His last draft was:
Darling,
If you were here, I would love a literary gabfest, a good one. You know what I mean, I am sure. Let’s consider Edgar Allan Poe, for example. Can you recall how I claimed that Poe was the best writer both to read and to reread of all the mystery writers before or since, and that this was true because he never could be milked dry on one reading? The answer or answers in The Gold Bug, or certainly that little gem The Murders in the Rue Morgue, or take The Case of the Purloined Letter, or any of them; same rule will apply to them all, when you consider the very subtle way he always had of slanting his meaning so that one reaches a full period in his sentences only after much thought. Poe is grand fun and well worth study. Let’s have our old literary talks by letter. How about Mark Twain next? Tired-must go to bed!
Love-
Since Hugh had never discussed Edgar Allan Poe with Barbara at any time, he was certain that she would study the note for a hidden message. The only question was whether or not she would find it. He wanted her to read it as:
“If
you
can
read
this
answer
the
same
way
period”
Having done his best he put it aside, first disposing of all trial work, then prepared to do something else much more risky. At that point he would have given his chances of immortal bliss, plus 10 percent, for a flashlight, then settled for a candle. His rooms were lighted, brilliantly or softly as he wished, by glowing translucent spheres set in the upper corners. Hugh did not know what they were save that they were not any sort of light he had ever known. They gave off no heat, seemed not to require wiring, and were controlled by little cranks.
A similar light, the size of a golf ball, was mounted on his scroll reader. It was controlled by twisting it; he had decided tentatively that twisting these spheres polarized them in some way.
He tried to dismount the scroll reader light.
He finally got it loose by breaking the upper frame. It was now a featureless, brilliantly shining ball and nothing he could do would dim it-which was almost as embarrassing as no light at all.
He found that he could conceal it in an armpit under his robe. There was still a glow but not much.
He made sure that Kitten was asleep, turned out all lights, raised his corridor door, looked out. The passageway was lighted by a standing light at an intersection fifty yards away. Regrettably he had to go that way. He had expected no lights at this hour.
He felt his “knife” taped to his left arm-not much of a knife, but patient whetting with a rock picked up from a garden path had put an edge on it, and tape had made a firm grip. It needed hours more work and he could work on it only after Kitten was asleep or in time stolen from working hours. But it felt good to have it there and it was the only knife, chisel, screwdriver, or burglar’s jimmy that he had.
The manhole to the engineering service tunnels lay in the passage to the right after he had to pass the lighted intersection. Any manhole would do but that one was on the route to the veterinary’s quarters; if caught outside his rooms but otherwise without cream on his lip, he planned to plead a sudden stomachache.
The manhole cover swung back easily on a hinge, it was fastened by a clasp that needed only turning to free it. The floor of the tunnel, glimpsed with his shiny sphere, lay four feet below the corridor floor. He started to let himself down and ran into his first trouble.
These manholes and tunnels had been intended for men a foot shorter and fifty pounds lighter than Hugh Farnham, and proportionately smaller in shoulders, hips, hands-and-knees height, and so forth.
But he could make it. He had to.
He wondered how he would make it, crawling and carrying at least one baby. But that he had to do, too. So he would.