The Dark on the Other Side

I

BY THE TIME MICHAEL RETURNED WITH THE CAR, the other two were ready and waiting. The night had turned clear and chilly; Linda was wrapped in a huge cloak, which the doctor had mysteriously produced from some vast storehouse of improbable needs. Galen wore no coat, and his silvery head was bare. He carried a small flat case, like a briefcase.

As soon as the car stopped, Galen led Linda down the steps. He opened the back door of the car.

“You drive,” he said to Michael, who was brooding over the wheel. “We’ll sit in back where-For God’s sake!”

Linda flexed her muscles just in time. From under her skirts came a wail of protest, and she reached down and lifted a dangling, muttering bundle of fur.

“Why the hell?” Galen demanded, slamming the car door.

His haste was unnecessary; Napoleon had no intention of going anywhere. He subsided onto Linda’s lap and looked abused.

“He likes to ride in cars. Besides,” Michael said, in a voice that ended Galen’s objections, “I have a feeling he might be useful.”

Fondling the scarred ears, Linda did not look up.

“The canary in the coal mine,” she said. “Michael, I wish you hadn’t.”

“If he goes berserk, he can wreck the damned car,” Galen said. “Haven’t you got a carrying case for him?”

“On the floor,” Michael said briefly, and put the car into gear.

They made good time; the streets were emptying. Staring out through the closed windows, Linda remembered that other, recent night drive. Night and darkness, the recurring motifs; there had been sunshine, once, but she could hardly remember that such a phenomenon existed. She was tired, so tired; not only in body but in every cell of brain and nerve. Desire for the endless sleep of death was comprehensible to her now; perhaps, she thought, it was not grief or despair that prompted suicide, but only sheer exhaustion.

Her eyes fixed unseeingly on the flashing, multi-colored lights of the city, Linda knew that that was the solution none of them would admit. Sick or sane, right or wrong, she was not normal, and perhaps she never would be. While she lived, Michael would not abandon her-and neither would Gordon. Even if Gordon were defeated, Michael would be stuck with her and her inability to love; he was a stubborn man, he would keep on trying even though it was hopeless. But without her, Gordon would have no reason to attack Michael. He would be safe; and she could rest.

Dreamily and without interest, she wondered whether this black mood was Gordon’s latest move. She didn’t think so. It was far too pleasant a feeling to have emanated from Gordon’s mind. And so reasonable…

In the warm, smothering shadow of the idea of death, two small, dissenting sparks burned. One was Michael-not desire, not even hope, just the thought of him. The other, absurdly, came from the scrubby patch of fur in which her fingers were entwined.

Napoleon stirred restlessly under her tightening hands, but she didn’t let go. A mangy lifeline, that was what he was. A fighter. Battered and scarred and bloody, he had never thought pensively of the sweet sleep of death. Swaggering like Cyrano, his tail a scrawny panache, he took on all comers for the sheer glory of the fray: “Give me giants!”

The lights had disappeared now, except for isolated lighted windows. Linda recognized the terrain. Another hour…Even that thought could not rouse her from the drowsiness which numbed her limbs. Normal weariness-or the dangerous false sleep of Gordon’s inducing? She could not tell, nor could she fight it. The solid, silent bulk of the man beside her gave her failing courage a slight lift, but even that faded out as the darkness closed in around her.

II

Absorbed in his driving and in the hagridden thoughts that made every effort doubly difficult, Michael had no warning. He didn’t realize what was happening until he heard the sudden flurry of movement from the back seat, and the animal screams, and Galen’s voice, sharp in command:

“Pull over! Quick!”

Michael jerked the car to a stop, half on and half off the road. He turned.

On the back seat, Galen’s briefcase gaped open. Galen, kneeling on a heaving dark cylinder that sprawled half on the seat and half on the floor, held a hypodermic high, checking it. He must have had it ready and waiting, in that convenient case…

Before Michael could move, Galen plunged the needle home in a reckless disregard of antisepsis. Hampered by the muffling folds of the cloak, Linda went limp as the drug took hold. Then Michael heard the sound that was coming from the floor of the front seat. Napoleon, inflated to twice his normal size, had removed himself as far as possible from what was happening in the back. Once before, Michael had heard him make a noise like that.

Galen looked up, his face a white oval in the shadows.

“Get that cat,” he said briefly, and reached down to tug at something on the floor, pinned by Linda’s legs.

