Back in my room, I’d just changed clothes and was knotting my tie when Stephany knocked once and came in.
“Are you all right? We’re waiting dinner for you.”
“Sorry. I couldn’t get myself out of the tub.”
“Poor love,” she said, coming over to put a hand on my brow. “Does your head still ache? What were you doing in Cambridge that kept you up all night?”
I put my arms around her and kissed her forehead. ‘‘Dearest Stephany, whatever I’ve done—and whatever I may do in the next few hours—I’ve had your best interests at heart. I hope you’ll remember that.’’
“Of course I will. Don’t look so glum. This wretched old house is starting to affect even you.”
“I wish you wouldn’t go with us to the abbey tonight.”
“I want to come. You don’t think we’re actually going to find a ghost there, do you?”
“I’d just feel better if you stayed home.”
She looked curiously at me for a moment, then removed herself from my arms. “Honestly! I never should have sent you up to see Grandmama. I intend to come along, and that’s all there is to that!”
I might have known the professor would have a headstrong daughter, and that there was more drawing Stephany to the abbey than she realized.
Trevor-Finch, Archie and the colonel had been getting on famously all afternoon. Intoxicated by the stars, they’d gone heavy on the before-dinner sherry and then consumed an enormous quantity of wine at the table, the professor twice sending Giles to the cellar for another bottle. He accepted Archie’s presence at his table with good grace, humored the colonel, and joked affectionately with his daughter. Only to me was he as rude as usual, several times mentioning that I had not proved as apt a pupil as he had expected. ‘‘Fairchild’s bright enough, I daresay,” he told the others as if I weren’t even there, “but he insists upon clinging to obsolete notions on everything from politics to religion. That’s what comes from the study of poetry.”
“I hope to show you before the evening’s over,” I said, “that the study of poetry can be of practical value.”
“By finding us a ghost at the abbey?” Trevor-Finch’s derisive laughter verged, I thought, on hysteria. “Come, come—we are not children frightened by ghost stories in the dark. Even the colonel here knows better than to be afraid of ghosts!”
“I wouldn’t say that,’’ the colonel said. “I respect the supernatural, same as I would a live bomb. You never know what’s going to happen when you start messing about with psychic phenomena. For one thing, there’s usually some purely human disturbance behind a good many of these ghostly episodes.”
“Yes, such as insanity, ignorance, mass hysteria, congenital imbecility, charlatanism and fraud,” the professor said.
“The origin of the human fear of the supernatural,” I said, “has been traced to the individual’s sexual anxiety and guilt—usually the consequence of an imaginative and narcissistic adolescence. If we weren’t frightened, we wouldn’t be human. On the other hand”—for once I managed to make my point before the professor could overwhelm me with objections—“one can only wonder at the sadomasochistic impulse which could lead otherwise rational individuals to engage in such a debasing and self-destructive pursuit of occult experiences as, for example, witchcraft.”
The professor looked at me so sharply that I was sure those phrases from Sir Aubrey Rice Poulter’s book had rung a bell. He fell into an uncharacteristic silence, his long, agile fingers flicking nervously at the crumbs on the table, as if seeking an arrangement that would satisfy his scientist’s craving for symmetry.
“Well,” Stephany said at last, “are we going to the abbey tonight or aren’t we? Another glass of port, Daddy, and you’ll be too drunk to remember whether you’ve seen a ghost or not.”
“I’ve a good mind to call this farce off,” Trevor-Finch said, “but I suppose the rest of you are determined to make fools of yourselves, so I’d better come along.”
Trevor-Finch had some difficulty in rising from the table, and his intoxication made his eyes look shiftier than ever, as if he were a pickpocket in a train station full of bulging purses and fat wallets.
Stephany, Archie and I rode in the back of the van with the electronic equipment, while Colonel Buzby and Trevor-Finch took the front. We could hear them bawling out their favorite marching and drinking songs as the ghostmobile rolled across the dark and quiet countryside, beneath the brilliant stars.
