The Sorcerer's House (22 page)

"Your pet? I know."

"She makes a most charming Japanese girl. Pretty, and quite vivacious."

"You agree then? About the werewolf? I've got to convince you, because I want you to help me find him."

"Do you know it's a man?"

He shrugged. "No, but they usually are."

"Never a young woman?"

"Yes, there are women. They're most often men, but--"

"In that case, I can name the werewolf. She is a woman. A girl in the broad sense."

He stared.

"That was a pun, wasn't it? I didn't mean it that way."

"I didn't catch the pun. I--I'm not good at jokes. But you remind me of Father. Are you him? Are you really my father, Bax? Tell me! Tell me, please!"

"No. I'd tell you if I were, Emlyn. I'm not. Can he disguise himself that well?"

"Yes!" Emlyn sounded as though he might start sobbing again.

" 'It's a wise child who knows his own father,' " I mused. "I didn't understand that as a boy, and because I don't know my own, it haunted me. I think I understand, now. What's your father's name?"

"Zwart." Emlyn paused. "We don't have two names like you do."

"Really? It's Zwart?"

"Yes, that's his name. What's wrong?"

"It means black. Were you aware of that?"

Emlyn shook his head.

"Your brother Ieuan helped my man the other day. He collected wood for the fires and so on. My man called him Ieuan Black."

"He will have told him that. Like I said, we don't really have any last name, but sometimes we need one and when we do we say Black."

"As instructed by your father?"

"Yes." Emlyn nodded.

"There seems to be a man named Skotos involved in all this, too. Do you know the meaning of that name?"

Emlyn shook his head. "What is it?"

"I'll reserve that. The werewolf likes you and hopes to please you. It's why she gave you the head you found."

Emlyn looked frightened. "Is this some sort of joke?"

"Perhaps it is, I don't know. But it certainly isn't my joke. She's quite attractive in human form, by the way. A piquant face and so on. Are you going to thank her for the head?"

"No!"

"You may want to reconsider. I feel foolish speaking as the representative of this town. I haven't lived here long at all, and I certainly haven't been elected to any office. But foolish or not, I hope you can persuade your new friend to leave us alone. She's killed two people here whom I know of, and suspect that the head she gave you is from one of us, too. If so, it would make three. Please ask her to go somewhere else."

"I'm sure I have no influence with her at all," Emlyn told me stiffly.

"We used your triannulus to ask for money for me," I reminded him. "Your triannulus and your longlight. You must remember that."

"Of course I do. You got some money, too, and I think you ought to be grateful."

"I am very grateful, and I'll be still more grateful if you can get Lupine to leave our area."

"Is that her name? Lupine?"

I shrugged. "She said it was."

"When you asked her to go away?"

"I didn't actually. I should have, but I did not. She would only have laughed at me, I'm sure."

"You'd rather have someone else die than be laughed at."

"No doubt I deserved that." It had hurt more than I liked to confess. "Just the same, calling me names is not going to save a single life."

He shrugged. "Getting her to change her hunting grounds isn't going to save any, either. People somewhere else will die. It won't be anyone you know, but that's the only difference."

"You're right, of course. Do you think you could get her to kill only bad people?"

"Bad people like Ieuan?" It was a challenge.

"I hadn't thought of that. He is your brother, after all."

"He is." Emlyn sighed. "Someday Ieuan may kill me. I've been afraid of that for years. But if I were to kill him, or if I were to get him killed, I'd be as bad as he is. No, I'd be worse."

"You're right. You would."

"Besides, I don't think you can get werewolves to do anything like that. It would be like training a real wolf to kill only the black sheep. Generally you've got to kill werewolves. Father told me that once, and he knows about these things."

"In that case, you're going to have to kill this one," I told him.

"Me alone? I'm not a man yet, Bax."

"Yet you brought her, and I still think that you ought to have some influence with her."

"No, I did
not
bring her!"

"I think you did. You lined up those three rings, the arrow, the face, and the animal. You wanted that alignment to mean 'find the facefox.' "

He nodded. "Go on."

"Suppose that animal on the ring wasn't a fox at all. Suppose that it was a wolf. Wouldn't that mean 'find the werewolf'?"

At that, his jaw dropped. I have not seen jaws drop often, Millie, but his did then.

"Thus I think you should have some influence with her. I used the triannulus for money, and spent it as I pleased when I got it. Earlier I asked for fish, and I ate them."

"All right, I'll try. I'll try if I can find her." Emlyn backed away.

"Don't forget to thank her for her gift!" I called as he turned and fled.

You will wonder whether I really drove that enormous antique to the
lawyer's office, Millie. I did, and it was the first time I had ever driven it by myself. Believe me, I was very careful indeed and chugged along at a most moderate speed, although I nearly panicked when I could not find either Wilson Street or Railway Road. I very politely asked a policeman instead, and he was so taken with my car that he got in and directed me. It was only three blocks away, and he never asked to see my license.

I was the last to arrive. Urban Trelawny is a bony man of fifty and more, with side whiskers. His eyes say quite plainly that he once trusted someone, that he has been repenting it for longer than you or I have been alive, and that he will never take the chance again.

"Sit down, sir," he said as his secretary left us. "The chair between Mr. Hardaway's and Mrs. Griffin's will do. You present yourself as the heir?"

I sat. "Yes, I suppose I do."

"You cannot prove it?"

I shook my head. "I can prove that I'm Baxter Dunn. I can't prove I'm Alexander Skotos's heir."

"We had hoped that the late Mr. Skotos had written you, expressing his intention to leave you his property."

I shook my head again.

"Also, that you would present Mr. Skotos's letter for Mr. Hardaway's examination as well as my own."

