“An’ then it wuz upon us, sor. Taller than me by a good foot, it wuz, an’ all covered wid scales, like a serpent. Two horns wuz growin’ from its head, an’ its eyes wuz flashin’ fire. I couldn’t rightly say it had a tail, fer there wuz small chance to look at it; but may I never stir from this here chair if it didn’t have a pair o’ big, black wings—an’ it flew right at us.
“Mr. Roscoe give a funny sort o’ cry an’ put his cane up to defend hisself. I wuz yankin’ at me gun, but me fingers wuz all stiff wid cold, an’ th’ holster wouldn’t seem to come unsnapped.
“Th’ next I knew, somethin’ give a awful, screamin’ laugh, an’ then there wuz a flash o’ fire right in me face, an’ I’m a-coughin’ an’ a-chokin’ wid th’ fumes o’ sulfur in me nose, an’ I when gits so I can see again, there’s no one there a-tall but Mr. Roscoe, an’ he stretched out beside me on th’ sidewalk wid his skull mashed in an’ th’ Divil’s mark upon his brow. Dead he were, so dead as yesterday’s newspaper.
“I’d made shift to snatch me gun out whilst th’ fire wuz still blindin’ me, an’ had fired an’ where I thought th’ thing must be, but all I ever found to show that I’d hit sumpin wuz this thing—” From his blouse pocket he withdrew an envelope, and from it took a small, dark object.
De Grandin took it from him, examined it a moment, then passed it on to me. It was a portion of a quill, clipped across the shaft some three or four inches from the tip, the barbs a brilliant black which shone with iridescent luster in the lamplight. Somewhat heavier than any feather I had ever felt, it was, and harder, too, for when I ran my thumb across its edge it rasped my skin almost like the teeth of a fine saw. Indeed, the thing was more like the scale from some gigantic reptile, cut in foliations to simulate a quill, than any feather I had ever seen.
“I never saw a quill like this, before,” I told O’Toole, and:
“Here’s hopin’ that ye never do again, sor,” he responded earnestly, “fer, as sure as ye’re a-settin’ on that chair, that there’s a feather from a Divil’s Angel’s wing!”
“BEGGIN’ YER PARDON, SOR,” Nora McGinnis once more appeared abruptly at the door, “there’s a young man wid a special delivery letter fer Doctor de Grandin. Will ye be afther lookin’ at it now, sor, or will it wait?”
“Bring it in at once, if you will be so good,” the Frenchman answered. “All special letters merit quick attention.”
Bowing mute apology to us, he slit the envelope and glanced quickly through the brief typewritten missive. “Parbleu, ’tis very strange!” he exclaimed as he finished reading. “You came to me regarding these so strange events, mon chef, and on your heels comes this. Attend me, if you please:
My dear Doctor de Grandin:
I have heard of your ability to arrive at explanations of cases which apparently possess a supernatural aspect, and am writing you to ask if you will take the Borough of Norfolk Downs as client in a case which will undoubtedly command the limit of your talents.
Our police force admit their helplessness, special investigators hired from the best detective agencies have failed to give us any satisfaction. Our people are terrified and the entire community lives in a feeling of constant insecurity.
In view of this I am authorized to offer you a retainer of one thousand dollars immediately upon your acceptance of the case, and an additional fee of fifty dollars a day, plus reasonable expenses, provided you arrive at a solution of the mystery which is not only causing our citizens much anxiety but has already reached the newspapers in a garbled form and is causing much unfavorable publicity for Norfolk Downs as a residential center.
Your promptness in replying will be appreciated by
Yours faithfully,
ROLLAND WILCOX,
Mayor of Norfolk Downs.
“An’ will ye take th’ case, sor?” O’Toole asked eagerly.
“Sure, Doctor de Grandin, sor, ye’ll be doin’ me a favor, an’ Timmie, too, if ye’ll say yes,” Costello added.
“Assuredly,” de Grandin answered with a vigorous nod. “Tomorrow afternoon the good Doctor Trowbridge and I shall wait upon Monsieur le Maire and say to him: ‘Voilà, Monsieur, here we are. Where is the thousand dollars, and where the mystery that you would have us solve? But yes; certainly.’”
