The Hunter's Lodge Case. Agatha Christie.

"...perhaps I will not die, mon ami."

Agatha Christie

The Hunter’s Lodge Case

Blue Book, January 14, 1924.

The famous “little gray cells” of the great detective Poirot function admirably in solving what at first seems a particularly puzzling murder mystery.

 

“After all,” murmured Poirot, “it is possible that I shall not die this time.”

  Coming from a convalescent influenza patient, I hailed the remark as showing a beneficial optimism. I myself had been the first sufferer from the disease. Poirot in his turn had gone down. He was now sitting up in bed, propped up with pillows.

  “Yes, yes,” my little friend continued. “Once more shall I be myself again, the great Hercule Poirot, the terror of evildoers! Figure to yourself, mon ami, that I have a little paragraph to myself in Society Gossip. But yes! Here it is!

  “‘Go it, criminals—all out! Hercule Poirot,—and believe me, girls, he’s some Hercules!—our own pet society detective can’t get a grip on you. ’Cause why? ’Cause he’s got la grippe himself!’”

  I laughed.

  “Good for you, Poirot. You are becoming quite a public character. And fortunately you haven’t missed anything of particular interest during this time.”

  “That is true. The few cases I have had to decline did not fill me with any regret.”

  Our landlady stuck her head in at the door.

  “There’s a gentleman downstairs. Says he must see M. Poirot or you, Captain. Seeing as he was in a great to-do,—and with all that quite the gentleman,—I brought up ’is card.”

  She handed me the bit of pasteboard. “‘Hon. Roger Havering,’” I read.

  Poirot motioned with his head toward the bookcase, and I obediently pulled forth the “Who’s Who.” Poirot took it from me and scanned the pages rapidly.

  “Second son of fifth Baron Windsor. Married 1913 Zoe, fourth daughter of William Crabb.”

  “H’m,” I said. “I rather fancy that’s the girl who used to act at the Frivolity—only she called herself Zoe Carrisbrook. I remember she married some young man about town just before the war.”

  “Would it interest you, Hastings, to go down and hear what our visitor’s particular trouble is? Make him all my excuses.”

  Roger Havering was a man of about forty, well set up and of smart appearance.

  His face, however, was haggard, and he was evidently laboring under great agitation.

  “Captain Hastings? You are M. Poirot’s partner, I understand. It is imperative that he should come with me to Derbyshire today.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” I replied. “Poirot is ill in bed—influenza.”

  His face fell.

  “Dear me, that is a great blow to me.”

  “The matter on which you want to consult him is serious?”

  “My God, yes! My uncle, the best friend I have in the world, was foully murdered last night.”

  “Here in London?”

  “No, in Derbyshire. I was in town and received a telegram from my wife this morning. Immediately upon its receipt I determined to come round and beg M. Poirot to undertake the case.”

  “If you will excuse me a minute,” I said, struck by a sudden idea.

  I rushed upstairs, and in few brief words acquainted Poirot with the situation. He took any further words out of my mouth.

  “I see—I see. You want to go yourself, is it not so? Well, why not? You should know my methods by now. All I ask is that you should report to me fully every day, and follow implicitly any instructions I may wire you.”

  To this I willingly agreed, and an hour later I was sitting opposite Mr. Havering in a first-class carriage on the Midland Railway, speeding rapidly away from London.

  “To begin with, Captain Hastings, you must understand that Hunter’s Lodge, where we are going, and where the tragedy took place, is only a small shooting-box in the heart of the Derbyshire moors. Our real home is near Newmarket, and we usually rent a flat in town for the season. Hunter’s Lodge is looked after by a housekeeper who is quite capable of doing all we need when we run down for an occasional week-end. Of course, during the shooting season, we take down some of our own servants from Newmarket.

  “My uncle, Mr. Harrington Pace (as you may know, my mother was a Miss Pace of New York), has for the last three years made his home with us. He never got on well with my father, or my elder brother, and I suspect that my being somewhat of a prodigal son myself rather increased than diminished his affection toward me. Of course, I am a poor man, and my uncle was a rich one—in other words, he paid the piper! But though exacting in many ways, he was not really hard to get on with, and we all three lived very harmoniously together.

  “Two days ago my uncle, rather wearied with some recent gayeties of ours in town, suggested that we should run down to Derbyshire for a day or two. My wife telegraphed to Mrs. Middleton, the housekeeper, and we went down that same afternoon. Yesterday evening I was forced to return to town, but my wife and my uncle remained on. This morning I received this telegram.”

  He handed it over to me, and I read:

Come at once. Uncle Harrington murdered last night. Bring good detective if you can, but do come.

ZOE.

  “Then as yet you know no details?”

  “No, I suppose it will be in the evening papers. Without doubt the police are in charge.”

  It was about three o’clock when we arrived at the little station of Elmer’s Dale. From there a five-mile drive brought us to a small gray stone building in the midst of the rugged moors.

  “A lonely place,” I observed.

  Havering nodded.

  “I shall try and get rid of it. I could never live here again.”

  We unlatched the gate and were walking up the narrow path to the oak door when a familiar figure emerged and came to meet us.

  “Japp!” I ejaculated.

  The Scotland Yard Inspector grinned at me in a friendly fashion before addressing my companion.

  “Mr. Havering, I think? I’ve been sent down from London to take charge of this case, and I’d like a word with you, if I may, sir.”

