Living Spectres: a Chesterton Holte, Gentleman Haunt Mystery

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “I think she’s trying to keep you from making it worse with indulgence.”

  “True enough. That’s because she thinks I’m getting drunk by accident,” Esther scoffed. “I’m getting drunk on purpose, so I don’t end up raging about the house. I’d rather muddle my thoughts for a while than end up ranting.” She set her glass next to the tray. “I try not to rant when I’m afraid.”

  “Are you afraid?” Poppy asked, alarmed to hear it.

  “Of course I am. Any woman on her own is afraid unless she’s insane or foolish. I saw this when I was quite young, and I told myself then that I would face my fears before they took hold of me, and decide how to deal with them while I still had my wits about me, so that I would not be driven to panic when the fears proved genuine. Most fears aren’t real, you know—they’re small worries blown out of proportion and given power through panic.” She wagged a finger in Poppy’s direction. “Don’t let yourself be fooled by fears. Look them in the eye. You’ll end up being a puppet, dancing to your wildest imaginings if you don’t.”

  Poppy mirrored Esther’s motions. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of Alexandra Roth. I won’t believe you.”

  “Not afraid in the usual way, but I do enjoy peace in my household,” Esther said quietly. “And she’s right to a point—I ought to sober up before evening.”

  Poppy found herself at a standstill, having no more ideas on how she might pursue her aunt’s determination to hold the man who loved her at arm’s length, so she tasted the soup and found it quite satisfying; she resigned herself to a quiet afternoon following this unconventional lunch; she had to admit that she was worn out. “Are you staying in tonight?” she asked Esther when she was half-way through her bowl.

  “Yes; it’s going to be an early night for me; I’m going to bed shortly after we have dinner. I’m actually tired for a change.” Esther picked up half her sandwich and bit into it cautiously. “Oh, good,” she said around her mouthful of toast and cheese. “Missus Sassoro went to the Italian grocery and got provolone.” She pronounced all four syllables. “I do like that one.”

  “Don’t you like cheddar?” Poppy asked as she reached for her sandwich.

  “On many things, but I prefer provolone or asiago in my toasted cheese sandwiches. It reminds me of the time I’ve spent in Italy.” Esther smiled as she chewed.

  “Then make sure you tell Missus Sassoro grazie per questo,” said Poppy, dredging up the phrase from her Italian lessons of a decade ago; then she bit into the sandwich and decided she agreed with Aunt Esther, at least about the cheese.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  CHESTERTON HOLTE SLIPPED INTO THE DIMENSION OF GHOSTS, TO MAKE A FEW inquiries before he went on to see how Blessing was progressing. Although there was no day or night in the dimension, there were places that were marginally brighter than others, and he started in one of them, hoping to seek out Moncrief or Overstreet, their emanations being the most familiar to him now. After a while, he followed their trail to an energetic swirl, not far from a mob of Ceylonese rice farmers killed in a tidal wave who came surging by; here he found Madison Moncrief with Julian Eastley, moving as little as was possible for ghosts.

  “So it’s you again,” said Moncrief as he noticed Holte.

  “Yes, it is,” Holte told them. “I was hoping you might help me out.”

  “Which one of us?” Moncrief asked.

  “Eastley, if he’s willing,” said Holte, and saw that Eastley was starting to slide away. “It’s nothing to Louise’s discredit.”

  Eastley hung in the emptiness. “Your word as a gentleman?”

  “If you insist, yes,” said Holte, and went on before Eastley could change his mind. “Do you recall Louise saying anything about Maracaibo? It’s a city in—”

  “Venezuela. Yes, I know. She was always talking about South America—how exotic and romantic it was. She often told me how much she wanted to go there.”

  “Did she?” Moncrief asked in amazement. “She never said anything to me, beyond wanting to go to Rio for Carnival.”

  “She told me that you weren’t fond of traveling,” Eastley said.

