“Who told you that?” Tim whispered. Dread covered him like syrup.
“Never mind who told me. Where did you go?” The casualness had disappeared from his voice.
“All right.” Tim licked his sandpaper lips. “We just went up to the creek and fished a little. Angel has been cooped up so much, I thought the sun and fresh air would do him good.”
“Oh, and did it? Did you catch any fish, my son?”
“No, Father.”
“Too bad. All that effort for nothing.” Haverstock leaned forward, pinning Tim with his gaze. “Now, I want you to think very hard. Very hard. And tell me where you would go if you were looking for Angel.”
“I don’t have any idea,” Tim said and shrugged his misshapen shoulders.
Haverstock leaned back in the chair, raising his fingers again to his chin. “Very well. I can see you plan to be obstinate. You are entirely too small and vulnerable for this much stubbornness, you know.”
Tim shrieked, a thin high-pitched scream like a dying rabbit. His hunchbacked body jerked in uncontrollable spasms, then went limp and collapsed on the desk top. After a moment, he rose trembling to his knees.
Haverstock raised his brows. “Have you thought of something, my son?” he asked pleasantly.
“No, Father,” Tim gasped. “I haven’t thought of anything.”
Haverstock sighed and looked at Tim with betrayed innocence. “Ah, Tim, you vex me almost as much as Angel. I don’t know what’s gotten into everyone lately.” He stood up. “I haven’t time to play any more games with you, Tim. I want you to tell me everything you know, everything you suspect, everything you conjecture, about where Angel might be.”
He reached around the end of the desk and brought a covered birdcage into view. The cage rattled tinnily as he put it on the desk next to Tim. Something moved under the cover, something large.
“Well, Tim?”
“I don’t know anything,” Tim said, but his voice cracked and he could not keep his eyes off the cage.
Haverstock shrugged and delicately grasped the little celluloid ring on the top of the fabric cover. He slipped it up and off. The large brindle cat looked around in bewilderment. It shifted in the cage. Its tail fell through the bars and lay twitching on the desk.
Tim took an involuntary step backward, his face the color of putty.
The cat was an alley fighter. His coat was scruffy and dirty. One ear was notched and fleas covered his nose like freckles.
“As you can see,” Haverstock explained, “I anticipated your pertinacity. Now, do you tell me what I want to know, or shall I open the door?”
The cat noticed Tim. One paw reached through the bars and swiped at him. Tim shrieked and stumbled back out of reach. He tripped and fell, then scrambled quickly to his feet. The cat watched him, the tip of his tail switching slightly.
Haverstock smiled. “There’s always the chance you might succeed in getting away, that you might reach some tiny nook our friend couldn’t enter. But we both know the chance is so small as to be hardly worth the taking. And, of course, since you’ve been so disloyal to one who’s taken care of you all these years, I would have no choice but to take the cat’s part.”
Tim looked at the cat in speechless terror, a collar of ice constricting his throat. Haverstock reached slowly to the catch on the birdcage door and released it, diddled it, toyed with it. The door swung open an inch, but he stopped it with his finger. The cat growled. Four burning eyes focused on Tim.
“Well, my son?” Haverstock said softly.
“All right!” Tim screamed.
Haverstock refastened the catch and leaned back in his chair, but left the cage uncovered. He smiled, and thunder rolled far away, as if one might have been the cause of the other.
21.
Evelyn Bradley sat on the davenport in Dr. Latham’s parlor and fidgeted. Her emotions confused her. Why on earth was she making such a fuss over Angel? He seemed very nice and was in some sort of trouble, but that didn’t explain it. Why did she feel such an odd, enjoyable sensation when he touched her? There in the road, when he had leaned against her, when she had put her arms around him to keep him from falling… well, she had been practically giddy. She squirmed and looked at the closed door of Dr. Latham’s clinic.
Boys had put their arms around her before, for heaven’s sake. Only last night Sonny Redwine had been very romantic. He had kissed her and… well… he would have done a lot more if she had let him. And she had enjoyed it; enjoyed it very much, but it hadn’t made her toes curl and she hadn’t, as they always did in books, heard bells ringing or anything. Why had Angel’s arms around her been so different from Sonny’s?Angel was very attractive, even if he did have white hair and pale skin and funny red eyes that looked so deeply into her, but she didn’t consider herself the type to flutter over a matinee idol. There were several very attractive boys in Hawley, including Sonny, but they didn’t have any particular effect on her. Maybe she just knew them too well and too long. She sighed.
Was she in love with Angel? She frowned. Ridiculous. How could she be in love with someone she’d known only one day? Not that long even. As a matter of fact, she didn’t know him at all. It must be just fascination because he was so exotic. And Henry had said that Angel was simple-minded. He didn’t act simple-minded, though how could she really tell? She had been attributing many of his actions to his inability to speak. Could they instead be caused by his being simple-minded as well? She couldn’t make herself believe it.
And the other thing, at the bridge, when he had caught her without touching her. She’d forgotten about that because it still didn’t seem quite real, like something interesting she’d read but didn’t believe. She did believe it, though. She had seen it. She didn’t believe Tiny Tim when he said she had only imagined it, nor did she really believe him when he said everything Angel did in the Wonder Show was only tricks and illusions. She really ought to be afraid of him, but try as she might, she could arouse no fear in herself.
How could she be afraid of Angel? He was so like a… like a lost puppy. So vulnerable seeming, and trusting. Maybe all she felt was sympathy. That’s it, she nodded to herself. All she was doing was reacting to his trust and his need.
She frowned again because it didn’t seem quite right. Dr. Latham emerged from his clinic and she gratefully delayed any conclusion.
“I can’t find anything physically wrong with him,” Dr. Latham said and sat beside her. “He seems to be suffering from simple exhaustion, as if he had performed some strenuous exercise until he collapsed.”
“Will he be all right?”
“Oh, sure. All he needs is a good night’s sleep. I gave him a sedative and put him to bed on the cot in the clinic. He’s sleeping like a baby. I did find out why he can’t talk, though.”
She looked at him with more concern than she had intended, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“I was curious if it were physical or emotional.”
“Emotional?”
“Some people are thinking that a severe emotional trauma can cause loss of speech—and also loss of sight and hearing and a lot of other things.”
“Is that what’s wrong with Angel?”
“No,” the doctor sighed. “His problem is physical, very simple and nothing can be done about it. He has no vocal cords.”
“Oh,” she said and wanted to cry because it was so unjust.