“A woman’s, Madame?”
“Yes, sir. I could not possibly have been mistaken. It was low, not a whisper, but very weak and—hopeless.”
“Yes, Madame? And what did this so small voice say, if you please?”
“‘My poor darling!’”
“Sang du diable! It said that?”
“Yes, sir. Just that. No more.”
“And were there further voices?”
“No, sir. There were a few weak, feeble moans, repeated at longer and longer intervals, and every once in a while the chain would rattle, but there were no more words.”
De Grandin turned to young Jaquay. “And did you hear this so strange voice also, Monsieur?”
“No, sir. I slept through it all, but later in the night, perhaps just before morning, I wakened with a feeling someone stood beside the bed and watched me, and then I heard the scraping of a chain—not across our floor, but over something hard and gritty, like stone or perhaps concrete, and three people moaning softly.”
“Three? Grand Dieu des cochons, the man says three! How could you tell, Monsieur?”
“Their voices were distinct and different. One was a man’s, a light baritone, well-pitched, but very weak. The other two were women’s, one soft and husky, like stroked velvet, a Negro woman’s, I’m sure, and the other was lighter in tone, musical, but very feeble, like that of a person sinking in a swoon.”
“They did not speak?”
“Not in words, sir, but from their tones I knew all three were very weak and exhausted, so far gone that it seemed nothing mattered to them.”
“U’m?” de Grandin took his little pointed chin between a thoughtful thumb and forefinger. “And what did you do next, Monsieur?”
Jaquay looked embarrassed. “We sent for Dr. Van Artsdalen, sir.”
“Ah? And who is he, if one may inquire?”
“He’s pastor of the Union Church at Harbordale, sir. We told him everything that had happened, and he agreed to exorcise the house.”
“Mordieu, did you, indeed?” de Grandin twisted the waxed ends of his small blond mustache until they were as sharp as twin needles. “And did he succeed in his mission?”
“I’m afraid he didn’t, sir. He read a portion of the Scriptures from St. Luke, where it says that power was given the Disciples to cast out devils, and offered up a prayer, but—we haven’t had a moment’s peace since, sir.”
The little Frenchman nodded. “One understands all too well, Monsieur. The occultism, he is neither good nor safe for amateurs to dabble in. This Doctor—the gentleman with the so funny name—may be an excellent preacher, but I fear he was out of his element when he undertook to rid your premises of unwelcome tenants. Who, by example, told him they were devils he came out to drive away?”
“Why—er—” Jaquay’s face reddened—“I don’t think anybody did, sir. We told him only what we had experienced, and he assured us that evil is always subject to good, and could not stand against the power of—”
“One understands completely,” de Grandin cut in sharply. “The reverend gentleman is also doubtless one of those who believe savage animals cannot stand the gaze of the human eye, that sharks must turn upon their back to bite, and that you are immune from lightning-stroke if you have rubber heels upon your shoes. In fine, one gathers he is one of those who is not ignorant because of what he does not know, but because of the things he knows which are not true. What has occurred since his visit?”
“All day we feel those unseen eyes fairly boring into us; at night the sighs and groans and chain-clankings begin almost as soon as darkness comes and keeps up till sunrise. Frankly, sir, we’re afraid to stay in the place after sunset.”
The Frenchman nodded approval. “I think that you are wise to absent yourselves, Monsieur. For you to stay in that house after dark would not be courageous, it would be the valor of ignorance, and that, parbleu, is not so good. No, not at all.
“Attend me, if you please: I have made a study of such matters. To ‘cast out devils,’ may be an act of Christian faith which anyone possessing virtue may perform. Me, I do not know. But I do know from long experience that what will be effective in one case will wholly fail in another. Do you know surely what it is that haunts this house from which you have so wisely fled? Did the good pasteur know? Do I know? Non, pardieu, we grope in ignorance, all of us! We know not what it is we have to contend with. Attend me, Monsieur, if you please, with great carefulness. As that very learned writer, Manly Wade Wellman, has observed, there are many sorts of disembodied beings.
In earth and sky and sea
Strange things there be.
