The Search for My Great-Uncle’s Head

by Jonathan Latimer

  All of a sudden I saw the flash of white again, almost at the edge of the lake. It was a man, barefooted and wearing a white shirt and black trousers. He had several objects clasped in his arms. I circled cautiously behind a clump of rosebushes and made my way on hands and knees behind this protection until I was less than twenty feet from him. Slowly I lifted my head above the last bush and peered at him.

  It was George Coffin.

  I was so startled that I nearly overbalanced into the roses. What was he doing out here? I looked at his face. He had left his glasses somewhere, and there was mud on his forehead and on his cheeks. But his eyes were what shocked me. They had a haunting quality about them, a mixture of horror and fear and determination. He looked like a priest of the ancient god Baal about to perform one of those weird inhuman rites in which the ancients were accustomed to sacrifice their virgins and children for divine protection.

  The object he carried in his arms did nothing to lessen this nightmare impression. It appeared to be some sort of a small naked creature, and I was prepared to hear from it a shrill wail. So fast did my imagination race that I even wondered where he had been able to secure a baby. Did Mrs Bundy have one?

  Then he took the object in his right hand and held it away from him, and I became at once relieved and more amazed than ever. It was a broiled chicken! He hurled it far out into the lake. At his bare feet were other objects. As he picked each one up and threw it into the lake I identified them. Two apples, a loaf of bread, a half a pie and a covered metal container filled with a white liquid which leaked out as it flew through the air.

  “There,” he muttered to the lake, “eat that.”

  Then he turned quickly, so quickly he nearly surprised me, and started for the house at a rapid trot. In three seconds he was out of sight.

  I couldn’t begin to separate all the emotions, the conjectures, the violent disbeliefs which filled me as I followed him. It must be a dream, I told myself. It must be! But there was a smell of roses and buttercups in my nostrils and the feel of the east wind on my back and the damp grass under my feet and the small pale stars in the north. They were real, too real for any dream. Could I be mad?

  I climbed through the pantry window and groped my way into the living room. The sheriff was still asleep, his breath perfectly regular. The bed of small coals still gleamed on the hearth, and the ashes of the faggot I had put on the fire lay on them, gray-white and shaped like a small fossil. I sat down and debated what I should do. I knew the conventional thing would be to arouse Sheriff Wilson and tell him of my experience. But I had several reasons for not wanting to do this. In the first place he wouldn’t believe my story. In the second, he would want to know why I hadn’t called him when I heard the noise in the pantry. And finally I didn’t want to get George Coffin into any trouble until I was certain he was responsible for the murders at Graymere, the official name of my great-uncle’s estate.

  But what in the world would make George Coffin throw a broiled chicken in the lake?

  I tossed two pieces of wood on the fire and watched the bright sparks race up the chimney. The noise woke the sheriff, and he struggled into a half-sitting position on the davenport. “Hello,” he said. “You still up?”

  “I’m too upset to sleep,” I explained. “Bronson was an old friend, almost a relative.…”

  “Yeah, I know.” The sheriff’s voice was sympathetic. “I was like that when my sister Sophie died.” He rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands. “Any sign of my posse?”

  “Not yet.”

  The fire seemed to have a hypnotic effect on the sheriff. He blinked his eyes at the yellow blaze several times, sighed heavily and sank back on the couch. “Well, I reckon a body might as …”

  Upstairs a woman screamed.

  “Lordalmighty!” exclaimed the sheriff, sitting up. “What was that?”

  The woman screamed again. The sound was terrible. There was a note of utter terror in her voice, a feeling of nerves completely out of control.

  “Come on,” said the sheriff.

  We raced up the stairs and down the corridor. The screaming was coming from Mrs Coffin’s room. The sheriff flung open the door. Mrs Coffin was sitting up in her bed, her arms crossed over her breast, her eyes insane. A small reading lamp, on a table beside her bed, cast a milky light over her. She screamed again, almost deafening our ears.

