Death’s Old Sweet Song

by Jonathan Stagge

  Dimly anxious, I paused and then turned back, crossing the street, toward the church. The subdued light trembled from behind the plain glass windows as if it were coming from candles.

  I reached the church steps. I took one step up and then stopped dead in my tracks, my pulses pounding. For, suddenly, from the needle-sharp steeple above me came the brazen jangle of the church bell.

  That the bell should ring at all at that hour of the night was fantastic. But it was worse than that. For there was none of the sedate, measured rhythm that marks the regular summons to pray. The notes tumbled out, a long boom, then scattered fragments of sound as if someone with ever weakening strength was tugging desperately at the rope. Then, in what seemed like only the fraction of a minute, the crazy pealing stopped and there was nothing but a faint humming in the air.

  As I paused there, momentarily, on the church steps, Skipton suddenly came alive. The darkness behind me, silent a second before, was bubbling with voices and the sound of running feet. Lights flashed on in houses down the street. An icy fear clutching my heart, I ran up the steps to the church door and pulled it open. In front of me stretched the austere interior of the New England church. Candles burned at the altar. My eyes flashed for a glimpse of the Reverend Jessup. I could not see him.

  As I ran down the aisle, people began to pour into the church behind me. Dan Leaf caught up with me, and then Renton Forbes, followed by a group of panting farmers. We reached the altar. No one was there.

  It was Leaf who saw the thing first. His eyes dropped to the floor, and suddenly he had clutched my arm.

  “Look,” he whispered. “Look.”

  I had seen it too, and my skin shivered with goose flesh. From the altar, leading to the left past the front pews, was a thin erratic trickle of red on the bare tiles of the floor—a thin, red trickle of blood.

  “Renton,” I shouted over my shoulder, “keep them back. Keep everyone back.”

  I nodded to Dan Leaf. While an awful silence settled on the little band of people behind us, we moved down the aisle to the left, treading delicately to avoid the spatter of blood. A dusty red curtain, half draped up, hung in front of us. I knew that it screened the belfry.

  Leaf and I ducked under the curtain. We were in a small, dark passage. Ahead of us was the base of the bell tower. I turned on my flashlight and threw the beam forward.

  I had known what we would see, of course. I had known it as certainly as if I had followed each one of those stumbling footsteps from the altar to the bell rope which must have held out a slender chance of bringing help in time.

  The rope hung starkly down from the shadows above. It was still swaying. And—what was most horrible—the Reverend Jessup’s thin white hands were still clutched feebly around its end.

  But there was no longer any conscious purpose in that clutching. Dr. Jessup lay in a crumpled heap on the cold stone floor. His head, lolling forward, had come to rest against his thigh. The profile shone white and gaunt against the clerical black serge. His eyes were open, and their expression of glazed astonishment was almost unendurable.

  But it was only too understandable.

  For, thrusting out from his back, gleamed the metal handle of a knife which had been plunged deep into his body beneath the left shoulder blade.

  I handed Leaf the flashlight and ran to the minister, dropping down at his side. An examination wasn’t really necessary. I had known he was dead from the first moment I had seen him.

  But I felt his limp wrist and, as I did so, the faint hum from the steeple above seemed diabolically like a human voice humming, very softly:

  Four for the gospel makers …

  4: FIVE FOR THE SYMBOLS AT YOUR DOOR

  CHAPTER XII

  It was going on in spite of all our precautions. That was the first thought that stayed with me, bringing a sense of hopelessness and despair. The song had started to sing itself in blood. We couldn’t stop it.

  As I crouched at Dr. Jessup’s side, my distracted gaze settled on the handle of the knife which thrust out from his back. I hadn’t thought about the knife before except in a general way as the weapon that had committed this latest and most horrible crime. But, as I looked at that ornately carved steel handle, I recognized it at once. It was the paper knife with which Lorie had been playing up at the Bray house that evening.

