Evening Star Newspaper, January 26, 1929, Page 20

THE VICARION (Copyright, 1928, by Public Ledger) By Gardner Hunting. In the vear 1935 Radley Brainard has nvented the Vicarfon, a device with which it 15 possible 10 re-create scenes out of the past. The invention is & sensational success. with all the theatres installing it in place of motion pictures. Complete Tilu~ sions, Inc. which at that time controls il the improvements on the movie, faces Juin, but when Ferdinand Mortimer and Jerry Ballard. heads of the company, call on_him. Brainard refuses to make terms Brainard’s records of the past are con- tained jn “bombs” which hold liquid air, and_while he is projecting one of the “bomb.” which was unmarked, he sees @ eautiful kossamer-clad girl. 'with ~whom he falls in love. although he is engaged to Phyllls Norman, During the first dem- onstration of the Vicarion, with Phyliis and her family looking on, & strange man staf: gers in the studio. 'He is unable to tell ®ho he is and Brainard names him Winkle, and_makes him his aide. rd calls in Honer. the operator who made the unmarked record. but gains Do information from him. He orders Van Winkle to investigate the making of the ‘bomb (Continued from yesterday's Star.) INSTALLMENT XX. LONE in a locked and muffiled room, Radley Brainard had late that afternoon turned, like a man parched with thirst and about to drink, upon a tray of bombs prepared for his private viewing. His first choice had been one which bore upon its brass label a careful statement of the hour and moment at which it had been filled in the alcove of the condenser room facing the great west window. There, if what the bearded and begoggled operator had said was true, might be imprisoned a reclaimed scene that would otherwise have escaped back to its unknown source. With light adjusted and switches turned, the man stood in the center of the white room and watched in breath- less suspense for a new manifestation of his miracle. What he saw was a great window full of white light from without, the rack of a condenser at the right containing five unlabeled bombs, and part of the machine itself with a cheesecloth duster lying across its dials. Presently, as he watched he heard through the low hum of machines be- yond his view the trickle of water, and up against the great panes of glass there rose faint stains of color in the white, wisps of outlines still and in ghostly movements, images like those on undertimed film, wraiths of what was forever lost. Phantom scene of a phantom scene! Defeat of sharp hope. Confirmation of a fear that went sudden.v so deep as to reveal to Brainard himself how much he had counted on the thing he had known was but a bare chance at best. Here, alone, he acknowledged to him- self that he had thought steadily of lit- tle else since yesterday. The events of the day, his contacts with men, the visit of Phyllis, explanations of his own to others and theirs to him, reasoning itself upon such facts as he knew, all had gone on for him upon the surface of a troubled deep. In that deep lay mirrored the flutter of a red bird, splashes of dew upon limbs of silver bronze, youth and dawn, Spring's inner meaning! He could not analyze the thing—or would not. Desire recked nothing of reason. A Tantalus gift utterly desir- able had been shaken before his dazzled senses and withdrawn! Thought went no farther. Something within him reached like a babe for a glittering toy and refused to reason about it. Love— or insanity? What else was love but an insanity men nursed to their bos- oms? What passion so unreasoning? Men had done madder things for love than for fear! " Assayed by the madness of it, he loved! When the scene had run itself out he did not study the reason for its lim- ited length. He seized upon the mnext little steel sphere in the tray. It gave him nothing but confirmation of the operator’s statement about his hidden dials. The dustcloth covering the fig- ures which might have revealed the coveted index first irritated, then en- raged him. There it lay, as if one might easily reach out and snatch it away. its raveled edge wavered slightly in some little current of air. But one might not touch it! It was fixed there —fixed forever in its exact place in the scheme of things! Changeless as truth ftself, more permanent than the rod ribbed hills! Flimsy, chance-flung thing—recorded eternally on the books of Time—in a medium for which no eraser had yet been devised! One after another the young man caught up the labeled bombs from the tray, released their confined gascs and watched on their unsubstantial mass that fragile specter of adamant that mocked him. Again and again there stood before him the face of the con- denser’s dial board, hid by that shred of cloth. A rag masking the face of Fulfillment! At