The Hellfire Club

by Peter Straub

  “Some things you don’t forget. If Mr. Chancel had lived, he would have told Davey the truth, I know that.”

  “Should I?” Nora asked.

  “You do whatever you think is best, but that’s the kind of person you are anyhow. I just want you to remember that I didn’t tell you, because I do what I think is best, too, and I don’t go back on my promises.”

  “Look, didn’t they have to have some kind of burial? There was supposed to be a body.”

  “Private burial. In the graveyard behind St. Anselm’s. Just Alden, Mr. Chancel, and the rector. Short and sweet, and the only man crying at the funeral was Mr. Chancel, because Alden knew damn well that what they were burying was a couple bricks packed in a shroud so they wouldn’t slide around in the coffin.”

  “God, what a devil,” Nora said.

  “His father said a lot worse than that when he found out.” Helen Day surprised Nora by laughing out loud.

  77

  DAVEY WAS IN Jeffrey’s apartment, where the telephone line was untapped. If she called him, she was under no obligation to reveal his father’s treachery. He would believe her in time, she knew, but if she troubled him with Helen Day’s revelation while he was still under Alden’s spell, he would accuse her of lying. Once he accepted the truth, he would have to burst out of the Poplars, out of Chancel House, out of Alden’s life forever.

  Nora reached out and touched the receiver. The plastic seemed warm and alive. She pulled back her hand, then reached out again. The bell went off like an alarm, and she jumped. Davey.

  She picked up the receiver and said hello.

  “Nora, is that you?” The man at the other end was not Davey.

  “It’s me,” she said.

  “This is Everett Tidy. I tried to call you before, but you were on the phone. It’s not too late to talk, is it?”

  “No.”

  “I thought you ought to know about something. I don’t mean to worry you, but it’s got me a little disturbed.”

  She asked him what had happened.

  “I got two calls. The first was from a lawyer named Leland Dart. He’s the father, isn’t he?”

  Nora asked what Leland Dart had wanted.

  “He apologized for taking my time and all of that. He explained that he was the counsel for Chancel House and asked if I was aware that there had been some recent discussion about the authorship of one of their properties. I told him I knew nothing about it. Then he told me the property was Night Journey, and that, as I undoubtedly knew, my father had once had some contact with its author, Hugo Driver. He wanted to know if I was in possession of any papers of my father’s which could demonstrate Driver’s authorship. If I didn’t have the time, he’d be happy to send one of his staff up to Amherst to go through everything for me.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That nothing my father had written could prove anything about Night Journey one way or the other. Had I examined everything? Yes, I said, and he’d have to take my word for it, there wasn’t anything he could use. Then he asked how many journals or diaries my father had left, and where I kept them. Were they on deposit in a library somewhere, or were they in my house? The Amherst College Library, I told him. If he sent a young fellow up to Amherst, would I agree to let him inspect the papers? Not on your life, I said. Then he said that he might need to be in correspondence with me, and he wanted to verify my address. He read out the address of my old house. Was that right? I said that as far as I was concerned, we had no more to talk about.”

  “Good,” Nora said.

  “Then he asked if I had been discussing this matter recently with any other parties. I told him that was none of his business, either. Had I heard of a woman named Nora Chancel, he asked. Had Nora Chancel come around making inquiries related to Hugo Driver?”

  “He asked about me?”

  “Right. I said no, I hadn’t had any contact at all with you, and if he wanted to have a sensible business discussion, why didn’t he call at a sensible hour? Well, he as good as called me a liar, and said you were a fugitive from justice, I should refuse to have anything to do with you, and there would be serious consequences if I ignored his advice.”

  “Why would Leland Dart—”

  “The next thing he said was that he had a young lawyer already in the Amherst area, and wouldn’t I agree at least to meet with the man? No. I would not. He argued with me a little while, and then I heard it.”

  “It?”

