Black Moon

by Seabury Quinn

  Hiji, who was a captain of Houssa policemen in British West Central Africa (and enjoying it hugely) when Poland was invaded, resigned his commission and became a major of infantry in the B.E.F. In the retreat from Dunkerque his right femur was shattered by a shell fragment, and he was invalided out of service and sent as an attaché to the British Consulate General at New York. He can be seen limping down Fifth Avenue or lower Broadway almost any day, and usually has Sunday dinner with Dr. Trowbridge. Lady Ingraham, his wife, is serving at home in the Women’s Territorial Auxiliary, and both he and she declare, “When this shindy’s over we’re goin’ to Surrey or America or some nice, quiet place and settle down to raisin’ flowers and kids and bulldogs.—S.Q.

  THE REUNION HAD BEEN a huge success. Norah McGinnis, delighted at de Grandin’s return, had fairly outdone herself with dinner, and if she had not quite killed the fatted calf for him her oysters with champagne, turtle soup with dry sherry, filet of sole with graves and roast pheasant with burgundy was a more than merely satisfactory substitute. Now with the firelight beating back the shadows with its rosy lashes and casting changing highlights on the drawn curtains, I looked about the study much as a proud father might regard his family at a Thanksgiving homecoming. The room was redolent with a mixture of cigar smoke, the scent of burning apple wood and the bouquet of old whiskey and older brandy.

  Across the hearth from me sat Jules de Grandin, small-boned and delicately built, sensitive and neurotic as a woman, with a few more lines in his forehead, a few more tiny wrinkles round the corners of his eyes, a slightly tensed look in his gaze, but obviously happy as a schoolboy on a holiday. His little, round blue eyes were agleam with pleasure, his small wheat-blond mustache was fairly quivering with ecstatic joy as he passed the fragile, bubble-thin inhaler back and forth beneath his nose before he took a reverent sip of the pale cognac that was old when Andrew Jackson held New Orleans from the British. Hiji, a little thinner than I’d known him in the old days, and with several white hairs showing in the little black mustache that was in such sharp contrast to his pewter-colored hair, seemed to fill the sofa with his broad ruggedness. He had absorbed prodigious quantities of Scotch and water since we came from the table, and with each succeeding drink the tense lines in his face seemed softening. Detective Sergeant Costello, smooth-shaven, ruddy-faced, white-haired and even bigger than Hiji, filled his easy chair completely, and like Hiji took enormous quantities of Scotch, but took it without water. His smooth, pink face and blue, ingenuous Irish eyes were curiously misleading. He had the look, and often the precise manner of a suffragan bishop, plus an emergency vocabulary that would have been the envy of an army mule-skinner.

  Ten minutes out of Newark Airport the night plane for the West roared overhead, its motors droning like a swarm of angry hornets. Hiji poured the last four ounces of his drink down in a single gulp and looked up quizzically. “Not long since we’d been duckin’ for the cellar when we heard one o’ those blokes, eh, Frenchy?” he asked de Grandin.

  “Tu parles, mon vieux,” the little Frenchman agreed with a smile. “Me, I am—how do you say him? muscle-tied?—from running into rabbit-holes when they appeared. Parbleu, but it was execrable, no less. When one has finished dinner, one desires to relax, to feel the pleasant combination of the process of digestion and slow poisoning by alcohol and nicotine. But did les Boches think of that? Damn no! They spoiled my after-dinner rest at least a thousand times. Cochons! If one were to come to me now and tell me, ‘Jules de Grandin, here is fifty thousand francs. It is all yours if you will rise and move from where you sit’—morbleu, but I would tweak him by the nose and hurl the proffered bribe back in his face. I would let nothing interfere with the luxury of this hour—”

  “Beg pardon, sor,” Norah came to the study door apologetically, “but there’s a young man askin’ fer th’ Sergeant, Dr. Trowbridge. He says as how—”

  “Arrah, Norah darlin’, hold yer whist!” broke in Costello reprovingly. “Did ye not hear Dr. de Grandin say we couldn’t be disturbed th’ now? Tell th’ young felly to come round to Headquarters in th’ mornin’. ’Tis meself’s off duty now, an’—”

  “But, Sergeant acushla, ’tis one of yer own lads as wants ter see ye,” she persisted. “He says as how his name is Dennie Flannigan, an’—”

  “Does he, now, bad cess to th’ young omadhaun? Well—” he looked at us apologetically, then, to de Grandin:

  “Would ye be afther listinin’ to th’ lad, Dr. de Grandin, sor? He’s in bad trouble, so he is, and likely to be in worse before all’s said an’ done. Ye see, his father, Dennie Flannigan—God rest ’is soul!—wuz me buddy when I wuz first appointed to th’ force, an’ many a night we walked th’ same beat together. Killed in th’ line o’ duty, he wuz, too, an’ I’m responsible for young Dennie’s appointment.