2
THE WEALTHY REALTORS AND expensive architects who mapped out Norfolk Downs had done their work artistically. Houses of approved English architecture, Elizabethan, Tudor, Jacobean, with here and there an example of the Georgian or Regency periods, set well back in tastefully planted grounds along wide, tree-bordered roads which trailed gracefully in curves and avoided every hint of the perpendicularity of city streets. Commercial buildings were restricted to such few shops as were essential to the convenience of the community—a grocery, drug store, delicatessen and motor service station—and these were confined to a circumscribed zone and effectually disguised as private dwellings, their show windows fashioned as oriels, neatly sodded yards, set with flower beds and planted with evergreens, before them.
Mayor Wilcox occupied a villa in Edgemere Road, a great, rambling house of the half-timbered English style with Romantic chimneys, stuccoed walls and many low, broad windows. A snug, well-kept formal garden, fenced in by neatly trimmed hedges of box and privet, was in front; at the side was a pergola and rose garden where marble statues, fountains and a lily-pond stood in incongruous contrast to the Elizabethan house and Victorian front-garden.
“I understand you’ve had some of the details of the case already from O’Toole, Doctor de Grandin,” Mayor Wilcox said when we had been escorted to his study at the rear of the villa’s wide central hall.
The Frenchman inclined his head. “Quite so,” he answered. I was most solemnly assured you were suffering from diabolic visitation, Monsieur le Maire.”
Wilcox laughed shortly, mirthlessly. “I’m not so sure he’s wrong,” he answered.
“Eh, you have some reason to believe—” de Grandin started, then broke off questioningly.
The mayor looked from one of us to the other with a sort of shamefaced expression. “It’s really very odd,” he returned at length. “Folloilott rather inclines to the diabolical theory, too, but he’s so mediæval-minded, anyway, that—”
“And this Monsieur Fol—this Monsieur with the funny name, who is he, if you please?”
“Our rector—the priest in charge of St. Michael and All Angels’; queer sort of chap; modern and all that, you know, but believes in all sorts of supernatural nonsense, and—”
“One little moment, if you please,” de Grandin interrupted. “Let us hear the reasons for the good man’s assumptions, if you will. Me, I know the by-ways of ghostland as I know my own pocket, and I solemnly assure you there is no such thing as the supernatural. There is undoubtedly the superphysical; there is also that class of natural phenomena which we do not understand; but the supernatural? Non, it is not so.”
Mayor Wilcox, who was bald to the ears and affected a pointed beard and curling mustache which gave him a Shakespearian appearance, glanced sharply at the Frenchman, as though in doubt of his sincerity, then, as he met the earnest gaze of the small, blue eyes, responded with a shrug:
“It was the Michael which started him. Our church, you know, is largely constructed from bits of ruined abbeys brought from England. The font is sixteenth century, the altar even earlier, and some of the carvings date back to pre-Tudor times. The name-saint, the Archangel Michael, is represented by a particularly fine bit of work showing the Champion of Heaven overcoming the Fiend and binding him in chains. It was in first-rate shape despite its age when we received it, and every precaution was taken when we set it over the church porch. But just before the first of these mysterious killings took place the stone fetter which bound the Devil became broken in some way. Folloilott was the first to notice it, and directed my attention to the missing links. He seemed in a dreadful state of funk when he told us the bits of missing stone were nowhere to be found.
“‘Well, we’l
l have a stone-cutter over and have new ones carved,’ I told him, but it seemed that wouldn’t do at all. Unless the identical links which were missing could be found and reset right away, something terrible would descend on the community, he assured me. I’d have laughed at him, but he was so earnest about it anyone could see he was sincere.
“‘I tell you, Wilcox,’ he said, ‘those links are symbolical. The Archfiend is unchained upon the earth, and dreadful things will come to us unless we can confine him in those sacred fetters right away!’ You have to know Folloilott to understand the impressive way he said it. Why, I almost believed it, myself, he was so serious about it all.
“Well, the upshot of it all was we searched the churchyard and all the ground around, but couldn’t find a single trace of those stone links. Next night the boot—the Scarsci man was killed in the way O’Toole told you, and since that time we’ve had two other inexplicable murders.
“No one can offer any explanation, and the detectives we hired were as much at sea as any of us. What do you think of it, sir?”
