Chapter 46
Except for the occasional barking of a nearby dog.
A lone figure stood in a pool of darkness next to a tall hedge that served as boundary between two such houses, dressed head-to-toe in black and carrying a black shoulder bag.
He had been there for several hours, with infinite patience, waiting motionless, all his senses alert.
He knew about the dog and had been waiting for it to be put to bed, but apparently that was not going to happen.
Not a problem, however: he had come prepared.
At ten fifteen, finally, the lights in the upstairs bedroom directly above were extinguished. This was the bedroom of Dr. Neil Slocombe, retired professor of comparative literature: never married, no family to speak of, still in decent health and without need of a live-in nurse.
The man waited. The dog maintained its vigil in a nearby front window, occasionally barking in fury at random sounds or a passing vehicle. Now that the professor had gone to bed and been allowed fifteen minutes to fall asleep, it was time to act.
With consummate stealth, the figure left the cover of the hedge and crept up to the side of the house.
There he waited below the windowsill of what he knew to be the living room.
A few minutes later, when the dog once again resumed his angry barking at some external outrage, he took advantage of the animal’s noise to slip the window lock free, then raise the sash roughly three feet.
And then he knelt beneath the window, waiting once again.
When the dog barked next, he rose quickly and silently and made his way over the sill into the house, leaving the window open. Then he crouched again, preparing for the next step.
He could hear the dog huffing and grumbling two rooms away.
When all was quiet, the dark figure made a faint scratching noise with his finger on the fabric of a chair—undetectable to a sleeping human, but not to the sensitive ears of a canine.
The grumbling stopped, and a moment later came the sound of nails clicking over a hard surface. They came closer, still closer, until the figure could see an animal framed in the doorway of the room: a Belgian Malinois, as strong and fierce as it was ugly.
For a moment, it stood in the doorway, stock-still, its ears erect, staring into the darkened room. Then—as the man reached into the shoulder bag—the dog saw the movement and quickly swiveled its head at him.
There was a millisecond or two during which the animal, so accustomed to barking out the front window, was temporarily stunned by the sudden appearance of this trespasser inside the house itself.
The man used this brief instant to fling an apple slice, coated with peanut butter and wrapped in bacon, at the dog’s feet just as it opened its jaws to sound the alarm.
The beast stopped in mid-bark, sniffed at the snack, then ate it.
Another followed, which was just as quickly consumed.
Then it came forward, slowly, growling with suspicion.
As it did so, the dark figure displayed no emotion of any kind, simply spreading his arms in a calm, non-threatening manner.
In short order, the dog was close enough to tear the man’s throat out, still growling—hair along its back sticking up.
Quick as lightning, the man grabbed the animal around the neck, squeezing its collar tight and using main force to throw it on its back.
As it began to struggle from the awkward, defenseless position—paws flailing and jaws snapping at the air—the man placed one hand over its eyes, put his mouth near one furry ear, and began to half chant, half sing in some old and half-forgotten language.
The dog writhed, its growls and yelps cut off by the tightened collar, as the man continued his strange singsong.
As the animal fell under the spell of the chant and ceased struggling, the man released the collar.
In a minute, it was calm, almost soporific.
Gently, the man loosened his grip on the dog, easing its head to the ground, and then rose, checking his watch. He had about fifteen minutes until the mesmerizing technique wore off.
He took a flashlight from his bag, switched it to the lowest setting, and used it to survey the room.
What he saw was exactly what he expected: a space frozen in time like the period room in a museum.
It was the unused room of an old bachelor fixed in his ways, who ate his meals in the kitchen and spent his evenings reading in his library or writing in the study—who never entertained.
Protective plastic covers had been placed over the chairs and sofa.
The flashlight beam licked around, illuminating framed paintings, heavy dark furniture.
A breakfront contained unread books and knickknacks, probably given as gifts by students.
Some fine-looking pieces of Dutch delftware, covered with dust, were displayed on a sideboard.
He stepped closer and examined them. Judging by the tin glaze, they were indeed antiques, not replicas—worth a few thousand dollars each, perhaps.
The man in black shook his head. The professor would have shown greater taste had he collected porcelain.
Finding nothing else of interest, he passed into the front hall, taking a glance back at the motionless dog.
An open door on the right side of the opposite wall led to the professor’s study, tucked into the far front corner of the house.
This room was different—it displayed evidence of considerable use.
A rolltop desk was covered with bills, a rarely inked appointment book, a month-old invitation to a faculty tea.
On an adjacent table was a manual Olympia typewriter of ancient vintage with a yellowing piece of paper in it, with only one line typed on it.
But it was the surrounding walls that interested him.
These were stuffed with books—thousands of them—precisely the kind one would expect a professor of comparative literature to have read, taught from, and still cherish.
It was a forlorn display: these books and perhaps the delftware were the chronicle of a narrow, lonely life—the two things he loved most. One could only hope they loved him back.
“I said good-bye to Chips the night before he died,” the dark figure murmured to himself as he scanned the shelves.
And there they were: exactly what he expected to find.
He stepped closer, glancing at the spines, checking off the bound catalogs mentally against the list maintained in his head.
Quickly, he took the ones he needed—there were only three not already acquired—and put them in his shoulder bag.
He then arranged the shelf so nothing looked out of place.
The old professor would probably never notice: these old course catalogs, not even from his own department, were the least interesting of his totems of the past; fragments shored against his ruin.
Quickly, he left the study, crossed the dining room, and stepped back into the living room.
To his dismay, he could see the dog was already coming out of its spellbound state, becoming aware of its surroundings. Its eyes opened; their glazed look began to fade. The ears pricked up.
Stepping over the half-conscious dog, the man reached for several pieces of delftware—then, taking pity on the old professor, grabbed a handful of knickknacks instead.
Then he mussed up the area around the open window a little, slipped through it, closed the sash, backed away into the darkness—then picked up a large stone and heaved it.
With a shiver, the glass broke, the stone leaving a hole the size of a bowling ball.
A roar of frantic barking sounded within.
But already the dark figure had moved through the backyard and was crossing a neighbor’s property, pulling off his mask and gloves as he did so and stuffing them into his shoulder bag.
When he reached the adjoining street he slowed to a walk, smoothing down his clothes as he made for the car waiting a few blocks away.
The barking had faded with distance, but it had not stopped.
Professor Slocombe would find the broken window, notice the missing items, and congratulate himself that the thieves—probably some darn kids—had not taken anything of real value.
At the next intersection, the man dumped the knickknacks into a storm drain, then continued on.