  “My wife——”

  “I’ve seen your good lady, sir—and the housekeeper. I wont keep you a moment, but I’m anxious to get back to the village now that I’ve seen all there is to see here.”

  “I know nothing as yet as to what—”

  “Ex-actly,” said Japp soothingly. “But there are just one or two little points I’d like your opinion about all the same. Captain Hastings, here, he knows me, and he’ll go on up to the house and tell them you’re coming.”

  I went on to the house. I rang the bell, as Japp had closed the door behind him. After some moments it was opened to me by a middle-aged woman in black.

  “Mr. Havering will be here in a moment,” I explained. “He has been detained by the Inspector. I have come down with him from London to look into the case. Perhaps you can tell me briefly what occurred last night?”

  “Come inside, sir.” She closed the door behind me, and we stood in the dimly lighted hall. “It was after dinner last night, sir, that the man came. He asked to see Mr. Pace, sir, and seeing that he spoke the same way, I thought it was an American gentleman friend of Mr. Pace’s, and I showed him into the gun-room, and then went to tell Mr. Pace. He wouldn’t give no name, which of course was a bit odd, now I come to think of it.

  “I told Mr. Pace, and he seemed puzzled, like, but he said to the mistress: ‘Excuse me, Zoe, while I just see what this fellow wants.’ He went off to the gun-room, and I went back to the kitchen, but after a while I heard loud voices, as if they were quarreling, and I came out into the hall. At the same time, the mistress she comes out too, and just then there was a shot and then a dreadful silence. We both ran to the gun-room door, but it was locked, and we had to go round to the window. It was open, and there inside was Mr. Pace, all shot and bleeding.”

  “What became of the man?”

  “He must have got away through the window, sir, before we got to it.”

  “And then?”

  “Mrs. Havering sent me to fetch the police. Five miles to walk, it was. They came back with me; and the constable, he stayed all night; and this morning the police gentleman from London arrived.”

  “What was this man like who called to see Mr. Pace?”

  The housekeeper reflected.

  “He had a black beard, sir, and was about middle-aged, and had on a light overcoat. Beyond the fact that he spoke like an American, I didn’t notice much about him.”

  “I see. Now, I wonder if I can see Mrs. Havering?”

  “She’s upstairs, sir. Shall I tell her?”

  “If you please. Tell her that Mr. Havering is outside with Inspector Japp, and that the gentleman he has brought back with him from London is anxious to speak to her as soon as possible.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  I was in a fever of impatience to get at all the facts. Japp had two or three hours start of me, and his anxiety to be gone made me keen to be close at his heels.

  Mrs. Havering did not keep me waiting long. In a few minutes I heard a light step descending the stairs, and looked up to see a very handsome young woman coming toward me. She wore a flame-colored jumper, that set off the slender boyishness of her figure. On her dark head was a little hat of flame-colored leather. Even the present tragedy could not dim the vitality of her personality.

  I introduced myself, and she nodded in quick comprehension.

  “Of course I have often heard of you and your colleague, M. Poirot. You have done some wonderful things together, haven’t you? It was very clever of my husband to get you so promptly. Now, will you ask me questions? That is the easiest way, isn’t it, of getting to know all you want to about this dreadful affair?”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Havering. Now, what time was it that this man arrived?”

  “It must have been just before nine o’clock. We had finished dinner, and were sitting over our coffee and cigarettes.”

  “Your husband had already left for London?”

  “Yes, he went up by the six-fifteen.”

  “Did he go by car to the station, or did he walk?”

  “Our own car isn’t down here. One came out from the garage in Elmer’s Dale to fetch him in time for the train.”

  “Was Mr. Pace quite his usual self?”

  “Absolutely—most normal in every way.”

  “Now, can you describe this visitor at all?”

  “I’m afraid not. I didn’t see him. Mrs. Middleton showed him straight into the gun-room and then came to tell my uncle.”

  “What did your uncle say?”

  “He seemed rather annoyed, but went off at once. It was about five minutes later that I heard the sound of raised voices. I ran out into the hall, and almost collided with Mrs. Middleton. Then we heard the shot. The gun-room door was locked on the inside, and we had to go round the house to the window. Of course that took some time, and the murderer had been able to get well away. My poor uncle”—her voice faltered—“had been shot through the head. I saw at once that he was dead, and I sent Mrs. Middleton for the police straight away. I was careful to touch nothing in the room but to leave it exactly as I found it.”

  I nodded approval.

  “Now, as to the weapon?”

  “Well, I can make a guess at it, Captain Hastings. A pair of revolvers of my husband’s were mounted upon the wall. One of them is missing. I pointed this out to the police, and they took the other one away with them. When they have extracted the bullet, I suppose they will know for certain.”

  “May I go to the gun-room?”

  “Certainly. The police have finished with it. But the body has been removed.”

  She accompanied me to the scene of the crime. At that moment Havering entered the hall, and with a quick apology, his wife ran to him. I was left to undertake my investigations alone.

  I may as well confess at once that they were rather disappointing. In detective-novels, clues abound, but here I could find nothing that struck me as out of the ordinary except a large bloodstain on the carpet where I judged the dead man had fallen. I examined everything with painstaking care and took a couple of pictures of the room with my little camera, which I had brought with me. I also examined the ground outside the window, but it appeared to have been so heavily trampled that I judged it was useless to waste time over it. Now I had seen all that Hunter’s Lodge had to show me. I must go back to Elmer’s Dale and get into touch with Japp. Accordingly I took leave of the Haverings, and was driven off in the car that had brought us up from the station.

