The woman counted out the tomatoes with hands trembling, placed them carefully in a paper bag, handed them to Mrs Lorriquer, who paid her. We stepped down to the ground from the elevated concrete floor of the market.
‘They seem so subdued – the poor souls!’ remarked Mrs Lorriquer, whose goggle-eyed chauffeur, a boy as black as ebony, glanced at her out of the corner of a fearfully rolled eye as he opened the door of her car.
‘Come to luncheon,’ said Mrs Lorriquer, sweetly, beaming at me, ‘and help us eat these nice little tomatoes. They are delicious with mayonnaise after they are blanched and chilled.’ It seemed rather an abrupt contrast, these homely words of invitation, after what I had heard her call those Cha-Cha women.
‘I’ll come, with pleasure,’ I replied.
‘One o’clock, then,’ said Mrs Lorriquer, nodding and smiling, as her Black Hans turned the car skillfully and started along the Queen’s Road toward the center of town.
We did not play cards that afternoon after luncheon, because Mrs Lorriquer and Mrs Preston were going to an afternoon party at the residence of the Government Secretary’s wife, and Colonel Lorriquer and I sat, over our coffee, on the west gallery of the house out of reach of the blazing early-afternoon sun, and chatted.
We got upon the subject of the possibility of another isthmian canal, the one tentatively proposed across Nicaragua.
‘That, as you know, Mr Canevin, was one of the old French Company’s proposals, before they settled down to approximately the present site – the one we followed out – back in the late Seventies.’
‘De Lesseps,’ I murmured.
‘Yes,’ said the Colonel, musingly, ‘yes – a very complex matter it was, that French proposal. They never could, it seems, have gone through with it, as a matter of fact – the opposition at home in France, the underestimate of the gross cost of excavation, the suspicion of “crookedness” which arose – they impeached the Count de Lesseps finally, you know, degraded him, ruined the poor fellow. And then, the sanitation question, you know. If it had not been for our Gorgas and his marvelous work in that direction – ’
‘Tell me,’ I interrupted, ‘just how long were the French at work on their canal, Colonel?’
‘Approximately from 1881 to 1889,’ replied the Colonel, ‘although the actual work of excavation, the bulk of the work, was between ’85 and ’89. By the way, Canevin, we lived in a rather unusual house there. Have I ever mentioned that to you?’
‘Never,’ said I. ‘What was the unusual element about your house?’
‘Only that it was believed to be haunted,’ replied the Colonel; ‘although, I must admit, I never – we never – met with the least evidence outside the superstitions of the people. Our neighbors all believed it to be haunted in some way. We got it for a song for that reason and it was a very pleasant place. You see, it had been fitted up, quite regardless of the cost, as a kind of public casino or gambling-house, about 1885, and it had been a resort for de Lesseps’s crowd for the four years before the French Company abandoned their work. It was a huge place, with delightful galleries. The furniture, too, was excellent. We took it as it stood, you see, and, beyond a terrific job to get it clean and habitable, it was a very excellent investment. We were there for more than three years altogether.’
An idea, vague, tenuous, grotesque enough in all truth, and, indeed, somewhat less than half formed, had leaped into my mind at the combination of a ‘haunted’ residence and the French work on the ill-fated de Lesseps canal project.
‘Indeed!’ said I. ‘It certainly sounds interesting. And do you know, Colonel, who ran the old casino; who, so to speak, was the proprietor – unless it was a part of the Company’s scheme for keeping their men interested?’
‘It was privately managed,’ returned the Colonel, ‘and, queerly enough, as it happens, I can show you a photograph of the former proprietor. He was a picturesque villain!’ The Colonel rose and started to go inside the house from where we sat on the cool gallery. He paused at the wide doorway, his hand on the jamb.
‘It was the proprietor who was supposed to haunt the house,’ said he, and went inside.
My mind reeled under the stress of these clues and the attempts, almost subconscious – for, indeed, I had thought much of the possible problem presented by Mrs Lorriquer’s case; a ‘case’ only in my own imagination, so far; and I had constructed tentatively three or four connected theories by the time the Colonel returned, a large, stiff, cabinet photograph in his hand. He laid this on the table between us and resumed his Chinese rattan lounge-chair. I picked up the photograph.
It was the portrait, stiffly posed, the hand, senatorially, in the fold of the long, black surtout coat, of the sort anciently known as a Prince Albert, of a rather small, emaciated man, whose face was disfigured by the pittings of smallpox; a man with a heavy head of jet-black hair, carefully combed after a fashion named, in our United States, for General McClellan of Civil War fame, the locks brushed forward over the tops of the ears, and the parting, although this could not be seen in the front-face photograph, extending all the way down the back to the neck. A ‘croupier’s’ mustache, curled and waxed ferociously, ornamented the sallow, sinister features of a face notable only for its one outstanding feature, a jaw as solid and square as that of Julius Caesar. Otherwise, as far as character was concerned, the photograph showed a very unattractive person, the type of man, quite obviously, who in these modern times would inevitably have followed one of our numerous and varied ‘rackets’ and probably, one imagined, with that jaw to help, successfully!
