ould see the door open and Captain Evans of the state police was coming in. He left the door open and Mrs. Griswald was wandering through it. Dr. Buchan shook hands quickly. He said, "Thanks a lot, then. And on my behalf as well as Mrs. Griswald's. It doesn't do an institution like ours any good to have publicity on escapes, of course. Not that I'd have asked you, myself, to suppress the story on that account. But since our patient had a really good, and legitimate, reason to ask you not to­" He happened to turn and see that his patient was already herding down the stairs. He hurried after her before she could again become confused and wander into limbo. Another story gone, I thought, as I shook hands with Evans. Those cookies had been expensive ­ if worth it. I thought, suddenly, of all the stories I'd had to kill tonight. The bank burglary ­ for good and obvious reasons. Carl's accident ­ because it had been trivial after all, and writing it up would have hurt his reputation as a lawyer. The accident in the Roman candle department, because it might have lost Mrs. Carr's husband a needed job. Ralph Bonney's divorce ­ well, not killed, exactly, but played down from a long, important story to a short news item. Mrs. Griswald's escape from the asylum -because she'd given me cookies once and because it would have worried her daughter. Even the auction sale at the Baptist Church ­ for the most obvious reason of all, that it had been called off. But what the hell did any of that matter as long as I had one really big story left, the biggest of them all? And there wasn't any conceivable reason why I couldn't print that one. Captain Evans took the seat I pulled up for him by my desk and I sank back into the swivel chair and got a pencil ready for what he was going to tell me. "Thanks a hell of a lot for coming here, Cap. Now what's the score about what you got out of Masters?" He pushed his hat back on his head and frowned. He said, "I'm sorry, Doc. I'm going to have to ask you ­ on orders from the top ­ not to run the story at all." CHAPTER EIGHT He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought­ So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood a while in thought. I don't know what my face looked like. I know I dropped the pencil and that I had to clear my throat when what I started to say wouldn't come out the first time. The second time, it came out, if a bit querulously. "Cap, you're kidding me. You can't really mean it. The one big thing that's ever happened here ­ Is this a gag?" He shook his head. "Nope, Doc. It's the McCoy. It comes right from the chief himself. I can't make you hold back the story, naturally. But I want to tell you the facts and I hope you'll decide to." I breathed a little more freely when he said he couldn't make me hold it back. It wouldn't hurt me to listen politely. "Go ahead," I told him. "It had better be good." He leaned forward. "It's this way, Doc. This Gene Kelley mob is nasty stuff. Real killers. I guess you found that out tonight about two of them. And, by the way, you did a damn good job." "Smiley Wheeler did. I just went along for the ride." It was a weak joke, but he laughed at it. Probably just to please me. He said, "If we can keep it quiet for about forty more hours ­ till Saturday afternoon ­ we can break up the gang completely. Including the big shot himself, Gene Kelley." "Why Saturday afternoon?" "Masters and Kramer had a date for Saturday afternoon with Kelley and the rest of the mob. At a hotel in Gary, Indiana. They've been separated since their last job, and they'd arranged that date to get together for the next one, see? When Kelley and the others show up for that date, well, we've got 'em. "That is, unless the news gets out that Masters and Kramer are already in the bag. Then Kelley and company won't show up." "Why can't we twist one little thing in the story," I suggested. "Just say Masters and Kramer were both dead?" He shook his head. "The other boys wouldn't take any chances. Nope, if they know our two boys were either caught or killed, they'll stay away from Gary in droves." I sighed. I knew it wouldn't work, but I said hopefully, "Maybe none of the gang members reads the Carmel City Clarion." "You know better than that, Doc. Other papers all over the country would pick it up. The Saturday morning papers would have it, even if the Friday evening editions didn't get it." He had a sudden thought and looked startled. "Say, Doc, who represents the news services here? Have they got the story yet?" "I represent them," I said sadly. "But I hadn't wired either of them on this yet. I was going to wait till my own paper was out. They'd have fired me, sure, and it would have cost me a few bucks a year, but for once I was going to have a big story break in my own paper