Farmer, Philip José - Traitor to the Living (15 page)

"What'll we do if he does?" Patricia said.

Carfax opened his nightcase and took out a 7.92 mm. revolver. "I'd hate to use this, but I will. I don't think Mifflon, or whoever he is, would hesitate to shoot us. The stakes are too high."

"Shouldn't we sneak out later?" she said. "What's the use of staying until morning?"

"He might not call Western at once. The longer we're here, the more we might find out."

He looked at her sharply. "Are you getting cold feet? I told you I should tackle this myself."

"Only my toes are cold, but they are about twenty below zero," she said. "Don't worry. I won't let you down. I'm frightened, but I'm glad I didn't stay home. It's a hundred times better than being cooped up in that room and bored to death."

"Thanks," he said, "but I know what you mean. Going into action is like being released from prison. O.K. Let's go down for the nightcap."

Mifflon and Mrs. Bronski were waiting for them in the library-study, a large room with walls lined with shelves of books, a big teakwood desk, leather-covered chairs and sofas, and a giant fireplace. Mifflon was in pajamas and a robe; Bronski was wearing a negligee and a thin light-scarlet, yellow-piped robe. Both had drinks in their hands. Mifflon looked as if he was surprised that they were still in their day clothes.

"I thought I'd check out the grounds first," Carfax said.

"Good idea. What's your desire?" Mifflon waved his hand at the bar, which seemed to have about every liquor in the world.

Carfax went to the bar and looked at the bottles. When he found a brandy that had not been opened, he said, "Pat and I'll take this."

He had no intention of drinking from a bottle which might have been doped.

"There's much better stuff there," Mifflon said.

"This is fine," Carfax said. "It's better than I'm used to."

Mifflon shrugged and opened the bottle while Carfax watched him closely. He handed the glasses to the two, and then he lifted his Scotch in a toast. "Here's to immortality."

Minion drank and then laughed loudly. Mrs. Bronski frowned.

Carfax said, "What's the joke?"

"I'm just happy to be alive," Mifflon said. "To be able to breathe, to eat and drink, to walk, to make love."

"I would imagine anybody'd feel that way after talking to those poor creatures," Carfax said. "But in the long run it's depressing, isn't it? I mean, you know that sooner or later you'll be one of them. Forever. A thing of energy whirling around other things, locked in a cold dance in a cold universe. It's nothing to look forward to."

Mifflon sipped his drink and then said, slowly, "It's only a stage, a temporary stopping off. I'm a member of the Pancosmic Church of the Embu-Clanst, you know, and we believe that the embu is just a sort of purgatory."

"No, I didn't know that," Carfax said. He had to pretend an almost total lack of knowledge about Mifflon.

"It's a comfortable religion, no doubt of that."

He was trying to think of something to ask Mifflon which his briefing might not have covered. He would have liked to ask him if he intended to visit Mrs. Webster again. But how could he explain how he knew about Mifflon's attendance at her seances?

"I don't have the money to use MEDIUM," he said.

"But I did go to a human medium once, a Mrs. Webster. My sister thinks she's great, and she talked me into going with her. Webster tried to summon our mother, and something did appear, something so thin you could see right through it. And we heard a sort of whispering. But that was all. I didn't go back; Webster isn't cheap, though her fees don't come near Western's, of course."

Mifflon stared hard at Carfax and then smiled. "Oh, I was her client for a long time," he said. "She's a very nice woman, a beautiful woman for her age. And she's no fraud. I mean, she's sincere, and she does have certain undeniable powers. Western says that some mediums can open a brief channel to the embu. But it's all so uncertain and so unscientific, and the results are seldom worth the effort and the money. I have no intention of going back to her. Or, for that matter, back to MEDIUM. I'm not interested in the dead any more."

Ill bet you're not. Carfax thought. He touched the recorder in his pocket. Tomorrow he would take it to Fortune and Thorndyke's laboratory. There this man's voice would be matched against Mifflon's. They would be similar, of course, since the oral cavity and the larynx were the same. But if Mifflon's brain was occupied by a semb, the rhythm of speech and the choice of vocabulary items might be different.

