Абрахам Меррит - Creep, Shadow!

Just then Bill came in, and with him a dignified, white-haired gentleman I knew must be Dr. Lowell.

I don't know when I had ever been so glad to see Bill.

I gave Bill the old fraternity high-sign of distress, and after introductions he bore me away, leaving the Demoiselle Dahut to Helen and Dr. de Keradel with Dr. Lowell. I felt an urgent need for a drink, and said so. Bill passed me the brandy and soda without comment. I drank a stiff brandy neat.

Helen had bowled me off my feet, but that had been a pleasant upset, nothing that called for any alcoholic lever to right me. The Demoiselle Dahut had been an entirely different matter. She was damned disconcerting. It occurred to me that if you compared yourself to a ship bowling along under full sail, with your mind as a capable navigator and through charted seas, Helen was a squall that fitted normally into the picture – but the Demoiselle was a blow from a new quarter entirely, heading the ship into totally strange waters. What you knew of navigation wouldn't help you a bit.

I said:

"Helen could blow you into Port o' Paradise but the other could blow you into Port o' Hell."

Bill didn't say anything, only watched me. I poured a second brandy. Bill said, mildly:

"There'll be cocktails and wine at dinner."

I said: "Fine," and drank the brandy.

I thought:

It's not her infernal beauty that's got me going. But why the hell did I hate her so when I first saw her?

I didn't hate her now. All I felt was a burning curiosity. But why did I have that vague sense of having long known her? And that not so vague idea that she knew me better than I did her? I muttered:

"She makes you think of the sea, at that."

Bill said: "Who?"

I said: "The Demoiselle d'Ys."

He stepped back; he said, as though something was strangling him:

"Who's the Demoiselle d'Ys?"

I looked at him, suspiciously; I said: "Don't you know the names of your guests? That girl down there – the Demoiselle Dahut d'Ys de Keradel."

Bill said, rather dumbly:

"No, I didn't know that. All Lowell introduced her by was the de Keradel part of it."

After a minute, he said: "Probably another drink won't hurt you. I'll join you."

We drank; he said, casually:

"Never met them till tonight. De Keradel called on Lowell yesterday morning – as one eminent psychiatrist upon another. Lowell was interested, and invited him and his daughter to dinner. The old boy is fond of Helen, and ever since she came back to town she's been hostess at his parties. She's very fond of him, too."

He drank his brandy and set down the glass. He said, still casually:

"I understand de Keradel has been here for a year or more. Apparently, though, he never got around to visiting us until those interviews of mine and yours appeared."

I jumped up as the implication of that struck me. I said:

"You mean – "

"I don't mean anything. I simply point out the coincidence."

"But if they had anything to do with Dick's death, why would they risk coming here?"

"To find out how much we know – if anything." He hesitated. "It may mean nothing. But – it's precisely the sort of thing I thought might happen when I baited my hook. And de Keradel and his daughter don't exactly disqualify as the sort of fish I expected to catch – and especially now I know about the d'Ys part. Yes – especially."

He came round the table and put his hands on my shoulders:

"Alan, what I'm thinking wouldn't seem as insane to you, maybe, as it does to me. It's not Alice in Wonderland, but Alice in Devil-land. I want you tonight to say anything that comes into your head. Just that. Don't be held back by politeness, or courtesy, or conventions or anything else. If what you want to say is insulting – let it be so. Don't bother about what Helen may think. Forget Lowell. Say whatever comes into your mind. If de Keradel makes any assertions with which you don't agree, don't listen politely – challenge him. If it makes him lose his temper, all the better. Be just alcoholic enough to slip out of any inhibitions of courtesy. You talk, I listen. Do you get it?"

I laughed and said:

"In vino veritas. But your idea is to make my vino bring out the veritas in the other party. Sound psychology. All right, Bill, I'll take another small one."

He said: "You know your limit. But watch your step."

We went down to dinner. I was feeling interested, amused, and devil-may- care. The image I had of the Demoiselle was simplified to a mist of silver-gold hair over two splotches of purple-blue in a white face. On the other hand, Helen's was still the sharp-cut antique coin. We sat down at table. Dr. Lowell was at the head, at his left de Keradel, and at his right the Demoiselle Dahut. Helen sat beside de Keradel and I beside the Demoiselle. Bill sat between me and Helen. It was a nicely arranged table, with tall candles instead of electrics. The butler brought cocktails and they were excellent. I lifted mine to Helen and said:

"You are a lovely antique coin, Helen. Alexander the Great minted you. Someday I will put you in my pocket."

Dr. Lowell looked a bit startled. But Helen clinked glasses and murmured:

"You will never lose me, will you, darling?"

I said:

"No, sweetheart, nor will I give you away, nor let anybody steal you, my lovely antique coin."

There was the pressure of a soft shoulder against me. I looked away from Helen and straight into the eyes of the Demoiselle. They weren't just purple- blue splotches now. They were the damnedest eyes – big, and clear as a tropic shoal and little orchid sparks darted through them like the play of the sun through a tropic shoal when you turn over and look up through the clear water.

I said:

"Demoiselle Dahut – why do you make me think of the sea? I have seen the Mediterranean the exact color of your eyes. And the crests of the waves were as white as your skin. And there was sea-weed like your hair. Your fragrance is the fragrance of the sea, and you walk like a wave – "

Helen drawled:

"How poetic you are, darling. Perhaps you'd better eat your soup before you take another cocktail."

I said:

"Sweetheart, you are my antique coin. But you are not yet in my pocket. Nor am I in yours. I will have another cocktail before I eat my soup."

She flushed at that. I felt bad about saying it. But I caught a glance from Bill that heartened me. And the Demoiselle's eyes would have repaid me for any remorse – if I hadn't just then felt stir that inexplicable hot hatred, and knew quite definitely now that fear did lurk within it. She laid her hand lightly on mine. It had a curious tingling warmth. At the touch, the strange repulsion vanished. I realized her beauty with an almost painful acuteness. She said:

"You love the old things. It is because you are of the ancient blood – the blood of Armorica. Do you remember – "

My cocktail went splashing to the floor. Bill said:

"Oh, I beg your pardon, Alan. That was awkward of me. Briggs, bring Dr. Caranac another."

I said:

"That's all right, Bill."

I hoped I said it easily, because deep in me was anger, wondering how long it had been between that "remember" of the Demoiselle's and the overturning of my glass. When she had said it, the tingling warmth of her had seemed to concentrate itself into a point of fire, a spark that shot up my arm into my brain. And instead of the pleasant candle-lighted room, I saw a vast plain covered with huge stones arranged in ordered aisles all marching to a central circle of monoliths within which was a gigantic cairn. I knew it to be Carnac, that place of mystery of the Druids and before them of a forgotten people, from which my family had derived its name, changed only by the addition of a syllable during the centuries. But it was not the Carnac I had known when in Brittany. This place was younger; its standing stones upright, in place; not yet gnawed by the teeth of untold centuries. There were people, hundreds of them, marching along the avenues to the monolithed circle. And although I knew that it was daylight, a blackness seemed to hover over the crypt that was the circle's heart. Nor could I see the ocean. Where it should have been, and far away, were tall towers of gray and red stone, misty outlines of walls as of a great city. And as I stood there, long and long it seemed to me, slowly the fear crept up my heart like a rising tide. With it crept, side by side, cold, implacable hatred and rage.