“There are, by example, certain things called elementals. These never were in human form; they have existed from the beginning, and, I assure you, they are very naughty. They are definitely unfriendly to humankind; they are mischievous, they are wicked. They should be given as wide a berth as possible. It is safer to walk unarmed through a jungle infested with blood-hungry tigers than to frequent spots where they are known to be, unless you are well-armed with occult weapons, and even then your chances are no better than those of the hunter who goes out to trail the strong and savage beast.
“Then there are those things we call ghosts. They cannot be defined with nicety, but as a class they are the immortal, or at least the surviving spiritual part of that which was once man or woman. These may be either good, indifferent or bad. The bad, of course, far outnumber the good, for the great bulk of humanity that has died has not been good. Alors, it behooves us to step carefully when we have dealings with them. You comprehend?
“Bien. It may well be the good pasteur used the wrong technique when he assumed to rid you of your so unwelcome co-tenants. He did not surely know his adversary; it is entirely possible that he succeeded only in annoying him as one might irritate but not cripple a lion by shooting him with a light rifle. Mais oui, it may be so. Let us now proceed with system. Let us make a reconnaissance, spy out the land, acquaint ourselves with that with which we must match forces.
“When this is done we shall proceed to business, not before. No, certainly; by no means.
“TELL ME, FRIEND TROWBRIDGE,” he asked at breakfast next morning, “what do you know of this house from which Monsieur and Madame Jaquay have been driven?”
“Not much, I’m afraid,” I answered. “I know it’s more than a hundred years old and was built by Jacob Tofte whose family settled in New Jersey shortly after the Dutch wrested it from the Swedes in 1655.”
“U’m? It is the original structure?”
“As far as I know. They built for permanence, those old Dutchmen. I’ve never been inside it, but I’m told its stone walls are two feet think.”
“You do not know the year in which it was erected?”
“About 1800, I believe. It must have been before 1804, for there were originally slave quarters on the back lot, and slavery was abolished in New Jersey in that year.”
“Morbleu, pas possible!”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing of the consequence, my friend. I did but entertain an idle thought. Those ghostly sighs and groans, those ghostly clankings of the chains, might not they have some connection with slavery?”
“None that I can see.”
“And none, hèlas, that leaps to my eye, either,” he admitted with a smile as he rose. “I did but toy with the suggestion.” He lit a cigarette and turned toward the wall. “Expect me when I return, mon vieux. I have much ground to cover, and may be late for dinner—may le bon Dieu grant otherwise.”
THE EVENING MEAL WAS long since over when he returned, but that his day’s work had not been fruitless I knew by the twinkle in his little round blue eyes, and his first words confirmed my diagnosis. “My friend, I would not go so far as to say I have found the key to this mystery, but I damnation think that I can say under which doormat the key hides.”
I motioned toward the decanter and cigars, a work of supererogation, for he was already pouring himself a gene
rous drink of brandy. “Bien oui,” he nodded solemnly as he shot the soda hissing into his glass. “All morning I did search, and nowhere could I find a person who knew much about that execrable Tofte House until I reached the County Historical Society’s archives. There I found more than ample reward for my labors. There were old deeds, old, yellowed newspapers; even the diaries of old inhabitants. Yes.
“This Jacob Tofte, he who built that house, must have been the devil of a fellow. In youth he followed the sea—eh bien, who shall say how far he followed it, or into what dark paths it led him? Those were the days of sailing ships, my old and rare, a man set forth upon a voyage new-married and easily might find himself the father of a five-year-old when he returned. But not our friend old Jacob. Not he! He traveled many times to Europe, more than once to China and the Indies, and finally to Africa. There he found his true vocation. Yes.”
He paused, eyes gleaming, and it would have been cruel to have withheld the question he so obviously expected. “Did he become a ‘blackbirder,’ a slaver?” I asked.
