“You see, Duncan,” Fred Simmons explained, “we know now it’s all real. Some people maybe doubted a little before. Not me, of course. No, sir. But some people maybe thought it was all kind of—well, unlikely, like. But since we set the Nine Times Nine and it worked—well, now we know where we are.”
Now there was dead silence as Ahasver rose and came to the front center of the stage. “Ye all do know,” he began softly, “why we are met together tonight. It is that I may teach ye the truth, and that the truth may make ye free, and free our great and glorious land as well. But before I tell ye these things which it is meet and fitting that ye know, I must cast mine eye upon the book, that from its pages I may glean what messages the Ancients have for us.”
Matt looked at his companions. Arthur was masking an alert curiosity with his habitual pose of boredom. R. Joseph, his head cocked studiously to one side, seemed to be studying the leader’s platform manner from the professional angle. Fred Simmons awaited the words of the Ancients in rapt tension. And Gregory was just plain bewildered.
Ahasver beckoned to the wings, and a white-clad page wheeled on the volume of blank sheets. “For is it not written,” the rich voice asked, “in the eighth chapter of the Gospel according to Joseph:
Knowledge sought availeth much; but knowledge given shall be all in all.
Therefore let us learn what knowledge is given unto us.” He lowered his eyes and scanned the blank pages.
Suddenly the yellow figure stiffened. “No …!” he gasped half-audibly, and read more intently—so intently that Matt was almost convinced that the pages did bear a message. There had been dead silence while Ahasver paused, but now a little rustling murmur began to slither over the audience. Fred Simmons leaned forward, deeply perturbed.
Then Ahasver closed the book, and the thud cut through the murmur and reduced it to silence. “I have read,” he announced slowly and clearly, “my last message from this stage. No—be ye not affrighted. Raise not your voices in the murmuration of wonder. But hear and attend.
“It is the Will of the Ancients that I follow, and that alone that rules my life. First, the command imposed upon me by the Ancient Jesus in Jersualem, and then, as I grew wiser in the great Wisdom of the Ancients, the commands of all the Nine. It was at Their behest that I came here to the City of the Angels and sought to give unto you what Truth I might. It is now at Their behest that I leave you, and whither I go no man knoweth.
“Hear ye now the parting words of Ahasver.”
Matt turned to Simmons, but the faithful disciple had no eyes or ears for things of this world. All his attention was fixed on the Master who had just uttered these incredible words of farewell. R. Joseph looked as astounded, though hardly with the same emotions; and Gregory seemed, if anything, more amazed than ever.
It was an astonishing sermon, this speech of farewell, filled with a humanity and a tolerance foreign to anything else in Ahasver’s career. He bade the people to forget hatred in his memory, to leave to that which is good, to defend the democracy of the land, but not to let that defense become in itself the worst enemy of democracy through intolerance. The audience stirred restlessly at first, cheated perhaps of the sport of its regular Thursday night denunciations, but slowly seemed won over to at least passive comprehension of this new line.
Finally, Ahasver paused and retired, with slow dignity, to the back of the stage. The houselights dimmed to blackness, and the multicolored play on the rear wall followed them into the dark. There was visible only the yellow spot beating down from above upon the yellow figure of Ahasver.
“The blessings of the Nine,” pronounced the man in the yellow robe, “yea, and of the Nine Times Nine, be upon you forever. For is it not written in the last chapter of the Gospel according to Joseph;
Man serveth the Ancients that They may love him; and They in Their turn serve him that They may hold his love. These two are all—love and service. And lo, these two are one.
Farewell!”
With this even the yellow spot went out. For an instant the auditorium was completely black. Then the lights went on in full brilliance. Momentarily they showed the stage, empty save for a somewhat bewildered man by the water pitcher. Then the curtain descended, and the organist struck up an exit march.
“Well!” said Fred Simmons, and then, as though the event had reduced his vocabulary to one helpless monosyllable, “Well!”
