Читать книгу Mystery at Olympia - John Rhode, John Rhode - Страница 5

The directors of the Comet Motor Car Company have always been remarkable for their boldness and foresight. By their adoption of new ideas, while their competitors were still mistrustful of the innovation, they have always managed to keep Comet cars just a little more up-to-date than the latest models produced by their rivals. But their acquisition of the patent rights in the Lovell Transmission, and the application of that ingenious invention to all their cars, from the largest to the smallest, provided a sensation which will not readily be forgotten by the motoring public.

To that public the appearance of the Lovell Transmission was of dramatic suddenness. Nobody outside the Comet works at Coventry knew of the months of research and experiment carried on behind locked doors. The young inventor himself, Charles Lovell, had worked night and day almost without intermission. It was said that he had to be forcibly removed from the test-bench before he would consent to take a hurried meal. And it is quite certain that during the final stages he slept in a hammock slung up at one end of the machine-shop.

But the secret was jealously guarded. Not until a week before the Olympia Motor Show was a single word allowed to leak out. And then the advertising agency which dealt with the propaganda of the Comet Motor Car Company was given its head. In every newspaper and periodical the advertisement appeared. It was announced that in future Comet cars would have no gear-box, no clutch, no radiator, and no self-starter, since all these had been rendered unnecessary by the adoption of the Lovell Transmission. No further information was vouchsafed, but the advertisements concluded with the invitation, printed in large type, ‘Come and see them on Stand 1001 at Olympia!’

This was provocative, as it was meant to be. The exhibition cars, swathed in tarpaulins, were brought to Olympia in furniture vans, each guarded by half a dozen of the firm’s employees. Still with the tarpaulins enveloping them, they were wheeled on to the stand, where their devoted guards kept an eagle-eyed watch. Not until five minutes before the show opened were the tarpaulins removed and the mysteries which they had hitherto concealed laid bare.

Stand 1001 was situated almost in the centre of the vast building. And, from the very moment when the public were admitted on the first day of the show, it became the focus of the vast crowds who paid for admittance, and perhaps even more of those that did not. The general public were inquisitive. Their curiosity had been aroused, and, like the Athenians of old, they were eager to hear or to tell of some new thing. But to the journalists, the dealers, the designers of competing makes, all those professionally concerned in the industry, the situation was agonising. To obtain information about this new move on the part of the Comet people was vital to their bread and butter.

The consequence was that during the whole duration of the show it needed the exercise of patience and perseverance to get within sight of Stand 1001. Actually to get on to it, to obtain a close view of one of the new models, might take, under the most favourable conditions, an hour or more. From ten in the morning till ten at night a closely packed throng, men and women, young and old, surged round the stand, upon which half a dozen alert young salesmen were kept busy in explaining to successive batches of visitors the advantages of the new system.

This was, of course, excellent publicity from the Comet people’s point of view. But it had its disadvantages. On the very first day of the show it was found impossible to conduct any business whatever on the overcrowded stand. Every inch of space was invaded by people anxious to see. Dealers wishing to place contracts and individual buyers were extricated from the mob and carried to the London show-rooms by a fleet of cars provided for the purpose. There, in comparative calm, they were enabled to place their orders.

On Monday, October 8th, Doctor Oldland, that prosperous Kensington practitioner, visited the Motor Show. He did so every year, and would not have missed the occasion for the world. He had a mechanical mind, to which the development of the motor car was an unfailing source of interest. But that was by no means the only attraction which the show held for him. He was not at all gregarious, preferring the company of one or two special friends to a larger assembly. But he liked to watch a crowd, to see a vast concourse of human beings obeying the same laws, flowing together in the same slow streams like so many particles of inert matter. Perhaps it satisfied his sardonic ideas upon the general futility of things. However this may be, he usually spent a good part of his time in one of the corners of the gallery, whence he could look down upon the busy scene below.

This year, though, his visit had a more immediate purpose. He had come to the conclusion that it was nearly time he bought a new car. It had taken him a long time to become reconciled to the idea. It was not the expense which had given him pause. He could have afforded a couple or more, had they been necessary. But he hated change, unless it could be proved to him that it brought with it some definite advantage. He had to be convinced, for instance, that a new drug or a new method of treatment were definite improvements upon their predecessors before he could be persuaded to adopt them himself.

