King Devil

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “They might have had sense enough to give you a tin mug,” growled Hayward.

  His partner looked shocked. “I doubt if Miss Tabard owns such a thing.”

  “Well, go and ask, can’t you?”

  Roland was still pondering the propriety of such a request when Zilpha came to the doorway.

  “Would some strong young man like to push the tea cart for us?”

  Athelney hastened to oblige. Clinton shrugged, picked up the fragile chalice, and held it to Lavinia’s lips.

  “Is it too hot to drink? I could pour it in the saucer and blow on it for you,” he suggested wickedly.

  The young woman giggled and spluttered. “Sh-h! Can’t you see how hard Roland’s trying to set you a good example? Oh, Hayward, will you promise me something?”

  “Sure, kiddo. What is it?”

  “Let me come to the shop tomorrow even if I can’t do anything. And bring me my lunch in a lard pail.”

  “Chicken or ham?”

  “You decide. You’ll have to think for me till I get my head back on straight.”

  Of course it was too good to last. Having dear Lavvy cozied up on the davenport with the wrong partner was no part of Miss Tabard’s battle plan. There was steel behind the silver in her voice as she said, “Mr. Clinton, perhaps you’d be kind enough to arrange these tabourets for me while Roland is helping Miss Mull with the cart.”

  The distinction between “Roland” and “Mr. Clinton” was deliberate, and particularly unkind under the circumstances. Lavinia was not about to let the insult pass.

  “Oh, Zilpha, you mustn’t make poor Hayward work. Look how dreadfully he cut his hand last night when he was dynamiting the mill. I’ve just been scolding him for dashing off without giving you a chance to thank him.”

  That was rather neat work for a person whose head wasn’t working properly. The ginger cat turned to a ball of orange fury. Miss Tabard had to face the shocking fact that for once in her life she had failed to do the gracious thing. After one thunderstruck moment, however, Zilpha rose, as always, to the occasion.

  “But how could I possibly thank him?”

  Gliding to the young man’s side, she took the scarred paw in both her own carved ivory hands.

  “Hayward must surely realize that there simply are no words to express our overwhelming gratitude for his magnificent courage and presence of mind.”

  Roland would have been able to say something suitably grateful in return. His partner only turned deep vermillion and looked immeasurably relieved when he got his hand back. Zilpha had to content herself with going back to Roland and explaining how appreciative she was in order to collect an adequate reply.

  Clinton scowled at the girl on the sofa. “You sicced her on me just to be devilish, you little hellion.”

  “Of course I did.”

  Lavinia smiled up at him. She rather liked being called a little hellion. Nobody had ever called her a little anything before.

  “Aren’t you going to give me any more coffee?”

  “Quit nagging, or I’ll make you work overtime.”

  He picked up her empty cup and went quite fearlessly into the realm of the genteel to fill it again. A strange man.

  Soon the rest of the party were assembled around the sofa in high spirits, Tetsy bellowing like a genial old bull, Roland being charming right and left, Zilpha’s melodious tinkle carrying the obbligato. Hayward said little, and Lavinia almost nothing. She was too busy concentrating on getting enough to eat.

  Had she ever been this hungry before? She thought not, but was that only because she couldn’t remember? Perhaps she would, soon. Interesting things were happening inside her head, aside from the pain and the fogginess. She could snatch bits and pieces of recollection as they floated through her mind. She thought she might be able to collect enough of them to build a raft on which to ride to wherever her lost memories were lurking. In the meantime, there was food.

  Eventually, however, there were no more scrambled eggs, no more bits of spiced country sausage, no more triangles of toast to heap with wild strawberry jelly. Not even Lavinia could drink another cup of coffee. Tetsy stacked the empty dishes on the tea cart, but did not ask Roland to wheel them away, reluctant to do anything that might signal the gathering was over before Zilpha gave the nod.

  At last the conversation struck a lull that threatened to become a full stop. Still Miss Tabard sought to keep her party going.

  “Oh, Lavvy, in all the excitement yesterday, you never did get to see our new treasure. We found a man in Portland who would do it on the spot. Tetsy, do be a dear and fetch the you-know-what.”

