Chapter IV

The gray walls of the Turber Sanatorium were painted red by the falling sun when we departed in our waiting taxi. The episode with the girl had taken only a moment. I had spoken to her; I said fatuously:

“Don’t you know us?”

She did not seem to try to answer. Her gaze swung from Alan to me. She tookastep backward;as though the sound of myvoice were frightening; but I could have sworn she was watching Turber; it was Turber of whom she was afraid, not us.

“Come,” he said. “That’s enough.” We had not crossed the threshold. He closed the door upon the girl; her gaze seemed still searching Alan’s face as it closed.

Turber led us back downstairs. He chatted pleasantly about the girl’s case; he accompanied us to the door and smilingly bowed us out.

“I shall hope to see you again, Tremont. Bring Nanette when you come next time, will you?” He said it sardonically. But more than that, for beneath his banter there was an intensity that made me shudder. And a pang of fear for Nanette swept me. We had left her home alone.

Turber stood gazing after us as we drove away. I recall him, standing there on the steps of the porte-cochere; hunched forward; his gorilla figure so immaculately garbed, fingers toying with his black eyeglass ribbon, his mouth twisted withafaint sardonic smile. Sinister figure! Satanic! A very modern Mephistopheles, this fellow Turber. A genius—for evil; of that, at least, I was now convinced. We were silent on the way back in the taxi. My mind was on Nanette. It seemed suddenly that she must beindanger; my greatest desire was to get back as quickly as we could. We dismissed the taxi. At the ferryhouse I said abruptly: “Alan, let’s telephone Nanette.”

“Why?”

“I’m worried about her,” I stammered. “Alan, that fellow, Tur-ber—”

We called the apartment. She answered promptly.

“You all right, Nanette?” I demanded.

“Why, yes, of course, Edward. When will you be back? I’ve been worried about you.”

“We’ll be there in an hour.”

I hung up. I felt unutterably relieved. We boarded the ferry.

“What do you propose to do next?” I asked Alan.

“Get our car—come back tonight.”

“With Nanette?”

“Yes. I know how you feel. That fellow Turber—this weird thing—”

“No time to leave Nanette alone. I wish she weren’t there now.”

“We’ll be there shortly. When we come back, you’ll stay in the car with her,” Alan directed. While he was meeting Charlie at the tennis court gate? I did not fancy so inactive a role.

“It’s best, Ed. Only one of us should go in. With both of us, the chance of being discovered would be greater. Besides, we daren’t leave Nanette.”

“You think he’ll let you in?”

“Charlie? I think so. They’re very cunning, fellows like that. He said he would hide me in his room.”

We discussed it. There was so much—and yet so little that was tangible—to discuss! But I realize now that Alan, with his greater knowledge of what all this might mean, had formed fairly definite plans. To discuss them with me then, was futile. He did not do it.

We got home to Nanette, and had supper. My own reticence matched Alan’s when it came to going into details with Nanette. It would have led us far afield in fantastic, meaningless theory. But the girl was there, held virtually a prisoner; we wanted to release her. Thatwe told Nanette, but nothing more. Itwas, indeed,asdefinite a plan as I could form myself.

It was a hurried supper. Nanette had it ready for us when we came in. It was eight o’clock when, after hurried preparations, we started. Alan brought his car from the nearby garage. Nanette, with her hair braided and piled upon her head, was ready. We all wore outer coats. The evening was cooling; the sky was overcast.

Alan went into his workshop; came out with a small cloth bag. “Nanette, get your black cloak—I couldn’t find it.”

“I thought I’d wear this coat and hat, Alan. Don’t I look all right?”

Eternal feminine! The subconscious strain under which we were laboring made us laugh.

“Of course you do! We’re not going to the opera! I want your cloak—for something else.”

She went and got it. The car was a big sedan. Alan put on the back seat the cloak and his cloth bag—they were tools from the workshop, he had told me briefly when I questioned. We all three sat in front, as was our custom. Alan drove.

I recall as weleft the apartment that Ivaguely gazed ahead those few hours to when we would return. The futility of gazing ahead!

“We’ve got to hurry,” said Alan. “Hope we can catch a ferry, without too long a wait.”

He threaded us skillfully south, through the crowded city streets. I gazed around. This was New York of 1962. I suddenly felt wholly apart from it.

We just made the ferry. The sky continued overcast. It rained a little, and then stopped. We left the ferry, drove into Staten Island toward Turber’s.