before I threw it to the wolves." He said, "I'm sorry, Doc. I guess this is a big thing for you. But now, at least, you won't lose out with the news services. You can say you held the story at the request of the police ­ until, say, midafternoon Saturday. Then send it in to them and get credit for it." "Cash, you mean. I want the credit of breaking it in the Clarion, damn it." "But will you hold it up, Doc? Listen, those boys are killers. You'll be saving lives if you let us get them. Do you know anything about Gene Kelley?" I nodded; I'd been reading about him in the magazine Smiley had lent me. He wasn't a very nice man. Evans was right in saying it would cost human lives to print that story if the story kept Kelley out of the trap he'd otherwise walk into. I looked up and Pete was standing there listening. I tried to judge from his face what he thought about it, but he was keeping it carefully blank. I scowled at him and said; "Shut off that God damn Linotype. I can't hear myself think." He went and shut it off. Evans looked relieved. He said, "Thanks, Doc." For no reason at all ­ the evening was moderately cool ­ he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. "What a break it was that Masters hated the rest of the mob enough to turn them in for us when he figured he was done himself. And that you're willing to hold the story till we get 'em. Well, you can use it next week." There wasn't any use telling him that I could also print a chapter or two of Caesar's Gallic Wars next week; it was ancient history too. So I didn't say anything and after a few more seconds he got up and left. It seemed awfully quiet without the Linotype running. Pete came over. He said, "Well, Doc, we still got that nine-inch hole in the front page that you said you'd find some way of filling in the morning. Maybe while we're here anyway­" I ran my fingers through what is left of my hair. "Run it as is, Pete," I told him, "except with a black border around it." "Look, Doc, I can pull forward that story on the Ladies' Aid election and if I reset it narrow measure to fit a box, it'll maybe run long enough." I couldn't think of anything better. I said, "Sure, Pete," but when he started toward the Linotype to turn it back on, I said, "But not tonight, Pete. In the morning. It's half past eleven. Get home to the wife and kiddies." "But I'd just as soon­" "Get the hell out of here," I said, "before I bust out blubbering. I don't want anybody to see me do it." He grinned to show he knew I didn't really mean it and said, "Sure, Doc. I'll get down a little early, then. Seven- thirty. You going to stick around a while now?" "A few minutes," I said. " `Night, Pete. Thanks for coming down, and everything." I kept sitting at my desk for a minute after he'd left, and I didn't blubber, but I wanted to all right. It didn't seem possible that so much had happened and that I couldn't get even a stick of type out of any of it. For a few minutes I wished that I was a son-of-a-bitch instead of a sucker so I could go ahead and print it all. Even if it let the Kelley mob get away to do more killing, lost my housekeeper's husband her job, made a fool out of Carl Trenholm, worried Mrs. Griswald's daughter and ruined Harvey Andrews' reputation by telling how he'd been caught robbing his father's bank while running away from home. And while I was at it, I might as well smear Ralph Bonney by listing the untrue charges brought against him in the divorce case and write a humorous little item about the leader of the local antisaloon faction setting up a round for the boys at Smiley's. And even run the rummage sale story on the ground that the cancellation had been too late and let a few dozen citizens make a trip in vain. It would be wonderful to be a son-of-a-bitch instead of a sucker so I could do all that. Sons-of-bitches must have more fun than people. And definitely they get out bigger and better newspapers. I wandered over and looked at the front page lying there on the stone, and for something to do I dropped the filler items back in page four. The ones we'd taken out to let us move back the present junk from page one to make room for all the big stories we were going to break. I locked up the page again. It was quiet as hell. I wondered why I didn't get out of there and have another drink ­ or a hell of a lot of drinks ­ at Smiley's. I wondered why I didn't want to get stinking drunk. But I didn't. I wandered over to the window and stood staring down at the quiet street. They hadn't rolled the sidewalks in yet ­ closing time for taverns is midnight in Carmel City ­ but nobody was walking on them. A car went by and I recognized it as Ralph Bonney's car, heading probably, to pick up Miles Harrison and take him over to Neilsville to pick up the night side pay roll for the fireworks plant, including the Roman candle department. To which I had briefly­ I decided I'd smoke one more cigarette and then go home. