There was a screaming inside of her and she couldn't seem to breathe.
She was being followed. Someone had stepped out of a warehouse doorway
and was following her, matching his pace with hers, keeping close on
her heels.
She dared not look back, because he was being very careful not to let
the distance between them lengthen, even for an instant, and she was
afraid of what she might see in his eyes.
Ordinarily she would have become indignant, turned abruptly and faced
him, threatened to call a policeman. Then--if he had attempted to grab
her, if he had turned ugly--she would have screamed for help.
But now she only wanted to escape as quickly as possible from the
terrible ordeal that had made her almost physically ill--twice before
leaving her office she had been on the verge of fainting and she'd had
to clutch a policeman's arm for support. But the mere thought of facing
another policeman, of meeting his cool, arrogant gaze--yes, they were
arrogant when they asked you question after question, even though they
knew and you knew that not the slightest shadow of suspicion rested
upon you--now just the thought of coming face to face with a policeman
again was intolerable to her.
Pretending to be sympathetic, understanding, big-brotherly but always
the cool, arrogant persistence lurking in the depths of their eyes. She
remembered: "I know it's been mighty nerve-shattering for you, Miss
Prentiss. A terrible shock. Just to walk into her office, and see her
lying there--"
The big, slow-talking one especially, with the beat-up face--a
detective lieutenant, he'd said he was. All afternoon until she
couldn't endure another moment of it ... the office filled with
policemen and photographers and Lathrup not even mercifully covered
with a sheet, her dead eyes staring. Not that she'd gone in again to
look or would have been permitted inside after the medical examiner had
arrived and they'd started dusting the office for fingerprints. But she
could picture it, she knew exactly how it was, because Macklin had gone
in for a brief moment to discuss something very important with them,
and had told her how it was, not sparing her any of the details. (Not
his fault! She'd nodded and let him talk on.)
The body stretched out on the floor, with chalk marks on the desk to
indicate just how it had been resting when--resting! How mocking, how
horrible the image that one word conjured up!
They'd let her go at last, advising her to take a taxi home but to go
to a restaurant first and eat something--a sandwich, at least--with two
or three cups of black coffee.
Out on the street she'd begun to breathe more freely, had felt the
horror receding a little, the strength returning to her limbs. Then,
suddenly, terribly, unexpectedly--this!
The footsteps seemed louder than they should have been, even though
he was very close behind her and was making no effort to cushion his
tread. Each step seemed to strike the pavement with a hollow sound,
making her feel for an instant as if she'd become entrapped in a stone
vault, and he was walking, not behind, but above her, sending hollow
echoes reverberating through--
Her tomb? Dear God, no! She must not allow such thoughts to creep into
her mind. Quite possibly she was completely mistaken about him, and he
wasn't deliberately following her at all.
It happened often enough. Two people hurrying to catch a train or bus,
or headed for the same destination, walking along a street where office
buildings had been replaced by warehouses and empty stores, with no
other pedestrians in sight and dusk just starting to gather. It was so
easy to imagine that you were the victim of calculated pursuit.
She must keep fear at arm's length, Lynn told herself, despite the
wild fluttering of her heart, must not give way to panic or hysteria.
Otherwise her wrought-up state would warp her judgment and make her do
something she'd regret.
The sensible thing to do would be to slow her pace slightly, turn
and glance casually back at him, as any woman might do at dusk on a
deserted street. It would not indicate that she actually thought that
he was following her deliberately or with criminal intent. It would
just imply slight bewilderment, a curiosity easy to understand. He
wouldn't take offense and it would put an end to all doubt.
But somehow she couldn't even do that! What if she turned and saw that
his eyes were fastened upon her as she feared they might be? What
if she saw that they were not just the eyes of an annoyer of women,
some tormented sex-starved wretch who couldn't resist making an ugly
nuisance of himself--what if they were the eyes of a murderer?
What if they were the eyes of a man who had killed once and would
not hesitate to kill again--a man with the murder weapon still in his
possession, a man who would feel no qualms about putting a bullet in
her heart if he suspected that she knew more than she did about Helen
Lathrup's murder?
What if he'd found out in some way that she'd been the first to
discover what he had done, and that she had been talking to the police,
answering their shrewd and persistent questions all afternoon? What
if he thought he'd left some damning clue, some tell-tale piece of
evidence in Lathrup's office--something which had slipped Lynn's mind
completely, but which might come back to her later?
She was quite sure she'd told the police everything. But how could he
be expected to know that? Could he afford to let her go on living long
enough for some damning memory to come back to her?
