So Matt told him—about the comfortable middle-class childhood with a widowed mother, the mother’s death halfway through his college course, the abrupt 1930 cessation of the Duncan income, the need to quit school and go to work, and the endless series of jobs: assembly lines, service stations, chain groceries, finally newspapers; and eventually the recession, no jobs at all, and the Writers’ Project.
It was the newspaper work that interested Wolfe Harrigan. Between dart-tosses he slipped in shrewd questions about the extent and nature of that work, and seemed satisfied with the replies. When Matt had finished the whole story, he nodded.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “It’s a nice piece of luck all around. You’ve done more than save my life, Duncan.”
“I haven’t even done that,” Matt objected. “A guy bumped into me, and I landed on top. That’s all.”
“Have it your own way. But you’re going to be much more useful than that. You know my books?”
“I’ve read Signs and Wonders and Fleece My Sheep.”
“Then you know my style. It’s a good style. But it’s not good for my purposes. I’m read by scholars and literati, and that isn’t what I want. Such men are in no danger from fake religions. It’s the plain, ordinary lower-middle-class that I’ve got to reach. The people who have retired with a small home and a little money and a kind heart and no sense. Those are the ones I have to save. And what do they read? Certainly not scholarly works published in exquisite format by Venture House at $3.50. I’ve tried to write for magazines and newspapers, but it’s no go. The editors say my articles are excellent, but what do I think I’m writing for. So how about it?”
Matt hesitated. “Do you mean that I—”
“That’s it, Duncan. You’re to take over the Harrigan Crusade, Department of Popularizing. Or at least you’re to make a stab at it. I guarantee nothing. If I don’t like your work or if the editors turn it down, out on your ear you go. If it sells, the whole check is yours and you get your own by-line. My files are open to you at any time. This isn’t even a ghostwriting proposition. All I do is furnish the raw material. Yours are the labor and the glory.”
Matt gulped. “Inarticulate,” he said, “is one of the few things I’ve never been called, but that’s what I am now. A break like this—”
Wolfe waved his hand. “That’s that. No gratitude. This is purely business. I think you’re the man I want. Don’t spoil it by going soft.”
Matt grinned and whistled Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.
“And I don’t like puns,” said Harrigan, “even when they’re whistled. Now, are you free tomorrow night?”
“I’m free,” said Matt ruefully, “just about every night.”
“Good. We’re going spying.”
“Spying?”
“Right into the enemy’s camp. Ever hear of the Children of Light?”
“Only when you mentioned them just now.”
“Hm. A memory for details. Good—handy thing to have in this game. Ever hear of Ahasver—the Man in the Yellow Robe—claims to be the Wandering Jew?”
“Good Lord! No, I haven’t.”
“You’ll hear plenty tomorrow night.” Harrigan rose again to retrieve his darts. On his way back to the desk he paused and stood in front of Matt, looking down. “One thing more,” he said. “Your slant on this, I expect, will be purely commercial. It’s good copy and that’s that. But if we’re to work together, I want you to understand me.
“I’m a Harrigan. All right, that means I’ve a much larger than necessary income for life, and I’m free to devote myself to a career that doesn’t make money. I picked on this one—exposing religious rackets—and I’ve worked hard at it for thirty years. I think I’ve done some good. But my motives aren’t quite the same as those of the usual trust-buster or muck-raker. They go a little deeper.”
The fire was getting low now, and cast dying flickerings over Wolfe Harrigan’s tall form. “Religion runs in the Harrigans, and to us religion means the Catholic Church. It comes out in different forms. Ellen believes in charity and intense private devotion. Joseph likes to think he’s the Church Militant in Public Life. And you know how the family religion hit Concha in an adolescent crisis.
“Well, my career is religious, too. I’m a lay crusader. I’m not fighting rackets alone, I’m fighting heresy. I don’t expect you to look at it that way, but now you know where I stand.” He seated himself again at the desk. “Any questions?”
“Yes. One. But it isn’t about what you just said. I’m all for your work, I want to work with you, and your exact motives are no business of mine. But my question goes back further—memory for detail again, I guess.”
