Dead as a Dinosaur (10 page)

The blue eyes in the creased face were not really pale. There was, remotely, laughter in them.

“Just out of curiosity,” Landcraft told her. “Realize that. Curiosity useful in your business, eh?”

“Business?” Jerry said. “Publishing?”

“That too, probably,” Landcraft admitted. “Thinking of the other thing. Detecting. Police work, eh?”

“We're not detectives,” Pam told him. “Not really.”

“Tell that to the Pinnipedia,” Jesse Landcraft suggested, and arranged his folded face into a smile. He chuckled. The faces of the Norths remained blank. “Marine carnivores,” Landcraft explained. “Seals and the like.”

Gerald North paid the remark the faint smile earned. He repeated that they were not detectives.

“All right with me,” Landcraft assured them. “Either way. I don't interfere, you know. On the side lines, eh? That'll be Homer now.”

The Norths had not heard anything which was not wind or rain. But now they heard a door closing, and footsteps. Homer Preson came in to express regret that they had had to wait. They would, however, realize that there were a good many things to attend to.

“As to the rights to the book,” he said, going to it now that he was there. “I really don't know, Mr. North.”

Jerry shook his head at that. There was, as far as that went, no debate. The contract bound heirs and assigns. The right to publish volume two of
The Days Before Man
was, securely, that of North Books, Inc.

“Oh,” Homer Preson said, quickly. “I realize that perfectly, Mr. North. That is not in question. It is merely that, if formalities are necessary—whatever formalities are necessary—I am not your man. Because, you see, we are not my brother's heirs. My brother left everything he had to the Broadly Institute. He had told us that—oh, some little time ago. His attorney confirmed it to me today.”

“All of it, eh?” Jesse Landcraft said. “Good man.”

“All of it,” Homer Preson repeated. “I don't question his decision, Jesse.”

“Be hard to, eh?” Landcraft said. “Not that I doubt you, Homer. What'll Laura think, eh? Hasn't got the scientific mind, has she?”

“Laura knew Orpheus's plans,” Homer Preson said. His manner was stiff. “We all did. I supposed you did too, Jesse.”

“None of my business,” Jesse Landcraft said, with youthful vigor. “As a matter of fact, I did know. Orph told me. In case I'd been expecting. Hadn't. Told him it was a fine idea. Find a lot of fossils with—how much do you figure, Homer?”

“My brother did not confide in me,” Homer said. He still was stiff. “I question whether this interests Mr. North.” He nodded, rigidly, toward Pam. “Or Mrs. North,” he added.

“No reason why it shouldn't,” Jesse Landcraft said. “Interesting subject, money. And where it goes.”

“About the manuscript,” Gerald North said. “Is it here, Mr. Preson? It's not at the—at your brother's apartment.” They had checked on that early. All personal effects had been collected from the apartment the afternoon before; the hotel thought by the family.

“I imagine so,” Homer Preson said. “We had everything packed up and brought here. Except the bones, of course. The Institute has collected the bones.”

Jerry was polite, but he was not interested in fossil bones.

“I'd like very much to see the manuscript,” he said. “Look it over—see how far he'd got. We may be able to salvage something, you know. I'd appreciate seeing it, if it isn't too much trouble to turn it up.”

“Well,” Homer Preson said. “Emily's going over things. She's my daughter, you know. I'll find out if she's come across it.”

He went. After he had gone, Jesse Landcraft laughed shortly. His laughter was not so well preserved as his voice. His laughter sounded its age.

“Bearing up,” he said. “Stiff upper lip. Stiff neck, too.” He chuckled, this time. “Think it might be,” he said. “Where he gets it, eh? I'd guess Orph had a hundred thousand left. Maybe more.”

“He doesn't seem disappointed,” Pam said, and Jerry, just perceptibly, shook his head at her. It wasn't their concern, the gesture told her.

“Had time to get over it,” Landcraft said. “Known for a couple of weeks. Orph went to the trouble of telling all of them. Keep things in order. Liked order, Orph did.”

“Still,” Pam said, “it must be disappointing, just the same. He might—oh, he might have thought better of it.”

