The Dark Stairs R/I

by Byars, Betsy

  Then Herculeah did something she had never done before in her life. Herculeah screamed.

  23

  THE INVESTIGATION

  “I came as soon as I could,” Meat told everybody in the room. “I would have come sooner except Herculeah leaned out the window and told me not to—well, she didn’t tell me, she shooed me like that.”

  They were gathered in the bedroom of the Crewell house. Herculeah was sitting on the dusty bed. She had stopped screaming, but she held one hand over her nose as if to block out the smell. She was holding her mother’s hand.

  Her father, who was there in his official capacity, said to Meat, “Do you know anything about this, or are you just curious?”

  “Both,” Meat answered truthfully.

  “Sit down over there.”

  Chico Jones pointed to a chair on one side of the fire-place. The Moloch was in the chair on the other side. His long arms dangled at his side. He was slumped forward. He still wore his hat, and it shielded his face.

  “I’ll stand,” Meat said. He moved to the opposite side of the room from the Moloch and stood against the wall.

  “Now, what happened here?” Chico Jones asked.

  “Are you asking me?” Herculeah’s mother answered coolly.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “My client, Mr. William Crewell, and I came into the house in an attempt to ascertain what happened to his father.” Her mother was speaking with formality.

  “You are William Crewell?”

  “He is,” her mother answered for him.

  “Continue.”

  “We came up the steps, the back ones, crossed the hall, and we heard muffled screaming. Although I had never heard Herculeah scream before, I knew that’s who it was.

  “The screams seemed to be coming from the dressing room. I rushed in and checked but the room was empty.”

  “I was behind the door,” Herculeah broke in shakily. “I fell through the wall into a secret stairway.”

  “It wasn’t a secret stairway, Herculeah; don’t dramatize the incident,” her mother said. “It led down to Mr. Crewell’s library. A lot of these old houses had multiple stairways. Making service areas—like stairways and closets—look like part of the wall was just a way of making them less noticeable.”

  “Go on,” Chico Jones said.

  “We got Herculeah out, and then we noticed that the body of Mr. Crewell, William’s father, was lying at the foot of the stairs.”

  “I could have fallen on him,” Herculeah said with a shudder. “That’s why I screamed. You’d probably scream too, Dad, if you almost fell on a corpse.”

  “I hope I never find out,” her father said.

  The sergeant who was with him, jotting down notes on a clipboard, stifled a smile.

  “Apparently,” Herculeah’s mother continued, “Mr. Crewell fell down the stairs and died there. Whether it was a stroke or an injury or his heart gave out—”

  “There could have been some sort of struggle,” the sergeant commented. “His cane was up here, and the window was broken as if he’d pulled back to strike someone.”

  “I think it was a heart attack,” Herculeah said.

  “We’ll leave that to the coroner, shall we?” Chico Jones said.

  Herculeah got up, and her mother said quickly, “Are you feeling better?”

  “Yes, but I’ve got to get off this bed.”

  Her father looked at Herculeah. His stock-in-trade was never letting anyone know what he was thinking, and he was giving her that official look now.

  “And what were you doing here?”

  “Me? It’s a long story.”

  “We’ve got all evening.”

  “Well, I came in and I didn’t want to go upstairs, but I did.”

  “That’s the long story?”

  “Yes.”

  “You could be charged with trespassing, you know.”

  “Dad, you know I didn’t mean to trespass.”

  “She doesn’t need to be questioned anymore tonight,” her mother said firmly. “She needs to go home and take a shower and go to bed. You can come over tomorrow and get the details. The man’s been dead for years. There’s no rush.”

  Herculeah said, “What I don’t understand is why the police didn’t find him.”

  “I was here that day,” the sergeant said. He took out a stick of gum and folded it into his mouth. “We sure didn’t know about that staircase. The note said the body was on the stairway, and we checked both of the ones we knew about.” He smiled. “I guess we needed Herculeah’s help.”