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the cigarette package and something fluttered to the floor ­ a card. I picked it up and stared at it. It read. Yehudi Smith Suddenly the dead night was alive again. I'd written off Yehudi Smith when I'd heard that the escaped lunatic had been captured. I'd written him off so completely that I'd forgotten to write him on again when Dr. Buchan had brought in Mrs. Griswald to talk to me. Yehudi Smith wasn't the escaped lunatic. Suddenly I wanted to jump up into the air and click my heels together, I wanted to run, I wanted to yell. Then I remembered how long I'd been gone and I almost ran to the telephone on my desk. I gave my own number and my heart sank as it rang once, twice, thrice ­ and then after the fourth ring Smith's voice answered with a sleepy-sounding hello. I said, "This is Doc Stoeger, Mr. Smith. I'm starting home now. Want to apologize for having kept you waiting so long. Some things happened:" "Good. I mean, good that you're coming now. What time is it?" "About half past eleven. I'll be there in fifteen minutes. And thanks for waiting." I hurried into my coat and grabbed my hat. I almost forgot to turn out the lights and lock the door. Smiley's first, but not for a drink; I picked up a bottle to take along. The one at my house had been getting low when I left; only God knew what had happened to it since. Leaving Smiley's with the bottle, I swore again at the fact that my car was laid up with those flat tires. Not that it's a long walk or that I mind walking in the slightest where I'm not in a hurry, but again I was in a hurry. Last time it had been because I thought Carl Trenholm was dead or seriously injured ­ and to get away from Yehudi Smith. This time it was to get back to him. Past the post office, now dark. The bank, this time with the night light on and no evidence of crime in sight. Past the spot where the Buick had pulled up and a voice had asked someone named Buster what town this was. There wasn't a car in sight now, friend or foe. Past everything that I'd passed so many thousand times, and off the main street into the friendly, pleasant side streets no longer infested with homicidal maniacs or other horrors. I didn't look behind me once, all the way home. I felt so good I felt silly. Best of all I was cold-sobered by everything that had been happening, and I was ready and in the mood for a few more drinks and some more screwy conversation. I still didn't completely believe he'd be there, but he was. And he looked so familiar sitting there that I wondered why I'd doubted. I said "Hi," and shied my hat at the hatrack and it hit a peg and stayed there. That was the first time that had happened in months so I knew from that that I was lucky tonight. As if I needed that to prove it. I took the seat across from him, just as we'd been sitting before, and I poured us each a drink ­ still from the first bottle; apparently he hadn't drunk much while I'd been gone ­ and started to renew the apologies I'd made over the phone for having been away so long. He waved the apologies away with a casual gesture. "It doesn't matter at all, as long as you got back." He smiled. "I had a nice nap." We touched glasses and drank. He said, "Let's see; just where were we when you got that phone call ­ oh, which reminds me; you said it was about an accident to a friend. May I ask­?" "He's all right," I told him. "Nothing serious. It was ­ well, other things kept coming up that kept me away so long." "Good. Then ­ oh, yes, I remember. When the phone rang we were talking about the Roman candle department. We'd just drunk to it." I remembered and nodded. "That's where I've been, ever since I left here." "Seriously?" "Quite," I said. "They fired me half an hour ago, but it was fun while it lasted. Wait; no, it wasn't. I won't lie to you. At the time it was happening, it was pretty horrible." His eyebrows went up a little. "Then you're serious. Something did happen. You know, Doctor­" "Doc," I said. "You know, Doc, you're different. Changed, somehow." I refilled our glasses, still from the first bottle, although that round killed it. "It's temporary, I think. Yes, Mr. Smith, I had­" "Smitty," he said. "Yes, Smitty, I had a rather bad experience, while it lasted, and I'm still in reaction from it, but the reaction won't last. I'm still jittery from it and I may be even more jittery tomorrow when I realize what a narrow squeak I had, but I'm still the same guy. Doc Stoeger, fifty-three, genial failure both as a hero and as an editor." Silence for a few seconds and then he said, "Doc, I like you. I think you're a swell guy. I don't know what happened, and I