  Japp I found at the Matlock Arms, and he took me forthwith to see the body. Harrington Pace was a small, spare, cleanshaven man, typically American in appearance. He had been shot through the back of the head, and the revolver had been discharged at close quarters.

  “Turned away for a moment,” remarked Japp, “and the other fellow snatched up a revolver and shot him. The one Mrs. Havering handed over to us was fully loaded, and I suppose the other one was also. Curious what darn fool things people do. Fancy keeping two loaded revolvers hanging up on your wall!”

  “What do you think of the case?” I asked as we left the gruesome chamber behind us.

  “Well, I’d got my eye on Havering to begin with.... Oh, yes,”—noting my exclamation of astonishment,—“Havering has one or two shady incidents in his past. When he was a boy at Oxford, there was some funny business about the signature on one of his father’s checks. All hushed up, of course. Then he’s pretty heavily in debt now, and they’re the kind of debts he wouldn’t like to go to his uncle about; whereas you may be sure the uncle’s will would be in his favor. Yes, I’d got my eye on him, and that’s why I wanted to speak to him before he saw his wife; but their statements dovetail all right, and I’ve been to the station, and there’s no doubt whatever that he left by the six-fifteen. That gets up to London about ten-thirty. He went straight to his club, he says, and if that’s confirmed all right—why, he couldn’t have been shooting his uncle here at nine o’clock in a black beard!”

  “Ah, yes—I was going to ask you what you thought about that beard?”

  Japp winked.

  “I think it grew pretty fast—grew in the five miles from Elmer’s Dale to Hunter’s Lodge. Americans that I’ve met are mostly clean shaven. I questioned the housekeeper first, and then her mistress, and their stories agree all right; but I’m sorry Mrs. Havering didn’t get a look at the fellow. She’s a smart woman, and she might have noticed something that would set us on the track.”

  I sat down and wrote a minute and lengthy account to Poirot. I was able to add various further items of information before I posted the letter.

  The bullet had been extracted and was proved to have been fired from a revolver identical in size to the one held by the police. Furthermore, Mr. Havering’s movements on the night in question had been checked and verified, and it was proved beyond doubt that he had actually arrived in London by the train in question. And thirdly, a sensational development had occurred. A city gentleman, living at Ealing, on crossing Haven Green to get to the District Railway station that morning, had observed a brown paper parcel stuck between the railings. Opening it, he found that it contained a revolver. He handed the parcel over to the local police station, and before night it was proved to be the one we were in search of, the fellow to that given us by Mrs. Havering. One bullet had been fired from it.

  All this I added to my report. A wire from Poirot arrived while I was at breakfast the following morning:

  Of course black-bearded man was not Havering. Only you or Japp would have such an idea. Wire me description of housekeeper and what clothes she wore this morning. Same of Mrs. Havering. Do not waste time taking photographs of interiors. They are underexposed and not in the least artistic.

  It seemed to me that Poirot’s style was unnecessarily facetious. I also fancied he was a shade jealous of my position on the spot, with full facilities for handling the case. His request for a description of the clothes worn by the two women appeared to me to be simply ridiculous, but I complied as well as I, a mere man, was able to. At eleven a reply wire came from Poirot:

  Advise Japp arrest housekeeper before it is too late.

  Dumfounded, I took the wire to Japp. He swore softly under his breath.

  “He’s the goods, M. Poirot! If he says so, there’s something in it. And I hardly noticed the woman! I don’t know that I can go so far as arresting her, but I’ll have her watched. We’ll go up right away and take another look at her.”

  But it was too late. Mrs. Middleton, that quiet, middle-aged woman, who had appeared so normal and respectable, had vanished into thin air. Her box had been left behind. It contained only ordinary wearing apparel. There was no clue in it to her identity, or as to her whereabouts.

  From Mrs. Havering we elicited all the facts we could.

  “I engaged her about three weeks ago, when Mrs. Emery, our former housekeeper, left. She came to me from Mrs. Selboume’s Agency in Mount St.—a very well-known place. I get all my servants from there. They sent several women to see me, but this Mrs. Middleton seemed much the nicest, and had splendid references. I engaged her on the spot, and notified the Agency of the fact. I can’t believe that there was anything wrong with her. She was such a nice, quiet woman.”

  The thing was certainly a mystery.

  While it was clear that the woman herself could not have committed the crime, since at the moment the shot was fired Mrs. Havering was with her in the hall, nevertheless she must have some connection with the murder, or why should she suddenly take to her heels and bolt?

  I wired the latest development to Poirot, and suggested returning to London and making inquiries at Selbourne’s Agency. Poirot’s reply was prompt:

  Useless to inquire at Agency. They will never have heard of her. Find out what vehicle took her up to Hunter’s Lodge when she first arrived there.

  Though mystified, I was obedient. The means of transport in Elmer’s Dale were limited. The local garage had two cars, and there were two station flies. None of these had been requisitioned on the date in question. I may also mention that inquiries at the Agency in London bore out Poirot’s prognostication. No such woman as “Mrs. Middleton” had ever been on their books. They had received the Hon. Mrs. Havering’s application for a housekeeper, and had sent her various applicants for the post. When she sent them the engagement fee, she omitted to mention which woman she had selected.

