Guy Warmsby growled in his throat.
“That’s enough, Kathy. I know you’re upset about Peter, but don’t make it worse than it is. Come on, now. Pull yourself together and we’ll see about—taking care of Peter. We’ll have to go back to the hotel and make arrangements. I can’t carry him all that way back, as much as I’d like to.”
Katharine Cowles’ lips twisted in a grimace of supreme hate.
“Don’t you dare touch my brother’s body, you Judas. None of this would have happened if you had kept your part of the bargain.”
“I said shut up, Kathy. You’re distraught and talking a lot of nonsense, you know. You’re hysterical.”
Anne Fenner was confused. All around her, people were talking; it was like a swarm of angry hornets attacking her, stinging her senses. What were they both saying? What did Kathy mean—they were talking in circles, both of them!
“I don’t understand—” She looked from the woman on the ground to the man standing above her. “What is all this about? What money do you mean?—”
“Tell her, Guy,” Katharine Cowles laughed again. “I dare you to.”
“Pay no attention to her, Anne,” Guy Warmsby said, swallowing nervously. “Can’t you see she’s out of her head with grief?”
“Grief!” echoed Katharine Cowles with a roar of fury, bounding to her feet and clawing at him. The abruptness of the move caught Guy Warmsby completely off guard. In seconds, Katharine Cowles had plucked the gun from his hand, stepped away from the wall, circled outwards, and was now covering them both with the gun! “Don’t talk to me about grief. Now—my fine lovebirds—hear me out. You particularly, Anne Fenner. You ought to know the quality and cut of the jib of your dream man. Mr. Guy Warmsby, indeed. I curse the day I first set eyes on him. I sold my soul to the Devil the day I did!”
Anne Fenner could not speak.
Her mouth fell open.
Guy Warmsby’s handsome face had now contorted with a deep and obvious fear. His body was trembling, his hands clenching and unclenching. Katharine Cowles, her lovely face a mask of triumph, was pointing her brother’s gun at the man she loved, and it was clear from her expression that she had every intention of using it.
“Kathy, don’t.” His voice sounded high-pitched and strained. “It can be as it was. I’ll help you. We’ll blame her for Peter’s death and—”
The gun jabbed at him viciously and he recoiled. Perspiration shone on his forehead. Anne Fenner couldn’t release herself from a thick forest of bewilderment, hurt, and heart-felt agony. Again it was happening. Before her eyes. And Guy Warmsby—
“Peter never knew, poor dear,” Katharine Cowles said in an airy faraway voice. “He’d gotten a little too unstable to be let in on everything, you know. But there it is, Anne Fenner. The plan was for you to fall in love with Guy, as you would, and then we would all share in the money. But I didn’t plan on you being so lovely. Or Guy going for you the way he obviously has. Poor dear—look at him. I told you he was worth millions. Well, he may be some day, when he loses his penchant for bad investments and his old uncle dies. But we couldn’t wait that long; the money had run out—too fast. There would be no more expeditions or trips. Or larks like this Craghold vacation. That was when we found out about you, Anne Fenner, and came up here to be here when you showed up. Guy would have his blessed Caves, too, and all the archaeological fringe benefits. But you, Anne Fenner—you were the main attraction. Or should I say, Anne Fenner Van Ruys?”
Anne had listened to Katharine Cowles—dumbly, fearfully—wondering what she might say about Guy Warmsby and what she might have in store for them both, but the final two words of the smooth and easy discourse struck like a sledge-hammer in her mind.
… Van Ruys.…
“Van Ruys?” she said, startled. “What are you trying to tell me, Kathy?—”
“Anne, Anne,” Katharine Cowles said wryly, the gun and her attention still targeted in on Guy Warmsby, who had not moved from the wall of the rocky shoulder of The Caves of Hex, “you may have been born a Fenner but you’re the last, living descendant of the old Colonel. Didn’t you know that? Which means that Craghold House and three quarters of the real estate in this territory is all yours whenever you step forward and claim it. You’re probably worth millions, sweetie, millions.”
For a long moment, the world stood still.
