you play very well,” Carr replied seriously. “But I confess that at times I prefer to play with men. I can get a better idea of what’s going on in their minds. Whereas women still baffle me.”
“As they should, dear,” added Mrs. Carr, bringing a flurry of laughter.
The cards suddenly began to run freakishly, with abnormal distribution of suits, and play took a wild turn. But Norman found it impossible to concentrate, which made Sawtelle an even more jittery partner than usual.
He kept listening to what the women were saying at the other table. His rebellious imagination persisted in reading hidden meanings into the most innocuous remarks.
“You usually hold wonderful hands, Tansy. But tonight you don’t seem to have any,” said Mrs. Carr. But suppose she was referring to the kind of hand you wrapped in flannel?
“Oh, well, unlucky in cards… you know.” How had Mrs. Sawtelle meant to finish the remark? Lucky in love? Lucky in sorcery? Idiotic notion!
“That’s two psychic bids you’ve made in succession, Tansy. Better watch out. We’ll catch up with you.” What might not a psychic bid stand for in Mrs. Gunnison’s vocabulary? Some kind of bluff in witchcraft? A pretense at giving up conjuring?
“I wonder,” Mrs. Carr murmured sweetly to Tansy, “if you’re hiding a very strong hand this time, dear, and making a trap pass?”
Rubber ruler. That was the trouble with imagination. According to a rubber ruler, an elephant would be no bigger than a mouse, a jagged line and a curve might be equally straight. He tried to think about the slam he had contracted for.
“The girls talk a good game of bridge,” murmured Gunnison in an undertone.
Gunnison and Carr came out at the long end of a two-thousand rubber and were still crowing pleasantly as they stood around waiting to leave.
Norman remembered a question he wanted to ask Mrs. Gunnison.
“Harold was telling me you had a number of photographs of that cement dragon or whatever it is on top of Estrey. It’s right opposite my window.”
She looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
“I believe I’ve got one with me. Took it almost a year ago.”
She dug a rumpled snapshot out of her handbag.
He studied it, and experienced a kind of shiver in reverse. This didn’t make sense at all. Instead of being toward the center of the roof ridge, or near the bottom, it was almost at the top. Just what was involved here? A practical joke stretching over a period of days or weeks? Or — His mind balked, like a skittish horse. Yet — Eppur si muove.
He turned it over. There was a confusing inscription on the back, in greasy red crayon. Mrs. Gunnison took it out of his hands, to show the others.
“The wind sounds like a lost soul,” said Mrs. Carr, hugging her coat around her as Norman opened the door.
“But a rather talkative one — probably a woman,” her husband added with a chuckle.
When the last of them were gone, Tansy slipped her arm around his waist, and said, “I must be getting old. It wasn’t nearly as much of a trial as usual. Even Mrs. Carr’s ghoulish flirting didn’t bother me. For once they all seemed almost human.”
Norman looked down at her intently. She was smiling peacefully. Totem had come out of hiding and was rubbing against her legs.
With an effort Norman nodded and said, “Yes, they did. But God, that cocoa! Let’s have a drink!”
7
There were shadows everywhere, and the ground under Norman’s feet was soft and quivering. The dreadful strident roaring, which seemed to have gone on since eternity began, shook his very bones. Yet it did not drown out the flat, nasty monotone of that other voice which kept telling him to do something— he could not be sure what, except that it involved injury to himself, although he heard the voice as plainly as if someone were talking inside his head. He tried to struggle away from the direction in which the voice wanted him to go, but heavy hands jerked him back. He wanted