Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 43 — page 63: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION ment: “A Mr. Michel to see you, sir, and two other gentlemen.” *“Michel!”’ ejaculated Guis- card and Irene Ray almost simultaneously, but only Guiscard completed the speech. “Bring him in!’ he com- manded. The Michel who came through the door then, fol- lowed by the two dark- haired immortals whose names were Enoch and Murphy, was not the same Michel they had known for one hectic day two years and five months ago. He walked with a light foot, seeming never to touch the ground enough to leave a print, and his eyes were hooded like the eyes of an eagle. He stepped to the centre of the room and stood in the middle of the silent assembly, his face without expression and darker than they remem- bered it. Enoch and Murphy, their eyes hating, became shadows among the shadows at the back of the room. 62 Guiscard was the first to break the crackling. silence. “Where have you _ been, Michel?” he demanded. ““My father was a very re- markable man,’’ Michel re- plied, obliquely. There was a smile on his lips, as though at some secret joke. “How he knew that I would need the money he left me in the seventeenth century—I, and no one else—in 1954 or very shortly after, and at no other time, I do not even wish to speculate “‘Had Roger Prentiss still been a member of your organisation, Guiscard you would have found that a steady trickle of cheques has been drawn on my account at the branch where he was a clerk. I have been—out of the way.” “But why?’ expostulated Guiscard, impatiently. “Because I so chose. Good evening to you, Irene.”’ He nodded to her as if he had only just noticed her presence, smouldering like an angry flame at the side of the room. connicloooks.comn