Фредерик Браун. Night of the Jabberwock(енгл)


  BANTAM BOOKS 990
 Printing History:
 Dutton Edition Published December, 1950
 1st Printing October, 1950
 Unicorn Mystery Book Club Edition Published February, 1951
 Bantam Edition Published April, 1952
 1st Printing March, 1952
 Copyright, 1950, by Fredric Brown



     ALL VERSES INTRODUCING
     CHAPTERS ARE FROM THE WORKS
     OF CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON,
     KNOWN IN WONDERLAND AS LEWIS
     CARROLL.






        CHAPTER ONE

          'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
                 Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
          All mimsy were the borogoves,
                 And the mome raths outgrabe.

     In my dream I was  standing in the middle of Oak Street and it was dark
night. The street lights were off; only  pale moonlight glinted on the  huge
sword that I swung in circles about my head as the  Jabberwock crept closer.
It bellied along the pavement, flexing its wings and tensing its muscles for
the final  rush; its claws clicked  against the stones like the  clicking of
mats down the channels of a Linotype. Then, astonishingly, it spoke.
     "Doc," it said. "Wake up, Doc."
     A hand - not the hand of a Jabberwock - was shaking my shoulder.
     And it  was early dusk instead of black night and I  was sitting in the
swivel chair at my battered desk, looking over my shoulder at Pete. Pete was
grinning at me.
     "We're  in, Doc," he  said. "You'll have to cut two lines on this  last
take and we're in. Early, for once."
     He put a galley proof down in front of me, only one stick of type long.
I  picked up a blue pencil and knocked off two lines and they happened to be
an even sentence, so Pete wouldn't have to reset anything.
     He went over to the  Linotype and  shut it off and it was suddenly very
quiet in the place, so quiet that I could hear the drip of the faucet way in
the far corner.
     I stood up  and stretched, feeling good, although a little  groggy from
having dozed off while Pete was setting that  final take.  For once, for one
Thursday, the  Carmel City Clarion was ready for the press early. Of course,
there wasn't any real news in it, but then there never was.
     And only half-past six and not yet dark outside. We were through  hours
earlier than usual. I decided that that called for a drink, here and now.
     The bottle in my desk turned  out to have enough  whisky in it  for one
healthy  drink or two short ones. I asked Pete if  he wanted a snort and  he
said no, not  yet, he'd  wait till  he  got over to  Smiley's, so  I treated
myself to a healthy drink, as I'd hoped to be  able to do.  And it had  been
fairly safe to ask Pete; he seldom took  one  before he was through for  the
day,  and although my  part of the  job was done  Pete  still  had almost an
hour's work ahead of him on the mechanical end.
     The drink made a warm spot under my belt as I walked over to the window
by the Linotype and stood staring out into the quiet dusk. The lights of Oak
Street flashed on while I  stood there.  I'd been dreaming - what had I been
dreaming?
     On the sidewalk across the  street Miles Harrison hesitated in front of
Smiley's Tavern as though the thought of a cool glass of beer tempted him. I
could almost feel his  mind  working: "No, I'm a  deputy  sheriff of  Carmel
County  and I  have a job to do yet  tonight and I  don't drink while I'm on
duty. The beer can wait."
     Yes, his conscience must have won, because he walked on.
     I wonder now - although of course I didn't wonder then - whether, if he
had known that he would  be dead  before midnight, he wouldn't have  stopped
for that beer. I think he would have. I know I would have,  but that doesn't
prove anything because I'd have done  it anyway; I've never had a conscience
like Miles Harrison's.
     Behind me, at the stone, Pete was putting the final  stick of type into
the chase of the front page. He said, "Okay, Doc, she fits. We're in."
     "Let the presses roll," I told him.
     Just a manner of speaking,  of course. There was only  one press and it
didn't roll, because it was a Miehle vertical that shuttled up and down. And
it wouldn't even do that until morning. The  Clarion is a weekly  paper that
comes out on Friday; we put it to bed on Thursday evening and  Pete  runs it
off the press Friday morning. And it's not much of a run.
     Pete asked, "You going over to Smiley's?"
     That was a  silly question; I always go over to Smiley's on a  Thursday
evening and usually, when he's finished locking up the forms, Pete joins me,
at least for a while. "Sure," I told him.
     "I'll bring you a stone proof, then," Pete said.
     Pete always does that, although  I seldom  do more than  glance at  it.
Pete's too good  a printer for me  ever to catch any important errors on him
and as for minor typographicals, Carmel City doesn't mind them.
     I  was free and Smiley's  was waiting, but for some reason I wasn't  in
any hurry to leave. It was pleasant, after the hard work of a Thursday - and
don't let that  short nap fool you; I had been working  - to stand there and
watch  the  quiet  street  in  the  quiet  twilight, and to  contemplate  an
intensive campaign of  doing nothing for the rest of the evening, with a few
drinks to help me do it.
     Miles  Harrison, a  dozen  paces  past  Smiley's, stopped, turned,  and
headed back. Good, I thought, I'll have someone to drink with. I turned away
from the window and put on my suit coat and hat.
     I said, "Be seeing you, Pete," and I went  down the stairs and out into
the warm summer evening.
     I'd misjudged Miles Harrison; he  was  coming  out of Smiley's already,
too soon  even  to  have had  a quick one,  and  he  was opening a  pack  of
cigarettes. He saw me and waved, waiting  in front of Smiley's door to light
a cigarette while I crossed the street.
     "Have a drink with me, Miles," I suggested.
     He  shook his head regretfully. "Wish I could, Doc. But I got a  job to
do later. You know, go with  Ralph Bonney over  to Neilsville to get his pay
roll."
     Sure, I knew. In a small town everybody knows everything.
     Ralph Bonney owned the Bonney Fireworks Company, just outside of Carmel
City.  They  made fireworks,  mostly  big  pieces  for  fairs  and municipal
displays, that were sold all over the  country. And during the few months of
each year up to about the first of July they  worked a day and a night shift
to meet the Fourth of July demand.
     And Ralph  Bonney had something against Clyde Andrews, president of the
Carmel City  Bank,  and  did  his banking  in  Neilsville. He drove  over to
Neilsville late every Thursday night and  they opened the bank there to give
him  the  cash  for  his night  shift pay roll. Miles  Harrison,  as  deputy
sheriff, always went along as guard.
     Always seemed like a  silly procedure to me, as the night side pay roll
didn't amount to  more than a few thousand dollars and Bonney could have got
it along with the cash for his day side pay roll and  held it at the office,
but that was his way of doing things.
     I said, "Sure, Miles, but that's not for hours yet. And one drink isn't
going to hurt you."
     He grinned.  "I  know it wouldn't, but I'd probably  take another  just
because the first one didn't  hurt  me.  So I stick to the rule that I don't
have even one drink till I'm off duty for  the day,  and if I don't stick to
it I'm sunk. But thanks just the same, Doc. I'll take a rain check."
     He had a  point, but I wish he hadn't made it. I wish  he'd  let me buy
him that drink, or several of them, because that rain check wasn't worth the
imaginary  paper  it was printed  on to a man  who was going to be  murdered
before midnight.
     But I didn't know that, and I didn't insist. I said, "Sure, Miles," and
asked him about his kids.
     "Fine, both of 'em. Drop out and see us sometime."
     "Sure," I said, and I went into Smiley's.
     Big, bald Smiley  Wheeler was  alone. He smiled as I came in and  said,
"Hi,  Doc. How's the editing business?"  And then he laughed as though  he'd
said something excruciatingly funny.  Smiley hasn't  the ghost of a sense of
humor  and he has the mistaken  idea that he disguises that fact by laughing
at almost everything he says or hears said.
     "Smiley, you  give me  a pain,"  I told  him.  It's always safe to tell
Smiley a truth  like that; no  matter  how seriously you say and mean it; he
thinks you're joking. If he'd laughed  I'd have told  him where he gave me a
pain, but for once he didn't laugh.
     He said, "Glad you got here early, Doc. It's damn dull this evening."
     "It's dull every evening in Carmel City," I told  him. "And most of the
time I like  it.  But Lord, if only something  would  happen  just once on a
Thursday evening, I'd love it. Just once in my long career, I'd like to have
one hot story to break to a panting public."
     "Hell, Doc, nobody looks for hot news in a country weekly."
     "I know," I  said.  "That's why  I'd like to fool them just once.  I've
been running the Clarion twenty-three years. One hot story. Is  that much to
ask?"
     Smiley frowned. "There've been a couple of burglaries.  And one murder,
a few years ago."
     "Sure,"  I said, "and so what? One of the factory hands out at Bonney's
got in a drunken argument  with another and hit  him  too hard in the  fight
they  got  into.  That's not  murder; that's  manslaughter,  and  anyway  it
happened on a Saturday and it was  old  stuff - everybody in town knew about
it - by the next Friday when the Clarion came out."
     "They buy your paper  anyway, Doc. They look for their names for having
attended church socials and who's got a used washing machine for sale  and -
want a drink?"
     "It's about time one of us thought of that," I said.
     He poured a shot for me and, so I wouldn't have to drink alone, a short
one  for himself.  We drank them and I  asked him, "Think Carl  will  be  in
tonight?"
     I meant Carl Trenholm, the  lawyer,  who's about my  closest friend  in
Carmel City, and one  of the three or four in town who play chess and can be
drawn  into  an  intelligent  discussions of  something  besides  crops  and
politics. Carl often dropped in Smiley's  on Thursday evenings, knowing that
I always came in for at least a few drinks after putting the paper to bed.
     "Don't  think  so," Smiley said. "Carl was in most of the afternoon and
got himself kind of  a snootful, to celebrate. He got through in court early
and he won his case. Guess he went home to sleep it off."
     I said, "Damn. Why couldn't he  have waited till this evening? I'd have
helped  him -  Say, Smiley, did you say Carl was celebrating  because he won
that case? Unless we're talking about two different  things, he lost it. You
mean the Bonney divorce?"
     "Yeah."
     "Then Carl  was representing Ralph  Bonney, and  Bonney's wife won  the
divorce."
     "You got it that way in the paper, Doc?"
     "Sure," I said. "It's the nearest thing I've  got to  a good story this
week."
     Smiley shook his head. "Carl was saying to me he hoped you wouldn't put
it in, or anyway  that  you'd hold it down to a short squib,  just  the fact
that she got the divorce."
     I said, "I don't get it, Smiley. Why? And didn't Carl lose the case?"
     Smiley leaned forward  confidentially across the bar, although he and I
were  the  only ones  in his  place. He said,  "It's  like this, Doc. Bonney
wanted the divorce. That wife of his was a bitch, see?  Only  he didn't have
any  grounds to  sue on, himself - not  any that he'd  have  been willing to
bring up  in  court, anyway, see? So he - well, kind of bought  his freedom.
Gave her  a settlement if she'd do the suing, and he admitted to the grounds
she gave against him. Where'd you get your version of the story?"
     "From the judge," I said.
     "Well, he just saw the outside of it. Carl says Bonney's a good joe and
those cruelty  charges were a bunch of hokum.  He never laid a hand on  her.
But the  woman  was  such  hell on  wheels  that Bonney'd  have  admitted to
anything to get free of her. And give her a settlement of a hundred grand on
top of it. Carl was worried about the  case because the cruelty charges were
so damn silly on the face of them."
     "Hell,"  I  said,  "that's not  the  way  it's  going to  sound  in the
Clarion."
     "Carl  was  saying he knew you couldn't tell the truth about the story,
but he hoped you'd  play  it down. Just  saying Mrs. B. had  been  granted a
divorce and that  a settlement  had  been made, and not  putting in anything
about the charges."
     I  thought  of my one  real  story of the  week, and  how carefully I'd
enumerated  all  those  charges Bonney's  wife bad  made  against him, and I
groaned at the thought of having to rewrite or cut the story. And cut it I'd
have to, now that I knew the facts.
     I said, "Damn Carl, why didn't he come  and tell  me about it before  I
wrote the story and put the paper to bed?"
     "He thought about doing that,  Doc. And then  he decided he didn't want
to use his friendship with you to influence the way you reported news."
     "The  damn fool,"  I said. "And  all  he had to  do was walk across the
street."
     "But Carl did say that Bonney's a swell guy and it would be a bad break
for  him if you listed those charges  because none of them were really  true
and-"
     "Don't  rub it in," I interrupted him. "I'll change the story.  If Carl
says it's that way, I'll believe  him. I  can't say that the charges weren't
true, but at least I can leave them out."
     "That'd be swell of you, Doc."
     "Sure it would.  All right, give me one more drink, Smiley, and I'll go
over and catch it before Pete leaves."
     I had the  one more drink, cussing myself for being sap enough to spoil
the only mentionable story I had,  but knowing I had to do it. I didn't know
Bonney personally, except just to say hello to on the street, but I did know
Carl Trenholm well enough to be damn sure that if he said Bonney was  in the
right, the story wasn't fair the way I'd written it. And I knew Smiley  well
enough  to  be sure he hadn't given me  a bum steer on what Carl  had really
said.
     So I grumbled my way back across the street and upstairs to the Clarion
office. Pete was just tightening the chase around the front page.
     He loosened the quoins when I told him what we had to  do, and I walked
around the stone so I could read the story again, upside down, of course, as
type is always read.
     The  first paragraph could  stand as  written and  could constitute the
entire story. I told Pete to put the rest of the type in the hell-box  and I
went over  to the  case  and set a short head in  tenpoint, "Bonney  Divorce
Granted," to replace the twenty-four point head that had been on  the longer
story. I handed Pete the stick and watched while he switched heads.
     "Leaves about a nine-inch hole in the page," he said. "What'll we stick
in it?"
     I sighed. "Have to use filler," I told him. "Not on the front page, but
we'll have to find something on page four we  can move front  and then stick
in nine inches of filler where it came from."
     I wandered down  the stone  to page four and picked up a pica  stick to
measure things. Pete went over to the rack and got a galley of filler. About
the only  thing  that  was  anywhere near  the right size was the story that
Clyde Andrews, Carmel City's banker and  leading  light of the local Baptist
Church,  had given me about the rummage sale the church had planned for next
Tuesday evening.
     It  wasn't exactly a story of earth-shaking importance, but it would be
about the right length if we reset it indented to go in a box.  And it had a
lot of names  in it,  and that meant it would please a lot  of  people,  and
particularly Clyde Andrews, if I moved it up to the front page.
     So we moved it. Rather, Pete reset it for a front page box item while I
plugged the gap in page four with filler items and locked up the page again.
Pete  had the rummage  sale item reset by the time  I'd  finished  with page
four, and this time I waited for him to  finish up page one, so we could  go
to Smiley's together.
     I  thought about .that front page  while  I washed my hands.  The Front
Page. Shades of Hecht and MacArthur. Poor revolving Horace Greeley.
     Now I really wanted a drink.
     Pete was  starting to  pound out a  stone proof  and I told  him not to
bother. Maybe the customers would read page one, but I wasn't going  to. And
if there was an upside-down headline or a pied paragraph,  it would probably
be an improvement.
     Pete  washed up and  we  locked  the  door.  It  was  still early for a
Thursday evening, not much after seven. I should have been happy about that,
and I probably would have been if we'd had a good paper. As for the one we'd
just put to bed, I wondered if it would live until morning.
     Smiley had a couple of other customers and was waiting on  them,  and I
wasn't in any mood to  wait for Smiley so I  went around  behind the bar and
got the  Old Henderson  bottle and two glasses  and took them to a table for
Pete and myself. Smiley  and I know one another  well  enough so it's always
all right  for me to help myself, any time  it's convenient and settle  with
him afterward.
     I poured drinks for Pete and me. We drank and Pete  said, "Well, that's
that for another week, Doc."
     I wondered how many times  he'd said that in the ten years  he'd worked
for me, and  then  I got to wondering how  many times I'd thought  it, which
would be-
     "How much is fifty-two times twenty-three, Pete?" I asked him.
     "Huh? A hell of a lot. Why?"
     I  figured it myself. "Fifty times  twenty-three is - one  thousand one
hundred and fifty; twice  twenty-three more makes  eleven ninety-six.  Pete,
eleven  hundred  and ninety six times have  I put that  paper to  bed  on  a
Thursday night and never once was there a really big hot news story in it."
     "This isn't Chicago, Doe. What do you expect, a murder?"
     "I'd love a murder," I told him.
     It would  have been funny if  Pete had said, "Doc, how'd you like three
in one night?"
     But he  didn't, of course. In a way, though, he said something that was
even  funnier. He said, "But suppose it  was a  friend of  yours?  Your best
friend, say.  Carl  Trenholm.  Would you want  him  killed just to  give the
Clarion a story?"
     "Of course not," I said. "Preferably somebody  I don't know at all - if
there is anybody in Carmel City I don't know at all. Let's make it Yehudi."
     "Who's Yehudi?" Pete asked.
     I looked at Pete to see if he was kidding me, and apparently he wasn't,
so I explained: "The  little  man who  wasn't there.  Don't you remember the
rhyme?

