Page:Weird Tales volume 36 number 02.djvu/97

 Then another gasp went up. Another Susan Vail had slipped through the curtains and was following in the track of the first. She, too, wore Model Twelve.

"Hey—" said the skeptical man with sideburns.

He stopped. A third Model Twelve was coming.

Then another. And another!

"My God!" the skeptical man gasped. "Quintuplets!"

Walker had turned a delicate shade of mauve. Cries of outraged fury went up from the audience. "Exclusive model," somebody snapped. "Hah!"

Meanwhile the army of Model Twelves was marching steadily through the curtains. The room was filled with them. Walker was clawing at his hair and making gurgling sounds. Mrs. Smythe-Kennicott-Smythe arose, waggled her chins haughtily, and departed.

"One might as well shop in the five-and-ten," she observed.

"It's sabotage! " Walker whispered faintly. "B-boring from within—"

His eyes brightened a trifle. Mrs. Smythe-Kennicott-Smythe had reconsidered. She wasn't leaving, after all. She was returning, her eyes very wide, and behind her was a large, bulky man with a mask on his face.

Other men arrived. Five of them. And they had guns, and were masked.

"This," said the leader, "is a stick-up. Squat, beetle-puss." He pushed Mrs. Smythe-Kennicott-Smythe into a chair. "And keep your trap shut. That goes for all of you." He waved a gleaming automatic. "Cover the exits, boys."

The boys obeyed. The guests sat, frozen with horror. One dowager attempted to swallow her diamonds, but was dissuaded. Walker gasped for air.

"This will ruin me!" he squawked. "My customers—my clients, I mean—"

"Shaddap," remarked the big man. "Or I'll let you have it. Don't anybody move. Frisk 'em, boys."

One of the boys produced a canvas bag and made the rounds, collecting whatever and money he could unearth. A pearl necklace, the existence of which had heretofore gone unsuspected, was revealed when Mrs. Smythe-Kennicott-Smythe was compelled to stare ceiling-ward.

"Hey!" said one of the boys. "What the hell—what—ulp!"

"Lcok!" he finished. "Jeez, boos—look!"

The big man looked. He, too, stared. Model Twelve was in action.

HERE were about twenty Susan Vails lined up on the runway. The last of them had stepped forward and—merged—with the one in front of her. This, Vanderhof had found, was the only way of consolidating his various images. He merely had to walk into himself.

The nineteenth Susan Vail merged with the eighteenth. And the eighteenth stepped forward—

Nobody else moved.

There was a stricken silence as the fifteenth Susan Vail became the fourteenth—and so on—the third became the second; there was only one Susan Vail now.

She hurried toward the exit.

But now the stasis broke. One of the thugs barred her path, lifting his gun menacingly.

Susan Vail—or Vanderhof—veered aside, toward an ante-room lined with mirrors. She ducked into it and slid die curtain in place after her.

The leader snapped, "Get her, Phil."

Phil said reluctantly, "There ain't no way for her to get outa there."

"I said—"

"Okay," Phil placated. "Just gimme time. That dame ain't normal."

He moved forward, gun lifted. His hand touched the curtain. Then he turned.