Other Eyes Watching

by John Russell Fearn

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

For is latest invention, physicist Mason Brooks needs financial backing. To this end, he invites his wealthy sister Vera and her fiancé, Dr Douglas Ashfield, to witness a demonstration. There is an explosion and the experiment goes horribly wrong, and Vera is not only blind but has lost her eyes entirely. Then, to restore her sight, Vera undergoes a dangerous surgical experiment which results in plunging all three of them into an astonishing web of mystery and intrigue...

Release date: June 30, 2015

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 245

Sample

There were only three people waiting in the reception room as the girl in the expensive powder-glass frock entered. She was a blonde, strikingly so, exquisitely made up, tall, and her figure streamlined into all the grace the beauticians of this advanced age could achieve. She carried herself regally, betrayed her high social order in every gesture. And with reason. Vera Brooks was worth many millions of dollars in her own right. It could buy anything she needed, except breed — and that Mother Nature had conferred upon her for nothing.

‘Good morning, Miss Brooks,’ the receptionist greeted her pleasantly, smiling. ‘Dr. Ashfield won’t be very long.’

‘Important cases?’ Vera asked, her bright gray eyes glancing towards the adamantly closed plastic door of the famous oculist’s surgery.

‘I’m afraid so.’

Vera nodded, reflected, then retired to one of the armchairs by the far wall. She had practically gone through four illustrated magazines before the last patient departed — then she got to her feet decisively, crossed to the surgery door and tapped upon it. Without giving time for a reply she slid gracefully inside and placed her exquisite form between a massive super-modern ophthalmoscope and a tall, dark-haired man with a sharply hooked nose.

‘Good morning, Doctor!’ she greeted, and Dr. Douglas Ashfield looked up in surprise to meet her impish smile.

‘Why, Vera!’ He clasped her slender hands earnestly. ‘I am glad to see you again! Last I heard from you, you were jet-planing somewhere in the Pacific. I —’

‘I wasn’t intending to come back to New York so quickly,’ she interrupted. ‘I only got in an hour ago, and came straight here. It’s Mace’s fault, really. He sent for me; and you know Mace! Anyway, I’m glad to be back, if only to see you again …’ The girl paused and glanced round thoughtfully at the optical instruments. ‘Can you tear yourself away long enough to take me to lunch?’

‘Can I!’ Douglas Ashfield pulled off his white coat and hung it decisively on the walnut stand. Then as he buttoned up his cuff-studs his face became thoughtful. The girl had seen that look many a time before, when the firm lines of his still young face tightened and his keen dark eyes took on a meditative light

‘I’ll listen,’ she offered, smiling. ‘What is the great experiment this time?’

‘Oh, just a dabble in mitonex lenses.’ He shrugged. ‘That is the new plastic Brassington found a couple of years ago. First class stuff for lenses — but I think it has other possibilities. It’s the sclerotic coat which is worrying me now.’

‘The only coats I know about are fur or glass,’ the girl laughed. ‘Incidentally, this frock is made of glass-powder. I bought it in Florida. How do you like it?’

She turned in a graceful pirouette. Douglas Ashfield looked at the frock absently, his mind on other matters.

‘Nice,’ he decided finally. ‘Very nice …’

Then he jerked himself back to the everyday and hurried into his suit jacket. On the way out he told the receptionist that his surgery would be closed until evening — then with Vera hanging on to his arm they went out to her sleek dream of a car parked against the sidewalk.

‘The Golden Comet,’ Douglas told the chauffeur; then he settled beside the girl in the air-sprung cushions. ‘I suppose,’ he said, as the car sighed away from the kerb, that your brother is as peremptory as usual with his orders?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ Vera admitted, sighing. ‘I don’t think he realizes just how much he does rule my life. It may be because I’m eight years his junior — and that flatters his paternal instincts since mother and dad are both dead — or else it may be that he just loves power and the chance to order people around.’

Douglas smiled to himself, deciding that the latter was probably the case. He only liked Mason Brooks because he was Vera’s brother, and for no other reason. Brooks was the chief physicist in the organization known as the City Scientists. Impersonal, cold, he was about as friendly as the inhuman work he studied. And Vera, never very iron willed anyway, was more or less in his hands. She had money, yes, but so had he. In fact he was several million dollars ahead of her. Old Man Brooks had revealed himself as something of a throwback in believing man was still the dominant sex, and therefore entitled to the Lion’s share of his huge fortune.

‘Just why did Mason send for you?’ Douglas asked when they were seated before the Golden Comet’s most exclusive offering in lunches. ‘Anything private?’

‘I don’t know whether it is or not. He’s engaged on an experiment, which he says involves the subat — sub —’ Vera hesitated vaguely.

‘Subatomic?’ Douglas suggested.

‘That’s it! Something involving the subatomic waves of matter. He believes his idea will mean a great advance in science, and if that is so he is prepared to sink all his money into it — and he may need some of mine too. So he sent for me. I am to witness this experiment. If it succeeds you’ll see me writing a check before you can bat an eyelash.’

Douglas ate for a while in silence, rather wishing that he too had a wealthy sister on whom he could draw for money so freely when he needed it. Of course, the girl would soon be his wife, but he had the idea that a man in the real sense of the word does not progress on the strength of his wife’s bankroll. He had money too, of course — he was a most successful ophthalmic surgeon and consultant — but it certainly did not amount to several million dollars.

‘I suppose this experiment is exclusively for you and Mason to witness?’ he asked presently.