The world in which she was Scotch-Irish, came from Boston, was born to Paul and Cecelia Fenner, and had never known any other biographical data. What Katharine Cowles was saying was mad, was impossible—wasn’t true.
It couldn’t be!
Katharine Cowles must have seen the disbelieving expression on the beautiful young face before her. She laughed again, a low and almost good-humored ripple of mirth.
“It’s true, all right, my girl. And I’ll prove it to you—just before I shoot you and my old flame here. After that, I don’t care. I have nothing futher to live for anyway—”
“Kathy—” Guy Warmsby’s voice was a low husk of entreaty. “Be smart. We can still make some sense out of all this. Don’t throw us both away because you’re jealous—”
The gun raised several inches higher and Guy Warmsby stopped talking, the color draining even more from his bronzed face. He was pale now, in a ghastly, terrible, almost lifeless way—the pallor of a person who is staring into the mouth of Death and knows it.
“That’s it, Guy,” Katharine Cowles said with quiet force. “You shut up. Let me do the talking. And spare me any of your attempts to make things right between us. You can’t. You killed all that when you fell in love with her. Killed all that when you killed Peter. He adored you, Guy, and all you could do was kill him.”
Anne Fenner bit her lip, her mind racing.
“I am not a Van Ruys,” she said with an edge to her tone—an edge of terror. “You can’t make me believe I am—”
“No?” Kathy simpered. “Then listen, girl, and I’ll tell you who you really are—”
All around her, as the mad scene continued to unfold, Anne Fenner could see the sun trying to break through the dull and leaden skies. It was as if the world were truly mad and nothing good could ever win, could ever triumph over Evil.
All, all—was truly lost.
“I wish that tree had fallen on you, Anne. Then none of this would be necessary. But that wasn’t our doing, either. Probably some of those insane people around here playing games again—” The tall and beautiful woman with the gun spoke very wearily as she began her bitter tale of the discovered lost heiress.
Finds A Foe
The words, which seemed to flow in torrents from Katharine Cowles’ red mouth, counterpointed by the jabbing threat of the gun in her slender fingers, were all too incredible to hear. It wasn’t in Anne Fenner’s power to dam the flood or stop the words. She had to listen, and in the listening grew her great wonder.
It couldn’t be true, but Kathy Cowles was saying—
—that her father, Paul Fenner, was the last cousin of the Van Ruys line, and that Otto Van Ruys, who had died in the big fire in Chicago and was believed to be the sole remaining descendant of old Colonel Van Ruys, was not truly the last. Father Fenner himself had had no knowledge of his own claim on the Van Ruys estate. Why would a Scotch-Irishman from Boston believe he had any connection with an ancient Dutch line in another country? But he had—there had been an intermarriage in the long ago. Katharine Cowles knew all this because her brother, Peter, rooting among ancient occult papers, family histories and dusty City Hall records, had come across the minute fact in an archive on the Van Ruys chronicle. And then it had been easy to locate Anne Fenner, to learn of her plan to come to Craghold (a coincidence of the Gods themselves!), and further, to plot to turn the charm of a Guy Warmsby loose on an impressionable young woman with the hope of marrying her and then “stumbling” on the truth of possible inheritance—and inevitably sharing in the great wealth that must be there. It had all been made-to-order, seemingly. Only Guy Warmsby had spoiled it all by
showing more than a con man’s interest in Anne, thereby alienating the Cowles and making them think his future plans might not include themselves. Peter Cowles’ growing chaos of mind had not made the matter any easier. The entire applecart, the get-rich-quick scheme, had blown up in all their faces. Including Anne Fenner’s.
Culminating in the final act of the monstrous tragedy they were all playing out here, high on the top of The Caves of Hex.
Anne Fenner shook her head violently.
The insane words, the pile of facts thrown at her pell-mell, had sent her own sanity reeling. Kathy’s clipped and incisive words were like so many knives sticking into her, drawing blood.
“But why try to drive me away,” she wailed, “with all that terrible trickery? Why did you have to frighten me so? That face at my window—the shining room with all that crystal-clear light—”
Katharine Cowles’ expression altered subtly, but the purpose and menace did not leave her eyes. Guy Warmsby was quiet, as if ashamed to speak any more. Or too afraid of her gun.
