A Question Of Time by Fred Saberhagen (8 ebook reader txt) 📕

fingers were making on her keyboard, evoking knowledge from some electromagnetic cache perhaps again halfway across the continent.

      What, thought the man on the other end of the phone line, would Merlin think of this means of divination?

      At last Angie said: “1933 is the last mention of any Tyrrell child I’ve come across. As far as I’ve been able to tell from looking at old newspapers, she dropped out of sight permanently at that point.”

      “And the child’s name?”

      “Do you know, I can’t find one for her.”

      “And the subsequent activities of Mrs. Tyrrell? After 1940?”

      “Have been only very scantily reported in the news. Starting in the sixties, there are a few items—a small mention here and there, as inheritor of her husband’s estate. Oh, and there’s this. From the sixties on, this Mr. Gerald Brainard, her nephew, evidently began to be involved in his aunt’s business affairs.”

      “Confirming what we had heard. Thank you.”

      Presently that phone conversation was over. Ignoring the noise and bustle of the world’s busiest airport swirling around his phone booth, the returning traveler tried once more to reach Joe Keogh in Arizona. This time the effort was successful.

      The man in Chicago communicated his thoughts to the man in Arizona. Then the caller was moved to philosophize.

      There was no reason, Drakulya commented, no good reason why a vampire could not be a scientist, or an artist. “As we know, the two abilities are similar.”

      “I suppose you’re right.”

      “Of course I am right. Quite a few of the nosferatu breed, myself included, collect objets d’art, but almost none of us create such works. This fact has for some time puzzled and worried me, Joseph—but I am keeping you from important work.”

* * *

      A minute later, Joe Keogh in his suite in El Tovar was hanging up his phone and reaching for his jacket and his cane. He wanted to question Sarah Tyrrell about her daughter, and since there was no phone in the Tyrrell House, he was going to have to make the trip on foot yet again.

      People in the lobby of El Tovar were talking about snow in the forecast, and once Joe was outside, the look of the wintry morning sky and the smell of the cold wind confirmed that a real snowstorm was almost certainly on the way.

Chapter Thirteen

      Following a second change of planes in Phoenix, an ordeal accompanied by additional infuriating delays, the last leg of the returning traveler’s long flight westward deposited him at the small Flagstaff airport after midnight. He sniffed keenly, testing the local weather. From that point on, eschewing snowy roads, he returned to the Canyon in beast-form, at a four-legged cross-country run.

      Only upon his arrival in the immediate vicinity of El Tovar, shortly before dawn, did the traveler resume man-form. On the morning of New Year’s Eve the rising sun—fortunately for him obscured behind thick clouds—found him on the South Rim, contemplating the view along with a scattering of like-minded early-rising tourists.

* * *

      As soon as Mr. Strangeways could comfortably make private contact with his breathing colleagues in Canyon Village, he told Joe Keogh and John Southerland something about his sojourn in England, with emphasis on his stop in Darwin’s house. There and from other sources he had been able to gain key information about Tyrrell and his doings down through the decades.

      Even as he relayed this information, Mr. Strangeways was administering a massage to Joe’s injured ankle, accompanying the physical treatment with certain suggestions delivered mostly by non-verbal means.

      Joe, stretched out on the sofa in his suite, and feeling curiously relaxed, enjoyed the relief of pain in his sore leg, and made sure that Strangeways was brought up to date on what had happened at the Canyon in his absence, particularly regarding Bill Burdon’s disappearance and return.

      Joe was somewhat apologetic on the subject. “I know you warned me against going after Tyrrell. I didn’t think I’d have to warn Bill; he was supposed to watch the house, not chase people.”

      Drakulya’s strong, pale fingers paused in their healing work. “And did the young man sustain no injury?”

      “Not that I can see.”

      The massage resumed. “Well, it is impossible to ward against all the impulsiveness of the young—where is Maria, by the way?”

      “Keeping Mrs. Tyrrell company, as usual. Hey, that’s starting to feel a lot better.”

      Presently Joe was bidden to get to his feet, and test his leg. For a moment he thought his ankle might be as good as new—but only for a moment. He had not been miraculously cured, but he had been definitely helped.

* * *

      Brainard, on being introduced to Mr. Strangeways, had stared at him, as if there were something about the bearded man he recognized, or felt himself on the verge of recognizing. Then he had retired to the other room of Joe’s suite.

      He might have saved his trouble, for Drakulya had little interest in him. Instead he now wanted to talk to Sarah Tyrrell.

* * *

      This muted, clouded winter daylight was not sharp enough to give a toughened, experienced vampire any trouble. Not really, once he had put on a broad-brimmed hat. Thus prepared, he approached the Tyrrell House, where no one answered his tap at the front door. Nor could his keen ears discover the presence of any breathing lungs inside. Quietly setting out to locate Sarah, he expected no great difficulty—a breathing woman of her age could not have gone far—and experienced none.

      He came upon her near mid-morning, when brief periods of sunshine were alternating with snow showers, the former tolerable to Strangeways under tree-shade, the latter providing a good tracking snow. Only the most elementary craft was needed to follow the rather wandering trail of the old woman’s boots from the point where she had left the traveled rim-trail and set off through the thin growth of hardy trees.

      On coming at last in view of his quarry, Strangeways stopped momentarily that he might observe while himself remaining for the moment unobserved.

      Sarah Tyrrell was standing, looking