He heard no car, no knock, but going to the livingroom door that opened onto the porch as if something had drawn him there, and happening to glance out the window for the first time in hours, he was startled half out of his wits to see there a large, outlandish figure in a bright pink overcoat and a white furry hat. When he leaned closer to the window, not quite believing his eyes, he made out a large, pale, smiling face and bright tufts of gray-white curls. The real-estate salesman Tim was behind her, grinning and waving. Mickelsson came to himself and hurried to open the door.
“Dr. Bauer! Well, hello! Tim! What a surprise!” He hoped the smile on his dried-out cheeks was not as ghastly as it felt.
“Prafessor Mickelsson! I’m so glad you’re home!” She reached out one large, white-gloved hand to seize his, closed her fingers tightly, clung for a moment, then coyly tilted her head and drew her hand back. “Oh, look!” she said, peeking around him at the room. “Isn’t this just lovely!” She allowed him to take one arm and help her in. Tim came behind her, still grinning from ear to ear, steadying her trailing elbow. He had on his cowboy hat and sheepskin coat. “Say, there!” he said.
“My, my, my,” the doctor said, “you’ve certainly been busy!” She apparently approved whole-heartedly.
“Yes, I have,” Mickelsson said. He closed the door behind them. “Let me take your coats.” To his surprise he was feeling tentatively glad they’d come.
“I can’t stay but just a minute,” she said happily, but immediately began unbuttoning the front of her coat. The suit underneath was powder-blue, as pale as her eyes. When he lifted the coat from her shoulders she dusted her hands as if about to set to work. “Isn’t this lovely,” she said, “isn’t this lovely!”
Tim stood with his hands in his coatpockets, looking around admiringly; then he too decided to take off his coat. He threw it over the end of the couch. “Boy,” he said, “it’s really beautiful, Prafessor. You’re really a handyman!”
“Oh, well,” Mickelsson said.
The doc said, examining the wallpaper seams (she would find no mistakes), “I was always so busy, you know. I just never gaht a minute for the poor howse. My goodness, what’s this?” As if someone had told her how he’d changed the former workroom, she’d gone straight to the door, opened it—it was already part way open—and looked in. “Don’t tell me you did all this yourself!” she exclaimed. “Well I never!” The queerly girlish laugh he remembered struck him now as unearthly. Whether or not he was right that the doc was gravely ill, she’d aged noticeably during her few months in Florida; her features had sharpened and she seemed much more pale; clearly she hadn’t been lying around on beaches. Yet her voice was, if anything, younger than before.
Tim sat down on the couch, smiling, and hung his hands over his knees, keeping out of things, giving the doc playing room. Mickelsson, with part of his mind, worked at whether or not the man was homosexual, but he got nowhere. One would not be quite as open about it in Susquehanna, he supposed, as one might be in Binghamton.
“Yes, it makes a good diningroom, doesn’t it,” Mickelsson said, getting out his pipe. He saw that she was looking now at the scraped place where once the hex sign had been. “Can I offer you a cup of tea?” he asked.
“That would be lovely, if it’s naht too much trouble!”
“Nothing for me, thanks,” Tim said, and waved. Now he too was getting his pipe out.
The doc crossed to the Dutch door, visibly decided not to mention the missing hex sign, and turned to look at the stereo instead. “What a lovely phonograph! That’s another thing I just never take time for. How we do let things slip by us!”
“I suppose that’s so,” Mickelsson said. He nodded, excusing himself, still poking tobacco into his pipebowl, and went into the kitchen to fill the teakettle.
She came into the kitchen behind him and suddenly froze. He followed her eyes to the cat, which stood, stiffly arched, by the cellar door, staring back at her. Its mouth was drawn away from its fangs, ready to hiss. Mickelsson stepped over and opened the cellar door, allowing the cat to flee.
“I’m sorry. I take it you don’t care much for cats,” he said, closing the door and smiling.
