Nine Times Nine

by Anthony Boucher

  Matt’s caution checked his expulsive sigh of relief. Here was something to do—no standing around chapels making a fool of yourself, but good solid direct action—to atone to the family for your stupid crassness, you told yourself in words; to compensate for your own frustration, you knew without words.

  The figure had vanished now. The crack of light was a small one; it had hit the raincoat only by chance. But it might do so again; Matt kept his eyes fixed on that little beam of light as he edged his way along the wall. He could hear the typing again now; it must come from the same room as the light.

  Then he saw it. A smooth plump hand reaching into the beam. The hand fumbled, as though with a catch, then seemed to push the window ever so slightly. The narrow band of light widened almost imperceptibly. The typing had stopped.

  He couldn’t see the body in the rain and the darkness—only the hand. A woman’s—no, on second thought more probably a man’s hand, despite the ornate ring, but soft and effeminate. If—

  Then from the darkness came a squeal of pain. The hand vanished. For an instant the beam shone on the raincoated figure, running rapidly straight at Matt. It shone, too, on something metallic in the other hand.

  And now came action, sudden, unpremeditated, and immeasurably relieving. In the wet darkness the wearer of the raincoat hurtled plump into Matt. He gasped a choking oath, and for a moment Matt felt a steel cylinder pressed against his ribs. Then something caught his foot and the two went down together onto the sodden grass.

  A fight is one thing. You feel freedom and pain and exultation all at once. But this was something else. As a fighter Raincoat was beneath contempt, weak and pudgy. But his hand held a little tool which could still the sturdiest fighter.

  Twice the end of that tool pressed against Matt’s body. Twice, his spine shaken with a chill quivering which he might have recognized as fear if he had had time for such reflections, he jerked himself to safety. Then, with a hastily improvised twist which he could never have repeated, Matt straddled safely on Raincoat’s cushiony belly, leaning forward to press down on the struggling wrist of the armed hand.

  “Drop it,” he said with a calm that astonished him. “There’s a good Raincoat.” To emphasize the request, he bounced a bit on the rubbery stomach. “Papa says to drop it.”

  Raincoat was pouring forth a steady flood of vigorous words in some language strange to Matt. His only other answer was to try harder than ever to free his wrist. On his other hand Matt could feel a liquid which was warmer than rain.

  “I’d advise you,” said a deep voice from the darkness, “to knock him out and take it away. He won’t play nice.”

  Wherever the advice came from, it was sound. For a second Matt released the man’s flaying left and drove his own right home efficiently just behind the ear. The struggles stopped abruptly.

  “Neat work,” said the voice. “Let’s go inside.”

  Matt rose dripping to his feet, the small automatic now in his hand. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Isn’t that my question? After all, I live here.”

  “Oh. Then you’re Wolfe Harrigan?”

  “Courtesies later; first we’ll get this hulk inside. Can’t leave him to rot out here—might ruin the croquet lawn. Oh, yes, that is a croquet lawn you’ve been rolling about on. Come on—give a hand.”

  Once inside the study, Matt looked at Wolfe Harrigan in open admiration. This was no quietly brilliant scholar such as he had expected from his writings. Harrigan’s height topped Matt’s own six feet by a good two inches, and his whole body was built on that scale. He moved about the room—adjusting Raincoat on the sofa, closing the French windows, pouring drinks—with that easy litheness which comes only of complete and conscious muscular control. Even his steel-gray hair seemed a mark of strength rather than of age. Matt was never to see him save in this house or at the Temple of Light; but somehow his mind showed him Wolfe Harrigan on a cloud-topping mountain trail or at the wheel of a skimming sailboat.

  “Here,” said Wolfe. “You need a drink. And even if you don’t, you probably want one.” He stripped off his sopping shirt and threw it at Raincoat. “I shan’t bother the family for a clean one now. The fireplace’ll dry me off.” He stood astraddle before the open flames. “Now, if you care to add another service to what you’ve already done, you might gratify my curiosity. Who the devil are you?”

  “My name is Duncan—Matt Duncan.”

