More Than Superhuman Read online

  Defeated, she started her motor. As she drove home, she suddenly felt degraded, not by what she had done, but by what she suspected she had intended to do.

  What her future path should be was not clear to her. But not this way, she told herself firmly.

  Arrived at her apartment, Edith shoved the bag containing the crystal into the cupboard under her sink, ate apathetically, and went to bed.

  * *

  And in the motel, the squat man returned, scowling. 'The Stone wasn't there. I searched the whole museum,' he told Seth Mitchell, who lay on one of the beds, gagged and bound hand and foot.

  Seth Mitchell watched uneasily as the other untied his feet. The man said impatiently, 'I've been thinking about you. Maybe the best thing is just to drive you back to New York. Once I get away, the police'll never find me again.'

  He removed the gag. The younger man drew a deep breath. 'Look,' he protested, 'I won't even go near the police.'

  He stopped, blank and afraid, and choked back a surge of grief. The possibility that he might be killed was an idea that his brain could contemplate only for a few moments. Not Seth Mitchell, who had all those good things going for him, finally, after years of finagling around the edges of success!

  The squat man had come up to him in his office parking lot at noon that day, smiling deceptively, a short man — not more than five-feet-four — and stocky. He looked, in his grayness, like an Arab. A well-dressed Arab in an American business suit. As he came up, he said, 'Where is the crystal you and Billy Bingham found?'

  What might have happened if Seth had instantly answered was, of course, now impossible to analyze. But he did not immediately remember the crystal, so he had shaken his head.

  Whereupon the man took his hand out of his coat pocket. A pistol glittered in it. Under the threat of that gun, Seth had driven to Harkdale, had shown the stranger the ledge beside Lake Naragang where he and Billy had fought. And it was there, on the spot, that he recalled the crystal; and so he had reluctantly gone to the library, aware of the weapon behind him all the time that he talked to the young woman at the desk.

  Abruptly remembering that conversation, Seth said desperately, 'Maybe that woman librarian — '

  'Maybe!' said the other noncommittally.

  He untied Seth's hands, and then stepped back, motioning with the gun. They went out to the car and drove off.

  As they came opposite the lake, the man said, 'Pull over!' After Seth complied, the shot rang out, and the murder was done.

  The killer dragged the body to a cliff overlooking the lake, tied rocks to it, and dumped it into the deep Water below.

  He actually drove on to New York, left the car in Seth's parking lot, and after spending the night in New York, prepared to return to Harkdale.

  During that night Edith slept restlessly, and dreamed that all possible Edith Prices marched past her bed. Only half a dozen of those Ediths were married, and even in her dream that shocked her.

  Worse, there was a long line of Edith Prices who ranged from fat to blowsy to downright shifty-eyed and mentally ill. However, several of the Ediths had a remarkable high-energy look, and that was reassuring.

  Edith woke to the sound of the phone ringing. It was the library caretaker. 'Hey, Miss Price, better get down here. Somebody broke in last night.'

  Edith had a strange, unreal feeling. 'Broke into the library?' she asked.

  'Yep. Biggest mess is in the museum. Whoever it was musta thought some of the stones in there were the real stuff, because they're scattered all over the floor.'

  III

  To Edith Price, the lean young man in overalls was just another inarticulate farmer.

  She wrote down his name — Seth Mitchell. A moment went by, and then the name hit her. She looked up, startled.

  The haunted face that stared back at her was sun- and wind-burned, with gaunt cheeks and sick eyes. Nevertheless, the man bore a sensational resemblance to the Seth Mitchell of yesterday, it seemed to Edith.

  She thought, a light dawning: This is the Seth Mitchell that Tilsit knew about! There must be a Mitchell clan, with cousins and such, who were look-alikes.

  Her mind was still fumbling over the possibilities when she realized the import of the words he had mumbled. Edith echoed, 'A stone! A crystal that you presented to the library museum twenty-five years ago!'

  He nodded.

  Edith, compressing her lips, thought: All right, let's get to the bottom of this!

