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CHAPTER TWO

Into this web-work of science, therefore, came Albert—quiet, mysteriously confident about something, offering him­self to No. 9 Laboratory in North London as a cleaner.

“Done laboratory work before?” questioned the sharp-eyed doyen who controlled the establishment.

“No, sir.” Albert gave a meek smile. “I hardly see that cleaning a laboratory can be very different from cleaning any­where else. It’s simply the process of removing dirt.”

“It is more than that, Simpkins. You may get mixed up with radioactive isotopes and all manner of things. Part of the time you may even have to wear protective suiting. I’m warning you in advance in case the job doesn’t appeal.”

“It appeals immensely, sir. I feel at home amongst scientific apparatus. I’ve studied science as a hobby all my life.”

“I see.” The doyen studied the filing system. “Formerly a chief projectionist, eh? Mmmm, scientific after a fashion. Integrity beyond question. Very well, Simpkins, the job is yours at the salary quoted in the advertisement. You are prepared to sign a bond of fidelity that no word shall ever escape you as to any scientific experiment which you may witness whilst employed here?”

“Quite prepared, sir.”

“Right!” And upon appending his signature, Albert became one of the staff. His salary was far below that which he had formerly earned, but he was entirely happy. Emily, on the other hand, was exactly the opposite, and never forgot to upbraid him every time he returned from his slogging and cleaning.

“I can’t imagine what you’re thinking of!” she declared flatly one evening when she and Albert were alone. “You have a profession in your hands as a projectionist—and in the present cinema boom there’s plenty need of them—and yet you’re content to clean floors!”

“Not by any means, Emmy. I’m learning a lot. All about altitude rockets, supersonics, electronics, and a host of scientific accomplishments. Besides, I’m friendly with several of the senior scientists who’ll always talk to anybody interested in science, even if he is only a cleaner—and they are giving me valuable information.”

“What about, for heaven’s sake?”

“About those theories I’ve been tossing round in my mind for so many years. I’m tying them up now, one by one, and in the finish I’ll have one grand, practical plan. Then things will really happen.”

“What things?” Emily was relentless.

Albert gazed into the fire. “Emmy, I once said that all the unhappiness in the world is caused by selfishness and greed. Suppose something happened to change all that? Suppose people everywhere did the right thing because they just couldn’t do anything else?”

“Ridiculous! More of your crazy dreaming, Albert!”

“No.” Albert shook his head slowly, his eyes having a light in them that Emily had never seen before. “No, Emmy, it isn’t crazy. It’s practical. Everything I am doing is with a fixed purpose. Just leave me alone and wait. A day will come when we’ll not only have all the money we need, but all the happiness as well.… It isn’t natural that living, thinking beings should be anything else but happy. That’s part of my philosophy.”

“Then it’s out of joint! Everybody’s unhappy about some­thing. I defy you to find a really contented person on the face of the earth!”

“At the moment you’re right. But later.…” Albert, however, had drifted off into speculations, and Emily could not get any further explanations from him. Finally she gave it up, and Albert returned to his inevitable magazine.

So, for many weeks, matters pursued an apparently hum­drum course. Albert came and went at his cleaning job, say­ing little to Emily because she had not the kind of mind to understand him. The one thing she could understand, how­ever, was that Albert began to bring home odd pieces of equipment concealed in his overalls, and by degrees they began to occupy quite a fair space in the outhouse—normally used for bicycles and lawn-mower.

“Are you sure,” Emily asked uneasily, “that you’re doing right in bringing home stuff like this?”

“Quite sure. It’s mainly throw-out stuff, and I’ve asked permission to keep some of it. As a cleaner I’m well in touch with the laboratory junk.’’

“Junk, yes, but the stuff I’ve seen looks like perfectly good electrical equipment and worth a fair sum of money.”

“It would be if it were not defective. Everything’s all right, Emmy, believe me. In any case, you can’t get in or out of a Government laboratory without the most rigid overhaul. Detector beams and heaven knows what go to work on you as you enter and leave the building, just so as to be sure you’re not carrying anything you shouldn’t.”

Emily nodded even though she found it hard to believe. But Albert was telling the truth. The stuff he had appropriated was quite valueless to the laboratory, where precision to the nth degree was required, and he had been given permission to take some of the stuff away—supposedly to form the basis of a color television receiver. Only Albert had far higher dreams than this!

He had very little spare time—Emily saw to that—but whenever he could seize a few moments, he tinkered away in the outhouse with his queer gadgets, coils of wire, and linked-up batteries. Where apparatus was defective he rectified it, and quite skilfully too. Accordingly, by degrees, there began to appear something that looked like a cross between a radio set and a tape-recorder.

The youngsters wanted to know what it was all about, and had to be satisfied with a vague explanation about a 3-D color televisor. Emily wanted to know everything too, and learned precisely nothing. Nor could she or the children examine the mystery apparatus in their spare time because Albert bought an old but sturdy safe of considerable dimen­sions and kept the apparatus locked away in it whenever he was absent from home.

