The 27th Golden Age of Science Fiction Page 5

  “No-o,” she said dubiously. “No trouble. I just wanted to ask you a few hypothetical questions. About science.”

  “Go to it, then, and quickly. I was ready to turn in.”

  “Well,” said Pat, “about Nick’s father. He was a doctor, you said, and supposed to be cracked. Was he really?”

  “Humph! That’s curious. I just looked up a brochure of his tonight in the American Medical Journal, after our conversation of this afternoon. Why do you ask that?”

  “Because I’m interested, of course.”

  “Well, here’s what I remember about him, Pat. He was an M.D., all right, but I see by his paper there—the one I was reading—that he was on the staff of Northern U. He did some work at the Cook County Asylum, some research work, and there was a bit of talk about his maltreating the patients. Then, on top of that, he published a paper that medical men considered crazy, and that started talk of his sanity. That’s all I know.”

  “Then Nick—.”

  “I thought so! So it’s come to the point where you’re investigating his antecedents, eh? With an eye to marriage, or what?”

  “Or what!” snapped Pat. “I was curious to know, naturally.”

  “Naturally.” The Doctor gave her a keen glance from his shrewd eyes. “Did you think you detected incipient dementia in your ideal?”

  “No,” said the girl thoughtfully. “Dr. Carl, is there any sort of craziness that could take an ordinarily shy person and make a passionate devil of him? I don’t mean passionate, either,” she added. “Rather cold, ruthless, domineering.”

  “None that I know of,” said Horker, watching her closely. “Did this Nick of yours have one of his masterful moments?”

  “Worse than that,” admitted Pat reluctantly. “We had a near accident, and it startled both of us, and then suddenly, he was looking at me like a devil, and then—” She paused. “It frightened me a little.”

  “What’d he do?” demanded Horker sharply.

  “Nothing.” She lied with no hesitation.

  “Were there any signs of Satyromania?”

  “I don’t know. I never heard of that.”

  “I mean, in plain Americanese, did he make a pass at you?”

  “He—no, he didn’t.”

  “Well, what did he do?”

  “He just looked at me.” Somehow a feeling of disloyalty was rising in her; she felt a reluctance to betray Nick further.

  “What did he say, then? And don’t lie this time.”

  “He just said—He just looked at my legs and said something about their being beautiful, and that was all. After that, the look on his face faded into the old Nick.”

  “Old Nick is right—the impudent scoundrel!” Horker’s voice rumbled angrily.

  “Well, they’re nice legs,” said Pat defiantly, swinging them as evidence. “You’ve said it yourself. Why shouldn’t he say it? What’s to keep him from it?”

  “The code of a gentleman, for one thing!”

  “Oh, who cares for your Victorian codes! Anyway, I came here for information, not to be cross-examined. I want to ask the questions myself.”

  “Pat, you’re a reckless little spit-fire, and you’re going to get burned some day, and deserve it,” the Doctor rumbled ominously. “Ask your fool questions, and then I’ll ask mine.”

  “All right,” said the girl, still defiant. “I don’t guarantee to answer yours, however.”

  “Well, ask yours, you imp!”

  “First, then—Is that Satyro-stuff you mentioned intermittent or continuous?”

  “It’s necessarily intermittent, you numb-skull! The male organism can’t function continuously!”

  “I mean, does the mania lie dormant for weeks or months, and then flare up?”

  “Not at all. It’s a permanent mania, like any other psychopathic sex condition.”

  “Oh,” said Pat thoughtfully, with a sense of relief.

  “Well, go on. What next?”

  “What are these dual personalities you read about in the papers?”

  “They’re aphasias. An individual forgets his name, and he picks, or is given, another, if he happens to wander among strangers. He forgets much of his past experience; the second personality is merely what’s left of the first—sort of a vestige of his normal character. There isn’t any such thing as a dual personality in the sense of two distinct characters living in one body.”

  “Isn’t there?” queried the girl musingly. “Could the second personality have qualities that the first one lacked?”

