Ill bet you're not. Carfax thought. He touched the recorder in his pocket. Tomorrow he would take it to Fortune and Thorndyke's laboratory. There this man's voice would be matched against Mifflon's. They would be similar, of course, since the oral cavity and the larynx were the same. But if Mifflon's brain was occupied by a semb, the rhythm of speech and the choice of vocabulary items might be different.
After that had been established, if it would be established, what could be done? The police could not arrest Mifflon on such evidence. Even if they did, they couldn't get the district attorney to bring Mifflon to trial. And even if he was tried, no judge would permit the case to last long. There just were no precedents, and nobody was going to set any.
Yet Mifflon surely was not the only one to be possessed. Could not others be tracked down and their pattern of speech be matched against the former owners'? If enough such cases were presented to the police, would they then refuse to take action? The chances were that they would refuse. Very few would believe that such things could be happening. It looked hopeless. But Carfax did not intend to quit.
What if there was a way to demonstrate even to the most incredulous that a man could be possessed? What if the invader could be exorcised, and the original occupant could then testify? If scientific means could bring about possession, why could not the same means be used to dispossess?
The trouble with that idea was that Western had a monopoly on the only machine that could do the job--if indeed it could be done.
"Well, Mr. Childe," Mifflon said, putting his empty glass down. "It is late, and if you think you should check out the grounds, you should do it now. You can lock the door when you come in, and set the alarm system, it's behind the drapery near the front door, and don't bother reporting to me. That is, unless you find something that needs reporting. I'll be asleep before you make your rounds."
Carfax rose and said, "It shouldn't take more than ten minutes. Goodnight, everybody."
. Patricia stood up and stretched, and Mifflon watched her with undisguised admiration. Mrs. Bronski said, "I'm tired, too. But I'll take along an afternightcap, if you don't object, Mr. Mifflon."
"Have I ever?" he'said.
"Oh no, of course not," she said quickly. "But I always ask, don't I?"
Mifflon grunted, and Mrs. Bronski poured ten fingers of Wild Turkey over one ice cube, and strode out, inaudible burlesque music and cries of, "Take it all off!" surging around her.
Carfax went out the front door and down the portico onto the driveway. The lights were bright here, but he had a slim flashlight in his pocket for the dark places. He walked down the drive to the gate, went along the wall to the left, passing around heavy shrubbery and a number of trees. The circuit took him fifteen minutes, not the ten he had promised. The garage in back of the house also had to be investigated. Carfax sent the flashlight beam in through the windows and saw nothing but two cars, the Zagreus and a Benz, and some worktables and racks of tools. Yohana had put the Zagreus away; he was now sleeping, or at least was in bed, in the apartment over the garage.
Carfax could have made a perfunctory inspection, since he did not expect to run across any prowlers. But he wanted to fix the layout in his mind for future use. It would not be difficult to get into the grounds. The wall was three meters high, but he could jump up and pull himself over. A fencing of three strands of barbed wire ran across the top, but there was, according to Mrs. Bronski, no alarm connected to it. The house and the garage were equipped with an alarm system, but the burglars who had entered it three years ago had bypassed it. Mifflon had not bothered to install a new system.
Mrs. Bronski had said that though Mifflon was timid, he had seemed delighted, not upset, after the burglary.
It had injected some excitement into an otherwise dull life, and for weeks afterward he had gotten up in the middle of the night and prowled the house with his 9mm. automatic. Perhaps he had hoped he could shoot an intruder and so give vent to a suppressed desire for violence. That was, however. Carfax's analysis, not Mrs. Bronski's. He surmised that Mifflon's domination by his mother may have caused an unconscious, or perhaps even a conscious, resentment or hatred. Mifflon had been too suppressed to verbalize his hostility. But he must have hated his mother, and he may have wished to explode this hatred against someone whose injury or death would not result in legal punishment.
