The Occult Detective Megapack: 29 Classic Stories

by Fitz-James O'Brien

  2

  My friend de Grandin was annoyed. Arms akimbo, knuckles on hips, forcing back his black-silk kimono till it resembled the outspread wings of an angry bat, he took his stance in the center of the study and voiced his plaint in no uncertain terms. In fifteen little so small minutes he must leave for the theater, and that son and grandson of a pig who was the florist delayed delivery of the gardenia which must grace the left lapel of his evening coat. And was it not indisputably a fact that he could not go forth without a fresh gardenia? But certainly. What was it that the sale chameau was thinking of that he thus procrastinated in delivering that unmentionable flower till this unspeakable time of night? He was Jules de Grandin, he, and not to be oppressed by any species of a goat who called himself a florist. But no. It must not be. It should not be, by blue! He, personally, would seek out the vile one and tweak his ears, pull his nose, thump his head most soundly. He would—

  “Axin’ yer pardon, sor,” Nora McGinnis broke in from the study door, “there’s a Miss an’ Misther Tantavul to see ye, an’—”

  “Bid them be gone. Request that they will fill their pockets full of rocks and jump into the bay, say that we will not see—

  “Grand Dieu”—he cut his oratory short—“les enfants dans le bois!”

  Truly, there was something reminiscent of the Babes in the Wood about the couple who had followed Nora to the study. Dennis Tantavul looked even younger and more boyish than I remembered him, and the girl beside him was so childish in appearance that I felt a quick, instinctive pity for her. Plainly they were frightened, too, for they clung together, hand to hand, like frightened children going past a graveyard, and in their eyes was that look of helpless, heartsick terror I had seen so often when blood test and X-ray confirmed preliminary diagnosis of carcinoma.

  “Monsieur, Mademoiselle,” the little Frenchman gathered his kimono and his dignity about him in a single sweeping gesture as he struck his heels together and bowed stiffly from the hips, “I apologize for my unseemly words. Were it not that I have been subjected to a terrible, calamitous misfortune, I should not so far have forgotten myself as to—”

  The girl’s quick smile cut through his words. “We understand,” she reassured; “we, too, have been through trouble, and have come to see Doctor Trowbridge—”

  “Ah? Then I hare permission to withdraw?” He bowed again and turned upon his heel, but I called him back.

  “Perhaps you can assist us,” I remarked as I introduced the callers.

  “The honor is entirely mine, Mademoiselle,” de Grandin told her as he raised her fingers to his lips. “You and Monsieur your brother—”

  “But he’s not my brother,” said the girl. “We’re cousins. That’s why we called on Doctor Trowbridge.”

  De Grandin tweaked the already needle-sharp points of his little, blond mustache as he looked at her. “Pardonnez-moi, Mademoiselle,” he begged; “I have resided in your country but five little years, and perhaps I do not understand the English fluently. It is because you and Monsieur are cousins that you come to see the doctor? Me, I am dull and stupid like a pig; I fear I do not comprehend.”

  Dennis Tantavul replied: “It’s not because of the relationship, Doctor—not entirely, at any rate, but because—”

  He turned to me, a look of mingled fear and wonder in his eyes. “You were at my father’s bedside when he died; you remember what he said about my marrying Arabella?”

  I nodded.

  “There was something—some ghastly, hidden threat—concealed in his warning,” he continued. “It seemed as though he were jeering at me—daring me to marry her, yet—”

  “Was there some provision in his will?” I asked, and:

  “Yes, sir, there was,” the young man answered. “Here it is.”

  From his pocket he produced a sheet of folded parchment, opened it and indicated a paragraph:

  To my son, Dennis Tantavul, I give, devise and bequeath all my property of every kind and sort, real, personal and mixed, of which I may die seized and possessed, or to which I may be entitled, in the event of his marrying Arabella Tantavul, but, should he not marry the said Arabella Tantavul, then it is my will that he receive only one-half of my estate, the residue thereof to go to the said Arabella Tantavul, who has made her home with me since childhood and occupied the relationship of daughter to me.