“Yes, I know. You told me.” She shrugged. “I can’t account for those. It was none of our doing. Maybe Craghold does have a real ghost, and queer rooms with odd lights. No, Anne. All that did was give dear Peter the idea of playing vampire and trying to scare you out of our lives. We could have persuaded Guy not to follow you. Peter had given up on our scheme by then, you see. He was so afraid we would lose Guy to your charm.”
“But how could he have gotten into the room?—”
“He lied, girl. About there being no secret panels. There is one, connecting the wall of your room to a hidden passageway leading from Peter’s room to yours. He’s always been imaginative, good with a make-up kit. Scared you out of your senses. It was easy for him to sneak back out while you were swooning with fear.”
“How horrible of all of you.”
“How smart, Miss Boston. It would have done the trick too, if you didn’t have such a case on Guy. So here we are—right up to the second. Standing at The Caves of Hex—the last resting place for all of us. Say your prayers, sweetie. You aren’t going to live long enough to find out if Craghold House is really yours after all these years. But you do have a legitimate claim; you are the last of the Van Ruys line—I’m not fooling you about that. Peter Cowles was a lot of strange things, but he was thorough—a genuine scholar.”
Anne Fenner tilted her chin defiantly.
“Why kill anybody? Is it worth so much to you, this worthless man’s love? Please, Kathy. Don’t do it—not for my sake but your own—”
Katharine Cowles scowled darkly, her eyes narrowing and her mouth twisting. The gun came up higher, swinging now to level at the bosom of Anne Fenner. For a full second, the gunsight wavered.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Kathy Cowles hissed. “None of this would have happened if you had stayed in Boston where you belonged instead of trying to mingle with your betters! You little fool, you’ve ruined all of us—”
Guy Warmsby launched himself off the wall at Katharine Cowles. As if he had been furtively gathering his strength, waiting for an opening, the one he found when Kathy turned her fury in the direction of Anne Fenner.
Anne shrieked. She had to.
For Guy Warmsby was too late.
And Katharine Cowles was more than ready for him.
Coldly, icily, with great care and deliberation, she stepped back, flicked the gun slightly, and depressed the trigger. Anne’s cry was drowned out in the blasting, close-range explosions of the ivory-handled automatic. Three times the gun blasted, and each of the bullets buried themselves in Guy Warmsby’s broad torso, exactly in the region of his heart. His outstretched arms never reached the tall and lithe woman who was executing him with frightening precision. Guy Warmsby slammed back against the wall, quivered briefly, and subsided in a curled-up position, face down on the hard earth. He was obviously dead before his body sprawled to rest at the mouth of the cave. Then Katharine Cowles callously turned the weapon on Anne Fenner and raised it, taking dead aim at Anne’s face—the lovely face that had threatened to take Guy Warmsby away from her.
Anne backed away, and the wall of the mountainous rock stopped her. She could retreat no further. It was all over now.
“Goodbye, sweetie,” Katharine Cowles murmured in a dead flat voice. “It’s been—”
And it was.
All so incredibly unearthly. So weird, so incomprehensible.
This strange country, this devil’s clime—
Anne Fenner was staring directly at Katharine Cowles, waiting for the bullet that would end all the terror and madness.
She saw it all from where she stood in held-breath fear, and it was something she might never see again—not in this life or this world, not anywhere known to the human mind. Or heart. Or soul.
She saw Katharine Cowles’ slitted eyes open wide in surprise. She saw the tall, lithe, stunning woman back away. She saw the gun suddenly fall from senseless, nerveless fingers. She saw Kathy’s lips twitch with a spasm of some kind, saw the lovely eyes pop, the ivory complexion blanch with horror. A low moan escaped from the woman, and she continued to retreat, backing up, her eyes riveted like frozen things on the mouth of the big cave.
Anne Fenner’s head rotated wildly, trying to see what it was that was making Katharine Cowles behave like a crazed woman. She swung her eyes toward the cave entrance. Already, the drums of death were pounding in her ears. Surely, this was some kind of hoax, some delusion, some mad trick on Kathy’s part to torment her further.
