THE WHITE WOLF (2 page)

There were smells in this street you found nowhere else. Those rose from the seething humanity, from the refuse, from the hills of vegetables and fruits and chickens and rabbit in front of the lighted windows of the shops, from exhaust pipes and gutters.

There were noises: the shrill cries of cursing urchins, the yaps of the vendors, the clunk- clunk of a trolley car’s flat wheel, the deafening squawk of an auto horn, jaded laughter;

The buildings were old, rickety Colonial structures in the best and worst Philadelphia tradition: red brick, narrow of front, with slate roofs sloping toward the street.

A traffic tie-up stopped them in front of a herbalist's window, first of a string of similar shops along Voodoo Row. They could see odd, repulsive merchandise in the window: a bottled rattlesnake, a skull, dead bats and stuffed owls, and, in a yellowing liquid in a jar, what appeared to be a human fetus.

These were the shops that pandered to the ignorant, the superstitious, the wretched; they were the shops where were sold “graveyard dirt” and “compelling incense” and “chasing- away goods.” Behind one of the window moved the long-gowned shadowy figure of the witch doctor. _

“Such a palpable fraud!” Sara exclaimed, as the limousine began to move. And Sylvia, her eyes narrow, asked:

“But how do you know?”

Sara stared at the scene, and she gave Roger directions. The limousine swung into Ninth Street.

“Slow, Roger.”

The car slowed, and Sara, her face pressed to the window, looked out. She was puzzled. The street was familiar! Could she, she wondered, have seen this street with such clarity and in such detail by only reading about it? It did not seem sane. But what else could it be? Never, combing even her childhood, could she recollect having been anywhere near it.

Here the quaint narrow houses had small white stone steps with rails of wrought iron on either hand. They had solid doors set in arched white frames. A single gas lamp on an iron standard midway to the next intersection lit the brick-paved street. And when the limousine rolled to a stop, it was to the door behind that lamp that Sara unerringly led the rest:

The maid said, “You wanna see the doctor?”

Chick Hunt said airily, “That was the general idea.”

THE maid led them into a cold, bare hallway. Her slippers scuffing, she beckoned them along the passage until they reached a point midway through the house. She opened a door and guided them into a large, window- less' room. And then she left them.

The room was as naked as the hall. There were no chairs, no tables. No carpet covered the wide planks. There was light, but its source was obscured and it seemed unreal. As they entered, a gaunt gray cat—either so old or so serene as to be oblivious to their presence—stood up, stretched, and paced imperially out of the room through a far door that stood half open.

Through that door the sounds of words lifted.

“Well, what do they want?”

The question was imperative. The tone was cold. Sara thought there was an overtone faintly familiar of something—the time, perhaps, when she heard the gasping rattle of death at the bedside of an aunt.

There was a mumble from the maid. Ann’s flesh crept. Then, without warning, the doctor appeared at the door. And Sara gave a little cry.

It couldn't be, she thought. It couldn’t be! Yet here were the same face and the same eyes of the man who, only an hour before, drew so many questioning glances at the McCallieter ball. He advanced a few paces, teetering with each step as if either he were slightly drunk or his shoes—of such finegrained leather they might have been tanned from human hide—pinched his feet. And yet, despite this ambulatory uncertainty, he seemed at ease, his hands shoved into the pockets of his gray double-breasted suit coat.

He stared blandly at his intruders. He inspected them, one by one. Finally, his eyes, from their small sockets, rested upon Sara’s white face. Yes, they were the same eyes that in the ballroom had denuded her soul; there could be no other pair seeming, as these, to hold the wisdom of all sin. '

Yet Sara’s companions did not recognize him.

Beefy said feebly, “Look here—”

But the man was attracted only to Sara. She wondered why. Sylvia’s fresh face was prettier; Ann’s more inviting. Her own; the cheek bones were too high, the face too long, her mouth too big, her nose too prominently French, and her complexion—except for the garnet red of her lips—much too pale.

