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Title: Radio mates
Author: Benjamin Witwer
Release date: December 11, 2023 [eBook #72380]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: E. P. Co., Inc, 1927
Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RADIO MATES ***
Radio Mates
[Illustration: “Think of it! A twist of a switch and the living,
breathing piglet slowly dissolved before my eyes and vanished along a
pair of wires to my aerial, whence it was transferred as a set of waves
in the ether to the receiving apparatus--there to reincarnate into the
living organism once more, alive and breathing, unharmed by its
extraordinary journey!”]
RADIO MATES
by Benjamin Witwer
From the telegraph to the telephone was but a step. From the
telephone to radio constituted but another such step, and we
are now enjoying radio broadcast from stations thousands of
miles away. Every time you have an Xray photograph taken you
are bombarded, not by rays, but by actual particles that go
right through the walls of the tube, which particles are
just as real as if they were bullets or bricks, the only
difference being that they are smaller. Thus our scientists
lead up to the way of sending solids through space. While
impossible of achievement, as yet, it may be possible, years
hence, to send living beings through space, to be received
at distant points. At any rate, the author of this story
weaves a fascinating romance around this idea. It makes
excellent reading, and the plot is as unusual as is its
entire treatment.
It was a large brown envelope, of the size commonly used for mailing
pamphlets or catalogues. Yet it was registered, and had come by special
messenger that afternoon, my landlady informed me. Probably it was a
strain of that detective instinct which is present in most of us that
delayed my opening the missive until I had carefully scrutinized the
handwriting of the superscription. There was something vaguely familiar
in its slanting exactitude, yet when I deciphered the
postmark,--“Eastport, N. Y.,”--I was still in the dark, for I could not
remember ever having heard of the place before. As I turned the packet
over, however, my pleasant tingle of anticipation was rudely chilled.
Along the flap was a sinister row of black sealing wax blobs, which
seemed to stare at me with a malignant fore-knowledge. On closer
examination, I noticed that each seal retained the impression of a
coat-of-arms, also elusively familiar.
With a strange sense of foreboding I dropped the missive on the table.
Queer what ominous significance a few drops of wax can impart to an
ordinary envelope. Deliberately I changed into smoking jacket and
slippers, poked the well laid fire and lit a pipe before finally tearing
open the seals.
There were many typewritten sheets, commencing in letter form:
54 Westervelt Ave.,
Eastport, New York,
February 15th.
Dear Cousin George:
Now that you have identified me by referring to my signature on the last
page (which I had just done) you will no doubt wonder at the occasion
for this rather effusive letter from one so long silent as I have been.
The fact of the matter is that you are the only male relative with whom
I can communicate at this time. My nephew, Ralph, is first officer of a
freighter somewhere in the Caribbean, and Alfred Hutton, your mother’s
first cousin, has not been heard from since he embarked on that
colonizing scheme in New Guinea, nearly a year ago.
I must do all in my power to prevent the bungling metropolitan police
from implicating Howard Marsden in my disappearance. It would take no
great stretch of the imagination to do just that, and were the State to
require Marsden’s life as forfeit for my own, then my carefully planned
revenge would be utterly frustrated. I have been cultivating the village
postmaster for some weeks, ever since this plan began to shape
definitely in my mind. I am mailing this letter at three o’clock this
afternoon, for I have noticed that at that hour the postal section of
the store is generally deserted. I shall ask him if his clock is
correct, thus fixing the time in his mind. Please remember these points.
Then I shall register this letter, taking care to exhibit the unusual
collection of seals on the back. I shall manage to inform him also that
I stamped the seals with my ring and will show him the coat-of-arms,
explaining its meaning in detail. These villagers are a curiosity-ridden
lot. Upon returning home, I shall drop this same ring into the inkwell
which stands upon my desk. Finally I shall proffer my friend the
postmaster a fifty-dollar bill in paying for my registry. The registry
slip itself will be found within the hatband of my brown hat, which I
shall place in the wall safe of my study.