                       I saw a man upon the stair,
                       A little man who was not there.
                       He was not there again today;
                       Gee, I wish he'd go away."

     Pete  laughed. "Doc,  you  get  crazier  every day.  Is that  Alice  in
Wonderland, too, like all the other stuff you quote when you get drinking?"
     "This  time, no.  But  who says I  quote Lewis  Carroll only  when  I'm
drinking? I can quote  him now, and I've hardly started drinking for tonight
- why, as  the Red Queen said to Alice, `One has to do this much drinking to
stay  in  the same place.'  But listen and I'll  quote  you something that's
really something:
          `Twas brillig and the slithy toves
                 Did gyre and gimble in the wabe-"

     Pete stood up. "Jabberwocky, from  Alice Through the Looking-Glass," he
said. "If you've recited that to me once, Doc, it's been  a hundred times. I
damn near know it myself. But I got to go, Doc. Thanks for the drink."
     "Okay, Pete, but don't forget one thing."
     "What's that?"
     I said:

          "Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
                 The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
          Beware the Jubjub bird and shun
                 The frumious-"
  Smiley was calling to me, "Hey, Doc!" from over beside
the  telephone and  I  remembered now that I'd heard  it ring  half a minute
before. Smiley yelled, "Telephone  for you, Doc," and laughed as though that
was the funniest thing that had happened in a long time.
     I stood up and started for the phone, telling Pete good night en route.
     I picked up the phone and said  "Hello" to  it and it said "Hello" back
at me. Then it said, "Doc?" and I said, "Yes."
     Then it said,  "Clyde Andrews speaking, Doc."  His voice sounded  quite
calm. "This is murder."
     Pete must  be almost to the door by  now; that was my first  thought. I
said, "Just a second, Clyde,"  and  then jammed my hand over  the mouthpiece
while I yelled, "Hey, Pete!"
     He was at the door; but he turned.
     "Don't go," I yelled  at  him, the length of the bar. "There's a murder
story breaking. We got to remake!"
     I could  feel  the  sudden  silence  in Smiley's  Bar. The conversation
between the two other  customers  stopped  in  the middle of a word and they
turned to look at me. Pete, from the door, looked at me. Smiley, a bottle in
his hand, turned  to look at me - and he didn't even smile. In fact, just as
I turned back to  the phone, the bottle  dropped out of his hand and hit the
floor with a noise  that made me jump and  close my mouth quickly to keep my
heart from jumping from it. That bottle crashing on the floor  had sounded -
for a second - just like a revolver shot.
     I  waited  until I felt that I  could talk again without stammering and
then I took my  hand off  the mouthpiece  of  the  phone and said calmly, or
almost calmly, "Okay, Clyde, go ahead."

        CHAPTER TWO

          "Who are you, aged man?" I said.
                "And how is it you live?"
          His answer trickled through my head,
                Like water through a sieve.

