The Hellfire Club

by Peter Straub

  Here are your telephones, Nora told herself. You can get these guys to go to the police. But how to convince them?

  “Your husband is an unusual man,” said Gray Crew Cut. “You must be very proud of him.”

  “Can I talk to you for a second?” she asked. “I have to tell you something.”

  “I’m Frank Neary, by the way, and this is Frank Tidball.” Both men extended their hands, and Nora shook them impatiently. “We’ve taken Lily’s tour many times, and she always comes up with something new.”

  Tidball smiled. “She never came up with anything like your husband before.”

  Dart and Lily had paused at the edge of a series of overgrown scars, the remains of one section of the old gardens. Past them, an empty pedestal stood at the center of a pond. Lily was laughing at something Dart was saying.

  “You can hardly be a poet if you don’t have an independent mind,” said Neary. “Where we live, in Rhinebeck, up on the Hudson River, we’re surrounded by artists and poets.”

  Nora took an agonized look across the lawn. Dart spoke to Lily and began walking quickly toward the group moving in his direction, Nora and the two Franks a little apart from the others.

  “Wasn’t there something you wanted to say?” Neary asked.

  “I need some help.” Dart advanced across the grass, smiling dangerously. “Would you please take my arm? I have a stone in my shoe.”

  “Certainly.” Frank Neary stepped smartly up beside her and held her elbow.

  Nora raised her right leg, slipped off her shoe, and upended it. “There,” Nora said, and the two men politely watched the fall of a nonexistent stone. “Thank you.” As Neary released her arm, she watched Dart striding toward her with his dangerous smile and remembered where she had heard their names. “You must be the Neary and Tidball who write the Chancel House crossword puzzles.”

  “My goodness,” Neary said. “Frank, Mrs. Desmond knows our puzzles.”

  “Isn’t this lovely, Frank?”

  Nora turned to smile at Dart, who had noticed the tone of her conversation with the Franks and slowed his pace.

  “You know our work?”

  “You two guys are great,” Nora said. “I should have recognized your names as soon as I heard them.”

  Dart had come within hearing distance, and Nora said, “I love your puzzles, they’re so clever.” Something Davey had once said came back to her. “You use themes in such a subtle way.”

  “Good God, someone understands us,” Neary said. “Here is a person who understands that a puzzle is more than a puzzle.”

  Dart settled a hand on Nora’s shoulder. “Puzzles?”

  “Norman,” she said, looking up with what she hoped was wifely regard, “Mr. Neary and Mr. Tidball write those wonderful Chancel House crossword puzzles.”

  “No,” said Dart, instantly falling into his role, “not the ones that keep you up late at night, trying to think of an eight-letter word for smokehouse flavoring?”

  “Isn’t that great?”

  “I’m sure you three have a lot to discuss, but we should catch up.” Dart smiled at the two Franks. “I wondered what you were talking about. Do you have an editor over there at Chancel House?”

  “Yes, but our work doesn’t need any real editing. Davey makes a suggestion now and then. He’s a sweet boy.”

  The four of them came up beside the rest of the group, and Lily said that after viewing the pond, they would be going on to Honey House, at which point the official tour would conclude. Anyone who wished to see the Mist Field, the Song Pillars, and Rapunzel was free to do so.

  “You gentlemen come here often?” Dart asked.

  Together, swapping sentences, Neary and Tidball told their new friends that they tried to visit Shorelands once a year. “Five years ago, we stayed overnight in Rapunzel, mainly so we could walk through Main when it wasn’t filled with tourists. It was tremendously enjoyable. Agnes Brotherhood was full of tales.”

  “What kind of tales?”

  Neary looked at Tidball, and both men smiled. Neary said, “There’s a big difference between Lily and Agnes. Agnes never liked Georgina very much, and back then she was willing to gossip. Frank and I heard stories that will never be in the history books.”

  Lily had begun to speak from the raised flagstone ledge surrounding the pond. Frank Neary raised a finger to his lips.

