Dead as a Dinosaur (17 page)

Then, quickly (but quickly enough?) she raised a hand to shield her face. Wayne's sports car passed the bus, moving down the street toward the house. Wayne, almost as unmistakable as the car, could have seen her if, idly, he had taken his eyes from the road. She waited for any change in the car's course which would indicate he had seen her, was turning to come back. But the little car went on down the street.

Then the bus driver came, with evident reluctance, out of the office and toward the bus. He heaved himself into it, looked at Emily and the other passenger, but only as if he were counting them, and then into the coin box. Passengers and payments came out even; he touched something and the box whirred and the coins vanished. He looked at his watch, then, threw out the door the cigarette he had been smoking, and closed the door. The bus lumbered off. Hurry! Emily thought. Hurry! But the bus driver was broad shouldered, heavy shouldered, impenetrable. The bus lumbered toward the subway station.

Only on the subway train, headed downtown, did Emily's sense of urgency a little lessen. With its lessening, there came to take its place a feeling of uncertainty. Emily began to realize that beyond the immediate steps of escaping from the house, she had hardly planned at all. She had had to get away. That was, for the moment, accomplished. She had to keep from being found and that was still to be achieved. She could not plan far into the future, because she felt—a little vaguely, with uneasiness—that the future would depend on things which she could not control, which she might not even understand. But she still had, certainly, to plan at what station she would leave the subway train and where, having left it, she would go to spend the night.

She thought first of the area around Columbia University, since it was in that area she most nearly felt at home. She went there four times a week, sat in classes there; from Columbia, at the end of the following term, she expected to get her master's degree. But, again, she had been in the streets around the university, and in the university's buildings, many times over half a dozen years. There might be there, as at the bus stop in Riverdale, people who would know her by sight and might remember having seen her.

In the end, she stayed on the train until it reached Forty-second Street and got off there and went up into that glaring block of Forty-second where second-run motion picture theaters are wedged solidly together, seem to scream together. It was not quite seven o'clock, but the sidewalks were crowded. She walked slowly, was pushed and jostled by the people of Saturday night. She at once hated this, and envied the people she saw—they seemed young, for the most part; younger than she. They laughed loudly, and screamed at one another, and held on to one another. They all seemed alike to Emily Preson, and it was that very likeness of one to another she envied. Each could reach out so easily, through so little strangeness, and touch another. They did this, quite literally, but to Emily their touchings, which were sometimes overtly caressings, seemed symbolic of more subtle contact.

She was touched herself, jostled by the many people of Saturday night, but that was different. She was touched, jostled, merely because she was there, because there was not room enough for everyone to walk untouched on the sidewalk, not because she was Emily Preson; not even because she was a slim young woman; not because she was a person at all. A couple jostled her and the man said “sorry” and then he and the girl with him laughed, not at her, not with her—laughed at something she did not understand. Somebody touched her arm and she moved it a little, getting once more, in so far as she could, out of the way of what she could not share. The pressure remained on her arm, and she moved away from it, to the side. She did not look around.

“You're quite a way from home,” a voice said, among other voices. She did not suppose anyone was speaking to her. Then she realized the pressure on her arm was not the accidental contact of someone passing, or trying to pass, in a crowd. “Aren't you, Miss Preson?” Dr. Albert James Steck asked her. He spoke down to her from superior height. He smiled down at her and released her arm, but continued to walk beside her in the crowd.

“I,” Emily said. “I'm—going to a movie.”

“Well,” Dr. Steck said. “A movie.”

“I'm meeting someone,” Emily said. “I'm meeting a friend.” In spite of herself, she spoke violently. It was always in spite of herself.

“All right,” Dr. Steck said. He looked down at her, and smiled again. “An exciting friend,” he said.

“What makes you say that?” she demanded. “Why do you say, ‘an exciting friend'?”

“No reason,” Dr. Steck said. “Except that you seem excited. Very keyed up.”

“What difference does it make?” she said. “You don't care, do you? Unless—” She stopped suddenly. Someone bumped into her from behind. She was only half conscious of the contact, but Dr. Steck took her arm again and, in response to the message of his hand, she walked on. Now she was conscious that she was shaking.

