He paused to pocket the five tiny cataleptic bodies of the mice and then moved quickly out of Professor Jamison's apartment. The self-service elevator seemed to take an age to get downstairs. It took another age to find a cab. When he did find one, he convinced the driver of his need of haste in getting to the Mayfair Hotel.
He got the haste. Had he been less concerned about Lucy, he might have spent some time worrying about himself. But his distrust of Fran was more intense than ever. Someone with Fran's own racial characteristics had tried to use on him a weapon that produced frozen rigidity. This time the victims were mice instead of the people of Newark. Waldron had a sad conviction that Professor Jamison was missing too, just like Lucy's father. And with Fran near Lucy, Waldron felt anxiety of the most nerve-wracking sort.
However, when he came rushing through the revolving doors of the hotel lobby, he saw Lucy almost immediately. She was pale but composed, sitting quietly on a sofa at one side of the great open room. She talked to Fran, but her eyes were on the doorway. Pure relief showed in them when she saw Waldron. Fran, on the other hand, looked sick and wretched.
Quickly Waldron stepped over to them. He nodded briefly and sat down, facing the two of them.
"What're the developments, Fran?" he asked coldly. "You were right. It was wise for Lucy to get out of Newark. Something pretty terrible did happen there. Now what?"
Unsteadily, Lucy said: "Fran's been urging me to go out West somewhere. He's been offering money. For ... both of us."
Waldron's jaw muscles tightened.
"That so? Does your crowd propose the same sort of thing in New York, Fran?"
"My crowd? Why say that, Steve?" But Fran's voice was strained. "I think I've proved that I don't want any harm to come to Lucy. Or even you. You can't class me with—"
"I do, though," said Waldron grimly. "You're one of the gang who did what's been done to Newark."
"I resent that!" said Fran harshly.
"Don't be a fool!" snapped Waldron. "I'll be willing to bet that about your person you've got a—well—let's call it a pistol. It's something like a pistol, but it doesn't shoot bullets. And if you drop it to the floor, it'll heat up and destroy itself—like that gadget you put underneath my car!"
Fran had been pale. He went paler yet.
"Where'd you hear about pistols like that?"
"I just had an argument with a man who had one," Waldron told him. "He lost the argument. Instead of hitting me with whatever it delivers, he hit some white mice. They're the hardest, brittlest corpses you ever saw. Like the people in Newark. Men used something of the same kind in Newark. Your kind of men, Fran!" Waldron added very softly: "You'll notice my hand is in my pocket, Fran. Don't put your hand in yours!"
Fran Dutt hesitated in an agony of indecision. Then he looked at Lucy. Desperately, he said: "All right! I'll admit it. I do have such a pistol in my pocket—and I'll use it if I have to. But I did get you two out of Newark. I do want to go on keeping Lucy safe. But if you fight me, Steve, I can't. My fife's in your hands, but I'm the only person who can help Lucy and her father."
"Are you asking a price?" asked Waldron icily.
And Fran flushed hotly and then went deathly pale again.
"I am not! For Lucy I will do anything I can! I love her and she knows it! I am risking my life—and more than my life—in what I've said to you here and now. You cannot begin to understand what I am risking. But I would be a traitor to my homeland if I tried to do more than protect Lucy! What I have done for you has been incidental. It was necessary for someone to take Lucy away. That is why I looked out for you. You were my friend but—"
"Your homeland," snapped Waldron. "Russia?"
"Those fools? No! You wouldn't understand. You wouldn't even begin to believe—"
Waldron's eyes narrowed.
"The broadcasters have guessed at plague—which is wrong. They've guessed at subversives letting off a bomb or something similar. That's wrong! They've guessed at flying saucers and an invasion from space. And that's wrong!" Waldron was watching Fran's face. Fran tried to interrupt, but he went on savagely. "One of your—ah—compatriots worked for Professor Jamison, Fran. The professor's vanished, hasn't he?"
"Ye—how do I know? Steve, you're wasting time."
"Williams," said Waldron, inexorably. "Holt, Lucy's father. Now Jamison. The first three were working on things allied to Straussman's Theory: two objects in the same space at the same time. Jamison's electric anesthesia might have had some bearing on it. Eh? Your compatriot—whom the cops are going to get and question—and you, Fran—you were spies for your fellow-countrymen. You were saboteurs—guerillas— and now what's happened to Newark is a sort of Pearl Harbor. My country is in a war that it doesn't yet know exists— waged by a nation none of us has ever heard of."
Fran's hand went to his coat pocket. Waldron's own hand tensed. Fran had gone paler and paler with every word. Now he said bitterly: "You do want Lucy to hate me, don't you? All right, it's true! I am a spy! My country has invaded yours! But try and tell your countrymen so. They'll call you a lunatic."
"I have been called a lunatic," said Waldron. "I'm used to it."
"But I hate the whole business!" said Fran desperately. "There was no need for this war! There are many of us who do not believe our Leaders are right in this thing. Many of us hate our Leaders. We would be glad to overthrow them, to wipe them out utterly. But what can we do? You can't reach my country. It is invulnerable. You can't even believe it exists. So I was sent through to be a spy. If I fail my parents, my brothers, my sisters—"
"You're telling me plenty," said Waldron. "I'm still not sure I believe it, even though I know it's so. But you turned white when I mentioned Straussman. He disappeared too!" He ground his teeth. "And if you people hate the ones who decide on things—Leaders, you call them—maybe you were planning a revolt. On this world"—he used the phrase deliberately and Fran caught his breath. Waldron nodded—"on this world wars have been started to stave off revolutions. That might be the reason in yours."
"Perhaps," said Fran desperately. "But still—"
A newsboy shouted outside the hotel. "Extra! Eyewitness from Newark! Man who saw the whole thing tells his story! Extra!"
Fran Dutt started up, his face contorted.
"Me," said Waldron. "But I covered you, Fran. I didn't tell anything they couldn't believe. And they didn't believe that!" He called a bellboy and sent him for a paper. "I want to know how straight they printed what I did say," he added tonelessly. "If they did print it straight, somebody might guess—"
The bellboy came back, panting in his haste. He'd gotten a copy for himself. Waldron ran his eye down the account of the interview. The extra had been gotten out in record-breaking time. He exclaimed furiously: "The idiots! All nonsense! Listen! 'Steve Waldron, on finishing his story, said, "That's all I can tell you now. I've proved that men are responsible for the destruction of Newark. I'm going to get some rest and start out to lick them." He expects to organize defense measures from his suite at the Mayfair Hotel-"
Waldron heard the inarticulate sound that Fran Dutt made. Fran's face was white as chalk.
"Get Lucy away from here. They mentioned this hotel and I'm not the only spy in New York."
Waldron's mouth dropped open. Then he stood up and grabbed Lucy's arm in one motion. He led her swiftly out the front revolving door. Fran Dutt followed them out and then moved quickly down the street. Seeing a taxicab discharging a passenger in front of the hotel entrance, Waldron thrust Lucy inside and snapped: "Drive on! In a hurry! Speed!"