by Paul Malmont
“No,” replied Gibson through teeth he was clenching to keep from chattering. “Aunt Annie’s house is cold as hell!”
“Fellas,” said Driftwood in a low voice. “She’s coming back.”
Annie Phillips Gamwell, the last of Howard’s kin, lived alone at 66 College Street in a dilapidated Victorian house on a block that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in Red Hook, Gibson noted with sad irony. The street itself was heavily trafficked and irritatingly noisy. An ice delivery truck was parked across the street from the Gamwell house, and the cars and cabs that wanted to pass it had to pull into the opposite lane, honking loudly and rudely as they did.
The withered old lady had invited them into her foyer and then left them standing there, shivering, as she wandered off down the dark hallway to put the kettle on for tea. Evidently she must have thought they had followed her, for she had begun a conversation with them in the kitchen which she continued as she came out of the dark corridor toward them.
“The Phillips plot has been in that cemetery for generations. It’s traditional for anyone of our line, or anyone who married into it, to be buried there. Although his father isn’t,” she said dismissively. “Howard’s surname may have been Lovecraft but he was a Phillips as far as we’ve always been concerned. So we’re glad to have him home where he belongs.” Her eyes looked up, as if following a thought that had drifted away from her. When she found it, she spoke again. “Howard was deathly afraid of being buried. He thought he might wake up while he was down there. Would you men take a drink in the parlor?”
“Oh, no, Miss Gamwell,” said Gibson. “We just stopped by to pay our respects. We don’t want to trouble you anymore.”
“Please,” she insisted. “You’ve all come so far, from New York City! And then being out in the cold and rain like that.” She pointed to the parlor again. “Please help yourself. I hear the teakettle whistling.”
“I don’t hear…,” Hubbard started to say, but Driftwood gave him a gentle poke in the ribs. Gibson looked at the other two men and nodded. He didn’t know about them but he really wanted a drink. Several, in fact. “Thank you,” he said after they nodded in resigned approbation.
She creaked back into the gloomy passage, her black dress merging into the darkness so her silver head seemed to float by itself in the air. It reminded Gibson of the old school of French theatrical magic where assistants—dressed completely in black on a black stage, making them nearly invisible to the audience—would lift objects at the command of a sorcerer. To the awed spectators it appeared as if the objects were levitating. Magie noire. It was the foundation of the illusory ability of The Shadow to move through the pervasive darkness of the criminal underworld so effectively. Black magic is real, he thought. Not pulp.
As she completed her vanishing act, the men entered the shabby parlor. The heavy drapes were drawn against the gray day. Gibson went to a dusty liquor cabinet and poured some bourbon out of a heavy decanter into three glasses. His fingers left marks on the grimy crystal.
“Well, I didn’t hear any teakettle,” Hubbard complained.
“She’s an old woman, Hubbard. Cut her a little slack,” Gibson replied.
“I don’t think anyone’s been in this room for years,” said Driftwood as he took a glass. “Between the damp outside and the dust in here, this town is gonna kill my lungs.”
Gibson picked up a telegram which sat on the coffee table. It had been sent from Chicago. MY CONDOLENCES STOP SONIA. The simple expression, devoid of any emotion, made him feel sadder for Lovecraft than had any part of the service. He set the telegram down.
“This has been one hell of a strange day,” said Hubbard. “You know, I have a crazy aunt, and her house always smells like ammonia too. Ammonia and lavender sachet. I always wonder where the smell comes from.”
“I don’t know if it’s the cool air or what,” said Driftwood, “but I got the feeling we’re being watched.”
“Well, if we learned anything today,” said Hubbard, “it’s that there ain’t nobody interested in Lovecraft but us.”
Gibson poured himself a second drink to keep the first one from growing lonely.
“Listen,” said Hubbard. Gibson turned his attention to the creaks and sighs of the old house. There was a distant murmur of a low voice. “She’s talking to herself. Must be hard to suddenly be all alone.”
