“One gathered as much; and from these preliminaries one assumes your price will be enormous. Very well, then. A dollar each? Two dollars?”
“Naw, suh.”
“Grand Dieu, a profiteer, a usurer, a voleur de chemin! How much, then, my grand rascal? Three dollars each? I swear we’ll pay no more!”
“Doctah, suh”—such munificence seemed to warrant a new title of respect—“Ah’d suttinly enjoy to make me six dollahs, but you all cain’t hire me to take yuh to Swan Uppin’. Not dis time o’ day, suh.”
“Eh, how is that? Surely it cannot be so far—”
“Hit ain’t so far to go, suh. Dat ain’t whut’s worryin’ me. Hit’s de gittin’ back dat counts. Ah ain’t aimin’ to go pesticatin’ round no daid folks’ bizness.”
“I do not understand. What have the dead to do with taking us to Swan Upping?”
“Plenty, suh. Dey’s got a plenty to do wid hit. Don’t yuh know dat place is ha’nted?”
“Bosh!” I broke in. “You know there aren’t such things as ghosts?”
“Yassuh. Ah knows hit right enough in daytime, but de sun is settin’ fast, an’ it’ll be pitch-black befo’ we gits dere. Ah ain’t goin’ nowheres near dat place in darkness, suh.”
There the matter rested. Plead, argue and cajole as we would, we could not prevail on him to take us to Swan Upping. With a regretful look at us he re-entered his decrepit chariot, set his wheezing motor going and drove off into the lengthening shadows, leaving us as hopelessly cut off at the small way-station as survivors of H.M.S. Bounty were on Pitcairn Island.
The prospect was not too inviting. Festoons of dripping icicles hung from the platform’s open-sided shelter, patches of half-melted snow alternated with still larger patches of foot-fettering mud, and a chill wind whipped the waters of the Mullica into angry little whitecaps, then hurried on to howl a keening dirge around the corners of the boarded-up summer hotel. There was neither waiting-room nor ticket office, for the station consisted of a board platform roofed over at one end to afford temporary shelter to freight and such unfortunates as had to wait the trains that stopped on signal only. Nowhere, look as we would, could we descry a sign of anyone who might have been a messenger from Swan Upping. Meanwhile the sun was sinking steadily behind the western timberline, and long blue shadows reached out toward us like malignant fingers.
“We should have motored down,” I said. “Railway service to this section of the state’s not anything to brag about in winter, and—”
“Morbleu, we should have waited for the summer!” de Grandin interrupted. “Then, at least, we might have slept outdoors and sustained ourselves on berries. As it is, a gruesome death awaits us—heurra, it is a rescue!”
A station wagon pulled up alongside the platform, and Scott Thorowgood, wrapped to the heels in a chinchilla ulster, climbed from the driver’s seat to wring my hand.
“Hullo, Trowbridge,” he greeted heartily. “Mighty glad to meet you, Doctor de Grandin. Hope my little accident didn’t inconvenience you too much. I got a flat just as I left the place and had to stop and change the wheel. Got your duffle ready? Fine, let’s go.”
“We were beginning to feel like orphans of the storm,” I confessed as our vehicle got under way. “There was no way of telephoning you, and we thought there might have been some slip-up in train schedules. When we didn’t find you here we tried to make arrangements with an old colored man to drive us over, but the deal fell through. He not only wouldn’t entertain an offer, but intimated rather broadly that Swan Upping’s—”
“I know, I know; don’t tell me!” Thorowgood broke in. “It’s all around the county, now. We just got a fresh staff from a New York employment office, but if they’re here a week it’ll set a record. Houseful of week-enders too.”
“You say these tales of haunting are all new, Monsieur?” de Grandin asked. “There is no legend of an ancient ghost?”
“No, our spook is this year’s model, with all the late improvements,” Thorowgood responded, swinging from the main road into a long private lane. “The original Swan Upping house dates back to Colonial days, and probably there’s been enough deviltry pulled off there to warrant a battalion of ghosts moving in and making it a permanent headquarters, but as far as I can ascertain no one ever heard of any ghostly visitants till we moved in. Usually old deserted houses get an unsavory reputation, but in this case the rule’s reversed. Everything was quiet as a Quaker meeting till we came here. The carpenters and plumbers had hardly moved out when the ghost moved in, and began scaring my cooks and maids and laundresses out of their wits. We’ve had about five hundred percent labor turnover since October, and if you can’t rid us of the ghost we’ll either have to close the house or do our own cooking and washing.
