The House from Nowhere

Columbia River only last--"

  Mrs. MacDonald colored suddenly. "You'll have to forgive Bill. He getshimself so wrapped up in his fishing."

  Glancing at MacDonald Philon was surprised to see the same confusionand embarrassment on his host's face.

  It was after dinner when Mrs. MacDonald and Jean were clearing thetable that Philon looked over the library shelves. MacDonald himselfappeared uneasy and hovered in the background.

  "You'll have to excuse my selections. They're all pretty old.I--er--inherited most of them from a grandfather."

  In a few minutes Philon spotted the _Smyth Report_. Fixing itsposition well in mind he turned away. MacDonald was saying, "Come downin the basement and I'll show you my hobby room."

  "Glad to." As MacDonald led the way Philon whispered to John, "You'llfind the book on the second shelf from the bottom on the right side."

  John returned him a stony stare of belligerence and Philon clampedhis jaw. The boy dropped his glance and gave a reluctant nod ofacquiescence.

  Upstairs a half hour later Ursula, who had filled her small ashtraywith a mound of stubs, suddenly told Philon she was going home.

  "But, Ursula, I thought that--"

  With thin-lipped impatience she snapped, "I just remembered I hadanother engagement at eight."

  Mrs. MacDonald was genuinely sorry. "Oh, that's too bad, I thought wecould have the whole evening together."

  Casting a meaningful glance at John and getting a confirming cold-eyednod in return, Philon got on his feet. "Sorry, folks. Maybe we'll gettogether another time."

  "I hope so," MacDonald said.

  In angry silence Philon walked home. Not until they were all in thehouse and Ursula was hastening toward her second-floor room did he saya word. "I suppose your 'other engagement' means the Cairo againtonight?"

  Ascending on the escalator Ursula turned to look scornfully over hershoulder. "Yes! Anything to escape from boredom. All that woman talkedabout while you were in the basement was redecorating the house orabout cooking and asking my opinions. _Ugh!_"

  Philon laughed mirthlessly. "Yeah, I guess she picked a flat number todiscuss those things with. Anything you might have learned about themyou must have got out of a psychoplay."

  Stepping off the escalator at the top Ursula spit a nasty epithet hisway, then disappeared into the upstairs hall.

  John stood at the foot of the escalator, a reluctant witness to thebickering. Divining his attitude Philon mentally shrugged it off. Thekid might as well learn what married life was like in these moderndays.

  "You got the book, eh?"

  John pulled a book from his suit coat and laid it on a small table."Yes, there's the book--and I never felt so rotten about anything inall my life!"

  Philon said, "Kid, you've got a lot to learn about getting along inthis world."

  "All right--so I've got a lot to learn," John cried bitterly. "Butthere must be more to life than trying to stop the other guy fromstripping the shirt off your back while you succeed in stripping offhis!"

  With that he took the escalator to the upper hall while Philon watchedhim disappear.

  Left alone now, Philon settled into a chair by a window and stareddown the street at the MacDonald house. Odd people--it almost seemedthey didn't belong in this time and period, considering their queerways of thinking and looking at things. MacDonald himself inparticular had some odd personal attitudes.

  Like that incident in his basement--Philon had curiously pulled open aheavy steel door to a small cubicle filled with a most complexarrangement of large coils and heavy insulators and glassed-infilaments. MacDonald was almost rude in closing the door when he foundPhilon opening it. He had fumbled and stuttered around, explaining theroom was a niche where he did a little experimenting on his own. Yes,strange people.

  The next day Philon eagerly hastened to a bookstore dealing in antiqueeditions. Hugging the book closely Philon told himself his troubleswere all over. The book would surely bring between fifty and a hundredgrand.

  A clerk approached. "Can I help you?"

  "I want to talk to Mr. Norton himself."

  The clerk spoke into a wrist transmitter. "Mr. Norton, a man to seeyou."

  In a few moments a bulbous man came heavily down the aisle, peeringthrough dark tinted glasses at Philon. "Yes?"

  "I have a very rare first edition of Smyth's _Atomic Energy_," saidPhilon, showing the book.