  “The background. People talking. Voices. This strange ringing noise. Then I recognized it, that bell sound a cash register makes when a total is rung up.”

  “A cash register?”

  “So I said, ‘Are you calling me from a bar?’ and he hung up.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “That it was Dick pretending to be his father?”

  “I thought about all the stress the man is under. If your son is Dick Dart, maybe you’d be tempted to do some of your business in bars. But after the next call, it occurred to me that it might have been Dick.”

  No more than twenty minutes after the man calling himself Leland Dart had hung up on him, Tidy had heard from a Captain Liam Monoghan of the Massachusetts State Police. Everett Tidy was on the verge of being taken in for questioning, perhaps even charged with various crimes, and if he had one hope in the world of escaping these humiliations, that hope was in Captain Monoghan. Monoghan said, I don’t think you were aware that this woman was a fugitive from the FBI, and, We have information that Mrs. Chancel has altered her appearance. We also have information that she may be in the Northampton area. Is that correct?

  “If he’d named any other town, I wouldn’t have said anything at all, Nora. I would have thought he was bluffing. But you have to appreciate my position. I want to help you in any way I can, but I am not willing to go to jail. That man promised that I’d spend at least one night in jail if I didn’t come across, and if that happened, I was afraid I’d involve Jeffrey and his mother.”

  “Professor Tidy, Dick Dart cut and dyed my hair, but the police don’t know that. The only way they could know it is if Dick Dart told them.”

  There came a silence nearly as long as one of Helen Day’s. “I don’t think the man I talked to was a policeman,” he finally said.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “He said he’d be satisfied that I was acting out of innocent motives if I could confirm or deny the information that you were in Northampton. If I continued to obstruct the police, there were people down at State Police headquarters who wanted to bring me in for the night. It seemed to me that the way to do as little damage as possible was to confirm what they already knew, so I told him that I did have the feeling that you had intended to go to Northampton, but I didn’t know any more than that. He thanked me for my cooperation and said an officer would be coming over soon to take a statement. I called you as soon as I got off the phone.”

  “No officer turned up at your apartment.”

  “No. I suppose one could still show up. What do you think?”

  “It was Dick Dart both times,” Nora said. “When he was pretending to be his father, he learned enough to be pretty certain that I’d visited you, so he made the second call to see if he could bluff more information out of you.”

  “I’m so sorry.” He groaned. “Nora, I had no idea I was putting you in danger. How did he figure out where you were?”

  “He didn’t,” Nora said. “Northampton was just an educated guess. If he guessed wrong, he’d just have to keep naming towns until he got it right.”

  “Do you think I should call the police—the real police?”

  “No, don’t do that.”

  “Get out of there,” Tidy said. “Go to Boston and hide out until you can be sure you’re safe. If you can get there tonight, call me and I’ll wire you enough money to hold you for a while. Get Jeffrey to take you.”

  “I want to find out if I’m still in trouble
, but if I am, I might take you up on that.”

  “I have a little house up in Vermont which is looking very attractive right about now. Do you think Dart might still be trying to find out where I live? I hate to think of him being in Northampton, but I have to say that I don’t like the thought of him in Amherst, either.”

  There was a silence Nora chose not to fill.

  “I’ve been learning a very unhappy truth, the past hour or so.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It is extremely unpleasant to be afraid,” Tidy said.

  78

  “DAVEY?”

  The shocked silence, which rode atop a swell of violins and horns, continued until Nora filled it herself. “Davey, it’s me.”

  “Nora?”

  “Can you talk to me?”

  “Where are you?” His voice sounded a little slower than usual.

  “Is it safe to talk?”

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “That’s not important. Is this line tapped?”

  “How should I know? No, I don’t think it is. My father got rid of Jeffrey and the Italian girl, so that’s why I’m in Jeffrey’s apartment.” A blast of music obliterated his next few words.

  “Davey, please turn down the music. I can’t hear you.”

