o you are and the fact that  there's a  newspaper
that hangs around your neck like  a millstone,  all day and every day, until
you get home to sanctuary and forgetfulness.
     The walk home.
     And so to the corner of Campbell Street and my turning.
     A June  evening,  but cool,  and  the  night  air had almost completely
sobered me in the nine blocks I'd walked from Smiley's.
     My turning, and I saw that the  light  was  on in the  front room of my
house. I started  walking a little faster,  mildly puzzled.  I knew I hadn't
left  it on when I'd left for the office that morning. And if  I had left it
on, Mrs. Carr, the  cleaning  woman who comes in  for  about two hours every
afternoon to keep my place in order, would have turned it off.
     Maybe, I thought,  Al  Grainger had finished whatever he was  doing and
had come  early  and had ­ but no, Al wouldn't have come without his car and
there wasn't any car parked in front.
     It might have been a mystery, but it wasn't.
     Mrs. Carr was there, putting on her hat in front of the panel mirror in
the closet door as I went in.
     She  said, "I'm just leaving, Mr. Stoeger. I  wasn't able to  get  here
this  afternoon,  so  I  came  to  clean up  this  evening  instead; I  just
finished."
     "Fine," I said. "By the way, there's a blizzard out."
     "A ­ what?"
     "Blizzard. Snowstorm." I held up the  wrapped  bottle.  "So maybe you'd
better have a little nip with me before you start home, don't you think?"
     She laughed. "Thanks, Mr. Stoeger. I will. I've had a pretty rough day,
and it sounds like a good idea. I'll get glasses for us."
     I put my hat in the closet and followed her out into the kitchen.
     "A rough day?" I asked her. "I hope nothing went wrong."
     "Well ­  nothing  too serious.  My husband ­ he works, you know, out at
Bonney's fireworks factory ­  got burned in a little accident they  had  out
there this afternoon, and  they brought him home.  It's  nothing  serious, a
second  degree burn the doctor said, but it was pretty painful and I thought
I'd  better  stay  with him  until after supper, and then he  finally got to
sleep so I ran over here and I'm afraid I straightened  up your place pretty
fast and didn't do a very good job."
     "Looks spotless to me," I said. I'd been opening the bottle while she'd
been getting glasses for us.  "I hope he'll be all  right, Mrs. Carr. But if
you want to skip coming here for a while­"
     "Oh, no, I  can still come.  He'll be home only a few  days, and it was
just that  today  they  brought  him  home  at two o'clock,  just when I was
getting ready to come here and ­ That's plenty, thanks."
     We  touched glasses and  I downed mine  while  she  drank about half of
hers. She said, "Oh, there was a phone call  for you,  about an  hour ago. A
little while after I got here."
     "Find out who it was?"
     "He wouldn't tell me, just said it wasn't important."
     I shook my head sadly. "That, Mrs.  Carr, is one of the major fallacies
of the  human mind. The idea, I mean, that things can be arbitrarily divided
into  the important and  the unimportant.  How can anyone  decide whether  a
given  fact is important or not unless one knows everything about it; and no
one knows everything about anything."
     She smiled, but a bit vaguely, and I decided to bring it down to earth.
I said, "What would you say is important, Mrs. Carr?"
     She  put her head on one side and  considered it seriously. "Well, work
is important, isn't it?"
     "It  is not," I told her. "I'm  afraid you score  zero. Work is only  a
means to an end. We work in order  to enable ourselves  to do the  important
things,  which are the things we want  to do. Doing  what we  want to  do  ­
that's what's important, if anything is."
     "That sounds like  a  funny way of putting it, but maybe you're  right.
Well,  anyway,  this  man  who called  said he'd either  call again  or come
around.  I  told  him you  probably wouldn't be home  until  eight  or  nine
o'clock."