  “I didn’t ask your name. I said who are you. Names tell nothing—or at most what sort of taste your parents had. The only names that mean anything are phonies—like our friend’s there. The Swami Mahopadhyaya Virasenanda …” He made a noise of disgust. “But he can wait. Your name, I take it, is real?”

  “Yes.”

  “And therefore meaningless. Go on. Who are you?”

  “I plead the rights of hospitality, Mr. Harrigan. My question first, before I deliver an autobiography.”

  “Your question, no less?” Wolfe Harrigan smiled indulgently.

  But it wasn’t easy to bring out. You can’t simply ask a man, under such extraordinary circumstances, if he knows what is being done to his daughter. While Matt still fumbled with his beginning, a rap came on the door to the chapel.

  Harrigan crossed and turned the knob. (It was one of those you lock by pressing a button from the inside.)

  The young man who slouched in looked like a cheaply made reprint of Wolfe Harrigan—the same general format, but lacking the strength and beauty of the original. He seemed to lean against an invisible support as he stood, and he spoke without bothering to take the cigarette from his mouth.

  “Thought you might like to know they were coming down,” he said.

  Harrigan hastily pulled a knit jacket over his bare torso. “And what’s the decision?” he asked sharply.

  “I don’t know yet.” The youth’s eyes took in the room—the stranger in the muddy camel’s hair, the unconscious body in the raincoat. “What goes on?” he wanted to know.

  Wolfe Harrigan seemed to wipe away the two figures with a quick gesture. “That’s not important. What does Concha say? Has Sister Ursula finally persuaded her to—”

  Matt rose. “Look here, Mr. Harrigan. That’s what I’ve come to talk about, and I’m going to. If you think—”

  The young man looked him up and down. “Knight errant,” he said with quiet scorn. Taking the half-smoked cigarette from his mouth, he doubled it up and tossed it at the fireplace.

  “Mr. Harrigan, you’ve got to listen to me. Of all the people I’ve met in this house, you’re the only one I feel I can talk to. You—”

  There were voices in the chapel. “Hush,” said Harrigan.

  His sister Ellen moved softly into the room. She was smiling, and there were happy tears in her eyes. “Wolfe,” she said. “Wolfe. She did it. Mary has agreed—”

  “No!” Wolfe Harrigan let out a bellow of delight. “Ellen! It’s splendid!”

  Matt took a step forward. “Sir! You can’t—”

  In the chapel doorway stood a nun in unearthly garb. Behind her you could see another nun and R. Joseph Harrigan. The gathering of the vultures, Matt thought.

  “Sister Ursula,” cried Wolfe, “you’re magnificent. You actually—?”

  “Yes,” said Sister Ursula. “Yes, I have finally talked that silly child out of becoming a nun.”

  Chapter 3

  Matt’s heroic world turned several somersaults, ended with a neat double flip-up, and stood still.

  “It was a struggle,” Sister Ursula went on. “The poor girl is so young. At that age it’s so easy to let your personal discontent masquerade as God’s will.”

  “Did you …” Wolfe Harrigan spoke with a hesitancy in marked contrast to his former brusque self-possession. “Did you learn why she—?”

  Sister Ursula was grave. “We aren’t priests; you know. But there was something a little like the confessional about this. So if you please—”

  Wolfe turned away. “You’re
right, Sister.”

  “But I promise you, it’s gone now. And we must go, too. We should have been back hours ago, but I had special dispensation from the Mother Superior. My!” she smiled. “You read about the saints sitting up with some poor sinner and struggling with the devil. I tell you it’s nothing to sitting up with a poor child who wants to be a saint and struggling with what she thinks is God!”

  “Arthur will drive you back,” said Wolfe Harrigan.

  “Thank you.” She raised her voice. “Sister Felicitas! We’re going home!” She turned as she spoke, revealing Matt’s presence to the indignant eyes of R. Joseph Harrigan.

  “Good heavens” the lawyer spluttered. “It’s the young drunk! Wolfe, what is the meaning of this?”

  The elder Harrigan frowned at Matt. “You know my brother?”