  “Not any more than it could have an extra finger! The second is merely a split off the first, a forgetfulness, a loss of memory. It couldn’t have more qualities than the whole, or normal, character; it must have fewer.”

  “Isn’t that just too interesting!” said Pat in a bantering tone. “All right, Dr. Carl. It’s your turn.”

  “Then what’s the reason for all this curiosity about perversions and aphasias? What’s happened to your genius now?”

  “Oh, I’m thinking of taking up the study of psychiatry,” replied the girl cheerfully.

  “Aren’t you going to answer me seriously?”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s the use of my asking questions?”

  “I know the right answer to that one. None!”

  “Pat,” said Horker in a low voice, “you’re an impudent little hoyden, and too clever for your own good, but you and your mother are very precious to me. You know that.”

  “Of course I do, Dr. Carl,” said the girl, relenting. “You’re a dear, and I’m crazy about you, and you know that, too.”

  “What I’m trying to say,” proceeded the other, “is simply that I’m trying to help you. I want to help you, if you need help. Do you?”

  “I guess I don’t, Dr. Carl, but you’re sweet.”

  “Are you in love with this Nicholas Devine?”

  “I think perhaps I am,” she admitted softly.

  “And is he in love with you?”

  “Frankly, could he help being?”

  “Then there’s something about him that worries you. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “I thought there was, Dr. Carl. I was a little startled by the change in him right after we had that narrow escape, but I’m sure it was nothing—just imagination. Honestly, that’s all that troubled me.”

  “I believe you, Pat,” said the Doctor, his eyes fixed on hers. “But guard yourself, my dear. Be sure he’s what you think he is; be sure you know him rightly.”

  “He’s clean and fine,” murmured the girl. “I am sure.”

  “But this puzzling yourself about his character, Pat—I don’t like it. Make doubly sure before you permit your feelings to become too deeply involved. That’s only common sense, child, not psychiatry or magic.”

  “I’m sure,” repeated Pat. “I’m not puzzled or troubled any more. And thanks, Dr. Carl. You run along to bed and I’ll do likewise.”

  He rose, accompanying her to the door, his face unusually grave.

  “Patricia,” he said, “I want you to think over what I’ve said. Be sure, be doubly sure, before you expose yourself to the possibility of suffering. Remember that, won’t you?”

  “I’ll try to. Don’t fret yourself about it, Dr. Carl; I’m a hard-boiled young modern, and it takes a diamond to even scratch me.”

  “I hope so,” he said soberly. “Run along; I’ll watch until you’re inside.”

  Pat darted across the strip of grass, turned at her door to blow a goodnight kiss to the Doctor, and slipped in. She tiptoed quietly to her room, slipped off her dress, and surveyed her long, slim legs in the mirror.

  “Why shouldn’t he say they were beautiful?” she queried of the image. “I can’t see any reason to get excited over a simple compliment like that.”

  Sh
e made a face over her shoulder at the green Buddha above the fireplace.

  “And as for you, fat boy,” she murmured, “I expect to see you wink at me tonight. And every night hereafter!”

  She prepared herself for slumber, slipped into the great bed. She had hardly closed her lids before the image of a leering face with terrible bloody eyes flamed out of memory and set her trembling and shuddering.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Red Eyes Return

  “I suppose I really ought to meet your friends, Patricia,” said Mrs. Lane, peering out of the window, “but they all seem to call when I’m not at home.”

  “I’ll have some of them call in February,” said Pat. “You’re not out as often in February.”

  “Why do you say I’m not out as often in February?” demanded her mother. “I don’t see what earthly difference the month makes.”

  “There are fewer days in February,” retorted Pat airily.

  “Facetious brat!”

  “So I’ve been told. You needn’t worry, though, Mother; I’m sober, steady, and reliable, and if I weren’t, Dr. Carl would see to it that my associates were.”

  “Yes; Carl is a gem,” observed her mother. “By the way, who’s this Nicholas you’re so enthusiastic about?”

