"I'll state it," Josef said. "Actually, Mark, I'm doing you a favor; it may sound more sensible coming from me.
"Mark believes that the poltergeist is the conscious intelligence of Peter Turnbull, and that his-er-activities are directed toward and stimulated by the girl who is the spiritual reincarnation of Susan Bates. He thinks Susan and Peter were lovers."
"I don't see that you made it sound any more sensible," Mark grumbled. "They weren't lovers. Not in the physical sense, anyhow. But… yes, I do think they were in love. I mean, a man doesn't come back from the grave to argue about secession."
Mark wasn't the only one who had considered the idea. Pat realized that it had been simmering in her own subconscious for some time.
"But they were first cousins," she said slowly. "Wouldn't that-"
"Prevent them from marrying? No," Mark said flatly. "Not then. And it would have been marriage that was in question, not casual fooling around; in 1860 a guy didn't dally with a young lady of good family-especially when it was his own family. But can you imagine the parents approving of such a match?"
"Star-crossed lovers?" Josef shook his head. "Mark, you stole the plot from Romeo and Juliet. It's highly suspect, and so is this presumed message." He picked up the paper and eyed it critically. " Tell her I've come back.' From the dead, one presumes. It would be difficult, I agree. 'I want her, I want her…' Come, now. It was admittedly a melodramatic era, but that's a bit too much."
"I don't believe it," Kathy said. "I won't believe it. Why would he act so-so violently, if he really loved her?"
Pat started to speak, and then changed her mind. Kathy was visibly distressed; it would be cruel to frighten her further. But if Mark's theory was correct, there was an explanation for the violence of the manifestations.
Peter Turnbull, arrogant, spoiled, unaccustomed to deprivation of any kind, had been deprived of the girl he wanted, first by the intolerance of their parents and then by the final frustration. If one granted that some aspect of personality did survive death-and that was becoming harder and harder to deny-then perhaps the boy was still blindly seeking his lost love. It was not necessary to assume that young Turnbull had been malignant and vicious in life. Didn't some spiritualists claim that ghosts were by definition psychotic spirits, lingering on this plane of existence because the shock of violent, untimely death had made them unable to accept their removal from the body? If the spirit of Peter Turnbull was trapped in some such hellish impasse, their problem was insoluble. In the act of seeking Peter would destroy what he sought, and there was no way of giving him what he wanted, or convincing him that it was unattainable.
Kathy sat hunched over, her arms wrapped around her body as if she were cold, her eyes staring. Pat started up.
"It's getting late," she said, with forced cheerfulness. "I could do with a snack and a cup of hot tea. Kathy, how about giving me a hand?"
"Scotch for me," Josef said.
Mark said nothing. Like Kathy, he stared into empty space, his lips moving as if he were praying.
II
Canned soup and sandwiches were the best Pat could offer, but the food restored their spirits, and, as Josef said, the Scotch didn't hurt. Mark remained abstracted throughout the meal, although he managed to eat twice as much as anyone else.
When they had finished Kathy collected the dishes as if she had done that job all her life. Josef's eyes followed the slim little figure as it moved back and forth between the table and the sink. His expression was unguarded, and the baffled terror in his dark eyes made Pat ache with sympathy.
"I made reservations at the motel," he said abruptly. "For all of us."
Pat half expected that Mark would object. Instead he nodded soberly.
"I guess we'd better. At least you three-"
"You, too," Pat said firmly. "You're not staying here alone with vases and mirrors flying around the room."
"It isn't doing that anymore," Mark said. "The last couple of times there was no poltergeist stuff. Hmmm. That's interesting."
"Why?" Pat asked.
"He's got you well trained as a straight man," Josef remarked disagreeably. "You ought to know how he thinks-if the process can be called that. He interprets everything as a sign of a guiding intelligence-an assumption which, like all his other assumptions, he has yet to prove. The idea is that this nasty apparition was awkward and maladroit at first, unaccustomed to its powers. Gradually it is focusing them, concentrating on its real aim, so that it doesn't have to waste energy in random acts of violence."
Jerry's frown altered his son's face.
"You wouldn't be able to figure that out if you hadn't reached the same conclusions," Mark said. "Why do you keep fighting it? Hell, I don't like it any better than you do! The trouble is, we're caught in a vicious circle. We don't know enough to take the steps that would enable us to learn more. We ought to be testing the thing, experimenting, finding its limitations. But we can't take the risk."
"Mark." Josef rose and began to pace back and forth, his hands in his pockets. "I've gone along with your research because the only thing we stand to lose by it is a few days of time. And because-oh, yes, I admit it- because there is a remote chance that we might be able to learn something that would enable us to deal with this- this thing. Any other method is out. It's too dangerous."
"Why do you say the chance is remote? It seems to me-"
"Because I too, in my long-distant youth, read ghost stories." Josef leaned against the counter; a faint, reminiscent smile curved his lips. "I'd climb into bed at night with a volume of Poe or Lovecraft and read till my hair stood on end and I was afraid to turn out the light. I'm tolerably familiar with the literature, including the so-called 'true' ghost stories. The White Nuns, and the ghostly carriages, the banshees and the headless horsemen… I can't remember a single case in which a ghost was laid by an intrepid investigator who found out what was troubling the troubled spirit. In fiction, yes. Not in fact. Now be honest. You're a screwball, but you have a good mind. Do you know of any such cases?"
The compliment was not exactly wholehearted, but Mark was rather flattered by it, although he tried to appear blase.
"Well," he began.
"I'm not talking about the pop books written by professional ghost hunters," Josef added. "The cases they discuss are so vague, and their evidence is so illogical, that no sane person could take them seriously. I'm talking about ghosts-the kind that walk around old houses politely dematerializing when someone tries to touch them. And that, my boy, is just about all they do. Their activities are singularly aimless. Do you know of any real case like the one you have postulated-a case of a personality returning after death because of some unfinished business or frustrated ambition?"
"Well…"
"I don't either," Josef said.
Mark looked straight at his tormentor.
"Are you going to write this case up, Mr. Friedrichs? Or talk about it at cocktail parties?"
Josef's response was wordless. It might best be described as a growl.
At nine o'clock the others were ready to leave, but Mark had had seconds thoughts.
"You guys could sit in the car with the engine running, ready for a getaway," he proposed. "I'll wait on the stairs, just to see what happens. If it gets sticky I can run out and-"
"And lead the thing to the motel," Josef said.
For once Pat saw her son outmaneuvered. He bit his lip and refrained from further argument.
Perhaps because he had won that round, Josef was actively cooperative with Mark's next proposal-to set up a tape recorder and camera in his room. The tape recorder was simple enough; Mark's elaborate, expensive hi-fi system included recording equipment that would run for almost four hours. The camera was something else. There was no way of triggering it to go off at one a.m., although Mark proposed several unrealistic and impossible suggestions. The final result looked like a mad inventor's contraption; wires and cords ran all over the room, hooked up to the camera.