  “There’s been some trouble round about th’ town these last few weeks, sor. A killer’s on th’ loose, and devil a hand can we lay on ’im, so th’ newspapers is givin’ us a goin’ over. Well, sor, ’twas Dennie’s hard luck to be walkin’ down th’ street th’ other night when th’ killer wuz out. He heard a woman scream an’ ran to help her, an’ caught th’ murderer almost red-handed.”

  “Eh?” Jules de Grandin raised slim black brows. “Since when has it been a misfortune to catch a criminal at his crimes, mon brave?”

  “That’s just it, sor. I said he almost caught ’im. But not quite. Th’ killer’s on th’ lam, ye see, an’ Dennie orders ’im, to halt, an’ when he doesn’t he lets fly wid everything he has. Pumps five shots into him, an’ still he keeps on runnin’.

  “Well, anyone can miss a shot or two sor, I’ve done it meself, but five shots in succession at almost point-blank range, that ain’t so good. An’ th’ alibi he turned in didn’t help his case much, either.”

  “Qu’est-ce donc? What was his excuse?”

  Costello’s eyes were wide and serious, not mocking or ironical, as he looked in de Grandin’s face. “He said it wuz a stone man, sor.”

  “Que diable? My ears have played me false. I thought I heard you say he said it was a man of stone, my Sergeant.”

  “That’s right, sor. He said it was a stone man—a statue that ran like it wuz livin’. He says his bullets had no more effect on it than they’d have had on a stone wall. He knows he didn’t miss, an’ I believe him, for he’s a good shot, but—”

  “Drunk, that’s what he was,” commented Hiji, helping himself to a fresh drink. “Drunk as a goat, seein’ livin’ statues and pink elephants. That’s what’s the matter.”

  Costello nodded gloomily. “That’s what th’ assistant commissioner says, too, but I’ve got me doubts about it. Dennie’s a member o’ th’ Cath’lic Total Abstinence Society, an’ if he’d had a drink ’twa sumpin’ new for ’im.”

  “Always has to be a first time, you know, old son.”

  “Taisez-vous! Be silent, species of camel!” de Grandin ordered sharply. “Who art thou to point the finger of derision at a drunkard?” Then, to Costello:

  “And you believe this, mon sergent?”

  “Well, sor,” Costello was embarrassed but deadly serious, “I wouldn’t go that far but I don’t think th’ lad wuz lyin’. Not knowingly, anyhow.”

  “A Frenchman and an Irishman,” commented Hiji sadly to his almost-empty glass, “tell either of ’em that the moon’s made o’ green cheese, and they’ll believe you—”

  “Attend me, if you please, my friend,” de Grandin interrupted as he leaned toward Hiji, two little wrinkles deepening suddenly between his brows, “shake off your drunkenness a moment, if you will be so kind. To refuse to deny is not to affirm. Me, I have the open mind, so has the good sergeant. So have you up to a certain point, but no further. If I tell you that a listener to the radio can hear a speaker’s words a thousand miles away before those in the same room hear it you say, ‘Very likely, that is scientific.’ But when you hear an honest policeman encountered what he thought was a stone statue running down th
e street you scoff and say that he was drunk. Yet fifty years ago one statement would have seemed as absurd as the other, n’est-ce-pas?”

  Hiji grinned at him and smothered back a hiccough. “You’ve definitely got something there, Frenchy. I apologize. Have Costello bring his stone-man-seein’ copper in and let’s hear what he’s got to say. I’ll suspend judgment till his story’s told, but it had better be good. I can’t afford to take time from my drinkin’ to listen to old wives’ tales.”

  Patrolman Dennis Flannigan was a fine, honest-looking youngster. “Black Irish”—smooth, clear skin, black curly hair and eyes so dark a brown that they seemed black.

