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Title: The Little Man Who Wasn't There
Date of first publication: 1941
Author: Barnes, Arthur K. (1909-1969)
Date first posted: Feb. 22, 2023
Date last updated: Feb. 22, 2023
Faded Page eBook #20230235

This eBook was produced by: Al Haines

This file was produced from images generously made available by The Unz Review.




[Source: Thrilling Wonder Stories, March 1941]




  James Littleman Thought His Powers of Invisibility Were a
  Visible Asset--but They Made His Profits Disappear!




  THE LITTLE MAN
  WHO WASN'T THERE


  By ARTHUR K. BARNES

  _Author of "Trouble on Titan,"
  "Waters of Wrath," etc._




Get the picture, folks.

I was just home from a tough week-end with the ponies at Caliente,
with a flock of worthless pari-mutuel stubs and a Chinese lottery
ticket.  The effect of a pint of high-class brandy was beginning to
wear off, and I was just beginning to feel sorry for myself in a big
way.

Right then there was a high-pitched _whoosh_ somewhere in the sky
over the house, a lot of popping and roaring, and a terrific thump in
the backyard.  I could feel a blast of heat clear in the front room.

So I ran out, and there was this--this thing smack in the middle of
my petunia bed.  The petunias were burned to a crisp, and so was I!
At first I thought the Nazis had come, and this was a time bomb or a
dud shell.  But then I seen it wasn't either of those.  It was
reddish-colored, and shaped like an egg.

But what an egg!  It was about four feet high and nearly five feet
from end to end.  And what made me sure it wasn't a bomb was the fact
that there were windows in it.  Also, a door.

The whole thing was so hot I couldn't approach it at first, but
pretty soon it cooled off.  Then the door opened, and a little green
man came out.  All right, all right; never mind the cracks.  It was a
little man, all dressed in green.  He was about two feet tall.

I shut my eyes and shook my head vigorously, which I've found to be
excellent treatment for little men who come out of bottles.  But he
didn't go away.  Just stood there looking up at me.  Pretty soon six
more little men came out.  Aha, I figured, it's the seven dwarfs.
But where's Snow White?

Pretty soon a whole lot of jumbled thoughts just popped into my head
from nowhere, as if somebody was talking inside my brain.  I began to
have doubts about whether that brandy had been so high class after
all.  I looked around, hoping someone would come along and tell me I
wasn't having the deetees.  But no soap.

I live in one of them broken-down southern California subdivisions
that petered out before it really got started.  My cottage is alone
at the end of a beautifully paved street, with lightless lamp posts
and grass pushing through the cracked sidewalk.  There was nobody
inside a city block to see what was going on.

All of a sudden I caught on.  The little guy was talking, in a queer,
piping gabble.  The syllables didn't sound like anything I ever
heard, but somehow I understood every word.  Sure; it was mental
telepathy!

He told me a weird story about how the egg-shaped thing was a space
ship, and how they'd come from billions of miles away through
interstellar space.  He pointed out a star in the southeast and said
that was his home.  Then he said they were getting low on fuel, and
chose to land on Earth because its physical conditions were pretty
much like those on their home planet.  They were friendly, and didn't
want to stay much longer than it would take to replenish their fuel
supply, and would I please happen to have some of the stuff, which
was very rare where they come from, on hand?

I was dumfounded, naturally.  But being very intelligent, I soon
grasped the situation.  Science, see?  Super-science of a great
civilization of little, green folk, conquering space.  I catch on
quick because I have always believed in science.  I read about it
sometimes.  It's the nuts.

And believe it or not, all they needed was a little copper.  I
searched my small change and found two pennies.  The green men
gathered around, and promptly went wild with excitement.  Thoughts of
gratitude crowded my mind till I was dizzy.



Then I remembered something.  A few months back I'd had one of those
penny boards to fill out with samples of Lincoln head cents, one of
each year's mint.  I hadn't been able to find all the required ones
and had dropped the whole thing.  But I had a lot of copper pennies
left.

