by Rob Summers
Chapter 25 A Mystery Solved
From his own point of view Humility was no stranger in Pride House. His heart was big enough to embrace the house by adoption, to feel a personal tie to every darkened room and moth eaten drape. Although separated from his family, he did not long to return to them; but like any pioneer, he longed to bring them to the land he had staked out, to his clearing in the wilderness. First, however, he must make sure of the fertility of the soil and the peacefulness of the native inhabitants.
To the latter end he had labored mightily that winter with Pride, trying to convince the young man that he should defect to Heaven and donate his house to the Heavenly government.
At first Pride had been either puzzled or offended by turns. If Humility remarked to him, “You know, pal, nothing on earth will ever make you happy. You know too much. You’re spoiled for this world’s game of egos and bucks”; then Pride would brood silently in his chair in the library, but was unwilling to explore the matter further with his new friend.
One night, soon after Pride’s return from jail, they had stood in his desiccated garden and had talked about his childhood tutelage with his older cousin Reason.
“Why did you abandon her?” Humility had asked.
“Abandon her?” said Pride, smirking. “She’s right here, you know that. I abandoned Conscience, you might say. I retired him. But not Reason.”
As Pride looked up at a full wintry moon rising over the garden wall, Humility laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Baloney,” he said. “You may not have thrown her out on the street, sure, but you two don’t talk anymore.”
“She has her own interests.”
“Exactly, and did you know that you’re one of them? You don’t care if Reason probes and pokes into every corner of the universe as long as she doesn’t have anything to say about you. You’re afraid of her.”
Pride bit his lip.
“And look what’s come of it,” Humility added. “Look what you’ve become.”
“She’s got a steel trap mind,” Pride said agitatedly. “Who knows what she’d dredge up about me?”
“I know what,” said Humility.
“Then keep it to yourself,” Pride had snapped, and he had walked back to the house alone. However, after that Humility noted that Pride did spend more time talking with Reason.
Humility’s later conversations with Pride had seldom been so contentious. As Pride learned to contemplate himself with less fear, he was able to accept almost anything Humility told him. And seeing that Pain quickly left any room the foreigner entered, Pride was glad to seek out Humility’s company. He must endure one or the other of them at all times, so he chose the candid and sympathetic neighbor over the merciless policeman.
The choice became more abstract, however, soon after Pride’s evening meeting with Doubt, Confusion, and Worry. Humility came to him one morning, announcing that he had solved the mystery of the too-high heating bills, and invited Pride to come with him to see the evidence. He led Pride to the basement where they briefly examined the gleaming furnace.
“No problem here,” said Humility. “Reason has had it inspected several times and both the gas company and the furnace specialists say it’s in excellent condition.”
“But there must be some explanation,” said Pride. Although he commonly abandoned such difficulties to Reason, he was temporarily curious.
“There is, but it’s not the sort that would occur to you naturally.” Humility went to a corner and played his flashlight beam on the floor. “Have you ever noticed this before?”
It was a wooden trap door.
“Never!”
“I think you have. But let’s go below and investigate.”
Humility heaved open the door and in seconds they could feel a flow of hot air ascending through the opening. Nothing was visible below but the top edges of a ladder leaning against the casing.
“After you,” Humility suggested.
Pride drew back. “What’s down there? Shut it up again.”
“No deal. You’re going down if I have to cram you in there myself, pal.”
Pride climbed down. Humility came behind him and in a moment they stood on a concrete floor amid heat so intense that they were sweating at once. Pride’s heart pounded and he found his voice temporarily useless.
“There’s your culprit,” Humility said, shining his flashlight on a huge black form. Large strips of paint were peeling off its metallic hide and it hummed and rumbled.
“Another furnace!”
“Precisely, Watson.”
“And it’s hooked up to my gas?”
“Who else’s? And all it does is heat these underground rooms, who knows how many of them, to well over a hundred degrees. The way I see it, this was the original furnace room which was covered during some remodeling, and no one bothered to disconnect the old furnace.”
“But how can it be running?”
“Now there’s the mystery, you see? Somebody who lives here wants to keep it like Hell down here, so whoever it is sneaks down here from time to time and services it. Look over here.”
He shined his flashlight on a ledge, revealing a lantern and a few parts and tools.
“We’ll have them fingerprinted,” said Pride.
“No need. I already know who it is.”
“Who?”
“Look, do you still not recognize this place?”
“I’ve been feeling some deja vu ever since you showed me the trap door. I’m quite nervous, too. But I honestly can’t say I’ve ever seen—”
“Do you realize that you sleepwalk?”
“I what? I—well, yes. Occasionally.”
“Well, this is like one of those slick murder mysteries where the one who ‘done it’ doesn’t even know it. You live a double life, pal. I found your footprints all over the place in the dust down here, and only yours. Reason provided me with a pair of your shoes to check it.”
“You don’t mean I do this?”
“You do, and you’re lucky you haven’t burned the house down. There’s no thermostat on this baby, it just runs flat out all the time.”
Pride stood considering with sweat dribbling off his chin.
“But that’s crazy!”
“Not—not exactly; no, not crazy.” Humility played his flashlight over the scarred surface of the furnace. “An ugly brute, isn’t it? Real old.”
“It’s stifling,” said Pride. “Let’s turn the cursed thing off and get out of here.”
Humility swung his light beam until it stopped on a metal door in the furnace, shut with a padlock.
“Can’t. You keep it locked shut, and I’m betting you don’t know where the key is.”
“I didn’t even know there was a key!”
“Yeah.”
“Wait a minute. How could I do all this in my sleep? It’s too complicated.”
“Well, call it a split personality, then. I’m no psychologist, but I’ve talked with Pastor Truth about it, and he cleared things up. Say, it is hot! Let’s go upstairs and I’ll tell you what Truth said. Unless—” Humility grinned. “I didn’t spend much time down here this morning, so I didn’t see everything, but there seem to be other rooms. You want to explore?”
“God, no!”
In the library Pride opened the windows a few inches to let the winter air in. Humility settled into a chair.
“Do you buy it?” he asked.
“That it’s me, you mean?” Pride took a deep breath. “It all looked too familiar. Lord, I can almost remember doing it.”
“OK, you know it’s true, then; and the only other question is: why? Pastor Truth tells me there’s much more to this house than meets the eye. For instance, what if you yourself were—well, evil?”
“You mean,” said Pride, his skin crawling, “that I have a sort of Mr. Hyde inside me?”
“Not if I understand Truth right. He seems to think it’s just t
he opposite, that you are Hyde and you have a Dr. Jeckyll in you. You see? The urbane young man-about-town known as Pride is just a, a sideline of yours. The real you is the midnight furnace stoker. We don’t have to search for an explanation why a citizen of Hell would delight in heat and darkness, do we? The real mystery, if there is one, is why you ever come up for air.”
“You’re making me out to be a monster.”
“Check. You’ve been puzzling since December about why you got so mad at Vainglory and bruised her arm, right?”
Pride sat down and studied the carpet. He nodded slowly.
“The fact is,” Humility said, “what happened at Cruel’s was a rare moment of truthfulness for you. For one moment the real Pride was exposed, so that you behaved the way you would in that deep, dark basement of yours with the—”
“All right!”
Pride stood up with his back against a wall of books, his eyes wide. “Man, I don’t want to know this. Go back where you came from.”
“You want me to leave the house?” Humility asked.
“No. I don’t know. But don’t talk to me anymore about that dungeon or whatever it is.”
“Agreed. You won’t forget anything, and I won’t carp about it.”
