Chapter 6

VI

Florence Wood looked up from her little desk and cried, "Why, Captain Schnell! How nice to see you!"

"Hello," I said with a smile. "I hope you won't mind my company for a while."

"I'm not likely to go for a stroll in—Captain Schnell! Don't—"

Seven and one-half tons of finely wrought and polished tool-steel alloy swung on delicately balanced hinges, coming to rest with the metal-to-metal sound of machined surfaces sliding into a perfect fit with its precision-matched receptacle. Its piston-fit made a pressure on our eardrums. Then the automatic switches took over and motors whirred in solid muffled harmony as the massive bars slid out of their nests into the polished slots.

The ponderous operation that sealed the two of us off from the outside world behind a barrier of drill-proof and burglar-proof and blast-proof solidity concluded not with the mechanical fanfare it deserved, but with a gentle little click that was as final as the Word of God.

"—do that!" gasped Florence Wood, weakly finishing her admonition.

She stared at me.

The knowledge that this bank vault door was equipped with a time-lock that would not permit it to be opened except in the interval between nine-fifteen and nine-thirty in the morning of any working weekday ceased to be mere information and became vitally important to Florence Wood.

So did the secondary knowledge that the bank vault was also contrived in available volume to limit the breathable air. There was not enough to support the average human adult overnight until opening time tomorrow morning. Now there were two of them entombed in it—and she was one of them!

"We'll die!" she screamed.

"Trust me, Florence?"

She looked dubious. She was not at all willing to regard anyone as competent who was so foolish as to lock himself into a bank vault—and her with him.

Florence was still struggling through her sea of mixed thoughts when the telephone rang. It was Chief Weston and he bellowed almost loud enough to hear through the yards of concrete and steel that separated us.

"Schnell—what in the bloody hell have you done?"

"I've shut the vault," I said.

"You'll die!"

"I doubt it."

"How do you propose to get out?" he demanded with heavy sarcasm.

"Just ask Edward Hazlett Wood—the Psi-man in our midst."

"Schnell, if you get out of there alive, I'm going to ask for your resig—"

"If I get out of here alive, you'll need every faculty I have to keep our Psi-man jugged for good."

"You and your extra-sensory—"

"Chief, get it through your thick skull that I am so convinced I'm right that I am betting my life on it!"

"And can you tell me why he is going to give himself away to rescue you?"

"Because I have his daughter right here beside me."

"Schnell—"

"Stop yacking, Chief. Call me when Wood arrives. I have an emotional problem on my hands down here."

"How do you know Wood's coming?"

"He's been following my every move by telepathy," I said. "And he's been trying to block me all the way. Oh, he knows all right."

Then I hung up to stop a lot of senseless gab. I turned to Florence, who was just beginning to understand what I had said and what it meant to both her and her father. She stood there with shocked eyes regarding me, and with one hand pressed back against her teeth. She said, "I don't believe it," in a barely audible voice.

"It's true, and I'm sorry it's true," I told her.

"It can't be true."

"That's what you'd like to believe," I said softly. "But the fact remains that your father is a killer."

"I'd rather die."

"Florence, the choice between death and dishonor is not yours to make. Whether you live or die is up to your father, who is guilty of placing you in this awkward position by turning his talents to evil."

She stared at me. "But—how could you—?"

"There was no other way but to bait this trap emotionally."

"So cold and cruel—"

I nodded. "So were the pioneers who saved one last bullet for their wives."

How could I tell this hurt girl that I had looked time and again into the minds of killers and found them far worse than the deeds they committed? When the official record states that upon such and such a date, so and so was punished for his crime, how is he punished for the harm he did to those who placed their trust in him? I hate them because they force me to reveal them for what they are, making me an agent of their betrayal.

The phone rang again. "Yeah, Chief?"

"Schnell, Wood's just arrived. What shall I tell him?"

"Don't bother. He knows it all."

"Schnell, granting that you are right, why should he show his hand when he knows—or could easily find out—that the time-lock setting mechanism is on your side of that vault door?"

"Sure it is," I replied. "But it's covered by a sheet of five-ply safety glass."

"Use your revolver!"

"Chief, reprimand me for a violation of regulations if you must, but let me point out that only an idiot would wear a gun when he's pitting himself against a Psi-man."

"Got everything figured out, haven't you, Schnell?"

"Chief," I said, "this affair started in a sealed room, and now it's going to end in one."

I yanked on the telephone and pulled it out of its connection block, snapping that link of communication. Then, to satisfy Edward Hazlett Wood, I hurled the instrument as hard as I could against the safety glass. The telephone bounced as if I had thrown it against six solid feet of battleship plate armor.

I thought: "Psi-man, you are trapped!"

He thought: "I've killed before, Schnell. Why shouldn't I profess helplessness and innocence, and accuse you and the whole Police Department of the stupid and wanton death of my beloved daughter?"

"Because you've erred, Psi-man Wood."

"Ah, now I have proof! You're a Psi-man, too!"

"Who—me?" I thought without a visible change in my expression for Florence Wood to see. "You're the one who erred, Wood. You neglected the rules."

"Bah—the law! Stupid law—"

"Not so stupid, Wood. The law is really very sensible. It's strong, Wood, and it fosters the strength that comes of following it. So you see, Psi-man Wood, by never, never making any overt use of my talent, by never admitting that I know more than any clever man can see and deduce from what he knows—it has now become quite obvious to Chief Weston that if any such shenanigans as extra-sensory manipulation of this bank-vault door take place—you're the only one suspected of parapsychic power!"

And then the time-lock setting dials clicked around, their tiny noise muted by the glass door. They came around until they pointed to the present time. Then came the louder manipulation of outside dial lock, the heavy click of massive tumblers, and then the solid turning sound of wheel and mighty lever. The vault door swung open.