You are becoming more amazed as you proceed, no doubt asking yourself if
this letter is the product of a madman or a faker. Before you have
finished you will probably be assured that both assumptions are correct.
It matters little, for I will at least have firmly established the fact
that this letter was mailed by no one else but me. As for the rest,
Howard Marsden will corroborate what follows.
To begin at the beginning. As you know, or perhaps you do not know, for
I forget that our correspondence has been negligible of late, five years
ago I accompanied the Rodgers expedition into Afghanistan. We were
officially booked as a geological mission, but were actually in search
of radium, among other things. When I left, I was practically engaged to
Venice Potter, a distant relation of the Long Island Potters, of whom
you have perhaps heard. I say “practically” engaged because the outcome
of this expedition was to furnish me with the standing and position
necessary for a formal demand for her hand. As I said, that was nearly
five years ago.
Four months after my departure her letters ceased coming and mine were
returned to me unopened. Two months later I received an announcement of
her betrothal to Howard Marsden. Received it out there in Afghanistan,
when I had returned to the coast for supplies. We’ll skip that next
year, during which I stuck with the expedition. We were successful. I
returned.
Then I found out where the Marsdens were living, here in Eastport. I’d
met Marsden once or twice in the old days, but paid him little attention
at the time. He seemed but another of the moneyed idlers; had a
comfortable income from his father’s estate and was interested in
“gentleman farming,”--blooded stock and the rest. I decided that it was
useless to dig into dead ashes for the time being, at least until I
could determine the lay of the land, so to speak. Meanwhile I had my
researches to make, a theory I had evolved as a sort of backfire to fill
that awful void of Venice’s loss,--out there on the edge of the world.
Countless sleepless nights I had spent in a feverish attempt to lose
myself in scientific speculation. At last I believed I had struck a clue
to conclusions until now entirely overlooked by eager searchers. I
decided to establish my laboratory here in Eastport, perhaps devoting
any leisure hours to an unravelling of that mystery of my sudden
jilting. With a two-year-old beard and sunbaked complexion there were
few who would have recognized me under my real name, and none in my
assumed role of “Professor Walters.”
* * * * *
Thus it was that I leased an old house not half a mile from Marsden’s
pretentious “farm.” I converted the entire ground floor into a
laboratory, living in solitary state upon the upper floor. I was used to
caring for myself, and the nature of my experiment being of such
potentialities, I felt that I wanted no prying servants about me.
Indeed, it has turned out to be of such international importance that I
feel no compunction whatever in utilizing it for my own selfish ends. It
could be a boon to humanity, yet its possibilities for evil in the hands
of any individual or group is so great as to render it most dangerous to
the happiness of the human kind on this small globe.
One day, some three months after I had taken up my residence in
Eastport, I had a visitor. It was Marsden. He had been attracted by the
sight of my novel aerial, just completed. By his own admission he was an
ardent “radio fan,” as they are popularly termed, I believe, and he
spent the better part of an afternoon bragging of stations he had
“logged” with his latest model radio set. Aside from my vague suspicions
of his complicity in the alienation of my beloved Venice, I must admit
that even then I felt an indefinable repulsion towards him. There was
something intangibly unwholesome about him, a narrowness between the
eyes which repelled me. Yet, although at that time I had no plan in
mind, nevertheless I encouraged him in my most hospitable manner, for
even thus early I felt, that at some time not far distant, I might be
called upon to utilize this acquaintanceship to my own advantage.
This first visit was followed by others, and we discussed radio in all
its phases, for the man had more than a smattering of technical
knowledge on the subject and was eager to learn more. At last, one day,
I yielded to his insistence that I inspect his set and agreed to dine at
his house the following evening. By now I felt secure in my disguise,
and although I dreaded the moment when I should actually confront my
lost love once more, yet I longed for the sweet pain of it with an
intensity which a hard-shelled bachelor like you will never understand.
