The Black Door (13 page)

Almost as if responding to the same cue, another door opened, and Robert Grinnel appeared. He raised a hand, signaling me not to rise. Then, with long, lithe strides he crossed the room and sat on the sofa opposite me. Although his clear, brilliant eyes never left my face, he did not speak, but instead deliberately selected a cigarette from a marble cigarette box and used a matching marble lighter. He crossed his legs and held the cigarette lighter in his hand, absently hefting it as he continued to stare at me. I felt myself flushing.

“They tell me you’re a clairvoyant, Mr. Drake.” The curt remark came bluntly, almost certainly calculated for its disconcerting effect on me.

Again, infuriatingly, I felt myself flush.

“Well, I—I helped find—I mean, I did help the police in San Jose a few months ago, yes.”

“And before that?”

“I—I beg your pardon?”

“Did you have any other—successes—before that?”

“Well, not successes, exactly. A few
experiences
would be more accurate, I’d say.”

“Tell me about them.”

I shifted sharply in the chair. Somehow, I was suddenly determined not to tell this aloof, supercilious, clothing-ad megalomaniac anything more than the newspaper-reading public already knew.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Grinnel. That’s—I mean—my previous experiences aren’t, ah, in the public domain.”

“Oh?” He raised a studied eyebrow. “Why not?”

“Well, it’s just that—”

“Did you ever read a book called
Doctor Hudson’s Secret Journal,
by any chance? By A. J. Cronin?”

I shook my head.

“It was an interesting thesis, I’ve always thought. I remember reading the book when I was in my teens. It influenced my life substantially.”

“What
was
the thesis?”

“Put simply, Cronin’s point was that a man can profit by acts of altruism, provided he keeps them secret and swears the recipients to secrecy.”

“He profits? How?”

“By enhancing the riches of his own personality as his acts of secret charity diminish the
material
poverty of others. The key word, you see, is secret. I perform an act of seemingly spontaneous charity, unsolicited and unexpected. The only proviso is that neither myself nor the recipient can ever speak of what’s happened. The recipient has his necessary boon, whatever it might be, and I’ve drawn strength from the secret knowledge of what I’ve done. In other words, I’ve drawn strength from his corresponding inner weakening of the spirit, as must necessarily happen when he becomes an object of charity. Both parties, you see, get value received.”

I looked at him, conscious of a gathering revulsion. My reply slipped out, unintentionally. “The vampire principle, in other words.”

He readily nodded and smiled, as if to encourage a precocious student. “Very good, well put. That’s exactly it: the vampire principle. Charity enslaves the soul, as everyone knows. That’s the real evil of socialism, you see. It dries up the individual’s will to achieve. Cronin realized that. He saw that an individual surrenders a certain portion of himself every time he’s given something. So in his book, Cronin equates Doctor Hudson with the socialist society. Of course, as a boy, I wasn’t interested in politics. But I
was
interested in the personal aspects of Cronin’s thesis: the proposition that it was possible to draw strength from another. Or rather, draw substance—essence. It’s a much subtler theory than, say, enslaving a person’s physical being. It’s mystical, I admit. But I submit that it’s practical.” He paused, and for a long moment appraised me, his handsome face inscrutable.

“I was just wondering,” he said, “whether your refusal to tell me about previous ESP experiences had anything to do with Cronin’s theory. I was wondering whether, by refusing to divulge them, you drew strength from these experiences—secret, necessary strength.”

I didn’t know what to reply. I shifted in my chair and looked away. I was trying to decide why he’d invited me. Certainly not to discuss the vampire theory of human relationships. And certainly he wasn’t interested in me, not really interested. So far, I had been merely an attentive listener to a monologue.

“You know, of course, that I’m having the murder of my daughter privately investigated,” he said abruptly.

“Yes, I know.”

“I’ve had no satisfaction from the investigation, no satisfaction whatever. I’m dissatisfied with the arrangements I’ve made.”

“Well, it takes a long while, of course. I mean, if the police haven’t solved the crime, with all their facilities and their information, it’s difficult to see how private investigators can do much better.”

He seemed to think this a curious statement.

