Hunt in the Dark

by Q. Patrick

  A few minutes later, there was a loud, single knock on the door. I called to come in and turned to see the blond Miss Davenport standing on the threshold. She was leaning nonchalantly against the doorpost, a cigarette dropping from her red mouth. The gaze from her violet eyes moved slowly around the room and then rested on me.

  “Unpacking!” she said. “Quite domesticated already, aren’t you?” She moved and stood with her back to the fireplace. “I came to see if you were going to object to smells.”

  “Smells?” I echoed in mild surprise.

  “Yeah. Jay’s room’s underneath this one. He’s in chemistry and I’m physiology—both at the Tech. We do experiments together and sometimes they smell terribly. Wondered whether they reached up here. Not of course that we could do anything about it, if they did, but we thought we’d let you know what it was.”

  Once more the violet eyes traveled round the apartment. I had the distinct impression that it was the rooms that interested her rather than myself.

  “As it happens,” I remarked, “there is rather a musty smell about the place.”

  “Too bad.” Miss Davenport grinned and puffed smoke through her nostrils. “You’ll get used to it soon. I have. In fact, my nose is so hardened by the chem. labs that I couldn’t tell

  B. O. from eau de Cologne any more.” She pushed her herself away from the fireplace and strolled toward the bedroom. “Nice place you’ve got here. Frankly, I wish Jay and I could turn you out, then the old hag might let us have this place. We could make that back room into a swell lab.”

  I followed the surprising Miss Davenport into the bedroom. Despite the unpleasantly chemical turn of phrase, she was distinctly attractive—even if the attractiveness itself was a trifle chemical. Her hair, I suspected, was not innocent of chemicals, while her lips and cheeks were frankly martyrs to science.

  I had started some banal remark when a sound from the next room made me break off. Someone had begun to play the piano—very softly and sweetly. I recognized the piece as one of the well-known Chopin preludes.

  Miss Davenport had been fixing her hair at my mirror. She turned around swiftly. “Heaven! That Mr. Washer! He plays Chopin all day, all night. And have you seen him, my dear?” Her voice mocked mincingly. “He’s just the sweetest thing with a green tie and rings. Give me a good old healthy smell any day.” She moved back to the living room. “He’s got a sister who’s always visiting him. If you ask me, she’s the only woman that’s

  ever likely to get into that room.”

  Miss Davenport threw her cigarette into the fireplace and crushed it beneath her toe.

  “Well, I’ve got to be getting back. Jay’s got a couple of experiments started.” At the door she paused and jerked a thumb at the wall of the next room, from which the strains of Chopin were still issuing. “If you get any trouble from that fat old sissy,” she said, “just call on me. I’ve got a pretty good command of the English language.”

  I needed no reassurance on that point.

  She had been gone hardly a minute when the music stopped and there was another knock on the door. This time it was Mr. Washer.

  He paused on the threshold, rubbing his plump hands together. “I’m sorry to trouble you, sorry indeed. I just wanted to ask you whether my piano annoyed you. I love Chopin at night, but I always stop at eleven.”

  I assured him rather curtly that I liked music, too. He hesitated and then stepped in. Just as with Miss Davenport, his eyes flashed instantly around the room. The well-manicured fingers went to his tie.

  “There was another little point. Mrs. Bellman tells me you are a doctor. I wonder if you could give me your opinion of artificial sunray lamps.”

  It hardly seemed a topic of grave importance, but he kept me talking about it for some twenty minutes.

  “Yes, doctor, I have a lamp of my own. I like a sun tan, you know. More becoming, I—”

  He broke off as though he were listening. I listened, too. Outside the door there had been a faint metallic sound. It came again and then again until it developed into a slow, steady noise that was halfway between a creak and a clank.

  “Sounds like the family skeleton dragging its chain,” I said.

  He laughed again. “Oh, that’s just the younger Miss Furnivall. She’s a cripple, poor thing.’’ He glanced at me swiftly. “I often think there’s something funny about those sisters. But then, when you’ve been here longer, you’ll realize there are a lot of funny people in this house.” An inquisitive look came into his eye. “I wonder why a successful young doctor like you chooses to live in this sort of a place.”