     She  finished her drink  and declined an encore. I walked to  the front
door with her, saying that I'd have been glad to drive her home but  that my
car had two flat tires. I'd discovered them that morning when I'd started to
drive to work. One  I might have  stopped to fix, but two  discouraged me; I
decided  to leave the car in  the garage  until Saturday afternoon, when I'd
have  lots of time. And then, too, I know that I should get  the exercise of
walking to  and  from work every day,  but as long as  my car is  in running
condition,  I don't. For Mrs. Carr's sake, though,  I  wished  now  that I'd
fixed the tires.
     She said, "It's only a  few  blocks, Mr.  Stoeger.  I wouldn't think of
letting you, even if your car was working. Good night."
     "Oh, just  a minute,  Mrs. Carr. What department at Bonney's does  your
husband work in?"
     "The Roman candle department."
     It made me forget, for the moment, what I'd been leading up to. I said,
"The  Roman candle department! That's a wonderful phrase;  I love  it. If  I
sell the paper, darned if I don't look up Bonney the very next day. I'd love
to work in the Roman candle department. Your husband is a lucky man."
     "You're joking, Mr. Stoeger. But are you really thinking of selling the
paper?"
     "Well ­ thinking of it." And  that reminded me. "I didn't get any story
on the accident  at Bonney's, didn't even hear about it.  And I'm  badly  in
need  of  a story  for  the  front  page.  Do you know the  details of  what
happened? Anyone else hurt?"
     She'd been part way  across the  front porch, but she  turned and  came
back nearer the  door. She  said, "Oh, please don't put it in  the paper. It
wasn't  anything important; my husband was the only one hurt and it was  his
own  fault, he says. And Mr.  Bonney wouldn't like it being in the paper; he
has enough  trouble  now  getting as many people as he needs  for  the  rush
season before the Fourth,  and so many  people  are  afraid  to work  around
powder and  explosives anyway. George  will probably  be  fired if  it  gets
written up in the paper and he needs the work."
     I sighed;  it  had been an idea  while it lasted.  I assured her that I
wouldn't print anything about it. And  if George Carr  had been the only one
hurt and I didn't have any  details, it wouldn't  have made over a  one-inch
item anyway.
     I would  have loved, though,  to get that beautiful  phrase, "the Roman
candle department," into print.
     I went  back inside and closed the  door. I made myself comfortable  by
taking  off  my  suit coat and loosening  my tie, and then I got the  whisky
bottle and my glass and put them on the coffee table in front of the sofa.
     I didn't  take the tie off yet, nor  my  shoes;  it's nicer to do those
things one at a time as you gradually get more and more comfortable.
     I picked out a few books and put them within easy reach,. poured myself
a drink, sat down, and opened one of the books.
     The doorbell rang.
     Al  Grainger had  come early, I thought. I went to the  door and opened
it. There was a man standing there, just lifting his hand to ring again. But
it wasn't Al; it was a man I'd never seen before.

        CHAPTER THREE

          How cheerfully he seems to grin,
                 How neatly spreads his claws,
          And welcomes little fishes in
                 With gently smiling jaws!

     He  was short, about my  own height, perhaps, but  seeming even shorter
because of his greater girth. The first thing you noticed about his face was
his nose; it was long, thin, pointed, grotesquely at variance with his pudgy
body. The light coming past me through the doorway reflected glowing  points
in his eyes,  giving them a catlike gleam. Yet  there  was nothing  sinister
about him. A short pudgy  man can never  manage to seem  sinister, no matter
how the light strikes his eyes.
     "You are Doctor Stoeger?" he asked.
     "Doc Stoeger,"  I  corrected  him.  "But not a  doctor of  medicine. If
you're looking for a medical doctor, one lives four doors west of here."
     He smiled, a nice smile. "I am aware that you are not a medico, Doctor.
Ph. D., Burgoyne  College ­  nineteen twenty-two, I believe. Author of Lewis
Carroll Through the Looking-Glass and Red Queen and White Queen."