don't suppose you want to tell me, but I'll bet you one thing." "Thanks, Smitty," I said. "And it's not that I don't want to tell you what happened this evening; it's just that I don't want to talk about it at all, right now. Some other time I'll be glad to tell you, but right now I want to stop thinking about it ­ and start thinking about Lewis Carroll again. What's the one thing you want to bet me, though?" "That you're not a failure as an editor. As a hero, maybe ­ damned few of us are heroes. But I'll bet you said you were a failure as an editor because you killed a story ­ for some good reason. And not a selfish one. Would I win that bet?" "You would," I said. I didn't tell him he'd have won it five times over. "But I'm not proud of myself ­ the only thing is that I'd have been ashamed of myself otherwise. This way, I'm going to be ashamed of my paper. All newspapermen, Smitty, should be sons-of-bitches." "Why?" And before I could answer he tossed off the drink I'd just poured him -tossed it off as before with that fascinating trick of the glass never really nearing his lips ­ and answered it himself with a more unanswerable question. "So that newspapers will be more entertaining? ­ at the expense of human lives they might wreck or even destroy?" The mood was gone, or the mood was wrong. I shook myself a little. I said, "Let's get back to Jabberwocks. And ­ My God, every time I get to talking seriously it sobers me up. I had such a nice edge early in the evening. Let's have another ­ and to Lewis Carroll again. And then go back to that gobbledegook you were giving me, the stuff that sounded like Einstein on a binge." He grinned: "Wonderful word, gobbledegook. Carroll might have originated it, except that there was less of it in his time. All right, Doc, to Carroll." And again his glass was empty. It was a trick I'd have to learn, no matter how much time it took or how much whisky it wasted. But, the first time, in private. I drank mine and it was the third since I'd come home, fifteen minutes ago; I was beginning to feel them. Not that I feel three drinks, starting from scratch, but these didn't start from scratch. I'd had quite a few early in the evening, before the fresh air of my little ride with Bat and George had cleared my head, and several at Smiley's thereafter. They were hitting me now. Not hard, but definitely. There was a mistiness about the room. We were talking about Carroll and mathematics again, or Yehudi Smith was talking, anyway, and I was trying to concentrate on what he was saying. He seemed, for a moment, to blur a little and to advance and recede as I looked at him. And his voice was a blur, too, a blur of sines and cosines. I shook my head to clear it a bit and decided I'd better lay off the bottle for a while. Then I realized that what he'd just said was a question and I begged his pardon. "The clock on your mantel," he repeated, "is it correct?" I managed to focus my eyes on it. Ten minutes to twelve. I said, "Yes, it's right. It's still early. You're not thinking of going, surely. I'm a little woozy at the moment, but­" "How long will it take us to get there from here? I have directions how to reach it, of course, but you could probably estimate the time it will take us better than I can." For a second I stared at him blankly, wondering what he was talking about. Then I remembered. We were going to a haunted house to hunt a Jabberwock ­ or something. CHAPTER NINE "First, the fish must be caught." That is easy: a baby, I think, could have caught it. "Next, the fish must be bought." That is easy: a penny, I think, would have bought it. Maybe you won't believe that I could have forgotten that, but I had. So much had happened between the time I'd left my house and the time I returned that it's a wonder, I suppose, that I still remembered my own name, and Yehudi's. Ten minutes before twelve and we were due there, he'd said, at one o'clock. "You have a car?" I asked him. He nodded. "A few doors down. I got out at the wrong place to look for street numbers, but I was close enough that I didn't bother moving the car." "Then somewhere between twenty and thirty minutes will get us there," I told him. "Fine, Doctor. Then we've got forty minutes yet if we allow half an hour." The woozy spell was passing fast, but I refilled his glass this time without refilling my own. I wanted to sober up a bit ­ not completely, because if I were sober I might get sensible and decide not to go, and I didn't want to decide not to go. Smith had settled back in his chair, not looking at me, so I looked at him, and wondered what I was doing even to listen to the absurd story he'd told me about Vorpal Blades and the old Wentworth house. He wasn't the escaped lunatic, but that didn't mean he wasn't a screwball, and that I wasn't a