Sign of the unicorn (17 page)

“You scared the hell out of me last night, Carl. Thought I was seeing a ghost,” he said.

I nodded.

“A bit later, and I might have been one,” I said. “Thanks. How have you been?”

Bill sighed.

“Busy. You know. The same old stuff, only more of it.”

“And Alice?”

“She’s fine. And we’ve got two new grandsons-Bill Jr.’s-twins. Wait a minute.” He fished out his wallet and located a photo. “Here.”

I studied it, noted the family resemblances.

“Hard to believe,” I said.

“You don’t look much worse for the years.” I chuckled and patted my abdomen.

“Subtracting that, I mean,” he said. “Where have you been?”

“God! Where haven’t I been!” I said. “So many places I’ve lost count.”

He remained expressionless, caught my eyes and stared.

“Carl, what kind of trouble are you in?” be asked.

I smiled.

“If you mean am I in trouble with the law, the answer is no. My troubles actually involve another country, and I am going to have to go back there shortly.”

His face relaxed again, and there was a small glint behind his bifocals.

“Are you some sort of military adviser in that place?”

I nodded.

“Can you tell me where?”

I shook my head. “Sorry.”

“That I can sort of understand,” he said. “Dr. Roth told me what you said had happened last night. Off the record now, was it connected with whatever you have been doing?”

I nodded again.

“That makes things a little clearer,” he said. “Not much, but enough. I won’t even ask you which agency, or even if there is one. I have always known you to be a gentleman, and a rational one at that. That was why I grew curious at the time of your disappearance and did some investigating. I felt a bit officious and self-conscious about it. But your civil status was quite puzzling, and I wanted to know what had happened. Mainly, because I was concerned about you. I hope that doesn’t disturb you.”

“Disturb me?” I said. “There aren’t that many people who care what happens to me. I’m grateful. Also, curious what you discovered. I never had the time to look into it, you know, to straighten things out. How about telling me what you learned?”

He opened the briefcase and withdrew a manila folder. Spreading it across his knees, he shuffled out several sheets of yellow paper covered with neat handwriting. Raising the first of these, he regarded it a moment, then said, “After you escaped from the hospital in Albany and had your accident, Brandon apparently dropped out of the picture and-“

“Stop!” I said, raising my hand, trying to sit up.

“What?” he asked.

“You have the order wrong, also the place,” I said. “First came the accident, and Greenwood is not in Albany.”

“I know,” he said. “I was referring to the Porter Sanitarium, where you spent two days and then escaped. You had your accident that same day, and you were brought here as a result of it. Then your sister Evelyn entered the picture. She had you transferred to Greenwood, where you spent a couple of weeks before departing on your own motion once again. Right?”

“Partly,” I said. “Namely, the last part. As I was telling the doctor earlier, my memory is shot for a couple of days prior to the accident. This business about a place in Albany does sort of seem to ring a bell, but only very faintly. Do you have more on it?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “It may even have something to do with the state of your memory. You were committed on a bum order-“

“By whom?” He shook the paper and peered.

“’Brother, Brandon Corey; attendant physician, Hillary B. Rand, psychiatrist,” he read. “Hear any more bells?”

“Quite possibly,” I said. “Go ahead.”

“Well, an order got signed on that basis,” he said. “You were duly certified, taken into custody, and transported. Then, concerning your memory . . .”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know that much about the practice and its effects on the memory, but you were subjected to electroshock therapy while you were at Porter. Then, as I said, the recard indicates that you escaped after the second day. You apparently recovered your car from some unspecified locale and were heading back this way when you had the accident.”

“That seems right,” I said. “It does.” For a moment, when he had begun talking, I had had a wild vision of having been returned to the wrong shadow-one where everything was similar, but not congruent. Now, though, I did not believe this to be the case. I was responding to this story on some level.

“Now, about that order,” he said. “It was based on false evidence, but there was no way of the court’s knowing it at the time. The real Dr. Rand was in England when everything happened, and when I contacted him later he had never heard of you. His office had been broken into while he was away, though. Also, peculiarly, his middle initial is not B. He had never heard of Brandon Corey either.”

“What did become of Brandon?”

“He simply vanished. Several attempts were made to contact him at the time of your escape from Porter, but he could not be found. Then you had the accident, were brought here and treated. At that time, a woman named Evelyn Flaumel, who represented herself as your sister, contacted this place, told them you had been probated and that the family wanted you transferred to Greenwood. In the absence of Brandon, who had been appointed your guardian, her instructions were followed, as the only available next of kin. That was how it came about that you were sent to the other place. You escaped again, a couple of weeks later, and that is where my chronology ends.”

“Then what is my legal status right now?” I asked.

“Oh, you’ve been made whole,” he said. “Dr. Rand went down after I talked with him and gave the court an affidavit reciting these facts. The order was vacated.”

“Then why is the doctor here acting as if I might be a psycho case?”

“Oh my! That is a thought. It hadn’t occurred to me. All their records here would show is that one time you apparently were. I had better see him on the way out. I have a copy of the journal entry in here, too. I can show it to him.”

“How long was it after I left Greenwood that things were set right with the court?”

“The following month,” he said. “It was several weeks before I could bring myself to get nosy.”

“You couldn’t know how happy I am that you did,” I said. “And you have given me several pieces of information I think are going to prove extremely important.”

“It is nice to be able to help a friend sometime,” he said, closing the folder and replacing it in his briefcase. “One thing . . . When this is all over-whatever you are doing-if you are permitted to talk about it, I would like to hear the story.”