Enough. I arrived at the Marsden’s the next evening and was duly
presented to my hostess as “Thomas Walters.” In spite of my private
rehearsals I felt a wave of giddiness sweep over me as I clasped that
small white hand in my own after the lapse of almost five years, for she
was, if possible, lovelier than ever. I noted when my vision cleared
that her eyes had widened as they met mine. I realized that my
perturbation had been more apparent than I imagined and managed to
mutter something about my alleged “weak heart,” a grimmer jest by far
than I intended. Frantically I fortified myself with remembrances of
those barren days in Afghanistan, where I stayed on and on, impotent to
raise a hand in the salvage of my heart’s wreckage.
We chatted politely all through that interminable meal, no morsel of
which aroused the faintest appreciation on my dry tongue. Finally the
chairs were pushed back and my host excused himself to bring down some
pieces of apparatus he had recently purchased, concerning which he
professed to desire my invaluable opinion.
No sooner had he left the room than the polite smile dropped from
Venice’s face like a discarded mask.
“Dick,” she cried, “what are you doing here?”
It was my first inkling that she suspected my true identity. I rallied
quickly, however, and allowed my self-encouraged bitterness its outlet.
“Had I believed you would recognize me, _Mrs. Marsden_, I should not
have inflicted my unwelcome presence upon you, I can assure you.”
She bit her lips and her head raised with a jerk. Then her mouth
softened again as her great eyes searched mine.
“Yes, but why--” she broke off at the sound of approaching footsteps.
Suddenly she leaned forward. “Meet me in the pine grove to-morrow
afternoon--four o’clock,” she breathed. Then her husband entered.
The remainder of the evening I was forced to listen to Marsden’s eager
dissertation on the alleged “static eliminator” which had been foisted
upon him on his last trip to the city. Mechanically I answered or
grunted in simulated appreciation when a pause in his endless monologue
warned me that some reply was expected of me; but my pulses were leaping
in exultation because of the fleeting hope which those few words from my
lost Venice had kindled. I could not imagine why the offer to bridge the
breach of years should come from her so voluntarily, yet it was enough
for me that she remembered and wished to see me. I cared not why.
I arrived nearly an hour early that next afternoon, for I had been
unable either to sleep or work during the interim. I shall not bore you
with the particulars of that meeting, even were I free to reveal such
sacred details. Suffice to say that after the preliminaries of doubt and
misunderstanding had been brushed away--and it was not the simple
process this synopsis would seem to infer, I can assure you--I stood
revealed as the victim of a most ingenious and thoroughly knavish plot.
Boiled down, it resembles one of those early movie scenarios.
You remember I spoke of Venice as related to the Long Island Potters, a
branch of the family highly rated in the Social Register? You will also
remember that before I undertook that expedition I was never
particularly certain whence my next year’s expenses were to be derived,
nor to what extent, if you understand what I mean. At about the time I
was preparing for this expedition which I hoped would make me
financially and scientifically independent, this wealthy branch of the
family seriously “took up” my darling Venice, inviting her to live with
them that summer. I remember now all too late, that even during that
confusion of mind caused by the agony of leaving my loved one, coupled
with the feverish preparations for departure, chill clouds of censure
came from the aloof Potters. They made no effort to mask their
disapproval of my humble self and prospects, yet in my blindness I had
never connected them intimately with what followed.
It was, in short, the old story of the ingenious man-on-the-ground, the
“good match,” aided and abetted by the patronesses of the “poor
relation.” The discriminating Marsden naturally fell in love with
Venice, and to his great surprise and chagrin, was decisively repulsed
by her. Never before having been refused anything he really wanted in
his comfortably arranged life, he became passionately desirous of
possessing her. Accordingly, my darling was shown a letter, forged with
such diabolical cleverness as to be almost indistinguishable from my own
hand. It purported to intrigue me with a very ordinary female at a
period coincident with the time I had been so fervently courting my dear
one.
She refused to credit the document and dispatched me a voluminous
explanation of the whole occurrence. Attributing my silence to the
exigencies of distance, she continued to write me for over a month. When
no answer arrived after nearly three long months, she at length
delivered a hastily planned ultimatum, to which she was later persuaded
to adhere through the combined pressure of Marsden and her family,
beating against the razed defences of her broken heart. Then it was that
I received the betrothal announcement, the only communication her
watchful family had permitted to escape their net of espionage.