worse one. What the hell were we going to do out there? Try to fish a Bandersnatch out of limbo? Or break through a looking-glass or dive down a rabbit hole to go hunting one in its native element? Well, as long as I didn't get sober enough to spoil things, it was wonderful. Crazy or not, I was having a marvelous time. The best time I'd had since the Halloween almost forty years ago when we­ But never mind that; it's a sign of old age to reminisce about the things you did when you were young, and I'm not old yet. Not very, anyway. Yes, my eyes were focusing all right again now, but the mistiness in the room was still there, and I realized that it wasn't mistiness but smoke. I looked across at the window and wondered if I wanted it open badly enough to get up and open it. The window. A black square framing the night. The midnight. Where were you at midnight? With Yehudi. Who's Yehudi? A little man who wasn't there. But I have the card. Let's see it, Doc. Hmmm. What's your bug number? My bug number? And the black rook takes the white knight. The smoke was definitely too thick, and so was I. I walked to the window and threw up the bottom sash. The lights behind me made it a mirror. There was my reflection. An insignificant little man with graying hair, and glasses, and a necktie badly askew. He grinned at me and straightened his necktie. I remembered the verse from Carroll that Al Grainger had quoted at me early in the evening: "You are old, Father William," the young man said "And your hair has become very white And yet you incessantly stand on your head. Do you think, at your age, it is right?" And that made me think of Al Grainger. I wondered if there was still any chance of his showing up. I'd told him to come around any time up to midnight and it was that now. I wished now that he would come. Not for chess, as we'd planned, but so he could go along an our expedition. Not that I was exactly afraid, but ­ well, I wished that Al Grainger would show up. It occurred to me that he might have come or phoned and that Yehudi had failed to mention it. I asked him. He shook his head, "No, Doc. Nobody came and the only phone call was the one you yourself made just before you came home." So that was that, unless Al showed up in the next half hour or unless I phoned him. And I didn't want to do that. I'd been enough of a coward earlier in the evening. Just the same I felt a little hollow­ My God, I was hollow. I'd had a sandwich late in the afternoon, but that had been eight hours ago and I hadn't eaten anything since. No wonder the last couple of drinks had hit me. I suggested to Yehudi that we raid the icebox and he said it sounded like a wonderful idea to him. And it must have been, for it turned out that he was as hungry as I. Between us we killed a pound of boiled ham, most of a loaf of rye and a medium-sized jar of pickles. It was almost half past-twelve when we finished. There was just time for a stirrup cup, and we had one. With food in my stomach, it tasted much better and went down much more smoothly than the last one had. It tasted so good, in fact, that I decided to take the bottle ­ we'd started the second one by then ­ along with us. We might, after all, run into a blizzard. "Ready to go?" Smith asked. I decided I'd better put the window down. In its reflecting pane, over my shoulder I could see Yehudi Smith standing by the door waiting for me. The reflection was clear and sharp; it brought out the bland roundness of his face, the laughter-tracks around his mouth and eyes, the rotund absurdity of his body. And an impulse made me walk over and hold out my hand to him and shake his hand when he put it into mine rather wonderingly. We hadn't shaken hands when we'd introduced ourselves on the porch and something made me want to do it now. I don't mean that I'm clairvoyant. I'm not, or I'd never have gone. No, I don't know why I shook hands with him. Just an impulse, but one I'm very glad I followed. Just as I'm glad I'd given him food and drink instead of letting him go to his strange death sober or on an empty stomach. And I'm even gladder that I said, "Smitty, I like you." He looked pleased; but somehow embarrassed. He said, "Thanks, Doc," but for the first time his eyes didn't quite meet mine. We went out and walked up the quiet street to where he'd left his car, and got in. It's odd how clearly you remember some things and how vague others are. I recall that there was a push button radio on the dashboard and that the button for WBBM was pushed in, and I recall that the gear shift knob was brightly polished onyx. But I don't recall whether the car was a coupe or a sedan, and haven't the vaguest idea what make or color it was. I recall that the engine was quite noisy ­ my only clue as to whether it was an old car or a new one, that