Chapter I

"I keep wondering if she knows about Us," said the woman with black button eyes. She played the queen of spades.

The queen of hearts trumped the queen of spades. "You can put your mind at rest," said the silver-haired woman sweetly, gathering in the trick. "She doesn't. Tansy Saylor plays a lone hand. Like most women, she thinks she's the Only One. Co-operation such as ours is rare."

"But I'm afraid of her. Oh, I know she hasn't upset the Balance, and uses only Protective Procedures. But she isn't our kind. Neither is her husband. They don't belong."

The silver-haired woman nodded primly, peering through her thick glasses at the dummy with the empty chair behind it. "I agree. The Saylors are a disgrace to the Hempnell faculty. Modern. No sense of the traditional decencies."

"Yes, and she wants to make him president of Hempnell. She wants him to dictate to our husbands. She wants to condescend to us."

"This talk gets nowhere," broke in the stout, red-haired woman gruffly. "The point is that her Protective Procedures are effective--many things would have happened to the Saylors during the last ten years if they weren't. And she hasn't made the mistake of upsetting the Balance. So what can we three do about it?"

"Oh, the Balance!" said the woman with black button eyes, throwing down her last two cards. "Sometimes I think we ought to upset it ourselves." She evaded the shocked glance of the silver-haired woman. "We've our Sounds, and our Pictures, and our Numbers, and our Cards. We could finish the Saylors in a whiff. There's such a neat trick with cards I've just learned. Here, let me show you--" She slipped a dozen shiny paste-board oblongs out of her purse. They had the conventional backs, but their faces bore representations of a cryptic sort.

"Stop that!" The silver-haired woman stretched out fluttering hands.

"Put them away!" ordered the stout woman harshly. She glanced at the door. "Quickly!"

But the eyes of the little man who ambled in were not inquisitive. With white beard and amiable smile, he looked almost benign, in an absent-minded sort of way.

"I don't suppose you played much bridge while I was gone," he observed with mild joviality.

The silver-haired woman's laughter trilled sweetly. "It's his little joke. He always pretends that all women are fearful gossips. Well, at least I made the contract, dear. Four hearts."

His eyes twinkled. "Very commendable." He settled himself in the empty chair. "Still I imagine the three of you managed to find time for some very dark and devious plotting--" He chuckled innocently.

* * * * *

Norman Saylor, professor of ethnology at Hempnell College, was not the sort of man to go snooping around in his wife's dressing room. That was partly the reason why he did it. He was sure nothing could touch the security of the relationship between him and Tansy.

The house was very quiet. Spring sunshine and balmy air were sluicing gently through the bedroom windows. It wasn't five minutes since he had put in the final staccato burst of typing on his "Negro Recruit" brochure for the War Office. It looked as if for once they would have a lazy evening to themselves.

Totem, the cat, rose from her sun-warmed spot on the neatly piled silk quilt and indulged in a titanic, disruptive-looking yawn, neatly folded her white paws under her black waistcoat, and stared solemnly at Norman. Norman copied her yawn, and felt a partial unkinking of the twelve-work-hours-a-day tension that had traced lines on his chunky face and smudged shadows under his clear, yellow-brown eyes. Such moments as this did not come often these days, but when they did come, they sure felt good.

The door of Tansy's dressing room stood invitingly open. It was a tiny room, just a big closet, with no windows. But it was more than a rack of dresses and a creamy dressing table. It was Tansy. On the neat side, but not fussy. A slight pleasant disorder. Very sane--he wondered why that particular word came to his mind, but it hit the spot. A faint perfume conjured up amiable memories.

He studied the photographs on either side of the mirror. One of Tansy and himself in modified Indian costume, from three summers back when he had been studying the Yumas. They both looked rather solemn. Another, slightly faded, of an uproarious Negro baptizing in midriver. That was from when he had held the Hazelton Fellowship and been gathering material for his "Social Patterns of the Southern Negro" and his later "Feminine Element in Superstition." Tansy had done more work than two secretaries that busy year when he was hammering out a reputation.

There was an ample array of cosmetics--Tansy had been the first of the Hempnell faculty wives to use lipstick and lacquer her nails; there had been covert criticism and talk of "setting the students a bad example," but she had stuck it out. Flanked by cold-cream jars was a photograph of himself, with a little pile of small change, dimes and quarters, in front of it.

