The Collection (115 page)

Was
the guy crazy, or was he just trying to convince
me that he was? I thought for a minute it was going to cost me an ear or two to
find out. I howled, “Herman, don't---” and never knew until then just how
eloquent I was.

Whether it was my eloquence or not, he decided at last that
he didn't want my ears. He grunted and put the knife back in the pocket of that
capacious overcoat. He said, “No good. They're not Wunderly.”

He got up from my chest and started toward the door. He must
have guessed that I was already wondering how soon it would be safe to yell for
help. He turned back a minute and took a handkerchief out of his pocket. Then
he said, “The hell with it. Yell all you want. Yell to the seagulls.”

I watched the big dark shadow of him go through the doorway
and I didn't say thanks or good-bye. I was going to let well enough alone. I
heard his footsteps across the porch.

I didn't yell to the seagulls; he was right about that.
Mac's place is a mile from its nearest neighbor, three miles from the coast
guard station that has the only telephone on that part of the beach. And I
didn't worry about trying to loosen my bonds; I'd found them too tough to
handle even before he'd added to them with the heavy twine.

Mac was my---our---only chance of getting out of there in
time to make a third act curtain. I crawled across, or rather wriggled my way
across, to where he lay. He was breathing heavily now, and once as I worked my
way toward him he moved a bit.

Probably he'd have snapped out of it quickly if I'd been
able to give his face a few healthy slaps, but that wasn't possible. Fortunately
he was lying on his side; I'd have had a devil of a job rolling him over if
he'd been on his back where I couldn't get at the knots at his wrists.

I wriggled up behind him, and began work on those knots with
my teeth. It was slow tough work, about the hardest thing I ever tackled. But I
plugged along at it, and in between tries, I yelled at him and nudged him in
the back with my head. Finally he said, “What happened, Bryce?”

“He's gone,” I told him. “We're tied up. That's all. Listen,
Mac, I'll keep on with these knots. If you can talk okay, tell me who the guy
is and what's what, while I get you loose if I can.”

His voice gradually got stronger as he talked. “Herman
Wunderly,” he told me. “Homicidal maniac killed his sister several years ago.
Gruesome business; cut off her ears. He's got some mania about ears.

“I was up here for the summer when it happened, and I helped
handle him, and had to testify. The Wunderly place is a mile down the beach;
nearest house here, in fact. They're year-rounders, residents, a bit eccentric.
There's old man Wunderly now, and Herman's brother Kurt. He's going back to
kill them unless we can---”

I'd got the knot loosened a bit now; it wouldn't be much
longer. But my bruised and cut lip hurt so badly I had to stop for a second or
two. I said, “Are they all as batty as Herman? Good Lord---sorricide,
patricide---”

Then I went back to work on the knots. Mac said, “Neither.
Herman and Kurt are brothers, but they were adopted. So Ethel wasn't their
sister, and Old Man Wunderly isn't---”

Then the knot gave way, and Mac sat up, got his hands braced
on the edge of the desk, stood up and worked his way around it. I said, “Hey,
how about me? Untie---”

“Scissors,” he told me. “Quicker.” He found them in a
drawer, cut the cord from his ankles, and then cut me loose. “One of those
neckties,” I said, “was mine. And a new silk one at that. You owe me---”

“Shut up, you dope. Listen, you take the coast guard
station, three miles northwest. Have 'em send men quick. I'll go to the
Wunderlys', and maybe I'll be in time to---”

“Got another gun, Mac, besides the one he took?”

He shook his head. “Tell the coast guard boys to come armed.
Don't worry about me; handling nuts is my business. I can take care of---”

I'd switched the light back on while he was talking, and I
grinned at him. “So I noticed,” I cut in. “Come on, if you're going.”

He was going, all right. He was running so fast I had to
yell the last of that remark after him. I ran after, using the forethought to
grab up a fairly hefty cane that was in the umbrella rack in the corner of the
hallway. I wasn't leaning on Mac's persuasive abilities with a homicidal
maniac---nor counting on my own to work a second time.

I caught up with him and grabbed his arm. “You can't run a
mile through sand,” I yelled. “You'll fall down before you get half way---”

He saw the point in that and slowed down, and I panted
alongside. “Our ears,” I said. “We should have taken them off and left them
back where they're safe.”