  “H’m,” I replied, “that looks as if he really wanted you to marry your cousin, even though—”

  “And see here, sir,” Dennis interrupted, “here’s an envelope we found in Father’s papers.”

  Sealed with red wax, the packet of heavy, opaque parchment was addressed:

  To my children, Dennis and Arabella Tantavul, to be opened by them upon the occasion of the birth of their first child.

  De Grandin’s small blue eyes were snapping with that flickering light they showed when he was interested. “Monsieur Dennis,” he said, turning the thick envelope over and over between his small, white hands, “Doctor Trowbridge has told me something of your father’s death-bed scene. There is a mystery about this business. My suggestion is you read this message now—”

  “No, sir, I won’t do that,” the young man interrupted. “My father didn’t love me—sometimes I think he hated me—but I never disobeyed a wish that he expressed, and I don’t feel at liberty to do so now. It would be like breaking faith with the dead. But”—he smiled a trifle shamefacedly—“Father’s lawyer, Mr. Bainbridge, is out of town on business, and it will be his duty to probate the will. In the meantime, I’d feel better if the will and envelope were in other hands than mine. So we came to Doctor Trowbridge to ask him to take charge of them till Mr. Bainbridge comes from Washington, and meanwhile—”

  “Yes, Monsieur, meanwhile?” de Grandin prompted as the young man paused.

  “You know human nature, Doctor,” Dennis turned to me; “no one can see farther into hidden meanings than the man who sees humanity with its mask off, the way a doctor does. Do you think Father might have been delirious when he warned me not to marry Arabella, or—” His voice trailed off to silence, but his troubled eyes were eloquent.

  “H’m,” I moved uncomfortably in my chair, “I can’t see any reason for your hesitation, Dennis. That bequest of all your father’s property in the event you married Arabella would seem to indicate his true feelings.” I tried to make my words convincing, but the memory of Warburg Tantavul’s dying words dinned in my ears. There had been something gloating in his voice as he told the picture that his son and niece would marry.

  De grandin caught the hint of hesitation in my tone. “Monsieur,” he asked, “will you not tell us of the antecedents of your father’s warning? Doctor Trowbridge is perhaps too near to see the situation clearly. Me, I have no knowledge of your father or your family. You and Mademoiselle are strangely like. The will describes her as having lived with you since childhood. Will you kindly tell us how it came about?”

  The Tantavuls were, as he said, strangely similar in appearance. Anyone might easily have taken them for twins. Like as two plaster portraits from the same mold were the delicate features of their faces, the small, straight noses, the delicately curved lips, the curling, pale-gold hair. Arabella wore hers in a close-cut bob; Dennis’ hair was slightly longer than the average man’s. Strip off his dinner clothes and put them on his cousin, encase him in the simple dinner frock she wore, and not one person in a thousand could tell you which was man and which was woman.

  Now, once more hand in hand, they sat before us on the sofa, and, as Dennis began speaking, I saw that frightened, haunted look shine once again in their light eyes.

  “Do you remember us as children, sir?” he asked me.

  “Yes,” I answered. “It must have been some twenty years ago they called me out to see you youngsters. You’d just moved into the old Stephens House, and there was a deal of gossip about the strange gentleman from die West with his two little children and his Chinese cook, who greeted all the neighbors’ overtures with
churlish rebuffs and never spoke to anyone.”

  “And what did you think of us, sir?”

  “Well, I thought you and your sister—as I thought her then —had as fine a case of measles as I’d ever seen.”

  “How old were’ we then, do you remember?”

  “Oh, you were something like two years; the little girl was half your age, I’d guess.”

  “And do you remember the next time you saw us?”

  “Yes. You were somewhat older then; eight or ten, I’d say. That time it was the mumps. Queer, quiet little shavers you were. I remember I asked you if you thought you’d like a pickle, and you answered: ‘No, it hurts.’”

  “It did, too, sir. Every day Father made us eat one; stood over us with a whip till we’d chewed and swallowed the last morsel.”

