He seized the fingers seeking his eyes and
nostrils; it snarled and spat at him. Steadily he forced down the arms,
twisting them behind it, and with a sudden effort got to his knees. Strangled sounds of impotent fury came from its throat. Only too keenly aware of how close his muscles were to the trembling
weakness of fatigue, he shifted his grip so that with one hand he held
the straining wrists. With the other he groped sideways, jerked open
the lower door of the cabinet, and found a length of cord. XV. "It's pretty serious this time, Norm," said Harold Gunnison. "A couple
of trustees really want your scalp." Norman drew his chair closer, as if the discussion were the real reason
for his visit to Gunnison's office this morning. Gunnison went on, "I think they're planning to rake up that Margaret
van Nice business, and start yelping that where there's smoke there
must be fire. And they may try to use Theodore Jennings against you. Claim that his 'nervous breakdown' was aggravated by unfairness and
undue severity on your part, etcetera." Norman nodded. Mrs. Gunnison ought to be here soon. The maid had told
him over the phone that she had just left for her husband's office. "Of course, those two matters aren't enough in themselves." Gunnison
looked unusually heavy-eyed and grave. "But they have a bad taste, and
they can be used as entering wedges. The real danger will come from
a restrained but concerted attack on your conduct of classes, your
public utterances, and perhaps even trivial details of your social
life, followed by talk about the need for retrenchment where it is
expeditious--you know what I mean." He paused. "What really bothers me
is that Pollard's cooled toward you. I told him just what I thought of
Sawtelle's appointment, but he said the trustees had overruled him. He's a good man, but he's a politician." And Gunnison shrugged, as if
it were common knowledge that the distinction between politicians and
scientists went back to the Ice Age. Norman roused himself. "I'm afraid I insulted him last week. We had a
long talk and I blew up." Gunnison shook his head. "That would explain it. He can absorb
insults. I've always said he was a good _politician_. If he sides
against you, it will be because he feels it necessary or at least
expeditious ... I hate that word ... on the grounds of public opinion. You know his way of running the college. Every couple of years he
throws someone to the wolves." Norman hardly heard him. He was thinking of Tansy as he had left
her--the trussed-up body, the lolling jaw, the hoarse heavy breathing
from the whiskey he had finally made it guzzle. He was taking a long
chance, but he dared not give it an opportunity to carry off or destroy
the body it had usurped. At one time last night he had almost decided
to call in a doctor and perhaps have Tansy placed in a sanitarium. But if he did that he would be unable to protect her and might lose
forever his chance to restore her rightful self. For similar reasons
there was no friend he could call on for help. Now that his efforts to
exorcise the thing by sorcery had failed, he had to strike quickly at
the source of the usurping agency. But it was not pleasant to think of
such headlines as: "PROFESSOR'S WIFE A TORTURE VICTIM. FOUND TRUSSED IN
CLOSET BY MATE." "It's really serious, Norm," Gunnison was repeating. "My wife thinks
so, and she's smart about these things. She knows people." His wife! Obediently, Norman nodded. "Hard luck it had to come to a head now," Gunnison continued, "when
you've been having more than your share of troubles, with sickness and
what-not." Norman could see that Gunnison was looking with a faint
shade of inquisitiveness at the strip of surgical tape close to the
corner of his left eye and the other one just below his nostrils. But
he attempted no explanation. Gunnison shifted about and resettled himself in his chair. "Norm,"
he said, "I've got the feeling that something's gone wrong. You can
weather this blow all right--you're one of our two-three best men--but
I've got the feeling that something's gone wrong all the way down the
line." The offer his words conveyed was obvious enough, and Norman knew it
was made in good faith. But only for a moment did he consider telling
Gunnison even a fraction of the truth. It would be like trying to take
his troubles into the law courts, and he could imagine--with the sharp,
almost hallucinatory vividness of extreme fatigue--what that would
be like. Imagine, even if the thing were exorcised out of her body,
putting Tansy in the witness box. "You say, Mrs. Saylor, that your
soul was stolen from your body?" "Yes." "You know that to be a fact?" "Yes." "You are conscious of it?" "No, I am not conscious." "How,
then--" Bang of the judge's gavel. "If this tittering does not cease
immediately, I will clear the court!" Or Mrs. Gunnison called to the
witness box and he himself bursting out with an impassioned plea to the
jury. "Gentlemen, look at her eyes! Watch them closely, I implore you. My wife's soul is there, if you would only see it!" Then the judge,
harshly, "Remove the man Saylor!" But even such a trial was an impossibility in this day and age. And his
method for righting the wrong that had been done must necessarily be
as far outside the law as sorcery is outside the domain of recognized
science. *       *       *       *       *

"What's the matter, Norm?" he heard Gunnison ask. The genuine sympathy
of the voice tugged at him confusedly. Groggy with sudden sleepiness,
he tried to rally himself to answer. Mrs. Gunnison walked in. "Hello," she said. "I'm glad you two finally got together." Almost
patronizingly she looked him over. "I don't think you've slept for the
last two nights," she announced brusquely. "And what's happened to your
face? Did that cat of yours finally scratch it?" Gunnison laughed, as he usually did, at his wife's frankness. "What
a woman! Loves dogs. Hates cats. But she's right about your needing
sleep, Norm." The sight of her and the sound of her voice stung him into an icy
wakefulness. She looked as if she had been sleeping ten hours a night
for some time. An expensive green suit set off her red hair and gave
her a kind of buxom middle-aged beauty. Her slip showed and the coat
was buttoned in a disorderly way, but now it conveyed to Norman the
effect of the privileged carelessness of some all-powerful ruler who is
above ordinary standards of neatness. For once she was not carrying the
usual bulging purse. He did not trust himself to look into her eyes. His hand stole from his pocket to the crevice at the back of the chair. He pushed the lucite egg out of sight. Then he stood up. "Don't go yet, Norm," Gunnison told him. "There's a lot we should talk
about." "Yes, why don't you stay?" Mrs. Gunnison seconded. "Sorry," said Norman. "I'll come around this afternoon if you can spare
the time. Or tomorrow morning, at the latest." "Be sure and do that," said Gunnison seriously.