there.
Before leaving, he picked up the mail in the hall and shuffled the envelopes. It all looked straightforwardly official, bills and suchlike. Desperate for a clue, he ripped open the envelopes and glanced at each letter.
One was from a doctor in Atlanta.
It began:
Decor Mrs. Lucas, Following your routine check-up, the results of your Hood tests have come back from the lab, and everything is normal.
However.
Luke stopped reading. Something told him it was not his habit to read other people's mail. On the other hand, this was his wife, and that word 'However' was ominous. Perhaps there was a medical problem he should know about right away.
He read the next paragraph.
However, you are underweight, you suffer insomnia, and when I saw you, you had obviously been crying, although you said nothing was wrong. These are symptoms of depression.
Luke frowned. This was troubling. Why was she depressed? What kind of husband must he be?
Depression may be caused by changes in body chemistry, -by unresolved mental problems such as marital difficulties, or by childhood trauma such as the early death of a parent. Treatment may include antidepressant medication and/or psychiatric therapy.
This was getting worse. Was Elspeth mentally ill?
In your case, I have no doubt that the condition is related to the tubal ligation you underwent in 1954.
What was a tubal ligation? Luke stepped into his study, turned on the desk lamp, took from the bookshelf the Family Health Encyclopedia, and looked it up. The answer stunned him. It was the commonest method of sterilization for-women who did not want to have children.
He sat down heavily and put the encyclopedia on the desk. Reading the details of the operation, he realized that this was what women meant when they spoke of having their tubes tied.
He recalled his conversation with Elspeth this morning. He had asked her why they could not have children. She had said: 'We don't know. Last year, you went to a fertility specialist, but he couldn't find anything wrong. A few weeks ago, I saw a woman doctor in Atlanta. She ran some tests. We're waiting for the results.'
That was all lies. She knew perfectly well why they could not have children - she had been sterilized.
She had gone to a doctor in Atlanta, but not for fertility testing - she had simply had a routine checkup.
Luke was sick at heart. It was a terrible deception. Why had she lied? He looked at the next paragraph.
This procedure may cause depression at any age, but in your case, having it six weeks before your wedding-
Luke's mouth fell open. There was something terribly wrong here. Elspeth's deception had begun shortly before they got married.
How had she managed it? He could not remember, of course. But he could guess. She could have told him she was having a minor operation. She might even have said vaguely that it was a 'feminine thing'.
He read the whole paragraph.
This procedure may cause depression at any age, but in your case, having it six weeks before your wedding, it was almost inevitable, and you should have returned to your doctor for regular consultations.
Luke's anger subsided as he realized how Elspeth had suffered. He reread the line: 'You are underweight, you suffer insomnia, and when I saw you, you had obviously been crying, although you said nothing was wrong.' She had put herself through some kind of personal hell.
But although he pitied her, the fact remained that their marriage had been a lie. Thinking about the house he had just searched, he realized that it did not feel much like a home to him. He was comfortable here in the little study, and he had felt a start of recognition on opening his closet, but the rest of the place presented a picture of married life that was alien to him. He did not care for kitchen appliances and smart modern furniture. He would rather have old rugs and family heirlooms. Most of all, he wanted children - yet children were the very thing she had deliberately denied him. And she had lied about it for four years.
The shock paralyzed him. He sat at his desk, staring through the window, while evening fell over the hickory trees in the back yard. How had he let his life go so wrong? He considered what he had learned about himself in the last thirty-six hours, from Elspeth, Billie, Anthony and Bern. 'Had he lost his way slowly and gradually, like a child wandering farther and farther from home? Or was there a turning point, a moment when he had made a bad decision, taken the wrong fork in the road? Was he a weak man, who had drifted into misfortune for lack of a purpose in life? Or did he have some crucial flaw in his character?
He must be a poor judge of people, he thought He had remained close to Anthony, who had tried to kill him, yet had broken with Bern, who had been a faithful friend. He had quarrelled with Billie and married Elspeth, yet Billie had dropped everything to help him and Elspeth had deceived him.
A large moth bumped into the closed window, and the noise startled Luke out of his reverie. He looked at his watch and was shocked to see that it was past seven. If he hoped to unravel the mystery of his life, he needed to start with the elusive file. It was not here, so it had to be at Redstone Arsenal. He would turn out the lights and lock up the house, then he would get the black car out of the garage and drive to the base.
Time was pressing. The launch of the rocket was scheduled for ten-thirty. He had only three hours to find out whether there was a plot to sabotage it Nevertheless, he remained sitting at his desk, staring through the window into the darkened garden, seeing nothing.
.
7.30 P. M.
One radio transmitter is powerful but short-lived - it will be dead in two weeks. The weaker signal from the second mil last two months.
There were no lights on in Luke's house when Billie drove by. But what did that mean? There were three possibilities. One: the house was empty. Two: Anthony was sitting in the dark, waiting to shoot Luke. Three: Luke - was lying in a pool of blood, dead. The uncertainty made her crazy with fear.
She had screwed up royally, maybe fatally. A few hours ago, she had been well placed to warn Luke and save him - then she had allowed herself to be diverted by a simple ruse. It had taken her hours to get back to Huntsville and find Luke's house. She had no idea whether either of her warning messages had reached him. She was furious with herself for being so incompetent, and terrified that Luke might have died because of her failure.
She turned the next corner and pulled up. She breathed deeply and made herself think calmly. She had to find out who was in the house. But what if Anthony were there? She contemplated sneaking up, hoping to surprise him; but that was too dangerous. It was never a good idea to startle a man with a gun in his hand. She could go right up to the front door and ring the bell. Would he shoot her down in cold blood, just for being there? He might. And she did not have the right to risk her life carelessly - she had a child who needed her.
On the passenger seat beside her was her attache case. She opened it and took out the Colt She disliked the heavy touch of the dark steel on the palm of her hand. The men she had worked with, in the war, had enjoyed handling guns. It gave a man sensual pleasure to close his fist around a pistol grip, spin the cylinder of a revolver, or fit the stock of a rifle into the hollow of his shoulder. She felt none of that To her, guns were brutal and cruel, made to tear and crush the flesh and bones of living, breathing people. They made her skin crawl.
With the pistol in her lap, she turned the car around and returned to Luke's house.
She screeched to a halt outside, threw the car door open, grabbed her gun and leaped out. Before anyone inside might have time to react, she jumped the low wall and ran across the lawn to the side of the house.
She heard no sound from within.
She ran around to the back, ducked past the door, and looked in at a window. The dim light of a distant street lamp enabled her to see that it was a simple casement with a single latch. The room seemed empty. She reversed her grip on the gun and smashed the glass, all the time waiting for the gunshot that would end her life. Nothing happened. She reached through the broken pane, undid the latch, and pulled open the window. She climbed in, holding the gun in her right hand, and flattened herself against a wall. She could make out vague shapes of furniture, a desk and some bookshelves. This was a little study. Her instinct told her she was alone. But she was terrified of stumbling over Luke's body in the dark.
Moving slowly, she crossed the room and located the doorway. Her dark-accustomed eyes saw an empty hall. She stepped cautiously out, gun at the ready. She moved through the house in the gloom, dreading at every step