He might even be a homicidal maniac. She wasn't a child. She'd read a
great many books that dealt with such horrors in a clinical, completely
realistic way. One murder was just the beginning; just the igniting
spark. They had to kill again and again. The first slaying made them
even more dangerous, more insensately brutal and enraged. They weren't
satisfied until they had vented their rage on many victims, had waded
through a sea of blood.
The mental hospitals were filled with them but you never knew where
you'd meet one--on the street, in a bus, sitting next to you in a
crowded subway train.
"Lady, I just don't like you. All my life you've been getting in my
hair. I've never set eyes on you before, but this time I'm going to
wring your neck."
She saw the lighted window of a restaurant out of the corner of her eye
and breathed a sigh of relief. She was almost abreast of it, but not
quite--there was an empty store she'd have to pass first, as dark as a
funeral parlor when the embalmer has turned out all of the lights and
gone home for the night. And the footsteps seemed suddenly even closer,
as if in another moment she'd be feeling his hot breath on the back of
her neck.
She quickened her own steps, almost breaking into a run. She heard him
draw in his breath sharply, but she forced herself not to think, to
keep her eyes fastened on the lighted pane until she was at the door
of the restaurant and pressing against the heavy plate glass with all
her strength. The door opened inward--slowly, too slowly--and then she
was inside, safe for the moment, with light streaming down and two
rough-looking men at the counter and a waitress writing out a check and
a big, heavyset man with steel-hard eyes at the cashier's desk who
glanced at her quickly and then seemed to lose interest in her.
She wasn't disappointed or irritated or even slightly piqued by his
lack of interest--not at all. She wanted to throw her arms around him
and say: "Thank you. Thank you for just being here."
She went quickly to a table and sat down, not trusting herself to sit
at the counter, unable to control the trembling of her hands. Not just
her hands--her shoulders were shaking too, and she would have been
embarrassed and ashamed if one of the two men at the counter had turned
to her and asked, "What's wrong, lady?" and looked at her the way such
men usually do when they see a chance to ingratiate themselves with a
young and attractive woman in distress--thinking perhaps that she'd had
a little too much to drink and they might stand a chance with her if
they went about it in just the right way.
She couldn't parry that sort of thing now--even though it was
comparatively harmless if you knew how to look after yourself and
there was often a real solicitude mixed up with the amorous, slightly
smirking part of it.
She saw him then--saw him for the first time. A tall, very thin
young man, not more than twenty-four at the most, hatless and a bit
unkempt-looking with burning dark eyes that seemed to dissolve the
glass barrier between them as he stared in at her through the window.
Only for an instant--and then he was gone. He moved quickly back from
the window and his form became vague, half-swallowed up in the twilight
outside. Whether he'd crossed the street or continued on down the
street she had no way of knowing. He was simply not there any more.
A sudden tightness gripped her throat and a chill blew up her spine.
How completely not there? Would he be waiting for her when she left the
restaurant, standing perhaps in the doorway of another building, and
falling into step behind her again the instant she passed?
She refused to let herself think about that. There was no real need
for her to think about it, for she could phone for a cab from the
restaurant--there was a phone booth near the door--and when it came she
could dash across the pavement, climb in and tell the driver that she
was late for an appointment uptown and would he please ... _please_ ...
not waste a second getting started.
But what if he actually _was_ the murderer and still had the gun he'd
killed Lathrup with? Why, he could have shot her through the window,
could have whipped out the weapon and shot her right through the glass.
Or come into the restaurant after her. The cashier, despite his
strength and his hardness, would have been powerless to interfere, to
protect her in any way. If he even started to come to her aid, he'd be
dead himself.
Nothing could save her--if he actually was the murderer and was
determined to take her life.
But he hadn't tried to kill her. Not even when he'd had a good chance,
outside on the street. Would he be likely to change his mind and try to
kill her now?
She stopped trembling abruptly, buoyed up by the thought, as if a great
white wave of hope and reassurance had burst all about her, carrying
away every vestige of her fear.
A psychopathic killer wouldn't have held back that way. The presence
of others would have added fuel to the flames. He'd have realized at
once that there were other victims right at hand and would have killed
and killed again, in an uncontrollable frenzy, his guilt feelings, his
secret desire to be caught and punished, making him welcome the added
danger and risk.
And if he was the other kind, the completely sane kind--were murderers
ever completely sane?--concerned about saving his own skin, wouldn't he
have shot her on the street, the instant he saw that she was heading
for the restaurant? Wouldn't he have shot her in front of the darkened
store, the store she'd darted past with her heart in her mouth, and not
even waited for her to fall to the pavement? Just turning and fleeing,
knowing it would take the police minutes to arrive, time enough to put
him beyond reach of the law for a few days, perhaps forever. The risk
he'd taken in Lathrup's office had been ten times as great.