I ran in and collected about three dozen and offered them to the
space travelers.  They were overwhelmed, bowing and grinning and
patting me on the leg affectionately.  They lugged my pennies into
the space ship, and then popped out again to form a solemn
semi-circle around me.  The leader raised his hand and began to spiel
a lot of nice things.  The main idea seemed to be that they were
grateful no end, and wanted to do something for me.  Just about
anything within their power to bestow--and that took in plenty of
territory.

I thought: it's just like the old fairy tale where the guy helps the
little wood sprite and gets three wishes in return.  Except that I
only got one.  So it had better be good.

I pondered, and a lot of wild nonsense went through my head.  Finally
I realized that here was the chance of a lifetime to be a big shot,
or pile up a quick fortune and live the life of Riley happily ever
after.  So I suggested:

"Could you give me the secret of how to make gold?"

No soap.  They didn't know what gold was.  So sorry.

"Well, then, how about some scientific jigger to make me invulnerable
to all weapons?"

The leader of the little men looked me over and went into a huddle
with his mob.  The verdict again was no dice.  They figured this was
too great a power to hand out to any one person, especially to one
whose character might not be the most noble.  Nothing nasty about
this remark, just a statement of fact.

The same remark was my answer to a delicate hint about a super weapon
that might make me, quite by coincidence of course, all-powerful.

It began to look as though I wouldn't make any fortune after all.
Then I thought of a slick one.

"Say, d'you happen to know how to make yourself invisible?  That'd be
an interesting power to have.  For entertainment purposes, and stuff
like that there."  I looked innocent, so as not to let the little
wise guy know what I was thinking.

He looked at me again as if he knew darn well what I had in mind, and
then smiled a bit.  One of the others went into the space ship and
brought out a funny looking gadget.  There was a circle of metal,
just big enough to fit around the head of a green man.  This was
braced inside with a criss-cross of thin bars.  And rising from this,
on a short stem, was a squat cone.

"This," came the little man's thoughts, "is an apparatus to induce
invisibility of its wearer.  This ring is placed upon the
head--normally it fits our heads but has been crudely adjusted to fit
yours;--and this tiny switch at the base of the cone is pressed."
Fortunately, I am not very big--in fact, as James Littleman, I am
well named--though somewhat on the stocky side.  "A ray-screen is
produced shooting down from the cone, completely enveloping the
wearer, which bends light rays around him.  For a period of four
hours, no more and no less, he is invisible; then the power is
exhausted."

The green man handed up a pair of small spectacles, the bows of which
had been extended and bent so I could wear 'em.  More thoughts came.

"These will permit the invisible one to see electronically, despite
the fact that no true light rays penetrate the ray-screen.  And mark
well this warning, sir.  The invisibility rays must never be allowed
to touch the head, else the delicate neurons of the brain will be
irremediably damaged, resulting in madness or death.  Other parts of
the body can withstand this force for very limited periods, but not
the brain.  This means that once this apparatus is adjusted and
operating, it cannot be removed until the power has exhausted itself.
Once invisible, the wearer must remain invisible for his allotted
four hours."

I rubbed my hands in glee and told the little men I savvied
everything.  There were more demonstrations of affection and
gratitude, worse than a reunion of tipsy fraternity brothers at
homecoming day, and then they all piled into their space ship.  I
backed off.  There was a terrific _swish_, a roaring, and there were
my petunias, completely wrecked.  But no space ship.

I grinned, hugging the invisibility device.  For forty cents I had
invested in something that would make me a fortune well inside of
four hours.  All over town there were places where money lies around
loose, just waiting for me to come in and pick it up.  They call 'em
banks.

I always did say science is the nuts.



Next ayem I had my plans laid out.  I drove downtown by ten o'clock,
parked in a lot, and ducked into the rest room in the subway.  There,
where nobody could see, I fixed the invisibility unit on my dome, put
on the goggles, and snapped the switch.  Right away everything around
me got dim and reddish.