     It startled me. Not so much that he knew my college and  the year of my
magna cum laude, but the rest  of it was amazing. Lewis  Carroll Through the
Looking-Glass was  a  monograph  of  a  dozen.  pages;  it  had been printed
eighteen years ago and only a hundred copies had been run  off. If one still
existed anywhere outside of my own library, I was greatly surprised. And Red
Queen  and  White Queen was a magazine article that  had appeared  at  least
twelve years ago in a magazine that had been obscure then and had long since
been discontinued and forgotten.
     "Yes," I said. "But how you know of them, I can't imagine, Mr.­"
     "Smith,"  he  said  gravely.  Then he  chuckled. "And the first name is
Yehudi."
     "No!" I said.
     "Yes. You see,  Doctor Stoeger, I was named  forty years ago,  when the
name  Yehudi, although uncommon, had not yet acquired the  comic connotation
which it has today. My  parents did not  guess that  the name would become a
joke  ­  and  that it  would  be particularly ridiculous when combined  with
Smith. Had they guessed the difficulty I now have in  convincing people that
I'm  not kidding them when I tell them  my name­"  He  laughed ruefully.  "I
always carry cards."
     He handed me one. It read:

                        Yehudi Smith

     There was no address, no other information. Just the  same, I wanted to
keep that card, so I stuck it in my pocket instead of handing it back.
     He  said,  "People are named Yehudi, you  know. There's Yehudi Menuhin,
the violinist. And there's­"
     "Stop, please,"  I interrupted. "You're making it plausible. I liked it
better the other way."
     He smiled. "Then I haven't  misjudged you, Doctor. Have you  ever heard
of the Vorpal Blades?"
     "Plural? No. Of course, in Jabberwocky:

          One, two! One, two! And through and through
                The vorpal blade went snicker-snack.

     But ­  Good  God!  Why are  we  talking  about vorpal  blades through a
doorway? Come on in. I've got a bottle, and I hope and presume that it would
be ridiculous to ask a man who talks about vorpal blades whether or  not  he
drinks."
     I stepped back  and he came  in. "Sit anywhere," I  told him. "I'll get
another glass. Want either a mix or a chaser?"
     He  shook his  head, and  I  went out into  the kitchen and got another
glass. I came in,  filled it and handed it to him. He'd already made himself
comfortable in the overstuffed chair.
     I sat back down on the sofa and lifted my glass toward him. I said, "No
doubt about a toast  for this one. To Charles Lutwidge  Dodgson, known, when
in Wonderland, as Lewis Carroll."
     He said, quietly, "Are you sure, Doctor?"
     "Sure of what?"
     "Of your phraseology in that toast. I'd word it: To Lewis Carroll,  who
masqueraded  under  the  alleged  identity of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson,  the
gentle don of Oxford."
     I  felt vaguely  disappointed. Was  this going to  be another, and even
more ridiculous, Bacon-was-Shakespeare deal? Historically, there couldn't be
any possible doubt that the Reverend Dodgson, writing under  the  name Lewis
Carroll, had created Alice in Wonderland and its sequel.
     But the main point, for  the  moment, was, to get the drink drunk. So I
said solemnly, "To avoid all  difficulties, factual or  semantic, Mr. Smith,
let's drink to the author of the Alice books."
     He  inclined  his head with solemnity  equal to my  own, then tilted it
back and downed his drink. I was a little late in downing mine because of my
surprise at,  and  admiration  for,  his manner of drinking. I'd  never seen
anything quite  like it. The glass had stopped, quite suddenly, a good three
inches from his mouth. And the whisky had kept on going and not a drop of it
had been lost. I've seen people toss down a shot before, but never with such
casual precision and from so great a distance.
     I  drank my own in a  more prosaic manner,  but I resolved. to try  his
system sometime ­ in private and with a towel or handkerchief ready at hand.
     I refilled  our glasses and  then  said, "And now what? Do we argue the
identity of Lewis Carroll?"
