Stranger in a Strange Land (16 page)

Jill twisted one toe in the grass. “No,” she admitted. “I haven't any claim on Ben. I just know . . . that if
I
were missing . . . Ben would look—until he found me. So
I've
got to look for
him!”

Jubal breathed malediction against all gods involved in the follies of the human race, then said, “All right, let's get some logic into it. Do you plan to hire detectives?”

She looked unhappy. “I suppose that's the way to do it. Uh, I've never hired a detective. Are they expensive?”

“Quite.”

Jill gulped. “Would they let me pay, uh, in monthly installments?”

“Cash at the stairs is their policy. Quit looking grim, child; I brought that up to dispose of it. I've already hired the best in the business to try to find Ben—there is no need to hock your future to hire second best.”

“You didn't tell me!”

“No need to.”

“But—Jubal, what did they find out?”

“Nothing,” he admitted, “so there was no need to put you in the dumps by telling you.” Jubal scowled. “I had thought you were unnecessarily nervy about Ben—I figured the same as his assistant, that fellow Kilgallen, that Ben had gone yiping off on some trail and would check in when he had the story.” He sighed. “Now I don't think so. That knothead Kilgallen—he does have a message on file telling him that Ben would be away; my man saw it and sneaked a photograph and checked. The message was sent.”

Jill looked puzzled. “Why didn't Ben send me one, too? It isn't like him—Ben's very thoughtful.”

Jubal repressed a groan. “Use your head, Gillian. Just because a package says ‘Cigarettes' does not prove it contains cigarettes. You got here Friday; the code groups on that statprint show it was filed from Philadelphia—Paoli Station Landing Flat—at ten thirty the morning before—10:30 A.M. Thursday. It was transmitted and received at once; Ben's office has its own statprinter. All right,
you
tell
me
why Ben sent a printed message to his own office—during working hours—instead of telephoning?”

“Why, I don't think he would. At least I wouldn't. The telephone is the normal—”

“You aren't Ben. I can think of a dozen reasons for a man in Ben's business. To avoid garbles. To insure a record in the files of I.T.&T. for legal purposes. To send a delayed message. Lot of reasons. Kilgallen saw nothing odd—and the fact that Ben goes to the expense of a statprinter in his office shows that Ben uses it.

“However,” Jubal went on, “that message placed Ben at Paoli Flat at ten thirty-four on Thursday. Jill, it was not sent from there.”

“But—”

“One moment. Messages are either handed in or telephoned. If handed over the counter, the customer can have facsimile transmission of handwriting and signature . . . but if filed by phone, it has to be typed before it can be photographed.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Doesn't that suggest anything, Jill?”

“Uh . . . Jubal, I'm so worried I can't think.”

“Quit breast-beating; it wouldn't have suggested anything to me, either. But the pro working for me is a sneaky character; he went to Paoli with a statprint faked from the photograph taken under Kilgallen's nose—and with credentials that made it appear that he was ‘Osbert Kilgallen,' the addressee. Then, with his fatherly manner and sincere face, he conned a young lady into telling things which she should have divulged only under court order—very sad. Ordinarily she wouldn't remember one message out of hundreds—they go in her ears, out her fingertips, and are gone, save for filed microprints. But this lady is one of Ben's fans; she reads his columns every night—a hideous vice.” Jubal blinked.
“Front!”

Anne appeared, dripping. “Remind me,” Jubal told her, “to write an article on the compulsive reading of news. The theme will be that most neuroses can be traced to the unhealthy habit of wallowing in the troubles of five billion strangers. Title is ‘Gossip Unlimited'—no, make that ‘Gossip Gone Wild.' ”

“Boss, you're getting morbid.”

“Not me. Everybody else. See that I write it next week. Now vanish; I'm busy.” He turned to Gillian. “She noticed Ben's name—thrilled because she was speaking to one of her heroes . . . but was irked because Ben hadn't paid for vision as well as voice. Oh, she remembers . . . and she remembers that the service was paid for by cash from a public booth—in Washington.”