  I stared at it with bleak incredulity because it meant so much. My threadbare hope that, after all, there might be some unknown, alien maniac hidden in the hills was rent to tatters. It had to be one of us now. And, unless one of the farmers from the patrol had stolen the knife, which seemed unlikely in the extreme, Cobb’s suspicions had been made a certainty. Skipton’s insane murderer was one of those pleasant, everyday people who had for years been attending Ernesta Bray’s Saturday night picnics.

  Dan Leaf’s voice, hoarse with shock, came through my uneasy thoughts:

  “Dead, Doc?”

  I glanced up. Cobb’s assistant was hovering behind me, a lock of dark hair flopping over his forehead.

  “Yes,” I said. “Only just, though. He must have been stabbed at the altar. He managed to drag himself here to ring the bell. It was his one chance of attracting attention.”

  “While he was prayin’!” Leaf’s handsome young country face was scrawled with disgust and awe. “Stabbin’ a minister while he’s prayin’ at the altar.” He paused. “And it must of been someone he knew, someone he wasn’t scared of, or he’d have hollered when he come in the church.”

  Someone he knew.

  With the anger of frustration, I said: “Why in God’s name didn’t you do what I told you to do, Dan? You had a dozen men. Why couldn’t you have posted one outside the church?”

  His jaw dropped. “But I did, Dr. Westlake. What d’you think I am? You ordered a man at the church. I put a man at the church. Wasn’t he on—?”

  I cut in: “Who did you pick?”

  “I put a good man there special. The best of the lot. That young kid’s just out of the Marines. Mrs. Stone’s son.”

  “Caleb?” I said with a sinking heart.

  “Why, sure. I—”

  “Never mind.” I got up, feeling suddenly weary. “It doesn’t matter. Sure, he was probably on duty. But we need more than men on duty here. We need an archangel or something.”

  I became conscious then of the confused murmur of voices in the body of the church beyond the curtain. The whole patrol must be out there by now. Something had to be done about them. I turned to Leaf.

  “Call Cobb,” I said. “God knows what he can do when he comes, but call him. I’ll get the second patrol organized.” I laughed. “It’s locking the stable door after the horse has gone—and a broken door too. But that seems to be the smartest thing we can think up.”

  Leaf was still staring down at the Reverend Jessup. He shivered. “Him,” he said. “Anyone to notify? Any family?”

  “No,” I said. “No one. He’s all alone. ‘One is one and all alone and …’”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing.”

  I pushed the curtain back, and we stepped into the church. The group of farmers in denims and mackinaws, respectfully clutching their hats in their hands, shuffled in the main aisle behind the straight figure of Renton, who barred the way to the altar. The guttering candles at the altar threw a macabre, shadow-blurred light. I noticed that Caleb wasn’t among the group. I hadn’t expected him to be, of course. I prayed the others hadn’t noticed his absence. As a doctor, I felt Caleb was my charge.

  Renton, his cheeks gaunt in the candlelight, stared straight at us.

  “Well?” he said.

  I nodded briefly and addressed the whole group.

  “Don’t blame yourselves,” I said. “I guess you all did as much as anyone can be expected to do. This thing is just too big for us.”

  Bill Dusen, one of the hands at the Heath farm, stared at me, gaping. “He ain’t dead, Doc?”

  “Yes,” I said. “He’s dead.”

>   A rumble of indignant comment rose. I noticed the tall figure of Ray Simpson at the back of the group.

  I called: “Ray, where’s the men for the second shift?”

  “Right here, most of ’em, Doc. We heard the racket. We—”

  “Then, for Pete’s sake, get them out of here to their stations. You want another murder on our hands?”

  “We didn’t—”

  “Never mind. Just get them organized right away, that’s all. You’ll have to boss them alone, Ray. I’ve got work to do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Shouting: “Hey, Mac. An’ you, George. Bill, too,” Ray Simpson collected his men from the group and hurried them out of the church. I put my hand on Leaf’s arm.

  “Run along and call Cobb. When you’ve got him, come back and stay guard here.”

  “Sure, Doc.”

  He almost ran out of the church as if it had become a place of horror to him.

  Renton was talking to the men of the first patrol. “You’d better get home, boys, and catch a little sleep. Most of you’ll have to be up in a couple of hours for the milking anyway.”

