Kane never made an answer. And Cutshaw grew more frantic. Once he stood outside Kane’s door wailing, “Heeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaathcliiiiiiiiifffff!” over and over for half an hour. By the seventh day he was maddened and plunged headlong into action that he felt sure would flush Kane out.
And now, three days later, the astronaut smiled with satisfaction as he watched from a mansion window while Kane drove off to the Endicott School.
Miss Mawr was arranging her desk when Colonel Kane knocked at her door. “Do come in,” she drawled laconically. Kane entered, removed his hat.
“Miss Mawr?”
Mawr looked up at him, looked into his eyes; and suddenly felt that she was drowning, roaring down Niagara like a twisting, pummeled log in the grip of wild, unthinkable power.
“Miss Mawr?”
Was he the one?
“Miss Mawr!”
Slowly she surfaced, took a breath and tried to float. She also removed her glasses. “Awfully good of you to come, Colonel. Please; please sit down.” She gestured to a chair beside her desk and Kane slid into it.
“Your phone call sounded urgent,” he said.
“Well, yes—yes, it was. Now I know you’re busy so I’ll get right to it. Uh, these grounds, as you may know, were once a part of the Slovik estate.”
“Yes.”
“I really can’t imagine why he sold to Mrs. Endicott; he was still at the top, you know. But the fact is that he did, Colonel, and that makes us neighbors.” She motioned out the window. “Nothing but that wall to keep our twain from ever meeting. And that is the problem, Colonel Kane.”
“What do you mean?”
How strong yet mild-mannered, she thought; almost deferential. She brushed back her hair and twirled her glasses, striving for coolth and firmness. “Well, the school is rather posh, you know; girls of high breeding and all that sort of thing. You’ll understand it, then, if I ask you, sir, to keep your men in bounds?”
Kane looked puzzled. “In bounds? You mean they’re climbing over the wall?”
“What a thrilling idea, Colonel. But the wall is much too high, I fear, and your men are far more cunning. There’s a fiendish mind at work over there. Now, my frankness may sound deplorable, but really, we’ve all had quite enough.”
“Enough of what, Miss Mawr?”
“Enough of this, Colonel Kane!” She plucked an envelope from her desk and officiously extracted a letter. “I received it this morning. May I quote?”
“Please do.”
“Good show!” reacted Mawr. She hesitated a moment, then decided to don her glasses. It was absolutely essential; she couldn’t read without them. She picked up the letter and began: “‘To my darling, my dearest, my flaming secret love! How I’ve hungered for this moment when I might rip away the mask and unburden my bleeding heart! I saw you but a moment—an instant—semi-instant—yet I knew I was your slave! There could be no other love, not for me, not forever! Wondrous creature, I adore you! You are sandalwood from Nineveh, truffles from the Moon! In my dreams I am a madman! I rip away your dress, and then your slip and then your glasses and I—’” Mawr looked up at Kane. “Well,” she said; “etcetera.”
“What’s the point?” inquired Kane.
“Did you write it?”
“Did I what?”
Mawr spilled the thimble of hope that she had been clutching against all reason. “No, I really didn’t think so,” she sighed. “But for one mad moment I did get a quiver.” She extended the letter to Kane. “The signature—see it?”
Kane saw it clearly. It read “Colonel Hudson Kane.”
“The author is a master of surprise,” added Mawr. She slid the envelope across to him. “Here, take a look.”
Kane examined the envelope. The address was dully printed on a serrated sticker and bore all the earmarks of a mass commercial mailing. Nowhere in the address did Miss Mawr’s name appear. It was directed simply to “Occupant.”
* * *
Cutshaw was busier than a hummingbird in June. A sheaf of letters in his hand, he was padding up and down among the inmates in the dorm. They were hunched over footlockers, scribbling, brooding, thoughtfully biting the ends of ballpoint pens. Suddenly Cutshaw swooped upon Zook, flicked an eye over what he was writing. “Slashing, Zook, slashing!” he said, then lifted his head to the others. “Gentlemen, Zook has come up with ‘throbbing pulse’ and I think we should all try to use it!”
Corfu, nearby, lifted a pondering look to Cutshaw. “Bestial lust?” he inquired tentatively.
