The Assassination Bureau, Ltd.

Lucoville rapped sharply upon Starkington’s hotel-room door and when the door swung back, entered and quietly laid a newspaper upon the table. Starkington’s eye immediately caught the black headlines, and he read through the lurid account rapidly.

“Harkins and Alsworthy!” he exclaimed through clenched teeth. “We must get the others here as quickly as possible!”

“I have telephoned to Haas and Hanover,” Lucoville replied. “They should be here at any moment.”

“And Gray?”

“His hotel room did not answer. I am rather surprised, since it was agreed that a report be made this morning on the ships that were investigated last night.”

“You found nothing at the Argosy?”

“Nothing. Nor did Haas at the Takku Maru.”

The two men stared at each other in silent common thought.

“Do you suppose ...?” Starkington began, but at that moment there was an imperious rap at the door, and before either occupant could answer, the door swung wide, revealing Hanover and Haas.

Haas rushed in, laying a later edition of the newspaper upon the table.

“Did you see this?” he cried. “Gray is dead!”

“Dead?”

“Found floating alongside Jansen’s Wharf, where the Eastern Clipper was docked! Dragomiloff is on that ship, and it has sailed!”

There was a moment’s shocked silence. Starkington walked over and slowly seated himself. His eyes roved the stern faces of his companions before he spoke.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said softly, “we are being decimated. The total remaining members of the Assassination Bureau are within this room at this moment. Three of our number died within the past twelve hours. Where is the success that crowned our every effort for all these years? Can it all have departed at the same moment?”

“There are limits to one’s infallibility,” Haas objected. “Harkins and Alsworthy died as the result of an accident.”

“Accident? You do not honestly believe that, Haas. You cannot. There is no such thing as an accident. We control our own lives, or we control nothing.”

“Or at least we believe that, or we believe nothing,” Lucoville amended dryly.

“But the wall-clock must have been wrong!” Haas insisted.

“Obviously,” Starkington admitted. “But is it an accident to fail through dependence upon a mechanical contrivance? Inventions, my dear Haas, are the work of doers, and not thinkers.”

“A ridiculous statement,” Haas sneered.

“Not at all. It is the inability to mentally rationalize problems that leads men to seek mechanical solutions. Take that wall-clock, for example. Does the knowledge of the exact hour solve the problems of that hour? What is gained, in beauty or morality, to know that at this moment it is eight minutes past the hour of ten?”

“You oversimplify,” Haas retorted. “Someday the clock may take its revenge.”

Hanover leaned forwards.

“As for your sneering at doers,” he remarked, “do you consider us, then, as only thinkers and not doers?”

Starkington smiled.

“Of late, to be truthful, we have been neither. Now we must be both.”

Lucoville, who had been standing at a window staring into the street, swung about.

“Look here,” he said flatly. “Dragomiloff has sailed. He has left the country. It is doubtful that he will return. Why do we not give up this senseless chase? We can rebuild the Bureau ourselves. Dragomiloff began it with one—himself—and we are four.”

“Give up the chase?” Haas was shocked. “Senseless? How could we rebuild the Bureau if the first thing we give up is not the chase, but our principles?”

Lucoville bowed his head.

“You are right, of course. I was not thinking. Well, then, what is our next step?”

Haas answered him. The thin flame of a man arose and bent over the table, his huge forehead puckered.

“There is a ship sailing at four this afternoon—the Oriental Star—from Dearborn Slip. It is the fastest ship on the Pacific run. It should easily dock in Hawaii a day in advance of the Eastern Clipper’s arrival. I suggest that we be waiting for Dragomiloff when he arrives in Honolulu. And that we be more careful than our predecessors when we meet him.”

“It is an excellent idea,” Hanover agreed enthusiastically. “He will feel himself safe.”

“The Chief never feels himself safe,” Starkington commented. “It is only that he does not allow his feeling of un-safety to disturb him. Well, gentlemen; does Haas’s suggestion sit well with you?”

There was a moment’s silence. Then Lucoville shook his head.

“I do not believe it necessary that we all travel. Haas has still not recovered fully from his wound. Also, I do not believe it well to put all our eggs in one basket. I suggest that Haas remain. There may well be need for some action from the mainland.”

This suggestion was carefully considered by the other three. Starkington nodded.

“I agree. Haas?”

The small intense man smiled ruefully.

“I should, of course, enjoy being in at the kill. But I must bow to the logic of Lucoville’s argument. I also agree.”

Hanover nodded his acceptance.

“We have sufficient funds?”

Starkington reached over and extracted an envelope from his desk.

“This was delivered by messenger this morning. Hall has signed a paper giving me power of withdrawal of our funds.”

Hanover raised his eyebrows.

“He has traveled with Dragomiloff, then.”

“With the daughter, rather,” Haas corrected with a smile. “Poor Hall! Trapped by love into acquiring a father-in-law he has paid to have killed!”

“Hall’s logic is tainted by emotion,” Starkington commented. “The fate of the emotional is not only predictable, but usually deserved.” He arose. “Well, then, I shall arrange for our passage.” He stared at Lucoville in sudden concern. “Why do you frown?”

“The food aboard ship,” Lucoville sighed unhappily. “Do you suppose they will be able to provide fresh vegetables for the entire trip?”

