The Lower Deep

by Hugh B. Cave

  All day Sunday Roger Etienne and two other men in khaki, with the active help of certain townspeople, continued the search for Ginny Jourdan. By evening, miles of seashore had been covered, as had the many hectares of scrubby flatland south of town. Dozens of Dame Marie's citizens had been questioned in their homes. Local fishermen, anxious to cooperate, had even taken their boats out to comb the sea, using the outboard motors George Benson had obtained for them.

  The girl remained missing.

  Just before dark, while walking back to town after a visit to the Azagon, Etienne paused to rest for a moment at the cove called Anse Douce. It had been a long day. Seated on a chunk of coral, gazing along the beach, he recalled the night he had found Ginny Jourdan here.

  In his mind he could see her now, strolling naked in the moonlight along the sea's edge. At the time he had felt a little disgusted, thinking he had stumbled onto one of the teenagers who occasionally used the cove for marijuana and sex parties. Calling out to the naked figure to "hold on there, you!" he had hurried to apprehend her.

  He still remembered his shock at discovering who it was. Ginny Jourdan naked on a beach at that hour? What, for God's sake, was going on?

  Now, suddenly, he again saw something moving at the water's edge, a little distance from where he was sitting. Not this time a nude girl walking, but something in the surf, turning and rolling like the occasional coconut log that came ashore here.

  With a shrug he went to investigate, on the odd chance it might not be something so commonplace. On seeing what it really was, he suddenly felt sick.

  The thing in the surf was not driftwood. It was the naked body of what had been a man.

  For a moment Etienne could only stand there ankle deep in the sea, staring at it. Then he forced himself to wade in deeper and take hold of an arm.

  But it was only part of an arm. The hand was missing. And the body was only part of a body, obviously ravaged by sharks or other sea creatures. Peering into the face to see if he knew the man, Etienne saw something squirming in an otherwise empty eye socket and had to wait a minute before he could continue. Then, his lips tightly pressed and chest heaving, he dragged the body up on the beach and headed for town to get help.

  Since it was not possible to drive the army jeep this far along the shore, he and a helper would have to carry the corpse to it after bringing the vehicle as close as they could. Not a pleasant prospect, especially at the end of a long and tiring day.

  Steve Spence, summoned to the army post by phone, peered at the dead man and had to turn away. When able to speak, he said woodenly, "Yes, it's Lindo."

  "I am sorry," Etienne said. "You were hoping it would not be, of course. But now it seems we have to admit that Elizabeth Langer could be telling the truth about what happened when the Ti Maman disappeared."

  "Yes."

  "Except, of course, she said the man swimming was sucked down into that hole she talked about. Obviously he wasn't."

  Realizing the other was only thinking aloud, Steve did not reply.

  "I wish to God we knew what really happened out there that day," the lieutenant said then, drawing the sheet back over the dead man's ravaged face.

  19

  While the search for Ginny Jourdan intensified, Steve Spence had to think, also, of his many duties at the Azagon. Not all of his time could be devoted to the handful of patients most involved in what was happening.

  In fact, more of his time than before had to be given now to those who seemed not to be directly affected. The tales had traveled all through the retreat. Patients were afraid.

  On Monday, the day following the discovery of Lindo's body, he began the morning with a lecture to a group of patients on the physiological problems they were struggling with. At least, the lecture began that way, with slides to show graphically what took place when alcohol entered the bloodstream. But toward the end, questions from some of his listeners turned it into something else. Into a struggle on his part to explain what was going on.

  News somehow traveled swiftly in a place such as this. St. Joe peasants were not the only ones who had a telédiol, it seemed. Most of the Azagon's patients had known about Lindo's disappearance. Now some of them knew his body had been found. Some were also aware that others under the Azagon's roof were behaving strangely, and they wanted answers.

  The lecture over—and from his point of view a failure—Steve went on to other things. New patients had arrived in the past few days. He met with them one-on-one, asking them to talk about themselves. What were their good qualities as they recognized them? What were their troublesome ones? Their goals? Their spiritual beliefs? More often than such people realized, their spiritual state of mind was reflected in their physical state.

