Night of the Jabberwock Page 5

  It was still loaded with bullets that were in it when we’d made the deal four or five years ago, and I didn’t know whether they’d still shoot or not, but I put it in my trouser pocket. I wouldn’t use it, of course, except in dire extremity—and I’d miss anything I shot at even then, but I thought that just carrying the gun would make my coming conversation seem dangerous and exciting, more than it would be otherwise.

  I went into the living-room and he was still there. He hadn’t poured himself a drink, so I poured one for each of us and then sat down on the sofa again.

  I lifted my drink and over the rim of it watched him do that marvellous trick again—just a toss of the glass toward his lips. I drank my own less spectacularly and said, “I wish I had a movie camera. I’d like to film the way you do that and then study it in slow motion.”

  He laughed. “Afraid it’s my one way of showing off. I used to be a juggler once.”

  “And now? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “A student,” he said. “A student of Lewis Carroll—and mathematics.”

  “Is there a living in it?” I asked him.

  He hesitated just a second. “Do you mind if I defer answering that until you’ve learned—what you’ll learn at tonight’s meeting?”

  Of course there wasn’t going to be any meeting tonight; I knew that now. But I said, “Not at all. But I hope you don’t mean that we can’t talk about Carroll, in general, until after the meeting.”

  I hoped he’d give the right answer to that; it would mean that I could get him going on the subject of his mania.

  He said, “Of course not. In fact, I want to talk about him. There are facts I want to give you that will enable you to understand things better. Some of the facts you already know, but I’ll refresh you on them anyway. For instance, dates. You had his birth and death dates correct, or nearly enough so. But do you know the dates of the Alice books or any other of his works? The sequence is important.”

  “Not exactly,” I told him. “I think that he wrote the first Alice book when he was comparatively young, about thirty.”

  “Close. He was thirty-two. Alice in Wonderland was published in eighteen sixty-three, but even before then he was on the trail of something. Do you know what he had published before that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Two books. He wrote and published A Syllabus of Plane Geometry in eighteen sixty and in the year after that his Formulae of Plane Trigonometry. Have you read either of them?”

  I had to shake my head again. I said, “Mathematics isn’t my forte. I’ve read only his non-technical books.”

  He smiled. “There aren’t any. You simply failed to recognize the mathematics embodied in the Alice books and in his poetry. You do know, I’m sure, that many of his poems are acrostics.”

  “Of course.”

  “All of them are acrostics, but in a much more subtle manner. However, I can see why you failed to find the clues if you haven’t read his treatises on mathematics. You wouldn’t have read his Elementary Treatise on Determinants, I suppose. But how about his Curiosa Mathematical”

  I hated to disappoint him again, but I had to.

  He frowned at me. “That at least you should have read. It’s not technical at all, and most of the clues to the fantasies are contained in it. There are further—and final—references to them in his Symbolic Logic, published in eighteen ninety-six, just two years before his death, but they are less direct.”

  I said, “Now, wait a minute. If I understand you correctly your thesis is that Lewis Carroll—leaving aside any question of who or what he really was—worked out through mathematics and expressed in fantasy the fact that—what?”

  “That there is another plane of existence besides the one we are now living in. That we can have—and do sometimes have—access to it.”

  “But what kind of a plane? A through-the-looking-glass plane of fantasy, a dream plane?”

  “Exactly, Doctor. A dream plane. That isn’t strictly accurate, but it’s about as nearly as I can explain it to you just yet.” He leaned forward. “Consider dreams. Aren’t they the almost perfect parallel of the Alice adventures? The wool-and-water sequence, for instance, where everything Alice looks at changes into something else. Remember in the shop, with the old sheep knitting, how Alice looked hard to see what was on the shelves, but the shelf she looked at was always empty although the others about it were always full—of something, and she never found out what?”

  I nodded slowly. I said, “Her comment was, ‘Things flow about so here.’ And then the sheep asked if Alice could row and handed her a pair of knitting needles and the needles turned into oars in her hands and she was in a boat, with the sheep still knitting.”

  “Exactly, Doctor. A perfect dream sequence. And consider that Jabberwocky—which is probably the best thing in the second Alice book—is in the very language of dreams. It’s full of words like frumious, manxome, tulgey, words that give you a perfect picture in context—but you can’t put your finger on what the context is. In a dream you fully understand such meanings, but you forget them when you awaken.”

  Between “manxome” and “tulgey”, he’d downed his latest drink. I didn’t pour another this time; I was beginning to wonder how long the bottle—or we—would last. But he showed no effect whatsoever from the drinks he’d been downing. I can’t quite say the same for myself. I knew my voice was getting a bit thick.

  I said, “But why postulate the reality of such a world? I can see your point otherwise. The Jabberwock itself is the epitome of nightmare creatures—with eyes of flame and jaws that bite and claws that catch, and it whiffles and burbles—why, Freud and James Joyce in tandem couldn’t have done any better. But why not take it that Lewis Carroll was trying, and damned successfully, to write as in a dream? Why make the assumption that that world is real? Why talk of getting through to it—except, of course, in the sense that we invade it nightly in our dreams?”

