Уильям Макгиверн - Collected Fiction - 1940-1963

Miss Stevens laughed. “You’re very poetic about it, Mr. Simon. I suppose it would be fun to travel through time, at that.”

“But I can,” Caesar said hoarsely. “I can travel through time.”

“Really, Mr. Simon, you’re carrying your gag a little far, I think.”

“It is no gag,” Caesar said. Suddenly, unaware of what he was doing, he sank to his knees at her feet. “I want you to come with me, my love, I beg you to come with me. Together we will live as a king and queen in that glorious city.”

“You’re being ridiculous, Mr. Simon,” Kay said, in a sharp, unamused voice.

“No, I’m not! You must believe! We can go to Rome, you and I, and live there in unimaginable splendor. The brightest jewels and fabrics of the East will adorn your body. Slaves will attend your every wish. We will have power, immense power, and life will be one constant succession of passion and fulfillment.”

Kay struggled to her feet, forcing him aside. “Goodby, Mr. Simon,” she said, and started for the door. He scrambled up and caught her arm. “You must listen,” he cried. He knew he was being mad. He should never have talked this way to her, he had frightened her, scared her away. But he couldn’t stop. The words poured out of him in a rush. “I have money, gold, more of it than you’ve ever dreamed existed. It’s in the bank’s vaults now, but I will take it back into time with me in the machine. You can share it with me, you can have it all, my love.”

“You’re insane, Mr. Simon,” Kay said. “Please let go my arm.”

Caesar saw the contempt and disgust in her face, heard it in her low, even voice. He knew then that his dream had been mad. She despised him, thought him a babbling, silly, repulsive old man. He began to tremble with rage. She would not dare look at him this way if he were a Roman nobleman. He would order her to the stake, or to the pit of the Colosseum, and he would smile down at her screams as the lions roared into the arena.

Cunning replaced his anger. “I am sorry to have startled you, Miss Stevens,” he said, in a voice that he tried to make normal. “It was just a little joke of mine.”

“I didn’t find it amusing,” Kay said stiffly. “Goodby, Mr. Simon.”

“Goodby,” he said, and released her arm.

She turned to the door, turned her back to him, and his hands, feverish with need, shot out and fastened about her throat.

Caesar dragged her limp body into his bedroom. He was breathing very hard, and there was a curious insistent drumbeat in his temples. His head was light and dizzy, but he felt supremely confident.

Everything would work out all right. He would come back for her in the time machine. That was how he planned to get the gold. A trip back through one hour, just one hour, would put him in the vaults of the bank. Instead of crashing in, or sneaking in, he would come in on the broad but invisible road of time. Then, after he had collected the gold, he would make another trip to his apartment — going back another hour into time. He would load Kay Stevens into the machine and depart for the past, secure from any retribution, and facing a future of power and luxury. Then he would tame her, he thought, breathing heavily. Then she would learn to conceal that expression of contempt. She would learn the meaning of humility; she would learn to please her lord.

He stretched her out on his bed, and put a hand towel across her mouth. From the bathroom he got a roll of broad adhesive tape, and with strips of it fastened the towel securely across her mouth. Not too tightly, he reminded himself. He didn’t want her to suffocate. Then he bound her wrists behind her back and taped her ankles together. Thoughtfully, and with a smile at his own thoroughness, he removed her open-toed sandals. No chance of her raising a racket with her heels against the bedstead now. He was about to secure her feet to the foot of the bed, when something happened which caused his heart to make an agonized, convulsive leap against his ribs.

A knock sounded on the door of his apartment. “No, no,” he whispered.

The knock was repeated loudly, and a hand rattled the doorknob.

Caesar wet his lips, and glared around the room like a frightened rabbit. “No, no,” he said again, wringing his fat hands together piteously. Go away, go away, he implored the nameless door-knocker.

But the knocks came again, resolute and angry.

Caesar got hold of himself with an effort. He must answer the door. The manager of the building knew he was in, and if inquiries were started he would come up with a passkey.

Caesar picked up his secretary’s limp and helpless body and staggered across to the closet. He held her with one arm while he got the door open, then pushed her in and eased her down to the floor. Breathing jerkily from this exertion, he closed the door, ran his hands over his disordered hair, and hurried into the living room to answer the door.

Al Marshall stood in the hallway, a stern, no-nonsense look on his face.

“I came by to pick up Miss Stevens,” he said.

“Well, well,” Caesar said. He smiled and blinked his eyes. What did this mean? Al Marshall, the assistant cashier of the bank, and Miss Stevens? A little interoffice romance, eh?

“I’m sorry, but she’s gone,” he said.

“Isn’t that her purse on the floor?” Marshall said, staring past Caesar, and at the floor.

Caesar turned, fighting down a giddy impulse to begin giggling. Yes, It was her purse, all right, dropped there when he had caught her throat in his hands. “Why, so it is,” he murmured. “Perhaps you’d be good enough to take it along with you,” he said. “That is, if you’re seeing her tonight, you could give it to her.”

Marshall pushed past him and strolled into the room. “I’ve got a funny idea there’s something screwy here,” he said. He glanced at Caesar. “Supposing you convince me I’m wrong.”

Caesar smiled weakly. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m going to take a look around,” Marshall said. “Girls don’t leave their purses in the middle of the floor as a rule.”

“Well, supposing you try the bedroom first,” Caesar said. The cunning came back to him, and he smiled. “That’s where old ogres like me usually imprison lovely females, isn’t it?”

Marshall started for the bedroom. Caesar picked up a large marble ashtray and followed him, chattering casually. “You’d better try the closets too, of course,” he said. “And the bathroom. J might have hidden her in the shower stall, you know.”

Marshall stopped inside the bedroom, hands on his hips. Caesar stepped up behind him, and raised the ashtray high above his head.

Panic swept through him as he stared down at Marshall’s limp body, and watched the blood flowing from the contusion at the base of his skull. Now he had done it! His time table was destroyed! When Marshall came around he’d phone the police, discover Miss Stevens. She’d tell him what she knew of the time machine, the planned theft of the bank’s gold. The police might be on him before he could escape into the past.

He must flee. Everything else was unimportant. He must leave Miss Stevens. Nothing could stop him now from his flight to ancient Rome. That was the great dream, and it must be lived.

He tore open the door of the closet and jerked down the friar’s robe, his disguise for old Rome.

Half an hour later he was hammering on the door of Kirkpatrick’s room. Kirkpatrick opened the door and stared at him in bewilderment.

“What’s the devil’s wrong?” he said.

“Not a moment to lose,” Caesar panted. “There’s a plot to destroy the time machine. Vicious men — news got out — they’re after it. We must hide it away. Hurry, man!”