A few minutes later, when he was still trying to subdue her, Emily came back.
“It’s all right and the lights are on. I left a window open and I did everything …”
“Emily, Angel tried to get away with the dolls. I caught her on the slope up to the house, but she screamed. The trooper must have heard, and the dolls are there.”
“You let her do it? I told you. I warned you.”
“Quick, Emily. Get the dolls and, if the trooper’s there, tell him something, anything …”
“Yes, quick.”
She disappeared and in about ten minutes she was back with the dolls.
“It’s all right. I’ve got them.” She threw them contemptuously down on the floor and Angel screamed. “And the trooper, he was there. He was standing looking at the dolls and he said, ‘What’s all this?’ And I said Angel and me had fought about the dolls and it’s all right. He believed me.”
At twelve-thirty the boys came back with the tubes. John fitted them into the recorder. It was, he told himself, going to be all right after all. Even Angel, sulking with the dolls on her bed in the corner, an admitted Enemy in their midst, didn’t matter anymore. .She could be kept here until it was all over. They ate lunch and afterwards he coached Leroy. The situation was so flexible that he would have to depend on Leroy for details, but he drilled him in the essentials. Emily insisted that she should be the one to stay and guard Angel, so Buck was to be sent for Vickie. John briefed him and exactly at four sent him off. A few minutes later he picked up the recorder.
“Okay, Emily. You’ll take care of Angel. And. Leroy, you know what to do. Leave here at four-thirty by Emily’s watch; that will get you to the Morelands’ by five. And if it’s Mrs. Moreland who comes to the door and not Mr. Moreland, tell her you have a special message for Mr. Moreland from the Careys.”
“To say to come fishing tomorrow.”
“That’s right. And, when he comes and you give him the message, that’s when you bring out the plaque and play with it. Be sure he sees it. Have it right there in your hand … Okay?”
“Okay.” Leroy smiled down in shy pride at the little gleaming plaque with an L on it in his palm. “Gee, it’s the most important, isn’t it? It’s the biggest part of all.”
“Yes, Leroy.”
“Gee!”
John stood looking at the children. It was all right, wasn’t it? He hadn’t forgotten anything? He hadn’t given them anything to do that was beyond their capabilities?
Pushing the recorder ahead of him, he slipped out through the hole.
As he started through the woods, the inevitable doubts began to invade him. Had he cut the timing too fine? The Careys’ house was nearer the Fishers’ than the Morelands’. Vickie should be there at least half an hour before Gordon, even if Gordon were to come right away. No, the timing was all right. He would be able to play the tape to Vickie first. That in itself would be almost enough, but when later they caught Gordon red-handed …
It took him longer than he had expected to curve up through the woods to the back of the Fishers’. When he reached it, the lawn was unmowed and the house from behind looked already deserted as if the Fishers had been away for years. He went straight to the porch steps and, dropping down, peered behind them. Yes, the box was there. It was the back window on the right of the living-room which Emily had left cracked. He found it almost a third open from the bottom and it pushed up easily. As he scrambled into the living-room, his excitement soared to a peak. Vickie wouldn’t be here yet, but he would play the tape. The front windows of the house looked out directly on to the dirt road. He was dangerously exposing himself. Anyone passing would hear the music. But that would have to be risked. It wouldn’t be for long.
He put the recorder down on the Fishers’ baby grand piano and plugged it into the wall socket. The excitement fluttering in his stomach like birds’ wings, he took the tape out of his pocket, fitted it on to the machine and flicked the player switch. The tubes lit up; the tape whirred.
But no sound came.
He cursed under his breath. The tubes had to be all right. Then—what? The amplifier? He pulled out the plug, lifted the machine down on to the floor and started to examine it with growing tension. Perhaps the fall had broken a connection. He’d need a screwdriver. Somewhere the Fishers must have a screwdriver.
He got up and hurried into the kitchen, controlling his agitation. Where did they keep their tools? He pulled out drawers, opened cabinets. There was nothing. He ran down into the cellar. Finally in a cabinet in a corner he found a tool chest. He took a screwdriver and pliers and ran back to the living-room.
