Chapter XVII

The small restless breezes of night stirred the leaves of the venerable oak standing like some burly guardian beside the narrow house of the Carrs. Through the overlapping shadows softly gleamed the white of the walls--such a spotless, pristine white that neighbors laughingly vowed the old lady herself came out after everyone had gone to sleep and washed them down with a long-handled mop. Everywhere was the impression of neatly tended, wholesome age. It even had an odor--like some old chest which a clipper captain had used to bring back elegant spices from his voyages in the China Trade.

The house faced the campus. The girls could see it, going to classes, and it reminded them of afternoons they had spent there, sitting in straight-backed chairs, all on their best behavior, while a wood fire burned merrily on the shining brass andirons in the white fireplace. Mrs. Carr was such a strait-laced innocent old dear! But her innocence was all to the good--it was no trouble at all to pull the wool over her eyes. And she did tell the quaintest stories with the most screamingly funny, completely unconscious points. And she did serve the nicest gingerbread with her cinnamon tea.

A light came on in the hall, casting a pattern of gentle illumination through the New England fanlight onto the scrollwork of the porch. The six-paneled white door below the fanlight opened.

"I'm going, Flora," Mr. Carr called. "Your bridge partners are a bit tardy, aren't they?"

"They'll be here soon." The silvery voice floated down the hall. "Good-by, Linthicum."

He closed the door. Too bad he had to miss the bridge. But the paper they were going to hear on the Theory of Primes would undoubtedly be interesting, and one couldn't have everything. His footsteps sounded on the pebbly walk with its edging of tiny white flowers, like old lace. Then they reached the concrete and slowly died away.

Somewhere at the rear of the house a car drew up. There was the sound of something being lifted, then heavy, plodding footsteps. A door at the back of the house opened, and for a moment against the oblong of light a man could be seen carrying in a smaller figure whose position suggested the presence of certain restraints. Then that door closed, too, and for a while longer there was silence, while the breezes played with the oak leaves.

With thriftless waste of rubber, a luxurious black automobile jerked to a stop in front. Mrs. Gunnison stepped out.

"Hurry up, Evelyn," she said. "You've made us late again. You know how she hates that."

"I'm coming as fast as I can," replied her companion plaintively, emerging from the car.

As soon as the six-paneled door swung open, the faded, spicy odor became more apparent.

"You're late, dears," came the silvery, laughing voice. "But I'll forgive you this once, because I've a surprise for you. Come with me."

* * * * *

They followed the frail figure in rustling, faintly hissing silk into the living room. Just beyond the bridge table, with its embroidered cover and two cut-glass dishes of sweets, stood Norman Saylor. In the mingled lamplight and firelight, his face was expressionless.

"Since Tansy is unable to come," said Mrs. Carr, "he's agreed to make a fourth. Isn't that a nice surprise? And isn't it very nice of Professor Saylor?"

Mrs. Gunnison seemed to be gathering her courage. "I'm not altogether sure that I like the arrangement," she said finally.

"Since when did it matter whether you liked something or not?" came the answer, sharp as a whiplash. Mrs. Carr was standing very straight. "Sit down, all of you!"

When they had taken their places around the bridge table, Mrs. Carr ran through a deck, flipping out certain cards. When she spoke her voice was as sweet and silvery as ever.

"Here are you two, my dears," she said, placing the queens of diamonds and clubs side by side. "And here is Professor Saylor." She added the king of hearts to the group. "And here am I." She placed the queen of spades so that it overlapped all three. "Off here to the side is the queen of hearts--Tansy Saylor. Now what I intend to do is this." She moved the queen of hearts so that it exactly covered the queen of spades. "You don't understand? Well, it isn't what it looks like, and neither of you is especially bright. You'll understand in a moment. Professor Saylor and I have just had an ever so interesting talk," she went on. "All about his work. Haven't we, Professor Saylor?" He nodded. "He's made some of the most fascinating discoveries. It seems that there are laws governing the things that we women have been puttering with. Men are so clever in some ways, don't you think?

