“Come on!” Fred shouted. “Out of here. We gotta clean up. And you, Joe! Strike that rope!”
Before Fergus could move, before Wolf could leap to the rescue, the efficient stagehand had struck the rope and was coiling it up.
Wolf stared up into the flies. There was nothing up there. Nothing at all. Someplace beyond the end of that rope was the only man on earth he could trust to say Absarka! for him; and the way down was cut off forever.
Wolfe Wolf sprawled on the floor of Gloria Garton’s boudoir and watched that vision of volupty change into her most fetching negligee.
The situation was perfect. It was the fulfillment of all his dearest dreams. The only flaw was that he was still in a wolf’s body.
Gloria turned, leaned over, and chucked him under the snout. “Wuzzum a cute wolf dog, wuzzum?”
Wolf could not restrain a snarl.
“Doesn’t um like Gloria to talk baby talk? Um was a naughty wolf, yes, um was.”
It was torture. Here you are in your best-beloved’s hotel room, all her beauty revealed to your hungry eyes, and she talks baby talk to you! Wolf had been happy at first when Gloria suggested that she might take over the care of her costar pending the reappearance of his trainer—for none of them was quite willing to admit that “Mr. O. Z. Manders” might truly and definitely have vanished—but he was beginning to realize that the situation might bring on more torment than pleasure.
“Wolves are funny,” Gloria observed. She was more talkative when alone, with no need to be cryptically fascinating. “I knew a Wolfe once, only that was his name. He was a man. And he was a funny one.”
Wolf felt his heart beating fast under his gray fur. To hear his own name on Gloria’s warm lips…but before she could go on to tell her pet how funny Wolfe was, her maid rapped on the door.
“A Mr. O’Breen to see you, madam.”
“Tell him to go ’way.”
“He says it’s important, and he does look, madam, as though he might make trouble.”
“Oh, all right.” Gloria rose and wrapped her negligee more respectably about her. “Come on, Yog— No, that’s a silly name. I’m going to call you Wolfie. That’s cute. Come on, Wolfie, and protect me from the big, bad detective.”
Fergus O’Breen was pacing the sitting room with a certain vicious deliberateness in his strides. He broke off and stood still as Gloria and the wolf entered.
“So?” he observed tersely. “Reinforcements?”
“Will I need them?” Gloria cooed.
“Look, light of my love life.” The glint in the green eyes was cold and deadly. “You’ve been playing games, and whatever their nature, there’s one thing they’re not. And that’s cricket.”
Gloria gave him a languid smile. “You’re amusing, Fergus.”
“Thanks. I doubt, however, if your activities are.”
“You’re still a little boy playing cops and robbers. And what boogeyman are you after now?”
“Ha-ha,” said Fergus politely. “And you know the answer to that question better than I do. That’s why I’m here.”
Wolf was puzzled. This conversation meant nothing to him. And yet he sensed a tension of danger in the air as clearly as though he could smell it.
“Go on,” Gloria snapped impatiently. “And remember how dearly Metropolis Pictures will thank you for annoying one of its best box-office attractions.”
“Some things, my sweeting, are more important than pictures, though you mightn’t think it where you come from. One of them is a certain federation of forty-eight units. Another is an abstract concept called democracy.”
“And so?”
“And so I want to ask you one question: Why did you come to Berkeley?”
“For publicity on Fangs, of course. It was your sister’s idea.”
“You’ve gone temperamental and turned down better ones. Why leap at this?”
“You don’t haunt publicity stunts yourself, Fergus. Why are you here?”
Fergus was pacing again. “And why was your first act in Berkeley a visit to the office of the German department?”
“Isn’t that natural enough? I used to be a student here.”
“Majoring in dramatics, and you didn’t go near the Little Theater. Why the German department?” He paused and stood straight in front of her, fixing her with his green gaze.
Gloria assumed the attitude of a captured queen defying the barbarian conqueror. “Very well. If you must know—I went to the German department to see the man I love.”
Wolf held his breath, and tried to keep his tail from thrashing.
“Yes,” she went on impassionedly, “you strip the last veil from me, and force me to confess to you what he alone should have heard first. This man proposed to me by mail. I foolishly rejected his proposal. But I thought and thought—and at last I knew. When I came to Berkeley I had to see him—”
“And did you?”
“The little mouse of a secretary told me he wasn’t there. But I shall see him yet. And when I do—”
Fergus bowed stiffly. “My congratulations to you both, my sweeting. And the name of this more than fortunate gentleman?”
“Professor Wolfe Wolf.”
“Who is doubtless the individual referred to in this?” He whipped a piece of paper from his sport coat and thrust it at Gloria. She paled and was silent. But Wolfe Wolf did not wait for her to reply. He did not care. He knew the solution to his problem now, and he was streaking unobserved for her boudoir.
Gloria Garton entered the boudoir a minute later, a shaken and wretched woman. She unstoppered one of the delicate perfume bottles on her dresser and poured herself a stiff tot of whiskey. Then her eyebrows lifted in surprise as she stared at her mirror. Scrawlingly lettered across the glass in her own deep-crimson lipstick was the mysterious word
ABSARKA
Frowning, she said it aloud. “Absarka—”
From behind a screen stepped Professor Wolfe Wolf, incongruously wrapped in one of Gloria’s lushest dressing robes.
“Gloria dearest—” he cried.
“Wolfe!” she exclaimed. “What on earth are you doing here in my room?”
“I love you. I’ve always loved you since you couldn’t tell a strong from a weak verb. And now that I know that you love me—”
“This is terrible. Please get out of here!”
“Gloria—”
“Get out of here, or I’ll sic my dog on you. Wolfie— Here, nice Wolfie!”
“I’m sorry, Gloria. But Wolfie won’t answer you.”
“Oh, you beast! Have you hurt Wolfie? Have you—”
“I wouldn’t touch a hair on his pelt. Because, you see, Gloria darling, I am Wolfie.”
“What on earth do you—” Gloria stared around the room. It was undeniable that there was no trace of the presence of a wolf dog. And here was a man dressed only in one of her robes and no sign of his own clothes. And after that funny little man and the rope…
“You thought I was drab and dull,” Wolf went on. “You thought I’d sunk into an academic rut. You’d sooner have an actor or a G-man. But I, Gloria, am something more exciting than you’ve ever dreamed of. There’s not another soul on earth I’d tell this to, but I, Gloria, am a werewolf.”
Gloria gasped. “That isn’t possible! But it does all fit in. What I heard about you on campus, and your friend with the funny beard and how he vanished, and, of course, it explains how you did tricks that any real dog couldn’t possibly do—”
“Don’t you believe me, darling?”
Gloria rose from the dresser chair and went into his arms. “I believe you, dear. And it’s wonderful! I’ll bet there’s not another woman in all Hollywood that was ever married to a werewolf!”
“Then you will—”
“But of course, dear. We can work it out beautifully. We’ll hire a stooge to be your trainer on the lot. You can work daytimes, and come home at night and I’ll say that word for you. It’ll be perfect.”