by Mike Ashley
At one point Leffing asked Pasquette if he had ever inspected the cellar.
Pasquette shook his head. “There is no cellar.”
Although he seemed surprised and somewhat disconcerted, Leffing made no comment.
A few minutes later, we retired to our respective rooms.
“Where to now?” I asked, settling into an armchair.
Leffing paced the floor restlessly. “Tomorrow morning I intend to look into the town clerk’s files. There is a possibility that I may unearth some pertinent fact concerning that house.”
By the time I awoke the next morning, Leffing had already left. In spite of feeling like a slacker, I enjoyed a late and leisurely breakfast.
My friend returned in time for lunch. “Any luck?” I inquired as we sat down.
He frowned. “Possibly. I discovered that the Pasquettes’ house was originally a small school, owned and operated by the town. It stood abandoned for many years. I presume that is why Mr. Verton of Fairfield described it as ‘a bloody mess.’ He took it over from the town, you will recall, and spent a good sum on restoration. I am not sure, however, that this brings us any closer to the explanation we seek. I fear further digging is on the agenda.”
“If there is anything I can do—”
“All you can do at this time is stand by. In fact I am not sure of my own next move.”
He spent most of the afternoon sprawled in an armchair in our rooms, while I read. By evening he appeared to have arrived at some kind of tentative decision.
“You have a lead?” I asked.
“I have at present no more than a theory,” he replied.
“I expect to spend tomorrow morning at town hall again. It may turn out to be a complete waste of time, but I cannot afford to leave any possibility unexplored.”
He would say no more and I knew better than to press him.
Early the next afternoon when he returned to our rooms at the inn, he appeared moderately hopeful but by no means ebullient.
“I may have a promising lead,” he told me. “I unearthed the names of various local women who taught at the Pasquette house when it was used as a school many years ago. Most of these women are dead, but the town clerk, who is steeped in local history, has informed me that the last woman to teach at the little school, a Miss Maud Rasters, is still alive, though in extremely poor health. She is in her nineties now and is confined to a convalescent home in Windover.”
“You believe she may provide a clue which will explain the manifestation?”
Leffing sat down and stretched out his long legs. “She may, Brennan, she may. We can no more than try.”
The next morning we set out for Windover, a small town located about thirty miles from Comptonvale. The roads had been well cleared and we had no trouble in finding the Windover Rest Home.
The one-story, white-painted brick building was set back some distance from the road in the exact center of a large tract now covered with wind-driven snow drifts. A few evergreens, all but buried in snow, clustered around the structure.
After introducing ourselves to the receptionist, we warmed our heels in the waiting-room for about twenty minutes. At length the head nurse, a Miss Vanning, brisk and efficient-looking in a gleaming white uniform, swept in and asked why we wished to see Miss Rasters.
“It is a rather complicated business, Miss Vanning,” Leffing explained, “but I can assure you that the happiness and perhaps even sanity of two people may depend upon it.”
Miss Vanning looked skeptical. After some hesitation, she replied. “Well, you may see Miss Rasters, but only briefly, and you must promise not to agitate her. Her condition is very nearly critical.”
Leffing bowed. “We shall take no more time than is absolutely essential, Miss Vanning. And we shall do our best not to disturb the lady.”
After leading us through a maze of corridors, Miss Vanning instructed us to wait outside a small room. She closed the door and went inside. After about five minutes, she reappeared and nodded for us to enter.
Miss Maud Rasters lay propped up in bed near the center of the compact room. Age and prolonged illness had reduced her to little more than a living skeleton. I doubt if she weighed ninety pounds. Her skin was blotched and yellow-looking. She lay back with her mouth open and gazed in our direction with filmy eyes which appeared to focus somewhere on the wall behind us.
After introductions, which Miss Rasters acknowledged with a vague nod, Leffing moved up closer to the bedside.
