A push from behind in a subway crowd–a loose carpet that nearly sent Galt hurtling downstairs–another flower-pot–a loosened steering-column in his car–these were the component parts of the whole. They scared hell out of Galt. And he could do nothing to protect himself, except increase his already keen watchfulness.
Abernathy was not helpful. Galt no longer found it easy to maintain his equilibrium when he talked with the psychiatrist. Fear was too strong on him.
And whenever he saw Tim, Tim winked.
One day, desperately hoping for a reprieve, Galt burned all the evidence he had gathered. It cost him a good deal to do that, but he was still shaky and upset after a bad spill in the Park. His heel should not have ripped off the shoe that way–not unless it had been loosened already.
So he burned the evidence, and took pains to see Tim the next day and mention the matter. Tim stared.
“What evidence?”
“The parallel in our lives. Coincidence, of course. Why should I waste time on that sort of thing?”
“Well, if it interests you–everybody needs a hobby. Lots of people play around with genealogy.”
“Not me. I've been getting absentminded. Almost fell in the lake yesterday. I figure if I forget this stuff I’ve been playing around with, it’ll tone up my mind. I don’t want to fall down a man-hole because my thoughts are somewhere else.”
Tim lit a cigarette.
After a minute Galt spoke again, a note of almost abject pleading in his voice. “Do you think I’m right?”
“Oh, probably. Probably. I’ve got to beat it. See you later.”
As Tim let himself out of the apartment he took occasion to wink. Galt repressed a shriek with violent effort.
He was far, far too nervous. There was, after all, no real reason for his terror. So he argued. His mind swung like a pendulum back and forth between extremes. One day he was convinced of one thing. The next day–
Thus it went, and the near-accidents continued. Until finally Galt did fall through the ice into the lake, and came down with pneumonia. In his delirium he remarked that he walked every day along that secluded park by-path, and that somebody had undermined the bank there, and there had been a slick coating of ice where no ice should have been, and he didn’t really believe Tim was a devil....
HE awoke one evening to hear voices from the adjoining room. There was the sound of a door’s closing. Galt managed to get out of bed and secure his automatic from the bureau drawer. Then he returned to the warmth of the blankets and hid the gun beneath them.
Tim came in.
“Hi,” he said. “What’s the idea swimming in ice-water at your age?”
Galt didn’t say anything. Tim sat down and lit a cigarette.
“Want one? No? Okay, what’s on your mind?”
“Where’s the doctor?”
“How should I know?”
“Who was that you were talking to?”
“That was your nurse,” Tim explained. “I said I’d stay with you while she went out for dinner. Her relief hadn’t come. Now what’d you like? Want me to read to you?”
With a violent effort, Galt said, “Your secret’s safe with me. I won’t–”
“Mm-m,” Tim put in. “Maybe I'd better take your temperature. Secrets, is it? Relax, sonny.”
“I mean it. You’re human. You’re my brother. I know that. I never thought anything else. I–I–”
“Well, thanks. I’m glad you don’t think I’m a volluswen.” Tim stopped very suddenly.
Galt said, through a dry throat, “I didn’t hear you. I didn’t hear that.”
From the Park the faint sounds of traffic came up in the gathering twilight. The room had grown darker moment by moment. A brief, horrible panic struck through Galt, and he switched on the bedside lamp. In the yellow glow Tim’s shadowy figure resolved itself into familiarity that was not comforting.
After a while Tim shrugged and glanced at his wrist-watch. “Time for your jalop,” he said. “For my money, you need it. Your nerves must be shot.”
Galt watched as his brother measured out a dose of brown fluid from the bottle on the bureau. Tim went into the bathroom and ran water. When he returned, the glass was nearly full of amber fluid.
“I won’t take it,” Galt said. “Of course I won’t take it. I’m not a complete fool.”
“Oh, Lord,” Tim groaned. “The nurse said you had to have a dose of this every hour without fail. Haven’t you been doing that for days?”
“Not that. That isn’t medicine. It’s poison.”
“I’m fed up with that sort of talk,” Tim said, scowling. “What the hell do you think I am?”
“A volluswen,” Galt said.
Tim approached with the medicine. His intention was obvious.
Galt took the automatic from under the blankets and leveled it. Even then, he might not have fired. But Tim winked. It was a sly, triumphant, sniggering sort of wink–
“Volluswen!” Galt screamed, quite insanely, and squeezed the trigger again and again. The glass shattered, brown fluid spattering everywhere. Tim was driven back by the impact of bullets. Bone, heart and brain were riven. The life in Tim Cavendish took its departure.
After that it was a matter of routine.
GALT CAVENDISH leaned forward, waiting for the verdict. The courtroom was quite silent. It had been proved that Tim was no murderer, that he had not attempted to kill his brother. The spilled liquid on the bedroom carpet proved nothing. It was the prescribed drug, with nothing added. Of course, an overdose would have meant the patient’s death, but a quantitative analysis was impossible, under the circumstances.
Acquittal was out of the question, but so was conviction. Galt didn’t want to die. In a sanatorium, he would have time to collect further data, and, some day, prove that Tim Cavendish had never been entirely human. It might take a long time. That didn't matter–
The foreman of the jury, a gaunt, tired-looking man in baggy tweeds, was reading the verdict.
“–find the defendant guilty as charged for murder in the first degree, and we further recommend that no leniency be shown.”
Galt couldn’t believe it. He looked at the foreman and the foreman looked back at him.
And winked.