  Of course Tetsy knew what. She was back in less than no time, lugging a huge black something under glass in a heavy walnut and gold frame.

  “Here you are, Lav. What do you think of your masterpiece?”

  Lavinia wrinkled her brow. “Is that mine? What is it? Oh, I know. That’s the rubbing I did of—no! No!”

  She cowered back among the pillows, burying her face to shut out the awful thing, then knew she must turn around and explain.

  “That was it! He was there. I saw him.”

  “Lavvy, dearest, whatever are you talking about?”

  “Lav, stop screeching like that! What’s the matter with you?”

  “Mister Jenks was in the mill. Can’t you see the bottom corner is missing? Somebody came and chipped it off.”

  She knew it was rude to shout in people’s faces, but she had to, because they weren’t understanding what she must tell them.

  “He was in the bag!”

  “Stop that!”

  A hand slashed across her face. Tetsy stepped back from the sofa, looking faintly smug.

  “She’s raving again.”

  “I am not!” screamed Lavinia. “Why won’t you listen? He was there, in the mill. He touched me! His hand came right out of the bag and touched me!”

  “Oh, dear!” Zilpha was moaning, wringing her exquisite hands. “Whatever shall we do? If only we were near a hospital!”

  “Dr. LaFronde has his ell fixed up as an infirmary,” Roland ventured. “He keeps patients sometimes.”

  “Oh, my dear boy, what a blessing you are! You shall drive her down in the Packard. Tetsy, go at once and telephone to the doctor that she’s coming.”

  “We’d better pad the back with pillows, hadn’t we, in case she starts thrashing around?” For once, Roland was full of ideas.

  “Don’t be idiotic,” Lavinia snapped back at him. “I won’t thrash around, because I’m not going.”

  Three voices bore her down.

  “Lav, you’ll do as you’re told, and no nonsense.”

  “Lavvy, dearest, you must let us do what’s best for you.”

  “Lavinia, Miss Tabard is right. Hay, can’t you make her listen to reason?”

  All Clinton said was, “Go ahead, Ath, and crank up the automobile.”

  As the others rushed off to gather pillows, sound the alarm, and prepare for the journey into Dalby, Hayward leaned over the sofa.

  “Quick, Lavinia, what did you see in the mill?”

  “I’m not crazy! Why won’t they believe me?”

  “Never mind that. What did you see?”

  The patient sighed and closed her eyes. “There was a big old sack, like a mattress ticking, hanging from the rafters up in the loft. It was heavy, so I slit it open to see what was inside and—and a bony yellow hand came out and everything started falling, so I tried to push it back and—and I shook hands with him!”

  Her laugh sounded insane, even to herself.

  “Steady, Lavinia. What were you trying to say about that gravestone rubbing?”

  “The first time, Peter was with me, and he was counting the king devils. He saw the date at the bottom and said nine times—I forget what. I’m stupid at figures, Hayward, you know that. Anyway, I knew it couldn’t be right so I did it over and he was right, because the numbers were changed. So then somebody stole my rubbing and when I went back, t
he date was gone. You can see for yourself, it isn’t there!”

  “No, Lavvy, dearest, it isn’t there.”

  Zilpha was beside her again, tender and consoling. We’ve taken that horrid old rubbing right away, so it can’t frighten you any more. And now Roland’s going to drive you down to Doctor LaFronde and let him make you all better.”

  “How can he make me better when I’m not sick?” said Lavinia fretfully. “I was only running down the stairs because—”

  She remembered why she had been fleeing that tangle of horsehair, and suddenly she was indeed sick. Horribly, abjectly, disgracefully sick.

  “I knew we shouldn’t have let her eat all that solid food,” said Tetsy with gloomy satisfaction. “Come along, Lav. We’re going to clean you up and get you to the doctor. This is no place for you.”

  “That’s for sure,” said Hayward Clinton. He got up and went out of the house, leaving others, oddly enough, to cope.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  They hadn’t got far before Roland killed a hen. He shouted to the angry farmer, “I’m taking Miss Tabard’s niece to the doctor,” and kept on going.

