“Come here to 312 at once.”
“You make that sound rather like an assignation,” she said, “but I’ll come at once.”
She hung up. John Thunstone hung up, too, and sat and thought about her. They had not seen each other in years, but she was vivid in his memory.
Countess Monteseco, who once had been the golden girl called Sharon Hill. Who had been drawn to Thunstone but had been a trifle afraid of his strange adventuring, who had gone abroad and had married Count Monteseco of Italy. Count Monteseco’s title had been only an empty one in that nation which had become a democracy after Mussolini, and Count Monteseco had been a troublesome, sinister man who, when he had died, had not seemed to die too soon. Monteseco was still her name but once she had been Sharon Hill,
A knock at the door. “It’s open,” he called, and in she came.
Sharon, Countess Monteseco, was pleasantly handsome. Her hair was blond, with a touch of red, what some called strawberry blond. She wore a tailored suit of brown-and- green-checked twill, with a scarf at her throat. Her figure was compactly symmetrical; she had a fine arched nose and wide curved lips and eyes a trifle bluer than sapphires. If she was beautiful, it was not the beauty of a doll or of a siren. She smiled as she entered, with the closed-lipped smile associated with the Mona Lisa and the Empress Josephine.
She held out her small, strong hand to Thunstone. He took it and kissed it.
“For God’s sake, what are you doing here?” he asked at once.
“Why, the New York papers said that you’d be the principal speaker at this meeting.’’ She smiled back at him. “I came to hear you, to be with you. Why? Aren’t you glad to see me?’’
Her smile waited, but he frowned.
“Sharon,” he said, “there’s never been a time when I wasn’t glad to see you. But if you’re here, you’re in danger. Remember Rowley Thome?”
“Yes,” she said, “yes, but isn’t he gone?”
“I have a notion that he’s here.” He motioned to a chair, and she sat down. He sat on the bed and leaned toward her. “Time after time I’ve had to save you from things the world doesn’t believe can exist. I’ve always wanted you to keep clear, stay out of danger.”
Now she frowmed, a tiny crease between her brows. “Well,” she said after a moment. “I hadn’t expected this sort of a reception. Am I wrong in remembering that you used to say you loved me?”
“I do love you, this minute I love you,” he fairly burst out. “I’ve always loved you, since first we met, since before you went abroad and married your Italian count.”
“That’s all I want to know,” she half whispered.
She, too, leaned forward, put her small hands on his big shoulders and met his mouth with a strong, swimming kiss.
Thunstone took her close in his arms and returned the kiss with a burning hunger. But then he released her and stood up, away from where she sat.
“There,” the countess said. “Maybe I was a trifle shameless, but didn’t I convince you that I can love, too?”
“Yes,” he said, rather gruffly. “But I say again, you’re in peril here. That always happens when you’re with me. I mentioned Rowley Thome.”
“Isn’t he gone?” she reminded him again. “Vanished into nowhere? You told me that.”
“He vanished, and I’d hoped forever. He brought a whole army of evil spirits against me, and when I defeated them they disappeared, and took Thome with them.”
“How can that happen?”
“It seems to happen all the time. Ambrose Bierce made a study of disappearances, and he disappeared himself, without leaving a trace. Men and women seem to pop out of sight, before the eyes of witnesses. About a hundred years ago, a man named David Lang disappeared in a Tennessee field while his wife and two friends watched. These things happen.”
“Yes, and those planes dropping out of sight in the Bermuda Triangle, and the crew of the Marie Celeste, ” added the countess, her voice troubled. “But Rowley Thome?”
“I’m fairly sure I saw him downstairs in the lobby,” said Thunstone, “and I think he called me on the telephone earlier today.”
“But nobody comes back from those disappearances,” she argued.
“A man in the Carolina mountains, a man named Sol Gentry, seemed to fade out of existence in sight of his home,” said Thunstone. “Twenty years or so later, he was there again, at the very same spot. He didn’t remember anything about being gone, but he was back.”
Her face had gone pale. “Then—”
’'Thome seems to be here. Sharon. And he knows I’m here, and probably knows that you’re here, too. He’s always wanted you for a victim, hasn’t he?”
