The Way Through Doors (22 page)

—What an odd drawing, said the guess artist. It makes me think of long Russian afternoons during which no one speaks, not because they are tired, but because they are all very quietly angry at one another.

—It reminds me of that too, said the municipal inspector.

Just then the municipal inspector heard a noise above. He made for the stairs, the guess artist behind him. Up the stairs they flew, and into the first room. No one was there. The municipal inspector looked about. The room was a simple one: a bed, a table, a chair, a lamp, a window. On one wall, a sconce with a candle. Not even a mirror. But, ah, he thought. There is a closet.

The guess artist slipped past him and threw open the door to the closet.

Within, an odd sight greeted their eyes. A half-naked woman, her skirt pulled up to her waist and her blouse pulled down, was rocking in the embrace of a coarse-looking man similarly unclothed. They looked displeased at having been disturbed.

—Who are you? asked Selah. What are you doing here?

The woman and man did not stop what they were doing, or respond. Their noises were both grueling and unkempt. Selah looked away.

—I asked you what you were doing here, said Selah again.

The coarse-looking man whispered something in the ear of the woman. She giggled. He reached out of the closet, still rocking the girl back and forth, and took the door boldly out of the guess artist’s hand. Turning to look at Selah, he spat once upon the ground and then slammed shut the closet. Immediately then, a sort of moaning began.

—How awful, said the guess artist.

—Have you ever seen such…? asked Selah.

—Not in a hundred years of Sundays, said the guess artist.

They checked the other closets on the upper floor, but there wasn’t much to be found other than:

LIST of THINGS they FOUND

1. a Colt Navy revolver from 1851, loaded, with holster

2. a child’s boomerang

3. a mask from commedia dell’arte

4. a mechanical bird

5. a box with something wriggling inside of it

6. a spyglass

Selah went to the window in the tiny room where the spyglass had been found. In the distance the rolling hills continued. Here and there a homestead or farmhouse might be seen, with perhaps a trail of smoke rising.

He put the spyglass to his eye.

—Mora! he said.

For in the spyglass he saw the inn, and through a window of the inn he saw Mora standing with a stunningly beautiful woman who could only be Ilsa Marionette, Loren Darius’s wife.

—There you are, he said.

He watched her moving about the room, twisting and turning, speaking with her back to him, and going sometimes to the window.

She is looking for me upon the road, thought Selah. Mora! he wanted to cry out, I’m here in the inn. But it was no use. He set the spyglass down a moment and looked out again at the landscape. Then he picked it up and looked through again. This time it only magnified the distant hills. He shook it.

The guess artist was standing in the door watching him.

—I found this, he said, holding up the pistol.

—Give it here, said Selah.

He belted the pistol on. It was rather heavy.

—Do you know how to use one of those things? asked the guess artist.

—Can I hit a target a hundred feet off? asked Selah in reply. No. Can I point it at someone’s head and say something desperate, inevitable, and disastrous? Yes. Can I shoot a horse with a broken leg in order to put it out of its misery? No. Can I shoot a man in the leg in order to cause him misery? Yes.

—I thought as much, said the guess artist. Also, there was this.

He put a box onto the table. It was wriggling.

—What do you think is in there? asked the municipal inspector.

—I have an idea or two, said the guess artist. Should we open it?

—We’d better not, said Selah. Anyway, there are more fiddles downstairs.

The two returned to the common room. They piled up all the fiddles in one place and pulled up chairs. The guess artist broke the first fiddle that was to hand across his knee. A photograph was in it. The guess artist held it up, examined it, and then passed it to Selah. The picture was of Selah, clad in his municipal inspector garb, holding on his arm a very pretty girl.

—That’s Sif, said the municipal inspector. She’s a girl I know.

On the back of the photograph there was some writing. It said:

If you don’t think of me at least once each day, then I will disappear entirely and no one will ever see me again.

Sif

—Do you think it’s true? Selah asked the guess artist.

—It’s just a threat. Nothing to worry over.

The guess artist broke open the next fiddle. This note was covered in sheet music.

Selah picked up one of the unbroken fiddles. Many bows were lying about, one for each fiddle. He took one.

—Hold that music up, he said to the guess artist.

The guess artist held up the music.

—Do you play violin? asked the guess artist.

—Sometimes, said Selah. But badly.

Yet somehow this fiddle would not allow poor playing. Selah drew the bow over the strings, and the little melody that was writ upon the note sprang forth with a shimmering beauty. It was a simple little tune, but quite fine. Selah played it several times. On the third time, one of the fiddles at the bottom of the pile burst open. Selah put down the one he was holding, pushed the other fiddles aside, and found the broken one. An envelope was inside. Within that, there was a folded newspaper article, a thick one. It was yellowed around the edges.

He held it up.

—This is the one, he said.

On the envelope it said:

For the Lucky Fool who Comes This Way Unknowingly