Evening Star Newspaper, January 27, 1929, Page 36

propelled upon limbs moved by unseen | strings THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C. JANUARY 27, 1929—PART THE VICARION—By Gardner Hunting (Copyright, 1928, by Public Ledger) In the year 1935 Radley Brainard has in- wented the Vicarion, a device with which it 18 possible to recreate scenes out of the past. The invention is a sensational success, with all of the theaters installing it in place of motion pictures. Complete Tilusions, Inc.. which at that time controls ail the improve- ments on the movie, faces ruin, but when Perdinand ~Mortimer and Jerry Ballard. heads of the company, call on him, Brain- ard refuses to make terms. Brainard’s records of the past are con- tained in “bombs’ which hold liquid air, and while he is projecting one of the “bombs,” which was unmarked. he sees a beautiful, gossamer-clad girl with whom he During the first demon- stration of the Vicarion, with Phyllis and her family looking on, a'strange man stag- gers in the studio. 'He is unable to tell who he is, and Brainard names him Van ‘Winkie and makes him his aid. Brainard calls in the operator who made the unmarked records. but gains no_nfor- mation from him. He orders Van Winkle to investigate the making of the bomb. which the girl with whom he is infatunted appears, and decides the records were made by Jefiry Honer, a criminal whom he has employed. (Continued from Yesterday's Star.) INSTALLMENT XXIL HE easy relief Brainard had been enjoying slid from him like a warming garment _snatched away. Despite the Vicarion's tricks, he had still been un- able to believe that a thing which he could see and hear could be less than real, living and present! Was he, then, in very fact, caught in a trep? What was the trap? Could desire roused by a dream being close with steel jaws upon the heart of a living man? Was she dream—or woman—that darling of the dawn? If she were woman and not still alive, but only had lived among | some dim_distances of the past, what was his plight? Could he go back to the then and live in her life whom he could not bring to the now to live in his? And what of the lover she had sought with a seeking he had fatuously thought for him? Had he been found at that sunrise trysting place? b4 found, had he claimed possession of the prize, that historic lover—historic, it only of yesterday? Could the luck- Jess wight Who loved her now bear to go back and look upon that other’s for- tune, unalterable, fixed forever in the scheme of things, changeless as truth, recorded eternally in a medium that is not ernsed? And could he—maddening thought!—look upon that love and live vicariously in the raptures of that other Jover, through the damned, damning trick he had himself devised? Vicarious living! Lightly offered to an unsuspecting world as a philter of fulZllment! A bait which was the trap At daylight he went to his window and looked down upon the street. A little crowd was gathered, even at that unearthly hour, about a spot of fasci- nation in front of a theater called the “Swan.” ‘When Ushigi was up, Brainard called for more coffee. The Jap's start at him made him remember that he must take heed to his appearance, and he spent a long hour bathing and shaving and dressing with care. At 9 o'clock he went to his offices, where Miss Ash- croft regarded him gravely and Miss Arden gave him a radiant smile that had the effect of having accumulated overnight. His younger sécretary fol- lowed him into his private room and hovered about. Here was a woman &hlnly offering him loveliness and love. [e was vaguely annoyed. But he never knew what she said to or whether she spoke or was silent, whether she left him or he left her. he desired, and by the sudden soft, transparent, intangible, insurmountable barrier he found in his way! If the rough path of true love tempers its quality, infatuation is inflamed by de- nial. Stirred and delighted, he was eager to grasp; crossed, he was on fire to_possess! He stumbled across the studio in the dark and opened the door. Daylignt half blinded him and he had to ston and wait for his eyes to regain their normal vision. Then he went back to | his private office. On his desk lay a telegram signed by a great banking firm in New York re- questing an interview for a represent- ative on his way by airplane to the Western Coast; a clipping from & morn- ing paper reporting the formation of a syndicate to control the product which he still held in his two hands: a letter | from some crank promising to take from him his “unlawful and ungodly power” in a day by setting up ~rations that would wreck his plany for recording events—unless admitted to his councils and his pay roll; a statement from a crank of another stripe that the dedth of a woman who had taken her life in the street last night lay clearly at his door; a claim from an inventor that he controlled basic patents upon which Brainard had infringed: a sheet of note paper generously hieroglyphed with crude skulls and black hands, threat- ening to kill him by mysterious method if he did not surrender certain funds in less mysterious way: a letter from a