“Why does he want me? Why?”
Thunstone reached a long arm to the side table. He took the brandy bottle and poured drinks into two glasses and handed her one.
“Let me speak to the point, Sharon,” he said. “You haven’t been wise about him all the time, but he’s paid considerable intelligent attention to you. I’d diagnose the situation like this; Thome is evil. He’s spent his life being evil, he’s brought a considerable talent to it. As for you, you’re a fundamentally good, normal woman. He recognizes that. And evil wants to conquer good, overthrow it.”
Her glass trembled in her hand as she sipped. She said, “What you say sounds fantastic, but I believe you. I always believe what you say.”
“Because you know that I always mean what I say.” He finished his drink and rose. “Now, you’re in Room 316, two doors away from me, but I can’t be here all the time. Let me give you this protection.”
He searched in his suitcase and brought out a piece of reddish brown twig, set on both sides with half-dried elliptical leaflets. He gave it to her.
“That’s row^an,” he told her. “Mountain ash. I want you to hang it inside your door. It’s a protection against lots of evil things.”
“But I have a charm already. John.” She, too, got up, put a hand inside her scarf, and brought out a small golden cross on a golden chain. “Do you recognize this? You gave it to me. and I always wear it. I never take it off except to take a bath.”
“Use the rowan, too,” he urged her. “Don't overlook any bets, Sharon. .And now I’ll walk you to your door, look into your room to see that everything’s all right, and come back here to do some thinking,”
"‘Why can’t I stay here with you for a while?”
Thunstone smiled, and the smile brought out deep lines around his mouth.
“Because if you stay, it’ll be hard for me to think profitably.”
Her own mouth pouted, for just a moment. “Well,” she said, “all right.”
They walked out together. The countess put her key in the lock of Room 316. Thunstone entered with her. He looked at the window, uncapped his pen, and drew a cross on the off-white sill. He hung the branch of rowan above the door.
“I sat down in your room,” she said. “Won’t you sit down in mine?”
“I can’t, I told you I have thinking to do.”
They came close, their arms went around each other. They kissed. Never, said Thunstone to himself, had they kissed like that.
“You didn’t seem to be away from me just then,” she chided him.
“I’d dearly love to be with you, somewhere else than here,” he said, still holding her against him. “Somewhere else, where perils didn’t loom up.” He released her. “Now, go to bed early. In the morning, as soon as you wake up, call me in Room 312. We can go down to breakfast together.”
“I hope it will be a good breakfast,” she smiled, “and that you’re in a more cheerful mood.”
“I’ll try to be. Lock me out as I go, and keep your door locked.”
Out in the hall, he gazed both ways along the corridor. He thought he saw shadows. Just shadows. He entered his room and locked himself in.
From his briefcase he took a pad of lined yellow paper. He uncapped his pen and began to make notes.
III
T
hunstone was slow, was careful with the notes he set down. He frowned over them. Opposite one note, then opposite two others, he wrote question marks. He spent hours at what he wrote, and at last read the jottings over to himself. They might be a help.
He stopped, got into bed and yawned. It had been a tiring day, on the plane, at the various discussions, at the hints of strange peril. Swiftly he went to sleep, and did not stir until the telephone rang beside him.
He reached for it. “Hello,” he said.
“Did I wake you up?” asked Sharon Monteseco’s voice.
“You did, but I’m wide awake now. Let’s meet in the hall and go to breakfast,”
“As soon as I get on my clothes.”
“As soon as I get on mine,” he said. When he hung up, he found himself smiling and knew that the smile was a happy one. The sense of danger was there, for himself and for Sharon. Yet he would rather be with Sharon than anyone else on earth.
They met in the corridor and sought the automatic elevator. As they went down, Sharon suddenly straightened and stared. “Who’s in here with us?” she stammered.
“Nobody,” said Thunstone. “Just a shadow there in the comer.”
To himself he wondered what invisible thing might have cast that shadow.
They walked together through the lobby below and into the dining room and sat down at a table for two.