  “He’s a boy I met.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Well, he speaks English and wears a hat.”

  “Imp! Is he nice?”

  “That means is his family acceptable, doesn’t it? He hasn’t any family.”

  Mrs. Lane shrugged her attractive shoulders. “You’re a self-reliant sort, Patricia, and cool as iced lettuce, like your father. I don’t doubt that you can manage your own affairs, and here comes Claude with the car.” She gave the girl a hasty kiss. “Good-bye, and have a good time, as I’m sure I shan’t with Bret Cutter in the game.”

  Pat watched her mother’s trim, amazingly youthful figure as she entered the car. More like a companion than a parent, she mused; she liked the independence her mother’s attitude permitted her.

  “Better than being watched like a prize-winning puppy,” she thought. “Maybe Dr. Carl as a father would have a detriment or two along with the advantages. He’s a dear, and I’m mad about him, but he does lean to the nineteenth century as far as parental duties are concerned.”

  She saw Nick’s car draw to the curb; as he emerged she waved from the window and skipped into the hall. She caught up her wrap and bounded out to meet him just ascending the steps.

  “Let’s go!” she greeted him. She cast an apprehensive glance at his features, but there was nothing disturbing about him. He gave her a diffident smile, the shy, gentle smile that had taken her in that first moment of meeting. This was certainly no one but her own Nick, with no trace of the unsettling personality of their last encounter.

  He helped her into the car, seating himself at her side. He leaned over her, kissing her very tenderly; suddenly she was clinging to him, her face against the thrilling warmth of his cheek.

  “Nick!” she murmured. “Nick! You’re just safely you, aren’t you? I’ve been imagining things that I knew couldn’t be so!”

  He slipped his arm caressingly about her, and the pressure of it was like the security of encircling battlements. The world was outside the circle of his arms; she was within, safe, inviolable. It was some moments before she stirred, lifting her pert face with tear-bright eyes from the obscurity of his shoulder.

  “So!” she exclaimed, patting the black glow of her hair into composure. “I feel better, Nick, and I hope you didn’t mind.”

  “Mind!” he ejaculated. “If you mean that as a joke, Honey, it’s far too subtle for me.”

  “Well, I didn’t think you’d mind,” said Pat demurely, settling herself beside him. “Let’s be moving, then; Dr. Carl is nearly popping his eyes out in the window there.”

  The car hummed into motion; she waved a derisive arm at the Doctor’s window by way of indicating her knowledge of his surveillance. “Ought to teach him a lesson some time,” she thought. “One of these fine evenings I’ll give him a real shock.”

  “Where’ll we go?” queried Nick, veering skilfully into the swift traffic of Sheridan Road.

  “Anywhere!” she said blithely. “Who cares as long as we go together?”

  “Dancing?”

  “Why not? Know a good place?”

  “No.” He frowned in thought. “I haven’t indulged much.”

  “The Picador?” she suggested. “The music’s good, and it’s not too expensive. But it’s ’most across town, and besides, Saturday nights we’d be sure to run into some of the crowd.”

  “What of it?”

  “I want to dance with you, Nick—all evening. I want to be without distractions.”

  “Pat, dear! I could kiss you for that.”

  “You will,” she murmured softly.

  They moved aimlessly south with the traffic, pausing momentarily at the light-controlled intersections, then whirring again to rapid motion. The girl leaned against his arm silently, contentedly; block after block dropped behind.

  “Why so pensive, Honey?” he asked after an interval. “I’ve never known you so quiet before.”

  “I’m enjoying my happiness, Nick.”

  “Aren’t you usually happy?”

  “Of course, only these last two or three days, ever since our last date, I’ve been making myself miserable. I’ve been telling myself foolish things, impossible things, and it’s only now that I’ve thrown off the blues. I’m happy, Dear!”

  “I’m glad you are,” he said. His voice was strangely husky, and he stared fixedly at the street rushing toward them. “I’m glad you are,” he repeated, a curious tensity in his tones.

  “So’m I.”

