Page:Famous Fantastic Mysteries (1951-03).djvu/104

 pomander and pouring an occasional drink from the decanter, though I had to grope for it blindly each time. I was tremendously keyed up with anticipation, and the wait seemed long.

The blackout was still in full darkness over New York when I heard the faint noise of Argyle's shoes coming back across the carpet. He put the little lamp down on a table beside me and laid the manuscript in my lap.

"Let me have the Golden Apple," he said, his voice so strained that I scarcely knew it.

I stared up at the pale oval blur of his face, the black, formless outlines of him in the dimness.

"What does it say?" I asked.

"You read it." He took the pomander. "You'll see what—it explains everything. Good-by, Russell. After you've read, you'll understand."

"Good-by! Wait—Argyle—" I stared at the shadow retreating toward its corner. I heard the sound of his shoes fall silent, and the creak of the chair as he sat down. And then—

There was a breath of air through the room, as if someone had brushed by in haste. There was no noise to match it, but somehow, quite definitely, I sensed that where there had been two people in this room an instant before, now there was only one.

"Argyle—" I said.

No answer. I knew he was not there any longer.

I took the lamp and with its faint aid went to look at his chair. It was empty. I had not heard it creak when he rose, but it was empty now. I had not heard the soft sound of his shoes and I knew he had not moved across the carpeted floor, but he was not in the room any longer. The realization was not the result of reasoning from these bits of evidence, though I knew I must have heard him, sensed his leaving. No, it was a matter of utter, unarguable conviction with me. Psychic certainty, if you like. He had—winked out, like a candle.

With the pomander.

■ the apartment. I went out into the hall, groping and calling. But I did not find him. When I returned, the manuscript that had been in the Golden Apple lay scattered on the carpet, where I had dropped it as I sprang up.

I gathered the papers together, my mind still blankly incredulous. The answer to the secret must lie here, I realized, if it lay anywhere at all. I sat down, holding the little lamp close and straining my eyes in the dimness to make out what the pages held.

And so I read the record upon them that John Argyle himself had written, in the early days of the war, when the first bombs were falling upon London when he had stumbled upon the magic of the golden pomander engraved by that unknown artisan whose bones were dust so long since. For my feeling when I first touched the pomander had not been wrong. There was magic in that archaic, lovely thing, a perilous sorcery that opened the gateways of a lost dream. And as I read, I understood what it was that had happened to John Argyle on a cool autumn night in London, in his apartment near Kensington

The war was young yet. The Germans had not yet unleashed the full terror of their blitz. Nor had America yet thrown her strength into the balance. The raiders came over the Channel to blast England into submission, but already the RAF was meeting their challenge.

In a year, John Argyle thought, he would be old enough to fly too. A long time, of course—a year. Before then the war might be won—or lost. Sitting by the fire in the chill of the evening, he turned the pomander over and over in his hands, watching its jewels glinting many-colored and remembering his conversation with the museum curator from America. A secret spring He fingered the fretted gold hopefully, pressing it here and there. Firelight blazed from the gems. Hypnotic, almost. He held the pomander up,