The War of the Worlds Murder - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,53
it down in the notebook he carried to record plot brainstorms and to write descriptions of people and places he happened upon.
The “War of the Worlds” broadcast was piped in onto this floor, too—right now the two Shadows were in a scene together, Shadow-Number-One Frank Readick playing a reporter asking Shadow-Number-Two Orson Welles various questions about Mars.
“Professor, for the benefit of our listeners, how far is it from Mars to Earth?”
“Approximately forty million miles.”
“Well, that seems a safe enough distance.”
The security guard was shaking his head. “Mr. Gibson, I’m sure I haven’t seen this Balanchine character, or those hoodlum types, neither.”
“Why so sure, George?”
George shrugged. “First of all, I haven’t seen anybody this evening who I don’t recognize as one of the actors or other production personnel, on one show around here or another. And second...” Another shrug. “... I would’ve stopped anybody I didn’t recognize. Mr. Gibson, nothing gets past me.”
Gibson nodded. “Thank you, George.”
George grinned and nodded.
Gibson stepped back onto the elevator, wondering how long it would be before George was asleep again.
In upstate New York, at the state troopers’ HQ, Rusty was puffing away, his corncob pipe pluming like a tugboat smokestack.
On the radio, reporter Carl Phillips was reading the listeners an urgent telegram that had just arrived for Professor Pierson at Princeton Observatory.
“ ‘Nine-fifteen p.m. eastern standard time. Seismograph registered shock of almost earthquake intensity occurring within a radius of twenty miles of Princeton. Please investigate. Signed, Lloyd Gray, Chief of Astronomical Division.’ ”
Frowning at the word “earthquake,” which echoed his earlier fears about his parents in New Jersey, Rusty turned the volume dial up on the radio, even louder.
The professor was confirming that this meteorite was of an “unusual size,” and that the disturbances on Mars had no bearing on the event—it was merely coincidental.
“However,” the professor was saying, “we shall conduct a search....”
Rusty wondered if he should notify the corporal, who was at the duty desk, two floors below, particularly when the next bulletin reported “a huge, flaming object, believed to be a meteorite,” falling on a farm near Grovers Mill, not far from Trenton.
The flash in the sky (the radio said) could be seen within a radius of hundreds of miles, the impact heard as far north as Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Somehow, when the reporter turned the air back over to the New York studio, where a pianist was tinkling away at “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows,” Rusty was even more convinced something was wrong, really wrong....
Thinking about his folks, the teletype trooper began to tremble; his eyes teared up, and it wasn’t from the smoke his corncob pipe was producing.
He would tell the duty corporal to turn on the radio and hear for himself. Who knew? They might need to start mobilizing, to help the New Jersey troopers out, any time now.
Slight, spectacled Sheldon Judcroft, a student member of the University Press Club at Princeton, was at a desk in the student newspaper office, working on an editorial protesting the radical-right radio preachings of Father Coughlin, preferring the quiet here to the hubbub of his fraternity.
The phone rang and something amazing happened: the city desk editor of a real newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, was on the line.
“We have a radio report of a meteorite that has hit near Princeton,” the voice said (male, urgent, yet matter-of-fact). “Place called Grovers Mill. What do you know about it?”
“Nothing—I don’t even have the radio on.”
“Oh. Okay.”
And the phone clicked dead.
Sheldon thought about the call. He felt he’d somehow failed to measure up, faced with a real newspaper story. He turned on the radio and switched the dial until he found the report and listened.
Indeed, a meteor did seem to have struck in New Jersey, a big one that had been heard for miles around (though, oddly, Sheldon hadn’t heard it himself, nor felt the impact...too wrapped up in the Father Coughlin piece, maybe).
Then something else amazing happened: Sheldon found himself calling Arthur Barrington, Chair of the Princeton Geology Department, at home.
After Sheldon’s apologies and explanation, the Department Chair said, “I haven’t heard anything about this either, son...but it sounds big.”
“Yes it does, sir.”
“Mr. Judcroft, are you by nature adventurous?”
“Of course,” Sheldon squeaked. “I’m a newsman!”
“Good. I’ll swing by and pick you up.”
“Pick me up?”
“If ever there was a job for journalism and geology, this is it.... Put on something warm.”
“Yes, sir!”
Sheldon hung up, and got his notebook.
And a sweater.
At 8:12 P.M., Edgar Bergen turned his microphone over to a guest artist, Nelson Eddy.