It was gone now, but the aftertaste of fear was sour in Tracy's mouth. He turned the car into a side road and parked, staring at nothing. Not so good. He couldn't afford hysteria.
He drank whiskey, shuddered, and wiped his lips with his hand. It was trembling a little. Tracy lay back and breathed deeply, his eyes closed. He'd be all right in a minute. The canyon road was steep and winding, and he preferred not to risk it till his hands stopped shaking.
Meantime, he remembered Gwinn's diary. It lay on the seat beside him, a flat brown volume rather smaller than an octavo, and Tracy picked it up, switching on the overhead light.
Oddly enough, the gold script on the front said, "Samuel Tracy."
Tracy looked at that for a long time. He touched the white oval with an exploratory finger. It was smooth and glossy-parchment, perhaps. Finally he opened the book at random. The page number-17-in the upper right-hand corner was in large block numerals, and there was only one sentence, in crude type that seemed hand set. It said:
"Werewolves can't climb oak trees."
Tracy read it again. It still said the same thing. Frowning, he turned the page.
"He's bluffing."
That was all-two words. Cryptic, to say the least. Obviously, this wasn't Gwinn's diary. It was more like Finnegans Wake.
Tracy flipped the pages. Page 25 said:
"Try the windshield."
Page 26 said:
"Declare the truth and fear no man." A few pages later, Tracy found this: "Deny everything."
There were other ambiguous comments: "Don't worry about poor crops," "Aim at his eye," "Don't speak till you're back on earth," and "Try again." As a collection of aphorisms, the book was more than a little cryptic. But Tracy had a queer feeling that he was on the verge of a mystery-an important one, somehow. Only he couldn't find the key.
The hell with it. Gwinn was a screwball. This volume meant nothing. Or…
It was growing chilly. Tracy, with a wry mouth, dropped the book on the seat beside him and started the engine. The one inexplicable thing was the discovery of his name on the volume's brown cover. Previously it had had Gwinn's name-or had it? Thinking back, he wasn't quite certain. At any rate, the doubt was comforting.
He backed the car, turned, and drove on down the canyon, branching into Laurel, the main thoroughfare. As usual, there was plenty of traffic, since the road was a short cut between Hollywood and the Valley.
The accident came not quite without warning. On the left of the road was a gully; on the right, an overhanging tree. The headlights picked out something definitely abnormal about that tree. For the second time Tracy saw the gray, rugose, sagging face of a hag, toothless mouth agape in a grin, the deformed head nodding as though in encouragement. He was quite certain that, mingled somehow with the trunk and branches, was the monstrous figure of a woman. The tree had become anthropomorphic. It was wrenching, straining, hunching its heavy shoulders as it swayed and lurched toward the road.
It fell. Tracy caught his breath and jammed his foot down on the accelerator, swinging the car to the left. The cold motor stuttered hesitantly, without gaining speed, and that was unfortunate. The tree crashed down, and a heavy branch seemed to thrust itself under the wheels. Tires blew out with sickening bangs. The breath-stopping sickness of imminent danger froze Tracy into paralysis as the coupé went over the curb, toppling, skidding down, turning over and over till it came to rest on its side.
Tracy's head rang like a bell; white flashes of pain lanced through it. He was jammed awkwardly behind the steering wheel, which, luckily, had not snapped off. He had avoided impalement, at any rate. He reached fumblingly for the key to snap off the ignition, but a flicker of fire told him he was too late.
The car was ablaze.
Painfully Tracy tried to right himself. The shatterproof glass had not broken, and he thrust upward against the door, now above his head. It was jammed. He could see stars through the glass, and a coiling veil of thin smoke that partly obscured them. A reddening glow grew brighter. When the fire reached the gas tank…
He heard distant shouts. Help was coming, but probably it would not come in time. With a choking cry Tracy strained up against the door; he could not budge it. If he could break the glass-He sought for a tool. There was none. The dashboard compartment was jammed, and, in his awkward position, he could not remove a shoe to hammer against the glass. The acrid smell grew stronger. Red light flickered.
The sharp corner of something was jammed against his side, and Tracy, hoping it might be a loose bit of metal heavy enough to serve his purpose, clutched at it. He found himself staring at the book. The white circle on the cover was luminous, and traced darkly against the whiteness were two Arabic numerals:
25
The need for self-preservation sharpens the faculties. It was instinct that brought vividly to Tracy the memory of what he had read on Page 25 of the book. The enigma of the message was suddenly elucidated.
