"Today."

"You mean just like the old days, Father? Look, I read about those things, incidentally, with the sex and the statues and who knows whatever. Not meaning to disgust you, by the way, but they did all those things? It's for real?"

"I don't know."

"Your opinion, then, Father Defensive."

The Jesuit chuckled. "All right, then; I think it's for real. Or at least I suspect so. But most of my reasoning's based on pathology. Sure, Black Mass. But anyone doing those things is a very disturbed human being, and disturbed in a very special way. There's a clinical name for that kind of disturbance, in fact; it's called Satanism--- means people who can't have any sexual pleasure unless it's connected to a blasphemous action. Well, it's not that uncommon, not even today, and Black Mass was just used as the justification."

"Again, please forgive me, but the things with the statues of Jesus and Mary?"

"What about them?"

"They're true?"

"Well, I think this might interest you as a policeman." His scholarly interest aroused and stirring, Karras' manner grew quietly animated. "The records of the Paris police still carry the case of a couple of monks from a nearby monastery--- let's see..." He scratched his head as he tried to recall. "Yes, the one at Crépy, I believe. Well, whatever." He shrugged. "Close by. At any rate, the monks came into an inn and got rather belligerent about wanting a bed for three.

Well, the third they were carrying: a life-size statue of the Blessed Mother."

"Ah, boy, that's shocking," breathed the detective. "Shocking."

"But true. And a fair indication that what you've been reading is based on fact."

"Well, the sex, maybe so, maybe so. I can see. That's a whole other story altogether. Never mind. But the ritual murders now, Father? That's true? Now come on! Using blood from the newborn babies?" The detective was alluding to something else he had read in the book on witchcraft, describing how the unfrocked priest at Black Mass would at times slit the wrist of a newborn infant so that the blood poured into a chalice and later was consecrated and consumed in the form of communion. "That's just like the stories they used to tell about the

Jews," the detective continued. "How they stole Christian babies and drank their blood. Look, forgive me, but your people told all those stories."

"If we did, forgive me."

"You're absolved, you're absolved."

Something dark, something sad; passed across the priest's eyes, like the shadow of pain briefly remembered. He quickly fixed his eyes on the path just ahead.

"Well, I really don't know about ritual murder," said Karras. "I don't. But a midwife in Switzerland once confessed to the murder of thirty or forty babies for use at Black Mass. Oh, well, maybe she was tortured," he amended. "Who knows? But she certainly told a convincing story. She said she'd hide a long, thin needle up her sleeve, so that when she was delivering tire baby, she'd slip out the needle and stick it through the crown of the baby's head, and then hide the needle again. No marks," he said, glancing at Kinderman. "The baby looked stillborn.

You've heard of the prejudice European Catholics used to have against midwives? Well, that's how it started."

"That's frightening."

"This century hasn't got the lock on insanity. Anyway---"

"Wait a minute, wait now, forgive me. These stories--- they were told by some people who were tortured, correct? So they're basically not so reliable. They signed the confessions and later, the machers, they filled in the blanks. I mean, then there was nothing like habeas corpus, no writs of 'Let My People Go,' so to speak. Am I right? Am I right?"

"Yes, you're right, but then too, many of the confessions were voluntary."

"So who would volunteer such things?"

"Well, possibly people who were mentally disturbed."

"Aha! Another reliable source!"

"Well, of course you're quite right, Lieutenant. I'm just playing devil's advocate. But one thing that sometimes we tend to forget is that people psychotic enough to confess to such things might conceivably be psychotic enough to have done them. For example, the myths about werewolves. So, fine, they're ridiculous: no one can turn himself into a wolf. But what if a man were so disturbed that he not only thought that he was a werewolf, but also acted like one?"

"Terrible. What is this--- theory now, Father, or fact?

"Well, there's William Stumpf, for example. Or Peter I can't remember. Anyway, a German in the sixteenth century who thought he was a werewolf. He murdered perhaps twenty or thirty young children"

"You mean, he confessed it?"

"Well, yes, but I think the confession was valid."

"How so?"

"When they caught him, he was eating the brains of his two young daughters-in-law."

From the practice field, crisp in the thin, clear April sunlight, came ehoes of chatter and ball against bat. "C'mon, Mullins, let's shag it, let's go, get the lead out!"

They had come to the parking lot, priest and detective. They walked now in silence.

When they came to the squad car, Kinderman absently reached out toward the handle of the door. For a moment he paused, then lifted a moody look to Karras.

"So what am I looking for, Father?" he asked him.

"A madman," said Damien Karras softly "Perhaps someone on drugs."

The detective thought it over, then silently nodded. He turned to the priest. "Want a ride?" he asked, opening the door of the squad car

"Oh, thanks, but it's just a short walk."

"Never mind that; enjoy!" Kinderman gestured impatiently, motioning Karras to get into the car. "You can tell all your friends you went riding in a police car." The Jesuit grinned and slipped into the back.

"Very good, very good," the detective breathed hoarsely, then squirmed in beside him and closed the door. "No walk is short," he commented. "None."

With Karras guiding, they drove toward the modern Jesuit residence hall on Prospect Street, where the priest had taken new quarters. To remain in the cottage, he'd felt, might encourage the men he had counseled to continue to seek his professional help.

"You like movies, Father Karras?"

'Very much."

"You saw Lear?'"

"Can't afford it."

"I saw it. I get passes."

'That's nice."'

"I get passes for the very best shows. Mrs. K., she gets tired, though; never likes to go." "That's too bad."