Question one: “How does he paper over the difficulty?”
Euglane sighed. “He doesn’t,” he said. “He has become sure that the dream is accurate—that somehow he did commit the murder. He is—beyond argument on the subject; he is terrified of the verdict of these examiners, far more terrified than he is of any possible verdict from a court.”
“Suppose he confesses,” I said. “It isn’t the worst thing that can happen. The confession would have to be checked—your testimony about the impossibility—”
“Would be lost in the noise,” Euglane said. “It is a certainty—but it’s not the sort of certainty a court would be likely to listen to. Not that it would arrive in a court; the confession would be checked, casually, and accepted. Why not, after all?” Another sigh. “I feel sure I can persuade him to rethink the matter—though it will take a little time, and a good deal of discussion.”
“Good,” I said. “We’re agreed he didn’t commit the murder—Harris France might as well agree, too.”
“Exactly,” he said. “He certainly shouldn’t have to bear such guilt. But I thought the dream would be of some interest, given recent experiences elsewhere.”
“It’s interesting,” I said. “Maybe more than interesting. The man is an experienced police officer—he ought to have come up with a better story about the murder than that one.”
“And the dog,” he said.
That was question two. “Did this dog have any name at all?” I said. Not that it really mattered, of course, but…
No.
Harris France’s dream was one of those small irritants for a day or so. The whole thing might have been coincidence— maybe there just wasn’t any better way of explaining things than the impossibility of the gimmicked beamer, or France’s subconscious couldn’t find one—and the rest was easy enough to explain, or explain away. I thought of mentioning it to Mirella, and didn’t—if anything, it would harden her already steel-solid feeling that Harris France was guilty, and God knows it wasn’t evidence of anything: better to shut up about it.
I did mention it to the Master, who said it was “of great interest, but in itself can promise no immediate use”—there wasn’t a handle to pick it up by, in other words. A talk with Harris France might be indicated, but there wasn’t much I could think of to ask him, if he stuck to his new story, as dictated by a small dog in a dream.
And the next day I nearly accomplished a small accident. I’d gone out shopping for a few basics in a nearby market, and on the way home I damn near got myself run over. I never got a glimpse of the driver of the car.
I was ambling along peacefully, laden with City Four smoked cheese, a carton of something the shop called Authentic Ceylon tea, for which I had mild hopes, disposable serviettes, and tomatoes, alfalfa, and cos and romaine lettuce for salads. It was about three P. M. (fifteen), and the street was mostly empty. A few cars went whizzing by to my left, and one of them didn’t whiz by.
It came straight down the street, coughed and squealed, and shuddered as it took a right turn and headed for me.
I managed to hold on to my package while skipping more or less nimbly out of the way. The car squealed some more, the driver apparently trying to restrain it or get it the Hell back on the road and off the sidewalk, and somewhere I heard a distant pedestrian shout: “Watch out, Foolish!” Who he was talking to, I had no notion, and I had no spare attention to cobble up a reply with, in case it had been me,
By then I was safe, breathing a little hard, in a doorway. The car shuddered some more, and whoever was almost driving the thing—afternoon sunlight reflected off the damn windshield, which was as old-fashioned as the car itself, a big boxy black thing that seemed almost eighty years old—managed to get it turned so it was heading straight up the sidewalk—not at me, but not quite back on the road.
It traveled along the sidewalk for about eight yards, coughed violently, and found its way left, back onto the street. And it went away.
The Ravenal traffic system, I told myself, had driven either the car or the driver slightly insane. But what the Hell, no harm had been done.
Accidents will happen.
I never even mentioned the incident to anybody, not then. This also turns out to have been a mistake.
Then—two days later, in late evening—the phone blipped at me while I was peppering some thin slices of cod in preparation for a quiet dinner at home. I had a Robbie dicing some carrots, and a potato was baking. I put down the grinder, wiped my hands and went and answered the thing.
That dinner quickly became one on a list—much too long a list—of Meals I Never Got to Eat. I said: “Gerald Knave. Hello.”
“Gerald, you will doubtless receive a call from Euglane,” the Master’s rasp said. “I will therefore make this very brief. Harris France has committed suicide in his cell. Arrange your mind for Euglane’s call. Finished.”
Click. I stared at the phone for a few seconds, and then hung the thing up. My rented Robbie diced a carrot or two, noisily. I picked up the phone midway through its opening blip.
“Knave, a terrible thing has happened,” Euglane said.
“I’ve heard,” I said. “Where are you?”
“At the police station,” he said. “Where he’s—where he was being held. I cannot understand—I cannot explain—”
“Stay there,” I said. “I’ll be right over.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
His first question was: “How is it you’ve heard?”
I told him Master Higsbee had phoned me.
“But how did he—well, doubtless he has means,” Euglane said.
“He usually does,” I said. “All I have right now is the bare fact. I gather he hanged himself?”
“You weren’t told that?” he said. We were sitting in what I suppose was an interview room, a floor away from France’s cell. “How could you know it?”
“I saw him in his cell,” I said. “I saw the bar he hung clothes from. Easy enough to manage hanging himself from it, and there can’t be many suicide methods available to a man in a cell. I was surprised there was that one.”
