Oscar came to his feet.
“Let her go!” he shouted.
“Not until you tell me where the money is.”
“All right,” Oscar said, “I’ll tell you. It’s under the couch.” His ancestor looked suspicious, and he added, “I’ll get it for you.”
“No you don’t, I’ll get it myself. I’m not going to fall for any of your tricks.”
He shoved Betty to one side and waved Oscar away from the couch.
“I’ll get it myself,” he said.
He dropped to his knees and felt under the couch with his hand. One side of his jaw was perfectly exposed.
“Where is it?” he growled.
“It’s pretty far back,” Oscar said, stepping forward quietly.
His ancestor grunted and shoved his arm still further under the couch.
“I don’t feel it,” he said.
“You will this,” Oscar said, and slugged him on the side of the jaw with all his strength.
His ancestor flattened out on the floor with a low moan.
“Now,” Oscar said to Madame Obary, “get to work.”
He stretched out on the couch and again the Madame laid her hand on his forehead...
When he awoke Betty was at his side. The apartment was empty. He sat up and looked around dazedly.
“What happened?”
“Everything’s all right again,” Betty said happily. “You’ve been sleeping for an hour or so. Madame Obary left a little while ago, and I sent Chico back to your apartment to get your clothes.”
“And the other two?” Oscar asked.
“They’re gone,” Betty said. “They’re back on their own time level now.”
Oscar sighed with relief, but then a frown appeared on his face.
“What is it?” Betty asked.
“How about the other one?” he said reflectively. “The one the police are holding in jail as Oscar Doodle, the embezzler. What’s going to happen to him?”
Betty shrugged her slim shoulders helplessly.
“I don’t know,” she said, “I hadn’t really thought about that.”
Oscar Was silent a minute, staring intently at the floor, then he looked up at her and smiled.
“I know what’s going to happen to him,” he said, “he’s going to stay right where he is. He told me he was serving a jail sentence in his own time, so it is altogether fitting and just that he complete it here. Anyway if we sent him back to his own time he’d land in jail so it doesn’t make much difference.”
“But what’s going to happen to you?” Betty asked. “You’re Oscar Doodle, but if they send your ancestor to jail for embezzlement, where will that leave you? All your friends will think you’ve been sent to jail. You won’t be able to live as Oscar Doodle again.”
“Yes,” Oscar said, smiling, “I’ve thought of that.” He stood up and he felt a glorious sense of relief. “My friends,” he said, “who are they? They don’t exist. I never had a friend except you and Chico and in my new existence I’ll be able to keep both of you close to me forever.”
“Oscar,” Betty said gently.
He sat beside her and put his arm about her shoulders.
“Don’t you see, darling,” he said, “the Oscar Doodle who slaved at the bank and lived like a mole wasn’t a person at all. He was just a stuffed shirt and I’m heartily glad to be rid of him. There’s only one thing that is worrying me.”
“What is that?” Betty asked.
“My appearance. I still look like Oscar Doodle. People I know might recognize me.”
Betty drew back slightly and studied him with appraising eyes.
“No,” she said, “they’ll never recognize you as that Oscar Doodle. You’ve changed. Something has happened inside you and it shows in your face.
There’s a light in your eyes that was never there before, and when you smile you look almost reckless. You’re another person.”
“I feel like another person,” Oscar said wonderingly.
“But what about the money?” Betty said. “That’s a real problem.”
Oscar frowned thoughtfully.
“We’ll have to keep it,” he said, at last. “It’s the only thing we can do. The bank has been reimbursed by the insurance company, so the depositors won’t suffer. If we returned the money now we’d risk upsetting the whole applecart. No, we’ve got to keep it.”
“But Oscar,” Betty said, “is that exactly honest?”
“I don’t see why not,” Oscar said. “We won’t squander the money on our own pleasure. We’ll invest it in War Bonds. That should certainly make it all right.”
“I see your point,” Betty said, “it’s the only thing we can do, isn’t it?” Oscar nodded solemnly and drew her closer to him and tilted her chin up with his hand.
“With the money that is,” he said, and kissed her firmly.
People of the Pyramids
First published in Fantastic Adventures, December 1941.
“Come, come,” the fat, brown-skinned proprietor of the gaudy little shop in Cairo cried with more enthusiasm than coherence. “Lukka, lukka,” he said proudly, waving a fat arm at the piles of merchandise stacked in the interior of his shop.
Neal Kirby grinned good-naturedly and allowed himself to be half-dragged, half-led into the establishment. He knew he was perfectly secure against the wiles of the fat shop-keeper for he only had one American dollar in his pocket. And his appetite had already staked a claim on that dollar for dinner.
With the proprietor pattering hopefully at his heels he browsed up and down the narrow aisles examining the ropes of cheap beads, the gayly colorful silks and satins and the thousand-and-one sleepy-looking Buddhas, of all sizes and shapes, that stared at him from the shelves.
He was turning to leave when a steely glitter in a corner caught his eye. Looking closely he saw that it was a narrow silver casket with a glass top that had caught the light. Through the glass top he could see a slim stiletto-like knife resting on a pad of red silk. Strangely, it excited his curiosity. He wondered vaguely why a piece of merchandise of such obvious value should be tucked away in the darkest corner of the shop.
“How much?” he asked, pointing to the casket.
The proprietor shook his head until his fat jowls quivered like cups of jelly.
“No sale, no sale,” he said breathlessly. He grabbed Neal by the arm. “Come, come,” he waved to the displays on the opposite side of the shop. “Lukka, lukka.”
Neal shook his head. Stubbornness had been added to his curiosity now. Disregarding the angry squeals of the fat shopkeeper, he bent and picked up the casket. Opening the casket, he almost gasped at the incredible beauty of the knife.
The blade, about eight inches long, gleamed as if it had been delicately forged from pure silver and the handle was formed in the shape of a man’s torso, from some strange red metal that glowed with a fiery luminescence. A small, cunningly chiseled head topped the handle of the knife, and at the neckline where it joined the torso, it was circled by a cluster of small, but perfect diamonds.
Neal whistled in admiration. He was no judge of precious stones and metals but anyone could see that the knife would be worth a Rajah’s ransom. So absorbed was he in the contemplation of the fabulously beautiful knife that he did not hear the sudden sharp exclamation that sounded from the wheezing proprietor. He didn’t hear the footsteps behind him, but he did hear the quiet, sibilant voice that cut through the silence.
“Give me that knife!”
Neal turned in surprise. Two people stood behind him.
One was a man of medium height with a thin, arrogant face and sandy hair but Neal did not take time to notice anything else about him, for he was too busy staring in admiration at the girl who was with him.