“I’m right,” she said. “They were like you. I couldn’t have been with them if they weren’t.”
“Thank you,” he said ardently, “But how?”
“None of them were … pretty men,” she said slowly. “They all respected Homo sapiens, and themselves for being members of it, for all they feared it. They all feared it the way a good sailor fears a hurricane; they feared it competently. They all laughed the way you do, from deep down. And they all still knew how to wonder like children.”
“I don’t quite know what to say to that.”
“You can believe me. You can believe me, Killy.”
“I do, then; but that doesn’t help.” Again he plunged into thought, seeking, turning, testing. “There’s only one single hypothesis so far. It’s crazy. But—here goes. Someone was gunning for those three, maybe because of the Ethical Science Board. He discovered my fractionations and synthesis, maybe independently, maybe not. Maybe not,” he repeated, and filed the question in his mental ‘pending’ folder.
“Anyway, he succeeds—I don’t know how; he injects the factor into those three men without their knowing it; he divines that all three would find you deeply appealing; he sees to it that each in turn meets you. He must have kept a pretty close watch on things, all the time—” Prue shuddered—“and so he kills them.”
Prue said, in a dead voice, “You can add to that.” She took his hand. “There were not three, but four men he was after, and he wants you to take me back home. If that doesn’t work he will try something else. Killy, be careful, careful!”
“Why?” he asked, and cracked his knuckles against the side of his head. “Why? What would anyone gain that way?”
“You said it yourself. It would cripple the Board, maybe kill it. Oh, and another thing! If he knows about the factor, how to make it, how to use it, he probably knows that you know it, too. He wouldn’t want that, don’t you see? He wouldn’t want someone like you around, alert, watching for some sign of that hellish thing, ready to tell the authorities, the Government, the Board about it. He’d want that secret kept until it was too late to stop it.
“You’ll have to find him and kill him.”
“I’m not a killer,” he said.
“There isn’t any other way. I’ll help you.”
“There are always other ways.” He was shocked.
“You’re so … damn … wonderful,” she said suddenly.
Again he was shocked. It was the first time he had ever heard her say “damn.”
“I had a think,” she said detachedly. The phrase thrilled the part of him that was always so nerve-alive to her; so many rich moments had begun with her sudden, “Killy, had a think.…”
“Tell me your think,” he said.
“It was after I went away,” she said, “and I was alone, and I had the think, and you weren’t there. I made a special promise to save it for you. Here is the think: There is a difference between morals and ethics, and I know what it is.”
“Tell me your think,” he said again.
“An act can be both moral and ethical. But under some circumstances a moral act can be counter to ethics, and an ethical act can be immoral.”
“I’m with you so far,” he said.
“Morals and ethics are survival urges, both of them. But look: an individual must survive within his group. The patterns of survival within the group are morals.”
“Gotcha. And ethics?”
“Well, the group itself must survive, as a unit. The patterns of an individual within the group, toward the end of group survival, are ethics.”
Cautiously, he said, “You’d better go on a bit.”
“You’ll see it in a minute. Now, morals can dictate a pattern to a man such that he survives within the group, but the group itself may have no survival value. For example, in some societies it is immoral not to eat human flesh. But to refrain from it would be ethical, because that would be toward group survival. See?”
“Hey.” His eyes glowed. “You’re pretty damn wonderful yourself. Lessee. It was ‘moral’ to kill Jews under Hitler, but unethical in terms of the survival of Humanity.”
“It was even against the survival of Germany.”
He looked at her in fond amazement. “Did you bring all this out because of what I said—I’m not a killer?”
“Partly,” said Prue. “Even if I agreed that killing that hypothetical devil of ours was immoral—which I wouldn’t—what about the ethics of it?”
He grinned. “Check, comma; mate. I’ll kill him.” The grin faded. “You said ‘partly.’ Why else do I get this study in pragmatism?”
“I’ll tell you when you’re uncluttered a bit. That is, if you don’t think of it yourself first. Now then: how do we find him?”
