Although Joshua was still sitting in his big office chair, and although the chair was still resting squarely on a solid floor, he felt curiously off balance. He had pictured Hawthorne as a rather cultured, mild-mannered, bookish fellow who had gotten into his unusual line of business largely because of the profits it offered. Now Joshua began to wonder if that image was altogether wrong. Maybe Latham Hawthorne was as strange as the merchandise he sold.
'Mr. Hawthorne, you're obviously a very efficient and successful businessman. You sound as if you're well- educated. You're far more articulate than most people I meet these days. Considering all of that, I find it difficult to believe that you put much credence in such things as seances and mysticism and the living dead.'
'I scoff at nothing,' Hawthorne said. 'And in fact I think my willingness to believe is less surprising than your stubborn refusal to do so. I don't see how an intelligent man can not realize that there are many worlds beyond our own, realities beyond that in which we live.'
'Oh, I believe the world is filled with mysteries and that we only partially perceive the nature of reality,' Joshua said. 'You'll get no argument from me on that. But I also think, in time, our perceptions will be sharpened and the mysteries all explained by scientists, by rational men working in their laboratories--not by superstitious cultists burning incense and chanting nonsense.'
'I have no faith in scientists,' Hawthorne said. 'I'm a Satanist. I find my answers in that discipline.'
'Devil worship?' Joshua asked. The occultist could still surprise him.
'That's a rather crude way of putting it. I believe in the Other God, the Dark Lord. His time is coming, Mr. Rhinehart.'
Hawthorne spoke calmly, pleasantly, as if he were discussing nothing more unusual or controversial than the weather. 'I look forward to the day when He casts out Christ and all the lesser gods and takes the throne of the earth for His own. What a fine day that will be. All the devout of other religions will be enslaved or slaughtered. Their priests will be decapitated and fed to the dogs. Nuns will be ravished in the streets. Churches and mosques and synagogues and temples will be used for the celebration of black masses, and every person on the face of the earth will worship Him, and babies will be sacrificed on those altars, and Beelzebub will rein until the end of time. Soon, Mr. Rhinehart. There are signs and portents. Quite soon now. I look forward to it.'
Joshua was at a loss for words. In spite of the madness that Hawthorne spouted, he sounded like a rational, reasonable man. He was not ranting or screaming. There was not even a vague trace of mania or hysteria in his voice. Joshua was more disturbed by the occultist's outward composure and surface gentleness than he would have been if Hawthorne had snarled and yelped and foamed at the mouth. It was like meeting a stranger at a cocktail party, talking with him for a while, getting to like him, and then suddenly realizing that he was wearing a latex mask, a clever false face, behind which lay the evil and grinning countenance of Death himself. A Halloween costume, but in reverse. The demon disguised as the ordinary man. Poe's nightmare come to life.
Joshua shivered.
Hawthorne said, 'Could we arrange a meeting? I'm looking forward to having an opportunity to inspect the collection of books that Mr. Frye purchased from me. I can come up there almost any time. What day would be convenient for you?'
Joshua wasn't looking forward to meeting and doing business with this man. He decided to stall the occultist until the other appraisers had seen the books. Perhaps one of those men would understand the value of the collection and would make an equitable offer to the estate; then it wouldn't be necessary to traffic with Latham Hawthorne.
'I'll have to get back to you on that,' Joshua said. 'I've got a lot of other things to take care of first. It's a large and rather complex estate. It'll take quite a few weeks to get it all wrapped up.'
'I'll be waiting for your call.'
'Two more things before you hang up,' Joshua said.
'Yes?'
'Did Mr. Frye say why he had such an obsessive fear of his mother?'
'I don't know what she did to him,' Hawthorne said, 'but he hated her with all his heart. I've never seen such raw, black hatred as when he spoke of her.'
'I knew them both,' Joshua said. 'I never saw anything like that between them. I always thought he worshipped her.'
'Then it must have been a secret hatred that he'd nurtured for a long, long time,' Hawthorne said.
'But what could she have done to him?'
'As I said, he never told me. But there was something behind it, something so bad that he couldn't even bring himself to discuss it. You said there were two things you wanted to ask about. What's the other one?'
'Did Bruno mention a double?'
'Double?'
'A look-alike. Someone who could pass for him.'
'Considering his size and his unusual voice, finding a double wouldn't be easy.'
'Apparently, he managed to do it. I'm trying to find out why he thought it was necessary.'
'Can't this look-alike tell you? He must know why he was hired.'
'I'm having trouble locating him.'
'I see,' Hawthorne said. 'Well, Mr. Frye never said a word about it to me. But it just occurred to me....'
'Yes?'
'One reason he might need a double.'
'What's that?' Joshua asked.
