Part 4

"That!" His voice was icy and contemptuous. "That was the drivel of a weakling. No; I mean evil, not horror--the living evil that can be so beautiful that one walks deliberately, with open eyes, into Hell only to prevent its loss. That is the experiment."

"Oh," said Pat, her own voice suddenly cool. "Is that what you wish to do--experiment on me?"

"Yes."

"And what am I supposed to do?"

"First you are to drink with me."

"I see," she said slowly. "I see--dimly. I am a subject, a reagent, a guinea pig, to provide you material for your writing. You propose to use me in this experiment of yours--this experiment in evil. All right!" She picked up the tumbler; impulsively she drained it. The liquor, diluted as it was, was raw and strong enough to bring tears smarting to her eyes. Or _was_ it the liquor?

"All right!" she cried. "I'll drink it all--the whole bottle!" She seized the flask, filling her tumbler to the brim, while her companion watched her with impassive gaze. "You'll have your experiment! And then, Nicholas Devine, we're through! Do you hear me? Through!"

She caught up the tumbler, raised it to her lips, and drained the searing liquid until she could see her companion's cold eyes regarding her through the glass of its bottom.

9

Descent into Avernus

Pat slammed the empty tumbler down on the checked table cloth and buried her face in her hands, choking and gasping from the effects of the fiery liquor. Her throat burned, her mouth was parched by the acrid taste, and a conflagration seemed to be raging somewhere within her. Then she steadied, raised her eyes, and stared straight into the strange eyes of Nicholas Devine.

"Well?" she said fiercely. "Is that enough?"

He was watching her coldly as an image or a painting; the intensity of his gaze was more cat-like than human. She moved her head aside; his eyes, without apparent shift, were still on hers, like the eyes of a pictured face. A resurgence of anger shook her at his immobility; his aloofness seemed to imply that nothing she could do would disturb him.

"Wasn't it enough?" she screamed. "Wasn't it? Then look!"

She seized the bottle, poured another stream of the oily liquid into her glass, and raised it to her lips. Again the burning fluid excoriated her tongue and throat, and then suddenly, the tumbler was struck from her hand, spilling the rest of its contents on the table.

"That is enough," said the icy voice of her companion.

"Oh, it is? We'll see!" She snatched at the bottle, still more than half full. The thin hand of Nicholas Devine wrenched it violently away.

"Give me that!" she cried. "You wanted what you're getting!" The warmth within her had reached the surface now; she felt flushed, excited, reckless, and desperately angry.

The other set the bottle deliberately on the floor; he rose, circled the table, and stood glaring down at her with that same inexplicable expression. Suddenly he raised his hand; twisting her black hair in his fist, he dealt her a stinging blow across the lips half-opened to scream, then flung her away so violently that she nearly sprawled from her chair.

The scream died in her throat; dazed by the blow, she dropped her head to the table, while sobs of pain and fear shook her. Coherent thought had departed, and she knew only that her lips stung, that her clear, active little mind was caught in a mesh of befuddlement. She couldn't think; she could only sob in the haze of dizziness that encompassed her. After a long interval, she raised her head, opened her eyes upon a swaying, unsteady world, and faced her companion, who had silently resumed his seat.

"Nicholas Devine," she said slowly, speaking as if each word were an effort, "I hate you!"

"Ah!" he said and was again silent.

She forced her eyes to focus on his face, while his features danced vaguely as if smoke flowed between the two of them. It was as if there were smoke in her mind as well; she made a great effort to rise above the clouds that bemused her thoughts.

"Take me home," she said. "Nicholas, I want to go home."

"Why should I?" he asked impassively. "The experiment is hardly begun."

"Experiment?" she echoed dully. "Oh, yes--experiment. I'm an experiment."

"An experiment in evil," he said.

"Yes--in evil. And I hate you! That's evil enough, isn't it?"

He reached down, lifted the bottle to the table, and methodically poured himself a drink of the liquor. He raised it, watching the oily swirls in the light, then tipped the fluid to his lips while the girl gazed at him with a sullen set to her own lips. A tiny crimson spot had appeared in the corner of her mouth; at its sting, she raised her hand and brushed it away. She stared as if in unbelief at the small red smear it left on her fingers.

