Chapter 2: Escape

Two days, while a cold sun peeped above an icy horizon! Two days of driving, eager work on the installation of massive motors--yet motors so light that one man could lift them--then Harkness prepared to leave.

“Wealth brings care when it comes,” he told Chet, “but it leaves plenty of trouble behind it when it goes. I must get back to New York and throw what is left of my holdings to the wolves; they must be howling by this time to find out where I am. I’ll drop back here in a week.”

There were instruments to be installed, and Chet would look after that. He would test the motors where the continuous explosion of super-detonite would furnish the terrific force for their driving power. Then the exhaust from each port must be measured and thrusts equalized, where needed, by adjustment of great valves. All this Chet would finish. And then--a test flight. Harkness hoped to be back for the first try-out of the new ship.

“I’ll be seeing you in a week,” he repeated. “You’ll be that long getting her tuned up.”

But Chet Bullard grinned derisively. “Two days!” he replied. “You’ll have to step some if you get in on the trial flight. But don’t worry; I won’t take off for the Dark Moon. I’ll just go up and play around above the liner lanes and see how the old girl stunts.”

Harkness nodded. “Watch for patrol ships,” he warned. “There’s no traffic directly over here--that’s one reason why I chose this spot--but don’t let anyone get too close. Our patents have not been applied for.”

Harkness spent a day in New York. Then a night trip by Highline Express took him to London where he busied himself for some hours. Next, a fast passenger plane for Vienna.

In other days Walter Harkness would have chartered a private ship to cut off a few precious hours, but he was traveling more economically now. And the representatives of his foreign competitors were not now coming to see him; he must go to them.

At the great terminal in Vienna a man approached him. “Herr Harkness?” he inquired, and saluted stiffly.

He was not in uniform. He was not of the Allied Patrol nor of any branch of the police force that encircled the world in its operations. Yet his military bearing was unmistakable. To Harkness it was reminiscent of old pictures of Prussian days--those curious pictures revived at times for the amusement of those who turned to their television sets for entertainment. He had to repress a smile as he followed where the other led him to a gray speedster in a distant corner of the open concourse.

He stepped within a luxurious cabin and would have gone on into the little control room, but his guide checked him. Harkness was mildly curious as to their course--Schwartzmann was to have seen him in Vienna--but the way to the instrument board was barred. Another precise salute, and he was motioned to the cabin at the rear.

“It is orders that I follow,” he was told. And Walter Harkness complied.

“It could happen only here,” he told himself. And he found himself exasperated by a people who were slow to conform to the customs of a world whose closely-knit commerce had obliterated the narrow nationalism of the past.

They landed in an open court surrounded by wide lawns. He glimpsed trees about them in the dusk, and looming before him was an old-time building of the chateau type set off in this private park. He would have followed his guide toward the entrance, but a flash of color checked him.

Like a streak of flame a ship shot in above them; hung poised near the one that had brought them and settled to rest beside it. A little red speedster, it made a splash of crimson against the green lawns beyond. And, “Nice flying,” Harkness was telling himself.

The hold-down clamps had hardly gripped it when a figure sprang out from an opened door. A figure in cool gray that took warmth and color from the ship behind--a figure of a girl, tall and slender and graceful as she came impulsively toward him.

“Monsieur Harkness!” she exclaimed. “But this is a surprise. I thought that Herr Schwartzmann was to see you in Vienna!” For a brief moment Harkness saw a flicker of puzzled wonderment in her eyes.

“And I am sorry,” she went on, “--so very sorry for your misfortune. But we will be generous.”

She withdrew her hand which Harkness was holding. He was still phrasing a conventional greeting as she flung him a gay laugh and a look from brown eyes that smiled encouragement. She was gone before he found words for reply.

Walter Harkness had been brought up in a world of business, and knew little of the subtle message of a woman’s eyes. But he felt within him a warm response to the friendly companionship that the glance implied.

Within the chateau, in a dark-paneled room, Herr Schwartzmann was waiting. He motioned Harkness to a chair and resumed his complacent contemplation of a picture that was flowing across a screen. Color photography gave every changing shade. It was coming by wireless, as Harkness knew, and he realized that the sending instrument must be in a ship that cruised slowly above a scene of wreckage and desolation.

He recognized the ruins of his great plant; he saw the tiny figures of men, and he knew that the salvage company he had placed in charge was on the job. Beyond was a stretch of rippling water where the great wave had boiled over miles of land and had sucked it back to the ocean’s depths. And he realized that the beginning of his conference was not auspicious.

After the warmth of the girl’s greeting, this other was like a plunge into the Arctic chill of his northern retreat.

“I have listed every dollar’s worth of property that I own,” he was saying an hour later, “and I have turned it over to a trustee who will protect your rights. What more do you want?”

“We have heard of some experimental work,” said Herr Schwartzmann smoothly. “A new ship; some radical changes in design. We would like that also.”

“Try and get it,” Harkness invited.

