TWO

Ten minutes later they were back in Loring's apartment again. David

had thought it best to hear the rest of Janice's revelation there. As

they entered the large studio living room an oppressive pall seemed to

burden the atmosphere; as though they had stepped from the cheerful

bustle of the Village street into a place where fear and uncertainty

dwelled. David shook off the feeling resolutely; this was his own

apartment, and no one dwelled here except himself, and he was a

realistic, if somewhat romantic fellow.

They sat down together on the couch which had held them rapturously

entwined in one another's arms such a short time ago.

"Now Janice," he said, trying to keep his voice calm and patient, as

though he were a doctor dealing with a difficult patient. "You probably

had an hallucination. But tell me about this Thing you saw. And

remember I am right here beside you."

She spoke with an effort. "I saw it distinctly enough to be sure it was

alive and watching me. I saw its face. It was flat, coldly impassive,

hideous. No animation in the features at all. The nose was bulbous.

Like the nose of an alcoholic. Oh, I know that sounds almost ludicrous,

but it's the right description. I can't think of a more accurate one.

Its eyes--"

"Go on."

"They were small, dark and smouldering, buried in folds of pinkish

flesh. I said no animation, but the eyes were alive, riveted on me as

if it were--yes, a ghoul. As if it wanted to pounce on me, sink its

teeth in my flesh and suck all the marrow from my bones. There were two

little knobby outgrowths protruding from its forehead, one from each

temple. They were pinkish too, and if they had been a little longer

they would have looked like horns."

"Let me get this straight, Janice. Its face was flat and yet the nose

was bulbous. And when the eyes are animated they have a great deal of

expression. It makes the other features seem animated too. Aren't there

contradictions there?"

"No, I don't think so. Its face did look flat, masklike, despite the

bulbous nose and the smouldering eyes. I had the feeling that its

features just weren't human--that it was incapable of feeling as we do,

thinking as we do. I told you how I felt. It was some kind of monster,

despite its almost human body."

"Did you see its hands?"

"That's what terrified me the most, David. I don't think it had hands.

Its arms were in shadow, so I couldn't be sure. But I think it had

claws. Talons. I didn't wait to make sure. I ran on past it and down

the stairs. It made no attempt to follow me."

For an instant Loring sat motionless, shaken in spite of himself, not

quite knowing what to believe. Then, quite suddenly, a look of relief

came into his eyes. In another moment his expression had changed again.

The relief was gone and his eyes were blazing with anger.

"A prank!" he said. "That's what it must have been. All of it, from the

moment you saw that lacquered, good-looking joker in your room to the

caricature in the hall. Some Village character is having a time for

himself, at our expense. Damn him to hell!"

"But David, I told you--"

"Never mind what you think you saw. I know exactly what happened now.

It happens often enough, not only in the Village but wherever artists

and writers throw parties and allow envious people to drift in. There's

always some joker with no talent who wants to get back at people who

have talent. Sex can get mixed up in it, too. Someone is making a play

for another man's girl, or--"

"You mean you think the whole thing may have been directed at you."

"Quite possibly. At me through you. I wouldn't put it past Jack

Durbin." He rose and paced the room, excited by the possibility of a

rational answer to the strange tale.

"But it wasn't Durbin I saw in my room. Or anyone we know."

"Naturally! Durbin's looks would eliminate him right off. But he could

have talked a friend into helping out with the prank. There are a dozen

other people I could nominate for the role. You don't always remember

the faces of people you meet casually at parties. You may have been

staring into a cocktail glass when the good-looking guy was introduced

to you. You may have met him and forgotten all about it."

"I wouldn't forget."

"All right, you wouldn't forget him. So he's new, someone you've never

seen before. That doesn't rule out the possibility that he was talked

into helping out with the prank by Durbin or someone else. We've

attended thirty or forty parties in the last eighteen months. All kinds

of people. Beatniks, Madison Avenue gray flannel suiters, painters who

have crashed the midtown galleries, piano players, wrestlers, trapeze

artists, lads who have been writing the Great American Novel for

forty years. You can take your pick. I'll cast my vote for one of the

far-out, real gone Beatniks."

"Darling, if I could really believe--"

"Let me finish, Janice. All kinds of people can get erotically

compulsive ideas, dangerous and malicious ideas. They become lost to

all honor. That's an old-fashioned word, but I've always rather liked

it."

"I've no quarrel with it, David. But I can't believe it was all a

malicious prank. I just can't reconcile what I saw with any such

convenient, easy-to-accept explanation. You've convinced yourself that

the figure in the hall was wearing a mask. It was the first thing I

thought of, but I couldn't go on believing it."

"Why not? It makes sense."

"Not to me. That creature was real, David. Real and alive and a

monster. Not a man disguised by a mask. Its face had a fleshly look."

"But you said yourself that its face was masklike. And modern

mechanical masks can be almost unbelievably lifelike. Mask-making has

become a fine art. It always was, in a sense, but it's genius-inspired

today. I've seen a few of the extraordinary ones--both the Frankenstein

monster type and the kind that wouldn't scare a woman if she woke up

and saw it beside her on a pillow in the morning. She might even--"

"Don't say it, David, or I'll get angry. I've been holding myself in,

but I _can_ get angry. You've been pressing the jealousy pedal too

hard, damaging the sound track, jamming the keys."

"I'm sorry, Janice. It just slipped."

"What are you going to do, David? If you really believe it was just a

malicious prank."

"Find him, of course. Find him and take off the mask and flatten

his face out so he won't really need a mask to look like a ghoulish

monster. That way we'll be helping each other."