At length, the man demanded of the room at large, “Why do you come here?”

Chick Hunt said, “Why the idea was. . . . We”wanted our fortunes told.”

The lean face clouded. It turned toward Hunt,

“You think I use my wisdom to tell fortunes?”

Sara detected a note of derision. Hunt looked at David Trent. Trent glanced questioningly at Sara. Lamely, she said:

“I thought. . . .”

“I do not tell fortunes,” the man said. The tone was final. But when he added, “I am a healer, I cure souls and I cure bodies, I cure them with faith,” Sara knew he lied. And somehow she felt the lie was directed more at the ears of the others than at hers.

Chick reached into his pockets, drew out a roll of bills.

“If it’s only a matter of money,” he began.

He never finished. With tottering yet lightning movement, the man was before Hunt.

“Son—” And his tone was now cold contempt. “You are indeed naive if you believe that money buys all things.”

Chick—the hot-headed Chick Hunt of Penn’s Varsity—shook with anger. His hands clenched.

“Why, damn you!” he snarled. And before David could check his arm, he’d struck. But the man was not there. He was back in the center of the room, teetering in those queer, uncomfortable shoes. And Sara saw something else; he had lost his composure. At the blow? He had not been struck. At what Chick had said?

Chick struggled to free himself from David.

“Now here,” Beefy pleaded. “Let’s scram. It’s his place. Somebody’ll call the cops and we’ll all be in a jam.”

David and Beefy led Hunt toward the door. The girls followed. But Sara found no will to leave. She moved, yet muscular progress seemed impeded by a wall of unfelt force. That was why she was last to reach the corridor, the last to reach the outer door. It was why, standing doubtfully at the door, she felt the tall lean man immediately behind her, his awful eyes upon her. She felt a touch, ice cold, upon her She felt a touch, ice cold, upon her wrist. When she glanced down, she saw his hand.

PIERRE DE CAMP D’AVESNES chuckled with satisfaction as he boarded the last train in the Reading’s Market Street sheds. He still saw Hardt’s frown; Grillot’s red face and disbelieving eyes; and he still heard Han- ling’s irritated snort of contempt which he knew was only a cover for his defeat.

He could have filled the bill for Guy de Maupassant’s Joseph de Bardon. For he had wit without much depth, a general knowledge without real learning, and quick perception without serious penetration. These three qualities he had exhibited with considerable shrewdness that night, to the discomfort of some of the others.

Oh, he had led up to the subject casually enough. The argument about the spirit world had reached the point where Grillot was knocking holes in the various planes that, Manning Trent suggested, lie beyond this life. Pierre extracted a crumpled envelope from his pocket and, pencil in hand, drew upon it. Me did it quite obviously but the effect was that of a cat watching a mouse hole, and finally Mouse Hanling stuck his head out.

“What's that?” he demanded, leaning forward.

“This?” Pierre's round fleshy face attained such dignity as it could. “It’s a one-dimensional world.”

“All I see’s a straight line.” Hanling snorted.

The others looked too.

“That,” said Pierre, “is because you lack imagination.”

“You wouldn’t mean.” inquired Trent, “that it’s one of the three dimensions humans perceive?”

“Exactly,” said Pierre. “Length.”

“Trash!” exploded Grillot. “That’s as abstract as a four-dimensional world. You can’t have one human dimension without the other two.”

Pierre inclined his thick neck.

“Certainly. That’s why I say Hanling has no imagination. But, see here. I’ll put a man down here—a one-dimensional man. Let's call him X. His knowledge, his power, are limited to that one dimension, this straight line. It’s his only world and it runs in both directions to infinity. He can travel upon it, forward or backward.

“Now, let's say he’s traveling forward. He meets with a two-dimension rock-slide. It had length, but it also has height. How’ll he surmount this rock slide so he can continue his journey?”

Hanling pursed his lips.

“Go around?”

“There's nothing to go around,” said Pierre.

