I gave up any idea of slinking through her turret and trying to find the hidden door to the great room from whence had come the shadowy singing. Maybe the shadows wouldn’t be as helpful as they had been back in ancient Ys. Also, there was the ante-chamber of the elevators.
The truth was that the cold fear I felt of the Demoiselle seemed to paralyze all trust in myself. I was too vulnerable to her on her own picked field. And if I killed her, what possible reason could I offer? Ralston’s death, shadows, witchcraft? The best I could expect was the madhouse. How could I prove such absurdities? And if I awakened her and demanded release—well, I couldn’t see that working either. New York and ancient Ys were still too close together in my mind—and something whispered that the way I had taken in Ys was still the best way. And that was to go while she slept. I walked to the edge of the terrace and looked over its coping. The next terrace was twenty feet below. I didn’t dare risk the drop. I examined the wall. It had bricks jutting out here and there that I thought I could manage. I took off my shoes and hung them around my neck by the laces. I slid over the coping and with an occasional slip or two I landed on the lower terrace. Its windows were open and there was the sound of heavy sleeping from within. A clock rang two and the breathing stopped. A singularly formidable woman came to the casements, looked out, and slammed them shut. It occurred to me that this was no place for a hatless, coatless, shoeless fugitive to ask sanctuary. So I did the same crawl down to the next terrace, and that was all boarded up.
I climbed to the next, and that too was boarded. By this time my shirt was a wreck, my trousers ripped here and there, and my feet bare. I realized that I was rapidly getting in such shape that it would take all my eloquence to get away no matter what lucky break might come. I hastily slipped over the coping and half-slid, half-fell upon the next terrace.
There was a brilliantly lighted room. Four men were playing poker at a table liberally loaded with bottles. I had overturned a big potted bush. I saw the men stare, at the window. There was nothing to do but walk in and take a chance. I did so.
The man at the head of the table was fat, with twinkling little blue eyes and a cigar sticking up out of the corner of his mouth; next to him was one who might have been an old-time banker; a lank and sprawling chap with a humorous mouth, and a melancholy little man with an aspect of indestructible indigestion.
The fat man said: “Do you all see what I do? All voting yes will take a drink.”
They all took a drink and the fat man said: “The ayes have it.”
The banker said: “If he didn’t drop out of an airplane, then he’s a human fly.”
The fat man asked: “Which was it, stranger?”
I said: “I climbed.”
The melancholy man said: “I knew it. I always said this house had no morals.”
The lanky man stood up and pointed a warning finger at me: “Which way did you climb? Up or down?”
“Down,” I said.
“Well,” he said, “if you came down it’s all right so far with us.”
I asked, puzzled: “What difference does it make?”
He said: “A hell of a lot of difference. We all live underneath here except the fat man, and we’re all married.”
The melancholy man said: “Let this be a lesson to you, stranger. Put not your trust in the presence of woman nor in the absence of man.”
The lanky man said: “A sentiment, James, that deserves another round. Pass the rye, Bill.”
The fat man passed it. I suddenly realized what a ridiculous figure I must make. I said: “Gentlemen, I can give you my name and credentials, which you can verify by ’phone if necessary. I admit, I prefer not to. But if you will let me get out of this place you will be compounding neither misdemeanor nor felony nor any other crime. And it would be useless to tell you the truth, for you wouldn’t believe me.”
The lanky man mused: “How often have I heard that plea of not guilty before, and in precisely those phrases. Stand right where you are, stranger, till the jury decides. Let us view the scene of the crime, gentlemen.”
They walked out to the terrace, poked at the overturned plant, scanned the front of the building, and returned. They looked at me curiously.
The lanky man said: “Either he has a hell of a nerve to take a climb like that to save the lady’s reputation—or Daddy just naturally scared him worse than death.”
The melancholy man, James, said bitterly: “There’s a way to tell if it’s nerve. Let him stack a couple of hands against that God-damned fat pirate.”
