He thought that the last episode of reality before this had been himself struggling in the grip of some skillful, powerful attacker, an arm at his throat choking off his wind. The fantastic sight of the old man bound, then the attack, and then…
Simon looked about him. He was sitting on a bed, with covers turned neatly down, in a well-appointed bedroom. All the furniture he thought was modern, though in an expensive style suggesting the antique. Faintly, from somewhere in the distance, the notes of the stringed instrument still sounded.
On a chair beside the bed his clothing was disposed, half-carelessly, just as he would have left it before stretching out for a nap—except he would ordinarily have retained his undershorts. On the cool stone floor beside the chair sat his overnight bag, the one he remembered leaving in his car parked on the other side of the river.
Simon raised exploring fingers to his neck. He could swallow and breathe without pain or difficulty. He could feel a slight soreness in his neck muscles when he pressed them. It seemed a very inadequate proof of having been choked into unconsciousness.
There was a mirror on the dresser and Simon got off the bed and went to it and examined the image of his muscular body. There were no bruises or scratches evident, no sign that he had ever been attacked.
Simon didn’t usually take his wristwatch off if he was just stretching out for a rest, but now it was lying on the dresser. It said six forty-seven. The last time he could remember looking at it, it had read a little after three, three twenty, maybe. That had been just before he’d left Margie in the secret passage.
“My God, Marge,” Simon breathed aloud. He quickly looked about him, at the walls. This was not one of the rooms into which the secret passage opened. He really had left Margie in the tunnel, hadn’t he? He could remember doing so—just as clearly as he remembered, for example, an old man strapped on a rack.
He turned back to the chair where his clothes were and began mechanically to dress. Think, try to think. He’d left Margie in the passage, according to plan. Then he’d passed through the dark tunnel again, turned aside at the descending branch limned with faint torchlight. And then that crazy scene in the—the dungeon, including the attack. Then the dream. Then this. Leaving the dream aside, no part of it seemed any more or less real than any other part.
Six forty-eight. Outside the window it was still broad, warm daylight on a long June afternoon, or evening.
Somehow, someone must have admitted him to this house, conducted him in some manner to this room.
Still, in his memory, only the strange dream, more than half forgotten now, intervened between the attack on him in the dungeon, and this room. He had dreamed of embracing Vivian, and she had turned into the young girl from the antique shop.
Simon was zipping up his pants when someone tapped at his room’s door. Feeling half alarmed and half relieved, he went to open the door a cautious crack, having to unlatch it first from the inside.
Gregory was standing outside, in the stone-vaulted hallway that Simon’s memory told him he had last seen fifteen years ago. The dignified-looking man was dressed, or costumed, in a loose brown tunic, long hose to match, and vaguely pointed shoes or slippers that looked as if they might be made of felt.
“Did you have a good rest, sir? Most of the other guests are here now. Miss Littlewood sent me to tell you that you’ll just about have time for a swim before cocktails, if you wish.”
“Er—thank you.” As far as Simon could judge, who was no expert, Gregory’s costume looked authentic. He’d brought his own, of course, packed in his bag. “Gregory, did you happen to notice what time it was when I arrived?”
Gregory blinked. “Why, no sir, I really didn’t. I suppose it must have been about two hours ago.”
“I suppose… oh, and Gregory?”
The man had been in the act of turning away. “Sir?”
“Any word from my assistant?” Simon congratulated himself on having phrased that rather cleverly.
“Not to my knowledge, sir.” And for just a moment Simon had the impression that Gregory might be offering himself the same kind of congratulation.
“Thank you. Tell Miss Littlewood I’ll be right down for a swim.”
Simon closed the door, and turned round once more to face the enigmatic room. There was his bag, there were the clothes he had been wearing. He crossed the room, and looked out and down from the window as well as he was able; the view was restricted by the narrowness of the window embrasure and the thickness of the wall it pierced. The remodeling installation had provided the window with a wooden sash and glass panes, the wood painted gray to almost match the stonework of the wall. The window was open about a foot to the warm weather, and Simon lifted it higher, putting out his head and shoulders; there was no screen.
Probably screens against insects hadn’t been considered necessary this high above the ground. He was at about the ordinary fifth-floor level, he guessed now, looking down. His restricted view was of the paved area just in front of the garage; the garage of course had been built of the same stone as the rest of the castle, but still looked awkwardly anachronistic.
Among the three or four automobiles that were parked in his field of view, he recognized his own.
His car keys were in the pocket of his pants.
He shrugged, took off the pants again, and left them on the chair. Then he stripped completely and got the swim trunks out of his bag and put them on, noting in passing, as if the fact were of some significance, that they were not green. From the private bath attached to his guest room Simon grabbed one of the huge, plentifully supplied towels. At the door to the hallway he paused; he didn’t have a key to this room, and he hesitated just briefly at the idea of leaving his things in it unlocked. Then he smiled at what, in the circumstances, struck him as a ridiculous concern.
He had to make contact, as soon as possible, with Margie. If she was still in the secret passage, and all was well, then he was going to have to make a medical appointment for himself next week, and talk to someone about hallucinations. If, on the other hand, she wasn’t…
The hallway outside Simon’s room was medieval in most of its materials, but not at all in its plan, if Simon’s hazy ideas about real castles were at all accurate. On one side of the hall, a row of doors led probably to rooms much like the one in which he had awakened. On the other side, a balcony railing of wood and stone guarded a drop of forty feet or so to the stone paving of the main entry room on the ground floor; this was not the room that Simon thought of as the great hall, but one almost as large. It was dim down there, from lack of windows, and flames glowed on candle and on torch. He still had not the faintest memory of coming up this way today.
Now he had to locate one of the connections to the secret passage, and try to signal Margie. Here was a door that puzzled him at first, until he realized it must be that of an elevator, discreetly almost hidden. He thought that some of the other rooms that he was passing on his way to the descending stair must connect to the secret passage. But most of their doors were closed, and the one that was ajar showed someone’s luggage on a bed. He wasn’t going to chance entering any of them right now.
A young man Simon didn’t recognize, dressed just about as Gregory had been, in what was evidently servant’s garb, passed Simon in the hallway. Simon nodded and smiled, getting only the faintest of responses. It struck him that if everyone were really dressed in the style of six hundred years ago there might be problems in distinguishing fellow guest from worker. And he wasn’t really accustomed to dealing with servants anyway, he hadn’t had that many invitations to the homes of the really rich.