TIM was there, amateurishly picking out a popular song on the piano. He beamed at Galt.
“Hi.”
“How’d you get in?” Galt asked, putting the album on a bookshelf.
“The manager. He knows me, doesn’t he? I can’t stay. Got an appointment at the club. But I thought you might want this.” Tim tossed a wallet to Galt. “Found it by the door after you left my place. Those theater tickets were sticking out, so I figured you’d need ’em tonight. Finally, how about coming with me now for a round of golf?”
Galt put the wallet carefully in his pocket, “I–must have dropped it,” he said inanely.
Tim’s eyes widened. “What a brain. It took me an hour to figure that out... well, how about it?”
“What?”
Tim swung an imaginary niblick. “Eh?”
Before Galt could answer, the door buzzer rang. The man who entered had a tight, jittery sort of face and carried a brief case. He looked around, saw Tim, and said, “Guess you’re busy, Mr. Cavendish. I’ll come back later.”
“I was just leaving.” Tim got up. “Let me know how the show is, Galt. ’Bye.” He went out.
The detective said, “Your brother, eh?”
Galt took a deep breath. “Yes. Well, sit down, Harbin. What have you got?”
“About everything. And nothing.
I hate to work in the dark.”
“I’m in the dark myself. Let’s see your stuff.”
Harbin opened the briefcase and spread out the contents on a big table. “You think somebody’s masquerading as your brother? If so, that somebody hasn’t got a record that I can find out. His prints aren’t on file. There’s no trace of plastic surgery.”
“There wouldn’t be.” Galt said.
“Okay. Well, here it is.”
“Wait a minute. I want you to look at this. D’you know anything about faked photographs?”
“Yeah. Quite a lot. Let’s see it.”
Galt found the album and pointed out the pictures he suspected. Harbin pored over them. From the briefcase he took a magnifying glass and studied the snaps through the lens.
“They don’t look like fakes to me. Mind if I mess one up a bit?”
“Go ahead.”
Harbin took a few bottles out of the briefcase and made a swab out of cotton and a match. The results were strictly negative. At last he shook his head.
“Some fakes are so clever it’s impossible to detect anything wrong. These seem to be on the up-and-up.”
“What about the writing?”
That, too, failed to prove anything. Galt grimaced. No doubt Tim had made the album, and transferred into it the original pictures and writing, adding the proofs of his own former existence. If Tim could create a human body, he would have no great difficulty in such forgeries. Maybe he’d done that before assuming human semblance, when his powers weren’t limited. If they were limited now–
GALT got rid of Harbin by writing a check, and settled down to examining the evidence the detective had brought. Some mail was in the slot, and he opened the envelopes hastily. Most were from old friends and relatives to whom he had written about Tim. He had been careful to say nothing of his suspicions, and he had taken pains to give sound reasons for the questions he’d asked. So the letters gave additional information, which he collated by means of a typewriter and a card-file.
Harbin’s report, too, was helpful. It probed back into the past, covering Tim’s life from birth onward. The result was much too perfect to be true.
There was nothing at all suspicious –which was significant.
Galt arranged the cards chronologically. It was a long, arduous job, and he did not expect to finish it that day. But, at least, he could make a beginning.
Tim’s life paralleled his own. But it was never identical. When Galt as a child skipped 3-B. Tim skipped 4-A. When Galt flunked plane geometry, Tim flunked first algebra. When Galt became engaged, so did Tim–at a different time. When the engagement was broken–
Ergo, Tim had been using Galt as a model. A model for his existence, a design for living.
Galt went to work on his graph. The starting point, for both himself and Tim, was birth. He charted his own life-line, chronologically adding the necessary factors. He used, as far as possible, all the information he had secured, from minor illnesses to vacation trips. Then he threw out everything that could be accounted for logically. A seaside summer–it was no coincidence that both he and Tim had profited by that. But when Tim managed to break his arm, Galt, a week later, sprained his ankle; both boys were taken home.
It was significant that Tim sometimes got in his licks ahead of Galt. Prescience was scarcely involved. Rather, it was a matter of mnemonics. Tim’s life, prior to two years before, was a matter of record only. A record of photographs, birth certificate (Galt had checked that), and memory. Artificial memory, implanted in the minds of those who might have known Tim in the past.
Twenty-five years of the chart were finished. Galt turned to another graph and worked out Tim’s life-line, this time on semi-transparent paper. When he was through, he superimposed the two charts. The life-lines checked exactly, at least there was very little variation.
Galt licked his lips, which were dry. He stared at the evidence for a while, and then went after a drink. The highball he mixed was unusually stiff.
It was poisoned, too.
Galt realized that just in time. He phoned for help and reeled into the bathroom, where he drank quantities of soapy water. The poison did not remain in his stomach.
Later, sick and weak, he lay halt- dressed on his bed and considered. He could guess what Abernathy might say. Men have poisoned themselves to carry out their delusions of persecution...
Tim suspected.
TIM had power to implant artificial memories in human minds. One particular memory-chain had been expurgated from Galt’s brain by the concussion he had suffered. Why, then, didn’t Tim repeat the operation and draw Galt’s fangs? Why was he, instead, trying to commit murder?
Galt remembered something Abernathy had said. Anything the brain has learned it will retain. No matter how deeply it may be hidden in the subconscious, it can be drawn out by hypnosis or by other methods.
Uh-huh. The evidence in Galt’s brain was dynamite to Tim. Perhaps it could be suppressed by hypnotic suggestion. But it would remain nevertheless, ready to burst free– sometime, somehow. Tim could not be sure of making Galt forget permanently. The moving finger had written, and, though the book might be closed, the words remained, permanent, ineradicable, and somehow dangerous to Tim.
But why was Galt’s knowledge dangerous? No one would believe–
Not now. Perhaps later. After Galt had had time to gather overwhelming evidence, perhaps to find clues that could not be refuted. Thor had once masqueraded as a woman. If the Giants had known there was a beard under the veil, Thor could not have maintained the deception.
Find, then, the unearthly, inhuman equivalent of a beard–
There must be something about Tim that would unequivocably prove that he was a masquerader. Some stigmata? But possibly it could not be recognized by humans.
No, that was wrong. Tim was trying to kill Galt. Galt either knew something, or might later learn something, dangerous to Tim’s deception.
What was Tim? What did he want?
Could a human brain comprehend the motives of an inhuman one?
Galt felt very cold. He was glad when the doctor returned with a sleeping potion.
AFTER that Galt went in fear of sudden death. The poisoning was not serious, but it left him shaken and easily upset. Worst of all, perhaps, was the realization that Abernathy might be right–that Tim might be a bona fide brother. But that idea faded as accidents kept happening.