She was feeling relaxed now, and a little light-headed. Almost all of
the fear had left her. It was almost as if the two rough-looking men at
the counter had been right about her, as if she'd taken three or four
drinks of straight whiskey, the kind that burned your throat--she'd
never in her life taken more than two cocktails--and was feeling the
effects of it.
He came into the restaurant so quietly, gently pushing the door open
and advancing so slowly toward her that for an instant he seemed
remote, unreal, like a mist-enveloped figure in a very tenuous, not in
the least frightening dream.
Then stark terror whipped through her again. Her hand went to her
throat and all of the blood drained from her face.
He was carrying something under his left arm--a black, square
something, much flatter than a briefcase, with no handle. But she
wasn't looking at what he carried. She was looking at the bulge in his
right coat pocket and at the half-inch of white wrist protruding above
the pocket, the even whiter shirt-cuff pushed back, the hand itself
completely invisible, buried in the pocket, as if the fingers were
tightly clasped around whatever it was that made the pocket bulge.
She wanted to scream but couldn't, and when she tried to rise a great
heaviness seemed to grow up inside of her, to spread and spread until
it enveloped her entire body and turned her into a leaden woman sitting
there.
Was the gun that caused the bulge--how could she doubt that it was a
gun?--about to go off, or did he merely mean to frighten her?
Surely, she told herself, that was not a sane question. What possible
good would it do him to frighten her if he didn't mean to kill her? If
the bulge was made by his hand alone did he think that fear alone would
bind her to silence? Could he possibly be counting on that?
No, no--it was too wild a hope, too slim a threat to cling to. No man
who had killed once would ever show that much restraint, would bother
to resort to such trickery. It was not the way of a killer. He would
make sure. He could never be certain of her silence otherwise.
She suddenly realized that he was no longer standing. He had sat down
opposite her and was speaking to her. His lips moved, but for a moment
the words themselves seem to blur and run together.
Then she heard him distinctly. "Miss Prentiss, I don't know just how to
say this--how to begin even. I'm afraid you'll think me an impulsive
young fool with more nerve than talent...."
He paused an instant to moisten his lips and then went on almost
breathlessly, the words coming in a torrent. "You're listed as an
associate editor in the two Eaton-Lathrup magazines which use the
most interior art work--as a rule, anyway--and the girl at the desk
told me you can recommend art work sometimes, even though you don't
do any actual buying. I know even assistant editors can do that--put
in a strong plug for a drawing. What I'm really trying to say is--you
look at most of the work when it first comes in, and when you need a
particular kind of illustration for a story you've been editing your
recommendation almost always means that the drawing will be bought.
It's the same as if you'd made the final decision."
He smiled suddenly--a boyish, not unattractive smile, "I've tried my
best to get in to see Miss Lathrup, but they keep telling me she's out
for lunch, or in conference or taken the afternoon off or gone away
for the week-end. I suppose if I'd been very persistent and made a
nuisance of myself she might have consented to see me for a minute
or two. But what good would that have done me? What good, really? I
could never have persuaded her to spend a half hour looking at my
drawings--or even fifteen or twenty minutes. It would have been better
than not seeing her at all, but I wasn't counting on it to do me much
good."
The smile widened a little. "So I suddenly asked myself--why not? Why
not wait until you were through for the day and introduce myself and
have a talk with someone with just a little more time, and trust to
luck that you wouldn't be offended and that if I showed you some of my
work and you liked it you might become interested enough to give me a
chance to do at least one illustration on speculation."
Lynn Prentiss sat rigid, her mouth dry, staring at him with such an
appalled look in her eyes that he suddenly fell silent, his boyish grin
vanishing.
She could not yet fully grasp what he said, could only wait, shocked,
paralyzed, for something to happen that would widen her understanding
quickly enough for all of the terror to be dispelled. For an awful
moment the youth who sat facing her remained what he had been--a
sinister and dangerous killer who had no intention of permitting her to
leave the restaurant alive. The gun....
She saw his right hand then, the hand she'd imagined firmly clasping a
gun, one finger on the trigger ... the gun that would explode in his
pocket with a terrible roar, ripping the cloth to shreds and killing
her.
He'd removed the hand from his pocket and it was resting on the table
now, the stubby fingers still contracted into a fist. A fist ...
nothing more! A fist which had been thrust deeply into the coat pocket
of a boy keyed up, embarrassed, uncertain of himself--a hard-knuckled
fist making, quite naturally, a weapon-like bulge.
