Devlin sat in his car in the darkness, concealing a glowing cigarette in his cupped hand, watching, across and three houses up the street, the home of Judge Wilke.
It was nearly eight o’clock. Devlin had followed the judge home from Justice Hall shortly after five. He had watched the elderly man park in the driveway and enter his house. Now, more than two and a half hours later, he was still watching.
On the seat beside him was a silver flask of brandy and a sheet of paper on which was written the residence addresses of Wilke, Doctors Fox and Price, and Barry Chace. The addresses of Reverend O’Hara and Todd Holt he already knew. All of them combined were part of a rotating surveillance plan that Devlin had devised in the hope that one or the other of the men might lead him to Keyes.
Checking his watch now, he noted that he had only seven more minutes to watch the Wilke home. The judge had remained in all evening and had received no visitors. There were, Devlin had learned, two other occupants of the house: Wilke’s widowed daughter and her twenty-year-old son, a college student. With them living in the house, it was not likely that Keyes was being held there.
Devlin extinguished his cigarette in the dashboard ashtray and opened the silver flask. He took a sip of the brandy, held it until it set his tongue on fire, then swallowed it. He thought briefly of Jennifer. She had not been at the apartment when he returned the previous night. A note on the desk told him that she had returned home, that she would be waiting when he felt that he could come to her with a clear conscience.
Devlin was more than a little disappointed to find her gone. He had badly needed someone to talk to, having just returned from his unsuccessful visit with Todd Holt and Janet Sundean—
Janet Sundean, he thought incredulously. Jan, the gawky, pigtailed little girl who insisted on falling asleep on his lap whenever he visited her father for one of their long philosophical discussions; who pestered him mercilessly while he was constructing the massive fireplace in the Sundean home. Little Jan, daughter of the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court; all grown up now—and involved in this insane vigilante plot or whatever it was—
Incredible, he thought.
Inside the house across the street, Judge Wilke was at his desk, a yellow legal pad before him, preparing to compose a statement which he would issue to the press after J. Walter Keyes was returned, in his vegetated state, to society.
The judge opened a drawer of the desk and took out a bottle of ink. Removing the cap, he proceeded to fill an old-fashioned plunger type fountain pen, its enamel nearly gone from the volume of use it had endured. The pen had been given to him as an anniversary present by his late wife almost thirty years ago. The judge never carried it in his vest pocket anymore, as he once had; now he kept it in his desk and used it only for personal writing, because it, like himself, was well worn with age and he wanted it, if possible, to last as long as he did. He had already left instructions with his daughter that it was to be buried with him when he was laid to rest next to the woman who had given it to him.
The pen filled, he turned to the composition of his statement. He intended to make it a strong one, very strong. Of course, he would be impeached for it and removed from the bench, but that did not matter too much. What was important was that the public realize that what had been done to Keyes was not a crime but an act of justice. Pure justice—
It was a thing he had dreamed of for fifty years—
At fifteen minutes past eight, Devlin parked his car around the corner from the home of Dr. Milton Price. He got out and walked past the house on foot. Through a large picture window in front he was able to see the doctor’s wife and two teenage daughters in the living room. Both family cars were in the drive, so Devlin was reasonably certain that Price was also in the house. He returned to his own car, reparked it where he would have a view of the house, and settled down to watch for the two-hour period he had allowed for Price.
Dr. Price, like Judge Wilke, was also preparing a statement in writing, though not for the press. Price’s opinion of the Keyes affair was to be in the form of a lecture, to be delivered to each of three psychology classes he taught at the university. It would, like the judge’s, be strongly in support of the Eden Movement’s aims and purpose, which by that time would have been made public for all the world to know. The stand would no doubt cost him his professorship at the university—but not before he had indoctrinated the theory of pure justice into some sixty-five impressionable students.
Downstairs he could hear his wife giving the girls their bi-weekly piano lesson. His wife played beautifully; someday the girls would too. Briefly he hoped that his public position regarding the Keyes matter would not affect his family too adversely. He would be in the minority, of course, in his viewpoint, but he had been in similar positions before and Lucille and the girls had stood by him. Nothing in the past had been quite this serious or controversial, he had to admit, but he had confidence in his family. Of course, the girls were growing up awfully fast, developing their own ideas about things. Soon, much too soon, they would not be girls any longer, they would be young women—
God forbid, he shuddered involuntarily, that either of them should ever come under the influence of anyone like Keyes—
Devlin watched the Price home until ten o’clock. There was, he decided, little possibility that Keyes would be there either: too many people in the house besides Price. He started his car and drove to the residence of Barry Chace.