  After lunch that Monday, a little weary, he called on Paul Henninger and found the manager sitting up in bed, reading a St. Joseph newspaper. On a chair beside the bed was a tray containing the sick man's noon meal, apparently untouched.

  "Have you read this story about the boat that was lost?" Henninger said. "It's quite good."

  The paper arrived daily in Dame Marie by Camion, and the shopkeeper who received it sent several copies by messenger to the Azagon. Unfortunately for most of the patients, it was in French. But Henninger read French, and with some difficulty so did Steve.

  "I saw it," Steve said. "Haven't had time for it yet. Paul, I'm sorry, but I have to tell you we haven't been able to find a replacement for you yet. It's not easy here to find anyone with the necessary experience, as I'm sure you know."

  A look of something like fear briefly touched the manager's face. "Doctor, I don't want to quit. Not now!"

  "What?"

  "I've been thinking it over. Everyone here has problems. That's what the Azagon is all about, isn't it? And if I can't find out what's wrong with me here, what chance would I have on the outside?"

  "But—"

  "Dr. Driscoll came to see me this morning and said he was sure he could help me. No, no, Doctor, I don't want to leave!"

  Steve stepped back and frowned at him. "Are you sure? You were eager enough to get away from here before."

  "I was wrong. I hadn't thought about it enough. Anyway, I don't like unfinished business. If I left without knowing what's behind these problems of mine, I would never be wholly rid of them."

  "All right." Steve turned to direct his frown at the tray of food. "What's wrong with your lunch?"

  "Taste it, please."

  Taking a bit of roast pork in his fingers, Steve nibbled at it and made a face. Puzzled, he said, "But wait. The rest of us had pork for lunch, and it wasn't laced with garlic like this."

  "That's what it is? Garlic?"

  "Seems to be."

  "I wondered. Every mouthful of food brought to this room for the past three days has been so spicy I couldn't down it. Have they lost their minds in the kitchen?"

  "Every meal of yours is like this?"

  "Inedible, as far as I'm concerned. And I'm puzzled. I thought the cook was rather fond of me. That I was a special pal of his, in fact."

  "Damn it," Steve said. "I told him to cut down on the garlic, and I thought he had. At least, the food in the dining room has been better. I'll talk to him again." He looked at his watch. "Might as well do it right now."

  Ti-Jean Lazaire was not in the kitchen, however. Nor was he in his quarters. Coming upon Circée Orelle in the downstairs hall, Steve asked the husky housekeeper if she had seen him.

  Waving a dustpan in one hand, she replied with startling vehemence, "No, I haven't! But if you look in Mr. Morrison's room, you just might find him messing around in there!"

  "What are you saying?"

  "This morning, when I went in there to tidy up, I found him snooping around and had to order him out. He looked mighty guilty at being caught there, too, I can tell you."

  "He's not supposed to be in the rooms. What exactly was he doing?"

  "I haven't the slightest idea. But you just wait a minute, Doctor." Marching down the hall to
a closet where she kept her brooms, Orelle jerked the door open with nearly enough force to tear it off its hinges. Snatching something from a shelf, she marched back and handed Steve a jointed wooden rule, folded. "I found this at Mr. Morrison's window!"

  "A carpenter's rule?" Steve turned the thing over in his hands and peered at it closely, but found nothing to distinguish it from any other such tool. "You mean he'd been measuring the window and left it behind when you ran him out of there?"

  "I can't say what he was doing. But it was there on the sill and it doesn't belong to Mr. Morrison."

  "Apparently it doesn't belong to Lazaire either." Steve was frowning now at initials burned into the wood with some kind of marking device. "Who is A.V.R.?"

  "There's no one here with those initials."

  "A.V.R. . . . No, I don't believe there is. Well, commère, if you see Lazaire, please tell him I want to talk to him." And as he went on down the hall to his office, Steve found himself remembering the measuring tape he had found at the window of Lawton Lindo's room, and the burned-out candle on the bureau there, at the time of the lawyer's disappearance.