Idly he slid out a drawer, scanned the pile of stocking rolls, pushed it in, pulled at another, which jammed, so he had to give it a sharp tug. A large cardboard box toward the back caught his eyes. He edged up the cover and took out one of the tiny glass-stoppered bottles. What sort of cosmetic would this be? Too dark for face powder. More like a geologist's soil specimen. An ingredient for a mud pack?

The dry, dark-brown granules shifted smoothly, like sand in an hourglass, as he rotated the glass cylinder. The label appeared, in Tansy's clear script. "Julia Trock, Roseland." A cosmetician? Was Roseland a part of the name, or a place? And why should the idea that it might be a place seem distasteful? His hand knocked aside the cardboard cover as he reached for a second bottle, identical with the first, except that the contents had a somewhat reddish tinge, and the label read, "Philip Lassiter, Hill." A third, contents same color as the first: "J. P. Thorndyke, Roseland." Then a handful, quickly snatched up, of three: "Emelyn Scatterday, Roseland." "Mortimer Pope, Hill." "The Rev. Bufort Ames, Roseland."

The silence in the house grew thunderous; even the sunlight seemed to sizzle and fry, as his mind rose to a sudden pitch of concentration on the puzzle. "Roseland and Hill, Roseland and Hill, Roseland and Hill," like a nursery rhyme somehow turned nasty, making the glass cylinders repugnant to his fingers. "Roseland Hill--"

Abruptly the answer came.

The two local cemeteries.

Graveyard dirt.

Soil specimens all right. Graveyard dirt from particular graves. A chief ingredient of Negro conjure magic.

* * * * *

With a soft thud Totem landed on the table and began to sniff inquisitively at the bottles, but sprang away as Norman plunged his hand into the drawer. He felt smaller boxes behind the big one, yanked suddenly at the whole drawer, so it fell to the floor. In one of the boxes were bent, rusty, worn bits of iron--horseshoe nails. In the other were calling-card envelopes, filled with snippings of hair, each labeled like the bottles, but some of these names he knew. And in one--fingernail clippings.

In the third drawer he drew blank. But the fourth yielded a varied harvest. Packets of small dried leaves and powdered vegetable matter--so that was what came from Tansy's herb garden along with kitchen seasonings? Vervain, vinmoin, devil's snuff. Bits of lodestone, iron filings clinging to them. Goose quills which spilled quicksilver when he shook them. Small squares of flannel, the sort that Negro conjure doctors employed for their "tricken-bags" or "hands." A box of old silver coins and silver filings--strong protective magic; giving significance to the coins, all silver, in front of his photograph.

But Tansy was so sane--so healthily contemptuous of palmistry, astrology, numerology and all the other superstitious fads. A hard-headed New Englander. So well versed, from her work with him, in the psychological background of superstition and primitive magic. And yet--

He found himself thumbing through a dog-eared copy of his own "Parallelisms in Superstition and Neurosis." It looked like the one he had lost around the house--was it eight years ago? Beside a formula for conjuration was a marginal notation in Tansy's script: "Doesn't work. Substitute copper filings for brass. Try in dark of moon instead of full."

"Norman--"

Tansy was standing in the doorway, her hand stopped in the moment of drawing off the little half hat of deep-rose felt that matched her trim dress.

Never before had he had such a feeling that a human face was only an arbitrary arrangement of curved surfaces and colors. The tapering chin--an ellipsoid. The full lips--a complex arrangement of cycloids and other curves. The eyes--white spheres inscribed with gray-green circles centered with black. Without familiarity or significance. And yet, in the same instant he felt that it was desperately important that he spy out a significance. For a faint distortion of those angles and curves--a distortion so subtle as to be almost indiscernible--might signify ... yes, why not say it?... insanity.

The ghost of a smile curved Tansy's lips, and familiarity flooded back into her face.

"So you've found out," she sighed. And although it seemed incredible, he thought she sighed with relief.

For a moment he stood there confused, like a district attorney caught arranging evidence. Then he began his cross-examination.

"It all started so foolishly," she was saying soon. "Just before you came to Hempnell. I felt it was tremendously important that you get the appointment and just to relieve my nerves--no other reason--I did silly things. Put mild curses on the two other applicants, to confuse their thoughts during the interviews. I got the curses from your notes. I surrounded you with a web of protective magic, charmed the sociology faculty to make them regard you favorably.