The fat man, Bill, said, indignantly: “I’ll play with no man who wears his shoes around his neck.”
The lanky man said: “A worthy sentiment, Bill. Another round on it.” They drank.
I slipped on my shoes. This was doing me good. It was about as far as possible from ancient Ys and the Demoiselle. I said:
“Even under a torn shirt, ripped pants and footless socks a fearless heart may beat. Count me in.”
The lanky man said: “A peerless sentiment. Gentlemen, a round in which the stranger joins.” We drank, and I needed it.
I said: “What I’m playing for is a pair of socks, a clean shirt, a pair of pants, an overcoat, a hat and a free and unquestioned exit.”
The melancholy man said: “What we’re playing for is your money. And if you lose you get out of here how you can in the clothes you’ve got on.”
I said: “Fair enough.”
I opened, and the lanky man wrote something on a blue chip and showed it to me before he tossed it into the pot. I read: “Half a sock.” The others solemnly marked their chips and the game was on. I won and lost. There were many worthy sentiments and many rounds. At four o’clock I had won my outfit and release. Bill’s clothes were too big for me, but the others went out and came back with what was needful.
They took me down stairs. They put me in a taxi and held their hands over their ears as I told the taxi man where to go. That was a quartette of good scouts if ever there was one. When I was unsteadily undressing at the Club a lot of chips fell out of my pockets. They were marked: “Half a shirt”: “One seat of pants”: “A pant leg”: “One hat brim”: and so on and so on.
I steered a wavering nor’-nor’-east course to the bed. I’d forgotten all about Ys and Dahut. Nor did I dream of them.
CHAPTER XI
DAHUT SENDS A SOUVENIR
It was different when I woke up about noon. I was stiff and sore and it took about three pick-me-ups to steady the floor. The memories of the Demoiselle Dahut and of Ys were all too acute, and they had a nightmarish edge to them. That flight from her tower for example. Why hadn’t I stayed and fought it out? I hadn’t even the excuse of Joseph fleeing from Potiphar’s wife. I knew I had been no Joseph. Not that this troubled my conscience particularly, but the facts remained that I had made a most undignified exit and that each time I had met Dahut—with the problematical exception of Ys—she had worsted me. Both facts outraged my pride.
Hell, the plain truth was that I had run away in terror and had let down Bill and let down Helen. At that moment I hated Dahut as much as ever had the Lord of Carnac.
I managed a breakfast and called up Bill. Helen answered. She said with poisonous solicitude: “Why, darling, you must have traveled all night to get back so early. Where did you go?”
I was still pretty edgy and I answered, curtly: “Three thousand miles and five thousand years away.”
She said: “How interesting. Not all by yourself, surely.”
I thought: Damn all women! and asked: “Where’s Bill?”
She said: “Darling, you have a guilty sound. You weren’t alone, were you?”
I said: “No. And I didn’t like the trip. And if you’re thinking what I’m thinking—yes, I’m guilty. And I don’t like that either.”
When she spoke again, her voice had changed, filled with real concern and a little frightened: “You mean that—about three thousand miles and centuries away?”
I said: “
Yes.”
Again she was silent; then: “With the Demoiselle?”
“Yes.”
She said, furiously: “The damned witch! Oh, if you’d only been with me…I could have saved you that.”
I said: “Maybe. But not on some other night. Sooner or later it had to come, Helen. Why that is true I don’t know—yet. But it is true.” For suddenly I had remembered that strange thought which had come to me—that I had drunk of the Demoiselle’s evil long and long ago—and must drink again, and I knew that it had been a true thought.
I repeated: “It had to be. And it is done.”
That I knew was a lie, and so did Helen. She said, a bit piteously:
“It’s just begun, Alan.”
I had no answer to that. She said: “I’d give my life to help you, Alan—” Her voice broke; then, hurriedly: “Bill said to wait at the Club for him. He’ll be there about four.” She rang off.