‘And how, if one may ask,’ said I, laying the photograph down on the table again, ‘did you manage to get hold of this jewel, Colonel Lorriquer?’
The old gentleman laughed. ‘We found it in the back end of a bureau drawer,’ said he. ‘I have mentioned that we took the house over just as it was. Did you notice the cameo?’
‘Yes,’ I replied, picking the photograph up once more to look at the huge breast-pin which seemed too large in the picture even for the enormous ‘de Joinville’ scarf which wholly obliterated the shirt-front underneath.
‘It is certainly a whopper!’ I commented. ‘It reminds me of that delightful moving picture Cameo Kirby, if you happened to see it some time ago, on the silent screen.’
‘Quite,’ agreed Colonel Lorriquer. ‘That, too, turned up, and in the same ancient bureau, when we were cleaning it. It was wedged in behind the edge of the bottom-board of the middle drawer. Of course you have observed that Mrs Lorriquer wears it?’
I had, and said so. The enormous breast-pin was the same which I had many times observed upon Mrs Lorriquer. It seemed a favorite ornament of hers. I picked up the photograph once more.
Down in the lower right-hand corner, in now faded gilt letters of ornamental scrollwork, appeared the name of the photographer. I read: ‘La Palma, Quezaltenango’.
‘ “Quezaltenango,” ’ I read aloud. ‘That is in Guatemala. Was the “Gentleman of the house”, perhaps, a Central American? It would be hard to guess at his nationality from this. He looks a citizen of the world!’
‘No,’ replied the Colonel, ‘he was a Frenchman, and he had been, as it appears, living by his wits all over Central America. When the work of construction actually began under the French Company – that was in 1885 – there was a rush of persons like him toward the pickings from so large a group of men who would be looking for amusement, and this fellow came early and stayed almost throughout the four years. His name was Simon Legrand, and, from what I gathered about him, he was a very ugly customer.’
‘You remarked that he was connected with the alleged haunting,’ I ventured. ‘Is there, perhaps, a story in that?’
‘Hardly a story, Mr Canevin. No. It was merely that toward the end of the French Company’s activities, in 1889, Legrand, who had apparently antagonized all his patrons at his casino, got into a dispute with one of them, over a game of piquet or écarté – one of those French games of some kind, perhaps even
vingt-et-un, for all I know, or even chemin-de-fer – and Simon went up to his bedroom, according to the story, to secure a pistol, being, for the time, rather carelessly in that company, unarmed. His “guest” followed him upstairs and shot him as he stood in front of the bureau where he kept his weapon, from the bedroom doorway, thus ending the career of what must have been a very precious rascal. Thereafter, the French Company’s affairs and that of the casino being abruptly dissolved at about the same time, the rumor arose that Legrand was haunting his old quarters. Beyond the rumor, there never seemed anything to suggest its basis in anything but the imagination of the native Panamanians. As I have mentioned, we lived in the house three years, and it was precisely like any other house, only rather cheap, which satisfied us very well!’
That, as a few cautious questions, put diplomatically, clearly showed, was all the Colonel knew about Simon Legrand and his casino. I used up all the questions I had in mind, one after another, and, it being past three in the afternoon, and over time for the day’s siesta, I was about to take my leave in search of forty winks and the afternoon’s shower-bath, when the Colonel volunteered a singular piece of information. He had been sitting rather quietly, as though brooding, and it was this, which I attributed to the after-luncheon drowsiness germane to these latitudes, which had prompted me to go. I was, indeed, rising from my chair at the moment, when the Colonel remarked: ‘One element of the old casino seemed to remain – perhaps that was the haunting!’ He stopped, and I hung, poised, as it were, to catch what he might be about to say. He paused, however, and I prompted him.
‘And what might that be, sir?’ I asked, very quietly. The Colonel seemed to come out of his revery.
‘Eh?’ he said, ‘eh, what?’ He looked at me rather blankly.
‘You were remarking that one element of the old casino’s influence seemed to remain in your Canal Zone residence,’ said I.
‘Ah – yes. Why, it was strange, Mr Canevin, distinctly strange. I have often thought about it; although, of course, it was the merest coincidence, unless – perhaps – well, the idea of suggestion might come into play. Er – ah – er, what I had in mind was that – er – Mrs Lorriquer you know – she began to take up card-playing there. She had never, to my knowledge, played before; had never cared for cards in the least; been brought up, in early life, to regard them as not quite the thing for a lady and all that, you see. Her mother, by the way, was Sarah Langhorne – perhaps you had not heard this, Mr Canevin – the very well-known medium of Bellows Falls, Vermont. The old lady had quite a reputation in her day. Strictly honest, of course! Old New England stock – of the very best, sir. Strait-laced! Lord – a card in the house would have been impossible! Cards, in that family! “The Devil’s Bible,” Mr Canevin. That was the moral atmosphere which surrounded my wife’s formative days. But – no sooner had we begun to live in that house down there, than she developed “card sense”, somehow, and she has found it – er – her chief interest, I should say, ever since.’ The old Colonel heaved a kind of mild sigh, and that was as near as I had heard to any comment on his wife’s outrageous conduct at cards, which must, of course, have been a major annoyance in the old gentleman’s otherwise placid existence.
