"Nonsense!" Germaine said emphatically. Hers was the authoritative tone of a mother assuring her child that the lightning cannot possibly hit the house in a thunderstorm.
"I don't see how you can call it nonsense," I told her. "There he stood in my office, a little man with a big Adam's apple, telling me that God was on my track. I'm used to being followed by the F.B.I., but now this!"
She stretched out in her chaise longue before the bedroom fire until I thought of the Apostle who stated that the Lord delighteth not in any man's legs. Obviously, he had never seen my wife's gams.
"He sounds like a religious maniac," she observed.
"He admitted it, Jimmie. He was even proud of it. When he was standing there he seemed to make more sense than most things that happen in Wall Street. He could be right."
Germaine giggled. "If God finds you, Winnie," she said, "I hope He doesn't arrive when—I mean, it might be rather embarrassing?"
"Again the one-track mind," I remarked. "You don't suppose that sex is any news to the Old Man, do you? He invented it, darling."
"You know, Winnie," she replied dreamily, "sometimes you are almost a poet. Just the same, if He came after me I'd like to have Him find me with a new hairdo."
"So far as I am concerned," I told her, "it's just as well the Old Man didn't catch up with me on some recent occasions. He might have received a false impression of my eligibility for the Club."
"Pooh!" Germaine remarked with great decision. "He'd better not try any nonsense with you if I'm around. You're my Winnie and you're going to Heaven right along with me if I have to cheat the Customs."
I yawned. "I hope Saint Peter will be suitably impressed and not like those tough guys at the Port of New York. What I'd really like to get at is all this business about Von Bieberstein. I'd never heard of him till last week and now it's got me jittery. Who he is God only knows and He hasn't tipped off the F.B.I."
"I'm not very religious, darling," my wife said, "but from what I remember from Sunday School, God wasn't supposed to be a tattle-tale. He'll take care of Von Bieberstein, if there is such a person."
I laughed. "If there isn't, the F.B.I.'s going to look awfully silly when they come to write the history books. J. Edgar Hoover would turn over in his job at the very thought."
"You know," she continued drowsily, "I think that Von Bieberstein is just a name they've given to all the things they can't solve. Like luck. You know the way people say, 'Bad Luck!' Well, the F.B.I. says 'Von Bieberstein' every time a ship sinks or a factory makes the wrong kind of shell. You wait and see, Winnie, and you'll find out I am right."
"Speaking of luck," I asked, "What's the news from the kennels? Has Ponto met his fiancee yet or haven't the banns been published?"
"Dalrymple seemed to think that it would be very easy to equip him with a suitable girl friend," she said demurely. "It appears that there's a war-time shortage of sires or something, so I gather that there's no particular problem in Ponto's love-life. Dalrymple said we could come and get him the end of the week—Friday or Saturday. Poor dear. I think we ought to put orange blossoms in his dog-biscuit when he gets home."
I laughed. "That's one load off my mind. I hope you're right and that it will steady him down. They say that the responsibilities of marriage do wonders for a young dog. It makes him respect property, maintain the social order, and vote the straight Republican ticket."
"Idiot!"
"Yes, I'm thinking of running Ponto in the next election. He'd make a mighty fine Governor and he'd be sure to leave his mark in the Senate. Who knows, we might even elect him President."
Germaine stretched again, with considerable candor. "Darling," she announced, "you're dithering. Let's go to bed."
"Not until we get this religious argument straightened out," I objected. "I think I owe it to Mr. Smith to make some kind of move. The politicians and the psychiatrists have failed me. There's only religion left. And besides, I still have half of my drink to finish."
I put another birch-log on the fire and watched as the flames brightened and cast a flickering glow on the canopy of my wife's bed.
"My idea's this," I told her. "It's very undignified to sit around waiting for the Old Man to look me up, if He's really trying to find me, as Smith says. I think I'd better start a search party of my own. There are no doubt a lot of things He'll want to ask me about, but there are some points on which, damn it! I'm entitled to an explanation."
"You talk such rot, darling," she murmured. "Wise gods never explain anything. It's take it or leave it. You just wait. You'll see."
"I'd like to know who Von Bieberstein is, just to get ahead of A. J. Harcourt. If the Old Man won't tell me that, at least I'm entitled to know who I am."
"You're my Winnie," she repeated half-asleep. "I'll see that you get past the immigration authorities. I'll smuggle you in under my skirts, like Helen of Troy. St. Peter's far too respectable a man to try to see what I've got there."
"Nowyou'remaudlin," I told her. "From what I know of Greek costumes, Helen of Troy couldn't have smuggled a Chihuahua into Troy under whatshewore. Anyhow, these saints have X-ray eyes that can spot a sin right through skirt, girdle and brassiere. Besides, I weigh too much. I'm much more like the unforgivable sin. Suppose I just pretend I lost my passport."
"It will be all right, darling," Germaine assured me. "And if they won't let us into Heaven, God knows they'd be delighted to put us up in Hell. It would raise the value of real estate overnight. I can just hear the Devil arguing with prospective tenants. 'We have such nice people in the next bed of coals. They're from Westchester and the name's Tompkins'."
"Any time a real estate agent urges you to take a residence, that's Heaven," I told her. "You dither delightfully, especially when you're half asleep. But I don't want to get into Hell on false pretenses. It's not fair to the management. What I propose to do is to go out, and see if I can't find the Old Man before He finds me, and see if I can't fix up my passport right now. As you say, it could be embarrassing otherwise. Then I'll march straight up to Him, look Him in the eye and ask Him what the Hell He means—"
She sat up and held out her glass. "More brandy," she ordered.
I fixed her drink and my own and looked at the coals of the log-fire.
"How are you going to set out?" Germaine asked. "No, don't laugh, darling. It might be quite important. You see, if I—if we—Oh, if we should have a child, it would be good to know—" she paused, at a loss for words.
"It does sound crazy, doesn't it?" I said. "'Middle-aged Stock Broker Cleans up in Wall Street, Looks for God.' Well, I suppose the best thing to do is to consult the clergymen."
"Then you'd better not start in Westchester," she advised. "They're all bleating celibates like poor old Ponto or broad-clothed men of affairs who shoot a darn good game of golf and never offend the vestrymen. I'd try New York City, if I were you, Winnie. They have the best architects, the best food, the best doctors, the best actors, and the best red-heads in the world. They might even have the best clergymen."
"That doesn't follow," I told her, "but I agree the chances are better there than up here."
"I'm going to approach this thing scientifically," I continued. "I'm going to pick a Protestant—probably a Presbyterian—"
"Yes," she agreed. "Dopick a Presbyterian. They build such lovely New England churches and they believe in infant damnation, or is that the Mormons?"