“You're still drunk. Listen, be sensible and go back to the
coast guard station and let me handle this. It isn't any of your business.”

“They wouldn't get there in time and you know it and I'm not
still drunk, dammit. And that second act stank, Mac. It needs doctoring, and
I'm the guy who can---”

“Shut up, you sap. If you're going to come, save your breath
for getting there.”

It was good advice, and I took it.

He pushed on, sometimes running, sometimes walking---mostly
according to the footing---and we were both fairly winded when we rounded the
dune that hid the Wunderly house.

Mac said, “Shhh,” and grabbed my arm. We were pretty close
now, and he pointed to a window that was open about ten inches. We tiptoed to
it, and got it open wider without making as much noise as I thought it would
make.

The window was low enough that we could see in, and as far
as we could tell looking into the darkened room, it was empty. Mac went in
first, and I followed him. The room was just sufficiently illumined that we
could make out where the furniture was, when our eyes had got accustomed to it.

Mac pointed toward one of the two closed doors and said,
“Hallway. Stairs.” And we crossed over and opened it. It didn't squeak, but the
latch clicked when I let go the knob, and Mac grabbed my arm again, so hard and
unexpectedly that I almost let out a yawp.

The hall was darker. I reached in my pocket for a box of
matches, but Mac pulled me over to him and whispered in my ear, “I've been
here. I know where the stairs are.” He started off, feeling along the wall with
one hand. I held on to the sleeve of his coat and followed.

We came to a turn, and he whispered, “This is the back of
the staircase. Feel your way around it and you'll come to the bannister on the
other side. We're going up.”

“And then what?”

He answered, “Kurt and the old man sleep upstairs, and it
looks like they've turned in early---unless we're too late. We'll see if
they're all right first.”

That sounded sensible. If they
were
all right, we'd
have allies, and we could use them. And maybe there'd be a gun around. I still
didn't feel very happy about chasing an armed maniac with only a walking stick
for defense.

I whispered, “Listen---” and reached out for Mac.

But he'd moved on. I found the wall with my left hand and
started to follow it around the staircase. Just around the corner, there was a
door. A door there under the stairs meant a closet. I don't know why I opened
that door. I heard a faint rustling sound, or thought I did, inside the closet,
as my hand went along the outside of the door. But I should have caught up with
Mac and told him, and we should have done the thing cautiously. But I didn't
wait. Like a fool, I jerked the door open.

For just a second there was so much light that I couldn't
see a thing. Some closet doors are rigged like that---particularly closets off
darkish hallways. When you open the door the light inside the closet goes on,
and when you close it the light goes off again.

It's a handy arrangement, but I didn't appreciate it just
then. That light seemed to flash right in my eyes, and it utterly blinded me. I
heard an exclamation from Mac, who'd reached the foot of the stairs, and I
heard another rustle in the closet and a noise that sounded like the growl of
an animal.

For what was probably two seconds, but seemed two hours, I
stood there blinking, and then I could see again.

I saw, back among the coats and things hanging in the
closet, a tall figure in an outsize overcoat. Terrifyingly expressionless eyes
stared at me out of a twisted face. And a familiar-looking scattergun pointed
squarely at the pit of my stomach from a range of two feet or less.

It was one of those awful instants that seem to hang poised
upon the brink of time's abyss interminably. There wasn't time for me to grab
for that gun or jump sidewise from in front of its muzzle. But, as though in
slow motion, I could see the knuckles of his hand whiten as his finger
tightened on the trigger. I could see the hammer go back, hear the click as it
slipped the pawl and see it start down toward the single chamber of the gun.

It clicked down---empty---and I was still standing there
alive and without a hole blown through me and my liver splattered over the wall
behind me. For another fraction of a second, I was too terrified to move. If
that gun hadn't been loaded back at Mac's house, then this whole thing didn't
make sense at all. But the guy who'd just pulled the trigger must have
thought
it was loaded or he wouldn't have pulled the trigger. Until he'd done that
he had me buffaloed; I'd have put up my hands like a lamb with that thing
looking at me. Add it up, and---

But the guy in the overcoat didn't wait to add it up. He
came out of the closet after me in a flying leap like the charge of a tiger.
The empty gun was raised now to be used as a bludgeon and just in the nick of
time I got my cane up to block a blow that would have crushed my skull.