The Lieutenant had told Matt and Joseph to meet him backstage in the Chamber of Contemplation for full footnotes. He had said nothing about Arthur and Gregory, but those two young men tagged along anyway.
“Astounding,” Joseph declared roundly. “Truly astounding! How could Marshall have persuaded that rascal to give up his demagoguery so completely?”
“Wonderful man, the Lieutenant,” said Arthur. “Maybe he could even get you to give up politics.”
The group paused outside the yellow chamber. “You can’t do this to me!” a voice was protesting vehemently.
Matt opened the door. Sergeant Krauter was standing pleased guard over the man in the yellow robe and observing, “Can’t we? Now ain’t that just too bad?”
“Hello,” said Matt hesitantly.
“Hello, Mr. Duncan. Come on in—all of you—if you can fit. The Lieutenant’ll be here in a minute. How’d it go?”
“Swell. They don’t know what hit them.”
The Sergeant jerked a thumb at Ahasver. “Neither does he. Jeez,” he added wistfully, “I wisht my wife was here.”
“In here,” said Marshall’s voice outside. The Lieutenant strode in, followed by the impeccable Bunyan and—Matt’s eyes popped—a man in a yellow robe.
The other under Krauter’s guard jumped to his feet. “Judas!” he hissed.
“What the hell, Mason,” said the second Ahasver quietly. “The game’s up and this was the best way out.”
“You rat!”
“Sure. Sure I’m a rat. So what? The ship’s sinking—that’s enough to make a rat out of anybody.”
“Look,” said Matt. “Let’s get this straight? What the hell goes on?”
“Exactly, sir,” Joseph rumbled. “How many men in yellow robes are there?”
Marshall pointed at the one who had just come in. “You know this one, both of you, though you may not recognize him when he isn’t camping. Take off the whiskers, Jack Dalton, and let the gentlemen feast on your beautiful puss.”
The man in the yellow robe obliged.
“The Cherub!” Matt whistled.
“Good heavens!” said Joseph. “It’s that young man!”
“What young man?” said Gregory, feebly and unheeded.
“Surprise?” asked Robin Cooper. “I thought you two were so certain that you’d recognized me in these robes before. Just to keep the record straight,” he added, “you were right—probably without knowing it.”
“Then who in heaven’s name, Lieutenant, is this?”
“Take the floor, Bunyan,” said Marshall. “This is your show.”
The butler stepped forward, as unmoved and self-sufficient as ever. “I fear,” he began, “that I must preface my remarks with a small apology to the Harrigan family, who, with the exception of Mr. Wolfe, have known me under what might be considered false pretenses.”
“I know,” said Arthur. “You’re Inspector Bunyan of Scotland Yard.”
Ahasver’s face (the Krauter-watched Ahasver’s, that is), usually impassive, was going through a lively little routine of recognition and amazement. “Bannister!” he cried.
Bunyan bowed. “At your service. My real name, if I may be permitted a moment of autobiographical revelation, is Dominic Wyndham Bannister, formerly Bishop—self-ordained, I may add—of the Episcopal Church of Established Spiritualism. That was a pleasing and profitable profession until Mr. Harrigan chose to expose certain of my manifestations. When I protested that the untrained and disinherited son of an aristocratic family must earn his bread as best he may, he pointed out that my qualifications might mak
e me an excellent butler. I have come to believe that he was right.”
“Fascinating,” snorted Joseph. “But what has your past record to do with Ahasver?”
“Although, sir, I have given up the commercial practices of my misguided youth, I still take a certain professional interest in the development of spiritualist devices, and often visit with my former colleagues. From them I had recently heard two rumors, one that Ahasver was said to be a member of our old Chicago group, and the other that Glenn Mason was in town.
“Now I had known Mason moderately well in Chicago, when my see was situated there. He was a stock actor, then, who augmented his income on his free Sunday evenings by playing a leading role in the rituals of the Church of Christ Spiritualist. He was a versatile gentleman; in one evening I saw him in the spiritual characters of George Washington, Robert Ingersoll, and the Emperor Caligula. He left Chicago, however, rather hurriedly. In his offstage activities he had apparently assumed the role of Giovanni Casanova, with a singular ignorance of the laws governing the age of consent. Criminal charges had been brought against him.
