Officer O'Casey, deeply serious, addressed Diedrich on the other side of the counter. Diedrich, who had been consulting a newspaper under the counter, nodded back.
"I'm the discoverer of the electric chair," declared O'Casey, with galvanic effect on the other customers. "It says so on page 26 here. Didn't you know about the electric chair, Sir Henry?"
"Easy, son! What in the name of... ?"
"Read it," invited the other, whipping a newspaper out of his pocket and unfolding it to a marked column.
H.M., evidently adjusting his mental balance, took the paper and adjusted his spectacles as well. Though not a lead, this part of the newspaper story had a very fair amount of space.
"Well, whadd'ye know?" muttered O'Casey. "He didn't even learn about that chair!"
"He was too cockeyed," explained Diedrich, in sympathetic defence. "The paper here says he was all ginned up anyway."
For some reason an intense silence settled under the whirring fans. Most of the customers here had read their evening papers. They stared at him, motionless, as though expecting some kind of atomic effect
Slowly H.M. put down the newspaper on the counter. His mouth was open, and stayed open. He was looking straight ahead at the opposite mirror, without seeing it deep in rearranging evidence.
Then H.M. woke up. A moment later he found his voice.
"I’ve got it!" said H.M. "By the six horn's of Satan, I’ve got it!"
Cy Norton, who knew better than to intervene before then, darted forward and grabbed H.M.'s arm.
"Come on!" he said. "Bob Manning and the two girls are waiting at the information desk, where you told us to meet you! I thought you were on the loose again and probably trying to wreck the subway. Come on!"
"I'm comin'," agreed H.M. slowly.
But, before he put money on the counter and turned away, he shook Officer O'Casey's hand.
"Son," he said, "if anybody ever gets credit for solvin' this business about the swiming pool, most of it ought to go to you."
"You mean I'm right about the water-polo ball?"
What H.M. actually said was "No," but it was drowned by the cries of those who wanted explanations; and all the time, maneuvering with some skill, Cy was pushing him out of the place, away from it and finally into the main hall.
There H.M. stopped and turned round a countenance of wrath.
"Would you mind explaining to me," he asked,
"why nobody said a word to me about that ruddy electric chair on the terrace?"
Those were Byles's orders."
"Byles, hey? If that reptile's tryin' to do me in the eye..."
"He wasn't trying to do you in the eye," Cy protested. "He thought the dummy chair was unimportant and would only distract you."
"Distract me," said H.M., in a hollow voice like an oracle. "Oh, blow my kite to Egypt! Don't you see that dummy electric chair answers the other half of the mystery?"
"Are you serious?"
"What I said to the copper just now," returned H.M., raising his hand and crossing his heart, "was as serious as fallin' off the Empire State building. There were two halves to this problem; didn't I tell you that?"
"Yes!"
"I solved the first half; good! And why? Because I saw the principle of it was just the same principle I used myself when I hocussed the turnstiles in the subway."
"Do you mean that riot in the subway is in any way related to this?"
"It's got the same principle. A simple little trick you don't need a magician to do; anybody could do it."
"But you're not explaining a damned thing! You're only..."
H.M. held up his hand austerely.
"Now the second half of the problem," he argued, "looked easier but was much harder. It seemed impossible for Manning to time his trick. But, when you come to the fake electric chair or its equivalent, the sun shone out again. Anyway, it’s finished!"
Dismissing this, with new fever and flurry, H.M. dug into his pocket after money.
"I got an errand for you to do, son," he said. "Ill meet Bob Manning and the gals at the information desk. Then I'll take 'em"—he nodded up towards the immense dome, painted a faint blue—"up where we're goin'. In the meantime ..."
Now it was Cy who hesitated.
"We've had a devil of a time with Jean," he said. "She wouldn't leave the house until Dr. Willard practically threw her out. Crystal and Bob aren't exactly themselves either. Do you think this is the right time to...?"
"You trust me, son."
"I hope I can. What do you want me to do?"
"The Airways Terminus is just across the street Nip over there"—H.M. pressed money into his hand—"and book me a seat on the eleven-forty-five plane for Washington tomorrow morning. Tell 'em I’ll be driving from Maralarch. Then follow us to Irene Stanley, from Jean's directions."
"Have you got any luggage besides that Gladstone bag?"
"I got a trunk. But ifs been shipped on to Washington. Sling your hook, now!"
Cy slung it. He had only to cross Forty-second Street, and go up the escalator in the Airways Terminus. Though in point of time it did not actually take long to get the ticket, every second chafed him.
He had some parley with a girl who made mysterious phone calls, apparently designed by Dr. Fu-Manchu. No, Sir Henry would not leave from the terminus. No, he did not want the vehicle which airline companies persist in miscalling a "limousine,'' and look deaf or aloof when you firmly use the honest word bus.
A few minutes more, and Cy was back in the main hall at Grand Central. . His sense of foreboding, which had not yet failed, warned him now of disaster. Apart from anything else, there would be an emotional scene when the children met their father's girl friend. Cy knew that he gritted his nerves against it But why was it necessary to find Irene Stanley so quickly?"
"Stop it!" he said to himself. "No thinking!"
Cy glanced round the marble hall, with its immense windows set in every wall, and its marble mezzanine gallery. Skirting through the crowd, Cy made for the north-eastern side, where he found an arch with the words To Terminal Office Building cut above it
Inside a marble staircase led upwards, and then turned back on itself; he was in the broad gallery now. To his left Cy saw large glass doors, past the Tourists' Information Aid, and the carved lettering of Office Building.
Once inside those glass doors, he might have been in the foyer of an ordinary office building late at night. It was very quiet, except for the faint distant bustle below. On his right were three large elevators. One of them whisked up into sight almost as soon as he pressed the button.
"Top floor," Cy told the Negro elevator man, who wore a dark red uniform cap.
It seemed to excite no surprise. This building, Cy had been told, had six floors devoted to railroad offices; and a seventh, the top, devoted to private concerns which had no connection with the railroad.
The idea of somebody having an apartment here, Cy thought, was as grotesque as the idea of a luxury flat above Victoria or Paddington. The elevator fled upward, with glimpses through the glass of marble corridors and dark offices.
"Top floor," said the operator.
The elevator doors closed with a soft slam and descended.
"Something wrong here!" Cy said aloud.
If this were an apartment floor, it was the queerest one he had ever seen. His footsteps grated on a bare concrete floor. Overhead, a single naked bulb hung from a high ceiling.
Turning to the right, Cy walked with echoing footfalls along the passage until, at his left, a broad staircase of bare iron ribs ascended the wall and again turned right on a long corridor.
Clunk, clang rattled his footfalls on the iron-ribbed steps. Everything here was painted and varnished white down to breast height on the walls; below it was painted a fire-bucket red.