  “Have a seat, Dennie lad,” commanded Costello when introductions were completed, and:

  “Have a drink?” asked Hiji as the young policeman settled in a chair.

  “No, thank you, sir, I never use it,” he refused, and Costello shot a glance of triumph at the Englishman.

  De Grandin nodded affably. “Quite right, mon enfant. You have as much right not to drink as I have to do so.” Then with one of his quick, elfin smiles, “The Sergeant tells us you had an unique experience the other night; that you met a miscreant in armor that defied your bullets as a tin roof turns the rain aside. It must have been a great surprise to you, n’est-ce-pas?”

  A stubborn look came in the youngster’s face. “It wasn’t armor, sir,” he contradicted. “The man—the thing—was solid stone, and turned my bullets as if they’d been made o’ putty.”

  “Eh, how is it that you say? A man of stone? You seriously expect us to believe that?”

  “No, sir, I don’t. I don’t expect anyone to believe me. If someone told me the same thing I’d say he was drunk or crazy or both, but it’s the truth, sir, just the same.

  “It was last Sat’day night, or Sunday morning, about ten minutes after twelve. I can fix the time pretty well, for the clock in St. Dominic’s tower had just finished striking midnight when I turned in my call from the box at Bay and Tunnell Streets. My next call was from Fox and Pettibone, and I’d covered almost half the distance to it when I heard a woman screaming bloody murder somewhere down the block where Blake Street crosses Tunnell.

  “There’s all sorts o’ cries, sir, and pretty soon a cop gets so he knows ’em. At first I thought this woman had a case o’ jim-jams—it’s a rough neighborhood, with lots o’ drinkin’ and the like o’ that goin’ on all night—but when she screamed the second time I knew the fear o’ death was on her, so I took out down the block as fast as I could leg it.

  “Blake Street ain’t so well lighted, and some of the tough kids in the neighborhood are almost always breaking the few lights they have, but there was a street light burnin’ almost in the middle of the block, and I could see almost as well as if it had been daytime. Something white was bending down above what seemed to be a woman, shaking her like a bulldog would a cat, and I knew there was a murder being done, so I let out a yell and drew me gun.

  “Just as I came up with ’em the white thing dropped the woman—no sir, that ain’t quite right—it didn’t drop her, it threw her half across the street, like a man could throw a bundle of old clothes, sir, and then, without even turning round went down Blake Street toward the waterfront. That’s when I saw it plain, sir, for it passed right under the street light. It was a marble statue, sir; a marble statue, bone-white and just about a man’s size, maybe a little smaller, but heavier. Lots heavier. I could hear its stone feet clumpin’ on the sidewalk as it walked away, and when it broke into a run it sounded like a steam-hammer that’s been stepped up to about a hundred an’ eighty strokes a minute.”

  “U’m?” de Grandin tweaked the ends of his mustache. “One sees. And what transpired then, if you please?”

  “Well, sir, I’d seen these here now livin’ statues in the theatre—you know, the kind they have when actors put on white tights and smear white powder on their hands and hair and faces, then pose against a black background? I thought at first this guy was in some sort o’ costume like that, with maybe metal bottoms on his shoes, so I shouted to him to halt, and when he kept on goin’ I fired at him. My first shot must have missed, so I let him have four others, and while he had a good head-start o’ me I don’t think that I missed him all four times. In fact, I know I didn’t.”

  “Comment? What makes you so positive?”

  A flush washed up the young man’s cheeks and brow as he thrust a hand inside his blouse and drew a twist of paper from an inner pocket. “This, sir,” he answered as he tore the paper open and dropped its contents into Jules de Grandin’s hand. “I saw that fly from it as it ran down the street. I know my bullet knocked it off when it struck and ricocheted.”

  De Grandin outlined his chin with the thumb and forefinger of one hand while he balanced the white marble splinter in the hollow of the other. “U’m?” he commented, and again, “U’m?” Then, abruptly, “How was he dressed, this naughty stone person?”

  “He wasn’t, sir.”

  “Eh, how is it you say?”