  “Does he know me! Listen, Wolfe. This young man broke in on Ellen at her devotions this evening and launched into the most insulting remarks about Mary. He seemed to believe that we were driving the girl into a convent against her will, and that he was the white-plumed knight who would rescue her.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “Do? What should a man do? I threw him out.” Joseph raised his chin and straightened his sleeves as though he had attended to the matter personally.

  “Whereupon,” Wolfe added, “he lingers around the house just long enough to save my life. Young man, I think you are assuming the status of an enigmatic figure. A little explaining mightn’t be out of order.”

  “Your job, pop,” the young Harrigan muttered through a fresh cigarette. “Screwballs are your specialty.”

  Matt had been watching Sister Ursula. You couldn’t tell what she looked like. She might be anything. The dark blue gown hid the lines of her body, and the pale blue headdress made her face simply a pink blob gleaming above the starched white neckpiece. The skin looked smooth—almost as smooth as Joseph’s—but there was no way of fixing her age. Only one thing about her was definite and personal—her blue eyes, kind and wise and understanding. The Harrigans, even Wolfe, had intimidated Matt; but in front of Sister Ursula he felt that he could tell his absurd story, with one slight bit of censorship.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll wash up the mystery. I’m a friend of Greg Randall’s, or was. I saw him tonight for the first time in years, and we got to talking about his broken engagement. It sounded—though I can see now how foolish that was—as though there were a family conspiracy against him.”

  “Ridiculous!” Joseph Harrigan pronounced. “Nothing could please me more than to welcome old T. F.’s son into the family. But when a mere child is so absurdly self-willed—”

  “I know. We just got the wrong picture. So we came out here to make a protest—try to break up this imagined conspiracy. Only Greg was taken ill on the way out here, and I had to drop him off and call a doctor. Then I got to thinking I should maybe go on with the plan myself—be his ambassador like. You see what it got me. So now I offer my humblest apologies—and I mean it—to all the Harrigans and most especially to you, Sister Ursula, for the strange ideas I had about you.”

  Arthur Harrigan crumpled another cigarette and said, “Nuts.”

  Sister Ursula seemed not to hear him. She smiled at Matt and said, “There’s a road paved with good intentions.”

  “I know.” Matt was shamefaced.

  “But I don’t agree,” she added, “with the popular idea of where it leads. Come, Sister Felicitas.”

  At a glance from his father, Arthur shambled off after the two nuns. As he passed Matt, he gave him a look, with more pity than contempt in it.

  “I’ll go now, too,” said Matt. “I hope—”

  “Just a minute, young man,” Joseph was commanding. “There’s more to explain. What’s all this about saving my brother’s life?”

  “And what,” said Ellen, “is this?” She pointed at the still unconscious Raincoat.

  Wolfe chuckled. “We’ve been having fun and games tonight children. Sit down and you shall hear all.” Matt started to edge away. “You too, Duncan. Lord, man, you played a lead in this melodrama. You can’t walk out on it now.” Wolfe seated himself behind the desk and took up a handful of small darts. Facing him across the room hung a painted wooden target. As he spoke, he punctuated his remarks with sudden deft tosses of unvarying accuracy.

  “Helpful thing, these darts,” he observed. “Better than solitare for resting the mind, and not unuseful for other purposes. If it weren’t for these and Mr. Duncan, we might have had an even more exciting evening. Mary come down, by the way?”

  “She’s still upstairs,” said Ellen. “Sister Ursula thought it would be best to leave her alone for a while.”

  “Good. You needn’t repeat all this harrowing episode to her then. She may have been acting a bit strangely of late; but I still don’t think she’d relish a threat against her father’s life.”

  “Good heavens, Wolfe,” Joseph boomed. “You don’t mean that this fellow actually—”

  “Show it to them, Duncan.”

  Matt reached into the pocket of the camel’s hair and silently drew out Raincoat’s automatic.

  “They aren’t being carried just for sport this season,” Wolfe commented. “And by the way, Duncan, why not take off that mud-bedaubed coat? It’s warm enough in here by the fire.”

  Matt thought of the clothes under the coat and shook his head.

  “But who is this man?” Joseph demanded. “Why should he sneak around here with a gun? And where does Duncan come in?”

