ELEVEN

It was waiting for them. It had scurried to the final landing. Now it heard their footsteps and their whispers, saw their sweeping flashlight beams. They still were quite a distance down there, but in time they would be up here, and it hissed as it swung in search of cover.

But there weren't any rooms behind it, just this one big open space that stretched from end to end. It didn't understand, although it did retain a far off memory of someone who'd explained this. There were slight projections from each corner, spaces behind, but these would be too obvious. It needed something else. And then it saw what it was looking for. A perfect hiding place and one it could attack from if it had to.

It was scurrying to reach the place, and all the while, it kept glancing at the glow that swept in through the window and spread cold and pale across the floor. It started howling again. It couldn't stop itself, was powerless to fight the urge, just crouched there, head up, howling long and high, its throat constricted painfully, and then the urge had been relieved, and it was scurrying.

The darkness in this hiding place was wonderful, the blackness soothing and secure. It closed its eyes to rest them after all the strain of squinting at that cold pale glow that spilled in through the windows. It was breathing quickly, nervous even though the hiding place was comforting. It licked its lips and tasted yet again the scabs of blood that clung in specks against its mouth. That salt taste that it now had grown accustomed to and even had begun to crave. But the salt taste had been liquid, and that recollection made it gag again. Nonetheless it wanted that warm sweetly salted liquid. It was caught in oppositions, both attracted and repelled, and without conscious effort, it was howling even more fiercely.

TWELVE

They stopped down on the second landing.

"It's up on the third floor."

"Maybe," Slaughter told them.

"But you heard it howling."

"We don't know if there's a dog in here as well. I say we do this as we planned it. Dunlap, you're so anxious to be helpful. Shine that flashlight up the stairs. Don't wait to yell if you see movement."

"Oh, don't worry. If there's anything on those stairs, I'll yell my god-damned head off."

"Are you sorry that you came now?"

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"You must want that story bad."

"You have no idea."

But then Slaughter saw the way the flashlight beam was shaking, and he took the light away from him. "I don't know if it's booze or nerves, but I don't want my life depending on you. Here, you'd better take this." And he gave the flashlight to the medical examiner. "You do it just the way I told him." He turned to his men. "Okay, we work along this big hall up here, checking all the rooms. I don't expect to find him on this level, but I can't depend on expectation."

With the net spread before them, they moved through the darkness. When they reached the first doors on each side, they stopped and looked at Slaughter.

"Try the left side. I'll stay here and watch the other."

Breathing hoarsely, they went slowly in. But there was nothing. They shone flashlights in the corners and the closets, just an old-time bedroom with a canopy above the bed, a net that came down to keep out mosquitoes. They looked underneath the bed, and they came out, checking all the other rooms along the hallway. Other beds, a playroom, and a study, all rigged out as if a hundred years ago, maps and photographs and guns up on the walls, a chair that looked as if old Baynard had risen from it only a moment ago, but nobody was in there, and they came out, staring down the hall toward where the medical examiner was aiming the flashlight up the stairs.

"I guess we know he's up there," Slaughter said.

They faced the stairs and started up. Their flashlight beams were making crazy angles on the walls and ceiling. The men shuffled as if at any moment they expected some small figure to come hurtling toward them, but instead they reached the final landing, and they swung their beams across the big top-story room.

"Well, I don't get it," Slaughter said. "What is this place?" His voice echoed.

"You've never been here?" Rettig asked.

"Always meant to. Never took the time."

"The ballroom," Rettig told him. "Baynard's wife was Southern, and she didn't like the people out here. She was used to parties, dances, fancy dinners. Baynard built this place to suit her, and the ballroom was his special effort. Once a month at least he had a celebration. Ranchers, those with money, used to come from miles around, better people from the town, congressmen and senators. He paid their way. They'd come up from the railroad in carriages he sent for them. He even brought an orchestra from Denver. They would dance and eat and-"

"What's the matter?" Slaughter asked him.

In the dark, the flashlight beams angling across the ballroom, Slaughter felt his stomach burning.

"Well, I used to hear about it from my father's father, but I never knew if it was true or not. He said the parties sometimes got a little out of hand."

"I don't know what you mean."

Rettig continued, "You can see the way the balcony juts out from that end. Well, the orchestra played up there. With that solid wooden railing, the musicians couldn't see too much of what went on below them. In the corners and the sides there, you can see the slight partitions that come out."

"They're triangles."

"That's right. You see those padded benches on the sides."

"Well, what about them?"

"Rumors, I suppose. My father's father said that wives were swapped up here, that people went with different partners in around the back of those things. He said there were secret doors that you could go in for privacy."

"He knew that for a fact?"

"He never was invited. No one ever found a secret door."

"Then that's just a rumor, like you said. I mean, a thing like that, somebody would have told."

"And maybe not have been invited anymore."

"But Baynard's wife. Why would she have gone along with this? You said that she was from society."

"I didn't mention that she also had a reputation. Baynard was the one who had to go along with it. To keep her with him. Then the parties got a little out of hand. She found a man she liked much better than the rest. Some people say she left with him. Others say that Baynard killed her. But they never found the body."

"Oh, that's swell. So now you've got us searching through some kind of haunted house. Just keep your mind on what you're doing. Dunlap, you stay here. We'll check this right end. Then we'll move down toward the other. Shout if anything slips past us. Everybody ready?"

They nodded, then slowly worked across to search the corner to their right, moving around the triangle. They knocked the wood in case they might find a secret door. They crossed to search the other corner. Then they moved along the big wall, going around the triangle on that side.

"Nothing so far," Slaughter said. "We still have two partitions and the balcony. We've almost got him. Let's be careful."

They moved up toward the far end.

"Like I said, be careful."

There was nothing in the far left corner, nothing in the right.

"Okay, he's up there in the balcony. He's got to be."

They started up the narrow stairs but bumped against each other; there wasn't room for the four of them.

"This isn't working," Slaughter told them.

They were grateful for the chance to wait.

"Rettig, you stay back. You other three go up," Slaughter told them. "Rettig will be just behind you."

Rettig breathed out with relief. The other three looked tense, aiming their flashlights up the narrow stairway.