12

The cab stopped and they went, single-file, Hope Oldham first, between parked cars. Mrs. Oldham was, as she crossed the sidewalk, groping in her big bag. She did not pause, did not wait for Pam and Jerry North. She bent down a little, putting a key in the lock, turning the key. She pushed the door open and they went into the Elwell house and then Hope Oldham called her daughter’s name.

And there was no answer. She called again, and no sound but her voice broke the silence in the house. Jerry found a switch; a muted light came on in a ceiling fixture.

“We’re—” Hope said, and turned and looked at the Norths, her eyes seeming to pick up the light. “We’re too late,” she said.

But Jerry shook his head at that.

“If they’re here,” he said, “if he brought her here as—for the reasons you think—to hypnotize her—to—”

He stopped.

“To what,” he said. “What exactly?”

She looked at him, and seemed amazed.

“Why,” she said. “Get her to say—make her think—that she killed the professor. Get her to confess. I thought—didn’t I say that?”

“No,” Jerry said. “But—if he’s trying that, he’ll probably try in this laboratory. Where, as you say, it’s all arranged. Set up. And—the lab’s soundproofed.”

“Yes,” Pam said, and now she led—led up the stairs. She went very quickly, very lightly. They followed her, Jerry last.

Pam hesitated momentarily on the second-floor landing, glanced at two closed doors. But then she went on up the next flight. Of course she was right, Jerry thought; if they were to find anything, anyone, it would be in Jameson Elwell’s office, or in the laboratory beyond it. He had a stubborn doubt that they would find anything, anybody. The further they went with it, the more improbable it seemed—all of it seemed.

The door to the professor’s office was closed. Pam tried it; it was not locked. The door opened inward and opened silently. It also opened on a dark room, and Pam, now, stopped in the doorway. There was a little light, sifting up from he foyer light below.

Jerry hesitated for a moment. Then he reached around Pam, groping for the light switch and found it and again hesitated. Then he pushed the tumbler up. A light went on on the desk—a light in a metal cone. There was no one in the room. But the door to the “closet”—to the passage to the laboratory—was partly open. There was no sound in the room and they heard nothing from the laboratory beyond it. Presumably because the door at the other end of the short corridor, the passage between filing cases, was closed.

Jerry had been in the office only twice—once when he had gone there to talk to Elwell about the book; again when Jamey had given them dinner and, after it, asked if they would like to see where he conducted most of his experiments—his experiments, that was, in hypnotism. “Not cats,” he had explained, and Pam had a little lost interest, but gone along all the same.

The door at the rear of the “closet” was, Jerry remembered, a sliding door. So it might be possible—

He went first, now; went between the filing cases in the corridor and reached for the hollowed handhold in the sliding door, and stopped with his fingers in it. Then he put an ear to the door. There was a faint murmur beyond it; the murmur, he thought, of a woman’s voice.

He turned back. Mrs. Oldham and Pam stood at the doorway, watching. He beckoned Hope Oldham, used sign language. She put an ear to the door, listened, stepped back. She started to speak, but Jerry tapped his lips with a forefinger, and they went back into the office.

“It’s her voice,” Hope Oldham said, in a whisper. “I was—we’ve got to stop it. Before he—”

She did not finish.

“First,” Pam said, after it was evident that the older woman was leaving words hanging, “first we ought to find out what—what’s really going on. By listening.”

She looked at Jerry.

“Without his knowing,” Pam explained, to, it occurred to Jerry, the backward.

They could, at any rate, try. Jerry went across the room, flicked off the light. He groped among shadows to the “closet” and into the little corridor and this time they went behind him, Hope first, then Pam. He put fingers back in the handhold and began, gently, to pull the door to the side. “If it makes a noise,” Jerry thought, “I’ve had it—if it makes a noice and Hunter’s really this desperate character Hope Oldham thinks he is.” Jerry had, then, the unhappy conviction that Hunter probably was just that. What had before—only moments before—seemed entirely improbable seemed now, as the door began slowly to move, altogether too likely. Hunter would hear the door, and Hunter would still have the gun and—

As the crack widened, Jerry moved a little to one side. But then he realized that, by so doing, he put Pam and Mrs. Oldham in the line of prospective fire, and sighed silently, and moved back. Couldn’t let the so-and-so shoot Pam.