"Shush!" I rebuked her. "As I was saying when you so rudely interrupted me, a Presbyterian, and they believe in predestination with only occasional leanings to infant damnation. And then I'll try a Jewish Rabbi. I'm told that they are very highly educated men with a grasp of spiritual fundamentals as well as a remarkable fund of practical knowledge. And, of course, a Catholic priest."
"Not Father Aloysius Murphy!" Germaine besought me. "I couldn't bear it if you consulted him. I don't know why and of course I'm not a Catholic but every time I hear him on the radio I wish the Pope would send him as a missionary to Russia. Please don't pick any of these fashionable priests or rabbis, darling. Try to find simple, poor men who aren't trying to advertise themselves or raise money."
I finished my drink and picked her up in my arms. "It's long past bed-time," I told her. "Here, drink it down and I'll put you to bed. I didn't know you gave a damn about religion and here you are talking like a Joan of Arc or—"
She put her empty glass down on the bed-side table and slipped out of her dressing-gown.
"You don't know me very well," she said quietly. "To you, I'm just your wife, not a separate person at all, and it's rather nice, but—No, I'm not religious and Heaven knows the saints would have hysterics if they heard you call me Joan of Arc. It's just that—Well, I was brought up on church and Sunday School and the Catechism and forgot it all as soon as I graduated from Miss Spence's and had my coming-out party. But they are all so proud and grand, these clergymen. They are so sure of themselves. I once went to an Easter service in Washington, it was at St. Thomas's, when the sermon was entirely devoted to a passionate plea for money, money, money. I've never met a clergyman yet who didn't hint that while the Lord loved my soul, the Church would settle for cash."
"I suppose the churches need money like everybody else," I suggested. "At least they don't charge admission like the movies."
"Oh, I know they need money but they can't need money as much as people need goodness or God or whatever it is they do need. I'd like to find a single good simple man who wasn't too sure of himself. Well, I can't explain. Get undressed and come to bed, darling. The sheets are bitterly cold."
I chucked my clothes onto the chair by the fire.
"Hell!" I exclaimed. "That would be too awful!"
Germaine made a vague questioning noise.
"Suppose we are resurrected not as we'd like to be but as we are. You'd be safe. You have the build of an angel and you'd be a knockout with wings, but I'd look like a ringer even in the best of haloes and with this weight I'd need a terrific wing-spread to get off the ground. Even then, I'd have to have a run-way."
I fixed the fire so it would keep burning for a couple of hours and adjusted the fire-screen so that there was no chance of a stray spark landing on the carpet. Then I crossed to the window overlooking the lawn and opened it on the cool spring night. The moon, now suspiciously less virginal in figure but still shamelessly serene in silver, rode in the western sky and the scents of spring drifted in on the light breeze. There was no sound save the distant jingling of the peepers and the near-by rustle of the dry vines outside the window-frame.
"I wish to God I knew who I am," I muttered.
"No doubt you'll be asking me to reconcile predestination and free will," observed Dr. Angus McGregor, minister of the Tenth Presbyterian Church of Manhattan.
"That wasn't quite my question, sir," I replied. "I asked you whether you could justify the Lord's putting my soul into another man's body. Am I to be responsible for the sins the other man committed?"
"Ah!" Dr. McGregor remarked, with relish, "It is the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. No doubt he kens what he's about. It will all be made known on the great Day of Judgment. Now about predestination and free will, you'll have marked that many grand philosophers and divines have debated the point. 'Tis a nice point. 'Tis the theologicalpons asinorum."
"Yes," I interrupted, "but do you consider that I am bound by this body or will I be returned to my own before I come to the Judgment? And is my soul involved in another man's sins?"
Dr. McGregor drew a deep puff on his pipe. "Oh aye!" he declared. "The principle of vicarious sacrifice has been observed ever since that ne'er-do-weel Cain asked, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' Aye, Mr. Tompkins, surely you are involved in the sins of others. Take your own case now. I believe your tale. Fearful and wonderful things have happened in this weary world, before now, by the will of the Lord. It is written by the Roman historian Tacitus that the pagan emperor Vespasian—that grand benefactor to whom the world owes the fine invention of the public comfort station—performed miracles in Egypt, making the blind to see, and healing the cripples. These miracles are as well attested as any in Holy Scripture. If the Lord permitted to a heathen potentate these gifts of spiritual healing, can I deny that He might for His own good reasons permit your soul to inhabit another man's body?"
"But what is my moral responsibility in this predicament, Dr. McGregor? Where does my duty lie?"
"It is all related to yon matter of free will and predestination," he insisted. "Your duty, man, is to fear the Lord and praise Him. You will have taken this other man's wife, will you not? You will have taken his money and his home, his name and his business. Aye, if you take these likely you will take his sins as well. Dinna believe that the Lord has no a reason for all this.
"Now," he continued, "'tis no great difficulty to reconcile free will and predestination."
"I'm not a religious man, doctor," I cut him off, "but you have given me help. Will you accept a check for your church—say a thousand dollars?"
"Aye, Mr. Tompkins, I will that! I cannot help you but I can only tell you to put your trust in the mercy and the justice of the Lord. 'Tis all a man can do."
So I wrote out a check for a thousand dollars to the order of the Tenth Presbyterian Church of Manhattan, and shook his hand.
He thanked me. "Now," he announced. "I must be on my way to comfort a poor body that's dying o' the cancer. 'Tis an old lady and she takes great comfort from her pain in the thought that she has been chosen by the Lord to suffer for the sins of others. 'Tis no a sound theology, mind you, but 'tis a mighty solace as her time comes nigh."
My next stop was at the office of Rabbi Benjamin Da Silva of the Temple Ben-David. Him I had located by consulting the classified telephone directory and had made an appointment to meet him in his study in the Synagogue. He was a slender, quietly dressed young man, with the eager face of a scholar and the air of repose of a mystic. The walls of his room were lined with books and as I noted Hebraic, Greek, Latin and Arabic titles, as well as German, French and English, I realized that I was dealing with a deeply cultured man. His voice was musical and low, as he asked me to be seated.
"Rabbi Da Silva," I began, "before I begin I would like to ask you to accept on behalf of your congregation a gift of a thousand dollars as a token of my gratitude for consenting to hear my story. Perhaps you can help me, perhaps not. As you realize, I am not of your faith but I need your wisdom. I am trying to find my soul."
"So are we all, Mr. Tompkins," the Rabbi assured me. "What is your problem?"
I recited the events which made it imperative for me to recollect the events prior to April second; I told him of the reasons that convinced me that I, Frank Jacklin, was living in Winfred Tompkins' body; I outlined the moral and personal problems involved in this confusion of personalities; I indicated the psychiatric and other tests that had been made. Naturally, I did not mention the Alaska, the thorium bomb, Z-2 or Von Bieberstein.
