The Broadcast Murders

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 13557, 15 September 1944, Page 7

The Broadcast Murders

"Well, what about them?" Sotchi grinned. "You didn't trouble about them when you made your experiments, did you? I must warn you not to waste time in asking questions. We must be clearing out of here soon." "We?" "Yes. You're coming with us to erect the first Sound destructor in Europe, Hvjgh. Now let us get on with it." "Suppose I refuse?" "In that case I shall shoot your heart out—you stubborn fool! and then smash this place to pieces. Now take your choice, and be quick about it." Hugh Calder walked towards the stone table where he manipulated several switches, started the electric motor. Valves warmed to glowing life, cut-outs on the vulcanite panels operated with loud clicking noises, while Sotchi watched with eager eyes. "What's happening now?" he wanted to know. "We're on the air, that's all," Calder said lightly, and grinned. "Damn you! Don't fool with me, Hugh Calder. I tell you I mean murder if you make it necessary. Are the death sounds operating?" "You'll have to take my word for it," answered Calder, still enjoying the situation. The amazing calmness of the man set Paul Sotchi trembling with rage, and yet he realised his own importance in matching his scientific knowledge against that of Calder. And Hugh Calder had estimated the true situation with disconcerting force. He alone knew the truth about the Sound destructor. "Switch off!" Sotchi demanded between set teeth. "I know enough to recognise a beam projector at work. Give me a demonstration." "Pleasure!" Calder grinned like, a schoolboy showing off a new toy to an envious audience. "I can't get at the connections from this side of the table." His hand dropped on a heavy shifting-spanner as he spoke, and he walked round to squeeze himself behind the massive stone table before Sotchi had a chance to stop him. The men stepped nearer to the table, but paused at a sign from Sotchi. Hugh Calder dropped down out of sight, and they waited with strained attention for his reappearance. A full minute passed without a sign from the man behind the table, and Sotchi's patience was at a end. He stepped forward and tried to peer over the farther edge of the table at the man crouching down behind it. Judged by the sounds he made, Calder was very busy with his connections. "What are you doing down there, Hugh?" "Don't be in such a damned hurry," Hugh, Calder growled. "Come out from behind that table!" Sotchi shouted, unable to stand the strain of waiting any longer. "Come out, or I'll riddle you with bullets." "Have a try," invited a calm voice from down behind the table. "You'll need a stick of dynamite to shift me." Sotchi made a sign to one of his men, who leaped upon the table and stepped warily across it. The deafening report of Calder's revolver in that confined space, and the scream of agony from the man who swayed' and toppled off the table to the floor, shattered the last vestige of control among the waiting men. They started a rush for- the table, but halted at the shout of. warning that came from the other side—in a voice so thrilling with hate that it was scarcely recognisable. "The first man on the table dies!" it shrilled, and then followed a string of lurid oaths and curses that startled Paul Sotchi with their intensity. "So you'd rob me of my secret, would you," Sotchi? You'd drag me from my own home to one of your torture chambers, eh? You big. black thief! I'm going to kill you! Do you hear me, blast you?" While Hugh Calder spat out his threats from behind the table, one of the remaining three men approached'it silently from round the side while the other watched him in painful silence. Nearer the man crept, with Pistol held out before him. He was within three feet oi Hugh Calder when the latter shot him through the head. Only three men were now left standing in the laboratory. "Altogether!" bawled Sotchi desperately, and leaped for the top of

by W. J. Passingham

the table. His feet were off the ground when, behind the table, Hugh Calder gave a final twist to a small iron wheel he had uncovered some minutes before. A deafening roar shook the whole laboratory like a cupboard structure in a strong wind. Where Paul Sotchi had stood a few seconds ago there was now a. gaping hole in the flagstones, through which a mighty column of water shot upwards to strike Hie very beams supporting the roof. Water rose and fell in vast cascades, rising about the laboratory with incredible switfness so that all within it found water surging upwards above their knees. With one accord Sotchi and his men made for the broken doorway that led towards the tunnel and safety. Sotchi paused in the doorway, and looked back towards the con crete table in time to see the man who had tricked him rise fro mbehind it. Hugh. Calder took deliberate aim in the same moment that Sotchi raised his pistol. Both guns exploded, and Calder fell forward across the table with outfiung arms. The next moment Sotchi was through the doorway—racing knee-deep in rushing water down the path to the cavern. It was at the brink of the pit that his two men waved him back, pointing clown the tunnel where lights were advancing steadily towards them. "Fire down the tunnel at them!" he ordered. "Empty your guns, and re-load." A fusillade of bullets were fired at the advancing lights, and to Sotchi's consternation, these were suddenly blotted out and the tunnel was in darkness. The return fire sent the three men running back into the cavern for safety, but only two were now armed, for one had dropped his pistol into the water and was clutching a shattered elbow. '• Sotchi opened fire again and the answering shots brought showers of chalk from the bullet-spattered walls until they were driven out of cover to the centre of the cavern. Suddenly a shaft of light split the darkness and revealed Paul Sotchi. "Hands . . , ." Ignoring the half-spoken warning, Sotchi's gun-arm rose, but he never lived to pull the trigged. A rifle cracked from 'somewhere near the edge of the pit and Sotchi fell headlong into the water rising about him. Captain Felton-Slingsby came slowly forward, and at that moment another light picked out the remaining man standing with hands above his head and shouting his surrender. "Where's all this water coming from, Pelman? Can you do anything?" Felton-Slingsby turned to the man beside him. "It's coming from somewhere ahead," answered Pelman dazedly. "What's' beyond that path, Anderson?"?" "The laboratory," said Alt'. "But the thing they use'to turn the water on is here somewhere. Yes! I've found it." They crowded round the mush-room-shaped valve now nearly covered with water, but only for a moment. "Calder must be in the laboratory," Felton-Slingsby said tensely. "Come on!"

(To be continued.)