"Try the windshield."
Tracy thrust at the long plate glass with his palm, and the windshield fell out. A breath of cool air blew in against his sweating face. The crackling of flames was very loud now.
He kept a tight grip on the book as he wormed his way through the gap, skinning his shin rather badly; and he ran down the gully, gasping for breath, till the red firelight had faded. A booming roar told him the gas tank had exploded. Tracy sat down, feeling weak, and looked at the book. It was an oblong, darker shadow in the faint moonlight.
"My God," he said.
After a while he put the book in a pocket of his tattered topcoat and clambered out of the gully. Cars were parked along the curb, and men were moving about, using flashlights. Tracy walked back toward the crowd.
He was conscious of irritation at the impending scene. The only thing he wanted, just now, was a chance to examine the book privately. There was a point at which skepticism stopped. Tracy had run up against enough news curiosa in the past to retain a certain amount of credulity. The whole thing might be merely a coincidence-but he didn't think so.
There was a confusion of questioning, loud, rather pointless conversation, and assurances, on Tracy's part, that he was unhurt. With an officer, he went to a near-by house and telephoned his insurance company. Meanwhile a taxi had been summoned.
Tracy ordered the cabman to stop in Hollywood at a convenient bar, where he gulped several whiskey sours and fingered the book in his pocket. He didn't quite dare to examine it there, however, and, in any case, the lighting was indirect-perhaps on the questionable principle that people seldom appear at their best when they are tight. Replenished and conscious of a mounting excitement, Tracy reached his Wilshire apartment at last, closed the door behind him, and switched on the light.
He stood motionless for a time, just looking around. Then he went to a couch, lit a reading lamp, and took the brown volume from his pocket.
The inset white disk on the front cover was blank. His own name was scrawled in gilt lettering against the dull brown cloth. He turned to Page 25. It said, "Try the windshield."
Tracy closed the book and opened it at the flyleaf, which was blank. The next page was more interesting. In the familiar hand type, his own name leaped up at him.
Dear Mr. Tracy:
By this time, you may already have discovered the peculiar qualities of this grimoire. Its powers are limited, and only ten page references are allotted to each owner. Use them with discrimination.
Compliments of the author.
Cryptic-but significant! Tracy looked up grimoire, but the word wasn't in his dictionary. It meant a book of magic, he remembered rather vaguely, a collection of spells.
Thoughtfully he flipped the book's pages again. Spells? Advice, rather. Certainly the advice about the coupé's windshield had come in very handy.
Tracy's lips tightened in a crooked smile. One advantage of the accident: he had forgotten to be worried by the murder! Maybe that wasn't so good. If the police grew suspicious- But there was no reason why they should be. His presence in Laurel Canyon was easily explained; the boulevard was a well-traveled thoroughfare. And Gwinn's body might not be discovered for days, in that isolated section.
He stood up, stripping off the ragged overcoat and tossing it aside with a gesture of distaste. Tracy liked clothes, with an almost sensuous feeling. He went into the bathroom to start the shower, and came back instantly, followed by the beginnings of steam clouds. He picked up the book from the couch.
It lay on a stand as he bathed and donned pajamas and a robe. It was in his hand as he slippered back into the living room, and his gaze was upon it as he mixed himself a drink. It was a stiff drink and, as he sipped the whiskey, Tracy felt a warm, restful languor beginning to seep into his mind and body. Till this moment he had not realized how jangled were his nerves.
Now, leaning back, he pondered on the book. Magic? Were there such things? He thumbed through the pages again, but the printed lines had not altered in the least. Extraordinary, and quite illogical, how that message about the windshield had saved his life. The other pages-most of them bore sentences wild to the point of lunacy. "Werewolves can't climb oak trees." So what?
Tracy fixed himself another drink. He was going somewhat beyond his capacity tonight, for fairly obvious reasons. But he didn't show it, except for a glisten of perspiration on his high, tanned forehead.
"This should develop into something interesting," a soft voice said.
It was the cat. Fat, glossy, and handsome, it sat on a chair opposite Tracy, watching the man with enigmatic eyes. The mobile mouth and tongue of a cat, he thought, were well suited for human speech.