  He smiled. “Because that world is real, Doctor. You’ll hear evidence of that tonight, mathematical evidence. And, I hope, actual proof. I’ve had such proof myself, and I hope you’ll have. But you’ll see the calculations, at least, and it will be explained to you how they were derived from Curiosa Mathematica, and then corroborated by evidence found in the other books.

  “Carroll was more than a century ahead of his time. Doctor. Have you read of the recent experiments with the subconscious made by Leibnitz and Winton—the feelers they’re putting forth in the right direction, which is the mathematical approach?”

  I admitted I hadn’t heard of Liebnitz or Winton.

  “They aren’t well known,” he conceded. “You see, only recently, except for Carroll, has anyone even considered the possibility of our reaching—let’s call it the dream plane until I’ve shown you what it really is—physically as well as mentally.”

  “As Lewis Carroll reached it?”

  “As he must have, to have known the things he knew. Things so revolutionary and dangerous that he did not dare reveal them openly.”

  For a fleeting moment it sounded so reasonable that I wondered if it could be true. Why not? Why couldn’t there be other dimensions beside our own? Why couldn’t a brilliant mathematician with a fantastic mind have found a way through to one of them?

  In my mind, I cussed out Clyde Andrews for having told me about the asylum break. If only I hadn’t learned about that, what a wonderful evening this one would be. Even knowing Smith was insane, I found myself—possibly with the whisky’s help—wondering if he could be right. How marvellous it would have been without the knowledge of his insanity to temper the wonder and the wondering. It would have been an evening in Wonderland.

  And, sane or crazy, I liked him. Sane or crazy, he belonged figuratively in the department in which Mrs. Carr’s husband worked literally. I laughed and then, of course, I had to explain what I’d been laughing about.

  His eyes lighted. “The Roman candle department. That’s marvellous. The Roman candle
department.”

  You see what I mean.

  We had a drink to the Roman candle department, and then it happened that neither of us said anything right away and it was so quiet that I jumped when the phone rang.

  I picked it up and said into it, “This is the Roman candle department.”

  “Doc?” It was the voice of Pete Corey, my printer. It sounded tense. “I’ve got bad news.”

  Pete doesn’t get excited easily. I sobered up a little and asked, “What, Pete?”

  “Listen, Doc. Remember just a couple of hours ago you were saying you wished a murder or something would happen so you’d have a story for the paper—and remember how I asked you if you’d like one even if it happened to a friend of yours?”

  Of course I remembered; he’d mentioned my best friend, Carl Trenholm. I took a tighter grip on the phone. I said, “Cut out breaking it gently, Pete. Has something happened to Carl?”

  “Yes, Doc.”

  “For God’s sake, what? Cut the build-up. Is he dead?”

  “That’s what I heard. He was found out on the pike; I don’t know if he was hit by a car or what.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Being brought in, I guess. All I know is that Hank called me”—Hank is Pete’s brother-in-law and a deputy sheriff—”and said they got a call from someone who found him alongside the road out there. Even Hank had it third-hand—Rance Kates phoned him and said to come down and take care of the office while he went out there. And Hank knows Kates doesn’t like you and wouldn’t give you the tip, so Hank called me. But don’t get Hank in trouble with his boss by telling anybody where the tip came from.”

  “Did you call the hospital?” I asked. “If Carl’s just hurt——”

  “Wouldn’t be time for them to get him there yet—or to wherever they do take him. Hank just phoned me from his own place before he started for the sheriff’s office, and Kates had just called him from the office and was just leaving there.”

  “Okay, Peter,” I said. “Thanks. I’m going back downtown; I’ll call the hospital from the Clarion office. You call me there if you hear anything more.”

  “Hell, Doc, I’m coming down too.”

  I told him he didn’t have to, but he said the hell with having to; he wanted to. I didn’t argue with him.

  I cradled the phone and found that I was already standing up. I said, “Sorry, but something important’s come up—an accident to a friend of mine.” I headed for the closet to get my coat. “Do you want to wait here, or——”

  “If you don’t mind,” he said. “That is, if you think you won’t be very long.”

  “I don’t know that, but I’ll phone here and let you know as soon as I can. If the phone rings answer it; it’ll be me. And help yourself to whisky and books.”

  He nodded. “I’ll get along fine. Hope your friend isn’t seriously hurt.”

  That was all that I was worrying about myself. I put on my hat and hurried out, again, and this time seriously, cussing those two flat tyres on my car and the fact that I hadn’t taken time to fix them that morning. Nine blocks isn’t far to walk when you’re not in a hurry, but it’s a hell of a distance when you’re anxious to get there quickly.

  I walked fast, so fast, in fact, that I winded myself in the first two blocks and had to slow down.