When I had completed my account, Rabbi Da Silva gazed abstractedly at the small coal fire which smouldered in the grate of his study.
"Why did you come to me, Mr. Tompkins?" he asked.
"Because I hoped that in your studies of the human soul, you might have found knowledge that would help me."
He sat silent for some minutes.
"For many centuries," he began at last, "there has been a curious belief among you Christians that the Jewish rabbinate possesses mystic knowledge of the occult. No doubt that belief derives from the early Middle Ages when the Jews became in part the means by which the science and culture of the Saracen East was brought to the ignorant barbarous West. That service was turned against us by the superstitions and prejudices of Christendom and we were regarded as akin to sorcerers and witch-masters. Even today in Germany, we are paying for our crime of having brought enlightenment to Europe in the Dark Ages."
"Then you can't help me?" I asked.
"I did not say so, Mr. Tompkins," the Rabbi replied. "Certainly I cannot help you in any occult manner. I cannot pick a book from the shelves, mutter a few words in Hebrew and resolve your spiritual problems with a whiff of brimstone. The casting out of devils is not included in Judaism. Indeed, it has gone out of fashion in Christendom."
"What can you suggest?" I inquired. "Many important events, including the possible capture of a dangerous Nazi spy, depend on my recovering my memory."
"Even with that inducement," the Rabbi remarked with an ironic smile, "I am not in a position to urge any particular course on you. Assume, for the sake of argument, that you are the victim of what is called a demoniac possession, Mr. Tompkins. Are you sure that you would be benefited by casting out the soul of Frank Jacklin and resuming command of your own personality? Is not Winfred Tompkins a better and happier man under the influence of Jacklin than he was as himself? In other words, Mr. Tompkins, you may not be seeking to cast out a devil at all, but an angel of the Lord. Of course, I am speaking in moral metaphor and not as a scientist or a theologian. My advice to you would be to ignore your loss of memory and live out your life as best you can and be thankful that whatever it is that caused this change has been for your betterment and has brought happiness to others."
I shook my head. "I know that I am foolish to insist, Rabbi Da Silva," I said. "What you say is just about what the psychiatrists advised. Yet I must open that locked door and see what is hidden in the secret room."
Da Silva smiled gently. "Yes," he agreed, "I see that you must. Bluebeard's wife felt much the same and the charm and universal meaning of that great fable is that humanity must always open the closed doors, even at the risk of destruction. All wisdom urges us to leave well enough alone, yet our instinct is wiser than wisdom itself. God bless you, Mr. Tompkins, and may you come to no harm if you find the key to this locked room."
"Thank you, sir," I said. "Now there remain only the Catholics. Perhaps a parish priest—"
"I shall be very much surprised if a priest advises you differently, Mr. Tompkins," the Rabbi observed. "Drop in again some time and tell me, will you?"
I gave him his check for the Temple Ben-David and went on to the rectory of St. Patrick's-by-the-Gashouse, where I asked for the priest.
"Sure, Father Flanagan's celebrating Mass," the aged housekeeper rebuked me.
"I'll wait," I told her. "I have a contribution for the church. I must give it to him personally."
"Glory be!" she remarked, and withdrew, muttering.
Father Flanagan was a burly, well-built young Irish-American with a friendly smile and a crushing handshake.
"Mrs. Casey tells me you have something for the church, Mr.—"
"My name's Tompkins, Father. I have a check for a thousand dollars. I'll give it to you now. There are no strings to it but I'd like to ask you to help me."
"Well, I'll be—You know, Mr. Tompkins," Father Flanagan told me, "just this morning at breakfast Mrs. Casey said she was praying that we'd finish raising the money for the new altar before the Bishop's visit, and here it is. Isn't that wonderful, now?"
"There you are, Father," I told him, "and welcome to it."
"Thank you, Mr. Tompkins," the priest said simply. "I shall remember you in my prayers and so, no doubt, will Mrs. Casey. You're not a Catholic, of course?"
"No," I replied. "I don't seem to be anything that makes sense medically, legally or morally. I need help."
So I told him the whole story from beginning to end, and added the advice I had already received from Dr. McGregor and Rabbi Da Silva.
Father Flanagan heard me out and then considered carefully.
"I've heard some strange things in Confession," he stated at last, "but they never taught us at Notre Dame how to deal with a problem like yours. I'd rather like to consult the Bishop before I undertook to advise you. Do you mind?"
"Yes, I do," I told the priest. "It's no disrespect for your bishop. It's just that I feel that this problem must be solved on a low level rather than by the higher echelons. In the Navy, we soon learned that the best way to get a problem loused up was to refer it to CINCPAC. What is your own reaction to my story?"
Father Flanagan pursed his lips and pondered for a moment. "Speaking as a man," he said, "and not as a priest, it looks to me as though you were sitting pretty, Mr. Tompkins. Naturally, I have no explanation for it and the psychiatrists seem to have given you a clean bill of health, so maybe you're not crazy. I have a vague idea that there's reference to something like your experience in the Patristic writings which I read when I was studying for the priesthood. It's all mixed up with the Gnostics and necromancy but it's hard to tell how much you can accept literally in that material. Pagan literature is full of it, such as Apuleius' 'The Golden Ass', in which a witch turns a man into a donkey, but that's admittedly fancy. As I say, you seem to be sitting pretty. By your own account, Commander Jacklin's life was pretty much of a failure and Tompkins was not exactly what you could call a huge moral success. Yet you, as Jacklin, seem to be doing a pretty good job with Tompkins' life. Why don't you let it go at that?"
"I can't, Father," I told him. "I've got to find out what Tompkins was doing just before Easter. Even if it's only for that one week, I've got to know."
"And you say that so far nobody has been able to help you?"
"Nobody," I replied. "The doctors call it trauma and say that my memory may come back to me at any time, but I can't wait."
He smiled. "'Can't' is a big and human word. Have you tried hypnotism? Or scopolamine? They aren't exactly liturgical and my Bishop would have a fit if he heard me mention them—he considers them on a par with mediums and spiritualism—but they have some value in restoring memory."
I slapped my knee. "Thanks, Father!" I exclaimed. "You've given me an idea. I'll try a medium."
The priest looked grave. "I wouldn't do that, now, if I were you, Mr. Tompkins," he told me. "That kind of thing is too close to Black Magic and devil-worship for decent men to play with."
"I hope I don't shock you, Father Flanagan," I replied, "but if God can't help me, I'll have to go to the Devil."
"I shall pray for you, Mr. Tompkins," the priest said.
After I left St. Patrick's-by-the-Gashouse I went to a corner saloon and telephoned the F.B.I. I asked for Harcourt but was told that he was out to lunch, which reminded me that I was hungry. A private treaty with the bartender brought me a steak sandwich, and no questions asked. Apple pie and coffee followed, and were not too horrible. I smoked a cigarette, drank a second cup of coffee, and called the F.B.I. again.