Her distant and muted voice suddenly broke off. The house seemed incredibly still. They could hear floorboards groan outside the parlor. Gibson suddenly found his heart racing. He looked at Driftwood, who, in spite of the cold, had broken into a sweat. Hubbard’s normally florid face had suddenly gone pale. What are we afraid of? Gibson thought. What if what turned the corner wasn’t an old, grieving woman but one of Lovecraft’s ancient and horrible things from beyond space and time and human comprehension?
“Tea biscuits?”
Gibson exhaled with relief. The other two men shifted their weight, visibly relaxing. Gibson felt the tension leak out of him as suddenly as it had come upon him. He had a recollection of Lovecraft’s Brooklyn home as having the same dread atmosphere. He thought of how much vibrant effort Sonia had put in to dispel the gloom with bright furniture and clothes and light, never realizing that perhaps the murk was Howard’s own atmosphere.
“No thanks,” he said. The other men politely accepted, each taking a handful. Driftwood especially seemed hungry. She placed the tray on a small end table. They stood looking uncomfortably at each other for a long moment.
“I knew your nephew in New York,” said Gibson finally. “And his wife too. Does she know about Howard?”
“Of course she knows,” the woman said crossly. “She wasn’t much of a wife to him in life, so why should she care that he’s dead?”
She rubbed her hands together as she spoke. The gesture appeared miserly but Gibson saw her wincing as she tried to work some relief into her joints.
“Miss Gamwell, it seems a bit cold in here. Do you need some help with your heat?” Driftwood asked. “We could build a fire or check your boiler—is it in the cellar?”
“No!” she exclaimed.
“It’ll only take us a few moments.”
“We like it cold,” she insisted.
He looked down at the pattern on the rug, embarrassed for her.
Hubbard said, “I’ll have another one of those biscuits, if you don’t mind.” He reached over toward the end table but stayed his hand for a moment before picking up an object which lay to the side of the cookie tray instead. “Hey, Walter,” he said. “The Shadow’s been here!” He tossed Gibson a small shiny item.
“You’re right! It’s a Shadow decoder ring.” He smiled at the object in his hand. It was a cheap tin device that used a simple type of code called a substitution cipher. A disk of alphabet letters rotated around an inner ring of identical letters. All a kid needed to know to decode a jumble of letters was the offset key—3, for example—and whether to turn the wheel to the left or right. If the first letter in a jumble was A, then turning the A three clicks to the right placed it over D, which would be the actual first letter. “Julius Caesar invented this code.”
“But did he invent the salad?” Driftwood cracked.
“Latin’s not hard enough, he had to put it into a code?” Hubbard shuddered. “I hated Latin.”
“That was one of Howard’s gewgaws,” the old lady said. “You can have it if you’d like.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” said Gibson. “I’ve got a shoebox full.” He held out the ring to her but she refused to release her hands and take it. After a moment he put it down on the table.
“I guess we should be going,” he said. “Thank you for the drinks.” She stepped aside to let them pass and they headed into the hallway. Gibson reached for the doorknob.
“Thanks,” added Driftwood. “I’m sorry about your nephew’s death. Cancer is awful.”
“Cancer!” the woman scoffed. “Howard was murdered.”
“I’m sorry?” Gibson stopp
ed turning the doorknob. His hand began to tremble. He felt as if he were back onstage with Litzka. “How do you mean, ‘murdered’? I thought he had stomach cancer.”
“I mean murdered as in somebody done him in. Killed him, deliberately.”
“Who?” Hubbard challenged.
“Mr. Jeffords. He owns the Providence Medical Lab, where Howard worked. I saw him at the hospital when Howard died. That ugly, bald man was choking Howard and then he ran off and Howard died. And I know why he won’t leave the Medical Lab again. Because he has what Howard has. Had.”
“What do the police say? Have you talked with them?”
“Bosh! The police. The only thing more corrupt in Providence than our politicians is our police. Jeffords is a rich man. That’s who the police listen to. When I called the police, they talked to the doctor and I know he told them I was a senile old woman and not to believe me and that Howard was dying from stomach cancer. That’s Providence for you; only thing that gets more sleep than its dead is its police. But he was murdered. I saw it.”