The astronaut beamed with pleasure. “Splendid, Corfu!” Then he loudly commanded the inmates to “add ‘bestial lust’ to the list of basic phrases.”
An inmate named Nammack fronted Cutshaw with a letter. “Do I give it to Fromme?”
“Heavens, no! I must grade it!” Cutshaw whipped the letter away, turning now to Klenk, a quondam pilot who, at the moment, looked inspired. Meantime, Fromme was at a typewriter, busily typing addresses onto stickers under carbon paper, thus achieving an effect that was not dissimilar to an addressograph machine. He used a telephone book as his source, selecting the names of hapless females that were prefixed by a “Miss.”
Klenk blossomed, “Finished!”, lifting his pen with a flourish.
“Marvey good!” commended Cutshaw. “Sign it ‘Colonel Hudson Kane’!”
Cutshaw glided over to Fromme, now humming “Some Enchanted Evening” while his finger skimmed hopefully down a page in the phone book, halting at last at one that pleased him. “Miss Vorpal Katz,” he announced. “Now she’s got to be a loser! Right?”
“Right!” Cutshaw was rapidly flipping through the letters he had collected. He halted at one, chagrined, and looked up with fury at the men. “Okay, fellas, who signed ‘Lamont Cranston’?”
Fairbanks was upon him, thrusting a letter into his hands, burbling, “Here! It’s a classic! Does the best one get a prize?”
“Douglas, heaven will reward you. Tomorrow night some lonely spinster will be pressing your words to her lips. Doesn’t that make your juices tingle?”
“I think we should have some kind of incentive.”
“Douglas Morris, I just gave you one.”
“Bah!”
“What?”
“Your incentive reeks of socialism. Freaking creeping socialism.”
Cutshaw had glanced at Fairbanks’ letter, and now thrust it back at him with annoyance. “Do it over! ‘D’ in spelling!”
Fairbanks’ hand flew to his sword. The astronaut lifted an eyebrow. “‘F’ in deportment! You’d draw your sword on Mighty Manfred?”
“I am merely holding the hilt.”
“I interpret it as a threat.”
“Can’t a man hold his hilt?”
“That is a quibble.”
“For heaven’s sake, who’s quibbling? I am merely holding my hilt!”
A breathless Spoor had burst into the dormitory and now irrupted between them. “Mighty Manfred, I saw it again!”
“Saw what again?”
“The Lady in Black! The Phantom of the Nut House! How the hell do I know! I swear, it looked like a ghost! It had three giant heads!”
An exasperated exhale fluttered out of the astronaut. “Never con a con man, Spoor; never fox a fox.”
“But I saw it! I really saw it!”
“Then you’re crazy, really crazy!”
It was conceded among the inmates that Lieutenant Leslie Spoor entertained magnificent obsessions. For instance, once he had reported that while strolling through the grounds on a cloudless, moonlit night he’d heard “hissing from above” and, looking up, detected Groper “crouched in the branches of a cypress, deep in whispered conversation with a black-and-white owl.” Nothing had shaken him from this story. When the astronaut gently admonished him that the estate was visibly barren of any variety of cypress tree, Spoor had eyed him pityingly and very softly rebutted that “anyone with money can pull out a tree.” He had further advised that “certain parties then c
ould easily fill in the hole.” And “Groper,” he’d added triumphantly, “is still here! Notice?”
From that day forward, no one noticed Spoor; or, especially, his persistent sightings of a certain “Lady in Black” whom he claimed was prowling the Slovik grounds—“twice on Shrove Tuesday!” There was only one way to be rid of Spoor, and Cutshaw now adopted it: he quickly walked away from him, heading for the door. And walked into the arms of Groper.
“Come with me!” growled the Captain, seizing the astronaut by the shoulder and hustling him into Kane’s office. “Here he is, sir!” he gruffed, shoving Cutshaw through the door.
Kane, seated at his desk, held up the letter addressed to Occupant. “Did you write it?”
“Are we going to have a scene, Hud?”
“Kindly answer the question.”
“But the question is preposterous!”
“The handwriting, though, is yours.”
Cutshaw snatched up the letter and quickly crumpled it in his fist. “Fap! A crude and obvious forgery!” He tossed the letter over his shoulder and kicked it in mid-air.