"He's been good enough to tell all those laws to me. You'd never dream how much easier and safer it makes everything--and more efficient. Efficiency is so very important these days. Why, already Professor Saylor has made something for me--I won't tell you what it is, but there's one for each of you and one for someone else. They aren't presents, because I'll keep them all. And if one of you should do something naughty, they'll make it ever so easy for me to whisk part of you away--you know what part.

"And now something is going to happen that will enable Professor Saylor and I to work together very closely in the future--how closely you could never imagine. You're to help. That's why you're here. Open the dining-room door, Norman."

* * * * *

It was an old-fashioned sliding door, gleaming white. Slowly he pushed it aside.

"There," said Mrs. Carr. "My second surprise. I'm full of surprises tonight."

The body was lashed to a chair. From over the gag, the eyes of Tansy Saylor glared at them with impotent hate and a trapped fear.

Evelyn Sawtelle half rose, stifling a scream.

"You needn't get hysterics, Evelyn," said Mrs. Carr sharply. "It's got a soul in it now."

Evelyn Sawtelle sank back, lips trembling.

Mrs. Gunnison's face had grown pale, but she set her jaw firmly and put her elbows on the table. "I don't like it," she said. "It's too open--too risky."

"I am able to take chances I wouldn't have taken a week ago, dear," Mrs. Carr said sweetly. "In this matter your aid and Evelyn's is essential to me. Of course, you're perfectly welcome not to help, if you don't want to. Only I do hope you understand the consequences."

Mrs. Gunnison dropped her eyes. "All right," she said. "But let's be quick about it."

"I am a very old woman," began Mrs. Carr, with tantalizing slowness, "and I am very fond of life. It has been a little dispiriting for me to think that mine is drawing to a close. And, for reasons I think you understand, I have something more to fear in death than most persons.

"But now it seems that I am once more going to experience all those things that an old woman looks upon as forever lost. The unusual circumstances of the last two weeks have helped a great deal, in preparing the ground. Professor Saylor has helped a little. And you, my dears, are going to help, too. You see, it's necessary to build up a certain kind of tension, and only people with the right background can do that, and it takes at least four of them. Professor Saylor--he has such a brilliant mind!--tells me that it's very much like building up electrical tension, so that a spark will be able to jump a gap. Only in this case the gap will be from where I am sitting to, there"--and she pointed at the bound figure. "And there will be two sparks. And then, when it's over, the queen of hearts will exactly cover the queen of spades. Also, the queen of spades will exactly cover the queen of hearts. But it's the things you can't see that are always the most important, don't you think?"

"You can't do it!" said Mrs. Gunnison. "You won't be able to keep the truth hidden!"

"You think not? On the contrary, I won't have to make an effort. Let me ask you what will happen if old Mrs. Carr claims that she is young Tansy Saylor. I think you know very well what would happen to that dear, sweet, innocent old lady. There are times when the laws and beliefs of a skeptical society can be so very convenient.

"You can begin with the fire, Norman. I'll tell the others exactly what they are to do."

He tossed a handful of powder on the fire. It flared up greenly, and a pungent, cloying aroma filled the room.

There was a stirring at the heart of the world and a movement of soundless currents in the black void. Upon the dark side of the planet, a million women moved restlessly in their sleep, and a few woke trembling with unnamed fears. Upon the light side, a million more grew nervous, and unaccustomed daydreams chased unpleasantly through their minds; some made mistakes at their work and had to add again a column of figures or tie a broken thread or readjust the intricate mechanism of a fuse or detonators; and a few found strange suspicion growing mushroomlike among their thoughts. A certain ponderous point began to work closer and closer to the end of the massive surface supporting it, not unlike a top slowly wobbling toward the edge of a table, and certain creatures who were nearby saw what was happening and skittered away terrified through the blackness. Then, at the very edge, it paused. The irregularity went out of its movement, and it rode steady and true once more. The currents ceased to trouble the void, and the Balance was restored.