“The police,” he said impatiently, “are bureaucrats. Their I.Q.’s probably don’t average above one hundred, if that. Further, they’re corrupted by the very fact of their civil service. No one really cares whether they do their job properly. They have a thousand things on their mind, not to mention the fact that they
depend
on the existence of crime for their jobs, as I mentioned to the press previously. My investigators, on the other hand, are being paid to concentrate on only one matter—the murder of my child.”

I didn’t reply.

“However,” he continued briskly, “the facts would seem to bear out your position. I’ve had two firms of private investigators working for a week now, and nothing’s come of it. Absolutely nothing, except a stack of reports.”

“You’ve got
two
firms?”

He nodded. “Each one of them knows about it. In fact, I called their representatives in together and gave them my terms: double fees and expenses to the firm that solves the crime, and nothing to the other.”

“And they agreed to it?”

“Certainly they agreed to it. These men are in business. They’re competitors. They understand the nature of the free enterprise system, that
the
best prevails, and the inferior is eliminated. It’s one of the basic laws of capitalism, the theory of natural selection, to borrow from philosophy. It’s something bureaucrats will never realize until it’s too late. We’ve got to begin eliminating the unfit in our society. We’re in a life-and-death struggle with a society that’s doing exactly that: applying the theory of natural selection to sociological and economic laws. So—” He interrupted himself to look at me, his expression a mixture of light irony and mild contempt. “You don’t agree with me, do you?” he asked.

“Well, not—” I swallowed, giving myself time for a moment’s thought—“not wholly. Everyone’s against bureaucracy, the way everyone’s against sin. But then there’s the question of alternatives. I mean, while one system’s not perfect, there’s no guarantee that—”

“Essentially you’re a dreamer, Mr. Drake. A Utopian. In your case, this can be forgiven. It’s probably essential to your profession. Or your avocation, I should say.” The judgment was delivered firmly and decisively, with complete assurance.

Irrationally, I felt relieved—as if the judge had just dismissed an indictment against me.

“You are also,” he continued, “something of a mystic. But, like myself, I would say that you’re a practical mystic. You have been successful in organizing the tremendous wastefulness of human consciousness into a useful tool. This we have in common—and this we share with most of the world’s great men. Most great men don’t talk about it, but they’re mystics. Practical, working mystics. Which is to say that they have developed the power to see deep within themselves, and therefore deep into others.” He shrugged, as if deprecating a cheap parlor trick. “That’s all there is to it, the simple, incredibly elementary secret of one man’s power over another: know thyself to know another. Then, when you know him, you can predict his responses. And that is power. The source of all political, intellectual and economic power is the ability to predict another’s responses, and therefore control him. And, of course, it’s no secret. It’s preached from every pulpit every Sunday. It’s written in—” Impatiently, he interrupted himself. “But never mind. Do you know why I’m telling you all this?”

Slowly, incredulously, I nodded. Because suddenly I did know.

“Why, then?” he asked.

I felt almost as if I were one of his followers, responding to cue. “You want me to try and solve the mystery of your daughter’s murder.”

He nodded, almost casually. “Correct. You’ve restored my confidence in you, at least in part. Your next logical step, if I may suggest, is to conduct yourself with a little more assurance. In fact, a
lot
more assurance. You’re a national figure, a minor national figure, but nevertheless you have your foot in the door. Yet you inspire no confidence. You have no presence. You’re waiting for the world to come to you, Mr. Drake. And it doesn’t happen that way, believe me.”

I was irritated. “It got me here,” I answered.

He thought about that, and then smiled. “Yes, that’s true. It got you here.” He seemed to take the point scored against him with good humor.

“Maybe,” he said musingly, “maybe it’s different with mystics than it is with businessmen or politicians. Maybe the rules are different.”

“It’s very much the same, I’d think. You’re judged on results, and not much else.”

He smiled, an unpleasant, condescending smile. “You don’t know much about politics, do you, Mr. Drake?”

“No,” I admitted. “No, I don’t.”