  The coroner arrived then, and two attendants came up the stairs with a stretcher.

  “The body’s in there,” Chico Jones told them, “at the bottom of the stairs. If you can find the entrance to the stairs in the library, it might make it easier.”

  “We’ll check it out,” the attendant said.

  “There’ll be an inquest,” Chico Jones told them, “after we get the results from the coroner. Mr. Crewell, you’ll need to be there for that.”

  The Moloch nodded his head.

  “You too, Mim, Herculeah.”

  Her mother said, “Of course.”

  “I can be there too, Lieutenant Jones,” Meat said.

  “That may not be necessary, Meat.”

  “I want to know everything that happened.”

  Herculeah didn’t need the inquest or her glasses to know that. She could almost see it.

  The Moloch had startled his father in the dressing room. The father had pulled the cane back to strike, breaking the window, but the Moloch had knocked the cane away, picked him up like a toy, and thrown him to his death.

  But until the body was found, his father wasn’t really dead. The Moloch couldn’t rest. Finally, he’d written that childish note to the police, and come to stand in the crowd, hoping for the end.

  “Come on,” Herculeah’s father was saying.

  “We can go?” Herculeah asked, not believing her good luck.

  “Yes,” her father said, “I’ll give you all a ride home.” And this time he looked at Herculeah as if she were his daughter, instead of an unfriendly witness.

  “Thanks, Dad,” she said.

  24

  HERCULEAH VS THE HYDRA

  “So what do you think’s going to happen to the Moloch?” Meat asked. Herculeah and Meat were talking on the phone. Herculeah’s parents were in the kitchen, having beers and an argument.

  “Probably nothing. I don’t think they can prove he did it. But you know a funny thing? After you left, he talked to Mom about when he could go back to the asylum. He didn’t want to be out in this world. He just wanted to make sure his father was dead. It’s sad, really.”

  “What did your parents say?”

  “Nothing about the Moloch, plenty about me.”

  She heard her father’s voice in the kitchen saying, “You cannot let her get involved in your work!”

  “I don’t let her do anything. You know your daughter better than that!”

  “I’ve got to go,” Herculeah said. “My parents are still arguing about me in the kitchen. I want to be in bed before they decide to come in here and argue with me.”

  Herculeah hung up the phone. She picked up her eyeglasses from the desk. She looked at them for a moment before she hooked the thin metal loops around her ears. The phone rang.

  “If that’s for me, I’m not here,” her mother called.

  “Me either,” said her father.

  Herculeah smiled. They had been saying that every time the phone rang, and every time it had been Meat calling her. She lifted the phone. “Mim Jones’s office,” she said.

  “Channel 16! Channel 16!” Meat’s voice said.

  “Meat, is it you again?”

  “Yes. Turn on Channel 16 quick or you’ll miss it!”

  “What?” Herculeah removed her glasses, folded them, and set them on the desk.

  “They’re having something on Channel 16 called The All-Night Hercules Toga Party.
I just tuned in, and guess what?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Hercules vs the Moloch is on TV.”

  “So what is the Moloch? Have you seen him yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is he?”

  “A man in a cat mask.”

  “Meat, be real.”

  “I am. He’s a man in an iron cat mask. I was disappointed too. He’s supposed to be a god, and his victims are beautiful girls in short togas—virgins, they call them—and after he ruins the virgins’ faces, he says things like, ‘Now you are no longer beautiful so you no longer offend me.’”

  “Are you making this up?”

  “No, I’m watching it as we speak. A boring temple scene’s on now. Guys in beards are having veils put on the virgins.”

  “I cannot believe my mom named me because of a guy in a cat mask. I’m going in the kitchen now and—”

  “He’s back! He’s got a bow and arrow and he’s still got on the mask. The big question is what is under the mask. It’s like Phantom of the Opera where you have to wait till the very end. You want me to tape it for you? So you can see the Moloch’s face?”

