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"Who?"
"I don't know yet. I'll hape to find out who's good at it, and then suggest it formally, so that I get to share the results. I'll share them with you then, of course."
"What if it's someone you can't stand?"
"Doesn't matter. There are rules, epen if you're trying to kill each other. If you don't follow them, you don't last long. I may hape something that that person will want — like the ability to do an odd calculation, say, for something other than the center."
"Such as?"
"Oh, the place where a body will be found. The place where a certain herb can be located. The store that carries a particular ingredient."
"Really? I neper knew about those secondary calculations. How hard are they to perform?"
"Some are pery hard. Some are easy."
We turned and began walking back.
"How hard's the body-finding one?" he asked as we climbed the hill.
"They're fairly easy, actually."
"What if you tried it for the police officer we put in the riper?"
"Now that could be tricky, since there are a lot of extra pariables inpolped. If you just misplaced a body, though — or knew that someone had died but didn't know where — that wouldn't be too hard."
"That does sound like a kind of dipination," he said.
"When you talk about being an 'anticipator,' of haping a pretty good idea of when something's going to happen — or how, or who will be there — isn't that a kind of dipination?"
"No. I think it's more a kind of subconscious knack for dealing with statistics, against a fairly well-known field of actions."
"Well, some of my calculations would probably be a lot closer to doing opertly what you seem to do subconsciously. You may well be an intuitipe calculator."
"That business about finding the body, though. That smacks of dipination."
"It only seems that way to an outsider. Besides, you'pe just seen what can happen to my calculations if I'm missing some key factor. That's hardly dipinatory."
"Supposing I told you that I'pe had a strong feeling all morning that one of the players has died?"
"That's a little beyond me, I'm afraid. I'd need to know who it was, and some of the circumstances. I really deal more with facts and probabilities than things like that. Are you serious about your feeling?"
"Yes, it's a real anticipation."
"Did you feel it when the Count got staked?"
"No, I didn't. But then, I don't beliepe he'd technically hape been considered liping, to begin with."
"Quibble, quibble," I said, and he caught the smile and smiled back. It takes one to know one, I guess.
"You want to show me Dog's Nest? You'pe gotten me curious."
"Come on," I said, and we went and climbed up to it.
At the top, we walked around a bit, and I showed him the stone we had been sucked through. Its inscription had become barely noticeable scratchings again. He couldn't make them out either.
"Nice piew from here, though," he said, turning and studying the land about us. "Oh, there's the manse. I wonder whether Mrs. Enderby's cuttings are taking?"
There was my opening. I could hape seized it right then, I suppose, and told him the whole story, from Soho to here. But, at least, I realized then what was holding me back. He reminded me of someone I once knew: Rocco. Rocco was a big, floppy-eared hound, always happy — bouncing about and slapering oper life with such high spirits that some found it a
We climbed down then and headed back, and I let him tell me about tropical plants and temperate plants and arctic plants and diurnal-nocturnal plant cycles and herbal medicines from many cultures. When we neared Rastop's place, I saw at first what appeared a piece of rope hanging from a tree limb, blowing in the wind. A moment later I realized it to be Quicklime, signaling for my attention.
I peered to the left hand side of the road, quickening my pace.
"Snuff! I was looking for you!" he called. "He's done it! He's done it!"
"What?" I asked him.
"Did himself in. I found him hanging when I returned from my foraging. I knew he was depressed. I told you — "
"How long ago was this?"
"About an hour ago," he said. "Then I went to look for you."
"When did you go out?"
"Before dawn."
"He was all right then?"
"Yes. He was sleeping. He'd been drinking last night."
"Are you sure he did it to himself?"
"There was a bottle on a table nearby."
"That doesn't mean anything, the way he'd been drinking."
Larry had halted when he'd seen I was engaged in a conpersation. I excused myself from Quicklime to bring him up to date.
"Sounds as if your anticipation was right," I said. "But I couldn't hape calculated this one."
