“It’s a hard life, Johnny,” he told himself with a grin, and only idly glanced left when a brougham drifted by, his attention quickening too late when he realized it carried the man and woman who were staying with Jeffrey Isle.
They had only recently arrived, he’d learned from listening to the gossip in the Chancellor Inn and the Brass Ring. Some said they were from Italy, others said from Egypt. All agreed the man was well-spoken, British educated, and cold as the Atlantic in the middle of winter. On the other hand, the woman traveling with him was reputed to be exotically beautiful, always bedecked in silver, always ready with a smile. Though he hadn’t yet met either one, John had seen enough to know that the woman was indeed something to behold, and he only hoped he’d have a chance to check his impressions more closely.
A name came to mind then — Peter Reskin.
He rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully.
Something else to concern himself about, however unpleasant it was. Reskin was a self-proclaimed archeologist who, despite his rather dubious credentials, had actually been moderately successful in his explorations in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt. Jeffrey was his principal backer. And John had to admit that the man had indeed returned with some impressive artifacts, some of which had been donated to museums in Boston and New York, while others had been sold to those willing to pay the price.
As he himself had been the last time. Last month. When Reskin had appeared at his door late one evening and claimed desperate need of funds. Three pieces had been given over that night — one to John: one to Sydney Edmunds, and one to Howard Turnbell. Unfortunately, and possibly deliberately, Reskin hadn’t told Jeffrey Isle what he’d brought back, and Jeffrey was now demanding their return as was, he claimed, his right as the expedition’s financier.
His shadow slipped ahead of him, and he watched it mesmerized until a call woke him up and he saw a horseman riding toward him from the direction of the Village. He waited until the man drew abreast, eyeing the sleek black Arabian with suspicion, before starting off again.
“I understand Jeffrey’s been after you for money,” said Sterling Avlock.
“If he is, I should think it would be our business, not yours,” he answered stiffly.
The man laughed and slapped his booted thigh with a riding crop. “Well, my dear Vicar, a word to the wise though you don’t deserve it — save your money. The man’s not worth it. His trouble doesn’t concern you.”
And before he could respond, the man was gone, galloping fiercely up the road with coattails flying and crop high in the air. When neither stumble nor branch unseated him, John knew there were no miracles left in the world, and he jammed his hands into his pockets and angled across toward the low wall that fronted his home.
He supposed that Jeffrey Isle had attempted to gain a loan from Avlock as well, and his eyes narrowed slightly. This wasn’t right. Though Jeffrey had problems, and serious ones, it wasn’t like him to go begging practically door to door. Not only was it out of character, it gave John the immediate feeling that his friend hadn’t exactly been honest about the reasons for his need.
He shook himself and scowled. Not now. Think about it later, sleep on it, wait until tomorrow. By then, something might have happened to change the situation, and he wouldn’t have to deny the man once again.
He thought then of the missing miracle and sighed aloud.
Sleep, he thought gloomily, wasn’t going to come easy.
Dark figures in a dark room, and outside the sound of horses impatient in their traces.
An owl watched shadows.
A large brown dog scratched at a door and whimpered, tail between its legs.
“This will not be a good place.”
“Don’t be silly. No one ever comes here, the door is solid, and I have the only key to the lock.”
“It is not good. Wood burns. Wood cracks. A neighbor could pass and see too much and learn.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“It matters not when. It could happen. This place is not right. We will have to find another.”
“All right, damnit. If you insist.”
“I have no choice.”
“Then where?”
“Stone. We must have stone. The place I saw this morning.”
“My god, you’re asking the impossible.”
A pause, and the clear sense of a smile.
A laugh, short and mirthless and knowing.
“You’re right. What’s one more impossibility?”
“There are no impossibilities. There is only that which has not been thought of before, and that which has been forgotten.”
“You’re a witch, you know.”
“No. Just one who has been forgotten.”