  As the men trooped out, leaving us alone, Renton turned to me quickly. He looked older than I had ever seen him. All the jauntiness was gone.

  “You meant that, Westlake?”

  “See for yourself.”

  I took him past the curtain. I shone the flashlight on the belfry.

  “Stabbed in the back,” I said. Then slowly: “Stabbed with the paper knife Lorie was fiddling with up at the Bray house this evening.”

  “Ernesta’s paper knife.” He stared at the body and then brought his eyes to mine. “Then that means—one of us?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “But …” The sentence seemed too much for him. He let it peter out. Then, angrily, he said: “What in heck happened to Dan Leaf? I let him run the patrol. I thought it was more tactful, his being Cobb’s assistant. He put me on the beat up beyond the Community House in front of Thorpe’s. Why in hell didn’t he station someone here?”

  “He did.”

  “He did? Then who…?”

  “Caleb,” I said.

  “Caleb?” His face was blank. “But where in hell was he? He didn’t come into the church.”

  I switched off the flashlight and turned back through the curtain. Renton followed me.

  I said: “Keep this quiet. If you can keep it quiet. I don’t want to get the kid into trouble. Know what he was hospitalized for before they discharged him from the Marines?”

  “Why, no. Haven’t any idea.”

  “Fear of the dark. He picked it up in the last days of Okinawa. Quite a common battle psychosis, I believe. It’s a delayed thing from the terrific strain of that Pacific darkness alive with silent, crawling Japs.”

  Renton’s eyes showed understanding and a flicker of pity. “So the poor kid couldn’t take it. He got scared? He had to run home?”

  “Looks that way. I’m going to talk to him now. I warned him against joining the patrol. It didn’t do any good. He’s got a lot of spunk, that kid—and pride.”

  “And, because of his pride, Dr. Jessup ends up with a knife in his back,” said Renton quietly.

  “I know. I know. That’s what everyone’s going to say. That’s why I’m asking you to keep it to yourself—at least until it has to come out.”

  Some of the old banter gleamed for a moment in Renton’s eyes. “What’s the setup, Westlake? Got a crush on the kid?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ve got a crush on him because he’s done a lot of brave things and he’s taken a terrible beating and I’m not going to have him driven into a nuthouse by a lot of loose village gossip.”

  “Nuthouse,” murmured Renton. “That inspector of yours is looking for a nut, isn’t he?”

  “Everyone’s going to say that too.”

  “But you don’t believe it?”

  “I don’t know what I believe yet. If I think he’s guilty, I’m not going to stand up for him. If I don’t think he’s guilty, I’m not going to let him be hounded. He’ll have enough on his conscience as it is when he hears what’s, happened.”

  He patted my arm. “You’re quite a guy, Westlake. I like you.”

  He grinned. I grinned back palely.

  “Stay here, will you?” I asked. “Until Leaf comes back. Then you’d better get some sleep yourself.”

  “I could do with it, I guess. It’s been a busy day, hasn’t it? Church in the morning, murder after lunch, ride to Beldon Falls in the afternoon, murder after dinner.” He shrugged. “Okay, Westlake. You run along and hold Caleb’s hand. And, when Leaf gets back, you won’t see me for dust—sleepy dust, as Mabel would say.”

  Men were calling to one another in the dark street. Lights were still on in most of the houses. I could imagine the frightened conversation in cold kitchens as the farmers returned with the news to their wives. I could imagine the creeping dread, too, for those Skiptonites who had had no men on the patrol and who had been forbidden out of their houses. Horror had changed the very face of the village, making four o’clock in the morning into a lighted carnival of death.

  The lights were burning in Phoebe’s living room. That wasn’t surprising. The church bell would have aroused Phoebe and Lorie as it had aroused the rest of Skipton.

  I climbed the two steps to the dark front door and rang the buzzer. Footsteps sounded inside almost immediately, and then Phoebe’s voice called tentatively:

  “Yes? Who is it?”

  “Hugh Westlake.”