the end Brainard stood before his tray and stared at three little spheres of mystery, Presumably each contained a record of that woodland scene recorded nowhere except in the indelible print upon memory. He had reserved these three. He had not dared to release them until he might know when or how—or if—it were possible to replace them. Suddenly precious in his eyes, in each, one glimpse of beauty such as his gaze had looked upon but once; in each, one thrill of such emotion as his life had not matched; in each, one taste of a cup that created the ravishing thirst it served exquisitely without slaking! One glimpse, one thrill, one taste, in each! He weighed one in his hand. Desire rose in him like a fever. It was as if he could put it to his lips and quaff it like wine—could pour its intoxicating sweets into his waiting veins, along his hot nerves, into his burning brain and heart! Suddenly he turned, his hands trem- bling, and flung the bomb into the niche of his projector. His whole body was behind the push which swung deli- cate switches into place. He turned and groped for his chair like a man who has driven the needle into his flesh and feels the first fog of drunken awakening from normal apathy to the plane of drugged joys. The tinkle of a tiny waterfall lifted its bubbling voice. Its sparkling thread trickled over the face of the rock like & spray of iridescent gems. ~Ferns touched with peacock tints half ‘clothed recumbent limbs of giant trees, seated here in forest nook cooling their weary feet in a crystal pool. Water, abloom with the blue of unseen sky, fringed with the lacy green of new grass and tender leaf, scarcely rippling to the touch of the tiny fall. Turf like a magic carpet spread to invite. Low sunrise rays gilding rough bark to gold and staining shadows to the hues of royal silks. = A bird, scarlet as royal blood, glided to the edge of the pool and dipped and drank, its eyes aglow with the light of sheer joy in being! Here was enchantment! A butterfly, painted by Aurora’s own fingers, hov- ered and sank enraptured. Soft flutter of wings on overhead branch, and the bird by the pool sprang alert and war- bled its love note like a joyous cry of ecstasy in the revelations of Spring! The leaf screen parted and ey of mystery looked out into the watching man’s waiting soul! She was Beauty's own daughter, splashed with the dew of youth and laughter! She was the sweet spirit of the wood and the dawn! She was wom- an, pining and wandering asearch for the first touch of love! Hoping, dis- appointed, pleading! The man flamed to the parting of tender lips and the glance of wistful eyes! She called, opened her arms, dropped to her knees and invited him. He slipped from his chair and crept to the vanishing edge of her world and of his and crouched ' huddled against her transparent barrier, that might be a window into vesterday or a lens of the ages! And he lay there like a dead thing snatched by a draft and sucked against a screen! It was hours later that he stumbled back into his world again—and found Ushigi hovering terror stricken at the door. While he drank at his decanter, and drank again, till the frightened Jap himself protested, he heard a broken ‘tale of the white-faced woman who had beaten with bleeding hand at his door unheard. And he did not care. Then he went into his bedroom and flung himself into his chair before a dead hearth, and faced the fact he had been holding away from him as som: Commercial Sites . for Your Business on the PATTERSON TRACT Location of the New UNION MARKET TERMINAL Brokers Invited Phillips & Caldwell Exclusive Brokers . N.W. 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STOKES SAMMONS, Proprietor THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, thing that could have no reality until he _recognized it. The man who had chanced to record that matchless vision of loveliness and chanced coincidentally to conceal its index—that obsequious operator who had rushed to volunteer an explana- |tion of his blunder and to make its completeness clear—that creator of magic and a maddening mystery—that wearer of disguise—it was he who had fired the shot from the Norman garden, meant for the man who had injured him! It was he who had since cowered in ‘t(lfif“ power of the man he had tried 1 to ! Brainard lay like a man collapsed within himself. Like a man robbed of his breath by a blow under the heart. He who had yesterday believed himself suddenly in the saddle, the world's new ringmaster! He who had thought him- self immune to the effect of the draft he had brewed, mad now with a craving fired by a single sip of his own potion! Siegfried—Achilles—of the vulnerable spot! e scarcely reflected upon his own insane foolishness in allowing opportu- nity to a man with a moti®e for injur- ing him. He had been so sure of his hold over the fellow—so sure of his power! It was after midnight that Ushigi came with faltering voice and apolo~ getic hands begging him to rest. Brain- ard motioned him away. But the Jap's concern for him roused him. He sat up in his chair, and of a sudden, like the flow of stirred circulation of his blood, an idea flowed through his brain. He stood wp with the heat of it running over his body like the tardy heat of the liquor he had taken. Spirit came back into him and filled out his flesh. Laughter bubbled up within him once more, like champagne. He was drunk again—and not with alcohol. He tossed papers and sticks from his basket together upon his hearth and lighted them. Of what had he been afraid? He stood before his fire and watched its rising light climb up his own figure and flood over him like new life. At 1 o'clock he rang and called for food. And Ushigi brought him fra- grant steaming coffee, which he drank and blessed like a convalescent fam- ished by fever. The Jap told him that reporters had come at 11, relating that a woman' had committed suicide in the street after nal had seen that here was the logical way to reach Brainard had learned to do with others because of their humanness might also be_done with him! Honer had seen the opportunity for a blow and had reached out at ran- dom for a weapon. Or the chance appearance of the weapon had sug- gested the blow! The coincidence of motive, opportunity and result was far too perfect to be the product of chance. The man had schemed and worked. Chance doubtless favored him, tossing to his groping fingers the thing that would best serve his purpose, either be- fore or afterward. It always did! Op- portunity always developed from nursed and petted animus. But with the weapon once in his grasp, the use of it had been a matter of careful fore- thought and ingenious craft. How he had ever found that wood- land scene with its witchery of all na- ture’s subtlest lures for the mind of the natural man he might or might not tell in some future moment of ter- ror or of gloating. But he had known something of its appeal—the uncanny power of that phantasm of loveliness Just out of reach! And he had known how to put it before the victim he aimed to trap. The cloth upon the dial board | was a diabolical bit of trickery. The method of racking records temporarily unlabeled — the forgotten index — the chance displacement of the dials with the removal of the rag. Leaving Brain- ard, with his attention specially direct- ed upon the unlabeled records, to see at leisure and alone the unveiling of that vision of enchantment was a mas- ter touch! The man had been content to trust to after-observation to make sure of his effect. And he had seen Brainard's unwary betrayal of its grip. It had been in the first naive sup- position that Honer had done all this by accident that Brainard had felt himself duped and caught and crip- pled. But now he knew that the man who had been clever enough to devise the rest agsuredly must have planned further. ‘ihie conviction that Honer knew the index that had revealed the Sunrise Sprite grew with every review of the situation. If he did know it, then there had doubtless been a time when the dial board of the condenser had openly recorded it. But if this record could not be identified by the means within his power, at least that Brainard—that what | b D. C, And Honer could be bought or fought 4 same means he himself had chosen to use. He, too, could be tapped and wrung—wrung till he should dis- close his secret. But the method? First a smiling show of unwounded, calm indifference, The man must not find further con- firmation of his notion that this thrust had gone home. He must be unmo- lested, too, unnoticed, even, till he be- came convinced that he had wrongly estimated Brainard's interest in the un- lucky loss of a beautiful scene. Then the key of his desires, or his fears, in turn, must be found. Shrewd fellow that he was, his nature was of a common mold; it should not be diffi- cult to snare his susceptibilties. Pre- caution, for which Honor himself had created a model example, must be practiced to insure Brainard a perfect grip upon the other when once he should take hold. It would then be but a matter of playing him till he was ready to give up anything. Yes, Honer could be forced to give up his secret. And what then? Why, then the nymph of that woodland dell would come at the bidding of the man who could tune into her life at will, who could follow her forward or backward through the whole of her career, who could trace her down and find her in reality on this side of the crystal bar- rier, If she were a living creature. If not—— 1f not! — (To be continued tomorrow.) -— On Los Angeles Y. M. C. A. roof there is now a guide to airmen—an arrow 75 feet long and 12 feet deep. SATURDAY, TJANUARY 26, 1929.