  After telling two mildly prurient anecdotes about the accidental unclothed encounters of writers of opposite sexes, Lily hopped off the ledge and declared that their final stop, Honey House, the only cottage restored to its original condition, was the perfect conclusion to their tour.

  An overgrown stone path curved away from the pond and led into the trees. At the rear of the group, Nora and Dart walked along just behind the puzzle makers, and the others strung out in pairs behind Lily’s pink suit. The air had darkened.

  “Might rain,” Dart said.

  “It will,” Tidball said. “It’s getting here a little ahead of schedule, which is good for them. Rain cuts into attendance quite a bit. Shorelands gets muddy when it rains. If it’s going to happen, they’d rather have it now instead of on the weekend.”

  “Cuts into attendance?” Neary asked. “I should say. Rain has the same effect on attendance that the fellow in the papers, Dart, had on his victims.”

  Lily and the couple behind her stepped onto a bridge over the stream which wandered through the northern end of the estate. Their shoes rang on the bridge, trip trap, trip trap, like the three billy goats gruff in the fairy tale.

  “Heard anything new about good old Dart?” Dart asked. “What a story! We couldn’t make much sense out of it. Fellow was accused of murder but never charged. What was the woman doing in the police station? More there than meets the eye. Still on the loose, this odd couple?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Neary. “According to the radio, Dart is supposed to be in Northampton, and that’s not far from here.” His eyes had become large and serious. “I agree that more is going on than meets the eye. Frank and I have a connection with the woman.” He leaned in front of Nora to look into Dart’s face. “You asked about our editor, Davey Chancel. Well, she’s his wife. If you ask me, Nora Chancel had something going with this Dart.”

  “I should say that’s a definite possibility,” Dart said. “What do you know about this woman, your editor’s wife?”

  The others had crossed over the bridge, and now the two Franks, followed closely by Nora and Dick Dart, stepped onto it. Trip trap, trip trap.

  “We’ve heard rumors,” Tidball said.

  “Go on,” said Dart. “I’m absolutely riveted.”

  “Apparently the woman is an unstable personality. We think they were in cahoots. When he got arrested, she went to the police station and staged her own ‘kidnapping,’ quote unquote, to get him out. She’s probably more dangerous than he is.”

  Neary laughed, and a second later Nora laughed, too.

  They followed the others toward a cabin tucked away at the base of the trees. Lily stood at the front door facing them.

  “Quite a saga, isn’t it?” Dart asked.

  “I can hardly wait for the movie,” Nora said.

  Lily held up a hand as if taking an oath. “We here at Shorelands are very proud of what you are about to see. The planning began four years ago, when our director, Margaret Nolan, said to us at dinner, ‘Why don’t we make it possible for our guests to walk into one of our cottages and experience the world created by Georgina Weatherall? Why not re-create the past we celebrate here?’ We all fell in love with Margaret Nolan’s vision, and for a year we assembled records and documents in order to reassemble a picture of a typical cottage interior from approximately 1920 to approximately 1935. We vowed to cut no corners. Let me tell you, when you begin a project like this, you find out how much you don’t know in a hurry!”

  Polite laughter came from everyone but Nora and Dart.

  “You are wondering how we chose Honey House. I’ll be frank about tha
t. Expense had to be a consideration, and this is one of the smallest cottages. Our last great general renovation was in 1939, and the task before us was enormous. With the help of Georgina Weatherall’s records, we covered the walls with a special fabric obtained from the original manufacturer. It had been out of production since 1948, but several rolls had been preserved at the back of the warehouse, and we bought all of them. We learned that the original paint came from a company which had gone out of business in 1935, and nearly lost hope, but then we got word that a paint supplier in Boston had fifteen gallons of the exact brand and color in his basement. Donations poured in. About a year and a half ago, it all came together.

  “This should go without saying, but I must insist that you touch none of the objects or fabrics inside. Honey House is a living museum. Please show it the respect it deserves, and allow others to enjoy this restoration for many years to come. Am I understood?”