Even as he paid for his admission at the turnstile, and mingled with the stream pouring into the great hall, his misgivings returned. There was nothing in the world the matter with his present car. It was only three years old, and still good for years of faithful service. True, his chauffeur had been hinting lately that it was more difficult than it used to be to keep it looking really smart. But what did that matter? Oldland told himself, with one of his queer wry smiles, that it was the same with cars as with men. A man like himself, rising fifty, must necessarily expend more energy on keeping himself smart than a spruce young fellow barely out of his teens. Like his own son Bill, for instance.

Dash it all, why hadn’t he got Bill to come down from Yorkshire to go round the stands with him? Bill was an engineer, and knew as much about the insides of motor cars as his father did of the insides of humans. Bill would be sympathetic, perhaps even enthusiastic, whatever make the old man decided upon. They were far too good friends ever to adopt an attitude of superiority to one another. But would Bill be able to refrain from saying, ‘I wish I’d known you were going to buy a new car, Dad! I could have put you on to something …’

With a short laugh, Oldland put these forebodings aside. He had come to the show to order a new car, and he was not going home until the order had been placed. He could not face his chauffeur, waiting outside with the old car, until this had been done. The man was quite right, confound him! A doctor’s turnout must be above suspicion of age or decay. It must be bright, new, and sparkling, in order to inspire trust in the breasts of misanthropic patients.

Oldland allowed himself to be carried forward by the stream, glancing without any great interest at the stands as he drifted slowly past them. Hawk-faced salesmen, detecting by some sixth sense a potential buyer, endeavoured to catch his eye. But he was too old a bird to be entangled in that snare. He knew the dangers of listening to the voice of the siren. ‘May I show you our new thirty horsepower model, sir? The very last word in luxury and efficiency!’ As though luxury could ever be efficient, or efficiency luxurious! The less wary might listen, lulled to their fate by a flow of smooth and seductive verbiage, until, conquered by the mesmeric powers of salesmanship, they placed an order. Not so the experienced Oldland. He would see for himself, and make his own decision.

The stream swept him unresisting towards Stand 1001. The Comet advertisement had not escaped his attention. His first reaction to it had been one of irritation. Why couldn’t the confounded people give particulars? What would be thought of a doctor who said, ‘I can dispense with drugs and bandages and splints. I’m not going to tell you how. If you want to know, you’ll have to come to my surgery and see.’ Yet that, in effect, was what these people said.

But his mechanical curiosity struggled with his annoyance, and eventually won the day. He would visit Stand 1001, and see what new-fangled stunt the Comet people had got hold of now. But only to satisfy his own inquisitiveness. Most certainly not with any intention to purchase. The Lovell Transmission might be all right for people who could find no better use for their money than to try out other people’s ideas with it. He wanted something that had years of experience on the road behind it.

The stream, of which Oldland was an unconsidered drop, slackened and came to rest as it approached Stand 1001. But it was still early in the afternoon, barely half-past two, and the crowd was not so dense as at other times. Some visitors had gone to lunch, others had not yet arrived from that meal. Oldland patiently edged his way towards the centre of attraction. In less time than he had any right to expect, he found himself standing within a few feet of one of the chassis which had given rise to so much speculation.

Within a few feet of it. By standing on tiptoe, he could manage to catch a glimpse of polished metal. But in between was a serried mass of humanity, so tightly packed together that it was impossible for any single individual to move or turn. Periodically, however, this mass surged and erupted, throwing off perhaps a dozen of its human particles. Others immediately took their places, and the mass coalesced as tightly as before.

Oldland, taking advantage of these periodical eruptions, gradually wormed his way to the front of the mass. Separated from his audience by the width of a stripped chassis, one of the Comet salesmen was explaining the principles of the Lovell Transmission to all who could press within earshot.

‘We claim that the control is the simplest that has yet been devised,’ he was saying. ‘There is, as you can see, no gear lever, since the car has no gears. Nor is there a self-starter button, since the engine is started by a method which I shall hope to explain later. In fact, the only controls are the hand brake lever, and these two pedals which you see, one on either side of the steering column.

‘The principle upon which the transmission works is entirely novel. The car is driven, not directly by the engine, but by a turbine, which gives a smoother motion than any reciprocating engine, however many cylinders it might have. This turbine is bolted to the back axle, immediately in front of the differential, thus doing away with the necessity for a long propeller shaft. The space between the turbine and the engine is taken up by this series of steel cylinders.’

The salesman had evidently learnt his lesson well, Oldland thought. If one were to interrupt him by an ill-timed question, he would probably have to begin all over again at the beginning. But none of his audience seemed inclined to ask such a question. All eyes were concentrated upon the various parts of the chassis, as the demonstrator pointed them out.