His wrist hit against the edge of the cane and the gun flew
out of his hand, over my shoulder, and knocked a square foot of plaster out of
the wall behind, before it hit the floor.

He kept on coming, though, and the momentum of his charge
knocked me off my feet, and he was right there on top of me, his hands reached
for my throat.

All this had happened before Mac could get back down the two
or three steps of the staircase he'd started up, but I heard him yell, “Herman,
stop!” and the thud of his feet as he vaulted over the bannister and came
running.

One of Herman's hands had found my throat and I was having
to use both my hands to keep the other one off when Mac got there. He joined
the fray with a nifty full nelson that pulled the maniac's arms away from my
throat and yanked him up to his knees. Then Mac let the full nelson slide to a
half, and got one of Herman's arms pinned behind him in a hammerlock. It was
neat work.

But all of this hadn't been accomplished in silence. Another
light flashed on at the top of the stairs, and we heard slippered feet in the
upper hallway.

“The old man?” I asked Mac.

“No, he's deaf; this wouldn't have waked him. That'll be
Kurt Wunderly.” He called out, “Hey, Wunderly. This is MacCready. Everything's
under control, but come on down.”

A tall man in a bathrobe thrown over pajamas was starting
down the steps even before Mac finished talking. He said, “What on earth?
Herman!”

Herman gave a yank to get free then, and I picked up the
empty scattergun. Held by the barrel, it made a beautiful billy. I tapped
Herman lightly on the skull---just a soft tap---and said, “Behave, sonny.”

Mac was explaining to Kurt Wunderly. “Herman got away from
the sanitarium. He was going to kill you and your foster-father. Stopped at my
place to brag about it or something, and left us tied up, but we---”

I said, “My name's Bryce. I was visiting---”

“The famous playwright?”

“Thanks,” I said. “Better get us some ropes.”

He nodded, his face a bit pale. “There should be some in the
closet there.” There were, and I got them.

I came in with the ropes. Herman made no resistance, his
face was dull, expressionless, and his manner completely lethargic now. I'm no
psychiatrist, but I recognized the symptoms of a manic-depressive insanity.
Being captured had thrown him into the depressive state. Speechless, on the
edge of sheer unconsciousness, he paid no attention to his surroundings or to
what was said or done to him. Tying him up was routine. And old Mr. Wunderly
turned out to be sleeping soundly, the sleep of the partly deaf, upstairs.
Still with his ears on, so we didn't waken him.

Back down in the living room, Mac said, “Bryce and I will go
to the coast guard station and phone for---”

“Hold it, Mac,” I cut in. “I figured out what was wrong with
that second act. Look,” and I pointed at Herman, “this guy's crazy.”

Mac gawped at me for a minute like he thought I was, too,
and maybe he did just then.

I went on: “But your caller wasn't, Mac. He was pretending
to be. Add that up.” And I turned the scattergun around and pointed it at Kurt
Wunderly, Herman's brother. I said, “Herman escaped and came here and asked you
to protect him. He wasn't homicidal, just then. You hid him in that closet, and
you came over to Mac's house to establish the idea that Herman was going to
kill his foster-father and yourself. You turned out the light in Mac's study
before you came in, and you figured that wearing that old overcoat and a hat
and acting insane, you could pass for Herman in a darkened room.

“My guess is you wanted to kill Old Man Wunderly, probably
because you thought he might live another ten years and you wanted your
inheritance now. Or is that a good guess? Maybe you've got a taint of Herman's
homicidal streak, too.”

Mac cut in, “Bryce, do you realize what you're---”

“Pipe down, Mac,” I told him, and went on talking to Kurt:
“You left us tied up, ready to be witnesses that Herman was going to kill the
old man. Then you came back here, gave him back the coat and gun, and you were
getting into your pajamas when we came. Then you were going---except that we
got here in time---to kill the old man and then ‘capture’ Herman and turn him
over with the story that you'd overcome him after the first murder and while he
was trying to kill you. He had nothing to lose by being blamed for another
murder; he'd just be sent back. And who'd have believed anything he tried to
tell them?”