“A convenience,” Euglane said. He moaned a little. “Just a convenience. I told them Harris was not suicidal. That there was no danger of it. They were anxious to treat him as kindly as they could. For his comfort.”
“You were wrong,” I said. He moaned again.
“Knave, I was not wrong,” he said. “If there had been suicide lurking in Harris, I would have known. We spoke often. We spoke this afternoon. He seemed distant, calm—it worried me. But I knew his mind; he had not previously had such an urge, on any level that was remotely close to action. It could not have developed by itself over a few days—he might have hidden it for that long, while he himself was fighting it, but not longer. If it had grown in him for as long as four days, I would have known of it.”
“Somebody else strung him up?” I said. Euglane waved one arm.
“There is good evidence that he did the deed himself,” he said. “But he was—pushed into doing it. Persuaded. Cozened. Pushed. It was not his own idea. It did not grow in him of itself; it could not; it was planted, and encouraged.” His arms shivered, as if he wanted to twine them.
I nodded. “Somebody pushed him,” I said. “Pushed him fairly hard. And he didn’t mention that to you, when you talked?”
He stared at me. “I would think he—it’s odd,” he said. “Very odd. If a visitor, a guard, anyone had so much as suggested it to him—surely he would have mentioned it.”
“Not anyone,” I said. “Suppose these aliens of his—the examiners who watched him all the time—suggested it to him. They were special. You knew about them, but even so—would he have told you?”
A second or so of silence. “Not right away, perhaps,” he said. “He would have—discussed it with them. If they told him not to mention it—Knave, I am not sure. Such a decision for him never came up; he never mentioned that they had any reaction at all to his talks with me, and
of course I never pressed the question.”
“No,” I said. “Why make difficulties you didn’t have to make?” I took a deep breath. “I think we’re coming to a conclusion about Harris France and his examiners—and about his dreams. His recent dreams.”
“A conclusion?”
“You’d see it yourself, if you were under less strain,” I said. “The dog—the examiners—Folla and Dube—they’re all the same being. Or beings. Not originally—the examiners were his illness. All right. But beings who could enter his dreams and pretend to be his examiners—who would know enough from having watched him in dreams before—well, something about France worried them, and they decided to get rid of him. So they talked him into killing himself.”
Another moan. Euglane wasn’t relaxed, there in a public room—his arms shivered again. “Knave, that’s horrible.”
“Horrible and reasonable,” I said. “It’s even possible to see what worried them about France—a little of it, anyhow.”
“He was enclosed in a cell,” Euglane said. “He did nothing. What could worry them?”
“He didn’t commit the murder,” I said. “There were people working—you and me and the Master, for instance—to establish that he didn’t commit the murder. France himself wasn’t sure—but we were pretty persuasive. At least he kept doubting.”
“Well,” Euglane said, “he didn’t commit that act.”
“No,” I said. “He didn’t. But Folla and company wanted it nicely, neatly established that he had. The longer we worked— and the more Harris worked with us—the better the chance of our establishing that he hadn’t. So they tried persuading him that he had—through the dog in his dream—and when you went on attacking the idea, they imitated his examiners, and pushed him to kill himself.”
Euglane was shivering all over—and nodding. “They forced him to kill himself,” he said.
“They pushed him,” I said. “As hard as they could—which was hard enough.” I thought for a second. “I think we can come to another conclusion,” I said.
“Yes?”
“We know what color hats Folla and company wear,” I said.
He muttered it. “Yes.”
“Dead black,” I said.
I shepherded Euglane through a lot of questioning and paperwork; he really wasn’t in any kind of shape for it, but he had been France’s doctor, and he had told them the man was not a suicide risk. That took more explaining than he had available, but not even police expect a doctor to be infallible, and he was so troubled, and obviously troubled, that they let up after only a small while.
There were no relatives to notify, and Euglane was also the person the funeral arrangements were going to fall on. I helped with that, too, for a few minutes, but he seemed much more comfortable once he was dealing with formal matters. I kept hoping Mirella would turn up, but it wasn’t her case, and though she’d certainly have heard about France’s death—police grapevines, anywhere, work about as well as the best grapevines available—she’d have no reason to wander over to the jail and poke around. Even Cornelia Rasczak was her case only in part, of course; she was just hired help. She’d have had nothing to do with Harris France.
It was actually more than ninety minutes before she did show up.
I wasn’t too surprised—well, a little—but I was curious. Euglane was off somewhere by then, beginning to arrange a funeral, and when Mirella opened the door of the interview room and poked her head in, I said: “How did you get in?”
She gave me that big grin. “I am official,” she said. “By now I’m off duty, but you are looking at a dedicated officer, right?”
“Dedicated to the Harris France case?”
“Be smart,” she said scornfully. “How would I hook into that? But I am involved with a case, and it’s important I come talk to a person who is a part of it. Simple?”
“Simple,” I said. “Cornelia Rasczak. Harris France’s death closes it out, officially, but—”
Another grin. “What else, Jerry? Sure. I figured you would be here. Gielli are not much good with disaster. He’d call somebody.”