“U’m,” de Grandin took his narrow chin between a thoughtful thumb and finger and pinched it till the dimple in its tip deepened to a cleft. “I think we should do well to see this statue of St. Michael and also the so estimable clergyman with the unpronounceable name. Can this be done at once?”
Wilcox consulted his watch. “Yes,” he answered. “Folloilott says evensong about this time every day, rain, shine or measles. We’ll be in time to see him if we step over to the church right away.”
WINTER WAS DYING HARD. The late afternoon was bitter for so late in March. A leaden sky, piled high with asphalt-colored clouds, held a menace of snow, and along the walks curled yellow leaves from the wayside trees scuttered, and paused and scuttered on again as though they fled in hobbled fear from the wind that came hallooing from the north.
Chimes were playing softly in the square bell-tower of the church as we approached, their vibrant notes scarce audible against the wind’s wild shouting:
Abide with me: fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide …
A look of almost ineffable sadness swept across de Grandin’s features, swift as the passing of a thought. “Have her ever in Thy gracious keeping, Lord!” he murmured, and signed the cross before his face, so quickly one might have thought him stroking his mustache.
“There’s Folloilott, now!” Wilcox exclaimed. “I say, Mr. Folloilott, here—”
A tall young man in shovel hat and Inverness coat strode quickly across the patch of lawn separating the church from the brick-and-sandstone rectory. If he heard the mayor’s greeting above the wind he gave no sign as he thrust the nail-studded door of the vestry aside and entered the sacred edifice.
“Humph, he’s a sacerdotal fool!” our companion exclaimed half angrily. “You might as well try to get a number on a broken telephone as attract his attention when he’s about his parish duties.”
“U’m?” de Grandin murmured. “The one-tracked mind, as you call him in American, hein? And this St. Michael of whom you spoke, where is he, if you please?”
“There,” Wilcox answered, pointing his blackthorn stick to a sculptured group set in the wall above the pentice.
The group, cut in high relief upon a plinth of stone, represented the Archangel, accoutered in cuirass and greaves, erect above the fallen demon, one foot upon his adversary’s throat, his lance poised for a thrust in his right hand, the left holding a chain which was made fast to manacles latched around the fiend’s wrists. The whole thing, rather crudely carved, had an appearance of immense age, and even from our point of view, some forty feet away, we could see that several links of the chain, as well as the bracelets binding the Devil’s hands, had weathered and chipped away.
“And Monsieur l’Abbé insists this has connection with these so strange deaths?” the Frenchman asked musingly.
“He affects to believe so; yes,” Wilcox answered, impatience in his voice.
“Eh bien, in former times men have believed in stranger things,” de Grandin returned. “Come, let us go in; I would observe him more closely, if you please.”
Like too many churches, St. Michael and All Angels’ did not boast impressive congregations at ordinary services. A verger in a black-serge robe, three or four elderly and patently virgin ladies in expensive but frumpish costumes and a young and slender girl almost nun-like in her subdued gray coat and hat were the sole attendants besides ourselves.
The organ prelude finished as we found seats in a forward pew, and the Reverend Mr. Folloilott entered from the vestry, genuflected to the altar and began to intone the service. Rather to my surprise, he chose the long, or Nicene Creed, in preference to the shorter one usually recited at the evening service, and at the words, “and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost,” his genuflection was so profound that it was almost a prostration.
Immediately following the collect for peace he descended from the chancel to the body of the church and began the office of general supplication.
It was chilly to the point of frostiness in the church, but perspiration streaked the cleric’s face as in a voice vibrant with intense emotion he cantillated the entreaty:
O holy, blessed and glorious Trinity, three persons and one God; have mercy upon us miserable sinners….
From our seats in the transept we were almost abreast of the priest as he knelt at the litany desk, and I caught de Grandin studying him covertly while the interminable office was recited. Mr. Folloilott’s face was cameo-sharp in profile, pale, but not with poor health; lean rather than thin, with a high, narrow brow, deep-set, almost piercingly clear eyes of gray, high-bridged, prominent nose and long, pointed chin. The mouth was large, but thin-lipped, and the hair which grew well forward at the temples intensely black. A rather strong, intelligent face, I thought, but one marked by asceticism, the face of one who might be either unflinching martyr or relentless inquisitor, as occasion might direct.