  “Not fond of traveling? I’d proposed a trip to Europe, but she turned it down; said she didn’t want to go there until they had cleaned up from the Great War.” Moncrief shifted away from the rice farmers. “She and Stacy used to joke about running off to Rio if things went bad. I never took them seriously.”

  “What is it you want to know?” Eastley asked, prickling. “So far I am not hearing much to her benefit, from either of you.”

  “Was Rio the only place she wanted to go?” Holte asked, wanting to keep on track.

  “Most of the time, yes. She did say something about hoping to go up the Amazon, to see what it’s like. I vetoed that,” Moncrief said. “I told her it was too dangerous. The river is a wilderness for the most part, and there are insects and animals that are far from friendly, not to mention potential natives. When the river floods, half of the forest is under water, and the maps of the river’s course become useless, and it is said that one may easily become lost there.”

  “Which one might,” Eastley chimed in. “A lady like Louise should never expose herself to the kind of risks such a journey would require.”

  “When I told her how long it might take, she changed her mind, or at least she never mentioned it again. I didn’t think any more about it.” Moncrief swung toward Holte. “What’s this all about?”

  “Stacy may have been spotted in Maracaibo,” he said without preamble.

  “According to whom?” Moncrief’s dubiety was obvious.

  “The US Department of State,” Holte responded. “They are going to send a photograph to Miss Thornton that they believe may be of Stacy.”

  “Good gracious,” said Eastley.

  “Just Stacy? Not Louise?” Moncrief asked.

  “They’re not certain that it is Stacy; that’s why they’ve contacted Poppy. They tried Josephine Dritchner, to no avail; she refused to talk to them, or so I understand,” Holte said. “Apparently it’s only Stacy they’re asking about; there was no mention of anyone with him.”

  The rice farmers began to swirl away from the Holte and the two ghosts he was consulting; their moaning soughed like wind through trees.

  Moncrief was growing more alert. “When did this happen?”

  “A short while ago,” said Holte. “I’ll know more in a few days, when their packet of information arrives.”

  “I still think it’s horrid of Dritchner to smirch Louise’s reputation the way he has. He might be escaping the law, but to let it be thought that Louise fled with him…Unpardonable.” Eastley would have stamped his foot if he still had a body. “A short note to her family could stop all the whispers. Dritchner is a man of breeding, and this is the least he could do, isn’t it?”

  Moncrief made an impatient sound. “When will you stop idealizing Louise?” he demanded of Eastley. “She was my wife, and if anyone should be upset—”

  “Then you should defend her good name,” Eastley said, his manner truculent.

  “When I’m convinced she deserves it, I will,” Moncrief promised. “Until then, I’ll say what I think.”

  “If you continue in this vein, Moncrief, I shall have to seek out other company.” Julian Eastley began to fade off toward the rice farmers.

  Holte decided that he should leave these two to quarrel among themselves. “Thank you both,” he said, floating away from them and casting about for Overstreet or Knott. He searched for a whiff of either ghost, and finally caught a trace of Knott. Increasing his speed, Holte hastened toward a cluster of African orphans dead of water parasites, and passed through them, closing in on Knott.

  Knott had not lost any of his determination to find Derrington and wring information out of him, but for now he was turning in figure-eight loops, much as if he were pacing a floor, had there been floor to pace in the dimension of ghosts. As he became aware of Holte’s approach, he decreased his speed and hung i
n speculative quiet as Holte came up to him. “What are you doing here this time?” he inquired testily.

  “Looking for you, among other things,” Holte replied.

  “Really? Do you have any news for me?”

  “In a manner of speaking. There have been developments in the search for Dritchner, and I thought you might want to know about them.” He summed up what he had learned during Poppy’s conversation with Mobray, and ended with, “So you see, if the man in the photograph turns out to be Stacy, we may be able to narrow the search.”

  Knott did not respond for a long moment, then said, “I looked through Maracaibo. If he had been there, I would have found him.”