  In the village, he fought wagons and horseless carriages all over Main Street. “Get out of my way, can’t you? I’ve got to get Miss Tabard’s niece to Doctor LaFronde.”

  To the servant who opened the door he snapped, “Get a wheelchair out here fast. This is Miss Tabard’s niece.”

  Lavinia let herself be bundled about like a piece of wet macaroni. What was the sense in fighting? Nobody was going to pay any attention to her. She had no identity, she wasn’t even a person, only something that belonged to Zilpha Tabard. Still, when a man in a black coat and stiff collar came toward her, exuding professional cheer and competence, she began to bristle.

  “Well, young lady. How are we today?”

  He needn’t try that bedside manner on her. She knew who he was. This was the man who’d put these ridiculous mittens on her hands so that she couldn’t do anything.

  “I don’t know how you are,” she answered rudely. “I’m starving to death, and my head aches, and I’m not Zilpha Tabard’s niece.”

  “Now, now, young lady, just calm yourself. We’re going to have you right as rain in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  And a stitch in time saved nine, but she couldn’t take one because she couldn’t get her fingers loose. Now the woman who’d brought her into the bedroom in a wheelchair, when she could perfectly well have walked if Roland hadn’t been so eager to show off his authority, was tucking her into a hard, cold bed, drawing the covers so tight that she wouldn’t even be able to turn over.

  Why didn’t they buckle her into a straitjacket and be done with it? All that talk about right as rain and lambs’ tails was just to keep her quiet. They meant to make her lie here forever. The ginger cat would have to hire another typewriter, who would mess up all her beautiful files. Lavinia began to cry and went on sobbing until somebody brought something in a thick tumbler and made her drink it. When she woke up, it was dark and Mrs. Smith wasn’t around to help her use the chamber.

  After a while, she remembered that she’d been brought to Doctor LaFronde’s infirmary. Then there must be an attendant on duty. Had they at least left her a handbell to ring? She groped in the dark and encountered a warm, furry paw.

  “Lavinia,” whispered the one voice she would rather hear than any other. “Are you awake? How do you feel?”

  “Famished. And I have to—would you be an angel and see if you can find the nurse, if there is one? And don’t come back until she says you can.”

  “Uh—oh, sure, kiddo, anything you say. I’ll be right outside the door. Call me as soon as—”

  He went away, and a woman in white cap and apron came in carrying a lamp. The nurse was understanding about the patient’s personal needs, but firm on the subject of refreshment.

  “Sorry, dear. I’ll make you a cup of hot tea on the spirit lamp, but Doctor didn’t leave any instructions about food, and I’m not going to wake him up at this hour of the night to ask. All set now? I’ll just give your face and hands a wipe. Now, doesn’t that feel better? Guess I’d better send that Clinton boy back in to you. He’s been camping here for the past four hours. Bob Devine’s with him, don’t ask me why. Bob’s asleep on the davenport in the reception room.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know who Bob Devine is,” said Lavinia.

  “He’s the town constable.”

  “Then you’d better go wake him up.” Her mind was quite clear now. “And please tell Hayward I want him right away.”

  Clinton didn’t need to be told. He was back before the nurse was fairly out of the room. A moment later, another man entered, yawning and rubbing sleep out of his eyes. The nurse must have been asked to stay outside, but Lavinia was willing to wager she’d be glued to the keyhole. At least this wasn’t going to be a dull night for her.

  “Lavinia,” said Clinton, “are you sure you feel like talking?”

  “I think I can tell a straight story, if that’s what you mean. I’d have been all right this morning if people hadn’t started shouting and slapping my face and making me lose all that lovely breakfast. Hayward, I don’t suppose you remembered to bring that lard pail?”

  “No, kiddo. I haven’t had time.”

  It sounded like, “Do, kiddo. I haved had tibe.”

  “Oh, you poor thing, you’ve caught more cold. What were you doing, paddling in the millstream?”

  He burst into a fit of sneezing. Between explosions, he managed to gasp, “Bob, this is my girl Lavinia. Tell her, will you?”

  “S’pose we ought to let the doctor look at her first?” said the constable.

