LITMIR.BIZ

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see himself. A man who has no face—’

      ‘—is a man who wears a stocking-mask. Now, Mr Hawke—’

      ‘Yes, but one moment! This time I have something positive to tell you. I’ve seen him. In the crystal—scrying, we call it. A small man, five foot six or less, clerk type, regulation suit, knee-length mackintosh—’

      ‘Strikingly different from half the male population of this town. Including for example, yourself. Now, I’m frantically busy—’

      ‘But there’s more—’

      ‘—so goodbye and thank you.’ He could not forbear from adding: ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’

      He fell into one of his terrible rages, hunched like a monkey in the big séance room armchair, and for a moment lost consciousness, blacked out as of late he so often did, sometimes for hours at a time, coming to spent and exhausted, deeply troubled by forgotten dreams. But Delphine was with him now, gently dabbing with a damp cloth at the haggard, narrow white face. ‘What does it matter, Mr Hawke? A dumb policeman!’

      ‘I could have told them—the man has red hair. But they’ll never believe in me, in my Gift—’

      ‘I believe in you,’ she said. ‘I know.’

      Coming up to her in the crowded store, a total stranger. ‘Don’t be afraid, I only want to help you.’ But she had been afraid. Other shoppers had gathered protectively about her: was there not a mass murderer abroad? He introduced himself to them. ‘Joseph Hawke—famed clairvoyant, you’ll have heard of me. And I’ve had this vision, you see, in the crystal, I know that she’s in deep trouble.’ She had cried out—how could he possibly have known?—gone with him and confided, ashen-faced, ‘I’ve had a telephone call from him. From No Face, slopping and gobbling. It was terrifying. He said—he said, “You’re next!”’ But she was incredulous. ‘How could you know?’

      He knew because he had watched her an hour ago, praying in the church before the statue of St Jude, Refuge of the Despairing. He learned a good deal from watching in churches—the widow in her mourning dress at the foot of the crucifix, the woman before the altar of St Antony of Padua who would help you to find lost things.

      Horn-rimmed spectacles, mac turned inside out, a nylon wig, perhaps—he was adept at disguises, simple or elaborate: follow the victim to some busy spot where your revelations will attract potential clients for future séances. His current assistant would follow up the clues in old newspapers, parish registers, graveyards, even; and they would be duly astounded at how much he could tell them of themselves.

      Delphine, frightened, without family or friends, had fallen a natural prey and in time replaced the latest helper to have departed, faith eroded by so much of fraudulence; grateful and trusting, Delphine had accepted sensibly the need of any practitioner to pad out for the credulous, trivialities unworthy of the true psychic gift. Pretty, sweet and blessedly naïve Delphine!—he might have come to love her if he could ever have felt love for anyone, poor squinny little orphanage boy, looking only inward, unto himself; but he felt only that she was caring and kind. He had never known that either.

      Now she suggested: ‘Never mind the police. Tell the media.’

      The media seized with joy, as ever, upon anything hinting of the occult. And here was Joseph Hawke, famed clairvoyant, describing a vision of a small man, white-collar type, and with red hair …

      Two mornings later, the police issued a statement; the victim of last night’s murder had clutched, as though torn out in the struggle, a curl of black nylon: and mixed in with the nylon, two short red hairs.

      Mr Joseph Hawke was a famed clairvoyant indeed.

      The public were ripe for exploitation. Terror stalked in their midst. The authorities seemed helpless. But now—a Saviour! Queues formed to attend his scrying séances. He saw what they wanted him to see—the chances, he said to Delphine, were high against any of them falling victim to No Face. And of course very often, it was a genuine vision.

      ‘You never see me in the crystal?’ she asked, wistfully.

      ‘I’d have told you, wouldn’t I?’ He knew that she longed to stay with him in safety, but with this upsurge of fame he must be circumspect and she was nightly packed off to creep back to her lonely flat at the other end of town. ‘Use different exits from here, keep him guessing. You’ll be all right.’ He was impatient to get on with the affairs of Joseph Hawke. His correspondence was growing enormously. ‘If only we dared bring in some secretarial help!’

      ‘There’s so much stuff in the flat.’ The wired-up séance room, the rolls of fine plastic for the ectoplasm during mediumistic trance; the disguises for the follow-ups, the painted gas balloons looking down from the ceiling with dear Father’s fine features or mother’s sweet smile—it was incredible what people would believe when, in grief and anxiety, they wanted to believe. He agreed: ‘No, it’s too dangerous. We’ll have to make do with tricks, the slates and all that, and meanwhile I’ll train you in the scrying.’ He said sharply: ‘Did you hear what I said? You seem very distrait today.’

      ‘Yes, well … I’ve been trying to pluck up courage to tell you. The police have been questioning me. They asked how you could have known that the man has red hair. If I thought you had ever dyed your hair.’

      ‘Oh, my God!’ It had never occurred to him. ‘They think I know, because I’m No Face myself!’ His voice grew shrill, hysteria rose up in him like a scream. ‘They’d kill me—if such a rumour got around, the people would lynch me!’ And he began casting about, his head moving this way and that as though he might literally see a way out. ‘I’ll have to somehow prove … What proof can I show them …?’ And the darkness grew, and the swimminess, the build-up to unconsciousness; and sharply into the darkness and swimminess, a bell pealed. ‘Oh, Christ!’ he cried out. ‘They’ve come for me!’

      ‘It’s the people for the séance,’ she said.

      By the time she had led them in, awed and silent, he was sprawled back in the chair, his hands lying flaccid on the table-top, the crystal abandoned. ‘He’s already in trance. Very quietly—sit down, join your hands in a ring. His two neighbours—just put your hands on his hands.’ In the ordinary way there would be noise, music, spirit movements all over the darkened room; if he wanted to be free, he simply jerked his hands, let his neighbours, groping in the dark, find each other’s hands, leaving him outside the ring. But this time was going to be different. She stood quietly aside, looking, herself, a little frightened. And he began to speak.

      Or through him, someone began to speak. The police had published recordings, every soul in the room clearly recognised that voice—the horrible, gasping, half-whispering voice with its slurring of consonants, slobbering out the words. A woman shrieked, hands jumped apart, scrambled to re-form the circle; but the voice gabbled on. ‘Must have it! Must have it! Killed … The smell of their death … Must have it again …’ And the terrible cry: ‘They can’t stop me—they can’t find me: I have no face!’ An incomprehensible muttering and then: ‘But you know me! You described me! My name, tell them my name!’ The mumbling died away, glottic as the plops in a bubbling saucepan; died into silence …

      Broken at last by a different voice, the voice of the medium. Strangely quiet after the hubble-bubble of that terrible voice. Spelling out—letters. An F. A pause and then an O; and then without interval, C-A-N-E. His name, he had said: and his name was F. O. Cane.

      Into the stillness, Delphine said quietly: ‘Rearrange the letters and it spells—No Face.’

      He got rid of them all, rushed to the telephone. The wooden voice tinged with exasperation. ‘Yes, Mr Hawke?’

      ‘His name,’ he said triumphantly. ‘I can tell you his name. And it is not my name.’

      ‘Oh, that. I never very seriously thought it was.’

      His mind shook. To have offered this

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