Celestial Chess

by Thomas Bontly

  “He prevailed upon us to accompany him, though my husband had degenerated to a mere shadow of his former self and was unfit for any strenuous activity.

  “As soon as we entered the abbey grounds and saw the ruins faintly visible in the starlight, I was gripped by a strange compulsion to flee from the others and seek out something that seemed to be waiting for me in the darkness. I was seized with what I can only describe as a longing to be ravished by the thing I knew was waiting for me. My will was not my own. I slipped away from the party and hid in the ruined chapel. My heart was pounding with excitement, anticipation, loathing. I could hear Sir Percy and my husband calling for me in another part of the abbey as from across a void. I watched as a figure emerged from the shadows and drew slowly nearer. I was paralyzed with fear, yet also with a fierce longing. The figure approached my hiding place, as if it could smell my lust rising in the warm spring air, and then I saw . . . I saw ...”

  “Gervaise?” I asked, when the old woman seemed unable to continue. “Was it Gervaise?”

  “I don’t know. It was a monk, very tall and gaunt in his black robes, with a black beard and two gleaming eyes that seemed to express both desire and hatred as he reached out to wrap his black cloak around my body. Just then my husband entered the chapel with a light. He cried out and ran toward us. The apparition instantly fled. But my husband stumbled on some bit of rubble, fell forward and struck his head on the stones of the chapel floor. I ran to him and swore that it was not I, but some demon which possessed me, that sought that evil creature he’d seen me with, but my husband . . . my husband, Dr. Fairchild, was dead.”

  She shut her eyes tightly against the memory and hid her wrinkled, ravaged face in her hands. Then her own fiery eyes were upon me again and she said, “Under no circumstances shall you repeat this account to my son. He knows only that his father died in an accident while conducting an experiment related to the abbey ghost—which is one of the reasons, I’m sure, that he has always pretended to scorn the old legends. You see, some time before his death my husband wrote a long account of all our investigations, which he left as a letter for Kenneth to open on his twenty-first birthday. I am certain Kenneth has read that letter, but he has always attempted to defeat the powers that confound us by refusing to believe in them. My husband and I did not believe in such things, either, until it was too late.”

  ‘‘Perhaps your son believes more than he’s willing to admit,” I said. “He brought me here, after all, and he seemed anxious that we talk to one another.’’

  “Yes; he must know by now, despite all his mockery and scorn, that the evil we face is real enough. He has himself known much sorrow.”

  “His wife?”

  She nodded. “After his marriage, Kenneth wisely chose not to live at Abbotswold. But during the war, when he knew he was to be sent on a dangerous mission, he brought his wife and daughter here and asked me to look after them. There was nowhere else for them to go, but I saw at once that his wife might fall prey to the same sickness which had afflicted me in my youth. I tried to warn her, but she thought I was a meddling old fool and laughed at my ‘superstitious tales.’ She was a flighty, vivacious woman and became quickly bored by her life here. She made friends in the village and somehow became involved in horrid rituals at the abbey. Shortly before Kenneth returned from the war, she was found murdered, her body mutilated.”

  “My God!” I said, remembering how ill the professor had become when he mentioned a murder at the abbey. “And this is what you’ve been keeping from Stephany?”

  “From everyone,” the old woman said. “The shock quite destroyed Kenneth. He was hospitalized for over a year. Afterwards, he was adamant that the dreadful affair be buried along with all our family’s secrets. But the evils which plague us have not gone away. And even now I can see how Stephany is surrendering to the same evil which, in its time, has worked its will upon all the women who have lived here.”

  “Stephany?” I asked in dismay.

  “You do care for her!” the old woman said triumphantly. “Perhaps, then, I have not told you my story for nothing. Annjenette’s wicked passion for her doomed lover has lived on in this house and it shall never die and leave us in peace until those wretched creatures are freed from their unnatural existence.”

  “But if Stephany were to leave Abbotswold . . . ?”