“Parbleu, my friend, you have put your finger on the pulse,” he nodded. “A slave trader he became, vraiment, and probably a very good one, which means he must have been a very bad man, cruel and ruthless, utterly heartless. Tiens, the wicked old one prospered, as the wicked have a way of doing in this far from perfect world. When he was somewhere between forty-five and fifty years of age he returned to New Jersey very well supplied with money, retired from his gruesome trade and became a solid citizen of the community. Anon he built himself a house as solid as himself and married.
“Now here—” he leveled a slim forefinger at me like a pointed weapon—“occurs that which affords me the small inkling of a clue. The girl he married was his cousin, Marise Tenbrocken. She was but half his age and had been affianced to her cousin Merthou Van Brundt, a young man of her own age and the cousin, rather more distantly, of Monsieur Jacob. One cannot say with certainty if she broke her engagement willingly or at parental insistence. One knows only that Monsieur Jacob was wealthy while young Monsieur Merthou was very poor and had his way to make in the world. Such things happened in the old days as in the present, my friend.”
He paused a moment, took a sip of brandy and soda, and lighted a cigar. “Of these things I am sure,” he recommenced at length. “From there on one finds only scattered bones and it is hard to reconstruct the skeleton, much more so to hang flesh upon the frame. Divorce was not as common in those days as now, nor did people wash domestic soiled linen in public. We cannot surely know if this marriage of May and October was a happy union. At any rate the old Monsieur seems to have found domestic life a trifle dull after so many years of adventure, so in 1803 we find him fitting out a small schooner to go to New Orleans. Madame his wife remained at home. So did her ci-devant fiancé, who had found employment, if not consolation, in the offices of Peter Tandy, a ship chandler.
“Again I have but surmise to guide me. Did the almost-whitened embers of old love spring into ardent flame once more when Monsieur Van Brundt and Madame Tofte found themselves free from the surveillance of the lady’s husband, or had they carried on a liaison beneath old Monsieur Jacob’s nose? One wonders.
“En tout cas, Monsieur Jacob returned all unexpectedly from his projected voyage to New Orleans, dropping anchor in the Bay but three weeks after he had left. With Monsieur Tofte’s arrival we find Madame Marise and her cousin, formerly her fiancé, and doubtless now her lover, vanishing completely. Pouf! Like that.”
“And what became of them?” I asked as he remained silent.
“Qui drait? The devil knows, not I. They disappeared, they vanished, they evaporated; they were lost to view. With them, perhaps went one Celeste, a Martinique mulatress Monsieur Jacob had bought—or perhaps stolen—to be Madame Marise’s waiting maid.
“Her disappearance seemed to cause him more concern than that of Madame his wife and his young cousin Merthou, for he advertised for her by handbill offering a reward of fifty dollars for her return. She was, it seems, a valuable property, speaking French, Spanish and English, understanding needlework and cooking and the niceties of the toilette. One would think he would have offered more for her, but probably he was a very thrifty man. At any rate, it does not appear she was ever apprehended.”
“And what became of Jacob Tofte?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “He sleeps, one hopes peacefully, in the churchyard of St. Chrysostom’s. There was a family mausoleum on his land, but when he died in 1835 he left directions for his burial in St. Chrysostom’s, and devised five thousand dollars to the parish. Tiens, he was a puzzle, that one. His very tombstone presents an enigma.”
“How’s that?”
“I viewed it in the churchyard today. Besides his name and vital data it bears this bit of doggerel:
Beneath this stone lies J. Tofte,
The last of five fine brothers.
He died more happy by his lone
And sleeps more sound than others.
“What do you make from that, hein?”
“Humph. Except that it’s more generous in its substitution of adjectives for adverbs than most epitaphs, I’d say it compares favorably with the general level of graveyard poetry.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed doubtfully, “but me, I am puzzled. ‘He died more happy,’ says the epitaph. More happy than whom? And than whom does he sleep more soundly? Who are these mysterious others he refers to?”
“I can’t imagine. Can you?”
“I—think—” he answered, speaking slowly, eyes narrowed, “I—think—I—can, my friend.