  I kept thinking the same thing Pete had obviously thought—what a hell of a coincidence it was that we’d mentioned the possibility of Carl’s being——

  But we’d been talking about murder. Had Carl been murdered? Of course not; things like that didn’t happen in Carmel City. It must have been an accident, a hit-run driver. No one would have the slightest reason for killing, of all people, Carl Trenholm. No one but a——

  Finishing that thought made me stop walking suddenly. No one but a maniac would have the slightest reason for killing Carl Trenholm. But there was an escaped maniac at large tonight and—unless he’d left instead of waiting for me—he was sitting right in my living-room. I’d thought he was harmless—even though I’d taken the precaution of putting that gun in my pocket—but how could I be sure? I’m no psychiatrist; where did I get the bright idea that I could tell the difference between a harmless nut and a homicidal maniac?

  I started to turn back and then realized that going back was useless and foolish. He would either have left as soon as I was out of sight around the corner, or he hadn’t guessed that I suspected him and would wait as I’d told him to, until he heard from me. So all I had to do was to phone the asylum as soon as I could and they’d send guards to close in on my house and take him if he was still there.

  I started walking again. Yes, it would be ridiculous for me to go back alone, even though I still had that gun in my pocket. He might resist, and I wouldn’t want to have to use the gun, especially as I hadn’t any real reason to believe he’d killed Carl. It could have been an auto accident just as easily; I couldn’t even form an intelligent opinion on that until I learned what Carl’s injuries were.

  I kept walking, as fast as I could without winding myself again.

  Suddenly I thought of that newspaper clipping—“MAN SLAIN BY UNKNOWN BEAST.” A prickle went down my spine—what if Carl’s body showed——

  And then the horrible thought pyramided. What if the unknown beast who had killed the man near Bridgeport and the escaped maniac were one and the same. What if he had escaped before at the time of the killing at Bridgeport—or, for that matter, hadn’t been committed to the asylum until after that killing, whether or not he was suspected of it.

  I thought of lycanthropy, and shivered. What might I have been talking about Jabberwocks and unknown beasts with?

  Suddenly the gun I’d put in my pocket felt comforting there. I looked around over my shoulder to be sure that nothing was coming after me. The street behind was empty, but I started walking a little faster just the same.

  Suddenly the street lights weren’t bright enough and the night, which had been a pleasant June evening, was a frightful, menacing thing. I was really scared. Maybe it’s as well that I didn’t guess that things hadn’t even started to happen.

  I felt glad that I was passing the courthouse—with a light on in the window of the sheriffs office. I even considered going in. Probably Hank would be there by now and Rance Kates would still be gone. But no, I was this far now and I’d carry on to the Clarion office and start my phoning from there. Besides, if Kates found out I’d been in his office talking to Hank, Hank would be in trouble.

  So I kept on going. The corner of Oak Street, and I turned, now only a block and a half from the Clarion. But it was going to take me quite a while to make that block and a half.

  A big, dark blue Buick sedan suddenly pulled near the kerb and slowed down alongside me. There were two men in the front seat and the one who was driving stuck his head out of the window and said, “Hey, Buster, what town is this?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark

  And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark;

  But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,

  His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.

  IT had been a long time since anyone had called me “Buster,” and I didn’t particularly like it. I didn’t like the looks of the men, either, or the tone of voice the question had been asked in. A minute ago, I’d thought I’d be glad of any company short of that of the escaped maniac; now I decided differently.

  I’m not often rude, but I can be when someone else starts it. I said, “Sorry, pal, I’m a stranger here myself.” And I kept on walking.

  I heard the man behind the wheel of the Buick say something to the other, and then they passed me and swung in to the kerb just ahead. The driver got out and walked toward me.

  I stopped short and tried not to do a double-take when I recognized him. My attention to the wanted circulars on the post office bulletin board was about to pay off—although from the expression on his face, the pay off wasn’t go
ing to be the kind I’d want.

  The man coming toward me and only two steps away when I stopped was Bat Masters, whose picture had been posted only last week and was still there on the board. I couldn’t be wrong about his face, and I remembered the name clearly because of its similarity to the name of Bat Masterson, the famous gunman of the old West. I’d thought of it as a coincidence at first and then I realized that the similarity of Masters to Masterton had made the nickname “Bat” a natural.

  He was a big man with a long, horselike face, eyes wide apart and a mouth that was a narrow straight line separating a lantern jaw from a wide upper lip; on the latter there was a two-day stubble of hair that indicated he was starting a moustache. But it would have taken plastic surgery and a full beard to disguise that face from anyone who had recently, however casually, studied a picture of it. Bat Masters, bank robber and killer.

  I had the gun in my pocket, but I didn’t remember it at the time. It’s probably just as well; if I’d remembered, I might have been frightened into reaching for it. And that probably would not have been a healthful thing to do. He was coming at me with his fists balled but no gun in either of them. He didn’t intend to kill me—although one of those fists might do it quite easily and unintentionally: I weigh a hundred and forty wringing wet, and he weighed almost twice that and had shoulders that bulged out his suit coat.