  During the moments of her confusion, the man had gotten a bill out of his billfold. As he held it out to her, she saw that it was twenty dollars.

  She had recovered her self-control, and said now, conversationally, 'That's a lot of money for a worthless rock.'

  'It's the one I want,' he muttered. She didn't hear several of the words that followed, but then she said clearly, '... the time Billy disappeared.'

  There was silence while Edith absorbed the impact of the notion that here indeed was the original Seth Mitchell.

  She encouraged him, finally, 'I've heard about Billy A very unusual incident.'

  Seth Mitchell said, 'I yelled at him to get away, and he vanished.' He spoke tautly. His eyes were an odd, discolored gray from remembered shock. He spoke again: 'We both grabbed at it. Then he was gone.'

  He seemed only dimly aware of her presence. He went on, and it was as if he were half-talking to himself, 'It was so shiny. Not like it became later. It went all drab, and nobody would believe me.'

  He paused. Then, intently, 'All these years I've been thinking. I've been awful slow to see the truth. But last night it came to me. What else could have made Billy disappear when I called him? What else but the stone?'

  Edith decided uneasily that this was a problem for a psychiatrist, not a librarian. It struck her that the simplest solution would be to give this Seth Mitchell the worthless rock he wanted.

  But of course that would have to be carefully done. Her one, indiscretion so far had been her questioning of Tilsit the day before — asking about Seth Mitchell. Throughout the police investigation of the breaking and entering of the library museum, she had maintained a careful silence about her own involvement

  So the sooner she got rid. of the stone in her kitchen, the better.

  'If you'll give me your address,' she requested gently, 'I'll ask the head librarian, and perhaps she'll get in touch with you.

  The address he reluctantly gave her was a rural route out of Abbotsville.

  She watched him then, wondering a little, as she shuffled off to the door and outside.

  On her way home that night, Edith drove by way of the motel. The gold Cadillac was gone.

  So that little madness was over, she thought, relieved.

  * *

  She had her usual late dinner. Then, after making sure the apartment door was locked, she. took the paper bag from under the sink — and noticed at once, uneasily, that there was less dirt in the bag.

  A momentary fear came that the stone would be gone. She spread a newspaper and hastily emptied the bag, dirt and all, onto it As the earth tumbled out, a brilliance of color flashed at her.

  Wonderingly, she picked up the beautiful gem.

  'But it's impossible,' she whispered. 'That was dull. This is — beautiful!'

  It glittered in her hand. The purple color was all alive, as if thousands of moving parts turned and twisted inside it. Here and there in its depths a finger of light Stirred up a nest of scarlet fire. The crisscross of color and flame flickered so brightly that Edith felt visually stunned.

  She held it up against the light — and saw that there was a design inside.

  Somebody had cut a relief map of the solar system into the interior of the stone, and had colored it. It was quite a good example — it seemed to Edith — of The cutter's art. The purple-and-red overall effect seemed to derive from the play of light through. the coloring of the tiny 'sun' and its family of planets.

  She took the stone back to the sink. There was a fantasy in her mind
, she realized, in which she pictured the jewel as having magical powers. Remembering what the farmer Seth Mitchell had said, about yelling at Billy Bingham in the presence of the stone ... maybe the sound of a human voice would have an effect....

  She tried that right away, speaking words.

  Nothing happened. The picture remained unchanged. She spelled words, articulating each letter.

  Nothing.

  She ran the gamut of sounds possible in her own voice from a low contralto to a ridiculously piercing soprano — nothing!

  Once more, she noticed the design inside, and held the stone up against the light to see it better. And she was visually tracing the outline of the solar system in the crystal when she had a sudden thought and, with abrupt determination, said in a clear voice: 'Billy Bingham — the boy — I want him back ... now!'

  After she had spoken, during the silent moments that followed, she felt progressively foolish.

  Of the long-missing Billy, there was no sign. Thank God! she thought, breathless.