She saw nothing.
Only the gaping black maw that led into the core of The Caves of Hex—nothing more than that and the crumpled, dead body of Guy Warmsby sprawled across the stone floor, all his male beauty lost forever. But Katharine was seeing something, obviously. She had pushed out her hands, splaying them, shoving at something as if to keep it away from her. Her dark eyes were wide open with some nameless horror, her entire body shuddering. She continued to back away, oblivious of the danger behind her, all of her attention and concentration focussed on the unseen thing before her. Whatever it was.
“No—” she gasped, in the strangest voice Anne Fenner had ever heard—a low, wire-thin voice that held all the fear in the universe. Anne couldn’t move, couldn’t run to help her in her dilemma; she too was very much caught up in the incredible tableau unfolding before her.
“Stay away from here!—” Katharine Cowles suddenly screamed, and whirling like a crazy woman, she plunged forward. Her tall figure was flying, trying to outrun whatever it was that was behind her. But there was no place to hide—only the yawning, deep chasm of space beyond the rim of the parapet. Only that and nothing more.
In an instant she was gone.
The long, trailing shriek of sound that marked her descent rang like the bells of Hades in Anne Fenner’s ears.
Then there was nothing else but silence.
And the low, almost whispering voice of the wind scurrying across the stone carpet of The Caves of Hex.
Anne Fenner remained where she was for a long time.
It was suddenly difficult to breathe, to think coherently. The entirety of her mind was filled with revolting horror and the terror of the Unknown. It was all so inconceivable—they were trying to drive her crazy, that was it. This was all another monstrous game invented by the clever Cowles duo and Guy Warmsby. Nobody was really dead, nobody was hurt—Guy would leap to his feet in a moment and smilingly remark, “We sure had you fooled, eh, Anne?”
And beautiful Kathy and clever Peter would be waiting at the foot of the rocky hill with smiles on their faces and giggles on their lips, pleased as punch with their little melodrama.… and she really wasn’t a Van Ruys descendant at all, and none of it—none of it!—was real or true.
How could it be?
Only a few hours ago, four fairly happy people had left Craghold House on a walking jaunt to see one of the historical attractions of Kragmoor country. And now three of those bright, laughing, happy people we
re dead.
And only she was alive.
Anne Fenner of Boston.
A woman now very close to the borderline of insanity.
Anne Fenner, alone on the mountain, staring up at the grey sky, the black maw of the cave mouth just behind her, began to giggle—a low, hysterical series of bubbling noises that almost didn’t sound human. Her laughter rose, pealing, clattering on a high note, seeming to reverberate off the stone sides of The Caves of Hex. The wild mirth raced around the parapet, soared into space and rode on the back of the wind. The pale sun feebly warmed down from the sky with a pitiful display of amber rays.
Only the wind heard Anne Fenner.
The wind also heard when she stopped laughing and began to cry—a sound even more terrible than the hysterical laughter.
But somehow, infinitely more human.
More natural.
The black mouth of the entrance to the labyrinth of caves shone emptily in the grey and grisly daylight.
Guy Warmsby did not get up.
And whatever apparition or thing it was that Katharine Cowles had seen, or thought she saw, did not show its face or form to the girl crying piteously on the rock floor of the mountain.
For Anne Fenner, all Time itself had stopped.
As well as Love.
She picked her way very carefully down the stone trail that led back to terra firma. She was dry-eyed and calm now. It had taken a full hour before she could compose herself sufficiently to try the descent. The Caves of Hex were chilling enough, and the thought of remaining was abhorrent, the sight of Guy Warmsby’s corpse enough to drive her down. But she had to leave, to get back to Craghold House, to tell Carteret, to tell somebody—anybody—all that had happened. Her own mind was still incapable of accepting it all. She was so internally unbalanced and upset by the three tragedies of her friends that she deliberately kept her eyes on the stone steps below each fall of her booted feet. She didn’t want to see the smashed and battered bodies of two people with whom she had had breakfast and lunch that very day. She was sure it might drive her truly mad.
The Craghold Legacy Page 13