“ ‘In Washington'?” repeated Jill. “Why would Ben call from—”

“Of course!” Jubal agreed pettishly. “If he's at a booth in Washington, he can have voice and vision with his assistant, cheaper, easier, and quicker than he could phone a message to be sent
back
to Washington from a hundred miles away. It doesn't make sense. Or it makes just one kind. Hanky-panky. Ben is as used to hanky-panky as a bride is to kisses. He didn't get to be the best winchell in the business through playing his cards face up.”

“Ben is not a winchell! He's a lippmann!”

“Sorry, I'm colorblind in that range. He might have believed that his phone was tapped but his statprinter was not. Or suspected that both were tapped—and used this round-about relay to convince whoever was tapping him that he was away and would not be back soon.” Jubal frowned. “In that case we would do him no favor by finding him. We might endanger his life.”

“Jubal! No!”

“Jubal, yes,” he answered wearily. “That boy skates close to the edge; that's how he made his reputation. Jill, Ben has never tackled a more dangerous assignment. If he disappeared voluntarily—do you want to call attention to the fact? Kilgallen has him covered, Ben's column appears every day. I've made it my business to know.”

“Canned columns!”

“Of course. Or perhaps Kilgallen is writing them. In any case, Ben Caxton is still officially on his soap box. Perhaps he planned it, my dear—because he was in such danger that he did not dare get in touch even with you. Well?”

Gillian covered her face. “Jubal . . . I don't know what to do!”

“Snap out of it,” he said gruffly. “The worst that can happen to him is death . . . and that we all are in for—in days, or weeks, or years. Talk to Mike. He regards ‘discorporation' as less to be feared than a scolding. Why, if I told Mike we were going to roast him for dinner, he would thank me for the honor with his voice choked with gratitude.”

“I know,” Jill agreed in a small voice, “but I don't have his philosophical attitude.”

“Nor I,” Harshaw agreed cheerfully, “but I'm beginning to grasp it—and it is a consoling one to a man my age. A capacity for enjoying the inevitable—why, I've been cultivating that all my life . . . but this infant, barely old enough to vote and too unsophisticated to stand clear of the horse cars, has me convinced that I've just reached kindergarten. Jill, you asked if Mike was welcome. Child, I want to keep that boy until I've found out what he knows and I don't! This ‘discorporation' thing . . . it's not the Freudian ‘death-wish'—none of that ‘Even the weariest river' stuff—it's more like Stevenson's ‘Glad did I live and gladly die and I lay me down with a will!' I suspect that Stevenson was whistling in the dark or enjoying the euphoria of consumption, but Mike has me halfway sold that he knows what he is talking about.”

“I don't know,” Jill answered dully. “I'm just worried about Ben.”

“So am I,” agreed Jubal. “Jill, I don't think Ben is hiding.”

“But you said—”

“Sorry. My snoops didn't limit themselves to Ben's office and Paoli Flat. On Thursday morning Ben called at Bethesda Medical Center with a lawyer and a Fair Witness—James Oliver Cavendish, in case you follow such things.”

“I don't, I'm afraid.”

“No matter. The fact that Ben retained Cavendish shows how serious he was; you don't hunt rabbits with elephant guns. They were taken to see the ‘Man from Mars'—”

Gillian gasped, then said, “That's impossible!”

“Jill, you're disputing a Fair Witness . . . and not just any Fair Witness. If Cavendish says it, it's gospel.”

“I don't care if he's the Twelve Apostles! He wasn't on my floor last Thursday morning!”

“You didn't listen. I didn't say that they were taken to see Mike—I said they were taken to the ‘Man from Mars.' The phony one, obviously—that fellow they stereovised.”

“Oh. Of course. And Ben caught them!”

Jubal looked pained. “Little girl, Ben did not catch them. Even Cavendish did not—at least he won't say so. You know how Fair Witnesses behave.”

“Well . . . no, I don't. I've never met one.”

“So?
Anne!”

Anne was on the springboard; she turned her head. Jubal called out, “That house on the hilltop—can you see what color they've painted it?”

Anne looked, then answered, “It's white on this side.”

Jubal went on to Jill, “You see? It doesn't occur to Anne to infer that the other side is white, too. All the King's horses couldn't force her to commit herself . . . unless she went there and looked—and even then she wouldn't assume that it stayed white after she left.”

