Mr. X

get out of the cradle and leave by himself.

    “If you burned down my house to get back at me, it was all for nothing.'

    She tugged at the sleeve of Mr. Tite's robe and led him to a policeman seated at the wheel of a squad car. After a few words, the officer let them in, turned on his lights, and drove down the street toward me. Helen Janette was looking straight ahead. I followed their tail lights as far as Word Street.

 •A minute or two after entering the first of the lanes, I got the same prickly feeling I'd had before seeing Frenchy La Chapelle's imitation of an innocent pedestrian. I glanced over my shoulder at an empty lane and shuttered buildings. I began walking faster as I turned into Leather. Either one of Captain Mullan's dirtbags had taken an interest in me, or recent events had made me unreasonably jumpy. The latter sounded closer to reality.

    On the other hand, Frenchy had trailed me to the rooming house. Maybe he had set the fire and discovered that he had killed the wrong person. Where Fish crossed Mutton, I came to a halt beside a burned-out street lamp and looked back at a dark, dimensionless well that could have hidden a dozen men. A few cars swished along Word Street. In a nearby lane, a man hawked up sputum. I heard no other sounds, but the back of my neck still prickled.

    Fish Lane intersected Raspberry and Button before meeting the fifty feet of Wax leading to Veal Yard. On an ordinary night, this distance would have been no more than a short, not uninteresting walk; with the specter of Frenchy La Chapelle lurking behind me, it felt like a wasteland. I quickened my step and moved into the next length of the narrow lane.

    A nearly inaudible sound like a footfall came from behind me. If I had been walking along Commercial Avenue in daylight, I don't think I would have heard it. In the confines of Fish Lane, the little sound made me spin around. I could see only empty buildings and the dull reflection of starlight on the cobbles. Joe Staggers had not stopped looking for me, I remembered.

    I ran the rest of the way to Raspberry, darted across the intersection of the lanes, and raced toward the hovering gray haze marking the crossing of Fish and Button. Although I could not hear footsteps at my back, Ifelt the approach of a pursuing figure. I shot across Button and heard another delicate footfall. My heart nearly burst. I raced up the lane and glanced over my shoulder a second before I swung into Wax.

    I don't know what I saw. The image vanished too quickly for me to be certain I had seen anything at all. I thought I saw the tails of a dark overcoat whisking into an unseen passage. At the time, I could think only that the old adversary I called Mr. X had just slipped out of sight. My blood turned to glue. When I could move again, I sprinted down the fifty feet of Wax Lane, clattered into Veal Yard, and burst through the front door of the Brazen Head. A bald night clerk with a hatchet tattooed above his right ear looked up from a paperback.

    I tried to imitate a person in a normal state of mind as I walked across the lobby. The night man kept his eyes on me until I started up the stairs. I came to the second floor, pulled out my key, and opened the door to room 215. A lamp I had not switched on shed a yellow nimbus over the end of the bed and the worn green carpet. Seated beside the round table with his ankles crossed before him, Robert closed the covers ofFrom Beyond and smiled at me.

 •78

 •“Old Dad was a pretty lousy writer, wasn't he? Don't you get the feeling hebelieved all this stuff?'

     “I hope you didn't set that fire.'

     'Why would I?' Robert said. 'Any fatalities?'

     'One. An old man named Otto Bremen.'

     “I don't suppose anyone is going to miss him very much.'

     “I was supposed to die in that fire, and you know it.' Robert cocked an ankle on his knee, dropped his chin into his hand, and gazed at me with an expression of absolute innocence.

     'You knew the building was going to burn down. You said it was a good thing I moved out.'

     'Wasn't it?'

     'Couldn't you have told me what was going to happen? You let a man die.'

    “I wish I had twenty-twenty foresight, but it isn't that specific. I knew you'd be better off out of there, and that's as far as it went.'

    I sat on the other side of the table. Irritatingly, Robert adjusted his chair and resumed the chin-on-hand, elbow-on-table posture. 'You set me up to meet Ashleigh.'

    'The sweetie must have been thrilled by those documents.'

    'Yes,' I said. 'When you want to put them back, they'll be in Toby Kraft's office safe.'

    'You don't want me to call on our little friend?' Robert was grinning. 'Hatch won't check his hiding place for a couple of days. He's too secure to get worried.'

    'Why should you give a damn if Stewart Hatch goes to jail?'

    'Brother dear,' he said, 'do you suspect me of manipulation?'

    Because right and left had not been reversed, the face across from me was as strange as it was familiar, and the strangeness contained a kind of rawness I thought other people had always seen in me.

    “I suspect you of manipulation, yes,' I said. 'And I resent it. Enormously.'

    Robert took his hand from his chin and uncrossed his legs in an elaborate display of concern that suggested that I had missed the point. He placed his forearms on the table, knitted his hands together, and sent me a glance agleam with irony, as if to say that he and I had no need for such games.

    'Can you honestly say you're notenormously attracted to Laurie Hatch? Haven't you had fantasies about marrying her?'

    'You make me sick.'

    'Even someone like me would appreciate occasional access to a fortune.'

    'Laurie doesn't get any money if her husband goes to jail. You should have done your homework.'

    Robert straightened up and took his arms off the table. 'Let's examine what happens if Stewart is convicted. Approximately twenty million dollars fall into the hands of little Cobden Carpenter Hatch. His mother has discretion over the entire sum. I know this goes against your puritanical instincts, but if you follow your own desires and marry Laurie, the rest of your life will be extraordinary.'

    'Unfortunately, it already is,' I said.

    'Doesn't perfect freedom appeal to you?'

    'Marrying for money doesn't sound like freedom to me. Just the opposite, in fact.'

    'Then forget the money and marry for love. You even like her son. In fact, you love him, too. It's perfect.'

    'How do you come into this arrangement?'

    'You would agree to one condition.'

    'Which is?'

    Robert leaned back and spread his arms. 'To share it with me. Once every couple of months, you go out on an errand, and I come back in your place. Eight hours later, twelve hours later, we do the same thing in reverse. No one would ever know, Laurie and Cobbie least of all.'

    'No thanks,' I said.

    'Let it sink in. Your wife would have no idea she was sleeping with two men instead of one. The time will come, as it does in all marriages, when you'll find it convenient to leave the house undetected. And we'd be carrying on a family tradition. Our great-great grandfathers did it all the time.'

    'Right up to the time when Sylvan killed Omar,' I said.

    'You're kidding. I never heard that.'

    'So it would be in the family tradition for you to kill me and get everything for yourself.'

    “I don'twant it!' Robert said. 'Ned, remember who I am. I am not domestic. The idea of living with one woman, tied to a schedule. . . . I'm not really a human being, after all. I'm pureDunstan. We weren't supposed to be like this, we were supposed to be one person,