Napoleon erupted into hysteria when Michael tried to hand him into the back; and Galen, cursing in four languages, heaved the cat’s carrying case into the front seat. Between them they got the frantic animal into the case and his cries stopped.

Nursing a bleeding hand, Galen spoke again.

“If a patrol car spots us, we’re in trouble. Find a parking lot or a side street.”

Michael obeyed. His own hands were scratched and painful. It seemed like hours before he found a place to park-a driveway leading to a private house, whose dark shape was hidden by trees. The muffled sounds from the back were driving him frantic. Almost as bad was the deadly silence from Napoleon’s box.

He switched off lights and engine and made sure the doors were locked before he turned. Galen had propped Linda up in a corner of the seat. He was checking her pulse and respiration.

“How is-”

“She’s okay. Physically. I was careful with the dosage.”

“You expected this.”

“For God’s sake-didn’t you? It was as predictable as sunrise.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not thinking very clearly.”

“You aren’t?” Galen’s voice was bitter. “For the last hours everything I’ve done has been in direct opposition to every medical ethic I’ve ever held. If I’m not caught in the act, and drummed out of the profession, I’ll probably shoot myself in sheer self-loathing… That reminds me. Hand it over.”

“What?”

Galen snapped his fingers impatiently.

“You know what. The ‘business matter’ you had to arrange before we left. Give it to me, Michael… Thanks. Do you have a permit for this?”

“I do. If it matters.”

“Probably not. What’s a permit more or less?”

“Give it back to me, Galen. You’ve risked enough already.”

“No, thank you. If any shooting needs to be done, I’ll do it.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Michael said, “I brought it for the dog.”

“And that’s not a bad idea,” Galen admitted. “If the animal has been trained as an attack dog, it may take a bullet to stop it. No, Michael, I will keep the gun. I commend your intentions, but I cannot trust your judgment. Not in this case.”

“Why?” Michael asked suddenly. “Why are you doing this? Risking your reputation, perhaps your freedom-”

“Arrogance. I think so highly of my own judgment, I even follow my hunches.”

“You came,” Michael said, “because you knew I’d do this anyhow, with you or without you. And because I-hit below the belt with a reference to your personal tragedies. What makes my remark so inexcusable is that I didn’t give a damn about that aspect of Randolph; I just wanted to get you mad enough so you’d help us.”

“Forget it,” Galen said brusquely. “I don’t know why I’m here myself; at the moment I couldn’t analyze an arithmetic problem. Get on, Michael. Randolph must be home by now; we’re over an hour behind him.”

“What are we going to do when we get there?”

“I’ll be looking up my horoscope for today while you drive.”

“What about Linda?”

“She should be waking up by the time we arrive.”

“I meant as a source of information.”

Galen stared at him; Michael saw the faint glimmer of his eyes in the starlight.

“You have got a few brain cells working after all. It wasn’t scopalamine I gave her, you know. However, she is in an extremely suggestible state, if Randolph has been working on her… Oh, hell. Drive, will you? I’ll see what I can do.”

After twenty interminable minutes, while Michael drove like an automaton, Galen leaned forward to report.

“No dice. I’ll try again when she starts to come out of it.”

The night had sunk into its deadest hours by the time they arrived. Passing the now familiar landmarks, Michael recognized the entrance to the unpaved lane that led to Andrea’s house. Darkness and silence, now, along its length…He wondered where, and how, the old woman had been buried, and who had come to mourn her. Poor old witch-another victim of Gordon’s insane urge for human souls, or the victim of her own-what had Galen called it?-thanatomania. The ability to induce death by suggestion alone. Mental aberration, or genuine curse, it didn’t matter. Linda had it too.

The ornate gates that marked the entrance to the Randolph estate stood open. Michael brought the car to a stop just inside, switching off the lights. The house was invisible from this spot, and he doubted that anyone could have heard the car. Unless someone had been watching for it…

Linda was awake. For several minutes now he had heard the mumble of voices from the back seat. With the engine no longer running, he was able to make out the words.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

“Shut up,” Galen said. “All right, Linda, you believe me, don’t you? Say you do.”

“I believe you.”

Her voice was slurred and drowsy.

“Tell me again.”

“I can’t hurt you,” Linda said obediently. “I can’t hurt Michael. I don’t want to hurt anyone. No one is going to hurt me…”

“And you aren’t afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” said the soft doll’s voice. The hairs on Michael’s neck lifted.

