This was useless thinking though. Don't invent more monsters until you've caught your first. A night's sleep first. After that, he could start setting his traps out tomorrow.
For the tenth time, Brent threw a half-eaten candy bar into the receptacle and started down the street. Being a private eye was so easy in the teleshows — but how different the reality was! He had been shadowing Arthur Di Costa for three days now, and it was ruining his digestion. Whenever his quarry stopped, he stopped — often on the crowded city streets. Loitering was too obvious, so he found himself constantly involved with the vending machines that lined the streets. The news sheets were easily thrown away, but he felt obliged at least to sample the candy bars.
Di Costa was just stepping onto the Fifth Avenue walkway. Brent got on a few hundred feet behind him. They rolled slowly uptown at the standard fifteen miles per hour. As the walkway crossed Fifty-seventh Street, a small man in a black-and-gold business suit stepped briskly onto it. Brent noticed him only when he stopped next to Di Costa and tapped him on the shoulder. Di Costa turned with a smile which changed slowly into a puzzled expression.
The little man handed what appeared to be a folded piece of paper to the surprised painter. Before Di Costa could say anything, the man stepped off the walkway onto a safety platform. With a quick movement, surprising in a man of his chunky build, he vaulted the guard barrier and stepped onto the downtown walkway.
Brent could only stare open-mouthed as the black figure swept by him and was lost in the crowds. Surprised by the entire action, he turned back to find Di Costa staring directly into his eyes!
Whatever course of action he might have considered was lost. Di Costa took the initiative. He smiled and waved. Brent could hear his voice faintly through the street noises.
"Mr. Dalgreen, over here!"
Brent waved back and did the only thing possible. As he walked slowly forward he saw that Di Costa's curiosity had gotten the better of him. Brent watched him open the note, read it — and change suddenly. The man's arm dropped to his side, his body stiffened. Staring straight ahead, he stood on the walkway, eyes fixed and as full as a Roman portrait bust.
Dalgreen hurried toward the man. Events were going too fast. He had more than a suspicion that the note and the short man were somehow connected with the secret of the paintings. He stepped forward.
The man stared ahead, unseeing and unhearing. Brent felt justified in removing the mysterious note from between his fingers. One side was blank, but the other contained a single illegible character — a queer sign made up of flowing curves crossed by choppy green lines. It resembled nothing Brent had ever seen in his entire life.
They rode uptown side by side. Brent leaned on the railing while Di Costa remained fixed in his strange trance. The note in Brent's hand was tangible evidence that his suspicions had some basis in fact. As he examined it again, he was aware of an undefinable tingling in his hand. The note seemed to be vibrating shaking free from his hand in some unknown way. Under his startled gaze it glowed suddenly— and disappeared! One instant he had held it, the next his hand was empty.
He leaped back in surprise — passing through the space formerly occupied by Di Costa. Gone — while he had been studying the note! Leaning over the rail he had a quick glimpse of the stiff figure entering the Central Park Skyport. Cursing himself for his stupidity, Brent changed lanes and raced back to the Skyport entrance.
His luck still held. Di Costa was on the outgoing aircab line. It would take him at least ten minutes to get a cab this time of day. With a little speed and a few greased palms Brent could rent a Fly-Your-Own before the other man was airborne.
Shortly after, the orange-and-black cab flashed up from the takeoff circle followed closely by Brent's blue helio. The two aircraft flew north and vanished in the distance over the Hudson.
The aircab stayed at the ten-thousand-foot level. Brent cruised at eight thousand, lagging slightly behind, keeping in the blind spot of the other ship. The entire affair was moving too fast for his peace of mind. He had the feeling that he was no longer a free agent, that he was being pushed into things before he decided for himself.
He suddenly felt elated. The strange symbol on the note, the note that disappeared in such an inexplicable fashion, proved the existence of alien hidden forces. Every mile that rushed under his plane brought him closer to the answer. He didn't fear death — it was no longer a stranger to him. The moments of time left to him might be made more satisfactory if he ferreted out this secret. He smiled to himself.
Fifteen minutes later the two ships grounded at the Municipal Sky-port in Poughkeepsie. Brent parked the ship and followed his quarry down to the street level. Except for a certain stiffness in his movements, Di Costa seemed normal. He walked quickly and turned into an office building before Brent could catch up with him.
Throwing discretion aside; Brent broke into a run. He turned into the lobby just as the elevator door closed. He pressed the call button but the car continued to rise. The indicator stopped at 4, then slowly sank down again.
He was too close to the end to even consider stopping now. He stepped into the self-service elevator and pressed 4. The door closed and the car began to… descend!
With the realization that he was trapped came the knowledge that there was very little he could do about it. Just wait and see who — or what — might be outside the car when the door opened!
The elevator dropped down to a level that must have been far beneath the basement floor. The door slid slowly back.
The room was not what he had expected. Not that he had any idea of what there would be; it was just — just that this room was so ordinary!
Ordinary — except for the side wall. That was an impossibility. It was a glass wall looking into a vast tank of swirling water — only there was no glass! It was the surface of the ocean standing on its side. He felt himself drawn into it, falling into it.
The sensation vanished as the wall suddenly turned jet black. He became aware for the first time that he wasn't alone in the room. There was a girl behind a chrome desk. A lovely girl with straight bronze hair and green eyes.
"An untrained person shouldn't watch that machine, Mr. Dalgreen; it has a negative effect on the mind. Won't you please step in?"
His jaw dropped. "How do you know my name? Who are you? What is this pi—"
"If you'll be seated, I'll be with you in a moment."
Brent saw that the elevator would stay here until he got out. He stepped into the room, and the door sliding shut behind him didn't help his morale any. He was into it up to his neck, and the other team had taken complete charge. He sat.
The redhead pulled the sheet of paper out of her typewriter and pushed it into the strange wall. It once more had the undersea look. Brent kept his eyes averted until she turned to him with a slight frown furrowing her forehead.
''You have been very interested in Arthur Di Costa's activities, Mr. Dalgreen. Perhaps there are some questions you would like to ask me?"
"That, lady, is the world's best understatement! Just what happened to him today?. . And what is this place?"
She leaned forward and pointed. "You're responsible for Mr. Di Costa's visit here today. You were observed following him, so we brought him in, in the hope that you would come also. The message he received was a code word designed to trigger an automatic response planted in his mind. He came directly here, controlled by the posthypnotic suggestion."