THE SKYSCRAPER IN B FLAT (4)
By:
March 24, 2025
“The Skyscraper in B Flat,” which originally appeared in The Black Cat (June 1904), is is an example of proto-sf’s fascination with the power of vibrations. HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize the story for HILOBROW’s readers.
ALL INSTALLMENTS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5.
“Another string gone!” ejaculated the dealer. “Every blessed piano in this shop, I believe, has snapped its B-flat string since last evening. It’s the noise from that cursed building of yours.”
Getting up, he fingered half a dozen keyboards till he found one still intact, and struck the B flat sharply. The note was exactly attuned to the vast hum from the shaking skyscraper. A moment later and this string also flew asunder.
“The Platte Building is tuned to B flat,” observed the musician, dryly. “Every piece of metal has its musical note, you know. If you struck this note inside your building it would set every frame vibrating. You haven’t had any brass bands playing there lately, have you?”
Bond’s mind caught the idea like a flash. He recollected some elementary experiments in physics, and the laws of vibrations. He thought hard for a half minute, and then hurried back to the street, without having touched the telephone.
As he returned toward the skyscraper he glanced up, and his heart misgave him. The risk was too great. The enormous dismantled framework seemed to sway till it almost overhung the adjoining buildings. But, mustering his nerve, he went on, pushing roughly through the packed crowd. The police, recognizing him, let him through the lines, but when they saw him approach the crumbling doorway, they ran after him, shouting. But by that time he was already upon the stair.
Bond had not been used to much violent exercise lately, but he went up the eight flights of the circular stairway at a run, without noticing them. The jar and sway of the floors was like the sickening heave of an earthquake. Through the broken walls the light poured freely, mingling with the glow of electricity in the halls. The floors were littered with every sort of office supply — the doors were splintered and swinging. The building looked as if it had been shelled and afterwards looted.
On the topmost floor the motion was so violent that he was obliged to lean against it to keep his balance. The wreckers had not ascended so high, and all the doors were still shut and locked along the hall. In fact, few of the rooms on this floor had even been rented, and it was used mostly for storage.
At the extreme end of the hall a door bore the gilt sign: —
GOTTHARD KLEIN, VIOLIN MAKER.
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS REBUILT AND REPAIRED.
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: James Parker’s Cocky the Fox | Annalee Newitz’s “The Great Oxygen Race” | Matthew Battles’s “Imago” | & many more original and reissued novels and stories.