Figure Away

by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

  Ten minutes later Zeb called Asey, hidden in behind one of the carnival trucks.

  “You can come out. He and Philbrick and Tripp have all driven away. I think you’d be peachy on the radio, Asey. Whyn’t you do what the nice man wants? Maybe—” He ducked. “Oh, if that’s the way you feel about it! Come on, let’s see how good we are.”

  Within an hour, Asey knew the pitchmen by their first names, and the whole town knew that Asey Mayo had won eighteen blankets, ten boxes of candy, a hundred and seven cigars, four clocks, and an even dozen Shirley Temple dolls. A herd of small boys followed him and Zeb wistfully from booth to booth.

  “Nothing left but the glass blower,” Zeb said, “and would you really want a glass pen after you got it? And I wouldn’t go back to that shooting gallery until I gave the lad twenty bucks for some new gadgets. The bell’s busted, too. And look, I take back all my pooh-poohs. If you carry on in other fields as you have here, then you’re all they say you are. Wha—”

  “A nice doll,” Asey said, “for a nice sentiment. Play with it when the bean business is dull. We ain’t been on the ferris wheel yet, Zeb. Come—”

  The siren on the nearby firehouse broke through the midway noises.

  “Two purple lights,” Zeb said, “that means out toward the beach. Come along in my car. That’s right. Two long and two short. That’s the beach. And bells – that means woods, not a house—” Asey dumped his trophies on the ground and ran after Zeb, and the children panted after him.

  “Hey, you left your things! You—”

  “Keep ’em.” Asey swung onto the running board.

  Zeb laughed as they sped along. “What a problem,” he said, “plunder, or the fire? They’ll go mad.”

  He drove too far on the beach road, and by the time they found the brush fire it was practically out. Zeb raced off with a broom, but Asey sauntered over to Slade, who was nursing a burned hand. “Slade, I met you once in P-town—”

  “Hullo, Mayo. Damn these tourists, whyn’t they take some care of their filthy fires? Seen Aunt Sara?”

  Asey pointed to his badges. “Yup, an’ see what it done. I feel like the Women’s Club Parlor. Slade, I want to chat with you.”

  “I want to see you, too. But right now I’ve got to get this hand fixed, and then move my junk from my studio. If someone hadn’t spotted this, the studio’d have gone up in flames. It was headed for it. How’s for tomorrow morning?”

  “At Sara’s.” Asey turned away abruptly as he saw Weston, with Phil- brick and Tripp, approaching.

  He couldn’t find Zeb, and the car keys were in the boy’s coat pocket. And Weston was clearly hunting for him. Asey grinned, and started back to town on foot. When they inveigled him onto a radio program, it would be because he wanted it.

  Deliberately he chose the network of back roads, preferring to get lost than to be picked up by Weston. It was damp there in the lowlands, and he pulled the collar of his shooting jacket up around his neck.

  There was a name for this part of town, he thought as he strolled along. Something Hollow. It took him minutes to recall the name. Hell Hollow, that was it. Hell Hollow. There were a lot of stories about it, too, and about the curling mists that rose at night from the swamps and tiny pools.

  He tried to remember the legends he’d heard about it years ago in his childhood. It was a place youngsters were threatened with. “Be good, or the bogey man from Hell Hollow’ll get you.” There was something about a witch, too. The early settlers had ducked her in one of the muddy ponds and packed her off to Boston. Oh, there were lots of things, but he couldn’t sort them out. He’d ask Sara about it the next day.

  He came suddenly onto a tarred road. He looked ahead, then jumped back and put a hand on his gun.

  Ahead of him, under the dim street light, were three weird figures, two women and a man. Two women in bonnets and hoopskirts, and a man in a tall beaver hat and a tail coat. The mist blew around them – they hadn’t faces, or feet!

  Asey blinked, and then laughed.

  Dummies, of course. Dummy figures. Yes, he could see the sign beside them. “Antiques.” There was another sign on the street light. “Mrs. Larkin Randall. Antiques.”

  Asey laughed again. So Mrs. Larkin Randall, the antiquer, had changed the name of Hell Hollow to Pleasant Valley! No wonder he hadn’t recognized the location when Jane Warren spoke of it. Pleasant Valley, in this god forsaken hollow full of swamps, and dampness, and that chilly curling mist!