* * * * *
As the story unfolded, my heart pounded with alternate waves of
exaltation and red rage at the treacherous Marsden. Because of selfish
duplicity, he had robbed us both of five years’ happiness, for I had
forced my darling’s admission that she had never loved him, and now
despised him as a common thief. My brief moment of delirious joy was
sharply curtailed, however, when I came to press her to separate from
this selfish swine. After some demur she confided that he was a drug
addict. She said that he had been fighting desperately to break this
habit ever since their marriage, for his jealous love of her was the
only remaining weapon with which to combat his deep rooted vice.
Deprived of his one motive, my darling earnestly assured me that it
would be a matter of but a few short years before the white powders
wrote Finis to yet another life. I could see but a balancing of an
already overdrawn account in such an event, and said so in no uncertain
terms. She did not chide me, merely patiently explained with sweet, sad
resignation that she held herself responsible for his very life for the
present. That although she could not love and honor him as she had
promised, yet she was bound to cleave to him during this, his “worse”
hour. And so we left it for the time, our future clouded, yet with no
locked door to bar the present from us.
We met almost daily, unless Marsden’s activities interfered. At those
times I was like a raging beast, unable to work, consumed with a livid
hatred for the cunning thief who had stolen my love while my back was
turned. I could not shake her resolution to terminate this loveless
match, even though she now loathed the mate she had once tolerated. But
in spite of the formlessness of our future, my work progressed as never
before. Now my days were more than a mere procession of dates, for each
was crowned with the glow of those few stolen moments with my darling
Venice.
Came the day of my first complete success. Some weeks previously I had
finally succeeded in transmitting a small wooden ball by radio. Perhaps
I should say that I had “dissolved” it into its vibrations, for it was
not until this later day that I had been able to materialize or
“receive” it after it had been “sent.” I see you start and re-read this
last sentence. I mean just what I say, and Marsden will bear me out, for
as you shall see, he has witnessed this and other such experiments here
in my laboratory. I have explained to him as much as I wanted him to
know of the process, in fact, just enough so that he believes that a
little intensive research and experimentation on his part will make him
master of my secret. But he is entirely ignorant of the most important
element, as well as of the manner of its employment.
Yes, after years of study and interrupted experimental research I was
enabled finally to disintegrate, without the aid of heat, a solid object
into its fundamental vibrations, transmit these vibrations into the
ether in the form of so-called “radio waves” which I then attracted and
condensed in my “receiving” apparatus, slowly damping their short kinked
vibration-rate until finally there was deposited the homogeneous whole,
identical in outline and displacement,--entirely unharmed from its
etheric transmigration!
My success in this, my life’s dream, was directly the result of our
discoveries on that bitter expedition into Afghanistan. All my life I
had been interested in the study of vibrations, but had achieved no
startling successes or keen expectations thereof until we stumbled upon
that strange mineral deposit on what was an otherwise ill-fated trip for
me. It was then that I realized that radioactive niton might solve my
hitherto insurmountable difficulty in the transmission of material
vibrations into electronic waves. My experiments thereafter, while
successful to the degree that I discovered several entirely new
principles of resonic harmonics, as well as an absolute refutation of
the quantum theory of radiation, fell far short of my hoped-for goal. At
that time I was including both helium and uranium in my improved cathode
projectors, and it was not until I had effected a more sympathetic
combination with thorium that I began to receive encouraging results. My
final success came with the substitution of actinium for the uranium and
the addition of polonium, plus a finer adjustment which I was able to
make in the vortices of my three modified Tesla coils, whose limitations
I had at first underrated. I was then enabled to filter my resonance
waves into pitch with my “electronic radiate rays,” as I called them,
with the success I shall soon describe.
