Mrs. Roberto - Or the Widowy Worries of the Moosepath League

by Van Reid

  “The town officers were sent for, but they were stumped; then the town elders were called upon and driven to the sight, but they stood over the melancholy remains and shook their heads. It was evidence of a murder, said some. No, said others, it might be a British soldier from the raiding parties of the War of 1812. Someone had heard tell of a strange man, found dead years ago; where had he been buried? An Indian, insisted another, but artifacts common to Indian grave sites were not to be found with the bones.

  “The one thing that many of them did agree upon was that they had heard the church bell peal a single time, though nobody could be found who was responsible for tolling the bell. Someone—perhaps the doctor—had heard of a similar instance when the tolling of a bell had indicated that some long-passed soul took exception to his bones being disturbed.

  “My Uncle Percy, like everyone else, visited the site and was just as amazed. But no, he hadn’t heard the bell, though the church was only a little ways down the road. ‘Good heavens, Percy!’ they said. ‘You must be deaf as a haddock!’ He shrugged and laughed; sometimes his wife did used to speak to him, God rest her soul, and he didn’t hear her.

  “It was Uncle Percy who suggested that a casket be sent for and that the skeleton be given a proper burial in the churchyard. This seemed the only answer, but dusk was settling by now, and nobody exactly wanted to be carting strange remains in the gloom of night. Time enough on the morrow.

  “And so, they rolled the stones back into place and everyone went home with something new to discuss over supper. And wasn’t it strange about the bell tolling all by itself?”

  How was it, when the setting sun had not drawn with it the warmth of day and the lamplight was just as bright as it had been a half an hour ago, that the air seemed a degree or so cooler, and even darker, of a sudden? And how could it be, though knowing their origin, that the vision of those anonymous remains yet gave Mr. Fern’s listeners some sense of All Hallows’ Eve lurking in the spring evening? Aunt Beatrice had a shawl in her lap, which she drew about her shoulders. Mister Walton leaned from his seat as if the story might reach his ears more quickly the closer he was to the man telling it.

  “In the middle of the night,” said Mr. Fern, “at midnight, to be sure, that same bell rang out again like a peal of thunder or cannon shot. People for miles around heard it, and men leaped from their beds in alarm, tossed on their clothes, and found themselves gathering uncertainly before the church at Phippsburg.

  “The parson had already gone inside, and he seemed more than a little baffled with what he had to tell them. Hardly believing him, they went inside and found that the bell rope had been snapped off, almost to the bell itself.

  “What could it mean, they wondered? Such a sign seemed impractical without some obvious purpose behind it, but there was little sleep that night, you can be sure ... and less the night that followed.

  “For when morning came, the townspeople gathered to witness the recovery of the skeleton. They got a bit more than they bargained for, and some hurried home when the stones were rolled back again. There, in the grave, beside the nameless remains, was the bell rope from the church.”

  Mr. Fern leaned back in his seat and crossed his long legs; Mister Walton thought the man would have done well to have a pipe just then. Some storytellers Mister Walton had known would have puffed on a pipe or quaffed a glass of beer by way of swearing to the authentic nature of what was told.

  “The rope was in the grave?” said one of the children.

  “The point of which was,” ventured Sundry, “that the skeleton did not want to be moved.” He, too, seemed a little awed by the tale.

  “Ah,” said Mr. Fern softly. “You have grasped the nugget of my story.”

  “And since the skeleton could not be moved,” said Mister Walton, “and since no one would willingly cut a road over a grave, the crew must back up to their starting point and widen the western route instead.”

  “Some might have wondered,” said Mr. Fern, “if the person whose remains the road crew found had not been a good friend of my uncle’s. Certainly Uncle Percy used to speak of an invisible partner in his business—a Mr. Parkman. Besides my uncle, only the doctor had ever met this investor, it seems.”

  “And your Uncle Percy’s business prospered,” said Mrs. Fern.

  “It was not hurt by circumstances.”

  “And Mr. Crate’s business?” asked Mister Walton, not one to celebrate anyone’s misfortune.