“I have searched the title to that property, beginning with Monsieur Jacob’s tenancy. It has changed hands a surprising number of times. Monsieur Molloy, from whom Monsieur and Madame Jaquay inherited, was the fiftieth owner of the house. He acquired it in 1930 at an absurdly small price, and went to much expense to modernize it, yet lived in it less than a year. There followed a succession of lessees, none of whom remained long in possession. For the past ten years the place was vacant. Does light begin to percolate?”
I shook my head and he smiled rather bleakly. “I feared as much. No matter. Tomorrow is another day, and perhaps we shall be all wiser then.”
“YOU HAVE NO OFFICE hours today, n’est-ce-pas?” he asked me shortly after breakfast the next morning.
“No, this is my Sabbatical,” I answered. “One or two routine calls, and then—”
“Then you can come to Tofte House with us,” he interrupted with a smile. “I damn think we shall see some things there today.”
George and Georgine Jaquay were waiting for us at the Berkeley-York where they had taken temporary residence, and once more I was struck by their amazing likeness to each other. George wore gray flannels and a black Homburg, a shirt of white broadcloth and a pearl-gray cravat; Georgine wore a small black hat, a gray flannel mannishly-cut suit with a white blouse and a little mauve tie at her throat. They were almost exactly of a size, and their faces similar as two coins stamped from the same die. The wonder of it was, I thought, that they required words to communicate with each other.
The gentleman with them I took to be their lawyer. He was about fifty, carefully if somberly dressed in a formally-cut dark suit with white edging marking the V of his waistcoat. His tortoise-shell glasses were attached to a black ribbon and in one gray-gloved hand he held a black derby and a black malacca cane.
“This is Monsieur Peteros, Friend Trowbridge,” de Grandin introduced when we had exchanged greetings with the Jaquays. “He is a very eminent medium who has kindly agreed to assist us.”
Despite myself I raised my brows. The man might have been an attorney, a banker or mill-owner. Certainly he was the last one I should have picked as a practitioner of the rather malodorous profession of spiritualistic medium. Perhaps my face showed more than I realized, for Mr. Peteros’ thin lips compressed more tightly and he acknowledged the introduction with a frigid “How d’ye do?”
But if the atm
osphere were chilly de Grandin seemed entirely unaware of it. “Come, mes amis,” he bade, “we are assembled and the time for action has arrived. Let us go all soon and not delay one little minute. No, certainly not.”
FRAMED BY BIRCH AND oak, elm and maple, the big old house in Andover Road looked out upon a stretch of well-kept lawn. It was built of native bluestone without porches, and stood foursquare to the highway. Its walls were at least two feet thick, its windows high and narrow, its great front door a slab of massive oak. The sort of house a man who had been in the slave trade might have put up, a veritable fortress, capable of withstanding attacks with anything less than artillery.
Jaquay produced his key and fitted it into the incongruously modern lock of the old door, swung back the white-enameled panels and stood aside for us to enter. Mr. Peteros went first with me close at his elbow, and as I stepped across the sill I all but collided with him. He had come to an abrupt halt, his head thrown back, nostrils quivering like those of an apprehensive animal. There was a nervous tic in his left cheek, the corners of his mouth were twitching. “Don’t you sense it?” he asked in a voice that grated grittily in his throat.
Involuntarily I inhaled deeply. “No,” I replied shortly. The only thing I “sensed” was the Charbert perfume Georgine Jaquay used so lavishly. I had no very high opinion of mediums. If Peteros thought he could set the stage to put us in a mood for any “revelations” he might later make, he’d have to try something more subtle.
We stood in a wide, long hall, evidently stretching to the rear of the house, stone-floored and walled with rough-cast plaster. The ceiling was of beamed oak and its great timbers seemed to have been hand-squared. The furniture was rather sparse, being for the most part heavy maple, oak or hickory—benches, tables and a few rush-bottomed square-framed chairs, and though it had small beauty it had value, for the newest piece there must have been at least a hundred years old. A fireplace stretched a full eight feet across the wall to the right, and on the bluestone slab that served for mantel were ranged pewter plates and tankards and a piece or two of old Dutch delft any one of which would have fetched its weight in gold from a knowing antique dealer. To our left a narrow stairway with a handrail of wrought brass and iron curved upward.
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