"Uh-huh," Pat said. She wished she shared Kathy's faith in Mark. She did not express her doubts; why should she destroy the girl's optimism prematurely?
Never before, even when it was ramshackle and abandoned, had her house looked anything but innocent to Pat. Now, under an evil, threatening sky, it had a sinister air. The turrets and tower seemed grotesque instead of charming.
Mark led the way. He went straight to the kitchen and Pat heard Jud's yelp of pleasure mixed with reproach as Mark greeted him and let him out. Standing in the hall she sniffed, wrinkling her nose; but there was no trace of that foul aroma. That did not prove that the night had been quiet. The aura was not a physical smell, it probably worked directly on the mind of the person affected.
She lingered by the door, oddly reluctant to go farther. As she stood there, the bushes by the steps rustled. Albert's neatly marked head emerged. He eyed her dubiously for a moment and then meowed.
"I called you last night," Pat said defensively. "It's your own fault if you didn't want to come in."
Mark and Kathy went upstairs. Josef was obviously torn between curiosity and another emotion, but there was no real conflict; he turned to Pat, who was still arguing with the cat.
"Don't come in, then, if you don't want to. But you'll have to make up your mind. I won't leave the door wide open."
The cat took two tentative steps toward her, its tail at half-mast and twitching. Then it spat and bolted into the shrubbery.
"He is acting strangely," Pat said. "I wonder…" Then she heard Mark call from upstairs. "Mom. Mr. Friedrichs. Can you come up here, please?"
The trail of destruction had left debris as far down as the stair landing, where shards of a broken vase glittered. A dent in the plaster showed where it had struck and shattered. The upper hall was strewn with broken glass from pictures. Every one of them had been torn from the wall. Mark's room had taken the brunt of the attack. There was hardly a breakable object left intact, including his camera; but none of the other upstairs rooms had completely escaped. It was as if some large savage animal had been let loose and had ranged up and down, searching and smashing.
Nine
I
I thought you said Peter had given up aimless poltergeist action," Josef remarked, as they stood in the doorway of Mark's room contemplating the mess.
"This was deliberate," Mark said. "It couldn't find what it was looking for, so it went storming up and down smashing things. Damn it, Mr. Friedrichs, this knocks your poltergeist theory all to hell. There wasn't a living soul in this room last night. According to the conventional theories, a poltergeist needs a human catalyst. I had the car keys, so you can't accuse Kathy of-"
He gulped, his eyes widening, as he realized the impli-: cations, but Josef shook his head, looking at Mark with grudging respect.
"You're too smart to incriminate yourself that way. If you had planned a stunt like this you'd have made damned good and sure you weren't found within a mile of those keys. Where did you go last night, Mark?"
"I'll tell you, I'll tell you," Mark said. "I'm just trying to think how to explain it."
In a stupor of distress Pat knelt down and began to pick up broken scraps. Josef took her arm and raised her to her feet.
"We'll form a cleanup team later, Pat. Come on downstairs while Mark tries to figure out how to break his latest bad news to us."
Muted howls and meows led them to the kitchen, where they found both animals waiting on the back porch. When Pat opened the door Jud bolted in, flung himself at her feet, and writhed delightedly. Albert still refused to come in, but indicated that he was faint with hunger, so Pat took a bowl of food out onto the porch.
In an effort to postpone what was clearly going to be a painful revelation, Mark turned on the radio. Rock and roll blasted out.
"Turn that off," Josef shouted.
Mark lowered the volume. "Coffee, anyone?" he asked brightly.
"Talk," Josef said.
"All right, all right, I said I'd tell you, didn't I? But you have to understand the reason. I got to thinking yesterday about some of our assumptions. The discrepancies have been small, but they have been piling up, and that made me wonder if maybe we weren't on the wrong track."
The song ended as such numbers often do, trailing off in discordant howls of woe; an announcer's bright cheery voice began to report the usual international disasters: an earthquake in Iran, a revolution in South America, the failure of the latest talks between the Arabs and the Israelis.
"What do you mean, 'we'?" Josef demanded. "All the assumptions have been yours. You practically shoved them down our collective throats."
"Oh, the basic idea is right," Mark said. "I'm certain of that. What I might have been slightly mistaken about is-er-well, let me put it this way-"
"And now," said the announcer, "for local news. A shop in New Market-"
"Shut that damned thing off," Josef snarled, reaching for the knob. As he touched it, however, the content of what was being said finally penetrated. His fingers froze on the switch, defeating Mark's belated attempt to silence the voice.
"… a number of valuable books," the announcer continued. "The proprietor, Colonel William Blake, estimates their value at approximately fifty thousand dollars. The thief gained entrance through an upper window. The police have made casts of tire tracks in the alley behind the shop, and they hope for an early arrest."
Three pairs of eyes focused on Mark.
"Don't worry," he said hastily. "They aren't yours. I wasn't dumb enough to park where I would leave tracks."
Josef rubbed his forehead.
"Where are the books?" he asked gently.
"In your trunk. I had to take a bunch of them. If I had just swiped the one, he'd have suspected you right away, since you even told him who you were and where you lived and all. Now, keep cool, Mr. Friedrichs. Don't get excited. It's bad for your health."
"In my trunk," Josef repeated. "Fifty thousand… That's grand larceny, Mark. Very grand. Plus breaking and entering-"
"I wore gloves," Mark said.
Josef face was a bright, dangerous crimson. He folded his arms on the tabletop and lowered his head onto them. His shoulders shook.
"Josef." Pat found her voice. "Mark, curse you-look what you've done." In considerable alarm she reached for Josef's wrist. Before she could locate his pulse he raised his head and she saw, incredulously, that he was gasping with laughter.
"He'll have to go away to school," he wheezed. "To Hawaii, or Tibet -someplace where there is only one flight a month out…"
Relieved and unregenerate, Mark grinned at him.
"You're a good sport," he said approvingly. "I was afraid you might be mad."
"Mad?" Josef's alarming color faded, and his mouth closed like a trap. "Mad? What would your father have done to you, Mark, if he caught you in a trick like this?"
"Uh." Mark sobered. "I hate to think," he admitted.
"Think. Because whatever it is, that's what is going to happen to you. I'll ponder the subject. Your dad sounds like a man of considerable ingenuity, but I'll try to come up with something.
"In the meantime, we must deal with the situation as it stands. Just tell me one thing. Was it worth it?"
"Yes," Mark said. He got to his feet. "You'll see. I'll show you."
He slunk out of the room. Kathy, her eyes blazing, turned on her father like a miniature Fury.
"He did it for me, Dad. How dare you yell at him!"
Her father's face softened. "All right, honey. I do understand, but-"
"He has to be punished, Kathy," Pat said. "Good intentions don't count."
"What would your husband have done?" Josef asked.
"Made him pay for the books, I suppose. But, Josef- fifty thousand-"
"That's the Colonel's estimate. We'll find out the true market value." Josef grinned. "That will be a suitable job for the young swindler: getting the prices without leaving evidence of his interest in those particular books. I'll lend him the money, and he can figure out how to reimburse the Colonel anonymously. If he gets a job right now, after school, and works straight through the summer, he'll be able to pay me back. Plus eight percent interest on the loan, of course."