You could go a long way on forty dollars. The jerky illegibility of the message made it look as if it had been written on a train or bus.
The next few hours were highly unpleasant. He checked schedules, and found that several busses and trains passed through the town from which Tansy's letter had been sent. He drove to the stations and made guarded inquiries, with no success.
He wanted to do all the things you should do when someone disappears, but he held back. What could he say? "My wife, sir, has disappeared. She is suffering from the delusion that—" And what if she should be found and questioned in her present state of mind, examined by a doctor, before he could get to her?
No, this was something for him to handle alone. But if he did not get a line on it soon, he would have no choice. He would have to go to the police, inventing some story to cover the facts.
She had written, "Two days." If she believed that she were doomed to die in two days, might not the belief be enough? That was his worst fear.
Toward evening he drove back to the house, repressing the chimerical hope that she had returned in his absence. The special delivery carrier was just getting into his car. Norman pulled up alongside.
"Anything for Saylor?"
"Yes, sir. It's in the box."
The message was longer this time, but just as difficult to read.
At last its attention is somewhere else. If I control my emotions, it isn't so quick to notice my thoughts. But it was hard for me to post the last letter. Norman, you must do what I tell you. The two days end Sunday midnight. Then the Bay. You must follow all directions. Tie the four white cords into a granny, a reef, a cat's-paw, and a carrick bend. Tie the gut in a bowline. Then add—