  He walked on toward town, past the dummy figures and the squatty house beyond. That house, he recalled, had been a favorite rendezvous of the gay blades of Wellfleet, back in his boyhood. Hell Hollow Minnie had lived in it then. Hell Hollow Minnie wore aigrettes in her hat, had a spanking turnout, and was built on the same general lines as Mae West.

  Fireworks began to splutter in the town, and colored balloon lights floated out of the jets of sparks, and then dissolved one by one.

  As he stood there wondering how General Philbrick expected to compete with this lavish display on nights to come, a car whizzed by him, then braked and backed up.

  “Where’d you go?” Zeb demanded. “I’ve hunted high and low and in between for half an hour. How’d you get here?”

  “Oh, I been roamin’ around,” Asey said, “delvin’ into the past, like. Your girl friend’s fancy figures was like to scare me half to death. I never saw anythin’ so creepy, with the mist crawlin’ around ’em. If I was a drinkin’ man, I’d have signed the pledge an’ gone on the wagon by now.”

  “A lot did,” Zeb observed, “the first week those figures were put up. It’s a scurvy place anyway. When I was a kid, and we spent summers out at the old beach house, I used to stick my head under the blankets and shiver till we got to the clearing. We never had a horse that could go fast enough past that place to suit me. Boy, look at the General, spreading himself! Aren’t they loud? Look, Asey, I want an excuse to call on Jane. Drive back with me?”

  “No,” Asey said. “Zeb, if this’s just the initial blow-out, what’s Philbrick plannin’ to work up to, a panoramic view of the world war, with special ref rence to the bombin’ of Paris?”

  “It’s the old come-hither, I guess,” Zeb said. “Wow, see that! Yes, I gathered from the gossip at the store that he was going to put on the blazer of a show tonight. By tomorrow, the whole Cape’ll have heard, and come to see more. Asey, come on and come calling with me, there’s the old sport!”

  “No,” Asey said, “why should I? B’sides, I want to watch these things. Never had anything like’em in my day. The most I—”

  “Come on,” Zeb persisted. “Haven’t you any respect for young love? I know Jane’s home all alone, because I saw Eloise Randall up by the ferris wheel. Mary Randall goes to bed at sunset, practically, and either Jane or Eloise has to stay there with her. What’s the matter, didn’t you like Jane?”

  “She’s pleasant,” Asey said. “Nice lookin’. Wee mite metallic, maybe—”

  “Why shouldn’t she be a little soured?” Zeb demanded defensively. “Her father was one of the brokers who jumped out of windows in ’29, and her mother went off and married a fat Argentine, or some sort of Spig, so as to keep up her standard of living. But Jane and the Spig – oh, well, you’ve seen it in the movies. Anyway, she’s a nice girl. I wish she’d pause and reflect on what a fine catch I am. There’s where you could come in, Asey. The old build-up. I need a better buildup. If I bring the great detective along, she’ll – boy – was that an explosion! Sounded like a gun. It’s spelling something – listen to that crash! I bet it’s spelling out the words of ‘Billingsgate Beautiful.’ ”

  “Get along,” Asey said, climbing into the roadster. “Hustle. Turn around an’ get going, will you?”

  “What? Oh, back to Jane’s? Changed your mind, have you? Softened by the glow of Phil—”

  “Turn around, an’ hustle!”

  “What’s your hurry?” Zeb backed the car around. “What’s the matter with you? First you say no,
no calling, not on your life, not by the well known jugful. Next minute you’re harrying me to get there in a hurry. Perverse, huh? A new slant on the Mayo character—”

  “Will you,” Asey thundered, “hurry?”

  “But—”

  “Stop your chatter, and get there!”

  “Oh, all right.”

  There were things in Asey’s tone which compelled Zeb to obey without further flippancy.

  He glanced curiously at Asey as he shifted. Odd sort, he decided. Chipper one moment, grim as hell the next. Why, the old boy seemed almost afraid of something!

  He shrugged, and pressed his foot down on the accelerator.

  It had not occurred to Zeb, as it had to Asey, that the blasting sound of the last piece of fireworks had preceded the flash of lights by a good ten seconds. It had sounded like a gun because it was a gun, behind them somewhere in Hell Hollow. And in that interval between the gun shot and the real sound of the fireworks explosion, Asey’s keen ear had caught something that sounded like the cry of a loon.

  Chapter 3

  Jane Warren opened the door to Asey’s lusty knock, but he noticed that she didn’t slip off the guard chain until she saw who was outside on the step.