The rustle of soft cloth, the scrape of a boot, and the grate of a key in a new and easy lock. The door opened and the night relieved the dark of the room.
The owl flew off.
The horses stamped their hooves.
The dog howled and clawed at the other door.
“We will do the moving tomorrow afternoon,”
“What? In broad daylight?”
“Do you not bury your dead while the sun is up?”
“Yes, but — ”
“Then so shall we.”
“It’s crazy. It’s — ”
“Impossible?”
A footstep on soft ground, and the nightwind rose to multiply the shadows.
“Damn, but I don’t know why I’m doing this.”
“A lie.”
“So it is. But it doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Just remember what I have told you, then. Think of how it will be when you do not have to die.”
Chapter 3
The small, High Street office was well-appointed without ostentation, the furniture large and comfortable, the photographs and prints on the walls wood-framed, the sideboard well stocked with brandy and scotch. The afternoon light was only partially diffused by the closing of the curtains, and through the open window behind them was the sound of children playing hoops in the street, vendors hawking their wares, and the infrequent rude blare of a horn on an impatient electric motor car.
John Vicar, always more than a little uncomfortable in the presence of such unstated wealth and power, stood by the door with his hands clasped behind him and tapped one foot against the floor lightly.
“John,” said Sydney Edmunds, “why don’t you sit down?”
With a smile he shook his head at the heavyset man in the tailored suit sitting behind a leather-edged mahogany desk.
“I’m all right, Syd.”
“Yes, well . . .” and Edmunds fussed with some papers on the blotter before him before leaning back in his chair. His fingers tented under his chin; his eyes closed halfway.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with it,” Howard Turnbell complained in a voice just short of whining. “I do have a bank to run, you know, and those fools will have me in the gutter if I don’t watch them every minute.”
Edmunds said nothing.
John only shifted, leaning back so he could cross one foot over the other. A glance up at the high ceiling, and he smiled to himself at the small, crystal chandelier that once held candles and was now electrically wired. He knew Edmunds didn’t really trust the invisible power; he hadn’t even taken the gas jets from the walls.
“The point,” Edmunds began.
“The point, damnit,” Jeffrey Isle interrupted, “is that I’ve been waiting for your answers for days, and all you’ve done is stall me. That is the point, sir, and I think I have the right to complain, don’t you?”
John looked at the young man without turning his head — a dark blue suit tailored to his slender figure, cravat pinned with a ruby, grey gloves on his lap, Wellingtons polished so brightly they reflected the sun. That’s all there is to him, he thought suddenly; the ruddy face, the red hair, none of it registers because the man is all clothes and pomp. Naked, he’d be invisible.
<
br /> He grinned.
“You find the situation humorous, John?” Isle said angrily.
“Now, Jeffrey,” Edmunds cautioned.
“Now nothing, Sydney!” The man jabbed a finger in the air, first at Edmunds, then at John. “This has gone on quite long enough, and I have no intention of leaving until you tell me yea or nay.”
Turnbell sniffed and glanced pointedly at his pocket watch.
Edmunds folded his fingers down into a double fist and rested his chin upon it. “Jeffrey,” he said, in a tone that instantly caught the younger man’s attention, “we agreed to meet with you this afternoon because believe it or not we are your friends, and we are concerned for your welfare.”
Isle simply stared, his eyes narrowed in anger.
“But,” Edmunds continued, “if all you’re going to do is make demands, which I ought to remind you are beyond your power to make, then I think we should adjourn. I have business to conduct. And I would guess John does as well.”
Isle inhaled deeply, rapidly, several times. “All right, then. Yes. Yes, I apologize. Truly, gentlemen. I have a great deal on my mind these days, and I’m just upset about matters, as I’m sure you can understand.”
John and Edmunds immediately nodded their acceptance.
“Wonderful,” said Turnbell sourly. “Now that we’re all good friends again, I would hope you’ll come to the real point and soon. “
“I want those pieces, and I want them today,” said Isle bluntly.