This time Harcourt had returned from lunch and he talked as though he had swallowed the Revised Statutes of the United States but that they gave him indigestion.
"See here, Andy," I told him at last. "I'm not looking for legal advice, I want to consult a medium. Any medium. If I picked one out of the phone-book you'd have the headache of checking on her, as I suppose you're checking on the clergymen I saw this morning. So this time just save yourself the trouble, and tell me who I should see."
"The Bureau doesn't endorse spiritualists," he informed me, but the old J. Edgar Hoover spirit was running thin and his heart wasn't in it.
"I'm not asking the Bureau to endorse anything, not even a candy laxative," I replied. "Just you tell me the name and address of one reasonably respectable medium and I'll take care of the rest. And don't pretend that the Bureau has no record of mediums in New York City."
"Mr. Tompkins," he said—and I could fairly hear the hum of the recording machine on the telephone—"The Bureau does not endorse any so-called spiritualist mediums. Naturally, under the leadership of our present Director, the New York office has made a close check on all self-styled spiritualistic mediums in this city. One of these who has established her bona fides for purposes of identification only is Madam Claire la Lune, 1187 Lenox Avenue."
"Eleven eighty-seven Lenox," I repeated after him. "That's in Harlem. Madam Claire la Lune sounds like the dark of the moon to me. Say, Andy, hasn't she a friend named Pierrot?"
There was a pause at the other end of the wire. "No, sir, Mr. Tompkins," came the F.B.I. official voice.
"Okay," I told him. "I suppose you'll have to check on her as on everybody else but I wanted you to start calling the shots so as to save trouble for all of us. I'm going to consult Madam Lune, so you can tell your agents to rendezvous at 1187 Lenox Avenue. I'll be there in about twenty minutes."
Eleven eighty-seven Lenox did not seem prepossessing from the spiritual angle. Madam la Lune's apartment was on the third floor, walk-up, and smelled of cabbage, diapers and African sweat. Madam la Lune herself was a light mulatto with a superb figure and a face so deeply scarred by smallpox that it looked like a map of Southern lynchings since 1921.
She seemed reluctant to deal with me on a professional basis, even after I had offered her a twenty-dollar bill, until I told her that the F.B.I. had recommended her and that I needed her help.
"Oh," she said. "Tha's differ'nt. Jest you wait till I turn down my stove."
She ushered me into a close and smelly little room, with black velvet curtains and a couch covered with black sateen. Madam la Lune lay down on the couch and directed me to turn off the electric light from the switch by the door. Although it was still early afternoon, the room was so dark that I could barely make out the form of the medium or find my way back to my chair.
For a time there was no sound except for the deep regular breathing of the medium. Then suddenly came the shrill voice of a pickaninny.
"I'se here," the voice cried. "It's Silver-Bell, mammy, I'se here."
I smiled to myself in the Harlem dusk. It was so obviously the usual racket. There was the medium in her ten cent trance—the voice of her "control" was coming through. I had only to ask and I would receive a vague and blotting paper reply to any question.
"I'se here, mammy," the child's voice repeated. "What you want, mammy? Silver-Bell's here."
Madam la Lune snorted and snored on the couch. My eyes had become more accustomed to the dim light and I noticed how she had loosened her blouse so that her superb bust rose in twin-peaked Kilimanjaro against the wall.
"Silver-Bell's here, mammy," the child's voice said again. "What you want?"
"I want," I said, "to speak to Frank Jacklin. He died in the North Pacific about three weeks ago."
There was a pause, during which the snorting breaths of the medium were the only sound in the smelly little room. Then the child's voice rose, shrill and petulant.
"You funning, mammy, you funning. They ain't no Jacklin over here. Jacklin ain' dead. Jacklin sittin' right by yo' side, mammy. He police, mammy, he police."
Madam la Lune stirred and I sensed her sightless eyes turning, turning toward me in the dark.
"No, I'm not police, Silver-Bell," I said. "If you can't find Jacklin, I want to speak to Winnie Tompkins."
For several minutes there was a long silence.
Then came an impish giggle.
"Here's Mr. Tompkins, mammy, but my! he do look funny. He don' look like he used ter look."
Again silence.
"Here he is, mammy. Here he is. What do you want to know?"
"Ask him," I said, "whether he is well and happy."
The hair rose on the back of my neck and a slow shiver ran down my spine as the answer came. The answer was the familiar barking of a dog—deep, strong, savage.
"Is that you, Ponto?" I asked.
The answering bark came "Woof! Woof!"
"Where is Mr. Tompkins?"
More "woofs."
"Where is Commander Jacklin?"
Silence.
"Are you alive?"
"Woof! Woof!"
"Am I alive?"
Silence.
"Is your name Ponto?" I ventured again.
"Where is Von Bieberstein?" I demanded but my question was drowned in a storm of barking.
"I's tired, mammy," came the child's voice. "Silver-Bell's tired."
The voice trailed off, leaving me in the stifling little Harlem parlor with the mulatto woman snoring.
I sat, bemused, in the straight-back chair across the room from her. My eyes had now got used to the thin light that filtered around the heavy black curtain. I noticed a fleck of white about the corners of her mouth and I made silent note of the way her body heaved with its tortured breathing. After a while, she stirred.
"You theah, Mr. Tompkins?"
"Yes, I'm here."
"You fin' out what you wan'?" she inquired.
"I found out that you're a fraud," I told her. "You're welcome to my money but I'm damned if I think you've earned it."
She sat up and adjusted her clothing calmly. "What for you say that, Mr. Tompkins?" she demanded. "Spirits come, and spirits go. You ask questions. Maybe they give you the answers. I don't know."
"Very clever, Madam la Lune," I observed. "Harcourt phones you I'm on my way and tells you what to do. I'm supposed to come in and swallow it all. Well, I'm not interested in that game. All I want to know is how you managed to imitate my dog?"
Madam la Lune rose and peered at me in the dusk.
"White man," she said. "What dog you talkin' about? I ain't seen no dog."
The words I had planned to fling at her died in my throat. Fraud or not, she was superb. Her pock-marked face had a haughty dignity and her bearing was that of a great queen.
"I'm sorry," I apologized, without knowing why. "I'm in trouble. I hoped you could help me. All I got out of your trance was a child laughing and a dog barking."
Her eyes glowed in the twilit room.
"What this dog?" she demanded. "You know this dog?"
"Yes," I told her. "It's my dog. His name is Ponto. He's a Great Dane and he's at the kennels."
"You go, Mr. Tompkins," she ordered me. "You better go fast. That dog—wha's his color now?"
"Black," I said.
"Yes, black," She rolled her eyes until I saw the whites.