  At this moment George Coffin came through the connecting door to his room. “Grace! Grace!” he exclaimed. “What’s the matter?” He ran to the bed and caught hold of his wife’s shoulders.

  His touch broke the nightmare spell she had been under. She looked at his face, and the insanity left her eyes. She shuddered and pulled the covers up to her neck.

  Other people were in the room now, behind us. I glanced around and saw Dr Harvey and Miss Leslie. They both appeared frightened. Miss Leslie’s face was absolutely white, and her eyes met mine questioningly. I shook my head.

  George Coffin was asking his wife, “What happened, dear?”

  The fear returned to Mrs Coffin’s eyes. “The madman. He was in my room. Bending over my bed.” She leaned closer to George Coffin. “He frightened me so.”

  “The madman!” George Coffin’s eyes met the sheriff’s. “How could he have gotten in here? Haven’t you been guarding downstairs?” He turned back to his wife. “Are you sure it wasn’t a bad dream, dear?”

  “No. He was in here. I saw him.” There was an overwrought, sobbing quality to her voice. “He bent over the bed. His face was horrible. Horrible.” She put her hands over her eyes. “I think he was going to kill me.”

  Somebody pushed past me. It was Burton Coffin. He halted by his mother’s bed, on the side opposite his father, and asked, “What’s happened?”

  “Your mother thinks she has seen the madman,” said George Coffin.

  I looked closely at George, but I was unable to see any traces of the mud I had noticed on his face when he had thrown the food into the lake. His pajamas, of yellow silk trimmed with green, were clean, and there were no signs on his bare feet of his recent excursion. Moreover, his face expressed only natural concern for his wife. Could it have been someone else I had seen outdoors? Someone resembling George?

  Sheriff Wilson was speaking. “I think it would be best if we left Mrs Coffin with her family,” he said, “but before I go I’d like to know just what the person you saw, Mrs Coffin, did.”

  Mrs Coffin had regained most of her customary composure. “There isn’t much to tell,” she said. “I was awakened by a noise, and I switched on the light. There was a man bending over my bed. His face was covered with mud, and he seemed to be grinning at me. His expression was dreadful.” Her right hand clasped Burton’s arm tightly.

  “Then what, Mrs Coffin?”

  “I screamed, and he disappeared.”

  “Oh, Mother,” said Burton. “I think you must have dreamed it.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “It was real.”

  “Well, thank you, Mrs Coffin.” The sheriff moved toward the door. “I suppose Mr Coffin will stay with you?”

  “Burton and I both will,” replied George Coffin.

  In the hall we were met by Dan Harvey. “Sis is with Mother,” he told his father. “What happened?”

  We told him.

  “It must have been a dream. I know I have nightmares sometimes that seem absolutely real to me.”

  “I think you’re right, young man,” agreed Sheriff Wilson. “If anybody’d come out of her room we’d seen him.” He peered at Dr Harvey for confirmation. “What do you think, Doc?”

  Dr Harvey shrugged his shoulders. “There have been some darn funny things around here.”

  Joan glanced at me. “Are you going to stay up the remainder of the night, Peter?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’m too excited to sleep.”

  “Then I’m coming downstairs with you if you don’t mind. I’m not going to stay alone in that room of mine.”

  I felt a warm glow i
n the vicinity of my chest. “I don’t mind at all,” I replied.

  She secured a camel’s hair overcoat to put over her kimono; the Harveys went back to their suite of rooms, and we started along the corridor. As we passed the stairs to the third floor, Mrs Bundy’s red face peered down at us. She wanted to know what had happened.

  “Mrs Coffin had a nightmare,” said the sheriff.

  “Thank the lord,” said Mrs Bundy. “I was thinking it might be another murder.”

  There was a light in Colonel Black’s room, further yet along the hall. The door was ajar, and after knocking I pushed it open. There was nobody in the room.

  “Ho,” exclaimed the sheriff. “I wonder where he is.”

  The two logs I had put on the fire had made the living room comfortably warm. The sheriff switched on a lamp at the head of the davenport on which he had been sleeping and said, “I wish that posse would get here.”

