by Zenith Brown
“No, of course not. But——”
“Then don’t talk any more.”
There was no use talking. He felt she was no longer there, except in the literal sense of the words. The rest of her was gone, dissolved, evanescent as smoke, back into her own remote and cloudy land.
“I must go away now,” she murmured. “It’s the spiders. They worry me.”
She moved vaguely off over to the gate, opened it, went through and closed it softly, disappearing then around the billowing sea of boxwood. She appeared again, a frail indistinct blur on the steps for a moment before she vanished into the darkness under the wistaria. An invisible door opened, and closed. Spig O’Leary was alone again in the eerie silence, eerier suddenly with the haunting lament of the owl down in the marsh, the hunter crying in the lonely night.
He went over and sat down on the office steps, with a feeling of sardonic but intense footlessness, and tensed abruptly, listening. It was not sound that alerted him but the absence of sound. The host of tiny sentinels of the night were suddenly mute.
He got quietly to his feet and moved out to the edge of the lane, waiting for a light or the scrunch of tyres on the gravel . . . of the scrunch of a footstep along the road. But there was none of them. Only the tree frogs. He turned quickly, realising his mistake. The song of the night wasn’t in the woods or along the lane. It was across the wall over in the garden, the way he’d come, where he’d met with the same muting of voices, the same renewal when he was safely past. He moved along the grass silently, back to the picket fence, keeping inside the shadow of the wall, waiting for a footstep to reach the drive. And wondering. If it was Dunning coming up the garden, he would have to cross the O’Leary’s field to the bridge, and the dog would have barked. It could be Miss Fairlie coming back. He searched the dark perimeter of the boxwood for the frail blur of her white wrapper, listening for the soft sound of her tread. Then abruptly he heard the restless chirp of a bird in a sudden well of silence centred down towards the arbour, and a faint rasp that could have been a footstep retreating. Again he heard a restless chirp, but along the arbour, away from the house towards the little Greek temple down by the yews. A distant tree frog muted its song, one closer to the gate renewed his.
He moved over to the gate, unlatched it, slipped through and closed it softly. The moonlight on the borders and the roses of the arbour, made graceful corridors of snow above the darker paths of the turf and the dense black cluster of the cryptomeria, spangled with fireflies, concealing the columns of the summer house. It was that way Dunning, if it was Dunning, was headed, his progress marked by the cicadas, silent, and the birds, restless.
Spig went out on the grass again, aware of small wells of silence he himself created as he crouched a little to keep below the massed lilies and foxglove and made his way down to circle back up around the river path, the way he’d taken home that morning past the graveyard. What Dunning would possibly be doing there was nothing but a formless uneasiness in his mind. It was anger he felt chiefly. Dunning wouldn’t be here at all if he didn’t know there were neither guns nor dogs on Eden. He’d been careful to avoid the lane where he would have to pass David’s house near the gate out on the old road. In here he was safe, with nothing to disturb him but one frail little old woman in a sealed up house.
He stopped, straightening up warily. He was at the end of the borders, where the river path joined the path down to the bridge across the Cove. He looked over the frosted lawns. The cryptomeria were a dense screen hiding the house, hiding the arbour. Behind them, where he was seeing now, the moon was bright on the rigid guardians, the clipped yews. Between them he could make out the shadowy grey forms of the stones in the hollow square they watched, and catch, beyond them, the tenuously shining columns of the temple against the silver sheen of the river showing through them. There were other forms, or shadows so tangible they seemed forms, the whole scene alive with the pale ascending glow of the fireflies. Then he saw one light, close to the ground, ruddier than the rest, as intermittent as the fireflies but glowing as it fell, not as it rose.
He tensed again, watching its casual arc, waiting. But it didn’t move then, except to glow bright an instant before it faded in its downward arc. The smoker, stationary and at ease, wets seated, not standing.
He moved then, quickly, his rubber soles noiseless on the familiar path skirting the bank above the cover, circled around it to the river-front, and stopped abruptly.
Dunning was in front of him, in the open lawn half-way between the temple and the graveyard. He knew it was Dunning by the easel set up, a square of white canvas on it, and the binoculars raised to his eyes. And because it was Dunning he had come to find. He would not have known otherwise. The man was solid black, or appeared so in the silver patch of moonlight there, his white hands holding the binoculars, the white strip of his forehead above his bearded face, the only parts of him not black.