I was filled with the glum sense that my effort to solve the mystery of the Westchurch manuscripts had come down at last to this silly escapade by a group of inebriated thrill-seekers.
We pulled into the empty parking lot outside the ruins. Colonel Buzby came back to warm up his instruments and to issue arms—flashlights for Stephany and me, a portable tape recorder for Archie, an infrared camera and (just in case the ghost should turn nasty) a double-barreled shotgun for the professor. “I’d like the chance to shoot a ghost,” Trevor-Finch exclaimed. “I’d have it mounted and hung in the senior common room, where all you bloody humanists could puzzle over him.”
It struck me then that the professor and the colonel, despite their differences, were indeed members of an army of intrepid scientists steadily advancing upon the world with their computers and instruments, methodically disproving the existence of everything the human heart had ever invented to people of this lonely universe. They would not stop, these zealous crusaders, until there was nothing left but them and their instruments, and then the universe would be that nearly perfect vacuum they desired.
The colonel took up his portable molecular analyzer. He flipped a switch and the Mole began to emit a series of beeps. “As long as the beeps are steady,” he said, “we know the particles have encountered nothing extraordinary. If they speed up, it means we’re onto something.”
The doors of the van slammed shut behind us. We approached the abbey in a closely gathered group. There was no moon yet. The stars, bright and numerous, shimmered in the moist, mild air of the spring night. Mist rising from the fens sent milky tendrils toward the abbey walls. Stephany moved closer to me and took my arm. Archie released a short, nervous laugh. “My God, it is a spooky old place!”
“Quiet, please,” Colonel Buzby said. “I think we’re get-ting a reaction.”
The Mole had begun to beep at an accelerated rate with our first step beyond the gate. Now it was ticking rapidly and insistently, and I felt my own heartbeat racing to match its pace. The colonel swung the box in an arc, so that its stream of charged particles probed the dark recesses of the abbey. The ticking tapered off, then picked up again as he brought the Mole back toward the central core of the ruins.
“Could it be there’s someone else here tonight?” I asked.
“If we were picking up human body temperatures from off in that direction—even a large animal or any warm-blooded creature—this little green light would go on. Besides, the particles wouldn’t respond to a human presence.”
“This is absurd,” Trevor-Finch said angrily. “You’ve never even tested this contraption of yours.”
“I couldn’t very well test it, Major, until I had something to test it on. We’re getting a reading, all right. A very definite gap or break in the physical structure of our immediate surroundings. It could be caused by some energy source—or possibly by a bit of antimatter.”
“Why, the presence of antimatter would blow this place apart,” the professor said.
“Under ordinary conditions, yes, but these are clearly not ordinary conditions. Let’s proceed a bit farther. This is going to give us some magnificent data.”
We continued on into the ruins and the ticking from the colonel’s box continued to accelerate. Stephany and I shone our lights across the broken walls and down dark passageways, but all we saw was the pale mist that had begun to penetrate the skeletal structure. By now I didn’t need the Mole to tell me that we were closing in on something. I recognized those symptoms I had felt
before—that shrill alarm within my skull, that pressure inside my chest—which indicated that we were in the presence of a mysterious and unnatural being.
As peculiar as it may seem to one who has not tramped about a haunted monastery in the dead of night, it came to me that there were certain rules of propriety which one would do well to observe in any form of ghostly intercourse. Did one do violence to a ghost’s integrity by attempting to analyze its molecules? I suppose it was not until this very moment that I realized how much I believed, and how much I wanted to believe, in the apparition named Geoffrey Gervaise. The ticking of the Mole began to taper off. The colonel swung the box in an arc and abruptly the ticking became more rapid.
“Ahh,” the colonel said triumphantly. “Whatever it is, it can move.”
Trevor-Finch flew into a rage. “This asininity has gone far enough. I’m going back to the van. Come along, Stephany.”
“If you turn back now,” Stephany said, “won’t you be admitting that you’re afraid there really is something here?”