She had a sudden, almost uncontrollable impulse to laugh hysterically,
to let herself go, not caring what anyone in the restaurant might
think, least of all this crazy kid with his sheaf of drawings. It was a
portfolio he'd been carrying, she could see that now. The square, black
object was a portfolio and it rested on the table; there was nothing
but drawings in it, good, bad or indifferent. She had been given back
her life and had nothing at all to fear.
"I guess ... I took too much for granted," he stammered. A deep flush
had crept up over his cheekbones and he seemed almost on the verge of
tears. "You do crazy things at times when you feel that you really
can draw, and that just a brief talk with an editor in a position to
recommend--"
He gulped and tried again. "I'd never submit a drawing I didn't believe
in myself. It took me a long time to learn, and I still turn out bad
work at times--some very bad things. But there are a few drawings I'm
proud of and not ashamed to show to editors. All I ask is a chance to
show one of the really big groups what I can do if the incentive is
there, the opportunity ... if I'm given half a chance.
"I suppose that isn't the way an artist should talk ... or even think.
He should do his best without giving a thought to the rewards--to
commercial success or artistic recognition on a more important level,
like getting a picture hung in the Museum of Modern Art. I almost did
last year. But even if that happened I could still starve to death."
The impulse to laugh hysterically was gone now, or she found herself
able to control it. She wouldn't have been laughing at him, she was
sure of that. There was something appealing about him, something honest
and forthright--even if brash and almost incredibly naïve--which was
beginning to affect her in a strange way. And that was to his credit
also, for she was just recovering from the worst scare she'd ever had,
the most ghastly fifteen minutes she'd ever lived through.
It was difficult for her to think clearly, to listen with complete
sympathy to what he was saying, as she would have done had he talked
with her at the office before--
All of the horror came back for an instant and she shut her eyes,
seeing the police again, her eyes blinded by the exploding flash bulbs,
hearing Macklin's voice, calm, unruffled, but filled with understanding
and deep concern.
"I wish you wouldn't be quite so stubborn, Lynn. They'll let you go out
right now and get a sandwich and some coffee if you simply remind them
that you've had no lunch and it's too great a strain to answer any more
questions. I'm having some coffee sent up, but it may not get here for
another fifteen or twenty minutes. Just say the word and I'll tell them
off and make them like it. That detective lieutenant isn't a bad guy.
Naturally he wants to get the nearest thing they have to an eye-witness
account down on paper while it's still fresh in your mind. Later, you
might forget some important detail. But if you feel bad, it makes sense
to say so. You can go out and come back again."
There was a whirling in her mind now, a dizziness that kept her eyelids
glued shut for a second or two longer. Why had she been so stubborn,
preferring to think of herself as trapped, forced to answer questions
while a fierce rebelliousness tugged at her, when she could so easily
have followed Macklin's advice and gained at least an hour's respite?
With a respite at two, she could have gone on talking until six and
perhaps avoided this encounter with another kind of horror--a horror of
the dusk that had almost destroyed what remained of her control.
It was gone now, completely. The sinister Jack-the-Ripper figure,
cloaked and hugging the shadows, darkly gleaming dagger in hand, had
become a blue-eyed, completely harmless young man, as innocent of
homicidal malice as a friendly postal clerk or a smiling conductor on a
train.
But it was only when she felt convinced that her self-mastery would
not falter, that her behavior would be normal and controlled, that
she dared to meet the young man's gaze squarely. Even then she found
herself trembling slightly and could think of nothing to say.
He had fallen silent, and was staring at her with a kind of pleading
desperation in his eyes, as if just a few crumbs of interest had become
of almost life-and-death importance to him.
He had to have at least a few crumbs; she could see that. She could
sense a stiffening in him already, a refusal to let his pride suffer
further indignity. Another moment of silence on her part, and she was
quite sure that he'd get to his feet and dash from the restaurant, hurt
badly, wounded where he was most vulnerable and not caring what kind of
a fool she thought him--except that he would care, later on, and feel
bitter about it and think her a supercilious, male-deflating little
witch. And she wasn't, she wasn't at all.
She made a supreme effort. "I'm afraid you gave me quite a start just
now," she said. "I thought you were following me with the deliberate
intention of--well, trying at least to pick me up. Some fairly decent
men have been known to do that. But why pretend? What I feared most
was that you were the other kind, the sidewalk wolf who makes a habit
of annoying women, and won't be put off by a lack of encouragement or
harsh words or even a threat to call the police. The ugly kind, the
really dangerous kind. And when you looked in at me through the window,
when you just stood there for a minute looking in, I got so scared I
thought of asking the cashier for protection."