The black hair, the black beard, the navy-blue denims that looked black at night. Like a chimney sweep. Like a chimney sweep . . . or a devil from hell, perched there on his stool, his binoculars fixed on the graveyard, wrong end to, to throw it into distant minute perspective—like the bawdy street in the Ashton portrait. Like a devil, not like a witch. There was no broom there, only the palette case on the grass beside him; and it was not the blackness, or his perching there, outside the graveyard, that was devilish. It was some quality of almost obscene excitement, in the way he was perched, in the quick darting turns of his head, the binoculars first on the graves, then on the temple, the avidity of his absorption so intense that he wasn’t conscious of O’Leary full in the path, not twenty feet from him. As he laughed suddenly, O’Leary’s flesh crawled. Obscene. There was no other word.
He went deliberately up to him. “On your way, Dunning.”
Dunning flashed around. He was startled, but it was surprise only, not fear. He relaxed at once.
“Why, bless me, it’s O’Leary.”
He put the binoculars on the turf and crossed his leg, clasping his hands around his knees, leaning back, rocking, grinning complacently.
“I’m a ghoul, O’Leary. I love opening graves in the dark of the moon. So run along. I’ve got some work to do. It’s only the pure in heart who’re safe to prowl the sepulchres by night. What the hell are you doing here, anyway, if you’ll permit me to inquire?”
“I’m telling you to pack up and clear out.”
“By whose authority?” Dunning asked pleasantly.
“Look, Dunning. I don’t need any authority. But I’ve got it, if you’d like to see it.”
He took his wallet out of his pocket, opened it, turned the white ball of his flashlight on the badge pinned inside, held it out for Dunning to see.
“Oh, my God!”
Dunning uncrossed his knee, laughing, doubling himself up with mirth.
“How humourless can you get, O’Leary? Really, Spig. No wonder your wife finds you lethally a bore. You——”
“That’s enough, Dunning.” O’Leary put his wallet back in his pocket, watching him impassively. “You’ve got three minutes. Get going.”
“Oh, don’t be such an ass, O’Leary,” Dunning said impatiently. “I’m just painting a picture of a grave by the light of the moon. It’s not hurting a soul. Not a soul.”
He laughed, the way he’d laughed when he thought he was alone. O’Leary felt the cold chill again.
“I’m not joking,” he said quietly. “I gave you three minutes. You’ve got two left.”
Dunning sat forward, grinning. “Two minutes before what, O’Leary? Before you hit me? Before you knock all my teeth out?—Neanderthal man, as Ashton called you. Or are you trying to scare me to death, too? Hit me if you dare, my friend.”
“I’m not going to hit you. I’m going to take you in to town to jail.”
Dunning looked sharply at him. “Of all the stupid——”
“Jail, Dunning. One minute.”
Dunning’s foot shot out, kicking his easel and canva
s, cursing as he grabbed the easel up and grabbed his stool, his face livid, the saliva spraying from his mouth, his voice choking with rage.
“Hit me! I’m cursing you, O’Leary! Hit me! You wouldn’t take it if I were your size! You wouldn’t . . .”
“I wouldn’t,” O’Leary said. He kept his hands rigidly at his sides, fighting back the red fog around him. “Time’s up.”
“I’m going, blast you! Can’t you see I’m going! I’ve got a boat!”
He caught up the palette case. “I’m going . . . but you wait, O’Leary! I’ll crucify you! You’ll see! You and all the rest of them. And Miss Crazy Fairlie! Wait till I get through with——”
Spig took a quick step forward. Dunning dodged and ran, screaming, invective pouring out of him like a river of pitch. Spig stood where he was. If he caught him he’d kill him. He stood there, the gutter swill and filth of a language he hadn’t heard since the war and had forgotten even existed burning into his brain. His hands were shaking violently when he heard the rattle of oarlocks and saw the dark form of the Ashton’s dinghy shoot out into the silver surface of the river, the Tattoo Artist sobbing with fury.