“Orph?” Jesse Landcraft said. “I suppose he might. If Laura badgered him. He hated to be badgered. Took his mind off mammals. They might have worn him down. Academic now, eh? Can't think better of it now, can he? Good thing for the Broadly.” He considered. “Best thing could have happened, probably,” he said. “They might have talked him out of it.”

The implication was somewhat startling. Both the Norths looked at the emaciated man with the young voice. He looked up at them.

“Shocked, eh?” he said. “Told you I was detached. Like Orph. Hate to see him dead. Still, he was getting along. Might just have lived the money up, eh? This way, it gets used.” He nodded. “Real use,” he said. “Worth something.” He paused again. “More important than one man,” he said. “You agree, eh?”

“Abstractly,” Pam said.

“You're a woman,” Landcraft told her. “Abstract, this side. Something to talk about. Real, this side. Something to see. Touch.”

“It isn't a matter of gender,” Pam said. “It's the way people are. Didn't you know that, Mr. Landcraft?”

“Not me,” Jesse Landcraft said. “First things first, real
or
abstract. Because there isn't any difference if you look at things, eh? Scientifically, no difference.” He shrugged very gaunt shoulders under the too-large jacket. “No need for you to agree,” he told Pam North. “The Institute gets it anyway. That's real enough, eh? Concrete?”

“People come first, all the same,” Pam said.

He shrugged again.

“Old bones,” he said. “Bones not so old. We've got plenty of people. We've only scratched a little of the past. With a trowel in an acre—in a hundred acres. We don't know much, and that's a fact. Take the bovoids, for example. Tremendous gaps there.”

“Cows?” Pam said.

“Among other things,” Landcraft said. “A wide field, full of gaps. Just an example, of course. Gaps in the primates, if you come to that.”

“But, after all,” Pam said, “even if you had it all, what would you have? I mean—”

“Know what you mean,” Landcraft said. “Knowledge, woman. Knowledge. What do you want?”

“Life,” Pam North said.

“Oh,” Landcraft told her, “there's plenty of that.” His voice was, suddenly, not so young as it had been. Jesse Landcraft's voice seemed to have tired.

Pamela North was shaking her head, but Homer Preson came back before she had organized any answer to this last; to this, at best, elevation of the past above the present. This—

“Quite a good deal of it, Mr. North,” Homer Preson said. He carried two boxes, tied with string. The boxes had contained typewriter paper; now, it was to be assumed, they held typewriter paper still, but now the paper was manuscript. Jerry opened the boxes and examined and was relieved. The typescript had been considerably corrected, in pencil. But it was still readable, and at least preliminary revisions had been made. He leafed through the two hundred odd pages in the first box and the more than a hundred in the second. The last page was numbered 315. He calculated. A hundred thousand words, perhaps. Volume I had run longer. Still—He came on four pages clipped together, numbered consecutively. At the start of the first was typed: “Chapts. 22, 23, 24—summary.” The rest was terse; all too evidently a listing of topics still to be covered. It meant very little to Gerald North, who sighed. He re-turned and read the last two pages of the completed, or semi-completed, manuscript. It was concerned with the “bear dog” of prehistory; it was clear, interesting, now and then witty. When he wrote those pages, at any rate, Orpheus Preson had still had his wits about him, and the grace of mind—the unexpectedness—which had given life to his saga of old bones. He had ended with a half-finished sentence.

“I'll take it along,” Jerry said. “We may be able to publish as it is. Perhaps somebody can finish it along his lines.”

“I,” Homer Preson said, “don't know. I'll have to ask that you consult the Institute.”

“Of course,” Jerry told him. “That's obvious, Mr. Preson.”

“I am not familiar with the situation, technically,” Preson insisted. “I should like to be certain that the Institute, whose property this is, or will be, approves your plans.”

A very precise little man, Jerry thought. A pettifogging little man; a man who moved with short steps and cautious ones.

“My firm is entirely responsible,” Gerald North said, and knew that he echoed Homer Preson's primness. “All contingencies will be considered.” He felt that the last would appeal to Homer Preson.

“Well—” Preson said. “I rather wish my sister—”

“I'll tell you,” Pam North said, “we'll go up to the Institute right now, won't we, Jerry. Take the manuscript up to them, explain Mr. Preson's position, get their approval. Won't we, Jerry?”