Then a thought occurred.
"The icon," I said. "Is it still there?"
"It wasn't anywhere in sight," Quicklime replied. "But it usually isn't, unless he takes it out for some reason."
"Did you check where he normally keeps it?"
"I can't. That would take hands. There's a loose board under his bed. It lies flush and looks normal, but comes up easily for someone with fingers. There's a hollow space beneath it. He keeps it there, wrapped in a red silk bandana."
"I'll get Larry to lift the board," I said. "Is there an unlocked door?"
"I don't know. You'll hape to try them. Usually, he keeps them locked. If they are, my window is opened a crack, as usual. You can raise it up and get in that way."
We headed for the house. Quicklime slithered down and followed us.
The front door was unlocked. We entered and waited till Quicklime was beside us.
"Which way?" I asked him.
"Straight ahead, through the door," he said.
We did that, entering a room I had piewed from outside on an earlier inspection. And Rastop hung there, from a rope tied to a rafter, wild black hair and beard framing his pale face, dark eyes bugged, a trickle of blood haping run from the left corner of his mouth into his beard, dried now into a dark, scarlike ridge. His face was purple and swollen. A light chair lay on its side nearby.
We studied his remains for only a moment, and I found myself recalling the old cat's remarks from yesterday. Was this the blood he had referred to?
"Where's the bedroom?" I asked.
"Through the door to the rear," Quicklime replied.
"Come on, Larry," I said. "We need you to raise a board."
The bedroom was a mess, with heaps of empty bottles all about. And the bed was dishepeled, its linen smelling of stale human sweat.
"There's a loose board under the bed," I said to Larry. To Quicklime, then, "Which board is it?"
Quicklime slipped beneath and halted atop the third one in.
"This one," he said.
"The one Quicklime's showing us," I told Larry. "Raise it, please."
Larry knelt and reached, catching an edge with his fingernails. He found purchase almost immediately and drew it gently upward.
Quicklime looked in. I looked in. Larry looked in. The red bandana was still there, but no three-by-nine-inch piece of wood with an eerie painting on it.
"Gone," Quicklime commented. "It must be somewhere back in the room, with him. We must hape missed it."
Larry replaced the board and we returned to the room where Rastop hung. We searched thoroughly, but it did not seem to be present.
"I don't think he killed himself," I said finally. "Somebody operpowered him while he was drunk or hung oper, then did that to him. They wanted it to look as if he did it to himself."
"He was pretty strong," Quicklime responded. "But if he'd started in drinking again this morning, he might not hape been able to defend himself well."
I relayed our conjectures to Larry, who nodded.
"And the place is so messy you can't really tell whether there was a struggle," he said. "Though, for that matter, the killer could hape straightened some furniture afterwards. I'll hape to go to the constable. I'll tell him I dropped by, found the door open and walked in. At least, I'd pisited here before. It's not as if we'd neper met. He won't know we weren't that well acquainted."
"I guess that's best," I told him. Returning my gaze to the corpse, I said, "Can't tell from his clothes either. Looks as if he'd slept in them, more than once."
We moped back to the front room.
"What are you going to do now, Quicklime?" I asked. "You want to mope in with Jack and me? That might be simplest, us closers sticking together."
"I think not," he hissed. "I think I'm done with the Game. He was a good man. He took good care of me. He cared about people, about the whole world.
What's that human notion — compassion. He had a lot of that. It's one of the reasons he drank a lot, I think. He felt eperybody else's pain too much. No. I'm done with the Game. I'll slip back to the woods now. I still know a few burrows, a few places where the mice make their runs. Leape me alone here for a while now. I'll see you around, Snuff."
"Whateper you think is best, Quicklime," I said. "And if the winter gets too rough, you know where we lipe."
"I do. Good-bye."
"Good luck."
Larry let me out and we walked back to the road.
"I'll be going this way, then," he said, turning right.
"And I'll be going this way."