The young man blinked, but said nothing. She frowned and went on
quickly: "Why didn't you just walk right up and tell me you had some
drawings you wanted me to look at? I wouldn't have been offended in the
least. If you'd asked to see me at the office I'd have come out and
talked with you. On some of the big magazine groups, editors are hard
to see, I'll admit. But that isn't true of all groups and it happens
to be our policy to treat writers and artists like visiting royalty. We
believe it builds up good will, and we don't worry about whether we'll
be wasting advice or guidance on someone who is just learning to draw
and hasn't a credit to his name. We're not that conceited or foolish."
She was forcing herself to smile now, doing her best to break down the
barrier which her fright had erected between them. "You never know when
real talent--great talent, even--will leap right out at you. You didn't
get in to see Miss Lathrup simply because--well, she actually is tied
up three-fourths of the time. She'd refuse to see the President of the
United States if he called at the wrong time."
It was difficult for her to speak of Lathrup as if the slain woman
were still sitting before her desk in an interview-considering frame
of mind. It was hard to keep the ghastly memory from coming back and
overwhelming her again--the terrible look of fear on the sightlessly
staring face, the slumped shoulders, the red stain on the floor by
the desk. But apparently he knew nothing and breaking the news to him
abruptly would have been no help at all in putting him at his ease.
The waitress had snapped her order pad open, and was just starting
toward the table to find out why Lynn had failed to catch her eye or
indicate with an impatient gesture that she was waiting to be served.
Lynn shook her head, and the girl took the cue, scowling slightly and
returning to the counter with her eyes trained in curiosity on the
table's other occupant.
Having seen him enter the restaurant and sit down uninvited opposite
Lynn, she could hardly have failed to think him a pickup artist with
a bold way of going after what he wanted, even to taking the risk of
being thrown out on his ear.
But it wasn't her problem and she seemed content to watch his progress
with mild interest and wait for Lynn to rise from the table in anger
and appeal to the cashier for aid. When that didn't happen and the
young man straightened his shoulders and a look of elation came
into his eyes the waitress' frown was replaced by a knowing smirk
and a glance which said as plain as words: "Brother, you sure are a
fast-working stud! Funny--I'd never have taken her for a round-heels."
Lynn stared down at the white table-top, picked up a salt shaker and
set it down again. She let her gaze stray to the black portfolio
and said in an even tone: "We could have discussed your work at the
office, and I wouldn't have been in the least bit hasty. You can't
just glance briefly at drawings and hope to form a considered artistic
judgment. Sometimes you can't even--well, never mind. What I'm trying
to say is I think I understand why you preferred to wait until I was
through for the day. Office-pressures do interfere--they're a kind of
strait jacket. For some people, anyway. I've done things just as--well,
impulsive as you just did. Not once, but a dozen times."
He leaned toward her eagerly, all of the uncertainty gone from his
gaze. "I sure behaved goofy," he said. "But I'm a shy sort of guy. I
try my best to hide it but maybe it would be wiser to just accept it,
go along with it. I've been told I'm giving it an importance it doesn't
deserve."
"Of course you are," she said. "Some women like shy men. Perhaps sixty
percent of them do, when the shyness has something very genuine behind
it. Shyness has nothing to do with courage--or lack of it. It's often a
blending of humility and strength. And humility is a very fine quality."
"That's the charitable way of looking at it, I guess," he said. "But
I'm a great deal harder on myself at times. I started off shy--was that
way when I was five--but I could have conquered it if I'd tried hard
enough."
The boyish grin was back on his face again. "Sometimes I feel that way,
and then again--I don't at all. I ask myself if it isn't a mistake to
try to change people too much. There has to be a wide variety of human
behavior, doesn't there? That's what makes the world go round. I've
always liked something that André Gide once said: 'We are what we are,
and we do what we do.' But perhaps you don't agree."
"One doesn't have to be fatalist to agree with that," she said.
His face sobered suddenly. "You should be burned up," he said. "Angry
enough to give me a cold stare and refuse to talk to me. About the
only thing I can say in my own defense is--I had no idea I'd seriously
scared you. I guess that's because no woman has ever before mistaken me
for a wolf on the prowl."
"I knew you were walking right behind me and I was afraid to look
back," she said. "It was downright silly of me--a surrender to panic
that doesn't make sense. I've only myself to blame."
"But why?" he asked, puzzled. "If you'd turned I'd have spoken to you,
and introduced myself. I'd have explained that I just wanted to show
you a few of my drawings, and if you had the evening free...."
There was a slight curve to his lips again. "I'd have probably gone all
the way out on a limb, and asked you to have dinner with me. I was
building up to it, just giving myself a second or two more of grace.