“Perhaps it’s just as well. Probably you’re more effective with your mind completely free. I can imagine that, in your profession, you need a completely free interchange between your conscious and your unconscious. Perhaps that’s why many mediums are essentially simple people, even childlike.”

The statement shook me, for its truth and for its heedless barb. But he wasn’t even watching my reaction. He was reaching into his inner coat pocket and withdrawing a checkbook and fountain pen. He uncapped the pen and opened the checkbook on the coffee table before him.

“I was thinking of two thousand as a retainer,” he said in a conversational tone, “and an additional two thousand when a suspect is arrested as a result of your efforts, and, say, five thousand when the suspect either confesses or is convicted.” He was already bent over the checkbook, writing. “Is that satisfactory?” he asked, not even bothering to raise his eyes as he asked the question.

I added it up: two thousand for merely nodding my head. Another seven thousand for value received.

I opened my mouth, but nothing happened. He looked up, and then smiled mock-tolerantly.

“That’s another thing you should do something about,” he said. “That incredulous, unprepared expression on your face. If you’re going to inspire confidence in people, you’ve got to be surprised at nothing. You’ve got to be always in control. Think of it in terms of packaging. You’ve got a product, possibly a pretty good product. But you’ve got to package it better, work out a better method of presenting it. Otherwise, the competition might get in ahead of you. Someone will develop a similar product, and present it more effectively. You’ll be left whistling, as they say.”

When I found my voice, it had an edge of anger at his condescension.

“I’m in control of myself,” I answered. “I’m simply surprised, that’s all. The fact is, the past week, I’ve actually tried to find the murderer, without much success. Without any success whatever, in fact. So that—” I gestured to the check, now finished and lying between us on the table—“that’s really beside the point.”

He thoughtfully picked up the check, gazed at it for a long moment, and then negligently tossed it across to me. He shook his head.

“Wrong again, Mr. Drake.” He smiled, that maddening, handsome, condescending smile. He pointed to the check. “That merely illustrates my good intentions. You will find yourself thinking about the rest of it—the additional seven thousand dollars. And you’ll find yourself working very hard indeed. Not only for the seven thousand dollars, but for the publicity. If you find the murderer, your fortune will be made, as they say. You’ll get a free ride on my well-known coattails. No more grubby interviews, begging your betters for a few words that you can distort into something that’ll titillate your moron readers. You’ll be someone in your own right, Mr. Drake.
You’ll
be giving the interviews.”

I looked at the check. Then I leaned forward in my chair, picking up the check with thumb and forefinger. I remember thinking that I was bound to nothing. We had no contract, verbal or otherwise. I could take the check, leave the room, and never come back. Two thousand dollars richer.

I carefully folded the check and slipped it into my billfold. Perhaps the simple fact of possessing the check produced a sudden surge of confidence. Perhaps Grinnel’s patronizing condescension had finally roused me to take an initiative of my own. In any case, I heard myself saying, “Thanks for the check, Mr. Grinnel. I’ll do everything I can to help you. But I’ll need help, too. I’m sure you realize that.”

“Help?” The question implied a faintly surprised displeasure.

“Yes. I’ll need to know everything you can tell me about your daughter, and the possible reasons for her death. You implied at your news conference, for instance, that her murder was actually aimed at you and your work. Do you have any concrete information to that effect?”

“I have a file of crank letters, Mr. Drake, dating back almost fifteen years.” His voice changed to a bantering note, mockingly supercilious. “Would you like to have the file to sniff through for traces of ectoplasm?”

I drew a deep breath, momentarily savoring the fantasy of myself rising from the chair, extracting his check from my wallet, carefully tearing it in two, dropping it on the floor and departing. Instead I said, “Do the police know of this file?”

He nodded. “They’ve photostated the letters.”

“I hadn’t heard about it.”

“I think I can tell you why. The F.B.I. also took painstaking photostats because the mails were involved. They demanded absolute secrecy, as they always do.”

“Is the F.B.I, investigating your daughter’s murder?” I asked, surprised.

“I’ve no idea what they’re doing. I doubt that Captain Larsen does, either.”

I nodded. With luck, I could ask Larsen. Since the murder was out of the news, he might be willing to give me an interview.