  “Mr. Mayo!” she said. “Why, come in. Look, I’d no idea this afternoon that you were the Mayo, the Great Asey! Sara didn’t tell me. But Mary said it must be. She was quite excited. She wanted to see you about something, and if she hadn’t been so dead tired, she’d have driven over to Sara’s. Go into the living room and sit down – oh, turn that radio off, will you, Zeb? The static is simply terrific. I’ve been trying to get a London concert on the short wave. I’ll see if Mary won’t get up. It’s time for her hot milk, anyway, and she might as well have it in here—”

  “Tender way to greet your suitor,” Zeb grumbled as Jane went out of the room. “So tender and touching. ‘Turn off the radio, punk, the static’s lousy.’ We might almost be married. Asey, what eats you? Why this Man in the Iron Mask attitude? You wanted to come here, didn’t you? You virtually forced me – oh, sit down and stop being grim and tight-lipped! You make me – Jane! Jane—”

  She wavered on the threshold, clinging to the door knob for support. Her face was ghastly under its tan.

  “Look after her,” Asey said. “She’s goin’ to faint. Grab her while I see what—”

  “What do I do?” Zeb asked helplessly.

  “Grab her ’fore she topples, chump! Put her on the couch.”

  He hurried into the lighted bedroom on the other side of the front hall, stopped short, and swallowed.

  For ten minutes he stood there. Then, locking the door behind him, he returned to Zeb and Jane.

  “She’s dead,” Zeb said. “She – Asey, she won’t come to!”

  From under the girl’s shoulders Asey removed three sofa pillows, and thrust them under her knees. Then he swung her head over the side of the couch.

  “What’re you doing?” Zeb said. “Her head—”

  “The idea,” Asey informed him, “is for the blood to run that way. Find some whiskey, or spirits of ammonia – find somethin’, can’t you? Haven’t you ever seen anyone faint before? What you modern boys do miss. Prob’ly wouldn’t know even how to cut a stay string—”

  “Asey, what’s happened? What’s the matter with Mary Randall? I’m going to see—”

  “No, you’re not!” Asey grabbed him. “Someone,” he said firmly, “that’s been killed by deer ball ain’t a nice sight to think of, let alone see. If you act this way over a faint, you’d probably faint, too.”

  “Someone’s shot Mary? How? Who? No one in this house—”

  “It wasn’t anyone in this house,” Asey said. “She was sittin’ in a chaise longue by the window, an’ apparently she leaned forward past the window. As she did, someone outdoors let go with both barrels of a shotgun. Deer ball. Marble size. Now, tend to that girl.” He picked up the telephone. “Oh, she’s cornin’ to? Well, get water. Is this a private line?”

  “Billingsgate 327,” Zeb said vaguely. “I guess so.”

  Asey cranked at the phone bell. “Hullo, Nellie? Hi. Say, get me Doc Cummings. He is? Get his wife – she out too? Oh. Know where they are? Oh, I see.” Asey laughed. “Well, listen. Get him for me, will you? The Warren girl’s – yes, up to the Hollow. She’s fallen, and knocked herself out. That’s right. Fine. Have him call me right back.”

  Zeb stared at him. “What is this?”

  “Cummings’ wife,” Asey said, “is stuck on the ferris wheel up town. That is, the ferris wheel’s stuck, an’ she’s up too high to get down. She’s havin’ hysterics, an’ the doc’s havin’ a different variety on solid land. Nellie’ll get him.” He strolled out into the kitchen and brought back an electric percolator.

  “Plug this in, Zeb,” he said. “When it seems done, feed Jane some. Okay, youngster? Lay there, an’ don’t think. You – ah, there’s the doc.”

  He didn’t bother with the formalities of saying hello, and asking who it was.

  “Listen, Mary Randall’s been killed. Shotgun. Deer ball. Through the window. Keep it quiet. Get that state cop Lane, and Weston, and come over. Your wife?” Asey chuckled. “She’ll keep. Hustle.”

  He was still chuckling at the thought of the portly Mrs. Cummings aloft on the ferris wheel when he turned around to the white-faced couple by the couch.

  “Asey,” Zeb said, “you knew, back there on the road, that it was a gun? That explosion?”

  “I wondered,” Asey said. “Feel better, Jane? Look, you was here in the house. Didn’t you hear the shots? You must have.”

  She shook her head. “I had the radio going. Not very loud, but it was on the table right by my ear. The static was awful on the short wave, and then the fireworks kept banging. I did hear one awfully loud noise, but I thought it was the fireworks finale. Is she really dead, Asey?”