***

  Somewhat crestfallen, I returned to London. I found Poirot established in an armchair by the fire. He greeted me with much affection.

  “Mon ami Hastings! But how glad I am to see you! Veritably I have for you a great affection! And you have enjoyed yourself? You have run to and fro with the good Japp? You have interrogated and investigated to your heart’s content?”

  “Poirot,” I cried, “the thing’s a dark mystery! It will never be solved.”

  “It is true that we are not likely to cover ourselves with glory over it.”

  “No, indeed. It’s a hard nut to crack.”

  “Oh, as far as that goes, me, I am very good at cracking the nuts! A veritable squirrel! It is not that which embarrasses me. I know well enough who killed Mr. Harrington Pace.”

  “You know? How did you find out?”

  “Your illuminating answers to my wires supplied me with the truth..... See here, Hastings, let us examine the facts methodically and in order. Mr. Harrington Pace is a man with a considerable fortune which at his death will doubtless pass to his nephew—point number one. His nephew is known to be desperately hard up—point number two. His nephew is also known to be—shall we say a man of loose moral fiber? Point number three!”

  “But Roger Havering is proved to have journeyed straight up to London.”

  “Précisément! And therefore, as Mr. Havering left Elmer’s Dale at six-fifteen, and since Mr. Pace cannot have been killed before he left (or the doctor would have spotted the time of the crime as being given wrongly when he examined the body), we conclude, quite rightly, that Mr. Havering did not shoot his uncle. But there is a Mrs. Havering, Hastings.”

  “Impossible! The housekeeper was with her when the shot was fired.”

  “Ah, yes, the housekeeper. But she has disappeared.”

  “She will be found.”

  “I think not. There is something peculiarly elusive about that housekeeper—don’t you think so? It struck me at once.”

  “She played her part, I suppose, and then got out in the nick of time.”

  “And what was her part?”

  “Well—I presume to admit her confederate, the black-bearded man.”

  “Oh, no, that was not her part. Her part was what you have just mentioned, to provide an alibi for Mrs. Havering at the moment the shot was fired. And no one will ever find her, mon ami, because she does not exist! ‘There’s no sech person,’ as your so great Shakespeare says.”

  “It was Dickens,” I murmured, smiling. “But what do you mean, Poirot?”

  “I mean that Zoe Havering was an actress before her marriage, that you and Japp only saw the housekeeper in a dark hall, a dim, middle-aged figure in black with a faint, subdued voice, and finally that neither you, nor Japp, nor the local police whom the housekeeper fetched, ever saw Mrs. Middleton and her mistress at one and the same time. It was a child’s play for that clever and daring woman. On the pretext of summoning her mistress, she runs upstairs, slips on a bright jumper and a hat with black curls attached which she jams down over the gray transformation. A few deft touches, and the make-up is removed; a slight dusting of rouge, and the brilliant Zoe Havering comes down with her clear ringing voice.”

  “But the revolver that was found at Ealing? Mrs. Havering could not have placed it there?”

Dame Agatha Christie, the Queen of Crime.

  “No, that was Roger Havering’s job—but it was a mistake on their part. It put me on the right track. A man who has committed a murder with a revolver which he found on the spot would fling it away at once; he would not carry it up to London with him. No, the motive was clear; the criminals wished to focus the interest of the police on a spot far removed from Derbyshire; they were anxious to get the police away as soon as possible from the vicinity of Hunter’s Lodge. Of course, the revolver found at Ealing was not the one with which Mr. Pace was shot. Roger Havering discharged one shot from it, brought it up to London, went straight to his club to establish his alibi, then went quickly out to Ealing by the District Railway, a matter of about twenty minutes only, placed the parcel where it was found and so back to town. That charming creature his wife, quietly shoots Mr. Pace after dinner—you remember he was shot from behind? Another significant point, that! She reloads the revolver and puts it back in its place, and then starts off with her desperate little comedy.”

  “It’s incredible,” I murmured, fascinated. “And yet—”

  “And yet it is true. Bien sûr, my friend, it is true! But to bring that precious pair to justice, that is another matter. Well, Japp must do what he can—I have written him fully; but I very much fear, Hastings, that we shall be obliged to leave them to Fate—or le bon Dieu—whichever you prefer.”

  “The wicked flourish like a green bay tree,” I reminded him.

  “But at a price, Hastings, always at a price, croyez moi!”

  Poirot’s forebodings were confirmed. Japp, though convinced of the truth of his theory, was unable to get together the necessary evidence to insure a conviction. Mr. Pace’s huge fortune passed into the hands of his murderers. Nevertheless, Nemesis did overtake them, and when I read in the paper that the Hon. Roger and Mrs. Havering were among those killed in the crashing of the Air Mail to Paris, I knew that Justice was satisfied.

 

END

 

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Six Frightened Men. Robert Silverberg.

A free wallpaper off of the internet.

Robert Silverberg

 

SIX FRIGHTENED MEN

 

 

It was an unexplored planet and anything could happen—yet none of us expected to face a creature impossible to fight, let alone kill....

 

Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy June 1957

 

 

You put your life on the line when you join the Exploratory Wing of the Space Corps. They tell you that when you sign up. The way they told it to me, it went like this:

"You'll be out there on alien worlds where no human being has ever set foot—worlds which may or may not have been inhabited by hostile alien creatures. You take your life in your hands every time you make a planetfall out there. Still interested?"