  For the second time that day, it seemed, someone was trying to warn me against No. 12 Potter Street. I made some banal remark about its being a pleasant apartment.

  Mr. Washer rose and started to walk about the room. “It is very attractive. I have a sister, you know, who’s very close to me. She travels for a piano firm and isn’t often in town. I wanted to have these rooms myself so that she could always come and stay with me”—he poked his head into the bedroom—”but oddly enough Mrs. Bellman wouldn’t rent them to me. I wondered if perhaps—” He broke off. “I’ve had to get a room for my sister in the house over the way. Just a little attic, you know. It’s most unsatisfactory.”

  By now he had made a complete round of the apartment. He smiled and patted the back of his neck. “Well, I must be getting along.” He paused and then added: “I’m expecting my sister any minute. Perhaps you’d let her come in some time and look around. I know she’d love it.”

  I told him that, as far as I was concerned, the apartment would be free in a month, and ushered him out as politely as I was able. I did not have to wait long. The piano had just started once more when my door was thrown open. A dark, very athletic-looking middle-aged woman stood on the threshold. She remained absolutely motionless, her handsome brown eyes fixed on me. “Oh, I—that is, I’m sorry. I saw the lights and wondered.

  You see, I—er—used to occupy this apartment. The name’s Furnivall—Constance Furnivall.”

  “Won’t you come in?” I sighed. “You might like to take a look around, too.”

  Her piercing, restless glance swept across the room, pausing, it seemed, on the great electric fan.

  For a moment, I thought an expression of horror passed across her face, as though there were something about that propellerlike device which brought back awful memories. I remembered that this was the woman who had acted as nurse to the unfortunate Agnes.

  “Please come in,” I repeated.

  She shook her dark hair. “No, I wouldn’t bother you. Silly of me. I didn’t know this apartment was rented.”

  I did not believe her. I knew that her sister had been clanking about outside. I could tell, too, from Miss Constance’s eyes that she was withholding something.

  “Well,” she said curtly. “I’m sorry. Good night.” She turned abruptly and disappeared.

  After she had gone, I sat down in one of the immovable chairs, listening idly to the rapid Chopin prelude and wondering what in Heaven’s name was wrong with the boarders at No. 12 Potter Street. I found myself reviewing them in my mind: Miss Clymer, the fat inquisitive spinster who was behind on her rent; Mr. Washer, an obviously effeminate man who played his piano at all hours of the night and used a sun-ray lamp; Miss Constance Furnivall, the abrupt, muscular ex-nurse with her crippled, eavesdropping sister; Mr. Jay, the ardent young chemist; Miss Davenport, his outspoken and attractive assistant; and finally the mysterious Browns whom Mrs. Bellman had described as her “only good tenants.”

  For all their oddities, they seemed a fairly typical cross section of almost any boarding house in America. It was even possible that their interest in my apartment was based purely on curiosity. But I did not believe it. One of them, I knew, had something vital to conceal. One of them was doing his utmost to scare Mrs. Bellman out of her wits. I wondered how long it would be before they tried to frighten me out of my rooms
.

  V

  STEPS ON THE ROOF

  With the Chopin still rippling in the next room, I began to complete my unpacking. Stuffed under some shirts, I discovered a photograph of my daughter, Dawn. As I looked at her sane, smiling face, I thought of that other child—the child who had recently lived in this apartment with its fixed chairs and its enormous electric fan. I am not normally sensitive, but there was something about the contrast between the two girls that made the room seem suddenly repulsive to me. I thought of Agnes being fed like an animal, being taken up on the roof for air, having her meals sent up on the dumb-waiter so that the world should never see her. The whirring of the electric fan seemed to become louder, drowning the sweet strains of music and making them harsher, more mechanical.

  My mind was still running on these thoughts when it happened—the last of the amazing serio-comic incidents which were so soon to culminate in real, brutal tragedy.

  I remember a clock downstairs striking ten, and then, suddenly, there was a violent knocking on my door. I hurried into the living room and opened to Mrs. Bellman. She was dressed in an old Japanese kimono wrapped very tightly around her sparse figure. The gray hair straggled across her forehead.