“Good.” Wolfe leaned forward. “What is it?”
“You said before you hit the Swami’s hand you used the other dart ‘possibly in a rather foolish manner.’ How?”
Wolfe laughed. “It will sound idiotic, Duncan. You see, I sometimes read detective fiction.”
“So?”
“And I have a marked weakness for the dying message—the last clew by which the murdered man, in extremis, leaves a cryptic token of his murderer’s identity. The sort of thing Ellery Queen has so much fun with. And the idea occurred to me that if my other dart failed and the Swami fulfilled his doubtless lethal purpose, I might leave such a clew.”
“But how?”
“Look over there.”
Matt obeyed the pointing hand. Under the dart target stood two bookcases. One was filled with historical works. The other held a series of letter files, each with a large hand-printed label. A dart transfixed the label which read:
HERMANN SUSSMAUL
(SWAMI MAHOPADHYAYA VIRASENANDA)
Matt turned around with a smile. “Nice,” he said. “Now I’ll know what to look for when we find the corpse.”
Wolfe Harrigan rose. “Afraid it’s time to say good night. I want to finish these notes for the Ahasver dossier. That’s where you’ll find the dart, by the way. He’s the one who’s really dangerous—and who finds me dangerous, too. But I’ll tell you all that tomorrow night. The big show starts at eight. Come here for dinner at six thirty. That will give us time enough.”
“Thanks,” said Matt. “But I don’t know—”
“If it’s clothes that’s worrying you, we don’t dress. Ellen is so used to my own slovenly wardrobe that she probably thinks it’s a sign of vast affluence. So come.”
“I will. But how about Raincoat?”
“He’s stirring by now. You did a nice lasting job, Duncan. Give me his plaything and I’ll see he gets out of here all right. Go on. Don’t worry. I’d sooner he didn’t see you. You might be useful sometime if he doesn’t know you’re my friend.”
Matt looked from the dart to the automatic. “Clews are all very well,” he said seriously. “But if you hold on to this mascot you won’t need to leave them.”
Only a true scryer could have told him how wrong he was.
Chapter 4
“The name,” Matt said, “is still Duncan, only this time I’m expected. I’m afraid I’m early, though.”
Hardly a muscle moved, but the butler managed to express his opinion of Matt’s own overcoat and incidentally of Matt and of Mr. Harrigan’s strange acquaintances in general. All he said, however, was, “Mr. Harrigan will be down shortly. He requests you to wait in his study.”
Today, Saturday, was dry but still cold. The fire was blazing, and Matt took advantage of the waiting period to warm himself and to make sure that he looked relatively presentable in the more nearly new and decent of his two suits—the double-breasted Oxford blue with the almost invisible lighter pattern. Nice suit, once.
Satisfied that the coat did not reveal that he had lost ten pounds since buying it and that the shirt collar did not look as though it had been turned (SING HOY—Shirts 8¢—Mending Free), he found himself marveling once more at the twist of fortune which found him here dining with the Harrigans.
Fortune’s private in this case, Greg
ory Randall, had not been in the least interested. Last night, of course, talking to him had been out of the question; Matt had simply driven him home, poured him into the arms of the Randall butler (who added sleepy crossness to his professional disdain), left the car, and waited forty-five minutes (overcoatless) for an owl streetcar into town. His appearance had hardly been prepossessing enough for hitch-hiking.
Today he had called Greg four times until at last, around three in the afternoon, the butler admitted that Mr. Gregory might be induced to come to the phone.
Matt could feel the agony of a major hangover vibrating over the wires. “Hello, Greg,” he began. “Matt Duncan speaking.”
“Who?”
“Matt. Matt Duncan.”
“Oh,” said Gregory. After a moment’s reflection, he added, “Hello.”
“How are you this afternoon?”
“I’m not a drinking man,” said Gregory plaintively. That seemed to answer the question.
“Look. A lot happened last night. You don’t know what you missed. A Swami tried to kill Harrigan. He’s trying me out as a writing assistant. And Concha isn’t going to be a nun.”
“So.” The voice was dull. “Well, well.”
“Didn’t you hear, Greg? I said Concha isn’t going to be a nun.”