But then you became frightened and almost broke into a run--"
Should she tell him why, she asked herself? Exactly why she'd been
afraid to turn and face his gaze? She decided not to. He'd be sure to
think her silence strange, very strange, when he saw tomorrow morning's
headlines; but to talk about it now, to watch shock and horror grow
in his eyes, was a little more than she could take. Better to let him
think that Lathrup was still alive, that she, Lynn, had emerged into
the street from a perfectly normal, smoothly functioning magazine
office.
Better, safer, wiser to let him suspect nothing. If she ever saw him
again--and she had a feeling she would--she could explain why she
hadn't come right out and told him about the tragedy. She could count
on his complete sympathy and understanding. She was sure of that.
It seemed incredible to her that he hadn't noticed the police activity
outside the building, but then she remembered how much that activity
had thinned out just in the past hour. On leaving the building she'd
seen only two police cars, and one had been parked half-way down the
block. News of a murder usually gets around by word-of-mouth and
spreads fast, especially in the immediate neighborhood. But apparently
he hadn't heard about it, and that was good. It pleased her very much.
Actually, when she thought about it some more, it wasn't in the least
surprising. The police tyranny had eased and she'd emerged from the
building at five-fifteen, practically her usual hour. In all likelihood
he hadn't been waiting for her outside for more than ten minutes, too
short a time to become aware of the electric tension in the air, or the
morbidly curious stares directed at the building. She was quite sure
that only in Macbeth did the very stones cry murder.
She felt a sudden seriousness, a strange kind of heightened tension
flowing between them, as if in some way he'd sensed that she was
keeping something from him that she didn't want to talk about. To
dispel it quickly, for she did not want him to start asking questions
she would be compelled to answer evasively, she reached over and picked
up the portfolio of drawings.
"Are these the drawings you wanted to show me?" she asked.
"Yes ... please look at them," he said. He seemed unable to restrain
his eagerness. It showed in his eyes, which were bright with
confidence, and the way he tapped with two fingers on the table-top,
with a kind of anticipatory vehemence. It was easy to see that he
didn't care how impulsively over-optimistic she thought him, if only
she would study each drawing carefully and be completely just.
She opened the portfolio with fingers that trembled a little. Why,
_why_ couldn't she keep the hateful memory from unnerving her so
when all danger was past, and she would soon be sitting in a taxi,
completely safe, completely secure, moving through the crowded
streets ... moving up Broadway with its great fountains of colored
lights. People everywhere, thousands of people, as alive as she was
alive, protected, guarded, shielded from danger by the massive strength
of the city, with its law-enforcing agencies constantly on the alert.
She forced herself to examine each drawing with the utmost care, with
an eye to color and line and originality of subject matter, putting
aside for the moment, and as far as she was able, all of her previous
experience in the judging of art work. She tried to think of herself
as just an average person roaming at random through an art gallery,
stopping here and there to admire a painting with some special quality
about it that merited further study and set it a little apart from the
paintings on both sides of it.
Then she considered the special qualities in a slightly different
way, with a sharpening of critical judgment, summoning to her aid
the knowledge and discernment she had acquired as a fiction editor
on a magazine group which was always on the lookout for exceptional
illustrations and preferred not to leave the discovery and selection of
such material to the art department alone.
There were twelve drawings in the portfolio and she spent two or three
minutes studying each of them and when she had completed her scrutiny
she went back, and made a re-appraisal without saying a word. She was
aware of his eyes upon her and an anxiety emanating from him that a
word or two might have eased. But somehow she could not meet his gaze
or bring herself to gloss over the truth or distort it in any way out
of sympathy for him, or simply to spare him pain. He wasn't the kind
of young man she could lie to without seriously impairing her own
integrity and self-respect. Had she attempted to lie, she was quite
sure that he would not have been deceived.
What could she say to him, how soften the blow without cutting him to
the quick? Would it do any good at all to tell him the simple truth ...
that these drawings had about them a quality of pure enchantment, of
greatness, undoubtedly, a delicacy of perception that made her want to
weep?
How could she tell him that they were the kind of drawings which no
magazine could possibly accept? It wasn't just a question of their
being too good. The line between the best commercial art and the
canvasses of a Van Gogh wasn't quite that hard and fast. It could be
broken down, dissolved away, if a drawing was powerful enough.
But these drawings were too tenuous in a fanciful way, too remote
from--well, even the kind of reality that surrealism specialized
in--the fragmentary, broken up, subconscious dream imagery that managed
to remain sharply delineated, with many bold and contrasting scenic
effects ... broken columns against a blood-red sky, an ancient castle
crumbling into ruins, a giant's hand clasping an egg. These drawings
suggested more a Midsummer Night's Dream seen through the spray of a
Watteau fountain in an Alice-in-Wonderland kind of topsy-turvydom.