"That's old stuff," I said. "You don't think I'd join up if it was an old ladies' tea party, do you?"

Which was how I happened to be crouching behind a fantastically-sculptured spiralling rock out on the yellow wind-blasted desert of Pollux V, huddling there with the fierce sweep of sand against my faceplate, looking at the monster that barred my path.

The thing was at least sixty feet tall and all eyes and mouth. The mouth yawned, showing yellow daggers a foot long. As for the eyes—well, they burned with the cold luminosity of an intelligent and inimical being.

I didn't know what the thing was. One minute I'd been examining an interesting rock formation, a second later I was hiding behind it, watching the ravening thing that had appeared out of nowhere.

Other members of the expedition were sprawled here and there on the desert too. I could see Max Feld, our paleontologist, curled in a tight plump little ball under an outcropping of weathered limestone, and there was Roy Laurence, the biochemist, flat on his stomach peering at the thing incredulously.

Back behind me were three others—Don Forster, Leo Mickens, Clyde Hamner. That made six. 

The two remaining members of the team, Medic Howard Graves and Anthropologist Lyman Donaldson, were back at the ship. We always left a shift of two back there in case of trouble.

And trouble had sure struck now!

I saw Laurence swivel in the sand and stare goggle-eyed at me. His lips moved, and over my helmet radio came: "What the hell is it, Phil? Where'd it come from?"

I'm a morphologist; I'm supposed to know things like that. But I could only shrug and say, "A thing like that could only come from the pits of Hell. I've never seen anything like it before."

 

I hadn't. We had been fine-combing the broad windswept plain in front of the ship, looking for archaeological remains. The planet was uninhabited, or so we thought after running a quick check—but Max Feld had discovered relics of a dead race, an exciting find, and we had all fanned out to help him in his search for more.

We had been heading toward a flat mountain wall that rose abruptly from the desert about a mile from the ship when—from nowhere—the creature appeared, towering above the desert like a dinosaur dropped from the skies.

But no dinosaur ever looked like this one. Sixty feet high, its skin a loathsome gray-green quivering jelly with thick hairy cilia projecting, its vat-like mouth gaping toothily, its cold, hard eyes flicking back and forth, searching for us as we flattened ourselves out of sight, it was an utterly ghastly being. Evolution had gone wild on this planet.

And we were cut off from the ship, hemmed between the mountain wall and the creature.

"What are we going to do?" Clyde Hamner whispered. "He's going to smell us out pretty soon."

As he spoke, the monster began to move—flowing, it seemed, like some vast protozoan.

"I'm going to blast it," I said, as it oozed closer to us. Cautiously, I lifted my Webley from its shoulder-holster, turned the beam to Full, began to squeeze the firing-stud.

A bright white-hot beam of force leaped from the nozzle and speared the creature's eye. It howled, seemed to leap in the air, thrashed around—

And changed.

A blaster, ladies and gentlemen. Usually good for amorphous blobs.

It became a boiling mass of amorphous protoplasm, writhing and billowing on the sand. I fired again into the mass—again and again, and the alien creature continued to shift its form. I was cold with horror, but I kept up the firing. My bolts seemed to be absorbed into the fluid mass without effect, but at least I had halted the oozing advance.

It reached one final hideous stage: a giant mouth, opening before us like the gate of hell. A mouth, nothing more. It yawned in front of us—

Then advanced.

I felt noxious vapors shoot out, bathing my thermosuit, and I saw a gargling larynx feet across. 

I fired, again and again, into the monster's throat.

My companions were firing too. We seemed to have halted the thing's advance. It paused some twenty feet from us, a wall of mouth.

Then it disappeared.

It blinked out of sight the way it had come—instantaneously. For a moment I didn't realize what had happened, and fired three useless charges into the space where the monster had been.

"It's gone," Hamner exclaimed.

My hands were trembling—me, who had stood up to Venusian mudworms without a whimper, who had fought the giant fleas of Rigel IX. I was shaking all over. Sweat was running down my entire body, and the wiper of my faceplate was going crazy trying to blot my forehead.

Then I heard dull groans coming from up ahead. One final grunt, then silence. They had been coming from Max Feld.

Looking around cautiously, I rose to my feet. There was no sign of the creature. I ran to where Max lay.

The plump paleontologist was sprawled flat in the sand, face down. I bent, yanked him over, peered in his facemask. His eyes were open, staring—and lifeless.

 

It wasn't till we got back to the ship that we could open his spacesuit and confirm what I thought I saw on his face.

Doc Graves pronounced it finally: "He's dead. Heart attack. What the devil did you see out there, anyway?"

Quickly I described it. When I was finished the medic shivered. "Lord! No wonder Max had an attack. What a nightmare!"

Donaldson, the anthropologist, appeared from somewhere in the back of the ship. Seeing Max's body, he said, "What happened?"

"We were attacked on the desert. Max was the only casualty. The thing didn't touch us—it just 

tood there and changed shape. Max must have died of fright."

Donaldson scowled. He was a wry, taciturn individual with a coldness about him that I didn't like. I could pretty much guess what he would say. No expression of grief, or anything like that.

"It's going to look bad for you, Doc, when it's discovered we had a man with a weak heart in the crew."

