This mood did not last long. His anxiety persisted, grew stronger. But the supernatural terror rapidly died away. It could not sustain itself now that he no longer experienced it directly. Even the argument that he had lost his sensitivity only because the curse was now directed at her, did not convince him for a moment. No, there was nothing supernatural in this—no guardian except a figment of his and her neurotic nerves. What had happened was that he had suggested all this to her. He had forced upon her the products of his own morbid imagination. Undoubtedly he had babbled everything to her while he was drunk. And it had worked on her suggestible nature—she already believed in witchcraft—until she had got the idea of transferring his curse to herself, and had convinced herself that the transference had actually occurred. And then gone off, God knew where!
And that was bad enough.
There was a light chime from the front door. He extracted a letter from the mailbox, ripped it open. It was addressed with a soft pencil, and the graphite had smeared. But he knew the handwriting.
The message was so jerky and uneven that he was some time reading it. It began and ended in the middle of a sentence.
—and a length of gut, a bit of platinum or iridium, a piece of lodestone, a phonograph needle that has only played Scriabin's "Ninth Sonata." Then tie—
That was all. A continuation of the first message, with its bizarre formula. Had she really convinced herself that there was a guardian watching her, and that she could only communicate during the infrequent moments when its attention was elsewhere? He knew the answer. When you had an obsession you could convince yourself of anything.
He looked at the postmark. He recognized the name of a town several miles east of Hempnell. He could not think of a soul they knew there, or anything else about the town. His first impulse was to get out the car and rush over. But what could he do when he got there?
The phone was ringing. It was Evelyn Sawtelle.