Hardly had she done so than a boy brought me a letter. On the envelope was a tiny imprint of the trident.
I opened it. It was in the Breton:
My elusive friend! Whatever I may be—I am still a woman and therefore curious. Are you as insubstantial as shadows? That doors and walls are nothing to you? You did not seem so—last night. I await you with all eagerness tonight—to learn.
Dahut
There was subtle threat in every line of that. Especially the part about the shadows. My anger rose. I wrote:
Ask your shadows. Perhaps they are no more faithful to you now than they were in Ys. As for tonight—I am otherwise engaged.
I signed it Alan Caranac and sent it off by messenger. Then I waited for Bill. I drew some comfort from the thought that the Demoiselle evidently knew nothing of how I had escaped from her turret. That, at least, meant that her powers, whatever they might be, were limited. Also, if those damned shadows had any reality except in the minds of those who strayed into her web of suggestion, the idea I had planted might bring about some helpful confusion in her menage.
Promptly at four, Bill came in. He looked worried. I laid the whole thing before him from start to finish, not even passing up the poker party. He read the Demoiselle’s letter and my reply. He looked up:
“I don’t blame you for last night, Alan. But I rather wish you had answered this differently.”
“You mean accepted it?”
He nodded: “Yes, you’re pretty well forewarned now. You might temporize. Play her along a bit…make her believe you love her…pretend you would like to join her and de Keradel…”
“Sit in on their game?”
He hesitated, then said: “For a little while.”
I laughed: “Bill, as for being forewarned, if that dream of Ys she conjured up means anything, it means Dahut is a damned sight better forewarned than I am. Also, much better forearmed. As for temporizing with or playing her—she’d see through me in no time, or her father would. There’s nothing to do but fight.”
He asked: “How can you fight shadows?”
I said: “It would take me days to tell you all the charms, countercharms, exorcisms and what not that man has devised for that sole purpose Cro-Magnons and without doubt the men before them and perhaps even the half-men before them. Sumerians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, the Greeks and the Romans, the Celts, the Gauls and every race under the sun, known and forgotten, put their minds to it. But there is only one way to defeat the shadow sorcery—and that is not to believe in it.”
He said: “Once I would have agreed with you—and not so long ago. Now the idea seems to me to resemble that of getting rid of a cancer by denying you have it.”
I said impatiently: “If you had tried a good dose of hypnotism on Dick, counter-suggestion, he’d probably be alive today.”
He replied, quietly: “I did. There were reasons I didn’t want de Keradel to know it. Nor you. I tried it to the limit, and it did no good.”
And as I digested this, he asked, slyly: “You don’t believe in them, do you, Alan—in the shadows? I mean in their reality?”
“No,” I answered—and wished it were the truth.
“Well,” he said, “your incredulity doesn’t seem to have helped you much last night!”
I went to the window and looked out. I wanted to tell him that there was another way to stop the shadow sorcery. The only sure way. Kill the witch who did it. But what was the use? I’d had my chance to do that and lost it. And I knew that if I could relive the night, I would not kill her. I said:
“That’s true, Bill. But it was because my disbelief was not strong enough. Dahut weakens it. It’s why I want to keep away from her.”
He laughed: “I’m still reminded of the cancer patient—if he could only have believed strongly enough that he had none, it couldn’t have killed him. Well, if you won’t go you won’t. Now I’ve some news for you. De Keradel has a big place on Rhode Island. I found out about it yesterday. It’s an isolated spot, hell gone from nowhere and right on the ocean. He keeps a yacht—seagoing. He must be almighty rich. De Keradel is up there now, which is why you had it all to yourself with the Demoiselle. Lowell sent yesterday for McCann and McCann is coming in tonight to talk things over. It’s Lowell’s idea, and mine, too, to have him go up and scout around de Keradel’s place. Find out what he can from the people about. Lowell, by the way, has gotten over his panic. He’s rather deadly in his hatred for de Keradel and that includes the Demoiselle. I told you he is all wrapped up in Helen. Thinks of her as a daughter. Well, he seems to think that she’s in danger.”