  “Did not suffer either, happily enough. His tavern was not far from the strange grave, and the story of it drew many curiosity seekers.”

  “And the grave is still there,” said Aunt Beatrice.

  “There is a small marker, with the single word: UNKNOWN.”

  This satisfied Mr. Fern’s audience for a moment; Sundry and Mister Walton consulted one another silently. Sundry was first with an opinion. “Most definitely rascals—the both of them.”

  “I agree with Sundry,” pronounced Mister Walton. “Rascals, yes; but certainly not scoundrels.”

  “It is unanimous, Vergilius,” said Aunt Beatrice with evident satisfaction. “Unless there are worse secrets, our family is free of scoundrels.”

  “Ah, well,” said Mr. Fern, with all due irony. “We will not lose hope.”

  “Who sells liquor in these parts?” asked Sundry quite unexpectedly

  There was a moment of silence. Mrs. Fern looked up from her work and over her glasses. Madeline, who was in the process of restoring her ball of yarn, paused to gape at Sundry, as horrified as if the tether of wool between them inculpated her somehow in his depraved interest. Aunt Beatrice looked almost frightened. Even Mister Walton was taken aback, and Mr. Fern, having expressed his distaste for liquor and its peddlers earlier in the evening, was hovering near the cautious border of affront.

  “I don’t imbibe myself,” said Sundry, recognizing the consternation he had provoked, “but there can be few towns anywhere in the state that haven’t someone ready to run round the law.”

  “There’s Jacob Lister,” said Mr. Fern quietly.

  “Jacob?” said Sundry. The name appeared to please him for some reason.

  “So I’ve heard,” said Mr. Fern.

  “A young rapscallion, no doubt,” said Sundry.

  “Not at all,” said the host. “He’s as old and rumbustious a codger as you could ask for.”

  “To be sure?” said Sundry, who was surprised by this information.

  “If he’s so old,” snapped Aunt Beatrice, “perhaps you should speak of him with more respect!”

  Mr. Fern was about to say something else, presumably with a good deal less respect, when he stopped himself. The whole family was startled by the aunt’s outburst, herself included, and she quickly excused herself on the grounds of weariness. Polite good nights were exchanged and Mrs. Fern began to gather up sleepy children for bed.

  “I do beg your forgiveness, Mister Walton, Mr. Moss,” said Mr. Fern, when all but his older daughter had gone up to bed. “It is not seemly to demonstrate familial dissension in front of guests.”

  “It seemed only a mild sort of disagreement, Mr. Fern,” said Mister Walton, with a mild sort of expression.

  “Thank you, but my aunt, of late, has altered in her view of things, and I have not kept up with the change, I fear.”

  “It might be considered admirable that a person of her years is willing to modify her views at all,” suggested the portly guest.

  “My own views are a little stiff, perhaps.” He glanced to his daughter, but Madeline, who might have said something in a less occupied environment, only considered her hands folded in her lap.

  “I thought nothing of the kind,” said Mister Walton.

  “I should take a more Christian view of Mr. Lister.”

  “I apologize for bringing it up in the first place,” said Sundry.

  “Not at all,” said the host, though he was less sure of this dismissal, perhaps, than he liked to betray.

  “M
r. Lister is at least seeking to be more respectable,” said Madeline. She caught the glances of each of the men but settled on her father, who looked doubtful despite his recent retraction. “He’s lived in the next thing to a shack all these years hoarding his money, people say; but lately he’s been building quite the grand house.”

  “Has he?” said Sundry.

  “Yes,” drawled the father. “The Lister Estate,” he added wryly.

  “That’s interesting,” said Sundry.

  Mister Walton was interested in Sundry’s interest.

  “After all,” said Madeline, “the local schoolhouse was built on a tavern’s trade.”

  “Have you any children, Mister Walton?” asked Mr. Fern.

  “I do not have that pleasure.”