The door made no sound. When it was open a few inches, and as the murmuring voice became the sound of words, spoken softly, Jerry stopped his pressure on the door. There was space enough to look through, now; they could see, and hear, what they needed to see and hear.

There was a single soft light in the room. It, too, glowed in a metal cone; the cone was pointed toward the wall, reflected from it softly.

Faith Oldham lay on her back on a couch. Hunter sat beside her, faced toward her (so that his back was to the “closet” door, which was a break). He sat with his right leg stiffly out in front of him. (So, he wouldn’t move quickly, when he moved; which was another break.)

The tape recorder was on the table beside the couch.

“—of mother,” Faith said, in a soft voice, with the intonation of one who ends a sentence. For a moment there was silence. Then Hunter, not much more than a dark shadow against the lighted wall, reached toward the tape recorder. There was a faint click and an almost imperceptible humming began.

“You are Faith Oldham,” Hunter said, and spoke very quietly, very slowly and very gently. “You are in an hypnotic trance. You are Faith Oldham, and you are sleeping soundly and you will not waken until I tell you. Then you will waken easily and feel rested and refreshed.”

“Yes,” Faith said. She did not move, and her eyes were closed. But her voice was quite a normal voice. It was also an oddly contented voice. “I will not waken until you tell me.”

“When you do wake up,” Hunter said, in the same soothing voice, “you will remember everything that is happening now. You will remember you have been in a trance and what I said and what you said to me. Do you understand that, Faith?”

“I—” the girl said, and then hesitated. “I will remember?”

“Yes,” Hunter said. “I am making a recording of what we are both saying. You do not mind if I make a recording?”

“No,” Faith said. “That’s all right, Carl.”

Her tone, the whole grouping of her words, was so natural, so much what one might have expected from a person awake, that Jerry North wondered, fleetingly, whether this was a charade—a charade played for their benefit. Or—and this was more probable—for the benefit of the tape recorder. But then this, he thought, would be a preposterous overproduction. It had been going on before they came; he was almost certain that Hunter did not, now, know that they were there. If a charade for the recorder only, why the couch, the closed eyes? The recorder would not register that the eyes were closed. If for the recorder, why not sit somewhere in comfort—Hunter certainly did not look comfortable—and read lines into it? He groped briefly through his few, and rather dim memories of Elwell’s book; came up with something. Good subjects in hypnosis behaved, spoke, so naturally that no one could detect hypnosis.

Jerry’s thoughts ran under the words of the two in the laboratory. He heard the words.

“You have been hypnotized before,” Carl Hunter said. “You remember that now. Do you remember that?”

“Yes,” Faith said. “Now I remember. But—I’m not supposed to remember. When I’m awake I won’t remember.”

“This time you will remember,” Carl Hunter said. “Do you understand me, Faith? When you wake up this time, you will remember all that has happened. You will waken when I tell you to, and you will remember all that has happened. Do you understand me, Faith?”

“I understand.”

“Jamey hypnotized you before,” Hunter said. “That is right, isn’t it? He explained what he wanted to do and you went into a trance—went to sleep. As you are now.”

“Yes,” she said. “It happened four or five times.”

“That was Professor Jameson Elwell? That is the one you mean when you say Uncle Jamey.”

“That’s a silly thing to say, Carl,” the girl said. “Who else would I mean?”

“I know,” Carl said.

“And,” Faith said, “you asked me all this just now. Just before.”

It was obvious enough to Jerry; to the others waiting in the wings. This time it was for the record; this time to make a record to be heard by others. But—Jerry thought—could anything really be done with such a recording? For whatever purpose Hunter wanted to use it? It didn’t seem—

“I know,” Hunter said. “Jamey hypnotized you several times. He always told you that when you waked up you would not remember. And, that if somebody asked you, you would deny you had ever been hypnotized. Isn’t that right, Faith?”

“Yes,” she said.

“But now you remember,” Hunter said. “You remember all about the other times, don’t you?”

“I remember,” Faith said.

“He hypnotized you to help you. Isn’t that right, Faith?”