The medic stiffened. "I checked Max's heart before we left. It was as good as anyone's. But the shock of seeing that thing—"

"Yeah," Don Forster said angrily. "You'd have been shivering in your boots too if that thing had popped out of nowhere right over your left shoulder."

"Keep your remarks to yourself, Forster. I signed on for the Exploratory Team with the same understanding any of you did—that we were going into alien, uncharted worlds and could expect to meet up with anything. Anything at all. Fright's a mere emotional reaction. Adults—as you supposedly are—should be able to control it."

I felt like hitting him, but I restrained myself. That ordeal out on the desert had left me drained, nerves raw and shaken. I shrugged and looked away.

"Well?" Hamner said. "What do we do? Go home?"

It was said half as a joke, but I saw from the look on young Leo Mickens' face that he was perfectly willing to take the suggestion seriously and get off Pollux V as fast as he could.

To forestall any trouble, I said, "It's a tempting idea. But I don't think it would look good on our records."

"You're right," Hamner agreed. "We stay. We stay until we know what that thing is, where it came from, and how we can lick it."

We stayed. We spent the rest of that day aboard ship, having called off the day's explorations in memory of Max. The bright orb of Pollux set about 2000 ship time, and the sky was filled with a glorious sight: a horde of moons whirling above. The moons of Pollux V were incredible.

There were one hundred of them, ranging in size from a hunk of rock the size of Mars' Deimos to one massive high-albedo satellite almost a thousand miles in diameter. They marched across the sky in stately order, filling the Polluxian night with brightness.

Only we didn't feel much sense of wonder. We buried Max in a crude grave, laid him to rest under the light of a hundred moons, and then withdrew to the ship to consider our problem.

"Where'd it come from?" Doc Graves asked.

"Nowhere," I said. "Just nowhere. One second it wasn't there, next second it was. It vanished the same way."

"How could that be?" Donaldson asked. "Matter doesn't work that way; it's flatly impossible."

Holding myself in check, I said, "Maybe so, Donaldson. But the thing was there."

"How do you know?" the anthropologist persisted, sneering a little. "You sure it wasn't a mass illusion of some kind?"

"Damn you," Forster shouted, "You weren't there. We were—and we saw it. Max saw it. Ask Max if it was there!"

Evenly, Donaldson said, "On the basis of your description, I'm convinced it must have been an illusion. I'm willing to go out there and have a look first thing in the morning—either alone or with any of you, if you can work up the courage. Fair enough?"

"Fair enough," I said. "I'll go with you."

 

The next morning we left the ship, clad in thermosuits, armed to the teeth—at least I was. I carried a subforce gun and a neural disruptor; Donaldson scornfully packed only the prescribed blaster.

We crossed the flat plain together, without speaking. I led the way, looking back nervously every few paces, but there was nothing behind me but Donaldson. We made a complete reconnaissance of the area, picked up a few interesting outlying fossils—Donaldson thought they might be relics of the dead race of Pollux V—and reached the bare face of the mountain without any difficulties.

"Well?" Donaldson asked sneeringly. "Where's your monster this time? He afraid of me?"

"So it didn't show up," I snapped. "That doesn't prove anything. For all we know it might jump us on the way back to the ship."

"So it might. But I doubt it. For one thing, I've been checking footprints in the sand. I've counted six tracks—one each for you, Feld, Hamner, Laurence, Forster, and Mickens. Unfortunately, that doesn't leave any for your monster. There's no sign of him anywhere."

I was a little startled by that. I glanced around. "You're right," I admitted, frowning. Licking dry lips, I said, "There ought to be some trace—unless the wind's covered it."

"The wind hasn't fully covered the traces of you six yet," Donaldson pointed out with obstinate logic. "Why should it obliterate only those of your nemesis?"

I scowled, but said nothing. Donaldson was right again—but I still found it hard to convince myself that what we had seen was only an illusion.

On the way back to the ship, I formulated all sorts of theories to explain the creature. It was a monster out of subspace, generated by etheric force; it was a radiation-creature without tangible physical body; it was—

I had half a dozen conjectures, each as unlikely as the next. But we returned to the ship safely, without any trouble whatever. I was sure of one thing: the creature was real, no matter what hell-void had spawned it.

When we returned, I saw the tense faces of the men in the ship ease.

"All right," Donaldson said. "We've both been out there and come back. I say we ought to investigate this place fully. There's been a high-level civilization here at one time, and—"

"Suppose it's this monster that killed off that civilization?" Forster suggested.

"Then it's our duty to investigate it," I had to say. "Even at the cost of our lives." Here I agreed with Donaldson; monster or no, it was our job to fathom the secrets of this dead world.

We agreed to explore in twos, rather than risk the customary complement of six all at once. 

Two men would go out; five remain within, three of them space-suited and ready to leave the ship to answer any emergency call.

Mickens and Forster drew the first assignment. They suited up and left. Tensely, we proceeded about our shipside duties, cataloguing information from our previous stops, performing routine tasks, busying ourselves desperately in unimportant work to take our minds off the men who were out on that desert together.

An hour later, Forster returned. Alone.

His face was pale, his eyes bulging, and almost before he stepped from the airlock we knew what must have happened.

"Where's Mickens?" I asked, breaking the terrible hush in the cabin.

"Dead," he said hollowly. "We—we got to the mountain, and—God, it was awful!"

