A Question Of Time, Fred Saberhagen [best fiction books to read .TXT] 📗

and Maria had brought with them from Phoenix. Also Joe Keogh wanted someone to check at the desk on the chance that another room in the hotel might have become available.

      As soon as the two young investigators had been sent out of the room to accomplish these errands, conversation among the three men who remained became somewhat less guarded.

      “Mr. Strangeways,” said Keogh, in a speculative tone. It was a comment, almost a question.

      Strangeways leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow. “Do you see any reason, Joseph, why I should not use that name?”

      “No. No, none at all. A change of names doesn’t surprise me. It’s just your being here that does. When you walked in on us this afternoon I was—surprised.” He paused. “So, is it a fair guess that some of your people are involved in Cathy Brainard’s disappearance? And how did you know John and I were here?”

      The man who was now calling himself Strangeways nodded slowly. His answer ignored the second question. “At least one of my people, as you call them, is concerned. I fear not innocently. I mean Tyrrell.”

      “Tyrrell? Edgar Tyrrell, the one who—?”

      “The artist, who disappeared approximately half a century ago. Yes, he is nosferatu. Oh, there are indeed complications.” Strangeways stood up slowly, staring in the direction of the window, where clouded daylight had not yet entirely died. “A thought occurs to me. I am going outside, Joseph. I take it you are soon going to visit the Tyrrell House?”

      “That’s my plan.”

      “Then I shall probably meet you on the way.” Strangeways turned to the door, and in a moment was gone. Joe was vaguely relieved to see that he opened the door and passed out of the room in mundane breather’s fashion. Of course the day’s clouded sun was not yet down.

      “Vampires,” John Southerland said meditatively, as soon as the door had closed behind one of them. “Okay, Joe. Where are we now? What are our two new helpers going to say if we start briefing them about vampires?”

      Joe turned to him. “I don’t really want to undertake that chore. How about you?”

      “No thanks.”

      “So, we’re not going to tell Burdon and Torres any more than we have to about the nature of Mr. Tyrrell and Mr. Strangeways. That means we have to be careful how we use them.”

      “And how will we?”

      “They can certainly help us search the Canyon. If I understood Mrs. Tyrrell properly on the phone, that’s basically what she wants. Okay. Maybe she has reason to think we can do better than the hundred or so people who searched a month ago—I’ll know better after I’ve talked to her face to face.”

      “‘Strangeways’?” John managed to sound the quotation marks.

      “God, John, I don’t know any more than you do about why he’s here. But evidently our client isn’t exactly a widow after all.”

      “I wonder if she knows?”

      “Well. If old Sarah’s husband is still around as a vampire, I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew about it. That’s why she wanted Keogh and Company, the famous discreet psychic specialists. As for her nephew, he gives me the impression of a man who has never heard of vampires in his life. Not even fictional ones. Outside of that, he’s somewhat haggard and worn, as you might expect of a man whose only daughter has been missing for a month. The police have been no help to him.”

      John tilted his chair back so it balanced on its hind legs. “Is there a Mrs. Brainard around? The girl’s adoptive mother?”

      “There was, but she died three or four years ago. Since then Cathy’s been spending a lot of time in boarding schools.”

      There came a tap at the door, and John got up to answer. The two young helpers were returning together, laden with the hardware from the car, and bringing confirmation of the fact that no additional hotel rooms were available.

      When all four were seated at the table again, Joe began to share with Maria and Bill his meager stock of information on Cathy Brainard. John got out several photographs of the missing girl and passed them around, along with a terse typed description. When last seen she had been dressed for hiking, carrying a pack and camping gear.

* * *

      While his assistants were contemplating this material, Joe looked at his watch. Getting up from the table, he went to peer out out around the edge of the window curtain, into the slowly darkening afternoon. The next step would be to introduce his crew—with, he thought, the probable exception of Mr. Strangeways—to Mrs. Tyrrell and her nephew.

      He decided it was time to set out for the Tyrrell House.

      Before ushering his colleagues out of his hotel room he opened the last suitcase Bill had brought in from his car, and handed out two-way radios to everyone. Each radio was small enough to fit easily into a winter jacket pocket.

      There was some other hardware in the suitcase, tools loaned by the Phoenix agency at Joe’s request . After a moment’s hesitation Joe decided to let it stay where it was for the time being.

      Thus equipped, Joe and his colleagues put on their coats and left El Tovar by the west entrance, bypassing the lobby. Gathering darkness had begun to diminish the number of tourists on the broad, paved walk that closely followed the rim through most of Canyon Village. Joe led his people west, past Kachina Lodge, Thunderbird Lodge, and Bright Angel Lodge; all of these auxiliary hotels were decades more modern than El Tovar, built of more conventional twentieth-century materials, lower to the ground and on a less ambitious scale.

      Before the crew of investigators had gone very far, they found Mr. Strangeways waiting for them, standing in the gathering gloom with the hood of his jacket pulled up. He joined them wordlessly.

      Modest streetlights, widely spaced, now suddenly came to life along the esplanade, giving the area the look almost of a city park. Late daylight was fading steadily behind persistent clouds, though still the