The discovery came as a shock, he stood very still, stared out at the dark roof of the Club, saw the light turned off in the little attic window, heard voices from the club yard below. It must be an initiation night, the doors of cars were banging, the voices were loud, a little drunken. One of them was saying:
— Say, wait for me, will you?
He says wait. Oh-h-h-h, he floats through the air with the greatest of ease—
— The flying young man on the daring trapeze—
— Where’s Putnam? Hi, Putnam!
— Oh, come on, let’s go.
The car started, the voices trailed away round the corner, there was a sound of some one running, the slamming of a door, a moment of silence, then a simultaneous outburst of shouting farther off.
The discovery came as a peculiar shock, the night had mysteriously and deeply opened, but in one direction only; a swift tunnel of half-light; and as if it were an immense telescope, he looked along it to the far little amphitheater of brightness where obscure small figures were bending to obscure small tasks. His heart had begun beating loudly again, there was a real danger here, something uncalculated, a departure into a new dimension, a hindrance, a definite threat. But also there was a renewal of challenge; with the new danger came a fresh and sharpened necessity for energy and decision. If this were so, then once again the time element had become pressing; to look squarely at the situation itself was in fact to regard the face of a clock; and all the more so because of Gerta’s threat, and her report of Sandbach’s threat — the absurd possibility that Sandbach, in a moment of spleen or jealousy, might actually try to report him! How likely was this?
Gerta had not telephoned, had merely sent him a note, one line, saying, “I really mean it. Gerta.”
Sandbach had remained silent, invisible, had not attempted to communicate either with himself or — apparently — with Toppan. And Toppan’s diary, when examined night before last, had not been written up. Which might mean anything or nothing. At any rate, it had been impossible to confirm his suspicion that Toppan — presumably on Gerta’s suggestion? — was watching him. Had it actually been Toppan?
On Saturday night, when he had first noticed the shadowy figure under the arclight at the corner of Sparks Street he had not taken the idea seriously, had merely and fleetingly thought something in the gait familiar, and something also in the slope of the shoulders under the white raincoat. But last night, when he had abruptly come on the same figure at the same place, and half a block later had begun to wonder whether it mightn’t be Toppan, and doubled back through Royal Avenue, only to find that the figure had vanished — the suspicion had deepened, especially in retrospect. The technique, too, was recognizable — to stand so directly under the arc-light that the hat rim cast the face and upperpart of the body into a dense penumbra of shadow. And hadn’t there been a momentary flash of spectacles? Moreover, when he had gone to Toppan’s room, on returning, Toppan was out. Which again might mean anything or nothing.
The thing had become a little suffocating; like a physical pressure on the breast; there was certainly a shadow of danger, it was a nuisance, and observable in the foreground was the fact that to some extent the situation threatened to get out of control. But in essentials, this was good, this was right; he turned away from the window and regarded the map on the wall with a deepening of his sense of power; the city was there below him, the lights glided along those streets, the feet, the faces, the minds, beneath all those roofs the lives lay open, his glance went down to them from above. And this hostile alliance, if now it had at last really come into being, as Gerta’s attitude indicated, had of course not only been foreseen by him from the very outset but actually willed. There was nothing new in it, nothing strange, it was all his own creation, and if now there was a danger the danger was simply the shape of his own idea. Toppan and Sandbach and Gerta might indeed be plotting together, they might be whispering, call each other up by telephone, have their secret meetings, they might flatter themselves that they knew more than he did, could outguess him, anticipate him, by studious co-operation attempt to surround him, but his own advantage remained what it had always been: that none of them, not even Gerta, was quite sure of his intentions, and none of them — especially now — shared his entire confidence. At no point could they be quite sure that he was not simply making fools of them, that he would not suddenly turn on them and say that it had all been a joke, an elaborate joke, simply the theme for a fantastic novel, and themselves nothing whatever but the dupes of an experiment. They were aware of this. Between the assumption that he was mad or cruel, on the one hand, and the hope that it was a hoax, on the other, they must run to and fro, their eyes perpetually fixed on a moving shadow, their hands perpetually withheld from any overt action. They could guess, they could spy, but what could they do? They were still, as much as Jones, at his mercy. Just the same—
Suppose they were to warn Jones. Suppose they had discovered Jones, knew who he was, where he lived. This much they might safely do?
It came down, in short, to the question of time.
If they were, as he had himself planned, closing in on him, if his own plan was narrowing its scope, then the moment could not be far off when, instead of the luxuriation in knowledge — which was after all nothing but a preliminary — must come the pure terribleness of the deed. One day: two days: or three. Three at the most. If a telephone call tomorrow, an arrangement for the trip to Concord on Thursday—
A copy of The Cambridge Sun lay on the red table under the map, he had brought it up from the hallway downstairs with a view to reading the strange little social notes, under the caption Observatory Hill, which dealt weekly with the lives of those unhappy citizens who dwelt with Jones in the waste land beyond the Observatory and Saint Peter’s Church. He bent over it, ran his eye down the column of absurd paragraphs. These people of importance! Mr. Patrick Ronan of Upland Road, well-known druggist, is in Massachusetts General Hospital with an infected foot.… Last rites for Mrs. Margaret (McDonald) Connelly of Harvard, Mass., who died Saturday were held Tuesday at the home of her daughter, Mrs. F. F. Dugan, Fayerweather Street. A requiem high mass was said at Saint Peter’s Church at nine o’clock.… Mrs. Clarence Ricker, of 299 Concord Avenue, entertained her friends at a party held at her home Sunday evening.… Miss Giulia Abetabile is sojourning in South Carolina.… Funeral of Mr. Riley.… Surprise party for the talented young dancer, Peter Willwert: a banquet lunch served.… A baseball game at the Timothy Corcoran ground on Raymond Street.… Glamorous Spring Formal Plaza.… Last Saturday’s meeting of Bob’s Kiddie Klub at the Central Square Theater opened with the usual Hi-Bob from the audience and the singing of the theme-song. For the first number Bob presented another Bob, namely Bob Murphy, a Cambridge boy who started things going with a snappy toe dance. Next came an old friend of Bob’s, Marie Phelan, who pleased the audience with a toe-tap with a jump-rope. This number is as difficult to do as it is to say. The show closed with a snappy military tap by the Personality Kid, Aimee Dolon.…
Glamorous Spring Formal Plaza. What in God’s name was that!
And all this ridiculous ant-hill, the activities of these ridiculous ants — Jones among them—