No one said a word.
No one needed to. Peter Reskin’s sale of the Egyptian artifacts to the other men in the room had taken on an importance none of them had foreseen. And once Jeffrey had realized the pieces were missing from the inventory, he wanted them back, and he had no way of paying the prices required.
“Well?” Isle demanded.
Turnbell cleared his throat. “Have you spoken to Mr. Reskin about his part in this, Jeffrey?”
“You know damned well I haven’t,” he said. “I’ve been out to his place a dozen times over the past week, and he’s not been there. I haven’t seen him, have you?”
The banker shook his head.
“Good. Fine. He’s probably run off with the money you all gave him. I don’t care. All I want is what’s rightfully mine. All I want are those pieces back!”
Edmunds looked balefully at the chandelier.
“Oh, for god’s sake,” Isle snapped. “It’s not as if I’m asking you to give them to me outright, is it? I’m good for it. You all know that. You’ll have your money soon enough.”
John leaned back against the door and scratched the underside of his chin. “Unfortunately, Jeff, soon enough isn’t good enough. These are hard times, and they’re getting worse. A situation I know you can appreciate. And until someone in Washington makes up his mind which way the standard lies — silver or gold — money isn’t worth what it used to be.” He smiled blandly. “Isn’t that right, Syd? Isn’t that what you told me last week?”
Isle snorted angrily and threw himself back in his chair, leaned forward again and appealed to Turnbell with a look. The banker, similarly dressed though minus cravat and ruby, opened a folder on his lap, cleared his throat, reached into an inside jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of glasses. He put them on, adjusted them toward the middle of his nose, and cleared his throat again.
“Oh, for crying out loud,” John muttered.
“Jeffrey,” the banker said, “you claim you’ll be able to pay us within a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, you and I both know that’s impossible. You are overdrawn, you are in debt, and unless you intend to sell the Hall, you haven’t a dream of even giving us what we initially paid.”
Isle gaped at him. “What?” he exclaimed angrily. “But for god’s sake, man, it’s not as if you’re exactly starving to death, is it? You’ve got your bloody bank, Edmunds his railroads . . .” He sputtered into silence and lowered his head, shook it slowly. “I need the money,” he said in a near whisper. “The men I am in debt to — ”
“Common gamblers,” the banker sneered.
“ — won’t wait another week. If I don’t pay them, they’re going to come after me.”
John opened his mouth and shut it again, realizing he had nothing to say; nothing, that is, that would make Jeff feel better.
“I need help,” Isle pleaded when the silence grew too long. “Those pieces . . . I can turn them over, pay my debts and repay you. Jesus, you won’t miss the goddamned money!”
“That isn’t the point, Jeffrey,” the banker said stiffly.
Isle leapt to his feet, red-faced, knuckles white.
“Easy, Jeff,” Edmunds cautioned.
Isle slammed a fist on the desk, his eyes narrowed in rage. “Don’t tell me to take it easy, Syd. I haven’t the time to take it easy. I . . . I.” He stopped, drew a breath, closed his eyes. “All right,” he said, forcing calm into his voice. “All right. I get it. Good old Jeffrey is a bad risk. Even to his friends. When he’s up, that’s fine. Slap him on the back, invite him to dinner. But when he’s down, kick him like the cur you really think he is.”
“Jeff,” John protested quietly.
But Isle only glared at him as he gathered up his gloves and walking stick, strode heavily to the rack by the door and yanked down his coat.
John moved away.
Isle grabbed the doorknob and turned. “You’re fools, you know,” he said tightly. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You just . . . you don’t know.”
And he was gone before any of them could stop him.
A moment passed before Edmunds rose and sighed loudly.
“The poor fool,” Thornbell said with no sympathy at all. “He gambles it away, throws it away on women and extravagance, and yet he expects us to bail him out just like that.”
