Zagat / Allam Seven Out of Time

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-983-124-005-2
Verlag: Al-Mashreq eBookstore
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 250 Seiten

Seven Out of Time by Arthur Leo Zagat is a thrilling science fiction adventure that transcends the boundaries of time and space. When seven seemingly ordinary people are plucked from different eras and thrust into an alien world, they must band together to solve the mystery of their abduction. Struggling to understand their new reality, they uncover a cosmic conspiracy that threatens the very fabric of time. As they confront unimaginable dangers and unravel the secrets of the universe, the question remains: can they find a way back home, or are they forever lost in time? This gripping tale will keep you on the edge of your seat as the fate of the past, present, and future hangs in the balance.

Arthur Leo Zagat (1896-1949) was an American lawyer, prolific pulp fiction writer, and editor best known for his contributions to the horror, science fiction, and mystery genres. Born in New York City, Zagat served in World War I before pursuing a legal career. However, his passion for storytelling led him to writing, where he found success in the pulp magazine market of the 1920s and 1930s. Zagat authored hundreds of short stories and novellas, often collaborating with fellow writers like Nat Schachner. His most famous works include dystopian science fiction tales, eerie horror stories, and hard-boiled detective fiction. Zagat also contributed to serialized stories, such as the 'Doc Savage' adventures, and became a popular fixture in magazines like Weird Tales, Astounding Stories, and Argosy. His writing style is noted for its vivid, imaginative worlds and engaging plots. Zagat passed away in 1949, leaving behind a lasting legacy in the golden age of pulp fiction.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Zagat, Arthur Leo

