'There's not a hell of a lot I can tell you.' Brainard shivered slightly. 'We do business, we don't have long, chatty visits. He never talks about himself. And he's definitely not looking for publicity.'
'I don't suppose this Tuller knows about Tyrrell? That the old man is still alive and doing business?'
'No way. He's never heard about it from me… and Tyrrell is not a man I'd want to appeal to for help.'
'I see.' Joe thought for a minute. 'Does your aunt know about this Tuller and his people being after you?'
'She knows I'm in some trouble of that kind. I don't think she realizes how bad it is. I've told her that people are actually here looking for me, but I don't know if Sarah believes that.'
'All right. Stay here in my room for the time being. Make sure who's at the door before you open it.'
Joe's next move was to dispatch a hotel bellhop to bring him a cane, or failing that, a crutch. Both items, the youth assured him, were available in the general store near the park's Visitor Center, and he would deliver a cane shortly.
Joe thought the next knock on his door, a few minutes later, might be the bellhop, having established some kind of a land speed record; but a cautious opening of the door revealed Sarah Tyrrell.
A few moments later, old Sarah, her nervous nephew, and Joe were all seated at the small conference table.
Sarah wasted little time in preliminaries. 'Mr. Keogh, the disturbance at the house last night was caused, at least in part, by my husband. I did see him.'
'Why didn't you tell me then? And why do you tell me now?'
'Others were present then. Besides, I wanted to think the matter over. I am convinced now that Cathy is in no danger from my husband. I wish that I could say I believe her to be in no danger.'
Brainard was staring at his aunt. 'I hope to God you're right, about Edgar. But look, what I saw—what I shot at last night—that wasn't Edgar Tyrrell.'
'There was another visitor to the house last night,' Sarah confirmed. 'Another presence. Something—came with Edgar.'
Joe looked from one of his visitors to the other. 'I wasn't in a position to see what was happening. Is that all either of you can tell me? 'Something' came to the house?'
'At first,' said Brainard, 'I thought it was one of the people trying to collect from me, somehow outside the window. But all I could really see was a—pattern of lights. My nerves were ready to crack, and I took a shot at it.' He shuddered faintly.
'Mr. Keogh.' Sarah was doing her best to be businesslike. 'In the light of what happened last night, of everything that we know now, I would like you to tell me, with complete honesty, whether you think you really have any chance of finding Cathy and helping her.'
Brainard nodded and looked hopefully at Joe.
Again Joe looked from one of them to the other. 'I don't know that what happened last night really changes anything, except that now one of my people is missing. I hope to be able to tell you in a few days, what I think our chances are of helping Cathy. Meanwhile you don't have to keep us on the payroll.'
Brainard continued to look the part of the anxious father. 'What will you know in a few days that you don't know now?'
Joe was trying to frame an answer, when his little two-way radio buzzed. The device was lying where he'd left it, on a small table across the room. 'Excuse me.'
He got to his feet and hobbled over to the unit. A moment later, Maria's voice was speaking from the instrument in his hand: 'Boss? We've just heard from Bill.'
Joe's two visitors were listening as attentively as he was. 'Where is he?' Joe demanded.
Maria sounded enormously relieved. 'Don't know exactly, but we were talking to him, and he sounded good. He says he's now definitely on the right track home. He'll he coming up Bright Angel within an hour.'
It was almost noon when Bill Burdon, looking somewhat dazed, finally emerged from the depths. John and Maria went about a hundred yards down Bright Angel to meet him, as he appeared against the solemn background of a Canyon almost fully visible, a panorama grand enough to distract any newcomer at least briefly from any task.
'What the hell happened to you?' demanded John, getting angry now that it seemed the missing man was safe.
'You won't believe it.' Bill stared at him, then at Maria, shook his head and started past them up the trail. They fell in beside him. When he was a little below the Tyrrell House he stopped again, to gaze up at the odd structure as if expecting some kind of a revelation.
Maria hardly noticed Bill's behavior. She was looking downhill, past an antlike mule-train of tourists on a switchback far below. She was frowning, as if considering something in the distance.
Neither of the men were paying her any attention. John, regarding Bill intently, abruptly remarked: 'You didn't have a beard last night.' That got Maria's attention back.
Bill only shook his head again. Then he reached out and took each of his discoverers briefly by the arm, as if to assure himself that they were real. He smiled at their solidity.
'Where's the Boss?' he demanded. 'I've got a report to make.'
An hour or so later, Bill was seated with Joe at a table on the balcony overlooking the lobby of El Tovar, and its massive genuine Christmas tree. Holiday music was playing somewhere, tourists by the hundreds were enjoying themselves, or trying to, and Bill was halfway through the second version of his report. Joe had bought him a drink, and was getting him to start the report over, because the first version had been notably lacking in coherence. Joe's newly purchased cane stood leaning against the table at his side.
Bill's beard was drawing curious glances, because it was now mostly on one side of his face. He had started to shave it off, then decided he had better let it be for the time being, as providing some kind of corroboration of the story he had to tell.
'—and she was just there, camping out to be alone, was the impression I got. Trying to get her head together, like we used to say.'
Briefly Bill balanced a couple of Polaroid photos in his strong right hand. Then, with the air of a gambler playing cards which he did not really expect to win, he tossed them faceup on the table in front of Joe.
Joe picked up the photos and examined them. 'That does look like the girl who was described to us.'
Bill gestured at the pictures. 'Oh, that's Cathy Brainard, all right. I don't have the least bit of doubt. She seemed unhappy with her family, and she didn't want to come back to them. At least she didn't want to come back with me. She was very firm on that point, and there was no way I could drag her.'
'No, I can see that. So what did you do then?'
'She pointed me in what turned out—I guess—to be the right direction, and I—walked out.' Bill paused for a long time. He swallowed half his drink, and grimaced. 'Now comes the part you're not going to believe.'
Joe sipped from his own glass. 'You might be surprised. Try me.'
'All right. I found my way—or I thought I found my way—back to the Tyrrell House. Except it wasn't this Tyrrell House. Not the one that's sitting over there on the rim right now.'
'Go on,' said Joe encouragingly.
Bill said defiantly: 'It was the Tyrrell House in the thirties, before it became a museum. And Tyrrell himself was still living there, with his family.'
'Wait a minute. You talked to Tyrrell?'
'No.'
'What, then?'
'His family. Including—including Mrs. Tyrrell.'
Joe was silent for a moment. 'You mean the same Mrs. Tyrrell we're working for?'
Bill nodded slowly. 'I think it's the same woman, boss. Only the Mrs. Tyrrell who hired us is about sixty years older. And then…'
'Then what?'
'There was a little girl, too, with young Mrs. Tyrrell. Her daughter, I assume. Maybe four years old.'
'And?'
'And this little girl had what I'd call a strong family resemblance with Cathy.'
Joe smiled faintly at Bill's anxious gaze. 'Let's go talk to the old lady,' he said.
Leaving the hotel, going west once more along the rim walk, Bill paced slowly beside Joe, who hobbled with
