Chapter 10

Gloria Hanford awoke, as she always did, with full awareness, like the transition of a small animal from slumber to flight. It was not a languid hand that reached for the telephone that had awakened her but an alert one. It flipped the accept button up and the vidphone eye button down in a single twisting gesture of thumb and forefinger. It was not modesty that caused the turn-down of the vidphone eye. It was vanity. Gloria Hanford deemed unbrushed teeth, uncombed hair, and unwashed face both unacceptable and unattractive.

“Gloria Hanford here. Go ahead.”

“Scholar Ross calling. Miss Hanford, you should know so that you can be prepared. Bertram Harrison has not yet responded to corrective therapy.”

“Not—yet—responded,” she repeated slowly. “Just how bad is this, Scholar Ross?”

“It is quite grave. It’s possible there may be cerebral deterioration.”

“You mean Bertram might even go from bad to worse?”

“Miss Hanford, will you cease treating this as if it were a comedy? You may be defending yourself against charges of criminal negligence. It might even get to the charge of homicide before it’s done.”

“Homicide? But he isn’t dead!”

“Fifth degree homicide,” said Scholar Ross, “comprises the process of causing by any means the loss of impairment of personality or intellect. In layman’s terms, brain-washing.”

“So?”

“So if I were you I’d dress and be ready for the authorities. Harrison forced a special session of court last night and had Bertram declared as invalid-incommunicado. Since your engagement was formally dissolved, this places Bertram’s well-being under the discretion of his next-of-kin blood relations. Father Harrison is prepared to prosecute to the fullest extent. He’s even petitioned for the right to take action against the Department of Domestic Tranquility for what he calls ‘incompetent meddling.’ So you see, it looks bad.”

“Maybe there ought to be some thoughtful laws passed to protect we active ones from the dolts and dullards,” said Gloria. “Okay, Scholar Ross, I’ll take steps!”

In a flurry of expert motion, Gloria Hanford dressed, packed, and left.

The authorities who came for her hadn’t had enough experience in dealing with the hypertonic, overactive, fast-thinking, anti-social type. They expected to find a slightly fuzzy-minded, still half-aslumber girl, unable to grasp both an idea and a dressing gown at the same time. They would not have equated their notion with the trim, alert, neatly and completely dressed young lady they passed on the stairs if it hadn’t been for the standard, legal locks on all apartment doors. A tiny flag filled a small aperture only when the full bolt was cast home by a flip of the inside key.

Its absence meant that no one was inside.

The chief of the group forced his mental image through a mental photomontage that started with the original picture of the half-awakened young woman tossing a tousle of hair back out of one eye, passed through a much-abridged version of the process of female dressing, and concluded with the trim and striking number they’d passed on the stairway. Add important item: As an accessory, whistle-bait was also carrying an overnight bag in one formal-for-travelling, white-gloved hand.

Nudged, his memory was good.

He hauled his handset out while his men were still making dead certain that the little flag on the lock meant precisely what it said. By the time they were convinced that the apartment was truly empty and the lock bolted from the outside, he had unabashedly reported his failure, and was concluding a very excellent description of the fugitive Gloria Hanford.