The Face of Fear Read Free Page B

occasions—no more often than once a night, sometimes only once a week—when he would lash out at a guest, prove him a liar or in some other way thoroughly embarrass and humiliate him with a series of wickedly pointed questions. The attack never lasted more than three or four minutes, but it was as brutal and as relentless as it was surprising.
    Manhattan at Midnight commanded a large and faithful audience primarily because of this element of surprise that magnified the ferocity of Prine’s interrogations. If he had subjected every guest to this abuse, he would have been a bore ; but his calculated style made him as fascinating as a cobra. Those millions of people who spend most of their leisure hours in front of a television set apparently enjoyed secondhand violence more than they did any other form of entertainment. They watched the police shows to see people beaten, robbed and murdered ; they watched Prine for those unexpected moments when he bludgeoned a guest with words that were nearly as devastating as clubs.
    He had started twenty-five years earlier as a nightclub comic and impressionist, doing old jokes and mimicking famous voices in cheap lounges. He had come a long way.
    The director signaled Prine. A red light shone on one camera.
    Addressing his unseen audience, Prine said, “I’m talking with Mr. Graham Harris, a resident of Manhattan who calls himself a ‘clairvoyant,’ a seer of visions. Is that the proper definition of the term, Mr. Harris?”
    “It’ll do,” Graham said. “Although when you put it that way, it sounds a bit religious. Which it isn’t. I don’t attribute my extrasensory perception to God—nor to any other supernatural force.”
    “As you said earlier, you’re convinced that the clairvoyance is a result of a head injury you received in a rather serious accident. Subsequent to that, you began to have these visions. If that’s God’s work, His methods are even more roundabout than we might have thought.”
    Graham smiled. “Precisely.”
    “Now, anyone who reads the newspapers knows that you’ve been asked to assist the police in uncovering a clue to the identity of this man they call the Butcher. But what about your last case, the murder of the Havelock sisters in Boston? That was very interesting too. Tell us about that.”
    Graham shifted uneasily in his chair. He still sensed trouble coming, but he couldn’t imagine what it might be or how he might avoid it. “The Havelock sisters...”
    Nineteen-year-old Paula and twenty-two-year-old Paige Havelock had lived together in a cozy Boston apartment near the university where Paula was an undergraduate student and where Paige was working for her master’s degree in sociology. On the morning of last November second, Michael Shute had stopped by the apartment to take Paige to lunch. The date had been made by telephone the previous evening. Shute and the elder Havelock sister were lovers, and he had a key to the apartment. When no one responded to the bell, he decided to let himself in and wait for them. Inside, however, he discovered that they were at home. Paula and Paige had been awakened in the night by one or more intruders who had stripped them naked ; pajamas and robes were strewn on the floor. The women had been tied with a heavy cord, sexually molested and finally shot to death in their own living room.
    Because the proper authorities were unable to come up with a single major lead in the case, the parents of the dead girls got in touch with Graham on the tenth of November and asked for his assistance. He arrived in Boston two days later. Although the police were skeptical of his talents—a number of them were downright hostile toward him—they were anxious to placate the Havelocks, who had some political influence in the city. He was taken to the sealed apartment and permitted to examine the scene of the crime. But he got absolutely nothing from that: no emanations, no psychic visions—just a chill that slithered