“So I could be myself,” the girl said. “That’s what he told me. When he waked me up, I would be myself. I would not be under—under—”

She hesitated. For the first time there seemed to be a struggle in her mind; conflict in her mind.

“Under the influence of somebody else,” Hunter said. “Who, Faith?”

She hesitated.

“Who, Faith?”

“Hope.”

Hope Oldham drew in her breath sharply, almost as if she had been struck. She moved. Jerry took her arm, pressed hard, and she looked up at him. There was just enough light for him to see her face; she formed words with her lips, without sound. “I told you,” the lips said.

“Who is Hope?”

“Why do you ask that?” the girl said. “You know, Carl.”

“Who?”

“My mother.”

“Why do you call her Hope?” Hunter said, softly, the voice very soothing.

“She wants me to.”

“Why? Do you know why? Did Jamey tell you why?”

“He said I must understand why. That that was part of what I had to do to—to be myself. He said I must decide whether it was to—to tie us more closely together. Not only as mother and daughter—as contemporaries. To draw me back into her life. He said—he said that children and parents break apart as the children grow. He said the way cells divide, and that that is the way things are meant to be, so that each person can be himself. He said that if that seemed right to me, I must—must have the strength to make it right. Whatever appeal she made.”

Holding her arm, trying to quiet her, to keep her from the movement that seemed imminent, Jerry could feel Hope Oldham’s body move convulsively. He pressed more firmly.

“Go on, Faith,” Hunter said. “What else did he tell you about this? And—did he tell you much the same thing each time he hypnotized you? You were willing for him to hypnotize you, weren’t you?”

“I was—I felt guilty,” Faith said, seeming to answer the last question first. “After—after you and I met. Because it seemed wrong and she kept saying it was wrong, and that it was my duty to—to her.”

“Your duty to do what?”

“To marry Arnold. But after we met—”

She stopped at that. Jerry had, momentarily, a feeling that Hunter had pressed her too far. Sometimes—another dim memory from Elwell’s book—didn’t the best subjects awaken, unexpectedly, when pressed too far? When the mind encountered a block?

Hope Oldham pulled at Jerry’s arm with her free hand, and gestured, and he bent down to her. Her lips were against his ear, he could feel her breath on his ear.

“You see what they did?” she whispered, and even with her lips so close he could just hear her. “What he’s doing now? The—poison? We’ve got to stop—”

Jerry shook his head quickly. He reversed their positions. “Wait,” Jerry whispered. “Wait!”

He was not sure she would.

“Let him give himself away,” Jerry whispered. If that wouldn’t do it, nothing would. She pulled back a little and stared at him in the dim light. He couldn’t tell anything from her face.

She should be willing to wait, Jerry thought; should even be eager to wait. Because Hunter was, methodically—and for the record!—proving that what Hope Oldham had charged was true; that Elwell, and now Hunter himself, had worked to influence Faith’s young—unsure, too trusting—mind; had sought to come between the girl and her mother.

“What else did he tell you?” Hunter asked. He had been silent for some seconds. Possibly, Jerry thought, to let the block in the girl’s mind dissolve. “About you and your mother?”

“That was all,” Faith said. “Oh—he said it each time and told me to remember, but not remember I remembered. Once he said that animals were wiser about parents and children. Mother cats, he said, know when it is time for kittens to be on their own, and push them away when it is time. And that if the kittens stay around and grow up, the mother cat just thinks of them as other cats, and lets them be other cats. He said that, of course, that was a good deal to ask of humans.”

Again, Hope Oldham snatched in her breath. Jerry could not tell whether in indignation or, as seemed equally possible, satisfaction at a point proved.

“Faith,” Hunter said, “did you know that Jamey was sick? That he wasn’t going to live more than a few months? Did he tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“Was that when you were in a trance?”

“Yes, Carl.”

“And told you that you would not remember that, either, after he had waked you up?”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you that he was going to leave you money?”

“Yes, he told me that. He said he knew that we needed money and—and—”

Again it seemed as if her mind were blocked.

“Go on, Faith,” Hunter said. “Go on. You are to remember everything, Faith. Everything.”

“That if I had money of my own I wouldn’t need to feel—responsible. Responsible about that. That it wouldn’t need to be part of any decision I made.”