“Why would someone do that?” Driftwood asked.
“Because something happened at the lab. Something that made him ill. And he was going to tell people. But then he was murdered.”
Something bumped in the cellar, startling the men.
“What was that?” asked Hubbard.
“Rats in the walls,” she said. She put her hand to her throat and toyed with her thin strand of pearls. “I’m sorry, gentlemen. I’m afraid I’m just a very overwrought old woman and it’s a difficult time.”
“Of course,” said Gibson.
She turned and looked back down the dark hallway again. “I know your coming today means a lot to Howard,” she said finally.
“You sure there’s nothing we can do for you?” Driftwood asked with concern. “It’s very cold in here.”
She shook her head. “Thank you. Thank you for coming.”
Gibson was going to ask her more, but she turned abruptly and walked down the corridor, disappearing into the gloom.
Hubbard looked at the two of them. “Brother, I wish your train could drop us off right at the front door of the White Horse Tavern. We get back, that’s where I’m heading. I feel like it’s going to take a month of drinking there to get this out of my system.”
Driftwood nodded. “I hear that.”
Gibson opened the door and the three men moved out to the porch. The yellow Checker Cab they had come in was idling at curbside while its driver smoked a cigarette. The skies were still gray and lowering. Gibson closed the door behind them. He shook his head. “Howard was afraid of his own shadow,” he said. “I can’t imagine him getting involved enough in anything where someone would want to kill him.”
“What exactly did he do at the Providence Medical Lab?” Driftwood asked.
“Ghostwriter. Turning all that science jargon into English. Not exactly the stuff conspiracies are made of.” He pulled out his pocket watch. “It’s four o’clock,” he said to Hubbard. “The train’s not pulling out until eleven-thirty. Want to meet me there at eleven?”
“Okay.” Hubbard seemed a little uncertain. “I thought you guys might want to grab a bite to eat or a couple of beers.”
“Can’t,” Gibson said. “I’ve got just enough time to drop in on an old friend.”
Driftwood grinned. “A girl in every port.”
“Something like that.” Gibson smiled back every bit as broadly. “You want the cab?”
“I’m on foot,” said Driftwood. “I’m off to find a soup kitchen.”
“I saw a pub about a block back,” said Hubbard. “How about that beer?”
“You’re buyin’?”
Hubbard winced. “Sure,” he said. “Come on. I’ll meet you at the train.”
“Right.” Gibson held out his hand to Driftwood. “Otis, it was nice to meet you. When you get down to the Empire City, look me up. I’ll either be at Street & Smith or, as Ron said, boozin’ it up at the White Horse.”
“A pleasure, Walter.” Driftwood shook his hand.
Gibson climbed into the cab and watched the two men walk down the sidewalk. He looked back at the house. He knew what Driftwood had meant when he described the sensation of being watched. Even now, outside the house, Gibson thought he saw the parlor window curtain sway as if stirred by some vague, unnatural breath.
“Where to?” The cabbie was uninterested.
Gibson rubbed his hands together. They were still chilled but the cab was warm and it felt great to get some heat. He felt sorry for the lonely old woman and wondered how she would ever manage. What became of people like her, he wondered. How did people cope with being abandoned?
Robert would know. Why not just ask him?
The thought hit him like a sledgehammer to the stomach. An old woman must understand that loved ones are taken. A wife might understand that a husband could go. What would a young son know? His son. Robert. An emptiness beyond knowing?
The driver cleared his throat.
“You know where the Providence Medical Lab is?” Gibson said.
Issue 3:
The Night Watchman
Episode Nineteen
THE DOOR to the Pullman flew open with a crash and Walter Gibson, his suit torn, his hair wildly disheveled, slumped wearily against the doorjamb.
“Jesus, Walter! I guess her husband got home early, huh?” Hubbard said, putting his scotch down and rising from his club chair as Gibson dragged himself into the train car.
“I hope you got in a few good licks yourself!” Otis, in the other chair, stood too, while Chester moved swiftly to Gibson’s side to help him aboard.