“Oh no, it just stahrtled me, that’s all,” she said, then laughed. She raised one hand, brushing something invisible from in front of her face.
He finished putting on the kettle, then got out cups, two teabags, and sugar. When he bent his head, taking spoons from the drawer beside the sink, he became aware again of how large the woman was, taller than he was by an inch or two. When he glanced at her shoes he saw that her heels were low. The aroma of Tim’s pipe tobacco drifted in from the livingroom, the same Dunhill Mickelsson himself smoked, or maybe the similar but cheaper mixture Balkan Sobranie.
She asked how things had been, whether or not he’d encountered any trouble with the house.
“Nothing serious,” he said. “I must say, I was surprised to learn it’s haunted.” He glanced at her.
“Oh, that!” she said, and laughed. “How on earth do you suppose such a thing gaht stahrted?”
There seemed no doubt that she spoke innocently; but he asked, “You never saw them, then?”
“Saw them?” She tipped her head. Apparently deciding he was teasing, she said, “Naht that I know of!” She laughed again. “But it seems as if just about everybody else in Seskehenna has. At any rate that’s what they told that poor Prafessor Warren. He was very interested in the house, I suppose you know.”
“I’m not sure whether I’d heard that or not,” Mickelsson said, and casually watched her.
“Oh my yes! He just couldn’t get enough about it! But I’ll tell you, just between you and me and the gatepost”—she waved her hand as if sweeping away nonsense—“I don’t think he believed those stories for one minute. All he really wanted was to find owt how they gaht stahrted—who lived here at the time, where the noises seemed to come from, and such.”
“And did he find out?” Mickelsson asked.
“Why you know, I haven’t gaht any idea. I never stahrted them, that I can tell you!” She laughed gaily.
The kettle had been hissing; now it rose to a full whistle, frantic. He turned the heat off and poured hot water over the teabags in the cups. “Sugar?” he asked. He glanced at his wrist, then remembered he’d given his watch away.
“No thank you. Never use it—steals the vitamins.”
As he moved nearer to give her her cup he caught her scent, not a smell of soap or perfume, it seemed to him, but of spring itself. No doubt she’d brought it up from Florida. The scent was pronounced, remarkable. When he noticed her expression, he realized he’d shown his surprise.
“It must be beautiful in Florida at this time of year,” he said.
“Oh yes, very nice. They have the whitest sand, you know, down on the Gulf where we ahr.” She took the cup from him and moved ahead of him to the livingroom. Tim stood bent over near the glass-topped table, looking at something—the old wooden cheesebox with its few remaining keys. His face was prepared to make some interested comment, but he seemed to decide not to break in on the doctor’s conversation.
“Well,” she said when she and Mickelsson had seated themselves—she on the couch, he in the rocking chair across from her—and she’d taken her first sip, raising the saucer and cup together, using both hands, “never a dull minute in Seskehenna!”
He waited, encouraging her with a look. Tim, losing interest in the keys, went over to stand at the door of the new diningroom, thoughtfully puffing at his pipe, looking in.
“That whole tragic business about the Spragues, I mean,” the doc said. She sighed, giving a little wave with her left hand, and took another sip of tea.
Mickelsson nodded, then glanced at her, reconsidering. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“Why, you know,” she said, “three or four years ago they were the nicest people you could imagine, except for one or two oddities—but we all have our oddities.” She smiled, inviting agreeme
nt. “But then one thing after another stahrted happening, and the Spragues just changed overnight till you wouldn’t’ve known them. Broke off with all their friends; pretty soon even the relatives wouldn’t visit. …” She leaned forward. “And then those really odd things stahrted happening, the un-explainable mutilations. That awful business about Tommy Sprague’s body, it’s nothing new, you know.” She leaned forward more, confidential, her eyes oddly merry and full of light, though her expression was one of concern. “The same thing happened to the Spragues’ pigs three years ago.”
“Wait now,” Mickelsson said, “what awful business?”