  “Meat, I’ve seen enough Molochs to last me the rest of my life.”

  “Actually I have too, but maybe your mom would be interested.”

  “It would be a big disappointment—a guy in a cat mask. If my mom had seen that, she would have never named me Herculeah. I’d be Trish or Brandi or something.”

  “You want to stay on the line until the guy takes off his mask? It’s probably coming up pretty quick because Hercules is going in the cave.”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”

  “Good night, Meat.”

  “Good night.”

  Herculeah hung up the phone. She picked up the glasses, put them on, and looked through the round circles.

  Nothing happened. She had no wonderful thoughts, saw no novels, heard no songs to write, no poems. But, maybe, she thought, the glasses only worked when she needed them—the way they had in Dead Oaks.

  The phone rang, and Herculeah picked it up.

  “He just took off his mask and guess what?” Meat said.

  “Meat, it is almost midnight.”

  “Look, if you don’t want to know what was under the mask, just say you don’t want to know what was under the mask!”

  Herculeah weakened. “Oh, all right. What was under the mask?”

  “Actually, it wasn’t that bad—not bad enough to go around killing virgins over. His face was kind of twisted to the side and red—it was a disappointment if you want the truth.” He paused. “But guess what’s coming on?”

  “I’m too tired.”

  “Hercules vs the Hydra. ”

  “The Hydra?” Herculeah asked.

  “Yes, and I already know what that is—a serpent with nine venomous heads.”

  “The Hydra,” Herculeah said thoughtfully. She had a premonition of something—something in the near future. Herculeah vs the Hydra. The thought made her hair begin to rise. She pulled it back into a ponytail with one hand. Nine heads.

  “Want me to tape it?”

  “No,” she said. “I’ll wait for the real thing. Good night again, Meat.”

  “Good night, Herculeah.”

  What’s in store for Herculeah?

  Turn the page and find out what

  happens in her next adventure,

  TAROT SAYS BEWARE

  1

  A WARNING FROM TAROT

  Herculeah Jones was restless. She went to the window and looked up and down the street. Everything seemed normal, but she could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.

  She went to the phone on her mother’s desk. She dialed her friend Meat’s number. There was no answer. She went back to the window.

  This time her eyes narrowed at something she saw down the street—a flicker of motion. The binoculars were on the end table. Herculeah picked them up and lifted them to her face. She adjusted the lens. She leaned forward in her intensity.

  She noticed three things:1. The door to Madame Rosa’s house was open.

  2. Madame Rosa’s parrot had flown outside and was now perched on one of the porch rockers.

  3. Her hair was beginning to frizzle.

  She thought, Now I know something’s wrong. Her hair always did this when there was danger. Meat had once called it “radar hair,” and she had smiled. Herculeah wasn’t smiling now.

  She rushed into the hall, pulling on her sweater as she ran out the door. Pausing only to check for traffic, she crossed the street.

  Madame Rosa’s house was the fourth one down. There was a sign in front, in the shape of an open hand, that said:Madame Rosa

  Palmist

  Walk-ins Welcome

  Herculeah opened the gate and paused by the sign. She often came to Madame Rosa’s to feed the parrot when Madame Rosa was out of town. It alarmed her to see the parrot loose, because Madame Rosa was very particular about him. Something had to be badly wrong.

  “Tarot,” Herculeah said in a calm voice, not wanting to alarm the bird.

  Tarot cocked his head and looked back with round eyes dulled slightly by the cold.

  She glanced up at the house. “Madame Rosa, Tarot’s out!” she called.

  She waited, but Madame Rosa did not appear in the open doorway.

  “Madame Rosa!”

  Again no answer.

  Slowly Herculeah started up the walk.

  “It’s just me, Herculeah,” she told the bird. “You want to go back inside, don’t you, where it’s warm? I’ll even feed you.” The bird took a side step on the back of the rocker. “You want to go back to your perch? Then don’t fly off, Tarot.”