‘The engine drives a pump, of a new and highly efficient type. The inlet side of this pump is connected by this copper pipe of large bore to the exhaust end of the turbine. The delivery side of the pump is connected by this smaller steel pipe to the steel cylinders, which are interconnected. When the car is delivered, these cylinders are full or nearly full, of liquid sulphur dioxide.

‘The turbine is driven by this sulphur dioxide. When the connection between the cylinders and the turbine is opened, the liquid vaporises, and produces a rush of gas through the turbine, which revolves, and this drives the car. The gas, after doing its work, goes to the pump, where it is once more liquefied by pressure and returned to the cylinders.

‘You will observe that both pump and turbine are jacketted. The compression of the gas in the pump produces heat, and this is utilised in the following way. The pump jacket contains oil, and in this is immersed a carburettor of special design. The mixture, before reaching the engine, is thus heated to such a degree that the petrol is completely vaporised, thus giving ideal combustion in the engine cylinders.

‘The turbine jacket is similarly filled with oil. But here the effect produced is exactly the reverse of that of the pump. The vaporisation of the liquid sulphur dioxide produces cold, as in the ordinary refrigerator. The cold oil circulates by means of these pipes to the water-jacket, or rather oil-jacket, of the engine, which is thus kept at a suitable temperature.

‘Now I will explain the control, which is simplicity itself. The two pedals are interconnected in such a way that when one is pressed down, the other comes out. A gentle spring is fitted, so that if both feet are removed from the pedals, the right-hand one is fully depressed and, therefore, the left-hand one fully out. This, then, is the normal position of the pedals, as you see them on this chassis. In this position the brakes are fully on. But they can be released by pushing the hand-brake lever forward, should it be necessary to move the car when the driver is not in his seat.

‘The driver places one foot on each pedal, and slowly presses down the left-hand one. The first effect is to admit gas under pressure to the pump, which is caused to revolve, and so start the engine. Further pressure on the pedal releases the brakes. Still further pressure begins to open the connection between the cylinders of sulphur dioxide and the turbine, and the car begins to move. Subsequent pressure continues this opening, until, when the pedal is fully depressed, the car is developing its maximum power.

‘By this time the right-hand pedal has come out to its full extent. Pressure upon it will reverse the process. The gas will gradually be cut off from the turbine. Then the engine will be stopped and finally the brakes applied. In driving, the speed of the car is regulated by alternate pressure of the feet, using the left to accelerate, and the right to slow up.’

Oldland blinked, as his imagination grasped the idea. Ingenious, very. The Comet people, with their reputation at stake, wouldn’t have taken up a thing like this if they hadn’t been pretty sure of it. But, somehow, he didn’t see that elderly chauffeur of his driving by alternate pressure of the feet. He would be lost without his clutch and his gears and all the other gadgets he was accustomed to.

Having thus satisfied his curiosity, and decided that the Lovell Transmission, in spite of its ingenuity, was not for him, Oldland would have liked to extricate himself from the throng which surrounded him. But that was manifestly impossible, until one of the periodical eruptions occurred. And, at the moment, nobody else seemed disposed to move. The demonstrator had turned to a table, upon which were exhibited a number of metal objects of unusual shape.

‘Here we have some of the parts of which the transmission is composed,’ he continued. Oldland noticed now for the first time that similar pieces of metal were arranged at intervals all around the stand. The demonstrator picked up a piece of polished steel, the size and shape of a large mushroom. ‘The speed of the engine is controlled by the amount of gas which is allowed to pass to the turbine. This, which is known as the pressure valve …’

He was interrupted by a commotion, somewhere behind Oldland’s back. There was a sort of grunt, followed by a sudden cry, ‘Look out!’ Then a confused sound of voices. ‘He’s fainted … Nearly knocked me over … Steady there … Hold up his head …’

Oldland’s professional instincts exerted themselves in a flash. ‘I am a doctor!’ he said loudly, struggling to turn round. A way was somehow made for him to the edge of the stand. There, lying on his back with his mouth wide open and a dozen anxious faces bending over him, was an elderly man, plainly dressed. He had grey hair, a distinctly florid complexion, and was rather more than inclined to stoutness.

‘Stand back,’ said Oldland. ‘That is, if you can manage it.’ And, by some miracle, the human mass obeyed him. Compressed to its utmost limit though it had appeared, it contrived to extend that compression a stage farther, until Oldland found room to drop on one knee beside the motionless form.