“Well, dammit, let him climb over, then.” Pierre’s smile revealed his irregular teeth. “Impossible. You forget, he’s a one-dimensional creature and hasn’t the power to leave his one-dimensional world, which he’d have to do if he climbed over. The result is, you have to accept this fact: this obstacle of two dimensions is, to him. a mystery. It is a fence between his own world and some other world he can’t penetrate and can but dimly comprehend.”

Grillot frowned. He grunted:

“I see that. It's sense.’’

Pierre looked at Trent, whose eyes showed he thought he knew what was coming. Pierre

said:

“So let’s follow up and see where we get. We'll place a two-dimensional creature in this one-dimensional world. We’ll call him Y. He travels along the line, comes to the two-dimensional rock-slide and he .climbs over. Now if you were in X's shoes, wouldn't that appear to be a miracle?”

Hanling conceded grudgingly he “guessed , that was so.”

“Of course,” said Pierre. “So, in the eyes of X, V becomes a god. And not only can god Y climb over the object, he can lift the rocks into the air directly above the one-dimensional world. He can carry them over X’s head and replace them on the other side of him, much to X’s concern. He can turn the rocks upside down.”

“Very well,” said Hanling, “where’s all that get us?”

“It gets us,” continued Pierre, “to the two-dimensional world in which Y himself lives and where he is not a god at all. His world had length and height. He can rise straight up and he can dig straight down, besides traveling forward or backward. But he knows nothing of the world to the right or to the left. For him, that world has no existence.

“But one day he comes to an object that has three dimensions. It has the two qualities of his own world, length and height, but it also has breadth. He can still climb over as before, but he cannot go around. To do that he would have to step out of his own world. So, if you or I, living in a three-dimensional world, were to come along and pass around the object. Y himself would be confronted with ;t miracle.”

“All right,” said Hanling impatiently. “But J still don’t see—”

“Just this,” interrupted Pierre. “Why isn’t it possible for us, living in our three-dimensional world, to find ourselves facing the same problem . . . a miracle we might call the fourth dimension?”

“You mean—”

Pierre persisted. “I ask, what would be so incredible about this room we’re sitting in, sealed tight, windows locked, doors bolted, having that chair you're sitting in, Hanling, removed from it along the fourth dimension? Yes, and you along with it, too!”

THE train rolled to a stop at the Oak Lane station. There was a momentary pause for the discharge of passengers: then, smoothly, the train rolled out. Now Pierre’s face was sober. The left eyelid drooped a bit more. He stared out into the night, seeing nothing. Was there, he wondered, just a grain of truth in the argument he'd used to try to convince the others?

He'd never given much thought to things like that. The world, in which he’d always had a pretty good time, was quite an objective thing to him. And he'd never bothered his head a great deal about what might lie on the other side. He heard Hanling again:

“All supposition!”

He heard himself replying. “Certainly. Rut the three dimensions are only a human conception. Do you think they're necessarily the only combination?”

Now. why in the devil did he think of that?

Justin Hardt had coughed importantly and inclined his houndlike head and had finally spoken with that bombastic air of last-word authority for which, even more than his medical knowledge, he was celebrated, “Don't, sir,” he said, with a direct look at Hanling, “let the man befuddle you with such tish-tosh. I, who have made a study of the subject and believe nothing, can give you a much better argument. And,” turning to Pierre. “a much briefer one. I merely ask. what makes wood burn up into smoke and makes the smoke disappear?”

There was general laughter. Until Grillot broke in abruptly with dead seriousness:

“I don’t know. A man gets to thinking about things sometimes and he goes whacky. I get to thinking about figures. They’re simple little things. I’ve dealt with ’em all my life. There are only ten of them and after that there are just the same figures over and over again in combinations. But—well. I get to thinking sometimes that there's some mystery about ’em. Take a bond issue, just for example. One little abstract fraction of one per cent can make a whale of a lot of difference.

