Miss Shumway Waves A Wand

Myra sat up in bed. She was in a pair of gay pyjamas and she looked at me crossly. “What’s the big idea?” she snapped, “take that drink sodden face out of here and put it under a pillow.”

I stared at her. “But, you passed me a moment ago,” I said, feeling startled, “do you usually get into bed in two seconds?”

She sat further up in the bed. “You’re tight,” she said. “I’ve been asleep since eleven o’clock. Go away!”

I came into the room. “Seriously, sweetheart,” I said, “someone came upstairs. I thought it was you. Damn it, I’ll swear it was you.”

“This sounds mightily like the silk-worm gag,” she said, “get out of my room before I toss you out, you drunken heel!”

This brought me up short. I looked at her. This was the Myra I’d known in Mexico. A sudden change had come over her from the Myra I’d known during the past three days.

“Take it easy,” I said, “I’m not as tight as all that,” and I walked over to where her clothes were lying. I touched her dress. It was warm. “You’ve just got out of this,” I said, picking it up.

“Where did you get that from?” she asked, startled, “I put all my clothes away before I went to bed.”

“Yeah? Well, there’s a complete outfit on this chair. Look, one of us is nuts and it ain’t me.”

She climbed out of bed and came over. “But, I haven’t had these things out of my trunk since we came here,” she said, uneasily.

“Okay,” I said dropping the dress. “Forget it. I don’t want to know where you’ve been tonight. You don’t have to lie so hard.”

“I’m not lying!” she said angrily, “you’re trying to make a fool out of me!”

“I couldn’t do that,” I said, suddenly feeling too tired to argue. “Go to sleep,” and I walked out and left her.

I don’t mind telling you it preyed on my mind. I couldn’t get to sleep and I began imagining all kinds of things. I could have swore that whoever it was who’d gone upstairs had been Myra. Yet it didn’t seem possible for her to get into bed and feign sleep in so short a time. Yet, that was what she must have done.

Why had she pretended to be asleep? What had she been up to? Or was she speaking the truth? That’s how it went on in my mind for nearly the rest of the night. But, I did eventually get some sleep.

The next morning, while I was shaving, Doc Ansell came into my room.

“Hello there,” I said as I mowed my beard with an electric razor. “Have I got a hangover or have I?”

“I’ve been thinking,” Ansell said, sitting on the foot of the bed. “I’m not happy about certain things.”

“What things?”

“That girl in the photograph,” Ansell said slowly, “how do you explain she’s the image of Myra?”

I selected a necktie and wandered over to the mirror. “I don’t,” I said.

“That’s just the point. She hasn’t a twin and you’ll never make me believe that some other girl, no relation of hers, could look like her.”

“Well, that’s what’s happened,” I said. “Maybe, Shumway got hold of an actress who’s made herself up to look like Myra. A guy like him would do a lot for all that dough.”

Ansell shook his head, “I think there’s more in it than that,” he said, “I’m not saying you haven’t hit on the explanation, but I don’t think so.”

“Quit beating about the bush,” I said, facing him, “what are you getting at?”

“Haven’t you noticed a change in the girl recently?” he asked.

Then I remembered what happened last night. “There was a change,” I said slowly, “but now she’s back where she started.”

“I don’t understand,” he said. “What happened last night?”

I told him.

He sat listening, his face grave and his eyes worried. When I’d finished, he smacked one hand into the other. “Then I’m right!” he said. “There are two of them. Strange and powerful influences are around.”

“Now, don’t start that,” I said irritably. “It’s bad enough…”

“Did you ever read a book called ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’?” I stared at him, “I guess so, but what has that…?”

“Plenty,” Ansell broke in, “you remember it’s a story of the separating of the good and evil in man. Did you know that the Naguales have this power? I think that’s what’s happened to Myra.”

I put my coat on slowly and looked at myself in the mirror. I wasn’t looking too good in the hard sunlight. I looked pale and there were smudges under my eyes.

“If you can’t talk sense, you’d better shut up,” I said at last.

“It’s only because you refuse to believe,” Ansell said quietly. “Ignorance breeds fear. You’re becoming frightened.”

I sat on the edge of the bed. I could see he wouldn’t let it go, so I thought we might as well have it out.

“Give me a retake,” I said.

“This is what I think’s happened,” Ansell said. “Quintl has separated the good and bad in Myra and has put each of these components into materialized form. The form naturally follows the original pattern. So we have two Myras, both of them exactly alike, but one has all the good qualities that a human being possesses while the other has all the bad ones. Now, do you understand?”

“It’s crazy,” I said, hating every bit of this.