Two fat, high white-brick pillars swam smoothly at them out of the night.
"Yes?" said Trent gently. "Yes?"
"Oh, shut up."
Trent turned off on smoothly oiled macadam. The road dipped down, and then went up in a rush. Trent shifted into second, and they ground dismally upward.
"Gee," said Melissa. "Look."
They were up on the top of the butte now, and the house was waiting right there, poised and ready to pounce. It was enormous, squared off solid and dark against the sky, throwing a sullen shadow in deference to the moon. Trellised vines crawled sinuously black over the side walls, and the few lighted windows were like sly, peeping eyes.
"There's one thing I'm missing," Melissa observed, "and it bothers me. I wonder where Boris Karloff is?"
The road circled and widened at the front of the house. There was no veranda or porch. There were six wide stone steps leading up to an immense arched doorway sunk deep in the smooth stone. There were lights behind the thick-walled porthole windows on either side.
Trent stopped the car, and he and Melissa got out. The wind was soft and cool in their faces, and the moon seemed very far away. Their heels clicked lightly on the macadam and scraped a little on the stone steps.
"What do we do now?" Melissa asked." Yell 'Ahoy, the castle' or blow ourselves a fanfare?"
"This seems to be a bell," said Trent.
Chimes played a lingering, low melody somewhere inside. The house brooded and waited in utter silence.
"Well," said Trent, after a while, helplessly.
"Well, hell," said Melissa. She raised her fist and smacked the door one.
It swung back noiselessly.
"Glug," said Melissa. "Aren't we just having more darned fun, though?"
They were looking the length of a hall. It was a story and a half high, and the walls and ceiling were painted a dead white. The floor was black polished oak and there were white rugs spread along it like grotesque giant footprints.
"Homey," Melissa commented. "Let's go in."
They started along the hall, and their footsteps started following behind them in tapping echoes. Melissa took hold of Trent's arm.
There was a door to their right, and a door to their left. Both were closed. Trent and Melissa went reluctantly past them, and then Melissa said, "Wait. There's a light behind that one."
She rapped on it. The silence seemed to stir itself slightly, but there was no real sound. Melissa tried the long, wrought-iron latch on the door. It clicked, and the door moved back, softly reluctant.
The room was a library. The walls from ceiling to floor were lined with shelves of books. The books looked like they had been taken out often--and dusted and put right back again. Facing the door, at the end of the room, there was a desk that was a solid block of black wood as big as a dining room table.
Heloise of Hollywood was sitting behind the desk. She was wearing a blue tailored dress, and her hair was meticulously unswept. Her head was tilted a little to one side, and she was staring at them with an air of polite, dead interest.
"Oh," Melissa murmured. "Oh."
Trent whispered to himself.
Very slowly they advanced, holding hands like reluctant children. One of Heloise's hands--the nails were a polished, appropriate purple--was lying on the desk top with the lax fingers just touching a fat, ugly automatic with a snub nose. Trent and Melissa were closer now, and they could see the very small, neatly dark hole in her left breast. Blood had darkened the cloth of her dress below it, but it was hardly noticeable.
"She shot herself," said Melissa. Her voice croaked ridiculously on the words, and she swallowed hard.
"No, she didn't," said Trent. "There's no powder burn on her dress. And that's an 8 millimeter Mauser on the desk. It would make a much bigger hole."
"Would--would a .22 make a hole like--like..."
"Yes."
"Oh, my," said Melissa. "Doan said my prowler had a .22."
"Well, there's one thing," said Trent slowly, "Humphrey can't claim Doan did this. He's not here."
"But you are," said Melissa. "And, what's more, so am I."
The telephone rang. It was on a circular stand at Heloise's left hand. Trent and Melissa waited with a sort of dread fascination for her to answer it. She didn't.
It rang again.
Melissa walked gingerly around the desk and picked it up. "Hello."
A voice like thick plush said: "Good evening This is T. Ballard Bestwyck. May I speak to Heloise?"
"Well," said Melissa, "no."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You can't speak to her. I mean, she can't speak to you, which amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?"