  The bird lifted his wings and flapped them but didn’t go anywhere.

  “That’s right. Don’t fly off. I’m taking you back in the house. Madame Rosa, your parrot’s out on the porch!”

  Herculeah slipped off her sweater as she climbed the stairs. The parrot lifted his wings in another feeble flutter.

  “It’s just me. I feed you, remember? I’m going to help you back in the house.”

  In one lightning-fast move, Herculeah threw her sweater around the bird. “Gotcha,” she said. She felt a moment of relief because Tarot was easily startled and she could have ended up chasing him all over the neighborhood.

  She carried him to the open door. She paused in the doorway.

  There were no lights on inside the house. Herculeah’s feeling of relief at catching the parrot so easily was replaced by a chill of dread.

  “Madame Rosa?”

  The parrot struggled in her arms. “It’s all right, Tarot. I’ll let you out in a minute.”

  Herculeah entered and shoved the front door shut with her shoulder. She walked into the dark living room.

  The huge pieces of furniture had been in place since the house had been built seventy years ago. The velvet drapes—almost as old—were drawn against the afternoon light. Herculeah clicked on a lamp as she passed the table.

  The parrot’s stand had been turned over and lay across the faded and worn Persian rug.

  “You must have gotten scared when your stand tipped over, huh? That’s why you flew out on the porch?” she said, though she had the feeling that that was not what had happened.

  She picked up the parrot’s stand. There was something else wrong about the room, but she couldn’t place what it was.

  She unwrapped the trembling bird and placed him on his perch. He took a few steps and began to swing his head from side to side.

  “Something happened in this house,” Herculeah stated. “Madame Rosa would never let you go outside—not if she could have prevented it.”

  She turned, slowly looking into the shadows of the room. She remembered that the last time she had been here, Madame Rosa had tried to pay her for looking after Tarot.

  “No,” Herculeah had said. “I like feeding him. It’s no trouble at all.”

/>   “I want to pay. You do me a big favor. Here, take it. Go on. Take.” She held out some money.

  “No. Oh, I have an idea,” Herculeah had said. “Give me a reading. I want to know if I’m going to get an A on my English test tomorrow.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in readings,” Madame Rosa said with a smile that showed her long teeth. Her dark, gray-streaked hair was held back with golden combs.

  “Well, I do and I don’t,” Herculeah said.

  “Which? You do? You don’t?”

  “Well, if you tell me I’m going to get an A, then I’ll probably work real hard and I will get one. So go ahead. Read the future.”

  She held out her hands, palms up. Madame Rosa leaned over them. Herculeah could smell the scent of herbs and foreign perfume.

  Madame Rosa put her hands under Herculeah’s. Her touch was light, but it seemed to offer strong support. Herculeah understood why people trusted Madame Rosa’s advice.

  “Ah,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I see a very long lifeline.”

  “What else?”

  “I see a boy who is in love with you—two boys, one dark, one fair.”

  “Madame Rosa, all I’m interested in right now is my English grade.”

  “I do see a letter—perhaps it stands for a grade. We can never be sure.”

  “What is the letter?”

  Herculeah really did not believe in palm readings and crystal balls, yet for some reason, she felt an excitement. It was like being part of a soap opera.

  “It is—” She paused. “I must look more closely.”

  “What letter, Madame Rosa? I’m getting serious about this.”

  “We cannot rush the future.” Madame Rosa had bent closer. “Ah, it is becoming clearer, clearer. It is an A. See?”

  With one finger Madame Rosa drew a capital A on Herculeah’s palm. Then she deftly slipped the bills on the open hand and closed Herculeah’s fingers around them.

  “That wasn’t fair,” Herculeah had said.

  As she stood in the living room, she realized that was the last time she had seen Madame Rosa. She had stood right here between the parrot stand and the huge old buffet that held pictures of Madame Rosa’s relatives. “All dead but one—no, I forget to count myself,” she had once said. “All dead but two.”