“You,” said Galen, turning on him with a cold savagery that made him flinch, “are going to keep quiet. You will not speak unless I tell you to, or move unless I tell you to. Understand?”

“Yes, master… What did you do, hypnotize her?”

“No,” Galen said, in a peculiar voice. “I didn’t. Just keep your mouth shut and come along. We must get into the house. Linda, you have a key?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

“In my pocket.”

“Get it out.”

The way she moved made Michael feel cold. Her gestures were competent, without fumbling or hesitation, but they lacked all her normal grace. He followed the stiff, mechanical figure up the driveway, and he let Galen take her arm; he had the feeling that it would have had the solidity and coldness of wood under his fingers.

After some probing-she only answered direct questions, and those absolutely literally-Galen had got her to produce a back-door key, and lead them to that entrance.

The servants’ rooms were on the upper floors, so there was no danger from them; but the kitchen entrance was the length of the house from their ultimate destination. That couldn’t be helped; Linda had no key to the other doors, and to climb the twisting stairs around the tower would give those within warning of their approach.

Michael could see the light in the tower window; it shone like a sleepless eye on the topmost floor, the window of Briggs’s study. His sleeping quarters were on the floor below; the secretary was the only inhabitant of this part of the house, which was out of bounds to the servants. Briggs did his own cleaning. Linda herself had not been in the tower since the man moved in.

Galen elicited this information while they stood shivering in the shadows outside the house. He had already made it plain that he wanted no conversation after they entered. A slim sliver of moon had risen, and its rays were enough to show Michael the tension of Galen’s body and the wax-like calm of Linda’s face. Her face, and her soft, docile voice, gripped him with a pain as sharp as an actual wound. How much more could she stand? He had read some of the literature of witchcraft, and he had seen Gordon’s livid face; he had an excellent idea of what they might discover in the tower room. The sacrifice, the shrouded altar, drugs and incense…A sight like that might break her mind completely.

“It’s not too late to turn back,” he said, turning to Galen.

“It is too late.”

“We’re guilty of breaking and entering…”

“Don’t be melodramatic. Mrs. Randolph is the mistress of the house. She has every legal right to go where she chooses, and to invite her friends to accompany her.”

The shrubbery rustled as they crossed the wide lawn, silver-washed by moonlight. On such a pale expanse an object would be clearly visible; but the absence of any seen threat did not calm Michael’s nerves. He was half hoping that the dog would come. It was better to know where it was than to imagine it, lurking unseen.

Somewhere, back on a tree near the gate, a petrified cat squatted on a branch. It had been Galen’s suggestion that they free Napoleon; he had not needed to give his reasons. Gordon’s malice might extend to any creature Michael was fond of, and the cat had a better chance, free, against danger. As Michael extracted the limp, unprotesting body from the carrying case, he recognized the symptoms. Only one thing roused Napoleon to his former fury, and that was when Michael inadvertently brought him near Linda-one of the few people for whom he had displayed a tolerance verging on affection. Michael had to lift him up into the lower branches of the tree, and as he turned away he saw Napoleon squatting there, motionless, looking like the Cheshire cat, even to the twisted snarl of his teeth. There was a certain element of the gruesome in Alice, come to think of it…

They made their way through the darkened kitchen, with its vagrant gleams of chrome, and down the hallways. Wide double doors admitted them to a part of the house Michael had never seen. At the end of a long corridor, flanked by closed doors on either side, the tower steps led up. One window gave a scant light-a narrow, mullioned window half obscured by tendrils of ivy through which the moonlight slid in surreptitious trickles, casting more shadows than it relieved.

Linda stopped. It was so dark Michael could not see her face. Not until he put a steadying hand on her shoulder did he realize that she was shaking from head to foot.

His hand was struck down.

“Don’t touch her,” Galen hissed in his ear. “Linda. Go on. Up the stairs.”

Michael didn’t need to touch her to feel her resistance. It was a painful thing to witness, for the struggle was mute and confined. Galen’s command broke her will instead of calming it. She shivered violently, and went on.

They were almost at the top of the stairs before Michael heard the sound. Its faintness made it worse, for it seemed to come from the inner chambers of his brain instead of an outside source.

Michael half recognized it, and wondered why his mind should reject the attempt at identification so violently. A picture formed in his mind, to match the sound: a high-vaulted place, great expanses of marbled flooring, adorned with columns…the walls a blend of colors and shapes…and the high, pure, sexless voices filling the echoing heights of the…

“God!” he said, involuntarily, and heard Galen’s hand thrust heavily against the panels of the door.