"I don't think you understood me, young woman. I am T. Ballard Bestwyck. I'm the president of--"
"I know. I work for you."
"What was that?"
"I teach at the university."
"What's your name?"--!
"Melissa Gregory."
"Well, it's about time?"
"What?" said Melissa blankly.
"I was just calling Heloise to apologize for your brazen behavior. Now that you're up there, you can do it yourself. And you'd better be very humble about it, young woman. There's a moral turpitude clause in your contract, and if you don't let other women's husbands alone you're going to find yourself involved in a serious situation."
The line suddenly crackled. T. Ballard Bestwyck hadn't hung up. There was no dial tone. The line was dead.
Melissa turned her head slowly to look at Trent.
"What's the matter?" Trent demanded.
"Somebody--cut the line."
The lights went out.
"Eric!" Melissa cried. "Oh, Eric--"
She grabbed him and clung to him desperately, both arms about his neck.
"I'm so sc-scared," she whimpered, "and you shouldn't mind. J-just a few minutes ago you s-said you liked to be close to m-me and have your arms about m-me..."
"My arms aren't about you," Trent said, obviously trying to remain calm. "Yours are about me, but it's all right, Melissa. Heloise won't mind now--not any more."
The half door boomed shut and the lock clicked coldly and Melissa gasped.
"All right," Trent said. "Start screaming. That's just what we need at this point."
"I've never screamed in my life!" Melissa retorted, and immediately afterward began screaming her head off. "Eeeh! Oow! Eeeh! Eep!"
Trent slapped at her. He missed her face in the darkness and hit her on the back of the head. Melissa stopped screaming.
Something scraped very gently in the hall, and then without warning there were three shots--very close together, sharp and bitingly distinct. Instantly there was another shot. This was a heavier, louder thud.
After that there was silence. It was not a pleasant or comforting silence. Melissa breathed against Trent's coat collar with her mouth open.
Something tapped lightly on the hall door.
Doan's voice murmured, "Trent. Melissa."
"In here," said Trent. "The door is locked."
The lock clicked again and the shadows moved vaguely.
"Are you two all right?" Doan asked.
"I guess so," said Trent.
"Come closer to the door here. I want to watch the hall. I chased the guy back inside. He's holed up in the house somewhere now."
Trent and Melissa shuffled forward cautiously. They could see a vague, bent outline that was Doan. The barrel of his revolver gleamed a little in the dimness. He had the hall door almost shut and was watching through the narrow opening.
"He'll run out the back," Trent said.
"He'll maybe try. Carstairs is out there."
They waited tensely.
"Heloise is dead," Trent said in an undertone. "Over at her desk. She was shot."
"Yeah," said Doan. "I thought I'd better come up and warn her even if she didn't want me to. She thought she could handle the guy. She could just as well wrap up a tiger in a paper napk
in."
"She had a gun."
"Sure. She had twenty servants, too."
"Where did they go?"
"They're locked up downstairs somewhere--probably in the wine cellar. I've got no time to go fishing around for them now. I've got a hunch I'm going to get myself killed as it is. This guy is hell on wheels with that pistol of his. He mistook a tree for me a minute ago, or I'd be past worrying at this point."
Carstairs let go with a bellowing halloo. The .22 cracked twice precisely. Carstairs bellowed angrily right back at it.
"He's under cover," Doan breathed, "If he only has brains enough to stay that way."
The pistol cracked futilely again. Carstairs let his bellow out another notch, and the whole night began to throb with it.
"Stay in here," Doan ordered, "I'm going a-hunting, and I'm going to shoot at anything that even looks like it might move. I'm scared green of this guy." He opened the door wider. "Stay right here. I mean it. Oh, why do I get myself into situations like this? I must be crazy."
He faded noiselessly into the darkness.
CHAPTER SIX
TRENT AND MELISSA WAITED TAUTLY. The silence pressed in on them as thick as black butter. One century crawled past. And then another.
Doan's revolver thudded. Trent jumped involuntarily, and Melissa whimpered against his coat.