A waiter came. Sharon asked for a soft-boiled egg, a toasted muffin, and a cup of tea. Thunstone ordered scrambled eggs, country sausage, toast and coffee. Sharon smiled at him. “You always eat well,” she said, “but you never get fat, all those big bones and muscles, but no extra flesh.”
“Maybe I worry it off,” he said.
Their food came and they ate. Then they rose and Thunstone put down money for the bill and a tip. “And now what?” asked Sharon.
“Today’s program starts at ten o’clock, in the Whitney Auditorium, wherever that may be. Chancellor Pollock will open things with a brief address of welcome. After that, a panel discussion of the supernatural. It’s chaired by Professor Lee Pitt, a man I think you’ll like, and I’ll be a member of the panel.”
“I’ll come and hear that,” vowed Sharon.
“We’ll go there together, and I’ll see you to a seat close to the front, where I can keep an eye on you. All right, after the panel’s heard from, a discussion period, questions and answers. Then at one-thirty in the afternoon Reuben Manco discusses supernormal matters among American Indians.”
“Reuben Manco?” she repeated.
“A Cherokee chieftain and medicine man, graduate of Dartmouth, extremely wise. He’s a friend of mine. Then, at half-past three, Father Mark Bundren on the prevalence of witchcraft and diabolism here and there today. You’ll like him too, I think. And at night, at eight o’clock, a theatrical presentation at the Playmakers Theater. Shakespeare, I believe, various creepy sequences from his plays.”
“Everything sounds diverting.”
In the lobby, Thunstone spoke to the bell captain, who told him that Whitney Auditorium was on campus, just across the street in front of the Inn. They walked out and across, found a big square building of tawny brick, with massive pillars in front. As they entered the auditorium, Thunstone heard someone call him by name. In the aisle were grouped Lee Pitt, Shimada, Manco and Father Bundren.
Thunstone led Sharon to join them and introduced them to her, one after another. Shimada wore natty tweeds and smiled and bowed. Father Bundren, in his clericals, greeted Sharon as ceremoniously as a Renaissance cardinal. Pitt, too, was cordial. Manco, very dignified and deep-voiced, was the most elaborately dressed of the party, He wore a long hunting shirt of pale buckskin, fringed at sleeves and collar, with beadwork designs. His head was bound at the temples with a leather band, also beautifully beaded.
“We have about ten minutes, and people are coming in fast,” said Pitt. “Where would you like to sit, Countess?”
“Somewhere close to the front,” she replied. “Mr. Thunstone wants to keep an eye on me.”
“Nor do I blame him for that,” said Pitt. “How about here, right on the aisle. Is that all right?”
She smiled and took her seat, and Pitt led Thunstone and the others through a side door and up four steps to the wings. From there they could see the stage. Several tables were set there end to end, with chairs behind them and upon them microphones and a pitcher of water and glasses.
Chancellor Pollock came from behind a backstage curtain to join them. “The hall’s filling up fast, gentlemen,” he said. “Let’s go out there and maybe we can start a program on time for once.”
They followed him onstage, and a brisk clapping of hands greeted them. Pitt took the chair at the middle of the line of tables and motioned Shimada and Thunstone to his right, Father Bundren and Manco to his left. Pollock waited for the applause to die down, then moved to stand beside Pitt and take up the microphone that stood on the table there.
He spoke, and his amplified voice filled the auditorium. “Ladies and gentlemen mid distinguished visitors,” he said, “I won’t make anything that you could call a speech. I’ll say only, welcome to the American Folklore Survey Symposium. Your printed programs will tell you about our sessions today and tomorrow. And now, permit me to turn this present meeting over to Professor Lee Pitt, and I’ll come sit among you and listen.”
Thunstone looked at Sharon. She sat no more than thirty feet from him. Her eyes were on him. She smiled her closelipped smile.
Pitt took back the microphone and spoke in turn. “We have here a distinguished group of authorities on the subjects of folklore and legendry,” he said. “Like Chancellor Pollock, I won’t make a long lecture here—I’m directed to lecture at a later session. Let me introduce each of my companions in turn, and each will say what he feels like saying. When all are through, we’ll welcome any questions from the audience.”