“I thought at first it might be someone trying to scare me into selling. I’ve put a lot of money in the place, and it would make an ideal summer boarding-house; so, fantastic as it sounds, I thought that maybe someone might have had a notion I could be scared off and forced to sell out at a loss. That got my dander up, and I hired a crew of detectives to come and give the place a going over—”
“Indeed? And what did they discover?”
“Nothing. Not a blessed thing. The spook lay low while they were in the house, and we couldn’t have asked a quieter time. Then, the very day they left, Daisy Mullins, the only one of all the servants who’s been with us straight through, was set upon as she went up the stairs and thrown down the entire flight. She broke her collarbone and hurt her head, poor kid, but the harm it did her body isn’t half as serious as what her mind suffered. I was over to see her in the hospital this morning, and she’s almost a nervous wreck. The doctors tell me she may go into St. Vitus’ dance.”
“U’m? And what manifestations have you yourself observed?”
Thorowgood bit the end from a cigar and set it glowing with the dashboard lighter. “Nothing!” he exploded. “Neither my daughters nor I have seen anything out of the ordinary. No one but the servants has been troubled. That’s what made me think it might have been some malicious person, or perhaps a practical joker, behind it all. I’ve offered a thousand dollars reward for the arrest and conviction of anyone caught playing ghost, but thus far no one’s laid claim to it.
“Welcome to Spooky Hollow, gentlemen.” He brought the station wagon to a halt beneath the porte-cochère and slammed the front door open. “Want to question the servants before dinner?”
“No, thank you,” answered de Grandin. “I shall take the opportunity to look the terrain over before I form a plan of action, if you please.”
“Certainly, certainly. You’re the ghostologist on this case. It’s up to you to prescribe whatever treatment you think proper.”
WHEN HE DID SWAN Upping over, Thorowgood had taken thought for his guests’ comfort. Our cozy room mocked at the winter darkness fingering at the window-panes. Bright curtains of glazed chintz hung at the casements, two fat armchairs had been drawn up to the blazing fire, a maple wall-case held a row of books—Heiser’s American Doctor’s Odyssey, Link’s Return to Religion and Madame Curie’s biography were three titles I saw at a glance. On the mantelpiece was a low bowl of Danish copper, jade-mellow with patina, in which a bouquet of flamboyant Cherokee roses was set. Immediately adjoining was a bathroom done in orchid tile with a deep, luxurious tub, a glassed-in shower and a row of great, fluffy towels warming themselves on a heated rack. “Name of a small green man,” de Grandin murmured as his little blue eyes lighted with appreciation, “food never tastes so good as when one has been fasting, hein, my friend? Stand aside and let me pass, if you will be so good. I desire to defrost my frozen bones.”
Half an hour later, shaved, showered, clothed and immeasurably cheered, we went out into the hall. “Now for dinner and the ghost of Monsieur Thorowgood!” announced Jules de Grandin.
It was a royal feast our host spread out that night. Besides de Grandin and me there were several people from New York and Philadelphia, a sc
attering of business associates from Newark and a little man whose name I understood was Bradley, but whose address I did not catch at introduction. Wild duck, shot in the Jersey marshes ten days before and gamed to perfection, stewed green celery tops, quince jelly, spoon bread golden as new-minted coin, and burgundy as mellow as midsummer moonlight, combined to make the dinner a Lucullian banquet, and ten o’clock had sounded on the tall timepiece in the hall and echoed from the banjo clock in the library before the long Madeira cloth was cleared of silver and Wedgewood.
It was with something of the gesture of a prestidigitator ordering silence for his foremost trick that Thorowgood smiled at us benevolently as he turned to Perriby the butler. “Perriby,” he ordered, slipping a small key from his watch-chain, “two bottles of the cognac de Napoléon, 1810.”
“Mr. Thorowgood, sir, please”—Perriby returned to the dining-room, his florid face slightly paler than its wont, his long, smooth-shaven upper lip tremulous, and with no bottles in his hands—“may I speak with you a moment, sir, in private?”