“You didn’t hear?” she asked, brightening more. “Why, the body was all cut up, just as if someone had attacked it with a switch, or maybe a torch, or some kind of animal had got to it. No more clue to what did it than there was with the pigs.”
“You mean to say—” he broke in, not quite registering, trying to slow her down. He looked toward Tim for help, but the young man’s broad-shouldered back told him nothing.
Dr. Bauer nodded emphatically. “He was all cut to ribbons, big slash across his throat. That’s what killed him, you know. At first they thought the poor man froze to death and then gaht mauled by the snow-plow, but it wasn’t so. No sir. Something gaht to him. I suppose it must’ve been a bear, though heaven only knows. There were odd little cuts on him, anyway, especially the face. It was a friend of mine down at the hospital that examined the body. They’re expecting to do a full autopsy day after tomorrow, or maybe Wensdee. But they won’t learn a thing, you know, and though they question people till Doomsday, they’ll never get a clue.”
Tim turned, smiling with what looked like simple sociability, the pipe in his hand, and came over to sit on the end of the couch not far from Dr. Bauer. He looked from one to the other of them as if enjoying the conversation but thinking it not his place to take part in it—as if he were a boy among adults, or just the doc’s chauffeur.
“But what’s the explanation?” Mickelsson asked almost crossly. “Are you saying it’s witchcraft?” He gave a sudden ironic laugh. “UFOs you think?”
“Maybe there is no explanation.” She smiled, delighted that it might be so.
“There’s always some explanation,” he said. He glanced over at Tim, who smiled.
“Well, you’re the philahsapher,” Dr. Bauer said. “I suppose you must be right. Maybe he fell in the brush or, as I say, a bear gaht to him. But my own opinion is … well, you know, the world’s what you make of it.” She shook her head. “Ever since the tragedy—I guess you know abowt that, how his daughter passed away, one of those freak anesthesia reactions—” She paused, apparently losing her thread. She covered by taking a sip of her tea. “What I was saying,” she said at last, brightening again, very gently setting down the cup and saucer, “Tommy changed all at once, and somehow or another …”
Mickelsson was thrown, then remembered that “Tommy” was her name for old Sprague. “The world changed to suit his view of it?” he suggested.
“Well, no,” she said, and blinked. “Heaven knows,” she said then, eager to dismiss the whole business, out of her depth. “I don’t really believe in such silliness, of course.”
Tim said, “There’s a laht of strange things in this world, though—more strange things than naht!” He laughed. She too laughed and gave a helpless little gesture, admitting it might well be so, not caring to pursue it.
But Mickelsson wasn’t quite ready to move on. “I’ve been wondering”—he cleared his throat—“what was it that frightened you, the last time you were here?”
Her whole face lifted, almost sparkled, prepared to hear marvels. “Frightened me?”
“You nearly killed me,” he said. He smiled and made a feeble pass with his pipe to show he bore no grudge. “You remember almost having an accident, just down the road?” He pointed.
“Was that you, Prafessor?” she cried, almost joyful. “Good gracious, I’m so sorry!”
“Oh, it’s all right,” he said, faintly annoyed at her reaction, but again waved it away. He drew his pipe back to his lips and found that it was out. “The thing is,” he said, “I know you were up there at Spragues’, and I know about the lawsuit, of course—”
“Yes, I see!” She looked trapped, though not displeased by the fact. She went on merrily smiling, brighter than sunlight on ice. He wished suddenly that Jessie were here—for many reasons, among others because she could check his perceptions and because it seemed that the mystery was about to be solved. Without her, the pleasure of the detective game paled. The thought of her brought other thoughts less pleasant. As if the ground had opened up.
