“The pilots were gone as well?”
“Without a trace. But it wasn’t just their empty seats that terrified you. What you saw out the front window forced you to run from the cabin as fast as your legs could carry you. The plane was headed for an enormous, craggy mountain. My blood ran cold when I saw it. I was filled with relief when you closed the door firmly behind you. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“But the relief didn’t last long. As soon as you turned from the door, the lights went out. You were in total darkness. You’d been standing there uncertainly for a few moments, thinking of what to do next, when you heard an ominous sound coming from behind the curtain that partitioned off economy class. Do you know what it was?”
“The crash of wings falling off?”
“Even worse. The roar of a blazing fire. You stuck your head through the curtain against your will and what a sight you beheld. There was a raging fire in the rear half of the plane, advancing out of control. It would soon reach you.”
“I have a phobia about fire.”
“I hate it too. You closed the curtain hurriedly and went back to the middle of first class. You realized you were in a trap. You couldn’t go forward or backward. Panic had already started to get the upper hand when you noticed a thin strip of light under the door to the toilet on the left. You didn’t hesitate a moment and reached the door in two steps.”
“In spite of the darkness?”
“In spite of the darkness. You couldn’t find the handle right away, though. As you searched for it in fear, fire reached the curtain and it went up in flames. At the same time, a terrible racket could be heard behind the door to the pilots’ cabin as though everything was breaking to pieces in there.”
“How stressful.”
“Just imagine what it was like to dream it. Finally, in the somewhat better light, you found the round knob and turned it feverishly. But nothing happened. The door stayed closed, as though there was someone in the toilet. Even though you could feel the intense heat of the fire, you were covered in cold sweat. You tried again, more forcefully, and the lock finally released. You opened the door, but didn’t go inside. In fact, you jerked back a little and raised your hands above your head.”
“Why?”
“Because of the radiance. There was such a glare in the toilet that you couldn’t look inside. What you really wanted to do was close the door again, but the rapid development of events wouldn’t let you. Fire had already engulfed two rows of first class seats and something was just about to break violently out of the pilots’ cabin. You had no choice. You walked into the light and quickly closed the door behind you.”
“That’s the end, isn’t it?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Intuition.”
“I hope you found it interesting, in spite of being unfinished. I took quite a risk coming here to tell it to you. And that’s only half the trip. I only hope I manage to return to my room without being seen. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck.”
The woman stood up and headed for the door. I had to remind her too.
“You forgot the inkpot.”
The reply was brief once again. “No, I didn’t.”
She opened the door just enough to slip through and quickly stole down the hall.
I picked up the book again, but this time didn’t have a chance to read one single line. I’d just opened it to the place that was marked when there was a knock on the door. Before I could say anything, the nurse stuck her head inside.
“Still not sleeping?”
“No.”
“Very good!”
She smiled at me again before she withdrew her head.
I sighed and closed the book, sensing what was to come. And indeed, just a few moments later another knock was heard, sharp but slow. Again, I was not required to give permission. The door opened before I had said a word and a tall, heavyset man entered the room. He had thick gray hair and a moustache to match. The collar of his short, tight hospital robe was raised. A large, curved unlighted pipe was clenched in his teeth. There was a sizable blotter in his left hand.
I was just about to say it was too late for a visit, but he preempted me, putting his right index finger to his lips. Although I didn’t understand the meaning of this warning, I consented with a curt nod.
Standing by the door, the visitor first examined the room carefully. This clearly didn’t satisfy him because, without removing his finger from his lips, he made an additional inspection. He went into the bathroom and stayed there briefly. I heard the sound of the plastic curtains on the bathtub being moved and the toilet being flushed. Coming out, he went up to the small closet. He opened it quickly, coming face to face with several items of my clothing. Finally, he approached my bed, knelt down and looked under it.
When he got up, his finger was no longer at his lips. He didn’t address me, however, until he had settled into the armchair where the previous two visitors had sat. He put the blotter next to the goose quills and inkpot.
“Good evening,” he said at last.
“Good evening,” I replied rather coolly, returning the book to the bedside table.
“I’m from the floor below you, room 223.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said in the same cool tone.
“Are you alone?”
“Isn’t that what one would expect, given that this is a hospital and it’s rather late?”
“Expect, yes, but if you were in my line of work you’d know you should never take things for granted.”
“Your line of work?”
“Yes. Until retirement I was a circus detective.”
“I had no idea that circuses have detectives.”
“Of course they do. You might well say that there would be no circus without us.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You can’t imagine what a dangerous place it is. Not a single show goes by, almost, without some serious threat.”