He sank down in an acceleration cradle and started to sob. Doc Graves fumbled at his belt, drew out a neurotab, forced it between the boy's quivering lips. He calmed; color returned to his face.

"Tell us about it," Hamner urged gently.

"We reached the back end of the plain, and Leo suggested we try the mountain. He thought he saw a sort of cave somewhere back in there, and wanted to have a look. We had to go over that sharp rock shelf to get in there.

"So we started to scale the cliff. We were about a hundred feet up, and going along a path maybe four feet wide, when—when—" He shuddered, then forced himself to go on. "The monster appeared. It popped out of nowhere right in front of Leo. He was taken by surprise and toppled over the edge. I managed to hang on."

"Were you attacked?" I asked.

"No. It vanished, right after Leo fell off. I went down to look at him. His facemask had broken. I left him there."

I glanced around at the tight-jawed, hard faces of my crewmates. No one said a word—but we all knew the job that faced us now. We couldn't leave Pollux V until we'd discovered the nature of the beast that menaced us—even if it cost us our lives. We couldn't go back to Earth and send some other guys in to do the job. That wasn't the way the Exploratory Wing operated. We had a tradition to uphold.

We drew lots, and Hamner and Donaldson went out there to recover Mickens' body. They encountered no hazards, and brought young Mickens' shattered body back. We buried it next to Max's. The monster had taken a toll of two already, without actually touching either.

It was almost like some evil plan unfolding to wipe us out one by one. I didn't like it—but I didn't have anything too concrete to base it on, not till the fifth day.

I was teamed with Donaldson again, and I felt strangely confident about our safety. So far the monster had yet to materialize any time Donaldson was out on the plain. That fact had been in the back of my mind for quite a while. It was the only clue I had.

We prowled over the plain, which by now had been pretty well finetoothed, and then I suggested we try the cave where Mickens had met his fate.

"I don't like the idea," Donaldson said, eyeing the narrow shelf of rock we would have to walk across. "You remember what happened to Mickens, and—"

Don't mind me, I'm just a big fucking bug...

I laughed harshly. "Don't tell me you're beginning to believe in this monster of ours?"

"Of course not. Mickens simply had an attack of vertigo and toppled off; Forster's active imagination supplied the monster. But that shelf looks treacherous. I'd just as soon not go up there."

"You're not talking like an Exploratory Wing man, Donaldson. But it's okay with me if you want to wait down here. That cave might be a goldmine of artifacts. We ought at least to have a look."

His hard face dropped within his mask. "No—I couldn't let you go alone. You win," he said. "Let's try the cave."

We began the climb—and it was, I saw, a deadly road. It narrowed dizzyingly—and while the drop was only a hundred feet, which a man could survive if he landed right, spacesuits weren't made to take falls of that sort. And without a suit, a man was instantly dead on this methane-ammonia atmosphere world.

We were about ten feet out on the ledge, I in the lead and Donaldson behind me, when I heard him gasp.

"Great God! There it is!"

I felt him lurch against me in sudden terror, nearly heaving me into the abyss, but somehow I steadied myself, dropped to my knees, hung on. I turned.

He had avoided a fall too. But I saw no monster.

"Where is it?" I asked.

"It came out of the air right next to me—just popped out of the void and vanished again. I saw it, though." His voice was hoarse. "I apologize for everything I've said. The thing is real. If it weren't for your sure footing we'd both have gone the way Mickens did."

He seemed almost hysterical. There was no sign of the monster, but I wasn't going to take any chances out on this ribbon of rock with a hysterical man.

"Let's go back," I said. "We'll try to get to the cave some other time."

"All right," Donaldson said, shaken. We turned and inched our way back along the shelf to safety, and half-ran to the sanctuary of the ship.

But once we were inside and I was thinking clearly again, I began to sprout some suspicions.

 

I reasoned it out very carefully. Every time Donaldson had gone out previously, the monster had failed to show. There wasn't another man aboard ship who hadn't had some encounter with the thing. And some of them were remarking about Donaldson's apparent luck.

So this time we're out on the shelf, and the monster does show up—but Donaldson's the only one who sees him, after staunchly denying its existence all along. It seemed to me that it might only have been pretense, that he had faked seeing the monster for some reason of his own.

I didn't know what that could be. But I had some ideas. Donaldson, after all, had been a member of the first party to explore Pollux V, the day before the exploration that killed Max. I had remained on the ship while that group had been out.

Suppose, I thought, Donaldson had found something on that first trip, something that he hadn't bothered to tell the rest of us about. Something he might want badly enough to kill all of us for.

It was pretty far-fetched, but it was worth a try. I decided to explore Donaldson's cabin.

Ordinarily we respected privacy to an extreme degree aboard the ship. I had never been in Donaldson's cabin before—he never invited anyone in, and naturally I never went uninvited. 

But this was a special case, I felt.

The door was locked, but it's not hard to coerce a magneplate into opening if you know how they work. Donaldson was in the ship's lab and I hoped he'd stay out of my way till I had a good look around.

The room was just like any of ours, filled with the usual things—a shelf of reference books, a file of musictapes, some minifilms, other things to help to pass away the long hours between planets. It seemed neat, precise, uncluttered, just as Donaldson himself was crisp and reserved.

I moved around the room very carefully, looking for anything out of the ordinary. And then I found it.

It was a black box, nothing more, about four inches square. It was sitting on one of his shelves. 