     "Let's start back of that," he said. "In fact, let's put it aside until
I  can offer you definite proof of  what we believe ­ rather, of what we are
certain."
     "We?"
     "The  Vorpal Blades.  An  organization.  A very  small organization,  I
should add."
     "Of admirers of Lewis Carroll?"
     He leaned forward. "Yes,  of course. Any man who is  both  literate and
imaginative  is an admirer of Lewis Carroll. But ­ much more than  that.  We
have a secret. A quite esoteric one."
     "Concerning the identity  of Lewis Carroll? You mean that you believe ­
the  way  some  people  believe,  or used  to  believe, that  the  plays  of
Shakespeare were written by Francis Bacon ­ that someone  other than Charles
Lutwidge Dodgson wrote the Alice books?"
     I hoped he'd say no.
     He said, "No. We believe that Dodgson himself ­ How much do you know of
him, Doctor?"
     "He was born in eighteen thirty-two," I said, "and died just before the
turn of the century ­ in either ninety-eight  or nine. He was an Oxford don,
a mathematician. He wrote several treatises on  mathematics. He liked ­  and
created ­ acrostics and other puzzles and problems. He never married  but he
was  very fond of children, and his best writing was done for them. At least
he thought he was writing only for  children; actually, Alice in  Wonderland
and Alice  Through  the Looking-Glass,  while having  plenty of  appeal  for
children, are adult literature, and great literature. Shall I go on?"
     "By all means."
     "He was also capable of ­ and perpetrated ­ some  almost incredibly bad
writing. There  ought to  be  a law  against the printing of volumes  of The
Complete Works  of  Lewis Carroll.  He should  be remembered  for the  great
things he  wrote,  and the  bad ones interred with his bones.  Although I'll
admit that even the bad things have  occasional touches of brilliance. There
are moments in Sylvie and  Bruno  that are almost worth reading  through the
thousands  of  dull words to  reach. And there are occasional  good lines or
stanzas in even the worst poems. Take the first three lines of The Palace of
Humbug:
          I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
          And each damp thing that creeps and crawls
          Went wobble-wobble on the walls.

     "Of  course  he should have stopped there instead  of adding fifteen or
twenty bad triads. But `Went wobble-wobble on the walls' is marvelous."
     He nodded. "Let's drink to it."
     We drank to it.
     He said, "Go on."
     "No," I said. "I'm just realizing that I could  easily go on for hours.
I  can quote every line of verse in the Alice books  and most of The Hunting
of the Snark. But,  I both hope and presume, you  didn't come here to listen
to me lecture on Lewis Carroll. My information about him is fairly thorough,
but quite orthodox. I judge that yours isn't, and I want to hear it."
     I refilled our glasses.
     He nodded  slowly:  "Quite right,  Doctor.  My  ­  I should  say  our ­
information is extremely unorthodox. I think you have the background and the
type  of mind to understand  it, and to believe it when you have seen proof.
To a more ordinary mind, it would seem sheer fantasy."
     It was getting better by the minute. I said, "Don't stop now."
     "Very well. But before I go any farther, I must warn you, of something,
Doctor.  It is also  very dangerous  information  to have.  I do  not  speak
lightly  or  metaphorically. I mean  that  there is serious  danger,  deadly
danger."
     "That," I said, "is wonderful."
     He  sat there and toyed with his  glass ­ still with the third drink in
it ­ and didn't look at me. I studied his face.  It was an interesting face.
That long,  thin, pointed nose, so  incongruous  to  his build that it might
have been false ­ a veritable Cyrano de Bergerac of a  nose. And now that he
was in the light, I could see that there were deep laughter-lines around his
generous mouth. At first  I would have guessed his  age at thirty instead of
the forty he claimed to be; now, studying his face closely, I could see that
he had not exaggerated his age. One would have to laugh a  long time to etch
lines like those.
     But he wasn't laughing now. He  looked deadly  serious,  and he  didn't
look crazy. But he said something that sounded crazy.