I could see pretty well, though, except when I looked down and tried
to see myself inside the cone of rays.  That tilted the outfit on my
head and made my feet and legs visible.  Just for a second they felt
cold and numb, as if ready to drop off from frostbite.  So I didn't
try that again.

Instead, I piled out of the subway building and headed for the Third
National Bank.  Once a woman shopper barged out of a store and ran
into me before I could dodge.  She went down in a spray of bundles,
staring wildly around.

"Lady," I said with my customary patience, "whyn't you look where
you're going?"

Courteously I picked up one of her fallen packages.  She stared at
the thing as if it would bite her, her eyes rolled up at sound of my
disembodied voice, and pretty soon she passed out.  I got away from
there fast.

In the Third National the set-up was perfect.  It was Monday, and
lots of depositors were checking in their long green.  I waited till
one of the tellers left his cage.  Then I just walked in and gathered
up about six hundred bucks and stowed it away in my pocket.  It was
that easy.  I shrank aside as the teller came hurrying back and
carefully picked my way toward the front door.

Just then the teller let out a terrific squawk.

"Robbery!" he yelped.  "Bank robbers!"

Alarm bells began to hammer; people ran about aimlessly.  The big
doors automatically slammed tight and locked.  Police appeared
magically waving their guns.  And there I was, dodging and dancing
about like a lightweight contender, trying to keep out of everybody's
way, stuck with that six centuries and no way to get out.

At first it was a laugh.  A sergeant began snapping questions at the
scared teller.

"How long was you out of your cage?" he barked.

"Not more than thirty seconds."

"You sure the dough was there when you stepped out?"

"P-positive."

The officer barked at the bank guard, an old gink who hangs around
the door doing nothing much in particular.

"D'you remember if anybody went out in the las' few minutes, before
the teller yelled?"

The guard was positive.  Four people had come in, but no one had left
the bank for at least five minutes before the uproar.

"That means," thundered the sergeant, "the robber is still in this
here bank!"  Very portentous.  Drawing his gun ominously.  That kind
of stuff.  "Line up, everybody!  Against the wall!"

I had to snicker.  It sounded like a raspberry.  The copper looked
straight through me and growled, "Who said that?"

The search began, in spite of a lot of beefing from the customers.
Naturally it was a flop.  But what caught me with my--well,
unawares--was that the people, after being searched, weren't allowed
to go.  Those bank doors stayed shut, and were going to stay shut,
evidently, till the money turned up.  Then it dawned on me that I was
in trouble.  If this business went on four hours, then I would be
visible.  Also sunk.  I began to sweat.  Besides, I had other plans
of what to do with them four hours.



Finally I had to admit it.  My first skirmish was a defeat.  Or,
rather, I would have to make a strategic withdrawal.  In order to get
away I had to give up the six hundred.  Of course a man of my
intelligence is never at a loss in an emergency.  So I went over to
the manager's desk--he was a sour-puss I had never liked, which was
why I knocked off his bank in the first place--and tossed the sheaf
of bills right into his lap.

"My Gawd!" he yammered, eyes popping and gazing around in all
directions.  "Here's the money!"

The sergeant strode over.

"Where'd you find it?"

Right there the manager made his mistake.  He told the truth.

"It just dropped from nowhere into my lap.  It materialized out of
the air!"

The copper narrowed his eyes.

"Wise guy, huh?  Now quit kiddin' an' let's have the facts."

"I'm telling you, Officer, it just appeared out of nothing.  One
minute I was sitting here worrying about it, and the next minute it
flew into my lap."

"Well, I wouldn't quit worryin' if I was you.  You're gonna have
plenty to worry about if you stick to that story!"

The argument went on merrily, with the sweating manager getting in
deeper and deeper every time he opened his mouth.  I enjoyed it so
much I forgot what I was doing, and it was after eleven when I
realized that time was slipping by.

So I slipped in between two of the fidgeting customers and said,
"Well, they've found the money.  It's about time they let us out of
here, don't you think?"

The two men turned to one another and said, "You're darn right!"
simultaneously, and looked kind of foolishly at each other.  But the
idea stayed with 'em, and they began to put up a big fuss.  Before
very long the doors were opened, and I slipped outside.