Chace, a bachelor, lived alone in a third floor apartment of a building near the downtown area. Devlin had located the exact apartment earlier in the day while Chace was at work; he knew which two windows belonged to Chace and even which one opened into the living room and which into the bedroom.
As he drove around to the side of the building Chace’s apartment faced, Devlin saw at once that both windows were dark. He parked and walked to a corner telephone booth and dialed Chace’s number. There was no answer. Devlin walked back down the street and stood for a moment looking up at the dark windows. Would it be possible, he wondered, to conceal a prisoner in an apartment, with so many people living in such close proximity? He supposed so; but it would be difficult. They might use drugs, of course, to keep him quiet; but that would present a variety of problems: feeding, sanitation, others. It was highly unlikely, he decided, shaking his head and walking back to his car.
Devlin next drove to the home of Dr. Damon Fox. It was a large, stately brick residence at the end of a secluded street in the foothills. There he found three cars parked on the circular driveway. Turning his own car around, he drove halfway back up the block and parked. He returned to the Fox home on foot, cautiously, walking in shadows as much as possible. When he was close enough, he noted the license numbers of the three cars and paused to scribble them on the inside of a matchbook cover.
Presently he returned to his car and used a penlight to locate the page in his notebook on which was listed the makes, models and license numbers of all autos registered in the names of the men he was following. Comparing the list with the numbers on the matchbook cover, Devlin learned that Dr. Fox had two visitors: Todd Holt and Barry Chace.
So, he thought, the plot thickens. He put away the penlight, lighted a cigarette, and settled back in the seat to watch.
There were actually three visitors in the Fox home; the third was Janet Sundean.
She sat with Todd and Barry before a long rectangular table upon which stood a series of anatomy charts, and behind which stood Dr. Fox.
“This operation is not nearly as difficult or involved as you may think,” the doctor was saying. “Most surgical procedures are done for the purpose of repair; that is generally where the difficulty lies. In our case, of course, we will not be repairing, merely removing, so from a surgical standpoint it will be comparatively simple.” He hesitated and glanced at Janet. “I do want to emphasize, however, that it will not be a very pretty experience in which to participate. Among other things, it will be quite gory—and bloody.”
“If you’re worried about me, Damon,” Janet said quietly, “please don’t. I believe very strongly in what the Movement is doing; as strongly as any of you, I can assure you. I can be quite persevering when the situation requires it.”
“I can vouch for that, Damon,” Todd Holt said wryly, smiling. Janet threw him an icy glance, then barely concealed her own smile.
“Very well,” Dr. Fox said. “As a precautionary measure, I will have one of our colleagues standing by with ammonium hydroxide ampules, just in case one of you should suffer sudden nausea. Actually, it will only be necessary for two of you to assist me; that will probably be you, Janet, and you, Barry, since both of you are slighter of build than Todd; the less crowded it is around the table, the better. Todd, you can serve as a standby, in case you’re needed.”
The doctor paused and rubbed his delicate hands together briefly. His composure, his entire manner, was in its usual crisp, businesslike vein, completely belying the purpose of the situation at hand. It was, almost, as if Damon Fox were nerveless.
“The physical makeup of the Blue Room,” he continued, lifting a diagram from the table, “once it has been converted for the operation, will resemble this—”
It was after midnight when Devlin saw the visitors depart Dr. Fox’s home. Although he had not considered the possibility of Janet Sundean being with them, the sight of her getting into Todd’s car did not surpise him. She was, he had reconciled himself to the fact, as deeply involved in the Keyes affair as any of them.
The two cars pulled out of the Fox driveway and separated at the first corner, going in opposite directions. Devlin, driving without headlights, followed the car driven by Barry Chace. He had quickly surmised that following Todd would lead him nowhere, since Todd probably would be taking Janet home; plus which he was not entirely certain that he could follow Todd without being discovered.
Barry Chace drove directly back to his apartment house, parked his car, and went upstairs. Devlin drove around to the side of the building and watched the apartment windows light up. He logged the time next to Chace’s name on his list, waited half an hour to be certain that the statistician was remaining home, then began a final check of each residence he had watched since the night began.
The wide circle he had mapped out took him an hour to drive. He found Wilke and Price homes dark and quiet. The Fox house was the same. A brief turn past the church residence of Reverend O’Hara, which he had not reached in his itinerary that night, assured him that all was in order there, and set him to pondering, as he drove toward Todd Holt’s apartment house, whether O’Hara’s church might not be a likely place to hold an abducted man. Did it, he wondered, have a basement? Most churches did have; if not a basement, at least some kind of room for meetings, social gatherings and such. That, he decided, was a strong possibility. A church building, unoccupied, unused generally except on Sundays—
He found, when he arrived, that Todd was at home; his car, parked near the building, was securely locked for the night.