"That black dog don' mean no good to you or yours. You keep away fum that dog, Mr. Tompkins. No, suh, I don't want you money. There's no luck with you, white man, with that black dog. I don' know how Ah knows, but Ah does know."
As I walked out into the bright cool air of Lenox Avenue, I felt relieved. Madame la Lune was an interesting enough type. She obviously had the primitive sense of second sight, intuition, whatever it is, that let her penetrate behind human appearances. The medium business was just a trade trick. In Africa or Haiti she could have been a witch-doctor with a pet snake. In New Orleans, even, she would be a voodoo priestess. Here in Harlem, she had become a medium. Of course, she was a fraud, but how had she imitated the barking of the Great Dane?
Then I laughed so loudly that a passing colored man sheered violently away from me. Of course, that was it. I had been right all the time. This was Harcourt's work. He had recommended Madame la Lune to me and then told her how to behave. Damn his insolence!
I stopped dead and only stirred when the violent and prolonged sounding of an automobile horn reminded me that I was standing in the middle of a cross-street. How did Harcourt know about Ponto when he had never seen him? And how could he tell the medium how to imitate Ponto's bark?
On the next corner was a dive—a saloon that advertised "Attractions" and from whose doors welled the jungle thumping of Harlem jazz.
I slipped in and sat down at a corner table. A tall, colored girl, whose scanty white silk blouse was not designed to conceal anything, came over and leaned down to take my order.
"Wha' yo' want, honey-man?" she asked sullenly.
The band on the platform let loose with a blast of traps and trombone.
"Let's dance," I said.
She nodded with a curious dignity and I found myself parading, dipping and swaying around a tiny dancefloor, while the black girl pressed her body against me despairingly.
I pulled off to the side and led her back to my table.
"Why do you do this?" I asked.
She said nothing.
"You need money?" I asked.
She still said nothing.
"Here!" I said.
I pulled out my check-book and wrote out a check for a thousand dollars payable to cash.
"This is for you," I told her. "Take it and do whatever you want to do. The check's good."
The girl looked at me, took the check, studied it. Then she rose, in complete silence, looked at me again and left me. She shrugged her way through the dancers and the waiters to the rear of the room and disappeared. I did not know her name and I never saw her again.
A high-ochre girl came over.
"Change yo' luck?" she asked, bending over so that I could see down the front of her scant-cut dress.
"My luck's done changed," I told her. "Give me a drink and here's a ten-spot for yourself. And I'll be on my way."
She tucked the bill down the front of her dress. "May you have good luck, man," she said gravely.
As she said it, her eyes widened and her mouth hung open. "Gawd!" she muttered. "The black dog's follering you!" and fled.
"I know," I said to the room at large, and left without waiting for my drink.
I walked down Lenox Avenue to the first cigar-store and telephoned the office.
As soon as I was connected with Arthurjean I asked her to meet me at her apartment as soon as she could make it. Then I hailed a cab and was driven south through Central Park to the upper east Fifties' and my secretary's apartment. She was waiting.
"Gee, honey," she exclaimed. "I just got here. What's cooking?"
I followed her in and went straight to the kitchenette. I poured myself a stiff drink and downed it rapidly. I poured myself another and turned to see her staring at me.
"You look terrible," she told me. "What's happened to you?"
"I can't tell you," I replied. "You'd think I'm crazy and you'd turn me in."
"I will not!"
She came up close to me and looked me square in the eye. "I don't care if you're crazy as a bed-bug," she announced. "Go on and 'pit it out in momma's hand. I won't squeal."
"Sit down!" I ordered, "and get yourself a drink first. This is tough."
She sat and listened quietly as I outlined the latest developments.
"So you see," I concluded, "Ican'ttell anyone. They'd have me locked up for keeps."
She nodded. "Yeah," she agreed. "I can see that.... Maybe your wife—"
"I couldn't tellher," I contradicted. "It would be too damn cruel just now when she's really happy."
Arthurjean sat and thought for a while. "Yep," she remarked, as though she had just concluded a long argument. "You're right. You can't tell nobodythat. How about this nosey A. J. Harcourt? Won't he find out? He's still having you tailed."
"I don't see how he could," I told her, "unless that Madame la Lune is a complete phoney—which doesn't make sense. She and I were alone in the room. If it was a plant, there's nothing to tell. If she's on the level she won't remember what went on."
"That's no plant," Arthurjean Briggs announced. "It wouldn't make sense for the F.B.I. to pull it. Harcourt sent you there in the first place but he wouldn't put her up to a trick like that."
"He'll be hot on my trail then," I said. "All those clergymen I saw will have to be checked—when all the time—"
"Do you know what I'd do if I was you," she said abruptly. "I'd get rid of that damn dog—but fast."
"You mean sell it?" I asked.
"I mean kill it. It isn't natural, acting that way. It's been worrying you nigh crazy, that's what it's been doing. You just take it to the vet's and have it chloroformed. They do it all the time on account of the rabbis—"
"Rabies," I corrected.
"That's right, but they do it, don't they? You don't have to get permission. He's your property. You can tell the vet he bit you—"
I started up. "Hell!" I exclaimed. "I've got to get him away from the kennels fast. It's—it's—"
Arthurjean put her large, strong hand on my shoulder.
"There, honey," she soothed me. "It's all right. It's going to be all right."
I looked at her and realized that she hadn't believed a word of my story.
"See here—" I began, when the door-bell rang.
"Two-to-one it's Harcourt," I remarked.
"I hope so," said Arthurjean coloring faintly.
"Well, what's all this about?" I demanded, as a slow blush gathered in sunset fury upon her pleasant face. "Why, Arthurjean—"
"Lay off," she begged. "He's a nice guy and he hasn't got that family in Brooklyn he kept talking about. You and me are washed up—and—well, he's from the South, too, and he talks my language."
"Good luck," I told her. "But he's also on the doorstep, so take hold of yourself."
He was. She did.
"'Evening, Miss Briggs," the Special Agent said politely. "Any luck, Mr. Tompkins?"
I shook my head.
He looked reproachful. "Oh, come now," he pleaded. "Somethingmust have happened. You got out of Harlem like a bat out of hell and almost shook the agent who was tailing you. You don't look to me like nothing happened. Have you filled in that gap? Started to remember anything?"
"On my word of honor, Andy," I swore, "I haven't remembered a thing. The gap's still there."
He said nothing for a few minutes and exchanged a glance with Arthurjean.
"Something must have happened," he requested. "You've changed. Come clean, can't you? I'm only trying to help you."
"I can't tell you much of anything," I told him. "You wouldn't believe me if I did. There's been a sort of locked door inside my mind for the last three weeks. Now the door's unlocked and is beginning to swing open. I haven't looked inside, but I think I know what I'll find. I can't tell you more than that now."
