Chapter 38: Friday, Jan. 5

"I'm going in, Lieutenant," I practically shouted into the receiver as the wind, picking up again in that open space, made a racket around me. "It's her only chance."

"Norman ..."

But I had clicked it off.

I made the bag of doped hamburger handy, hoisted my knapsack back on, took a deep breath, and started, as furtively as I could, down the steep slope toward the back of the house. I stopped every once in a while to check through my binoculars. The dog clearly knew I was there, but it didn't bark. "Nice puppy," I said to it softly, "nice puppy."

The going was rough, precarious. The wind had scoured the area of fresh snow. Iced-over ledges showed through the sparse vegetation. I must have been no more than a hundred feet from where the dog waited when I lost my footing and took an awful spill. I managed, almost by instinct, to do a self-arrest using the ice ax. I bruised my arm and scraped my face. I watched helplessly as the bag of meat in its fragile covering slid down the smoothly crusted snow toward the dog.

For a moment I was utterly disheartened. Surely the animal would bark now and give the alarm. Instead, miraculously, it left the small deck and with clumsy determination, made its way up to where the meat had snagged on a bush poking through the snow. I watched with bated breath as it nosed the pack, pawed at it, and finally freed the hamburger from the plastic bag. It wolfed the meat down in a matter of seconds.

It didn't take long to have an effect. The dog looked up to where I crouched, turned and started back toward the house, its footing unsteady. Not far from the deck, it stopped, sat down, and then lay down. I reached it not long afterwards. I think it was dead. But I had no time for regrets about a dead dog, whatever its innocence. My blood pounded so fiercely I could scarcely think. As stealthily as I could, I made my way to the deck where the dog had its kennel.

A formidable oaken door, studded and barred like those of a Medieval keep, led into the house from the deck. For a handle it had a great wrought iron ring. As quietly as I could, I twisted the ring, felt it give and click. With an ominous creak, the door swung open. I found myself in a dark passage, the darker for my pupils being contracted against the sun-struck snow. I paused a moment. A kind of pantry, curved with the exterior of the building, led off to the right into what I presumed was the kitchen. A bathroom opened to the left. I could see light coming from under the door ahead of me.

I did not have the presence of mind to take out my revolver. I did not have the presence of mind to skirt around the main part of the house through the kitchen. I simply went ahead and started to push open the door in front of me.

It was opened for me with a sudden jerk. I was taken roughly by the arm from the side and propelled into the center of the vast circular space I remembered, as in a nightmare, from my previous visit. Over against the fireplace, on the raised stone area, seated like some kind of petty potentate, was Manfred Bannerhoff, aka Freddie Bain. Near him, on the couch sat Diantha, her face drawn and worried.

"Welcome, Mr. de Ratour. It seems you're just in time for breakfast. We've been expecting you, haven't we Diantha. That's okay, Fang, you can let him go. He's not going to do anything."

"Norman!" Diantha cried, rising as though from a death-bed trance.

"Diantha." I started toward her.

"Stay where you are, both of you, unless ..."

I stopped. It wasn't just that the mesmeric powers in his striking eyes, but besides Fang, whom I recognized as the delivery boy from the Garden of Delights, two well-muscled young men hovered in the background.

Bain pointed to a large television screen next to the fireplace. "We have been enjoying the show, Norman. A jolly good show." He flicked at a remote control. There was the visual screech of a tape rewinding. Then I appeared on the screen, emerging from the woods above the building. "Such a hero. Such a fool." I was looking down with my binoculars. "We've all had a great laugh, Norman. There you are. Now we can't see you. You must be behind the rock, right, getting ready for your assault." I watched, glanced over to Diantha. Are you all right? I mouthed silently. She nodded. I turned back to monitor. At least they hadn't seen me making the phone call.

"Now here's the best part," my awful host announced. On the screen I was trying to get down the steep, windblown slope of iced-over snow. Suddenly, I fall and tumble over several times before I stop myself. The view goes to wide angle, and the dog can be seen making it's way up to the doctored meat. "Poor Mitzi," Freddie Bain said. "What did you put in the meat, Norman?"

"Morphine," I said.

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