He glanced at his watch. It was five-fifteen already. Vickie would be arriving any minute. Well, it couldn’t be helped. If he couldn’t get it ready in time … He started to work feverishly. Tension made his fingers clumsy. As he disassembled the machine he was constantly looking at his watch. Five-twenty-five. Five-thirty. Leroy had set the trap at the Morelands’ half an hour ago. What had happened to Buck and Vickie? What if Vickie had changed her mind after talking to Leroy and had gone out after all… ? Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. Why hadn’t he made sure of Vickie beforehand? Without a witness the trap would have no validity at all.
What if Gordon arrived first?
At twenty to six he located the trouble. With an hysterical deftness born of panic he repaired the connection and started to reassemble the machine. Now his plan seemed to him to make no sense at all. What if Vickie had lost faith in him and was an enemy too? And, even if she did come, where should they stand so that they could see Gordon and he couldn’t see them? That was all right. Behind the curtains, in the rear window. From there there was an uninterrupted view of the porch steps. But …
It was a quarter to six. Something must have gone wrong with Vickie. There was no doubt at all about it now. Something …
From a long way off in the woods behind the house he heard a sound. It came again. Wasn’t it a man’s shout? He ran to the window. Yes, he could hear it distinctly. Somewhere off to the right, near his own house, a man shouted. Another man shouted back,
The village again? Steve and the villagers? The dream?
“Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton …”
He heard the thud of running feet and, just as he ducked behind the curtain, saw Leroy coming around the side of the house.
“Mr. Hamilton.”
He showed himself at the window. Leroy dashed up, panting, his face taut with distress.
“Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Hamilton, it’s all gone wrong.” He started to scramble up to the window. John caught his arms and swung him into the room. Leroy was panting:
“I went. I went like you said. And Mrs. Moreland opened the door, but before I could say that about my message, she said, ‘Come in, come in. We’re all here and we’re giving a party’, and she took me into the living-room and Timmie was there with them and they were all there, Mr. Carey and Mrs. Carey and Mr. and Mrs. Carey’s mother and father. They were all there, drinking tea. And I had the little gold thing in my hand like you said and I didn’t know what to do but I figured I had to say what you said, so I went up to Timmie and Mr. Moreland was right there and I gave Timmie the gold thing and I said it was for him and we’d found the box under the Fishers’ porch steps with the jewels and the typewriter thing and they were all listening and Timmie took the gold thing and he was terribly excited and he said, ‘Did you really find it or is it part of the game?’ And then he said, all excited, ‘I did my bit of the game. I stayed home and I never did tell. Just like John said .. .’ And Mr. Moreland swung around and said, ‘John? Did you say John? What is this?’ And Timmie got scared. And …”
Leroy’s eyes, tormented with shame, were fixed on John’s face.
“And it wasn’t my fault. I did what you said. Honest I did. But Timmie got scared. And they all crowded around him, saying, ‘John. What do you mean—John.’ And he cried. And he sat there and he cried and they went on and on and he told them.
‘It’s the cave,’ he said. ‘John’s in Angel’s cave.’ And they were all dashing about and old Mr. Carey went to the phone and he called Buck’s father. I heard him. Timmie was crying and Mr. Carey was saying on the phone, ‘Get a posse right away. John Hamilton’s in the woods … ’ and I didn’t wait. I just ran away. They didn’t think about me and I ran away and I got my bicycle and I came …”
Off in the woods a cry rang out again. Yes, the nightmare was back. Vickie was out of the picture. Steve and the village were on their way back to the cave, and in the cave they would find Angel, the Enemy. Angel would direct them here to the Fishers’.
But Gordon had heard the story. Surely then Gordon would slip off in the confusion and come anyway. And there was a witness. Leroy was a witness.
Yes, if Gordon came it might still …
The shouts were ringing around the woods. He dropped down to the floor and screwed the last screws in the recorder into place.