“I can’t promise,” I said.

“I know. Just thought I’d mention it. By the way, what do you want to do about the house?”

“Mine? Do I still hold title to it?”

“Yes, but it will probably be sold this year for back taxes if you don’t do anything about it.”

“I’m surprised that hasn’t already happened.”

“You gave the bank power of attorney for paying your bills.”

“I never thought of that. I’d just set it up for utilities and my charge accounts. Stuff like that.”

“Well, the account is nearly empty now,” he said. “I was talking to McNally over there the other day. That means the house will go next year if you don’t do anything.”

“I’ve got no use for it now,” I said. “They can do whatever they want with it.”

“Then you might as well sell it and realize what you can.”

“I won’t be around that long.”

“I could handle it for you. Send the money wherever you want.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll sign anything necessary. Pay my hospital bill out of it and keep the rest.”

“I couldn’t do that.”

I shrugged.

“Do whatever you think best, but be sure and take a good fee.”

“I’ll put the balance in your account.”

“All right. Thanks. By the way, before I forget, would you look in the drawer of that table and see if there is a deck of cards there? I can’t reach it yet, and I’ll be wanting them later.”

“Surely.”

He reached over, opened it.

“A big brown envelope,” he said. “Kind of bulgy. They probably put whatever was in your pockets in it.”

“Open it.”

“Yes, here’s a pack of cards,” he said, reaching inside.

“Say! That’s a beautiful case! May I?”

“I-“ What could I say?

He slipped the case.

“Lovely . . .” he murmured. “Some kind of tarots. . . Are they antique?”

“Yes.”

“Cold as ice . . . I never saw anything like these. Say, that’s you! Dressed up like some kind of knight! What’s their purpose?”

“A very complicated game,” I said.

“How could that be you if they are antique?”

“I didn’t say it was me. You did.”

“Yes, so I did. Ancestor?”

“Sort of.”

“Now that’s a good-looking gal! But so is the redhead. . . .”

“I think. . .”

He squared the deck and replaced it in the case. He passed it to me.

“Nice unicorn, too,” he added. “I shouldn’t have looked at them, should I?”

“That’s all right.”

He sighed and leaned back in the chair, clasping his hands behind his head.

“I couldn’t help it,” he said. “It is just that there is something very strange about you, Carl, beyond any hush-hush work you may be doing-and mysteries intrigue me. I’ve never been this close to a real puzzler before.”

“Because you just slipped yourself a cold deck of tarots?” I asked.

“No, that just adds atmosphere,” he said. “While what you have been doing all these years is admittedly none of my business, there is one recent incident I am unable to comprehend.”

“What is that?”

“After I brought you here and took Alice home last night, I went back to your place, hoping to get some sort of idea as to what had happened. The snow had let up by then, though it started in again later, and your track was still clearly visible, going around the house and down the front yard.” I nodded.

“But there were no tracks going in-nothing to indicate your arrival. And for that matter, there were no other tracks departing-nothing to show the flight of your assailant.”

I chuckled.

“You think the wound was self-inflicted?”

“No, of course not. There wasn’t even a weapon in sight. I followed the bloodstains back to the bedroom, to your bed. I had only my flashlight to see by, of course, but what I saw gave me an eerie feeling. It seemed as if you had just suddenly appeared there on the bed, bleeding, and then gotten up and made your way out.”

“Impossible, of course.”

“I wonder about the lack of tracks, though.”

“The wind must have blown snow over them.”

“And not the others?” He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I just want to go on the record as interested in the answer to that one too, if you ever do want to tell me about things.”

“I will remember,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “But I wonder . . . I’ve a peculiar feeling that I may never see you again. It is as if I were one of those minor characters in a melodrama who gets shuffled offstage without ever learning how things turn out.”

“I can appreciate the feeling,” I said. “My own role sometimes makes me want to strangle the author. But look at it this way: inside stories seldom live up to one’s expectations. Usually they are grubby little things, reducing down to the basest of motives when all is known. Conjectures and illusions are often the better possessions.”

He smiled.

“You talk the same as always,” he said, “yet I have known occasions when you have been tempted to virtue. Several of them. . .”

“How did we get from the footprints to me?” I said. “I was about to tell you that I suddenly recalled having approached the house by exactly the same route as I left it. My departure obviously obliterated the signs of my arrival.”

“Not bad,” he said. “And your attacker followed the same route?”

“Must have.”

“Pretty good,” he acknowledged. “You know how to raise a reasonable doubt. But I still feel that the preponderance of evidence indicates the weird.”

“Weird? No. Peculiar, perhaps. A matter of interpretation.”

“Or semantics. Have you read the police report on your accident?”

“No. Have you?”

“Uh-huh. What if it was more than peculiar? Then will you grant me my word, as I used it: ‘weird’?”

“Very well.”

“. . . And answer one question?”

“I don’t know. . . .”

“A simple yes-or-no question. That’s all.”

“Okay, it’s a deal. What did it say?”

“It said that they received report of the accident and a patrol car proceeded to the scene. There they encountered a strangely garbed man in the process of giving you first aid. He stated that he had pulled you from the wrecked car in the lake. This seemed believable in that he was also soaking wet. Average height, light build, red hair. He had on a green outfit that one of the officers said looked like something out of a Robin Hood movie. He refused to identify himself, to accompany them or to give a statement of any sort. When they insisted that he do so, he whistled and a white horse came trotting up. He leaped onto its back and rode off. He was not seen again.”