It was Jerry North's turn to say, “Well—” and to say it doubtfully. He looked quickly at his wife; she nodded with emphasis. “Why yes,” Jerry said, “we'll do that.”

“Good,” Homer Preson said. “I'm sure that is the correct procedure, Mr. North.”

They were through the rain again, in the car again, in a few minutes. Preson had taken them to the door. Jesse Landcraft apparently had gone to sleep in his chair but, as Jerry started the car, Pam said, “He was wide awake, all the same. I looked back and he was just closing them.”

“His eyes?” Jerry said, preparing to drive around a block, turning right at the first corner.

“Of course,” Pam said. “Did he make you shiver?”

“Landcraft?” Jerry said. “He's a little Chas Addams, certainly.”

“I don't mean that,” Pam said. “Oh, that too. I mean what he said. The—the way he thinks. Feeding us to—to what? Prehistoric bovoids?”

“I imagine they ate grass,” Jerry said, and made another right turn. He ought, now, to be headed back toward the parkway. He was going east, at any rate; the industrious windshield wipers shuddered in the wind; water slithered on the glass.

“A mad scientist,” Pam said, and was told to come, now. She was told, also, that she should begin to avoid television.

“Not that kind,” Pam said. “Mad about science. Don't you see? He'd—he'd grind people up. For knowledge.”

“Nonsense,” Jerry said. “You're being sensitive, baby.”

Pamela North denied this. She said it was plain to anyone who listened.

“He
said
it,” she told Jerry. “I think you have to turn down this one first and then get on.”

Gerald North said he knew, and turned right on the feeder road to the parkway.

“About poor Dr. Preson,” Pam said. “That it was a good thing he died, so his money would go to—to more old bones. To plug gaps in the bovoids. He really meant it.”

“Academically,” Jerry said and stopped where a sign commanded. He peered back into the rain and started again, bound downtown on the Henry Hudson Parkway. “By the way, why did you say we'd go to the Institute? Now, I mean? I'll have to go over the book and—”

“Oh,” Pam said, “I'd think somebody there would know about Mr. Landcraft, wouldn't you? Whether it is, really, academic. Or whether, if he thought—oh, science—was in danger of losing something, he would really—”

“Losing something?” Jerry said, taking the easiest first.

“Like money,” Pam said.

“Would really what?” Jerry asked her, but by then he could guess.

“Do something,” Pam said. “Even—kill something.”

It should, Gerald North told himself, sound grotesque. It went against all they knew; against the obvious fact that nobody had been, in the sense Pam meant, killed. It was because of the rain drumming on the car roof, because of the wind crying through an aperture somewhere in an old house, because of a too-thin man with dangling arms, that the suggestion was not immediately absurd. If the sun had been shining, if Jesse Landcraft had not been of so curious an appearance, Jerry would have laughed easily at Pam's imaginative flight into—well, into something close to the macabre. As it was he laughed. The laughter did not sound as he had hoped.

“You see?” Pam said. “Somebody at the Institute will know him, probably. Maybe he is famous.” She paused. “In one way or another,” Pamela North said, darkly in the dim car, only just audibly above the beating rain.

7

F
RIDAY
, 11:45
A
.
M
.
TO
2:55
P
.
M
.

The Broadly Institute of Paleontology, which has exhibit rooms open to the public between the hours of ten and five, Monday through Friday, ten to ten, Saturday and Sunday, occupies a large, square building on upper Fifth Avenue, but it is by no means as large as the American Museum of Natural History, on the other side of the park. Hurrying up its broad steps, in a futile effort to run between raindrops, Pamela North was a little surprised that the Broadly Institute was not larger, since it had begun to loom so large in her thoughts. But inside the door, in the Great Hall—which is two stories from floor to ceiling, and occupies most of the width and almost all the length of the building—she was sufficiently impressed. The Great Hall, shadowy in spite of numerous ceiling lights, was to a considerable extent occupied by a rearticulated Tyrannosaurus, which showed teeth at her and, impartially, at Gerald North also. Pamela North said, “My!”