Edward thought matters over as he hurried along Patchen toward where Latzarel sat in the parked Hudson. Of course Ashbless mightn’t have gone into the cellar at all. Edward hadn’t seen him do so. He might easily have entered the back door and poured himself a drink. He might be napping right at that moment, or reading a book over a glass of Scotch. But somehow Edward didn’t think so. Something nagged at his mind. Something about the sewer. He couldn’t quite grasp it.
When they got home the house was empty. There was a note from Jim saying that he’d gone out, and advising them, peculiarly, to pull down the window shade in the rear window of the living room twice. Edward did, supposing at, first that it had become broken, like all other spring-rolled shades, in spontaneous degeneration, and would hurtle off the wall in a rush of unrolling paper when he tugged on its ring. But there was nothing at all-wrong with the shade. He stood puzzling over it, reading the note, when Professor Latzarel remarked the odd blinking of a light from the dark window of the abandoned house behind. The light blinked on and off in little spurts, the same blink, blink, blink over and over. “Code,” said Latzarel, pointing it out.
“What does it say?” asked Edward, ignorant of that sort of secret language.
“W.H.,” answered Latzarel.
“He’s in the old Koontz house then,” said Edward, “hiding out.”
The two of them went out through the back door and peered around the side of the garage. William’s trash drum was overturned, and the side was trampled in. The clever box of clippings and leaves, fresh that morning, was dumped beside it. They’d conducted a more thorough search this time. Perhaps, thought Edward, Mrs. Pembly had tipped their hand. Perhaps she’d seen William pop out of the can like a jack-in-the-box after he’d last outwitted the police. One way or another, he’d clearly eluded them again.
An hour after darkness had fallen, a light flashed once in the window and a moment later a hunched shadow rose above the back fence, grappling with ivy, tumbling over into the yard. Edward sprang to the door, opening it as William rushed through, then closing it directly, after a glance at the Pembly house assured him that no one watched through the window.
William poured himself a glass of port without a word, staring through Edward as if he were transparent. In his hand he clutched a spiral notebook and a fresh copy of Analog.
“Your story!” cried Edward, reaching for the magazine.
William blinked at him. “What?” he said. “Yes.” He let go of the thing and it fell to the floor.
Edward was suddenly worried. “Sit down, old man,” he said, pulling out a kitchen chair. “You must be starved.” He rummaged in the cupboard and came up with a can of beef vegetable soup, waving it in William’s direction and arching his eyebrows. “Feeling okay? Jim tells us you went directly over the back wall. Didn’t give the beggars a chance. We discovered the most astonishing thing. Ashbless …”
“I think I’m on to something.”
“Oh,” said Edward, picking up the magazines from the floor, fearing that what William was onto was some new threat, some phantom taking shape in the mists, and that the phantom would turn out in the end to be authentic, just like the rest. “Onto what?”
“A device,” said William, staring again onto the wall. “A device for propelling the bell. I’m sure I could make it work. And I’ve been studying the Times’ article on the leviathan. I was wrong. It isn’t the release of pressure that would blow us to bits, it’s anti-matter.”
“Is that so,” said Edward, relieved. He stirred the orange broth on the stovetop with a wooden spoon and looked at the cover of William’s magazine. “Star Man,” read the appropriate caption, “by William Hastings.” ‘This is monumental,” Edward said, slapping it on his hand. “By golly! I’ve got to call Russel.”
William waved at him, as if to say that the story was nothing, that Latzarel needn’t be bothered. He looked at the steaming bowl of stuff that Edward stirred, widening his eyes in alarm. “None for me, thanks,” he said, staring at the little square bits of orange and green that floated on top. “I’ve got to think this out.”
“Another story?”
“No, a device, like I said. We can get to where we’re bound. I’m certain of it. If only …” He rapped his notebook on the kitchen counter in sudden inspiration. “I slipped out and ate at Pete’s,” he said, speaking to the soup. “See you in the morning.” He picked up his port glass and the half-full bottle and disappeared into the living room. A moment later Edward heard his bedroom door shut. He sniffed at the soup, grimaced, and poured it regretfully down the sink, sitting down at the kitchen table to have a closer look at William’s story. March twenty-first was fast approaching.
Chapter 18
William’s alarm rattled him awake before dawn. He groped out of bed, bounced once into the door frame on his way down the hall, and blinded himself with the bathroom light, cursing in half sleep and wondering why it was he’d set the alarm in the first place. He remembered — it was the device. Science called upon him to rise early. He intended to be at work in the maze shed before the sun rose — not so much in the interests of the work, but to avoid the prying eyes of Mrs. Pembly who, for hours in the morning, poked in the weeds of her yard in a housecoat, pretending not to be spying on him. William would like to have simply throttled her, clubbed her with an iron pipe and gone about his business with impunity.
What galled him was the unlikelihood she had any interest in the structure of the Earth. It was impossible. Every visible bit of her argued against it. William could understand the motivations, the rationale, behind a John Pinion, and even, in some dark part of him, the murderous curiosities of a Hilario Frosticos. But for what senseless reason had Mrs. Pembly thrown in with them? What profit was there? Money? Not at all likely. She seemed to hate him too spectacularly for that. She would have been more disinterested if money was her goal. How could he explain it — the dog debris under the elm? He wasn’t half surprised that it had reappeared. But he’d get to the bottom of it, he told himself as he turned on the tap.
He gave himself a sidewise look in the mirror. He was getting lean. His cheekbones were appearing, and it gave him a dashing air. Rough and ready. He could use some sun, though, and here he was a prisoner in his own home. How trite. He shook up the can of shaving cream, pressed the nozzle, and with a ppphhht of sudsy air, out came nothing at all but some sticky bits of petrified soap. He pitched it into the trash with a wide swing of his arm, overestimating the amount of swinging room the little bathroom allowed him, and cracking his knuckles onto the tile countertop.
He stood still for a moment, blood rushing in his ears, looking around for something to kill, to smash, to beat utterly to bits. He punched the door casing behind him with his elbow, pretending it was the face of someone he loathed; he hadn’t time to put a name on it. But he caught the edge of the casing on the crazy bone behind his elbow, and a shock of numbing pain shot up his arm, leaving it limp. He turned on it fiercely, his mouth working, ready to slam it and kick it.
But almost at once he caught himself. He remembered the fateful struggle with the garden hose, one of those cases in which he’d clearly won the battle but lost the war. Here was a danger signal, a warning. He was convinced that inanimate objects were half sentient. There were certain days, in fact, when they seemed to conspire against him — when chair legs crept out at odd angles to trip him up, when furniture reorganized of its own accord, when pencil leads snapped for the sake of driving him mad, when carpet tacks put themselves in his way, and the height of stairs increased imperceptibly — just enough so that his foot would hook on the nose of the step above and he’d pitch over forward. There was no arguing with it. It had to do with ions, perhaps, with the configuration of rays in the atmosphere.