33

 

 

When he told Marie, she went at once to a closet and took down their suitcases. She carried them into the bedroom and began flinging clothes into them.

“What are you doing?” Blaine asked.

“Packing.”

“So I see. But why?”

“Because we’re getting out of here.”

“What are you talking about? We live here!”

“Not any more,” she said. “Not with that damned Smith around. Tom, he means trouble.”

“I’m sure he does,” Blaine said. “But that’s no reason to run. Stop packing a minute and listen! What do you think he can do to me?”

“We’re not going to stay and find out,” she said.

She continued to shove clothes into the suitcase until Blaine grabbed her wrists.

“Calm down,” he told her. “I’m not going to run from Smith.”

“But it’s the only sensible thing to do,” Marie said. “He’s trouble, but he can’t live much longer. Just a few more months, weeks maybe, and he’ll be dead. He should have died long before now, that horrible zombie! Tom, let’s go!”

“Have you gone crazy or something?” Blaine asked. “Whatever he wants, I can handle it.”

“I’ve heard you say that before,” Marie said.

“Things were different then.”

“They’re different now! Tom, we could borrow the cutter again, Mr. Davis would understand, and we could go to—”

“No! I’m damned if I’ll run from him! Maybe you’ve forgotten, Marie, Smith saved my life.”

“But what did he save it for?” she wailed. “Tom, I’m warning you! You mustn’t see him, not if he remembers!”

“Wait a minute,” Blaine said slowly. “Is there something you know? Something I don’t?”

She grew immediately calm. “Of course not.”

“Marie, are you telling me the truth?”

“Yes, darling. But I’m frightened of Smith. Please Tom, humor me this once, let’s go away.”

“I won’t run another step from anyone,” Blaine said. “I live here. And that’s the end of it.”

Marie sat down, looking suddenly exhausted. “All right, dear. Do what you think is best.”

“That’s better,” Blaine said. “It’ll turn out all right.”

“Of course it will,” Marie said.

Blaine put the suitcases back and hung up the clothes. Then he sat down to wait. He was physically calm. But in memory he had returned to the underground, had passed again through the ornate door covered with Egyptian hieroglyphics and Chinese ideograms, into the vast marble-pillared Palace of Death with its gold and bronze coffin. And heard again Reilly’s screaming voice speak through a silvery mist:

“There are things you can’t see, Blaine, but I see them. Your time on Earth will be short, very short, painfully short. Those you trust will betray you, those you hate will conquer you. You will die, Blaine, not in years but soon, sooner than you could believe. You’ll be betrayed, and you’ll die by your own hand.”

That mad old man! Blaine shivered slightly and looked at Marie. She sat with downcast eyes, waiting. So he waited, too.

After a while there was a soft knock at the door.

“Come in,” Blaine said to whoever was outside.