99 Classic Science-Fiction Short Stories. Айзек Азимов

and your real estate as much more. Suppose I give you half a million and advise you to keep quiet about the sale?"

      "You mean carry on the business under the old name?" asked Moyer, looking at the prospective buyer earnestly.

      "Something like that."

      The Englishman shook his head.

      "Not and remain in this country! They kidnapped my son. No telling what they will do next, if the policies of the firm are changed. Anything that is done we shall be blamed for, no matter who really owns the business."

      "Then, you and your partner take a vacation in Europe. You can afford it. All I am asking for is an exact account of your transactions with these racketeers, so I can have something to work on."

      "May I ask what you want to do with the business?" interrogated the Junior Partner, Perkins.

      "Certainly. I intend to use it as one of my experimental laboratories for the study of a mammal, known as the Mus Norvegicus, called, in common English, the brown rat. He is supposed to have originated from the Mus Humiliatus of Central Asia. Now will you gentlemen take the half million?"

      "We will!" exclaimed Perkins. "Then may I ask your name?"

      "Winifred Willowby."

      "Not the one who is reputed to own more United States bonds than any other man in America?" gasped Richard Moyer.

      "I won't admit that I do, but I am the man you are thinking about."

      "Then I simply cannot understand why you want to mix up in this rat business."

      "Simple enough. I am a hundred per cent American. For five generations my people have been born and buried in this city. I own over two hundred million dollars worth of land here. When the dregs of Europe come over to my city and use the rats of Asia to bleed that city white, then I personally protest. I am going to start something. I am not sure what, but when I finish, this city will be practically rat empty and gangster free."

      "A large programme, Mr. Willowby," whispered Perkins.

      "But I am a large man. Now, suppose I write you gentlemen a check?"

      Five minutes later the two partners were alone. Moyer looked at the check, then put it in his pocket, and his hat on his head.

      "Suppose we get it cashed?" he said to Perkins. "You can do as you please with your half, but I am going to take my family and go back to England. That man Willowby is only half pint size, but his blue eyes look cold to me, and I bet he plays a stiff game of bridge. If he starts fighting those gangsters, I do not want to be caught on the battlefield."

      "How about starting a business over in England?" asked Perkins.

      "Not a bad idea. I came over here and together we made half a million selling English groceries to Americans. Perhaps we can make a million more selling American groceries to Englishmen."

      Winifred Willowby not only bought the grocery business of Mover & Perkins; he bought a laundry, a small hotel, an apartment house and a theatre. He kept all the old employees, put in a manager, instructed that the weekly tribute should be paid as usual, and then disappeared from New York City.

      Ten days later, in Paradise Valley, in the broken country below the Poconos of Pennsylvania, he entertained several men, each an authority in his special line of art or science. They kept the appointment, not being at all sure what it was for, but unable to refuse the invitation which was accompanied in each case with a substantial check. They had all heard of Willowby, but none had ever seen him. No doubt all were rather disappointed at his apparent lack of color and personality. They quickly changed their mind when he started to talk, for there was a man who, when he had something to say, was able to say it briefly and to the point.

      "You men are all interested in rats," he began, "and so am I. You have worked with rats in one way or another for a good many years. Perhaps I ought to introduce you to each other. Mr. William Rastell has written the best biological study of rats in the English language. He has done for rats what Beebe did for the pheasant. Now the gentleman next to Mr. Rastell is Mr. Carol Crawford. I doubt if he ever actually saw or willingly handled a rat in all his life, but I am told he knows more about the folklore and traditions of the rat than any other living person. The third of my guests is Professor Wilson. He is the psychologist who has tried to breed different strains of rats, some of superior intelligence and others of the imbecile type. What I want you gentlemen to tell me is why these rats congregate at times in certain buildings of New York City, in such large numbers that they are a serious menace to property and even human life, and, then, as suddenly disappear as they appeared."

      "Are they actually doing that?" asked Professor Wilson, who had suddenly become vitally interested in the conversation.

      "Suppose they are?" queried Carol Crawford, answering the question for Willowby. "That is nothing more than they have done for centuries."

      "Do you mean migratory movements?" asked the biologist, Rastell. "Rats have always migrated."

      "I mean nothing of the kind," protested Crawford. "I mean their sudden appearance in a town or a building, their remaining there for a short time and then their sudden disappearance. The folklore and fairy tales are full of that sort of thing."

      "That is why I asked you to come to this conference, Mr. Crawford," explained Willowby. "There is something peculiar happening in New York at the present time, and it has to do with rats and their actions. In some way rats of New York seem to be under the control of a set of racketeers who are able to force them to enter any building they select. The rats come and go suddenly. It is all over in a little while, but when they are in the building, they do a lot of damage."

      Mr. Crawford interrupted him.

      "I doubt if you use the right word, when you say the rats were forced to enter the building. Perhaps you mean that the rats were by some means placed in such a psychic condition that they wanted to enter the building."

      "That brings the matter into my field of research," insisted Professor Wilson. "I doubt the fact that they were forced, but if they wanted to, why that brings up all kinds of interesting questions."

      "That is what I am after, gentlemen. I simply want to present the problem to you and have you solve it. I personally am satisfied with one thing. These rats are no different than the rats of five thousand years ago. They are just like the rats of classic Greece and imperial Rome. Maybe Mr. Crawford will tell us how they acted."

      The antiquarian fairly beamed as he started to ride his favorite hobby-horse.

      "Of course, the story everyone thinks of is the one concerning the Piper of Hamelin. It was in the year 1284. The rats were thick, and the Piper agreed to lead them out of the town for a certain sum. He played a pipe, no doubt some kind of flute, and the rats followed him. When the people refused to pay, he returned on the 26th of June, the feast of Saints John and Paul, and again played on the pipe. This time the children, one hundred and thirty in number, followed him into a cave and were lost. The date is well documented. A number of historians believe that it actually occurred, and on the gate of the town is the statement.

      "'CENTUM TER DENOS CUM MAGUS AB URBE PUELLOS DUXERAT ANTE ANNOS CCLXXII CONDITA PORTA FUIT.'[1]

      [1] When the magician (the Piper) had led the one hundred and thirty children out of the city, two hundred and seventy-two years before the gate was built.

      "The same story is found, with variations, in all parts of the world. There is, for example, the story of the wicked Hatto, abbot of Fulda. He was visited by a swarm of rats who killed him. I can give you a dozen variations of that story, but in each of them the rats came and went, suddenly, as Mr. Willowby says they have been doing in New York."

      "I should like to see a few examples of this mass movement of rats. I saw a lemming migration in Norway, but that was different," explained Rastell. "It seems to me that if we actually saw one of these nocturnal attacks, we might learn why they wanted to do it."

      "He is deadly right," agreed Professor Wilson. "A few actual facts are worth a hundred theories."

      "That is why I have asked you to help me," explained the richest man in New York. "I have prepared some experimental stations for your use. I can