"You may end up in jail."

"It will be worth it. Finding him may not be easy, but there's a good

chance I'll get my hands on him if I work at it hard enough. I'm going

over to your apartment right now, alone. I want you to stay here until

I get back. I'll question the neighbors. Someone may have seen him

coming or going. I'll describe him and try to locate someone who knows

him well, or has seen him often enough to recognize the description.

Then I'll go through the halls and your apartment with a fine-tooth

comb. He may have left a clue to his identity somewhere about the

apartment."

"That seems unlikely, David."

"You never know. Even professional criminals get careless and he isn't

a professional. It's surprising how often intruders leave traces

somewhere. They get careless and drop something, even a slip of paper

with a name or address on it. I know a detective lieutenant who's

firmly convinced you have at least a forty percent chance of tracing

a criminal intruder if you're thorough enough and explore all of the

possibilities."

"All right, David, go ahead. I won't try to stop you. Find out all you

can. I think you're wrong. I don't believe it was a prank. I'm sure it

was something stranger and more terrifying, something we can't even

begin to understand. But I don't want you to blame me later. Although I

really can't see what good catching him would do."

"You don't? I should think you'd be the first to understand how I feel."

"I can understand how you feel, David. But what good would knocking him

down do? If you're right about its being a prank he's a very sick man.

Actually, you ought to have compassion and want to help him."

"I'm afraid I can't be that objective about it. It's a matter of male

pride."

"Well, go ahead, indulge your pride, David. I'm not stopping you...."

The parting shot rankled a little as David stood outside the apartment

building staring down the long length of MacDougal Street, his eyes

alert for a cruising taxi. Simply being angry with her made no sense at

all, he told himself. A woman couldn't understand how a man felt when

he was caught up in an ugly situation that could only be straightened

out in one way if he wanted to go on living with himself.

Being angry made no sense, but he should have explained to her exactly

what would happen to his integrity if he shrugged the whole matter

off and forgot about it. Emotionally she would never understand, but

he should have made a serious effort to at least straighten her out

intellectually and correct the impression he'd left with her that he

was scientifically moronic and still living in the Middle Ages as far

as mental illness was concerned.

The prankster was quite possibly psychotic, or, at the very least, a

psychopathic personality. But even so, his integrity demanded that he

give the scoundrel at least one sturdy biff in the jaw. After that, he

could afford to feel generous and enlightened and drag the man by the

scruff of his neck to the nearest mental institution.

A taxi swung to the curb at last and Loring got in and gave the driver

Janice's Horatio Street address. He relaxed a little and watched

Village stores, restaurants and dry cleaning establishments sweep past

the windows of the cab. The almost completely deserted aspect of the

Village before ten in the morning never ceased to fascinate him. He

didn't quite know why.

Three minutes later, the taxi drew in to the curb in front of a

four-story brownstone. Loring paid the driver, climbed the stoop and

walked up two flights of stairs to the door of Janice's apartment. He

inserted the key she had given him into the lock.

Janice's apartment seemed completely peaceful--quiet and appealing in

the early morning light which streamed in from a high window directly

opposite the daybed. The covers were in disarray and there was a

slipper in the middle of the floor and a small oaken stand had been

overturned in her hurry to get away. But otherwise the room was in

order and her presence seemed to hover over everything that Loring

touched.

He was staring at the slipper when a chill thought crept into his mind,

and made his heart stand still. What if she were not alive and safe and

waiting for him in the apartment they'd soon be sharing? What if he

were a lover returning alone to a house that would never echo to her

footsteps again? What if she occupied a narrow home beneath a row of

cypresses and he was alone now with only memories to comfort him, or

tear cruelly at his heart?

If he were returning alone to such a dwelling, could he bear even to

look at the slipper, the unmade bed, all of the dear, precious things

her hands had touched?

He remembered suddenly that in the past when he had allowed his mind

to dwell even for a moment on some great and inconsolable loss which

had never actually taken place he was the better for it--a man more

capable of taking full advantage of every moment of joy and happiness

in the narrowing orbit of his days. You had to live every moment to the

full, with as much heightening of consciousness as you were capable of

experiencing, because the orbit started narrowing when you were twenty

and never grew any wider even when it stopped narrowing for a time and

stayed the way it had been.

In the past such thoughts had not shaken him too profoundly or left

a cold chill in their wake. But now they did, somehow. The room felt

perceptibly more somber and the chill seemed to spread out from his

mind in widening circles to envelop the chairs and bedside table, the

bricks of the fireplace and even the pictures on the wall.

He did not hear the door open, though it made a faint click which would

have been audible to anyone less preoccupied.

He did not even hear the woman's footsteps approaching him across the

room. Her tread was very light and the rug was deep-napped and very

soft. But her quick, excited breathing and the heady perfume which was

distilling its essence through the room--an odor of jasmine--and the

rustle of her dress as she moved quickly made him aware that he was no

longer alone.

He turned abruptly and stood staring at her, unable to move or speak, a

look of dazed disbelief in his eyes.

He had never seen the woman before. Once seen, her face would have

stayed forever in his memory and he could not possibly have forgotten

how tormentingly beautiful it was or failed to remember every

first-encounter impression, the time, the place, the exact moment when

she had ceased to be a stranger.

Her beauty was so overwhelming that it stirred the heart in ways that

were dangerous. Instantly, tumultuously, like a drug injected directly

into the aorta, tightening the muscle fibers, drawing them together,

increasing each pulse beat, turning each beat into a hammer blow in a

bursting stillness.