     "You've gone to press, haven't you, Doc?" Clyde's voice said. "You must
have because  I tried phoning you at the office first and then somebody told
me if you  weren't there, you'd  be at Smiley's, but  that'd  mean  you were
through for the-"
     "That's all right," I said. "Get on with it."
     "I  know  it's murder,  Doc, to ask you to  change a  story when you've
already  got  the paper ready to run and have  left the office,  but - well,
that rummage  sale  we were going to have Tuesday; it's been called off. Can
you still kill the article? Otherwise a lot of people will read about it and
come around to the church Tuesday night and be disappointed."
     "Sure, Clyde," I said. "I'll take care of it."
     I  hung up.  I went over  to  the table and sat down. I poured myself a
drink of whisky and when Pete came over I poured him one.
     He asked me what the call had been and I told him.
     Smiley and his  two  other customers were still staring at  me,  but  I
didn't say anything until Smiley called out, "What happened, Doc? Didn't you
say something about a murder?"
     I said, "I was just kidding, Smiley." He laughed.
     I drank my drink and Pete drank his: He said, "I knew there was a catch
about getting through  early tonight. Now  we got  a  nine-inch hole  in the
front page all over again. What are we going to put in it?"
     "Damned if I know," I told him. "But the hell with it for tonight. I'll
get down when you do in the morning and figure something out then."
     Pete said, "That's what you say now, Doc.  But if you don't get down at
eight o'clock, what'll I do with that hole in the page?"
     "Your lack  of faith horrifies me,  Pete. If I  say I'll be down in the
morning, I will be. Probably."
     "But if you're not?"
     I sighed. "Do  anything  you want." I knew Pete would fix it up somehow
if I didn't get down. He'd drag something from a back page and plug the back
page  with filler  items  or a  subscription ad. It was  going  to be  lousy
because we  had  one  sub ad  in already and too damn much filler; you know,
those little items that  tell you  the number of board feet in a sequoia and
the current rate of mullet manufacture in the Euphrates valley. All right in
small doses, but when you run the stuff by the column-
     Pete  said  he'd better go, and this time he did.  I  watched  him  go,
envying him a little. Pete Corey is  a good printer and I pay him just about
what I make myself. We  put in about the  same  number of hours, but I'm the
one who has to worry whenever there's any worrying to be done, which is most
of the time.
     Smiley's  other customers left, just after Pete, and  I didn't  want to
sit alone at the table, so I took my bottle over to the bar.
     "Smiley," I said, "do you want to buy a paper?"
     "Huh?" Then he laughed. "You're kidding me, Doc. It isn't off the press
till tomorrow noon, is it?"
     "It isn't," I told him. "But it'll be well worth waiting for this week.
Watch for it, Smiley. But that isn't what I meant."
     "Huh? Oh, you mean do I want to buy the paper. I don't think so, Doc. I
don't  think  I'd be very good at running a paper.  I can't spell very good,
for one thing. But look, you  were telling me the other night  Clyde Andrews
wanted  to buy it from you.  Whyn't you sell it to him,  if you want to sell
it?"
     "Who the devil said I wanted to sell it?" I asked him. "I just asked if
you wanted to buy it."
     Smiley looked baffled.
     "Doc," he said, "I never know whether you're serious or not. Seriously,
do you really want to sell out?"
     I'd been  wondering that. I said slowly, "I  don't know, Smiley.  Right
now, I'd be damn tempted. I think I hate  to quit mostly because before I do
I'd like to get out one good issue.  Just one good issue out of twenty-three
years."
     "If you sold it, what'd you do?"
     "I  guess,  Smiley,  I'd  spend  the rest  of  my  life  not  editing a
newspaper."
     Smiley decided I was being funny again, and laughed.
     The door opened and  Al Grainger came in. I waved the bottle at him and
he came down  the  bar to where I was standing, and Smiley got another glass
and a chaser of water; Al always needs a chaser.
     Al  Grainger is just a young  squirt  - twenty-two or -three - but he's
one of  the  few chess players in town  and one of the even fewer people who
understand  my enthusiasm for Lewis  Carroll. Besides  that,  he's by way of
being a Mystery Man in Carmel  City. Not that you have to be very mysterious
to achieve that distinction.
     He said, "Hi, Doc. When are we going to have another game of chess?"
     "No time like the present, Al. Here and now?"
     Smiley kept chessmen on hand for screwy customers like Al  Grainger and
Carl  Trenholm and  myself.  He'd  bring them out,  always  handling them as
though he expected them to explode in his hands, whenever we asked for them.
     Al shook his head. "Wish I had time. Got to go home and do some work."
     I poured whisky in his glass  and spilled a little trying to fill it to
the brim. He shook  his head slowly. "The  White Knight is  sliding down the
poker," he said. "He balances very badly."
     "I'm only in the second square," I told him. "But the next move will be
a good one. I go to the fourth by train, remember."
     "Don't keep it waiting, Doc. The smoke alone is worth a thousand pounds
a puff."
     Smiley  was looking from me of us to the other. "What the  hell are you
guys talking about?" he wanted to know.
     There wasn't any use trying to  explain.  I leveled my finger at him. I
said,  "Crawling  at  your feet you may observe a bread-and-butter  fly. Its
wings are  thin slices of bread-and-butter, its body a crust and its head is
a lump of sugar. And it lives on weak tea with cream in it."
     Al said, "Smiley, you're supposed to ask  him what happens if  it can't
find any."
     I said, "Then I say it would die of course and you say that must happen
very often and I say it always happens."
     Smiley looked at us again and shook his head slowly. He said, "You guys
are really nuts." He walked down the bar to wash and wipe some glasses.
     Al Grainger grinned at me. "What  are  your plans for tonight, Doc?" he
asked. "I just  might possibly be  able to sneak in  a game  or two of chess
later. You going to be home, and up?"
     I  nodded.  "I was just working myself up to the idea  of walking home,
and when I get there I'm  going to read.  And  have another drink or two. If
you get there before  midnight I'll still  be sober  enough  to  play. Sober
enough to beat a young punk like you, anyway."
     It was  all right  to say  that last part  because it  was so obviously
untrue. Al had been beating me two games out of  three  for the last year or
so.
     He chuckled, and quoted at me:

          " `You are old, Father William,' the young man said,
                 `And your hair has become very white;
          And yet you incessantly stand on your head-
                 Do you think, at your age, it is right?' "
     Well, since Carroll had the answer to that, so did I:

          " `In my youth,' Father William replied to his son,
                 `I feared it might injure the brain;
          But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
                 Why, I do it again and again.' "