"Well, you got the job, and I forgot all about my stupid private joke.

"Then, when your first book was at the publishers--you remember, Norm, in 1930--I tried again. We were so sure it would be rejected. I was planning to tell you all about my idiotic conjures as soon as it came back, so at least we'd have a laugh. But it was accepted. And I didn't tell you.

"Then in 1931, when you had pneumonia. I didn't want to, because it was too serious this time, but you got worse and I couldn't help myself. And you got well.

"That was the real beginning. Not that I was certain--I've never been certain--but I didn't dare take chances. Careers hang on such little strings, and Hempnell can be so vindictive. You know.

"But I wasn't superstitious. No, I wasn't! At least, I didn't have what you'd call the superstitious feeling. In a twisted logical way, I was trying to be empirical. I judged everything by results, step by step.

"And of course, when I say empirical, I don't mean experimental. I didn't dare to omit any charms as a test, because I was too afraid of something going wrong. You can't be experimental about someone you love, any more than a sane sociologist would induce fascism in his own country just to study the consequences."

He listened, his mind working like a telephone exchange during an emergency, catching a thousand hidden connections in trivial memories of his life and Tansy's. Whenever she paused, he had a question to hammer at her.

"Those mirror decorations on your dresses, and belts, and handbags--why?"

She nodded, tiredly. "Yes, that's it. To ward off evil spirits, by reflecting them. I got the idea from Tibetan devil masks. Yes, and the reason I always use hooks and eyes is--you've guessed--to catch evil spirits that try to get at me."

* * * * *

The room was dark by the time Tansy had finished the catalogue of her activities at Hempnell, and said, "So you see, I've never been sure. I've wanted to stop, but there's been too much at stake. It always worked--or did as soon as I made the proper corrections in the charms. I've wanted to tell you, but I've never dared. Now that you know, I'm glad."

The voice was very tired now.

Then, in the darkness he began his argument. It was the old, old argument of science against primitive ignorance, but he brought it home to her with careful persuasiveness. The argument which starts out with a demonstration that superstition is only mistaken empiricism, and ends with psychoanalysis.

"Didn't it really begin much earlier than Hempnell, Tansy?" he asked at one point. "I mean, the seeds of it?"

"No. Oh, I don't know. Perhaps. I've childhood memories of dark moments. Suspicions. Queer things people could do. Hints from I don't know where. But nothing certain. I just can't remember. I don't know."

Only once did the tired voice grow vehement.

"But I tell you I never tried to kill, or even to injure in a physical way! Never! Only to confuse or hinder people when they were working against you. It's terribly important that you understand this, Norman. Nine tenths of my magic was purely protective. To ward off evil."

He felt pettishly exasperated at this answer. What difference did it make whether or not she had tried to kill? It was all equally nonsense. And why should she harp on her efforts to protect him, as if he were some sort of incompetent? For a moment it occurred to him that, from one point of view, he _had_ been very lucky in his career. He abruptly put aside this stray thought, along with his fit of impatience.

At another time she used a similar argument. "I never tried for anything really big. Like your inheriting a million dollars. Or becoming president of Hempnell overnight, even if I'd thought you wanted to. There's a law of reaction or retribution in all conjuring--I mean, I used to think there was. Like the kick of a gun. I was afraid."

After that there were no more interruptions--only the white smudge of Tansy's face in the darkness.

When he had finished his voice was tired, too.

There was a pause. Then she said, "I'll do what you want me to. I'll burn all my stuff. I'll never touch it again."

He snapped on the light, and it seemed to him that science and healthy skepticism had been created anew from the primeval dark. The hands of his watch stood at ten thirty. Then he saw that Tansy had begun to cry.

"Darling," she managed to say, "don't you see this is what I've wanted? Only I'd gotten in so deep I never dared. On your account. You had to find out and make me stop. That was the only way."

What followed was oddly anticlimactic--the ransacking of the house for all of Tansy's hidden charms. First the contents of the dressing table. He found then that he could be generous in his victory because his trust in Tansy was re-established--he did not demand to look into her locked little leather-bound diary, when she told him it contained no relevant material.

Then the rest of the house, Tansy darting from room to room, deftly recovering flannel-wrapped "hands" from the upholstery of chairs, the under sides of table tops, the interior of vases, until he marveled that he had lived in the house for more than ten years without chancing on any.

