I stared at her. “But, you passed me a moment ago,” I said, feeling startled, “do you usually get into bed in two seconds?”
She sat further up in the bed. “You’re tight,” she said. “I’ve been asleep since eleven o’clock. Go away!”
I came into the room. “Seriously, sweetheart,” I said, “someone came upstairs. I thought it was you. Damn it, I’ll swear it was you.”
“This sounds mightily like the silk-worm gag,” she said, “get out of my room before I toss you out, you drunken heel!”
This brought me up short. I looked at her. This was the Myra I’d known in Mexico. A sudden change had come over her from the Myra I’d known during the past three days.
“Take it easy,” I said, “I’m not as tight as all that,” and I walked over to where her clothes were lying. I touched her dress. It was warm. “You’ve just got out of this,” I said, picking it up.
“Where did you get that from?” she asked, startled, “I put all my clothes away before I went to bed.”
“Yeah? Well, there’s a complete outfit on this chair. Look, one of us is nuts and it ain’t me.”
She climbed out of bed and came over. “But, I haven’t had these things out of my trunk since we came here,” she said, uneasily.
“Okay,” I said dropping the dress. “Forget it. I don’t want to know where you’ve been tonight. You don’t have to lie so hard.”
“I’m not lying!” she said angrily, “you’re trying to make a fool out of me!”
“I couldn’t do that,” I said, suddenly feeling too tired to argue. “Go to sleep,” and I walked out and left her.
I don’t mind telling you it preyed on my mind. I couldn’t get to sleep and I began imagining all kinds of things. I could have swore that whoever it was who’d gone upstairs had been Myra. Yet it didn’t seem possible for her to get into bed and feign sleep in so short a time. Yet, that was what she must have done.
Why had she pretended to be asleep? What had she been up to? Or was she speaking the truth? That’s how it went on in my mind for nearly the rest of the night. But, I did eventually get some sleep.
The next morning, while I was shaving, Doc Ansell came into my room.
“Hello there,” I said as I mowed my beard with an electric razor. “Have I got a hangover or have I?”
“I’ve been thinking,” Ansell said, sitting on the foot of the bed. “I’m not happy about certain things.”
“What things?”
“That girl in the photograph,” Ansell said slowly, “how do you explain she’s the image of Myra?”
I selected a necktie and wandered over to the mirror. “I don’t,” I said.
“That’s just the point. She hasn’t a twin and you’ll never make me believe that some other girl, no relation of hers, could look like her.”
“Well, that’s what’s happened,” I said. “Maybe, Shumway got hold of an actress who’s made herself up to look like Myra. A guy like him would do a lot for all that dough.”
Ansell shook his head, “I think there’s more in it than that,” he said, “I’m not saying you haven’t hit on the explanation, but I don’t think so.”
“Quit beating about the bush,” I said, facing him, “what are you getting at?”
“Haven’t you noticed a change in the girl recently?” he asked.
Then I remembered what happened last night. “There was a change,” I said slowly, “but now she’s back where she started.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “What happened last night?”
I told him.
He sat listening, his face grave and his eyes worried. When I’d finished, he smacked one hand into the other. “Then I’m right!” he said. “There are two of them. Strange and powerful influences are around.”
“Now, don’t start that,” I said irritably. “It’s bad enough…”
“Did you ever read a book called ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’?” I stared at him, “I guess so, but what has that…?”
“Plenty,” Ansell broke in, “you remember it’s a story of the separating of the good and evil in man. Did you know that the Naguales have this power? I think that’s what’s happened to Myra.”
I put my coat on slowly and looked at myself in the mirror. I wasn’t looking too good in the hard sunlight. I looked pale and there were smudges under my eyes.
“If you can’t talk sense, you’d better shut up,” I said at last.
“It’s only because you refuse to believe,” Ansell said quietly. “Ignorance breeds fear. You’re becoming frightened.”
I sat on the edge of the bed. I could see he wouldn’t let it go, so I thought we might as well have it out.
“Give me a retake,” I said.
“This is what I think’s happened,” Ansell said. “Quintl has separated the good and bad in Myra and has put each of these components into materialized form. The form naturally follows the original pattern. So we have two Myras, both of them exactly alike, but one has all the good qualities that a human being possesses while the other has all the bad ones. Now, do you understand?”
“It’s crazy,” I said, hating every bit of this.
Ansell shook his head, “It isn’t, if you know about these things. If I told you that the dog would talk, you wouldn’t have believed it. Now, you admit you accept it as a fact.”
“Yeah,” I said, thinking again of what happened last night. “So you really think she can become two people or rather possess two different bodies when she wants to?”
“I think so. Perhaps not when she wants to, but when she’s not aware of what’s happening and is off her guard. Let’s put it that way.”
“That would account for what happened last night. They’ve become one again.”
“But what has the other one been doing?”
“That’s something we’ve got to find out. That’s where Myra’s danger lies.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s go back to first principles,” Ansell said. “We have all latent evil in our make-up. Some of us haven’t the same control over this instinct as others. It depends on our training, our environment and our strength of character whether this instinct gets the upper hand. If the evil in us is segregated without the restraining influence of our instinct for doing good, then something entirely primitive has been created and may cause a lot of destruction. I’d hate to see Myra suffer for something she hasn’t done.”
This was beyond me. “Something she hasn’t done?” I repeated.
“Yes. Suppose now, the other Myra, the Myra in the photograph, takes it into her head to commit a crime. Might not the Myra we know get the blame for it?”
“Why should she?”
“It depends if the other Myra is seen while committing the crime,” Ansell returned.
“They’re exactly alike. The finger prints would be the same. Both girls are easily recognized. Can’t you see what danger there might be in all this?”
I drew a deep breath, “You’re looking for trouble,” I said. “This business is too much for me. What we’ve got to do is to get after Shumway. Now, come on, I smell breakfast.”
“Wait,” Ansell said. “What about this fellow Kelly? Maybe, we can get on to him.”
“Maybe, we can,” I said. “We’ll talk it over at breakfast.”
In the living room, Bogle was setting the table “All ready, Bud,” he said to me. “Pried ham and eggs, whaddayssay?”
“Sounds fine,” I said. “Isn’t Myra coming down?”
“Naw,” Sam said, going into the kitchen. “A dame like that likes to lay around in bed. Besides, it takes her half the morning to get up. I like to get breakfast over with.”
When he had gone, I said to Ansell, “Old Sam’s getting like a gawdamn housewife. Do you think he’s going soft or something?”
Ansell shook his head absently. “He always wanted to have a place of his own,” he said.
“Many a time, in the desert, he’d talk about setting up home. Funny thing, isn’t it? Yet he’s mixed with the toughest thugs of Chicago. And now look at him, running around, keeping the house clean, cooking and waiting on