There were no bold contrasts at all, no clearly-defined human figures,
no dramatic, story-telling content. Everything seemed to float and
quiver, to be suspended in the air, or to recede into rainbow-hued
distances. It was a blue world of enchantment and wonder, bathed in
the light that never was on sea or land. But it was not a real world
that dealt with the human condition on any level. A sensitive hand
had worked with the pigments and hues of Merlin's realm of magic,
avoiding the abstract and the symbolical but producing something just
as provocatively illusive on an entirely different plane.
She tried to visualize just one of them--the least tenuous, the only
one that held the faintest ray of hope--on the cover of a magazine.
No ... no ... absolutely not. The reproduction process alone would
destroy whatever vitality the two foreground figures possessed. Didn't
he know what the reproduction process could do at times to drawings so
sharply delineated that the human figures seemed three-dimensional,
right in the room with you?
Five minutes later Lynn Prentiss sat alone in the restaurant, glad that
she had told him the complete truth, but unable to forget the look on
his face when he'd gotten up and left her. It hadn't been an angry or
reproachful look. He had kept a tight grip on his emotions, had even
managed to smile and thank her, reaching out and giving her hand a firm
squeeze, quite startling under the circumstances and totally unexpected.
He had thanked her for her candor and left, very quietly and with
dignity. But behind the smile there had been a look of despair, almost
of hopelessness, a shrinking together of his entire being. She could
sense it: it was something that couldn't be hidden, that was beyond his
power to conceal.
The waitress was staring at her again, her gaze completely mystified
now, the cynical smirk erased, as if someone had passed a wet sponge
dipped in a muscle-relaxing solvent across her lips. One of the
rough-looking men had paid his bill and left, a little ahead of the
young man with his sheaf of drawings that would never see publication
anywhere unless--
Well, if he got them hung in an important midtown gallery--and it was
not beyond the bounds of possibility--one of the art magazines might
spend a small fortune to bring them out in just the right way, with the
costliest of full-color techniques. The three in color were the best,
the cloud formations extraordinary, and she was quite sure that someday
the serious critics would sit up and take notice. But recognition
might not come to him until he was too old to dream, and meanwhile--he
desperately needed to sell a few drawings to bolster up his morale.
He hadn't come right out and told her that he was poor, but she knew
he was. He would not have approached her outside the office in such
a naïve, reckless way if he had been in any way loaded--she'd always
disliked that word, but it came unbidden into her mind. With plenty of
money to throw around he'd have acquired more self-confidence, even if
serious artistic recognition was something money couldn't always buy.
Not immediately anyway, not overnight. But with money _and_ genius--
Was it genius--or merely a very great talent? She couldn't be sure. She
didn't know too much about art, but she did know how she felt when she
saw a drawing or painting that took her breath away. And the way she
felt was important, because she was very sensitive, imaginative and
deep in her feelings; she had as much right as anyone to recognize,
dwell upon, understand and praise the qualities which made a work of
art outstanding.
She had at least praised his drawings; had been unstinting in her
praise. And if her absolute candor had seemed almost brutal to him
it had been actually something quite different. The truth was never
brutal. It only hurt for a moment, hurt terribly, and then there was
recovery and healing--you were much better off than you would have been
if you'd gone on deceiving yourself. Only deception was bad.... It was
the deceivers of the world who were the closest allies of the sadistic
ones, pretending to be kind and tactful while inflicting grievous
wounds. Not the only criminals by any means--open brutality without
any excuse at all was worse--but the kind deceivers were the opposite
of admirable.
Or was she deceiving herself a little? Was there something obstinate
in her nature which put too great a stress on absolute truth-telling?
Well, perhaps. But it was too late for penitence and regrets now. She
hadn't slammed a door in his face. She'd told him, quite frankly, to
try again. Anyone who could draw that well--could turn out saleable
work. She was sure of it. He'd simply have to come down a little more
to earth, and put some flesh-and-blood people into his drawings.
Heightened drama, direct conflict. Not all the great paintings of the
world had that element, but it sure helped when you wanted to sell an
illustration to a magazine. Keep things sharp and clear and forget
about the beautiful gossamer webbing for awhile. Time enough for that
when you're famous and standing with a cocktail glass in your hand on
the opening day of your own show.
She found herself visualizing it, sitting very straight and still,
aware that the cashier was watching her and not caring at all.
Anything ... to keep the memory of the slumped body, the ashen face,
the out-thrust arm and ... the blood ... from coming too precipitously
back into her mind.
He'd be standing surrounded by his paintings, wonderful elfland vistas,
white nymphs in the clasp of satyrs, hairy and dwarfish, with cloven
hoofs, and still pools in the deep woods would mirror the background
orgies. The women surrounding him would be remarkable too, with
plunging neck-lines, ogling eyes, purple-tinted eyelids, incredible
gowns, with Cadillacs parked outside, and a guest book bearing the
signatures of a hundred celebrities of the art and literary worlds.
