N. Y., July 8 —
Though the “Singing Diamonds” contrive to bypass meteorologists, astronomers, and anyone else equipped with a telescope and common sense, they are still blazing and humming before the popeyes of John Q. Public and his gullible missus. Two men coming home from a poker party in Milwaukee at q a.m. were rumored to have seen two “Singing Diamonds” in a dogfight “like a couple of fighter planes.” And a rumor alleged that a woman in a Detroit suburb said a “Singing Diamond with hands” came right down out of the sky to slap her in the face. A good reason for NOT seeing “Singing Diamonds” was proffered by Clarence V. Flaherty, first New Yorker to report one: “This kidding is getting pretty hard to take.”
A spokesman for the Frelinghuysen Research Corporation told reporters that octagonal sheets of metal which can stand a pull of 200,000 times their own weight before they disintegrate are being exploded daily in an underground workroom there. These objects revolve at 1,200 miles an hour and an untrained observer might mistake an octagon for a lozenge or diamond. The octagonals are never allowed outside the underground workroom, even at night.
A Manchurian report relayed by Reuters states that Ching Fu, a rice exporter’s son formerly a student at Leland Stanford, claims to have seen “six brilliant lozenges that flew fast enough to make a singing in my ears” while he was piloting his private plane from Peiping to Shanghai to escape the advancing Communists.
N. Y., July 9 —
“Singing Diamonds” had gone the way of “Flying Discs” and sea serpents yesterday when a Chicago jeweler tried to cash in on the mass hysteria by advertising: “Our diamonds don’t sing but how they shine!” Billy Brush, the song-writer, has composed a new song that begins: “My heart is a diamond that flies and sings when I see you!” In Philadelphia a toy manufacturer admitted sending aloft dozens of diamond-shaped kites as a publicity stunt in the last few days. Soviet military attaché, Grigori Nyetchkoff, explained the “Singing Diamonds” to reporters by saying: “Either Americans are importing too much vodka or some Russian Paul Bunyan is breaking up the old Imperial crown that was crusted with diamonds.” Kurt Verworn, associate professor of Political Economy at Manhattan University, had his own theory: “Just propaganda for war. People are being stirred up so they’ll believe some foreign power is testing a new device in preparation for another Pearl Harbor.”
“Well, Dr. Willing? Am I right?” demanded Mrs. Verworn. “Didn’t four of six people who talked as if they had really seen and heard something they called ‘Singing Diamonds’ die less than two weeks afterward?”
“Counting Ching Fu and yourself there were seven credible witnesses,” amended Basil. “And apparently you’ve spotted something all the wire services missed — four of the seven have died, apparently three natural deaths and one accident. Why come to me?”
“I have heard that you are a psychiatric consultant of the district attorney’s office. I thought you might tell me if these people were killed because they had seen Singing Diamonds and how it was done. It seems the act of a maniac and... I want to protect myself, since I saw them, too.”
Basil leaned back, studying the frightened eyes in the heavy, unimaginative face. “Tell me what happened when you saw them.”
“We live on Morningside Heights in a little house with a garden. We dine late in summer because of daylight saving. My husband will not dine before candlelight, as he calls it. I was alone on a window-seat in the living room waiting for dinner and eating a little candy because I get hungry at the same hour all the year round. It was just after sunset. The air was a lovely blue color like smoke. Suddenly I saw five, bright, diamond-shaped objects pass swiftly across a clear patch of sky between two clouds. All the time I saw them I heard a humming — like the unearthly murmuring when you cover your ear with a seashell. They were larger and brighter than stars. I didn’t think much about it then but now — after all these deaths... Dr. Willing, what shall I do?”
Basil hesitated, then: “Mrs. Verworn, you’ll have to face every possibility however fantastic and disconcerting. There were Japanese who died several weeks after they were exposed to radioactivity from the atomic bomb. If by any chance these deaths were caused by some new form of radiation, I can’t help you. We don’t know enough about the effects of radiation yet. It seems more likely that you and the other witnesses saw some device no one was supposed to see — a military or trade secret, which you had not the technical knowledge to recognize for what it was. Of course you might describe it eventually to someone equipped to recognize it from your description and the owners of the secret, reading the newspaper accounts, would realize that possibility. If they were sufficiently criminal and their secret sufficiently important, it’s not entirely inconceivable that they might arrange to liquidate the involuntary eye-witnesses before they talked too much. They could get the names from the newspapers.”
Her relief was enormous, pathetic. ‘‘Then I am safe? I did not give my story to the newspapers! These people cannot know my name!”
“Did you give your story to anyone else besides your husband?”
“I told Kurt and—”
“I was going to ask you about Kurt Verworn. A relative?”
“Our adopted son. Like many immigrants we had cousins who came to America a generation earlier. After Anders made his success here we looked them up. We found a family living on an Ohio farm and adopted the son. He is twenty-eight now, but — more like a guest than a son. Born in this country, all his ideas are American — even his manners or lack of manners. I also told Tamara Radanine, a young Russian-American who teaches at the University. She was mentioned in one of those clippings, too. Reporters always telephone University people when something inexplicable occurs. Like the reporters, I thought Tamara might be able to explain the Singing Diamonds because she is a psychologist. The only other person I told was Clare Albany.”
“Any particular reason for telling her?”
“She is a member of the Fortian Society. They make a hobby of collecting strange happenings. Clare, like the others, promised not to tell anyone else.”
Basil summed up: “Then any harm that comes to you as a consequence of your seeing the Singing Diamonds must come from one of these four since no one else knows you saw them.”
“Harm to me? From my husband, my son, and my two best friends among women? Impossible, Dr. Willing!”
“I should like to meet these four without their knowing why I wish to meet them.”
“Clare is coming to dinner tonight. Anders and Kurt will be there. I could invite Tamara. If you would come, too?”
“I shall be delighted. Meanwhile, stay with crowds until dinner time. Each person who died was alone at the moment of death...”
That afternoon, in a little office on Pine Street, Basil showed Mathilde’s clippings to his former commanding officer, Admiral Custis Laidlaw of Naval Intelligence. He reached for a telephone, asked for “File 29-B.” When it came, he selected two clippings and handed them to Basil.
Wilkens County Chronicle
Deep Gulch, July 13
We regret to announce the sudden death of our respected fellow citizen Donald MacDonald, proprietor of the Three Star Ranch thirty miles south of Deep Gulch. Mr. MacDonald, who lived alone with two cowhands, was found dead early this morning at the entrance of his corral by one of the hands — Josiah Horton. He and the other hand, Arthur Drake, said that the death must have occurred while they were still asleep in their bunk; house...