“My dear Miss Preson,” Dr. Steck said. “You're cold, aren't you? Why don't you let me buy you a drink somewhere? Before you—meet your friend. It's natural you'd be keyed up.” He indicated the newspaper she held. “You've read about Landcraft.”

“How do you—” she began. She looked at the newspaper she held. “It's horrible,” she said. “How can you be so calm about it?”

“I?” Steck said. “I'm not indifferent. It is very unpleasant, Miss Preson. Very shocking.”

“Did you follow me?” she demanded, and heard her voice rising; heard in it that insistence, that note almost of violence, which she never planned upon, which did not—until it was there, in her voice, inescapable—represent anything she knew to be in herself. “What are you following me for?” Again she stopped to look up at the large man beside her. Again his hand on her arm urged her forward.

“Following you?” he repeated. “Why would I be following you?” But, before she could answer, he turned her toward the curb, opened the door of a taxicab standing there. She held back. “You need a drink,” he told her. His hand urged her into the cab. “Algonquin,” he told the driver, and got in after her. “Algonquin all right?” he asked her. She did not answer. “What makes you think I've been following you?” he asked. “Why should I?”

“You found me,” she said. “I—nobody saw me leave. How did you know where I was?”

“Know where you were?” he repeated. “I'd just come up out of the subway and saw you in front of me. Don't you ever just happen to run into people, Miss Preson?”

“No,” she said. “What do you want?”

“It happens all the time,” he said. “Probably you just don't see people. I don't want anything. Except to buy you a drink. Get you some place it's warm.”

“Why should you?” she demanded.

“God,” Dr. Steck said, “I don't know. Do you always act like this? What're you afraid of? You meet an acquaintance, get offered a drink. Anyone would think I'd come after you with a club. I—” He stopped, seeming to have heard his words.

“Like Uncle Jesse,” she said. “Like somebody went after him.”

“Oh,” said Dr. Albert James Steck, “for God's sake, Miss Preson. Do you want a drink or do you want to get out?”

“It doesn't—” she began, still in the intense voice. But then she caught herself. Perhaps he was telling the truth; perhaps he had not been following her, did not want to force anything out of her, had really met her by accident. “I am keyed up,” she said and, although it was very difficult, managed to lessen the violence in her voice. “Perhaps I need a drink.”

“You do,” he told her. “The Algonquin,” he confirmed to the taxi driver. “O.K.,” the driver said. “But you could walk to it quicker. You know that?”

“All right,” Steck said.

“Some people think I'm trying to run up the fare on them,” the driver said. “You know how it is? Can't make a left offa Forty-second, so some of these people—”

“It's all right,” Steck said.

“S'long as you know how it is,” the driver said, and went the way he had to go.

“Beginning to feel warmer?” Steck said.

“Oh yes,” Emily said. “Much warmer.”

The Algonquin lounge was crowded, but there was a table in a corner. After a time there was a waiter. Steck looked at Emily, who said, “Anything.”

“Bring the lady a stinger,” Steck said, “and me a scotch. On the rocks.”

“When do you have to meet your friend?” Steck said. He held out a package of cigarettes as he spoke. Emily took a cigarette.

“I'm not meeting anyone,” she said. “That was—I'm not really meeting anyone. Dr. Steck, did you think my uncle was—was insane? You did, didn't you?”

He held a lighter toward her cigarette; lighted a cigarette of his own. He was very large at the small table, the cigarette was very small between his big fingers. He shook his head.

“No,” he said, “I'm afraid I didn't, Miss Preson.”

“But he must have been,” she said. “He did those strange things. He drugged the milk and then drank it. He must have been. He killed himself.”

“Why—” he began, and stopped as the waiter came with drinks. “Drink some of that,” he told her, after the waiter had left. She drank.

“Isn't it clear to you,” he said then, “that he didn't kill himself? That must be clear to you. Now that Landcraft's been killed, too.”

“I don't believe it,” she said. “Whatever else happened, he killed himself.” She looked at him anxiously. She seemed to seek reassurance. But Steck shook his head.