O’Leary waited a moment and walked back along the bank towards the big house, stopping to watch the boat as long as he could see it. The floodlight went on above the Ashtons’ pier. He turned then and saw another light, in Miss Fairlie’s kitchen. He saw the door open. She stood there, in her white wrapper, her white sailor hat still on.
“He’s gone, Miss Fairlie.” The assumption was she wouldn’t have understood any of Dunning’s valedictory or he’d have been more embarrassed then he was. “He was painting the graveyard. I don’t think he will come again.”
“I’m out of whisky,” Miss Fairlie said. “Would you like some brandy?”
“Why . . . yes, I mean, thanks. I’d like some very much.”
She didn’t ask him in, but she left the door open. She came back almost at once. He took the glass she handed him. She stood there blinking absently while he drank it, smooth as cream, clean as golden fire, to burn the taste of Dunning out of his mouth.
He gave her back the glass. “That was wonderful. Thank you.”
“It’s very old,” she said. “It’s the black widow spider. Very dangerous. But they only attack when they’re provoked. Mr. Dunning’s a very stupid man, I’m afraid”
CHAPTER XVIII
IT WAS around two o’clock when Spig went home. The moon was clouded over, and a light rain starting to fall made it certain Dunning wouldn’t come back to Eden again that night.
He went quietly upstairs, taking off his jacket and shirt as he went.
“Who was that screaming over there?”
He turned on the light. Molly was over by the windows, partly dressed, tense, blue shadows under her eyes. “I was coming over. I was beginning to worry.”
“Just your friend Dunning.”
He sounded brutal where he’d meant to sound casual—the macabre picture of the Tattoo Artist, the black figure midway between the graves and the white shining temple, the devilish excitement and glee the more sinister the more he thought about it.
“He was over there with his paints. He was sore when I made him clear out.”
Her body stiffened.
“Look. Let’s not start this again,” he said. “If you think it’s all right for him to be over there at night——”
“I don’t think it’s all right,” she said sharply. “I think it’s horrible. It’s . . . frightening. But it would make more sense to find out what he’s doing.”
“I know what he’s doing,” Spig said shortly. “Out of his own mouth. In his own words. He’s crucifying Miss Crazy Fairlie. Also me. And everybody else around here.”
“But . . . I thought you said it was George Sudley. That he was trying to find out——”
“For the same reason. Pure malice. But let’s skip it. I don’t pretend to know how his mind works, what reasons he gives himself—or you. But he’s damn well going to stay away from Eden, and stay away from here from now on. This is where Sudley was killed. He’s not poking around here any more. And this date he said you had with him—call him up and break it. If you don’t, I will.”
“Those are orders, I take it. Sergeant O’Leary to the troops. In triplicate.”
“And another thing. We’re not buying the Ashton place.”
He saw the colour rise in her cheeks. “Who says so?”
“Miss Fairlie says so.”
She looked at him blankly. “Miss Fairlie? You mean she won’t . . .”
“That’s right. She won’t.” It wasn’t the way he’d planned to tell her. No tender scene, just a couple of snapping turtles again. “She says we’re halfwits. If we sell, she buys. Which is probably just what Anita and her father thought. They must have figured if Miss Fairlie wanted the place she’d have done something about it. But that’s the story.”
“Well,” Molly said. “Dear me.” She reached down and pulled up the cotton blanket. “I guess we were just born lucky. Not everybody’s got a mad woman for a guardian. But it doesn’t change our obligation. We’ve got to do something.”
“I just wondered what I’d do about my contract,” was all Tip said when O’Leary came out in the morning. The vegetables were already in the car.
“You coming with me? I have to go on into town.”
Tip shook his head. “I’m going to stay home.” He stood there, his hand on the car window. “Dad . . . what do I do if Mr. Dunning comes?”
“He won’t,” Spig said evenly. “But if he should, you don’t do anything. I won’t be long. Just forget about him.”
He hadn’t forgotten him himself, or the dream that had dogged him through the night, the black figure stealthily recurring, twitching with horrible excitement, his laughter always an echo even when he’d waked. But he’d had sense enough not to say anything about him at the breakfast table. No more orders to the troops.
“Take it easy, Tip. I want to see the sheriff and Nat Twohey and I’ll be right back.”