He turned and looked to his right. “First, I’ll recognize a deservedly eminent educator from Tokyo University, Professor Tashiro Shimada. I have long profited by his writings, and whatever he has to say this morning will surely be worth hearing.” He nodded. “Professor Shimada.”
Again applause. Shimada acknowledged it with a toothy smile and a brief bob of his head. His spectacles twinkled. Then he began, in his precise English with only the trace of an accent:
“Ladies and gentlemen, Professor Pitt embarrasses me with his flattery. It is true that I am a professor myself, have studied Oriental folklore for many years, and have contributed to the literature of the subject. I hope that I come to you, not simply as a Japanese, but as a cosmopolitan. I have studied in many Asiatic lands—in China, India, even the Arab countries. Everywhere, I found strong beliefs in amazing things, and strong evidence to support those beliefs.
As he went on with remarks on ancient and modem Eastern religions and legends, Thunstone quartered the thronged auditorium with his eyes. He looked at Sharon, who again smiled at him. He found Grizel Fian, seated midway in the center section. She wore a dark red dress that made her stand out in the crowd. In the seat behind her was the figure of a burly man. Thunstone could see his bald head, like the head of . . .
“Later, I hope to go into more detail about beliefs in my native Japan,” Shimada finished, and made his slight bow.
Pitt spoke again: “Next to Professor Shimada sits Mr. John Thunstone. From what I’ve been able to learn about him, he’s a man who does not like to bring attention upon himself. Now and then, his activities have found their way into the newspapers. He is greatly respected by several societies for psychical research, though I don’t find that he belongs to any of them. May I present Mr. Thunstone?”
Thunstone drew the microphone close to him and stooped his massive head close. “Thank you, Professor Pitt. I follow Professor Shimada’s scholarly remarks with some diffidence. Yet I’m reminded of what was once written by a man of a very ordinary name, John Smith. It was Captain Smith who kept Jamestown in Virginia from being a lost colony like the one
on Roanoke Island in Carolina. A letter came from London, complaining that his reports did not agree with those of scholars at home, and he wrote back that though he was no scholar, he was yet past a schoolboy, risking his life to learn what he could of a land of perilous mystery.”
Shimada chuckled softly beside him.
“I take further refuge with another favorite historical figure of mine, Lord Byron,” Thunstone went on. “Once he said, ‘Truth is always strange—stranger than fiction,’ and others have been echoing him ever since. That’s an important truth about truth. Just now I’ll touch only briefly on things I’ve felt to be the truth, and you’re welcome to believe them or not.” He smiled. “As though I said I’d seen an unknown flying object or a fire-breathing dragon, or the ghost of Napoleon Bonaparte. First of all, does anyone here know what a Shonokin is?”
As he spoke, he shook his head wamingly at Sharon, and she did not hold up her hand. But one hand did go up, a broad, heavy hand. It belonged to the burly man sitting behind Grizel Fian,
“I’ll tell you what a Shonokin is,” Thunstone continued. “Shonokins claim to be a race that was here in America before the first Asiatics crossed the Bering Strait and became Indians. They look prosaically human enough, except that the pupils of their eyes are slits instead of circles, and their third fingers are longer than their middle fingers. Are any Shonokins present?” He waited, looking at the audience again. One or two giggles were audible, rather nervous giggles. “I sit here and say that I’ve been face to face with Shonokins, have seen several of them die. And when a Shonokin dies, all living Shonokins flee away in terror.”
Again he paused. Then: “Perhaps I’ll have more to say about Shonokins at a later session of this symposium. As for other improbabilities, I can vouch for werewolves and vampires. I’ve come up against both of those creatures. But possibly you’ll want to ask me questions about that.”
He finished, and Pitt was back at his own microphone. “Next in fine, let me introduce Chief Reuben Manco. Chief Manco is a Cherokee, and he is also a medicine man of his tribe. A sophisticate, too; he graduated from Dartmouth with honors, and he writes interestingly for various journals of history and folklore. Here he is.”
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