     He said, "Doctor, has it ever occurred to you that ­ that the fantasies
of Lewis Carroll are not fantasies at all?"
     "Do you mean," I  asked, "in the sense that fantasy is often nearer  to
fundamental truth than is would-be realistic fiction?"
     "No.  I mean that they are literally, actually  true. That they are not
fiction at all, that they are reporting."
     I stared at him. "If you  think that, then who ­ or what ­ do you think
Lewis Carroll was?"
     He smiled faintly, but it wasn't a smile of amusement.
     He  said, "If you really want to know, and aren't  afraid, you can find
out tonight. There is a meeting, near here. Will you come?"
     "May I be frank?"
     "Certainly."
     I said, "I think it's crazy, but try to keep me away."
     "In spite of the fact that there is danger?"
     Sure, I was going, danger or  no. But maybe I could use  his insistence
on  warning me to pry something more out of him. So I  said, "May I ask what
kind of danger?"
     He seemed to hesitate a moment and then he took out his wallet and from
an inner  compartment took a newspaper clipping, a short one of  about three
paragraphs. He handed it to me.
     I read it, and I  recognized the type and the setup; it was  a clipping
from the Bridgeport Argus. And I  remembered now having read it, a couple of
weeks  ago. I'd considered  clipping  it as an  exchange  item, and then had
decided not to, despite the fact that the heading had caught my interest. It
read:

              MAN SLAIN BY UNKNOWN BEAST

     The facts were few  and simple. A man named Colin Hawks, living outside
Bridgeport, a recluse, had been found dead  along  a path through the woods.
The  man's throat had  been  torn,  and  police opinion was that a large and
vicious  dog  had  attacked  him. But the reporter  who  wrote  the  article
suggested the possibility  that a  wolf ­ or  even a panther or a  leopard ­
escaped from a circus or zoo might have caused the wounds.
     I folded the clipping again and handed it back to Smith. It didn't mean
anything, of course. It's easy to  find  stories like that if one  looks for
them. A man named  Charles  Fort  found thousands of them and  put them into
four books he had written, books which were on my shelves.
     This particular  one was  less  mysterious  than  most. In  fact, there
wasn't any real mystery  at all;  undoubtedly some  vicious dog had done the
killing.
     Just the same something prickled at the back of my neck.
     It was the headline, really, not the article. It's  funny what the word
"unknown" and the thought  back  of it can do to you. If that story had been
headed "Man Killed by  Vicious Dog" ­  or by a lion or  a  crocodile or  any
other specified creature,  however  fierce and  dangerous, there'd have been
nothing frightening about it.
     But  an  "unknown beast"  ­  well, if  you've  got  the  same  kind  of
imagination I  have,  you  see what  I  mean.  And if you  haven't,  I can't
explain.
     I  looked at Yehudi Smith, just in time to see him toss down his whisky
­ again like  a conjuring trick. I  handed him  back  the  clipping and then
refilled our glasses.
     I said, "Interesting story. But where's the connection?"
     "Our last meeting was in  Bridgeport. That's all I can tell you.  About
that, I mean. You  asked  the nature of the danger;  that's why I showed you
that. And it's not too late for you to say no. It won't be, for that matter,
until we get there."
     "Get where?"
     "Only a few miles from  here. I have directions to guide me to a  house
on a road called the Dartown Pike. I have a car."
     I said, irrelevantly, "So have I, but the tires are flat. Two of them."
     I thought about the Dartown Pike. I said, "You wouldn't, by any chance,
be heading for the house known as the Wentworth place?"
     "That's the name, yes. You know of it?"
     Right then and there, if I'd been completely sober,  I'd have seen that
the whole thing was too good to be true. I'd have smelled fish. Or blood.
     I said, "We'll have to take candles or flashlights. That house has been
empty since  I was a kid. We used to  call it a haunted house. Would that be
why you chose it?"
     "Yes, of course."
     "And your group is meeting there tonight?"