"Nicholas," she said pleadingly, "won't you take me home? Please, Nicholas, I want to leave here."

"Do you hate me?" he asked, a queer twisting smile appearing on his lips.

"If you'll take me home I won't," said Pat, snatching through the rising clouds of dizziness at a straw of logic. "You're going to take me home, aren't you?"

"Let me hear you say you hate me!" he demanded, rising again. The girl cringed away with a little whimper as he approached. "You hate me, don't you?"

He twisted his hand again in her ebony hair, drawing her face back so that he stared down at it.

"There's blood on your lips," he said as if gloating. "Blood on your lips!"

He clutched her hair more tightly; abruptly he bent over her, pressing his mouth to hers. Her bruised lips burned with pain at the fierce pressure of his; she felt a sharp anguish at the impingement of his teeth. Yet the cloudy pall of dizziness about her was unbroken; she was too frightened and bewildered for resistance.

"Blood on your lips!" he repeated exultingly. "Now is the beauty of evil!"

"Nicholas," she said wearily, clinging desperately to a remnant of logic, "what do you want of me? Tell me what you want and then let me go home."

"I want to show you the face of evil," he said. "I want you to know the glory of evil, the loveliness of supreme evil!"

He dragged his chair around the table, placing it beside her. Seated, he drew her into his arms, where she lay passive, too limp and befuddled to resist. With a sudden movement, he turned her so that her back rested across his knees, her face gazing up into his. He stared intently down at her, and the light, shining at an angle into his eyes, suddenly struck out the red glow that lingered in them.

"I want you to know the power of evil," he murmured. "The irresistible, incomprehensible fascination of it, and the unspeakable pleasures of indulgence in it."

Pat scarcely heard him; she was struggling now in vain against the overwhelming fumes of the alcohol she had consumed. The room was wavering around her, and behind her despair and terror, a curious elation was thrusting itself into her consciousness.

"Evil," she echoed vaguely.

"Blood on your lips!" he muttered, peering down at her. "Taste the unutterable pleasure of kisses on bloody lips; drain the sweet anguish of pain, the fierce delight of suffering!"

He bent down; again his lips pressed upon hers, but this time she felt herself responding. Some still sane portion of her brain rebelled, but the intoxication of sense and alcohol was dominant. Suddenly she was clinging to him, returning his kisses, glorying in the pain of her lacerated lips. A red mist suffused her; she had no consciousness of anything save the exquisite pain of the kiss, that somehow contrived to transform itself into an ecstacy of delight. She lay gasping as the other withdrew his lips.

"You see!" he gloated. "You understand! Evil is open to us, and all the unutterable pleasures of the damned, who cry out in transports of joy at the bite of the flames of Hell. Do you see?"

The girl made no answer, sobbing in a chaotic mingling of pain and excruciating pleasure. She was incapable of speech or connected thought; the alcohol beat against her brain with a persistence that defied resistance. After a moment, she stirred, struggling erect to a sitting posture.

"Evil!" she said dizzily. "Evil and good--what's difference? All in a lifetime!"

She felt a surge of tipsy elation, and then the muffled music of the mechanical piano, drifting through the closed door, penetrated her befuddled consciousness.

"I want to dance!" she cried. "I'm drunk and I want to dance! Am I drunk?" she appealed to her companion.

"Yes," he said.

"I am not! I just want to dance, only it's hot in here. Dance with me, Nicholas--show me an evil dance! I want to dance with the Devil, and I will! You're the Devil, name and all! I want to dance with Old Nick himself!"

She rose unsteadily from her chair; instantly the room reeled crazily about her and she fell sprawling. She felt the grasp of arms beneath her shoulders, raising her erect; she leaned against the wall and heard herself laughing wildly.

"Funny room!" she said. "Evil room--on pivots!"

"You're still to learn," came the toneless voice of Nicholas Devine. "Do you want to see the face of evil?"

"Sure!" she said. "Got a good memory for faces!"

She realized that he was fumbling with the catch of her dress on her left shoulder; again some remnant, some vestige of sanity deep in her brain warned her.

"Mustn't," she said vaguely.

Then suddenly the catch was open; the dress dropped away around her, crumpling to a shapeless blob of cloth about her diminutive feet. She covered her face with her hands, fighting to hold that last, vanishing vestige of sobriety, while she stood swaying drunkenly against the wall.

