Michael stepped back, throwing the door wide.

“How did you know I wanted you?” he asked.

“I called from the airport,” Galen said prosaically. He threw his coat onto a chair and put his case down on the floor beside it. “Henry said you’d been phoning all day.”

His gaze swept the room and returned to Michael; and the latter was conscious of his appearance, which was both haggard and unkempt. He ran his hand self-conciously over the stubble of beard on his jaw and glanced down at his unspeakable shirt-rumpled, sweat-stained, dirty-before meeting Galen’s eyes.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he said inadequately.

“Why?”

Michael opened his mouth, and closed it again. Coherent explanation was beyond him.

“You might as well see the worst,” he said. “Come into the bedroom.”

He had always admired Galen’s phlegm, and wondered what degree of shock it would take to startle him out of it. He found out. Galen paled visibly at the sight that met his eyes.

Flat on the bed, arms outstretched and bound, ankles tied to the footboard, Linda looked like a character out of one of the books Michael never read, much less wrote. Apparently she had recognized Galen’s voice; she was not surprised to see him, but she blushed slightly as the incredulous gray eyes swept over her.

“It isn’t what you think,” she said.

“I’m not sure what I think.” Galen sat down in the nearest chair. “Give me a minute to catch my breath. Michael…”

Michael talked. It was an unspeakable relief; he knew how Linda had felt all those months, bottling up her fears. He talked without critical intent or editing, mixing theory and fact, interpretation and actuality. And Galen listened. He blinked, a little more often than was normal, but his face had smoothed out into its professional mask. Michael finished with an account of the mental attack he had just experienced. Linda, who was hearing this for the first time, gasped audibly, but Galen went on nodding.

“Well, well,” he said, after Michael’s voice had stopped. “No wonder you look like hell.”

“Is that all you can say?”

“What do you want me to say?” He glanced from one of them to the other, and smiled faintly. “If it comes to that-what do you want me to do? Put on my wizard’s robes and exorcise the devil?”

Michael sat down on the bed. He grinned.

“I rather expected you to put in a call for the men in the white coats, and order rooms for two.”

“I may yet,” Galen said coolly. “You realize-neither of you is unintelligent-that everything you’ve told me can be explained in terms of pathological mental conditions?”

Michael glanced apprehensively at Linda and was reassured by what he saw. The strain, the underlying fear were still there, but Galen’s comment had not shaken her. She had anticipated it. Perversely, he was moved to marshal the very arguments he had once demolished himself.

“Andrea’s death?”

Galen shrugged.

“The phenomenon is sometimes called thanatomania. With the heart condition you mentioned, the result was virtually a foregone conclusion. I’ve seen several cases myself where there was no diagnosable organic weakness. You must have read the newspaper accounts, a few years ago, of an excellent example of thanatomania. The woman had been told, by a soothsayer, that she would die on a certain date. She died. In a modern hospital, under professional care.”

“I read about it,” Michael admitted unwillingly. “What about the dog, then? I saw it too.”

“Then the dog is a collective hallucination, or a real dog.”

“Hallucinations don’t bite,” Michael said.

Galen glanced at the dirty bandage on his arm.

“I’ll have a look at that later,” he said calmly. “Aside from my concern, personal and professional, for your physical health, I’d like to examine the marks.”

Bemused by fatigue and relief, Michael grappled with that one for several seconds before he understood enough to get angry.

“Another example of thanatomania?” he said sarcastically.

Galen’s tone of annoyance was indicative; he usually had better control of himself.

“Good God Almighty, Michael, do I have to synopsize the professional journals? You’ve read enough of the popular literature to know that patients have inflicted everything from fake stigmata to signs of rape on themselves, in order to prove whatever point they feel they must make. And don’t try to tell me you aren’t deeply enough involved, emotionally, with Mrs. Randolph, to be suggestible.”

Linda spoke for the first time.

“So involved that he would be forced to concoct a crazy theory in order to excuse my attempt to kill him.” It was a statement, not a question. Galen nodded, watching her. She went on calmly, “Yes, I can understand that kind of reasoning. But I do have one question, Doctor. Why did you give Michael his father’s letters?”

Galen’s slow, close-lipped smile spread across his face.

“The first sensible question anyone has asked yet,” he said. “The answer is complex, however. I suggest we adjourn.”

“Where?” Michael asked.

“My house, naturally. I want to have a look at that arm. And I agree that, for whatever reason, this atmosphere is unhealthy for both of you. Pack a bag, Michael, while I untie Mrs. Randolph.”

Michael turned to obey, but he was diverted by the spectacle of Galen, every professional hair in place, calmly untying the knots that bound Linda to the bed. Glancing up, Galen met his eyes and smiled affably.

“This is not, by any means, my most unusual experience,” he said, and turned his attention back to his work.

Chapter 11

I

“NOT SELF-INFLICTED,” GALEN SAID.

“Thanks a lot.”

Michael rolled down his sleeve. Linda knew he had been trying not to wince; Galen’s poking and probing, which appeared to be prompted more by a spirit of scientific inquiry than concern for his patient’s pains, must have hurt more than the original dressing of the wound.

Galen leaned back in his chair.

“Unless you found a cooperative dog,” he qualified.

Linda bit back the comment that was on the tip of her tongue. She did not have Michael’s lifelong experience with the older man, which had apparently given him a childlike faith in the great father figure. She had welcomed Galen’s appearance for two reasons: first as an ally, who would help guard Michael from herself, and, second, as the key to the final door through which she meant to pass when all other means were exhausted. But although she herself had anticipated and considered every one of Galen’s rational objections, she found them irritating coming from him.

Glancing around the doctor’s study, she thought she would like the man if she weren’t prejudiced against his profession. The furnishings of the room were so luxurious that they were inobtrusive; every object was so exactly right, in function and design, that it blended into a perfect whole. The exquisite marble head on the bookshelf looked like one she had seen in an Athens museum, but it was not a copy. The rugs were modern Scandinavian designs; their abstract whirls of color went equally well with the classical sculpture, the Monet over the fireplace, and the geometric lines of the rosewood tables and desk. Heavy hangings, deep chairs, beautiful ornaments-they made up a room of soft lights and warm, bright coloring, as soothing to the nerves as it was stimulating to the senses. Only one object-Linda’s eyes went to the soft couch, piled with cushions; and Galen, who saw everything, smiled at her.

“I use it more than my patients do,” he said. “Most of them prefer to confront me, face to face.”

“I didn’t think you ever slept,” Michael said.

“Catnaps. Like all the other great men of history. Hence the couch, in here.”

He had a beautiful speaking voice, as modulated and controlled as an actor’s. And used for the same purpose, Linda thought. Fighting the influence of the voice and the room, she returned to the attack.