It was only a theory, but it seemed probable. At least, it was the only explanation Carfax had for Mifflon's behavior. Mrs. Webster had had no theory; she just thought it was rather strange. She had confided to Carfax that "Robert is a queer kid. Nice but queer."
He re-entered the house and locked the door, throwing the alarm switch concealed behind the drapery.
When he went into his room, he found Patricia pacing back and forth and looking furious.
"What's the matter?"
"That bastard asked me to go to bed with him!"
Carfax paused and then said, "Did you accept?"
She looked blank and then quickly smiled. "You're a great ladder, aren't you? Well, for your information, I said yes!"
Carfax was almost fooled. She was trying to give him as much as he had given. But it would take a long time before she caught up.
"Good," he said. "You ought to be able to get a lot out of him. In the way of information, I mean."
"I almost think you mean it," she said. "Tell me you don't," and she put her arms around him.
"Of course, I don't," he said. If she had been a professional detective, he would have expected her to take Mifflon up on his proposal, though he would not have required her to do so. He was glad that she had not, yet he regretted the lost opportunity.
Patricia kissed him and, releasing him, said, "He didn't act like the Mifflon described to me. He was very smooth, as if he'd had long practice and was not accustomed to being turned down."
"That's the clincher," Carfax said. "The real Mifflon is--was--impotent."
"Oh? How'd you find that out?"
"I saw Mrs. Webster's dossier on him. She was a mother image, you know, and he told her a lot more than he had to about himself. Of course, Mrs. Webster wouldn't have let me see that part of the dossier if the situation hadn't demanded that I know everything about him.
"I had Fortune and Thomdyke check on it, and they found out that it's true. Or was."
"Well, he is hard up," Patricia said. "I opened the door a crack and watched down the hall. He certainly doesn't waste any time. About two minutes after I'd refused him, he was tapping on Mrs. Bronski's door. She let him in, and as far as I know he hasn't come out yet."
Carfax winked at her and said, "I'll tippytoe down the hall and make sure."
He returned a few minutes later, grinning, and said,
"Her bed springs need oiling. Tell me, how'd he take it? I mean your big loud no?"
"He didn't like it; he looked as if he wanted to kill me. But he recovered quickly enough, smiled like a gargoyle, and asked me, very sweetly, if I'd change my mind if there was enough money. I told him to go to hell, but he said it'd be worth a thousand to him."
Carfax whistled and said, "He must be hard up!"
"You go to hell, too," she said.
"I've been there, and I didn't like it. I wonder?"
"What now?"
"We could make anything out of this. Granted, he might be all pooped out, but then he may be even homier than most, and the sight of you, young and beautiful, might rejuvenate him."
Patricia almost spat at him. "Are you suggesting that I do go to his room, after he gets through with that old hag?"
"Cool down," he said. "I'm not thinking of you going through with it. I was wondering if I could burst in and play the heavy husband. If I knocked him out in a fit of jealous rage, then maybe, just maybe, we would get something out of him when he came to."
"He could have us jailed," she said. "He could charge us with fraud, assault and battery, and God knows what else."
"Yes, I know," he said. "I was just thinking out lou
d. If I thought I could get the true Mifflon to come through, then we'd have our case. But then I don't know if the true one is still in his body. Maybe it's not a case of the semb overriding the original possessor.
Maybe there's a switch, the original goes into the embu and the semb moves in." "It's too uncertain, too dangerous," Patricia said.
"Besides, I don't like the idea of using violence."
"I don't either, but there's too much at stake to get squeamish. It might at least be worth trying. Mifflon isn't going to bring charges, no matter what happens.
He doesn't want the police in on this, even if they can't do anything if they should get suspicious."
Carfax began pacing. After crossing the big room four times, he said, "If I thought we could scare Bronski, we could work on her. She has to be in on this. But all she has to do is keep her mouth shut, and she looks tough enough to do that. And I'm not sure that even if she thought I was going to kill her if she didn't talk, that she would talk. She knows that Western brought back someone from the dead and put him in Mifflon's body. So why wouldn't he do the same for her? And maybe give her a young body? Probably, he's already promised her one. No, she wouldn't crack.