“I think I know a secluded place,” Alan had told us.

He found it, an unlighted country road. He stopped and switched off the headlights. The darkness leaped at us.

“Where are we?” I demanded.

“A mile from Turber’s—not much more. You can see it off there.”

We climbed to the road. The sky was solid gray. We were in a lonely neighborhood; a fence was here, bordering a field; but no house was in sight. The road went up a rise here through a cut. Alan had drawn the car toone side; a spreading tree hung over it. Beyond the trees, I could see the lights of a nearby settlement; a trolley car—a lighted roadway winding off there, and the hill with the lights of Turber’s. The searchlight was not lighted.

“Hadn’t we better get closer, Alan?”

“No, this is all right. It’s barely a mile.”

“You know where we are? You’ll be able to find us, coming back?”

“Yes. Just keep your lights out and wait.”

“How long, Alan?” Anxiety flooded me. “If you don’t come back—say by midnight—what shall I do?”

“I will come back. You just wait, Ed.”

He kissed Nanette. I sat at the wheel with her beside me. Alan’s figure, carrying his small bag and the black cloak, showed dimly down the road for a moment, then was gone. It was nine forty. With all the lights of the car extinguished, we sat in the darkness, waiting. Alan had taken a small revolver, and I had one also.

Ten o’clock. A distant bell marked it; I snapped on the dash light to verify it. Nanette felt me move.

“What is it, Ed?”

“Nothing. I was looking at the time.”

“Ten o’clock?”

“Yes.”

We fell silent. Alan would be at the gate of Turber’s by now. But what reliance could we place upon the boy Charlie’s word for what he would do? Perhaps he had no key to the tennis court gate at all. Or even if he had, he would forget to come. Or Turber would see him and stop him. Or worse, follow him and trap Alan. A thousand doubts and fears for Alan’s safety rose to beset me. Ten thirty. Eleven o’clock. What was Alan doing now? But I told myself: “This is 1962—not the dark ages of the past. This is civilized New York.” If Turber caught Alan prowling on the premises, what of it?

He wouldn’t dare murder Alan. Or would he?

Waiting is a difficult thing to do. The mind grows too active. I began to think that Alan wasn’t coming back. Nanette crept against me in the darkness.

“Ed, what time is it?”

“Nearly midnight.”

“Ed, I’m so frightened—”

I began to plan what I would do. Wait here until midnight, or one o’clock perhaps. Then drive up to Turber’s and boldly ask for Alan. At worst, they would have caught him—arrested him as a marauder. I set my teeth. Why, before morning, if I couldn’t locate Alan I’d have all the police of Staten Island up at Turber’s looking for him!

“Don’t be frightened, Nanette—he’ll be back presently.”

No one had passed along this road; we seemed wholly secluded. The sky remained overcast; there was not a star showing; off in the distance lightning had flared for a time and we heard the distant thunder, but the storm had now receded. There had been a cool wind, but it died. The night was black and dark. Breathless. And I think it was my apprehension, too, that made me breathless. I sat, with Nanette huddled against me, and stared, straining my eyes in the darkness for Alan’s coming. Midnight passed.

From the roof of the Turber Hospital the searchlight beam abruptly flashed into the sky! It hung motionless.

I told Nanette.

“What does it mean? What could—”

“I don’t know.”

We sat tense, every faculty alert. Nanette, with sharpened fancy and a hearing always keener than normal, cried out suddenly:

“That was a shot! Listen! There’s another!”

I seemed, myself, to hear the sound of distant shots. At Tur-ber’s?

“An automobile tire blowing out,”I said. “Or a car backfiring.”

But she insisted.“I thought I heard screams—someone screaming—”

“Nonsense!”

Another interval. The searchlight off there hung steady.

“Ed, what is that? Don’t you hear?”

Then I heard it. Running, approaching footsteps, clattering faintly in the darkness on the stony road!

Alan crept up to the Turber place. He heard the clock chime ten. An Italian settlement lay in a fringe along the east side of the hospital grounds. The main gateway was there. Alan skirted to the west. A cemetery lay on the west slope of the hill, with a narrow road like a trail bordering the high iron fence. It was all dark along here, but Alan remembered that the tennis courts were in this far corner. According to Charlie there should be a small gate somewhere here in the fence.

Would Charlie keep his word? Everything that Charlie had said might be the wandering of an unhinged mind; the boy might have forgotten it all by now.