“Well, that’s over,” the doctor said, almost regretful, it seemed to Mickelsson. “He never had a chance with that suit of his, you know—the whole thing was downright insane, really; it’s a wonder he found a lawyer. But now that poor Tom’s gone …” She shook her head once more, smiling with what seemed pity except for the sparkle in her eyes. She turned to include Tim in the conversation. “You know, all our lives there was something about us,” she said. “Bad chemistry, I suppose. And then, once he gaht it in his mind that I’d stolen his property—” She looked around as if surprised by the recollection that this was the house. “Well, who’d believe it?” She smiled, finished her tea, and carefully placed the cup and saucer back on the glass-topped table. Mickelsson glanced down at his own tea, almost untouched. “You might laugh,” she said, “but there was a time I was actually sweet on him. Isn’t that something? It was a long, long time ago, a course.”
The light in the room had changed now, some of the brightness drawing back, losing power. The shadows on the walls had grown more vague and more extensive. On the road outside, a car slowed down, then sped up again. She too seemed to listen. Both Tim and Mickelsson were relighting their pipes.
“So what was it, that night, that frightened you?” he asked.
“Frightened me,” she echoed as before, visibly baffled. Then light broke, a queer, joyful wildness in her eyes. “I wasn’t frightened,” she exclaimed, “that’s naht the reason I was driving like that! I was furious!”
He stared.
Tim looked with interest from Dr. Bauer to Mickelsson.
She leaned forward, muscles tensing, her smile suddenly like a young girl’s, and said, “I talked with him, reasoned with him, tried to make him see that he’d end up despised and bankrupt if he didn’t just let go of it—believe me, he didn’t have a leg to stand on! But no, they kept on, both of them, screeching and complaining, making terrible accusations. … If I’d stayed a minute longer I’d’ve broken both their necks!” She laughed at herself. “Believe me, I wasn’t frightened—not of that little monkey! Believe me, if somebody’d put a knife in my hand, or a paper box of matches—” She laughed again, a laugh almost like music, acknowledging what a foolish child she’d been, and at the same moment, as if to be done with the embarrassing confession, she stood up, looming above him, raising her hands out to the sides for balance. Tim stood up too. “Oh no, I wasn’t afraid, heaven bless me! I was never that kind!” Then, getting her amusement into control, still blushing, she said, “Well, I’m sorry to have frightened you on the road, I must say. I guess it’s pure luck that we’re still here to talk about it. I really am so ashamed of myself.”
Grudgingly, Mickelsson said, “It’s amazing, the way you pulled out of it. Me too, for that matter.”
“Well, you know, something just takes over for you,” she said. “People have no idea what powers they have. I believe people really could just take off and fly if they set their minds to it—not that I say Tommy Sprague could do it.”
Surprised, Mickelsson said, “You sound uncertain about it.”
“Oh, well, you know, I like to leave things open.” She smiled.
It came to Mickelsson that he ought to be standing. They were preparing to leave. He got up, rising into the smell of Tim’s pipe, and abruptly remembered that his pipe tobacco had never reapp
eared after the night his house had been ransacked.
“And I’m so glad the howse has been no trouble,” the doc said, crossing to her coat. “You certainly have done well by it!”
“It seems odd,” he said, “that you should’ve thought it would be trouble. You’re sure it wasn’t the ghosts you were thinking of, or witchcraft or something?”
Tim was shrugging into his coat.
Dr. Bauer smiled, staring as if absently at where the hex had been, and seemed not to register his remark. “Ah, yes,” she said. She stood large and comically out of season in her bright pink coat, pulling her white gloves on, then reaching for her hat.
“I understand there’s some evidence that there really may be ghosts, or something of the sort,” Mickelsson said, stalling them. “Is that why you put up the hex sign?”
She blinked, coming out of her reverie, and looked at him. “That?” she said, pointing at the door as if the hex were still there. “I gaht that down at some restaurant just outside Harrisburg. It was one of those decals, you know.” Her expression was partly puzzled, partly apologetic. “I think it just means ‘welcome.’ ”
“But the black band around it, wouldn’t that suggest—”
“Heavens, I wouldn’t know, Prafessor,” she said with a laugh, patting her hat into place. “There was a paper that came with it, but I’m afraid I lost that years ago.” She came back toward the door. Tim, smiling, moved toward her.