so- called reform organization protesting in advance against anticipated offenses of the Vicarion in giving the public ruin- ous things; advance proofs of a scien- tific article from a magazine, purporting to explain completely and explicitly to the unscientific reader the exact pro- cedure for producing liquid life. Threats, cajolery, pleading, outery, flat- tery, demand! In every form, from high source and low, came the messages of those who fasten upon the suddenly rising man in envy, jealousy, rivalry or mendicancy — enemies and _parasitas, wolves and leeches, tigers and ticks! He pushed them all aside and took up a memorandum sheet of telephone calls. The attorneys for Mortimer and Ballard asked an appointment; a steel manufacturer’s representative wanted to bid on supplies; newspapers begged for interviews; requests came from “per- sonal friends” for very personal records to be shown in ultra-personal exclusive- ness; calls from women who left their names and women who did not; old acquaintances looking him up and new ones discovering him worth it; offers of service from bond salesmen and mas- seurs; offers of creature comforts rang- ing from new apartments to new gar- ters, from taxis to toothpaste, from lavender water to love. He had not yet reached the point of delegating all his details. He had not accumulated half a staff. He had not foreseen the embarrassment of celebrity and advertised wealth. He had not fore- seen the need power has for trustworthy tools. He had taken his ' aids for granted. Experience had not prepared him for this new position; imagination had not envisioned its circumstances. He had fancied offices with people in them; factories, perhaps, with machine: secretaries, pretty and otherwise; ma: agers, agents, clerks, bookkeepers, spe- cial representatives, confidential men. But he had selected few. He must give it attention—he must take advice. But from the leafy mass of evidence attesting his triumph an aroma arose that soothed his shaking nerves. What with overnight liquor, sleeplessness, lack He found himself, with the myste- rious thing in his grasp, at the door of his studio, opening that door with a hand that trembled so that his keys of food and plethora of emotion, he needed it. He rang for Ushigi and ordered bre: .. Then he sat still, waiting—hardening. ‘There was but one way to deal with an enemy who waxed dangerous; that was to strike, quick, hard, once for all. There were ways to strike his one dan- gerous enemy—his one immediately dangercus enemy who had already struck at him. A condition of the pos- jangled noisily. But he locked himseif into the muffied room once more. In ‘watching a scene that first amazed him and then struck in like the edge of a tested blade which cuts through a cal- lous to the quick. He saw himself as he had sat here in this studio of his the night _but one before, secure in what men have been wont to call privacy behind shut doors, watching some pro- scene excluded now from the unity of this—rapt, absorbed, caught and held by those fibers of a man’s be- ing that are at once infinitely stronger and more tender than fibers of flesh! Himself as he had first looked upon his Dawn Maiden! Looking upon himself, he watched and listened to the exter- nal gestures and sounds of a man who has forgotten to consider his effect. He saw himself a thing toyed with by & power outside himself, made sport of, ked like a puppet out of limp ease to rigid poise, dragged from his chair, in the hands of an_invisible showman, and dropped like a discoverad fraud at the edge of his little stage— its very curtain torn loose and falling as it to expose him to a grinning world. - Long after the thing was done he got up from his chair and mechanically shut off the light behind the blazing lens. Then he stood in the darkness and tried to think. What did it mean? It meant that the man who had set the trap for him had watched him fall into its jaws and strugglc there. It meant that the bearded operator of the ma- chine which had recorded that wood- land scene had used the same machine to record its effect on him. It meant that the fellow Honer had looked, as any reasoning creature might have known he would look, upon the result of the thing he had planned. It meant that an enemy knew that he, Brainard, ‘was entangled in toils more ensnaring than a net of gullt. The man who had cut a peep-hole in the curtain of the past had fallen in love through it, madly, ludicrously, helplessly, with a being of another world—who might be & creature of any clime or age. Druid damsel or modern maid, Judith or Jez- ebel, Leilah, or Lorelel, or simple Anabel Lee! Snared! For no fantastic trick of the new laws he had introduced to a wondering world equaled those of that old law the world seemed to be ust introducing to him—that strange aw by which a man enshrines sud- denly and irretrievably in a single fig- ure all the endowments that make woman his goddess! A single figure— to which he raises his altar and makes his sacrifice! ‘To her identity his enemy alone held the clue—and his enemy knew that Brainard knew it. What that enemy might be able to do with it