  “What for?” said Lavinia. “All he can see is Zilpha Tabard’s niece.”

  “Hay, you sure she’s—”

  “She’s fine.” Clinton emerged from his handkerchief. “The thing is, she’s sort of a distant relative of that Tabard woman who’s bought Jenks’s house. Lavinia came up here a week ago and happened to find out a couple of things somebody didn’t want known. This Tabard woman’s some kind of high society dame and I guess she’s afraid of getting mixed up in a scandal or something, so she and that other old blister that lives with her have been trying to shut Lavinia up.”

  That wasn’t quite right, but it was close enough. At least the constable seemed satisfied that the patient was rational, after all.

  “Well, girlie, you can tell that fancy relation of yours she might as well quit trying. This story’s going to take some tall hushing from here on in. Hay and me, we spent the whole afternoon out there combing through what was left of that old mill. Mighty Jehu, what a mess! God only knows what-all was in it, and every last bit blown to smithereens. Anyhow, to make a long story short, we did manage to dig out some little pieces of—of what Hay says you saw.”

  “Do you mean of Mr. Jenks?”

  “If it ain’t him, I don’t know who else it could o’ been.”

  “Oh, Hayward! Then you didn’t think I was crazy?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Everybody else did.”

  The constable sighed. “Would you kids mind saving the conversation till we get through with what we come for? It’s gettin’ on for midnight and my old woman’s probably waitin’ at the door with the rolling pin as it is. Now, Lavinia, I want you to tell me exactly what it is you’ve managed to find out about old man Jenks. What’s all this Hay was sayin’ about a gravestone?”

  “Well,” the young woman began, “you see, Zilpha’s Uncle Arthur collects gravestone rubbings.”

  “What the Sam Hill are they?”

  “You stick a piece of paper over somebody’s tombstone and rub lampblack on it to make the carving stand out,” Hayward explained. “That’s what they call higher education for young ladies.”

  “Go on!” Devine goggled at him. “I’d like to see anybody educating my girls into that kind of foolishness. Well, takes all kinds to make a world, I suppose. How did you happe
n to pitch on that particular headstone, Lavinia?”

  “I honestly can’t say,” she admitted. “To tell you the truth, I was thinking about something else at the time and didn’t even notice who was buried there until the name came out on my paper. Then Peter Smith came along—do you know Peter?”

  “Cripes, I ought to. I threw his father in the lockup for being drunk and disorderly the day he was born.”

  “Oh. Then I expect you also know about the boy’s fantastic ability for doing arithmetic in his head. He was watching me, and when the numbers came up in the rubbing, he started multiplying them. There was such a tremendous discrepancy in the answers he was getting that even I realized something had to be wrong. So I checked the dates and found that the last one had been altered. As far as I could make out, the first Mr. Jenks had really died on June eighth, seventeen and sixty-one, but somebody had scratched over the inscription to make it read January eighteenth, nineteen and one.”

  “What?” yelped Clinton. “Are you sure?”

  “Hayward, I’m positive. You see, Peter kept insisting, so I took another scrap of paper and—” she stopped short.

  “And what, Lavinia?”

  “I’m almost afraid to say. Every scrap of evidence I’ve turned up so far has been destroyed.”

  “It’s the law you’re talking to now,” said Devine. “If anything else goes wrong, I’ll damn soon find out why. Go on, what did you do?”

  “Well, as I started to say, I tore a scrap off the bottom of my paper and did another rubbing of the date, to make sure it really had been altered on purpose. I couldn’t tell just by looking at the stone, because of the king devils.”

  “Hunh?”

  “You know, those weedy plants that look like dandelions but aren’t. There’s a whole clump of them growing up around the gravestone, though I couldn’t see a single other one anywhere else in the graveyard. Anyway, Peter had them all counted, so I didn’t think it would be kind to pull them up, and the leaves got in my way when I tried to see the date. That also struck me as peculiar. Why should anybody bother hacking at the part of the stone that nobody would be able to see? Anyway, the second rubbing came out just like the first, and when Hayward told me Mr. Jenks had disappeared on that same date—”