“Please. Don’t shout. If you knew what my head was like and then those noises go through it …”
Matt had hung up as soon as possible. He would talk to Greg about it later, when memory and perception were sharper. He was surprised, though, that not even the news of Concha’s release had penetrated the fog of the hangover. He himself, in such a case …
He broke off these random musings as a girl came into the room. Her face was turned away; he could see only that she was slim and dark and wearing a housedress which looked so simple that it must have cost real folding money. Carrying a large volume, she was heading for the bookcase—not the small cases with the history works and letter files, but the large and wonderfully miscellaneous case that covered a whole wall.
“Hello,” Matt said.
The girl dropped the book and whirled about, poised as though for instant flight. All Matt could see was her eyes—large black eyes, with fear glinting in their depths.
“I’m harmless,” he added. He walked over to her, feeling absurdly like a naturalist trying not to startle the wild fauna, and picked up the book. This was a Materia Medica, and it had fallen open to a page headed Hyoscyamus.
The girl looked up at him. “It always falls open to that page,” she said. There was something in her voice very like terror.
Matt closed the book, found the sizable gap in the case, and pushed it home. “Books do that,” he said casually.
“Do they? So conveniently?”
Resolutely Matt refused to notice anything out of the way. “I suppose you must be Miss Harrigan? Or should we wait for somebody to introduce us?”
She had turned away from him again. “No,” she said.
“All right then. I’m Matt Duncan. Maybe your father mentioned me?”
When she faced him now, it was hard to credit what he had just seen. The dread, the apprehension of unnamed terror were gone. Shyness remained, but it was only the shyness of a young girl confronted with a strange guest. “Oh, yes,” she smiled. “Father told me all about last night. That was keen of you.”
Now he could see her real face, and not a sketch to be labeled “Emotion No. 7: Fear.” It was an odd face: the black hair, olive skin, and deep eyes of her mother’s race, contrasted with an almost rugged modeling of features which more than suggested her father. In a photograph you might have taken it for the face of a young man, but in the warming glow of her presence you knew her intense femininity.
She was being the Compleat Young Hostess now. “Cigarette, Mr. Duncan? There must be—Oh, you have your own? Then won’t you sit down? Shall I ring for a drink?”
“If you’d join me.”
“No, thanks.”
“Then I won’t bother.”
“It’s nice again today, isn’t it? Of course, it’s cold but I don’t mind that so much, not with a nice fireplace like this. But yesterday was nasty.”
“Greg sends you his love,” Matt invented politely.
“Oh. Does he?” There was an all but imperceptible pause. “Tell me, Mr. Duncan, where did you go to school?”
“University, you mean? Southern California. That is, I—”
“That’s where I go now, too. Isn’t that funny? I like it, too. It’s awfully exciting being out with people and meeting all sorts. I mean, after so many years in that convent school, not that I didn’t like that, too, but it’s keen getting out into the world. Uncle Joseph thinks I ought to join a good sorority, but Father isn’t so strong on the idea. He says you should make your friends for yourself and not just take them all in one certified bunch.”
“I think your father’s right. I was a fraternity man myself, but I’m not sure I gained anything from it. Except that I mightn’t be here tonight if—”
“Did you see the Rose Bowl game? I was in the rooting section. I was at every game in the Coliseum and I even went up North for the Berkeley game. It’s so exciting, isn’t it? I mean the bands and the cheering and everything. The spring semester isn’t nearly so much fun.”
Greg was right, Matt was reflecting. She was young, terribly young. But there had been no youth in that first glimpse of her; then she had been ageless with terror. There was more to this girl, much more, than all her childish prattle revealed. He wondered how one might reach it …
Matt reached over to the desk for a matchbox.
“Some of my friends say I don’t know a safety from a drop-kick,” Concha was babbling, “but if anybody has as much fun at a game as I have I don’t see that that really matters, do you? I mean, think of all the people that go to symphony concerts and don’t even—”
Matt opened the matchbox. The suddenness of the explosion made them both leap to their feet. The sharp noise still rang in their ears, and the smell of powder was in the air.
