Simon nodded. “She may want to join us, too.”
I couldn’t quite picture Vicky Nelson sitting at any table that didn’t have drinks on it, but I supposed there was always a first time. “You’d better get her some clothes first,” I warned him. “She hasn’t got many on now.”
And when Simon had left I sat for a time in silence with Father Hadden, as the sun finally began to vanish behind the meager line of shrubs and cactus in the distance. “Mr. Ark is truly a strange man,” he said at last.
“You’re right there, Father,” I agreed. “I’ve known him for twenty years, off and on, and still I don’t really know him.”
“Do you believe what he says about his past? About back there—in Egypt?”
I spread my palms flat on the table. “Frankly, he’s never told me too much about it. Just that he’s lived a long, long time. Occasionally, when the dark winds of night are passing over the moon, I even find myself thinking that perhaps he actually is over fifteen hundred years old. …”
The priest nodded. “One could believe it, very easily. He spoke of other things this afternoon, of a strange Coptic priest in the first century after Christ, who wrote a gospel glorifying the Lord. The words were devout but hardly divinely inspired. The Fathers of the Church denounced it as a fraud, and the Coptic priest lost everything. He was in a unique if impossible situation—his writings had been holy praises to God, worthy of a place in Heaven, but the deceit he’d used in circulating them as a fifth gospel made such a reward impossible. It was a situation even baffling for the Almighty, and this man could be sent neither to Heaven nor Hell. He was doomed to walk the earth forever, until such time as God would decide his fate.”
It was the first time I’d ever heard the story, and I wondered if this really was the strange secret of Simon Ark. “Did he tell you the name of this work?”
“It has come down to us, in a greatly altered form, as The Shepherd of Hermas. There is such a book. I am familiar with it.”
“And why would he tell you these things?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” said the priest slowly, “perhaps even a man as powerful as Simon Ark needs help sometimes. Perhaps he did not come solely to help me.”
“But why does he seek Satan, Father?” I asked. “Will the finding of the devil somehow break the spell of this curse that haunts him?”
But the priest only shook his head. “That I do not know, I do not even know if these words he spoke were true words. He was perhaps only telling me that the ways of God are often strange and unbelievable. He was only telling me that the fantastic, the supernatural, is possible on this earth—if it is God’s will.”
“And?”
“And he told me to accept this strange power of mine—accept it and turn it to God’s uses. He told me that tonight I must attempt to contact the spirit of Glen Summer. …”
“But aren’t such things as séances against religion?”
“He says that some good can come even out of the bad. Though the end may never justify the means, surely at times circumstances must dictate the wiseness of fools and the foolishness of wise men.”
“And so Simon thinks the killer will give himself away at the séance?”
The priest shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? I assure you I have never done anything like this before. My…spirits have always come in private before.”
“Well, I’ve seen a few of these things in the movies. Everyone sits in a circle and holds hands, or something like that.”
Father Hadden nodded. “I suppose we must duplicate the expected conditions.”
“Could I have a cup of that coffee while we’re waiting?” I asked him. “I suddenly remembered I’ve had mighty little to eat today.”
“Surely. I think I even have enough food for us.”
And that’s what happened. I ate there with the priest while Simon Ark roamed the streets of Santa Marta, seeking out those we needed for the final act of the little drama.
And presently, as the night shadows slipped slowly across the plain, Simon returned with Sheriff Partell in tow. “I must be crazy to even come here,” he was protesting. “Am I supposed to believe this big-deal priest is goin’ to conjure up a murderer for me? I’ve already got the killer locked up, and it’s that guy Juan Cruz, believe me!”
But Simon took the renewed attack with a slight smile. “I have not yet been able to convince the good sheriff that we will need the presence of Mr. Cruz as well.”
“The hell you will!”
