A Question Of Time by Fred Saberhagen (best electronic book reader TXT) 📗

door to say to Joe: “Mr. Keogh, I have been given to understand that you have—some considerable experience investigating matters that lie beyond—shall we say, beyond the normal?”

      Joe, who approved of getting right down to business, looked at her attentively. “Who gave you to understand that, ma’am?”

      “Someone you have helped. Does it matter?”

      “Maybe not. To answer your question, yes, in the course of business, over the last few years, I have been asked to look at some peculiar things. I’m convinced that not everyone who reports an experience beyond the normal is a crackpot. Because I’d have to count myself as crazy if I said that.”

      The old lady considered him for some time. Evidently she saw something comforting. “I am reassured, Mr. Keogh. Please, sit down.”

      They both took chairs. Then Joe said: “Let’s get back to a moment ago, when you say you heard young Cathy’s voice. Did it just seem to come out of the air, or what?”

      Aunt Sarah’s smile was almost sheepish. “I might possibly have been mistaken about her voice.”

      “Oh?”

      “Mr. Keogh, I shall pay you the compliment of speaking openly. The point I do want to make is that I am sure she is near to us as we speak. Very well, I heard no voice. Yet I feel I must convince you that Cathy is somewhere near, though not accessible to any ordinary search.”

      “Where is she, then?”

      “That is a long story. I will tell it, but the telling will take time. Can you, for the time being, accept as a fact that she is near?”

      Joe thought, then answered carefully. “All right, I can accept, at least provisionally, that you have reason to think she is somewhere nearby. Is she being held against her will, do you think?”

      Old Sarah nodded solemnly. “I fear she may be. I want her found, and brought back to me safely. The police had no chance of even finding her, let alone—enabling her to return. I would like to think that your chances are much better.”

      “Let’s hope so. Cathy’s father seems to have less confidence in me than you do.”

      The old lady sighed faintly. “My nephew is fond, in his way, of his adopted daughter. And he is really frightened lest harm should come to her. But—I fear that Gerald is currently even more afraid of other things.”

      “Other things such as what?”

      “Mr. Keogh, I fear we are digressing.” Old Sarah paused, ruminating. Then she asked: “What do you know of my late husband?”

      Joe took his time, then spoke carefully. “Did you say ‘late,’ Mrs. Tyrrell?”

      The old lady, with wariness and hope blended in her expression, had already been gazing almost steadily at Joe’s face. But now the scrutiny became even more intense. The silence in the room stretched out. Only the voice of wind sounded, whining in the fireplace, and around some exterior angle of the rough log walls.

      At last the eyes of the old woman gleamed. “Then you do know. You understand.”

      He nodded slightly. “I know of the nosferatu. Yes. And I understand a little of their ways. And that your husband is still very much alive, as one of them.”

      The keen eyes closed, briefly. “Thank God,” the old woman whispered. “Thank God, for sending me someone I can talk to in this matter. This matter of the undead.” Sarah’s eyes opened. “There has been almost no one to talk to, on this subject, for more than fifty years.”

      Joe said, almost lightly: “Sometimes they find it amusing, when you call them that. Undead.” Wind whined again, making him glance at the windows. “The sun is setting, Mrs. Tyrrell. Are you expecting your husband to visit this house tonight?”

       She shook her head. “How often he may come here, stand in this room, or in his old studio downstairs, I do not know. But I doubt very much that he will pay a visit while I am present. I have not seen Edgar for many years, nor do I think that he wants to see me. But I do fear that he may be involved in Cathy’s disappearance.”

      “Why do you fear that?”

      Aunt Sarah drew a shawl more firmly around her shoulders. “I know my husband, Mr. Keogh. He is near us as we speak, even as Cathy is—and I warn you that he is deadly dangerous—no doubt, if you understand as much as you say you do, you have some appreciation of how dangerous one of them can be. And even of his kind, he is not ordinary.”

      “I can believe that.”

      “Can you? Then are you ready to try to deal with him?” When Joe was slow in answering, she demanded fiercely: “You are a simple, mortal, human being, like me. Tell me, what help have you to count on, besides those innocent young people who came with you to my door? What powers?”

      Joe did not answer directly. “First I’d like you to tell me more about your husband, Mrs. Tyrrell. When did you last see him?”

      “Mr. Keogh, I have not seen or spoken with my husband in more than half a century.” She looked up at the exposed logs that braced the roof. “Not since I lived with him, here. And in another house—nearby.”

      “You separated over fifty years ago. And you’ve never tried to contact him in all that time?”

      “I have not. We parted under conditions of bitter recrimination.”

      “And has he ever tried to make contact with you, during the past half century?”

      “My husband is a vampire, Mr. Keogh.”

      “I understand that.”

      “Then surely, you must understand that I could not have hidden from him had he really wanted to find me. Therefore he has never tried.”

      Joe shook his head. “Vampires, thank God, are not all powerful, any more than the rest of us are. Thank God also for our limitations. Now tell me—the absolute truth this time—about your last contact with Cathy.”

      Again old Sarah sighed. “I had a postcard from her, when she was here at Thanksgiving. A routine message, mailed the day before she disappeared. There was nothing in it, no hint,