“But you were to forget that, too, when you were awake? That he had said he was going to leave you money in his will?”

“Yes.”

“Did he say why he wanted you to forget it?”

“No, Carl. But it wasn’t that, especially. I wasn’t to remember anything when I waked up. Was to deny that I had ever been hypnotized.”

“I know,” Hunter said. “Faith, did you ever do anything you couldn’t explain to yourself—or to anybody—after Jamey hypnotized you? During the period he was hypnotizing you? How long was that, by the way?”

“About two weeks,” she said. “You mean, when I was awake? You mean posthypnotic suggestion, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Once,” she said, “I went and looked in an old suitcase. In the storeroom. It was—all at once I had to go look in the suitcase. I had to find something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. It was always—shadowy. I felt it was something I had put there, or seen somebody put there, when I was a child. But it never had any shape.”

“Did Jamey tell you to look there, do you think?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Did he have you remember things about your childhood?”

“Sometimes. Twice, I think.”

“And you remember—half remembered—that there was something in the suitcase? And he planted a posthypnotic suggestion that you go and look?”

“Carl, I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

Now there was evident strain in the girl’s young voice; a kind of lost quality in her low-pitched voice.

“You don’t need to remember, dear,” Carl Hunter said. “Don’t be worried, Faith. You didn’t find this—whatever it was?”

“No. There wasn’t anything. Wait—there was a collar button. Papa used to wear stiff collars. It was probably one of his.”

“But not what you were looking for, was it?”

“No. Of course not.”

The strain had gone out of her voice. Again, it was difficult to believe that she was in a trance of any kind, was not as fully awake as Hunter obviously was.

“And that,” Hunter said, “was the only thing Jamey ever had you do—directed you to do—when you were awake? The only thing, I mean, that might have grown out of a posthypnotic suggestion?”

“Yes,” she said. Then, “I don’t remember anything else.”

“Faith,” Hunter said, and spoke more slowly even than before, “you will remember everything. Everything Jamey told you. Told you you were to do. You cannot help remembering, Faith. When I tell you to remember everything, you must remember everything. You cannot help yourself. Do you understand, Faith?”

“Yes,” she said. “I must remember everything. I cannot help remembering.”

“And telling me what you remember.”

“And telling you what I remember.”

Was there, now, a different quality in her voice? As if now she were indeed asleep, and talking in her sleep?

“Did Jamey tell you that he was going to die slowly, and in pain? That the pain had already started?”

For some seconds, Faith did not say anything.

“You must remember,” Hunter said, his voice gentle, insistent.

“Perhaps he did,” she said, finally, as if the words came with difficulty. “I’m trying to remember, Carl. Perhaps he said something like that.”

“I’m not trying to put anything in your mind,” Hunter said. “Only to get you to remember. You know that, Faith.”

“I know that.”

“Did he say anything about euthanasia? That those hopelessly ill should be let die? Even helped die?”

“I don’t remember that.”

“He believed that, Faith. He told me he believed that. He never told you?”

She stirred for the first time; stirred restlessly on the couch.

“You are deeply asleep,” Hunter said. “Deep, deep asleep. You will not waken until I tell you to. You are deep, deep asleep. You will not waken until I tell you to.”

He paused a moment.

“He never told you that, Faith?”

She was quiet now.

“I don’t remember that,” she said.

“Or—asked you to help him?”

She moved her head a little from side to side. She said, “I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Help him die,” Hunter said. “That it would be the act of a friend to help him. That there would be no guilt in helping him, but only a generous action. That he would see no harm came to you. Would arrange that you would not even remember what you did. Would see that nobody else ever knew what you had done.”

“Don’t, Carl,” the girl said. “Don’t, Carl.”

“You must remember everything,” Carl Hunter said.

“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t remember that, Carl. I can’t remember anything like that.” She was quiet for a moment. “I couldn’t hurt Uncle Jamey,” she said, “I couldn’t have hurt Jamey.”

Again she moved restlessly on the couch.

“Faith,” Hunter said, “did your father ever have a gun? A revolver? When you were a little girl did you know your father had a revolver?”

“I don—” Faith Oldham said. “No—wait a minute. There was—something. Something shiny.”