“What’s the matter?—where’s that brandy?”
“If you please, sir, I’d rather not go into that smoke house. I thought I saw—”
“Oh, good Lord—you, too? Take a couple of the boys. Take half a dozen, if two aren’t enough, and get that brandy.”
“Yes, sir.” The servant bowed with frigid respect and departed.
“He’s brand-new here,” Thorowgood half whispered to de Grandin. “I had to get a new outfit last week when Daisy Mullins took her tumble, and I’ve been as careful as I could to keep this gossip from reaching ’em, but—Lord! I hope the superstitious fools don’t shy at their own shadows and drop a bottle of that cognac. That stuff cost me eighteen dollars a fifth, and the only thing needed to set me staring mad would be—”
“Mr. Thorowgood, sir!” The butler was once more at his elbow, and his face was gray with fright.
“Eh? What’s the matter now? Don’t tell me that you saw—”
“Oh, sir,” the servant interrupted, his thick, throaty voice gone high and almost squeaky, “it’s Meadows, sir. Meadows, the stable boy. ’E’s dead, sir!” Excitement had played havoc with his carefully acquired aspirates, and his h’s fell like autumn leaves in Vallambrosa.
“Dead?” Thorowgood repeated.
“Yes, sir. Kilt. You see, I asked ’im and Smith and Little to haccompany me to the smoke ’ouse, like you said, sir, hand they went, though most reluctantly. When I hunlocked the door somethink hinside ’issed at us, as hif it were a snyke, sir. I thought hit might be someone myking gyme of us, hif you don’t mind me saying so, sir, and was about to hadmonish ’im, when Meadows, who always was a most wexatious little fighter, hif I may say so, sir, rushed right into the ’ouse, and next hinstant we ’eard ’im scream hand choke, and when I played the flashlight hinto the ’ouse, there ’e lay, all sprawled hout, as you might say, and directly I looked at ’im I knew ’e was—”
“Dead?”
“Quite so, sir. The hother boys are bringin’ ’im back now. I ran ahead to tell you—”
“I’ll bet you did!” his master cut in grimly. “All right. That’ll do.” To us:
“Will you examine him, please? It’s probable he’s only stunned or fainted. Perriby’s such a hare-brained fool. . . .”
But the butler’s diagnosis was correct. Meadows, undersized and wiry as a jockey or a flyweight fighter, was quite dead, and must have died instantly. His eyes were opened widely, almost forced from their sockets. His mouth gaped slightly and his tongue thrust forth between his teeth, as though death caught him in the act of gagging.
De Grandin took the dead boy’s face between his palms and raised his head a little. It was as though the head were coupled to the body by a cord rather than a column of bone and muscle, for there was no resistance as it nodded upward. “Le cou brisé,” he told me. “His neck is broken, as if he had been hanged.”
“But he wasn’t hanged,” I insisted, “and there’s no mark of violence. Might he not have fallen—”
“Non,” he answered positively. “Those eyes, that tongue, the whole expression of his face bear testimony of throttling. Tremendous, sudden pressure was applied, making death almost immediate, and while there was undoubtedly a subconjunctival ecchymosis, it did not have time to show lividity before he died. In an hour, maybe two, we may find bruises. Certainly the autopsy will disclose a fractured hyoid bone as well as broken vertebræ.”
“By heaven, this is too much!” Thorowgood stormed when he told him of our findings. “It was bad enough when this ghost hung round the place and scared my servants into fits, but murder is no joke, and murder has been done tonight. I suppose I’ll have to notify the police and hold everybody here till they have finished their investigations. Meantime, I’m offering two thousand dollars, spot cash, to anyone who puts the finger on this murderer for me.
“Might as well get it over with, I suppose,” he added as he squared his shoulders and went to notify the guests that no one was to leave till given permission by the police.
IT WAS DORIS THOROWGOOD who put the company’s consensus into bald words. “Well,” she announced, “I’m sorry for poor Meadows and all that, but we can’t bring him back by being gloomy. I’m going to dance. Who’s with me?”
Apparently they all were, for the radio was soon relaying latest swing selections from New York and Newark, and the faint wisp-wisp of thin-soled slippers on the polished floor mingled with the strains of syncopated music.
