Safe in our rooms, with Johnson sitting, very unlike a waiter, behind
a bottle of brandy and a tray of sandwiches, and Geoff lying on the
Chesterfield smoking a pipe he could not taste, I told them what I had
done.
"It's taught me a couple of things I didn't know, and affirmed some
others I wasn't sure of. First, I'm certain the faculties of these
brutes are the same in this dimension as their 'human parts'. That toad
didn't hear me coming, I know. He didn't have time to turn and get a
look at me before he went _pop_ and left us. He was bound to the body
till I released him, I think, and if he'd left it he couldn't have
got back into it, or rather around it. His ears weren't keener than a
man's, or he'd have turned to see me when I crept up behind him.
"But their communication system is terrific. That's where they have
it all over us. When he was shut out of our world, the toad must have
gone around their region telling his pals about it; and before long the
ones who were in that pub heard of it, too. Now they weren't told by a
newcomer, for I watched the door; so they were told on _their_ side of
the veil, by an alien who wasn't occupying a human frame. Got it thus
far?"
"I admit to a little uncertainty here and there, sir."
"Well, put it like this. There's a long tall screen set up across a
stage. On one side of the screen--our side--are a lot of human beings.
This side is our world as we know it. On the other side, the fourth
dimension or whatever it may be, are a lot of these horrid-lookin'
beasts of usurpers.
"Now here and there in the screen are holes, and through them some of
the aliens are holding fake human beings, just as in our well-worn
simile of the puppet show. I can see those who are leaning through the
holes, but you can't.
"When they're leaning through, they haven't any powers except those
of normal people. They can't hear any better than a man. They can't
walk through bricks or see through stones. They can't look behind them
without turning the human puppet around. I've been watching them and
I feel pretty certain of that. In some curious way they're limited by
their puppets' limitations here. That makes it easier to assassinate
'em, by the way--I just have to make sure that the human form doesn't
get a chance to turn its head and spot me before it dies."
* * * * *
I drank a little brandy and went on intently. "The only way they really
have me beat six ways from the jack is in their system of tidings,
of spreading 'em, I mean. That's a marvel. For as soon as I shoot or
stab or throttle a puppet, the beast that's been twiddlin' his strings
leaves him and goes along behind that hypothetical screen between the
worlds, telling all his playmates about it; and if he's had a chance
to see me, and can describe me, then about a thousand of the others
will be watching through their holes in the screen for a blighter of my
specifications, and my name is Lord Jonathan Mud."
"I see," nodded Johnson.
"So my problem is to remain utterly anonymous. And I needn't tell you
that if I try to embark on a career of murder-by-night, I won't last
very long."
"No, you won't." Geoff was grave. "What else is there to do, though?"
"I don't know. And I think I could watch them for a lifetime and not
learn another thing about 'em. I'm a tremendously handicapped spy
because I can't disguise myself as one of them, and I can't understand
what they say to each other. It's like a man going into a colony of
bears and trying to pass himself off as a bear, except that I can't
even begin to look like a usurper, while I _could_ put on a grizzly
skin."
"What are we to do, sir?" asked Johnson. His pale face was deadly
serious. "We must do something, sir--but only you can decide what it's
to be."
Two weeks before, I might have groaned aloud at such a responsibility.
Now I took it in stride. Anyone who had been observing the demons of
Hell at their work for fourteen days and nights had either to take
things as they came along or to go stark staring loony.
"I'll tell you what we'll do first. I'll take Geoff over to the Albany.
Then I'll strike out alone for a bit. Maybe for a week, maybe a month.
Travel light, fast, and inquisitive. Give myself a chance to cook
up plots. And if nothing's come of it by then, why, I suppose we'll
just have to set up an assassination bureau and hope I live a hundred
years...."