“Think of it,” Hunter said. “Think of it and you will remember it, Faith. It is a long way back but you will remember it. What was the shiny thing, Faith?”

She was silent now for longer than she had been at any time before. Hunter waited, any Jerry and Pam and Hope Oldham waited. Hope was breathing more quickly; probably, Jerry thought, they all were. He turned enough to see Pam, standing on the other side of Hope Oldham and a little behind her. Pam’s face was tense.

“It was a revolver,” Faith said. “I remember it. The barrel was what was shiny.”

“You saw it? Your father had it?”

“Yes. Yes. That was it.”

“Faith. Did Jamey ask you about a revolver? Your father’s revolver?”

“No. I’m sure he didn’t.”

“He told you—instructed you—to go the storeroom and look for something in a suitcase? Under posthypnotic suggestion?”

“Yes. It must have been that.”

“And—bring him what you found there?”

“I don’t remember that. But there wasn’t anything in the suitcase—”

She stopped. Again she stirred restlessly.

“But he put it there,” she said. “I remember seeing him put it there.”

“Who, Faith? Jamey? Put what? Was it in the suit—”

“Not Uncle Jamey,” the girl said. “I told you that. My father had the revolver. He put it in the suitcase. It was a long time ago when I was a little girl and I wasn’t supposed to see him, but I did. I was wearing a pink dress and I’d gone to show papa the dress and he was—was putting the shiny thing in a suitcase.”

“Yes, Faith. And you’re sure—you’re very sure—that when you went to look in the suitcase—when was that, Faith?”

“Monday,” she said. “I think it was Monday.”

“And there was nothing in the suitcase? Except a collar button?”

“Nothing. I know there was nothing.”

“There wasn’t a gun there? You didn’t take the gun out of the suitcase and—”

And Hope Oldham wrenched free from Jerry’s restraining hand. She moved very quickly, snatched at the sliding door, grabbed it open. Wood cracked against wood as the jamb stopped it. Jerry reached for her. His fingers touched the smooth leather of the handbag under her arm, slipped from it. Hope Oldham went, half running, into the darkened room and went toward Hunter and the girl, and called her daughter’s name.

“Faith!” she called, her voice high, shrill. “Faith! Wake up! Wake up!”

Hunter turned and began to get up from the chair as the door slammed open. He got halfway up and his injured leg gave under him and he lost balance. He was on his sound knee, clutching the chair, trying to rise.

“Faith!” Hope Oldham said again, and now her voice was almost a scream. “Wake up. Wake up!”

The girl lay motionless on the couch, her eyes closed. It was as if she lay, untouchable, in a sheath of glass.

Hope Oldham turned on Hunter, then, and Hunter quit trying to get up and stayed, awkwardly, as he was.

“Wake her up,” Mrs. Oldham said, her voice still shrill. “Wake her up. I know what you’re trying to do. Wake her!”

There was threat in the voice.

The Norths were in the room; in the room, standing side by side.

“Jerry,” Pam said. “Her purse! It’s too heavy!”

Jerry started toward Hope Oldham. Her back was to him; she looked down at Hunter, who looked up at her, an odd expression on his face.

“Wake her up,” Hope said again, and this time her voice was quieter. But at the same time, almost the same time, as if Pam’s voice had only just reached her, she turned toward the Norths. And then, very quickly, she had the big black handbag open.

She plunged her right hand into the open bag. The hand came out with something shiny in it; with a revolver in it. She stepped back, then, so that she could face both the Norths and Hunter.

Faith Oldham did not move on the couch.

“Don’t interfere,” Hope Oldham said. And then, to Hunter, “I told you to wake her up. You’ve done all you’re going to do to her.”

“Have I?‘’ Hunter said, and his voice was curiously calm. For an instant, Pam North thought that he looked beyond Hope Oldham, standing above him—beyond her and the revolver with a shiny barrel. But there was nothing beyond her, at the angle from which he looked. “What have I done, Mrs. Oldham?”

“We all heard,” she said. “I tell you to wake her up.”

The gun leveled on the half-kneeling man.

“What?” he said. “What have I been trying to do, Mrs. Oldham?”