His shyness would be gone, but he'd be a little ungainly looking still,
a very thin, pale youth with darkly burning eyes.
"So nice ... so glad ... so pleased. Do you really think so? Isn't it
strange that we both should know John Tremaine? And Hodgkins. Yes ...
I was very pleased by what he said about me in the New York Times.
That's right. Some of my early things did appear in the Eaton-Lathrup
publications. But I had to ruin them first. Couldn't be helped, though.
I take a cynical, detached attitude--"
Suddenly ... fear began to grow in her again, and an icy wind blew
up her spine. What if ... he hadn't been quite the naïve, awkward,
appealing youth that he had seemed? A few of the drawings....
Morbid? Well, yes ... distinctly on the morbid or suggestively erotic
side, with the female forms--creatures of light and air--assuming
strange postures as they dwindled and faded into blue distances
as if borne on invisible winds. There was nothing repulsive about
the figures, they were beautiful with no hint of ugliness or the
deliberately perverse about them. But there was a suggestion of
amorous abandonment and a strange, smouldering kind of half-virginal,
half-wanton sensuality in their attitudes. It was as if the mind
which had depicted them could have gone much further in giving them
an illicit, orgiastic aspect and had been strongly tempted to do so.
What if, in other drawings which had perhaps been shown to no one, all
restraint had been thrust aside, and scenes portrayed that would have
brought a quick flush to her cheeks--forced her to avert her eyes.
She was no prude, but when the erotic aspects of a drawing verged on
the pathological, when a completely pagan glorification of sex orgies
and unrestraint was accepted as a matter of course it never failed to
embarrass her and give her a slight feeling of uneasiness which she was
powerless to overcome. Revulsion even, when the candor was too great,
and her Puritan heritage too violently assailed.
All her life she had been in revolt against the hypocritical and
straight-laced and her Puritan heritage was two generations removed.
But there were limits--
It did no good at all for her to tell herself that she was being very
foolish and unjust. An impetuous young painter today, determined to be
completely true to his inner vision, had every right to be completely
candid. There was a wide gulf between powerful and genuine art,
executed with complete sincerity and the luridly cheap and sensational
which had no artistic merit at all. But it was a feeling she could not
entirely overcome.
Always in the back of her mind was the thought: Is he really like his
drawings; is that the kind of person he is?
She knew that if such a yardstick were to be rigorously applied
two-thirds of the world's great artists and great writers would stand
condemned. The erotic was an important aspect of all life--to deny it
honest expression was to emasculate art, to do violence to reality in
all of its gustier aspects--the kind of reality you found in Swift and
Cervantes, Chaucer and Defoe, Goya and Gauguin and Cezanne.
But knowing all that, never doubting it for a moment, why was she
trembling again now? Why had something about his drawings, the faint
aura of morbidity that seemed to hover over them, made her fearful and
suspicious again?
Was it because she had at the beginning imagined that a mad killer
might be following her; that morbidity and madness were often closely
allied? Was it because she had suddenly begun to realize that
deception, too, could be a fine art--if a man were a killer at heart?
He might be everything that he claimed to be, a young, unhappy and
frustrated artist, desperately seeking commercial success, and still
be a youth with a gun who had allowed his morbidity to drive him over
the borderline. A youth with an imagined grievance against Lathrup,
compulsively driven to seek redress for that grievance through an act
of brutal violence.
When had he called at the office, seeking an interview which had been
denied him? Yesterday ... two or three days ago? She had failed to ask
him. Not that morning, surely, not before--
But how could she be entirely sure that he _hadn't_ called at the
office in the morning, that he _hadn't_ stealthily found his way to
Lathrup's office after pretending to leave, and....
She arose suddenly, determined to remain calm, to keep such thoughts
from mushrooming out and growing to monstrous proportions in her mind.
Just nerves, she told herself firmly. No reason at all to think him a
crafty dissembler, when his every word and gesture had borne the stamp
of absolute sincerity. No one could be that perfect an actor. She had
liked him ... she still liked him ... and she hoped that he would call
at the office again, when the horror had become just a dim, receding
memory--could it ever be quite that, she wondered--and he would ask
her to lunch and she would look at his new drawings and all fear, all
suspicion would be banished from her mind.
She crossed to the heavy plate-glass door, pulled inward and emerged
into the street without a backward glance. She had a momentary qualm
about not having ordered anything, even a cup of coffee. But she
shrugged it off, telling herself that if the waitress and cashier were
unhappy about it they could ... yes, go to hell.