The Ray Cummings MEGAPACK ®: 25 Golden Age Science Fiction and Mystery Tales. Ray Cummings
Carl, you want me to show you exactly what I am doing, don’t you?”
“Frankly I do,” I answered. “What you say interests me tremendously.”
I think I half expected him to lead me back into his inner rooms, but he made no move to rise. He was looking at me thoughtfully.
“I’m wondering how I can show you best,” he said after a moment. Then, with a sudden thought, he glanced at his watch. “By Jove, two o’clock! I had forgotten. My—my office hours are just beginning.” He smiled as he phrased it that way. “I hope you’ve had lunch—I’ve let you sit here—”
“I have,” I assured him.
“Good! Then I’ll—” He stopped abruptly. I could see him pondering something. “You sit over there, Carl, for an hour or two.” He indicated a chair in an inconspicuous corner of the room. “I have only two appointments this afternoon.”
Dorian had risen and was standing over me. I think I had never seen his face so inscrutable.
“You can listen to what they say as they come and go; and then, if you wish, I will take you in and show you just exactly what I am doing.”
I do not know why his words should have had an ominous sound; but I felt my heart chilled with sudden fear, as if I sensed some nameless danger impending. I forced myself to smile.
“I shall be all curiosity,” I said.
The doorbell rang.
“Sit over there, Carl.”
He did not wait for me to rise, but disappeared immediately into an inner room of the apartment.
II
I heard soft footsteps in the hall. From my secluded seat, partially behind a screen and shaded from the soft light that filtered through the window curtains, I could see perfectly every part of the room, but I felt that if I remained quiet my presence would pass unnoticed.
I had barely become settled when the door of the room opened and a woman entered, followed by Dorian’s Japanese attendant. The man made a punctilious little bow.
“If madame will be seated, I shall tell my master she is here.”
He left silently.
Whatever were my expectations regarding this first client of Dorian’s, certainly the woman at whom I was now gazing attentively measured up to none of them. She was a type unmistakable in almost any part of the world. I need not name it. Her cheap, garish clothes; her straw-colored hair; the rouge on her pasty cheeks; her bowed lips and heavily beaded lashes; a certain defiance in her bearing, recognizable even now, when she believed herself alone—all these stamped her for what she was. Only a few years before she might have been pretty with the freshness of youth; but that was gone now, and the artificial touches that she had assumed only accentuated its absence.
As the Japanese boy withdrew, she crossed to one of the windows and glanced out of it idly. Then, dropping the curtain to its place, she seated herself in a nearby chair. After a moment she picked up a magazine, turned its leaves abstractedly, then tossed it back among its fellows on the table. I could see that she was restless, nervous, overwrought.
A sudden pity for her sprang up in my heart. This girl who had come to face her destiny—what would she meet? What could the coming years hold for such as she? Health drained away in the cups of dissipation; youth gone; middle age skipped in a day, and old age laying its icy hand upon her with premature haste. What family ties could she build for the future? What husband, what children, would minister with tenderness and devotion to the wants of her declining years? What, indeed, could the future hold for her?
A light step sounded at the door. The woman turned hastily and rose as Dorian entered. He spoke no words of greeting, only the low question:
“You are ready?”
I shuddered at the ominous portent of his icy tone.
“Yes,” she answered. She spoke almost in a whisper. Her figure stiffened. I saw her lips press tightly together, as if to fortify her wavering courage. “Yes—I am ready.”
He bowed gravely, standing aside to let her pass. As he followed her out of the room, the swift glance he threw back at me was unmistakably sardonic.
The door closed softly behind them. Their footsteps died away and left me alone in the heavy silence of the room. I do not know what I anticipated might be taking place behind that closed door, but I felt a chill of dread settling upon me.
What mystery was this I was facing? What trifling with the secrets of nature had this strange man found possible? Was the future—so jealously guarded since the beginning of time—to be a secret no longer? Or was I indeed wholly mistaken? Was this only another of Dorian’s tricks—more subtle, more ingenious, but only a trick nevertheless?
The minutes dragged slowly past. The silence of the room, high above the street, oppressed me; the heavy incense in the air choked my lungs. And then, after what seemed an eternity, I heard the murmur of voices. The door of the room reopened; the woman entered, with Dorian, grave and imperturbable as before, following close behind her.
They passed me and stopped near the center of the room, where she turned to face him. I could see that she had passed through some tremendous ordeal. Tears hung in her eyes; her slack lips quivered. She was trembling unrestrainedly now.
“If I only knew how to thank you!” she said softly. Relief and gratitude wrere mingled in her tone; but Dorian’s face remained as inscrutable as ever.
“You forget you paid me yesterday,” he said evenly.
It seemed so crude that I wondered at his saying it.
“Money! What little money I have to give—”
“I could ask no more.”
Was it a spirit of mockery led him to say that?
The woman laid her hand upon his arm.
“If only I had known! How easy it is now to face the future I have been fearing so long!” A look almost of exaltation was on her face. “You have done so much for me today—you will let me thank you?”
As if in answer, he shook off her tremulous hand on his arm, and, stepping to the outer door, flung it wide. In the hall his attendant stood waiting, motionless.
“You have thanked me, madam.” The gesture he made was plainly one of dismissal. Then, as she neared him, he suddenly smiled frankly, and, extending his hand, added: “And I am very glad—very glad indeed—that I have been able to help you.”
III
The door closed, and Dorian and I were again alone. I leaped to my feet.
“Good God, man! Will you show me what you are doing, and how you did that? What does all this mean?”
He stepped back, as if startled at my sudden outburst, but the easy smile on his face remained.
“Oh, hello, Carl! I’d almost forgotten you were there.”
He dropped into a chair, lighting a cigarette with easy grace.
“Will you tell me what all this means?” I asked again, as I stood looking down at him.
He raised his eyebrows questioningly at my tone. I think this was the first time he had really nettled me.
“Is this some trickery, Dorian?” I demanded.
His eyes narrowed to little glittering slits.
“Trickery?”
His tone was cold, uncompromising as steel. My glance shifted before his; I regretted the bluntness of my words.
“I understand nothing of what I have seen or heard, Dorian. The thing is naturally so inexplicable, so—”
“If