A light burned inside the house; a sedan stood in front of it; as Bill stepped from his own car the door of the sedan opened and a burly figure emerged from it.
“Are you a doctor?” said the figure advancing toward him. “Do you happen to be the doctor who’s a personal friend of Mrs. Dykes?”
“Yes—is she sick?”
“No. But I’m Mr. Dykes. I got home today from Den—from Honolulu.”
So this ghost had materialized at last—and materialized indeed, for in the bright moonlight he seemed eight feet tall with long, prehensile arms. Bill took a preparatory step backward.
“Don’t worry—I’m not going to slam you—not yet. Let’s get into your car and have a little talk before we go in the house.”
“What is this?” Bill demanded, “A hold up?”
The man laughed—formidably.
“Something like that. I want a couple of your signatures—one on a check, and the other on a letter you haven’t written yet.”
Trying to think fast Bill got into the car.
“A letter to who?” he asked.
“To my wife. You were pretty smart, weren’t you, not to write her a letter—I’ve turned the house upside down looking for one.”
“Look here, Mr. Dykes—I’ve known your wife only a month and professionally.”
“Oh yeah? Then why is a picture of you plastered right beside her dressing table?”
Bill gave a spiritual groan.
“That’s her affair,” he explained, “I happen to know she got it from a classmate of mine in medical school who’s married to a friend of hers. I didn’t give it to her—”
“I see, I see,” the big man interrupted scoffingly, “And you’re not the man she wants to marry—with me away in Den—in Honolulu. And I like to come, don’t I, and find my wife has taken up with one of the medical boys? And I’m going to take it lying down like a sap? You’re going to pay off, and you’re going to give me evidence I can get a divorce on. And you’re going to like it.”
Bill was not going to like it at all, but he was in a position that, as he cast about in his mind, seemed at its mildest somewhat circumscribed. Whether his reaction to what happened next was relief or terror he could never afterwards decide, but at the sharp order “Stickum up!” from the rumble seat both men jumped forward as if they had been pricked. But even in the split second before a figure appeared on Bill’s side of the car there was something faintly familiar in the voice. Then the voice said:
“You didn’t know he had one of his rod men along, big boy. Just step out so there won’t be any blood on the upholstery. Quick!”
Trembling piteously the large man fumbled at the handle, and in this moment Bill identified his savior. It was that boy. And at the classic word: “Scram!” he recognized something vaguely recognizable about the instrument which was causing Mr. Dykes to retreat, to stumble to get up and then to tear down the street at the gait of a likely pacemaker. Being closer to the instrument Bill had identified it as something like a revolver and yet not quite a revolver. By the time Mr. Dykes’ heels were faint in the distance he identified it as that mysterious piece of steel which he still thought of as The Gong.
III
The boy got into the car and Bill, somewhat shaken by the heavy grasp of events, turned and started toward the city.
“That guy certainly was yellow,” remarked the boy with satisfaction.
“Yes, he was,” said Bill, rather automatically, as his professional habits began to reassert themselves, “What I’d like to know is what you were doing here.”
“I just came for the ride,” said the boy airily.
“Can’t you ride in the daytime?”
“For your ride. I was pretending to take you for a ride. All the time we were on the road I had a gat pressed so close to your back—”
“Oh, cut it out, cut it out,” said Bill ungratefully, “I don’t like that kind of talk.”
“Oak. But no spill-over to the parents, see? Or I’ll tell what I saw—wolfing that guy’s Jane away from him when he was in Den—in Hula-hula. How’ll that sound to the fair you left on the verandah?”
“The who?” Once more Bill was startled, yet he rode easier to it as he became more accustomed to the shocks.
“Don’t think I didn’t see that last look around. How’d she like to hear about this—”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bill argued, “You wouldn’t understand this situation if I explained every detail to you.”
“Explain it to her then.”
