"We'll explain everything then. Don't worry, Ray. You deal fairly with us and we'll deal more than fairly by you. If you're telling me the truth, if you play ball, you'll be the first member of the Old Companions accepted in spite of lack of dawn memory. A proud thing," he said, drawing himself up to his impressive full height, "a very proud thing, Ray." The flame of a fanatic shone in the gray eyes, and then he had turned and was gone and I was staring at the dead tv set and licking my lips that were dry as tomb-dust.
When I was sure they had both gone, I crossed to the French windows and secured them with a chair, and then I went to the phone. I had to call the police right away, of course; I was believing the mad Neanderthal story, but I knew that the light of morning might force me to discredit it; nevertheless, Bill Cuff the multiple murderer had been here, and the cops would have to know. Thank God I'd given my cousin the wrong address for Howard! I picked up the phone and started to dial the police.
To this day I don't know why I racked the phone before I'd finished dialing. Some hunch, I don't know what it was. I stood there in the diffused radiance of the tv lamp, still trembling from my recent interview with that ripper and his apeman sidekick, and for a few minutes I didn't do anything but breathe heavily, and then I turned and raced up the stairs.
Not until I saw the empty bed, the blanket and sheet on the floor, the open window, not till then did I face the fact that Bill Cuff would never have left me without taking along a hostage.
Nessa was gone!
CHAPTER IV
I caught the seven a.m. train for Boston. I hadn't slept or even lain down all night. The sole conclusion I'd come to was that I didn't dare ask for help in this job, not yet at any rate. I would be jeopardizing Nessa's life.
I had thought of the police. But they'd had two years to find Bill Cuff and failed. One hint that they were looking for him, and he with his crazy Old Companions would stamp out my wife's life as off-handedly as I'd squash a beetle. I'm a law-abiding citizen and I respect the enforcers of the law; but this was a special case. I'd done my civic duty other times, but now I was on a one-man crusade. I had to save Nessa. If I could chop down Cuff, well and good. But Nessa came first.
As the train shot along through countryside scattered with dying autumn foliage, swept with intermittent rains, I thought of my brother Howard and his work. On Odo Island he and six other top-grade brains were creating a space station for the United States—a man-made moon, the first jump to the stars—and equally important, a lookout post from which we could keep tabs on all of Earth.