and the fact that the gear shift was on the floor and not on the steering wheel post. I remember that he drove well and carefully and talked little, probably because of the noisiness of the motor. I directed him, but I don't recall now, not that it matters, what route we took. I remember, though, that I didn't recognize the driveway of the old Wentworth place ­ the house itself was set quite far back from the road and you couldn't see it through the trees even in daylight ­ but a little farther on I recognized the farm that an aunt and uncle of mine had lived in many years ago and knew we'd passed our objective. He turned back, then, and this time I spotted the driveway and we turned in and followed the drive back among the trees to the house itself. We parked alongside it. "First ones here," Smith said in the sudden silence as he turned off the engine. I got out of the car and ­ I don't know why; or do I? ­ I took the bottle with me. It was so dark outside that I couldn't see the bottle in front of my eyes as I tilted it upward. Smith had turned out the headlights and was getting out of his side of the car. He had a flashlight in his hand and I could see again as he came around to my side of the car. I held out the bottle to him and said, "Want one?" and he said, "You read my mind, Doc," and took one. My eyes were getting a little used to the dark now and I could see the outlines of the house, and I thought about it. God, but the place must be old, I realized. I knew it well from the weeks in summer when, as a kid, I'd visited my aunt and uncle just down the road for a taste of farm life ­ as against the big city of Carmel City, Illinois. That had been over forty years ago and it had been old then, and untenanted. It had been lived in since, but for brief intervals. Why the few people who had tried to live there had left, I didn't know. They'd never complained ­ publicly, at least ­ of its being haunted. But none had ever stayed there for long. Perhaps it was merely the house itself; it really was a depressing place. A year or more ago the Clarion had carried an ad for the rental of it ­ and at a very reasonable price ­ but no one had taken it. I thought of Johnny Haskins, who lived on the farm between my uncle's place and this one. He and I had explored the place several times together, in daylight. Johnny was dead now. He'd been killed in France in 1918, near the end of the first world war. In daytime, I hope, for Johnny had always been afraid of the dark ­ just as I was afraid of heights and as Al Grainger was afraid of fire and as everyone is afraid of something or other. Johnny had been afraid of the old Wentworth place, too ­ even more afraid than I was, although he was several years older than I. He'd believed in ghosts, a little; at least he'd been afraid of them, although not as afraid as he was of the dark. And I'd picked up a little of that fear from him and I'd kept it for quite a few years after I grew up. But not any more. The older you get the less afraid of ghosts you are ­ whether you believe in them or not. By the time you pass the fifty mark you've known so many people who are now dead that ghosts, if there are any such, aren't all strangers. Some of your best friends are ghosts; why should you be afraid of them? And it's not too many years before you'll be on the other side of the fence yourself. No, I wasn't afraid of ghosts or the dark or of the haunted house, but I was afraid of something. I wasn't afraid of Yehudi Smith, I liked him too well to be afraid of him. Undoubtedly, I was a fool to come here with him, knowing nothing at all about him. Yet I would have bet money at long odds that he wasn't dangerous. A crackpot, maybe, but not a dangerous one. Smith opened the car door again and said, "I just remembered I brought candles; they told me the electricity wouldn't be on. And there's another flashlight in here, if you want one, Doc." Sure I wanted one. I felt a little better, a little less afraid of whatever I was afraid of once I had a flashlight of my own and was in no sudden danger of being alone in darkness. I ran the beam of the flashlight up on the porch, and the house was just as I remembered it. It had been lived in just often enough for it to have been kept in repair, or at least in fairly good shape. Yehudi Smith said, "Come on, Doc. We might as well wait inside," and led the way up the porch steps. They creaked as we walked up them but they were solid. The front door wasn't locked. Smith must have known that it wouldn't be, from the confident way he opened it. We went in and he closed the door behind us. The beams of our flashlights danced ahead of us down the long dimness of the hallway. I noticed with surprise that the place was carpeted and furnished; it had been empty and bare at the time I'd