Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-29

RAlkARD nad long ago dreamed
- OF reaching beyond the earth!
atmosphere and looking upor
~ what might be occurring. Oh
have occurred. in other planets
Mars, Venus, Mercury, the moon! But
he had found that no answer came to
his broadcast calling. Either because
he could rot gauge to exactneSs the
enormous distances involved or because
records in any atmosphere which sur
rounded other spheres than the earth
We're incapable Of duplicating them
selves across intervening space so as to
be picked up by his present crude con-
denSers. He did not give up hope that
he might one day stand vigorously
upon whatever surfaces there might be
of the North Star or Neptune, but all
he succeeded in getting as records OF
their affairs were photographs from
upper ranges of the earth'S own atmos-
phere. He could record what sun and
moon and stars would look like to the
eye from there. Wonderful enough. but
paltry achievements compared to his
hopes. He had not even announced
them--to public sufficiently interested
in terrestrial doing TO let heavenly az
fairs alone for time.
Terrestrial matters sufficiently alb
sorbed him now. Anything else would
wait till he should find Jeffry Homer.
AS he had told Phyllis. the man had
disappeared. He had simply not come
to work on the morning following that
on which he had met Brainard in the
hall--and smiled. He could be followed
a little way--to and from a recent
boarding place-beyond. through brief
stay at a small hotel--back of that
through an arrival in the city from a
railway train. But In the train Itself,
at its various stopping places, all the
way back to its starting point. he was
invisible. That arrival in Santa Monica
was recent-but many Of his movements
since then were lost in darkness of the
nights when he chose to move about.
1t was only two or three nights after
Phyllis visit, however. that he Stun
bled upon clue. He had shut himself
up persistently in his studio and worked
over the condenser till he was nearly
exhausted. and this night he had
dropped back in his chair and fallen
into q doye. He woke with O curious
memory before his minds eye. He was
seeing Homer as he stood in the private
Office on the day he had come to ex-
plain the unlabeled bombs. Van Wrinkle
had ushered him in. He had told his
little story and was awaiting Brainard'S
reaction to it, Brainard now recalled
an C0O action OI MS, f1OIleI Ldu
glanced aside to where Van Wrinkle
stood, and had almost Immediately put
his hand to his own chin. rubbed the
new beard there and looked subtly
relieved
The movement had meant nothing to
Brainard when first observed. Now it
instantly suggested an association Of
ideas which transformed his indiffer-
ence to Van Wrinkles little mystery
into keenest interest.
The train of thought. once started,
was like broadcast vibration: 1t caught
everything that 1t touched to which it
was keyed. Brainard found himself re-
memoering the robbery scene in the
Norman library. and how Homer had
looked into the glass bowl containing
the miniature from Van Wrinkles lost
career The man had been frightened.
This fact Brainard had previously set
down to his seeing the little scene
itself-enough to terrorize most men
upon coming upon it unawares. But
Homer had already known something
about the Vicarion and its ways when
he had come to the Norman home-he
had even stolen some of its bombs that