Allam, Rafat

Leseproben

1. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE
"You have not found Evelyn Rand." "No sir," I agreed. "But I—" "No excuses, Mr. March." The office was enormous, the desk massive, but sitting behind the latter Pierpont Alton Sturdevant dominated both. Not because of any physical quality. He was below average in stature nor did his graying hair have the patches of white at the temples that fiction writers and the illustrators of advertisements seem to think are the invariable mark of 'men of distinction.' It was rather his hawk's nose and the sexless austerity of his thin mouth that made me think of him as resembling some Roman Emperor, and myself, a very junior attorney on the staff of the august firm of Sturdevant, Hamlin, Mosby and Garfield, as some young centurion returned from Ulterior Gaul. "You should know by this time," the dry voice rustled, "that I am not interested in excuses, but only in facts." I had, in truth, just returned to the city, from the remote reaches of suburban Westchester, and what I had to report was failure. "The fact is, sir, that I have not found Evelyn Rand." Sturdevant was very still, looking at me in the huge leather armchair to which he'd motioned me with a terse, 'Good morning.' He was expressionless and still for a long moment and then he asked, "If you continue searching for her, how soon do you think you will be able to locate her?" I didn't like that if. I didn't like it at all but I contrived to keep my dismay out of my face and my voice. "I can't say, Mr. Sturdevant. I haven't been able to unearth a single clue as to what happened to her." The girl had walked out of her Park Avenue apartment house that Sunday morning, two weeks ago yesterday, and vanished. "The doorman seems to have been the last person ever to see her. He offered to call a taxi for her and she said that she would walk to church. He watched her go down the block and around the corner." * * * * * "I could not take my eyes off the lass," the grizzled attendant had told me, "though my 'phone was buzzing like mad. She swung along freelike an' springy like as if it was the ould sod was under her feet ate not this gray cancrete that chokes the good dirt. I was minded o' the way my own Kathleen used to come up Balmorey Lane to meet me after work was done, longer ago than I care to think." By the way he spoke and the look in his faded eyes, I knew I needed only to tell him what it would mean to Evelyn Rand if the fact that she had never returned—never been seen again, got out, to keep him silent. And so it had been with the elevator boy who had brought her down from her penthouse home and with the servants she had there; the granite-faced butler, the buxom cook, Renee Bernos, the black-haired and vivacious maid. Each of them would go to prison for life sooner than say a single word that might harm her. Nor was this because she was generous with her wages and her tips. One cannot buy love. * * * * * "That is all you have been able to discover," Sturdevant pressed me. "That is all." "In other words you are precisely where you were two weeks ago," he murmured, "except for this." He turned a paper on his desk so that I could see it, then tapped it with a long, bony finger. "Except, Mr. March, for this." ESTATE OF DARIUS RAND in the MATTER OF EVELYN RAND, DEBTOR to STURDEVANT, HAMLIN AND STURDEVANT. 1-27-47 ½ hr. P. A. Sturdevant, Esq.   @$400  $ 200.00 1-27-47-2/10/47 88¼ hrs. Mr. John March         @ $25  $2206.25 1-27-47 Disbursements and expenses to Mr. John March (acct. 2-10-47 attached)               $  64.37 Total                                  $2470.62 "Two thousand, four hundred and seventy dollars and sixty-two cents," Sturdevant's finger tapped the total, "up to last Saturday. To which must be added the charge for this quarter hour of my time and yours, plus whatever you have spent over the weekend. Two and a half thousand dollars, Mr. March, and no result." He paused but I said nothing. I was waiting for what he would say next. He said it. "As trustee of the Estate of Darius Rand I cannot approve any further expenditure. You will return to your regular duties, Mr. March, and I shall notify the police that Miss Rand has disappeared." And that was when I lost my grip on myself—"No!" I fairly yelled as I came up to my feet. "You can't do that to her." He wasn't the Head of the Firm to me in that moment. He was a shrivelled old curmudgeon whose scrawny neck I lusted to wring. "You can't make her a pauper. You don't know what you're doing." I stopped. Not by reason of anything Sturdevant said or did, for he said or did nothing. I don't know how he made me aware I was making a fool of myself, but he did. And now he said, quietly, "I know exactly what I am doing. I know better than you do that because of the embarrassment his actress wife had caused him, before she died, by trailing her escapades through the newspapers, Darius Rand's will tied up his fortune in a trust fund the income of which goes to his daughter Evelyn only as long as her name never appears for any reason whatsoever in the news columns of the public press. When she vanished I determined as her legal guardian to conceal the situation for a reasonable length of time since a report to the police must inevitably bring her name into the newspapers. That reasonable time has in my opinion now expired without any hope of her return and I no longer can justify my silence. Therefore, as trustee of—" "The Estate of Darius Rand," I broke in. "You're measuring the happiness of a girl against dollars and cents." The faint shadow that clouded Sturdevant's ascetic countenance might mean I'd gotten under his skin but his answer did not admit it. "No, Mr. March. I am measuring a sentimental attachment to a young lady over whose welfare I have watched for more than six years against the dictates of duty and conscience." "Aren't there times, sir, when one may compromise a bit with duty and even conscience?" Not him, I thought. Not this dried mummy, but I had to try to persuade him. "Give me a week more. Just the week. I'll take a leave of absence without pay, I'll even resign, so you won't have to charge the Estate for my time. I'll pay the expenses out of my own pocket. If you'll only keep this thing away from the police and the papers for a week I'll find Evelyn. I'm sure I will." Gray eyebrows arched minutely. "It seems to me that you are oddly concerned," Sturdevant mused, "with a young lady whom you have never seen, whom you never even heard of up to fourteen days ago. Or am I mistaken in that?" "No," I admitted. "Fourteen days ago I was not aware that Evelyn Rand existed. But today," I leaned forward, palms pressing hard on the desktop, "today I think I know her better even than I know myself. I know her emotional makeup, how she would react in any conceivable situation. I have literally steeped myself in her personality. I have spent hours in her home, her library, her boudoir. I have talked on one pretext or another with everyone who was close to her; her servants, her dressmaker, her hairdresser. I know that her hair is the color of honey and exactly how she wears it. I know that she favors light blues in her dress and pastel tones of pink and green. I have even smelled the perfume she had especially compounded for her." * * * * * In his little shop on East Sixty-third Street,...