"But you're going to look, aren't you?" he asked.
"I've got to look," I said.
He sighed. "Well, we'll just have to keep an eye on you so as to be around when you do. See here, Mr. Tompkins, you know your own business but this Von Bieberstein guy is nobody to monkey around with. He's plenty tough and he'd as soon kill as sneeze. Can't you give me a hint? I'm trained to take those risks and know how to take care of myself, and anyhow the Bureau is back of me."
I leaned back in my chair and laughed and laughed and laughed until I noticed that both Arthurjean and Harcourt were staring at me without smiling.
"Sorry," I apologized. "It's just that something struck me as rather funny. Well, Arthurjean, I'll be catching the train back to Westchester. You and Andy blow yourself to a dinner at my expense. I'll go down to the vet's first thing in the morning and follow your advice. Good night, Andy. I'll be seeing you."
That night I locked myself in my bedroom and slept alone. Germaine was worried but I put her aside with the explanation that I had a splitting headache—too much to drink, probably, was my explanation. The truth was that I didn't want to see or talk to my wife so that she could not guess the perfectly appalling knowledge that had come to me.
This was insane, I repeated to myself. Even Arthurjean Briggs, who had sworn never to turn me in, had not believed it. Yet no other explanation was open to me. The dog's whole conduct since that fatal afternoon of April second was consistent only with the utterly irrational theory that the body of the Great Dane had been possessed by the soul of Winnie Tompkins at the very moment when the latter's body—now mine—had been possessed by the soul of Frank Jacklin.
Everybody had a fairly nice set of words for the latter phenomenon—trauma, schizophrenia, neurasthenia, the Will of God—and the best advice was uniform: forget about it; it will wear off in time; take things easy, you've been working too hard; everybody's crazy.
Now just imagine trying to convince the F.B.I. or a psychiatrist that, in addition to this delusion, you know for a fact that a Great Dane is now inhabited by the soul that once resided in your own body. I could hear the clanging of the gong on the private ambulance as it raced me to the nearest asylum, I could feel my arms already in the strait-jacket. No one must ever know; Arthurjean must never tell. If she doubted me, she must never tell.
The way I figured it was this: Winnie had been asleep at the Pond Club. He had been worried about Ponto and Ponto was desperately ill—dying even—from distemper. Both of their—what was the word?—theiridsorpsycheswere relaxed, weakened, off-guard. Then the atomic explosion in the Aleutians, by some freak, had hurled my soul half-way around the world into the sleeping body of Winnie Tompkins. His soul had then crowded into the body of Ponto. Ponto's soul—if dogs have them, which I don't doubt—was out of luck. Permanently withdrawn.
Crazy? I'll say! I was the only person alive who knew that it was true and nobody would ever believe me, if only for the reason that it would always be much simpler to lock me up.
Quite obviously, Ponto knew that he was Winnie and resented my presence in his home. He had shown the jealousy and ill-temper natural to a man, instead of the friendliness of a dog. He had been humanly jealous of Germaine.
Suddenly I chuckled. By George! this was rich. Winnie in turn undoubtedly believed that I was Ponto. The Jacklin angle was outside of his range. No wonder he was furious with me when he saw that his household pet—a Great Dane—masquerading in his human body, had usurped his place in the affections of his wife and in authority over his home. Only hunger, which brings all things to terms, had broken his rebellion against this monstrous confusion. It must be tough to find yourself reduced to dog-biscuits and runs on the lawn.
I knew what I must do. Arthurjean had been right. The only way I could make myself secure was to have Ponto killed. Would this be murder? I wondered what Father Flanagan would make of it. Probably he would say, "Yes, it is murder if you believe that Winfred Tompkins is Ponto." Yet until Ponto was dead, there could be no security for me. At any moment, if the psychiatrists were right, the change might come, with a small shock, and Winnie Tompkins would resume lawful possession of his body, his home, his wife, his money, while I—Commander Frank Jacklin, U.S.N.R.—could count myself lucky to be allowed to sleep on a smelly old blanket on the floor in the corner and eat dog-biscuits and be offered as a thoroughbred sire.
There was still time to stop that nonsense. The strictly practical thing to do was to go to the kennels first thing in the morning. Then I'd take Ponto away from Dalrymple and drive down to White Plains and find a vet to give him chloroform. Thus I would be safe from the possibility of having Winnie reoccupy his body and drive me into Ponto's or, worse still, into the stratosphere to join the mild chemical mist that was all that remained of the body of Frank Jacklin.
All right, it was murder then. I would be murdering Winnie Tompkins, but I would be the only one who would know it—the Perfect Crime. I laughed to myself at the thought that now Harcourt would lose his last chance to learn what Winnie had done in that fatal week before Chalmis' thorium bomb had blown me and the Alaska into the Aurora Borealis.
Although it was a cool night, I was perspiring violently. My nerves were shot to pieces. After this, I would need a rest. Winnie's business was in good shape. I could afford to keep away from the office for a time, until I grew a new face, as it were, after this shattering discovery. Then Jimmie and I—perhaps we would have a child. I'd be damned if I'd let my son be a stock-broker with a Great Dane—I might even take the Ambassadorship to Canada. The Forbes-Dutton scheme sounded too raw even for Washington—it would backfire into another Teapot Dome.
I drew a deep breath and relaxed in my bed. My course was plain. First of all, I'd attend to Ponto—burn my canine bridges behind me. Then I'd take Dr. Folsom at his word and go to the Sanctuary for a couple of weeks. My nerveswereshot to pieces and if I didn't tell him or Pendergast Potter about this latest wrinkle in transmigration they would have no reason for detaining me against my will. Oh, yes, I'd have to see that Rutherford got his money. Merry Vail was still in Hartford, damn him and his nurse! Well, the thing to do was to stop off at Rutherford's office on the way to the kennels and give him a check. Vail could fix up the papers later. Once Ponto was dead, I could relax.
Wasit murder? Well, that depended on how you look at it. Certainly, I was doing a better job of managing Winnie's life than he had done or could do. Look how I straightened out his mess with women and had made Germaine happy for the first time in her life. Look at the killing I had made in Wall Street, three million smackers just by using my head. Look at the way I had sold myself to the authorities at Washington, except for the State Department. The happiness and welfare of too many people now depended on my staying in charge of operations instead of Winnie Tompkins. Here, at least, was one case where the end justified the means, and nobody could call it murder.
And anyhow, chloroform is an easy death. You choke and gag a bit at first but then it's all easy, like falling off a log. You just go to sleep and never wake up. It would be the kindest possible exit for a man who had done no good in the world. I drifted off to sleep.