  “What!”

  The young folks nodded solemnly as Dennis answered. “Yes, sir; every day. He said he wanted to check up the progress we were making.”

  For a moment he was silent; then: “Doctor Trowbridge, if anyone treated you with studied cruelty all your life—if you’d never had a kind word or gracious act from that person in all your memory, then suddenly that person offered you a favor—made it possible for you to gratify your dearest wish, and threatened to penalize you if you failed to do so, wouldn’t you be suspicious? Wouldn’t you suspect some sort of dreadful practical joke?”

  “I don’t think that I quite understand,” I answered.

  “Very well, then, listen:

  “In all my life I can’t remember ever having seen my father smile. Not really smile with friendliness, humor or affection, I mean. My life—Arabella’s, too—was one long persecution at his hands. I was eighteen months old when we came to Harrisonville, I believe, but I still have vague recollections of our Western home, of a house set high on a hill, overlooking the ocean, and a wall with climbing vines and purple flowers on it, and a pretty lady who would take me in her arms and cuddle me against her breast, and feed me ice-cream from a spoon, sometimes. I have a sort of recollection of a little baby sister in that house, too, but these things are so far back in babyhood that possibly they never really were more than some childish fancy which I built up for myself and which I loved so dearly and so secretly that they finally came to have a kind of reality for me.

  “My real memories, the things I can recall with certainty, began with a hurried train trip through hot, dry, uncomfortable country with my father and a strangely silent Chinese servant and a little girl they told me was my cousin Arabella. Little things make big impressions on child-minds, you know, and of all that trip the thing which I remember most is seeing some Indians standing on the platform of a station with pottery and blankets to sell. My father had descended from the car and walked beside the train, and I climbed down after him and tried to run and take his hand. I stumbled over something on the platform and fell and cut my forehead. I called to him for help, but he didn’t even turn around, and one of the Indian women lifted me to my feet and wiped the blood from my face with her handkerchief. Then, when the bleeding didn’t stop, she tore the handkerchief in half and used it for a bandage. It was the only act of kindness that had been shown me for many a year, and I still have that memento of a savage woman’s tenderness somewhere among my childhood’s treasures, Doctor.

  “Father treated Arabella and me with impartial harshness. We were beaten for the slightest fault; and we had faults a-plenty. If we sat quietly we were accused of sulking and asked why we didn’t go and play. If we played and shouted, we were whipped for being noisy little nuisances.

  “As we weren’t allowed to associate with any of the children in the neighborhood, we made up our own games. I’d be Geraint and Arabella would be Enid of the dove-white feet, or perhaps we’d play that I was Arthur in the Castle Perilous, while she was the kindly Lady of the Lake who gave him back his magic sword. And though we never mentioned it, both of us knew that whatever the adventure was, the false knight I contended with was really my father. But when actual trouble came I wasn’t an heroic figure.

  “I must have been thirteen years old when I had my last thrashing. A little brook ran through the lower part of our land, and the former owners had widened it into a lily-pond. The flowers had died out years before, but the outlines of the pool remained, and it was our favorite summer play place. We taught ourselves to swim—not very well, of course, but well enough—and as we had no bathing-suits, we used to go in in our underwear. When we’d finished swimming we’d lie out in the sun until our under-things were dry, then don our outer clothing. One afternoon we were splashing in the water, happy as a pair of baby beavers sporting in the woods, and nearer to shouting with laughter than we’d ever been before, I think, when my father suddenly appeared upon the bank.

  “‘Come out o’ there!’ he ordered me, and there was a kind of sharp, hard dryness in his voice I’d never heard before. ‘So that’s the shameless way you spend your time behind my back?’ he asked as I climbed up the bank. ‘In spite of all I’ve done to keep you decent, you dared to do a thing like this?’

  “‘Why, Father, we were only swimming,’ I began, but he struck me on the mouth.

  “‘Be quiet, you young rake!’ he roared. ‘I’ll teach you.’