The professor drew himself up. “That remark is in very bad taste. Of course I’m not afraid. It’s simply an insult to a rational creature to play these absurd games . . . but very well. Show me that damned ghost, Colonel, if you can!”
I was sorry that the professor had regained his nerve, and I saw I had slim chance of reaching Gervaise if I remained with the others. They had set off in a new direction, guided by the ticking of the Mole and huddled close together like children crossing a graveyard. I hung back. In a moment they were dim shapes moving through the mist. In another moment they were gone. I slipped behind a portion of wall and set off in the opposite direction, propelled by a wild sense of freedom.
Gervaise, I’m here! I’m alone!
I felt sure he would know who I was, that long ago he had recognized me as the one who could help him and had marked me for his own. His ghostly influence had been at work in my life, drawing me toward this moment of revelation. All that was necessary now was that I break the shackles of my own disbelief.
I cut through the desecrated chapel and stepped over the abbey’s outer wall. The promontory with its thorny shrubs was just ahead. The sky was swarming and alive with stars, but on the horizon I saw a pale glow and knew the moon was about to rise. If I wanted to test my theory under optimum conditions, I had to move swiftly.
I found the grate and the binoculars where Archie and I had hidden them in the bushes. I pushed my way through the thicket, twigs snapping at my face, and came out onto the paving stones of the old observatory. With the aid of the flashlight, I oriented myself according to the markings on the stones. I stood in the center of the platform facing due east, toward the sign of Aries, then shifted my gaze approximately ten degrees to the north to adjust for the precession of the equinoxes. Into my field of vision came the familiar constellations—the Big Dipper, Draco, Leo, Virgo. It was the proper season, give or take a few days, and the right time of night. Here on this very spot, a little less than eight centuries ago, Geoffrey Gervaise had read his fate in the stars.
Using the references in the poem as my guide, I worked my way from star to star northward until I was facing the sign of Capricornus. Then I raised the heavy metal grate to arm’s length above my head and saw the brighter stars shining within its squares like pieces on a chessboard. Gervaise must have had a way of fastening the grate to one of the openings in the roof that once bridged the platform. Lowering the grate to give my arms a rest, I recognized Perseus and the Pleiades, Auriga, the Charioteer, with Capella, the goat star, shining brightly on his northern shoulder. I raised the grate again and saw Capella dominating the square which corresponded to king’s bishop three. The next phase of the experiment was the most awkward. I had to hold the grate steady above my head with one hand, then raise the binoculars and train them as well as I could at the adjacent square, king’s knight three. My hand shook. The slightly brighter and more well-defined stars jumped and swam in the circular field like frenzied fireflies. It took several attempts to focus on the square, and then I caught just a glimpse of the star I wanted before my arm gave out and let the grate drop. But now I knew just where to look and I aimed the binoculars at the very faint star just a quarter of a degree northeast of Capella. Had it been shining as brightly tonight as it shone for those several weeks or months back in 1175, when it first blossomed in the heavens, it would have proclaimed itself a commanding presence on the board—a “fiendish light,” as Gervaise’s poem had it, “where yesternight was but a well/A blackish hole where hope could dwell.”
I lowered the binoculars and stood for a time looking up at the sky, the devil’s trap for the overconfident Gervaise. It should have been an exhilarating moment of triumph, yet it rang false and hollow. Where was Gervaise? Why hadn’t he come to me? I understood now, at least in principle if not in all its details, the fantastic game he had played. I knew further how he had been beaten, and I knew the consequences of his loss. I also knew how he might at last be saved, and it was this certainty which undercut any elation I might have felt. There was only one way to deprive the devil of his prize, and it was going to require a sacrifice I wasn’t sure I could make.
The moon broke above the horizon and flooded the fens with its white light. Overhead, the stars lost a good deal of their brilliance; the fainter ones disappeared altogether. With their passing faded whatever hope I had left of a visit from the poet whose cause I’d meant to serve. Feeling bitter and betrayed, I left the observatory and made my way back to the abbey wall.