  “Remember the Sussmaul case that I was preparing evidence on? The Swami who read the future in colored inks and who was turned loose last week by a hung jury?”

  “Of course. And I’ve heard some nasty rumors around the Hall of Justice about that jury.”

  “Naturally, he’ll come up for trial again and my evidence is still essential. Well, tonight I was working on my dossier on the Children of Light. Slow going, some of it. I have to be careful about facts and even more careful about my conclusions. At one point I was stuck; the paragraph simply would not come out the way it should. So I reared back in this chair and began tossing darts.” He illustrated the action as he spoke. “Outer circle—inner circle—and a bull’s-eye. Just like that. And my thoughts started flowing just as smoothly.

  “Then I saw the hand out of the corner of my eye. See that ring on his finger? I had a good description of that from the operative I had set on him. I knew it was Sussmaul all right—or the Swami, as he prefers—and I knew he wasn’t feeling too friendly toward me. I had two more darts in my hand. I used one in a possibly rather foolish manner, then turned in my chair and let the other fly plop into his hand. I don’t think he liked it.

  “He let out one squeal and started running. I slipped around the back way instead of straight out through the windows—I didn’t want to make too good a target. I thought he’d either have vanished by then or be lurking in ambush. Fancy my delight when I found him spreadeagled on the ground with our young friend here on top of him.”

  “Good work, young man,” the lawyer nodded grudgingly. “Though how you happened to be there I’m hanged if I can see. However, we thank you. And now, Wolfe, I suppose you intend to call the police?”

  “Why?” asked Wolfe simply.

  “Why? Good heavens, can there be any question of why? Breaking and entering, carrying a concealed weapon, loitering with intent to commit a felony—and you ask why? This man is a public menace—a danger to society.”

  “Exactly. And that is why I shall do nothing of the kind. Our raincoated friend was discharged last week after a jury disagreed on the charges of obtaining money under false pretenses—charges largely based on evidence which I had assembled. Since then I’ve learned why, and you’ve probably guessed as much from your rumors, Joseph. One of the jurors, though he firmly swore to the contrary, was a devout follower of this man.”

  “Outrageous! You can have the man up for perjury.”

  “And again
I decline. Because whatever steps I take against this man or his followers he will use as evidence of persecution. He will become a martyred leader, and more dangerous than ever. I don’t want him picked up for loitering or breaking or anything else but the one charge: obtaining money under false pretenses. If I can prove to the hilt that this whole Swami business is one stinking racket, then I’ll have done my work. Meanwhile I let him alone. Duncan has drawn his fangs for tonight. I doubt if he’ll feel in the mood to make another attempt very soon. Before long he’ll be back on trial; and this time the jury won’t disagree.”

  “If you won’t think of yourself,” his brother protested, “think of Ellen and Mary. You should have a police guard on this house day and night while this dangerous lunatic is at large.”

  Wolfe Harrigan laughed. “I’ve got my darts,” he said, and threw one deftly into the bull’s-eye.

  Joseph Harrigan rose, with an ease surprising for a man of his weight. “There’s no drilling any sense into you, Wolfe. I’d best be getting home. Can I give you a lift, young man?”

  Matt realized that this was a gesture of all-is-forgiven, and appreciated it. “I’ve got a car,” he said. “Thanks all the same.”

  “Good night, then.” The lawyer extended his hand and Matt took it. His handclasp was good—firm and sound, with nothing oily or flabby about it. Matt was beginning to realize, as had many an attorney in court, that it was easy to underestimate R. Joseph Harrigan.

  “Good night, Ellen. Wolfe. I’ll find my way out.”

  Ellen rose, too. “There’s been so much happening tonight that I still have another decade to say, and if I stay up too late I might oversleep for mass. Good night, Wolfe. And Mr. Duncan.”

  She went with quiet dignity toward the chapel. Matt noticed that the rosary was still in her hand.

  “Sit down,” said Wolfe Harrigan. “No need for you to run off. Don’t play darts, do you? Shame. Nobody does.” He rose, plucked the darts from the target, and resumed his seat. “Now we’ll go back to the inquisition. If I remember where we left off, you were about to answer my ‘Who are you?’”