“When I blew my breath there, it turned to fog when it went through the place where the plaster layers joined!” His tone was unbelieving.
“There is refrigeration?” asked Ghalil.
“There’s nothing!” protested Coghlan. “There’s no possible explanation for a cold space in the middle of air!”
“Ah!” said the Turk in satisfaction. “Then we progress! Things which are associated with the same thing are associated with each other. This associates with the impossibility of your fingerprints and your handwriting and the threat to Mr. Mannard!”
“I’d like to know what does this trick!” said Coghlan, staring at the hole. “The heat’s absorbed, and there’s nothing to absorb it!”
He unwrapped his handkerchief from the knife, and scrubbed the cloth at the wall until a corner was set. He poked the wetted cloth into the hole he’d made. A moment later he pulled it out. There was a narrow, perfectly straight line of ice across the wetted linen.
“There’s never been a trick like this before!” he said in amazement. “It’s something really new!”
“Or extremely old,” said Ghalil mildly. “Why not?”
“It couldn’t be!” snapped Coghlan. “We don’t know how to do it! You can bet the ancients didn’t! It couldn’t be anything but a force-field of some sort, and there’s no known force-field that absorbs energy! There just isn’t any! Anyhow, how could they generate a force-field that was a plane surface?”
He began to dig again, nervously, at the edge of the wet spot. The plaster was harder here.
Duval said hopelessly, “But what would such a thing have to do with the history of the Byzantine Empire, and fingerprints, and M. Mannard—”
Coghlan jabbed at the plaster.
There was a sudden, brittle sound as the knifeblade snapped. The broken end tinkled on the floor.
Coghlan stood frozen, looking down at his thumb. The breaking blade had cut it. There was dead silence in the room.
“What is the matter?”
“I’ve cut my thumb,” said Coghlan briefly.
Ghalil, eyes blank, got up and started across the room toward him. “I would like to see—”
“It’s nothing,” said Coghlan.
To himself he said firmly that two and two are four, and things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other, and— He pressed the edges of the cut together, closed his fist on it, and put the fist firmly in his pocket.
“This business of the wall,” he said casually—too casually— “has me bothered. “I’m going back to my place and get some stuff to make a couple of tests.”
Ghalil said quickly:
“There is a police-car outside. I will have the driver take you and bring you back.”
“Thanks,” said Coghlan.
He thought firmly: two and two is always four, without exception. Five and five is ten. Six and six is twelve . . . There is no such thing as a fingerprint showing a scar that does not exist, and then that scar being made afterward. . .
They went down the stairs together. Ghalil gave instructions to the driver. From time to time he glanced very thoughtfully at Coghlan’s face. Coghlan climbed in the car. It started off, headed for his home.
He sat still for minutes as the trim car threaded narrow streets and negotiated sharp corners designed for donkey-traffic alone. The driver was concerned only with the management of his car. Coghlan watched him abstractedly. Two and two. . .
He took his hand out of his pocket and looked at the cut on his thumb very carefully. It was probably the most remarkable cut in human history. It was shallow, not a serious matter at all, in itself; but it would leave—Coghlan could not doubt—a scar exactly like the one on the print on the sheepskin page which chemical and spectroscopic examination said was seven-hundred years old.
Coghlan put the impossible hand back in his pocket. “I don’t believe it!” he said grimly. “I don’t believe it!”
V
The driver had evidently been instructed to wait. ‘When Coghlan got out of the car he smiled politely, set his handbrake, and turned off the motor. Coghlan nodded and went into the courtyard below his windows. He felt a very peculiar dogged anger, and was not at all certain what he felt it toward.
He headed for the stairway to his apartment. Across the flagstoned courtyard, a plump figure came disconsolately out of that stairway. It was Appolonius the Great. He was not twinkling as usual. He looked desperately worried. But his expression changed at sight of Coghlan.
“Ah, Mr. Coghlan!” he said delightedly. “I thought I had missed you!”
Coghlan said politely:
“I’m glad you didn’t. But I’m only here on an errand—”
“I need only a moment,” said Appolonius, beaming. “I have something to say which may be to your advantage.”
“Come along,” said Coghlan.
He led the way. Appolonius, a few hours back, had looked as deeply concerned as any man could look. Now he appeared more nearly normal. But he was still not his usual unctuous self. He came toiling up the stairs with his customary smile absent as if turned off by a switch. When Coghlan opened the door for him, however, the smile came back as if the same switch had been turned again. Coghlan had a sudden startled feeling that Appolonius might be dangerous.
“Just a moment,” he said.
He went into the bath and washed out the small cut and put antiseptic on it. It was not much deeper than a scratch, but he wanted to avoid a scar if possible. A scar would mean that the fingerprint on that seven-hundred-year-old page of sheepskin was authentic; was actually his. And he was not willing for that to be true. He came back into the living-room to find Appolonius sitting in a chair on the far side of the room from the open windows.
“Now I’m at your service,” said Coghlan. “That was a bad business today—about Mannard.”
Appolonius looked at him steadily, with a directness and force that was startlingly unlike his usual manner.
“I have information,” he said evenly. “May I show you my information?”
Coghlan waited.
“I am a professional illusionist,” said Appolonius, that odd force now in his voice. “Deceptions are my profession. My fame is considerable.”
“So I’ve heard,” agreed Coghlan.
“Of course,” said Appolonius, “I do not use all my knowledge of illusion on the stage. Much of it would be lost upon theatrical audiences.” His voice changed, became deliberately sarcastic. “In my native country there is a superstition of evil spirits. The Magi—the priesthood—the holders of the traditions and lore of—ah—Neoplatonism, make use of this belief. They foster it, by driving away numerous evil spirits. The process is visible. Suppose I assured you that there was an evil spirit in this very room, listening to our talk?”
“I’d be a trifle doubtful,” said Coghlan gently.
“Allow me,” said Appolonius politely, “to demonstrate.”
He glanced about the room as if looking for some indication which only he would see. Then he pointed a pudgy finger across the room, toward a table near the open windows. His wristwatch showed itself, indented in his fat wrist. He uttered a series of cryptic syllables in a round, authoritative voice.
There was a sudden roaring noise. Smoke rushed up from the table. It formed a ghostly, pear-shaped figure inside the room.
It hovered a moment, looking alive and menacing, then darted swiftly out the window. It was singularly convincing.
Coghlan considered. After a moment he said thoughtfully:
“Last night you explained the principle of magic. You do something in advance, which I know nothing about. Then, later, you do something else which seems to produce remarkable results. And I am supposed to think that what you do later produced the results which you had arranged earlier.”