Then Nicholas Devine's arms were about her again; she felt the sharp sting of his kisses on her throat. He swung her about, bent her backwards across the low table; she was conscious of a bewildered sensation of helplessness and of little else.

"Now the supreme glory of evil!" he was muttering in her ear. She felt his hands on her bare shoulders as he pressed her backward.

Then, abruptly, he paused, releasing her. She sat dizzily erect, following the direction of his gaze. In the half open door stood the nondescript bartender leering in at them.

10

Rescue from Abaddon

Pat slid dizzily from her perch on the table and sank heavily to a chair. The interruption of the mustached keeper of this den of contradictions struck her as extremely humorous; she giggled hysterically as her wavering gaze perceived the consternation in his sharp little face. Some forlorn shred of modesty asserted itself, and she dragged a corner of the red-checked table cloth across her knees.

"Get out!" said Nicholas Devine in that voice of rasping metal. "Get out!" he repeated in unchanging tones.

The other made no move to leave. "Yeah?" he said. "Listen, Bud--this place is respectable, see? You want to pull something like this, you go upstairs, see? And pay for your room."

"Get out!" There was no variation in the voice.

"_You_ get out! The both of you, see?"

Nicholas Devine stepped slowly toward him; his back, as he advanced upon the bartender, was toward Pat, yet through the haze of intoxication, she had an impression of evil red eyes in a chill, impassive face. "Get out!"

The other had no stomach for such an adversary. He backed out of the door, closing it as he vanished. His voice floated in from the hall.

"I'm telling you!" he called. "Clear out!"

Nicholas Devine turned back toward the girl. He surveyed her sitting in her chair; she had dropped her chin to her hand to steady the whirling of her head.

"We'll go," he said. "Come on."

"I just want to sit here," she said. "Just let me sit here. I'm tired."

"Come on," he repeated.

"Why?" she muttered petulantly. "I'm tired."

"I want no interruptions. We'll go elsewhere."

"Must dress!" she murmured dazedly, "can't go on street without dress."

Nicholas Devine swept her frock from its place in the corner, gathered her wrap from the chair, and flung them over his arm. He grasped her wrist, tugging her to an unsteady standing position.

"Come on," he said.

"Dress!"

He snatched the red checked table cloth from its place, precipitating bottles, ash-tray, and glasses into an indiscriminate pile, and threw the stained and odorous fabric across her shoulders. She gathered it about her like a toga; it hung at most points barely below her waist, but it satisfied the urge of her muddled mind for a covering of some sort.

"We'll go through the rear," her companion said. "Into the alley. I want no trouble with that rat in the bar--yet!"

He still held Pat's wrist; she stumbled after him as he dragged her into the darkness of the hall. They moved through it blindly to a door at the far end; Nicholas swung it open upon a dim corridor flanked by buildings on either side, with a strip of star-sprinkled sky above.

Pat's legs were somehow incapable of their usual lithe grace; she failed to negotiate the single step, and crashed heavily to the concrete paving. The shock and the cooler air of the open steadied her momentarily; she felt no pain from her bruised knees, but a temporary rift in the fog that bound her mind. She gathered the red-checked cloth more closely about her shoulders as her companion, still clutching her wrist, jerked her violently to her feet.

They moved into the gulch of the alley, and here she found difficulty in following. Her tiny high-heeled pumps slipped at every step on the uneven cobbles of the paving, and the unsteady footing made her lurch and stumble until the dusty stretch of the alley was a writhing panorama of shadows and lighted windows and stars. Nicholas Devine turned an impatient glare on her, and here in the semi-darkness, his face was again the face of the red-eyed demon. She dragged him to a halt, laughing strangely.

"There it is!" she cried, pointing at him with her free hand. He turned again, staring at her with grim features.

"What?"

"There! Your face--the face of evil!" Again she laughed hysterically.

The other stepped to her side; the disturbing eyes were inches from her own. He raised his hand as she laughed, slapped her sharply, so that her head reeled. He seized her shoulders, shaking her until the checkered cloth billowed like a flag in a wind.

"Now come!" he muttered.

But the girl, laughing no longer, leaned pale and weak against a low board fence. Her limbs seemed paralyzed, and movement was quite impossible. She was conscious of neither the blow nor the shaking, but only of a devastating nausea and an all-encompassing weakness. She bent over the fence; she was violently ill.