The other passed that challenge by. “There is another alternative,” he said. “My principals in France are unknown to you; perhaps, also, it is not known that they intend to extend their lines to New York and that they will erect great terminals to do the work that you have done.

“Your father was the pioneer; there is great value in the name of Harkness--the ‘good-will’ as you say in America. We would like to adopt that name, and carry on where you have left off. If you were to assign to us the worthless remains of your plant, and all right and title to the name of Harkness Terminals, it might be--” He paused deliberately while Harkness stiffened in his chair. “It might be that we would require no further settlement. The balance of your fortune--and your ship--will be yours.”

Harkness’ gray eyes, for a moment, betrayed the smouldering rage that was his.

“Put it in plain words,” he demanded. “You would bribe me to sell you something you cannot create for yourselves. The name of Harkness has stood for fair-dealing, for honor, for scrupulous observance of our clients’ rights. My father established it on that basis and I have continued in the same way. And you?--well, it occurs to me that the Schwartzmann interests have had a different reputation. Now you would buy my father’s name to use it as a cloak for your dirty work!”

He rose abruptly. “It is not for sale. Every dollar that I own will be used to settle my debt. There will be enough--”

Herr Schwartzmann refused to be insulted. His voice was unruffled as he interrupted young Harkness’ vehement statement.

“Perhaps you are right; perhaps not. Permit me to remind you that the value of your holdings may depreciate under certain influences that we are able to exert--also that you are in Austria, and that the laws of this country permit us to hold you imprisoned until the debt is paid. In the meantime we will find your ship and seize it, and whatever it has of value will be protected by patents in our name.”

His unctuous voice became harsh. “Honor! Fair dealing!” He spat out the words in sudden hate. “You Americans who will not realize that business is business!”

Harkness was standing, drawn unconsciously to his full height. He looked down upon the other man. All anger had gone from his face; he seemed only appraising the individual before him.

“The trouble with you people,” he said, “is that you are living in the past--way back about nineteen fourteen, when might made right--sometimes.”

He continued to look squarely into the other’s eyes, but his lips set firmly, and his voice was hard and decisive.

“But,” he continued, “I am not here to educate you, nor to deal with you. Any further negotiations will be through my counsellors. And now I will trouble you to return me to the city. We are through with this.”

Herr Schwartzmann’s heavy face drew into lines of sardonic humor. “Not quite through,” he said; “and you are not returning to the city.” He drew a paper from his desk.

“I anticipated some such verdammpt foolishness from you. You see this? It is a contract; a release, a transfer of all your interests in Harkness, Incorporated. It needs only your signature, and that will be supplied. No one will question it when we are done: the very ink in the stylus you carry will be duplicated. For the last time, I repeat my offer; I am patient with you. Sign this, and keep all else that you have. Refuse, and--”

“Yes?” Harkness inquired.

“And we will sign for you--a forgery that will never be detected. And as for you, your body will be found--a suicide! You will leave a letter: we will attend to all that. Herr Harkness will have found this misfortune unbearable ... We shall be very sad!” His heavy smile grew into derisive laughter.

“I am still patient, and kind,” he added. “I give you twenty-four hours to think it over.”

A touch of a button on his desk summoned the man who had brought Harkness there. “Herr Harkness is in your charge,” were the instructions to the one who stood stiffly at attention. “He is not to leave this place. Is it understood?”

As he was ushered from the room, Walter Harkness also understood, and he knew that this was no idle threat. He had heard ugly rumors of Herr Schwartzmann and his methods. One man, he knew, had dared to oppose him--and that man had gone suddenly insane. A touch of a needle, it was whispered...

There had been other rumors; Schwartzmann got what he wanted; his financial backing was enormous. And now he would bring his ruthless methods to America. But there he needed the Harkness standing, the reputation for probity--and Walter Harkness was grimly resolved that they should never buy it from him. But the problem must be faced, and the answer found, if answer there was, in twenty-four hours.

An amazing state of affairs in a modern world! He stood meditating upon his situation in a great, high-ceilinged room. A bed stood in a corner, and other furniture marked the room as belonging to an earlier time. Even mechanical weather-control was wanting; one must open the windows, Harkness found, to get cooling air.

He stood at the open window and saw storm clouds blowing up swiftly. They blotted the stars from the night sky; they swept black and ominous overhead, and seemed to touch the giant trees that whipped their branches in the wind. But he was thinking not at all of the storm, and only of the fact that this room where he stood must be directly above the one where Schwartzmann was seated. Schwartzmann--who would put an end to his life as casually as he would bring down a squirrel from one of those trees!

And again he thought: “Twenty-four hours! ... Why hours? Why not minutes? ... Whatever must be done he must do now. And might made right: it was the only way to meet this unscrupulous foreign scoundrel.”

A wind-tossed branch lashed at him. On the ground below he saw the man who had brought him, posting another as a guard. They glanced up at his window. There would be no escape there.

And yet the branch seemed beckoning. He caught it when again it whipped toward him, and, without any definite plan, he lashed it fast with a velvet cord from the window drapes.