“Mr. Hamilton—did I do all right?”
“Yes, Leroy. It wasn’t your fault.”
He lifted the recorder up on to the piano again. As he bent to put the plug in the wall socket he suddenly stiffened.
A car was coming up the road outside.
22
HE RAN to the front window with Leroy and drew the boy back into the screen of the curtains.
“Watch what he does, Leroy. It’s terribly important.”
The sound of the oncoming car grew louder. Then the car itself appeared from behind the maples at the roadside. It was the Careys’ old convertible. It stopped and Vickie and Buck jumped out. Relief surging through him, he ran out of the front door toward them.
“I got her,” Buck said. “She’d gone to the Morelands’, but I got her.”
“John!” Vickie’s face was pinched with anxiety.
“Quick,” he said. “Park the car further up the road out of sight. And then come back.”
For a moment she stood looking at him searchingly, then she hurried to the car and drove off. He went with the two children into the house. Soon Vickie came running in through the front door, closing it behind her.
“I’ve hidden it up beyond the trees. John, they’ve gone to the cave.”
“I know. Leroy told me.”
“And you were there all the time with the children!”
He poured it all out to her while her eyes fixed on his face and the sound of the posse, nearer now, rang out in the woods beyond. Had they got to the cave yet? Had Angel redirected them?
“… so he’ll have to come for the box, Vickie. And with you as a witness …”
“Gordon!”
“It’s got to be Gordon. And once we’ve seen him …”
“Listen.” Her voice cut in sharply. “A car’s coming.”
He heard it too.
“Quick, Leroy, Buck, stay at the front window. Don’t let him see you. Quick.”
He hurried Vickie to the back window which looked out on to the porch steps. Excitement was balancing his panic fear of the men in the woods. Vickie had come. And Gordon was coming.
For a few more seconds he heard the drone of the car; then it stopped. So Gordon wasn’t driving right up to the house? No, of course he wouldn’t do that. He’d leave the car further down the road as if he’d come to join the posse; then he’d slip up through the trees. As they waited, frozen against the wall, the silence around the house made the noises in the woods sound like a tumult.
“Buck,” he whispered. “Can you see anything?”
“No, the car stopped.”
“Yes.” It was Leroy’s voice, high and wabbly. “He’s there. He’s coming through the trees down to the left. Oh, I can’t see him anymore. But I saw him. He’s gone. He’s gone around to the back.”
Tensely John moved away from Vickie to the other rear window and peered out behind the curtain. He could see the man clearly now. He was running up across the lawn toward them.
And it wasn’t Gordon; it was Brad.
Feeling faintly sick, he slipped back to the other window and put his arm around Vickie’s waist. She smiled up at him quickly. His mouth was dry. He tightened the pressure of his arm around her waist. Brad appeared then outside the window, only a few feet from them. He felt Vickie’s body go rigid. For one moment Brad hesitated, looking furtively from left to right; then he went straight to the porch steps, dropped down and felt behind them. His hand came out with the box. Standing there in the full sunlight, he opened the box, took out the decoy tape, put it in his pocket and, dropping down again, replaced the box behind the steps.
While John watched in an agony of bewilderment, he started running away down the lawn in the direction of the voices in the woods.
Brad! he thought. Of course, everything he’d reconstructed about Linda and Gordon could apply equally well, better maybe, to Linda and Brad. But Brad had been in New York with him all the time. It couldn’t be Brad. It. . .
He turned to Vickie, crippled with embarrassment for what he’d done to her. Her face was stricken. She looked crumpled and old. The boys had come running over to them, hovering, solemn and subdued.
In a sudden, fierce voice Vickie said, “Play the tape.” “But, Vickie …”
“Play the tape. Then we’ll know.”
He crossed to the recorder, plugged it into the wall socket and flicked on the player switch. The tubes lit up, the tape whirred, and then the serene opening bars of the Mendelssohn floated through the room. For a moment he stood returning Vickie’s haunted gaze, then, from the rear window, Buck cried:
“They’re coming. All of them, they’re coming up the lawn. It’s Pop and Mr. Carey and George Hatch … And, gee, they’ve got guns. They …”
John moved to switch off the recorder.