“Miss Rasters, I have learned that you were the last teacher at the little country schoolhouse at Comptonvale. Records indicate you taught there over ten years. After you left, that school was abandoned by the town. I understand that a new, larger school was built closer to the center of town. Is that information correct?”
At Leffing’s words, the old woman stiffened to a kind of wary attention. Her clouded eyes sought my friend’s face.
She closed and opened her mouth several times before replying. “That—is right. I taught there—last. Yes.”
Leffing then went on to explain in detail the nature of the problem with which we were confronted. As he spoke, Miss Rasters shifted restlessly in bed. At length her growing excitement and agitation became obvious.
Miss Vanning stepped forward and felt her pulse. She frowned. “Gentlemen, I must ask you to leave. I cannot permit Miss Rasters to be disturbed any longer.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Leffing shrugged resignedly and started to turn away.
But Miss Rasters’ yellow claw of a hand fluttered out and plucked at his coat.
Shaking her head, she spoke directly to Miss Vanning. “No. Let him stay. I can explain everything. I have been—tormented—too long.” Tears came to her filmy old eyes and ran down her face.
Miss Vanning was obviously unhappy, but after a brief minute or so of indecision, she sighed and lifted a bottle from a small medicine table which stood next to the bed.
“All right, Miss Rasters. But first take two of these.” She shook two tablets from the bottle.
Miss Rasters swallowed the tablets with some water and returned her attention to Leffing.
As she began her story, Miss Vanning hovered by the door with an air of uncertainty. It was apparent to me that she didn’t want to leave her patient, but at the same time didn’t want to intrude on any private matters.
Miss Rasters quickly resolved the dilemma. She beckoned for Miss Vanning to return to her bedside. “Please stay here. I want a witness I know.”
Thus reassured, Miss Vanning stood by the bed while the old woman unfolded her story.
“I can’t remember dates,” she began, “but I can never forget what happened at Comptonvale, at that little schoolhouse. I’d taught there a year or so, and everything went well, when Martin Keeler started school. His parents were awfully poor and either he’d been born somewhat deformed or had grown so due to malnutrition. His shoulders stuck up higher than they should have and his arms and legs were like sticks. But he had a keen mind and he was perpetually in some kind of mischief. He seemed—imbued—with a kind of feverish nervous energy which never ran out. From the very beginning he caused trouble. He kept that little school in a constant uproar. The other children found him amusing and often abetted his mischief.”
Shaking her head, she sighed and sipped a glass of water which Miss Vanning extended.
(I might as well say here that Miss Rasters’ story was broken by many such interruptions. To include them all would serve no sensible purpose.)
“I put up with little Martin as well as I could,” she went on, “but he taxed my patience sorely. He did not respond to either punishment or—well, cajolery. I made him stand in the corner; I whipped him; I scolded him incessantly. I had long talks with his parents. They were sympathetic, but if they took any measures, those measures were ineffectual. For a time I tried giving Martin special privileges, but he simply took mischievous advantage of them. Absolutely nothing had any effect on him. He was a born i
mp and an imp he remained—to the end.”
Miss Rasters lay back in bed, not so much as if she were resting but more as if she were arranging her thoughts and words in coherent order. At length she continued.
“One bitter winter’s day he became completely incorrigible. Hour after hour he kept the other children in a state of absolute turmoil. A storm was obviously approaching and a kind of electric tension seemed to fill the air. I tried to be—tolerant—and blame the unending uproar on the gathering storm, but toward the end of the school day, I simply—well—lost control. I gave little Martin Keeler the worst whipping he’d ever had. The room quieted down after that but, even then, Martin refused to cooperate. Although he stopped interrupting me; as he had been for most of the day, he sat scowling and refused to pay any attention to his lessons.
“For some reason this infuriated me more than his noisy outbursts had. Shortly before classes were to end, I told him that he would have to remain after the other children were dismissed. By this time the storm had started. The wind rose and snow began blowing past the windows.”