After that had been established, if it would be established, what could be done? The police could not arrest Mifflon on such evidence. Even if they did, they couldn't get the district attorney to bring Mifflon to trial. And even if he was tried, no judge would permit the case to last long. There just were no precedents, and nobody was going to set any.

Yet Mifflon surely was not the only one to be possessed. Could not others be tracked down and their pattern of speech be matched against the former owners'? If enough such cases were presented to the police, would they then refuse to take action? The chances were that they would refuse. Very few would believe that such things could be happening. It looked hopeless. But Carfax did not intend to quit.

What if there was a way to demonstrate even to the most incredulous that a man could be possessed? What if the invader could be exorcised, and the original occupant could then testify? If scientific means could bring about possession, why could not the same means be used to dispossess?

The trouble with that idea was that Western had a monopoly on the only machine that could do the job--if indeed it could be done.

"Well, Mr. Childe," Mifflon said, putting his empty glass down. "It is late, and if you think you should check out the grounds, you should do it now. You can lock the door when you come in, and set the alarm system, it's behind the drapery near the front door, and don't bother reporting to me. That is, unless you find something that needs reporting. I'll be asleep before you make your rounds."

Carfax rose and said, "It shouldn't take more than ten minutes. Goodnight, everybody."

. Patricia stood up and stretched, and Mifflon watched her with undisguised admiration. Mrs. Bronski said, "I'm tired, too. But I'll take along an afternightcap, if you don't object, Mr. Mifflon."

"Have I ever?" he'said.

"Oh no, of course not," she said quickly. "But I always ask, don't I?"

Mifflon grunted, and Mrs. Bronski poured ten fingers of Wild Turkey over one ice cube, and strode out, inaudible burlesque music and cries of, "Take it all off!" surging around her.

Carfax went out the front door and down the portico onto the driveway. The lights were bright here, but he had a slim flashlight in his pocket for the dark places. He walked down the drive to the gate, went along the wall to the left, passing around heavy shrubbery and a number of trees. The circuit took him fifteen minutes, not the ten he had promised. The garage in back of the house also had to be investigated. Carfax sent the flashlight beam in through the windows and saw nothing but two cars, the Zagreus and a Benz, and some worktables and racks of tools. Yohana had put the Zagreus away; he was now sleeping, or at least was in bed, in the apartment over the garage.

Carfax could have made a perfunctory inspection, since he did not expect to run across any prowlers. But he wanted to fix the layout in his mind for future use. It would not be difficult to get into the grounds. The wall was three meters high, but he could jump up and pull himself over. A fencing of three strands of barbed wire ran across the top, but there was, according to Mrs. Bronski, no alarm connected to it. The house and the garage were equipped with an alarm system, but the burglars who had entered it three years ago had bypassed it. Mifflon had not bothered to install a new system.

Mrs. Bronski had said that though Mifflon was timid, he had seemed delighted, not upset, after the burglary.

It had injected some excitement into an otherwise dull life, and for weeks afterward he had gotten up in the middle of the night and prowled the house with his 9mm. automatic. Perhaps he had hoped he could shoot an intruder and so give vent to a suppressed desire for violence. That was, however. Carfax's analysis, not Mrs. Bronski's. He surmised that Mifflon's domination by his mother may have caused an unconscious, or perhaps even a conscious, resentment or hatred. Mifflon had been too suppressed to verbalize his hostility. But he must have hated his mother, and he may have wished to explode this hatred against someone whose injury or death would not result in legal punishment.

It was only a theory, but it seemed probable. At least, it was the only explanation Carfax had for Mifflon's behavior. Mrs. Webster had had no theory; she just thought it was rather strange. She had confided to Carfax that "Robert is a queer kid. Nice but queer."

He re-entered the house and locked the door, throwing the alarm switch concealed behind the drapery.

When he went into his room, he found Patricia pacing back and forth and looking furious.

"What's the matter?"

"That bastard asked me to go to bed with him!"

Carfax paused and then said, "Did you accept?"

She looked blank and then quickly smiled. "You're a great ladder, aren't you? Well, for your information, I said yes!"

Carfax was almost fooled. She was trying to give him as much as he had given. But it would take a long time before she caught up.

"Good," he said. "You ought to be able to get a lot out of him. In the way of information, I mean."

"I almost think you mean it," she said. "Tell me you don't," and she put her arms around him.

"Of course, I don't," he said. If she had been a professional detective, he would have expected her to take Mifflon up on his proposal, though he would not have required her to do so. He was glad that she had not, yet he regretted the lost opportunity.

Patricia kissed him and, releasing him, said, "He didn't act like the Mifflon described to me. He was very smooth, as if he'd had long practice and was not accustomed to being turned down."

"That's the clincher," Carfax said. "The real Mifflon is--was--impotent."

"Oh? How'd you find that out?"

"I saw Mrs. Webster's dossier on him. She was a mother image, you know, and he told her a lot more than he had to about himself. Of course, Mrs. Webster wouldn't have let me see that part of the dossier if the situation hadn't demanded that I know everything about him.

"I had Fortune and Thomdyke check on it, and they found out that it's true. Or was."

"Well, he is hard up," Patricia said. "I opened the door a crack and watched down the hall. He certainly doesn't waste any time. About two minutes after I'd refused him, he was tapping on Mrs. Bronski's door. She let him in, and as far as I know he hasn't come out yet."

Carfax winked at her and said, "I'll tippytoe down the hall and make sure."

He returned a few minutes later, grinning, and said,

"Her bed springs need oiling. Tell me, how'd he take it? I mean your big loud no?"

"He didn't like it; he looked as if he wanted to kill me. But he recovered quickly enough, smiled like a gargoyle, and asked me, very sweetly, if I'd change my mind if there was enough money. I told him to go to hell, but he said it'd be worth a thousand to him."

Carfax whistled and said, "He must be hard up!"

"You go to hell, too," she said.

"I've been there, and I didn't like it. I wonder?"

"What now?"

"We could make anything out of this. Granted, he might be all pooped out, but then he may be even homier than most, and the sight of you, young and beautiful, might rejuvenate him."

Patricia almost spat at him. "Are you suggesting that I do go to his room, after he gets through with that old hag?"

"Cool down," he said. "I'm not thinking of you going through with it. I was wondering if I could burst in and play the heavy husband. If I knocked him out in a fit of jealous rage, then maybe, just maybe, we would get something out of him when he came to."

"He could have us jailed," she said. "He could charge us with fraud, assault and battery, and God knows what else."

"Yes, I know," he said. "I was just thinking out loud. If I thought I could get the true Mifflon to come through, then we'd have our case. But then I don't know if the true one is still in his body. Maybe it's not a case of the semb overriding the original possessor.

Maybe there's a switch, the original goes into the embu and the semb moves in." "It's too uncertain, too dangerous," Patricia said.

"Besides, I don't like the idea of using violence."

"I don't either, but there's too much at stake to get squeamish. It might at least be worth trying. Mifflon isn't going to bring charges, no matter what happens.

He doesn't want the police in on this, even if they can't do anything if they should get suspicious."

Carfax began pacing. After crossing the big room four times, he said, "If I thought we could scare Bronski, we could work on her. She has to be in on this. But all she has to do is keep her mouth shut, and she looks tough enough to do that. And I'm not sure that even if she thought I was going to kill her if she didn't talk, that she would talk. She knows that Western brought back someone from the dead and put him in Mifflon's body. So why wouldn't he do the same for her? And maybe give her a young body? Probably, he's already promised her one. No, she wouldn't crack.

"And working on Mifflon is no good, either. I don't know how to go about getting down to the real Mifflon.

If he's still there, that is, and he may not be."

"So what do we do?" Patricia said.

"We're getting out of here now. There's no use waiting until Mifflon calls Western. He might shoot us.

More probably he'd hold us here until Western sent somebody to take care of us. I now think it's better to be long gone when Mifflon finds out he's been had. If Western was ignoring us before, he sure isn't going to from now on. He'll know we're on to him. But we've found out what we were looking for. That isn't the real Mifflon."