  “Ah, well,” said Mr. Fern. He cast an indulgent look at his oldest daughter before he thought of something else and let out a sigh of renewed sadness. “Shall we go out and take another look at Hercules?” he said, shaking himself from the previous moment.

  Mister Walton agreed to this and Mr. Fern went in search of a lantern. Madeline went to change her parlor slippers for proper shoes.

  “I am thinking that Hercules could do with a dose of birch-bark tea,” said Sundry when he and Mister Walton were briefly alone.

  “Are you?” said a bemused Mister Walton.

  “Birch-bark tea,” said Sundry with particular emphasis upon each of the three syllables.

  “I have been endeavoring since this afternoon to understand your thought processes,” said Mister Walton.

  “I don’t know if that is a worthwhile pursuit,” said Sundry.

  “Experience tells me otherwise,” said Mister Walton.

  19. The Woman in 12A

  Danforth Street was rather more subdued than when last visited by the Moosepath League, but the comparative silence was almost more nerve-wrackinJ to Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump than the clamor of the night before. They heard a piano from somewhere playing “In the Sweet By and By”—presumably not the instrument that Gillie Hicks had pushed off the balcony of the Weary Sailor.

  They were surprised how near Danforth Street was to the theater; their carriage had only turned a corner or two before it stopped and the driver asked where on Danforth Street they needed to be. They got off at the crossing and paid him, and as the cab dwindled into the night they wondered if it would have been wise to keep quick transport near at hand.

  Ephram questioned if the police should have been notified about Mrs. Roberto’s speculative peril, but the police were seldom notified in any of the tales of imperiled women they had read, and it did seem that more should be known of Mrs. Roberto’s situation before involving the authorities. All too soon they passed by the Weary Sailor, pausing only to consider the spot where the piano had landed on Thump’s wallet.

  “Could the thief have been involved?” said Eagleton. The card with Mrs. Roberto’s name had been in Thump’s wallet. Could there be a connection? He shivered at the possible intrigues of Mrs. Roberto’s persecutors. “Two doors down, then,” he said. “We’ll have this soon solved, Thump, don’t you worry.” He considered his broad-bearded friend, who stood hunched and expectant before the brown house, then Eagleton looked past Thump to Ephram, who looked back, each hoping to see certainty in the other’s eyes.

  “Did you say 12A?” said Thump.

  “Yes,” said Eagleton. Now that he thought of it, the brown building didn’t look as if it could house a 12A. It consisted of only two stories, with perhaps a half a story beneath the eaves. There was a light behind the front door and at a window to the left. Another light emanated from a gable end, shimmering a faint glow against the building next.

  “Do we knock?” wondered Ephram.

  Thump looked from one to the other of his friends and with sudden resolve advanced to the door and did just that. After a second series of raps the door swung open and a small elderly man peered out at them, saying, “Yes, yes?”

  The Moosepathians were suddenly alert to a social difficulty. It hardly seemed proper to inquire after a lady—so late at night, in such a place. Why, we don’t even know her name! Eagleton realized with a start.

  Thump made a grumbling sort of sound that often signals a preface to speech, and the old man leveled the whole of his gaze upon him, but nothing else was said for a moment or two. Thump turned to Eagleton for help.

  What had they been thinking? Eagleton said “Ah” several times, and finally added, “There was a lady.”

  This appeared to surprise the elderly man.

  “12A?” said Ephram.

  “She spoke of only one man,” said the man.

  “Ah!” said Eagleton, as this indicated that they were in the right place. “These gentlemen are my fellow members,” he said. “I do nothing without them.”

  This caused the old man to look a little wild-eyed. “I don’t know what Winnie will think of this!” he said, clearly amazed.

  Thump was considering the weeks and months that had passed since New Year’s Day, when he first found the card, and of all weeks and months that Mrs. Roberto might have been in terrible peril before that; suddenly this small delay was untenable to him and he said in his deep voice, “Perhaps you had better let us in, sir.” He took a step forward and the old man retreated from his post, backing into the small front hall till he stood opposite the three of them at the foot of a narrow stairway. There were closed doors at either hand, and the members of the club could hear low conversation coming through one of these.