  “Do you suppose Colonel Black saw the madman and has followed him?” asked Joan.

  “I don’t know,” I replied, “but I should think he’d summon help before trying to capture the man.”

  “The colonel looks as though he’d be quite capable of trying all by himself.”

  “Perhaps.” I smiled at her thoughtful face. “I know I’d be scared to death if I encountered Mr Glunt by myself.”

  Her teeth were small and very white. “So would I,” she admitted.

  Our conversation apparently made the sheriff nervous. “There ain’t going to be any question of anybody getting Glunt singlehanded as soon as my posse arrives,” he said sharply. “I can’t imagine what in tarnation’s keeping them.” He glanced at me quizzically. “Maybe they stopped to grab a mite of fodder. If they did I wish I was with them.”

  “Why not have something to eat here?” I suggested as he meant me to. “There’s plenty in the kitchen.”

  “That’s a splendid idea,” announced Miss Leslie. “I think some coffee and sandwiches would taste very nice.”

  The sheriff’s face brightened, and he led the way to the kitchen. He snapped on the overhead light and halted abruptly in the doorway. “Thunder!” he exclaimed.

  The kitchen looked as though some animal had been rooting around in it. The bread- and cake-boxes were turned over on their sides and their contents spilled on the floor. The icebox was open, and in front of it, on the floor, was a pile of vegetables, meats and assorted bottles and jars. Two blueberry pies, in tins on the window-sill, had been crushed, and half the pie in a third tin was gone. A finely granulated substance, either sugar or salt, was spilled all over the chromium sink.

  “Why!” Miss Leslie’s eyes widened in horror. “What could have done that?”

  Sheriff Wilson’s face was at once grim and frightened. “Mrs Coffin must have been right.”

  “You mean …” I began.

  “I think the madman has been in the house.”

  Joan and the sheriff exchanged glances of consternation. I said, “Maybe.”

  Chapter XV

  THE SUN rose blood red over the lake, and small clouds, like powder puffs, appeared in the clean blue sky. A fresh wind, carrying the odors of flowers and wet grass, of hay and the forest, blew into the living room, fluttering curtains as it passed through the windows. The indigo of the lake changed to turquoise.

  Sheriff Wilson sat up stiffly on his davenport, blinked his small eyes in the light. “Another day,” he said without enthusiasm.

  I nodded politely. I didn’t feel weary, although I hadn’t had more than three hours sleep all night. The arrival of the sheriff’s posse, fifteen strong and now scattered about the lake in parties of three, had interrupted one nap, and a long conversation with Colonel Black and Miss Leslie on a variety of subjects had eliminated about two hours of possible sleeping time. But I felt perfectly fit for anything the day might bring, and I was excited about the courtyard. Would the colonel find footprints there?

  The colonel seemed to think he would. He had arrived just after we had discovered the shocking state of the kitchen, completely dressed and carrying a flashlight. He had been out to see that Karl Norberg and Mr Bundy were guarding the court properly, he informed us. He had not heard Mrs Coffin’s screams, and he was very obviously puzzled by the events which had just taken place. He had made the sheriff repeat his story twice.

  “What in the name of Queen Elizabeth did the madman want in here?” he had demanded, looking around the upset kitchen.

  “Food,” replied the sheriff.

  “But why did he go upstairs and scare Mrs Coffin?”

  The sheriff, with an outward gesture of his arms, implied that the motivation for a madman’s action was not a subject for rationalization.

  Joan, working with an efficiency which drew my admiration, had partially cleaned the kitchen and had produced coffee and chicken sandwiches. We had retired with the food to the living room, and presently the sheriff had fallen asleep. We had then talked for nearly two hours, the colonel entertaining us with stories of his fascinating research work into the lives of the lesser Elizabethan dramatists (and quite scandalous lives they were) and Joan and I displaying a proper interest. Then we had drowsed off in front of the fire.

  “You’d better wake the colonel,” said the sheriff. “He’ll want to be looking at that court of his, though I don’t take any stock in his theory now. Not after last night.”