“Not dancing, gentlemen?” Little Mr. Bradley paused beside us.
De Grandin eyed him coldly. “I think the dead deserve some courtesy, even if he was no more than a mere stable boy,” he answered.
“I agree with you, sir. It is an evil thing to dance in a house where death lurks. Indeed, I have a feeling we shall witness more misfortune.”
“Specifically?” de Grandin raised his eyebrows quizzically.
“No, not specifically, but generally. The moment I came in this house I felt an atmosphere of menace.”
“You are psychic, Monsieur!”
“Naturally.” From his waistcoat pocket Bradley drew a card which he presented to the Frenchman. Leaning forward I read:
THADDEUS BRADLEY
Clairvoyant
He was a little man, not exactly dwarfish, but so well below the average stature that he scarcely reached de Grandin’s chin. He was curiously stooped, too, whether as the result of a crippled shoulder or deliberate pose I could not quite determine. By contrast, he had a large head with a shock of curling black hair, a wide forehead with delicately curved brows, a hooked, assertive nose and dark-brown eyes, set a -thought too close together.
The little Frenchman looked at him with increased interest. “Tell me,” he asked, “do you know anything about this house, Monsieur? Did Monsieur Thorowgood tell you—”
“Yes, sir, he did. He told me he’d been troubled by some spirit entities which were frightening his servants and had injured one of them. He asked me to come up from Philadelphia and see what I could do to find the ghost, if—”
“Did he say it was a ghost?”
“Well, not exactly. He said the servants said it was a ghost, but he thought it was something human. However, I’m known to possess psychic powers, and if I think the house is haunted-which I do, most certainly—”
Anger kindled in de Grandin’s small blue eyes. “When did he summon you?” he interrupted.
“This morning, Doctor. I arrived shortly before noon—”
“Le cochon, porc! Does he think he can do this to me?”
“Eh, what’s that?”
“Did he not tell you I was coming, that he had engaged my services—”
“Well, now you mention it, he did. Yes, sir. He said you had a reputation as a ghost-breaker, but he wanted to have my opinion, too—”
“Parbleu, this is intolerable, this is monstrous, this is not to be endured! He has made me insulted. That I should be spied upo
n—”
“Oh, now, don’t take it that way, sir. I’m sure Mr. Thorowgood meant nothing by it. Just wanted to be sure, you know. It’s just as if he called another doctor in for consultation in a case of illness. Anyway, what do we care? He’s got to pay us each a fee. He doesn’t think there are such thing as ghosts. Let’s convince him of his error. Maybe we could hold a séance for him, find the ghost and drive it out then each collect his fee. That way everybody’s satisfied—”
Before the rising fury in the Frenchman’s eyes he quailed to silence “Charlatan, impostor,” de Grandin almost hissed, “you would involve me in a fraud? You would manufacture a ghost to put fear into Monsieur Thorowgood that you may collect a fee—parbleu, yes! Why not?”
“Wha—what is it?” stammered Bradley.
“You would hold a séance, hein? You would produce a rapping-of-the-table, perhaps go in a trance and relay messages from some defunct Indian sachem? Très bon. You shall conduct a séance, my fine friend, but it shall be genuine. Let us see if we can make this evil entity produce himself. Perhaps he will materialize—”
“No, no! Not that, sir. Not me; I can’t do that! I’m not a spirit medium; I can contact controls and get through messages—I really can!—but when it comes to trying to materialize—I’m scared to monkey with it. I’ve seen some things—”
“Corbleu, my friend, as yet you have seen nothing. You have your choice. Either you will hold a séance here and now, or I denounce you publicly, tell everyone that you are an impostor who declared he would find a ghost here, whether it—”
“No, no, don’t do that, sir; it would ruin me!”
“You are an apt pupil, mon ami; you apprehend my meaning perfectly. Which is it to be, a séance or denunciation?”
THE GUESTS WERE ALL enthusiastic. Dancing might be fun, but a séance, with a dead man practically in the next room . . . “My dear,” I heard Letitia Thorowgood exclaim, “it’s priceless—definitely! Maybe we can make poor Meadows tell who killed him, and why.”
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