  Although Holte doubted that, he said, “It’s likely that he’s traveling, and wouldn’t have been there when you looked. The card he sent his mother was sent from Brazil.”

  “Where in Brazil? It’s a big country.” Knott sounded aggravated; if he had had a face, he would have been scowling.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen it, nor has Poppy, not yet.”

  “Then it’s little more than a rumor,” Knott said dismissively.

  “It narrows the search,” Holte repeated.

  Knott slid away a short distance, then came back toward Holte. “You’re being damned frustrating, Holte.”

  “That’s not my intention,” Holte reminded him.

  “I realize that,” Knott said, not quite as brusquely as he had been, doing his ghostly equivalent of speaking; he dropped down below Holte, motioning him to follow. “By the way, I’m more certain than ever that Derrington killed me, with Dritchner’s help. I wouldn’t have thought that he had it in him, but I’ve been remembering, and I believe that it was Derrington who came to my home the night I was killed. I know that he phoned me. He wanted to talk about the counterfeit antiques and something about Dritchner’s other activities. That part I haven’t recalled yet. Something happened a little later, that isn’t at all clear to me. I believe he brought a mace-and-chain with him, saying he wanted me to authenticate it, because he didn’t trust Dritchner with such evaluations any more, at least I think that’s what happened. I know there was a mace-and-chain involved. That’s what was used to kill me, I’m pretty sure. Vicious things, those mace- and-chains.”

  “That they are,” Holte agreed.

  “I wish I could remember all of it, but it still escapes me. I don’t like that.”

  “Few of us do,” said Holte as a gesture of consolation. “Those of us who die… unexpectedly…often take a long—”

  “—time to remember,” Knott finished for him. “I understand that, but I still don’t like it. I’m almost certain about the mace-and-chain. The rest is still…unfocused.”

  “That’s not surprising,” said Holte. “There’s no going on until the memories are straightened out and you take the time to wholly acknowledge them. I don’t want to go off on wild goose chases.”

  “Yes; yes, I know all that. But it wears on me, these delays and lacks of completion.” “It’s easier once you stop being angry,” Holte told him.

  “So I’ve heard; I’m not persuaded that losing the anger is necessary. It’s the thing driving me to find out what happened. Without it, I’m afraid I’d drift around in the kind of confusion I see in so many others in this dimension,” Knott was abashed to admit this, and he showed that by curving away from Holte. “I think I may have another go at Maracaibo.”

  “Would you know Stacy if you saw him?” Holte asked.

  “I believe so. Remember, I bought my business from his father. The first time I met Stacy, he was about fourteen, as I recall, and the last time was when he graduated from…one of the Ivy Leagues; I can’t recall which one. He was about twenty-one then. He can’t have changed so much in the intervening years that I would not know him on sight. I may have seen him again, more recently, but I can’t bring the encounter to mind.” Knott was farther off now, preparing to slip away to the world of the living. “If it comes back to me, I’ll tell you about it the next time I see you.”

  “Will you let me know if you find Derrington?” Holte called voicelessly after him.

  “If you’re around, I will.” For Knott, this was a binding commitment; he shimmered and was gone.

  Holte was far from satisfied, but he was aware that he had done all that he could for now from Moncrief, Eastley, and Knott, so he began a methodical exploration for Overstreet, flitting from one part of the dimension of ghosts to another at rapid speeds, his noncorporeal senses set to hone in on Overstreet. Finally Holte came upon him near a vortex of earthquake victims from New Zealand. “How is it going for you?” Holte said as he approached Overstreet.

  “I know you, don’t I?” Overstreet asked.

  “Chesterton Holte,” he said. “We’ve met a couple of times.”

  “You’re the one who asked about my time on the Belle Helene, aren’t you?”

  Encouraged by this accurate recollection, Holte said, “Yes, I am. I was hoping that you might have more complete memories of that.”

  “Sorry,” said Overstreet. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Has anything else come back to you?”