I awakened with a start, as though a voice had summoned me. The moonlight was streaming through the bedroom window. I knew what I must do. I got out of bed, crossed the room to the clothes-closet, felt over in the corner until my fingers found the knot-hole in the smooth pine lining. I pressed and there was a click. I reached down and lifted the sloping shelf for shoes. There, underneath it, lay a small, neatly docketed file.
There were many papers and the record went back for years. I switched on the light and examined the contents of the envelope marked "Thorium." It was all there—the ship—the names—the ports—the mission. There was documentation on Jacklin. I ran through it. It was accurate and included a specimen of my signature. There was a cross-reference to Chalmis and a small file on someone named Kaplansky. Irrelevantly included was a folder which contained three cards labeled "Retreat—Holy Week." "St. Michael" and "Stations of X!"
I crossed to the fireplace and put the papers in the grate. For an hour I sat there feeding the flames with the record of betrayal and infamy. Names, places, dates—I glanced at them, forgot them and burned them with rising exaltation. Thank God! that load was off my conscience. I might have to answer for Winnie's sins but I was damned if I'd be responsible for his crimes. And the killing of Ponto was no longer to be murder, it was an execution. For Ponto was Tompkins and Tompkins was Von Bieberstein.
Dawn was beginning to smudge the windows when the last paper had been burned and the ashes crushed to fragments beyond the power of reconstruction by forensic science. Without Winnie the organization of his gulls and dupes would fall apart and the thing that had been Von Bieberstein would cease to exist.
Another thing was clearer, too. Winnie Tompkins had had an obsession about Jacklin. Finally, through some combination of fatigue and mental shock, a Jacklin personality had taken control. Call it schizophrenia, Jekyll-and-Hyde, or whatever, there was a fair chance that I was still Winnie, but his better self. The dog had been another obsession. The dog was to blame? Well, if I believed it, it might be true, like the old scape-goat system. I was physically the same man who had been Von Bieberstein and had blown up the Alaska, planting evidence that would throw the blame on Jacklin. In my heart and spirit, it was as though I had been recreated. All the evidence had been destroyed.
I switched off the light and returned to bed. I fell asleep almost at once, for now I knew that I would be safe and that Germaine would be safe. There was no record left and soon Ponto, too, would be gone.
Wednesday, the twenty-fifth, dawned bright and fair. My mind was fully made up and I was feeling fine. Germaine was still anxious about me at breakfast but I soon convinced her that there was nothing serious involved. I laughed secretly as I said it.
"You know," I told her, "I think I'll drive over to Hartford and have those people at the Sanctuary look me over again. I think I need some kind of rest—the reaction, you know."
My wife raised no objection. In fact, she seemed rather relieved as though my aloof conduct of the previous night had been a shock to her self-confidence.
"I'll stop off at the kennels on my way over," I added, "just to make sure that Ponto is all right."
My plan was to remove the dog and drive to White Plains. Then, if there was any issue raised as to my need for a rest-cure, it would appear that I had inexplicably ordered my favorite dog chloroformed. That would clinch it with Germaine as nothing else could.
She seemed rather subdued as she went upstairs and helped me pack my things in a suitcase. She did not offer to kiss me good-bye as I drove the Packard out of the garage and rolled around the graveled drive toward my road to freedom.
First, of course, I stopped at Dr. Rutherford's office. It was early in the morning and he hadn't finished breakfast. The maid admitted me to the reception-room and while waiting for him, I made out a check for fifteen thousand dollars to the order of Jeremiah Rutherford, and marked across the back, "For Professional Services."
"Here you are, Jerry," I informed him when he finally appeared. "I would have got it to you sooner except that my lawyer went off the deep end with a girl in Hartford. He should have had the papers ready on Monday and here it is Wednesday."
"Thanks," he said briefly. "Are you feeling okay?" he asked. "You look a bit shaky."
I laughed. "Set it down to my liver," I told him. "I had a wet night last night and am a little rocky this morning. As a matter of fact, I think I'll run over the The Sanctuary and ask Folsom to put me up for a few days. My nerves are shot to hell."
"Good idea," he murmured absently. "I'll go down to the bank and put this in for collection. My Army papers came through yesterday and I'm all set."
I climbed into my car and tooled along the roads until, after inquiring at a couple of filling stations, I located Dalrymple's kennels.
"I've come for Ponto," I told the vet.
Dalrymple seemed rather embarrassed. "Are you sure you need him?" he asked. "He's just served Buglebell III—that's the prize-winning brindle bitch owned by one of the Fortune editors—and I was planning—"
"You can cancel your plans," I informed him. "And as for Buglebell's pups, I'll buy the litter. Whatwereyour other plans, anyhow?"
Dalrymple was quite abashed. "Not exactly anything, Mr. Tompkins, sir," he said. "It was only that—"
I nodded majestically. "Once is enough," I said, "and you can be thankful I don't report you to the Kennel Club for bootlegging thoroughbred puppies. Ponto comes with me—now."
"Yes, sir, Mr. Tompkins," the vet agreed humbly.
Dalrymple was a broken man but Ponto was not a broken dog. However, marriage coming so soon after distemper had curbed his spirit and he slouched into the Packard.
As soon as I was out on the main road again, I stepped on the accelerator, heading the car southward in the general direction of White Plains.
Ponto sat panting on the seat beside me, but in his weary eye I saw all the Westchester stock-brokers who had ever annoyed me. I also saw Winnie, and Winnie was to die.
I admit that I was day-dreaming a bit as I rounded the turn. In any case, I was driving fast and had not fully accustomed myself to handling the Packard. The other automobile backed violently out of the driveway on the right, the dope of a driver not looking to see if there was any traffic coming. I slapped my foot down on the brake, missed and hit the accelerator. The Packard gave a wild leap ahead. The other car—a battered old Chevrolet—completely blocked the road. I jammed on the hand-brake and twisted the steering gear so that the Packard ran up the bank of an elderly apple-tree. My head snapped forward, there was a blinding flash and then complete blackness.
Seconds or centuries later I opened my eyes. The old Chevy seemed to have pulled away and was now parked ahead of us along the righthand side of the road. My wind-shield had not shattered and, so far as I could see, no major damage had been done to my car though I hated to think of the fenders. I ached in every limb.
My neck itched intolerably so I scratched it with my left leg. I shook myself. "Well, I'll be damned!" I exclaimed, only to hear a deep growl that seemed to originate from within my hairy chest.
I glanced over my shoulder. There, in the seat beside me, hunched forward over the steering-wheel, sat a heavy-built man, a thin trickle of blood sliding down his cheek, his eyes closed and his lips open, while he snorted with concussion.
Instinctively, I called for help. My reward was a series of loud, angry barks. Again my ear itched and I scratched it again with my left leg. It seemed that I had become a dog. The man beside me stirred and moaned. Then he opened his eyes.
"Ponto," he said dreamily. "Good dog!"