Abruptly Alan came to a small iron door in the fence. A dark figure stood behind it.

“Charlie?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Let me in.”

The door swung inward. Alan slipped through; closed it carefully.

“Where’s the key, Charlie?”

“Here.”

“You keep it. We’ll leave this unlocked—when I’m gone you can lock it after me.”

“Yes.”

Alan could just make out Charlie’s figure at the edge of the tennis court.

“No trouble getting out here, Charlie?”

“No.”

“Nobody saw you? Sure?”

“Nobody. I’m supposed to be in bed. I was, but I got up—look how I’m dressed.”

He moved to where a yellow glint from a lighted window of the nearby building fell upon him.Hewore along dark dressing gown.

“And my brown tennis shoes, see? Dark clothes for dark deeds at night!”

Alan seized him. “Come out of that light! Shall we go to your room first? Wait for the place to get to sleep?”

“Yes. I can get you there. A side door—I know where it is.”

They started, along the edge of the court, then under the shadowy trees of the lawn.

“Won’t they lock the side door at night, Charlie?”

“They did, already. It’s a spring lock—I opened it from the inside and left it unlatched.”

There seemed, even at this early hour, few lights about the building.

“Almost all in bed,” Charlie whispered. “All but the doc. He never goes to bed.”

Charlie knew where the girl’s room was. The Indian was on guard there across the hall. But Alan felt that there was no reason why the girl’s door should be watched too closely. They could not anticipate anyone trying to get her out. That Indian would relax by midnight; probably would go to sleep in his own room, with his hall door open so that he could hear if the girl made any disturbance. Charlie and Alan came to a small entryway at the ground level.

“Are the halls empty?”

“Yes. Nobody will see us. They’re dark, too, at night. If you want to go to my room first—”

“I do.”

There was a dim night light in this small inside hallway. It showed Charlie with rumpled hair, white face and gleaming eyes. He was shaking with excitement.

“Come on. What’s that you’re carrying?” the boy asked.

Alan wore black rubber-soled shoes; his long, lightweight dark overcoat; and a dark cap. The bag was under his arm. In his overcoat pocket he had the small revolver.

“Tools, Charlie. To open the door of the girl’s room—later, when that Indian gets to sleep—”

The bag contained a chisel, screwdriver and other implements with which he might force a lock. And a vial of chloroform and a sponge.

They crept along the hallway, into the main lower corridor. Alan feared that at any moment they would be discovered. He would make a dash to get out the way they had come in—

“Here! Come in here.” Charlie twitched him suddenly by the arm. Through an archway, and Alan found himself in a familiar room—the reception room. It was unlighted. Its furniture showed dimly in the light from the corridor. Like shadows they slid into the recess behind the portieres of the windows.

“What is it, Charlie? Someone coming?”

“No. I want to show you—outside here. Big things afoot here tonight—dark deeds of mystery. I know—I’ve seen them!”

They cautiously raised one of the shades a trifle. Alan saw that the main courtyard was dark and silent. The single door of the laboratory was closed.

“What, Charlie? Shall we stay here awhile?”

“Yes. Big things going on. You’ll see.”

“But what? What have you seen?”

“Things you can’t see from here. From the roof you can see them because you’re higher than those other walls. Shall we go to the roof? I’ve got the key—Bluebeard’s key—”

“No. Stay here awhile.”

They were comparatively safe, here behind the portieres. Alan was waiting until later, when he could go up to the girl’s room.

They crouched at the window. Half an hour passed. An hour. It was getting toward half past eleven. No lights showed now in any of the courtyard windows; it was all dark out there. Once or twice Alan heard footsteps in the main corridor outside the reception room. But no one had entered, and for half and hour now there had been no sound of anyone. Another interval.

“We’ve been here long enough,” Alan decided.

“All right.” The boy was shaking again. “It’s midnight, isn’t it? The very witching time of night when churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood and do such bitter business as the day would quake to look on—”

“Charlie, stop that!”

“It’s Hamlet. I’m like Hamlet—a little mad, but though they fool me to the top of my bent they cannot play upon me!”

“Stop it! Let’s go upstairs now.”

“Shall we? All right. Go where?”

“To the girl’s room. Can you lead me there?”

“Yes. But she isn’t there!”

“What?” It electrified Alan. “Not there!” He gripped Charlie. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t! You hurt!” The lad jerked away.

“Sorry, Charlie! But hush, you make too much noise!”