I said that I was sorry to disappoint them.

"I urged that course upon him." Trelawny sighed. "He told me he did not have your address. It may possibly have been true, although he was not, generally speaking, what is called a truthful man."

Doris murmured, "I'm sorry to hear that, sir."

"Nor was he a man, generally speaking, who complied with his attorney's advice." Trelawny paused to wipe his nose. "That is of no consequence to us tonight. I asked how his heir might be positively identified. He described the man, but in terms so vague that I positively refused to incorporate them in his will. I insisted that he--"

Doris interrupted. "He described his heir to you, sir? Don't you think we ought to hear his description?"

She was seconded at once by Mr. Hardaway.

"You are here by sufferance, my dear young lady. You are
not
so entitled."

At this point, Millie, I found myself wondering how I might bring Trelawny to Lupine's attention. I rose. It would be pleasant for me to write at this point that Doris and Mr. Hardaway fell silent at a mere gesture and a stern glance from me, but it would not be truthful. Doris was shrill and Mr. Hardaway furious; I outshouted them.

"As the heir to the estate, I believe that I am fully justified in having an adviser present. Mrs. Griffin and I will engage another adviser, an attorney. He or she will contact you in due course. In the meantime, I intend to file a complaint with the American Bar Association. The late Alexander Skotos described me to you, but you will not permit us to hear his description? That's outrageous!"

Trelawny shaped a steeple of bony fingers. "The description will only delay us, Mr. Dunn. But if you insist."

"Whether Mr. Dunn insists or not, I do!" Mr. Hardaway had risen, too. He pounded Trelawny's desk as he spoke.

Trelawny nodded. "I am outvoted. I hope that it has occurred to all of you that since Mr. Skotos's description of his heir was never committed to paper, I may now say whatever I wish. I might state that his Baxter Dunn was one-legged, one-eyed, and bald, for example. I do not, yet I might."

Mr. Hardaway said, "Pah!" and we sat down again.

"Permit me to mention as well that I will be repeating a vague description heard years ago. If my reconstruction of it is something less than exact, that will scarcely be surprising."

"Let's hear it." Mr. Hardaway was brusque.

"Lastly, I shall mention that prior to his demise the late Mr. Skotos vouchsafed other particulars concerning his heir--more precise particulars that were in fact committed to paper as parts--or a part, a section--of his last will and testament."

Trelawny waited for some objection, and hearing none vouchsafed us a frosty smile. "Baxter Dunn, the late Alexander Skotos said, was a man of moderate height and average build. He had sandy hair, blue eyes, and regular features."

Doris's ladylike fist thumped the padded arm of her chair. "I've always believed Bax was the heir, and now I'm totally positive."

Mr. Hardaway nodded vigorously. "In my judgment as executor, Urban, this matter is no longer in dispute."

Trelawny's bloodless smile was chilling. "My oral recitation of a description I heard years ago means less than nothing, Jim. The proofs demanded in the will are significant. Not sandy hair or regular features."

He turned to me. "You think ill of me, Mr. Dunn--if that is indeed your name. But consider. There are no near relatives to dispute the will. As things stand tonight, it is unlikely that the matter will ever come before a court. What we will do here, this night in this office, is liable to be decisive."

I said, "I understand."

"Decisive, and the estate is worth millions. Decisive--unless another claimant should appear subsequently."

At that point, Millie, I was conscious that someone outside the office was talking to Trelawny's secretary; I gave it slight heed, however.

"Let us proceed forthwith to the proofs that the will specifies." Trelawny wiped his nose again. "The Baxter Dunn we seek, my client Alexander Skotos has declared, is a great scholar. Have you proofs of scholarship, Mr. Dunn?"

I nodded. "As a matter of fact, I have. I brought some diplomas, thinking they would establish my identity. One's been lost, a master of fine arts from the University of Chicago. The university can furnish a duplicate copy, I feel sure, if we request it."

"May we see those that have
not
been lost?"

"Certainly. How about my Ph.D.'s? Looking at those first should save some time." I handed them to him.

He took out a pair of reading glasses, put them on, and applied a fresh Kleenex to his nose. "Humph!"

Mr. Hardaway asked, "If two Ph.D.'s don't establish a man as a great scholar, what the hell would?"

Trelawny looked at him over the tops of his glasses. "This is in Nineteenth-Century English Literature." He displayed the paper to Mr. Hardaway.

"A legitimate subject for scholarship."

"While this one is in Ancient History."

"And this," Doris declared hotly, "has become pure farce. Bax fits the description. Bax is a great scholar by any sane measure. Bax is the heir."

Trelawny's smile would have wilted a tomato vine. "An heir who will not divulge his connection to the testator. That is correct, Mr. Dunn? Still correct, I mean?"

I nodded. "I will not divulge my personal affairs, and I will most certainly not divulge your client's when he is no longer alive to defend his reputation." Strictly speaking, Millie, that was the truth. I did not want to divulge my own, and could not have divulged Mr. Skotos's if I had wanted to, since I did not know them.

"I see. There are two further proofs we have yet to touch upon."

Trelawny's secretary was arguing with someone in the outer office; he paused for a moment to listen, then said, "We proceed to the second proof. Baxter Dunn--I intend Alexander Skotos's heir--is ambidextrous. Are you, Mr. Dunn?"

I shrugged. "I can write with both hands, if that's what you mean. It was quite useful in college. When one hand tired, I wrote with the other. Shall I demonstrate?"

"Please do." He handed me this ballpoint pen and a tablet.

"I'd like another one," I told him. "Another pen, please, and another tablet. Or a book or something else that will give me a writing surface."