‘He didn’t say,’ the girl answered, eating daintily. ‘You know how off-hand he is. But since it is at home in his private laboratory and not in the city physical research department I imagine it is private … Why?’

‘I was just wondering if I could see it too — and decide if it is worth you putting your name to a check. I’m not much good at physics, I admit, but I’m not a bad businessman. I don’t want to see my future wife depleted of her bankroll because of what may turn out to be a hare-brained scheme. I know what a dabbler Mason is: he’s always at it! And so far he’s never done anything particularly outstanding.’

‘If you’d like to tell him that, you’re welcome,’ the girl said seriously. ‘Personally I’d hesitate.’

Douglas considered for a moment or two, then, excusing himself, he went over to the visiphone booth across the room. In a moment he had switched through to the Brooks residence in Fifth Avenue and the manservant’s face appeared on the viewing-plate.

‘Mr. Brooks, sir?’ he repeated, in response to Douglas’ inquiry. ‘Just a moment …’

After a while the physicist himself appeared, and Douglas decided he did not like the full-color image any more than he liked the original. Mason Brooks was lean-faced, with a droop to the corners of his thin-lipped mouth. He had the very long nose that often goes with the inquisitive mind, and very sharp gray eyes, the same color as Vera’s, but with none of their carefree brightness. Intelligent beyond the average — this was clear from the remarkably high forehead and the dead black hair oiled down away from it.

‘Hallo, Douglas,’ he greeted briefly. ‘You’re lucky to catch me at home. I’m just having lunch … Something I can do for you?’

‘Vera’s back in town and we’re having lunch at the Golden Comet,’ Douglas explained. ‘She’s been telling me about your experiment.’

‘Oh?’ A vague surprise seemed to pass over Brooks’ face. ‘Well, it’s right, of course,’ he said. ‘What about it?’

‘Is it exclusive, or can I come too?’

‘By all means, if you wish.’ Brooks was none too cordial about it. ‘I shouldn’t have thought myself that a dabbler in mitonex lenses would have had much interest in deep physics. Still, if you want to improve your knowledge it’s okay with me. I don’t expect that dizzy sister of mine to understand my work, but for certain legal reasons she has to be present.’

Douglas guessed that the legal reasons were connected with the possible need for touching her money, but he refrained from saying so.

‘I’ll come, then,’ he promised. ‘And thanks.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Brooks said indifferently. ‘In case Vera has forgotten it, the time is three o’clock. I’ll be out until then.’

Douglas switched off and returned across the restaurant to re-join the girl. She looked at him curiously.

‘Been bearding the lion?’ she questioned.

‘Yes — and I’m coming with you. Three o’clock.’

‘That will be a real prop for me to lean on,’ she said, relieved. ‘I hate these stuffy scientific experiments! Give me the open air, where I can tear through the sky in a stratoliner across the Atlantic. Anything like that!’

‘I know …’ Douglas looked at her with his serious dark eyes. ‘You’re a girl to whom life and movement mean everything: I’ve always realized that. I hope you’re not going to find me an old sobersides when we’re married. I shall have to stick to my work and my experiments, no matter what happens.’

‘What men you and Mace are for experiments!’ she exclaimed. ‘But I promised I’d listen to you, didn’t I? Tell me just what you are doing with this — this mitonex.’

‘Well, you’ll hardly credit this, but I think that with mitonex I can make something of everlasting service to humanity — create an artificial eye!’

The girl did not look impressed. She went on with her meal with youthful energy.

‘That isn’t so wonderful, Doug.’ She shook her blonde head. ‘An artificial eye has been going for ages.’

‘Not a glass eye, dearest … An artificial eye that can see!’

She looked up at that, her pretty face startled.

‘But that hasn’t ever been done! In fact science says it just can’t be done!’

‘Douglas Ashfield says it can!’ he replied. ‘It’s just the problem of the sclerotic coat which is bothering me a little. That’s the white of the eye, you know, surrounding pupil and iris.’

‘You think you can do this? Give sight to the blind?’ the girl asked breathlessly; then as he nodded, her hand stole across the table and clasped his encouragingly. ‘Now that is worth doing! It really is! So much more useful than Mace’s crazy experiments which will be bound to blow him up one day!’

They both laughed — and thereafter, to the girl at least, the subject seemed to be forgotten. Douglas, knowing her somewhat wild spirit, knew that she had meant it when she approved his idea. But she had not the temperament or maturity for sustained enthusiasm over a subject she did not understand … By the time lunch was over experiments in artificial eyes and her brother’s dabblings seemed to be furthest from her mind.

She insisted on an hour in the local news teletheater and Douglas agreed, just to please her. When they emerged into the sunshine again it was 2.45 and the car was waiting for them. Punctual to the minute they were outside the door of the great Brook residence, isolated from the city in its own private grounds, at three o’clock.

The manservant let them in and did not look at all surprised at Vera’s quick entrance. He was accustomed to her spasmodic comings and goings.

‘My bags are in the car, Jefferson,’ she said briefly, taking off the conical absurdity that passed for a hat. ‘Where is my brother?’

Jefferson did not need to answer, for the tall figure of Mason Brooks appeared at that moment from the opposite end of the great hall. He stopped and gave the girl a dutiful kiss on the left cheek, then he seized Douglas’ hand in a bony clutch.

‘Decided to risk it, eh, Doug?’ he asked dryly. ‘Well, I can’t guarantee that you’ll be interested, but I can hope … You’ve had lunch, I think you said?’

‘We’re all ready for action,’ Vera announced.. . .