  “Do you think evil is so easily escaped? We tried in our time, and vain hope brought us back. The Trevorres have always clung to their doom, and will cling, hopelessly, until an outsider, a man like yourself, with nothing to win and nothing to lose, intervenes.”

  It occurred to me that this was a task I could still decline. I had not come to England to rescue worldly maidens in distress, or to cope with their pompous and overbearing fathers.

  The old woman must have guessed some of these thoughts, for after a moment’s silence she said, “I have thought much on the meaning of my life, and on the sorry history of this family. It has occurred to me, many times, that the evil which has lived on in this house over the centuries could not have survived had it not been fed, nourished, fattened, by the sins of many generations—by the accumulated weight of human pride, folly and despair. Somehow, someday, all this misery must come to an end, and one who is noble and pure in spirit must end it”

  I could have said that, in that case, I was clearly not the man for the job—yet I did wonder if, underneath all my cynicism and cultivated detachment, I might not be a better man than I’d ever realized. It would be interesting, for once, to find out.

  Mrs. Trevor-Finch had sunk down into her wheelchair and blankets, exhausted by her long tale and the emotions it had aroused in her. I got to my feet and saw the watchful Mrs. Archer waiting at the door to show me out. “I’ll do what I can,” I told the old woman. “I won’t betray you—you have my word on that.”

  She held out her hand, and this time I did not hesitate to touch her withered flesh. I was surprised at the warmth and strength of her grip. She was not, after all, a mummified corpse from another era, but a living human being who had earnestly requested my aid. I still felt the pressure of those bony fingers on my hand as Mrs. Archer escorted me to the door.

  At the turn of the stairs, I paused and looked down into its shadowy well. Gervaise, I thought, if you’re not out there, old man, and if you haven’t been leading me on for some good purpose—well, then I’ve been dreadfully sold!

  The professor returned from London in high spirits. “Some perfectly amazing statistics came out of the computer,” he said at luncheon on the terrace. “I shall probably get a paper out of it. By the way, I ran into an old chum—a chap I was quite close to during the war. Colonel Lionel Buzby. He’s retired now and has gone in for ghost hunting.”

  “Ghost hunting?” Stephany asked. “Not one of your friends, surely?”

  “He’s not much of a scientist, I grant you that, but he’s devised some rather ingenious pieces of equipment and travels about the country investigating one sort of supernatural tomfoolery or another. When I told him about the abbey, he was keen to have a go at the place with his instruments. So I invited him down for the weekend. I thought you might find it amusing, Fairchild.”

  “I’m sure I shall,” I said, “but are you eager to find out what’s behind these old legends, Professor?”

  Trevor-Finch gave me a sharp look. “I don’t see how it could matter to me in the slightest. It’s only meant as an evening’s diversion. Now, if you two will excuse me, I’ve got a few things I want to do at the lab.”

  As soon as he was out of earshot, Stephany said, “I’ve been dying to ask you, David: did Grandmama come clean this morning and tell you all our dreadful family secrets?”

  “She did.”

  Stephany waited a moment and then said, “But you’re not going to share them with me, I gather.”

  “Not for the time being. Your grandmother swore me to silence.”

  Stephany sighed. “I’m scarcely a child, now, am I?”


  I felt an urge to test her in some fashion. “Would you be willing to leave this house for good, Stephany? Would you leave England and return to America with me?”

  She looked both pleased and confused by my proposal. I myself was a bit surprised to hear it come out sounding so much like an offer of something permanent.

  “I don’t know,” she said at last. “I’m very fond of you, but I do have my career. And there is such a thing as family feeling and one’s sense of responsibility. I don’t know what Grandmama may have told you, but if your proposal—it was a proposal, wasn’t it?—was meant simply to ‘save’ me from the nefarious power of this old pile of stones, I can assure you that I scarcely ever think of Abbotswold when I’m in London.”