  * *

  Edith rose early the next morning; her mind was made up. It was time she got rid of something that was threatening to undermine her good sense.

  As she looked at the crystal, she saw that the interior scene had changed. It was now a human body outlined in purple and red points of light.

  The outline, she saw presently, was actually extremely detailed, showing the bone structure and the principal organs. There was even a faint flow which suffused the shape, suggesting a fine mask of nerves and blood vessels.

  She was examining it, absorbed, when abruptly she realized what she was doing.

  Firmly, she put the stone into a small box, filled it with new soil — crystals, she had read, needed nutrients — wrapped it, and addressed it to Seth Mitchell, Rural Route 4, Abbotsville.

  Shortly, she was driving to the post office. It was not until after she had mailed the package that her first realization came that she had done it again. Once more she had acted on impulse.

  Too late, the cautioning thought came: Suppose Seth Mitchell wrote the library a note of thanks. Unhappily, she contemplated Miss Davis' joy at the discomfiture of the college graduate who had been forced upon her by the library board. It would be impossible to explain how the flame of romantic compulsion had motivated her to steal the crystal ... and how once that possibility faded, her only desire had been to dispose of the evidence; which she had now done.

  Edith had a sudden grieving thought: Why don't I just get on the next bus to New York and leave this crazy little town forever?

  It was an extremely depressing moment The feeling she had was of an endless series of similar wrong decisions in her life. She sat there in her car at the curb, and thought of that first young man at college. A long-hidden memory burst into view, of how she had actually lost him through an impulse, she had been caught by the God-is-dead-so-now-you're-God movement, in which what you did to other people no longer mattered; you didn't have to feel guilty.

  In her self-pitying mood, it struck her with abrupt anguish: If I hadn't joined the guilt-free generation, right now I would be Mrs. Richard Staples.

  The realization reminded her of her dream, and that unique remembrance escalated her out of her apathy What an odd concept. Involuntarily, she laughed, and thought: Sending the crystal to the least of all possible Seth Mitchells had not been good sense.

  Thinking about that, her fear faded. How funny! And what an odd dream to have had.

  How could one ever know what way was best, what decision, what philosophy, how much exercise? And, best for what?

  * *

  Edith was already at her desk in the library when Tilsit came in with the look on her face. In her six months in Harkdale, Edith had come to recognize Tilsit's expression of 'I've-got-special-information'.

  'Did you see the paper?' Tilsit asked triumphantly. Edith presumed the paper referred to was the Harkdale Inquirer, a daily of four pages. She herself still read the Times, though she loyally subscribed to the local sheet.

  'Remember you asking me the other day about a man called Seth Mitchell?' Tilsit asked.

  Edith remembered only too we!!, but she put on a blank face.

  Tilsit unfolded the paper in her hands and held it up. The headline was: BILLY BINGHAM FOUND?

  Edith reached automatically, and Tilsit handed the paper to her. Edith read:

  -=-

  BILLY BINGHAM FOUND?

  'A twelve-year-old boy staggered out of the brush near Lake Naragang shortly after ten o'clock last night and tried to enter the house where Billy Bingham lived twenty-five years ago. The present tenant, John Hildeck, a carpenter, took the bewildered youngster to the police station. From there he was transported to the hospital.

  -=-

  That was as far as Edith read. Her body bent to one side, her arms flopped limply. She stooped over, and the floor crashed into her.

  When she came out of her faint on the cot in the rest room, the remembrance was still there, bright and hard and improbable, of how she had commanded the crystal to bring back Billy Bingham, somewhere between nine and ten the previous night.

  IV

  In Miami.

  The Seth Mitchell in that singing city had a private vocabulary in which he called God (or, as he sometimes thought of Him, Nature or Fate) the 'Musician'. In this exclusive terminology, his life had been tuneful, and the music a symphony, or at least a concerto.

  Somebody up there evidently regarded him as a suitable instrument.

  For he had money, girl friends, a fabulous career as a gambler on the edge of the underworld — all without restrictions, for his orchestra was well disciplined and responsive to his baton. Not bad for a small-town boy who had not learned the melodies of city life till he was over twenty.