  I woke the colonel and apparently Joan, too, because she inquired if she could come along. “I’m one of the suspects,” she said, “and that should give me the privilege.”

  We all went out the front door and walked around to the court. I have already said that the court ran between the main house and that occupied by the servants, and, standing on the edge of it, I assured myself the colonel was right in contending that if someone from the main house killed Bronson and returned in a period of approximately ten minutes he must have crossed the court and at the same time left his prints in the soft clay.

  It was possible, I saw, to reach the servants’ house in two ways, but both would take more than ten minutes for the round trip. One was to leave the main house in a direction exactly opposite that of the servants’ quarters, plunge into the woods and circle around to the rear of the servants’ house, a distance of half a mile through the heaviest kind of underbrush. The other was to go down to the lake and swim to a point in back of the servants’ house. I doubt if even a Weismuller could have made the round trip on a calm day in the time required, and at the moment of the murder the lake was choppy.

  The colonel hailed Karl Norberg, who had been seated on the front steps of the servants’ house. “Hi, Karl,” he called. “Where’s Mr Bundy?”

  “Gone to tend to the cows,” said Karl, approaching us along the planks which had been laid on the court last night. “We thought as long as it’s daylight …”

  “Sure. That’s quite all right.” The colonel’s eyes were roving over the surface of the court. “I wanted to be sure that nobody erased any tracks during the night.”

  “Well, they didn’t,” said Karl. “We kept our eyes peeled.”

  “Let’s begin then,” said the colonel. “I think we will find it best to start by the lake.”

  He arranged us in a fan-shaped formation, something like golfers searching for a lost ball, and we started slowly up the court in the direction of the two houses. Karl was on the left end, the sheriff on the right, and Joan, the colonel and I were in the center. The colonel’s angular face was excited.

  Under our descending feet the clay oozed, then as we lifted each shoe it clung, finally releasing the leather with a wet plop. We moved with our heads bent down, our eyes searching the surface of the court. I was unable to discern a single track of any kind. Finally we came to the wooden planks, thrown across the place directly between the two houses. While we watched, the colonel and Karl lifted the planks and examined the footprints underneath. There were only two different prints, one large and broad and the other long and narrow, and Karl’s shoe matc
hed the first and the colonel’s the second.

  There was a look of disappointment in Colonel Black’s blue eyes as we continued. In a few minutes we reached the T part of the court, one end of which led to the barn and the other to the cow pasture in the rear of the woods. The cows were the reason my great-uncle had made the court of clay. It was easier to keep clean than it would have been had it been grass, and while he had often talked of putting in a surface of English bricks, he never had. I halted as we reached the tracks made by the cattle coming in to the barn last evening.

  “You’re going to have a hard time seeing a footprint in all these tracks,” said the sheriff, also halting. “Them cows got everything churned up.”

  Colonel Black disagreed. “You could certainly see some traces if someone walked across here,” he declared. “We’ll have to look especially close.”

  We barely crept along, with the colonel in the lead, but we couldn’t find a single mark. As we reached the forest wall marking the end of the court I felt a great surge of relief. Everyone in the main house was cleared. The murders had been committed by the madman after all. I glanced at the others, half smiled at the defeated expression on Colonel Black’s face.

  “Well, sir,” demanded the sheriff, “are you convinced?”

  “I guess I’ll have to be.” The colonel turned around and surveyed the court, now covered with our footprints. “If someone crossed this court on foot last night we would have found his tracks.”

  “He certainly couldn’t have jumped across,” commented the sheriff.

  Colonel Black shook his head sadly. “No, he couldn’t have.” He sighed. “I think I’ll have a bath and some breakfast.” He glanced inquiringly at the sheriff.

  “The coroner’s coming out pretty quick for Bronson’s body,” said the sheriff. “I think I’ll wait around for him.”

  I turned to Joan. Her lovely skin, despite a night with practically no sleep, was clear and smooth. She was smiling. “How about a swim before breakfast?” I asked. “I think it might help our appetites.”