“I’ll worry stiff sometimes figuring what premium I ought to offer and what interest rate I’ll accept on an issue of upstate municipal debentures. The wrong figure will spell the difference between profit and loss. And if there's enough in it, it might spell ruin. And again, if the interest I win is a bit high it’ll mean—in terms of actual, physical sweat—that some poor fish will have to swing the pick a bit harder to pay the tax that meets the terms.”

Pierre nodded eagerly.

“I know what you mean. It’s the same with the chemistry of perfumes. You add two odors and you’ll get a third entirely different from either of them. That’s magic.”

“It’s science, sir, and there's no magic to it,” growled Hardt.

Pierre shrugged.

“Have it your own way. But some people believe that this world and other worlds are in tune with each other on certain vibratory thought waves. They reach that conclusion through analogy, after studying the vibratory qualities of common objects about us. They purport to see magic everywhere—and for proof they say that if you change the rate or the mode or the degree of the vibrations of any given object, you change the object itself.”

He looked straight into Hardt’s face. And Hardt taunted:

“Like my wood and smoke, sir?”

“Yes, and like ice turning to water and then to steam. Or like a cat’s inability to see any color save gray, while we, boasting better perception. have our spectrum but can’t see the diversity of color that lies beyond.”

“But neither of you,” interposed Trent, “says exactly what you mean. You’re trying to prove or disprove something that’s beyond your comprehension. But you have only human words to work with. As a newspaper man, I know how damnably weak words are! I’ll publish an editorial. Three hundred thousand readers see it. Each one gets a slightly different impression from the other and all of them a somewhat different idea than I tried to put across. For each reader qualifies that editorial in the light of his own experience, knowledge, or mood at the time.

“Hell, I’m not being exact myself. What I’m trying to say is, I believe with you and your figures, Grillot, that there’s a magic in words, too. Ever notice how a word lingers on the rim of your consciousness long after it’s been spoken?”

“Oh, yes; yes, of course.”

“Of course. Same tone, same inflection. It’ll get buried under a pile of other words, but a long time later some faint suggestion will draw it up again. Or perhaps, by that time, only a haunting memory of it, not quite identified for what it is, will strive toward the surface.”

Dr. Hardt fingered the black ribbon of hit pince-nez.

“And where does that get us, sir?”

“Just this. If a word, frail and weak, as I said, and a human invention in the first place and seldom accurate, will survive, like that, why can’t personality?”

Dr. Hardt’s nose wrinkled.

“A very poor argument, sir. In the first place, if you were acquainted with psychology at all, you would realize that there’s a definite physiological reason both for the retention and revival of the memory image, the word.

The word is apprehended, registered and fixed, the strength of the impression depending upon attention and the impressionability of the cortical neurones. It is retained in the cerebral neurones. It is returned to the surface consciousness when the brain cells are stimulated by a new nerve impulse. And that is all there is to it, sir.”

Trent had been sitting back, the tips of his fingers against each other, a smile of amusement growing on his lean face.

‘‘Quite all, Doctor?” he asked.

“Quite.”

“And you are prepared to state precisely the magic that makes those neurones function as they do?”

Dr. Hardt merely stared at him.

On the train, now, Pierre considered the conversation item by item. Nothing to worry about, he thought; just a lot of crackpot talk. He tried to recapture the joviality with which he had got aboard. He glanced behind him to see if there was anyone in the coach he knew. He looked out the window. The lights of Jenkintown, Glenside, Willow Grove arrived, hesitated beside the train, and then moved backward swiftly.

H’mm. He’d always been such a damned skeptic, too.

At Hatboro, Heinrich was waiting with the station wagon.

He was feeling more himself twenty minutes later when the station wagon rolled into the winding lane which, before the Revolution, was the Old Post Road and which now led through groves of great oaks to the house. He entered by the long hall, and noticing a light to the left, in the library, went in.

Sara was sitting on a turtle stool, her knees drawn up, her long shapely hands clasping her ankles. She was staring moodily into the dying embers of the fire.

He said cheerily, “Hello, pet.”

Sara did not reply.