  “Again,” she whispered, and this time there was no fear in her voice, only anger—a grim, smoldering anger. “Again it’s happened. Come, you can see for yourself.”

  Leaving the door open, I hurried after her down the stairs. Behind us, the Chopin grew fainter and fainter, fading to a whisper as Mrs. Bellman drew me toward her room.

  “Look, look!” she exclaimed, pointing to the lintel above her door. Then suddenly, she broke off. “She’s—she’s gone, but I saw it. I swear I saw it. She was there.”

  There was something horrible about the sight of that small, fierce woman pointing upward—pointing at nothingness.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Hilda.” Mrs. Bellman clutched my arm. “I was just going to bed when there was a knock at the door. I went to answer it, but there was no one there—nothing except Hilda.” She gave a curious dry little sob. “She was hanging from that hook by a piece of ribbon—red silk ribbon.”

  “Hilda!” I exclaimed dazedly, half supposing for an instant that she must refer to some person.

  “Yes, yes, my cat. You saw her this afternoon. She was dead. I tell you. Hanged.”

  My mind was still confused by the swiftness of this latest happening.

  Then my eyes caught something red against the white paint of the lintel. I reached upward toward an old iron hook. Twisted around it was a fragment of ribbon. I pulled it down and stared it. Then I glanced at Mrs. Bellman.

  “Yes,” I exclaimed, “it was there all right. Someone must have taken it away when you came up to find me. They couldn’t have passed us up the stairs. If we’re quick, we can catch them.”

  I started down the corridor and heard Mrs. Bellman hurrying after me.

  “It’s no use,” she called. “There’s the back stairs. Any one could have gotten up to their rooms by now.”

  We searched, but found nothing. When we returned to her room, I took hold of Mrs. Bellman’s arm.

  “Listen,” I said. “I have a friend in the police force. This thing is getting beyond a joke. Don’t you think you should put him onto it?”

  Mrs. Bellman wrapped the kimono more tightly around her and drew herself up. “There’ll be no police here,” she snapped. “As I told you this afternoon, I have the reputation of the house to consider. If an officer set foot in here, I should be ruined. Besides, I’m not afraid any more—not now I know for sure that it isn’t my imagination.” Her thin lips broke into a smile, “I’m not scared of people. Give ’em rope and they’ll hang themselves. There’s nothing to fear so long as we have locks on our doors.”

  She turned and walked into her room, shutting the door behind her. I heard the hard scrape of the key in the lock. “Give ’em rope and they’ll hang themselves.”

  I moved back to the stairs. As I did so, I heard footsteps. A young man was slouching toward me front the hall, his head down, one hand thrust deep in his trousers pocket. For an instant, his eyes gazed into mine, and he gave me a gruff good night. Then he strode on up the stairs.

  As he passed me, I caught a glimpse of something white in his hand. At first I thought it was a piece of paper. Then it moved and I saw a small, beady eye. It was Mr. Jay, and he was carrying an albino cat.

  “So,” I reflected, as I followed him upstairs, “our young friends’ experiments aren’t just pure chemistry.”

  The music still floated out from Mr. Washer’s room as I returned to my apartment. Apparently, all the excitement in the world could not keep him from his Chopin. I was beginning to feel rather bored with Chopin—bored, too, with the pointless monotony of events at No. 12. After all, if Mrs. Bellman was

  not willing to have the police help her, there was very little that I could do. Besides, I had had a hard day and I need sleep.

  As I paused a moment outside my room, the music stopped and I heard Mr. Washer saying:

  “Well, my dear, that’s all for tonight. I’m sure you’re tired.” Feeling no desire to eavesdrop, I was moving into my room,

  when Mr. Washer’s door opened.

  “Good night, Grace,” I heard him say.

  There was a soft feminine reply and a woman stepped out into the corridor, shutting the door behind her. She gave me a casual nod and walked briskly toward the stairs. It was dark in the passage, but sufficient light fell from my room for me to catch a glimpse of this woman’s face. She was delicately dressed, delicately powdered and looked like an even more feminine Mr. Washer. Obviously, this was the piano-selling sister of whom he had spoken.

