I wriggled up behind him, and began work on those knots with my teeth. It was slow tough work, about the hardest thing I ever tackled. But I plugged along at it, and in between tries, I yelled at him and nudged him in the back with my head. Finally he said, “What happened, Bryce?”
“He’s gone,” I told him. “We’re tied up. That’s all. Listen, Mac, I’ll keep on with these knots. If you can talk okay, tell me who the guy is and what’s what, while I get you loose if I can.”
His voice gradually got stronger as he talked. “Herman Wunderly,” he told me. “Homicidal maniac killed his sister several years ago. Gruesome business; cut off her ears. He’s got some mania about ears.
“I was up here for the summer when it happened, and I helped handle him, and had to testify. The Wunderly place is a mile down the beach; nearest house here, in fact. They’re year-rounders, residents, a bit eccentric. There’s old man Wunderly now, and Herman’s brother Kurt. He’s going back to kill them unless we can—”
I’d got the knot loosened a bit now; it wouldn’t be much longer. But my bruised and cut lip hurt so badly I had to stop for a second or two. I said, “Are they all as batty as Herman? Good Lord—sorricide, patricide—”
Then I went back to work on the knots. Mac said, “Neither. Herman and Kurt are brothers, but they were adopted. So Ethel wasn’t their sister, and Old Man Wunderly isn’t—”
Then the knot gave way, and Mac sat up, got his hands braced on the edge of the desk, stood up and worked his way around it. I said, “Hey, how about me? Untie—”
“Scissors,” he told me. “Quicker.” He found them in a drawer, cut the cord from his ankles, and then cut me loose. “One of those neckties,” I said, “was mine. And a new silk one at that. You owe me—”
“Shut up, you dope. Listen, you take the coast guard station, three miles northwest. Have ‘em send men quick. I’ll go to the Wunderlys’, and maybe I’ll be in time to—”
“Got another gun, Mac, besides the one he took?”
He shook his head. “Tell the coast guard boys to come armed. Don’t worry about me; handling nuts is my business. I can take care of—”
I’d switched the light back on while he was talking, and I grinned at him. “So I noticed,” I cut in. “Come on, if you’re going.”
He was going, all right. He was running so fast I had to yell the last of that remark after him. I ran after, using the forethought to grab up a fairly hefty cane that was in the umbrella rack in the corner of the hallway. I wasn’t leaning on Mac’s persuasive abilities with a homicidal maniac—nor counting on my own to work a second time.
I caught up with him and grabbed his arm. “You can’t run a mile through sand,” I yelled. “You’ll fall down before you get half way—”
He saw the point in that and slowed down, and I panted alongside. “Our ears,” I said. “We should have taken them off and left them back where they’re safe.”
“You’re still drunk. Listen, be sensible and go back to the coast guard station and let me handle this. It isn’t any of your business.”
“They wouldn’t get there in time and you know it and I’m not still drunk, dammit. And that second act stank, Mac. It needs doctoring, and I’m the guy who can—”
“Shut up, you sap. If you’re going to come, save your breath for getting there.”
It was good advice, and I took it.
He pushed on, sometimes running, sometimes walking—mostly according to the footing—and we were both fairly winded when we rounded the dune that hid the Wunderly house.
Mac said, “Shhh,” and grabbed my arm. We were pretty close now, and he pointed to a window that was open about ten inches. We tiptoed to it, and got it open wider without making as much noise as I thought it would make.
The window was low enough that we could see in, and as far as we could tell looking into the darkened room, it was empty. Mac went in first, and I followed him. The room was just sufficiently illumined that we could make out where the furniture was, when our eyes had got accustomed to it.
Mac pointed toward one of the two closed doors and said, “Hallway. Stairs.” And we crossed over and opened it. It didn’t squeak, but the latch clicked when I let go the knob, and Mac grabbed my arm again, so hard and unexpectedly that I almost let out a yawp.
The hall was darker. I reached in my pocket for a box of matches, but Mac pulled me over to him and whispered in my ear, “I’ve been here. I know where the stairs are.” He started off, feeling along the wall with one hand. I held on to the sleeve of his coat and followed.
We came to a turn, and he whispered, “This is the back of the staircase. Feel your way around it and you’ll come to the bannister on the other side. We’re going up.”
“And then what?”
He answered, “Kurt and the old man sleep upstairs, and it looks like they’ve turned in early—unless we’re too late. We’ll see if they’re all right first.”
That sounded sensible. If they were all right, we’d have allies, and we could use them. And maybe there’d be a gun around. I still didn’t feel very happy about chasing an armed maniac with only a walking stick for defense.
I whispered, “Listen—” and reached out for Mac.
But he’d moved on. I found the wall with my left hand and started to follow it around the staircase. Just around the corner, there was a door. A door there under the stairs meant a closet. I don’t know why I opened that door. I heard a faint rustling sound, or thought I did, inside the closet, as my hand went along the outside of the door. But I should have caught up with Mac and told him, and we should have done the thing cautiously. But I didn’t wait. Like a fool, I jerked the door open.
For just a second there was so much light that I couldn’t see a thing. Some closet doors are rigged like that—particularly closets off darkish hallways. When you open the door the light inside the closet goes on, and when you close it the light goes off again.
It’s a handy arrangement, but I didn’t appreciate it just then. That light seemed to flash right in my eyes, and it utterly blinded me. I heard an exclamation from Mac, who’d reached the foot of the stairs, and I heard another rustle in the closet and a noise that sounded like the growl of an animal.
For what was probably two seconds, but seemed two hours, I stood there blinking, and then I could see again.
I saw, back among the coats and things hanging in the closet, a tall figure in an outsize overcoat. Terrifyingly expressionless eyes stared at me out of a twisted face. And a familiar-looking scattergun pointed squarely at the pit of my stomach from a range of two feet or less.
It was one of those awful instants that seem to hang poised upon the brink of time’s abyss interminably. There wasn’t time for me to grab for that gun or jump sidewise from in front of its muzzle. But, as though in slow motion, I could see the knuckles of his hand whiten as his finger tightened on the trigger. I could see the hammer go back, hear the click as it slipped the pawl and see it start down toward the single chamber of the gun.
It clicked down—empty—and I was still standing there alive and without a hole blown through me and my liver splattered over the wall behind me. For another fraction of a second, I was too terrified to move. If that gun hadn’t been loaded back at Mac’s house, then this whole thing didn’t make sense at all. But the guy who’d just pulled the trigger must have thought it was loaded or he wouldn’t have pulled the trigger. Until he’d done that he had me buffaloed; I’d have put up my hands like a lamb with that thing looking at me. Add it up, and—