“Yes, Joe?”
“I want you to tell me what happened to this man’s hands. Don’t tell me you should not like to venture an opinion.”
The old man looked again at the figure on the cot. He was still cool, too cool. Only the crazies could be that cool. Joe should have seen it before.
Corday said: “It would appear that his fingers have somehow been—”
“Torn off, goddam it. I can see that. Who did it?”
“Discovering that would seem to be the job of the police. Though not necessarily, I suppose, of the Chicago Pawn Shop Detail?” Corday’s voice was tired, as well as cool. That sounded like a request for a little more comradely co-operation.
No more. “This is the same guy who supposedly fired a gun at you?”
“Oh yes. Yes.”
“He must have had his fingers then, right? Right? Then he ran out of here. Trying to get away? If he had the gun like you say, why was he running? And who chased him?”
A glint of something other than coolness came into the old man’s eyes. Amusement, it looked like. “I would surmise that he ran to get to running water. A forlorn hope, of course. It would not have saved him. But still he was a more knowledgeable young man than some. About some things, at least.”
“Running water, save him? What does that mean?” Joe knew he was losing his own coolness, his own control. The knowledge didn’t help.
“Joe, believe it or not, I am extremely tired. I must rest before I undergo any lengthy questioning.” Corday turned away to seek out the room’s one chair. And pallor, tiredness, age, were indeed all showing in his face at the moment.
“Don’t go to sleep just yet. I don’t like that trick you pulled on me today, sending me off on a wild goose chase. I don’t like a bunch of things about you. I’m not here as a cop tonight, and I can speak my mind.” He immediately felt a little better, calmer, for having spoken that much of it at least. All right, he should have seen before that the old man had to be at least a little crazy.
Sitting wearily erect, hands on knees, Corday made the old chair almost a throne. “As for the wild goose chase, as you describe it, I would not have done that had there been time to win you over by argument. But there was no time. The boy had to be saved at once.”
“You really knew that he was here. But how?”
“You saw.”
Joe, the interrogating officer, stood over the seated suspect. “Let that pass for the moment. Let’s go over again what you say happened here after you sent Judy and Johnny home. You were in the living room with this guy, he shot at you and then ran out. You stayed in the house. How do you suppose his fingers got torn off?”
Corday took a moment to ponder. “Perhaps, Joe, it would be more profitable to start with why.”
“All right, then. If you’ve got a good reason, try it out on me.”
“There is revenge as a motive. You must come across that in your work.”
“Not as often as you might think. Not like this. People do turn each other in to the police, there’s plenty of that. If this was done for revenge, who did it?”
“Some—ally—of the Southerland family?”
“Who?”
“A second common purpose of torture,” said the old man pedantically, “is of course the extortion of information. And a third purpose is to make an example of the victim. Perhaps to warn his associates to desist from a certain course of action—the persecution of a certain family, for instance.”
Watching the old man, listening to him, Joe felt his earlier anger coming back, more coldly now. Eight years on the force, brushing now and then against every kind of evil that the city bred, had not prepared him for a close look at anyone like this. It was not what Corday might have done, or what he was saying, so much as what he was. Just what the old man was, Joe did not know; but the closer he got to it, the more his deepest feelings recoiled.
“Historically,” the old man was continuing, “such frightful warnings have been more effective than many people currently suppose. Then of course, two or even all three purposes may be served by the same act—the same atrocity, if you will. And now, before you ask me another question Joe, will you answer one for me in turn?”
“I don’t know. If I can. Maybe.”
“Who is Craig Walworth?”
Joe blinked, trying to shift gears. “I’ve heard the name. Society. From one of the wealthy families in the city. What’s he got to do with any of this? Don’t tell me this is him?” He gestured at the still figure on the cot.
Corday shook his head tiredly. “I doubt that very much.”
“This guy”—he gestured toward the cot, where blind blue eyes stared up—“ran down the hill to get to running water, huh?”
“Thinking his pursuer could not follow him across the stream. Grasping at a faint hope of that, at least.”
“His pursuer, meaning you. The gun in your hand, not in his.”
The wicked old eyes looked up at Joe were once more amused.
Joe shivered. Words came from him involuntarily: “I think you’re crazy. You’re a maniac. I should never have left Judy alone with you for a minute.”
At last, at last, some basic feeling had been provoked, deep in those dark and ancient eyes that looked, to Joe, not a bit more human for its presence. Joe was suddenly, comfortingly, aware of the weight that rode his shoulder-holster, underneath his jacket. And it was a relief also to hear more cars arriving now, pulling in round the last turn of the long drive from the highway.
THIRTEEN
Again Judy was not alone in her own warm bedroom, though it was the middle of the night. Her waking was gradual and without fear, but she knew he was there even as she woke.
Judy turned over in bed and looked. This time his dark figure was standing beside the dressing-table chair.
“Have I alarmed you?” Dr. Corday’s normal voice inquired softly.
“No.” She sat up in bed, and was irritated to find herself involuntarily fingering the top button of her nightgown again. “What is it?”
“The truth is that I feel a need to talk. And I much prefer your company to that of anyone else I can talk with tonight.”
“Won’t you sit down?”
“Thank you.” The chair in his hand moved with ghostly silence. He settled into it without a sound.
“I wanted to thank you,” Judy said, “for what you did today.”
“It was my pleasure, as well as my duty, to be of service.” And her visitor made her a little seated bow.
“Can you tell me anything more about Kate?” When her question had gone unanswered for a moment Judy added: “I’m certain now that she’s still alive. Don’t ask me how I know. But I was right about Johnny, wasn’t I? It’s the same feeling.”
“Indeed, you were right. You have a talent in such matters.”
“But you don’t want to talk about Kate yet. All right, I trust you.”
He was silent for a time, and motionless in his chair. At last he said: “It is long, I think, since anyone has trusted me in such a way. Strange, it had not occurred to me for a long time, that I was never any longer trusted . . . ah, Judy, I am tired tonight.”
“Can’t you get any rest?”
“That is one thing I wished to discuss with you tonight. In the morning you will hear that I have disappeared from my motel. The police, as they believe, have put me in storage there, so they may check up on me with the authorities in London before they begin to question me intensively.”
“Are you in trouble?”