“Good,” said Kane; “good. That being the case, you won’t be annoyed.”
“At what?”
“That letters addressed to Occupant will henceforth not be forwarded but ceremonially burned.”
“I protest!” cawed the astronaut.
“Then you wrote it!” pounced Kane.
Cutshaw leaned across the desk. “Oh, you’re a psychological devil, Hud! I’m putty in your hands! Yes! I wrote the letter!”
“Got him!” grinned Groper.
Cutshaw spread-eagled his arms in a sacrificial gesture and in the process managed to “accidentally” cuff Groper’s face. “Shoot me for giving the spinster hope! Love to the loveless! Depravity to the deprived! Never mind the space race, Hud! Feed me to giant ants! Yes! Make widows of five hundred pen pals!”
“Purely a pleasure,” breathed Groper.
Cutshaw leaned in closer to Kane, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Sir, I’ve noticed an exotic odor in here, and being as you’re a colonel, sir, it’s got to be Captain—”
Groper moved in to him menacingly and Cutshaw leaped behind Kane, shouting, “Don’t let him touch me! I’m crazy!”
Kane stood up, lowered his head and ran a hand over his eyes. Cutshaw shook him roughly as he eyed a menacing Groper. “Stay awake!” he rumbled at Kane. “I may need you, Colonel Caribou!”
The room suddenly trembled with the vibration from a hammer blow. Groper turned pale orange. “Where did he get it!” he fumed, then turned hooded eyes on Cutshaw. “Did you give him the hammer?”
“Listen, is this going to be like the strawberries, Queeg? If it is I’m having no part of it!”
“Captain Groper,” Kane said softly, “kindly handle that disturbance.”
Groper saluted and went out after Bemish. Cutshaw still clung to Kane. “Colonel Caribou, you were grand,” he said.
“Thank you. Please let go.”
“Is it safe?”
“Perfectly safe.”
Cutshaw patted Kane’s head. “Bless your nostrils, Hud, you’re marvey. Now let’s talk.”
“What about?”
“Where the hell have you been for the last ten days!”
“In my room.”
“Doing what?”
Kane said, “Reading.”
Cutshaw said, “Hah!” then brazenly ripped the Colonel’s shirtsleeve from the wrist all the way to the shoulders and fell to scrutinizing his arm.
“What are you doing?” said Kane expressionlessly.
“Looking for needle-holes, you idiot. Show me a Catholic and I’ll show you a ‘junky.’ A kindly old teacher told me that, a Baptist minister named Farrago. Told me that monks have frolics with nuns.” He rolled down Kane’s sleeve. “You’re clean. Sit down.”
Kane sat on the couch and Cutshaw raced swiftly back of his desk, plumping heavily into the chair. “Now talk! Talk, you monster; spill your guts out.”
“Didn’t you ask to talk to me?” said Kane.
Cutshaw pounded the desk, roaring, “Silence when you’re speaking to me! And cover your feet, sir, they offend me!”
“Feet or Foot?”
“Are you awake?”
“Of course,” said Hudson Kane.
“And you really believe in Foot?”
“Yes.”
“Blind faith?”
“Faith; not blind.”
“The terms are mutually exclusive, ass.”
“There are arguments from reason,” said Kane.
“There are arguments from reason,” snapped Cutshaw, “for baking people in ovens! Do better than that, Colonel Aquinas!”
“Give me a moment and I’ll try.”
“Fap!”
“For life to appear on Earth,” began Kane, “a protein molecule of a certain configuration was the necessary building block. Hundreds of millions of them, in fact, but just for the moment, assume it was one.”
Cutshaw yawned elaborately, looking at his watch.
Kane ignored it, kept talking. “For just one of these molecules to appear by chance would require a material volume of more than sextillion, sextillion times that of the known size of the universe. And considered strictly from the angle of time, given a material volume the size of the Earth, such a probability would require—well, guess how many years?”
Cutshaw glared and answered, “Ten to the two hundred forty-third power billions … That would give us just one molecule of the right configuration: but in fact, for life, we’d need billions! Right?”
Kane looked stunned. “Right.”
“And all that proves,” thrust Cutshaw, “is that we read the same books.” He rose. “Colonel Aquinas, do me a favor.”