The entire picture came at him in a single vast blasphemy; it was much later before he could isolate the details, and by that time he was already trying to forget them. Lights all around the room, burning with the clear softness of wax. Lights on the black-draped, table like object at the far side of the circular chamber. Black candles. Black hangings, draping walls and ceiling. Briggs stood before the altar; and as Michael’s mind had denied the parody of the ritual music, it rejected the obscene caricature of priestly vestments that adorned Briggs’s fat body and set off the pallor of the pale, epicene face. The reek of incense he had expected was present; some of it came from the golden censer in Briggs’s hand. It was mixed with another smell. Michael averted his eyes from the thing that lay, mercifully motionless now, on the table.

Even Galen was struck dumb and motionless; and while the two men stood frozen, Linda moved past them, out into the room. Michael made a futile grab at her. Before he could move again, Briggs spoke.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “pray don’t be hasty.”

He had a gun. Michael repeated the words incredulously to himself. Proud Satan’s aide, allied with the powers of Hell-Briggs had a gun. A pretty little pearl-handled job, which he held as demurely as a woman might fondle a flower. It seemed innocuous after the things Michael had imagined.

It was enough to stop him, though, even without the restraint of Galen’s outflung arm.

“Linda,” he said helplessly, knowing he could not reach her.

She had advanced into the center of the room. The hood of the cloak had fallen back over her shoulders, and her hair streamed down around her face. It had the pure pallor of a saint’s image as she stopped, facing the man who stood in the middle of an elaborately figured, colored carpet. Behind him the black draperies billowed, and Michael realized there must be a window there, or a door, leading to the outside stairs.

Unlike his coactor, Gordon was not in costume. He had discarded coat and tie; his shirt was open at the throat and his sleeves were rolled up. Hands and bare forearms were splashed with drying stains. His handsome, tanned face was calm. Michael was struck with a realization of the man’s power-physical strength and beauty, combined with enormous will, and with another quality that Michael had not recognized until he saw the slender, submissive figure of Gordon’s wife facing him with bowed head. A surge of hate rose up and nearly choked him. He would have moved then, forgetting the gun, if Galen’s arm had not barred his way.

“You’d better come in and close the door,” Gordon said calmly. “There. That’s far enough.”

He lifted both hands in a convoluted, ritual gesture.

He believes it, Michael thought. He really believes he can stop us, like that… Glancing at Briggs, he felt sure that the secretary had no such faith. His narrowed eyes were as cynical as his gun. He was leaning back against the table; the plump pink feet and calves were bare.

“Briggs,” Galen said. “Don’t be a fool. So far you’re guilty of nothing the law can touch you for. You can’t possibly expect to get away with murder. Put down the gun.”

“Gun?” Gordon seemed to see the weapon for the first time. His face twisted with annoyance. “Come, now, Briggs, you know we don’t need that. I can hold them.”

Galen ignored him.

“I’m a doctor, Briggs. This man is psychotic, and very dangerous. If you cooperate with us, I’ll see that you get away scot-free.”

For a second Michael thought it was going to work. The fat man’s eyes narrowed until they almost disappeared. Briggs was perfectly sane, in the usual sense of the word; his faith in his dark master was almost all sham. Michael could see him weighing the advantages: Gordon’s money and influence, the satisfaction of the various lusts of the flesh to which Gordon’s patronage gave him access, against-what? Freedom and immunity? Freedom to return to the cold, hostile outer world and abandon his nice soft nest.

“Briggs,” Gordon said impatiently. “Put away that silly toy and go on with the ceremony. Our audience has arrived. I want them to see everything.”

“Yes, master,” Briggs said quickly. “But-can you keep your control of them, and give your mind and heart to the offering?”

“I have bound them in the web of darkness. There they will stand until they rot, unless my will releases them.”

Michael was dangerously close to jumping the main actor. Briggs’s ridiculous gun had destroyed the aura of superstitious terror that had hitherto shielded Gordon; he saw the man for what he was, half mad, wholly evil. He felt light-headed with relief at the removal of that greatest fear, and was inclined to dismiss the menace of the weapon. A little thing like that, in Briggs’s pudgy, womanish hand-hell, he probably couldn’t hit a barn door at ten paces. Two things kept him in his place. One was his promise to Galen, silent at his side. The other was the sight of Gordon’s big-muscled hands, so close to Linda. He could snap her neck with one twist of those brown hands. And he was capable of doing it, if his fantasy world was destroyed.

