The Murder MEGAPACK®: 22 Classic and Modern Tales of Crime and Murder by Talmage Powell & Rufus King & James Holding & James B. Hendryx

Author:Talmage Powell & Rufus King & James Holding & James B. Hendryx [Powell, Talmage]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2015-05-15T16:00:00+00:00

THE DOORBELL, by David H. Keller

Originally published in Wonder Stories, June 1934.

The two men stood on the suspension bridge that hung over the trackage of the largest steel works in America. They were watching a crane and an electromagnet load scrap iron from the ground to small freight cars. The crane would swing the magnet over the hill of scraps; suddenly, several tons of iron would move up to meet the magnet, and then the crane would carry the magnet and the mass of attracted metal to a position above a car. Then the load of iron would fall off the magnet into the car.

“Rather clever!” exclaimed one of the men. “I see it every day but never fail to think it clever. Man throws a switch and the magnet starts pulling, throws another switch and it stops pulling. Does the work of twenty men and does it better. I own this place and am fairly busy, but almost every day I walk out on this bridge and watch the thing work. Been a big help to me.”

“I wish it would help me,” sighed the other man. “There ought to be a story in it, but I cannot find it. That is the bad part of being an author; you could write lots of things if you just had lots of things to write about.”

“There is a story in it,” replied the steel man softly. “I owe you something and I think I ought to pay you with the story. How about spending the weekend with me up at my shack in Canada?”

The author blushed.

“Sorry. I can’t. No money to pay the carfare; not the right kind of clothes for the kind of shack you live in and the kind of guests you will have. Thanks for the invitation, but no is the answer.”

“Come on,” urged the rich man. “There will be only one other guest but he stays by himself all of the time. Here is the program. You know my office in New York. Be at the front door at three, Friday afternoon. One of my men will be waiting for you in a Rolls-Royce. Tell him who you are and he will bring you to my place. He is a fast driver and makes the trip in six hours. He will leave you at the front door. Push the electric button on the side of the door and my man will admit you. I will wait supper for you and come back to New York with you early Monday morning. You will have an interesting weekend—and I promise you a real story, though whether you will be able to sell it or not, I don’t know. What does a story have to have to sell?”

“Originality—the sound of truth—human interest.”

“Then you will never sell it because no one will believe it, but come anyway. Sorry about your wife, but this is the kind of a weekend party I cannot invite her to.”

“That will be a hard thing to explain to her.

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