  A chain clanked free and the door opened inward. Phoebe was fully dressed. She was wearing the old flowered frock which she used for gardening. It brought back familiar, peaceful associations of summer teas on the lawn and baskets full of wilting weeds. It reminded me of the way Skipton had once been.

  “Come in. Come in.” Phoebe’s eyes were gimlet-bright. She looked like a plump, anxious little mouse. “What on earth was the bell? A signal? A signal for the new patrol to take over?”

  I stepped into the hall. Phoebe started to close the door. As she did so, I happened to glance at its outside surface. I saw something I had never noticed before. In a semicircle across the top panels, someone had carved a chain of crudely executed ornaments that looked like signs of the Zodiac.

  Instantly, with an aptness that made my heart pound, the song started up again in my mind.

  I’ll sing you five-O,

  Green grow the rushes-O.

  What is your five-O?

  Five for the symbols at your door.

  Phoebe, glancing at me curiously, said: “Haven’t you noticed them before? Caleb carved them when he was a kid. He used to be awfully clever at things like that. I wish he’d get interested again.”

  She shut the door.

  “The bell woke me. I had to dress and come down. I made Lorie stay upstairs. She needs her sleep. But there’s a fire. I made a fire.”

  I said: “I’ve come to see Caleb, Phoebe. He’s back, isn’t he?”

  “Why, yes. Didn’t the policeman tell you? He came home about an hour ago. He had a terrible headache, he said. The policeman sent him home.”

  “He’s upstairs then?”

  “Yes. In his room. But—why do you want to see him?”

  “Just something.”

  Phoebe made a little grab for my sleeve. “Hugh, something hasn’t happened?”

  I tried to smile. “I’ll let you know in a couple of minutes. When I’ve seen Caleb. You wouldn’t be a sweetheart and make some coffee, would you?”

  “Of course. Why, of course.”

  Phoebe stared after me, her black eyes widening with dread, as I hurried up the stairs.

  I knew the Stone house almost as well as I knew my own. I turned down the passage, pleasantly cluttered with articles abandoned from the rooms downstairs, and came to a halt outside the door of Caleb’s bedroom. Light seeped out from under the door.

  I knocked, called: “Caleb” and turned the handle. The
door was locked.

  “Caleb,” I called again. “Hey, let me in.”

  For a moment there was no sound from the room. Then Caleb’s voice, thick and uncertain, called:

  “Is that you, Doctor?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ve got to talk to you.”

  He unlocked the door then and let me in, closing the door again behind me. He’d brought his drawing board and his map of Skipton up from downstairs. He must have been working on it furiously, trying to keep his mind off his thoughts.

  He looked gaunt and young. The gold tan of the atabrine made his skin look brittle, and there were dark smudges under his eyes almost as if he had been crying.

  “So you found out?” He was still trying to be defiant. That was his way, I knew. The more he despised himself, the more he put on the swagger. “Come to gloat, I suppose. Come to say: I told you so.”

  I shook my head. The simplicity of the gesture seemed too much for him. All the aggressiveness went. His face crumpled, and the haunted terror came into his eyes because there was nothing now to control it.

  “I tried, Doctor,” he said huskily. “I swear to God I tried.”

  “I know you did, Caleb.”

  “The light in the church—it helped at first. I kept watching it all the time. I kept saying: There’s a light. It’s only Skipton. There’s a light in the church. Dr. Jessup’s in there, praying. There’s nothing to be scared—” A sob, harsh and wrenching, welled up. “It came suddenly, Doctor. It hit me. And when it comes it’s worse than a nightmare. It’s as if everything, the darkness, is alive, crawling with life, crawling all over me like lice. I can’t think. I can’t … I just started to run. I got home. I knew I had to tell Mother something. I said I had a headache. I said the policeman had excused me. He didn’t. I didn’t see the policeman. I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t ask anyone. It was a lie. I’ve even got to lie to my own mother, make things up, pretend. I’ve even got to lie—”

  I put my arm on his shoulder. I said: “You’ll be all right. It won’t last. It’ll get less and less. Then it’ll go.”