She shook her head sadly. “I don’t know what got into me. I should have known better. But foolish as it may sound now, I felt that my trouble with Martin had developed into a contest of wills—and I had to win, if I was to go on teaching in that school.
“Martin expected he’d get another whipping, worse than before, and I could see him steeling himself for it. But that wasn’t what I had in mind.
“Although the children were unaware of its existence, underneath the school there was an unused dirt cellar. The only entrance or exit to it was a small trap door which was located under a carpet directly beneath my desk. I had discovered the trap door by accident one day when I was cleaning the carpet after school hours. Lifting the trap, I saw a rickety wooden ladder leading down to little more than a scooped-out pit. There was nothing in it that I could see. I decided then that its existence had better be kept secret from the children. Would to God I had never discovered it!
“I decided that terrible day that I would give Martin the fright of his life—perhaps, I reasoned, it would bring him to heel.
“When we were alone together in the room, I pulled aside the carpet and opened the trap door. By this time the wind was howling outside and the snow was falling thickly, but I ignored it. Beckoning Martin up to the desk, I showed him the dark pit and ordered him down that brittle wooden ladder. I told him he was going to stay down there—with the door closed—until he was ready to fall on his knees, apologize for his past conduct, and promise never to cause trouble again.
“He went down the ladder with a great deal of hesitation but without a word of protest. I slammed the trap, put the carpet back over it and sat there at my desk.
“I fully expected that within a very few minutes I would hear the little imp’s cry of surrender. But, although the cellar was pitch dark and freezing cold, not a sound came out of it.
“The longer I sat at my desk, the angrier I got. I was furious that my scheme was—obviously—not working. I had been sure that it would. I waited a half hour—an hour—and still there was no call from below.
“All this time the storm was building up. The wind moaned dismally over the growing drifts of snow. Gentlemen, at that point, the devil himself must have entered into me. I decided to steal quietly out of the schoolhouse and leave Martin in the cellar.”
At the expressions of shock and disbelief which must have passed over our faces, Miss Rasters held up her hand.
“I know it sounds horrible now but—I try to tell myself anyway—it wasn’t as bad as it appears. I fully expected that as the cold grew really unbearable, Martin would climb back up the ladder, lift the trap door and make his way home.” Tears trickled down her sunken cheeks. “Almighty God knows that I didn’t intend what happened.”
After regaining some measure of composure, she continued. “As I trudged home through the snow, I was still so angry that I scarcely noticed the severity of the storm. As things turned out, it was a real blizzard—one of the worst we’d had in years. Long before morning the roads were impassible. Huge drifts came halfway to the eaves.
“The next morning I felt guilty about what I’d done. For all his nervous energy, little Martin was really quite frail. I assumed he had had a struggle fighting his way home through the storm.
“But he never reached home. About noon the next day, after the plows had been out and the storm had begun to diminish in intensity, Sirus Borton, one of the town selectmen, stopped at my house. Of course there was no school that day. Sirus told me that Martin Keeler was missing. He hadn’t showed up at home and his folks feared he had been lost and overcome in the storm. The other children had already told their parents that I had kept him after school. Sirus wanted to know how long I had detained him.”
Miss Rasters paused and took a labored breath. “Since that hour I have lived in Hell. I have been haunted and tormented all my life. But let me go on.
“Instead of telling the truth, as of course I should have done, I lied glibly. I knew what was at stake. I assured Borton that I had kept Martin only a few minutes and that, in fact, I had walked part of the way home with him. When I left him, I said, he was less than a half mile from home.
“Borton believed my lies and many of the townspeople did also. Martin was such an unpredictable, devil-may-care little rascal, his next move could never be safely assumed to be the sane and obvious one. It would be just like him, many agreed, to wait until I was out of sight along the road and then go dashing off into the woods. It would not be beyond him to stay out deliberately in order to get me into trouble with the town authorities.