“No,” said Vickie. “Let it play.”
She grabbed his hand and together they ran to join the children behind the curtain at the window. Fifteen or twenty men were streaming up from the woods on to the lawn. In the van John saw Steve Ritter and old Mr. Carey and one of the men in blue jeans. All three of them carried rifles. Behind them in the group he made out Gordon Moreland and Brad and, yes, running among them, Emily. But none of it seemed to matter to him anymore. All that mattered was his new anguish for Vickie. The men were all on the lawn now; they were marshalling into a phalanx behind Steve and Mr. Carey.
“John Hamilton.” It was Steve Ritter who roared his name and then the others took it up, bringing a faint echo of the nightmare.
“John Hamilton … John Hamilton …”
He said, “I’m going out.”
“Are you crazy? They’ll shoot. Let me. Yes, John, stay there. Let me.”
Vickie’s fingers clutched into his arm; then she ran away from him out on to the screen-porch. He heard the door pushed open and then saw her running toward the men. Behind him the solo flute rippled, leading the orchestra into the bustling central section of the overture.
Vickie had gone straight to Steve and her father-in-law. Gordon Moreland hurried to join them and then, very slowly and casually, Brad strolled up.
“Gee, John.” It was Buck. “Are they gonna get you? Gee, John, what are we gonna do?”
“It’s okay, Buck.”
Vickie was talking rapidly to Steve. The “Prosperous Voyage” theme soared from the recorder. At length, glancing over her shoulder, Vickie started back toward the house. Steve, Mr. Carey, Gordon Moreland, Brad and a couple of the villagers came after her. John saw Emily run up, looking distractedly toward the house. Then she plunged after the others, but one of the men grabbed her and pulled her back.
Vickie and the men crowded into the room which was resounding now with the music. Gordon Moreland was avid, old Mr. Carey’s face was heavy with disapproval, Brad kept his eyes on the ground. Steve Ritter, smiling the old white sardonic smile, stood watching John.
“So you fooled us—you and the kids. What d’you know?” He jerked his head toward the recorder. “Is that the tape Vickie’s talking about?�
�
“Yes.”
“What’s the pay-off? Vickie says it proves you didn’t do it. I don’t get it. Music. What does music prove?”
The drums were thundering. The overture was building up to the finale. Any minute now … John’s eyes flashed to Vickie. Had she told about Brad? Wasn’t that expecting too much? She returned his gaze with a kind of dead intensity.
“Wait,” she said. “Let it play, Steve. Then we’ll know.” The full orchestra roared above the drums, then it subsided and a snatch of the “Prosperous Voyage” theme came again. John stood, digging his nails into his palms. There seemed to be nothing now but the music and the eyes, the bright, cautious eyes, watching him.
The music stopped. There was a whir of empty tape. John turned to Brad. He was by the window, his face a greyish white.
For a moment there was total silence except for the whir of the tape; then, suddenly, there was a little giggling laugh. It sounded so realistic that it could have been someone laughing in the room, but it was Linda’s laugh, and then, softly, caressingly, Linda’s voice said:
“Relax, darling. He won’t be back for hours. He never is when he’s out with the kids. Really, a retarded husband has his advantages … Oh, darling, the ring is so wonderful, but you shouldn’t. You’re mad to spend all that money.”
And then, behind the faint surface scratch of the tape, Brad’s voice came:
“It wasn’t anything. You know that, Linda. If it helps to make you happy. My God, when I think of what you have to put up with.”
“It’s not too bad. Honestly it isn’t. Not now I’ve got you. Brad, if you knew how I need you.”
“Not as much as I need you.”
“Darling, do you mean that? Do you really mean that?”
“Of course I mean it.”
Linda laughed again. The laugh’s cozening intimacy was terrible. John was keeping his eyes from Vickie, looking straight past Steve at Brad.
The Man in the Net Page 19