"But I couldn't-" he said aloud, and broke off, with a quick glance around. Nothing stirred.
Except the cat. The cat came out of the shadows and looked at Tracy with luminous green eyes.
"There's still revenge," it said, waving its tail. "And I'm a particularly nasty sort of familiar. I was fond of Baldy. Run along, Sam Tracy. You won't get into any trouble with the police. But you'll get into trouble with me-and my friends. It'll be harder, since you've got the book, but I'll manage." It yawned, flicking a pink tongue at Tracy.
The reporter thought of posthypnosis, and slowly drew his automatic. The cat went away, with the magic peculiar to cats. Tracy nodded and descended the steps, getting into his car and starting the motor with a nervous jerk.
It was awkward turning the car around on the narrow, winding road, but he managed it without too much difficulty. Going down the canyon in second gear, Tracy kept his eyes on the black center line and thought hard. Murder. First-degree, at that. But there was no evidence.
He chewed his lip. He was getting shaky, firing at shadows. Unfortunate that Gwinn happened to be behind that particular shadow. Still…
Still, it couldn't be helped, and the worst possible thing to do was brood about it. Much better to shove the incident to the back of his mind. Hell, in the old days in Chicago murder hadn't meant much. Why should it mean anything now?
Nevertheless, it did. Tracy had always taken pains to keep his skirts clear of messes. By a natural trick of compensation, he had come to regard his blackmailing activities with tolerant satisfaction. In this world, the race was to the swift. A slow horse was handicapped-unless he got the needle. A man smart enough to use a hypo stimulant wasn't necessarily a rat, except according to narrow standards, which did not concern Tracy.
If you were clever enough to get your hands on smart money, that was all to the good. And it was far, far better than living on a reporter's salary alone.
But Tracy was shaken. "Self-defense," he said under his breath, and lit a cigarette, illegal in this fire-hazard area. He put it out immediately. It wouldn't do to be stopped by an officer.
A giant stood threateningly, in the glare of the headlights, gnarled and menacing. Tracy wrenched at the wheel in sudden panic. It was nothing but an oak; just the same, the illusion was frightening. Briefly Tracy had seen the huge face of a hag peering at him, loose mouth writhing, eyes flaming green.
It was gone now, but the aftertaste of fear was sour in Tracy's mouth. He turned the car into a side road and parked, staring at nothing. Not so good. He couldn't afford hysteria.
He drank whiskey, shuddered, and wiped his lips with his hand. It was trembling a little. Tracy lay back and breathed deeply, his eyes closed. He'd be all right in a minute. The canyon road was steep and winding, and he preferred not to risk it till his hands stopped shaking.
Meantime, he remembered Gwinn's diary. It lay on the seat beside him, a flat brown volume rather smaller than an octavo, and Tracy picked it up, switching on the overhead light.
Oddly enough, the gold script on the front said, "Samuel Tracy."
Tracy looked at that for a long time. He touched the white oval with an exploratory finger. It was smooth and glossy-parchment, perhaps. Finally he opened the book at random. The page number-17-in the upper right-hand corner was in large block numerals, and there was only one sentence, in crude type that seemed hand set. It said:
"Werewolves can't climb oak trees."
Tracy read it again. It still said the same thing. Frowning, he turned the page.
"He's bluffing."
That was all-two words. Cryptic, to say the least. Obviously, this wasn't Gwinn's diary. It was more like Finnegans Wake.
Tracy flipped the pages. Page 25 said:
"Try the windshield."
Page 26 said:
"Declare the truth and fear no man." A few pages later, Tracy found this: "Deny everything."
There were other ambiguous comments: "Don't worry about poor crops," "Aim at his eye," "Don't speak till you're back on earth," and "Try again." As a collection of aphorisms, the book was more than a little cryptic. But Tracy had a queer feeling that he was on the verge of a mystery-an important one, somehow. Only he couldn't find the key.
The hell with it. Gwinn was a screwball. This volume meant nothing. Or…
It was growing chilly. Tracy, with a wry mouth, dropped the book on the seat beside him and started the engine. The one inexplicable thing was the discovery of his name on the volume's brown cover. Previously it had had Gwinn's name-or had it? Thinking back, he wasn't quite certain. At any rate, the doubt was comforting.
He backed the car, turned, and drove on down the canyon, branching into Laurel, the main thoroughfare. As usual, there was plenty of traffic, since the road was a short cut between Hollywood and the Valley.
The accident came not quite without warning. On the left of the road was a gully; on the right, an overhanging tree. The headlights picked out something definitely abnormal about that tree. For the second time Tracy saw the gray, rugose, sagging face of a hag, toothless mouth agape in a grin, the deformed head nodding as though in encouragement. He was quite certain that, mingled somehow with the trunk and branches, was the monstrous figure of a woman. The tree had become anthropomorphic. It was wrenching, straining, hunching its heavy shoulders as it swayed and lurched toward the road.
It fell. Tracy caught his breath and jammed his foot down on the accelerator, swinging the car to the left. The cold motor stuttered hesitantly, without gaining speed, and that was unfortunate. The tree crashed down, and a heavy branch seemed to thrust itself under the wheels. Tires blew out with sickening bangs. The breath-stopping sickness of imminent danger froze Tracy into paralysis as the coupé went over the curb, toppling, skidding down, turning over and over till it came to rest on its side.
Tracy's head rang like a bell; white flashes of pain lanced through it. He was jammed awkwardly behind the steering wheel, which, luckily, had not snapped off. He had avoided impalement, at any rate. He reached fumblingly for the key to snap off the ignition, but a flicker of fire told him he was too late.
The car was ablaze.
Painfully Tracy tried to right himself. The shatterproof glass had not broken, and he thrust upward against the door, now above his head. It was jammed. He could see stars through the glass, and a coiling veil of thin smoke that partly obscured them. A reddening glow grew brighter. When the fire reached the gas tank…
He heard distant shouts. Help was coming, but probably it would not come in time. With a choking cry Tracy strained up against the door; he could not budge it. If he could break the glass-He sought for a tool. There was none. The dashboard compartment was jammed, and, in his awkward position, he could not remove a shoe to hammer against the glass. The acrid smell grew stronger. Red light flickered.
The sharp corner of something was jammed against his side, and Tracy, hoping it might be a loose bit of metal heavy enough to serve his purpose, clutched at it. He found himself staring at the book. The white circle on the cover was luminous, and traced darkly against the whiteness were two Arabic numerals:
25
The need for self-preservation sharpens the faculties. It was instinct that brought vividly to Tracy the memory of what he had read on Page 25 of the book. The enigma of the message was suddenly elucidated.
"Try the windshield."
Tracy thrust at the long plate glass with his palm, and the windshield fell out. A breath of cool air blew in against his sweating face. The crackling of flames was very loud now.
He kept a tight grip on the book as he wormed his way through the gap, skinning his shin rather badly; and he ran down the gully, gasping for breath, till the red firelight had faded. A booming roar told him the gas tank had exploded. Tracy sat down, feeling weak, and looked at the book. It was an oblong, darker shadow in the faint moonlight.