He saw the first of the “For Sale “signs of the Eden’s Neck people where the old road past Miss Fairlie’s gate entered the highway. It was on the white fence of the house next to Joe Malotti’s. The Home Owners weren’t waiting to see what, if anything, the O’Learys could do—not even giving them the three days Anita had given them. Miss Fairlie’s prognosis coming true quicker than she’d thought. He drove on between Sudley’s mile-long white fences, turned into the crossway on the other side of Bill’s Live Bait, Blood Worms and Peelers, and waited for a truck to pass to get across to the Three D side. As he did he saw Anita Ashton over there in the air-conditioned Cadillac, her blonde head greenish through the tinted glass. When the truck passed she shot out from the gravelled space in front of Nick’s around the truck, burning the road towards home. It was twenty-four minutes to eight, early for Mrs. Ashton.
The hole in the blue glass wall was patched with plywood.
“The man’s coming to-day.” Nick Pappas was very busy with the garbage cans and cases of milk and bread. It was cool, but he had tiny beads of sweat on his fish-belly brow. “It’s like I told Buck Yerby, Mr. O’Leary. Just an accident. I got the money. Right in my pocket.” He patted his rear end where his wallet was, avoiding Spig’s eyes.
“You mean Mrs. Ashton’s paid up.”
O’Leary opened his door and hoisted the baskets of wax beans and beets on to the ground.
Nick mopped his face with his apron. “You shouldn’a told, Mr. O’Leary. It just makes trouble. All the time trouble. Yerby got his cars up and down, all night. Korvac at the Breezy Inn, he calls me up. ‘What the hell you doin’, Nick—monkey-wrenchin’ my business? You got a piece of busted glass, so you gotta squeal, huh? Monkey-wrenchin’ the whole Strip.’ You tell Yerby. Tell him I got my money. I bring it in and show him with his own eyes.” He slapped his pocket again. “Right here I got it.”
“When you get it cashed, you mean.” O’Leary got ba
ck in his car. “Okay, I’ll tell him, Nick—if you want to go on being pushed around.”
Buck Yerby’s secretary smiled apologetically at the half dozen people waiting in the outer office when Spig got there. “The sheriff’s been trying to get you, Mr. O’Leary. Go right in, will you?”
“I thought you were on the job at Eden, O’Leary.” There was a calm in Yerby’s voice not matching the gleam under his black brows.
“ ’Mornin’, Mr. O’Leary.”
That was old David, sitting in the chair by Yerby’s desk, his Sunday panama on his knees, an old man late in his seventies, grizzled and shrunken not much bigger than Miss Fairlie.
“I was tellin’ Mr. Buck. Somebody been messin’ roun’ my graves. Smokin’ cigarettes. That artis’ fella is the one I had in my mind. I foun’ that this mornin’.”
He nodded at a small tube of paint on Yerby’s desk. “I ain’ tol’ Miss Fairlie. But we don’ like strangers we don’ know foolin’ aroun’, daytime or dark.”
“I guess he dropped it when I chased him out,” Spig said. “Miss Fairlie knows it, David. She was up when he was there.”
“I expec’ so,” David said complacently. “She ain’ scared of th’ devil hisself if’n he was to come. But I jus’ thought I’d let you know. She need her res’ at night.”
“We’ll see she gets it.” Yerby pushed his chair back and went over to the door with him, a compliment he seldom paid. “Mr. O’Leary will be around. We’ll look after her.”
His face was grim as he came back. “Orders were, shoot to kill.”
“I was smart,” Spig said. “I left my gun at home.”
“What time was he there?”
“Round one. He was all set to paint the graveyard by moonlight.”
“Then it wasn’t him in his yellow car at Foggy Bottom at one-ten, going ninety. My man damned near smashed up trying to catch him. There was a girl in the car, too.”
O’Leary said nothing.
Yerby shrugged. “According to Dunning, he was with Lucy the night before. Not Charlie. Charlie just stopped to say hallo to them outside the Three D on the way over to his aunt’s. That’s what Lucy and Dunning told me at the Ashtons’ last night, Anita and her father both present. Anybody that says any different is lying for reasons best known to himself. That’s you, O’Leary. That’s the——”