“We might wait until he goes after me.”
“Don’t even think that way!” she said, paling.
“I’m serious. If that’s the only way, then we’ll do it. But I admit I’d rather think of another. Good gosh, Prue, he has an identity. He’s been around, watching—he must have been. He’s someone we know.”
“Start with the fractionations. Did you keep notes that anyone might have seen?”
“Not after I began to suspect what I was getting to, and that was comparatively early. Up to that point it was fairly routine. I told you it went off into a side-road no one knew about.”
“Could anyone have studied your apparatus—what was left in the stills and thingummies?”
“The stills and thingummies were cleaned enough and dismantled enough to bewilder anyone, every day when I was through with them,” he said positively. “You do just so much classified and secret work and you get into habits like that. Of course, some of that apparatus was—no,” he said, and shook his head. “It wouldn’t tell anyone anything unless they knew the exact order in which the pieces were set up.”
“You weren’t a Board member at all,” she mused.
“Me? I was a hermit—remember? Oh sure, I knew I’d join it some time. Matter of fact, I had a date for their banquet next month, which was cancelled. Fellow who was taking me is dropping out because of those deaths. Says the Board is dying or dead already.” Prue seemed to be waiting for something, so he said “Why?” He thought he detected the smallest slump of disappointment in her shoulders.
“Could there have been anything the Board was about to do that would be undesirable or dangerous to anyone?”
“Now, that I wouldn’t know.” He scratched his ear. “I think I can find out, though. Hold on. Don’t go away.” He sprang to his feet, stopped, and turned back. “Prue,” he said softly, “you’re not going to go away again, are you?”
“Not now,” she said, her eyes bright.
He went to the telephone, dropped in a coin and dialed Egmont’s number. “Hello—Egg? Hiya. Killy here.”
“What is it you want, Killilea?”
Killilea had already started to talk by the time he realized how formal and frigid Egmont’s voice was. A small frown appeared, but he went right on. “Look, you were pretty much in on the Ethical Science Board doings until recently, weren’t you?”
There was a pause. Then “Suppose I was?”
“Cut the rib, Egghead,” said Killilea. “This is serious. What I want to find out is, do you know if Pretorio or Monck or Landey, singly or in combination, had anything up their sleeves before they were killed? Some bombshell, or very important announcement that they were about to spring at a meeting?”
“Whatever I know, Killilea, I most certainly am not passing on to you. I want to make that absolutely clear to you.”
Killilea’s jaw dropped. Like most men who genuinely liked people, he was extraordinarily vulnerable to this sort of thing. “Egg! he gasped, then, almost timidly, “This is Egmont … Richard Egmont?”
“This is Egmont, and I have no information for you, not now or ever.”
Click!
Killilea walked slowly back to the table, rubbing his ear, which was still stinging
.
Prue looked up, and started. “Killy! What happened?”
He told her. “Egg,” he said. “Hell, I’ve known him for … what do you suppose is eating … why, I never—”
Prue patted his arm. “I hate it when something hurts you. Why didn’t you ask him what was wrong?”
“I didn’t have time,” said Killilea miserably. “Hey!” he barked. “Somebody’s been working on him. If we can find out who—”
“That’s it, that’s it,” said Prue. “Call him again!”
Back in the booth, Killilea set his jaw and waited for the first sound of Egmont’s voice. Being struck under his guard was one thing: going after something he urgently wanted was something else again.
“Hello?”
“Listen, you,” growled KiIlilea. “Hang up on me and so help me I’ll come over there to that office of yours, gag your secretary and kick your door down. The only way you can get rid of me is over the phone.”
He could hear Egmont’s furious breathing. Finally, “I don’t care what you do, you’re not getting any Board information out of me.”
“Hold it!” snapped Killilea as he sensed the other receiver coming down. Egmont said “Well?”
“All I want to know is what’s gotten into you since last night. You sound like I’d punched your grandmother, and I haven’t even seen her.”