  Dart’s cry of “Absolutely!” rang out over the mutter of assent from the group.

  Lily smiled, turned to the door, took a massive key from a pocket of the pink suit, and looked over her shoulder. “I love this moment.” She swung the door open and told the young couple directly in front of her to switch on the lights.

  The boy led the first of the group through the door. Soft sounds of appreciation came to those still outside.

  “They all do that,” Lily said. “As soon as the lights go on, it’s always Ooh! Aah! Go on, Norman, get in there. It’ll knock your eyes out.”

  Dart patted her shoulder and followed Nora through the door.

  89

  EVERY POSSIBLE SURFACE had been covered with porcelain figu-rines, snuffboxes, antique vases, candles in ornate holders, and lots of other things Nora instinctively thought of as gewgaws. Paintings in gilt frames and mirrors engulfed in scrollwork hung helter-skelter on the aubergine-colored walls.

  Lily addressed the group. “I will leave you to feast upon this splendid re-creation. Feel free to ask me about anything that strikes your eye.” The couples separated into different portions of the interior, and she came up to the Franks with a proprietary swagger. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

  Nora said, “I had no idea the guests lived in this kind of splendor.”

  “Nothing was too good for the people who came here,” said Lily. “To Miss Weatherall, they were the cultural aristocracy. Mr. Yeats, for example.” She pointed across the room at a photograph of a man with a pince-nez on the bridge of his nose. “He was a great gentleman. Miss Weatherall loved his conversation.”

  “A writer named Creeley Monk stayed here, too,” Nora said.

  “Creeley Monk? I don’t seem to recall . . .”

  “In 1938.”

  Lily’s eyes went flat with distaste. “We like to dwell on our triumphs. And here we have one example, standing right next to you! Frank and Frank are published by Chancel House, which was born that very summer, when Mr. Driver met Mr. Lincoln Chancel. Now, he was a great gentleman.”

  “I guess it wasn’t such a bad summer after all,” Nora said.

  Lily gave a ladylike shudder.

  “Is this a reconstruction of what would have been here during the thirties?”

  “No, not at all,” Lily said, untroubled by the contradiction of her earlier remarks. “We wanted to represent the estate as a whole, not just a single cottage. When you put it together like this, you get a real feel of the times.” A man who apparently wanted to question her about a collection of paperweights waved to her, and she scampered away.

  “Nineteen thirty-eight isn’t their favorite year,” said Tidball.

  “I wonder if you know anything about a poet named Katherine Mannheim,” Nora asked.

  Tidball rolled his eyes upward and clasped his hands in front of him.

  “It seems you do,” Nora said. Dart looked on, indulgent, pleased to sense the presence of trouble ahead.

  The Franks exchanged a brief glance. “Let’s wait until the tour is over,” Neary said. “Were you going to look at the Mist Field and the Song Pillars?”

  “You haven’t seen the Song Pillars, you haven’t seen Shorelands,” said Dart.

  Half an hour later, the four of them lagged behind the others on the path threading north through the woods. Dart was walking so close behind Nora that he seemed almost to engulf her.

  “Where did these airy-fairy names come from?” he boomed out.

  “Georgina,” Neary said, striding along at the head of their column of four. “When her father owned the estate, the only cottage that had a name was Honey House, after an old butler who lived there, Mr. Honey. After her father turned it over to her, all of a sudden everything had a new name.” He looked back, grinning at the others. “Georgina’s romantic conception of herself extended to her domain. These people tend to be dictatorial.”

  Frank Neary was a clever man. Dart could not keep his eye on her all afternoon, and she needed only a few seconds.

  “That’s where your poet went wrong,” Neary said. “We got all this from Agnes Brotherhood, so you have to take into account that she never really cared for Georgina. Lily, on the other hand, worshiped her. Lily detested Katherine Mannheim because she didn’t give Georgina the proper respect. Agnes told us that Katherine Mannheim saw right through Georgina the first time she met her, and Georgina hated her for it.”