The silence crept back and surrounded them. Doan's revolver thudded again. The .22 cracked back at it spitefully this time. Someone yelled, fiercely incoherent. Feet raced across bare flooring. Something fell over with a crash that made the air shudder. A door slammed dully.
"I can't take this," Trent said. "I've got to help him. You stay here."
"Oh, no! Oh, no!"
"Stay right close behind me, then. Walk in step with me."
They went out into the hall like a queer four-legged bug. Melissa was clutching the back of Trent's coat in both fists. She could feel the muscles in his back, rigid and tensed. They moved slowly, and the darkness moved right with them, unchanging.
"Steps," Trent whispered.
They went up them--a lot of them. And then there was a cold, slow click just over their heads.
Doan said: "Trent?"
"Yes."
"You're lucky," said Doan. "That's the time you didn't get killed. Come on up here."
They were in a hall.
"Did you hit him when you shot?" Trent asked.
"Hell, no. I did run him into the bedroom there, though. The one behind that door. And if he thinks I'm going in there after him, he's crazy."
Carstairs barked from somewhere outside on an inquiring note.
Doan cupped his hands and bellowed through them. "Yes! I'm still with you! Stay out there! Watch!"
Carstairs barked again, momentarily pacified.
"Well, what are we going to do now?" Trent asked.
"Call the cops," Doan said, keeping his gun pointed at the bedroom door. "Let them root him out. They're expendable."
"The telephone line is cut. It was cut at the same time the lights were switched off. Melissa was talking on it."
"This guy," said Doan, "thinks of everything. Okay. We'll starve him out. How are we fixed for supplies? Have you got a drink on you?"
"No."
"All right. Go on down and unlock the servants. Send a bottle back up here by one of them. We'll fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."
Trent said uneasily: "Maybe he'll shoot through the door at us."
"Not that door. It's a two-inch hardwood slab. A .22 won't punch through it."
The .22 smacked from inside the bedroom. Carstairs yelled in furious indignation. The .22 smacked again instantly. Carstairs bellowed right back, but the tone of his voice was slightly muffled now.
Doan let his breath out. "He got under cover again. He's going to get his brains blown out if he doesn't stop playing around... Carstairs! Stay where you are! Down! Keep down!"
Carstairs barked once, defiantly. Then he cut loose in a continuous, urgent, racketing uproar.
"What now?" said Doan, listening tensely.
Wood creaked faintly.
"He's climbing out the window!" Down exclaimed.
He aimed his revolver at the lock on the door and fired and then fired again. Wood splintered, and the smell of burned powder was sharp and acrid in the hall. Doan slammed his heel against the door above the lock, slammed it again below the lock. He shouldered into the door hard, hammering at the lock with the butt of his revolver.
Metal gave with a sudden rasp, and the door banged violently open. Doan fell flat on his stomach, half in and half out of the bedroom, revolver pushed ahead of him. He stayed that way, rigid, watching.
"What?" Trent whispered, crouched against the wall beside the doorway. "What?"
Doan spoke without turning his head. "I think he's on the trellis outside the window."
Moving vines made a leafy, ripping sound.
"Yeah!" said Doan, lunging to his feet. "Carstairs! Carstairs! Guard!"
Carstairs roared willingly from outside and below. The vines crackled.
"Now what will I do?" Doan demanded. "If I poke my head out that window, he'll pop it off for me. If I run outside, he'll come back in this way."
"Another bedroom..." Trent suggested.
The vines rattled and slithered more loudly.
"Back!" Doan ordered urgently. "He's coming back up! Get out of the doorway!"
Something crawled up eerily at the lower corner of the open window. Moonlight glinted on the long, pencil-like barrel of the .22 pistol. It groped around blindly and then suddenly spat. Flame streaked slantwise toward the ceiling.
"Ah," said Doan.
He was aiming carefully with his revolver, steadying his right wrist with his left hand. He fired. The .22 automatic spun up into the air, glistening sleekly, and then thudded loosely on the floor.
"I did it!" Doan chortled. "I've always wanted to, and I did it! I shot a gun out of a guy's hand! Come in off that vine, screwloose! And don't try any funny work! I'm as good as Red Ryder!"
