The Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 15 Classic Crime & Mystery Stories
- Автор: Деминг Ричард
- Год: 2015
- Язык: английский
- Год: Wildside Press
- ISBN: 9781479406159
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 15 Classic Crime & Mystery Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
“That’s understandable,” Mother said. “I couldn’t sleep the night I got the news either.”
“Then I always have trouble when there is a change in environment. I won’t be able to sleep tonight, and when I get back to school I’ll be awake all the first night too.” She laughed softly.
Mother started to say something, but stopped as a thought occurred to her, and looked at Ellen thoughtfully. “I can make you sleep tonight, dear. By post-hypnotic suggestion. It’s more effective than a sleeping pill.”
“Really?” Ellen said, interested. “How does it work?”
“While you are in a hypnotic trance I will tell you that at such-and-such a time tonight you will fall asleep. When I wake you, you will have no recollection of the order, but your subconscious will. Tonight you will fall asleep at the precise time I ordered you to. A word of caution, though: you must be in bed, prepared to go to sleep, at least fifteen minutes beforehand, because you will fall asleep when the time comes, no matter what you are doing — even taking a shower.”
“Eleven p.m. would be a safe time,” Ellen said. “That’s my normal bedtime, and I know there is no party or anything scheduled at the ranch tonight that might keep me up later.”
“All right,” Mother said. “Want me to do it?”
“I’d love it. I didn’t get much sleep last night either, anticipating the trip.”
Mother went to get the star sapphire pendant she always uses in her act, dangled it in front of Ellen’s face and told her to concentrate on it. Ellen proved to be an easy subject, and within minutes was in a deep hypnotic trance. Mother gave her the posthypnotic order to fall asleep at exactly eleven that night, then clapped her hands and woke her.
“Now I have implanted an order in your subconscious to go to sleep exactly at eleven,” Mother told her. “Please remember that you must be in bed at that time. If for some reason you haven’t reached home by that time — because of engine trouble, for instance — you will have to rent a motel room and get to bed. Understand?”
“I understand,” Ellen said.
At five o’clock Mother told me to go make a pitcher of martinis and put them in the freezer, as she had told Dad to be there at five-fifteen. She wanted to serve dinner no later than six, she said, so that Ellen could he on the road by seven.
Dad arrived on time, and Mother managed to get dinner on the table at a quarter to six. We finished in sufficient time for Ellen to help clear the table, which she insisted on doing. It was only five of seven when I walked out to the car with Ellen.
When I leaned in the window to kiss her good-bye, she said, “You have the ranch phone number, in case something happens that you can’t drive up Monday?”
“I have it, but nothing will happen.”
“I hope you like my parents as much as I like yours.”
“I’m sure I will.”
“Do you love me?”
“I’m nuts about you.”
“Then I’ll see you Monday,” she said, smiling at me and shifting into drive.
When I got back inside I found Dad seated in what had been his favorite chair in the front room, smoking his pipe. Mother said they were going to have a second cup of coffee, and asked if I wanted one too. When I said yes, she asked me to pour brandy for all of us while she was getting the coffee.
It was perhaps fifteen minutes later, as we were finishing our brandy and coffee, that Dad remarked contentedly, “Ellen seems like a fine girl, son. You’re very lucky.”
“She’s faultless,” I said. “Except for situational insomnia.”
“And how do you know that?” he asked with raised brows.
I grinned at him. “Not the way your evil mind is surmising. It’s only an occasional thing, anyway. She’ll sleep tonight because Mother put her under and gave her the posthypnotic order to fall asleep at eleven.”
Dad gave Mother a quizzical glance, reached for his nearly empty brandy glass, then suddenly stiffened. His gaze shot at Mother. “Just exactly how did you phrase your posthypnotic order, Miriam?”
She looked surprised at his tone. “Why, I just told her to fall asleep at exactly eleven tonight.” Coming to his feet, Dad asked in a flat tone, “Haven’t you ever heard of circadian rhythm?”
For a moment I missed the urgency in his voice. With amiable fatuousness I said, Circadian rhythm: the inner clock that tells, us when we need to sleep and when we need to awake. Physiology II, in my junior year.”
Ignoring me, Dad said to Mother, “Didn’t it occur to you that when she woke up this morning, she was on the East Coast? Her body may not adjust for days. She’ll go to sleep when it’s eleven p.m. in New York, which is roughly forty minutes from now.”
It registered on me then that his calm tone concealed a desperation approaching panic. I looked at Mother and saw that she was staring at him with enormous eyes. All at once I became almost dizzy with fear for Ellen. In forty minutes she would still be traveling on the freeway at high speed. If in her eagerness to get home she exceeded the speed limit by ten miles an hour, she might even be on Sulphur Mountain Road, which she had described as a narrow, winding road with sheer drop-offs at some points.
In either event she couldn’t possibly get home by eight p.m.
Dad swung toward me. “What route did she take?” he asked quietly.
I gave my head a helpless shake. “We didn’t discuss it. The San Diego Freeway, I imagine. That would be closer than driving clear over to catch the Hollywood Freeway. She might have taken the Coast Highway, though.”
Dad looked at Mother. “Did she mention to you which route she was taking?”
Mother numbly shook her head. Dad strode to the phone, dialed the operator and crisply told her to get him the highway patrol. After a short wait he said in the same crisp tone, “This is Dr. Philip Loudan. I am a local psychiatrist. With whom am I speaking, did you say?”
After a pause he resumed, “A young lady named Ellen Whittier is at this moment en route from Beverly Hills to a ranch on Sulphur Mountain Road, which comes off Route thirty-three this side of Ojai. Do you know where that is, Sergeant?”
After another pause, he said, “Right, beyond Casitas Springs. She left here about five of seven and we believe she is traveling on the San Diego Freeway, although we aren’t sure. I haven’t time to explain how and why this happened, but she was placed under hypnosis just before she left and was given the posthypnotic order to fall asleep at eight p.m. She will fall asleep at precisely that time, and if she isn’t stopped first, the probability is that she will be driving at high speed at the time.”
There was a short silence, then, “Yes, I am quite sure. I haven’t time to give a lecture on hypnotism over the phone, so I am afraid you will just have to take it on faith.”
He listened again, then said, “I don’t know, hut my son is here and he can tell you. Just a moment.”
Handing the phone to me, he said, “The man’s name is Sergeant Johnson. He wants a description of Ellen’s car.”
I said into the phone, “This is Francis Loudan, Sergeant. The car is a brand-new blue-and-white two-door Ford sedan. It’s a rental car and I don’t know the license number.”
“That’s all right,” a pleasant voice said in my ear. “We’ll just stop every car headed that way that answers the description. You reasonably certain she took the San Diego Freeway?”
“No, she could have taken the Coast Highway. But the freeway is faster, because you don’t have to slow down for all those towns. I don’t think she would have picked the Hollywood Freeway, because we’re in the far west end of Beverly Hills.”