Then the nausea had vanished, and a weariness, a strange lassitude, was all that remained. Nicholas Devine stood over her; suddenly he pressed her body to him in a convulsive embrace, so that her head dropped back, and his face loomed above her, obliterating the stars.

"Ah!" he said. He seemed about to kiss her when a sound--voices--filtered out of somewhere in the maze of dark courts and littered yards along the alley. He released her, seized her wrist, and once more she was stumbling wretchedly behind him over the uneven surface of the cobblestones.

A numbness had come over her; consciousness burned very low as she wavered doggedly along through the darkness. She perceived dimly that they were approaching the end of the alley; the brighter glow of the street loomed before them, and a passing motor car cut momentary parallel shafts of luminescence across the opening.

Nicholas Devine slowed his pace, still clutching her wrist in a cold grip; he paused, moving cautiously toward the corner of the building. He peered around the edge of the structure, surveying the now deserted street, while Pat stood dully behind him, incapable alike of thought or voluntary movement, clutching desperately at the dirty cloth that hung about her shoulders.

Her companion finished his survey; apparently satisfied that progress was safe, he dragged her after him, turning toward the corner beyond which his car was parked. The girl staggered behind him with diminishing vigor; consciousness was very nearly at the point of disappearance, and her steps were wavering unsteadily, and doggedly slow. She dragged heavily on his arm; he gave a gesture of impatience at her weakness.

"Come on!" he growled. "We're just going to the corner." His voice rose slightly in pitch, still sounding harsh as rasping metals. "There still remains the ultimate evil!" he said. "There is still a depth of beauty unplumbed, a pain whose exquisite pleasure is yet to find!"

They approached the corner; abruptly Nicholas Devine drew back as two figures came unexpectedly into view from beyond it. He turned back toward the alley-way, dragging the girl in a dizzy circle. He took a few rapid steps.

But Pat was through, exhausted. At his first step she stumbled and sprawled, dragging prone behind him. He released her hand and turned defiantly to face the approaching men, while the girl lying on the pavement struggled to a sitting posture with her back against the wall. She turned dull, indifferent eyes on the scene, then was roused to a somewhat higher pitch of interest by the sound of a familiar voice.

"There he is! I told you it was his car."

Dr. Horker! She struggled for clarity of thought; she realized dimly that she ought to feel relief, happiness--but all she could summon was a faint quickening of interest, or rather, a diminution of the lassitude that held her. She drew the rag of a table cloth about her and huddled against the wall, watching. The Doctor and some strange man, burly and massive in the darkness, dashed upon them, while Nicholas Devine waited, his red-orbed face a demoniac picture of cold contempt. Then the Doctor glanced at her huddled, bedraggled figure; she saw his face aghast, incredulous, as he perceived the condition of her clothing.

"Pat! My God, girl! What's happened? Where've you been?"

She found a hidden reserve somewhere within her. Her voice rose, shrill and hysterical.

"We've been in Hell!" she said. "You came to take me back, didn't you? Orpheus and Eurydice!" She laughed. "Dr. Orpheus Horker!"

The Doctor flashed her another incredulous glance and a grim and very terrible expression flamed in his face. He turned toward Nicholas Devine, his hands clenching, his mouth twisting without utterance, with no sound save a half-audible snarl. Then he spoke, a low, grating phrase flung at his thick-set companion.

"Bring the car," was all he said. The man lumbered away toward the corner, and he turned again toward Nicholas Devine, who faced him impassively. Suddenly his fist shot out; he struck the youth or demon squarely between the red eyes, sending him reeling back against the building. Then the Doctor turned, bending over Pat; she felt the pressure of his arms beneath knees and shoulders. He was carrying her toward a car that drew up at the curb; he was placing her gently in the back seat. Then, without a glance at the figure still leaning against the building, he swept from the sidewalk the dark mass that was Pat's dress and her wrap, and re-entered the car beside her.

"Shall I turn him in?" asked the man in the front seat.

"We can't afford the publicity," said the Doctor, adding grimly, "I'll settle with him later."