“Consider, Sheriff Partell, if you do not arrive at a quick and satisfactory solution to this case, the state police will move in very soon. There are already some of them around. They will move in, and ask questions, and soon they will begin to wonder about your connection with the Oasis. …”
“Damn it, I have no connection with the Oasis!”
“When a wide-open place like that operates in a town as small as this, the sheriff must have a connection with it.”
“I looked the other way, that’s all I did! Are you going to crucify—” He stopped as soon as the word was out of his mouth. “Are you going to hang me just because I let people do what they wanted to do? It’s a free country!”
I could see that Simon had him on the defensive, and he pressed his advantage. “Freedom to violate the law is not found in any constitution,” he pointed out. “It would be to your advantage to cooperate with us.”
“I’m here, ain’t I?” the sheriff growled. “How the hell much else cooperation do you want?”
“We want Juan Cruz,” Simon answered simply.
“Nuts! He stays in his cell.”
“You haven’t actually charged him with anything yet, you know. You can only hold him a few more hours.”
Partell sighed and flung up his hands, a beaten man. “O.K., O.K.—you can have him. Where is this crazy thing goin’ to take place. Here?”
Simon glanced at Father Hadden, saw the troubled frown of uncertainty on his face, and answered for him. “No, I think not. I think we should return to the villa in the mountains—to the scene of the crime, as they say. …”
And so we went back, up the hill now darkened by desert night, up and over dusty mountain roads leading nowhere, till finally the moonlight caused the image of the great wooden cross on the rise near the morada. Other cars were arriving, too, and I could see that Simon had done his work well in gathering these people together.
The great house itself was dark now, guarded only by a single deputy sheriff who snapped a quick and sloppy half-salute at Partell. The eighteen, whoever they were, had long since headed for their homes, their moment of dim suffering gone now. And if I wondered why Simon had not summoned them back, I was soon to learn the reason.
The great central room of the place seemed crowded with familiar faces, but a quick count showed only eight of us—Simon and myself, Father Hadden and Sheriff Partell, Juan Cruz, a bare-legged and puzzled Vicky Nelson, and—surprisingly—Delia Summer and Yates Ambrose. Simon’s travels had apparently carried him to the Oasis.
“If you’ll be all seated around this table,” Simon began, “I hope we can get this over with quite quickly.”
“Do you really think you can contact my husband?” Mrs. Summer wanted to know.
“We are certainly going to try, madame. But first let me say a few words of introduction.” As he spoke, we were seating ourselves around the big table. I took a chair to the left of Simon, right next to Vicky Nelson, who was still looking mildly bewildered at this whole business.
“You all know,” Simon began, “what has been happening here, in this place. A practice of medieval times, that of extreme physical penances for sins, has been revived. It has been revived and carried to extremes by a group of devout but misguided men. Perhaps Juan Cruz here was the most misguided of them all, since he was their leader.”
The eyes of us all went to Cruz, who sat opposite Simon, between the sheriff and Yates Ambrose. “Today,” Simon continued, “one of this group die
d, killed with a Spanish sword as he hung on a cross in the dim basement below us. As you know, he was Glen Summer, owner of the Oasis.”
Beside me, Vicky moved restlessly in her chair. Beyond the leaded glass windows I could hear a wind rising in the mountains. Perhaps there was a storm on the way. “As a few of you also know, Father Hadden here has been deeply troubled of late by a strange power that has thrust itself unwanted upon him. It is the power to communicate, under certain circumstances, with the spirits of those who have departed the earth. I’ll turn you over to Father Hadden now.”
The priest, looking uncomfortable, cleared his throat and began. “It is a generally accepted belief that the soul of a dead person does not leave the body for some hours after death. I believe that this fact is the basis of my strange power. I believe that by coming to the place of death within twelve to fifteen hours I can sometimes make contact with the soul of the departed. This is what I will try now. Please join hands to complete the circle.”
We did so, and the lights of the room dimmed, apparently on a signal to one of the waiting deputies outside. Soon the place was almost black, with only a distant glow through the windows to show us the faint outlines of each other’s faces.