“Anne
is a Fair Witness?”

“Graduate, unlimited license, admitted to testify before the High Court. Sometime ask her why she gave up public practice. But don't plan anything else that day—the wench will recite the whole truth and nothing but the truth, which takes time. Back to Mr. Cavendish—Ben retained him for open witnessing, full disclosure, without enjoining privacy. So when Cavendish was questioned, he answered, in boring detail. The interesting part is what he does
not
say. He never states that the man they saw was
not
the Man from Mars . . . but not one word indicates that Cavendish accepted the exhibit as being the Man from Mars. If you knew Cavendish, this would be conclusive. If Cavendish had seen Mike, he would have reported with such exactness that you and I would
know
that he had seen Mike. For example, Cavendish reports the shape of this exhibit's ears . . . and it does not match Mike's ears. Q.E.D.; they were shown a phony. Cavendish knows it, though he is professionally restrained from giving opinions.”

“I told you. They never came near my floor.”

“But it tells us more. This occurred hours before you pulled your jail break; Cavendish sets their arrival in the presence of the phony at 9:14 Thursday morning. So the government had Mike under their thumb at that moment; they could have exhibited Mike. Yet they risked offering a phony to the most noted Fair Witness in the country. Why?”

Jill answered, “You're asking me? I don't know. Ben told me that he intended to ask Mike if he wanted to leave the hospital—and help him if he said, ‘Yes.' ”

“Which Ben did try, with the phony.”

“So? But, Jubal, they couldn't have known that Ben intended to . . . and, anyhow, Mike wouldn't have left with Ben.”

“Later he left with you.”

“Yes—but I was his ‘water brother,' just as you are now. He has this crazy idea that he can trust anyone with whom he has shared a drink of water. With a ‘water brother' he is docile . . . with anybody else he is stubborn as a mule. Ben couldn't have budged him.” She added, “At least that is the way he was last week—he's changing awfully fast.”

“So he is. Too fast, maybe. I've never seen muscle tissue develop so rapidly. Never mind, back to Ben—Cavendish reports that Ben dropped him and the lawyer, a chap named Frisby, at nine thirty-one, and Ben kept the cab. An hour later he—or somebody who said he was Ben—phoned that message to Paoli Flat.”

“You don't think it was Ben?”

“I do not. Cavendish reported the number of the cab and my scouts tried to get a look at its daily trip tape. If Ben used his credit card, his charge number should be on the tape—but even if he fed coins into the meter the tape should show where the cab had been.”

“Well?”

Harshaw shrugged. “The records show that cab in for repairs and never in use Thursday morning. So either a Fair Witness misremembered a cab's number or somebody tampered with the record.” He added, “Maybe a jury would decide that even a Fair Witness could misread a number, especially if he had not been asked to remember it—but
I
don't believe it—not when the Witness is James Oliver Cavendish. He would either be certain—or his report would never mention it.”

Harshaw scowled. “Jill, you're forcing me to rub my nose in it—and I don't like it! Granted that Ben could have sent that message, it is most unlikely that he could tamper with the record of that cab . . . and still less believable that he had reason to. Ben went somewhere—and somebody who could get at the records of a public carrier went to a lot of trouble to conceal where he went . . . and sent a phony message to keep anyone from realizing that he had disappeared.”

“ ‘Disappeared!' Kidnapped, you mean!”

“Softly, Jill. ‘Kidnapped' is a dirty word.”

“It's the only word! Jubal, how can you sit there when you ought to be shouting it from the—”

“Stop it, Jill! Instead of kidnapped, Ben might be dead.”

Gillian slumped. “Yes,” she agreed dully.

“But we'll assume he is not, until we see his bones. Jill, what's the greatest danger about kidnapping? It is a hue-and-cry—because a frightened kidnapper almost always kills his victim.”

Gillian looked woeful. Harshaw went on gently, “I'm forced to say that it is likely that Ben is dead. He has been gone too long. But we've agreed to assume that he is alive. Now you intend to look for him. Gillian, how will you do this? Without increasing the risk that Ben will be killed by the unknown parties who kidnapped him?”