  “I’ll never do anything to make you unhappy, Pat—never. Not—if I can help it.”

  “You can help it, Nick. You’re the one making me happy; please keep doing it.”

  “I—hope to.” There was a queer catch in his voice. It was almost as if he feared something.

  “Selah!” said Pat conclusively. She was thinking, “Wrong of me to refer to that accident. After all it was harmless; just a natural burst of passion. Might happen to anyone.”

  “Where’ll we go?” asked Nick as they swung into the tree-shadowed road of Lincoln Park. “We haven’t decided that.”

  “Anywhere,” said the girl dreamily. “Just drive; we’ll find a place.”

  “You must know lots of them.”

  “We’ll find a new place; we’ll discover it for ourselves. It’ll mean more, doing that, than if we just go to one of the old places where I’ve been with every boy that ever dated me. You don’t want me dancing with a crowd of memories, do you?”

  “I shouldn’t mind as long as they stayed merely memories.”

  “Well, I should! This evening’s to be ours—exclusively ours.”

  “As if it could ever be otherwise!”

  “Indeed?” said Pat. “And how do you know what memories I might choose to carry along? Are you capable of inspecting my mental baggage?”

  “We’ll check it at the door. You’re traveling light tonight, aren’t you?”

  “Pest!” she said, giving his cheek an impudent vicious pinch. “Nice, pleasurable pest!”

  He made no answer. The car was idling rather slowly along Michigan Boulevard; half a block ahead glowed the green of a traffic light. Faster traffic flowed around them, passing them like water eddying about a slow floating branch.

  Suddenly the car lurched forward. The amber flame of the warning light had flared out; they flashed across the intersection a split second before the metallic click of the red light, and a scant few feet before the converging lines of traffic from the side street swept in with protesting horns.

  “Nick!” the girl gasped. “
You’ll rate yourself a traffic ticket! Why’d you cut the light like that?”

  “To lose your guardian angel,” he muttered in tones so low she barely understood his words.

  Pat glanced back; the lights of a dozen cars showed beyond the barrier of the red signal.

  “Do you mean one of those cars was following us? What on earth makes you think that, and why should it, anyway?”

  The other made no answer; he swerved the car abruptly off the avenue, into one of the nondescript side streets. He drove swiftly to the corner, turned south again, and turned again on some street Pat failed to identify—South Superior or Grand, she thought. They were scarcely a block from the magnificence of Michigan Avenue and its skyscrapers, its brilliant lights, and its teeming night traffic, yet here they moved down a deserted dark thoroughfare, a street lined with ramshackle wooden houses intermingled with mean little shops.

  “Nick!” Pat exclaimed. “Where are we going?”

  The low voice sounded. “Dancing,” he said.

  He brought the car to the curb; in the silence as the motor died, the faint strains of a mechanical piano sounded. He opened the car door, stepped around to the sidewalk.

  “We’re here,” he said.

  Something metallic in his tone drew Pat’s eyes to his face. The eyes that returned her stare were the bloody orbs of the demon of last Wednesday night!

  CHAPTER 8

  Gateway to Evil

  Pat stared curiously at the apparition but made no move to alight from the vehicle. She was conscious of no fear, only a sense of wonder and perplexity. After all, this was merely Nick, her own harmless, adoring Nick, in some sort of mysterious masquerade, and she felt full confidence in her ability to handle him under any circumstances.

  “Where’s here?” she said, remaining motionless in her place.

  “A place to dance,” came the toneless reply.

  Pat eyed him; a street car rumbled past, and the brief glow from its lighted windows swept over his face. Suddenly the visage was that of Nick; the crimson glare of the eyes was imperceptible, and the features were the well-known appurtenances of Nicholas Devine, but queerly tensed and strained.

  “A trick of the light,” she thought, as the street car lumbered away, and again a faint gleam of crimson appeared. She gazed curiously at the youth, who stood impassively returning her survey as he held the door of the car. But the face was the face of Nick, she perceived, probably in one of his grim moods.