“Now,” Father Hadden’s voice droned on, “silence, please…concentrate and hold hands tightly…do not break the circle…do not break the circle… I am calling upon the departed spirit of Glen Summer… Glen Summer…can you hear me?…are you still among us, Glen Summer…?”
He kept it up like that, talking to himself in the darkness, for perhaps ten minutes—until my palm began to sweat in Vicky’s grip. Then, without warning, there came a moaning sound from very close. It might have been at the center of the great round table. The moaning increased in volume until it formed words, and Vicky’s fingernails dug into my hand.
“I have come,” the voice boomed.
“That’s not my husband,” Delia Summer gasped. “That’s not his voice!”
But whoever it was, the voice continued. “Hello, Delia…hello, Juan. …”
I heard Cruz utter a startled gasp, and then Father Hadden’s voice cut in. “Who killed you, Glen? Who?”
“I…I don’t know. … Felt the sword go in. …”
“It’s some sort of trickery,” Yates Ambrose muttered across the table. “That’s not Glen.”
But Father Hadden pressed on. “Can you tell us anything at all, Glen?”
“No…except…except…”
“What? Except what?”
“Except how did the killer know which one of them was me?”
As soon as the words had been uttered I realized the truth of them, the single fantastic truth that none of us had noticed or questioned. With nineteen nearly naked men hanging on crosses in a dim cellar, their heads completely hooded, how could anyone know which one of them was Glen Summer?
And as soon as the thought entered my head I knew the answer. Only one man could have known which of those hanging figures was Summer. One man, the man who tied him to the cross—Juan Cruz.
“No!” Cruz shouted in the same instant, and leaped free of the human ring. Before I knew what was happening the lights were flooding down on us, and Juan Cruz’s terrified figure was leaping over a low sofa by the leaded windows.
“I knew it was him all the time,” Partell snorted, reaching for his gun. But, somehow, Simon was there beside him, clutching the gun hand.
And in a moment it was all over, with three deputies bearing down on top of Cruz’s struggling body. Partell shook free from Simon’s grip and finally got the revolver out. “Why didn’t you let me shoot him?” he muttered. “It would have saved the expense of a trial.”
“Because,” Simon said quietly, “he isn’t guilty.”
“What? Who the hell could have done it if he didn’t?”
And Simon Ark turned towards the others. “Suppose you answer that, Mrs. Summer. Suppose you tell him how you killed your husband. …”
We just stood there, waiting for the screams of denial that never came. I think in that first moment even I must have thought that at last Simon had made a mistake, that certainly Delia Summer could not possibly have plunged the sword into her husband’s chest. But no denial came.
“Are you crazy, Ark?” Sheriff Partell snorted, breaking the shocked silence.
“Not at all.”
“But that voice. …”
Simon smiled. “Forgive me, it was my voice, slightly disguised and removed from its usual position. Father Hadden and I really had little hope that the spirit of Glen Summer would really present itself before so many people. We hoped to scare a confession out of Mrs. Summer, but unfortunately we only succeeded in scaring the innocent Senor Cruz.”
“And why couldn’t Cruz be the killer?” Partell wanted to know.
“The reason for that goes deeply into the character of the man and the whole practice of the Penitentes. It has already been pointed out that neither Cruz nor any of the others would be a party to a simple murder in such a place as this, while in the grip of a religious fervor. Such good and evil just could not exist side by side in the same man. Besides, none of the eighteen would know which cross was occupied by Summer this day. Only Cruz would know that, and he was the most fervent of all—the one person least likely to murder within the walls of his sacred palace. There remained one possibility, however. Suppose—suppose Cruz committed the murder in a fit of religious zeal, somehow believing Summer to be evil? Suppose he had some insane quirk that dictated the very ritual murder we all feared so much.”
Sheriff Partell nodded. “I still think that’s what happened.”