I said: “But that’s a damned good idea, Bill. De Keradel spoke of some experiment he is carrying out. That’s undoubtedly where he’s working. His laboratory. McCann might find out a lot.”
Bill nodded: “Why not come up and sit in?”
I was about to accept when suddenly I had the strongest feeling that I must not. A tingling warning of danger, like some deep hidden alarm going off. I shook my head: “Can’t do it, Bill. I’ve got work to do. You can tell me about it tomorrow.”
He got up. “Thinking you might change your mind about that rendezvous with the Demoiselle?”
“No chance,” I answered. “Give my love to Helen. And tell her I don’t mean maybe. Tell her I’m taking no more journeys. She’ll understand.”
I did spend that afternoon working; and that night. Now and then I had an uncomfortable feeling that someone was watching me. Bill called up next day to say that McCann had gone to Rhode Island. Helen got on the ’phone and said she had received my message and would I come up that night. Her voice was warm and sweet and somehow—cleansing. I wanted to go, but that deep hidden alarm was shrilling, peremptorily. I apologized—rather awkwardly. She asked:
“You haven’t it in your stubborn head that you’d carry some witch taint with you, have you?”
I said: “No. But I might carry danger to you.”
She said: “I’m not afraid of the Demoiselle. I know how to fight her, Alan.”
I asked: “What do you mean by that?”
She said, furiously: “Damn your stupidity!” And hung up before I could speak.
I was puzzled, and I was troubled. The inexplicable warning to keep away from Dr. Lowell’s and from Helen was insistent, not to be disregarded. At last I threw my notes into a bag with some clothes and sought shelter in a little hide-away hotel I knew, after having sent Bill a note telling him where he could find me but warning him not to tell Helen. I said I had the strongest reasons for this temporary obscuration. So I had, even though I didn’t know what they were. That was Tuesday. On Friday I went back to the Club.
I found two notes from the Demoiselle. One must have come just after I had left for the hide-out. It read:
There was a debt from you to me. In part, you have paid it. There is not nor ever was a debt from me to you. Beloved—come to me tonight.
The other had been delivered the day after. It read:
I go to join my father in his work. When next I call you, see to it that you come. I have se
nt a souvenir that you may not forget this.
I read and re-read those notes, wondering. In the first there was appeal, longing; the kind of letter any woman might write to some reluctant lover. In the other was menace. Uneasily, I paced the floor; then called up Bill. He said:
“So you’re back. I’ll be right down.”
He was there in half an hour. He seemed a little on edge. I asked:
“Anything new?”
He sat down and said casually, a bit too casually: “Well, yes. She’s pinned one on me.”
I said, dumbly: “Who’s done what?”
He answered: “Dahut. She’s pinned one of her shadows on me.”
My feet and hands were suddenly cold and I felt a thin cord draw tight around my throat. The letter in which Dahut had spoken of the souvenir she was sending lay open before me, and I folded it. I said:
“Tell me about it, Bill.”
He said: “Don’t look so panicky, Alan. I’m not like Dick and the others. It won’t handle me so easily. But I’m not saying it’s exactly—companionable. By the way, do you see something at my right? Something like a bit of dark curtain—fluttering?”
He was keeping his eyes upon mine, but the effort of will he was making to do it was plain. They were a bit bloodshot. I looked, intently, and said: “No, Bill. I don’t see a thing.”
He said: “I’ll just shut my eyes, if you don’t mind. Last night I came out of the hospital about eleven. There was a taxi at the curb. The driver was half asleep, hunched over the wheel. I opened the door and was about to get in when I saw someone—something—move in the far corner of the seat. The cab was fairly dark and I could not determine whether it was a man or a woman.
“I said: ‘Oh! I beg your pardon. I thought the taxi idle.’ And I stepped back.
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