The salesman, thus interrupted in the full flood of his demonstration, merely shrugged his shoulders. A man had fainted! There was no novelty about that. He was the third, or was it the fourth, since the show had opened. It wasn’t everybody who could stand a crowd like that assembled round Stand 1001. The salesman picked up the telephone which stood beside him, and rang up the first-aid post stationed in the building. ‘Man fainted on Stand 1001,’ he said languidly. ‘Better send along the stretcher.’

Meanwhile Oldland had deftly loosened the unconscious man’s collar. He put his hand over his heart and his face hardened. He straightened himself and faced the salesman. ‘We must get him out of this, quick,’ he said.

‘All right, doctor,’ replied the salesman. ‘I’ve sent for the stretcher. It’ll be along in a minute.’

Oldland dropped down once more by his patient, and began to massage the region of the heart. He was thus engaged when the stretcher-bearers arrived, having driven their way through the compact mass of humanity. The old man was lifted on to the stretcher, and borne away to the first-aid post, Oldland walking beside him.

As the stretcher was placed upon a table, Oldland resumed his ministrations. The first-aid post was well equipped. He called for a hypodermic syringe, and prepared a powerful injection, which he administered. Then he resumed his massage. While he was thus engaged a police sergeant drifted into the room, asked a few questions of the stretcher-bearers in a low voice, then stood watching the doctor.

After a few minutes, Oldland shook his head fiercely. As his hands dropped to his side, he looked up and met the sergeant’s questioning glance. ‘The man’s dead,’ he said curtly. ‘His heart had stopped beating before I got to him. No chance of starting it again now, I’m afraid.’

The sergeant took out his notebook and pencil. ‘What was the cause of death, sir?’ he asked.

‘Can’t tell you that,’ Oldland replied. ‘The mode of dying was syncope, if that means anything to you. The coroner will order a post-mortem, I suppose.’

The sergeant endeavoured to write the word syncope, and failed after one or two attempts. ‘I must ask you for your name and address, sir,’ he said.

Oldland gave the required information. ‘I should have thought that this poor chap’s name and address were rather more important,’ he added slowly.

‘I’m coming to that, sir,’ the sergeant replied. He approached the corpse, and very gingerly inserted his hand into the breast pocket of the coat. From this he extracted a bulging wallet, in which were a roll of notes and a few visiting cards. These were all similar, and were engraved ‘Mr Nahum Pershore, Firlands, Weybridge.’ The sergeant made a note of this, then pocketed the wallet. He glanced at the body irresolutely, then turned once more to Oldland. ‘Is there anything more to be done, sir?’ he asked.

‘Not so far as I’m concerned,’ Oldland replied. ‘I can’t bring back the dead to life. The rest’s your job, I fancy.’

The sergeant still seemed dissatisfied. ‘You couldn’t give me a hint of what he died of, sir?’ he asked.

‘No, I can’t. There are no visible signs of violence, if that’s what you’re getting at. The man just died. You’ll probably find that he was suffering from fatty degeneration of the heart, or something. The best thing you can do is to get him along to the mortuary, and turn him over to the police surgeon.’

Oldland waited until the ambulance arrived, and then left the building. Both the crowd and the internal intricacies of motor cars had temporarily lost interest for him. He went outside and regained his waiting car. Seeing his chauffeur’s inquiring but very respectful glance, he shook his head. ‘Not today,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back another time, perhaps.’

He drove homewards, frowning over the sudden death of Mr Nahum Pershore. Professionally the incident was without significance for him. No doubt the post-mortem would reveal some morbid condition which would account for it. But it was an infernal nuisance, just the same. He would have to attend the inquest, and that would mean a loss of valuable time. Oh, well, it couldn’t be helped!

His thoughts turned from Mr Pershore to the behaviour of the car. She certainly did run wonderfully smoothly. It would be a shame to get rid of her. If she were repainted and touched up here and there, she could be made to last another year at least. Yes, that was what he would do.