  “Which one of you is she expecting?” asked the old man.

  Eagleton had been glancing about. There was an odd painting on the wall, going up the stairs, that depicted a woman on a bed (sleeping, he thought, though she was not cozily blanketed); a single lamp shone from the landing above. Eagleton thought he detected signs of other people there—perhaps a shadow moved or someone murmured. “I spoke to the lady,” said Eagleton.

  “Then you may go up,” said the old man. “12A. Your fellows may adjourn to the parlor.”

  “He is trying to separate us,” Ephram hissed into Eagleton’s ear.

  “What’s that?” asked the old man.

  Eagleton could not have gone to a woman’s room by himself. He could barely imagine visiting a woman’s room at all, even with his friends, and he wasn’t sure that it was very proper, no matter their number or motive, but he could not conceive of going there alone. “I would not accuse you of anything, sir,” he said. “But where one of us go, there go we all.”

  “Bravo, Eagleton!” said Ephram quietly, even as the old man objected.

  “The lady I spoke with might herself be in danger,” said Eagleton.

  “In danger?” said the old man.

  “12A!” said Thump suddenly, and he led the charge up the stairs.

  Eagleton snatched a closer glimpse of the painting as he followed and wondered if the woman depicted there was sleeping at all. He came close behind Thump, while Ephram brought up the rear. The old man at the foot of the stairs huffed and hemmed. Eagleton very nearly ran Thump down when they rounded the landing and reached the upstairs hall. The designations 12A, 12B, 12C, and 12D were indeed marked clearly upon the four doors before them. Thump had come to a halt at the first of these, and they looked past him and read the room number silently in unison.

  “Room 12A, and on the second floor!” marveled Ephram.

  Simultaneously to this statement, the door to room 12A opened and the woman who had spoken to Eagleton outside the theater stood before them in what might be termed a contradictory manner, for her expression looked expectant and even welcoming while her brief attire could not, by any stretch of the Moosepathian imagination, indicate a woman expecting anybody, much less a masculine visitor. Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump had nothing in their lexicon to describe her garments (as they had always politely passed over the newspaper advertisements for the underpinnings of the female ensemble) and perhaps less in their experience to lead them through the next few moment
s.

  They were too startled to even look away. Eagleton said something that sounded a bit like “Ooff!” several times over, while Ephram sucked in his breath as if ready to put his head under water, and Thump simply went “Hmmm?” The sound of laughter came from a room down the hall.

  The woman from 12A looked at Thump first and appeared more puzzled than dismayed. She caught sight of Eagleton then, and the smile she had emplayed outside the theater bloomed across her lips till she considered Ephram and the puzzled expression finally won out. “What is this?” she said.

  “I beg your pardon,” stammered Eagleton. “I thought it more proper if i brought my friends along.”

  Her eyes widened considerably and she said, with a gasp, “That’s a different sort of proper than I’ve ever heard of!” She had a wrap of some sort about her shoulders and she pulled it more securely around her.

  This relative modesty on her part gave Eagleton enough encouragement to continue speaking. “Anything you can pass on to me you can pass on to each of us,” he said, trying to explain. Ephram and Thump thought he was doing extraordinarily well considering the situation.

  “I beg your pardon!” she said.

  “The card,” said Thump in such a low tone that she might not have understood him. It did not help that he was looking into his beard.

  “The what?”

  “Mrs. Roberto,” said Ephram, who appeared to have found something fascinating about the ceiling.

  “Where?”

  “We always stay together in these situations,” said Eagleton.

  “I can’t imagine it!”

  Eagleton was sorry to hear this, as it seemed to indicate that she lacked friends. Clearly they were out of their depth and it was time to retreat. They heard footsteps behind them and turned to see a wiry blond fellow climbing the stairs three at a time, a strange grin across his face and a truncheon in his hand.

  The truncheon dropped and the grin disappeared when he raised his eyes, however. He stopped short of the landing. “What is this?” he said, just as the woman had moments before. “The three of them?”