     Al   said,  "Maybe  you  got  something  there,  Doc.  But  let's  quit
alternating  verses  on that before you get  to `Be off,  or - I'll kick you
down-stairs!' Because I got to be off anyway."
     "One more drink?"
     "I - think not, not  till I'm through working. You  can drink and think
too. Hope I can do the same thing when I'm your age. I'll try my best to get
to your place  for some chess, but don't look for me unless I'm there by ten
o'clock - half past at the latest. And thanks for the drink."
     He went out and,  through Smiley's window, I could see him getting into
his shiny convertible. He blew the Klaxon and  waved back at me as he pulled
out from the curb.
     I looked at myself in the mirror back of  Smiley's bar and wondered how
old Al Grainger thought I was. "Hope I  can  do the same thing when I'm your
age," indeed. Sounded as though he thought I  was eighty, at least. I'll  be
fifty-three my next birthday.
     But I had to admit that I looked that old, and that my hair was turning
white. I  watched myself in the  mirror and that whiteness scared me just  a
little. No, I wasn't old  yet, but  I was getting that way.  And,  much as I
crab  about it, I like  living. I don't  want to get old and I don't want to
die. Especially  as  I can't  look forward, as  a  good  many of  my  fellow
townsmen do, to an eternity of harp playing and picking bird-lice out of  my
wings.  Nor,  for that matter,  an eternity of shoveling coal, although that
would probably be the more likely of the two in my case.
     Smiley came back. He jerked his finger  at the door. "I don't like that
guy, Doc," he said.
     "Al?  He's all right. A little  wet behind the ears, maybe. You're just
prejudiced because you don't know where his money comes from. Maybe he's got
a printing press and  makes it himself.  Come to  think  of it,  I've got  a
printing press. Maybe I should try that myself."
     "Hell, it  ain't that,  Doc. It's not my business  how  a guy earns his
money - or where he gets it if  he don't earn it. It's the way he talks. You
talk crazy, too, but - well, you do it in a nice way. When he says something
to me  I  don't understand  he  says it  in a way that makes me feel like  a
stupid bastard. Maybe I am one, but-"
     I  felt suddenly ashamed of all the things I'd ever said to Smiley that
I knew he wouldn't understand.
     I  said,  "It's not  a matter of  intelligence, Smiley. It's  merely  a
matter of literary background. Have  one drink with  me, and then I'd better
go."
     I poured  him  a drink  and - this time - a small one for myself. I was
beginning to feel the effects, and I didn't want to get too drunk to give Al
Grainger a good game of chess if he dropped in.
     I  said, for  no reason at  all,  "You're a good guy,  Smiley," and  he
laughed  and  said, "So  are you, Doc. Literary background  or not, you're a
little crazy, but you're a good guy."
     And  then, because  we were both embarrassed at having caught ourselves
saying things like that, I found myself staring past Smiley at  the calendar
over the bar. It had the usual kind of picture one sees on barroom calendars
-  an  almost too  voluptuous naked  woman -  and  it was  imprinted by Beal
Brothers Store.
     It was just a bit of bother to keep my eyes focused on  it,  I noticed,
although I hadn't  had enough to drink to affect my mind at all. Right then,
for instance, I was thinking of two things at one and the same time. Part of
my brain, to my disgust, persisted in wondering if I could get Beal Brothers
to  start running  a quarter page ad instead of an eighth page; I  tried  to
squelch the thought by telling  myself that I didn't care,  tonight, whether
anybody advertised in the Clarion at all, and  that part of my brain went on
to ask me why, damn it, if I  felt that way about it, I didn't  get out from
under while  I had the chance  by selling the Clarion  to Clyde Andrews. But
the  other part of my mind kept getting more and more annoyed by the picture
on the calendar, and I said, "Smiley,  you ought to take down that calendar.
It's a lie. There aren't any women like that."
     He turned  around and  looked at it. "Guess  you're  right, Doc;  there
aren't any women like that. But a guy can dream, can't he?"
     "Smiley," I said, "if that's not the  first profound thing you've said,
it's the most profound. You are right, moreover. You have my full permission
to leave the calendar up."
     He laughed  and moved  along the bar to finish  wiping glasses,  and  I
stood there and wondered why I didn't go on  home. It was still early, a few
minutes before eight o'clock. I didn't want  another drink, yet. But by  the
time I got home, I would want one.
     So  I got out my wallet and called  Smiley back. We estimated  how many
drinks  I'd  poured  out  of  the bottle  and I settled for them, and then I
bought another bottle, a full quart, and he wrapped it for me.
     I went out with it under my arm and said "So long, Smiley," and he said
"So  long, Doc," just as casually as though, before the gibbering night that
hadn't started yet was over, he  and I would not - but let's  take things as
they happened.
     The walk home.
     I had  to go past  the post  office anyway,  so I stopped  in. The mail
windows  were closed,  of course, but  the outer lobby is  always  left open
evenings so those who have post office boxes can get mail out of them.
     I  got my  mail  -  there wasn't anything  important in  it - and  then
stopped, as I usually do, by the bulletin board to look over the notices and
the wanted circulars that were posted there.
     There  were  a  couple  of new ones and  I read them  and  studied  the
pictures.  I've got a  good memory for  faces,  even  ones  I've  just  seen
pictures of, and I'd always hoped that some day  I'd spot a wanted  criminal
in Carmel City and get a story out of it, if not a reward.
     A few doors farther on I passed the bank and that reminded me about its
president,  Clyde  Andrews,  and  his wanting to  buy  the paper from me. He
didn't want to run it himself, of course; he had a brother somewhere in Ohio
who'd had newspaper experience and who would run the paper for Andrews if  I
sold it to him.
     The thing I liked least about the idea, I decided, was that Andrews was
in  politics and,  if  he controlled the Clarion, the Clarion would back his
party. The way  I ran it, it threw mud  at both  factions when they deserved
it,  which  was  often, and  handed  either one  an  occasional bouquet when
deserved, which was  seldom. Maybe  I'm crazy - other people than Smiley and
Al have said so - but that's the way  I think a newspaper should be run, and
especially when it's the only paper in a town.
     It's not, I might mention, the best way  to make money.  It had made me
plenty of friends and subscribers, but a newspaper doesn't  make money  from
its subscribers. It makes money from advertisers and most of the men in town
big enough to be  advertisers  had fingers in politics  and no matter  which
party I slammed I was likely to lose another advertising account.
     I'm  afraid that policy didn't help my  news coverage, either. The best
source of news is  the sheriff's department  - and, at the  moment,  Sheriff
Rance Kates was just  about  my worst enemy. Kates is honest, but he is also
stupid, rude  and full of race  prejudice; and race prejudice, although it's
not a burning issue in Carmel City, is one of my pet peeves. I hadn't pulled
any  punches  in my  editorials  about Kates,  either before  or  after  his
election. He  got into  office  only because his  opponent  - who wasn't any
intellectual heavyweight either - had got into a  tavern brawl in Neilsville
a week  before election and was  arrested there and charged with assault and
battery.  The  Clarion  had reported that, too, so the Clarion was  probably
responsible for Rance Kates'  being  elected  sheriff. But  Rance remembered
only the things  I'd said about him, and barely spoke to me  on the  street.
Which,  I might add, didn't concern me  the slightest bit personally, but it
forced me to get all of my police news, such as it is, the hard way.
     Past  the supermarket  and Beal  Brothers and past Deak's Music Store -
where  I'd  once  bought a  violin  but  had  forgotten  to  get  a  set  of
instructions with it - and the corner and across the street.
     The walk home.
     Maybe I weaved just a little, for at just that stage I'm never quite as
sober as I am later on. But my mind - ah, it was in that delightful state of
being crystal clear in the center and fuzzy around the edges, the state that
every moderate drinker  knows but can't explain or define,  the  state  that
makes  even  a Carmel City seem delightful and  such  things as its  squalid
politics amusing.
     Past the comer  drugstore - Pop Hinkle's place -  where I used to drink
sodas  when I was  a  kid,  before I went away to college  and made the  big
mistake of studying journalism. Past Gorham's Feed Store, where  I'd  worked
vacations  while  I was  in high  school. Past the  Bijou Theater. Past Hank
Greeber's Undertaking Parlors, through which  both of my parents had passed,
fifteen and twenty years ago.
     Around the  corner at  the courthouse, where  a light was  still on  in
Sheriff Kates' office - and I  felt so cheerful that, for a thousand dollars
or so, I'd have stopped in to talk to him. But no one was around to offer me
a thousand dollars.
     Out of the store district now, past the house in which Elsie Minton had
lived - and  in which she had died while  we were engaged, twenty-five years
ago.
     Past the house Elmer Conklin had lived in when  I'd bought the  Clarion
from him. Past the church where I'd been sent  to Sunday School when I was a
kid, and where I'd once won a prize for memorizing verses of the Bible.
     Past my past, and walking,  slightly weaving, toward the house in which
I'd been conceived and born.
     No, I hadn't  lived there fifty-three years. My parents had sold it and
had moved to a bigger house when I was nine and when my sister - now married
and living in Florida - had been born. I'd bought  it back twelve  years ago
when it happened to be vacant and on the market at a good price. It's only a
three-room cottage, not too big  for a man  to live in alone, if he likes to
live alone, and I do.
     Oh,  I like people, too. I like someone to drop in for conversation  or
chess  or a drink or all three. I like to  spend an hour or two in Smiley's,
or any other tavern, a few times a week. I like an occasional poker game.
     But  I'll settle,  on any given evening,  for my books. Two walls of my
living room are  lined with  them  and  they overflow into  bookcases in  my
bedroom and I  even have a shelf  of them in  the bathroom.  What do I mean,
even? I think a bathroom  without a bookshelf is as  incomplete  as would be
one without a toilet.
     And  they're good books, too. No, I wouldn't be lonely tonight, even if
Al  Grainger  didn't  come  around for that game of chess.  How  could I  be
lonesome with  a bottle in  my pocket and good company waiting  for me? Why,
reading  a book  is almost as  good as  listening  to  the man who  wrote it
talking to you. Better, in one way, because you don't  have to  be polite to
him. You can shut him up any moment you feel so  inclined  and  pick someone
else  instead. And  you can take  off your  shoes and put your feet  on  the
table. You can drink  and  read until you forget everything but what  you're
reading; you can  forget who you are and the fact that  there's a  newspaper
that hangs around your neck like  a millstone,  all day and every day, until
you get home to sanctuary and forgetfulness.
     The walk home.
     And so to the corner of Campbell Street and my turning.
     A June  evening,  but cool,  and  the  night  air had almost completely
sobered me in the nine blocks I'd walked from Smiley's.
     My turning, and I saw that the  light  was  on in the  front room of my
house. I started  walking a little faster,  mildly puzzled.  I knew I hadn't
left  it on when I'd left for the office that morning. And if  I had left it
on, Mrs. Carr, the  cleaning  woman who comes in  for  about two hours every
afternoon to keep my place in order, would have turned it off.
     Maybe, I thought,  Al  Grainger had finished whatever he was  doing and
had come  early  and had - but no, Al wouldn't have come without his car and
there wasn't any car parked in front.
     It might have been a mystery, but it wasn't.
     Mrs. Carr was there, putting on her hat in front of the panel mirror in
the closet door as I went in.
     She  said, "I'm just leaving, Mr. Stoeger. I  wasn't able to  get  here
this  afternoon,  so  I  came  to  clean up  this  evening  instead; I  just
finished."
     "Fine," I said. "By the way, there's a blizzard out."
     "A - what?"
     "Blizzard. Snowstorm." I held up the  wrapped  bottle.  "So maybe you'd
better have a little nip with me before you start home, don't you think?"
     She laughed. "Thanks, Mr. Stoeger. I will. I've had a pretty rough day,
and it sounds like a good idea. I'll get glasses for us."
     I put my hat in the closet and followed her out into the kitchen.
     "A rough day?" I asked her. "I hope nothing went wrong."
     "Well -  nothing  too serious.  My husband - he works, you know, out at
Bonney's fireworks factory -  got burned in a little accident they  had  out
there this afternoon, and  they brought him home.  It's  nothing  serious, a
second  degree burn the doctor said, but it was pretty painful and I thought
I'd  better  stay  with him  until after supper, and then he  finally got to
sleep so I ran over here and I'm afraid I straightened  up your place pretty
fast and didn't do a very good job."
     "Looks spotless to me," I said. I'd been opening the bottle while she'd
been getting glasses for us.  "I hope he'll be all  right, Mrs. Carr. But if
you want to skip coming here for a while-"
     "Oh, no, I  can still come.  He'll be home only a few  days, and it was
just that  today  they  brought  him  home  at two o'clock,  just when I was
getting ready to come here and - That's plenty, thanks."
     We  touched glasses and  I downed mine  while  she  drank about half of
hers. She said, "Oh, there was a phone call  for you,  about an  hour ago. A
little while after I got here."
     "Find out who it was?"
     "He wouldn't tell me, just said it wasn't important."
     I shook my head sadly. "That, Mrs.  Carr, is one of the major fallacies
of the  human mind. The idea, I mean, that things can be arbitrarily divided
into  the important and  the unimportant.  How can anyone  decide whether  a
given  fact is important or not unless one knows everything about it; and no
one knows everything about anything."
     She smiled, but a bit vaguely, and I decided to bring it down to earth.
I said, "What would you say is important, Mrs. Carr?"
     She  put her head on one side and  considered it seriously. "Well, work
is important, isn't it?"
     "It  is not," I told her. "I'm  afraid you score  zero. Work is only  a
means to an end. We work in order  to enable ourselves  to do the  important
things,  which are the things we want  to do. Doing  what we  want to  do  -
that's what's important, if anything is."
     "That sounds like  a  funny way of putting it, but maybe you're  right.
Well,  anyway,  this  man  who called  said he'd either  call again  or come
around.  I  told  him you  probably wouldn't be home  until  eight  or  nine
o'clock."
     She  finished her drink  and declined an encore. I walked to  the front
door with her, saying that I'd have been glad to drive her home but  that my
car had two flat tires. I'd discovered them that morning when I'd started to
drive to work. One  I might have  stopped to fix, but two  discouraged me; I
decided  to leave the car in  the garage  until Saturday afternoon, when I'd
have  lots of time. And then, too, I know that I should get  the exercise of
walking to  and  from work every day,  but as long as  my car is  in running
condition,  I don't. For Mrs. Carr's sake, though,  I  wished  now  that I'd
fixed the tires.
     She said, "It's only a  few  blocks, Mr.  Stoeger.  I wouldn't think of
letting you, even if your car was working. Good night."
     "Oh, just  a minute,  Mrs. Carr. What department at Bonney's does  your
husband work in?"
     "The Roman candle department."
     It made me forget, for the moment, what I'd been leading up to. I said,
"The  Roman candle department! That's a wonderful phrase;  I love  it. If  I
sell the paper, darned if I don't look up Bonney the very next day. I'd love
to work in the Roman candle department. Your husband is a lucky man."
     "You're joking, Mr. Stoeger. But are you really thinking of selling the
paper?"
     "Well - thinking of it." And  that reminded me. "I didn't get any story
on the accident  at Bonney's, didn't even hear about it.  And I'm  badly  in
need  of  a story  for  the  front  page.  Do you know the  details of  what
happened? Anyone else hurt?"
     She'd been part way  across the  front porch, but she  turned and  came
back nearer the  door. She  said, "Oh, please don't put it in  the paper. It
wasn't  anything important; my husband was the only one hurt and it was  his
own  fault, he says. And Mr.  Bonney wouldn't like it being in the paper; he
has enough  trouble  now  getting as many people as he needs  for  the  rush
season before the Fourth,  and so many  people  are  afraid  to work  around
powder and  explosives anyway. George  will probably  be  fired if  it  gets
written up in the paper and he needs the work."
     I sighed;  it  had been an idea  while it lasted.  I assured her that I
wouldn't print anything about it. And  if George Carr  had been the only one
hurt and I didn't have any  details, it wouldn't  have made over a  one-inch
item anyway.
     I would  have loved, though,  to get that beautiful  phrase, "the Roman
candle department," into print.
     I went  back inside and closed the  door. I made myself comfortable  by
taking  off  my  suit coat and loosening  my tie, and then I got the  whisky
bottle and my glass and put them on the coffee table in front of the sofa.
     I didn't  take the tie off yet, nor  my  shoes;  it's nicer to do those
things one at a time as you gradually get more and more comfortable.
     I picked out a few books and put them within easy reach,. poured myself
a drink, sat down, and opened one of the books.
     The doorbell rang.
     Al  Grainger had  come early, I thought. I went to the  door and opened
it. There was a man standing there, just lifting his hand to ring again. But
it wasn't Al; it was a man I'd never seen before.

        CHAPTER THREE

          How cheerfully he seems to grin,
                 How neatly spreads his claws,
          And welcomes little fishes in
                 With gently smiling jaws!

     He  was short, about my  own height, perhaps, but  seeming even shorter
because of his greater girth. The first thing you noticed about his face was
his nose; it was long, thin, pointed, grotesquely at variance with his pudgy
body. The light coming past me through the doorway reflected glowing  points
in his eyes,  giving them a catlike gleam. Yet  there  was nothing  sinister
about him. A short pudgy  man can never  manage to seem  sinister, no matter
how the light strikes his eyes.
     "You are Doctor Stoeger?" he asked.
     "Doc Stoeger,"  I  corrected  him.  "But not a  doctor of  medicine. If
you're looking for a medical doctor, one lives four doors west of here."
     He smiled, a nice smile. "I am aware that you are not a medico, Doctor.
Ph. D., Burgoyne  College -  nineteen twenty-two, I believe. Author of Lewis
Carroll Through the Looking-Glass and Red Queen and White Queen."
     It startled me. Not so much that he knew my college and  the year of my
magna cum laude, but the rest  of it was amazing. Lewis  Carroll Through the
Looking-Glass was  a  monograph  of  a  dozen.  pages;  it  had been printed
eighteen years ago and only a hundred copies had been run  off. If one still
existed anywhere outside of my own library, I was greatly surprised. And Red
Queen  and  White Queen was a magazine article that  had appeared  at  least
twelve years ago in a magazine that had been obscure then and had long since
been discontinued and forgotten.
     "Yes," I said. "But how you know of them, I can't imagine, Mr.-"
     "Smith,"  he  said  gravely.  Then he  chuckled. "And the first name is
Yehudi."
     "No!" I said.
     "Yes. You see,  Doctor Stoeger, I was named  forty years ago,  when the
name  Yehudi, although uncommon, had not yet acquired the  comic connotation
which it has today. My  parents did not  guess that  the name would become a
joke  -  and  that it  would  be particularly ridiculous when combined  with
Smith. Had they guessed the difficulty I now have in  convincing people that
I'm  not kidding them when I tell them  my name-"  He  laughed ruefully.  "I
always carry cards."
     He handed me one. It read:

                        Yehudi Smith

     There was no address, no other information. Just the  same, I wanted to
keep that card, so I stuck it in my pocket instead of handing it back.
     He  said,  "People are named Yehudi, you  know. There's Yehudi Menuhin,
the violinist. And there's-"
     "Stop, please,"  I interrupted. "You're making it plausible. I liked it
better the other way."
     He smiled. "Then I haven't  misjudged you, Doctor. Have you  ever heard
of the Vorpal Blades?"
     "Plural? No. Of course, in Jabberwocky:

          One, two! One, two! And through and through
                The vorpal blade went snicker-snack.