I was about to step over the row of stones that marked the chapel nave when I heard the professor’s voice from somewhere in the abbey. I heard my name called several times. Then I heard Stephany’s name. Wasn’t she with the party? My God, how could I have let her out of my sight?
Suddenly, as if granted a reprieve when I least expected it, my heart jumped as from an electric shock. My scalp, my back, even my fingertips tingled with the knowledge that Gervaise was close by—perhaps even here in the shadows of the chapel.
“Fairchild! Stephany!” the professor called. “Where are you?”
His voice seemed to come from the courtyard just beyond the chapel. Frantically, I searched the moonlit rubble, the creeping mists, the black shadows. Gervaise, show yourself. It’s our last chance.
Now I could hear the insidious ticking of the colonel’s black box, footsteps on the paving stones outside. Having sniffed out Gervaise’s presence in the chapel, the Mole was in a frenzy. I looked toward the sanctuary—at the barren altar, several broken columns and a headless, armless statue. It struck me that this was a moment I would look back upon, in years to come, with embarassment and utter disbelief.
Something caught my eye in the shadows behind the altar. Had the darkness moved? The Mole had gone berserk. A beam of light glanced off a column to my left.
Run for it, Gervaise! Don’t let them see you!
A beam of light slid across the mossy stone wall, along a row of broken columns, into the recessed sanctuary. Shadows leapt away from its rapid flight, and within those shadows, another shadow leapt as well.
“There it goes,” cried Colonel Buzby.
My ears were stopped by the roar of the shotgun; the side of my face was scorched by the blast. The shot echoed and reechoed off the stones, banging away into the night like a chain reaction of exploding galaxies.
“I say—you almost shot young Fairchild,” said Colonel Buzby.
I swung around on the professor, grabbed the hot barrels of the gun and tore it from his grasp. “You crazy old bastard,” I snarled, and threw the gun down on the pavement. The professor was astonished. His face, in the light of his own flash, showed that he recognized the contempt he saw in mine. We stared at one another, each seeing the other for the first time.
I heard a grating, grinding noise from overhead. Trevor-Finch glanced up. I followed his gaze . . . and beheld a universe in motion. As if the stars had broken free of their moorings and were about to swin
g dizzily away on celestial currents, an entire slab of sky had begun to move.
But then I realized it was not the stars themselves but a large black object between us which had been set in motion—part of an ancient arch, hanging just above our heads and prodded from its niche by the blast of the professor’s gun. Very slowly did it seem to ease itself forward. The dry powder of its mortar sprinkled down on us; then the huge stone broke free and came rushing down at my upturned face.
I had an instant during which to resent the absurdity of such a death, but I did not have time to set myself in motion. Archie Cavendish snatched me from beneath the stone and fell with me onto the damp pavement, where we felt the simultaneous impact of the murderous block.
Trevor-Finch looked stupidly at the stone which had nearly deprived him of both his feet, then sat down upon it.
‘‘That was a near one,” Archie said, helping me up.
The Mole had reverted to a sober, stately beep. The colonel swung it around the chapel and told us what we already knew: “Whatever it was, it’s gone now.”
However, the Mole’s green light had winked as it passed the sanctuary. The colonel took the flashlight and played it upon the altar. Stephany rose from behind it, one hand shielding her eyes from the glare.
The professor jumped to his feet and ran toward her. “Stephany! Are you all right?”
She seemed dazed. Her hair was mussed, her blouse torn partly open, but she put herself submissively in her father’s arms and said, “Yes, I’m all right.”
“But I don’t understand,” Colonel Buzby said. “The Mole clearly indicated the presence of—”
“Damn your foolish gadgets,” Trevor-Finch said. “This is what comes of humoring amateurs.”
“I beg your pardon,” the colonel said, but Trevor-Finch had already turned his wrath upon me.
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