  “ ’Fraid so. Jane, did your aunt—”

  “Godmother.”

  “Did she have any enemies?”

  “Never heard of one. Dealers and customers both liked her. She—”

  “Relatives? What about them?”

  “Her husband’s dead, her people are mostly in England, and the few over here live on the west coast. She has a daughter, Eloise. She went up town for the goings on, with Mr. Prettyman.”

  Asey raised his eyebrows. “Mister Who?”

  “Prettyman,” Zeb said. “Tertius Prettyman. He’s in the insurance business. Old Prettyman at the point’s son. He’s fifty-odd. Look, have you met Eloise, Asey?” He caught Jane’s eye. “Oh, well. Well, she’s all the near relations Mary had, anyway.”

  “All and only,” Jane said. “I – Asey, I appreciate the way you’re beating about the bush, but let’s have the worst. What is it?”

  “Without meanin’ the least disrespect to Mrs. Randall,” Asey told her, “the worst’ll be to blow this Old Home Week sky high, an’ to put the town in debt so much it’ll never recover. This sort of thing acts two ways. Some few folks’ll come to gape. But the majority’ll leave as fast as their cars’ll start, particularly when they learn how this happened. I’d say that ninety-five percent of the people who’ve planned to spend the week here, they’ll look at the thickness of their walls, an’ consider how many times they pass by a lighted window, an’ promptly exit. Until we get to the bottom of this, the headlines’ll be ‘Madman Loose,’ or ‘Maniac At Large.’ You, an’ Miss Randall, you’ll get headlines too.”

  “For me especially.” Jane gulped down some coffee. “Because whereas you’ve not made a point of it – well, they’ll arrest me, won’t they? No one will ever believe in this world that I could sit here in this room, and not hear what happened. And there’s a shotgun out in the shed, too.”

  “Whose, yours?”

  “It belongs to Zeb. He left it here once, and forgot about it,” Jane said.

  “My God, Jane, did I?”

  “You did, and I wasn’t going to dash after you with it. You’re so impuls
ive, you might have misunderstood. Anyway, the gun’s there, and I’m here, and all the town heard me say up in the Club Parlor today that I hadn’t a cent except what Mary gave me, and that I was afraid of being fired almost any time. I was joking, but it won’t be a joke tomorrow.”

  “They won’t,” Zeb said. “They can’t!”

  “I’m used to headlines,” Jane told Asey. “When father died, I was five hundred miles away at school, but you might have thought I pushed him out of the window. When mother married the Spig – oh, but why go on! I’m used to it. Shakespeare wrote a sonnet once about how if you got the worst at first, then you were more containder about the remainder. Or something. Maybe it was Nash. Zeb, aren’t you glad I never decided to marry you—”

  “If you’ll marry me tonight—” Zeb said. “Don’t be quixotic!” Jane said. “Think of your father and the headlines. ‘Baked Beans Heir Jilts Suspect Fiancee. Romance Ends in Old Home Killing’ – d’you suppose they’ll call it ‘The Old Home Killing’? Asey, I don’t mean to gabble on so, but I feel wound up. I – well – I feel desperate, if you want to know. Oh, Asey, I simply adored Mary, and she’s been so marvelous to me!” Zeb put his arm around her, and she cried on his shoulder.

  “Look after her,” Asey said. “I hear a car.”

  He went out as Dr. Cummings, and Lane of the state police, both calm and professionally expectant, got out of a sedan. In the back seat was Weston, sitting like a statue. Despair was written all over him.

  “Oh, come, Wes,” Asey said. “It’s bad. It’s awful. But nothin’s as bad as you look. Cheer up, man! Lane’ll settle this for—”

  “It’s the end,” Weston said. “It’s in the contract.”

  “In the what?”

  “Contract. Philbrick’s contract. We’re going on the air as a quaint old-fashioned New England town. And if—”

  “If you ain’t, you get the air? I see. Well, come in, an’ let’s see what we can do.”

  Dr. Cummings looked around the bedroom and backed hastily out into the hall.

  “Someone loathed her like poison,” he observed, “or else we have a maniac loose. So someone waited outside, and shot at the shadow of her head on the window shade? What a – Asey, I feel responsible, in a way. She wasn’t well when she first came to town, and I suggested among other things that she go to bed early, since she had her business to run during the day. She kept the early-to-bed habit up, I don’t know why. Everyone in town knew about it, of course. There’s a book – was she reading?”