"It's rather like a treasure hunt, isn't it?" she observed with a rueful smile.

There were others outside--under front and back doorsteps, in the garage, and in the car. With every handful thrown on the roaring fire he had built in the living room, his sense of relief grew. Finally, she opened the seams of the pillows on his bed and carefully fished out two little matted shapes made of feathers bound with fine thread, so they blended with the fluffy contents of the pillow.

"See, one's a heart, the other an anchor. That's for security," she told him. "New Orleans magic. You haven't taken a step for years without being in the range of one of my protective charms."

The feather figures puffed into flame and were gone in an instant.

"There, that's the last one of them," she said. "All gone."

"You're sure?" For a moment his voice grew hard again. "Absolutely certain you haven't overlooked any?"

"Absolutely certain. There's not one left in the house. I've gone over it in my mind a dozen times. I'm tired now, really tired. I want to go straight to bed." Suddenly she began to laugh. "Oh, but first I'll have to stitch up those pillows, or there'll be feathers all over the place."

He put his arms around her. "Everything O.K. now?"

"Yes, darling. Only one thing I want to ask you--that we don't talk about this for a few days at least. I'm really terribly ashamed. But I'm glad it's happened, remember that."

* * * * *

After Tansy was gone, Norman threw a fresh log on the fire, and sank back in the easy-chair, watching the restless, rhythmic play of the flames. Gradually his thoughts began to unkink. He found himself wondering--not without admiration--at Tansy's relatively cool behavior. He would never have dared to try reasoned argument on any other woman in a similar situation. But that was like Tansy. Always fair. Always willing to listen to logic. Empirical. Except that she had gotten off on a crazy sidetrack.

He reached down to stroke Totem, who did not look away from the hypnotic flames.

"Time we got to bed, old man. Must be about twelve. No--quarter-past one."

As he slipped back the watch, the fingers of his other hand went automatically to the charm at the end of the chain--more a locket than a charm--a gift from Tansy.

He gazed ruminatingly at the flattened golden heart, weighed it in his palm. It seemed perhaps a trifle heavier than its metal shell would account for. He snapped up the cover with his thumbnail. There was no regular way of getting at the space behind Tansy's photograph, so, after a moment's hesitation, he carefully edged it out with a pencil point.

Behind the photograph was a tiny packet, wrapped in the finest flannel.

Just like a woman, was his first thought--to seem to give in completely, but to hold out on something.

Perhaps she had forgotten.

Angrily he tossed the packet into the fireplace. The photograph fluttered along with it, lighted on the bed of embers, and flared before he could snatch it out. He had a glimpse of Tansy's face curling and blackening.

The packet took longer. A yellow glow crept across its surface, as the nap singed. Then a wavering four-inch flame shot up.

Simultaneously a chill went through him, though he still felt the heat from the embers. The room seemed to darken. There was a faint, mighty roaring in his ears, as of motors far underground. He had the sense of standing suddenly naked and unarmed before something menacingly alien.

Totem had turned around and was peering intently at the shadows in the far corner. With an expectorant hiss she sprang sideways and darted from the room.

He realized he was trembling. Nervous reaction, he told himself. Might have known it was overdue.

The flame died, and once again there was only the bed of embers.

Explosively, the phone began to jangle.

"Professor Saylor? I just want to tell you that you're not going to get away with what you're trying to do to me. I'm not going to be flunked out of Hempnell without a protest."

The voice spluttered with rage. It was some moment before he recognized the student and cut in.

"Now listen, Jennings, if you thought you were being treated unfairly, why didn't you present your grievances three months ago, when you got your grades?"

"Why? Because I let you pull the wool over my eyes. I didn't realize until this minute that you were behind it all."

"Be reasonable. You flunked two courses besides mine last semester."

"Yes, because you dropped dirty hints. Poisoned everyone's mind against me."

"And you mean to tell me you only realized it now?"

"Yes, I do. It just came to me in a flash as I was thinking here. I saw your whole slimy plot. Oh, you were clever all right, but let me tell you, Saylor--"

The voice ranted on. Twice his "But what possible motive could I--" went disregarded. With a distasteful grimace he hung up.

He felt suddenly very tired. There was an unpleasant coincidence tangled up in the events of the past few minutes, if you bothered to figure it out, but a scientist ought to have a healthy disregard for coincidences.

He put the screen in front of the fire and went to bed.