Of course, all this is no clearer than a page of Sanskrit to you, nor do
I intend that it shall be otherwise. As I have said, such a secret is
far too potent to be unloosed upon a world of such delicately poised
nations, whose jaws are still reddened from their recent ravening. It
needs no explanation of mine to envision the terrible possibilities for
evil in the application of this great discovery. It shall go with me--to
return at some future, more enlightened time after another equally
single-minded investigator shall have stumbled upon it. It is this
latter thought which has caused me to drop the hints that I have. My
earnest hope is that you will permit the misguided Marsden to read the
preceding paragraph. In it he will note a reference to an element which
I have not mentioned to him before, and will enable him to obtain
certain encouraging results,--encouraging but to further efforts, to
more frantic attempts. But I digress.
With my success on inanimate objects, I plunged the more
enthusiastically into my work. I should have lost all track of time but
for my daily tryst with Venice. Her belief in me was the tonic which
spurred me on to further efforts after each series of meticulously
conducted experiments had crumbled into failure. It was the knowledge
that she awaited me which alone upheld me in those dark moments of
depression, which every searcher into the realms of the unknown must
encounter.
Then came the night of November 28th, the Great Night. After countless
failures, I finally succeeded in transmitting a live guinea pig through
the atmosphere and “received” it, alive and well, in the corner of my
laboratory. Think of it! A twist of a switch and the living, breathing
piglet slowly dissolved before my eyes and vanished along a pair of
wires to my aerial, whence it was transferred as a set of waves in the
ether to the receiving apparatus,--there to reincarnate into the living
organism once more, alive and breathing, unharmed by its extraordinary
journey! That night I strode out into the open and walked until dawn
suddenly impressed the gray world upon my oblivious exaltation, for I
was King of the Universe, a Weaver of Miracles.
Then it was that my great plan began to take shape. With renewed energy
I began the construction of a mammoth transmitter. At intervals I
“transmitted” stray cats and dogs of every description, filling several
books with notes wherein I recorded minutely the varying conditions of
my subjects before transmission. Invariably their condition upon being
“cohered” in the receiving tube, was excellent. In some cases, indeed,
minor ailments had entirely disappeared during their short passage
through the ether. What a study for the medical profession!
I had, of course, told Venice the object of my researches long ago, but
had never brought her to my laboratory for reasons of discretion. One
afternoon, however, I slipped her in under cover of the heavy downpour.
After I had warmed her with a cup of tea, before her astonished eyes I
transmitted an old she-cat which was afflicted with some sort of
rheumatism or paralysis of its hind legs. When its form began to
reappear in the transparent receiving tube, my darling gasped in awed
wonder. She was rendered utterly speechless, however, when I switched
off the current and released the animal from its crystal prison. And no
wonder, for it gambolled about like a young kitten, all trace of its
former malady having entirely disappeared! The impression upon Venice
was all that I had hoped for, and when I at length escorted her out into
the dusk, I felt her quick, awed glances flickering over me like the
reverence of a shy neophyte for the high priest.
* * * * *
All was set for the final act. I literally hurled myself into the
completion of my improved set. The large quantities of certain minerals
required caused me an unexpected delay. This I filled with
demonstrations in the presence of Marsden, whom I was encouraging as a
fellow radio enthusiast,--with considerable unexpected histrionic
ability on my part. It was so hard to keep my fingers off his throat! I
pretended to explain to him the important factors of my great secret,
and drilled him in the mechanical operation of the sets. I had divulged
to him also that my greatest desire was to demonstrate my principle on a
human being, and like all great scientific explorers, proposed to offer
myself as the subject. Venice had strenuously opposed the proposal until
the demonstration on the diseased cat, and even now viewed the entire
proposition with alarm. Yet I insisted that unless applied to human
beings my entire work went for naught, and I finally succeeded in
quieting her fears to a great extent.
At last I am ready. I have told my darling how it is impossible to
transmit anything metallic by the very nature of the conflicting rays
encountered. I have bemoaned the fact that, due to the softness of my
teeth since boyhood, my mouth is one mass of metallic fillings and
crowns, rendering it impossible for me to test the efficiency of my
life’s work. As I had hoped, she has volunteered herself as the subject
for the great experiment, for her white teeth are as yet innocent of
fillings. I have demurred and refused to listen to the idea, permitting
myself to be won over only after days of earnest argument on her part.