“And you figured me for the somebody,” I said. “Right. But Euglane’s fine with disaster, generally—what he isn’t good with is death. Apparently Gielli really don’t like death or violence.”
“So who likes death?” Mirella said. “The stone in every shoe. But you and me, Jerry, we’re human. We can deal with it.”
“We damn well have to,” I said. “This is not a simple suicide.”
Mirella nodded. “I figured. A guy like France, he does not take himself off. He makes with the strong jaw, he turns to stone and he gets through it. But the word is, he got hanged in his cell.” She made a face. “I am not going to believe somebody here got in and hanged him. We are pretty good officers around here. At least good enough, we don’t go around killing prisoners, you know? But if not that—what?”
“Oh, he tied the noose,” I said, “and he stuck his own head in it. But he was pushed. Somebody—and that’s a very loose description—pushed him into doing it, very carefully and deliberately.”
“Takes the Hell of a person to push somebody strong as France was supposed to be,” she said. “Broken up, sure, after she died—no matter did he do it or not, he has to be broken up. But still strong.”
“Strong enough,” I said. “France was pushed from inside. This somebody got at his mind—at his dreams. His nightmares.”
“Who?” she said. “This Euglane? He would know about the dreams, and the nightmares too.”
“Not Euglane,” I said. “An alien. A real alien—not just a Giell, or some other kind of person.”
Mirella thought about it for a second. “What the Hell,” she said then. “You’re telling me there is something entirely weird going on here? Something off the 3V? When you talked about alien beings before, it wasn’t just jokes?”
“Don’t shut your mind to it,” I said. “Most of this is provable.” I gave her a sketch of Folla, Dube and company and their interference with Harris France’s delusions about aliens, and his dreams. I tied it in to my own experience with Folla, and, a little, with Hester MacEvoy—she’d had a very brief look at both of those pieces while we’d been eating Old-Fashioned Food.
“This,” she said flatly, “is crazy.”
“I said not to shut—”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t so,” she said. “I said it was crazy. So or not, is it normal?”
“It’s crazy,” I said. “But it’s so. I’ll fill you in—there’s a lot of it, and you ought to have it all. But not here and now.”
“Give me a time and place,” she said. “This, I have got to hear.” Then she did surprise me. “You think maybe it’s connected?”
“Connected?”
“With Rasczak,” she said. “It looks to be.”
She explained it, and she’d followed the same path I had: a motive for killing France, safely locked in his cell, almost had to tie in with the fact that he was accused of murder.
“And,” I said, “the fact that he didn’t do it.”
“I see that,” she said. “I don’t have to like it, but I see it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I spent a few hours on it—with Mirella and the Master. Euglane, once his arrangements were as far along as they were going to get that day, had gone home to collapse—or to relax himself, I suppose. He was in no shape to think and discuss; he was barely in shape to breathe in and out.
He’d recover; he bent very easily, under some kinds of strain, but he didn’t look as if anything much would break him. I called the Master from the jail, invited myself for dinner and the evening—he made no fuss about it, of course, beyond six or seven mentions of his age, weariness and helplessness—and asked him if I could bring Mirella over.
“By all means,” he said; “she is a fresh eye.”
She was all of that. She greeted the damn piranhas like old friends, and admired them extravagantly. I did not visibly fu
me.
“Now I have it all,” she said after dinner—we’d spent dinner (after just a little more conversation about the piranhas; the Master got expansive, for him, and I said as little as was politely possible) filling her in as thoroughly as possible, and she’d listened well, and asked absolutely no unnecessary questions— “now I have it all, I see where the problem comes from.”
“Which problem?” I said. “There are fifty.”
“Why France did not do it,” she said. “If he did it, why send a dog to tell him he did it in some way that didn’t happen? Why bring in his examiners to get him to hang himself?”
“They might,” I said, “be afraid he’d tell people they existed.”
“Silly,” she said. She took a swallow of coffee—the Master likes a Kona blend some days. “This is good stuff,” she told him. “You know coffee.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Gerald does not agree.”
I’d once told him that Kona is too sweet for most occasions. He doesn’t forget things, damn it.
“So what does he know?” Mirella said, and shrugged. “But how could these examiner types be afraid France would tell people?”
“Not the examiners,” I said. “Or not the original examiners; those were fantasies. Illness. But our aliens hooked into the illness, and used it.”
“Easy enough, if they go into dreams,” Mirella said. “He must have dreamed about them, people dream about what they care about, sometimes.” She shook her head. “Poor guy. But look: he had chances to tell people. Lots of them—his doctor, Jerry here, who knows who else? He said no word except to Euglane, and that was just the illness stuff, not the real ones who came along. They waited and waited, and finally they got nervous? No.” She paused. “Besides, suppose he started to talk about it. Who would listen?”
“Euglane,” I said.
“Euglane knows they are there, the examiners,” she said. “Why would he suddenly think they are really real? Even if suddenly some of them are?” She finished the cup. “Who would listen to this Hester MacEvoy, she started talking about aliens? Or Hilda? Nothing for the aliens to worry about, nothing at all.”
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