* * * * *

Norman Saylor opened the windows at top and bottom so the breeze might fan out the remnants of pungent vapor. Then he cut the lashings of the bound figure and loosened the gag from its mouth. In a little while, she rose, and without a word they started from the room.

All this while, none of the others had spoken. The figure in the gray silk dress sat with head bowed, shoulders hunched dejectedly, frail hands dropped limply at her side.

In the doorway, the woman whom Norman Saylor had loosed turned back.

"I have only one more thing to say to you. All that I told you earlier this evening was completely true--including that matter of the devices he has made for each one of you and which I will keep close by me. All completely true--with one very big exception--"

Mrs. Gunnison looked up. Evelyn Sawtelle half turned in her chair. The third figure did not move.

"The soul of Mrs. Carr was not transferred to the body of Tansy Saylor this evening. That happened much earlier--when Mrs. Carr had the easier task of exorcising a lowly bestial spirit from that body and then herself occupying the empty brain, leaving the captive soul of Tansy Saylor trapped in her own aged body--and doomed to be murdered by her own husband in accord with Mrs. Carr's well-laid plan. For Mrs. Carr knew that Tansy Saylor would only have one panic-stricken thought--to run home to her husband. And Mrs. Carr was very sure that she could persuade Norman Saylor to kill the body housing the soul of his wife, under the impression that he was killing Mrs. Carr. And that would have been the end of Tansy Saylor's soul, since the soul dies or vanishes with the body it inhabits.

"You knew, Mrs. Gunnison, that Mrs. Carr had taken Tansy Saylor's soul from you, just as you had taken it from Evelyn Sawtelle, and for similar reasons. But you dared not reveal that fact to Norman Saylor because you would have lost your one bargaining point. This evening you half suspected that something was different from what it seemed, but you did not dare to make a stand.

"And now as a result of what we have done this evening with your help, the soul of Mrs. Carr is once more in the body of Mrs. Carr, and the soul of Tansy Saylor is in the body of Tansy Saylor. That is all. And now, good night."

The six-paneled door closed behind them. The pebbly path crunched under their feet.

"How did you know?" was Tansy's first question, "When I stood there in the doorway, blinking through those awful spectacles, gasping after the way I'd hurried with only the blind thought of finding you--how did you know?"

"Partly," he said reflectively, "because she gave herself away toward the end. She began to emphasize words in that exaggerated way of hers. But that wouldn't have been enough in itself. She was too good an actress. She must have been studying your mannerisms for years. And after seeing how well you played her part tonight, with hardly any preparation, I wonder that I ever did see through her."

"Then how did you?"

"It was partly the way you hurried up the walk--it didn't sound like Mrs. Carr. And partly something about the way you held yourself. But mainly it was that headshake you gave--that quick triple headshake, I couldn't fail to recognize it. And after that, I realized all the other things."

"Do you think," said Tansy softly, "that after this you'll never begin to wonder if I am really I?"

"I suppose I will," he said seriously. "But I believe I'll always be able to conquer my doubts."

And Tansy laughed.

But he was not yet over being serious. "I think that tonight we were a lot closer to a much bigger danger than even we ever guessed," he said. He had not yet surrendered to the reaction that gripped Tansy. "There's more behind this matter of the Balance than we may realize. There's a lot we'll do with this, but we'll want to go slowly and test every step of the way."

There were footsteps, then a friendly greeting from the shadows ahead.

"Hello, you two," called Mr. Gunnison. "Bridge game over? I thought I'd walk back with Linthicum and then drive home with Hulda. Say, Norman, Pollard dropped in to speak to me after the paper had been read. He's had a sudden change of heart on that matter we were talking about. From what he says, the trustees may even cancel their meeting."

"It was a very interesting paper," Mr. Carr informed them, "and I had the satisfaction of asking the speaker a very tricky question. But I'm sorry I missed the bridge. Oh, well, I don't suppose I'll ever notice any difference."

"And the funny thing is," Tansy told Norman after they had walked on, "is that he really _won't_."

THE END.