Demon Child

keeps a rifle in the stable, in a case beside Tulip's stall. He'll more than likely think of it. If he doesn't, take it for him when you follow. The shells are in a box in the metal drawer below the case.”
        “Good enough.” He turned and walked to the front door, opened it and let in the whipping, booming, lightning-shot storm.
        Without thinking, without concern for propriety, Jenny dashed forward and hugged the doctor. “Be careful, please. Oh, please be as careful as you can out there!”
        “I will,” he said. He did not seem surprised at her show of affection. “And I'll be back, don't worry.”
        He pulled himself free of her arms, stepped through the door into the ram, closed the door and hurried down the drive toward the stables.
        It was only then that she realized what she had felt, pressed against her body, when she had hugged Walter. In the right pocket of his plastic raincoat. Hard and deadly. A pistol…

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    15
        
        For a long while, Jenny pondered the significance of her accidental discovery. She stood by the windows of the front room, watching the rain and the driveway which receded into darkness and mist. The others waited in the kitchen, drinking coffee and offering each other consolation. She chose to be here rather than with the others, for she needed time and quiet to think.
        When they had gone on the organized hunt for the wolf the previous Tuesday, Walter had not been carrying a gun. He said that he would not own one, that he detested violence.
        But now he had a gun.
        Where had it come from? Had he kept it here these past two weeks, in a suitcase, ready if he needed it? If so, why?
        Through the billowing layers of rain, a squirrel scampered over the lawn at the edge of the front drive, found its way up an elm tree. Its fur was wet and plastered to it.
        She could not imagine why Walter would lie about such a thing. And she doubted, very much, that he would be able to lie about anything at all. He was just not that sort of man.
        Then he must have gotten the gun this evening, when he was in town. That was it, of course. He had brought it back with him because-
        -Because he too had reason to distrust Richard!
        That had to be it! It was not her overworked imagination which ascribed unpleasant motives to her cousin. Walter had watched and listened for two weeks, and he, too, had begun to suspect something dangerous in the young Brucker heir's personality.
        But what had he seen or heard that had led him to such a drastic step as the purchase of a gun? The decision to arm himself could not have come easily, for it went against all his basic beliefs and moral attitudes. To have gone against the gentleness in his own character, he would have had to be quite frightened of Richard-and he would have to know something ugly that was all but conclusive proof against her cousin. He was not the sort to act on a whim or a hunch.
        The more she thought about the new edges put on this situation, the more frightened she became. Why on earth, if he so mistrusted Richard, had Walter gone out there, in this storm? He had asked Harold if Richard had taken a gun. He obviously was worried that Richard might have the nerve to use it against a human being.
        Did Richard realize that Walter had caught him in something, knew what his role in these strange events was? And would he really commit murder to prevent Hobarth from spreading the word?
        It seemed impossible to conceive of that. Yet there had already been one death. Though Richard had seemed to consider Lee Symington on his side, who was to say that he had not had something to do with that? And where murder had already been committed, what man would stop at adding to a crime that was as great as it could be to begin with?
        That thought decided her. She left the front room, and took the main stairs three at a time, hurried along the upstairs hallway and into her room. Two minutes later, she came down the steps again, struggling into a raincoat, knee-high black vinyl boots on her feet, a plastic rainscarf covering most of her head and tied under her chin. At the front door, she paused, thought of telling the others what she was doing and why. But she worried that they might detain her and actually forbid her to go. She opened the door and stepped onto the front stoop.
        Rain stung her face, pinged at her hands