We are not to tell Marsden, for there is no doubt that his fanatical
love for her would refuse to tolerate the mere suggestion.
Tonight it shall be accomplished. There is no other way, for that
accursed husband of hers seems to progress in neither direction. He will
be nothing but a mud-buried anchor until the end of her days, while I--I
love her. What other excuse need be offered?
But to the facts. At eight o’clock that drug-soaked love pirate comes to
officiate at my transmission through space. I shall meet him with a
chloroformed soaked rag. Later he will awake to find himself effectively
gagged, with his hands and feet firmly shackled to the wall of a dark
corner of my laboratory. These shackles consist of armatures across the
poles of large electro-magnets which I have embedded in the walls. At
10:30, a time switch will cut off the current, releasing the wretch,
for, above all things, he must live. I debated sending a message for his
chauffeur to call for him here at the designated hour. I have decided
rather to trust to mechanical certitude than lay my plan open to
frustration because of some human vagary.
At nine o’clock Venice comes for the great experiment. Marsden has told
her that he will remain in the city over night, at my suggestion, so
that in case I fail to materialize after being “sent” he cannot be held
in connection with my disappearance. She does not know that I have had
my teeth extracted and have been using India rubber plates for nearly a
month. By the time she has arrived, the effects of the chloroform will
have entirely worn off from my would-be assistant, and I shall have had
plenty of time to introduce myself properly to him and explain the
evening’s program which has been so carefully arranged for his benefit.
Then he will have the excruciating pleasure of watching his beloved wife
dissolve into--nothingness! Soon thereafter he will witness the same
process repeated upon myself, for I have so adapted the apparatus that I
need no outside assistance other than a time-clock to actuate the
mechanism! Then, at the appointed hour, the current will be shut off and
the frenzied wretch will rush to the distant switch controlling the
receiving apparatus. As he throws the metal bars into their split
receptacles there will come a blinding flash, and behold--the apparatus
will have disappeared in a puff of crystalline particles! The secret has
returned whence it came!
Then will come that personally prepared hell for my mean spirited
forger. As I told you, he believes that he is in possession of enough of
the details of my secret to reconstruct the apparatus and duplicate my
success. The added details of this letter will assure him into an
idiotic confidence which will lead him on and on through partially
successful attempts. I know that no matter whether you sympathize with
my actions or not (and I am sure that you do not, for you never have),
your sense of justice will force you to show this letter to the proper
authorities in order to prevent a fatal bungling.
Meanwhile that miserable sneak will be frenzied with the knowledge that
at last, the lover he so long cheated of his loved one is now with her,
alone,--where he, her lawful husband, can never follow. And we shall be
together, unchanged, awaiting the day when some other enlightened mortal
solves Nature’s riddle, when we shall once more assume our earthly
forms, unhindered by other selfish manbeasts.
Farewell,
Bromley Cranston.
* * * * *
Needless to say, I hurried to Eastport. But my trip was unnecessary. I
found Harold Marsden in a “private sanitarium” for the hopelessly
insane. There all day, and as far into the night as the opiates would
permit him, he is to be found seated before a radio set, the earphones
clamped to his head--listening. His statements, methodically filed away
by the head of the place, corresponded wildly with the prophecies of my
strange letter. Now he was listening to fragmentary messages from those
two he had seen precipitated into space, he maintained. Listening.
And they had disappeared, utterly. I found the large seal ring in the
inkwell on the desk. Also the slip in the hatband of the hat which had
been placed in the wall safe, unlocked. The postmaster remembered the
seals on the letter my cousin had mailed, and the approximate time he
had received it. I felt my own reason wavering.
That is why, fantastic as is the whole affair, I cannot yet bear the
sound of one of those radio loud speakers. It is when that inarticulate
sound they call “static” occurs, when fragments of words and sentences
seem to be painfully attempting to pierce a hostile medium,--that I
picture that hunched up figure with its spidery earphones,--listening.
Listening. For what?
The End
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the July 1927 issue of
Amazing Stories Magazine.]
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