"And working on Mifflon is no good, either. I don't know how to go about getting down to the real Mifflon.
If he's still there, that is, and he may not be."
"So what do we do?" Patricia said.
"We're getting out of here now. There's no use waiting until Mifflon calls Western. He might shoot us.
More probably he'd hold us here until Western sent somebody to take care of us. I now think it's better to be long gone when Mifflon finds out he's been had. If Western was ignoring us before, he sure isn't going to from now on. He'll know we're on to him. But we've found out what we were looking for. That isn't the real Mifflon."
He could do nothing alone. He needed to find others, people who would want to do something about Western and who had the power to do it. That should not be difficult, but it would, tike most projects, become tedious in execution.
Patricia had not unpacked their cases; they only had to pick them up and walk out. Carfax had determined that the garage door was locked, and so they could not drive off in the Zagreus. He phoned to the nearest taxi company and made certain that they would be picked up in fifteen minutes, though not at the gate. They would walk down Firebird Lane to Vista Grange Drive and a block west.
Carfax walked out of the door with Patricia close behind him. The door to Mrs. Bronsky's room opened, and Mifflon, naked and smoking a cigarette, came out.
Carfax stopped; Patricia bumped into him.
Carfax had turned off the light in his room before opening the door. The only light in the hall came from Bronski's room and a lamp on a table at the far end of the hall. Mifflon was headed toward his own room and was not looking at them. But Patricia, startled, gasped.
Mifflon turned his head and saw Carfax, half-hidden by the opened door. It was too late to swing the night-case behind the door.
Mifflon opened his mouth, closed it, and ran into his room. Carfax said, "He knows we're leaving! Run for it. Pat!"
16.
Gordon and Patricia ran down the broad staircase, sliding one hand along the banister to guide themselves in the dark. The door was a pale gray oblong across the long floor; it seemed a long way off. And it was. As they were halfway to it, a gun boomed in the hallway above them. It sounded like a 9mm to Carfax. He didn't hear the bullet striking anything ahead or behind them, so he presumed that Mifflon had fired it, while still in the hallway upstairs, as a warning. Or he had discharged it accidentally.
In either event, it was evident that Mifflon would be at the top of the staircase before they could get through the door. They would form a good target, silhouetted against the light from the door, which was almost all glass. If Mifflon was not hasty, if he held the automatic in both hands and took his time aiming, he might hit them. The 9mm is not accurate except at close range, but they were not far enough away to take a chance.
The lights all over the big room and the adjoining rooms went on. Mifflon had thrown the switch from upstairs.
Carfax looked back and up and saw Mifflon standing at the top of the steps. He shouted at Patricia, grabbed her arm, and pulled her to the right. The automatic bellowed, and bits of the marble floor flew up ahead of him, and a large hole appeared in the frame of the door leading to the adjoining room. Patricia screamed and jerked herself away and dived to the floor. Carfax was close behind her as they rolled behind a large sofa. The gun boomed again, and pieces of stuffing rained down on Carfax's head. These were followed a second later by bits of wood from the frame of a large painting on the wall about six meters behind them. The bullet had passed a few centimeters over Carfax, ricocheted off the floor, and hit the painting.
Carfax removed his 7.92mm revolver from his belt, crawled to the far end of the sofa, past the hysterically chattering Patricia, and fired quickly at Mifflon. He ducked back, and three bullets tore through the end of the sofa. More pieces of stuffing showered him.
"Shut up and listen!" he said. "I'm going to shoot at him again, and when I do, you run for the next room."
"I... I... I'm scared!"