But Simon Ark had not finished speaking. “Consider the man, though. Consider Juan Cruz, deciding he must murder the hanging figure on the cross. Either insane or in an uncontrollable fit of religious passion, he seizes a weapon from the wall there and heads for the basement.” He paused only a moment. “And what weapon does he seize?”
The sheriff gestured toward the wall. “All there are are swords and spears. He didn’t have much choice.”
“But he did! He had the ultimate choice. He had the choice between stabbing Glen Summer in the left side with a sword—a spear like the Roman soldier used on Christ as He hung dying on Calvary. …”
We were silent then, all of us, because, somehow, we knew he was right. But then Sheriff Partell spoke again. “O.K., but why does that make it his wife?”
“We have already shown that the killer had to be able to recognize Glen Summer hanging nearly naked in a dimly lit basement, with his entire head covered. Who could have recognized him, for his body alone? Ambrose the bartender? Possible but doubtful. Only one person could enter that basement with the certainty of recognizing the naked chest and legs of Glen Summer. Only one person—the wife who shared his bed.”
And now Vicky Nelson spoke up beside me. “I don’t know too much about this whole crazy thing, but from what I have heard I’d like you to explain how Mrs. Summer or any other woman could walk past eighteen men without being noticed. After all, they were all supposed to be naked to the waist, weren’t they?”
Simon cleared his throat. “What nearly everyone tends to forget in dealing with real-life crime is that it is not at all like crime in books. In a mystery novel a killer must have a foolproof, or seeming foolproof, method of murder before he strikes. But in real life a murderer might be impelled to strike with only a fifty-fifty chance of escape, if the motive was great enough. Delia Summer’s motive was great enough, and her chances of escape were better than fifty-fifty.”
“But how?”
“She knew about the basement room; she knew about the rite that would be going on this morning. She knew it all because her husband had told her. She entered the villa, took down the sword—perhaps she knew about that, too, or perhaps she had brought some other weapon which she discarded in favor of the sword—and then made her way down the steps to the basement. And then she walked past those hanging men, studying them in the dimness until she
recognized her husband.”
“And they never saw her?”
“They never saw her, my friend, because—simply—their eyes were closed. You must remember that these men were religious mystics, in the grip of a highly emotional experience. Each man, as he hung there with the ropes cutting into his wrists, was in a sense another Christ. Each man, deep in his own prayerful thoughts, would naturally have closed his eyes—especially since there was nothing to see in the dim basement. Delia Summer guessed this, and she was right. Moving silently on the stone floor she had perfect safety—until the very moment she plunged the sword into her husband’s chest. And even then the odds were with her. Already in pain from the ropes, there was a good chance he would not cry out in the split second before death. He didn’t, and she won her only gamble.”
Through it all, Delia Summer had been silent. Now she spoke. “Why did I kill him?” she asked, not making it a denial but rather only a question. A question to which she already knew the answer.
“Because, dear lady, your husband told you he planned to sell the Oasis and donate the money to the Church. You couldn’t stand the thought of a future of poverty chained to a religious fanatic. So you had to kill him before he carried out his plan. You had to kill so you would inherit control of the Oasis. And you risked killing him here because this was the last place on earth a woman would be suspected.”
I could tell by the faces around us that he’d convinced us all, but I still had a final question. “Simon, what about Ambrose’s tire tracks outside?”
“Simple, my friend. She borrowed his car. I considered the possibility that Ambrose was guilty, but quickly rejected it. He had no obvious motive, and as I’ve explained, it was doubtful if he could have been certain of recognizing Summer’s masked body. In any event, there was a final clue pointing to Mrs. Summer. Sheriff Partell told me that when she arrived here with him, she broke away and ran sobbing to the basement. How did she know the way to the basement, or that her husband had died there? She knew because she’d been here before today—to search him out and kill him.”
“While she was prowling around she might have run into Cruz,” I objected.
The Judges of Hades Page 10