“From what I knew of Mason’s style, I thought it not unlikely that he might be this mysterious Ahasver, though I had postponed mentioning the matter to Mr. Harrigan until I could be more certain. When I saw an ‘Ahasver’ on Monday who certainly was not Mason, I thought no more of the affair until I overheard the Lieutenant’s suspicion that the Monday-Ahasver was not the genuine article. Immediately I attended a service, convinced myself of his identity, and reported my discovery to the Lieutenant.”
“So,” Marshall took up the narrative, “I wired to Chicago, got the Mason records, had a little talk with Ahasver here, and persuaded him that maybe it might save scandal if he didn’t go on tonight. I’d been sure already that Cooper doubled for him on Monday, so I tackled him for this job. Once he was persuaded that the ship was sinking, it was easy.”
“But why,” Joseph blustered, “all this rigmarole about being called by the Ancients? Why not simply arrest the rascal and expose him?”
“This was Bunyan’s suggestion. He knows the tricks of the trade. If we’d arrested Ahasver, you can guess what would happen. He’d have been ‘framed.’ He’d be a persecuted martyr. The Children of Light would fight on to clear his good name. He’d become the Mooney of the crackpots. But after this recall-effect, the church will just plain dissolve. It isn’t strong enough to carry on without his personality.”
“Shrewd,” said Joseph grudgingly.
“All right. We’ve carried out Harrigan’s work. We’ve broken up the Children of Light. And now, for my own work, comes the question of who was back of it? Mason, are you talking? Who did you take orders from?”
Ahasver-Mason pointed at Cooper-Ahasver. “As rat to rat, there’s the guy. He doped out the lighting effects and everything. He gave me my speeches and I memorized them.”
“Is that true, Cooper?”
Robin Cooper smiled with a superior self-satisfaction to top Bunyan’s. “Why, yes, Lieutenant. You might say that I was really Ahasver all the time. This lout simply wore the clothes.”
“And who,” Marshall snapped, “wore the clothes Sunday afternoon?”
“Sunday …? Heavens! Are you back at that Harrigan business again? I’ve told you we know nothing about that. It was a good chance for publicity and we took it. That’s all. It’s obvious, of course, that someone deliberately tried to frame us, but” (his eyes brushed leisurely over the men in the room) “I have no idea who it could have been.”
“And who told you to set the Nine Times Nine on Harrigan?”
“Told me? I don’t take orders, Lieutenant. I give them.”
“Gave them.”
“Give them. Despite this evening, I feel that my power is not completely at an end. It might be inadvisable for others if they thought it was.”
“So. Well, one thing’s certain. We saw this evening that every member of this congregation accepts you readily as Ahasver. And that means that one of you two has no alibi at all for Sunday afternoon.”
“My,” said Robin Cooper. “How dreadful!”
“And for whom, sir, is the third glass?” asked the butler, as he brought a tray into the study to Matt and the Lieutenant.
“For you, Bunyan, if you can forget your dignity long enough to set down that tray and join us. Or do you prefer Bannister?”
“I think, sir, that I have by now so completely accustomed myself to Bunyan that—”
“All right.” Marshall lifted his glass. “To Bunyan! Nice spot of work you did tonight.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“But God knows what I did. Matt, I feel like Pandora. I’ve lifted the lid on mischief and it’s flying all over the place.”
“Closed the lid, you mean—or am I just being literal like my dear friend Greg?”
“You are. I’ve closed the lid on the Temple, but I’ve lifted it on something else. Tonight wasn’t wise. It wasn’t safe, with a murderer still at large. Robby-wobby’s asking for something—and I’m not too sure that he’ll be the one to get it.”
“Well, it’s done now.”