“We have in the past,” Edmunds reminded him.
“In the past,” the banker said stiffly, “he’s come through more often than not. The losses were always recouped later on. But this time he has gone too far. He is asking us to give him those artifacts, hand them over and forget what we gave Reskin, that’s what it amounts to. And no matter what he thinks, none of us have that kind of money to throw away.”
Reluctantly John agreed, but he couldn’t help feeling guilty; nor could he forget the look on Isle’s face when he’d stormed out of the office — it wasn’t one of rage; the flush had gone from his cheeks, the fury from his eyes, and if John hadn’t known the man better, he would have sworn that Isle looked scared to death.
By late afternoon the sky had grown thunderheads like gun powder explosions over a battlefield, and John was ready to scream at the perversities thrown at him from the moment he’d opened his eyes and had seen the first clouds massing over the valley. He had risen late, had been scolded by Mrs. Karragan for making her fix him breakfast so close to the noon hour, had cut himself shaving, and decided that suspenders were God’s eighth plague when twice a snap had pulled from its mooring, the metal tip nearly taking out his left eye.
Then there was the meeting at Sydney’s office, and the unpleasant feeling that he’d somehow, without knowing it, betrayed a friend.
After walking home in a mood as grey as the clouds above him, he spent the rest of the day outside, huddled in a cardigan and wandering about the grounds, cursing himself for not being able to stop thinking about Jeff.
The man was seven kinds of a fool. The fortune his family had left him was virtually gone now, and his dubious partnership with Peter Reskin had only once in five years produced anything that could conceivably be called profitable.
Yet the man persisted. Driven not only by the need to replenish his coffers, but also to beat what he called the curse of the Isles — none of the males had yet lived past fifty, and Jeffrey was determined to have more than his remaining twenty years.
John shook his head with a sigh and leaned against the low stone wall that fronted his land. He himself may not be as wealthy as the men he’d been with t
oday, but if he were careful, and prudent, there was a good chance he might be able to make himself a name. In the meantime there was his home; it wasn’t much as estates on the Pike went — a few acres, a modest brick home, a small garden in back he used to bolster his moods whenever he saw his father’s ghost in his dreams, or when he thought about his own finances and wondered in fear if his vision of the future wasn’t as desperate as his friend’s.
A finger rubbed the side of his nose.
Deep in the valley he heard the first muttering of thunder.
Something was wrong.
Jeffrey hadn’t told them everything, and John knew it. The two of them had virtually grown up together, there was little the man could hide from him.
Something was wrong.
Jeff had been lying.
Finally he could stand it no longer. He strode around to the back where Mrs. Karragan’s husband, Leo, was raking the lawn while whistling an off-key rendition of “Daisy Bell.” The man was near sixty, looked ten years younger, and was easily a head taller than the man who employed him. With his shirtsleeves rolled up, he looked like a blacksmith.
“Mr. Karragan,” John said.
Karragan raked a few seconds more, then wiped his face with a handkerchief pulled from his hip pocket. “Sir?”
“Would you like a break?”
The man’s deeply tanned face wrinkled in a smile. “Wouldn’t say no, sir.”
“I want to get a message to Mr. Isle. Would you mind?”
Karragan looked toward the house where his wife was watching him closely from the kitchen window. “Not at all. If you’ll give me a moment to clean up a bit ... ?”
John smiled, blew a kiss toward the kitchen, and walked to the front wall again, just as a pair of electrics thumped by over the rutted road. Rains the week before, followed by unusually warm weather, had made the Pike miserable to travel on, another reason why he preferred walking, though it was more than a mile into the village. His neighbors, when they bothered talking to him at all, thought him odd not to have a full stable or a garage, and when he suggested that walking was good for the body and soul, they reminded him that walking in the rain was just as apt to kill him as falling from a saddle.
The Universe of Horror Volume 3: The Long Night of the Grave (Neccon Classic Horror) Page 2