     He  nodded.  "At  one  o-clock in the morning, to be exact. You're sure
you're not afraid?"
     God, yes, I was afraid. Who  wouldn't be, after the  build-up he'd just
handed me?
     So I grinned  at him and said, "Sure, I'm afraid. But just try to  keep
me away."
     Then I had an idea. If I was going to a haunted house at one o'clock in
the morning to hunt  Jabberwocks or try to invoke the ghost of Lewis Carroll
or some equally sensible thing, it wouldn't hurt  to have someone along whom
I already knew. And  if Al  Grainger dropped  in ­ I  tried  to  figure  out
whether or not Al would be interested.  He was a Carroll fan, all right, but
­ for the rest of it, I didn't know.
     I said, "One question, Mr. Smith. A  young friend of mine might drop in
soon for a  game of chess. How exclusive  is this deal? I mean, would it  be
all right if he came along, if he wants to?"
     "Do you think he's qualified?"
     "Depends on what the qualifications are," I said, "Offhand, I'd say you
have to be a Lewis Carroll fan and a little crazy. Or, come to think of  it,
are those one and the same qualification?"
     He laughed.  "They're not too far apart. But  tell me  something  about
your friend. You said young friend; how young?"
     "About twenty-three. Not  long  out of college. Good literary taste and
background, which  means he knows and likes Carroll. He can quote almost  as
much of it as I can.  Plays chess, if that's a qualification ­ and I'd guess
it is. Dodgson not only played chess but  based Through the Looking-Glass on
a chess game. His name, if that matters, is Al Grainger."
     "Would he want to come?"
     "Frankly," I admitted, "I haven't an idea on that angle."
     Smith said, "I hope he comes; if he's a Carroll enthusiast, I'd like to
meet him. But, if he comes, will you do me the favor of saying nothing about
­  what I've told you, at least until I've had  a chance to judge him a bit?
Frankly, it would be almost unprecedented if I  took the liberty of inviting
someone to  an important meeting  like tonight's  on my  own.  You're  being
invited because we know quite a bit about  you.  You were voted on  ­ and  I
might say that the vote to invite you was unanimous."
     I  remembered his familiarity with the two obscure things  about  Lewis
Carroll that I'd written, and I didn't doubt that he ­ or they, if he really
represented a group ­ did know something about me.
     He said, "But  ­  well, if  I  get a chance to  meet him and think he'd
really fit in, I  might take  a chance and ask him. Can you tell me anything
more about him? What does he do ­ for a living, I mean?"
     That  was  harder to answer. I said,  "Well,  he's writing plays. But I
don't think he makes  a living  at it; in fact, I don't know that  he's ever
sold any.  He's a bit of  a mystery to Carmel City. He's lived here  all his
life  ­ except  while he was  away  at college  ­ and nobody knows where his
money comes from. Has a swanky car and a place of his own ­ he  lived  there
with his mother until she died a few years ago ­ and seems to have plenty of
spending money, but nobody knows where it comes  from."  I grinned. "And  it
annoys the  hell out of Carmel City not to know.  You know how  small  towns
are."
     He nodded. "Wouldn't it  be a logical assumption that he  inherited the
money?"
     "From one point  of view,  yes.  But  it doesn't  seem too  likely. His
mother worked all her  life as a milliner, and without  owning her own shop.
The town, I remember, used to wonder  how she  managed to own  her own house
and send her son to college  on  what she earned. But she  couldn't possibly
have earned enough to have done both of those things and still have left him
enough money to have supported him in idleness ­  Well, maybe, writing plays
isn't idleness, but it isn't remunerative unless you sell them ­ for several
years."
     I shrugged. "But there's  probably  no mystery to it. She must have had
an income from investments her husband had made, and Al either inherited the
income or got the capital from which it came. He probably doesn't talk about
his business because he enjoys being mysterious."
     "Was his father wealthy?"