Just a bare black box, a little cube of metal—but what metal!

Beyond the blackness was a strange unearthly shimmer, an eye-teasing pattern of shifting molecules within the metal itself. The box had a sleek, alien appearance. I knew it hadn't been in the cabin when we left Earth.

With a sudden rush of excitement I realized my mad guess had been right. 

Donaldson had found something and kept news of it back from the rest of us. And perhaps it was linked to the deaths of Max Feld and Leo Mickens.

Cautiously I reached out to examine the box. I lifted it. It was oddly heavy, and strange to the touch.

But no sooner did I have it in my hands when the door opened behind me. Donaldson had come back.

 

"What are you doing with that?" he shouted.

"I—"

He crossed the cabin at top speed and seized the box from my hands. And suddenly the monster appeared.

It materialized right in the cabin, between Donaldson and me, its vast bulk pressing against the walls. I felt its noisome breath on me, sensed its evil reek.

"Donaldson!"

But Donaldson was no longer there. I was alone in the cabin with the creature.

I backed away into the far corner, my mouth working in terror. I tried to call for help, but couldn't get a word out. And the beast squirmed and changed like a vast amoeba, writhing and twisting from one grey oily shape to another.

I sank to the floor, numb with horror—and then realized that the monster wasn't approaching.

It was just staying there, making faces at me.

Making faces. Like a bogeyman.

It was trying to scare me to death. That was how Max Feld had died, that was how Leo Mickens had died.

But I wasn't going to die that way.

I rose and confronted the thing. It just remained in the middle of the cabin, blotting everything out behind it, stretching from wall to wall and floor to ceiling, changing from one hell-shape to another and hoping I'd curl up and die.

I stepped forward.

Cautiously I touched the monster's writhing surface. It was like touching a cloud. I sank right in.

The monster changed, took the dragon form again—much smaller, of course, to fit the cabin. 

Teeth gnashed the air before my nose—but didn't bite into my throat as they promised to do. 

Nervelessly I stood my ground.

Then I waded into the heart of the monster, right into its middle with the grey oiliness billowing out all around me. There seemed to be nothing material, nothing to grapple hold of. It was like fighting a dream.

But then I hit something solid. My groping hands closed around warm flesh. I started to squeeze.

I had a throat. A living core of flesh within the monster? It might be. I constricted my fingers, dug them in, heard strangled gasps coming from further in. I couldn't see, but I hung on.

Then a human voice said, "Damn you—you're choking me!" And the monster thinned.

Through the diminishing smoke of the dream-creature, I saw Donaldson, and I was clutching his throat. He still held the black box in his hand, but it was slipping from his grasp, slipping....

He dropped it. It clattered to the floor and I kicked it far across the cabin.

The monster vanished completely.

 

It was just the two of us, there in the cabin. I heard fists pounding on the door from outside, but 

I ignored them. This was between me and Donaldson.

"What is that thing?" I asked, facing him, tugging at his throat. I shook him. "Where'd you find that hell-thing?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" he wheezed.

My fingers tightened. Suddenly he drew up his foot and lashed out at my stomach. I let go of his throat and fell back, the wind knocked out of me. As I staggered backward, he darted for the fallen box, but I recovered and brought my foot down hard on his outstretched hand.

He snarled in pain. I felt his other fist crash into my stomach again. I was almost numb, sick, ready to curl up in a knot and close my eyes. But I forced myself to suck in breath and hit him.

His head snapped back. I hit him again, and he reeled soggily. His neat, precise lips swelled into a bloody mass. His fists moved hazily; I blackened one of his eyes, and he groaned and slumped. Fury was in my fists; I was avenging the honor of the Exploratory Wing against the one man who had broken its oaths.

"Enough ... enough...."

But I hit him again and again, till he sagged to the floor. I picked up the black metal box, fondled it in my hands. Then, tentatively, I threw a thought at it.

Monster.

The monster appeared in all its ugliness.

Vanish.

It vanished.

"That's how it works, isn't it?" I said. "It's a thought projector. That monster never existed outside your own mind, Donaldson."

"Don't hit me again," he whined. I didn't. He was beneath contempt.

I threw open the door and saw the other crewmen huddled outside, their faces pale. "It's all over," I said. "Here's your monster."

I held out the black box.

 

We held court on Donaldson that night, and he made full confession. That first day, he had stumbled over an alien treasure in the cave beyond the hill—that, and the thought-converter. 

The idea came to him that perhaps, as sole survivor of the expedition, he could turn some of the treasure to his own uses.

Robert Silverberg, (centre), in this vintage photo.

So he utilized the thought-converter in a campaign to pick us off one by one without aiming suspicion at himself. Only his clumsy way of pretending to see the creature himself had given him away; else he might have killed us all.

Our rulebook gave no guide on what to do about him—but we reached a decision easily enough.

When we left Pollux V, taking with us samples of the treasure, and other specimens of the long-dead race (including the thought-converter) we left Donaldson behind, on the bare, lifeless planet, with about a week's supply of food and air.

No one ever learned of his treachery. We listed him as a casualty, along with Max and Leo, when we returned to Earth. The Exploratory Wing had too noble a name to tarnish by revealing what Donaldson had done ... and none of us will ever speak the truth. The Wing means too much to us for that.

And I think they're going to award him a posthumous medal....

 

END

 

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