     But -  Good  God!  Why are  we  talking  about vorpal  blades through a
doorway? Come on in. I've got a bottle, and I hope and presume that it would
be ridiculous to ask a man who talks about vorpal blades whether or  not  he
drinks."
     I stepped back  and he came  in. "Sit anywhere," I  told him. "I'll get
another glass. Want either a mix or a chaser?"
     He  shook his  head, and  I  went out into  the kitchen and got another
glass. I came in,  filled it and handed it to him. He'd already made himself
comfortable in the overstuffed chair.
     I sat back down on the sofa and lifted my glass toward him. I said, "No
doubt about a toast  for this one. To Charles Lutwidge  Dodgson, known, when
in Wonderland, as Lewis Carroll."
     He said, quietly, "Are you sure, Doctor?"
     "Sure of what?"
     "Of your phraseology in that toast. I'd word it: To Lewis Carroll,  who
masqueraded  under  the  alleged  identity of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson,  the
gentle don of Oxford."
     I  felt vaguely  disappointed. Was  this going to  be another, and even
more ridiculous, Bacon-was-Shakespeare deal? Historically, there couldn't be
any possible doubt that the Reverend Dodgson, writing under  the  name Lewis
Carroll, had created Alice in Wonderland and its sequel.
     But the main point, for  the  moment, was, to get the drink drunk. So I
said solemnly, "To avoid all  difficulties, factual or  semantic, Mr. Smith,
let's drink to the author of the Alice books."
     He  inclined  his head with solemnity  equal to my  own, then tilted it
back and downed his drink. I was a little late in downing mine because of my
surprise at,  and  admiration  for,  his manner of drinking. I'd  never seen
anything quite  like it. The glass had stopped, quite suddenly, a good three
inches from his mouth. And the whisky had kept on going and not a drop of it
had been lost. I've seen people toss down a shot before, but never with such
casual precision and from so great a distance.
     I  drank my own in a  more prosaic manner,  but I resolved. to try  his
system sometime - in private and with a towel or handkerchief ready at hand.
     I refilled  our glasses and  then  said, "And now what? Do we argue the
identity of Lewis Carroll?"
     "Let's start back of that," he said. "In fact, let's put it aside until
I  can offer you definite proof of  what we believe - rather, of what we are
certain."
     "We?"
     "The  Vorpal Blades.  An  organization.  A very  small organization,  I
should add."
     "Of admirers of Lewis Carroll?"
     He leaned forward. "Yes,  of course. Any man who is  both  literate and
imaginative  is an admirer of Lewis Carroll. But - much more than  that.  We
have a secret. A quite esoteric one."
     "Concerning the identity  of Lewis Carroll? You mean that you believe -
the  way  some  people  believe,  or used  to  believe, that  the  plays  of
Shakespeare were written by Francis Bacon - that someone  other than Charles
Lutwidge Dodgson wrote the Alice books?"
     I hoped he'd say no.
     He said, "No. We believe that Dodgson himself - How much do you know of
him, Doctor?"
     "He was born in eighteen thirty-two," I said, "and died just before the
turn of the century - in either ninety-eight  or nine. He was an Oxford don,
a mathematician. He wrote several treatises on  mathematics. He liked -  and
created - acrostics and other puzzles and problems. He never married  but he
was  very fond of children, and his best writing was done for them. At least
he thought he was writing only for  children; actually, Alice in  Wonderland
and Alice  Through  the Looking-Glass,  while having  plenty of  appeal  for
children, are adult literature, and great literature. Shall I go on?"
     "By all means."
     "He was also capable of - and perpetrated - some  almost incredibly bad
writing. There  ought to  be  a law  against the printing of volumes  of The
Complete Works  of  Lewis Carroll.  He should  be remembered  for the  great
things he  wrote,  and the  bad ones interred with his bones.  Although I'll
admit that even the bad things have  occasional touches of brilliance. There
are moments in Sylvie and  Bruno  that are almost worth reading  through the
thousands  of  dull words to  reach. And there are occasional  good lines or
stanzas in even the worst poems. Take the first three lines of The Palace of
Humbug:
          I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
          And each damp thing that creeps and crawls
          Went wobble-wobble on the walls.

     "Of  course  he should have stopped there instead  of adding fifteen or
twenty bad triads. But `Went wobble-wobble on the walls' is marvelous."
     He nodded. "Let's drink to it."
     We drank to it.
     He said, "Go on."
     "No," I said. "I'm just realizing that I could  easily go on for hours.
I  can quote every line of verse in the Alice books  and most of The Hunting
of the Snark. But,  I both hope and presume, you  didn't come here to listen
to me lecture on Lewis Carroll. My information about him is fairly thorough,
but quite orthodox. I judge that yours isn't, and I want to hear it."
     I refilled our glasses.
     He nodded  slowly:  "Quite right,  Doctor.  My  -  I should  say  our -
information is extremely unorthodox. I think you have the background and the
type  of mind to understand  it, and to believe it when you have seen proof.
To a more ordinary mind, it would seem sheer fantasy."
     It was getting better by the minute. I said, "Don't stop now."
     "Very well. But before I go any farther, I must warn you, of something,
Doctor.  It is also  very dangerous  information  to have.  I do  not  speak
lightly  or  metaphorically. I mean  that  there is serious  danger,  deadly
danger."
     "That," I said, "is wonderful."
     He  sat there and toyed with his  glass - still with the third drink in
it - and didn't look at me. I studied his face.  It was an interesting face.
That long,  thin, pointed nose, so  incongruous  to  his build that it might
have been false - a veritable Cyrano de Bergerac of a  nose. And now that he
was in the light, I could see that there were deep laughter-lines around his
generous mouth. At first  I would have guessed his  age at thirty instead of
the forty he claimed to be; now, studying his face closely, I could see that
he had not exaggerated his age. One would have to laugh a  long time to etch
lines like those.
     But he wasn't laughing now. He  looked deadly  serious,  and he  didn't
look crazy. But he said something that sounded crazy.
     He said, "Doctor, has it ever occurred to you that - that the fantasies
of Lewis Carroll are not fantasies at all?"
     "Do you mean," I  asked, "in the sense that fantasy is often nearer  to
fundamental truth than is would-be realistic fiction?"
     "No.  I mean that they are literally, actually  true. That they are not
fiction at all, that they are reporting."
     I stared at him. "If you  think that, then who - or what - do you think
Lewis Carroll was?"
     He smiled faintly, but it wasn't a smile of amusement.
     He  said, "If you really want to know, and aren't  afraid, you can find
out tonight. There is a meeting, near here. Will you come?"
     "May I be frank?"
     "Certainly."
     I said, "I think it's crazy, but try to keep me away."
     "In spite of the fact that there is danger?"
     Sure, I was going, danger or  no. But maybe I could use  his insistence
on  warning me to pry something more out of him. So I  said, "May I ask what
kind of danger?"
     He seemed to hesitate a moment and then he took out his wallet and from
an inner  compartment took a newspaper clipping, a short one of  about three
paragraphs. He handed it to me.
     I read it, and I  recognized the type and the setup; it was  a clipping
from the Bridgeport Argus. And I  remembered now having read it, a couple of
weeks  ago. I'd considered  clipping  it as an  exchange  item, and then had
decided not to, despite the fact that the heading had caught my interest. It
read:

              MAN SLAIN BY UNKNOWN BEAST

     The facts were few  and simple. A man named Colin Hawks, living outside
Bridgeport, a recluse, had been found dead  along  a path through the woods.
The  man's throat had  been  torn,  and  police opinion was that a large and
vicious  dog  had  attacked  him. But the reporter  who  wrote  the  article
suggested the possibility  that a  wolf - or  even a panther or a  leopard -
escaped from a circus or zoo might have caused the wounds.
     I folded the clipping again and handed it back to Smith. It didn't mean
anything, of course. It's easy to  find  stories like that if one  looks for
them. A man named  Charles  Fort  found thousands of them and  put them into
four books he had written, books which were on my shelves.
     This particular  one was  less  mysterious  than  most. In  fact, there
wasn't any real mystery  at all;  undoubtedly some  vicious dog had done the
killing.
     Just the same something prickled at the back of my neck.
     It was the headline, really, not the article. It's  funny what the word
"unknown" and the thought  back  of it can do to you. If that story had been
headed "Man Killed by  Vicious Dog" -  or by a lion or  a  crocodile or  any
other specified creature,  however  fierce and  dangerous, there'd have been
nothing frightening about it.
     But  an  "unknown beast"  -  well, if  you've  got  the  same  kind  of
imagination I  have,  you  see what  I  mean.  And if you  haven't,  I can't
explain.
     I  looked at Yehudi Smith, just in time to see him toss down his whisky
- again like  a conjuring trick. I  handed him  back  the  clipping and then
refilled our glasses.
     I said, "Interesting story. But where's the connection?"
     "Our last meeting was in  Bridgeport. That's all I can tell you.  About
that, I mean. You  asked  the nature of the danger;  that's why I showed you
that. And it's not too late for you to say no. It won't be, for that matter,
until we get there."
     "Get where?"
     "Only a few miles from  here. I have directions to guide me to a  house
on a road called the Dartown Pike. I have a car."
     I said, irrelevantly, "So have I, but the tires are flat. Two of them."
     I thought about the Dartown Pike. I said, "You wouldn't, by any chance,
be heading for the house known as the Wentworth place?"
     "That's the name, yes. You know of it?"
     Right then and there, if I'd been completely sober,  I'd have seen that
the whole thing was too good to be true. I'd have smelled fish. Or blood.
     I said, "We'll have to take candles or flashlights. That house has been
empty since  I was a kid. We used to  call it a haunted house. Would that be
why you chose it?"
     "Yes, of course."
     "And your group is meeting there tonight?"
     He  nodded.  "At  one  o-clock in the morning, to be exact. You're sure
you're not afraid?"
     God, yes, I was afraid. Who  wouldn't be, after the  build-up he'd just
handed me?
     So I grinned  at him and said, "Sure, I'm afraid. But just try to  keep
me away."
     Then I had an idea. If I was going to a haunted house at one o'clock in
the morning to hunt  Jabberwocks or try to invoke the ghost of Lewis Carroll
or some equally sensible thing, it wouldn't hurt  to have someone along whom
I already knew. And  if Al  Grainger dropped  in - I  tried  to  figure  out
whether or not Al would be interested.  He was a Carroll fan, all right, but
- for the rest of it, I didn't know.
     I said, "One question, Mr. Smith. A  young friend of mine might drop in
soon for a  game of chess. How exclusive  is this deal? I mean, would it  be
all right if he came along, if he wants to?"
     "Do you think he's qualified?"
     "Depends on what the qualifications are," I said, "Offhand, I'd say you
have to be a Lewis Carroll fan and a little crazy. Or, come to think of  it,
are those one and the same qualification?"
     He laughed.  "They're not too far apart. But  tell me  something  about
your friend. You said young friend; how young?"
     "About twenty-three. Not  long  out of college. Good literary taste and
background, which  means he knows and likes Carroll. He can quote almost  as
much of it as I can.  Plays chess, if that's a qualification - and I'd guess
it is. Dodgson not only played chess but  based Through the Looking-Glass on
a chess game. His name, if that matters, is Al Grainger."
     "Would he want to come?"
     "Frankly," I admitted, "I haven't an idea on that angle."
     Smith said, "I hope he comes; if he's a Carroll enthusiast, I'd like to
meet him. But, if he comes, will you do me the favor of saying nothing about
-  what I've told you, at least until I've had  a chance to judge him a bit?
Frankly, it would be almost unprecedented if I  took the liberty of inviting
someone to  an important meeting  like tonight's  on my  own.  You're  being
invited because we know quite a bit about  you.  You were voted on  - and  I
might say that the vote to invite you was unanimous."
     I  remembered his familiarity with the two obscure things  about  Lewis
Carroll that I'd written, and I didn't doubt that he - or they, if he really
represented a group - did know something about me.
     He said, "But  -  well, if  I  get a chance to  meet him and think he'd
really fit in, I  might take  a chance and ask him. Can you tell me anything
more about him? What does he do - for a living, I mean?"
     That  was  harder to answer. I said,  "Well,  he's writing plays. But I
don't think he makes  a living  at it; in fact, I don't know that  he's ever
sold any.  He's a bit of  a mystery to Carmel City. He's lived here  all his
life  - except  while he was  away  at college  - and nobody knows where his
money comes from. Has a swanky car and a place of his own - he  lived  there
with his mother until she died a few years ago - and seems to have plenty of
spending money, but nobody knows where it comes  from."  I grinned. "And  it
annoys the  hell out of Carmel City not to know.  You know how  small  towns
are."
     He nodded. "Wouldn't it  be a logical assumption that he  inherited the
money?"
     "From one point  of view,  yes.  But  it doesn't  seem too  likely. His
mother worked all her  life as a milliner, and without  owning her own shop.
The town, I remember, used to wonder  how she  managed to own  her own house
and send her son to college  on  what she earned. But she  couldn't possibly
have earned enough to have done both of those things and still have left him
enough money to have supported him in idleness -  Well, maybe, writing plays
isn't idleness, but it isn't remunerative unless you sell them - for several
years."
     I shrugged. "But there's  probably  no mystery to it. She must have had
an income from investments her husband had made, and Al either inherited the
income or got the capital from which it came. He probably doesn't talk about
his business because he enjoys being mysterious."
     "Was his father wealthy?"
     "His father died before  he was born, and before Mrs. Grainger moved to
Carmel City. So nobody here knew his father. And  I guess that's  all I  can
tell you about Al, except that he can beat me at chess most of the time, and
that I hope you'll have a chance to meet him."
     Smith nodded. "If he comes, we'll see."
     He glanced at his empty glass and I  took the hint and filled it and my
own. Again I watched the incredible  manner of his  drinking it, fascinated.
I'd swear that, this time the glass came no closer than  six inches from his
lips. Definitely it  was a trick I'd have to learn myself. If  for no  other
reason than  that  I don't really like the taste of  whisky, much as I enjoy
the effects of it. With his way  of drinking, it didn't seem that he had the
slightest chance of tasting  the stuff. It was there, in the glass, and then
it was gone. His  Adam's apple didn't seem to work and if he  was talking at
the time he drank there was scarcely an interruption in what he was saying.
     The phone rang. I excused myself and answered it.
     "Doc," said Clyde Andrews' voice, "this is Clyde Andrews."
     "Fine,"  I  said,  "I suppose you realize  that  you sabotaged  my this
week's issue by canceling a story on my front page. What's  called  off this
time?"
     "I'm sorry about that, Doc,  if it really inconvenienced you,  but with
the sale called off, I thought  you wouldn't want to run the story and  have
people coming around to-"
     "Of course," I  interrupted him. I  was  impatient to  get back  to  my
conversation with  Yehudi Smith. "That's all  right,  Clyde. But what do you
want now?"
     "I want to know if you've decided whether  or not you want to  sell the
Clarion."
     For a second I was unreasonably angry. I said, "God damn it, Clyde, you
interrupt the only really interesting conversation I've had in  years to ask
me that,  when we've been talking about it  for months,  off and on? I don't
know. I do and I don't want to sell it."
     "Sorry for heckling you, Doc,  but I just got a special delivery letter
from my brother in Ohio.  He's got an offer  out West. Says he'd rather come
to Carmel City on the proposition I'd made him - contingent on your deciding
to sell me the  Clarion, of course. But he's  got to accept  the other offer
right away  - within a day or so, that  is -  if  he's going to accept it at
all.
     "So, you see that makes it different, Doc. I've got to know right away.
Not tonight,  necessarily;  it isn't in that much of a rush. But I've got to
know by tomorrow sometime, so I thought I'd call you right away so you could
start coming to a decision."
     I  nodded and  then realized that he  couldn't see  me nod so  I  said,
"Sure, Clyde, I  get it. I'm sorry for popping off. All right,  I'll make up
my mind by tomorrow morning. I'll let you know one way or the other by then.
Okay?"
     "Fine," he said. "That'll be plenty of time. Oh, by the way, there's an
item of news  for you if it's not too late to put it in. Or have you already
got it?"
     "Got what?"
     "About the escaped  maniac. I don't know the details,  but a friend  of
mine just drove over from  Neilsville and he says they're stopping cars  and
watching the roads  both  sides of the county  asylum. Guess you can get the
details if you call the asylum."
     "Thanks, Clyde," I said.
     I put the phone back down in its cradle and looked  at  Yehudi Smith. I
wondered  why,  with all  the fantastic things  he'd said,  I hadn't already
guessed.

        CHAPTER FOUR

          "But wait a bit," the Oyster cried,
                 "Before we have our chat;
          For some of us are out of breath,
                 And all of us are fat!"