The final place to check was back at Barry Chace’s building. Chace’s apartment was dark now, his car still where he had left it.
It was after two in the morning when Devlin got back to his own apartment. He set the alarm for six and went to bed.
At seven o’clock, with the early morning sun just beginning to warm the air, Devlin sat back behind the wheel of his car, again watching the home of Dr. Fox. The doctor emerged from the house at seven-twenty and drove toward the expressway. Devlin followed him until he entered the expressway and headed toward the city limits, in the direction of the state hospital.
Devlin switched then to the nearest person on his list, which happened to be Barry Chace. He arrived at Chace’s apartment house just in time to follow the smartly dressed Negro to his office at the headquarters of International Statistical Data, Incorporated. He watched Chace leave his car with a parking lot attendant and enter the downtown office building.
By then it was nearly nine. Hungry, Devlin found a drive-in and ordered breakfast. As he ate, he found himself thinking about Keyes. Damn it, they have to feed the man; one of them has to be looking after him in some way—
Unless, the thought occurred to him, there were others involved—
Was that possible? Certainly, anything was possible. But was it probable? Not too. Still—
He shook his head in frustration and took out his list for the day. He would check on Judge Wilke first; that was easy enough, just look in the courtroom. Then Dr. Price out at the university. Then Todd at Chief Justice Sundean’s offices in the State Building. Then—
By noon Devlin had satisfied himself that each one of his subjects was engaged in a normal, daily routine. Each was exactly where he was supposed to be; no one was missing. He had even accidentally located Janet Sundean, who had no regular job but who apparently was helping her father in the Chief Justice’s business offices where Todd Holt also was working.
Wherever Keyes was being held, Devlin decided, it was obvious that none of the known members of the conspiracy were guarding him. Which meant one of two things: either he was alone in a secure, escape-proof place somewhere, or there were others involved; others of whom Devlin had no knowledge.
He decided to drive out to Reverend O’Hara’s church and watch there for awhile. On the way he thought of Jennifer again; he had not talked to her in nearly two days now; but perhaps, he decided, that was for the best. His mind was already cluttered up enough without adding more to the melee of his thoughts. She was a lovely woman—lovely, exciting to him, infinitely desirable; how good it would be to share a long, quiet time with her, in some beautiful place, like Ireland, away from all the pressures of the world, away from everything grey and sordid, with just the good of life between them, just the mist and an open fire and the warmth of good brandy and old Irish quilts on the bed—
It could be done, he thought more seriously. He had a fairly healthy savings account, enough at least for a year in Ireland, and Jennifer he was sure had considerable personal funds of her own. They could just walk away, both of them; her from the undesirable marriage which was obviously affecting her mental and physical well-being, and him from his unfortunate involvement in an affair which already had cost him two close friends and now was forcing him to struggle with his own conscience—
Just walk away. How easy it would be. Fly to the east, stop off to pick up Jennifer’s daughter, and go on to Shannon. From there—well, they could find a place. A place to love and be happy and—
And think of Keyes, his mind told him. Everytime you touched her, you’d think of Keyes, and you’d wonder if he died because you ran away with his wife instead of doing your job of finding him.
Yes, it would be easy to run. But after the running was over—
Devlin guided his car to the curb across the wide street from Reverend Abraham O’Hara’s church, and parked. He could see the minister’s car in a corner of the asphalt lot near the rectory gate. Loosening his tie, he lighted a cigarette and settled back in the seat to watch.
In the basement of the church, Abraham O’Hara, in shirt sleeves, was carefully stacking freshly inked sheets of paper which he had just run off on a mimeograph machine. He wore rubber gloves to prevent leaving fingerprints on the paper. In a corner of the same room, his wife, wearing similar gloves, was rolling envelopes into an electric typewriter and addressing them.
Pausing a moment to rest, the minister sat down and lifted one of the mimeoed pages to re-read it. Written in the form of a standard press release, the page, along with five others to which it would be attached, would form a story which would tell the world of the transgressions and punishment of J. Walter Keyes. It was a story which, as the Examiner had directed, was designed to strike a terrible fear into the heart of everyone who read it. It described the evil which Keyes had wrought, and its potential consequences; it told, without identifying the members, of the purpose of the Eden Movement; and it warned mankind to suppress its own evil or subject itself to the fate of men like Keyes.
