Demon Child

my toes, I might have seen this coming.”
        “But I'm the one-” Cora began.
        “Oh, be quiet, Cora!” he said, pretending to be distracted. “If it were your fault, I'd gladly let you take the blame. I never have believed in babying people.”
        Jenny saw that he was making a conscious effort to be sharp with Cora and that he had not truly lost his temper. He realized what a state the older woman was in, and he took the surest path to calming her.
        “Did you check the stables?” he asked Harold.
        Harold said that he had, explained the steps of the search in detail. As he was finishing, Richard returned, having crossed the lawn without being noticed now that their attention was directed elsewhere.
        “Not a sign of her,” he told them.
        “What can we do now?” Cora asked.
        “Call the police,” Richard said. “And a few of the neighbors. It will be a second boost to their status to be invited here twice in a week's time. The buffoons will get a kick out of it, even if we find her too late.”
        “Too late?” Jenny asked. She heard her questions as if someone else had asked it, distant and doubtful.
        “There's a wolf out there, remember,” Richard said.
        “Oh, my God!” Cora gasped.
        “We haven't heard it for several days,” Walter pointed out. “Not since the night of the hunt. It's probably been scared off.”
        “Do you want to take that chance?” Richard asked. Water pooled on the kitchen tile at his feet.
        “Of course not!” Walter replied. “I'm for mounting a search right away. But I don't think we should raise all these unnecessary fears in the women. No purpose served by it.”
        Richard did not reply to that. Instead, he turned to Harold and rattled off the names of men he wanted called to comprise the search party. Just as he finished the list, Walter said, “Wait a minute! I might have something. Damn stupid of me not to thrnk of it sooner.”
        “What's that?” Richard asked.
        “From the sessions in the library, when Freya's hypnotized. She talks about the limestone sinkholes up in the northeast part of the estate. She says that is where the wolf drags some of its prey and eats it and where, one day, it'll drag a man and devour him. It's all very gory and unpleasant, but she believes it.”
        “She never told me.”
        It was a small voice, piped up from the corner next to the ultraviolet wall oven. Frank stood there, small and frightened.
        “What did you say, darling?” Cora asked.
        “She never told me about the sinkholes, about the wolf liking to go there.”
        “Maybe she forgot, dear,” Cora said. She crossed the room to him, stooped and hugged him to her.
        “She told me everything. She wouldn't have forgotten to tell me that,” he said, starting to bawl now.
        “More than likely, she didn't forget,” Walter said. “You see, this came out under hypnosis. It was probably a subconscious fragment of her systematic delusions, one she was not consciously aware of to any extent. Therefore, she couldn't have told him.”
        “I'll go up on horse,” Richard said. “It's half an hour walking, less than a third of that on horseback.”
        “I'll go with you,” Hobarth said. “It'll take two of us to search all those holes and cavelets.”
        “Me too,” Jenny said.
        “Definitely not,” Walter said. “It's pneumonia weather. “Richard and I can manage it alone.”
        “Come on then,” Richard said.
        'I'll call Malmont and have him out here to treat the child,” Walter said. “I'll explain the situation so he knows what we'll need. Then I'll run upstairs and get my boots. You go ahead, and I'll follow you.”
        Richard stepped outside, closed the door and went around the house toward the stables.
        Walter telephoned Dr. Malmont and briefly explained the nature of the excitement. He hung up, took the stairs two at a time, found his boots after a minute or two of searching for them in all the wrong places, and came back down, buttoning his raincoat.
        “Harold, do you know if Richard had a gun with him?”
        “What will you need a gun for?” Cora asked, hugging Frank to her skirts as they all stood in the front hallway.
        “Just in case,” Walter said.
        “The wolf isn't-”
        “I didn't say it was.”
        “He doesn't have one on him now,” Harold said. “But he