“What the hell,” I said. I shrugged it off and hung my coat up. As I started back toward the living room I thought I saw something move, out of the corner of my eye.
“Damn,” I said.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” I looked all around me, but I could not pin anything down. There was the bookcase, the rugs, the pictures on the walls, everything as it always was. But something had moved.
I entered the living room. The Animator was sitting on the table. As I passed it I felt a surge of warmth. The Animator was still on, and the door was open! I snapped the switch off, and the dial light died. Had we left it on all day? I tried to remember, but I couldn’t be sure.
“We’ve got to find the shoe before nightfall,” I said.
We looked, but we found nothing. The two of us went over every inch of the yard, examining each bush, looking under the hedge, even under the house, but without any luck.
When it got too dark to see we turned on the porch light and worked for a time by it. At last I gave up. I went over and sat down on the porch steps. “It’s no use,” I said. “Even in the hedge there are a million places. And while we’re beating one end, it could slip out the other. We’re licked. We might as well face it.”
“Maybe it’s just as well,” Joan said.
I stood up. “We’ll leave the front door open tonight. There’s a chance it might come back in.”
We left it open, but the next morning when we came downstairs the house was silent and empty. I knew at once the shoe was not there. I poked around, examining things. In the kitchen eggshells were strewn around the garbage pail. The shoe had come in during the night, but after helping itself it had left again.
I closed the front door and we stood silently, looking at each other. “He’ll be here any time,” I said. “I guess I better call the office and tell them I’ll be late.”
Joan touched the Animator. “So this is what did it. I wonder if it’ll ever happen again.”
We went outside and looked around hopefully for a time. Nothing stirred the bushes, nothing at all. “That’s that,” I said. I looked up. “Here comes a car, now.”
A dark Plymouth coasted up in front of the house. Two elderly men got out and came up the path toward us, studying us curiously.
“Where is Rupert?” one of them asked.
“Who? You mean Doc Labyrinth? I suppose he’ll be along any time.”
“Is it inside?” the man said. “I’m Porter, from the University. May I take a peek at it?”
“You’d better wait,” I said unhappily. “Wait until the Doc is here.”
Two more cars pulled up. More old men got out and started up the walk, murmuring and talking together. “Where’s the Animator?” one asked me, a codger with bushy whiskers. “Young man, direct us to the exhibit.”
“The exhibit is inside,” I said. “If you want to see the Animator, go on in.”
They crowded inside. Joan and I followed them. They were standing around the table, studying the square box, the Dutch oven, talking excitedly.
“This is it!” Porter said. “The Principle of Sufficient Irritation will go down in—”
“Nonsense,” another said. “It’s absurd. I want to see this hat, or shoe, or whatever it is.”
“You’ll see it,” Porter said. “Rupert knows what he’s doing. You can count on that.”
They fell into controversy, quoting authorities and citing dates and places. More cars were arriving, and some of them were press cars.
“Oh, God,” I said. “This will be the end of him.”
“Well, he’ll just have to tell them what happened,” Joan said. “About its getting away.”
“We’re going to, not him. We let the thing go.”
“I had nothing to do with it. I never liked that pair from the start. Don’t you remember, I wanted you to get those ox-blood ones?”
I ignored her. More and more old men were assembling on the lawn, standing around talking and discussing. All at once I saw Labyrinth’s little blue Ford pull up, and my heart sank. He had come, he was here, and in a minute we would have to tell him.
“I can’t face him,” I said to Joan. “Let’s slip out the back way.”
At the sight of Doc Labyrinth all the scientists began streaming out of the house, surrounding him in a circle. Joan and I looked at each other. The house was deserted, except for the two of us. I closed the front door. Sounds of talk filtered through the windows; Labyrinth was expounding the Principle of Sufficient Irritation. In a moment he would come inside and demand the shoe.
“Well, it was his own fault for leaving it,” Joan said. She picked up a magazine and thumbed through it.
Doc Labyrinth waved at me through the window. His old face was wreathed with smiles. I waved back halfheartedly. After a while I sat down beside Joan.
Time passed. I stared down at the floor. What was there to do? Nothing but wait, wait for the Doc to come triumphantly into the house, surrounded by scientists, learned men, reporters, historians, demanding the proof of his theory, the shoe. On my old shoe rested Labyrinth’s whole life, the proof of his Principle, of the Animator, of everything.
And the damn shoe was gone, outside someplace!
“It won’t be long now,” I said.
We waited, without speaking. After a time I noticed a peculiar thing. The talk outside had died away. I listened, but I heard nothing.
“Well?” I said. “Why don’t they come in?”
The silence continued. What was going on? I stood up and went to the front door. I opened it and looked out.
“What’s the matter?” Joan said. “Can you see?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t get it.” They were all standing silently, staring down at something, none of them speaking. I was puzzled. I could not make sense out of it. “What’s happening?” I said.
“Let’s go and look.” Joan and I went slowly down the steps, onto the lawn. We pushed through the row of old men and made our way to the front.
“Good Lord,” I said. “Good Lord.”
Crossing the lawn was a strange little procession, making its way through the grass. Two shoes, my old brown shoe, and just ahead of it, leading the way, another shoe, a tiny white high-heeled slipper. I stared at it. I had seen it someplace before.
“That’s mine!” Joan cried. Everyone looked at her. “That belongs to me! My party shoes—”
“Not any more,” Labyrinth said. His old face was pale with emotion. “It is beyond us all, forever.”
“Amazing,” one of the learned men said. “Look at them. Observe the female. Look at what she is doing.”
The little white shoe was keeping carefully ahead of my old shoe, a few inches away, leading him coyly on. As my old shoe approached she backed away, moving in a half circle. The two shoes stopped for a moment, regarding each other. Then, all at once, my old shoe began to hop up and down, first on his heel, then on his toe. Solemnly, with great dignity, the shoe danced around her, until he reached his starting point.
The little white shoe hopped once, and then she began again to move away, slowly, hesitantly, letting my shoe almost catch up to her before she went on.
“This implies a developed sense of mores,” an old gentleman said. “Perhaps even a racial unconscious. The shoes are following a rigid pattern of ritual, probably laid down centuries—”
“Labyrinth, what does this mean?” Porter said. “Explain it to us.”
“So that’s what it was,” I murmured. “While we were away the shoe got her out of the closet and used the Animator on her. I knew something was watching me, that night. She was still in the house.”
“That’s what he turned on the Animator for,” Joan said. She sniffed. “I’m not sure I think much of it.”
The two shoes had almost reached the hedge, the white slipper still just beyond the laces of the brown shoe. Labyrinth moved toward them.