“All right,” he said evenly.
He walked steadily ahead in the darkness. The gun muzzle went away from his neck and punched him hard in the small of his back, urging him forward. He reached the end of the garden and slowed, and the man stepped on his heel from behind and swore in a breathless mutter.
“Up the steps. Walk right along close to that hedge.”
Gregory’s shoes grated on the stone of the steps, and then he was walking along the gravel path, hidden in the deep shadow of the high hedge.
“Straight ahead.”
They went across the slope of a lawn that was lined with trees that were like dark, tall sentinels. The grass was a smooth carpet under foot, soft and damp and springy. The trees stretched down to the white gravel of a roadway, and there was a car parked in the shadows — a big sedan, gleaming sleekly black. Gregory stopped when he saw it.
The gun muzzle prodded him. “Go on.”
Gregory walked up beside the car. There was no one in it, and he stopped again.
“Well?” he said.
“Inside. In the front seat. You’re gonna drive.”
Gregory opened the door, slid carefully under the steering wheel. He heard the door latch click behind him, and he knew the other man was in the back seat. The man’s tenseness had suddenly relaxed, and he was talking and laughing in a thin giggle that-had a shaky little catch in it.
“Easy. Easy, huh, Doc? When you know how. Sure. Sure, it is. I knew it would be all the time. Sure. Start the motor.”
Gregory touched the starter button, and the engine muttered lightly, smooth with multi-cylindered power.
“Drive right ahead.” The man’s voice was still shaky and he was trying to control the quickness of his breathing. He was afraid, and he had been afraid the whole time, and that had made him all the more dangerous. He wanted to talk now, smoothly and glibly, laughing, to prove he hadn’t been afraid at all. “The lights, Doc. You forgot them. You wanta see where you’re goin’, don’t you? You don’t want to hide from people, do you?”
Gregory snapped the switch, and the brilliant white cones bit through the darkness. The road curved evenly and slowly around ahead of them.
“You see,” said the man. “We got the whole road all to ourselves. It ain’t used much, on account it’s much shorter and easier to come by the bay. But we got a lot of time. There’s a gate comin’ up ahead of us, but it’s open and there ain’t nobody takin’ care of it, so don’t let it worry you.”
Gregory looked up at the rear-sight mirror, trying to see the face of the man behind him, but he was crouched close against the back of the front seat, out of line with the mirror. Gregory twisted a little in the seat, trying to bring him into its focus, and then he saw another figure. It was plastered flat against the rear window.
For a second Gregory thought his eyes were tricking him. The figure was no more than six inches high. It had a fuzzy mop of hair that made its head disproportionately large and springy, jiggling arms and legs that moved and wiggled in a weird dance, as though the figure were trying to climb up the smooth glass of the window.
The gun muzzle tapped him gently. “Straighten it out, Doc. Don’t get to day dreaming.”
Gregory turned the steering wheel a little, brought the big sedan back into the center of the road. He glanced again at the mirror. The figure was still there, dancing and jiggling and waving its springy arms. He realized suddenly what it was. It was a doll — a little black gargoyle doll that was fastened on a string so that it hung down over the back window.
They were at the end of the Van Tellen estate now, and the grounds began to narrow. Gregory caught a glimpse of the iron fence on both sides of them, dully slick in the headlights, that was closing in on both sides of them. The big gate loomed ahead. It was open, and there was no light in the small gate house beside it.
“Right on through,” said the man with the gun.
The car slid through onto the white road. The headlights showed nothing on either side of it now but blackness, and the sound of the water was a slapping gurgle audible over the sound of the sedan’s engine.
“This is the causeway, Doc,” the man with the gun told him. “See, the estate’s on a little bit of a spit of land stickin’ right out into the bay. Water’d be clear around it except for this little neck right here. The old boy — Herman Borg — he built this road when he built the place. Cost him plenty, too.”
The road stretched straight and white and empty ahead of them toward the black loom of the mainland.
“Stop the car, Doc.”
Gregory took the sedan out of gear and let it coast slowly to a stop at one side of the road. There was no room to turn out.
“Get out. This is the end of the line.”
Gregory opened the door beside him, slid out into the center of the roadway.
“All right, Doc,” said the man with the gun. “Take a look.”
Gregory turned around slowly. The man was small and wiry and stunted with a white, cruelly grinning face and eyes that were beady specks, glittering. He held a big automatic, and his fingers seemed white and childish and thin twisted around its butt. There was a tell-tale nerve that kept twitching spasmodically in his thin cheek, jerking the side of his mouth.
“Well?” he said mockingly. “Know me?”
“No,” said Gregory. He had never seen the man before. “Who are you?”
“Well, the name is Carter right now, I think. I change it so often it’s hard to keep track.”
“What did you bring me here for?” Gregory asked.
The man called Carter giggled softly: “Well, what do you think, Doc? It’s nice and quiet here and nobody around but you and me. And there’s lots of water right off the edge, and pretty deep. If you was to fall off, Doc, you’d probably come up a long ways away from here.”
“You mean to kill me,” said Gregory. His voice was even and low.
“That’s it, Doc.” He was very sure of himself, now, very confident.
“Why?” said Gregory. His eyes were narrowed on the black automatic. The thick barrel was lined up directly with his chest. If it moved a fraction of an inch... The muscles tensed along his back.
“Why?” said Carter. “Well, I don’t see it’s going to do you much good to know, Doc. In fact, that’s your big trouble, Doc. You wanta know too much. You wanta go pokin’ your nose in where it don’t belong. So — good-by.”
Gregory crouched a little. Carter’s eyes were lidless and unblinking and bright watching him, and the barrel of the automatic was motionless, steady. The water made cold, chockling sounds slapping itself in soft little waves against the side of the causeway.
“Good-by, Doc,” said Carter in a whisper.
It came at them out of the darkness like a sudden, blasting juggernaut without the slightest warning. It was a heavy gray coupé, running without lights. The driver had been coasting it silently down the road, and now suddenly the engine roared in a wild snarl of sound, and it hurtled at them.
Gregory jumped back instinctively. Carter ducked and whirled. He would have got out of the way, but the car followed him. It followed him uncannily, horribly, like a roaring animal. He dodged again, his face a pasty white smear, and tripped, and then it hit him.
The fender took him in the middle of the back with a sickening sound like the thud of a heavy stone falling to the ground. It knocked him up in the air, his thin body sailed in a jerking, kicking arc. The water of the bay made a sullen, cold splash receiving it.
The gray coupé slid, half around, crosswise of the causeway, and the tires ground on the very edge, caught with a sudden jar. The car teetered a little sidewise and then stood there silent.