would de- g:“d wholly on what Brainard might able to do without it! Quite true that no man to whom h2 did not choose to reveal his secrets could readily steal them. But it was evident encugh that they could be used by other hands than his. It was ob- vious that his own carcer lay open to a man who knew how to use his machines and had access to them. Why had it not occurred to him before? For the simple reason that he had not been conscious of any fact or episode in his career that would lend a handle by which_another could wield him. But now? What handle was this which fate had riveted to his vital tissues? Fool! Fool! But what of that? Every man is the fool of what he fears, or wants—if he fears or wants it enough! He did not try to dodge now the fact of his predicament. He recognized it frankly enough. In the first flus his power, he was balked of thz he wanted first. To desire was ads the quick blaze of resentment. That any obstacls should b2 set in any path of his infuriated him. To his new sense of the dictatorship thrust into his hands anything less than omnipotence would have been galling limitation. The iev- ered thirst of every sense in him for the utterly desirable thing was muiti- session of power was that it be used. Only the hand that could wield the thunderbolt was worthy of it. He did not smile now at the conceit that sug- gested this figure. With his determi- nation rose the fury that would lend it force. And slowly before his mind'’s eye his means began to take shape. As a preliminary he would have a condenser in the studio. He rose from his chair and started to go back to his small white room; he must consider where the machine would stand. As he closed the door in the hall a man passed him and looked in his face. It was Honer! Honer, who chanced for- tuitously to pass just at that instant— and lock in ‘'his face. And the man smiled—respectfully, obsequiously, bow- ing. Brainard passed on with a nod— but that smile went with him, one of those records to store away in the files of memory—a smile that was faint, repressed, appraising, patient—jeering! ‘The illness of Phyllis, with the conse- quent indefinite postponement of her bt g day, the growing conviction that she was losing the love of Radley Brainard, the fear of what he was doing to himself and to the world, terribly em- phasized for her by the events of that evening in and in front of the Swan; the knowledge that others near and dear to her were involved and finally her whole sense of weakness and inefli- ciency in the great crisis in her life, reacted at last upon the girl as lesser crises had acted in lesser degrees before. All that she loved was at stake and she was powerless to save it, yet her spirit rose against the fate that was sweeping her life bare. But her sense of personal loss, her impulse to fight for her own, grew quickly into greater things. She began to see that what Brainard had done was unhinging the balance of things. She was well aware that she had only glimpsed the surface of forces he had set seething by the injection of a new element; but the half-considered opin- lons of others, the hasty criticisms aim- ed at him—the hints of a turning of many weather vanes to the new wind were sure signs of a mighty storm. Yei Brainard himself had furnished her the statement of a faith that rose against the menace. “Nobody upsets or defies natural laws,” he had said on one of those days when they had first viewed his product. And fundamental to all nat- ural law was the law of balance. If new laws had been discovered and used 1o tilt the universe off center, new laws would appear that would swing it back to equilibrium! Or old laws would act in new ways! Great theory—small comfort, but something to cling to. Hope doesn't need much. But her eyes were opened to see more. 1 She saw the growing threat in some | things she had only partially recognized before. John was definitely changed. | She understood him to some degree. Her | father was quite frank to admit that he had found a new intercst—he talked about it a little and went away to in- dulge it a great deal. Her mother was | more of a mystery to Phyllis—but her mother clearly was caught by something che found in the private rooms at the Bonmar. It was beyond credence, but it was true—her mother went like a ! child to its play, into some dream world that had been created for her, and told no one what it was. Friends outside her family eircle symptoms. Radley’s showed = similar private booths were filled. In the days following her evenings at the Swan she watched the throngs fill the streets for hours before the opening of the Vicaion's shows. People rushed to see its mervels and then added themselves to the mobs that demanded more and | more. The novelty, if it could be called | by so slight a name, was enough to| hold them captivated for a time, but the thing Phyllis had seen in faces of spectators in and out of theaters was no mere astonishment at a miracle. As for the girl herself, she recognized gl.hd by the freshly conceived had only to reach out for that v&uver look back the drawing power of opportunity to upon the past, more the more