“I never would have thought.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. Great care is taken that news about the security risks isn’t leaked to the public. It would frighten away the spectators, and we simply couldn’t allow that to happen. Tell me yourself—would you go to the circus if you knew your life was at risk as you innocently enjoyed the show?”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“There, you see. The danger, though, is considerably less than it appears thanks to the vigilance of circus detectives. I don’t want to sound boastful, but we are proud of our skill and cunning. Nothing escapes us regardless of how cleverly and deviously it is planned. Have you ever heard of an accident in a circus?”
“No.”
“That is the best confirmation of our success. But we certainly don’t have an easy time of it. If you only knew what vicious types we have to deal with. The circus seems to attract the most deranged minds. There must be some reason for that.”
“In all probability.”
“Here, you be the judge. I’ll give you a few truly strange cases. In just a few words, of course, because as you yourself said, it’s late. I hope you’ll find them interesting.”
I was cornered. “I hope so too.”
“Let’s first take the case of the checkroom attendant poisoner who only had three fingers on each hand, owing to an accident. What a devious plan he tried to carry out, crushed by this loss! He was prevented in the nick of time, thereby averting casualties of great proportions. Do you know how many lives were endangered?”
“No.”
“One hundred sixty-eight.”
“One hundred sixty-eight!”
“That’s right. He managed to sprinkle one of the most poisonous powders that exists into that many pairs of gloves before he was exposed. Had his plan succeeded, the spectators would have put on their gloves as they left the circus, never suspecting the danger. No one would have noticed anything wrong because he’d placed barely a few specks of powder. By the time they reached home, no
thing could have saved them. It was enough for just one grain to come into contact with their skin, so very tiny it easily entered the body through the pores and reached the bloodstream. This would soon lead to cardiac arrest, seemingly without any reason. Not even the most exhaustive autopsy would have revealed any trace.”
“Terrible!”
“Terrible, you bet. But wait until you hear the case of the female fire fighter with arsonist inclinations. But she wasn’t an ordinary firebug, the kind we have no trouble dealing with. Here it required utmost ingenuity for us to connect her to the unusual incidents that started to accompany every show when she was on duty. The day could have been perfectly clear, but as soon as the spectators entered, heavy storm clouds would appear out of nowhere.”
“Out of the blue?”
“That’s what it seemed like. Soon there would be torrential rain, thunder and lightning. As the show moved along, the storm would become more and more violent. The circus, of course, has regulation lightning rods, but there’s a limit to everything. When it reached ninety-seven thunderbolts a minute, we became seriously worried.”
“Ninety-seven a minute!”
“Yes. A real cannonade. One more strike and the system would have collapsed with the circus tent blazing like a gigantic pyre. Everything would have burned.”
“Dreadful! What did you do?”
“It became clear to us that such frequency could not be natural, so we set out to look for whoever was causing it. And we certainly had something to find. One of the arsonist’s distant ancestors on her father’s side had been burned at the stake because of his diabolical gift for calling up a hurricane. It wasn’t clear whether she was his reincarnation or had only inherited his destructive powers. Either way, as soon as we removed the female fire fighter, the storms came to an end.”
“You must have been relieved.”
“You bet. There’s no letup in our work, however. We’d just solved this case when we came up against the serial killer usher. He would put an insect surreptitiously on the lower part of the ticket he returned to the spectators after taking them to their seats. Although minuscule and seemingly harmless, it is one of nature’s deadliest creatures. Its sting causes instantaneous suffocation.”
“How awful!”
“Yes. Luckily, we stopped him before a single victim fell, but if we hadn’t, it would have been a true massacre. He intended to kill every circus spectator whose name had at least two vowels.”
“What did he have against those poor people?”
“Nothing, of course. The deranged state of his mind had its roots in a childhood trauma. The usher’s mother was a member of a fanatical sect and she forced him to learn how to read, although he was barely three years old. Whenever he misread a letter, she punished him with an electric shock. When he couldn’t read a consonant he got one shock, and for a vowel it was two shocks.”
“It must have been very painful.”
“Indubitably. But does that justify his intention to take revenge on the innocent, and at such a harmless place as a circus?”
“No, of course.”
“In any case, there are worse fates for children. When one of the circus cleaning ladies was a little girl, her lustful stepfather had had his sadistic way with her for years. This left such deep scars in her that she decided to hurt as many similar short, bald, overweight, middle-aged men as possible. And boy did she hurt them!
As she was cleaning the stands before the show, when no one was looking she painted the seat backs with a colorless, odorless liquid. She’d stolen it from some military laboratory where she’d previously worked. The person sitting there wouldn’t suspect that they’d been condemned to death accompanied with unimaginable suffering.”
“That’s not possible!”
“Yes it is. Not right away but about three months later. The agony would start with exhaustion, a high temperature and bloody diarrhea, and in the final phases it resembled the worst forms of leprosy. The sick would be covered with scabs and open wounds, and in the end pieces of flesh would fall off.”
“Gruesome.”
“Most certainly. Luckily, no one died that way. As with all the other help in the circus, the cleaning lady was kept under constant observation, and she was thus prevented at the last moment. We never did find out, though, how she knew where the spectators that physically resembled her stepfather would sit. She refused to tell us, although she was offered a greatly reduced prison sentence in return.”
“What a wonderful bedtime story,” I said, after the visitor had finished.
“How do you think I feel? My sleep became disturbed as soon as I got a job in the circus. I thought the situation would improve after retirement, but it didn’t. You can’t imagine what I still dream. I wake up in a cold sweat almost every night. For example, I dreamed about you not long ago. Believe it or not.”
I sighed. “I believe you.”
He looked at me suspiciously, seemed about to ask me something, but refrained.
“I presumed you would be interested in hearing the dream. That is actually why I came. It won’t last long.”
I almost sighed again. “I’m listening.”
“You were on a train. You were in the corridor trying to find your compartment, but without success. You were certain it was somewhere close by, but you just couldn’t find it. It crossed your mind to look at your ticket to see where your seat was located. You checked through all your pockets, but there was no ticket.”
“How awkward.”
“You wondered if the conductor could help you so you went to look for him. You stopped in front of his compartment at the end of the corridor. You knocked but no one answered. You pressed the handle, but the door was locked. You stood there for a moment, uncertain what to do.”
“I should have kept looking for him.”
“That’s just what you did. You went into the next car. The corridor stretching before you was completely empty. You hesitated a moment, then headed down it. What else could you do?”
“Nothing.”
“You reached another conductor’s compartment, but the same thing happened once again. No one answered your knock and the door was locked. This filled you with apprehension.”
“Small wonder.”
“You thought things over, then concluded that you actually had no choice. There was no sense in going back. You knew what awaited you. All you could do was keep going forward. Someone was bound to appear—anyone, not just the conductor—to help you out.”
“But no one appeared?”
“No one. When you entered the corridor of the next car it echoed emptily. Then you decided to go into the first compartment there. If nothing else, you might find a free seat until you cleared things up about your place. But that door turned out to be locked too.”
“That one too?”
“Yes. Filled with foreboding, you rushed to the next compartment, but the same thing happened. You practically ran from compartment to compartment, briskly trying every handle, although it was already clear to you that none of the doors would be open.”
“Quite unpleasant.”
“The apprehension inside you quickly grew into panic. You headed for the next car, but a surprise awaited you. There was no next car.”
“I reached the locomotive?”
“There was no locomotive.”
“Well, what was there?”
“Nothing. That was the end of the train. But the lack of a locomotive didn’t stop the train from rushing ahead pell-mell. Not far away yawned the opening to a tunnel. You quickly returned to the corridor, frightened by the black pit ready to swallow you up.”
“I really don’t like tunnels.”
“Now you were completely panic-stricken. You ran back down the corridor, as though this could save you from entering the tunnel.”
“People act irrationally when overcome by panic.”
“When you reached the other end of the car, you stopped dead in your tracks. There was not
hing there anymore. The rest of the train had disappeared without a trace. But that’s not all. A tunnel just like the one in front was quickly approaching the back of the car.”
“A tunnel was rushing at the train?”
“At the only remaining car. You went back to the corridor again. You ran down it, but stopped in the middle, realizing that you were trapped. Totally disoriented, you watched as the darkness of two tunnels drew nearer and nearer to both ends of the car. In just a few minutes they would meet.”
“And the lights in the corridor?”
“They weren’t on. When the two darknesses touched, you were in the pitch black. Then you noticed something you would have overlooked if you could see. A strip of light was shining under the door of the compartment facing you.”
“At least there was some benefit from the darkness.”
“But what good was it since the door was locked? You’d tried to open it not long before when you tried them all. You probably wouldn’t have tried again if you hadn’t been compelled by what now reached your ears. A crashing sound could be heard from both ends of the corridor, as though the car had collided with something simultaneously at both ends.”
“As though one collision wouldn’t be enough.”
“Yes, everything is exaggerated in dreams. For better or for worse you pressed down on the handle and pulled it towards you. The relief that overcame you when the door opened without resistance was only briefly confounded by the tremendous radiance shining out of the compartment, blinding you. You hesitated a moment, but the noise was now very close and left you no time for second thoughts. You entered the light and quickly closed the door behind you.”
“So I saved myself, then?”
“Well, that’s not clear. That’s when I woke up.”
“Too bad.”
“Yes, but that’s how it is with dreams. They often stop at the most exciting moment. Well, now, I won’t bore you any longer. It really is late. Good night.”
“Good night,” I replied.
He got up and headed for the door. He had already grabbed hold of the knob when he turned around.
“Listen to my advice,” he said in a low voice. “Be constantly on the alert. You never know where danger might lurk. Things are often not what they seem.”
Impossible Stories II Page 10