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

      Bill quietly told Joe that he wished he had had a chance to scout the terrain out in daylight. But there just hadn’t been time.

      Joe, earlier in the day, had had the opportunity to look over the steep slope. Now he did what he could to describe the lay of the land to Bill.

      “Main thing to remember is that it’s a long way down, and that it’s steep. The trails going down all switchback, and there are some really sheer dropoffs.”

      “I can believe all that,” Bill responded. What little he could see now of the terrain strongly suggested that the spot of level ground where they were standing was only a small ledge.

      Neither man had used his flashlight yet. With the lingering traces of daylight baffled by persistent clouds of mist, the awesome dimensions of the Canyon remained concealed—though the mist was now beginning to sink into the depths.

      Joe pointed. “I’ll be right over there, about thirty yards. The tree with a long branch that looks like an arm?”

      “Right.”

      “Got your radio?”

      “Check.”

      “Flashlight?”

      “Check. Also camera, though I don’t know what good that’s going to do.”

* * *

      Hardly had Joe taken up his own position on the fast-darkening mountainside below the house, on the other side of the almost non-existent trail, when he gave a nervous start, and then relaxed. The man calling himself Strangeways had suddenly materialized, almost at Joe’s side and seemingly out of nothing but the dusk itself.

      By way of greeting, Joe said in a low voice: “I thought you’d want me to invite you into the Tyrrell House. Just in case you feel you have to get in there later.”

      The other shook his head. There was tension, and an uncharacteristic suggestion of unease in the way he stood, first with arms folded, then with hands clasped behind his back.

      “My presence on the scene just now would be disruptive, Joseph. And once in the house, I would leave traces of my presence there, a spoor some unfriendly agent could detect … were you given a warm welcome by the family?”

      “I’d say a mixed welcome. If you can call those two people a family.” Tersely Joe recounted the main points of his conversation with Sarah Tyrrell and his impressions of her and her nephew.

      Strangeways heard him out with interest. Then he said: “I am in general agreement with what the lady told you about her husband. And after a preliminary investigation I think it highly probable that the missing girl is still alive—somewhere. But where I do not know. Perhaps nearby, as the great-aunt says. I very much doubt whether the young lady is capable of returning to her relatives at will.”

      “I have grave doubts of that myself.”

      “Then can we agree on this as well: that perhaps others besides the girl are in grave, though probably not immediate, danger?”

      “You mean besides Brainard with his gambling debts?” Joe asked. “No, I don’t have any reason to think so. But if you do…”

      “I do. And I am beginning to think,” Strangeways added after a pause, “that the search for a true solution must begin far away from the Grand Canyon—yes, far indeed.”

      “How far?” Joe asked in surprise.

      “In England.”

      Joe scowled into the thickening dusk, wishing again that it had been possible to give all his people a look at the real Canyon in the daylight before they went on guard. Even he himself felt unprepared, though at least he had been here once before, as an innocent tourist, many years ago.

      Then, almost unwillingly, he looked back at his companion. “What does England have to do with this?”

      “For one thing, it is the birthplace of Edgar Tyrrell. According to my informants, his birthplace in each phase of his life, if you take my meaning. There he drew his first breath, I believe some time around the middle of the nineteenth century—and it was in the same land, some two or three decades later, that he drew his last. I hope to be able to tell you much more on that subject, Joseph, when I return.”

      “Wait a minute—” Joe paused. He had been about to say You can’t just leave—but he had caught himself in time; he really didn’t want to give this man the impression that he, Joe, was trying to forbid him to do anything.

      “What do you expect is going to happen here tonight?” Joe finally asked instead.

      Strangeways shrugged, as if he did not consider the question of paramount importance. “Probably nothing that is beyond your competence to deal with.” Then, with an elegant gesture, he added: “I can assure you that no one of those now present in the house is nosferatu. But you have undoubtedly been able to see that for yourself.”

      Joe nodded. “But it seems that old Tyrrell definitely is.” Whistling silently between his teeth, Joe tried to ponder the implications. He wasn’t sure that he could see all of them.

      His companion nodded. “But I doubt that he is going to visit the house tonight  … so far, I have deliberately avoided contact with his wife. Most likely I will talk to her when I return from England.”

      Joe went on: “You think young Catherine may have somehow become the victim of her great-uncle? Her great-uncle by adoption. A pretty distant relationship.”

      The other let out a faintly reptilian sigh. “I fear the girl may indeed be a victim. But under what circumstances I do not know.”

      “Has she been … will she be nosferatu too?”

      Strangeways shook his head. “When we find her, we will know what she is. What she may have become. And Joseph…”

      “Yeah.”

      “I sense that somewhere, not far from where we stand, at least one presence even more intriguing than Mr. Tyrrell is waiting to be discovered … however, my instincts warn me to approach this whole problem cautiously. This is a time for subtlety.”

      On that note Strangeways turned to leave, then turned back with an afterthought. “Joseph, I am not abandoning you.”

      Joe raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t think you