  He must have waved a remote control, because the music instantly subsided. “So how are you? Are you okay? You sound okay.”

  “It’s a little complicated. How are you?”

  “Lousy,” Davey said. “I’ve been worried sick ever since Dart grabbed you out of the police station. I thought he was going to kill you. You know how I found out? The receptionist saw it on television on her break! She called me, and I ran downstairs. There were about twenty people around her desk. For half an hour they were showing stuff about you and Dick Dart, and then Dad took me back to Westerholm. Ever since, all we do is watch the news channel and talk to cops. And Mr. Hashim and Mr. Shull, boy, do we ever talk to those guys. Mr. Shull is sort of cool in a dumb kind of way. They both really hate Holly Fenn. They’d like to skin him alive.”

  Nora heard the sound of ice cubes chiming against glass. “Holly Fenn should get canned, he messed up big-time on this one. Hey, Nora, are you really all right?”

  “In some ways, Davey.”

  “When Mr. Shull told us you got away, I was really glad.”

  “Glad.”

  “I was relieved. Don’t you think I was relieved?”

  “Davey, can I come home?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her heart sank at the suspicion in his voice. “Is Natalie still accusing me of kidnapping her?”

  “From what I hear, Natalie still isn’t saying anything at all. Mr. Hashim and Mr. Shull still think you’re guilty.” He hesitated. “Natalie took a lot of drugs, did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “One of those cops found a coke stash taped to the back of a drawer in her bedroom. Remember her refrigerator magnets? I guess they should have told us something.” Again she heard ice cubes rattling in a glass. “Were you in Holyoke?”

  “Yes,” Nora said.

  “You drove to Holyoke and ditched that dead man’s car?”

  “I didn’t intend to. I went into a restaurant and had something to eat, and when I came out the police were all over the place.”

  “You went into a restaurant? You had something to eat? What is this, a field trip?”

  “I have to eat now and then,” Nora said.

  “But you could have come home. It makes you look so guilty when you hide out like this.”

  “Come home where—to the Poplars?” Nora asked. “I suppose Alden would greet me with shouts of joy.”

  “Come home and face the music, I mean. My father doesn’t have anything to do with that. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Neither did I,” Nora said. “But I bet your father is trying his damnedest to make you think I did.” Another chink of ice cubes. “What are you drinking, Davey?”

  “Vodka. Did you know that Jeffrey supposedly wrote plays that were put on at the Public Theater? I asked him about these posters he has up in his living room, and he claimed he wrote these plays, under the name Jeffrey Mannheim. I don’t think he did, do you? They got awfully good reviews.”

  “Jeffrey has hidden depths,” Nora said.

  “He’s the Italian girl’s nephew, for God’s sake! What kind of hidden depths could he have?” He took another chiming mouthful of the drink. “Yeah, forget Dad. Of course my father is running you down all over the place. Mom is even worse. She thinks you arranged to be kidnapped by Dick Dart. She wishes she’d thought of it. I think Mr. Hashim almost sort of believes her.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “I tell you, Nora, I’ve been really worried about you, but I have no idea what you think you’re doing.”

  This had the ring of an accusation. “Mainly, Davey, I’ve been trying to stay away from Dick Dart and avoid the police until it’s safe to come back home.”

  “The cops found a lot of new clothes from a fancy men’s store in that car, and when they went to the shop, the salesman remembered the two of you very well. Dick Dart tried on a bunch of new suits, and you just sat there and watched him. Then the cops went up and down the street, and they find out that the two of you have been in half the shops in town. Everybody remembers this nice lovey-dovey couple.”

  “Dick Dart is a lunatic, Davey. Do you think I cooperated with him because I like him? I hate him, he makes my skin crawl. If I had done anything to call attention to myself, he would have killed me.”

  “Not if he couldn’t see you,” Davey said. “Like if he was in a changing room.”