  She had hardly reached the top of the staircase when the music started again. Those quiet, flowing melodies were becoming ineradicably associated in my mind with the house.

  I entered the apartment and closed the door behind me. At first everything seemed perfectly normal. The electric fan was roaring. The heavy green curtains flapped slightly in the breeze. That strange, musty odor still lingered, striking my nostrils as I moved toward a chair.

  I was about to sit down when I saw something which was so fantastic that, for an instant, I felt that Agnes Salt must once more have come to take possession of her dwelling place.

  Propped on the white wooden mantelpiece was the body of a large ginger cat. Around its neck, in a garish, chocolate-box festoon, was a piece of wide red ribbon. The bow had been arranged with meticulous care, but, as I stepped over to examine it, I saw at once that the ribbon had been pulled so viciously tight that the animals head did not seem to belong to its body.

  Gradually, my thoughts collected themselves and I realized what had happened. As I had anticipated, the campaign to frighten me out of my rooms had begun. The person who had worked on Mrs. Bellman was now starting on me.

  For a moment I stood staring at the cat, revolving various lines of action in my brain. I could call Cobb and turn over to him the whole preposterous affair. I could leave No. 12 and let whoever this maniac was do with it what he wished. I could go down and

  discuss the matter with Mrs. Bellman. But, as my reason reasserted itself, I felt a growing determination to stay. After all, it takes more than a dead cat to frighten a hard-working doctor out of his rooms. My friend would have to try harder than that. As Mrs. Bellman had said, there was nothing to fear as long as we had locks on our doors. I crossed and shot the heavy bolts.

  It was not until I had locked myself in for the night that I remembered the cat. It could hardly be left on the mantelpiece. Finally, I picked it up, dropped it into a scrap basket and lowered it to the kitchen by the dumb-waiter. It was only after I had done so that I reflected, almost with amusement, that I was probably providing another scare for Mrs. Bellman on the morrow.

  While I was undressing, I became conscious of the steady whirring of the electric fan. I went to turn it off and, as
I did so, I heard in the passage outside the sound of limping footsteps, accompanied by that strange metallic creak on which I had remarked to Mr. Washer earlier that evening. Outside my door, I fancied the footsteps paused. The younger Miss Furnivall, it seemed, kept later hours than the other boarders at No. 12.

  Despite my physical weariness, I did not fall to sleep for some time. The Chopin still filtered through from the next room, but it was not that which kept me awake. In fact, I found it rather soothing. I recognized a tune which my daughter, Dawn, had been struggling with in her second year of piano lessons. It was pleasant to think of her, biting her tongue and bending earnestly forward over the keys. I began to feel drowsy.

  I had just dropped off into a light doze—the type which is broken by the least unfamiliar sound—when something awakened me. I pushed myself into a sitting position. Then I heard it again—the sound of stealthy footsteps above my head. For a moment, my tired brain was at a loss to discover why these noises should have disturbed me. Then I realized that my room was on the top floor and that the footsteps must be moving about on the roof.

  There is something primitive in one that is instinctively alarmed by the sound of footsteps on a roof. I sat up in bed, straining my ears, feeling my heart beating unnecessarily faster. Above me the noises continued with slow, muffled monotony. I lay down again, trying to sleep and telling myself that the whole business was no concern of mine. Even so, I could not rest.

  At length I could stand it no longer. Pulling on a bath robe, I hurried into the main room and opened the door which Mrs. Bellman had told me led to Agnes Salt’s roof garden.

  As the door swung back, a blue patch of moonlight fell at my feet. At the head of the broad flight of wooden steps, I could see a pale strip of August sky, studded with a few stars. A train hooted, and in the moment of quiet that followed, the footsteps sounded again—moving, it seemed, away to my right.

  Slowly, silently, I began to creep upward, the soft notes of Mr. Washer’s Chopin following after me. As I climbed, I had a vivid mental picture of Miss Furnivall, her muscular arms carrying her strange patient up those steps. It added to the mad, nightmarish quality of the escapade.