  “Before I realized his intention he’d cut a willow switch, seized me by the neck and thrust my head between his knees; then, while he held me tight as in a vise, he flogged me with the willow lash until the blood came through the skin and stained my soaking cotton singlet. Then he released me and kicked me back into the pool as a heartless master might abuse a dog.

  “As I said, I wasn’t an heroic figure. It was Arabella who came to my rescue, helped me up the slippery bank, and took my head upon her shoulder. ‘Poor Dennie,’ she said. ‘Poor, poor Dennie. It was my fault, Dennie dear; I never should have let you take me in the water.’ Then she kissed me—it was the first time anyone had kissed me since the pretty lady; of my half-remembered dreams—and told me: ‘We’ll be married, dear, the very day that Uncle Warburg dies, and I’ll be so sweet and good to you and you will love me so that we shan’t remember any of these cruel things that we have to go through now.’

  “We thought my father’d gone away, but he must have stayed to see what we would say; for as Arabella finished speaking he stepped out from behind a clump of rhododendron and then, for the first time, I heard him laugh. ‘You’ll be married, will you?’ he asked jeeringly. ‘Well, you’d better not. You’ll both wish that the earth had opened and swallowed you if you ever dare to marry.’

  “That was the last time he actually struck me, but from that time on he seemed to go out of his way to invent mental torments for us both. We weren’t allowed to go to public school, but he had a private tutor, a little rat-faced man named Erickson, come in and give us lessons, and in the evening he would take the book and make us stand before him and recite. If either of us failed to answer promptly when he gave a problem in arithmetic or demanded that we spell a word or conjugate a French or Latin verb, he’d wither us with sarcasm, and always as a finish of his diatribe he’d bring the subject of our marriage up, jeering at us, and hinting at some awful consequence if we went through with what we’d set our hearts upon.

  “So, Doctor, you can see,” he finished, “why I can’t help but suspect that this provision of my father’s will is really some sort of horrible practical joke he’s planned on us—almost as though he’d planned to force us into a situation which would make it possible for him to laugh at us from the grave.”

  “I can understand your feelings, boy,” I answered, “but—”

  “‘But’ be baked and roasted in the hottest oven hell possesses!” interrupted Jules de Grandin. “The wicked dead one’s funeral is at two tomorrow afternoon, n’est-ce-pas?

  “Très Men. At eight tomorrow evening—or earlier, if it will be convenient—you shall be married. I shall esteem it a favor if you permit that I shall be best man. Doctor Trowbridge will be there to give the bride away, and we
shall have a merry time, by blue! You shall go upon a gorgeous honeymoon and learn how sweet the joys of love can be—sweeter for having been so long denied, pardieu! And in the! meantime we shall keep those papers safe for you, and when your lawyer has returned, I shall see that he receives them in due course.

  “You fear the so unpleasant joke? Mais non, I think the joke is on the other foot, my friends, and the laugh upon the wicked old one who had thought himself so clever!”

  3

  Warburg tantavul was neither widely known nor popular, but the solitude in which he had lived had invested him with mystery; now the bars of reticence were down and the walls of isolation broken, upward of a hundred neighbors, mostly women, gathered in the Martin funeral chapel as the services began. The afternoon sun beat softly through the stained glass windows and glinted upon the polished mahogany of the pews. Here and there it touched upon bright spots of color that marked a flower, a woman’s hat or a man’s tie. The solemn hush was unbroken save for occasional soft sibilations: “What’d he die of? Did he leave much? Were the two young folks his only heirs?”

  Then the burial office: “Lord, Thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another…for a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday, seeing it is as a watch in the night.… Oh teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom…”

  As the final Amen sounded, one of Mr. Martin’s young men glided forward, paused beside the casket for a moment, and made the stereotyped announcement: “Those who wish to say good-bye to Mr. Tantavul may do so at this time.”

  The grisly rite of passing by the bier dragged on. I would have left the place, for I had no wish to look upon the man’s dead face and folded hands; but de Grandin took me firmly by the elbow, held me back until the final curiosity-impelled female had filed past the body, then steered me quickly to the casket.