The driver of the other car walked back and was standing by the window.
"You all right, mister?" he asked. "You was doing fifty easy. Lucky for you I see you coming."
The man in the driver's seat gave a feeble smile. "My fault," he admitted. "I was day-dreaming. Lucky this heap has good brakes. Are you all right? Any damage, I mean?"
The other man laughed. "Sure," he said. "I'll go on now, just so you're all right. Want a doc?"
"Uh-uh!" the man on the seat beside me shook his head. "My name's Tompkins and I live in Bedford Hills. If there's any damage, it's my fault and I'll pay for it. Sure you're okay?"
"Yep!" agreed the owner of the Chevrolet. "You got a cut or something. Reckon you'd ought to see a doc."
"I will," said the man beside me. "Don't worry. I'll be all right. Just bumped my head a bit."
We waited until the Chevrolet had rattled itself around the turn of the road. Then the man cautiously tried the gears and disinfiltrated the Packard from the apple-tree. He got out and inspected the car carefully for damage and then climbed back behind the steering-wheel. I started to ask him a question. It was a whine.
"Why Ponto!" he exclaimed. "You old black devil. How are you, hound? Long time no see."
"Hot damn!" he exclaimed, after a pause. "Have I been on adrunk! You know, Ponto, I dreamed that I was you and if there's anything in dreams I bet I'm the only Republican in Westchester County that ever married a brindle bitch named Buglebell.
"Let's see," he continued. "Where were we? Earlier today I went to the Pond Club and had a couple of drinks. How in hell do I find myself here? I must have drawn one hell of a blank, Ponto, the damndest blank I've ever drawn in my life."
His eyes looked down on the seat beside us, where I had left a copy of the morning New York Times.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed. "That's funny. Here it is. Good Lord! the twenty-fifth of April! So I've been out for three weeks. That is a blank to end all blanks."
He whistled tunelessly between his teeth. Then he cast a glance toward the back seat, where my suitcase rested.
"What gives," he inquired. "I'm not leaving home, for God's sake? Ponto, old boy, you just stick by me and we'll go back to the house and see what this is all about."
"Yes," I barked at him.
"That's a good dog," he said affably. "That's a good Ponto."
He backed the Packard into the driveway that had been my nemesis and turned the car around.
As we approached the house he slowed the car to a dead stop.
"Ponto," he told me. "Here's where you and I go into a committee of the whole. What's been going on around here? There's been one hell of a mix-up if you ask me. I had a dream—"
The sooner I got his mind off this subject the safer I would be. I laid my ears back and woofed.
"Attaboy!" he agreed. "Now let's take a look at this paper.... What? Roosevelt's dead? Why doesn't anybody tell me these things? And Germany's about to flop? Whew! Who would have dreamed it? You know, hound, I feel like Rip Van Winkle coming back after twenty years sleep."
I tried to look ingratiating and let my tongue loll fetchingly out of the side of my mouth.
"Say!" he exclaimed harshly. "Now it's beginning to come back. You took my place while I was—God! haveyouever been introduced to a great big dog and told she's your wife? Well, damn it! you and Jimmie—Oh, hell, this is one godawful mess! What's been happening around here, anyhow? Am I going nuts?"
I pricked up my ears and gave a false, loving whine. I licked his stinking hands.
"Okay, okay," Winnie agreed. "It's not your fault. But what the hell happened is beyond me. I hate to think of those prime asses, Phil and Graham, in this market. And what happened to Virginia? That's one gal you didn't know about, Ponto. She's for me, and how!"
He took another look at the paper.
"Oh, the hell with it!" he growled. "If Jimmie doesn't like it, she knows what she can do about it. Let's go on home, Ponto, and just tell her man-to-man where she gets off."
I barked.
He put his foot on the accelerator and whirled up the drive to come to a stop in front of Pook's Hill.
Before he had switched off the engine, the front door opened and Germaine appeared.
"Heavens!" she exclaimed, "you're back early. Have you changed your mind again?"
"Yep," Winnie said. "I decided to come back home, after all."
She smiled. "I'm glad," she told him. "I couldn't make out why you were so keen to go back to Hartford so soon after you got out. You come on in, darling, and Myrtle and I will take care of you. Gracious! There's blood on your cheek. Did you hurt yourself?"
Her voice was warm and loving and made my hair rise slightly. If he tried any monkey-business with her, I'd rip his throat out. I growled.
"Oh, good!" she laughed. "You got Ponto. Did he have a nice honeymoon, poor darling? Is Dalrymple satisfied? Would you like to put in for one of the pups?"
I growled again.
She laughed. "Oh, Winnie, he looks so shattered. He—whatdidhappen to your head, darling?"
He grinned. "We almost had an accident. I was headed towards the Parkway when a car backed out. We bumped into an apple-tree. No harm done but I was knocked out for a few minutes and I guess it must have shaken me up."
She lifted her face to his and kissed him until I could feel thick, hot rage mount inside my throat and force itself out in a deep rumbling growl.
"Look," she said, "he's jealous. Poor Ponto!"
And she kneeled beside me, put her arm around my neck and pressed my head affectionately.
"There!" she said briskly. "You're a good dog. You're my Ponto and I'll take care of you."
Tompkins glowered at me and her.
"Stop driveling over that damn dog," he said, "and come on into the house."
Germaine gave me a farewell pat on the head.
"He's such a good dog," she announced, "and now that he's been properly married he'll settle down, I hope. I've been quite worried over the way he's been acting. But it's all right now, Ponto, isn't it? Was your girl-friend nice, old boy? Huh? Are you happy?"
I tried to explain things but all that came to my lips was a series of whines and growls.
"Come along, Jimmie," Tompkins insisted. "I'm cold. Damn it all! I've had a shock and all you can think of doing is to slobber over a dog. Let him have a run."
So she got off her knees and followed him obediently into the house.
I sat for a moment, pondering my predicament.
This was Fate. Three seconds would have made all the difference but here I was, a dog. Conditions were reversed and I might as well be philosophical about it. Winnie never dreamed that conditions were not as they had been before the second of April, just as though Frank Jacklin had never existed. The chances were that he would continue to believe that it was all a dream, an hallucination. As for the F.B.I. and Von Bieberstein, putting first things first, that was no longer any of my business. Dogs were not expected to develop patriotism: that luxury was reserved for human beings. All I could do now was to wait my chance. Perhaps the time would come when I could repossess Winnie Tompkins' body. Then, by George! I would not waste one minute but would have him chloroformed at once. In the meantime, my cue was to be a good dog.
There was a shrill whistle from the house.
"Ponto!" Winnie's voice called. "Come here, Ponto. That's a good dog! Come on, Ponto! That's a good dog!"
I ran, wagging my tail, to the open door and on all fours entered the house I had left only two hours before as its proud master.