Beyond the Vanishing Point | Page 2

Babs. But now, in my little pit at the controls, my
mind flung ahead. They had located him. That meant Franz Polter, for
whom we had been searching nearly four years. And my memory went
back into the past with vivid vision....
* * * * *
The Kents, four years ago, were living on Long Island. Alan and Babs
were fourteen at the time, and I was seventeen. Even then Babs was
something kind of special to me. I lived in a neighboring house that
summer and saw them every day.

To my adolescent mind a thrilling mystery hung upon the Kent family.
The mother was dead. Dr. Kent, father of Alan and Babs, maintained a
luxurious home, with only a housekeeper and no other servant. Dr.
Kent was a retired chemist. He had, in his home, a laboratory in which
he was working upon some mysterious problem. His children did not
know what it was, nor, of course, did I. And none of us had ever been
in the laboratory, except that when occasion offered we stole
surreptitious peeps.
I recall Dr. Kent as a kindly, iron-gray haired gentleman. He was stern
with the discipline of his children; but he loved them, and was
indulgent in many ways. They loved him; and I, an orphan, began
looking upon him almost as a father. I was interested in chemistry. He
knew it, and did his best to help and encourage me in my studies.
There came an afternoon in the summer of 1966, when arriving at the
Kent home, I ran upon a startling scene. The only other member of the
household was a young fellow of twenty-five, named Franz Polter. He
was a foreigner, born, I understood, in one of the Balkan Protectorates;
he was here, employed by Dr. Kent as laboratory assistant.
He had been with the Kents, at this time, two years. Alan and Babs
didn't like him, nor did I. He must have been a clever, skillful chemist.
No doubt he was. But he was, to us, repulsive. A hunchback, with a
short, thick body; dangling arms that suggested a gorilla; barrel chest; a
lump set askew on his left shoulder, and his massive head planted down
with almost no neck. His face was rugged in feature; a wide mouth, a
high-bridged heavy nose; and above the face a great shock of wavy
black hair. It was an intelligent face; in itself, not repulsive.
But I think we all three feared Franz Polter. There was always
something sinister about him, that had nothing to do with his deformity.
When I came, that afternoon, Babs and Polter were under a tree on the
Kent lawn. Babs, at fourteen, with long black braids down her back,
bare-legged and short-skirted in a summer sport costume, was standing
against the tree with Polter facing her. They were about the same height.
To my youthful imaginative mind rose the fleeting picture of a young

girl in a forest menaced by a gorilla.
I came upon them suddenly. I heard Polter say:
"But I lof you. And you are almos' a woman. Some day you lof me."
He put out his thick hand and gripped her shoulder. She tried to twist
away. She was frightened, but she laughed.
"You--you're crazy!"
He was suddenly holding her in his arms, and she was fighting him. I
dashed forward. Babs was always a spunky sort of girl. In spite of her
fear now, she kept on struggling, and she shouted:
"You--let me go, you--you hunchback!"
He did let her go; but in a frenzy of rage he hauled back his hand and
struck her in the face. I was upon him the next second. I had him down
on the lawn, punching him; but though at seventeen I was a reasonably
husky lad, the hunchback with his thick, hairy gorilla arms proved
much stronger. He heaved me off. The commotion had brought Alan
and without waiting to find out what the trouble was, he jumped on
Polter. Between us, I think we would have beaten him pretty badly. But
the housekeeper summoned Dr. Kent and the fight was over.
Polter left for good within an hour. He did not speak to any of us. But I
saw him as he put his luggage into the taxi which Dr. Kent had
summoned. I was standing silently nearby with Babs and Alan. The
look he flung us as he drove away carried an unmistakable menace--the
promise of vengeance. And I think now that in his warped and twisted
mind he was telling himself that he would some day make Babs regret
that she had repulsed his love.
What happened that night none of us ever knew. Dr. Kent worked late
in his laboratory; he was there when Alan