My plans were all in a mess, of course; bank robbery, after my
harrowing experience, was out, but definitely.  From now on I was
allergic to banks.  I cudgeled my brains for a means of using my
temporary invisibility to pile up some quick money.  I had thought
the bank idea so foolproof that I hadn't bothered to dope out any
alternative plans.

The more I cudgeled, the less I could think of.  Offhand I couldn't
bring to mind a single place where there'd likely be any quantity of
money on hand easily available.  If you think it'd be so easy, try it
yourself.  Stores?  Penny-ante stuff.  Besides, it's quite a trick,
even if a guy is invisible, to open a cash register and lift the
money right under the vigilant nose of the clerk.  Jewelry shop?  No,
again.  Their displays are all paste gems; the real stuff is in a
vault.

Besides, I'd still have the difficulty of finding a fence to market
the stuff.  This would be true of any business which has window
displays; the best goods aren't stuck in the windows.  Race-track?
Yes, there's plenty of loose dough in the betting booths, but by the
time the track opened, it would be too late in the afternoon.  I
would be visible again.

But the race-track idea brought me true inspiration.  Bookies!  They
were illegal anyway.  It would be a sort of public service to put one
of 'em out of business, if you look at it the right way.  And I knew
one, "Odds-On" Ottomeyer, so called because he was the tightest odds
chiseler in town.  Many's the time he had wrecked a sure thing for me
by offering odds that turned out even worse than track prices.



I found Ottomeyer in the Elite Pool Hall, where he does his business
in the back room with the connivance of the slightly enriched cop on
the beat.  Odds-On was all alone in the joint, practicing on a
snooker table in the rear.  I walked up to him and stopped.  He
turned at the sound of footsteps and goggled when he didn't see
anybody.

He turned back to play the pink ball in the corner pocket.  I leaned
up close so, as the pink ball rolled straight for its target, the
pocket suddenly vanished from Ottomeyer's view.  The ball also
disappeared, as I caught it with an invisible hand and took it off
the table entirely.  Ottomeyer staggered around the table making
funny noises, desperately fumbled with the strangely behaving corner
pocket.  No pink ball.

"Strike me dead!" muttered the bookie hoarsely.  "Strike me dead!"

That was my cue.  In sepulchral tones I said:

"So happy to oblige.  You see before you the hand of retribution."

I stuck one hand out into the air before his nose, just for a second
before it got too numbed.

That was plenty.  Ottomeyer passed out in a dead faint without me
laying a finger on him.  Nobody was around to see how the middle of
Ottomeyer's body became invisible as I straddled him.  Inside the ray
screen I couldn't see what I was doing, of course, but in his wallet
I found two packages of crisp paper bound round once with another
thin strip, the way all currency comes direct from the bank.  They
rustled comfortingly.

I judged there must be at least two or three grand.  Leaving the
6-ball in Ottomeyer's coat pocket to give him something else to think
about, I beat it back to the parking lot and climbed in my car.
Science, I always say, is the nuts.

It was twelve-thirty by then.  I had an hour and a half of
invisibility left but, think as I might, I couldn't figure out
anywhere I could pick up any more heavy sugar without risk.
Especially as I was still allergic to banks, after my experience at
the Third National.

So I decided to call it a day and go on home.  After all, I was sure
I had a pretty fair return on my investment, and in spite of me being
a pretty smart guy, there was no use pushing my luck.  So I tooled my
jalopy, sitting with my head tilted back a bit so as not to allow the
ray screen to affect my feet or legs, toward the street.

Right there I ran into some unexpected trouble.  The parking lot
attendant happened to be standing near the driveway, talking to a
woman, when I wheeled by.  The two of 'em stared like hydrophobiacs
at the apparently driverless car.  The boy thought at first the car
was just coasting down the gentle incline, having slipped a faulty
brake.

