A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, April 1950 — page 83: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE NINTH LIFE «gz the small, rustic town of Hedlington. “Tf you knew about that—” Tott be- gan, and did not end it. “T don’t. Records are not accessible to me, and nobody told me anything about it. I dreamed it. Nightmares are a hobby of mine,” Tott said: “I wish we had you back in uniform,” rather wistfully. They were halfway up the hill, and Gees looked across at the Grange. “He’s given it up and started back,” he said. “It took him a long while to convince himself the house was empty, the sceptical devil!” “What made you tell me there was no- body at the Grange, Gees?” Striding across the dining room to stand over Gees as he sat at lunch, Tony Briggs fired out the question. For long seconds Gees made no reply. Then he said, “TI told you what I believed was the truth.” Tony took a long, sharp breath, checked it. He sttick both hands into his trouser pockets. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, coldly. “But your being here like this—Tott, too, with his ridiculous explanation about coin collecting and go- ing on to Hereford—You here—and him! Why ?” Gees maintained a frosty silence, and Tony said: “Gees?” miserably. Gees looked up, and saw between Tony’s thumb and finger the ring he had last seen when Kefra removed it from her finger and laid it down. “I don’t quite get that,” he said—un- truthfully. “I got it back from her—from Cleo— this morning,” Tony explained. “That's why I’m here. And she wouldn’t see me.” “Who did see you, then?’’ Gees asked, after a pause for thought. “Wer man—Saleh. He left me at the door while he went to ask her, and came back to tell me she had nothing to say to me. When I tried to insist, he shut the door on me before I could get my foot inside.” | _ “Tm sorry to hear this.” He realized he had been mistaken about Kefra’s letter on the mantel. His approach to the house, not an interruption by Saleh, had caused her to leave the letter unfinished, and place it for him to find leaving the door ajar in. the certainty that he would enter and see his own name on the envelope. But where had she and Saleh hidden? “And then—you here,” Tony said. “Gees, I don’t want to bark, or—or ask too much, but did she tell you—?” he broke off doubtfully. ' “When could she tell me—anything about you?” Gees asked in reply. “You were calling on Monday—your wite to me said so. Did you see her then?” “T called. You'd gone. She told me you'd already explained how Miss Bran- don happened to be at Gravenor Man- sions. Miss Kefra very kindly invited me to tea with her, and I think that’s all,” Gees said, jesuitically meaning that it was all he meant to reveal. “Have you—have you seen her since?” Tony asked. “TI drove down there yesterday after- noon—being in the neighborhood, I[’d have felt it rather rude of me not to make a call.”’ “‘And—and she said nothing about me, or about sending this ring back?” Tony pursued. “Now look here, Tony,” Gees remon- strated. “Would any girl talk about a thing like that to a third party? TI just called, being as I say in the neighborhood, and she didn’t so much as mention you or anything about you, to the best of my recollection. Neither did I.” “No, I suppose she wouldn’t,” Tony admitted dubiously.. “But I can’t under- stand it. We parted as—as I hoped to meet her again, as we’d arranged. And then this—with no explanation. Why?” “Miss Kefra is the only person who can tell you,” Gees said. “But still—now don’t be offended at my asking, Gees. Why are you here— why this place? Is it—not because of her, is it?” “Strictly for your ear, Tony,” Gees said with an air of imparting a solemn secret, “I’m here because there has been another death almost exactly like that of the child at Gravenor Mansions, and if there’s going to be an epidemic of things of that sort all over the country—well! As for its being in the neighborhood of Barnby Grange, it might have happened — anywhere. It just happened to happen here. As far as Tott is concerned, you ought to know that he’s no longer as- comicbooks.com