  But now, suddenly, the Musician had sounded a sour note. Mitchell had in his hand the Harkdale Inquirer, in which was the account of the return of Billy Bingham.

  He studied the newspaper's photograph of a frightened-looking boy who did seem to be about twelve old. It looked like Billy Bingham, and it didn't. Mitchell was surprised that he wasn't sure. The Inquirer apologized for having lost its photocut of the real Billy, and explained that Billy's parents had moved to Texas — it was believed. No one knew where.

  The news story concluded: 'The only other person who could likely identify the claimant is Seth Mitchell, Billy's boyhood chum. Mitchell's present address is unknown.'

  Mitchell though, sarcastically: The Inquirer ought to examine its out-of-state subscription list.

  * *

  The next day.

  As he walked into room 312 of the Harkdale hospital, he saw that the youngster in the bed to the right of him was putting down his magazine, and looking frightened. Mitchell said with a reassuring smile, 'Billy, you don't have to worry about me. I'm here as your friend.'

  The boy said uneasily, 'That's what the big man told me, and then he got nasty.'

  Mitchell didn't ask who the big man was. There was a chair near the bed. He drew it up, and said gently, 'Billy, what seems to have happened to you is almost like a fairy story. But the most important thing is that you mustn't worry.

  Billy bit his lip, and a tear rolled down his cheek. 'They're treating me as if I'm lying. The big man said I'd be put in jail if I didn't tell the truth.'

  Mitchell's mind leaped back to the days when he had been questioned by just such impatient individuals about the disappearance of Billy. His lips tightened. He said, 'Nothing is going to happen if I can help it. But I'd like to ask you a few questions that maybe nobody else thought of. You don't have to answer if you don't want to. How does that strike you?'

  'Okay.'

  Mitchell took that for a go-ahead signal. 'What kind of clothes was Seth wearing?'

  'Brown corduroy pants and a gray shirt.'

  The reality gave Mitchell his first disappointment He had hoped the description would jog his memory. It didn't. Of all the reality of that distant day, he had not been abl
e to recall what particular pair of ragged trousers he had had on.

  'You wore corduroys also?' It was a shot in the dark.

  'They're in there.' The boy pointed at the chest in one corner.

  Mitchell stood up, opened the indicated drawer, and lifted out a skimpy pair of cheap corduroys. He examined them shamefacedly, but with an eye to detail. He put them back, finally, disappointed. The identifying label had been torn off. He couldn't remember ever having seen them before.

  Twenty-five years, he thought drearily. The time was like a thick veil with a few tattered holes in it Through the holes, he could catch glimpses of his past, mere instants out of his life, each one illuminated because of a particular momentary impact, and none actually fully visible.

  'Billy.' Mitchell was back in the chair, intent. 'You mentioned trying to grab a shining stone. Where did you first see it?'

  'On the ledge. There's a path that come up from the lake.'

  'Had you come up that way before?'

  The other shook his head. 'A few times, when it was cold, Usually Seth and I liked to stay near the water.'

  Mitchell nodded. He remembered that., 'This bright stone you saw — how big was it?'

  'Oh, it was big.'

  'An inch?'

  'Bigger. Five inches, I'll betcha.' Billy's face was bright with certainty.

  Mitchell paused to argue out the error of that with himself. The stone had been roughly two and a half inches at its longest, and somewhat narrower and thinner. A boy who had had only a glimpse would not be the best judge of its size.

  The reasoning made Mitchell uneasy. He was making excuses, where there should be none allowed. He hesitated. He wanted to find Out if Billy had actually touched the crystal, but he didn't quite know how he should lead up to the question. He began, 'According to what you told the paper, you admitted that your chum — what's his name?' He waited.

  'Seth. Seth Mitchell.'

  ' — Seth Mitchell saw the stone first. But you still tried to get it, didn't you?'

  The boy swallowed 'I didn't mean any harm.'