Wood suddenly tore loose in a long drawn, ripping screech.
"What--" said Doan.
He raced across the bedroom to the window with Melissa and Trent stumbling along behind him. The moon was ghastly bright now, and in its light, suspended incredibly in space ten feet out from the window, was something large and black, black and crouched and malignant that screeched at them.
The lattice work was propping it up there, unbelievably, like a weirdly extended, clumsy stilt. Then the lattice swayed further and lost its last hold on the wall with a series of popping reports and began to fall, crumpling in on itself, away from the house.
The black figure mouthed incoherent, terrified sounds, twisting in the air. And directly under it, gleaming like quicksilver, was the slickly sullen surface of Heloise's swimming pool. The lattice hit the edge of the pool, and the water opened up with a resounding boom.
Carstairs raced his shadow across the lawn and skidded on the edge of the pool.
"Carstairs!" Doan shouted. "Stay out of there! Let him drown, and save the state money! Stay out--"
Carstairs dove into the pool.
"Oh, hell's fire!" Doan exclaimed angrily.
He whirled away from the window and ran out of the bedroom. Trent tore down the stairs after him, jerking Melissa along behind with a viselike grip on her wrist. They drummed along the hall and out the front door and around the side of the house.
Doan pulled out ahead of them going down the slope of the lawn. His heels grated on the tiled edge of the pool. The surface of the water was ripped and torn to froth, and then Carstairs' head heaved up out of it. He had a black, chunky, limp arm gripped in his jaws, and he was coughing in half-strangled snorts.
"Let go!" Doan yelled. "Let him drown! Who cares? Come here! Here! Here!"
Carstairs kept his grip and plowed away determinedly at the water. He came agonizingly closer. Doan leaned far out and grabbed the arm.
"
All right! So you're a hero! Let go!"
Doan heaved back, and the black, ugly form slithered wetly out on the edge of the pool. Doan kicked it aside.
"Sit on him for a minute," he ordered no one in particular. "Carstairs! Now, come here, stupid! Here!"
Carstairs floundered against the side wall, and Doan got him by the collar. He hauled. Carstairs' forelegs flopped out on the tile. His back legs churned powerfully at the water. He came up and out suddenly, snorting and dripping.
Doan fell over backwards. "Now, watch out! Don't--Ow!"
Carstairs walked right over his prone form. He stepped aside, but not far enough aside, and shook himself.
"Floosh!" Doan sputtered. He sat up, wiping his face. "I'm going to kill you someday. I mean that seriously."
Carstairs stopped shaking and sat down and began to pant victoriously.
Melissa said in a small, stunned voice: "Mr. Doan, this--this--this is Professor Sley-Mynick."
"Yup," said Doan, getting to his feet. "Let's see if he's still working."
He knelt down beside the wet, black form. Professor Sley-Mynick's thin face was bluish and distorted, and little bubbles burst frothily on his lumpy mustache. Doan probed with exploring fingers.
"Cracked his skull," he stated. "Must have hit the bottom of the pool. He'll probably live, though."
"But--but did he..."
"He did," said Doan cheerfully. "He's your little old prowler in person."
"Oh!" Melissa exclaimed. "Then there was something awful and familiar... But what was he doing in my apartment?"
"It's just like I told you. He thought he was in Trent's apartment."
"What did he want in my apartment?" Trent demanded.
"I think he was going to fix up a nice little booby trap for you. That's why he had both the knife and the gun with him. He probably had a strip of rubber inner tubes and some nails with him, too. He was going to fasten the knife to the tube and the tube to the nails in such a way that when you opened the drawer, the tube would stretch and then flip the knife in your face. It's easy to fix up a trap like that if you know how."
"With a knife?" Trent said doubtfully. "That seems sort of uncertain."
"He didn't want to kill you. I mean, he didn't care whether he did or not. He just wanted to remove you from the campus. It didn't matter whether you were removed to the hospital or to the morgue."
The Doan and Carstairs Mysteries Page 44