Apparently the “Televisor” was not the limit of his ambi­tion, however, for presently he began to construct another kind of instrument. It looked like a clock and was superbly designed. Even Emily had to admit that. Nobody would ever have guessed that Albert was the veriest amateur. But then, he had the constructional pages of his science magazine to help him.

By the spring his “clock” was complete, and by now it formed the apparent nucleus of another piece of equipment, in the center of which the “clock” was embedded. There were tubes in this external equipment—tubes, wires, small transformers, and a host of other things utterly baffling to anybody except Albert, or maybe a trained scientist.

Albert was sensible enough, however, to realize that you cannot fool all the people all the time. So, of his own free will he suddenly condescended to explain to the family what he was driving at, and he chose a warm evening in spring when Emily, Ethel, Dick, Betty, and Vera were all at home, an event of unusual rarity.

“Things,” Albert said, with an air of tremendous assur­ance, “are very shortly going to happen! Because you’ll be involved in these things as much as anybody else, you might as well have advance warning. I’ve been working on a master-plan, and it’s about complete.”

“Taken a long time,” Emily commented, darning a sock with vicious needle thrusts.

“All scientific accomplishments take a long time; only to be expected. However, to come to the point, I’ve been devising a way of making myself master of the world without afterwards cashing-in on the undoubted opportunities afforded by such a lofty position.”

“Eh?” Emily sat up and stared, her darning forgotten. As for the younger ones, they simply regarded their father as though he had gone completely crazy.

“Master of the world,” Albert repeated, sitting back in the worn armchair and wagging his head to himself. “And the best of it is, nobody will know it’s me. It will sound as though some all-powerful visitor from outer space is giving the orders. And, what is more, getting them obeyed! Think how much good that will do in the world.”

“Why will it?” Emily asked stupidly. “And who’s going to obey you, anyhow?”

“Everybody who hears the voice. The Conqueror’s Voice! How’s that sound?”

“It sounds all right, but coming from you it’s a farce! The last thing I can picture is you as a conqueror!”

“I know. Practically everybody who knows me feels the same way.” Albert clenched his bony fists and his eyes were gleaming. “That’s what has been wrong all through my life. I’ve been taken for a meek, downtrodden fool, which is one reason why I’ve turned my scientific talent to righting the wrong that has been done me. From here on I intend to sit back and watch anybody do exactly as I say!”

Vera, the eldest child, gave a rather sardonic laugh. “Even if that could happen, dad—which it obviously can’t—you’d very soon find yourself run in if you tried it. It’d be a short cut to the booby-hatch. Delusions of grandeur, or some­thing.”

Albert looked at her. “You listen to me, my girl. You’ve heard of a perfect crime, haven’t you? The kind of crime so brilliantly executed that nobody can tell how it was done?”

“Of course I have!”

“Well, this is similar. Only instead of being a crime, it’s a blessing, or intended to be. Nobody will ever be able to prove who’s back of it, and unless my calculations are utterly wrong, everybody will think an outer-space visitor is the cul­prit. Certainly nobody will suspect Albert Simpkins.”

Ethel tittered, and Vera gave her mother an anxious glance. “Mum, I don’t think dad’s very well. He can’t be! He talks of being master of the world, yet he can’t even make his own family obey him.”

“Under the old order I couldn’t, certainly,” Albert admitted, “but I’ve found a different way of controlling things. Just let me explain further.”

“By all means!” Emily exclaimed, still looking stunned. Getting quickly to his feet, Albert left the room, and he could well imagine the kind of conversation that was taking place during his absence. When he returned, he found each member of the family quiet, but studying him in suspicious wonder. The wonder deepened as he set upon the table his strange clock device with its outer mechanism of tubes, minute transformers, and intricate wiring.

“This thing operates over a distance of twenty feet,” he explained, plugging it into the nearby power point. “It will also operate from batteries. Now, Vera, my smart young lady, let’s see what sort of a brain you’ve got.”

“What!” Vera jumped up in alarm, her eyes wide in obvious fright. “Don’t you dare come near me with that thing, dad!”

“I’ve no need to. Your brain has already given its emana­tion. Want to see for yourself?”

Vera hesitated, noting that her father had been operating both a graded wheel and a kind of rheostat knob, meanwhile watching the queer behavior of the central needle on the “clock.”

“Don’t you go near it!” Emily warned—but Vera was young and therefore curious. She moved forward and peered at the instrument cautiously. The “clock” needle was point­ing, she observed, to number 9865 amongst the scale readings, which went up to 10,000. The scale was plainly a professional job and the work of precision engineers, but the omission of two numbers had led the government to throw the gadget out—with a government’s usual prodigal extravagance—which had become Albert’s gain.

“This,” Albert explained, as Vera stood beside him and the rest of the family now moved up in curiosity, “is what I call a brain-frequency detector. In case you don’t know it, Vera—as you hardly can—your brain is constantly giving forth electric waves.”

“Yes?” Vera looked very dumb, like her mother. “Honest?”

