Free Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane by William Peter Blatty Page B

an hour. By the seventh day he was maddened and plunged headlong into action that he felt sure would flush Kane out.
    And now, three days later, the astronaut smiled with satisfaction as he watched from a mansion window while Kane drove off to the Endicott School.
    Miss Mawr was arranging her desk when Colonel Kane knocked at her door. “Do come in,” she drawled laconically. Kane entered, removed his hat.
    “Miss Mawr?”
    Mawr looked up at him, looked into his eyes; and suddenly felt that she was drowning, roaring down Niagara like a twisting, pummeled log in the grip of wild, unthinkable power.
    “Miss Mawr?”
    Was he the one?
    “Miss Mawr!”
    Slowly she surfaced, took a breath and tried to float. She also removed her glasses. “ Awfully good of you to come, Colonel. Please; please sit down.” She gestured to a chair beside her desk and Kane slid into it.
    “Your phone call sounded urgent,” he said.
    “Well, yes—yes, it was. Now I know you’re busy so I’ll get right to it. Uh, these grounds, as you may know, were once a part of the Slovik estate.”
    “Yes.”
    “I really can’t imagine why he sold to Mrs. Endicott; he was still at the top, you know. But the fact is that he did, Colonel, and that makes us neighbors.” She motioned out the window. “Nothing but that wall to keep our twain from ever meeting. And that is the problem, Colonel Kane.”
    “What do you mean?”
    How strong yet mild-mannered, she thought; almost deferential. She brushed back her hair and twirled her glasses, striving for coolth and firmness. “Well, the school is rather posh, you know; girls of high breeding and all that sort of thing. You’ll understand it, then, if I ask you, sir, to keep your men in bounds?”
    Kane looked puzzled. “In bounds? You mean they’re climbing over the wall?”
    “What a thrilling idea, Colonel. But the wall is much too high, I fear, and your men are far more cunning. There’s a fiendish mind at work over there. Now, my frankness may sound deplorable, but really, we’ve all had quite enough.”
    “Enough of what, Miss Mawr?”
    “Enough of this, Colonel Kane!” She plucked an envelope from her desk and officiously extracted a letter. “I received it this morning. May I quote?”
    “Please do.”
    “Good show!” reacted Mawr. She hesitated a moment, then decided to don her glasses. It was absolutely essential; she couldn’t read without them. She picked up the letter and began: “‘To my darling, my dearest, my flaming secret love! How I’ve hungered for this moment when I might rip away the mask and unburden my bleeding heart! I saw you but a moment—an instant— semi -instant—yet I knew I was your slave! There could be no other love, not for me, not forever! Wondrous creature, I adore you! You are sandalwood from Nineveh, truffles from the Moon! In my dreams I am a madman! I rip away your dress, and then your slip and then your glasses and I—’” Mawr looked up at Kane. “Well,” she said; “etcetera.”
    “What’s the point?” inquired Kane.
    “Did you write it?”
    “Did I what? ”
    Mawr spilled the thimble of hope that she had been clutching against all reason. “No, I really didn’t think so,” she sighed. “But for one mad moment I did get a quiver.” She extended the letter to Kane. “The signature—see it?”
    Kane saw it clearly. It read “Colonel Hudson Kane.”
    “The author is a master of surprise,” added Mawr. She slid the envelope across to him. “Here, take a look.”
    Kane examined the envelope. The address was dully printed on a serrated sticker and bore all the earmarks of a mass commercial mailing. Nowhere in the address did Miss Mawr’s name appear. It was directed simply to “Occupant.”
    *   *   *
    Cutshaw was busier than a hummingbird in June. A sheaf of letters in his hand, he was padding up and down among the inmates in the dorm. They were hunched over footlockers, scribbling, brooding, thoughtfully biting the ends