The Cat Who Walks Through Walls Read Free Page B

that!”
    “Then stop trying to get my goat. If you don’t want to sing soprano at your own wedding.”
    “You do that once more and there ainta gonna be no wedding. Dear one, what sort of a wedding do you want?”
    “Richard, I don’t need a wedding ceremony, I don’t need witnesses. I just want to promise you everything a wife should promise.”
    “You’re sure, Gwen? Aren’t you being hasty?” Confound it, promises a woman makes in bed should not be binding.
    “I am not being hasty. I decided to marry you more than a year ago.”
    “You did? Well, I’ll be—Hey! We met less than a year ago. At the Day One Ball. July twentieth. I remember.”
    “True.”
    “Well?”
    “‘Well’ what, dear? I decided to many you before we met. Do you have a problem with that? I don’t. I didn’t.”
    “Mmm. I had better tell you some things. My past contains episodes I don’t boast about. Not exactly dishonest but somewhat shady. And Ames is not the name I was born with.”
    “Richard, I will be proud to be addressed as ‘Mrs. Ames?’ Or as…‘Mrs. Campbell’… Colin.”
    I said nothing, loudly—then added, “What more do you know?”
    She looked me firmly in the eye, did not smile. “All I need to know. Colonel Colin Campbell, known as ‘Killer’ Campbell to his troops…and in the dispatches. A rescuing angel to the students of Percival Lowell Academy. Richard, or Colin, my oldest daughter was one of those students.”
    “I’ll be eternally damned.”
    “I doubt it.”
    “And because of this you intend to marry me?”
    “No, dear man. That reason sufficed a year ago. But now I’ve had many months to discover the human being behind the storybook hero. And… I did hurry you into bed last night but neither of us would marry for that reason alone. Do you want to know about my own tarnished past? I’ll tell.”
    “No.” I faced her, took both her hands. “Gwendolyn, I want you to be my wife. Will you have me as your husband?”
    “I will.”
    “I, Colin Richard, take thee, Gwendolyn, to be my wife, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, as long as you will have me.”
    “I, Sadie Gwendolyn, take thee, Colin Richard, to be my husband, to care for and love and cherish for the rest of my life.”
    “Whew! I guess that does it.”
    “Yes. But kiss me.”
    I did. “When did ‘Sadie’ show up?”
    “Sadie Lipschitz, my family name. I didn’t like it so I changed it. Richard, the only thing left to make it official is to publish it. That ties it down. And I do want to tie it down while you’re still groggy.”
    “All right. Publish it how?”
    “May I use your terminal?”
    “ Our terminal. You don’t have to ask to use it.”
    “‘Our terminal.’ Thank you, dear.” She got up, went to the terminal, keyed for directory, then called the Golden Rule Herald , asked for the society editor. “Please record. Dr. Richard Ames and Mistress Gwendolyn Novak are pleased to announce their marriage this date. No presents, no flowers. Please confirm.” She switched off. They called back at once; I answered and confirmed.
    She sighed. “Richard, I hurried you. But I had to. Now I can no longer be required to testify against you in any jurisdiction anywhere. I want to help in any way that I can. Why did you kill him, dear? And how?”
     
II
    “In waking a tiger, use a long stick.”
    MAO TSE-TUNG 1893-1976
    I stared thoughtfully at my bride. “You are a gallant lady, my love, and I am grateful that you do not want to testify against me. But I am not sure that the legal principle you cited can be applied in this jurisdiction.”
    “But that’s a general rule of justice, Richard. A wife can’t be forced to testify against her husband. Everyone knows that.”
    “The question is: Does the Manager know it? The Company asserts that the habitat has only one law, the Golden Rule, and claims that the Manager’s regulations are merely practical interpretations of that law, just guidelines subject