"One moment," Stoles interrupted. "I want them both to understand what is happening and why. Mrs. Randall," he continued, bowing gallantly, "in our short interview earlier I believe I made you understand that the Sons of the Bird will brook no interference from such as you two. You understood that, did you not?"
"I understood you," she answered. But her eyes were defiant.
"Good. Be it understood that it is our wish that your husband have nothing more to do with ... a certain party. In order to insure that result we are about to split you into two parts. The part that keeps you going, that which you rather amusingly call the soul, we will squeeze into this bottle and keep. As for the rest, well, your husband may have that to keep with him, as a reminder that the Sons of the Birds have you in pawn. You understand me?"
She ignored the question. Randall tried to answer, found that his throat was misbehaving again.
"Listen to me, Mrs. Randall; if you are ever to see your husband again it is imperative that he obey us. He must not, on pain of your death, see his client again. Under the same penalty he must hold his tongue concerning us and all that has transpired. If he does not—well, we will make your death very interesting, I assure you."
Randall tried to cry out that he would promise anything they wanted to spare her, but his voice was still silenced—apparently Stoles wanted to hear from Cynthia first. She shook her head. "He’ll do as he thinks wise."
Stoles smiled. "Fine," he said. "That was the answer I wanted. You, Mr. Randall—do you promise?"
He wanted to agree, he was about to agree—but Cynthia was saying, "No!" with her eyes. From her expression he knew that her speech was now being blocked. Inside his head, clear as speech, he seemed to hear her say, "It’s a trick, Brain. Don’t promise!"
He kept quiet.
Phipps dug a thumb into his eye. "Answer when you are spoken to!"
He had to squint the injured eye in order to see Cynthia, but her expression still approved; he kept his mouth shut.
Presently Stoles said, "Never mind. Get on with it, gentlemen."
Printemps stuck the bottle under Cynthia’s nose, held it against her left nostril. "Now!" he directed. Another of them pressed down on her short ribs vigorously, so that her breath was expelled suddenly. She grunted.
"Teddy," she said, "they’re pulling me apar—Ugh!"
The process had been repeated with the bottle at the other nostril. Randall felt the soft warm hand in his suddenly relax. Printemps held up the bottle with his thumb over its top. "Let’s have the wax," he said briskly. Having sealed it he passed it over to Phipps.
Stoles jerked a thumb toward the big mirror. "Put them back," he directed.
Phipps superintended the passing of Cynthia back through the glass, then turned to Stoles. "Couldn’t we give him something to make him remember us?" he inquired.
"Help yourself," Stoles answered indifferently, as he stood up to go, "but try not to leave any permanent marks."
"Fine!" Phipps smiled, and hit Randall a backhanded swipe that loosened his teeth. "We’ll be careful!"
He remained conscious through a considerable portion of it, though, naturally, he had no way of judging what proportion. He passed out once or twice, only to come to again under the stimulus of till greater pain. It was the novel way Phipps found of holding a man down without marking him which caused him to pass out for the last time.
He was in a small room, every side of which was a mirror—four walls, floor, and ceiling. Endlessly he was repeated in every direction and every image was himself—selves that hated him but from which there was no escape. "Hit him again!" they yelled—he yelled—and struck himself in the teeth with his closed fist. They—he—cackled.
They were closing in on him and he could not run fast enough. His muscles would not obey him, no matter how urgently he tried. It was because he was handcuffed—handcuffed to the treadmill they had put him on. He was blindfolded, too, and the handcuffs kept him from reaching his eyes. But he had to keep on—Cynthia was at the top of the climb; he had to reach her.
Only, of course, there is no top when you are on a treadmill.
He was terribly tired, but every time he slowed down the least little bit they hit him again. And he was required to count the steps, too, else he got no credit for it—ten thousand ninety-one, ten thousand ninety-two, ten thousand ninety-three, up and down, up and down—if he could only see where he was going.
He stumbled; they clipped him from behind and he fell forward on his face.
When he woke his face was pressed up against something hard and lumpy and cold. He shifted away from it and found that his whole body was stiff. His feet did not work as they should—he investigated by the uncertain light from the window and found that he had dragged the sheet half off the bed and had it tangled around his ankles.
The hard cold object was the steam radiator; he had been huddled in a heap against it. He was beginning to regain his orientation; he was in his own familiar bedroom. He must have walked in his sleep—he hadn’t pulled that stunt since he was a kid! Walked in his sleep, tripped, and smashed his head into the radiator. Must ’a’ knocked him silly, colder’n a coot—damn lucky he hadn’t killed himself.
He was beginning to pull himself together, and to crawl painfully to his feet, when he noticed the one unfamiliar thing in the room—the new big mirror. It brought the rest of his dream back with a rush; he leaped toward the bed. "Cynthia!"
But she was there where she belonged, safe and unharmed. She had not awakened at his outcry, of which he was glad; he did not want to frighten her. He tiptoed away from the bed and let himself quietly into the bathroom, closing the door behind him before he turned on the light.
A pretty sight! he mused. His nose had been bloodied; it had long since stopped bleeding and the blood had congealed. It made a gory mess of the front of his pajama jacket. Beside that, he had apparently lain with the right side of his face in the stuff—it had dried on, messily, making him appear much more damaged than he was, as he discovered when he bathed his face.
Actually, he did not seem to be much damaged, except that—Wow!—the whole right side of his body was stiff and sore—probably banged it and wrenched it when he fell, then caught cold in it. He wondered how long he had been out.
He took off the jacket, decided that it would be too much effort to try to wash it out then, rolled it into a ball and chucked it behind the toilet seat. He didn’t want Cyn to see it until he had had a chance to explain to her what had happened. "Why, Teddy, what in the world have you done to yourself?" "Nothing, kid, nothing at all—just ran into a radiator!"
That sounded worse than the old one about running into a door.
He was still groggy, groggier than he had thought—he had almost pitched on his head when he threw the jacket down, had been forced to steady himself by grabbing the top of the tank. And his ead was pounding like a Salvation Army drum. He fiddled around in the medicine cabinet, located some aspirin and took three tablets, then looked thoughtfully at the prescription box of Amytal Cynthia had obtained some months before. He had never needed anything of the sort before; he slept soundly—but this was a special case. Nightmares two nights running and now sleepwalking and damn near breaking his silly neck.
He took one of the capsules, thinking as he did so that the kid had something when she thought they needed a vacation—he felt all shot.
Clean pajamas were too hard to find without turning on the bedroom light—he slipped into bed, waited a moment to see if Cyn would stir, then closed his eyes and tried to relax. Inside of a few minutes the drugs began to take hold, the throbbing in his head eased up, and soon he was sound asleep. II
Sunlight in his face woke him up; he focused one eye on the clock on the dressing table and saw that it was past nine o’clock, whereupon he got out of bed hastily. It was, he found, not quite a bright thing to do—his right side gave him fits. Then he saw the brown stain under the radiator and recalled his accident.