For an instant the ageless look hovered on Concha’s face. Then she grinned, all child again. “That’s just Arthur,” she explained. “My brother—have you met him?”
“I met him.”
“I know what you mean. But he’s all right really—well, almost. Only he’s always pulling jokes like that. It runs in the family, I guess; Aunt Ellen says Uncle Joseph used to be just like that only he outgrew it so maybe Arthur will, too. Only I’m glad you bit instead of Father; he doesn’t like it.”
Matt looked at the trigger arrangement which detonated the blank cartridge when the matchbox was opened. Neat little contrivance—good mechanical ingenuity in the vacant-looking Arthur.
“I shouldn’t say I’ve really met your brother yet. Just saw him for a moment last night, in the midst of all the confusion. Will he be at dinner?”
“Arthur at home on a Saturday night? Don’t be sill. He’s out some place having fun. He always is. But maybe you’ll see more of him some other time. Father says you may be around a lot.”
“I hope so. If I live up to specifications. That still leaves your mother I haven’t met yet. I hope—”
“Mr. Duncan. My mother is dead.” Her eyes involuntarily glanced toward the bookcase and the heavy volume which opened at Hyoscyamus. They were not a child’s eyes.
Before Matt could speak, the door from the hall opened and Wolfe Harrigan strode in.
“I heard a shot,” he said levelly.
Matt handed him the matchbox. “You have a playful son, sir.”
Wolfe looked at it, relaxed, and smiled. “Sorry, Duncan. But after last night, I can’t say I fancy the sound of a shot around here. You’ve met my daughter?”
“We took matters into our own hands.”
“Then if that’s all settled,” said Wolfe Harrigan sensibly, “let’s go eat.”
“You have an excellent cook, sir,” said Matt as they drove off to the Temple of Light.
“I have, and I thank you in her name. But don’t call me sir. Wolfe will be better if we hit it off, and if we don’t there’s no call for servility.”
Matt smiled to himself. This was such a fine crust of brusqueness that Wolfe Harrigan assumed to hide his eager friendliness. “Now,” he said, “you might give me a few footnotes before we get there.”
“All right.” Somehow Wolfe Harrigan managed to talk, light a pipe, and drive skillfully all at the same time. “Here’s the picture. Some two years ago I began noticing a new series of ads on the religious pages of the Sunday papers. Brief little notices that gave merely an hour and an address and said, ‘Ahasver will speak on The Seven Vials,’ or ‘Are the Four Horsemen here? Ahasver will tell you.’ The usual apocalyptic stuff. I mightn’t have paid much attention if it hadn’t been for the name Ahasver. Naturally that interested me.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the name of the Wandering Jew. Of course, he’s been known under a dozen others; but in the Leiden pamphlet of 1602, which started the whole thing, he is ‘ein Jude mit Namen Ahasverus.’ I’d never heard the name in any other connection; so I felt that this called for some investigation.
“I went to a meeting. Nothing much happened. I thought he was skillful—knew how to handle an audience—but he said nothing exciting, and the crowd was small and poor. I had a look at the collection plate; there can’t have been over ten dollars in it. There was no telling him then from any other wandering evangelist, aside from his odd name and the yellow robe which he wore.
“Later I began hearing more and more about him. He had soon gathered a solid little group of supporters, and before long he started to make ‘revelations’ to them. They spread the word, and the crowds began coming. It wasn’t long before he’d taken in enough to build the Temple of Light. And then things really started. Now he’s one of the half-dozen biggest cult leaders in Los Angeles—which you realize is no small distinction.”
“But what does he teach? What are his—what-do-you-call-’ems—doctrines?”
Wolfe smiled. “You’re being naive, Duncan. A heresy, I’ll admit, used to have distinctive doctrines. It made some appeal to reason and to scholarship. But now all it needs is a leader with a good personality, a sense of stage effect, and a few catch phrases. Oh, Ahasver does have some tenets of belief, but I doubt if all his followers accept them, any more than most American Presbyterians believed in predestination even while it was still an article of faith. Any more, for the matter of that, than many supposed Catholics believe in original sin, or limbo, or possibly even transubstantiation.”
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