she considered it. Happy always in her own immediate present, she had not been in the habit of trying to escape it; she had none of the motives born of that desire, though she could per- fectly understand it in others. But she realized what it might mean to review one’s own choice of what had made life joyous or interesting or thrilling in those momeni. that had been the happy present of other days: she could see how sweets could be concentrated, mul- tiplied, their ultimate honeys extracted. But she remembered the half ribald newspaper debate that had bandied the words anodyne and anesthetic, as if either were a term on which to hang a joke. She could discern multitudes of uses for the Vicarion—though its very name, which the public had chosen readily to adopt, singled out the use to which it would be mainly put. There was no doubt whatever that it would change the complexion of society. Publicity had often been held up as the cure-all for many social ills, and no publicity ever devised could compare with the Vicarion’s revelations. If it were true, however, as the old maxim said, that “'Tis an ill wind that blows no one good,” it was equally true that it would be hard to find a good that did not trail an attendant vice in its wake. And here the vice was the more in- stantly apparent. If men realized that they could not commit crime or indulge vicious tenden- cies without exposure at the will of others, what would be the effect on those conscious that their lives already contained damning things? Would they adopt the philosophy lightly expressed by Carol, or would they follow the ex- ample of the woman who had taken the only means of escape? And what of the vast majority who followed blind- ly that instinct to learn how the other half lives, on which is based everything from back-fence gossip to the tomes on library shelves? If that appetite had been avid when fed upon the pale prov- ‘ender of mere words, what madness would arise over the red meat of sud- denly accessible reality? Again and again Phyllis came to that point in thought where her faculties staggered before the prospect. And then she invariably came back to the man she loved. Suddenly one day she recalled the awful thing John had de- scribed—the thing he had scen with Brainard, the thing that had been ac- cidentally recorded, apparently, contain- ed in an unlabeled bomb! And strange- ly she drew a terrifying parallel, think- ing of Radley as a man at a half. understood machine, who might catch, if he had not already caught, his hand in_the cogs! It was at this idea that all recollec- tion of her own pique, her excellent reasons for resentment, her causes for righteous wrath, vanished. She loved him—and his hand was in the cogs. | She had spent days coming to this vision, but once caught she was in an agony to return to his side. Whether he wanted her or not—and he seemed to want her little enough—she must go back to him. Whether there was anv- thing within the power of a loving woman to do or not, she must be with him. Here was a law that was re- | sistless! It was during a July noon that the thing was decided for her. She had been lunching alone; none of her fam- ily was at home. The servants were sly anxious to be out. Even sedate Charles was restive, she thought, at necessity of caring for her simple wants. She had determined upon a long walk along the ocean shore to relieve the pressure of her teeming thoughts, when suddenly it was as if o ’ Armyand NavyNews Navy. ‘Though definite decision has not up to the present time been made at the Navy Department concerning the nu- merous shifts of flag officers to and from the fleets that will be made this | year, it is generally understood that Admiral William V. Pratt will relleve Admiral Henry A. Wiley as commander- in-chief of the United States fleet, and that Vice Admiral Louis McC. Nulton will succeed Admiral Pratt as com- mander-in-chief of the battle fleet. It is also a matter of considerable con- Jjecture as to who will succeed Admi- ral Nulton as commander of the bat- tleship division of the battle fleet. It is a foregone conclusion that Rear Ad- miral Charles B. McVay, jr., on duty as budget officer of the Navy Depart- ment, will be assigned as commander- in-chief of the Asiatic fleet, relieving Admiral Mark L. Bristol, who will be assigned to duty as a member of the general board. It is also considered as settled that Rear Admiral Edward H. Campbell, judge advocate general of she were seized by a power that was stronger than herself, shown the terri- fying vision and pushed into a path cut for her feet. Under the impulse of a purpose she could not pause to consider she had ruhed to call the car when the tele- phone rang under her hands. “That you, Phyllis?” said a voice over the wire when she answered. Then | before she recognized the tones: “This is Van Winkle. Could you come down to the Bonmar? I have something to show you-—something I must show you.” (To be continued tomorrow.) the Navy, will relieve Rear Admiral David F. Sellers as commander of the special service squadron, who in turn will succeed Admiral Campbell as judge advocate general. Several