On second thought Bill decided he wouldn’t; he very definitely wouldn’t care to have to explain it to her; he could at least get some hold on this incorrigible boy.
“I’m going to begin your education here and now,” he announced. “First place I sympathize with you—to some extent. Certainly it’s better to be a fighter than one of these softies brought up full of tender feelings about themselves. And you can pick your cause—there’s good and bad fighting, and a lot in the world to fight for; your beliefs, your honor, your family and—I mean, you’ll find out later there is a lot you’ll decide is worth fighting for. At present confine yourself to the defense. This crime stuff doesn’t touch you—you oughtn’t even to think about it. You ought to be just like older people and put it out of your head—”
He was becoming convinced minute by minute that he didn’t know what he was talking about himself, and he stole a side glance to see if the boy had noticed the fact.
But the boy had dozed—some time back he had dozed.
IV
It was false dawn when they turned into the lane: on the outskirts of the acres Bill awoke his protector.
“We’re here. Now the thing is to hope to God you haven’t been missed—and to try to get you in without anybody seeing you.”
Sluggish from his night’s operations the future criminal stared blank at Bill. “Wake up!” said Bill impatiently, “It’s practically daylight.”
“What you goan do about it?”
“I’m going to assume you have enough common sense to get in without being noticed.”
“The French girl would.”
“Would what? What French girl?”
“I mean my sister.” The boy pulled himself together visibly. “You know—the fair. She just got back from France or somewhere. She’d let me in.”
The project had the effect of bringing Bill almost up to normal.
“How would you wake her up?” he asked.
“I’ll think of some way.”
“Just to be sure of that I’ll come along.”
Through the new trees, the new quivering life, the new shadows that designed new terrain on the old, through the sounds of different strange insects, they traversed the lawn and stopped under a window.
“Now what?” Bill whispered.
“That’s her room—and the window’s open.”
Bill went through a hasty mental review of the classical ways in which one assaulted a sleeping house.
“We could throw pebbles up,” he suggested doubtfully.
“No—we throw in one of these flowers. You know how frails are—if a stone sails in they put up a yelp—if it’s a rose they think there’s the Prince of Wales at last.”
The first rose missed; the boy missed; then Bill made two perfect throws which cleared the sill. The acoustical result was inaudible below and they waited breathlessly.
“Try another—” began the boy, then paused as a tender trusting face appeared at the window and tried to focus sleepy eyes upon whatever should be below.
There were moments of whispering that could only be reproduced by one of the fabled mimics employed on the radio. After the face disappeared the boy turned to Bill disgustedly: “You see, they’re all alike. Half they understand and half they miss. Just half, that’s all you can ever expect. She’s going to dress herself up in clothes, as if we were going to take her downtown to business.”
Miss Mason, however, dressed herself up in clothes remarkably quickly and remarkably well, opening a side door to them seven minutes later. After seeing her Bill decided he could better explain matters without any comment from a third party, so, taking advantage of a yawn detected on the boy’s face he pointed sternly inward and upward. The boy winked once, started to open his lips, found his unspoken word changing irresistibly into a new yawn, gave up, and disappeared.
“Now Miss Brickster—” began the doctor and stopped.
“Miss Mason,” she corrected him. She countered, “I bet I can half guess already what happened. My brother stayed in the rumble seat; I saw him climb into it just before I went to sleep myself.”
—What an illusion that they only get half of it, Bill thought. That devil doesn’t know everything. Why, this girl—
“Don’t tell your parents on him,” he said, “I’ve come to like him. I don’t want him to get in trouble.”
“Dr. Hardy.”
“Yes, Miss Mason.”
“I’ve been home from Europe two months and I’ve seen so many strange things happen here that I wouldn’t dare open my mouth about anything that wasn’t my business.”
—Just the wife for a doctor in every way, he thought.
“Miss Mason.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Miss Mason—naturally under the circumstances I haven’t been able—” He passed his hand over the new stubble of his beard, “—to
