He lit a cigarette and fell to pacing the length of his room. Thinking back over his disturbingly vivid dream, he wondered why he should have experienced it in that particular way. The events of the preceding night had been unnerving enough, but he felt there was a deeper reason. Was it possible that the queer wound he had received in the park had something to do with it? He recalled his feverishness, his light-headed sensation.
Then he thought of the man he had seen in the dream, and came to an abrupt stop. In another instant he sprang back into motion, hurrying to the telephone near the bed. He dialed the hospital to which the man had been taken from the park, waiting impatiently while the doctor in charge of the case was put on.
Identifying himself, then, he asked quickly, "How is the fellow, doctor?"
"Afraid I have bad news. He died about five minutes ago. There didn't seem to be a single thing I could do to prevent it."
"I see...." Bryan muttered his thanks and hung up. He sat staring into space.
Five minutes ago.... That would be shortly before he had awakened—about the time the image of the man, in the dream, had dissolved and vanished....
That afternoon Bryan sat at a secluded corner table in the small restaurant he frequented near the Courier Building. The remains of a fourth cup of coffee stood before him, the saucer littered with cigarette butts. He was staring into the cup, brooding. His mind kept returning to his strange dream and its incredible implications. And tangled in the thread of his thoughts was the picture of Leeta, dainty and elfinly lovely, struggling toward an end he could only dimly grasp.
A slim figure dropped into the chair opposite Bryan. It was Joyce, crisp, fresh, giving her usual effect of elegance.
"Hi! A little bird told me I'd find you here, Terry." She studied his face in swift concern. "What on earth happened to you last night? You look like a fugitive from a horror movie."