  A measuring tape? A burned-out candle? A carpenter's rule? Garlic—if it really was garlic—in the manager's food? Seated at his desk, he brooded over these things and was mystified. Then suddenly it occurred to him that he ought to make sure Morrison was all right. Morrison and Wynn, after all, were the two who had complained the most about not feeling well.

  In fact, those two had complained almost as consistently as the man who'd been washed up in the cove.

  Climbing the stairs to the man's room, which was just down the hall from his own, Steve was relieved when the Boston stockbroker answered his knock with a prompt "Come in!" Young Morrison was seated at his desk—each patient's room had one—apparently writing a letter.

  A very decent fellow, Morrison, and cheerful enough until the Azagon syndrome, or whatever one ought to call it, had begun to get him down. He had come to the retreat to take things easy for a while after the psychological shock of losing both parents in a plane crash. And, of course, to be rid of his craving for alcohol, which the tragedy had intensified. Once he had come to realize the spiritual difference between "not drinking"—just being dry—and being truly sober, he had responded quickly to the Azagon's program.

  Steve showed him the carpenter's rule. "Our muscular housekeeper says she found this here in your room. Is it yours?"

  "Uh-uh. She asked me herself, and I told her it wasn't. I've no idea what Lazaire could have been doing in here with it."

  "Measuring your window, it would seem. But for what?"

  "Yes, for what? And why this room, if that's all he wanted? All windows in these rooms are the same, aren't they?"

  Steve nodded. "Are you feeling all right, Robert?"

  Morrison shrugged. "Even with the sedatives you've prescribed for us, Wynn and I have a contest going to see who gets what we're calling the 'visitations' most often. Meaning anything from a feeling of depression to a really nasty headache. I'm a little ahead of him at the moment." His smile seemed forced.

  "Has Dr. Driscoll been to see you?"

  "Yes, he has. And it's good to see him back in action. But what's happening to some of us here doesn't seem to be part of our alcohol problem, Doctor. I mean—you medics and the nurses and the nurses' aides don't seem to understand it any more than we do." He paused, and the next two words were unmistakably a challenge. "Do you?"

  "I can't say we do. Not yet, anyway."

  "As a hospital for alcoholics, this place does a good job," Morrison said with apparent sincerity. "I looked at other such places before coming here, and your program is well thought out. Lectures, slide shows, medication, diet, recreation, exercise—above all, the caring—I've no complaints at all. But there is something in the atmosphere here, Doctor Spence—something about the place itself—that scares the hell out of me." The man's eyes flashed another challenging look. "What is it? Or don't you know?"

  Steve returned the man's stare in silence.

  "You admit there is something, don't you?"

  "I don't know. It's hard to put any credence in what you can't see or touch."

  "Who needs to see and touch it? You can feel it, by God! I know I do. And Wynn. And others." When his outburst failed to bring a response, Morrison gave up and shrugged. "Well, all right. If you find out about that thing"—he indicated the folded rule in Steve's hand—"let me know, will you? I'm curious."

  "I will. I'm curious, too."

  Steve went downstairs and found Ti-Jean Lazaire waiting at his office door. Wearing his usual black trousers and spotless white shirt, the cook looked a little like a visiting undertaker—certainly out of place here where the staff wore white and the patients seemed to favor casual tropic.

  Wasn't there a voodoo character who ritually wore black trousers? Yes, of course. Baron Samedi, one of the Gèdé loa, a god of death and guardian of cemeteries. But when he appeared at ceremonies by possessing someone, he wore black trousers, too.

  "Circée Orelle said you wanted to see me, Doctor."

  "I do. Come in, please." Steve opened the office door. "I want to ask a few questions."

  Inside, he motioned Lazaire to sit. Why, he asked himself—why, damn it—could he not remember where he had encountered this man before? Was it because the cook was so ordinary in appearance and personality, so lacking in any traits or mannerisms that might make him stand out from other middle-aged St. Joseph natives of peasant stock?

  As he, too, seated himself, he took from his pocket the folded wooden rule and tapped the desktop with it. "What was this for, Ti-Jean?"