  Norton adjusted his glasses, then took the book. He carefully handledit, looking over the outside of the covers, then thumbed the pages.After a long frowning moment, he said, "Publication date is nineteenforty-six but the book's fairly new. Must have been kept hermeticallysealed in helium for a good many years."

  "Yeah, yeah, it was," Philon said matter-of-factly. "Came from mypaternal grandfather's side of the family. A book like this ought tobe worth at the very least seventy-five thousand."

  But the bulbous Mr. Norton was not impressed. He shrugged vaguely."Well--it's just possible--" He looked up at Philon suddenly. "BeforeI make any offer to you I shall have to radiocarbon date the book. Areyou willing to sacrifice a back flyleaf in the process?"

  "Why a flyleaf?"

  "We have to convert a sample of the book into carbon dioxide togeigercount the radioactivity in the carbon. You see, all livingthings like the cotton in the rags the paper is made of absorb theradioactive carbon fourteen that is formed in the upper atmosphere bycosmic radiation. Then it begins to decay and we can measure veryaccurately the amount, which gives us an absolute time span."

  With a frustrated feeling Philon agreed. "Well okay then. It's a wasteof time I think. The book is obviously a first edition."

  "It will take the technician about two hours to complete the analysis.We'll have an answer for you--say after lunch."

  The two hours dragged by and Philon eagerly hastened to the store.

  When Mr. Norton appeared he wore the grim look of a righteously angryman. He thrust the book at Philon. "Here, sir, is your book. The nexttime you try to foist one over on a book trader remember science is ashrewd detective and you'll have to be cleverer than you've been thistime. This book is, I'll admit, a clever job, but nevertheless aforgery. It was not printed in nineteen forty-six. The radiocarbonanalysis fixes its age at a mere five or six years. Good day, sir!"

  Philon's mouth fell open. "But--but the MacDonalds have had itfor...." He caught himself, and stammered, "There must be some mistakebecause I...."

  Norton said firmly, "I bid you good day, sir!"

  With a sense of the sky falling in on him, Philon found himself out onthe street. No one could be trusted nowadays and he shouldn't havebeen surprised at the MacDonalds. Everyone had a little sideline, agimmick, to put one over on whoever was gullible enough to swallow it.

  Why should he assume a hillbilly family from way out in Oregon was anydifferent? This was probably Bill MacDonald's little racket and it wasjust Philon's bad luck to stumble on it. MacDonald probably peddledhis spurious first editions down on Front Street for a few hundreddollars to old bookstores unable to afford radiocarbon dating.

  For awhile he stared out his office window, brooding. The fifty grandjust wasn't to be had--legally or illegally. And when he recalledFeisel's little gem about the man falling out his office window Philonwas definitely ill.

  Then the cunning that comes to the rescue of all scheming gentry whodepend on their wits emerged from perverse hiding. An ingenious ideato solve the nagging problem of the fifty thousand arrived full-blown.Grinning secretively to himself, he walked into the telecommunicationsroom.

  He got the Technical Reference Room at the Public Library and askedfor the detailed plans of the big electronic National Vote Tabulatingmachine in Washington. At the other end a microfilm reel clicked intoplace, ready to obey his finger-tip control.

  For two hours he read and read, making notes and studying the circuitsof the complicated machine. Then, satisfied with his information, hereturned the microfilm.

  Leaving the office he descended to
the streets and set out for theparty headquarters. Now if only he could sell the neat little idea tothe hierarchy....

  At the luxurious marbled headquarters he asked to be let into thegeneral chairman's office. The receptionist announced him and Philonwalked in to find Rakoff awaiting him behind his beautiful carveddesk.

  Rakoff's dead-white cheeks never stirred and his stiff blond hairstood up in a rigid crew cut. He rolled his cigar in his big mouth."Hello, Miller. What's on your mind?"

  Philon took a breath and it seemed to him now that this idea was acrazy one. "I came to tell you I'm unable to raise my fifty grandquota, Rakoff."

  The man's brows moved slightly and his eyes