Because she was sitting by the desk, next to his right hand, Linda was the only one who saw that hand move. A long index finger flicked a switch; and all the lights went out.
With the curtains drawn and the door closed, the room was plunged into primeval blackness. Linda heard the long, shaken intake of breath that came from Gordon; it went on so long it seemed impossible that human lungs could hold so much air. Then it burst out, in a sound that shocked the brain and senses as it affronted the ears. She heard a heavy chair fall, and the rush of something through the dark, and she dropped to the floor, crouching, for fear his blind rush would bring him to her. He found the door, after an interval that seemed interminable; the light from the hall was yellow and comforting, silhouetting his tall body. Then he was gone. The front door slammed, waking echoes from the lovely crystal chandelier in the hall.
The lights came on again.
“Hmph,” Galen said.
Crouching on the floor behind his chair, Linda was busy shaking. A pair of hands caught her by the shoulders and hauled her to her feet. She stared into Michael’s face.
“You all right?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, but dumped her unceremoniously on the hassock, and wheeled on the figure pensively posed behind the desk.
“What College, you congenital liar?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Galen said placidly.
“Another lie…The drawing. What is it?”
Galen stirred and stretched.
“The drawing, like the gesture I made, is an invention. A meaningless hodgepodge of symbols and Hebrew letters. I regret to say that my years of Hebrew school are far behind me, and my knowledge of the Cabala is even vaguer. The effect on Mr. Randolph was interesting, though, wasn’t it?”
Michael regarded him with no admiration whatever.
“Of the two of you, I almost think I prefer Randolph. The College, I suppose, is an equally imaginary group of-what? Adepts in magic, squatting on top of Mount Everest thinking about the universe? You deliberately let him think…”
“I let him think what he wanted to think. And I found out what I wanted to know.” He turned a contemplative stare on Linda, huddled on the hassock. “You were right. I felt sure that you were, but I had to check. And implant a certain useful suggestion.”
Michael picked up the chair Gordon had overturned in his flight, and sat down. Under its drawn pallor, his face held the first gleam of hope Linda had seen for hours.
“He thinks you’re a powerful warlock yourself. That isn’t all you learned, is it?”
“I wondered if you’d notice.”
“I was blind not to see it before.”
“When you described his reaction to the power failure in your apartment, I wondered. Knowing that his concern for Mrs. Randolph was only problematical, I suspected another, more immediate cause for his panic.”
“He’s afraid of the dark,” Michael said. Linda saw him shiver, and felt the same chill. She would never hear that word again without remembering.
“Yes. Significant, in view of the poetic words of your young friend at the college.” Galen’s voice changed. “Damn you for mentioning it, Michael; I should be immune to that kind of verbal magic, but when I think of what that poor devil sees, when the lights go out…”
“It isn’t only the dark Gordon fears.” For once Linda was immune to that kind of magic. “He’s afraid of flying. He doesn’t drive a car. He quit smoking.”
“No contact sports,” Michael muttered. “Even then…Swimming? Lots of other people around, spectators, competitors, just in case…”
“I believe that Elliott Jacques is correct when he states that this particular anxiety comes to its peak during the crisis of middle life. Randolph is about forty, isn’t he? I’ve seen a number of such cases, since the realization often produces symptoms which require psychotherapeutic treatment-psychosomatic illness, insomnia, claustrophobia, to mention only a few. Randolph’s reactive symptoms are new to me; but they have a dreadful logic of their own. He fears, not only the dark, but the ultimate darkness. He is afraid of dying.”
“And that’s why he turned to Satanism,” Michael muttered. “Those conversations we had about good and evil…He doesn’t believe in God, but he can’t accept the inevitability of death. There’s only one other dispenser of immortality. ‘Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.’”
“Especially if you don’t believe in Heaven,” Galen said. “I hope you’re enjoying your abstract intellectualizing, Michael. You may drown in it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I took a calculated risk with Randolph. We’ve learned some interesting and useful things about him, but we’ve also stirred him up. He left here in a frenzy of rage and fear.”
“You mean-he’ll try something else?”
“Almost immediately, I should say.”
Slowly, the two pairs of eyes turned to focus on Linda.
III
“No,” she said. “No, he wouldn’t dare. He was frightened. “I’ve never seen him so upset.”
“That’s precisely the danger. A man of his temperament doesn’t back down under a challenge. He’ll be all the more eager to strike before, as he thinks, I have time to conjure up all my powers.”
“God damn your arrogant soul,” Michael said softly. “You deliberately, cold-bloodedly, stirred up that rattlesnake, knowing he can-”
“It had to be done.” Galen’s seldom-aroused temper showed in his flushed cheeks. “Oh, hell…I ought to know better. One of the basic rules of this trade is not to meddle with your friends’ problems… Tell him, Linda.”
“Michael, he’s right. How long could we go on, with this hanging over us? Watching each other out of the corners of our eyes, afraid to sleep… Twice I’ve tried to kill someone,” she said, feeling Galen’s silent commendation like a rock at her back. “If I have to go on dreading that, I’d rather be dead. Gordon is off balance, for the first time since I’ve known him. We’ve got to keep him on the defensive.”
“How?” Michael demanded.
“Don’t look at me,” Galen snapped.
“He’s afraid of dying,” Michael said. “Why?”
“Give me five years of analysis and maybe I can tell you,” Galen said. “What the hell do you think I am, a mind reader?”
Linda wrapped both arms around her body, but their limited animal warmth did not touch the chill that froze her mind.
“You both know,” she said, shaping the words with difficulty because her lips were stiff with that inner cold. “You know what we have to do. Force the issue, keep him off balance. We’ll have to follow him.”
“Where?” Michael’s voice sounded as stiff and difficult as hers.
“Back home, of course. Back to the house. Galen’s absolutely right, he’ll be wild with anger, he won’t be able to wait; he’ll try something tonight. And all his-his materials are back there.”
“Doesn’t he have a place here in town?” It was Galen who spoke; Michael was visibly struggling with conflicting emotions.
“A small apartment. He couldn’t keep anything concealed there.”
“Especially a large black dog,” Galen murmured.
Michael, who had arranged a truce in his internal civil war, nodded thoughtfully. Having scaled one barrier, Linda faced the next.
“Doctor. I don’t-I don’t want to say this, but I must, I can’t keep anything back now. Your theory appeals to me a great deal. If Gordon is a conscious villain, that makes me innocent, not only of intent to harm, but of serious mental instability. I’d like-oh, how I’d like!-to believe it. But I don’t.”
Galen nodded. She knew that she had told him nothing he hadn’t suspected, but that he was relieved by her candor. He turned to the other man.
“How about you, Michael?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Galen got to his feet, rather heavily; for the first time Linda was conscious of his real age. “We’ll go after Randolph. I have a few business matters to arrange before we leave, though. You two had better have some food. I ate on the plane.”