     I felt a hell of a  letdown. Oh, not that  I'd really quite believed in
the Vorpal Blades  or that we were going to a  haunted house to conjure up a
Jabberwock or whatever we'd have done there.
     But it had been exciting  even to think about it, just  as one can  get
excited over a chess game even though he knows that the  kings and queens on
the board aren't real entities and that when a bishop slays a knight no real
blood  is shed. I guess it had been that  kind  of excitement, the vicarious
kind,  that I'd felt about the  things Yehudi Smith had promised. Or maybe a
better comparison would be that it had been like reading an exciting fiction
story that one knows isn't true but which  one can believe in for as long as
the story lasts.
     Now  there wasn't even  that.  Across  from  me,  I realized  with keen
disappointment, was only a man who'd escaped from an  insane asylum. Yehudi,
the little man who wasn't there - mentally.
     The funny part of it  was that I  still liked him. He was a nice little
guy and he'd given me  a fascinating half  hour, up to now. I hated the fact
that  I'd have  to turn him over to the  asylum guards and have him put back
where he came from.
     Well, I  thought, at  least it would give me a news story  to fill that
nine  inch hole in the front page of the  Clarion. He said, "I hope the call
wasn't anything that will spoil our plans, Doctor."
     It had spoiled  more than that, but of course I couldn't  tell  him so,
any more  than I could have told  Clyde  Andrews over the  phone, in Smith's
presence, to call the asylum and tell them  to drop  around  to my  house if
they wanted to collect their bolted nut.
     So I shook my head while I figured out an angle to get out of the house
and to put in the phone call from next door.
     I stood up. Perhaps I  was a bit more drunk than I'd thought, for I had
to catch my balance. I remember how crystal clear my mind seemed to be - but
of  course nothing seems more crystal clear than a prism that makes you  see
around corners.
     I said,  "No, the  call  won't  interrupt  our plans except  for a  few
minutes. I've got to  give a message  to the man  next door. Excuse me - and
help yourself to the whisky."
     I went through the kitchen and outside into the black night. There were
lights in  the  houses  on  either side  of me, and I wondered  which of  my
neighbors to bother. And then I wondered why I was in such a hurry to bother
either of them.
     Surely,  I  thought, the man who  called  himself Yehudi  Smith  wasn't
dangerous. And, crazy  or not,  he was  the most interesting  man I'd met in
years. He did seem to know  something about Lewis Carroll. And  I remembered
again that he'd known about my obscure brochure and equally obscure magazine
article. How?
     So, come to think of it, why shouldn't I stall  making that  phone call
for another hour or so, and relax and enjoy myself? Now  that I was over the
first disappointment of learning that  he was insane, why  wouldn't  I  find
talk about  that  delusion  of his almost as interesting  as though  it  was
factual.
     Interesting in a different way, of course. Often I had thought I'd like
the chance to talk to a paranoiac about his delusions - neither arguing with
him nor agreeing with him, just trying to find out what made him tick.
     And the evening  was still a pup; it couldn't  be later than about half
past eight so my neighbors would be up at least another hour or two.
     So why was I in a hurry to make that call? I wasn't.
     Of course I had to kill  enough  time outside to  make it reasonable to
believe that I'd actually gone next door and delivered a message, so I stood
there at the bottom of my  back steps, looking up at the black  velvet  sky,
star-studded but moonless, and wondering  what was behind it and why  madmen
were mad. And how strange it would  be if one of  them was right and all the
rest of us were crazy instead.
     Then I  went back inside and  I was cowardly enough to  do a ridiculous
thing. From the  kitchen I  went  into my bedroom and to  my  closet.  In  a
shoebox on the top shelf was a short-barreled thirty-eight caliber revolver,
one  of  the compact, lightweight models  they call  a Banker's Special. I'd
never shot at anything with it and hoped that I never would - and  I  wasn't
sure I could  hit anything smaller than an elephant or farther  away  than a
couple of  yards. I  don't even  like guns.  I  hadn't  bought this one;  an
acquaintance had once borrowed twenty bucks from me and  had insisted on  my
taking the pistol  for security. And later he'd wanted another five and said
if  I gave  it to him I could keep the gun.  I  hadn't wanted  it, but  he'd
needed the five pretty badly and I'd given it to him.
     It  was  still  loaded with bullets that were in it when we'd made  the
deal four or five years ago, and I didn't know whether they'd still shoot or
not, but I put it in my trouser pocket. I wouldn't use it, of course, except
in dire extremity - and I'd miss anything I shot at even then, but I thought
that  just carrying the gun would make my coming conversation seem dangerous
and exciting, more than it would be otherwise.
     I went  into  the living room and he was still there. He  hadn't poured
himself a drink,  so  I poured one for each of us  and then sat  down on the
sofa again.
     I lifted my drink and  over the rim of it watched him do that marvelous
trick again - just a toss of the  glass toward his lips. I drank my own less
spectacularly  and said, "I wish I had a movie camera. I'd like  to film the
way you do that and then study it in slow motion."
     He laughed. "Afraid it's my  one way  of  showing off.  I used  to be a
juggler once."
     "And now? If you don't mind asking."
     "A student," he said. "A student of Lewis Carroll - and mathematics."
     "Is there a living in it?" I asked him.
     He hesitated  just a second.  "Do you  mind  if  I defer answering that
until you've learned - what you'll learn at tonight's meeting?"
     Of  course there wasn't going to  be  any meeting tonight; I knew  that
now. But I said, "Not at  all.  But I hope you don't mean that we can't talk
about Carroll, in general, until after the meting."
     I hoped he'd give the right answer to that;  it would mean that I could
get him going on the subject of his mania.
     He said,  "Of course not. In fact,  I want to talk about him. There are
facts I want to  give you that will enable you to understand things  better.
Some of the facts yon already know, but I'll refresh you on them anyway. For
instance, dates. You had his birth and death dates correct, or nearly enough
so. But do you know the dates of the Alice  books or any other of his works?
The sequence is important."
     "Not exactly," I told him. "I think that he wrote  the first Alice book
when he was comparatively young, about thirty."
     "Close.  He  was  thirty-two.  Alice  in  Wonderland was  published  in
eighteen sixty-three, but even before then he was on the trail of something.
Do you know what he had published before that?"
     I shook my head.
     "Two books. He  wrote and published  A Syllabus  of  Plane Geometry  in
eighteen  sixty   and  in  the  year  after  that  his  Formulae  of   Plane
Trigonometry. Have you read either of them?"
     I had to shake my head again. I said, "Mathematics isn't my forte. I've
read only his non-technical books."
     He smiled.  "There  aren't  any. You  simply  failed  to recognize  the
mathematics embodied in the  Alice books and in his poetry. You do know, I'm
sure, that many of his poems are acrostics."
     "Of course."
     "All of them are acrostics, but in a much more  subtle manner. However,
I can see why you failed to find the clues if you haven't read his treatises
on   mathematics.  You  wouldn't  have   read  his  Elementary  Treatise  on
Determinants, I suppose. But how about his Curiosa Mathematica?"
     I hated to disappoint him again, but I had to.
     He frowned  at me.  "That  at least  you  should  have  read.  It's not
technical  at all, and most of  the clues to the fantasies are contained  in
it. There are further - and  final - references  to  them  in  his  Symbolic
Logic, published in eighteen  ninety-six,  just two years before  his death,
but they are less direct."
     I said, "Now,  wait a minute. If I understand you correctly your thesis
is that Lewis Carroll - leaving aside any question of who  or what he really
was - worked out through mathematics and expressed in fantasy  the fact that
- what?"
     "That there is another  plane of existence  besides  the one we are now
living in. That we can have - and do sometimes have - access to it."
     "But  what  kind  of  a plane?  A  through-the-looking-glass  plane  of
fantasy, a dream plane?"
     "Exactly, Doctor. A dream plane. That isn't strictly accurate, but it's
about  as  nearly as I can explain it to you just  yet." He  leaned forward.
"Consider  dreams.  Aren't  they  the almost perfect parallel of  the  Alice
adventures?  The  wool-and-water  sequence, for instance,  where  everything
Alice looks  at changes into something  else. Remember in the shop, with the
old  sheep knitting, how Alice looked hard  to see what was  on the shelves,
but the shelf she  looked at was  always empty although the others  about it
were always full - of something, and she never found out what?"
     I nodded slowly. I said, "Her comment was, `Things flow about so here.'
And then the  sheep asked  if  Alice  could  row  and handed  her a  pair of
knitting needles  and  the needles turned into oars in her hands and she was
in a boat, with the sheep still knitting."
     "Exactly,   Doctor.  A  perfect   dream  sequence.  And  consider  that
Jabberwocky - which is probably the best thing in the second Alice book - is
in the very language of dreams. It's full of  words  like trumious, manxome,
tulgey, words that give you a perfect picture in context - but you can't put
your finger on what  the  context is.  In a dream  you fully understand such
meanings, but you forget them when you awaken."
     Between "manxome" and "tulgey" he'd downed  his  latest drink. I didn't
pour another this time; I was beginning  to wonder how  long the bottle - or
we - would  last.  But he  showed  no effect whatsoever from the drinks he'd
been  downing. I can't quite say the  same  for myself. I knew  my voice was
getting a bit thick.
     I said, "But why postulate the reality of such a world? I can see  your
point otherwise. The Jabberwock itself is the epitome of nightmare creatures
- with eyes of  flame  and jaws  that  bite  and  claws that catch,  and  it
whiffles and burbles  - why, Freud and James  Joyce in tandem  couldn't have
done any better.  But why  not take it that  Lewis Carroll  was  trying, and
damned successfully, to  write as  in a dream? Why make the  assumption that
that world is real? Why talk of getting through to  it  - except, of course,
in the sense that we invade it nightly in our dreams?"
     He smiled. "Because that world is real, Doctor. You'll hear evidence of
that tonight, mathematical evidence.  And,  I  hope, actual proof.  I've had
such proof  myself, and I hope you'll have. But you'll see the calculations,
at least, and it will be explained to you how they were derived from Curiosa
Mathematica, and then corroborated by evidence found in the other books.
     "Carroll  was more than a century ahead of his time, Doctor.  Have  you
read  the recent  experiments  with the  subconscious made  by Liebnitz  and
Winton -  the feelers they're putting forth in the right direction, which is
the mathematical approach?"
     I admitted I hadn't heard of Liebnitz or Winton.
     "They aren't  well known," he conceded. "You see, only recently, except
for  Carroll, has  anyone  even considered the possibility of our reaching -
let's call  it the dream  plane until  I've shown  you what it  really  is -
physically as well as mentally."
     "As Lewis Carroll reached it?"
     "As  he  must  have,  to  have known  the  things  he  knew. Things  so
revolutionary and dangerous that he did not dare reveal them openly."
     For a  fleeting moment it  sounded so reasonable that I wondered if  it
could be true.  Why not?  Why couldn't there be other dimensions besides our
own? Why couldn't a brilliant mathematician with a fantastic mind have found
a way through to one of them?
     In  my mind, I cussed  our Clyde  Andrews  for having told me about the
asylum break. If only I hadn't learned about that, what a wonderful  evening
this one would be. Even knowing Smith was insane, I found  myself - possibly
with the whisky's  help - wondering if  he  could be right. How marvelous it
would have been  without the knowledge of his insanity to temper  the wonder
and the wondering. It would have been an evening in Wonderland.
     And,   sane  or  crazy,  I  liked  him.  Sane  or  crazy,  he  belonged
figuratively  in  the   department  in  which  Mrs.  Carr's  husband  worked
literally.  I  laughed  and then, of  course, I had to explain what I'd been
laughing about.
     His eyes  lighted. "The Roman candle  department. That's marvelous. The
Roman candle department."
     You see what I mean.
     We  had  a  drink to the  Roman candle department, and then it happened
that neither of us  said  anything right away  and it  was so quiet  that  I
jumped when the phone rang.
     I picked it up and said into it, "This is the Roman candle department."
     "Doc?" It was the  voice of Pete Corey,  my printer.  It sounded tense.
"I've got bad news."
     Pete doesn't get  excited  easily.  I sobered  up  a little  and asked,
"What, Pete?"
     "Listen, Doc. Remember just a  couple of hours  ago you were saying you
wished  a  murder  or something would happen so  you'd have a  story for the
paper  - and remember how I asked you if  you'd like one even if it happened
to a friend of yours?"
     Of course I remembered; he'd mentioned my best friend, Carl Trenholm. I
took a tighter grip on the phone. I said, "Cut out breaking it gently, Pete.
Has something happened to Carl?"
     "Yes, Doc."
     "For God's sake, what? Cut the build-up. Is he dead?"
     "That's what I heard. He was found out on the pike;  I don't know if he
was hit by a car or what."
     "Where is he now?"
     "Being brought in. I guess. All I know is that Hank called me-" Hank is
Pete's brother-in-law and a deputy sheriff. "- and said they got a call from
someone who  found  him  alongside  the  road out  there. Even  Hank  had it
third-hand - Rance  Kates phoned him and said  to come down and take care of
the office while  he went  out there. And  Hank knows Kates doesn't like you
and wouldn't give you the  tip, so Hank called me.  But  don't get  Hank  in
trouble with his boss by telling anybody where the tip came from."
     "Did you call the hospital?" I asked. "If Carl's just hurt-"
     "Wouldn't  be time for them to get him there yet - or  to wherever they
do take  him. Hank  just phoned me from his own place  before he started for
the sheriff's office, and Kates had just called him from  the office and was
just leaving there."
     "Okay, Pete,"  I  said. "Thanks. I'm going back downtown; I'll call the
hospital  from the Clarion office.  You call  me there  if you hear anything
more."
     "Hell, Doc, I'm coming down too."
     I told  him he didn't have to, but he  said the hell with having to; he
wanted to. I didn't argue with him.
     I cradled the phone and found that  I was already standing up.  I said,
"Sorry, but  something  important's  come up  - an accident  to  a friend of
mine." I  headed for the closet  to get my coat.  "Do you want to wait here,
or-"
     "If you  don't mind," he said. "That is, if you think you won't be gone
very long."
     "I don't know that, but  I'll phone here and let you know as soon  as I
can. If the phone rings answer it; it'll  be me. And help yourself to whisky
and books."
     He  nodded. "I'll get  along  fine.  Hope your friend  isn't  seriously
hurt."
     That  was  all I was worrying about myself. I put on my hat and hurried
out, again, and this time  seriously, cussing those two flat tires on my car
and the fact that I hadn't taken time  to fix them that morning. Nine blocks
isn't  far  to walk  when you're not in any  hurry, but it's  a  hell  of  a
distance when you're anxious to get there quickly.
     I walked fast, so fast, in fact,  that I winded myself in the first two
blocks and had to slow down.
     I kept thinking the same thing Pete had obviously thought - what a hell
of a coincidence it was that we'd mentioned the possibility of Carl's being-
     But we'd been talking about  murder. Had  Carl been murdered? Of course
not; things like that  didn't happen  in Carmel City. It  must have been  an
accident, a  hit-run  driver. No  one would  have  the slightest  reason for
killing, of all people, Carl Trenholm. No one but a-
     Finishing that  thought  made  me stop walking suddenly. No one  but  a
maniac would have the slightest reason for killing Carl Trenholm.  But there
was  an escaped  maniac at large tonight  and  - unless he'd left instead of
waiting for me - he was sitting right in my living room. I'd  thought he was
harmless -  even though I'd  taken the precaution  of putting that gun in my
pocket  - but how could I  be sure? I'm no psychiatrist; where did I get the
bright idea that I could tell the difference between  a  harmless nut  and a
homicidal maniac?
     I  started to turn back and then realized  that  going back was useless
and foolish. He would either have left as soon as I  was out of sight around
the corner, or he hadn't guessed that I suspected  him and would wait as I'd
told him to, until he  heard from me. So  all I  had  to do was to phone the
asylum as soon as I could and they'd send guards to close in on my house and
take him if he was still there.
     I started walking again. Yes,  it would be ridiculous for me to go back
alone, even though I still had that gun in my pocket. He might resist, and I
wouldn't want to have to use the gun, especially as I hadn't any real reason
to believe  he'd killed  Carl.  It could have  been an auto accident just as
easily; I couldn't even form  an intelligent opinion on that until I learned
what Carl's  injuries were.  I  kept walking, as fast  as  I  could  without
winding myself again.
     Suddenly I thought of that newspaper  clipping - "MAN  SLAIN BY UNKNOWN
BEAST." A prickle went down my spine - what if Carl's body showed-
     And then  the horrible thought pyramided. What if the unknown beast who
had killed  the man near Bridgeport and the escaped maniac were  one and the
same. What if he had escaped before at the time of the killing at Bridgeport
- or, for that matter, hadn't been committed  to the asylum until after that
killing, whether or not he was suspected of it.
     I thought of lycanthropy, and shivered.  What might I have been talking
about Jabberwocks and unknown beasts with?
     Suddenly the gun I'd put in my pocket felt  comforting  there. I looked
around  over  my shoulder to  be sure that nothing was coming after me.  The
street behind  was empty,  but I started  walking a  little  faster just the
same.
     Suddenly  the street lights  weren't bright enough and the night, which
had been  a pleasant June evening,  was a  frightful, menacing thing.  I was
really scared. Maybe it's as well that  I  didn't guess  that things  hadn't
even started to happen.
     I felt glad that I was passing  the courthouse - with a light on in the
window of the  sheriff's office. I  even considered going in. Probably  Hank
would be there by now  and Rance Kates  would still  be  gone. But no, I was
this  far now and I'd  carry on  to  the Clarion office and start my phoning
from  there.  Besides,  if Kates found out I'd been in his office talking to
Hank, Hank would be in trouble.
     So I kept on going. The corner of Oak Street, and I  turned, now only a
block and a half from the Clarion. But it was going to take me quite a while
to make that block and a half.
     A big,  dark blue Buick sedan  suddenly pulled near the curb and slowed
down alongside me. There were two men in  the front seat and the one who was
driving stuck his  head out of the window and said,  "Hey, Buster, what town
is this?"