“You’re a pandering little scut,” growled Egmont.
Killilea squeezed his eyes tight and bit back the rage that had begun to churn inside him. “Egmont,” he said somberly, “we were friends for a long time. If you did something I didn’t like I might write you off, but damn it I’d tell you why first. At least you owe me that. Come on—tell me what’s with you. I honest-to-God don’t know.”
“All right,” said Egmont, his voice shaking. “You asked for it. I’m going to tell you a thing or two about your buddy that you don’t know.”
“Buddy? What buddy?”
“Just shut up and listen,” hissed Egmont. “You make me madder every time you open your mouth. Jules Croy, that’s what buddy. You and your bright and cheerful questions about the Board. This is the guy that’s taking over what’s left of the Board and making a marching and chowder society out of it—a damned jackal, a corpse-eater.”
“But I don’t—”
“More money than he knows what to do with, and nothing to do with his time but hack up what’s left of the finest damn.…” He subsided to a splutter, and then growled, “And you. Spying around, seeing what you can pick up. You’re just right for it, too, the hermit with the big name in science, back in circulation again, picking up loose ends. Well, anybody I can get to won’t have any ends to give you. You louse!”
“Now you hold it right there,” flared Killilea. “That’s damn well enough, Egmont. I’ve heard of this Croy—who hasn’t? But I wouldn’t know him if he was in this phone booth with me. I’ve never had a single damned word with him!”
Egmont’s voice was suddenly all disdainful amazement. “If I didn’t know you were a rat by now, this would clinch it. Who’d you have lunch with today?”
“Lunch? Oh—some character. A barfly I met last night. Name’s Hartog. What’s that got to do with—”
“Lie to the end, won’t you? Well, it’ll amaze you to know that I ducked into the bar at Roby’s for a standup lunch today at one-thirty and saw you with my own eyes.”
“You better get those eyes retreaded,” snarled Killilea. “Why didn’t you take the trouble to walk over and make sure?”
“If I ever got close enough to Jules Croy to talk to him, I’d tear his head off. And from now on the same goes for you. And if I hear one syllable from you on this phone again, I’ll slam this thing down so hard I’ll shunt it clear down to your end.”
This time Killilea was ready, and had the receiver away from his ear when the crash came.
“It seems,” he told Prue tiredly, “that I was seen having lunch with an arch-villain, who has tainted me. I didn’t have lunch with anyone but the man you saw. Hartog.”
“I don’t like him,” Prue said, for the second time that day.
“Who was the villain?”
“Name’s Croy, Jules Croy,” said Killilea. Prue shook her head vaguely. “I’ve heard of him. One of those business octopi, finger in this, fifty thousand shares in that. Always buying up educators and research people with bequests. Egmont says he’s trying to make a sort of glorified Parent-Teacher’s Association out of what’s left of the Ethical Science Board. Egg’s always been real passionate about the Board, and it was like losing an arm to him when it folded. I guess he needed something to be real mad at, and the idea of me spying for this Croy supplied it.”
“What about this man you had lunch with, this Hartog?”
“Oh, he’s harmless. Interesting sometimes, the way one of those medical museums that feature replicas of skin diseases in life-size wax models is interesting. Did he give you a bad time?’
“Who—that little man?”
“I gather he made a series of passes.…”
“Oh,” she said. “That. That never bothers me, Killy. You know that.”
He knew it. When anyone irritated or bored her, she could leave the room without stirring from her chair. Her fogbound mood was absolutely impervious. “Oh,” he said. “I thought … but you say he annoyed you.”
“I didn’t. I said I didn’t like him. He … was the one who introduced me to Landey. And Koala—Dr. Pretorio—he knew him too. Koala and I once went to a party where he was. Compared to them, Hartog is such a little snipe.”
“Knew Pretorio … hmm. Prue, did he know Karl Monck too?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Killy, what is it?”