  “Then perhaps you ought to stay there,” I said. “I don’t want to frighten you, but there are dangers here—for you in particular. That’s why I asked if you could put your family and this house permanently behind you.”

  “So it wasn’t a proposal!”

  “It was whatever it sounded like, and I’ll stick by it, if you ever want to take me up on it. Can I borrow your car for the afternoon? I have some business in Wimsett.”

  ‘‘My, we’ve become mysterious all of a sudden, haven’t we? I’ll ask Giles to bring it around for you.”

  “Don’t do that I’ll get it myself when I’m ready to go.”

  ~§~

  At precisely five minutes to four, I eased Stephany’s sports car into a parking space beside the Royal Mariner Inn. It was an old stone building with its back to the harbor in a part of town dominated by the reek of fish. The few people on the street were fishermen or sailors swaggering from one pub to another.

  A few old salts were playing cards at a rickety table in the lobby and a few more dozed before the “telly.” There was a desk, and a desk clerk reading one of those English tabloids devoted to the latest in rape and murder.

  “Is there a Mr. Simon Regis staying here?” I asked him.

  “You’ll find him in the tearoom, guv,” the clerk said with a jerk of his head. “He’s waitin’ for you.”

  The tearoom was at the back of the building, with a row of windows overlooking the harbor. All the tables were empty save one, where a middle-aged man in a dove-gray suit promptly stood up at my entrance. He was tall and slender, his gray hair neatly barbered and his mustache waxed at the tips. His nose was long and thin, his brow high, his chin and cheekbones sharply defined beneath smooth, well-cared-for skin. There was an aroma of after-shave lotion and pomade about him, and he looked very much like a successful, respectable and rather vain businessman who knew how to pursue his trade on the most amiable of terms.

  “Dr. Fairchild, I presume.” He extended his soft hand, on which I glimpsed a large, ornate ring. “I’ve taken the liberty of ordering tea. The pastries here are rather better than you might expect. It’s been one of my great finds in Norfolk. Won’t you sit down?”

  His voice was familiar, but lacked the tone of authority I’d heard in the woodcutter’s cottage. His eyes were a pale gray, with something of an ironist’s twinkle. I sat down.

  “I appreciate your promptitude,” he said. “I can see you are a man with whom I shall enjoy doing business.”

  “Are we going to do business?” I asked him.

  “Perhaps. But won’t you have a spot of tea? Never talk business over an empty cup—that’s my motto!”

  The table had been supplied with a teapot and a tray of frosted pastries. On the wharves outside the window, a row of gulls watched hungrily as I helped myself.

  “Cigarette?” Regis asked, extending a gold-plated case. I declined and he lit one for himself, which gave me another chance to observe his ring. The emblem on its broad band seemed a stylized representation of a goat’s head. There was a similar emblem on the stickpin in his black silk tie, and another, even tinier version on his cuff links. He inhaled smoke greedily and expelled two streams through his flared nostrils.

  “I believe you’ve been trying to get in touch with me,” he said.

  “I have one of your cards,” I said. “It was given to me by the widow of the Reverend Samuel Stemp, but when I went to your stated address, I found only an empty warehouse.”

  “A printer’s error,” Regis said. “Would you believe I gave out dozens of those cards before I noticed the mistake? You can imagine the business it’s cost me.”

  “And what is your business, Mr. Regis?”

  “I deal in rare books, as it says on the card. Lately I’ve taken an interest in scholarly papers of various sorts—the Reverend Stemp’s, for example. One never knows what might turn out to prove extremely valuable, so one buys whatever one can.”

  “And you are also interested in medieval manu-scripts?”

  “They bring a very good price these days, if one can find them. In fact, I have a buyer just now who is anxious to obtain the very manuscripts on which you’ve been working in the Duke’s College library.”

  “The Westchurch manuscripts? I don’t think the College would ever sell those.”

  “Indeed not. However, it has occurred to me—won’t you have another of these excellent sweets?—it has occurred to me that in lieu of doing business with the College itself, you—how shall I put it?—might accept a commission to obtain them for us.”