“What?”
“Pack up and leave; you’re an insufferable bore!”
The astronaut Grouchoed out of the office, slamming the door behind him. Kane exhaled heavily. Then got up, stooped to the floor, picked up the crumpled letter to Mawr. He stared at it a moment. Then abruptly, blindly, he threw it against the wall. It struck the portrait of Lastrade.
Kane opened his door and stepped into the hall. He saw Groper in a far alcove, grappling with Bemish for the hammer. Kane walked slowly toward the staircase, then paused to examine the inmates’ paintings, looking to find some new addition. He did find one in bright, fresh colors. It was a Pop Art sketch of Smilin’ Jack. The cartoon hero was depicted plunging a rapier into a blubbering “Fat Stuff” who was hiding behind a weather map in an airport control tower. It was captioned rather simply: “How, now! A rat!” And was unsigned.
“May I speak to you for a moment?”
Kane turned, saw Fromme. “What is it?”
“I want schooling, sir, schooling. I wish to fulfill my life’s ambition. I can’t live without my dream, sir. It’s been my dream since I was a boy. It isn’t too late if I go to school.”
“Medical school?”
“Don’t be absurd. I wish to play the violin. I wish to play ‘Humoresque.’ On a stage,” added Fromme.
“Come to my office tomorrow morning,” said Kane. “We’ll talk about it then.” He walked to the staircase and Fromme called after him, “Get some sun and eat fresh fruit!”
Kane went to his quarters. But as his hand took hold of the doorknob, he quickly turned his head to the side. He thought he had seen, peripherally, the long trailing folds of a black velvet gown disappearing around a corner near the far end of the landing. For once he doubted his senses, but investigated anyway. As he was about to turn the corner, he heard the closing, soft, of a door. He rounded the corner. Now he stood in the East Wing. No one was quartered there but Fell. He went to his door—knocked—no answer. He waited a moment, then returned to his room; never heard Fell growl behind his locked door: “Where the hell have you been!”
During this time, Lieutenant Spoor had entered Kane’s office in search of his dog. He found him, as he’d suspected he w
ould, crouching under the desk and plainly reluctant to emerge. Spoor tugged at his collar, pulled him whimpering across the carpet, chiding, “Rip Torn, you are incorrigible. It’s a play, just a play! Clown, the knives are made of rubber! See? You really don’t get killed! It’s only—!”
Inadvertently, Spoor saw a book propped on a shelf beside the door. “Look! Hey, look! Colonel Kane! He reads the Bard!” Spoor rushed to the shelf and pulled out the book while a grateful Rip Torn raced back to the desk. “Madness In Hamlet!” glowed Spoor. Then, “What is this fad for long titles,” he grumbled. “The old one was good enough. Contemporary, contemporary; everything’s got to be ‘in.’” He avidly thumbed through the first few pages.
* * *
Kane had no sooner entered his room when a shriek of searing, white-hot pain ripped into his brain. Involuntarily he gasped, clutched at his head and fell on his bed. For moments he writhed. Then the pain slowly subsided; but it left behind its footprints: a pounding steady ache. Locked in his office were the pills that brought Kane ease. He had only five left. He lurched to his feet and started downstairs.
From the staircase Kane saw chaos. Lieutenant Bemish clung to a drape approximately eight feet off the ground while Captain Groper hurled threats from below. Bemish still had the hammer and announced unequivocally his yearning to drop it on Groper’s head “in the interest of nucleonics.” Below, Corfu was drawing on walls with an airily free and gracious hand. And Zook sat despondently at the foot of the staircase, muttering, “Fungus, fungus, burn all their fungus!” hypnotically, over and over again. Kane eased past him, strode to his office but quickly stopped short as he looked at the door. Painted in glowing, intimidating purple were the letters “W.C.” Beneath the legend were cupid’s hearts pierced by arrows, within them inscriptions. One frankly attested that “Laurence Harvey loves Elliot Ness.” Still another encased the legend, “Gamal Nasser loves Golda Meir.” And a third read, “Lyndon Johnson loves Ayn Rand.” Scrawled in pencil, all over the door, were names of girls and telephone numbers as well as anatomical sketches and fragments of obscenity.