explored it as a kid. The most recent tenant or owner who had lived here, for whatever reason he had moved away, had left the place furnished, possibly hoping to rent or sell it that way. We turned into a huge living room on the left of the hallway. There was furniture there, too, white-sheeted. Covered fairly recently, from the fact that the sheets were not too dirty nor was there a great amount of dust anywhere. Something made the back of my neck prickle. Maybe the ghostly appearance of that sheeted furniture. "Shall we wait here or go up in the attic?" Smith asked me. "The attic? Why the attic?" "Where the meeting is to be held." I was getting to like this less and less. Was there going to be a meeting? Were others really coming here tonight? It was five minutes of one o'clock already. I looked around and wondered whether. I'd rather stay here or go on up into the attic. Either alternative seemed crazy. Why didn't I go home? Why hadn't I stayed there? I didn't like that spectral white-covered furniture. I said, "Let's go on up into the attic. Might as well. I guess." Yes, I'd come this far. I might as well see it through the rest of the way. If there was a looking-glass up there in the attic and he wanted us to walk through it, I'd do that, too. Provided only that he went first. But I wanted another short nip out of that bottle I was carrying. I offered it to Smith and he shook his head so I went ahead and took the nip and it slightly warmed the coldness that was beginning to develop in my stomach. We went up the stairs to the second floor and we didn't meet any ghost or any snarks. We opened the door that led to the steps to the attic. We walked up them, Smith in the lead and I following, his plump posterior just ahead of me. My mind kept reminding me how ridiculous this was. How utterly insane it was for me to have come here at all. Where were you at one o'clock? In a haunted house. Doing what? Waiting for the Vorpal Blades to come. What are these Vorpal Blades? I don't know. What were they going to do? I don't know, I tell you. Maybe anything. Get with child a mandrake root. Hold court to see who stole the tarts or put the white knight back on his horse. Or maybe only read the minutes of the last meeting and the treasurer's report, by Benchley. Who's Benchley? WHO'S YEHUDI? Who's your little whoozis? Doc, I hate to say this, but­ I'm afraid that­ Very pitying, and oh, so sensibly true. You were drunk, weren't you, Doc? Well, not exactly, but­ Yehudi Smith's plump posterior ascending the attic stairs. A horse's posterior ascending after him. We reached the top and Smith asked me to hold my flashlight aimed at the post of the stair railing until he got a candle lighted there. He took a short, thick candle from his pocket ­ one that would balance easily by itself without a holder ­ and got it lighted. There were trunks and a few pieces of broken or worn-out furniture scattered about the sides of the attic; the middle of it was clear. The only window was at the back and it was boarded up from the inside. I looked around and, although the furniture here wasn't sheeted, I didn't like the place any better than I'd liked the big room downstairs. The light of one candle was far too dim to dispel the darkness, for one thing, in so large a space. And I didn't like the flickering shadows it cast. They might have been Jabberwocks or anything your imagination wanted to name them. There ought to be Rorschach tests with flickering shadows; what the mind would make out of them ought to be a lot more revealing than what the mind makes out of ink blots. Yes, I could have used more light, a lot more light. But Smith had put his flashlight in his pocket and I did the same with the other one; it was his, too, and I didn't have any excuse to wear out the battery keeping it on. And besides it didn't do much good in so large a room. "What do we do now?" I asked. "Wait for the others. What time is it, Doc?" I managed to read my watch by the light of the candle and told him that it was seven minutes after one. He nodded. "We'll give them until a quarter after. There's something that I must do then, at that exact time, whether they're here or not. Listen, isn't that a car?" I listened and I thought it was. Way up here in the attic, it wasn't clearly audible, but I thought I heard a car that could have been coming back from the main road to the house. I was pretty sure of it. I uncorked the bottle again and offered it. This time Smith took a drink, too. Mine was a fairly long pull. I was getting sober. I thought, and this was no time or place to get sober. It was silly enough to be here, drunk. I couldn't hear the car any more, and then suddenly ­ as though it had stopped and then started again ­ I could hear it, and louder than before. But the sound seemed to diminish, as though the car had driven back from the road, stopped a minute, and then headed for the main road again. The sound died out. The shadows flickered. There was no sound from downstairs. I shivered a little. Smith said, "Help me look for something, Doc. It's supposed to be here somewhere, ready. A small table." "A table?" "Yes, but don't touch it if you find it." He had his flashlight out again and was working his way along one wall of the attic, and I went the other way, glad of a chance to use my flashlight on those damned shadows. I wondered what the hell kind of a table I was looking for. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies, I thought. But there weren't any of my enemies here, I hoped. I found it first. It was in the back corner of the attic. It was a small, three-legged, glass-topped table, and there were two small objects lying on it. I started laughing. Ghosts and shadows or not. I laughed out loud. One of the objects on the table was a small key and the other was a small vial with a tag tied to it. The glass-topped table Alice had found in the hall at the bottom of the rabbit hole ­ the table on which had been the key that opened the little door to the garden and the bottle with the paper label that said "DRINK ME" tied around its neck. I'd seen that table often ­ in the John Tenniel illustration of it in Alice in Wonderland. Smith's footsteps coming up behind me made me stop laughing. After all, this ridiculous flummery might be something of a ritual to him. It was funny to me, but I liked him and I didn't want to hurt his feelings. He wasn't even smiling. He said, "Yes, that's it. Is it one- fifteen yet?" "Almost on the head." "Good." He picked up the key with one hand and the bottle with the other. "The others must be delayed, but we shall take the first step. This, keep." He dropped the key into my pocket. "And this, I drink." He took the cork out of the bottle. "I apologize for not being able to share it with you ­ as you have so generously shared your drinks with me ­ but you understand, until you have been fully initiated­" He seemed genuinely embarrassed, so I nodded understanding and forgiveness. I wasn't afraid any more, now. It had become too ridiculous for fear. What was that "drink me" bottle supposed to do? Oh, yes, he'd shrink in size until he was only a few inches high ­ and then he'd have to find and use a little box labeled ­ "EAT ME" and eat the cake inside and he'd suddenly grow so big that­ He lifted the bottle and said, "To Lewis Carroll." Since that was the toast, I said, "Wait!" and got the cork quickly out of the bottle of whisky I was still carrying, and raised it, too. There wasn't any reason why I couldn't and shouldn't get in on that toast as long as my lips, as a neophyte's, didn't defile whatever sacred elixir the "drink me" bottle held. He clinked the little bottle lightly against the big one I held, and tossed it off ­ I could see from the corner of my eye as I tilted my bottle ­ in that strange conjuring trick again, the bottle stopping inches away from his lips and the drink keeping on going without the loss of a drop. I was putting the cork into the whisky bottle when Yehudi Smith died. He dropped the bottle labeled "DRINK ME" and started to clutch at his throat, but he died, I think, even before the bottle hit the floor. His face was hideously contorted with pain, but the pain couldn't have lasted over a fraction of a second. His eyes, still open, went suddenly blank, utterly blank. And the thud of his fall shook the floor under my feet, seemed to shake the whole house. CHAPTER TEN And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! I think I must have done nothing but stand there and jitter for seconds. Finally I was able to move. I'd seen his face and I'd seen and heard him fall; I didn't have the slightest doubt that he was dead. But I had to be sure. I got down on my knees and groped my hand inside his coat and shirt, hunting for a heartbeat. There wasn't any. I made even surer. The flashlight he'd given me had a round flat lens; I held it over his mouth and in front of his nostrils for a while and there was no slightest trace of moisture. The small empty bottle from which he'd drunk was of fairly heavy glass. It hadn't broken when he'd dropped it, and the tag tied around its neck had kept it from rolling far. I didn't touch it, but I got on my hands and knees and sniffed at the open end. The smell was the smell of good whisky, nothing else that I could detect. No odor of bitter almonds, but if what had been in that whisky hadn't been prussic acid, it had been some corrosive poison just about as strong. Or could it have been prussic, and would the smell of whisky have blanketed the bitter almond smell? I didn't know. I stood up again and f