Michael heard a controlled, barely audible in-take of breath from the man beside him. Galen’s first attempt had failed. Briggs’s weapon enforced, and reinforced, Gordon’s madness, and Briggs was now committed. In seeming obedience he had stepped back behind the makeshift altar, his hands outstretched over it; but the wide sleeves of his robe, and the spacing of the candles, left those hands in shadow, and Michael had no doubt of what they still held.

Galen knew the danger as well as he did, or better. But his friend’s next move took Michael completely by surprise.

“I am bound in the web of darkness,” Galen said suddenly. “But not forever. I call upon the Masters of the Great College to come to me.”

Hands lifted, he spat out a string of strange syllables, rich in gutturals. Michael wondered what half-forgotten adolescent lesson he was using; but he forgot that when he saw the impact of the words on the other listeners. Linda’s body jerked violently, as if something had struck her. Gordon went pale. He fell back a step, and after a moment his voice rose up, clashing with the other voice in an equally unintelligible chant.

Galen, rock-still in his place, waved his hands and switched to Latin.

His attention fixed on the combatants, Michael did not see what, if anything, Briggs was doing; later, he had to admit that Briggs might have thrown some new chemical into the smoldering bowls on the altar. But he felt the change in the air; it smelled like the acrid stench of burning flesh, and it made his head spin.

Backing away, step by dragging step, Gordon resembled a fighter reeling under the blows of invisible fists. His face was no longer pale; it was dark with fury, and swollen out of recognizable shape. The words still poured from his distorted mouth; and Michael imagined, insanely, that he could see them take shape in the air and strike back, against the shapes of Galen’s incantation.

Galen had gone back to Hebrew, having exhausted his stock of appropriate Latin and Greek. Alone in the center of the room, Linda swayed back and forth, eyes glassy. Michael had forgotten his desire to go to her; he was only half aware of a pudgy, dark form, creeping at them from the direction of the altar.

Gordon was back now within a few feet of the shrouded window, his hands writhing, his face unrecognizable. Then Galen’s breath failed; and in the split-second lull, Gordon’s voice rose to a howl. The curtains behind him bellied out as if in a sudden gust of wind; the nearby candles flickered and went out. The black draperies wrapped Gordon around like enormous sable wings. Within their shelter he swayed, staggered, and dropped to his hands and knees.

Galen’s voice faltered and went on; Gordon’s answered. The droning beat of the two voices, the evil stench in the air-untouched by the chill blast of wind-the effect of shadows and the movement of the shaken draperies…All these, and other, equally explicable factors, might have explained what Michael saw. The shape of Gordon Randolph-on hands and knees, four-footed like a beast, dark head lowered-blurred and shifted. When the outlines coalesced, they were no longer those of a man.

He was not the only one to see it. Linda screamed and covered her face with both hands. Michael moved, without plan, his only motive the need to get between Linda and the thing that paced slowly down the length of the floor toward her.

What Briggs saw, or thought he saw, they would never know for certain. Michael heard the gun go off, at close range; the entire magazine let loose in one undirected, hysterical burst. The bullets had no visible effect on the dog. It came on, with the unnatural slowness of nightmare, its padded feet making no sound on the carpet. Michael saw something fat and black in his way; he removed it with one sweep of his hand and then caught Linda in his arms, turning, holding her head against his chest so that she could not see.

Another shot and another…or was it the blood pounding in his ears? The room had gone dark-or was it because his eyes were closed? There was only one sense left to him, but it was enough-the feel of the warm, living body in his arms, and its response.

Galen had to shake him, hard, before he opened his eyes. The older man’s pallor was so pronounced that he looked bleached-hair, face, eyes.

“It’s all right,” Galen said. He laughed, shortly and humorlessly. “What a description…”

“You got it?” Michael asked.

“Got it? What?”

“The dog…Don’t, I don’t want her to see.” He stiffened, trying to shield Linda as Galen’s impersonal hand caught her chin and forced her face up.

“She’s all right, too,” Galen said. “I’m sorry, Linda; you’re entitled to a nice long bout of hysterics, but not just yet and certainly not here. The servants must have been wakened by that cannonade. We must leave before someone comes.”