  “Not really. Bits and pieces. You know how that is.” Overstreet studied the New Zealanders rotating near him. “How long will it take them to remember how they died, do you think?”

  Holte had no immediate answer for that. “As long as they need, would be my guess,” he said as he saw Overstreet’s attention begin to flag. “As for you, can you tell me about the bits and pieces?”

  “If you like,” said Overstreet, and went silent.

  “Your bits and pieces?” Holte urged.

  Overstreet came back into focus. “Oh, yes. I was just thinking.” And again, he fell silent.

  “Overstreet,” Holte prompted. “It’s important. Tell me what you do remember.”

  “If you like. I haven’t made sense of it yet.” Overstreet moved a little closer to Holte. “I think there must have been some kind of argument on the boat…It had to do with travel plans…but I may be wrong about that…I believe I was supposed to meet Derrington in Cuba…but Nelson said we’d get around to that after we went to Jamaica…he said it was important…There was something he was planning to pick up in Jamaica…if he told me what it was, I’ve forgotten…and he claimed it was more important than my appointment with Derrington. I…must have said that Cuba was nearer than Jamaica…well, it is.”

  “Yes,” Holte agreed. “It is.”

  Overstreet made a motion of justification. “Thank you. I reminded them—both Nelson and Quentin—but Nelson wouldn’t budge…I would have paid him to let me off…he got mad at that…They both did…one of them…said that I hadn’t told them enough to be let off…I think it was Nelson, but it might have been Quentin…Nelson was the one steering the boat…I know that’s right.”

  “When did this happen? How far were you from Canada?” Holte was troubled by Overstreet’s distracted state.

  “I don’t know…you’ve seen the ocean…it’s hard to judge distance when…all you can see, day after day, is water. Like being here.”

  Holte did his noncorporeal version of a sigh; Overstreet was a long way from being able to give a full account of what he had experienced in the days before his death, and there was no point in pushing him. “I’ve got to leave you for now,” he told Overstreet. “I may be back, but later.”

  “That’s good to know,” said Overstreet remotely, and wafted away in a directionless sort of zig-zag.

  Holte took a little time to wander among the ghosts in the hope of finding someone who might be able to tell him more, but it was a futile exercise, and he gave it up fairly quickly, slipping back into the world of the living in time to find Poppy still in her study at Aunt Esther’s house, a stack of notes next to her typewriter; the clock said forty-two minutes past eight, and the two lamps were lit, revealing Maestro curled up on the visitor’s chair. Holte swung around the end of Poppy’s desk and made a kind of bow. “Still
busy?” he asked in order to alert her to his presence.

  Poppy looked up just as Maestro raised his head and hissed. “Oh. You’re back,” she said, looking a bit harried.

  “I am.” He noticed that there were no completed sheets of paper lying on the desk. “Having trouble with work?”

  “In a way. We had a late dinner. I’ve only been at this for about ten minutes.”

  “Ten minutes? That is a late dinner.” He approached her, increasing his visibility as he came.

  “I did get some work done this afternoon, but then I had a call from Sherman Pearse. He gave me a tongue-lashing because he now has nine ransom demands for GAD’s safe return, and he’s decided that it’s my fault.” She shook her head. “I know I’m not supposed to be thin-skinned about this, but I’m afraid he got my dander up. I said some things he found offensive.”

  “Such as?” Holte inquired.

  “I called him a martinet and a blowhard,” she admitted. “Not very professional, I’m afraid.”

  “Are you saying he isn’t a martinet and a blowhard?” Holte was incredulous. “From what I’ve seen of the man, you had him pegged. Do you think you were wrong?”

  “Ye gods, no!” Poppy slapped her hand on the top of the desk. “He’s both those things, and more. But I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”

  “Why not? Pearse lost his, didn’t he?”

  “That he did,” Poppy said. “And I was fool enough to follow his example. Pearse hung up on me after he said he’d get me fired for—”