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

spookiest experiences of my entire life. Here’s this man who was supposed to have been dead for thirty years … but, to make a long story short, I believed him. Had to. We got to talking about art, and he excused himself—disappeared, almost as if he were a ghost—and in twenty minutes he was back, carrying something that convinced me.”

      “What was that?”

      “A pretty little piece, a coyote as I recall, not one of those really strange animals—he told me he’d come up to the rim to compare one of his new pieces with an old one he remembered being in the house. Of course the one he remembered wasn’t there. All that was left in the house, even then, were reproductions.

      “We talked some more. When he found out I was his wife’s nephew—well, his own nephew too, of course, though I could never imagine myself calling him ‘uncle’—he started asking me questions about Sarah. Apparently they’d had no contact since she left him.

      “He was really curious about her, and seemed concerned. But he also made it a condition of our doing business that she was not to know I’d met him and talked to him. In fact, no one at all was to know that he was still alive.”

      Brainard considered. He lit a cigarette, with hands afflicted with a noticeable tremor. “To make a long story short, after we’d talked for a considerable time, he left me his new piece to sell for him. In return he didn’t want money—he had a list of tools, construction materials, things like that. ‘I could obtain the material by other means,’ he said. ‘But this will save me time.’ ”

      “Always,” said Mr. Strangeways, “Always a question of time. In one way or another. Does it not seem so, Joseph?”

      “Yeah,” said Joe abstractedly, and turned back to Brainard. “Go on.”

      Brainard crushed out his cigarette in an ashtray, and went on. “After he’d gone, I began to think, and the more I thought, the less I could credit what I’d just seen. I mean, this guy would have to be ninety years old, and still active, the way he was.”

      “And that was almost thirty years ago. By now he’d have to be well over a hundred. Maybe a hundred and twenty? But you’re still doing business with him.”

      “All right, it’s crazy. I don’t know. You tell me. Maybe it’s his son who meets me now, or his grandson. Maybe it’s his younger brother. Maybe it’s Tyrrell’s ghost—I don’t know, though I have my own ideas. All I do know is that he keeps bringing up carvings and I’ve never had any trouble selling them as authentic. I know what the collectors think, that my aunt and I have this secret hoard of Tyrrells that we’re putting on the market gradually, one a year or so, just to keep the price up.

      “The one time an expert did question authenticity, I took his objections back to Tyrrell. And the next item Tyrrell gave me, and all the ones after that, were done in such a way that those objections wouldn’t hold. I guess some people are still doubtful from time to time, but I’ve always been able to find a number who believe.”

      “And what did you do for Tyrrell, in exchange for being made wealthy?”

      “Brought him stuff. He never wanted money, said he had no use for it. He’s got some kind of cave, a hideout down there in the Canyon, that no one’s ever managed to find.”

      “He told you that?”

      “In a way. Little things he said from time to time. That sounds crazy too, that nobody could find his hideaway. Until you stand on the Rim here for a while and take a real look at the place.” There was no doubt that Brainard believed in the plausibility of what he was saying.

      “What sort of things, exactly, did you bring him?” Joe asked.

      “I’d get him catalogs, and he’d pick out what he wanted from them, and tell me what specific tools to buy. A few times he wanted chemicals, and I’d go to a scientific supply house. Explosives, once in a while. That took a bit of doing, because you usually need a license, but I know some people. Usually it was things like rope, and generator parts, and some men’s work clothing, in specific sizes. Tyrrell’s sizes. Drafting materials, once…”

      “And all of this has been going on for thirty years?”

      “Almost that long, yes. He told me he’d tried other ways of getting supplies, before he met me. He said he kept running into problems with the other ways—but he didn’t go into any details on that.”

      “And finally you did break your agreement. You did tell Sarah that you had met him.”

      Brainard nodded. “I had to, after our arrangement had been going on for a year or two. I kept coming up with more statues, and I couldn’t keep that a secret, not from her. The sales were common knowledge in the field. She knew too much about her husband’s work and his affairs, that there hadn’t been any such backlog. So I had to explain where the statues were really coming from.”

      “And what was her reaction?”

      “About like yours.” Brainard sighed. “She wasn’t surprised—not nearly as much as I’d expected her to be. She asked a great many questions about Tyrrell—indirectly, the way he’d asked about her.”

      “She didn’t want to meet him, though?”

      “No. Never suggested anything of the kind. She really didn’t ever want to come anywhere near this place. Though she’s been here a few times over the years; just in and out, never staying in the house overnight. Until now, when Cathy turned up missing.”

      “And did Tyrrell ever find out that you’d broken your agreement with him?”

      Brainard shrugged wearily. “If he did, he didn’t say anything. He might have guessed I’d told his wife at least. He probably realized all these posthumous sales couldn’t be kept secret from her. But he must have decided just to let things go on.”

* * *

      Joe’s