Studying the page, weighing again the unequivocal finality of the warning, Abraham O’Hara unconsciously nodded his head in silent assent. Harsh, he thought, very harsh, very uncompromising. But very necessary. Good had been compromised far too much and far too long already, which was why the forces of evil continued to prevail in the world. Now, with the Eden Movement, a measure of strength would be restored to good men everywhere; the forces of right would, as God meant them to, become absolute. It would be a great return of man to his maker, O’Hara mused. Great—and glorious.
He returned the page to its place on the stack and glanced over at his dark, lovely wife. As he watched her rubber-gloved hands move gracefully over the typewriter, he marvelled for perhaps the thousandth time at the miracle that had made such a beautiful woman love him
It was three hours after Devlin had begun watching the church that he saw Reverend O’Hara and his wife emerge from the rectory and load several stacks of bundled paper into the trunk of their car, and proceed to drive away. For a moment Devlin considered following them, but he thought better of the idea and decided instead to explore the church in their absence.
He waited five minutes after they had left, then crossed the street and entered the churchyard. After assuring himself that no caretaker or other person was there to observe him, he systematically peered through all the basement windows of both the church and O’Hara’s residence. He saw nothing in the various rooms except folding chairs, cleaning equipment, a portable podium, a mimeograph machine with supplies, and other miscellaneous paraphernalia of no interest to him.
Returning to his car, belatedly wishing he had followed the O’Haras, Devlin glanced at his watch and saw that it was nearly five o’clock. He decided to stop at a drive-in and pick up some sandwiches, then proceed directly to the secluded residence of Dr. Damon Fox.
At seven o’clock that night, his car parked in shadows across the quiet street from the Fox house, Devlin began to feel sleepy for the first time. He mentally recounted the hours of his forced surveillance and found that he had slept only three hours of the past thirty-five. He would not be able to keep up the pace too many more hours, he thought. If something did not break by midnight—
As he was thinking of his fatigue, a car passed him and turned into the Fox drive. At once he became alert, narrowing his eyes slightly to insure an accurate look at the driver. It was, he saw, Todd Holt. Beside him in the front seat was Janet Sundean; sitting behind them was Barry Chace. Devlin noted the time and jotted it in his notebook. He watched as the three were admitted to the house by Dr. Fox—
“Ah, good evening,” Dr. Fox greeted his visitors. “Thank you for coming by for me.” He closed the door behind them and turned to Todd. “Did you get a truck all right?”
“Yes,” Todd nodded. “Barry was able to get a panel model from the U-Drive uptown. We thought that would be better than a pick-up.”
“Yes, it will; very good. The equipment we’ll need for the operation is waiting for us at the warehouse where I had it shipped. They have a night dispatcher on duty, so all we have to do is call for it.”
“Will it take very long to assemble the equipment and get it set up in the Blue Room?” Janet asked.
“No, it shouldn’t. The units are self-contained for the most part; there’s actually little to do except uncrate them. The majority of our time tonight will be used in familiarizing you with the instruments I shall be using; the hemostats, retractos, sponge sticks, and so on. I’ll go into all of this in much more detail later this evening. For now, however, I think we’d best be on our way. How are we going to work the transportation?”
“We’ll all go in Todd’s car to where the truck is parked,” Barry Chace said. “Then Todd and I will take the truck and pick up the equipment while you and Jan go on to the Blue Room in the car. Later, when we’re finished for the night, I’ll return the truck to the U-Drive. My car is parked a block from there.”
“Good,” said the doctor.
“When do you think we’ll actually do the operation?” Janet asked quietly.
“Tomorrow night, I should think,” Dr. Fox replied. He stepped past them to the door. “Shall we go?”
Devlin watched the four of them get into Todd’s car and round the drive back to the street. For the second time that day he had to quickly decide whether to follow or stay. His better judgment told him to follow them, but his manhunter’s instinct dissented. His primary goal was to find Keyes. He had thus far eliminated as possible places of captivity the Wilkes and Price homes, because of other occupants; and the apartments of Todd and Chace, due to the sheer unfeasibility of such a situation; and he was now satisfied that Reverend O’Hara’s church was not being used as a prison. That left only this large, secluded house occupied solely by Dr. Damon Fox—
Todd’s car passed the deep shadows in which Devlin sat, and Devlin reached for his ignition key. His hand halted an inch from it and he turned to stare across at the dark, lonely house the four people had just left. He remained in that position until the red tail-lights of Todd’s car disappeared around the corner.
