“I guess it’s just not your lucky day,” I replied.
There were footsteps on the stair.
When Jack entered and saw what had happened, he went and fetched a mop. Shortly, he was cleaning up the rest of the puddle and wringing it out into a basin, while the Thing fumed and turned pink, blue, and sickly green. He set a pail beneath the drip then and told me to call him again if we developed any other leaks.
We didn’t, though. I checked regularly all afternoon. The rain finally stopped after dark, and I waited several hours after that, just to be sure, before going out.
Moving around to the front of the house, I unearthed the now slimy piece of drugged meat from where I had buried it. I carried it up the road with me and deposited it in plain sight at Owen’s front door. The place was dark and Cheeter was nowhere in sight, so I prowled around a bit.
Under the huge old oak in the back I discovered eight large wicker baskets in various stages of construction, and seven smaller ones. There were also lots of heavy ropes about.
I sniffed around. There was also a ladder nearby. Such industry, for a frail-looking old guy . . . .
I walked a straight line then, passing through yard and field. Partway to my goal it began raining again, lightly. A huge mass of clouds occluded a small area of sky, darker shapes within darkness, and there came a brief, pale glow from within followed by a low rumble of thunder.
Continuing, I came at last into the precincts of the Good Doctor’s abode. It was as if I were directly beneath the low cloud-cluster now; and even as I watched, a triple-pronged piece of brightness fell from overhead to dance among the rods on the old building’s roof. The crash came almost immediately and the basement windows blazed more brightly.
I remained in the grasses, listening, and I heard a man’s voice from within shouting something about seeing to the Leydens. There followed another flash-crash, another devil’s tap dance of fire on the roof, more shouts, more flares from the windows. I crept nearer.
Peeking in, I could see a tall man in a white coat, his back to me, leaning over something on a long table, his own form blocking my view of his subject. A small, misshapen individual crouched in a far corner, eyes darting, making nervous movements with his hands. There came another flash, another crash. Electrical discharges played about a bank of equipment off to the tall man’s right. They stained my eyes with afterimages for a time. The tall man shouted something and moved to one side, the small man rose and began to dance about. Something on the table, covered, I could now see, by a sheet, twitched. It might have been a large leg that did it, beneath the cloth. There came another blinding burst and a deafening roar. The scene within was momentarily an inferno. Through it all, it seemed to me that something large and manlike tried for a moment to sit up on the table, its exact outline masked by the flowing cloth.
I backed away. I turned and ran as more fire fell from the heavens. I had done my duty. This seemed ample investigation here for one night.
I walked my next line from the Good Doctor’s to Larry Talbot’s place. I came out of the rain partway there and shook myself at some point. When I reached Larry’s house I saw it to be well lighted. Perhaps he really did suffer from insomnia.
Circling the place many times, I spiraled inward, pausing to inspect a small gazebo to the rear. Within, outlined in dried mud, I discovered a large paw-print which appeared identical to the one I had found near my home.
Drawing nearer, I rose onto my hind legs, forepaws against the side of the house, and peered in through a window. Empty room. The third one I inspected let upon a skylighted room filled with plants. Larry was there, staring into the depths of an enormous flower and smiling. His lips were moving, and though I could hear low sounds, I could not distinguish the words he uttered. The huge blossom moved before him, whether because of air currents or by its own volition I could not tell. He continued to murmur, and finally I turned away. Lots of people talk to their plants.