"So am I," he said. He crawled back to the shattered end of the sofa, leaned around, and fired at Mimon, who was halfway down the staircase. Mifflon fell to his side, and rolled down some steps, but Carfax did not think he had hit him. Patricia, yelling, jumped up and,
leaving her case behind her, ran a few steps and dived through the door. Mifflon got up and, crouching, ran down the steps and around the end of the staircase.
Carfax shot twice and then reloaded with bullets from the pocket of his jacket.
Patricia shouted from the next room, "What do I do now?"
"I'll meet you at our place!" he shouted back. "Get going!"
He heard footsteps hitting the floor hard and, a few seconds later, a door slamming. He hoped that she wouldn't run into Yohana. If Mifflon had kept his head, he would have signaled Yohana in his garage-apartment. He supposed that there was an intercom or some sort of signal which could be turned on in Mifflon's bedroom when he wanted the servant.
He also wished that he had not put off relieving himself after arrival. His full bladder was paining him, and if Mifflon shot again, which he was going to do, Carfax would probably piss in his pants; he was scared. Being shot at had always scared him, and he had wet himself a few times while under fire in Korea.
He was in a bad spot now. Mifflon was crouching behind the other side of the marble staircase. He probably had his automatic pointed at the doorway, expecting Carfax to make a run for it. Carfax rose to a crouching position and ran out from the sofa toward a large chair. He dived at it, slid along the marble, bum-ing his hands, and stopped behind the chair. The automatic fired four times, and the chair disintegrated. Carfax had rolled on past it and was up on his feet and diving again.
He slid again, this tune by a huge mahogany sideboard.
It provided no shield against the bullets, which would tear through it, but Mifflon could not see him unless he stood up. And the hallway to a rear room was only about sixteen meters away.
The trouble was that Mifflon would not be aiming toward the entrance to the hallway.
"Toss your gun out and come on out with your hands behind your neck!" Mifflon shouted. "I don't want to kill you!"
"O.K.!" Carfax shouted back, wondering if Mifflon really thought he was fool enough to obey him. No doubt Mifflon did not want to kill him, just yet. He wanted to question him first. Carfax could imagine the interrogation. Western and his aides would be there, along with a paraphernalia of little sharp knives and flaming splinters. Oh, he would talk all right--if they caught him.
There was only one thing to do: stand up at least part way, fire at Mifflon to disconcert his aim, and then dive toward the entrance to the hallway. Or, perhaps, go in the opposite direction, where Mifflon would not expect him. The disadvantage in that was
that he had much more distance to cover.
He would have preferred to stay where he was, but if he did he would only be putting off the inevitable.
He clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering, hoped he could control the shaking of his arms and hands, and rose. As his head cleared the top of a chair sitting about ten feet away from him, he saw Mifflon also rising. He lifted the revolver with both hands, while Minion, also using both hands, aimed at him.
Later on, he wondered who would have hit whom.
But now he was startled as shot after shot boomed out from his right. He fired once at Mifflon, and the shot went over Mifflon's head. He swung around, expecting to see Yohana standing at the door through which Patricia had run and about to shoot at him. He saw no one, though someone was firing from the next room.
The automatic must have been emptied; he was too excited to be counting the shots, but the boomings seemed to go on and on, though they actually took only a few seconds. Then he heard Patricia sobbing uncontrollably.
Mifflon lay on his back, only his bare feet visible.
The three lowest stairs were smashed, the floor in front of the feet was chipped, and the wall beyond bore three holes.
Upstairs, Mrs. Bronsld screamed. He looked up and saw her, naked and unarmed, leaning on the banister and staring at Mifflon.
He called out, "Patricia! I'm coming, don't shoot!"
Patricia ran out, threw herself into his arms, and wept. He pushed her away and looked at her. Blood covered the front of her coat, and her two hands were smeared with blood. And now his coat was bloodied.
"Are you hurt?"
"Oh, God, no," she said. "I'm not; it's his blood!"
For a minute he did not understand, then he knew that she meant the blood was Yohana's.
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