“It is, and nothing I can do but be careful. I feel like Mark Antony, too.”
“On one drink?”
“The end of the funeral oration scene. You know:
Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot,
Take thou what course thou wilt!”
“My small experience with the police,” Bunyan observed, “has hardly led me to expect from them allusions to Pandora and correct quotations in blank verse.”
“Oxford,” said Marshall tersely.
“Indeed, sir?” Over Bunyan’s face passed the closest approximation to surprise which he had displayed in the entire case. But his cool superiority quickly reassured itself. “I was Cambridge myself.”
Matt smiled and picked up the phone. He was uncertain of convent regulations, but it was early yet—only about nine.
Sister Ursula was not only available, she was eager and proved an enthralled audience to his narrative of the evening’s events.
“That give you any new ideas?” he concluded.
“New? No, not new ideas, Mr. Duncan, but it does help me in carrying out my old ones. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you for calling me—almost as grateful as I am (though this sounds shocking) to Blessed Mother La Roche for dying on the date she did.”
“Any questions or messages?”
“Yes.” Sister Ursula sounded reflective. “One question—did you see the color of Mr. Mason-Ahasver’s real hair?”
“It was black, like the beard. But why—?”
“Patience, Mr. Duncan, is one of the cardinal virtues. And I have one message—for the Lieutenant.”
“Yes?”
“Please urge him to put a heavy guard around all members of the Harrigan family and above all around Robin Cooper, unless he wants another murder. I earnestly entreat him to do this—as earnestly as I pray God to forgive my presumption in meddling with such matters.”
“Any other message?”
“No—yes. Ask Miss Harrigan to pray for me. You might even try it yourself, Mr. Duncan. I need every prayer I can get.” Her tone was nowise jesting.
Chapter 20
Friday morning.
The man said, “Who are you?”
The woman said, “Don’t you even know that?”
The man said, “I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
The woman said, “Are you so sure of that?”
The man said, “Of course I’m sure. I never forget a face. But that’s enough of that. What the devil are you here for?”
The woman neatly folded a crease in her bright flowered print. “I’ll answer your other question instead. Do you know Robin Cooper?”
The man frowned. “I’ve seen him, yes. What’s that to you? Are you a friend of his?”
The woman said nothing.
The man said, “Did he send you here?”
The w
oman said, “Robin Cooper has funny ideas. He thinks somebody tried to murder him and then got cold feet.”
The man said, “Absurd. We’re wasting time.”
The woman said, “He’s talking.”
The man said, “What’s that to you?”
The woman kept her eyes on the open toe of her shoe. “I thought there might be something in it for the person who warned you.”
The man said, “Nonsense. I know he talked. It doesn’t affect me.”
The woman said, “That was before he thought about the murderer with cold feet. He’s deciding maybe he should talk some more and make himself safe. If you’ve told all you know, you’re safe.”
The man said, “And how much do you know?”
The woman said, “Enough to come here.”
The man said, “And with all Cooper’s ideas that doesn’t frighten you?”
The woman said, “Not here. You wouldn’t dare. And I shan’t see you any place but here.”
The man said, “Go peddle your warnings somewhere else. I’m not in the market.”
The woman said, “All right. It was worth the chance. No harm done.”
The man said, “No. No harm done.”
When the woman was gone, he said to himself, “No cold feet this time.”
Friday afternoon.
Matt looked around the study. This wasn’t quite the conventional omnium-gatherum of suspects, tremulously awaiting the final lecture. At least five candidates were missing. The Swami Sussmaul was in jail. So was Ahasver, or Glenn Mason now, pending the arrival of extradition warrants from Illinois. Robin Cooper was probably at his home—wherever he was, he was under unobtrusive but vigilant police guard. R. Joseph Harrigan was detained at his office by an important appointment. And Sister Ursula had decided, in view of Concha’s narrative of Wednesday night on Olvera Street, that inviting Gregory Randall to the Harrigans’ just now would be an unwise move no matter how grave the cause.
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