  The man's eyes bulged to show more than the usual amount of white. He wet his lips as though to answer, then said nothing.

  "Come on now. You left it at the window in Mr. Morrison's room. Why?"

  Lazaire shook his head in slow motion. "No, m'sié."

  "What?"

  "No."

  "You deny going into Morrison's room?"

  "Yes, m'sié. I mean I never went there, no."

  "Whose initials are these on the rule?"

  "I don't know."

  "All right, let's start again. Circée Orelle says she found you in Morrison's room. What were you doing there?"

  The cook's eyes showed even more white. "I—was not doing anything wrong, Dr. Spence. I happened to be walking by the door and it was open, and the room was empty. I saw some papers on the floor that must have blown off the bureau because the window was open. I only stepped inside to pick them up."

  "So you did go into the room. Now you admit it. And this?" Steve held up the rule. "What's the truth about this?"

  "I don't know anything about that, m'sié."

  "You deny it's yours?"

  "Yes, m'sié. I know nothing about it."

  Feeling drained and defeated, Steve opened a drawer of his desk and dropped the rule into it. "What have you been putting in our manager's food, Lazaire?"

  This time the eyes showed almost nothing but white. "What—m 'sié?"

  "Damn it, man, listen to me. I'm asking you some questions, and I want some answers! Now one more time and one only: What have you been putting in Paul Henninger's food?"

  "I don't prepare any special food for him, Doctor."

  "It tasted to me like garlic. I told you quite a long time ago to stop putting garlic in our food. Is it garlic you've been lacing Henninger's meals with, or is it something meant to make him ill?"

  The cook lowered his gaze. "I used a little garlic to make him better, Doctor. Not sick. I am worried about him."

  So much for that, Steve decided with an audible sigh. After all, garlic was supposed to be good for certain ailments, wasn't it? "All right. Now tell me why you fastened a tape measure across the window in Mr. Lindo's room the night he disappeared."

  Off the hook about the garlic, Lazaire seemed to regain some of his earlier confidence. "A what, m'sié? A tape measure? I don't know about any such object."

&nbs
p; "And the candle. You lit a black candle in there that night, too. Why?"

  "M'sié, no. I did no such thing!"

  "Where did you go in The Hounfor, Ti-Jean?"

  A sudden trembling seemed to shatter the cook's self-confidence. "In—The Hounfor—m 'sié?"

  "I personally followed you, so don't deny you went there."

  "Well, I—yes—I have a friend there."

  "Who?"

  "No one you would know about, Dr. Spence. Just an old friend from Fond—from the capital. I only went there to pay my respects. Just as I called on the woman in Carrefour that I told you about."

  Your tongue slipped there, didn't it? Steve thought with a touch of triumph. You were going to say "an old friend from Fond des Pintards." Someday, Lazaire, I'm going to recall where in Fond des Pintards I met you, and then I'll know why you won’t admit having been there.

  "What's your friend's name, Lazaire?"

  Was there a hesitation? "Jabot, m'sié."

  "What kind of fellow is he? What does he do?"

  "He has no trade. He is old."

  "I don't believe you. You see, Lazaire, I happen to know who lives in that Hounfor house with the fenced-in yard. Now are you going to tell me why you went there?"

  The cook sucked in a breath while slowly rising to his feet. For once he did not look like any other middle-aged peasant. His face was ashen now, and he trembled.

  "Do you want to be honest with me?" Steve said.

  "I have nothing to say, m'sié."

  "Think it over. I have a feeling you're into this rather deep, whatever it is." Steve made an obvious gesture of looking at his watch. "It's two o'clock. I suggest you go to your quarters for a while and come back here at four-thirty, after I've seen some of the patients. If I don't receive an explanation of your suspicious actions then, I'll be giving you notice. You understand?"

  The man in the white shirt and black trousers slowly nodded, then turned and trudged out, staring straight ahead of him. Steve could not help thinking that the way he went out resembled the way Juan Mendoza had come in the other night after being missing for days.