“From that day on the town was divided. A majority felt sympathy for me, but a minority sided against me—and never forgave.
“Quite naturally I assumed that Martin had waited too long in the school cellar and had then been trapped in the storm. Search parties started out as soon as the snow stopped.
“Since many children lived on back roads which had not yet been plowed, school was called off for the remainder of that week. The morning after the blizzard, however, I bundled up and made my way to the schoolhouse. I don’t know what prompted me. Perhaps it was some kind of intuitive warning. But I remember thinking that Martin might have left the trap door open and that if this were discovered, I would be in deeper trouble.”
Trembling, she reached for the water, swallowed and set down the glass. “It was far worse trouble than I could ever have anticipated. When I first entered the school, I sighed with relief. All seemed in order. Even the carpet which covered the trap door was set back neatly in place. Too neatly, knowing Martin. As I looked at it, a strange foreboding overcame me. I twitched it aside and raised the trap.
“Enough light filtered down so that I could see what had happened. The rickety wooden ladder had collapsed. Little Martin lay motionless on the dirt floor.
“Although I was overwhelmed with horror and shock, I went to work like a person possessed. I clung to the faint hope that a spark of life remained in the boy. Fighting my way through the drifts to a small supply shed in the rear of the school, I finally located a rope. I knew that there was no ladder on the premises. After dropping a shovel into that freezing pit, I tied the rope to a leg of my desk, dropped the line through the open trap and slid down. I saw at once that there was no hope. Little Martin had frozen to death. The sequence of events was obvious. As the cold became unbearable, he had finally started up the ladder. When he was only partway up, the rotten wood had given way. The ladder had collapsed, hurling him to the hard floor of the cellar. One of his legs was grotesquely twisted; I assumed he had broken it in the fall. In spite of that, he had apparently fought to get out. His hands were nothing but raw bloody stumps of flesh. In his frenzy of fear and pain, he must have torn at the walls of the cellar, hoping perhaps to tunnel his way out. It was impossible of course. At last he had mercifully frozen to death. He had not died peacefully however. Even in the dim light I could
see his face frozen into a frightful mask of suffering and rage. I am sure he died hating and cursing me.”
Following a long pause, during which Miss Vanning gave the old woman more tablets, Miss Rasters resumed.
“Most of the cellar floor was frozen hard, but there was one small area, directly beneath the pot-bellied stove on the floor above, where the frozen ground consisted only of a crust an inch or two deep. In that spot I managed to dig a shallow grave. I dragged the body of Martin into it and covered it as well as I could. I threw the shovel up through the open trap door and then—with the strength of desperation, I suppose—I managed to climb back up the rope. I returned it to the shed, closed the trap, covered it with the carpet and made my way home. If I was seen at the school, nobody attached any importance to it. I told several neighbors later that I had gone back to get a file of test papers for correcting.
“I taught in that school for three more years, haunted and tormented every minute of the time. Often I imagined I could hear Martin down there in the cellar, screaming and cursing at me. I remember looking up on occasions to see if the other children had heard anything.
“I felt as if Martin were down there alive, hating me, plotting revenge, scheming to get even somehow. I never dared stay in the school alone after classes were dismissed. I took all my papers home. Ten minutes after the last pupil had left for the day, I was out of there myself. It was horrible.
“During the winter months, tension built up in me until I often thought I would go mad. Sometimes I felt that I already had. When a storm was approaching, in the dead of winter, it seemed that pulsations of hate pounded up at me out of that ghastly little pit. More than once I felt impelled to blurt out the whole story to the children and let the chips fall where they would.
“It was only by a supreme effort of will that I managed to keep my self-control. Of course my health deteriorated. At last I managed to transfer to another town—yet I was still haunted by the memory of what I had done. My punishment has never ended—but it will end shortly, gentlemen, and I am not sorry. I have been tortured so long that I no longer fear death—nor what may come after.”