She laughed sharply, without humor, as she replaced the charts in her desk drawer, locked it. "No one else even knows about what I'm doing here. This is my own private project."
"How do you justify your computer time?"
"I steal time from my other, 'respectable' projects. It's the only way I can do it."
"Mad, I can get into what you're saying about astrology as statistics-at least, in theory. But what about things like witchcraft?"
She thought about it for a few moments, then raised her hand and slowly drew a circle in the air with her index finger. Her blue eyes were moist, gleaming. "We live in a circle of light that we call 'Science,' " she said thoughtfully.
"Obviously, I believe in science. Science is the most efficient means Man has ever found for discovering certain truths-and for getting things done. That doesn't mean that science is the only way. To say that science is efficient can never take away the wonder of what some men are able to do through self-discipline. Maybe these powers are vestigial. Perhaps there are men who still pursue-and find-secrets that our ancient ancestors knew instinctively. Let's suppose there are still unbelievably powerful forces out there in the darkness which some men have learned to tap. The term 'occult,' after all, means nothing more than secret knowledge. Understand: I'm just trying to give you a different point of view."
"Thank you, Mad," I said, assuming she was finished. "You've put me in the proper frame of mind-and I mean that sincerely."
She didn't seem to have heard me. Madeline Jones was deep in thought, and it suddenly struck me just how deeply obsessed this astronomer was with the occult. Only then did I realize that, up until a few minutes before, I had persisted in looking upon her involvement as some kind of off-the-wall professorial joke. It wasn't: Madeline Jones was deadly serious.
"Are you religious, Mongo?" she asked distantly. "I don't want to offend you."
"Say what's on your mind, Mad. You won't offend me."
"I know for a fact that most of the very scientists who would ridicule me are stalwart members of churches or synagogues. They're intellectual schizophrenics; they just won't accept the fact that orthodox religious beliefs are every bit as 'occult' as witchcraft."
She looked through me, laughed shortly. "In Westminster Abbey, there's a mausoleum for the Black Knight," she continued in the same distant, ironic tone. "Beside the tomb is a small, typed sign advising all to pray on that spot for their relatives and loved ones in the armed services." She paused, shook her head. "That, my friend, is a pure example of 'sympathetic magic'-a straight steal from the occultists."
I smiled. "You'd better not let your neighborhood clergy hear you talking like that; they might want to stage a public burning."
Madeline smiled back, and I had the feeling some of the tension in her had passed. "I do get carried away, don't I? But ignorance bothers me, especially when the ignorant are so damn self-righteous." She hesitated, studied my face intently for a few moments, then continued: "Did you know that the Magi mentioned in the Gospels were probably astrologers?"
"I thing I've read it somewhere."
"Our word 'magician' comes from 'magi.' The 'star' they saw in the east, if it wasn't a supernova, was probably an astrological configuration they knew how to interpret. And it led them to Jesus." She took a deep, shuddering breath. Once again her eyes were wide and bright. "Most people consider only two possibilities when they think about Jesus of Nazareth. Either he was the Son of God, and could thus perform miracles-or he wasn't, and therefore the accounts of the miracles must be false. What excites me is a third possibility: Jesus may have been the greatest ceremonial magician who ever lived."
"Hmmm. Sounds like a rather unusual theory." I was hoping my stab at dry humor might at least get a smile from Mad, but she was oblivious to everything but the ideas bouncing around inside her head.
"Early Christian history is permeated with astrological symbology," she continued excitedly. "Jesus, with his disciples, numbered thirteen-the classic number of the witches' coven. The sign of the early Christians was the fish-and Jesus lived in the age of Pisces."
Madeline now lapsed into silence. I glanced at my watch. It was past eleven, and I wanted to get on the road before my body realized I was operating on only two hours of sleep. "I've got to go, Mad," I said. "Thanks for the information and advice. And don't worry: your secret's safe with me."
She looked up and nodded. "Good luck, Mongo. I hope the little girl will be all right."
Outside, the August sun was hot. I felt a chill, although I couldn't tell whether it was caused by fatigue or by fear that Madeline could be right. Perhaps there were powerful, dark forces that I knew nothing about and could not combat; perhaps someone was using that power to kill Kathy.
And I had stepped into the line of fire.
I told myself that that kind of thinking was silly. Still, as if in self-defense, I stood on the sidewalk for a few minutes, my head tilted back, savoring the feel of the bright, cleansing sunlight on my upturned face.
Chapter 7
I stopped at my office and called Dr. Greene at the hospital. He sounded as tired as I felt, and just as worried. Kathy had still not regained consciousness, and there'd been a change for the worse: her heart was beginning to show signs of irregular beating. Although Greene was personally supervising the various tests, with only a few hours off to sleep, the doctors and technicians had still not been able to identify the cause of Kathy's coma. I repeated to Greene what Madeline had told me about the possible use of poisonous herbs. By the time I hung up, my weariness had been replaced by acute anxiety. I ran to my car.
Within a half hour I was through the Lincoln Tunnel and on the New Jersey Turnpike, heading for Philadelphia. I cruised at seventy-five, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror for state troopers.
The hot, white afternoon had a bracing effect on me; it was as if the heat and light formed a friendly committee of Nature welcoming me home after many hours spent wandering in a dark, nightmare cave which I'd assumed, before talking to Madeline, was reserved exclusively for the ignorant. Zooming along on the sunlit highway, I found it hard to believe I'd spent the last few hours talking about witches and witchcraft, covens, astrology and ceremonial magicians; somehow, those things just didn't sit well inside my head in the middle of the day. But then there was the strange case of Madeline Jones-a respected scientist who led a double life as an astrologer. To say that Mad was obsessed explained nothing. As far as my client and I were concerned, it was a good thing she was; Madeline had given me potentially invaluable information about the occult. Still, out in the sunlight, I found I was worried about Madeline. But I was more worried about Kathy; a little girl was dying, a victim of these eerie spinners of twisted dreams, and that was the only reality I cared about.
I got off the Turnpike at Cherry Hill, New Jersey, then drove on and crossed over the Benjamin Franklin Bridge into Philadelphia's Franklin Square.
Unlike W. C. Fields, I liked Philadelphia. Only two hours from New York City, it was at once a vast warehouse crammed floor to ceiling with fascinating history, and a place of human ordinariness; it was this feeling of vaguely boring nonhurry that made it, on occasion, a welcome relief from the constant, draining excitement of New York. After my painful immersion the year before in the ancient culture and politics of Iran, I'd become highly sensitized to the infancy-and wonder-of my own country's history. As a result, I'd spent a number of weekends soon after my return visiting Philadelphia's historic sites. If I hadn't been knotted tight with tension and anxiety, it probably would have felt good to be back.