“All right. But you hurt me. The girl isn’t up there.”

“Why in Heaven’s name didn’t you say so long ago? Where is she?”

Charlie gesturedto the window. “Over there—in the laboratory. They took her over there—just before I went to let you in.”

“They? Who?”

“The doc. And the Indian. That’s Uncas, as we call him. Uncas was a Mohican—you know that.”

“Where are they now?” Alan’s heart sank. This changed his plans wholly. Was it true?

“They? Who? The girl? She’s over there now. They locked her in over there—then they came back.”

“Where? When was this?”

“About ten o’clock. I saw them start over here from the laboratory, but then it was time for me to go and let you in.”

“They came over here—to the main building?”

“Yes. They’re in the doc’s rooms, I guess. They’re getting ready for something. You’ll see. That’s what I’ve been waiting for—they’ll be going back over to the laboratory soon.”

Alan felt that itwas true. There were many things which Charlie had said that fitted into Alan’s own beliefs.

“Charlie, can you get us down there?”

“In the courtyard? Yes! Sure I can. Two or three ways. This isn’t a jail—you can go where you like if you know the way. I’ve been almost everywhere, and nobody ever caught me.”

They slipped into the dim corridor. A flight of stairs was near at hand. The lower story was wholly dark. Charlie found a cross hall and opened a door.

They were on the courtyard pavement. Nearby an end of the inner building was visible as a dark outline; they moved noiselessly across the open space and crouched against the brick wall of the laboratory.

“How far are we from the door, Charlie?”

“Not far. There’s a wheelbarrow there somebody left this afternoon. Let’s hide by it.”

They came to the wheelbarrow. It was standing up against the laboratory wall. Its shelter was hardly necessary; the yard here was solid black.

“Where’s the door?” Alan whispered.

“Right here. What you going to do?”

Alan stoodatthe door. His fumbling hands felt for it. There was no knob; an iron door, set in a brick and iron casement. His fingers felt a lock, sunk in the metal of the door. Alan laid his bag at his feet. No chance of forcing this lock. Turber and the Indian would doubtless be coming presently. What-ever Alan could do must be done now.

In the solid darkness at his elbow, Charlie’s voice whispered again: “What you going to do?”

Alan acted wholly upon impulse. He thought that the girl was inside, alone. She might be able to help—

He knocked, very softly on the door.

“What you—” Charlie began.

“Sh!”

He knocked again.

It happened unexpectedly; yet Alanbyinstinct was ready for it.

The door abruptly opened!

It swung, just a few inches; a guttural voice sounded, speaking unintelligible words!

Whatever surprise it was to Alan, the Indian within was undoubtedly far more surprised. Alan stuck his foot into the door opening; he shoved violently with his powerful body, his shoulder against the door. It yielded; opened wide with a rush, knocking the Indian backward.

Alan burst into the room. The Indian, unarmed, recovered his balance to find himself staring at Alan’s leveled revolver.

“Don’t you move! Put your hands up!”

Behind him, Charlie yelled shrilly: “He can’t understand English! He’s a Mohican!”

But Alan’s menace was enough; the fellow backed against the wall. His hands went up.

“You’ve got him! You’ve got him!”

“Charlie, shut up!”

A confusion of swift impressions surged upon Alan. A small, bare room with a vague glow of light. The girl was here! She stood near the Indian. Frightened, shrinking against the wall; but she saw Alan, recognized him. She took a step forward.

Charlie was making too much noise. The door through which Alan had burst was open. If Turber saw the glow of light—or heard Charlie’s voice—or if anyone else heard this uproar—

A confusion of instantaneous impressions.

“Charlie, shut up! You’ll have the whole place aroused! Take the girl out—she’ll go with you! Grab her arm—we’ll make a run for it.”

The girl understood. If not Alan’s words, at least his swift gestures. She moved toward Charlie. Alan backed, his weapon leveled upon the Indian. “Go on! Run, Charlie! Get her out at once! I’ll follow. Get us to the tennis court.”

Alan backed, with the two of them behind him. He had been in that room certainly not over thirty seconds. He left it with Turber’s secret laid bare to him! The room had an archway, opening inward. Alan had stood facing it. Charlie had seen it and yelped with excitement. In the inner court stooda large gray-white vehicle—a cabin air-plane.A spread of canvas for a concealing roof was over it. Avehicle for traveling through Time—like the Time-traveling tower we had seen in Central Park!