  “Me? But I have no authority . . .”

  “Of course not. You do, however, have access to the manuscripts.”

  “Not at the moment. The Special Collections have been closed. The manuscripts will be kept under lock and key until the College gets a new head librarian.”

  “Still, I shouldn’t think that a man in your position—familiar with the library, and known to the College porters—would find it difficult to get hold of a key.”

  “Are you suggesting that I steal them for you?”

  Though we were alone in the tearoom, Regis made a gesture imploring me to lower my voice. He poured more tea into his cup, then emptied the pot into mine. A gull landed on the window ledge and looked in at us with a beady, ravenous eye.

  “Let us look at the situation objectively,” Regis said. “You received a rather meager grant, I believe, from an American foundation and came to England for one year to work on said manuscripts. Duke’s took you in, accorded you temporary privileges as a fellow of the College and set you to work in their own vineyard, so to speak. When you leave England, your work completed, you shall leave behind a set of manuscripts which are surely more valuable, for your efforts to restore our understanding of them, than anything you yourself may have gotten for your troubles. I am not unfamiliar with the academic world and the way in which it operates. Your research will be rewarded in time—provided that you are able to publish your discoveries—by an American institution. But those rewards will be paltry, compared to what I am able to offer you. The group of buyers I represent are prepared to name a very attractive price. In short, I am offering to make you an entrepreneur.”

  “You put it very nicely,” I said, “but it’s still robbery. Duke’s has done well enough by me.”

  “I daresay they’ve humored you a bit, but American scholars are not respected in England. Those Cambridge dons are frightful snobs. In the end they’ll decide you just aren’t their sort, and send you packing.”

  That might well have been the truth, but I said, “Just who are your buyers, Regis, and why are they so eager to get hold of these manuscripts?”

  “They wish to remain anonymous, and their reasons are their own. One must not inquire too directly into ‘reasons,’ Dr. Fairchild. You will be amply paid for whatever risk may be involved.”

  “It’s not just the risk,” I said. “I have every intention of making those manuscripts my life’s work.”

  Regis’s eyes grew colder and harder, and his face seemed to change into something ugly and sinister. “In that case, Dr. Fairchild, it would prove a very short life, I fear. The people I represent are not only anxious to obtain the Westchurch manuscripts; they are also determined to
ensure that their secrets remain inviolate. I have no idea of the lengths to which they might go to prevent an indiscriminate exposure of the contents of those papers.”

  I sat back with something on my face which I hoped resembled a smile. “I think you’ve just threatened me, Mr. Regis.”

  He gave me an injured look. “My dear fellow, I am simply urging that you not ask too many questions about these people, their activities or their motives. The less you know, the easier it shall be to arrange our transaction. What would you say to one hundred thousand pounds?”

  “One hundred thousand pounds? You’ve got to be kidding!”

  Regis’s elegant hands urged me once again to lower my voice. “I assure you I’m quite serious. My buyers are members of a very wealthy and influential organization—what you might call a fraternal order. I should accept their offer if I were you, no questions asked. There are places in the world where you could live a princely life on one hundred thousand pounds. Believe me, Dr. Fairchild, it’s the chance of a lifetime.”

  And so it was. I looked out through salt-glazed windows at the small harbor. Rusty freighters, squat fishing vessels, a few sloops and dinghies, gulls perched along the wharf. The brackish water glinted oil, floated bits of debris. The low sun glowed orangy-gold off derricks, smokestacks, masts and rigging. Some of those boats would be leaving with the evening tide, heading for far-off places. It was really amazing, I thought, the way I wasn’t tempted.

  “Your offer,” I said, “is certainly very generous, but I can’t help wondering what makes these manuscripts so valuable. After all, they’ve lain neglected and forgotten in the College library for a couple of hundred years. Now, all of a sudden, this fraternal order of yours is willing to pay a small fortune to get them out. I don’t understand.”