Pat's head lurched as the car started; she was losing consciousness, and realized it vaguely, but she retained one impression as the vehicle swung into motion. She perceived that the face of the lone figure leaning against the building, a face staring at her with horror and unbelief, was no longer the visage of the demon of the evening, but that of her own Nick.

11

Wreckage

Pat opened her eyes reluctantly, with the impression that something unpleasant awaited her return to full consciousness. Something, as yet she could not recall just what, had happened to her; she was not even sure where she was awakening.

However, her eyes surveyed her own familiar room; there opposite the bed grinned the jade Buddha on his stand on the mantel--the one that Nick had--Nick! A mass of troubled, terrible recollections thrust themselves suddenly into consciousness. She visioned a medley of disturbing pictures, as yet disconnected, unassorted, but waiting only the return of complete wakefulness. And she realized abruptly that her head ached miserably, that her mouth was parched, that twinges of pain were making themselves evident in various portions of her anatomy. She turned her head and caught a glimpse of a figure at the bed-side; her startled glance revealed Dr. Horker, sitting quietly watching her.

"Hello, Doctor," she said, wincing as her smile brought a sharp pain from her lips. "Or should I say, Good morning, Judge?"

"Pat!" he rumbled, his growling tones oddly gentle. "Little Pat! How do you feel, child?"

"Fair," she said. "Just fair. Dr. Carl, what happened to me last night? I can't seem to remember--Oh!"

A flash of recollection pierced the obscure muddle. She remembered now--not all of the events of that ghastly evening, but enough. Too much!

"Oh!" she murmured faintly. "Oh, Dr. Carl!"

"Yes," he nodded. "'Oh!'--and would you mind very much telling me what that 'Oh' of yours implies?"

"Why--". She paused shuddering, as one by one the events of that sequence of horrors reassembled themselves. "Yes, I'd mind very much," she continued. "It was nothing--" She turned to him abruptly. "Oh, it was, though, Dr. Carl! It was horrible, unspeakable, incomprehensible!--But I can't talk about it! I can't!"

"Perhaps you're right," said the Doctor mildly. "Don't you really want to discuss it?"

"I do want to," admitted the girl after a moment's reflection. "I want to--but I can't. I'm afraid to think of all of it."

"But what in Heaven's name did you do?"

"We just started out to go dancing," she said hesitatingly. "Then, on the way to town, Nick--changed. He said someone was following us."

"Some one was," said Horker. "_I_ was, with Mueller. That Nick of yours has the Devil's own cleverness!"

"Yes," the girl echoed soberly. "The Devil's own!--Who's Mueller, Dr. Carl?"

"He's a plain-clothes man, friend of mine. I treated him once. What do you mean by changed?"

"His eyes," she said. "And his mouth. His eyes got reddish and terrible, and his mouth got straight and grim. And his voice turned sort of--harsh."

"Ever happen before, that you know of?"

"Once. When--" She paused.

"Yes. Last Wednesday night, when you came over to ask those questions about pure science. What happened then?"

"We went to a place to dance."

"And that's the reason, I suppose," rumbled the Doctor sardonically, "that I found you wandering about the streets in a table cloth, step-ins, and a pair of hose! That's why I found you on the verge of passing out from rotten liquor, and looking like the loser of a battle with an airplane propellor! What happened to your face?"

"My face? What's wrong with it?"

The Doctor rose from his chair and seized the hand-mirror from her dressing table.

"Look at it!" he commanded, passing her the glass.

Pat gazed incredulously at the reflection the surface presented; a dark bruise colored her cheek, her lips were swollen and discolored, and her chin bore a jagged scratch. She stared at the injuries in horror.

"Your knees are skinned, too," said Horker. "Both of them."

Pat slipped one pajamaed limb from the covers, drawing the pants-leg up for inspection. She gasped in startled fright at the great red stain on her knee.

"That's mercurochrome," said the Doctor. "I put it there."

"_You_ put it there. How did I get home last night, Dr. Carl? How did I get to bed?"

"I'm responsible for that, too. I put you to bed." He leaned forward. "Listen, child--your mother knows nothing about this as yet. She wasn't home when I brought you in, and she's not awake yet this morning. We'll tell her you had an automobile accident; explain away those bruises.--And now, how did you get them?"

"I fell, I guess. Two or three times."

"That bruise on your cheek isn't from falling."