“You'd better face it,” he said. “It went further than you thought. Perhaps than anybody planned.” He leaned forward, massive over the small table. His voice was heavy, rumbling. He seemed to have forgotten the drink in front of him. She merely looked at him. “Drink your drink,” he told her. He drank from his own.

“You know,” he said, “Agee's got quite a setup at the Institute. I don't know whether you realized that, Miss Preson. It's a one man show, for practical purposes. The trustees don't bother with it, so far as I can tell.” He paused and drank again. “Finish your drink,” he told her. “I'll get you another.” She shook her head. “Nonsense,” Dr. Steck said. “You need it. You were pretty close to shock, back there, whether you know it or not.” She shook her head again. “Oh yes,” he said. “I'm a doctor, too, you know. What people keep calling a ‘real doctor.' Know shock when I see it.”

He beckoned to the waiter, made a gesture at the two empty glasses. The waiter said, “Yes sir,” and went away.

“Sometimes,” Steck said, “I wonder whether the trustees even bother to get an auditor in. That's a fact, Miss Preson. I wonder whether they do.”

Acting Captain William Weigand and Detective Sergeant Aloysius Mullins were distracted by glass dogs, and by china dogs. Whichever way they looked, china and glass dogs looked back at them; dogs stood at attention, with chins up and tails extended; dogs sat with mouths open and tongues hanging; dogs sat up and begged. One dog, forepaws apart and forelegs bent, had chin to ground and appeared to be barking.

“My sister's collection,” Homer Preson said. “She collects dogs.”

“I see she does,” Bill Weigand said, not adequately. “Jeeze,” Mullins said, but he said it under his breath.

“I presume,” Homer Preson said, “that you have come about poor Jesse. A shocking thing.”

Bill Weigand was recalled from dogs of glass and china.

“Not primarily,” he said. “About your brother, I'm afraid, Mr. Preson. Is your sister here? Your children?”

“Laura is here,” Preson said. “You have something to tell her?”

“Right,” Bill said. “But all of you. You see—your brother was murdered, Mr. Preson. We—”

“What did you say?” Laura Preson demanded, from the door of the living room. “What did you say?”

“That your brother was murdered,” Bill repeated. “It was made to appear suicide—”

“Nonsense!” Miss Preson said, and came into the room. “Complete nonsense. Orpheus was insane. He killed himself.” She looked at her living brother. “You just stand there,” she told him.

He did. He stood there, and the expression on his face seemed to Weigand unreadable. But he shook his head to indicate dissent from what Weigand said.

“Please, Laura,” he said. “Why do you say that, captain?”

“I'd like to talk with all of you,” Bill said. “Tell all of you at once. Your daughter, Mr. Preson? Your son? Aren't they here?”

“No,” Preson said. “Wayne—we expected Wayne for dinner, but he telephoned. Emily's”—he hesitated—“Emily has a class this evening,” he said. “Why do you say my brother was murdered? Are you trying—” He apparently decided against finishing the sentence. Bill gave him time, which he did not use.

“It was meant to appear like suicide,” Bill said. “Or, perhaps, an accident, if your brother took more than he intended. It wasn't that. I suppose Dr. Landcraft found out it wasn't.”

“Nonsense,” Laura Preson said. “Poor Orpheus didn't know what he was doing. Jesse—I don't know anything about Jesse. None of us knows anything.”

“Please, Laura,” Homer Preson said again. “Let the captain talk. I suppose you mean somebody else—not my brother—put the barbiturate in the milk?”

Bill shook his head.

“On the labels,” he said. “The ones he was writing. To take the place of those someone had taken off, knowing he would prepare new ones and stick them on. So that he would write new ones and stick them on. Someone who knew him quite well, of course.”

“What's he talking about?” Laura asked her brother. Preson said he didn't know. Bill told them both. Laura Preson said she did not believe it; that she did not believe it for a moment. “Don't drop that,” she said to Mullins, who had picked up a glass pug dog and was turning it over thoughtfully. Mullins put the pug dog down, with care. “It wouldn't work. The stuff would taste.”