“No use trying to see him now,” Wilcox told us when benediction was pronounced and the congregation rose from their knees after a respectful interval. “He’ll be about his private devotions for the next half-hour, and—ah, by George, I have it! I’m having another friend for dinner tonight: What d’ye say we have Folloilott and Janet in as well? You’ll have all the chance you want to talk with him.”
“Excellent,” de Grandin acquiesced. “And who is Janet, may one ask? Madame Fol—the reverend gentleman’s wife?”
“Lord, no!” the mayor responded. “Folloilott’s a dedicated celibate. Janet’s his ward.”
“Ah?” the Frenchman answered with a barely perceptible rising inflection. I drove my elbow in his ribs lest he say more. The frank expressions of de Grandin’s thoughts were not always acceptable to American ears, as I well knew from certain contretemps in which he had involved me in the past.
3
EIGHT OF US GATHERED at the Jacobean oak table in Mr. Wilcox’s dining-room that evening: the mayor and his wife, a slender, dark young man of scholarly appearance with refined, Semitic features, George, Wilcox’s son, recently admitted to the bar and his father’s partner in practise, the Reverend Basil Folloilott and his ward, Janet Payne, de Grandin and I. The meal was good, though simple: clear soup, fried sole, a saddle of Canada hare, salad and an ice; white wine with the fish, claret with the roast.
De Grandin studied each of the guests with his quick, stock-taking glance, but Janet excited my curiosity most of all. She was slight and unmistakably attractive, but despite her smooth and fresh-colored complexion she somehow conveyed an impression of colorlessness. Her long, fair hair was simply arranged in a figure 8 knot at the nape of her neck; her large, blue, heavy-lidded eyes seemed to convey nothing but disinterested weariness. Her lips were a thought too full for beauty, but she had a sweet, rather pathetic smile, and she smiled often, but talked rarely. “H’m,” I wondered professionally, “is she anemic, or recovering from an illness?”
T
he sound of Wilcox’s voice broke through my revery: “I saw Withers’ executors today, Mr. Silverstein,” he told the young Jewish gentleman, “and I don’t think there’s much doubt that they’ll renew the loan.”
To us he added in explanation, “Mr. Silverstein is Rabbi of the Congregation Beth Israel. Withers held a mortgage on their temple and was pressing them for payment in full when he was—when he died. The executors seem more leniently inclined.”
A sharp kick on my shin made me wince with pain, but before I could cry out, de Grandin’s hand was pressing mine and his eyes beckoning my attention to the clergyman across the table. The reverend, gentleman’s face had gone an almost sickly gray, and an expression of something like consternation was on his features.
I was about to ask if I could be of service whan our hostess rose, and with her Janet went into the drawing-room. Evidently the custom of leaving the gentlemen at table with their cigars still obtained in Wilcox’s house. For just an instant as she passed the girl’s glance rested on young Wilcox, and in it was tenderness and such yearning that I almost cried aloud, for it was like the look of a pauper’s child before a toyshop window at Christmas time.
De Grandin noted the look, too. “Tiens, Monsieur l’Abbé,” he said genially as he lighted his cigar, “unless I greatly miss my guess, you shall soon celebrate a most joyous ceremony.”
The clergyman looked puzzled. “How do you meam?” he asked.
“Why, when Mademoiselle Jeannette marries with Monsieur Georges, to be sure, you will most certainly perform the cere—”
The other cut him off. “Janet has no place for earthly love in her life,” he answered. “Hers is one of those devoted souls which long for sweet communion with the Heavenly Bridegroom. As soon as she has come of age she will become a postulate in the order of the Resurrection. All plans are made; it is her life’s vocation. She has been trained to look for nothing else since she was a little girl.”
De Grandin shot a doubtful, questioning glance at me, and I nodded confirmation. St. Chrystosom’s, where I had served as vestryman for nearly thirty years was “moderate,” being neither Methodistically “low” nor ritualistically “high,” but in a vague way I knew the ritualistic branch of the Episcopal Church supported monastic and conventual orders with discipline and rules as strict as any sponsored by the Greek and Latin churches, especially women’s orders, where the members took their vows for life and lived as closely cloistered as mediæval nuns.
The Dark Angel Page 40