  “I wasn’t feeling all that confident, Davey. Just before we went on our shopping expedition, he raped me. I wasn’t actually thinking too clearly. I felt like I’d been broken in half, and I wasn’t up for any heroics.”

  “Oh God, oh no, I’m so sorry, Nora.”

  “I didn’t cooperate with him, in case you’re wondering. I was trying too hard not to pass out. Besides, my hands were tied behind my back and my mouth was taped shut.”

  “You must have been scared to death.”

  “It was even worse than that, Davey, but I’ll spare your feelings.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “Because you didn’t ask me any real questions. You went on and on about Jeffrey and watching the receptionist’s television. Also because you didn’t sound too sympathetic, and now I know why. You imagined that I was having all that fun with Dick Dart. You want to know how I got away from him? I hit him on the head with a hammer. I thought I’d killed him. I got outside and started the car, but what do you know, I didn’t kill him after all, because he came charging out of the motel room, and I steered toward him and hit him with the car.”

  “My God. That’s terrific.”

  “It would have been terrific if I’d killed him, but I didn’t. He’s still wandering around trying to find people who might help prove that your beloved Hugo Driver didn’t write Night Journey.”

  Davey made a strangled sound of protest and outrage, but Nora ignored it. “He just found out where I am, and now he’s probably sharpening his knives so he can do a really good job on me.”

  “Where are you?”

  “If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone else. You can’t even tell them we had this conversation.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m serious, Davey. You can’t tell anyone.”

  “I won’t. I just want to know where you are.”

  “I’m in Northampton, in a room in the Northampton Hotel.”

  “Hold on a sec.”

  She heard him put down the receiver. A refrigerator door opened, and ice cubes chinked into a glass. Liquid gurgled from a bottle. He came back to the telephone. “What are you doing in Northampton?”

  “I’m hiding, what do you think I’m doing?”

  “Hold on, does this have anything to do with Jeffr
ey? Did he tell you I was staying in his apartment? Are you with Jeffrey? What the hell are you doing with Jeffrey?”

  “I needed help and I called him.”

  “You called Jeffrey? That’s crazy.”

  “I couldn’t call you, could I? All the lines are tapped. And once Jeffrey realized that I’d been asking questions about Katherine Mannheim, he insisted on picking me up.”

  “I’m lost. Jeffrey is a servant, he’s Maria’s goddamned neph-ew, what can he possibly have to do with Katherine Mannheim?” A slosh, a chinking of ice cubes. “I’m beginning to hate the sound of that woman’s name. I hope she died a horrible death. Why are you asking questions about her?”

  “Dick Dart is doing more than buying new clothes.” For a little while she explained Dart’s mission, and Davey responded with moans of disbelief. “I don’t care if you don’t believe it, that’s what’s going on, Davey. As for Jeffrey, he’s Katherine Mannheim’s nephew because his mother, Helen Day, was her sister.”

  “His mother? Helen Day?”

  “She met your grandfather at Shorelands when she went there to see if she could find Katherine. Her husband had died, and she wasn’t happy in her work, and he hired her.” She went on to explain the connections between Helen Day, Jeffrey, and Maria.

  “Do these people think Katherine Mannheim wrote Night Journey? That could ruin us!”

  “But Chancel House is in plenty of trouble even without a scandal about Hugo Driver. According to Dick Dart—”

  “That expert on the publishing industry.”

  “He knows a lot about Chancel House. Your father is running it into the ground, and he’s been trying to sell it to a German firm. This Katherine Mannheim business is driving him crazy, because it could wreck the German deal.”

  “There is no German deal. Dick Dart made it all up.”

  “He passed along another interesting story, too. About the Hellfire Club.”

  “Oh,” Davey said. “Well, okay.”

  “ ‘Well, okay’? What does that mean?”

  “Okay, I didn’t exactly tell you the truth.”

  “You belonged to the Hellfire Club.”

  “There was no Hellfire Club, not really. That was just what we called it.”