“We heard,” she said. “I tell you—we heard. And—it’s all there, isn’t it?” For an instant the gun pointed at the tape recorder. Jerry felt his body twitch forward. The gun swung a little. Jerry stopped.

“If you heard—” Hunter began, but Hope Oldham did not wait.

“Making her believe she killed him,” Hope Oldham said. “We heard you—twisting her mind. Making her say—what you wanted her to say. Take the blame for what you did.”

“I did?”

Hunter’s voice still was calm.

“Killed him,” Hope Oldham said. “Because you knew he was leaving her money and—you thought you could get it. And—”

She broke off.

“It’s all there,” she said, and again meant the recorder, but this time the revolver did not point. “And—we heard you. Mr. and Mrs. North and I—we heard you. So you can’t—”

Pam North sensed, as much as saw, that Hunter’s muscles were tightening, that he shifted his weight slowly, just perceptibly, so that his body balanced on his sound leg. His hands tightened on the chair he clutched. Pam moved, and the revolver swung toward her. There was a kind of frenzy in Hope Oldham’s face.

“I said not to interfere,” Mrs. Oldham said. “What do you want to interfere for? Wake her up, Mr. Hunter. You’ve done everything you could. And—failed. So wake her up. Wake her up!”

Then Hunter started to come up from his crouch and, at that instant, more light went on—the room seemed to glare with light from an overheard fixture.

“Don’t try it, Hunter,” Bill Weigand said from the laboratory door, and they turned to look at him—at Weigand and, behind him, Sergeant Mullins. Bill had his gun out.

“Don’t try it,” he repeated. “Put the gun away, Mrs. Oldham. You won’t need—”

She seemed, for the moment, dazed. She did not lower the gun. She backed away, instead—backed toward the wall. It was as if she had not heard Bill Weigand. The gun was leveled still.

She doesn’t understand, Pam thought. He didn’t tell her.

“Mrs. Oldham,” Pam said. “It’s all right, now. They’re the police. It’s all right. They’ll—”

She was looking at Hope Oldham, began to move toward her. But then, from the side—not quite seen; seen as shadow—there was movement. In what seemed the same instant, Jerry was past her; Jerry’s hand came down, a fist, on the shining barrel of the revolver.

The revolver went out of Hope Oldham’s hand. It made a soft plunking sound on the carpet.

“Why—” Pam North said, but at the same time Bill Weigand said, “Nice going,” and Mullins, moving from behind him—moving faster than so big a man had a right to move—was behind Hope Oldham, his hands closed on her arms.

She began to writhe against the hands. She seemed to be trying to reach down, reach to the gun.

“It’s no use, Mrs. Oldham,” Bill Weigand said, and Hunter got awkwardly to his feet and stood looking at them.

It was as if Weigand had thrown cold water in Hope Oldham’s face. She stopped struggling.

“No use?” she repeated. “What do you mean? He was trying to—”

“I heard,” Bill Weigand said. “It’s no use.”

“I don’t—” Hope began, but then seemed to crumple in Mullins’s hands.

“Right,” Bill said. “You do. You’re under arrest, Mrs. Oldham. It was a pretty good try. But—” He shrugged. “Homicide,” he said. “Also assault with a deadly weapon. But—murder will do.”

She did not say anything. She slumped, and Mullins held her up. Weigand moved his head and Mullins said, “O.K., Loot,” and took Mrs. Hope Oldham out through the door he and Bill had come in by—come through after some time of waiting, of listening.

“Saw us, didn’t you?” Bill said, and stooped down and picked up the revolver—a .32 calibre from which, it undoubtedly would be found, at least two shots had been fired. “Didn’t you, Mr. Hunter?”

“Toward the end,” Carl Hunter said. “Welcome sight.”

He turned away then and looked at Faith Oldham, who still had not moved; who still seemed sheathed in glass. He turned back, momentarily, toward Bill Weigand.

“I would,” Bill said. “She’ll have to know sometime.”

Carl Hunter leaned down over the sleeping girl; he leaned clumsily, but touched her shoulders lightly, with tenderness, it seemed with tenderness.

“You can wake up now, Faith,” Carl Hunter said. “You can wake up, dear. And—you’ll remember. You’ll have to remember, Faith.”