     "His father died before  he was born, and before Mrs. Grainger moved to
Carmel City. So nobody here knew his father. And  I guess that's  all I  can
tell you about Al, except that he can beat me at chess most of the time, and
that I hope you'll have a chance to meet him."
     Smith nodded. "If he comes, we'll see."
     He glanced at his empty glass and I  took the hint and filled it and my
own. Again I watched the incredible  manner of his  drinking it, fascinated.
I'd swear that, this time the glass came no closer than  six inches from his
lips. Definitely it  was a trick I'd have to learn myself. If  for no  other
reason than  that  I don't really like the taste of  whisky, much as I enjoy
the effects of it. With his way  of drinking, it didn't seem that he had the
slightest chance of tasting  the stuff. It was there, in the glass, and then
it was gone. His  Adam's apple didn't seem to work and if he  was talking at
the time he drank there was scarcely an interruption in what he was saying.
     The phone rang. I excused myself and answered it.
     "Doc," said Clyde Andrews' voice, "this is Clyde Andrews."
     "Fine,"  I  said,  "I suppose you realize  that  you sabotaged  my this
week's issue by canceling a story on my front page. What's  called  off this
time?"
     "I'm sorry about that, Doc,  if it really inconvenienced you,  but with
the sale called off, I thought  you wouldn't want to run the story and  have
people coming around to­"
     "Of course," I  interrupted him. I  was  impatient to  get back  to  my
conversation with  Yehudi Smith. "That's all  right,  Clyde. But what do you
want now?"
     "I want to know if you've decided whether  or not you want to  sell the
Clarion."
     For a second I was unreasonably angry. I said, "God damn it, Clyde, you
interrupt the only really interesting conversation I've had in  years to ask
me that,  when we've been talking about it  for months,  off and on? I don't
know. I do and I don't want to sell it."
     "Sorry for heckling you, Doc,  but I just got a special delivery letter
from my brother in Ohio.  He's got an offer  out West. Says he'd rather come
to Carmel City on the proposition I'd made him ­ contingent on your deciding
to sell me the  Clarion, of course. But he's  got to accept  the other offer
right away  ­ within a day or so, that  is ­  if  he's going to accept it at
all.
     "So, you see that makes it different, Doc. I've got to know right away.
Not tonight,  necessarily;  it isn't in that much of a rush. But I've got to
know by tomorrow sometime, so I thought I'd call you right away so you could
start coming to a decision."
     I  nodded and  then realized that he  couldn't see  me nod so  I  said,
"Sure, Clyde, I  get it. I'm sorry for popping off. All right,  I'll make up
my mind by tomorrow morning. I'll let you know one way or the other by then.
Okay?"
     "Fine," he said. "That'll be plenty of time. Oh, by the way, there's an
item of news  for you if it's not too late to put it in. Or have you already
got it?"
     "Got what?"
     "About the escaped  maniac. I don't know the details,  but a friend  of
mine just drove over from  Neilsville and he says they're stopping cars  and
watching the roads  both  sides of the county  asylum. Guess you can get the
details if you call the asylum."
     "Thanks, Clyde," I said.
     I put the phone back down in its cradle and looked  at  Yehudi Smith. I
wondered  why,  with all  the fantastic things  he'd said,  I hadn't already
guessed.

        CHAPTER FOUR

          "But wait a bit," the Oyster cried,
                 "Before we have our chat;
          For some of us are out of breath,
                 And all of us are fat!"

     I felt a hell of a  letdown. Oh, not that  I'd really quite believed in
the Vorpal Blades  or that we were going to a  haunted house to conjure up a
Jabberwock or whatever we'd have done there.
     But it had been exciting  even to think about it, just  as one can  get
excited over a chess game even though he knows that the  kings and queens on
the board aren't real entities and that when a bishop slays a knight no real
blood  is shed. I guess it had been that  kind  of excitement, the vicarious
kind,  that I'd felt about the  things Yehudi Smith had promised. Or maybe a
better comparison would be that it had been like reading an exciting fiction
story that one knows isn't true but which  one can believe in for as long as
the story lasts.