“Let me think … let me think.” Suddenly he brought his hand down on the table, hard. “Prue! Hartog is the one who found you for me. He introduced himself to me at a bar down the street … let me see if I can remember exactly how … he questioned me in that funny way of his, I remember. He made sure of my name—yes, and—”
He looked down at his right palm. “What is it?” asked Prue, terror in her voice at the expression on his face.
“When we shook hands,” he said evenly, “he scratched me. Look. With a ring he wore. A big cheap ring, the stone was missing, but the mounting had an edge.”
Anger and terror mingled and mounted in the look they exchanged.
“I was right,” she whispered. “You see … if I’d come home last night—oh, Killy!”
He looked at the hand. He felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach.
“Is there a—an antidote?”
He shook his head. “It’s not the sort of thing that has an antidote. I mean, an acid poison can be counteracted by a base chemical of equal strength and opposite action. But things like this—hormones, for example. Progesterone and testosterone have opposite end effects, but a very similar way of bringing them about. I’ve never made any of this stuff, you know. I can’t tell exactly how it acts or how long it lasts unless I do. It would surely have an active period, and then get absorbed and excreted like any hormone. How long that would be, I don’t really know. I’ve got to develop a test for it. Another test for it,” he said, giving her a painful grin.
“Well, at least we know. Now—this nasty little Hartog. Do you suppose Egmont was right? Could he really be this Jules Croy?”
“I guess he could. I’m trying to recall what happened today, at lunch. He came in—yes, that’s right, he saw me and stopped dead, and I never saw a more astonished man.”
“He sent you to me last night, didn’t he? He must have known you were looking for me. He cut you with his ring, and he told you where I was, and he must have been sure that—no wonder he was astonished! You shouldn’t have been alive today! Well—what did he say?”
“An involved sort of philosophic conversation. As usual with him, it was about sex.” He thought back. “What it amounted to, was an attempt to pump me for information about you, and when that
drew a blank, an effort to find some other woman for me, and then some delving into why I wasn’t at all interested. It all fits,” he said, almost awed. “The warped, wealthy little misfit, trying to buy his way into the high levels of science, trying to get control of the Ethical Science Board, removing the men who would have no use for his kind. He’ll run it, Prue—it’ll still attract every real scientist who has more humanity than a milling machine—and the men he can’t control he’ll eliminate. He has my factor as a weapon, and if that ever doesn’t work, he can certainly think of other ways.”
“The factor—how did he get it?”
“That’s the one thing I can’t figure,” Killilea said grimly.
“We’ll ask him.” He looked at his watch. “Come on. We have things to do. I need a laboratory.”
The first part was easy.
It was two nights later. Prue sat alone pale and unhappy-looking, at a table at Roby’s. A cigarette burned to a long ash in the ashtray. An untouched drink stood warming in front of her. And—
“Well, hello,” said Hartog.
“Oh,” she said. She gave him a fleeting smile. He sat down quickly, opportunistically. “Expecting anyone?”
“No,” she said.
“Oh,” he said, in his ferocious, timid way. “Dined yet?”
“Not yet,” she said. She took out a cigarette and waited. He fumbled in his pockets, and she glanced at the silver lighter lying next to her cigarettes. He mumbled an apology, picked it up, used it. When he put it down he looked puzzedly at his thumb. “I’m glad you came,” she said.
He was surprised and showed it. “I guess I’m glad too,” he said. He circled his thumb with his other hand and might have pressed it, but she reached out impulsively and took one of his hands in hers. “You haven’t ever really talked to me,” she said softly. “You’ve never given me a chance to really know you.”
He talked, then, and when the conversation edged over to his preoccupation, it found her unperturbed. They dined. Afterward he said he felt strange. She said she had a little apartment nearby. Perhaps he’d be more comfortable there.…
She took him home.
She took his hat and coat and made him a drink and softly asked permission to change, and slipped into the bedroom. Hartog sat and sipped his drink and when he heard a sound behind him he said, “Come sit by me.”
A Saucer of Loneliness Page 20