° HOUSE PASSES 743 PRIVATE MEASURES Clears Calendar of All Uncontested Bills Relating to Pending Claims, Including Pensions. By the Associated Press. The House yesterday passed 743 measures and in so doing cleared its calendar of all private bills which are not contested. These measures all deal with such subjects as pensions or claims against the Government. Of the bills, 547 were lumped to- gether into an omnibus measure to in- crease by $115278 the pensions of cer- tain soldiers and sailors and widows and dependent children of veterans of Mhe Civil War. Another omnibus meas- ure covered 113 bills to grant pensions and increase the allowances of soldiers and sailors of the Regular Army and Navy. 3 . Information concerning the number of emergency Army officers receiving compensation under the Tyson-Fitzger- ald act was requested from Director Hines of the Veterans' Bureau in a res- olution adopted yesterday by the Sen: PROBES EMERGENCY LIST. ! RPAL ESTATE. Senator McKellar, Democrat, Ten- nessee, author of the resolution, said he —these Stone @ Homes cannot be equaled in beauty and value. 60 Built—49 Sold Prices $13,950 up Exhibit Homes 1752 Irving Street Northwest Open Till 9 PM. “Jameson-Built “understood that of the 3,000 or more ! 7: viewing the scenes in the theater called the Swan, and asking what Radley Brainard might have to say to that. Brainard shook his head, with that ges. ture which covers the world’s misery like a blanket for those whom it does not touch. He ate hugrily of sand- wiches and cakes and fruit, and when Ushigi carried the tray away, with orders to go to bed himself, his master sat in his chair and smoked, and smiled, and smoked, and stared at an indelible print upon his brain, at which he dared once more to look. He did not sleep. Consciousness seemed too sweet. Vistas opened now before his inner eyes which had been only dazzled before. Assured once more of the sound- ness of his own reasoning, he traced slowly to and fro the line of prob- able action taken by the criminal mind of Honer in scheming his undoing. Honer had recovered from his own first terrifying taste of relieved life. He had recognized at least in some degree that no living being could be free from some key-chord in the gamut of human emotion—that for every man there must be some keynote to which a vital chord within him would re- spond, and that every such note must have been struck, and often struck in the infinite variety of music of the past, and so might be struck again; that this note, once heard, might so command the man that he would live only that he might experience it again! Recognizing this, the scheming crim! index remained in To Wives —who want to stay young! Call at 2017 3rd N.E. You'll find an attractive six-room home with conven- iences that make house- keeping a real pleasure. 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Five bedrooms, three lovely baths, one a shower; big reception hall and living room with handsome fireplace; breakfast room adjoining dining room; splendidly equipped kitchen with General Electric Refrigeration; Oil Burner; two-car built-in garage. Many other beau- tiful and fascinating features in each dwelling. Located just across Wisconsin Avenue between the Cathedral and Glover Park. See these properties at once if you desire a high-class home. Drive out Mass. Ave., across Wisconsin Ave. and lefi on Cathedral Ave. Open All Day Sunday and Daily, 2 Until Dark BOMEHELPS 1417 K St. 1524 D St. N.E. 919 Quincy St. N.W. 2620 6th St. N.E. 1814 D St. S.E s 510 Central Ave. i%.E. officers entitled to compensation under u;e Jact pay has been awarded to only . 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A French Chateau in beautiful Battery Park 526 Maple Ridge Road Throughout—in design and appurte- nances—the inspiration has been drawn from the French—and not only a beautiful effect has been achieved—but a house of wonderful hominess has resulted. Graceful arches, French doors, inviting fireplace, with ornamental mantel; handy built-in bookcases and magazine closet— are features that attract. In addition to the huge master bedroom, with its private dressing room and bath with shower, there are two guest rooms on the second floor, that share a sumptuously appointed bath, and also room suited for dressing room or nursery. The attic is clear, with large-cedar storage closet. The house stands on a lot.80x150 feet, ef- fectively landscaped, and with an artistic rock garden placed on a terrace that ex- tends the full width of the lot. Here's the important news. The owner has left the city permanently, and his local holdings must be disposed of. 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