"I gave the key and the register to Jo Anne Tweedy," she said. "Jo
Anne's the brash young teenager you took a bump with in Ohio. She's
competent, Steve. And she's got the Macklin twins to help her. Waking up
the camp is a job for the junior division." She eyed the recumbent
Phelps distastefully. "What have you in mind for him?"
"He's valuable," I said. "We'll use him to buy our freedom."
The door opened again, interrupting Marian. It was Jonas Harrison. He
stood there in the frame of the door and looked at us with a sort of
grim smile. I had never met the old patriarch of the Harrison Family
before, but he lived up to my every expectation. He stood tall and
straight; topped by a wealth of snow white hair, white eyebrows, and the
touch of a white moustache. His eyes contrasted with the white; a rich
and startling brown.
This was a man to whom I could hand the basic problem of engineering our
final escape; Jonas Harrison was capable of plotting an airtight
getaway.
His voice was rich and resonant; it had a lift in its tone that sounded
as though his self-confidence had never been in danger of a set-back:
"Well, son, you seem to have accomplished quite a job this night. What
shall we do next?"
"Get the devil out of here," I replied--
--wondering just exactly how I'd known so instantly that this was Jonas
Harrison. The rich and resonant voice had flicked a subsurface
recollection on a faint, raw spot and now something important was
swimming around in the mire of my mind trying to break loose and come
clear.
I turned from the sword-sharp brown eyes and looked at Marian. She was
almost as I had first seen her: Not much make-up if any at all, her hair
free of fancy dressing but neat, her legs were bare and healthy-tanned.
I looked at her, and for a half dozen heartbeats her image faded from my
sight, replaced by the well remembered figure of Catherine as I had
known her first. It was a dizzy-making montage because my perception
senses the real figure of Marian, superimposed on the visual
memory-image of Catherine. Then the false sight faded and both
perception and eyesight focused upon the true person of Marian Harrison.
Marian stood there, her face softly proud. Her eyes were looking
straight into mine, as if she were mentally urging me to fight that
hidden memory into full recollection.
Then I both saw and perceived something that I had never noticed before.
A fine golden chain hung around her throat, its pendant hidden from
sight beneath the edge of her bodice. But my sense of perception dug a
modest diamond, and I could even dig the tiny initials engraved in the
metal circlet: