The Lower Deep (6 page)

True, some of the town's teenagers hung around Pointe Pierre in the evenings. A shrewd shopkeeper there had invested in an expensive, battery-powered radio that could pick up music from powerful stations in Cuba and the States. But no one except seekers of privacy went beyond there to Anse Douce.

The cove possessed an eerie beauty, though. On a night of full moonlight it was pure magic, with its castle-like cluster of coral boulders in the gully at one end. The moon would be almost full when it rose from the sea tonight, too. George felt himself tingling with anticipation as Dannie and he neared their destination.

Anse Douce. Peaceful Cove. Sand and sea and that fairy-world group of rocks, with a half-mile crescent of tangled sea-grape bushes for a back drop. "Unspoiled" was the word. On reaching it, George stripped to his dark blue swim trunks and sank onto the sand. Removing her yellow dress, Dannie lay beside him in her white bikini. Both would have been naked except for the odd chance that someone just might come along.

"You know something, George Benson? I love
you."

"And I love you, Dannie. Never forget it."

They held hands and lay back, their bodies touching, heads turned so they could look at each other. The sea was almost flat. Waves barely an inch high whispered their way ashore. A few small shadows—crabs, no doubt—moved along the water's edge. The air was sweet with a heady fragrance of night-blooming jasmine.

A feeling of total contentment came over George, and he let his eyes close.

"What?" Dannie said.

He opened his eyes, unaware he had spoken.

"You'll do what?"

"I didn't say anything, Dannie."

She made a face at him. "George, you dozed off and began talking in your sleep again.
To
someone this time, it sounded like. Who were you talking to?"

George frowned. "Woman, you're crazy."

"Not me. One of these days I'll be ready with a tape recorder. Then you'll know who's crazy."

George kissed her on the mouth. "I never said a word," he insisted. Better keep this light and breezy because, to be truthful, it scared him. "You dozed off and dreamed it. Come on, let's go swimming."

"All right, let's." Dannie stood up, waited for him to do the same, then gave him a playful push that almost knocked him down again. She broke into a run for the water. But instead of racing in without hesitation, as George expected her to do, she stopped abruptly at its edge.

George ran to her: "Hey! Is something the matter?"

She took a backward step and looked up and down the deserted crescent of beach.

"Nobody's here," George said, peering anxiously at her face. "You feel someone's watching us?"

She nodded, obviously apprehensive.

"Come on. There isn't a soul around. We'd have heard something."

"I—suppose so. But I swear I felt—" Suddenly her mood seemed to change and she shrugged, then walked slowly, purposefully into the sea as though caught up in a wholly different compulsion. The top part of her white bikini glowed for a moment above the dark carpet of water, like an advance patch of light from a moon not yet risen. Throwing her arms over her head, she disappeared in a graceful dive.

Filled with admiration, George stood waiting at the water's edge until she surfaced. Then it startled him to see how far out she was. In one way or another this woman was always surprising him, he thought. Striding in, he went after her.

She did more than startle him then; she frightened him. Expecting to be able to overtake her with ease—after all, he had swum with her before and knew her ability—he found he could not. Seemingly without effort, she swam straight out to sea as though she had forgotten all about him and meant not to return.

"Hey!" he yelled. "For Pete's sake, Dannie what are you doing?"

She paid no attention. The white bikini was only a faint blur in the dark distance, half hidden by the water creaming out behind her swift feet.

Something was really wrong, George knew then. What it might be he had no idea but, damn it, she couldn't swim that well. She just could not! He sucked in a breath and took out after her in earnest, aware that he would have to give it all he had. Luckily he had spent a good part of his life on or in the sea and was strong in the water.

He caught her at last, a little surprised at how
fast he actually was, and how much better his breathing was than he had suspected. Catching Dannie by an ankle, he pulled her back to him and got an arm around her. "Are you out of your mind, woman?" he yelled. "Do you know how far out we are? With sharks and all?"

Suddenly she clung to him, gasping for breath, and he realized she was terrified. "Easy," he crooned. "Easy now, darling. Hang on to me."

Slowly he helped her back to shallow water, lifting her in his arms for the last few yards to the beach. She was over her fright by then but was strangely subdued, not even looking at him. When he set her on her feet and took his arm away, she walked only a few steps and sank onto the sand.

The moon was just coming up, pushing its light through the sea-grape bushes at the east end of the cove, silver-plating the whole beach as he caught Dannie's hands and drew her up to him.

"Come on, love. This place doesn't feel right tonight. Let's get the hell out of here."

"Yes. Oh, God, George! Let's go home!"

Hand in hand they hurried through the brightening moonlight to where they had left their clothes. Then, quickly, they put the "peaceful cove" behind them.

"Will you please tell me what happened back there?" George said. They were in bed together now, relaxed and content after making love. "Why in God's name did you take off like that, as if you meant to swim nonstop until you ran out of steam?"

"George, I don't know."

"Do you know I almost couldn't catch you?"

"That scares me, too. You know I can't swim half as well as you."

George held her in his arms. Their lovemaking had not been as satisfying as usual, but so long as he held her close to him he was fulfilled. He had never known this kind of nearness with Alice.

"Something happened to us back there," he insisted. "You felt it first, but later it hit me, too. What was it?"

Silence.

"The damned cove must be haunted."

Silence.

She was asleep, George realized. And he had to get up, get dressed, go home. It had been a weird night. One he didn't understand at all.

A
week later at two in the morning, startled by
a timid knocking on the door of his room, Dr. Stephen Spence looked up from his reading. Earlier, he had brought a number of files up from what was now his office, to study the backgrounds of certain Azagon patients who, according to the staff, were "acting queerly."

He frowned at the door in disbelief. A caller at two A.M.? In the nine days he'd been at the Azagon, the house had always tucked itself in by eleven. Usually quite a bit before that.

"Yes? Who is it, please?"

"Tom Driscoll, Steve. May I come in?"

The old man must be ill again. Not a surprising development in light of what a physical workup performed by Steve, himself, had revealed. He had
indeed suffered the stroke Juan Mendoza suspected. He had signs of arthritis in both hips. His blood pressure was high. He was a victim of stress, fatigue, and apparently even of some secret fear that was making all his other troubles that much worse. No way would he stop trying to fight back, though.

Steve tossed the files onto his bed and hastily got out of his chair, reaching for a dressing gown to cover his pajamas and pushing his bare feet into a pair of soft leather moccasins he had cherished for years.

It was odd. Despite what the examination had revealed, Driscoll had seemed to be more active in the past couple of days. He had been taking his meals in the dining room. He had even gone plodding about the grounds now and then. But for him to be out of bed at this hour, something new must be troubling him.

Steve opened the door and the aging physician shuffled in over the threshold, nodding. "Thank you, thank you. I felt I had to talk to someone."

"Of course, Tom."

"It's cold tonight, isn't it?" It was so warm that Steve had his room air-conditioner on, though he disliked its hum as much as he did the throb of the power plant that supplied the electricity for it. Almost glad of the excuse to shut it off, he realized Driscoll was breathing wheezily, perhaps from the effort of climbing the stairs.

Leading the old man to a chair, he wrapped a cotton blanket about him. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and said with a frown, "Tom, what's wrong?"

"Steve, Paul Henninger has gone out again."

"Oh?" There was talk around that the manager had disappeared a couple of nights ago without checking out or telling anyone where he was go
ing. Someone needing him had been unable to locate him. When questioned, Henninger had insisted he knew nothing about it, and if it were true, he must have been sleepwalking. With so much else to do in taking over as director, Steve had not yet found time to dig for details.

Since Driscoll obviously wanted to talk, this might be as good a time as any, though certainly
unusual, to try for some facts. Not in a spirit of censure, of course, but with concern for Paul Henninger's well-being. The man might need help with some personal problem.

"He's into the sleepwalking bit again, you mean?" Steve said, hoping to keep the discussion light.

"I don't believe it is sleepwalking, Steve."

"What is it, then?"

"I don't know, but I am disturbed. Deeply disturbed. Believe me."

This could be a long session, Steve decided, and hunched himself back on the bed to put his shoulders against the wall. "Why, Tom?"

Driscoll's reply was almost a wail. "Because something very strange is going on here, Stephen!"

"I'm not sure I follow you."

"Follow me? What is there to follow? Tonight I couldn't sleep. This damned arthritis of mine was giving me fits. I was sitting by my window—not reading, mind you; no light was on—just sitting
there, looking out at the night. It was after midnight. And suddenly there was our manager in the yard."

Driscoll paused to get his breath. "It's dark to
night, you may have noticed—the moon was full a few nights ago—and I saw him for only a moment.

But I refuse to believe he was walking in his sleep, Steve. Ah, no, no. He knew what he was doing and where he was going. I'm as certain of it as I am that I'm sitting here talking to you now at two in the morning!"

"Can you be certain, Tom? I mean, do you know that much about somnambulism? I sure as hell don't."

"He was not asleep," the older man insisted al
most petulantly. "There is no way I can prove it, of course, but I'm sure of it. And then do you know what happened? No, of course you don't—you didn't see any of this. But only a moment after he reached the end of the yard and disappeared, someone else came out of the building, very obviously following him."

Driscoll was enjoying his recital, Steve guessed. A captain without a ship to command, he probably had few chances to feel important now and cherished every one of them. "Who, Tom? Who did you see following him?"

"That bright young man of ours, Juan Mendoza!"

"You're sure he was tailing Henninger?"

"My dear Steve, what else? Of course he was. Something very mysterious is going on here, and Paul Henninger is part of it. Much as I like the man, what else can I think?"

"Why on earth would Juan be following Henninger, Tom?"

"Because of the way Paul's been behaving, of course. Oh, I know I hired him. I know he came
with a good recommendation from that hotel in the capital where he worked. But there's something very scary going on here, Steve, and Paul Henninger is somehow caught up in it."

The room filled with silence. After a moment Steve said, "Are they back yet, do you know?"

"Who?"

"Henninger and Mendoza, Tom."

"Oh. They hadn't returned when I came up here. I was watching at my window. Unless, of course, they came in the front way. I wouldn't know about that."

"Suppose I have a look. And if they are back, maybe we can have them up here for a few questions, if only to set your mind at rest."

"Good, good!"

Steve pushed himself off the bed. "Chances are they have nothing at all to hide, you know. You've never had a rule against leaving the place at night, have you?"