  “He was necked, sir. Stripped bare as your hand, and I could see the light shone on his back and shoulders as he ran, but—it’s funny how you notice little things without even realizin’ you’re looking at ’em—there was no play of muscles underneath his skin as he ran. He was all smooth and white and shiny, just like any other statue, and when I saw the chip fly off of him I reached down and picked it up whilst I was runnin’ after him. He lost me, though, sir. Turned the corner of James and Blake about a dozen—maybe twenty—yards ahead of me, and when I got there he was gone. I hunted for him for awhile, then went back to the woman.”

  “She was dead, sir, and all broken up. It was as if she’d been a rag doll that some spoiled brat had torn up. Her face was all crushed in, her neck was limp as rope and it seemed to me like both her shoulders had been broken.”

  “Yes? And then?”

  “There wasn’t anything to do but call the precinct, sir, so I put in a call and waited by her till the wagon came from the morgue. Then I filed my report, sayin’ just what I’ve told you, and when the assistant commissioner read it he went wild. Told me I was crazy, or had been drinkin’ while on duty, and gave me half an hour to draw a new report or stand charges. I wouldn’t do it, sir. It was a stone thing, not a man, that killed that woman, whether anybody believes it or not. So now I’m relieved of duty and if I can’t prove it was a livin’ statue that committed that murder I guess I’ll have to turn me badge in.”

  “Ah-ha. You showed this bit of stone to Monsieur le Commissaire?”

  “Yes, sir,” grimly, “I showed it to him.”

  “And what did he say to it?”

  “Applesauce.”

  “Comment? He said sauce of the apple, no more? He made no move to investigate—”

  “He was drunk, I’m tellin’ you,” asserted Hiji gravely. “Drunk as an owl. Too beastly intoxicated to take the proper steps. Blasted inefficiency, that’s what it is. If one of my Houssas told me he’d seen a ju-ju runnin’ through the forest and showed me where he’d chipped a piece of it away with his rifle, d’ye think I’d talk about applesauce, or marmalade or jam? You know ol’ Hiji better’n that! No, sir, drunk or sober, I’d investigate. That’s what I’d do.”

  The shadow of a smile lurked underneath the tightly waxed ends of de Grandin’s small blond mustache. “I am like Balaam’s ass, all ears, my friend,” he declared. “How, by example, would you investigate this case?”

  Hiji looked at him with the long, earnest stare of one far gone in liquor. “Oh, so you think I wouldn’t know what to do, eh? Think I’m too drunk to know my business? Listen, my small French friend, once a policeman always a policeman. The constable says the bloke was naked, doesn’t he? That ain’t particularly shockin’, but it’s interestin’. There’s lots o’ statuary around this town, but not much of it’s nude, ’specially the male figures. Who the devil wants to look at a nude man? Think customers would go to burlesque houses to see some cove march up an down
the stage an’ strip his shorts and singlet off? You know they wouldn’t. All right, then, the hunt’s considerably narrowed down. So I’d check up every statuary group containin’ nude male figures, and look at ’em all closely to see if they showed bullet marks or had a piece chipped off ’em. Then, when I found one answerin’ the prescription I’d know I had the murderer, and I’d hang him. Yes, sir, hang him higher than I hanged old Mebili the witch-doctor when he started monkey-shines up in the Luabala Country—”

  “Nom d’un porc d’un nom d’un porc!” de Grandin interrupted in delight. “It may be that it is the whiskey and not you who speaks, my old, my priceless one, but whether it be you or alcohol that speaks, you talk the good, hard sense. But yes!

  “Go home and have no further fear of discharge, mon enfant,” he told Dennis Flannigan. “I, Jules de Grandin, will assist you, and though we have a case of utmost difficulty, we shall win, for Jules de Grandin is one devilish clever fellow. Assuredly.”

  When Flannigan had gone he turned once more to Hiji with the pleased expression of a cat that contemplates a bowl of cream. “Come, brave compagnon,” he invited as he poured a fresh supply of liquor into their glasses, “it has been long since we were satisfactorily drunk together. For why are we waiting?”

  DESPITE THE OFTEN-QUOTED COPYBOOK axiom to the effect that wine is a mocker and strong drink an abomination they were both as fresh as the proverbial daisy when they came down to the dining room next morning and did more than ample justice to a breakfast of orange juice, cereal, pancakes and sausage and broiled mackerel. Hiji, who must report at the consulate at ten, limped off to catch the nine-fifteen train for New York and, his seventh cup of well-creamed coffee disposed of, de Grandin grinned at me across the empty table.