So that was that: he would let them go—and search Dr. Fox’s house.
He waited there in the darkness for another ten minutes, the anxiety slowly growing within him. This could be it, his mind kept whispering; Keyes could be inside that house that very minute, tied up or drugged, waiting for whatever fate Dr. Fox and Todd and the others had in mind for him—
Devlin stepped out of his car and walked to the terminus of the block, following the shadows across the street. The house loomed up at him as he departed a stand of trees and entered the lawn. His eyes searched for a sign of light from within, but he found none. If Keyes was in a drugged state, and alone, there would be no necessity for lights; but if he was not drugged, if he was being guarded in some remote room of the house—? A windowless room, perhaps—or blackout curtains—all manner of possibilities crossed Devlin’s mind.
He moved silently to the side of the house, locating windows by the light of the moon. He stood close by each window in turn, his ear pressed to the smooth, cold pane, straining for sound. He heard nothing. He completely circled the house, listening at every window he could reach, but there was not a sound from within.
No sound, no light. Devlin leaned back against the side of the house, throat dry, frowning deeply. It’s the only logical place, he thought doggedly; the only place where any of them lived alone, the only place remote enough, isolated enough, to hold a man captive without detection. Keyes had to be in here. He must be drugged; there was no other explanation.
He pushed himself away from the house and retraced his steps, cautiously testing every window in the hope of finding one that had been left unlocked. Again he was unsuccessful. More determined than ever, he made his way into the attached garage and felt along the wall until he found the inner door which led into the house. It too was locked.
Feeling his way back to the outside door, Devlin’s hand brushed over a ladder leaning against the wall. Instantly he stopped, his hand still on the ladder. He thought of windows again, and this time his eyes instinctively raised upward. The second floor windows—
Slowly, soundlessly, Devlin lifted the ladder away from the wall and moved it outside. He carried it to the place where the front of the upper story rose up from the garage roof. Gently leaning it into position, he removed his shoes and climbed to the top rung. Standing up, he was almost waist-high to the edge of the roof. Bracing himself, he put one knee on the roof and dragged himself up.
The first window he came to was unlocked and open several inches. Devlin carefully slid the screen off and raised the window all the way. He slipped into the room very slowly, feeling his way to avoid chairs and lamps. Once securely inside, he reached out and slid the screen back on, and lowered the window to its original position.
He began to feel around in the darkness, guiding himself along the walls, detouring around furniture. He found that he was in a bedroom, and it was definitely unoccupied. He checked the bathroom, then made his way into the hall. Moving methodically, like a blind man, he felt-searched his way through two more bedrooms, another bathroom and two hall closets.
He found the stairs and descended to the main floor of the house. He examined the living room, dining room, a large study, kitchen, pantry, more closets; every dark square foot of space in every room, behind every door—and found nothing. No drugged hostage lying helpless, waiting for a desperate, boldly executed rescue; no struggling captive chained to a wall or hanging by his thumbs—nothing. The only sign of life in Dr. Damon Fox’s secluded, isolated house was a school of very excited goldfish in a dimly-lighted aquarium.
Devlin went into the kitchen and leaned over the sink to rub cool water onto his face. He was very tired now, his eyes heavy from lack of sleep, his body drained of energy both from the long, pressing surveillance and now the frustration of having failed to find Keyes after being so certain that the missing man was in Fox’s house. He wiped his face with a handkerchief and blotted out any water that had wet the sink. Then he let himself out the back door, pulling it locked behind him.
It was late now and the coolness of the outside air chilled him as he made his way to the ladder and put his shoes back on. He replaced the ladder where he had found it and walked through the shadows back to his car.
He was beaten, he thought, leaning his head wearily against the steering wheel. Todd, Janet, Fox, the rest—they had beaten him, all of them. Beaten him cold, at every turn—
His eyes were closed and he felt himself beginning to drift asleep. For a hazy moment the face of Jennifer Jordan floated in the smoky twilight clouding his consciousness. He dreamed an instant dream of earlier thought: Jennifer and him in Ireland, away from all that was bad in the world—
Then he remembered why it could not be so, and the memory, ugly and black, drove him awake again. Keyes, Keyes, Keyes, you son of a bitch—
He raised his head, glaring through the windshield at pitch darkness. I’ll find you, you bastard, he swore to himself. I’ll find you!
He twisted the ignition key and shocked the car to life. Drawing away from the curb, he glanced a final time at the dark, looming house of Damon Fox.
In the moonlight, it seemed almost to be laughing at him.