The edge of the sun was breaking evenly over the eastern horizon. Winter Hall, enjoying the warm breeze of the Pacific morning, was suddenly aware of a presence at his elbow. He turned to find Dragomiloff staring off into the distance.

“Good morning!” Hall smiled. “Did you sleep well?”

Dragomiloff was forced to return the smile.

“As well as could be expected,” was his dry reply.

“When I find it difficult to drop off to sleep,” Hall offered, “I usually walk the deck. I find that exercise aids me in falling asleep.”

“It was certainly not lack of exercise.” Dragomiloff suddenly swung his gaze fully upon the tall, handsome young man at his side. “I had a visitor last night before the ship sailed.”

Memory returned to Hall like a blow.

“Gray! He was to investigate this ship!”

“Yes. Gray dropped in to see me.”

“Is he aboard?” Hall glanced about; his pleasant smile had disappeared.

“No. He did not sail with us. He remained.”

Hall stared at the small sandy-haired man beside him with growing comprehension.

“You killed him!”

“Yes, I killed him. I was forced to.”

Hall turned back to his contemplation of the sunrise. A sternness had settled over his strong face.

“You say you were forced to. Do I recognize in this admission a change in your beliefs?”

“No.” Dragomiloff shook his head. “Although all beliefs must be amenable to change if thinking man is to merit his ability to reason. I say forced to, because Gray was my friend. In a way you might say he was my protégé. It was in following my teachings that he attempted my life. It was in recognition of the purity of his motives that I took his.”

Hall sighed wearily.

“No, you have not changed. Tell me, when will this madness end?”

“Madness?” Dragomiloff shrugged his shoulders. “Define your terms. What is sanity? To allow those to live whose course of action leads to the taking of innocent lives? At times, thousands of innocent lives?”

“You certainly cannot be referring to John Gray!”

“I am not. I am merely justifying the basis of my teachings, which John Gray believed in, and which you choose to call madness.”

Hall stared at the other hopelessly.

“But you have already admitted the fallacy of that philosophy. Man cannot judge; he can only be judged. And not by the individual. Only by the group.”

“True. It was on this basis that you convinced me that the aims of the Assassination Bureau were unworthy. Or possibly a better word would be ‘premature.’ For the Bureau itself, you must remember, is a group, representative of society itself. Picture a Bureau, if you would, encompassing all mankind. Then the arguments you used to convince me would no longer be valid. But no matter. In any event, you did convince me, and I did undertake the task of having myself assassinated. Unfortunately, the very perfection of the organization has worked against me.”

“Perfection!” Hall cried in exasperation. “How can you use that word? They have failed to kill you in at least six or eight attempts!”

“That failure is proof of the perfection,” Dragomiloff stated gravely. “I see you do not understand. Failures are calculable; for the Bureau contains within it certain checks and balances. The failures prove the rightness of these checks and balances.”

Hall stared at the small man at his side in amazement.

“You are unbelievable! Tell me, when will this—very well, I shall not use the word ‘madness’—when will this adventure, then, end?”

To his surprise Dragomiloff smiled in quite a friendly manner.

“I like that word ‘adventure.’ All life is an adventure, but we do not appreciate it until life itself is in jeopardy. When will it end? When we end, I suppose. When our brains cease to function; when we join the worms and the non-thinkers. In my particular case,” he continued, noting Hall’s barely concealed impatience, “at the end of a period of one year from the time of my original instructions to Haas.”

“And that time is well along. In less than three months your contract will have expired. What then?”

To his surprise Dragomiloff’s smile suddenly faded.

“I do not know. I cannot believe that the organization I have built up so painstakingly will allow me to live the full period. That would be a negation of its perfection.”

“But certainly you do not want them to succeed?”

Dragomiloff clasped his hands tightly. His face was frowning and serious.

“I do not know. It is something that has been bothering me more and more as the weeks and months have passed.”

“You are an amazing person! In what way has it been bothering you?”

The small light-haired man faced his larger companion.

“I am not sure that I wish to be saved by the expiration of a time limit. Time should be the master of people, and not the servant. Time, you see, is the one perfect machine, whose gears are set by the stars, whose hands are controlled by the infinite. I have also built a perfect machine, the Bureau. But the Bureau must depend upon itself to demonstrate that perfection. It must not be saved from its shortcomings by the inexorable function of another, and greater, machine.”

“But yet you are attempting to take advantage of the time element for your own salvation,” Hall pointed out, intrigued as always by the workings of the other’s mind.

“I am human,” Dragomiloff replied sadly. “Possibly, in the long run, this may prove to be the fatal weakness of my philosophy.”

Without further comment he turned and walked slowly and heavily to the doors leading to the inner parts of the ship. Hall stared after the man a moment, and then felt his arm touched from the other side. He swung about to face Grunya.

“What have you been saying to my father?” she demanded. “He looked quite shaken.”

“It is what your father has been saying to himself,” Hall replied. He took her arm and they began strolling along the deck. “There is an instinct within each of us to fight to retain life. But there is also within each of us a hidden death-wish, which uses many excuses for justification. We have yet to see which dominates in the life of your strange father.”

“Or in his death,” she murmured, and clung fiercely to the protective arm of her loved one.