“I don’t want her to see…” Michael repeated, with idiot persistence.

“She had better see it.” Galen turned them both, and Michael saw the sprawled body of Gordon Randolph. The white shirt was no longer white. The face was as blank as a wax dummy’s.

“Dead,” Galen said. “Like any other mortal creature.”

Michael felt Linda shiver, and lifted her into his arms as he heard the first tentative rap on the door.

“It’s locked,” Galen said softly. “But we’d better get going. Down the outside staircase.”

When they got to the car, Michael was somehow not surprised to see a familiar shape sitting on the roof. Galen grabbed Napoleon, who came without protest. They were back on the main highway before anyone spoke.

“Put about ten miles behind us and then find a place to stop,” Galen ordered. “I’m going to put Linda to sleep. And you aren’t fit to drive far.”

Michael nodded. He knew, better than Galen possibly could, how unfit he was. When Galen told him to pull over, he was glad to change places with the other man. Linda was already half asleep. She looked so fragile that Michael was almost afraid to touch her. She opened her eyes and gave him a wavering smile.

“…Love you…” she whispered, and drifted off.

“I wonder,” Galen said, after a time.

“Wonder what? Whether she loves me?”

“Oh, that. No, I think you’ll make out all right there. You’re her hero, aren’t you? Fighting the powers of darkness for her soul…What are lions compared to that?”

The familiar sardonic tones woke Michael completely. He leaned forward, arms folded on the back of the seat.

“What did you see, Galen?”

“At the end?” Galen slowed for a blinking stop light, and then picked up speed. “The original delusion of lycanthropy was Randolph’s, as I suspected. He reverted completely.”

“I saw him change,” Michael said quietly. “I saw the dog. How do you define a hallucination, Galen? If three people out of four see one thing, and the fourth sees something else-which of them is hallucinating?”

Galen’s silence was eloquent-of what, Michael wasn’t sure.

“How do you know Briggs saw a dog?” he asked finally.

“What was he shooting at, his beloved employer?”

“He flipped,” Galen said shortly.

“I admire your technical vocabulary. Where did he go, by the way?”

“Out and down. I didn’t think the little swine could move that fast… It’s possible that he was aiming at you. When the gun was empty, he made a dash for it, and I can tell you I didn’t try to stop him.”

“And then you walked out on a murder. In view of your haste to leave, I gather you don’t intend to inform the police that we were there.”

“No.”

“Why not, Galen?”

“There is no purpose to be served by such an act. Briggs killed his employer during one of their insane rites. If the police wish to question Mrs. Randolph, she has been with me. No problems.”

“What a nice bloody liar you are,” Michael said admiringly. “It all spells Merry Christmas, doesn’t it? Satisfies you completely?”

“I’ve explained everything.”

“Yes, you have. Galen-what did you see? Honestly?”

There was a pause. Finally Galen said,

“Drop it, Michael.”

“But if you-”

“Drop it, I said.” Eyes steady on the road, Galen drove on. “I saw what I wanted to see. Collective hallucination is a catchword, but it satisfies me. I don’t want any glimpses of the dark on the other side.”

“Only one problem,” Michael said.

“What’s that?”

“They’ll do an autopsy, of course. On Randolph’s body.”

“Naturally.”

“Which gun fired the shot that killed him, Galen?”

Galen didn’t answer immediately. When he did, it was not in words. Michael took the object that was passed to him. To his overheated imagination, the barrel still felt warm.

“Are you sure?”

“Not of which shot killed him, no. I fired at Briggs. He was spraying bullets around like a machine gun, and I thought he was aiming at you. But people were moving pretty fast.”

“They’ll be able to tell, if it was a bullet from this gun.”

“They won’t find either gun. Briggs took his with him, and if he has a grain of sense he’ll destroy it.”

“And this one?”

“I’ve got to go back to Europe next week.”

“Some convenient lake in France, or a ditch in Holland…Nice.”

“What do you suggest I do, hand it over to the police?”

“Don’t lose your temper. I’ll never be able to thank you for what you’ve done tonight… Maybe I shouldn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“It was a bullet from this gun that killed Randolph.”

“That wouldn’t keep me awake nights,” Galen said icily. “But how do you know?”

“There was only one bullet in it.”

“So?”

Michael put his head down on his arms. His bad arm ached and he was sick with exhaustion. But tonight he would sleep without fear, or remorse.

“It was a silver bullet.”