     Now  there wasn't even  that.  Across  from  me,  I realized  with keen
disappointment, was only a man who'd escaped from an  insane asylum. Yehudi,
the little man who wasn't there ­ mentally.
     The funny part of it  was that I  still liked him. He was a nice little
guy and he'd given me  a fascinating half  hour, up to now. I hated the fact
that  I'd have  to turn him over to the  asylum guards and have him put back
where he came from.
     Well, I  thought, at  least it would give me a news story  to fill that
nine  inch hole in the front page of the  Clarion. He said, "I hope the call
wasn't anything that will spoil our plans, Doctor."
     It had spoiled  more than that, but of course I couldn't  tell  him so,
any more  than I could have told  Clyde  Andrews over the  phone, in Smith's
presence, to call the asylum and tell them  to drop  around  to my  house if
they wanted to collect their bolted nut.
     So I shook my head while I figured out an angle to get out of the house
and to put in the phone call from next door.
     I stood up. Perhaps I  was a bit more drunk than I'd thought, for I had
to catch my balance. I remember how crystal clear my mind seemed to be ­ but
of  course nothing seems more crystal clear than a prism that makes you  see
around corners.
     I said,  "No, the  call  won't  interrupt  our plans except  for a  few
minutes. I've got to  give a message  to the man  next door. Excuse me ­ and
help yourself to the whisky."
     I went through the kitchen and outside into the black night. There were
lights in  the  houses  on  either side  of me, and I wondered  which of  my
neighbors to bother. And then I wondered why I was in such a hurry to bother
either of them.
     Surely,  I  thought, the man who  called  himself Yehudi  Smith  wasn't
dangerous. And, crazy  or not,  he was  the most interesting  man I'd met in
years. He did seem to know  something about Lewis Carroll. And  I remembered
again that he'd known about my obscure brochure and equally obscure magazine
article. How?
     So, come to think of it, why shouldn't I stall  making that  phone call
for another hour or so, and relax and enjoy myself? Now  that I was over the
first disappointment of learning that  he was insane, why  wouldn't  I  find
talk about  that  delusion  of his almost as interesting  as though  it  was
factual.
     Interesting in a different way, of course. Often I had thought I'd like
the chance to talk to a paranoiac about his delusions ­ neither arguing with
him nor agreeing with him, just trying to find out what made him tick.
     And the evening  was still a pup; it couldn't  be later than about half
past eight so my neighbors would be up at least another hour or two.
     So why was I in a hurry to make that call? I wasn't.
     Of course I had to kill  enough  time outside to  make it reasonable to
believe that I'd actually gone next door and delivered a message, so I stood
there at the bottom of my  back steps, looking up at the black  velvet  sky,
star-studded but moonless, and wondering  what was behind it and why  madmen
were mad. And how strange it would  be if one of  them was right and all the
rest of us were crazy instead.
     Then I  went back inside and  I was cowardly enough to  do a ridiculous
thing. From the  kitchen I  went  into my bedroom and to  my  closet.  In  a
shoebox on the top shelf was a short-barreled thirty-eight caliber revolver,
one  of  the compact, lightweight models  they call  a Banker's Special. I'd
never shot at anything with it and hoped that I never would ­ and  I  wasn't
sure I could  hit anything smaller than an elephant or farther  away  than a
couple of  yards. I  don't even  like guns.  I  hadn't  bought this one;  an
acquaintance had once borrowed twenty bucks from me and  had insisted on  my
taking the pistol  for security. And later he'd wanted another five and said
if  I gave  it to him I could keep the gun.  I  hadn't wanted  it, but  he'd
needed the five pretty badly and I'd given it to him.
     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 marvelous
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 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 meting."
     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 yon 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 Mathematica?"
     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 trumious, 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  the recent  experiments  with the  subconscious made  by Liebnitz  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