        CHAPTER FIVE

          When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
            And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark:
          But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,
            His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.

     It had been a  long time  since anyone had  called  me "Buster,"  and I
didn't particularly like it. I didn't like the looks of the men, either,  or
the tone of  voice the question had been asked in. A minute ago, I'd thought
I'd be glad  of  any  company short of  that of  the  escaped maniac;  now I
decided differently.
     I'm not often rude, but  I can be when  someone else starts it. I said,
"Sorry, pal, I'm a stranger here myself." And I kept on walking.
     I heard the  man behind the wheel  of  the Buick say  something  to the
other,  and then  they passed  me  and swung in to the curb just  ahead. The
driver got out and walked toward me.
     I stopped short  and tried  not to do a double-take when  I  recognized
him. My attention to the  wanted circulars on the post office bulletin board
was about to pay off - although from  the expression on his face, the payoff
wasn't going to be the kind I'd want.
     The man coming toward me and only two steps away when I stopped was Bat
Masters, whose picture had been posted only last week and was still there on
the  board. I couldn't be wrong about his face, and I  remembered  the  name
clearly  because of  its similarity to the name of Bat Masterson, the famous
gunman of the old West. I'd thought of it as a coincidence at first and then
I realized that the similarity of Masters to Masterson had made the nickname
"Bat" a natural.
     He was  a  big  man with a long, horselike face,  eyes wide apart and a
mouth that  was a narrow straight line separating a lantern jaw from  a wide
upper lip; on the latter there was a two-day stubble  of hair that indicated
he  was starting a  mustache. But it would have taken plastic surgery  and a
full  beard to disguise  that face  from  anyone who had  recently,  however
casually, studied a picture of it. Bat Masters, bank robber and killer.
     I had a gun in my pocket, but  I didn't remember it at  the  time. It's
probably just as  well; if I'd remembered, I might have been frightened into
reaching for it. And that probably would not have been a healthful  thing to
do. He was coming at me with his fists  balled but no gun in either of them.
He didn't intend  to kill me - although one of those fists might do it quite
easily and unintentionally. I weigh a hundred and forty wringing wet, and he
weighed almost twice that and had shoulders that bulged out his suit coat.
     There  wasn't  even time  to turn  and run. His left  hand came out and
caught the front of my coat and pulled me toward him, almost lifting me  off
the sidewalk.
     He said, "Listen, Pop, I don't want any lip. I asked you a question."
     "Carmel City," I said. "Carmel City, Illinois."
     The  voice of the other man, still  in the car, came back to  us. "Hey,
Bill, don't hurt the guy. We don't  want to-" He didn't finish the sentence,
of  course; to say  you don't want  to  attract attention is the best way of
drawing it.
     Masters  looked  past me right  over my head  -  to see  if  anybody or
anything was  coming that way and  then, still keeping his grip on the front
of my coat, turned and looked the other way. He wasn't afraid of my swinging
at  him enough  to bother keeping his eyes on me, and I didn't blame him for
feeling that way about it.
     A  car was coming now, about  a block away. And two men came out of the
drugstore on  the opposite side of  the street, only  a few buildings  down.
Then  behind me  I could  hear  the  sound  of  another car turning into Oak
Street.
     Masters turned back to me and let go, so we  were just two men standing
there face to  face  if anyone  noticed us. He  said, "Okay,  Pop. Next time
somebody asks you a question, don't be so God damn fresh."
     He still glared at me as though  he hadn't yet completely  given up the
idea  of giving  me something  to  remember  him  by  -  maybe just  a light
open-handed slap that  wouldn't do anything worse than crack  my jawbone and
drive my dentures down my throat.
     I said, "Sure, sorry," and let my voice sound  afraid, but tried not to
sound quite  as afraid  as  I  really  was  - because  if  he even  remotely
suspected  that I might have recognized him, I wasn't going to get out of it
at all.
     He swung around and  walked  back  to the ear, got in and drove off.  I
suppose I should  have  got  the license  number, but it would  have  been a
stolen car anyway - and besides  I didn't think of it. I  didn't even  watch
the car as it drove away; if either of them looked  back I  didn't want them
to think I was giving them what criminals call the big-eye. I didn't want to
give them any possible reason to change their minds about going on.
     I started walking  again,  keeping  to the middle  of the  sidewalk and
trying to look like a man minding his own business. Also  trying  to keep my
knees from shaking so hard that I couldn't walk at all. It had been a narrow
squeak all right. If the street had been completely empty-
     I could  have  notified the sheriff's office about a  minute quicker by
turning  around and  going  back that way, but I  didn't  take a chance.  If
someone  was watching  me out  of the  back window of the car,  a  change in
direction  wouldn't  be a  good idea. There was a difference of only a block
anyway; I was half  a block past the courthouse  and a block and a half from
Smiley's and the Clarion office across the  street from it. >From either one
I could phone  in the  big  news that Bat  Masters and  a companion had just
driven through Carmel City heading north, probably  toward Chicago. And Hank
Ganzer, in the sheriff's office, would  relay the story to the state  police
and  there  was  probably better than  an even  chance that they'd be caught
within an hour or two.
     And if they were, I might even get a slice of the reward for giving the
tip - but I didn't care as much about that as about the story I was going to
have. Why, it was a story, even if they weren't caught, and if they were, it
would be a really big one. And a local  story - if the  tip came from Carmel
City  -  even  if  they  were actually caught several counties  north. Maybe
there'd even be a gun battle - from my all too close look at Masters I had a
hunch that there would be.
     Perfect timing, too, I thought. For once  something  was happening on a
Thursday night. For once I'd beat the Chicago papers. They'd have the story,
too, of course, and a  lot of  Carmel City  people take Chicago dailies, but
they don't come in until the late  afternoon train and the  Clarion would be
out hours before that.
     Yes, for once I was going to have a newspaper with news  in it. Even if
Masters and his pal weren't caught, the fact that they'd passed through town
made  a story. And besides  that,  there  was  the escaped maniac, and  Carl
Trenholm-
     Thinking about Carl again made me walk faster. It was  safe by now; I'd
gone a quarter of a block since the Buick had driven off. It wasn't anywhere
in sight and again the street was quiet; thank God it hadn't been this quiet
while Masters had been making up his mind whether or not to slug me.
     I  was past Deak's Music Store, dark. Past the supermarket, ditto.  The
bank-
     I had passed the  bank, too, when  I  stopped as suddenly as though I'd
run into a wall.  The bank had  been dark too. And it  shouldn't have  been;
there's a small night light that always burns over the safe.  I'd passed the
bank thousands of times after dark and never before had that light been off.
     For  a  moment the wild thought  went through my head  that Bat and his
companion  must  have  just burglarized  the bank  - although  robbery,  not
burglary,  was Masters' trade - and then I saw  how ridiculous  that thought
had been. They'd  been driving toward the bank and a quarter of a block away
from it when they'd stopped to  ask me what town  they were  in. True,  they
could have burglarized the bank and then circled the block in their car, but
if they had they'd  have been intent on their getaway. Criminals  do  pretty
silly  things  sometimes  but not quite so  silly as  to  stop a getaway car
within spitting  distance of the scene of the crime to ask what town they're
in, and then to top it by getting out of the car to slug a random pedestrian
because they don't like his answer to their question.
     No,  Masters and  company  couldn't  have  robbed  the bank.  And  they
couldn't  be burglarizing  it  now, either.  Their car  had gone on  past; I
hadn't watched it, but my ears had  told me that it  had kept on going.  And
even if it hadn't, I had.  My encounter with them had been only seconds ago;
there wasn't possibly time for them to have broken in there, even  if they'd
stopped.
     I went back a few steps and looked into the window of the bank.
     At  first I saw  nothing except the vague silhouette of a window at the
back - the  top half of the window, that is,  which  was visible  above  the
counter. Then  the  silhouette became  less vague  and I  could see that the
window had been opened; the top bar of the lower sash showed clearly, only a
few inches from the top of the frame.
     That was the means of entry  all right  - but was  the burglar still in
there, or had he left, and left the window open behind him?
     I strained  my  eyes against  the  blackness to the left of the window,
where the safe was. And suddenly a dim  light flickered briefly, as though a
match had been struck but had gone out before the phosphorus had ignited the
wood. I could see only the brief light of it, as  it was below the level  of
the counter; I couldn't see whoever had lighted it.
     The burglar was still there.
     And suddenly I was running on  tiptoe  back through the areaway between
the bank and the post office.
     Good God, don't ask me why. Sure, I had money in the bank, but the bank
had insurance against burglary and it wasn't any skin off my backside if the
bank was robbed. I wasn't  even thinking that it would be a better story for
the Clarion if  I got the burglar - or if he got  me. I just wasn't thinking
at  all. I was running back alongside the bank toward  that window that he'd
left open for his getaway.
     I think  it  must have been reaction  from  the cowardice I'd shown and
felt  only  a  minute  before.  I  must  have  been  a bit punch drunk  from
Jabberwocks  and  Vorpal Blades and homicidal maniacs  with  lycanthropy and
bank bandits  and  a  bank  burglar  - or maybe I thought I'd suddenly  been
promoted to the Roman candle department.
     Maybe I  was drunk, maybe I was a little mentally unbalanced -  use any
maybe you want, but there I was running tiptoe through the areaway. Running,
that  is, as far as  the  light from the street  would let me; then I groped
along the side  of the building  until I came  to the  alley. There was  dim
light there, enough for me to be able to see the window.
     It was still open.
     I stood there looking at it and vaguely beginning to realize  how crazy
I'd been. Why hadn't  I run to the sheriff's office for Hank? The burglar  -
or, for all I knew, burglars - might  be just starting his work  on the safe
in there. He might  be in a long  time, long enough for Hank to get here and
collar him. If  he came out now, what was I going to do about it? Shoot him?
That  was ridiculous; I'd rather let him get away with robbing the bank than
do that.
     And then it  was too late because suddenly there  was a soft  shuffling
sound  from the window and a  hand appeared on the sill. He was  coming out,
and there wasn't a chance that I could get away without his hearing me. What
would happen then, I didn't know. I would just as