For weeks we lived in practical isolation, while the world buzzed with the great Martian revelations, and honors were heaped upon Mr. Royce. It is not easy for the mind to grasp how Rene managed to put over this stupendous hoax, having as its object the humiliation of a bitterly hated rival, unless one considers that it was the cold-blooded scheme of a great mind gone wrong. And into that deranged mind there must have gleamed some light of inspiration. His detailed description of life as it exists at present on Mars, which he set forth in the cuneiform code, contained in the scroll, I consider marvelous--absolutely marvelous. It is logical, and it rings true. No scientist, ancient or modern, has ever given a more plausible picture of the history of Mars, and conditions of life there. No scientist in his right mind would have been so fearless. But Rene--the madman--dared.

"I'm sorry it isn't true. I want it to be true. I want to think there are people like ourselves living on Mars. We know now that it is technically possible to bridge the space between us with radio, to register our music, our ideas, in that planet. And we need the Martian ideas, and their hopes and illusions, as well, to buoy up our drooping spirit, just as much as they need ours. Perhaps, after we're all dead and buried, this revelation from Mars will come. Radio was given to the world to bring about universal harmony, to bring nations closer together. Why not interstellar harmony? Oh, it's coming! Who knows?

"And now, my friends, since I've given you every detail I can think of, what have you to say?"

There was deep silence for a few moments, and then I spoke. "Your findings and deductions, Mrs. LaRauche, are all very wonderful, and very convincing," I said; "but there is still one very important matter to be cleared up. It may be that your memory is at fault."

"Something important that I've overlooked?" Mrs. LaRauche asked, thoughtfully.

"Quite so," I replied. "We have awaited breathlessly for your theory regarding the passenger in the rocket--the man-ape."

"The dear, lamented ambassador of good will from Mars," Henry burst out, with a deep tremor in his voice; "the late Mr. Zzyx!"

She considered a moment before answering, and then said, very frankly: "As a matter of fact, I did not touch on that point because, I must admit, I haven't the slightest information that would throw any light on this very mysterious phase of the case. I have been puzzled, completely puzzled, and after careful investigation, I have failed to discover the origin of Mr. Zzyx. I have no idea how he came to be in the rocket."

"We're all puzzled, for that matter," McGinity remarked; "and I think it's very necessary that we should establish his origin in order to settle the whole case."

"Of course it is," Mrs. LaRauche assented. "But his presence in the rocket is just one of those irregular happenings that can't be explained. I saw Mr. Zzyx on several public occasions, and I was terribly impressed. He answered in every detail the fairest description that could ever be given of some strange creature from another planet. Recalling my first impressions of him, as an ape-man from the jungles of Mars, I feel, even now, as if I might have been imagining all that I've just told you, and that Mr. Zzyx, the rocket and the radio messages after all, did originate on Mars."

"In other words, the Martian mystery is still a mystery," McGinity said, "and will continue to be so until the origin and identity of Mr. Zzyx are established."

"And that's going to be rather difficult, I'm afraid," murmured Mrs. LaRauche.

And, then, the unexpected happened. The door-bell jangled loudly, and in an incredibly short time, the manservant, whom I had engaged the night before, entered the room, and politely announced a visitor who wouldn't give his name.

"I can't imagine what this means," said Mrs. LaRauche, "but I hope it's nothing unpleasant. So, whoever he is, send him in," she concluded, with an impressive gesture of command to the manservant.