“Not just your brain either, but everybody’s—a fact which I learned from my science magazines. What is more, just as Mother Nature never produces two sets of identical finger­prints, she also never produces two sets of identical brain frequencies. Of all the countless millions of souls there are in the world, every one has a different frequency.”

“Then why,” Vera asked, who was a cashier and proud of her mathematics, “does your dial only register up to ten thousand?”

“For ten thousand read a hundred million,” her father replied. “I’m making do with this throw-out dial and impro­vising the figures as need be. Your brain frequency isn’t nine eight six five, but nearer the hundred million mark, and these myriad hair-line divisions make up the inter­mediates. See?”

“No!” Emily declared flatly. “And I think it’s a lot of rot!”

“This clock thing,” Albert continued, undisturbed, “is the main detector needle. If I am within twenty feet of any living being and depress the control button here, the frequency of that person’s brain is immediately registered. From this instrument there goes forth an invisible beam direct to the person concerned—which insulates other people who might be present from also registering—and back along the beam on the principle of a radar echo comes the brain fre­quency. It is then registered in stopwatch fashion on this dial. So far, so good.”

“More than good,” Vera corrected, wondering. “It’s mighty near a miracle.”

“Having once found a brain frequency, I know exactly how to control that frequency.”

Silence. The younger members of the family wandered away, no longer interested. Vera and her mother remained, just to see how far this business was going to develop.

“It is an elementary fact,” Albert explained, “that when you have the given electrical frequency of any emanation, you can control it by the use of another frequency which is in exact ‘sympathy.’ That, basically, is the principle of remote control of airplanes, guided missiles, and so forth. In this case, though, I’m dealing with a more rarefied product—the emanation of thought waves.”

“You mean you can tell what people are thinking?” Emily asked, with sudden brightness, but Albert shook his head.

“No, dear, that’s telepathy. This is control. Hypnotism, if you like, mechanically applied instead of by the usual method. It amounts to this: a certain frequency is given off by the brain; an identical frequency is used to control it. It also follows that if thought waves can travel back along the original detector beam, other thought waves can travel for­ward along the control beam. And since the power of the control beam will be many times stronger than that of the detector, the outcome is obvious. Absolute mental control of the subject.”

“Sounds diabolical,” Vera said, pondering. “Like Sven­gali and that wench who sang for him. Trilby, wasn’t it?”

“This is scientific,” Albert said simply. “And so easy. I can command obedience as the mind behind the control beam. For instance, Vera, if I tuned in to your frequency, this is what would happen—”

Vera had not the least idea what did happen, but the rest of the family had. They watched her go to the armchair and, heavy though it was, she raised it with ease and put it on the broad table. Not satisfied with this, she made a leap that would have done credit to a circus acrobat, vaulting straight from the floor into the armchair seat. There she remained, singing in a clear soprano voice the immortal aria, “One Fine Day.”

“See what I mean?” Albert asked dryly, and switched off.

There was now a stunned and overpowering quietness. Emily looked as though her eyes had become twice as large as normal. Ethel, Betty, and Dick remained in a corner, muttering among themselves. Up in the armchair Vera stirred and looked about her. Then she started.

“In heavens’ name, how did I get up here?”

“You got there because I commanded it,” her father replied, holding up his hand to help her descend. “I have satisfied myself on three things. One, the control beam pro­duces absolute mastery of the subject; two, the subject can be made to do things beyond the normal; and three, an ability in a certain direction can be instantly developed with­out the need of wearisome training. That satisfies the point that the body doesn’t matter. It’s the mind that does the work. Believe a thing sufficiently and nothing can stand in your way, and least of all the body. You, Vera, are not a strongwoman of the circus variety, yet you tossed that arm­chair about with perfect ease. You’re not a professional athlete either, yet you took a jump worthy of any sports­woman. Finally, you are not a singer, yet you sang an aria with all the clarity of a prima Donna.”

“I did?” Vera jabbed a finger towards herself and blinked. “But—but I don’t remember it!”

“How could you? My mind, amplified by this apparatus, carried the commands. The outflowing beam being so power­ful, your own individual will foundered beneath it.… Now you see what I mean when I say I can have the world at my feet! Not a living soul can stand against this!”

If Albert expected intelligent reaction he was disappointed, for the whole business was too utterly overpowering. He gave a rather grave smile.

“You should consider yourselves privileged in that you have had this little demonstration,” he said. “There is a great deal more than this, though, far too complicated for me to waste my time telling you. You’ll see just how far-reaching this system can be as time goes on. Now perhaps you under­stand why I say that henceforth I shall be the master, not only of and in everyday affairs, but also in my own house?”

“But—but you can’t mean that you intend to use that ter­rible thing on us!” Emily cried, horrified.

“That is up to you. If you desist from your constant ridi­cule—and that applies to all of you—and treat me with the respect to which I’m entitled as the head of the household, then all will be well. If you do not—well, I have all your frequency numbers, which each one of you has unwittingly given me when prowling around my private outhouse, and to each number there is the control counterpart. It’s up to you,” Albert finished, laying a hand on the instrument, and his smile was full of significance.