“Whew, that’s some smell,” Hubbard’s happy commentary continued. “What’d you do? Fall into an outhouse?” He put a handkerchief over his mouth. “I ever tell you about the time I did just that thing…”
Chester helped Gibson peel off his torn jacket. Driftwood snatched a cloth napkin and poured a few ice cubes from the ice bucket into it. He wrapped it up and gave it to Gibson, who put it against his bruised and bloodied nose.
“What happened, Mr. Gibson?” Chester was worried. “Someone try to roll you?”
Gibson flopped down in his club chair, grateful for the cool pack against his face. His head was throbbing. In fact, his whole body ached. Driftwood poured him a drink, which he accepted. The three men gazed at him with concern.
“I, uh, invited Otis to hitch a ride down to New York with us. I hope that’s copacetic?” Hubbard looked like a puppy who had piddled on an heirloom rug.
Gibson nodded. He was actually happy to see some friendly faces. He inhaled the alcohol’s fumes through his nose, trying to get rid of his own stench, which seemed to be adhering to his nasal membranes. He wasn’t usually one for gulping booze, but tonight he poured the contents of the glass down his throat and felt it explode in his stomach. At that moment, with a whistle and a lurch, the train began to move. Just in time, he thought. Providence was going to kill me if I didn’t leave.
“Mr. Gibson?”
“I’m all right, Chester,” he said. “I could use a bite to eat, though.” He wasn’t hungry at all, but he didn’t want the men hovering over him like a bunch of nursemaids. Chester nodded and moved to the end of the car where a small galley stood, and began to poke around in the cabinets. Gibson knew he was all ears.
Driftwood removed the ruined jacket from the banquette and sat down. “Brother Walter,” he said. “I bet you got some story to tell us!”
“Well,” he said, “I took the cab to the waterfront.”
“There must be someplace in Providence that’s nice,” Gibson had said to himself as he got out of the Checker. “I just haven’t seen it yet.”
The cab drove away from the lab as soon as he had paid his fare, its driver insisting that the train yard was close enough for Gibson to walk to and that he had a wife and a Sunday roast to get home to. The wind that blew in from the harbor was so cold it made his cheekbones ache, and he turned his
face into his shoulder to try to shield it. He had been cold all day and it was wearing him out; even the brief trip in the cab hadn’t been enough to allow the warmth to penetrate the chill which seemed to have settled deep within him.
It suddenly occurred to him to curse Lester Dent. In a way it was really that big hick’s fault that he found himself here, investigating the mystery of a murder that probably hadn’t even happened. If Dent was serious, as Hubbard had told him, about finding an ending to the Sweet Flower War story, he would have it over Gibson forever. Lester had been right in that, at the least, he should have had some sort of ending for the Sweet Flower story. Even though he had just been telling the story to Hubbard, it had been lazy of him not to take the time to come up with one. Being caught without an ending offended his pride as a onetime journalist, to not mention as the best-selling pulp author in America. He just couldn’t possibly tell another story without an ending at the White Horse or the Knickerbocker. People would say he had gone soft.
He looked around. His cabbie had told him that this was where the Providence Medical Lab could be found, but all he could see were long, low, windowless buildings which fronted the stinking inlet. He went to the doors of several buildings but found no signs, no markings, save for street numbers. He rubbed his hands together and blew on them for warmth. He looked up and down the street. Where there was a wharf, there were longshoremen, and where there were longshoremen, there was a tavern, and where there was a tavern, there was information. Gibson located the blinking neon Beverwyck Breweries sign within moments. Waterfront bars always seemed immune to Sunday blue laws. He turned up the collar of his jacket, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and walked briskly to the tavern.
At first he thought that maybe a fire had swept through the establishment and that the owners had simply swept up a little, restocked the icebox, and opened for business. On second thought he decided they hadn’t swept up. The room was long and narrow. The bar, which ran the entire length, cut into nearly half the room, leaving only enough space for a few tables at the back. Otherwise, the few men who were here perched on stools. Their weather-beaten faces turned to look at him in a single motion. He couldn’t have been more unwelcome if he had suddenly walked into any one of their living rooms.