"We're sitting out there. All at once the house gets damned still. I says to Jack there, 'Sounds like they put a silencer on the dump.' He says, 'Yeah.' We sit listening. Then all at once we hear a thump inside here. Like somebody falling out of bed. We crash the door. There's the boss like you seen him on the floor. There's the nurse asleep like you see her. We glim the alarm and pull it. Then we wait for somebody to come. That's all, ain't it, Jack?"
"Yeah," answered the guard at the window, tonelessly. "Yeah, I guess that's all."
I looked at him, suspiciously.
"You guess that's all? What do you mean—you guess?"
Again they looked at each other.
"Better come clean, Bill," said the guard at the window.
"Hell, he won't believe it," said the other.
"And nobody else. Anyway, tell him."
The guard Bill said:
"When we crash the door we seen something like a couple of cats fighting there beside the window. The boss is lying on the floor. We had our guns out but was afraid to shoot for what you told us. Then we heard a funny noise outside like somebody blowing a flute. The two things broke loose and jumped up on the window sill, and out. We jumped to the window. And we didn't see nothing."
"You saw the things at the window. What did they look like then?" I asked.
"You tell him, Jack."
"Dolls!"
A shiver went down my back. It was the answer I had expected—and dreaded. Out the window! I recalled the tremor of the vine when I gripped it! The guard who had closed the door looked at me, and I saw his jaw drop.
"Jesus, Jack!" he gasped. "He believes it!"
I forced myself to speak.
"What kind of dolls?"
The guard at the window answered, more confidently.
"One we couldn't see well. The other looked like one of your nurses if she'd shrunk to about two feet!"
One of my nurses…Walters…I felt a wave of weakness and sank down on the edge of Ricori's bed.
Something white on the floor at the head of it caught my eye. I stared at it stupidly, then leaned and picked it up.
It was a nurse's cap, a little copy of those my nurses wear. It was about large enough to fit the head of a two–foot doll…
There was something else where it had been. I picked that up.
It was a knotted cord of hair pale ashen hair with nine curious knots spaced at irregular intervals along it…
The guard named Bill stood looking down at me anxiously. He asked:
"Want me to call any of your people, Doc?"
"Try to get hold of McCann," I bade him; then spoke to the other guard: "Close the windows and fasten them and pull down the curtains. Then lock the door."
Bill began to telephone. Stuffing the cap and knotted cord in my pocket, I walked over to the nurse. She was rapidly recovering and in a minute or two I had her awake. At first her eyes dwelt on me, puzzled; took in the lighted room and the two men, and the puzzlement changed to alarm. She sprang to her feet.
"I didn't see you come in! Did I fall asleep…what's happened?…" Her hand went to her throat.
"I'm hoping you can tell us," I said, gently.
She stared at me uncomprehendingly. She said, confusedly:
"I don't know…it became terribly still…I…thought I saw something moving at the window…then there was a queer fragrance and then I looked up to see you bending over me."
I asked: "Can you remember anything of what you saw at the window? The least detail—the least impression. Please try."
She answered, hesitantly: "There was something white…I thought someone…something…was watching me…then came the fragrance, like flowers…that's all."
Bill hung up the telephone: "All right, Doc. They're after McCann. Now what?"
"Miss Butler," I turned to the nurse. "I'm going to relieve you for the balance of the night. Go to bed. And I want you to sleep. I prescribe—" I told her what.
"You're not angry—you don't think I've been careless—"
"No, to both." I smiled and patted her shoulder. "The case has taken an unexpected turn, that's all. Now don't ask any more questions."
I walked with her to the door, opened it.
"Do exactly as I say."
I closed and locked the door behind her.
I sat beside Ricori. The shock that he had experienced—whatever it might have been—should either cure or kill, I thought grimly. As I watched him, a tremor went through his body. Slowly an arm began to lift, fist clenched. His lips moved. He spoke, in Italian and so swiftly that I could get no word. His arm fell back. I stood up from the bed. The paralysis had gone. He could move and speak. But would he be able to do so when consciousness assumed sway? I left this for the next few hours to decide I could do nothing else.
"Now listen to me carefully," I said to the two guards. "No matter how strange what I am going to say will seem, you must obey me in every detail! Ricori's life depends upon your doing so. I want one of you to sit close beside me at the table here. I want the other to sit beside Ricori, at the head or the bed and between him and me. If I am asleep and he should awaken, arouse me. If you see any change in his condition, immediately awaken me. Is that clear?"
They said: "Okay."
"Very well. Now here is the most important thing of all. You must watch me even more closely. Whichever of you sits beside me must not take his eyes off me. If I should go to your chief it would be to do one of three things only—listen to his heart and breathing—lift his eyelids—take his temperature. I mean, of course, if he should be as he now is. If I seem to awaken and attempt to do anything other than these three—stop me. If I resist, make me helpless—tie me up and gag me—no, don't gag me—listen to me and remember what I say. Then telephone to Dr. Braile—here is his number."
I wrote, and passed it to them.
"Don't damage me any more than you can help," I said, and laughed.
They stared at each other, plainly disconcerted. "If you say so, Doc—" began the guard Bill, doubtfully.
"I do say so. Do not hesitate. If you should be wrong, I'll not hold it against you."
"The Doc knows what he's about, Bill," said the guard Jack.
"Okay then," said Bill.
I turned out all the lights except that beside the nurse's table. I stretched myself in her chair and adjusted the lamp so my face could be plainly seen. That little white cap I had picked from the floor had shaken me—damnably! I drew it out and placed it in a drawer. The guard Jack took his station beside Ricori. Bill drew up a chair, and sat facing me. I thrust my hand into my pocket and clutched the knotted cord, closed my eyes, emptied my mind of all thought, and relaxed. In abandoning, at least temporarily, my conception of a sane universe I had determined to give that of Madame Mandilip's every chance to operate.
Faintly, I heard a clock strike one. I slept.
Somewhere a vast wind was roaring. It circled and swept down upon me. It bore me away. I knew that I had no body, that indeed I had no form. Yet I was. A formless sentience whirling in that vast wind. It carried me into infinite distance. Bodiless, intangible as I knew myself to be, yet it poured into me an unearthly vitality. I roared with the wind in unhuman jubilance. The vast wind circled and raced me back from immeasurable space…
I seemed to awaken, that pulse of strange jubilance still surging through me…Ah! There was what I must destroy…there on the bed …must kill so that this pulse of jubilance would not cease…must kill so that the vast wind would sweep me up again and away and feed me with its life…but careful…careful…there—there in the throat just under the ear…there is where I must plunge it…then off with the wind again…there where the pulse beats…what is holding me back?…caution…caution, "I am going to take his temperature"…that's it, careful, "I am going to take his temperature."…Now—one quick spring, then into his throat where the pulse beats…"Not with that you don't!"…Who said that?… still holding me…rage, consuming and ruthless blackness and the sound of a vast wind roaring away and away…