He jumped on the running-board and opened the door to slide in.  I
gave him a shove.  He sat down hard in the dirt.  I tossed the
parking ticket stub at him, accelerated sharply, and turned into Hill
Street.  A quick gander back showed me the dame had collapsed in a
gibbering heap, while the attendant was gnawing one thumb and having
a tough time keeping his eyeballs from dropping out.

I never saw traffic so crazy as it was that day.  Horns blasted at me
all through the business district, and cars swerved like jitterbugs
getting out of my way.  Dozens of near accidents littered the trail
of my passing.  It was when I was well into the residential section
that the inevitable happened.  There was a wail of a siren, and a
radio patrol car pulled alongside.

"Pull over, you!" came the familiar yell, bull-headed and arrogant.

Then I saw a policeman's face lean out the window, and the official
jaw dropped six inches.

"My Gawd!" he croaked.  "They ain't nobody in it!"



Obediently, I drew up to the curb with the engine idling, cussing
silently.  Fate was sure making it tough for me to be a
super-criminal.  I couldn't outrun a radio car, and a sensation was
the last thing I wanted to create at the moment.  Instead, I decided
to outwit the law with my superior intelligence.  The two wondering
officers stalked up to my car and flung open the door with a dramatic
gesture.  Two silly grins wavered uncertainly.

"It just ain't possible," one cop said.  "Or maybe it's a ghost."

"I can see the captain's face when he reads our report on this," the
second one said.  "D'ya think maybe we oughta ignore the whole thing?"

"We can't.  We got the call over the radio to investigate.  I better
drive it in to the station, I guess."

He started to climb in.  The situation was desperate, when I got an
inspiration.  Making my voice metallic as possible, I chanted:

"Please do not touch anything in this automobile.  It is an
experimental machine, operated by remote radio control.  Please do
not touch anything in this automobile.  It is an experimental
machine, operated by remote radio control."

The two cops nodded together as though they were tied to the same
string.

"Aah-h, so that's it," one said with relief.

They looked around comically to see where the remote control
apparatus could be broadcasting from, and decided it must be one of
the few parked cars visible.  They never thought it odd that there
was no radio nor aerial in my heap.  They were dopes, sure enough.
While they stood there debating the situation, I shifted quietly and
drove away.  Once again science was my ally.  I figured it was a good
omen.

Finally I got home safe a little after one o'clock and carried the
Ottomeyer loot into the house.  Careful not to expose my hands to the
screen of rays, I tossed the two bundles onto the table to examine my
haul.

The first was a sheaf of canceled checks.  The other was a stack of
betting markers.  Can you beat it?

I couldn't tear my hair or even bury my head in my hands; that would
have wrecked my fingers in the rays.  All I could do was sit there
like a dummy and groan and swear.



Then the telephone rang.  I bellied up to it till it was invisible
and unracked the receiver.

"Is this University 2841?" a voice sounding kind of Oriental asked.
"Mr. James Littleman?"

"It is.  But Mr. Littleman can't be seen right now."  Pretty good,
huh?

"Our information," come back the other guy very bland, "is that Mr.
Littleman is possessor of Chinese lottery ticket number 3X4049.  Is
this true?"

"Sure.  So what?  Y' mean to say I'm a winner?"

"Precisely.  3X4049 pays to its holder one thousand dollars.  To
collect, you must appear in person before two o'clock this afternoon,
at the lottery headquarters.  The address on Main Street is printed
on your ticket.  Congratulations, Mr. Littleman."

My jubilance was short-lived.  "Two p.m.!" I yelled.  "That's
impossible!  You gotta give me more time!"

"So sorry," came the imperturbable voice.  "It is the rule.  So
printed upon the back of your ticket.  We have been trying to get you
by telephone all morning."

"But I can't appear personally till after two.  I'm invisible till
then!"

There was a shocked silence at the other end of the wire, then the
connection was quietly broken.  I think my reason tottered.  I would
have committed suicide right then, only I couldn't see where to shoot
myself.

What was it I always said about science?  Aw, nuts!


[The end of _The Little Man Who Wasn't There_ by Author]