Eternal Frontier by James H Schmitz

Author:James H Schmitz [Schmitz, James H]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-05-24T09:13:59.701000+00:00

Click here to buy

w

w

w

w

w .

w

A B B YY.com

.A B BYY.com

"I see." Litton settled comfortably in the chair, placed his clasped hands around the

ring on the table, enclosing it. "Then, if you like, Miss Merriam, I'll now make the

contact."

"No special preparations?" she inquired, watching him.

"Not in this case." Litton nodded toward a heavily curtained alcove in the wall on his

left. "That's what I call my withdrawal room. When I feel there's reason to expect

difficulties in making a contact, I go in there. Observers can be disturbing under such

circumstances. Otherwise, no preparations are necessary."

"What kind of difficulties could you encounter?" Jean asked.

"Mainly, the pull of personalities other than the one I want. A contact object may be

valid, but contaminated by associations with other people. Then it's a matter of defining

and following the strongest attraction, which is almost always that of the proper owner

and our subject. Incidentally, it would be advantageous if you were prepared to record my

report."

Jean tapped the handbag. "I'm recording our entire conversation, Mr. Litton."

He didn't seem surprised. "Very many of my clients do," he remarked. "Very well,

then, let's begin . . ."

"How long did it take him to dream up this stuff?" Nick Garland asked.

"Four minutes and thirty-two seconds," Jean Merriam said.

Garland shook his head incredulously. He took the transcript she'd made of her

recorded visit to Roy Litton's apartment from the desk and leafed through it again. Jean

watched him, her face expressionless. Garland was a big gray-haired bear of a man,

coldly irritable at present—potentially dangerous.

He laid the papers down, drummed his fingers on the desk. "I still don't want to

believe it," he said, "but I guess I'll have to. He hangs on to Caryl Chase's ring for a few

minutes, then he can tell you enough about her to fill five typed, single-spaced pages . . .

That's what happened?"

Jean nodded. "Yes, that's what happened. He kept pouring out details about the

woman as if he'd known her intimately half her life. He didn't hesitate about anything.

My impression was that he wasn't guessing about anything. He seemed to know."

Garland grunted. "Max thinks he knew." He looked up at the man standing to the left

of the desk. "Fill Jean in, Max. How accurate is Litton?"

Max Jewett said, "On every point we can check out, he's completely accurate."

"What are the points you can check out?" Jean asked.

"The ring belongs to Caryl Chase. She's thirty-two. She's Phil Chase's wife, currently

estranged. She's registered at the Hotel Arve, Geneva, Switzerland, having an uneasy offand-on affair with one William Haskell, British ski nut. He's jealous, and they fight a lot.

Caryl suspects Phil has detectives looking for her, which he does. Her daughter Ellie is

hidden away with friends of Caryl's parents in London. Litton's right about the ring. Caryl

got it from her grandmother on her twenty-first birthday and had worn it regularly since.

When she ran out on Phil last month, she took it off and left it in her room safe. Litton's

statement, that leaving it was a symbolic break with her past life, makes sense." Jewett

shrugged. "That's about it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.