  Tidball said, “According to Agnes, Georgina was jealous. But the entire subject still seemed to make her nervous.”

  The path curved around the left side of a meadow and disappeared into the trees on its far side, where several large, upright gray stones were dimly visible. “Here it is, the famous Mist Field.”

  “Mist Field,” Nora said. “Why does that sound familiar?”

  “Mr. Desmond, do you write every day?” Tidball asked.

  “Only way to get anything done. Get up at six, scribble an ode before going to the office. Nights, I’m back at it from nine to eleven. By the way, please call me Norman.”

  They began moving up the path again.

  “Are you part of a community of poets?”

  “We Language poets like to get together at a nice little saloon called Gilhoolie’s.”

  “How would you define Language poetry?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like,” Dart said. “Language, as much of it as possible.”

  “Have you ever read Katherine Mannheim’s poetry?” asked Neary.

  “Never touch the stuff.”

  Neary gave him a puzzled look.

  “Why did Agnes think Georgina was jealous of Katherine Mannheim?” Nora asked.

  “Georgina was used to being the center of attention. Especially with men. Instead, they were drooling over this pretty young thing. Being the kind of person she was, it took her a couple of weeks to understand what was going on. Lily Melville set her straight.”

  “Should have thrown the bitch out right then,” Dart said.

  Neary seemed startled by his choice of words. “Eventually she decided to do that, but she didn’t want to act in any way that might injure her reputation. She was worried about finances, and sending away a guest could look like a distress signal. Here are the Song Pillars and Monty’s Glen. Impressive, aren’t they?”

  A short distance from the path, six tall boulders with flat ends had been placed in a circle around a natural clearing. The other members of Lily Melville’s group were already drifting back to the path, and a sixtyish woman in a turquoise exercise suit came up to them and introduced herself as Dorothea Bach, a retired high school teacher. She wanted to know all about Mr. Desmond’s poetry.

  “My odes and elegies were originally inspired by my own high school English teacher.” He began spouting nonsense which thrilled Dorothea down to her bright blue running shoes. Fascinated, Tidball moved a step nearer.

  Nora hurried up beside Neary, who was moving toward the boulder. He turned to her with a conciliatory smile, apologizing in advance for what he had to say. “To hear your husband talk, you’d think he didn’t kno
w anything about poetry at all.”

  “I need your help.”

  “Another imaginary stone?” He held out his arm.

  “No, I—”

  Dart stroked the back of her neck. “Don’t let me break up this private moment, but I couldn’t bear that woman a second longer.”

  Neary turned to Nora with a questioning look. She shook her head.

  They passed through the Pillars and walked to the center of the clearing. “Every single time I come here, I think about going back in time to one of the great summers and listening to the conversation here. I get goose bumps. Right here, great writers sat down and talked about what they were working on. Wouldn’t you like to have heard that?”

  “Must have been a stitch,” Dart said.

  “You’re a piece of work, Norman,” Neary said.

  “Humble laborer in the vineyards,” Dart said.

  “All in all, Norman, I wouldn’t say that humility is your strong suit.”

  “Maybe you boys should leave us alone,” Dart said. “After a while, little old swishes start to get on my nerves.”

  Frank Tidball looked as if he had been struck on the back of his head with a brick, and Frank Neary was enraged and weary in a manner to which he had clearly grown accustomed long ago. “That’s it. This man is a lunatic, and he frightens me.”

  “I should frighten you,” Dart said, glimmering with pleasure.

  Neary held his ground. “Good-bye, Mrs. Desmond. I wish you luck.”

  Dart laughed at him—every word he said was ridiculous.

  “Frank, I know my husband has offended you, but what were you saying about Georgina’s money troubles? It might be very important to me.” Nora had seen the money problem like the hint of a clue to an answer, and it was too important to be allowed to escape.

  “I have no problem with you, Mrs. Desmond.” He gave a contemptuous glance at Dart, who briskly stepped forward and grinned down at him.