slates of captains who are due to be shifted from and to commands afloat have been prepared in the Navy Department, but these tentative lists e subject to change from day to day. Come factors now uncertain affect these slates, among them being what flag commanders having captains as chiefs of staff will come ashore and selection or non-selection for promotion by the been ordered to temporary duty at ‘Washington in the office of the chief co-ordinator under the Bureau of the Budget. Lieut. Willlam R. Whiteford, M. C, on duty at the naval hos- pital at Newport, is assigned to duty | at the Naval Medical School in Wash- ington. Lieuts. R. W. Byrns and R. A. Shotwell, both Supply Corps officers, are assigned to duty in the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts, Navy Depart- ment. Maj. Ralph S. Keyser, U. S. M. C., on duty at Marine Corps headquer- ters, has been sclected as captain of the team to represent the United States in the 1929 international rifle matches. Maj. Julian C. Smith, U. S. M. C,, who was captain of the Marine Corps team that won the 1928 national rifle team match, probably will be detailed as captain of the team to represent that corps in the 1929 matches. Maj. Alex- ander A. Vandergrift, U. S. M. C,, will be detached from duty at Marine Corps headquarters and will go to duty at| Washington in the office of the chief | line selection board to meet in June. | Capt. Charles P. Nelson, who has been | on duty in the third naval district, has | co-ordinator for general supply under the Bureau of the Budget. Comdr. Mark L. Hensey, jr., who has been stationed on the destroyer U. S. S. Upshur, used as a training vessel at | the Washington Navy Yard for the Naval Reserves of the District of Co- lumbia, has been assigned to duty on | the U.'S. S. Tennessce. His relief will be announced in the near future. Lieut. Comdr. Francis S. Craven, who has been in command of the U.'S. S. Meyer, has been assigned to the fleet training _division at the Navy Depart- | ment. Lieut. Richard P. Glass, who | has been on the receiving ship at San | Francisco, will be assigned to the Naval Observatory here. Lieut. Walter W. Toles, C. C., who has been on duty at the Norfolk Navy Yard, has been as- sined to duty at the Washington Navy ard. Army. The first concrete step that has been taken to solve the Army's perplexing | promotion situation was voiced by the Secretary of War last week when he recommended that the first legislative effort to correct this problem be limited to fundamentals—that is, measures on which there is practically unanimous agreement. The secretary has suggested that the first promotion proposal be limited to the fundamental proposition | that promotions be based on length of | service in grade and that other mat- ters be considered in subsequent legis- | lation. The limitations on the number of officers in each grade should be the minimum deemed advisable. It would be highly desirable, Secretary Davis pointed out. to remove all restrictions on promotion to the grade of major in order that the World War officers may receive equitable treatment in their ar- rival at field grade. The sccretary sounded a death knell to the efforts of certain Army groups to secure preferen tial treatment for their particular | groups when he recommended that “if it is desired to give special preferential treatment to any service or group, it should be based on the general principle of length of service in grade, the vari ation being made | for the Regular Army. of promotion due to decreased length of required service.” As a result of the exhaustive tests that have been conducted for the past year by the leading textile manufac- turers of the country, development has practically been made of a satisfactory cotton cloth that will eventually be adopted as the standard uniform cloth The cloth that has been developed, as a result of these experiments, is far superior in weave and fastness to any that the Army, has had before, There are still a few pieces of cloth that are in the laboratory un- dergoing test, and if they hold up under the exacting tests of the Quartermaster Corps it is believed that a standard cloth will be adopted ffom which the uniforms for the Regular Army will made. The Quartermaster Corps ex- pects to purchase about 375,000 yards of the new cloth to make up a lot | of cotton uniforms in order to fill de- | pleted stocks of certain sizes before the end of this fiscal year. May Draft Councilmen. With the smallest town coune’s in Scoltand, Portnockie is havirg the greatest problem. It cannot ge*. enough councilmen to fill the offices. The electors have failed to norsinate any candidacies for five vacanc'ss, and the present council consists «f only four members. Whether to o-der a special election or to draft five new members for a year is being coisidered by the council. —— Says Whale's Erain Biggest. That size or weight of the brain does not measure intellizence has just been demonstrated by a German sclentist who, after years of investigation, has declared that the whale has the largest brain of any animal. 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