So the incident of Mr Pershore’s death was not without its economic consequences. It reduced by one the ranks of the Potential Buyers. By two, possibly, since Mr Nahum Pershore might have intended to buy a car. But, upon the activities of the show itself, it had no effect whatever. Mr Pershore’s body having been decently removed from Stand 1001, the salesman resumed his interrupted explanation. ‘This, which is known as the pressure valve, is contained in a housing on the right side of the pump. Its function is …’

His voice droned on, inaudible, except to the intent group facing him, above the subdued roar with which the voices of the crowd filled the building. And up and down the alleys between the stands flowed the human stream, now pursuing a slow and steady course, now eddying about some exhibit of special interest. The incident of Mr Pershore’s collapse had been witnessed by perhaps a couple of dozen people, none of whom knew that it had been fatal. So trivial a matter was scarcely a subject for comment. It may be that two acquaintances met by chance at one of the refreshment bars. ‘Hallo, Jimmy, what’s yours?’ ‘Mine’s a double whisky and a splash. Seen that new contraption of the Comet people’s yet?’ ‘Yes, I’ve just been having a look at it. Terrible crush on their stand. An old boy fainted just as I got there.’ ‘I don’t wonder. Felt like fainting myself when I was there this morning. Well, here’s luck!’ And the subject of Mr Pershore would be forgotten.

That evening, soon after ten, when the last of the public had been shepherded from the hall, and the exhausted staffs were clearing up for the night, the sales manager of the Solent Motor Car Company was fussing about his stand. He was not in the best of tempers. Solent and Comet cars were in much the same class, and an intense rivalry had always existed between them.

As it happened, the Solent people had made very few alterations to their models for this particular year, with the result that there was nothing startlingly novel exhibited on their stand. Since novelty is what attracts a very large percentage of visitors to the show, this had resulted in comparatively few inquiries. And yet the Solent stand, number 1276, was very favourably placed to attract notice. It was close to the entrance, almost the first thing to catch the visitor’s eyes as he entered the building.

The sales manager had a definite sense of grievance against his directors. If they hadn’t been such a sleepy lot of fatheads, they would have seen to it that the works got out something new, and not left it to the Comet people to steal a march on them like this. How the devil could a fellow be expected to sell cars to people if he had nothing out-of-the-way to show them?

He happened to glance through the window of a resplendent Solent saloon, and something lying on the floor at the back caught his eye. He opened the door, and picked up a mushroom-shaped piece of steel. ‘What the devil’s this?’ he exclaimed, frowning at the unfamiliar object.

One of his assistants, standing near by, answered him. ‘It looks like one of the exhibits from the Comet stand,’ he said.

‘What? One of those people’s ridiculous gadgets? How do you know that?’

The assistant, realising that he had given himself away, looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, I just took a stroll round their stand in my lunch hour,’ he replied sheepishly.

‘Oh, you did, did you? And I suppose you’ve been recommending people who come here to look at our stuff to follow your example. And how did this damn thing get on our stand? Perhaps you brought it back with you as a souvenir?’

The assistant attempted the mild answer which turneth away wrath. ‘I didn’t do that. But I’ll take it back to the Comet stand, if you like.’

‘Take it back? Let them come and fetch it if they want to. I’d have you know that employees of our firm aren’t paid to run errands for the Comet people. And see that you’re here sharp at nine tomorrow morning. I want some alterations made on this stand before the show opens.’ And, without vouchsafing a good-night, the sales manager departed.

His assistant watched him leave the hall. Then, since he had a friend in the Comet firm, he picked up the pressure valve, for such it was, and carried it to stand 1001. There he encountered the demonstrator who had been holding forth when Mr Pershore collapsed. ‘Hallo, George, this is a bit of your property, isn’t it?’ he said.

George Sulgrave recognised the pressure valve at once. ‘Where did you get that from, Henry?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘My Great White Chief found it inside one of the cars on our stand. Somebody must have picked it up, and then, finding it a bit heavy to carry about, put it down in the most convenient place.’

Sulgrave glanced round the stand. There was certainly a gap in the row of gadgets which bordered it. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ he said. ‘Some of these blokes would pinch the cars from under our very noses, if they thought they could get away with them. Thanks very much, Harry. We shall have to have these things chained to the floor, or something like that. How’s business on your stand?’

‘Simply can’t compete with the orders we’re getting,’ Harry lied readily. Loyalty to one’s firm is a greater virtue than truthfulness to one’s friend, as Sulgrave would have been the first to agree. ‘We’ve sold all our output for next year already.’

‘Same here,’ replied Sulgrave, no more truthfully than Harry. ‘You must come down and look us up when this confounded show is over. Irene will be glad to see you.’

‘Thanks very much. I’d like to run down one evening. Good-night, George.’

‘Good-night, Harry. Much obliged to you for your trouble.’

The attendants on the various stands completed their labours and went home. An almost uncanny hush settled upon the vast and now dimly lighted expanse of Olympia. Wrapped in a similar hush, and an even dimmer light, the body of Mr Nahum Pershore lay on a slab in the mortuary, rigid and motionless.