I went home with much material to ponder. I had enough to work out a more or less complete ‘case’ now, if, indeed, there was an occult background for Mrs Lorriquer’s diverse conduct, her apparently subconscious use of colloquial French, and – that amazing deep bass voice!
Yes, all the elements seemed to be present now. The haunted house, with that scar-faced croupier as the haunter; the sudden predilection for cards emanating there; the initial probability of Mrs Lorriquer’s susceptibility to discarnate influences, to a ‘control’, as the spiritualists name this phenomenon – the cameo – all the rest of it; it all pointed straight to one conclusion, which, to put it conservatively, might be described as the ‘influence’ of the late Simon Legrand’s personality upon kindly Mrs Lorriquer who had ‘absorbed’ it in three years’ residence in a house thoroughly impregnated by his ugly and unpleasant personality.
I let it go at that, and – it must be understood – I was only half-way in earnest at the time, in even attempting to attribute to this ‘case’ anything like an occult background. One gets to look for such explanations when one lives in the West Indies where the very atmosphere is charged with Magic!
But – my inferences, and whereunto these led, were, at their most extreme, mild, compared with what was, within two days, to be revealed to us all. However, I have resolved to set this tale down in order, as it happened, and again I remind myself that I must not allow myself to run ahead of the normal sequence of events. The dénouement, however, did not take very long to occur.
It was, indeed, no more than two days later, at the unpropitious hour of two-fifteen in the morning – I looked at my watch on my bureau as I was throwing on a few necessary clothes – that I was aroused by a confused kind of tumult outside, and, coming into complete wakefulness, observed an ominous glow through my windows and realized that a house, quite near by, was on fire.
I leaped at once out of bed, and took a better look, with my head out the window. Yes, it was a fire, and, from appearances, the makings of a fine – and very dangerous – blaze here in the heart of the residence district where the houses, on the sharp side-hill, are built very close together.
It was a matter of moments before I was dressed, after a fashion, and outside, and running down the path to my gateway and thence around the corner to the left. The fire itself, as I now saw at a glance, was in a wooden building now used as a garage, directly on the roadway before one of the Denmark Hill’s ancient and stately mansions. Already a thin crowd, of Negroes entirely, had gathered, and I saw that I was ‘elected’ to take charge in the absence of any other white man, when I heard, with relief, the engine approaching. Our Fire Department, while not hampered with obsolete apparatus, is somewhat primitive. The engine rounded the corner, and just behind it, a Government Ford, the ‘transportation’ apportioned to Lieutenant Farnum of Uncle Sam’s efficient Marines. The Lieutenant, serving as the Governor’s Legal Aide, had, among his fixed duties, the charge of the Fire Department. This highly efficient young gentleman, whom I knew very well, was at once in the very heart of the situation, had the crowd back away to a reasonable distance, the fire engine strategically placed, and a double stream of chemicals playing directly upon the blazing shack.
The fire, however, had had a long start, and the little building was in a full blaze. It seemed, just then, doubtful whether or not the two streams would prove adequate to put it out. The real danger, however, under the night trade wind, which was blowing lustily, was in the spread of the fire, through flying sparks, of which there were many, and I approached Lieutenant Farnum offering cooperation.
‘I’d suggest waking up the people – in that house, and that, and that one,’ directed Lieutenant Farnum, denoting which houses he had in mind.
‘Right!’ said I, ‘I’m shoving right off!’ And I started down the hill to the first of the houses. On the way I was fortunate enough to meet my house-boy, Stephen Penn, an intelligent young Negro, and him I dispatched to two of the houses which stood together, to awaken the inmates if, indeed, the noise of the conflagration had not already performed that office. Then I hastened at a run to the Criqué place, occupied by the Lorriquer family, the house farthest from the blaze, yet in the direct line of the sparks and blazing silvers which the trade wind carried in a thin aerial stream straight toward it.
Our servants in West Indian communities never remain for the night on the premises. The Lorriquers would be, like all other Caucasians, alone in their house. I had, as it happened, never been upstairs in the house; did not, therefore, have any idea of its layout, nor knew which of the bedrooms were occupied by the several members of the family.
Without stopping to knock at the front entrance door, I slipped the latch of a pair of jalousies leading into the ‘hall’ or drawing room, an
easy matter to negotiate, stepped inside across the window-sill, and, switching on the electric light in the lower entrance-way, ran up the broad stone staircase to the floor above. I hoped that chance would favor me in finding the Colonel’s room first, but as there was no way of telling, I rapped on the first door I came to, and, turning the handle – this was an emergency – stepped inside, leaving the door open behind me to secure such light as came from the single bulb burning in the upper hallway.
I stepped inside.
Again, pausing for an instant to record my own sensations as an integral portion of this narrative, I hesitate, but this time only because of the choices which lie before me in telling, now long afterward, with the full knowledge of what was involved in this strange case, precisely what I saw; precisely what seemed to blast my eyesight for its very incredibleness – its ‘impossibility’.
I had, it transpired, hit upon Mrs Lorriquer’s bedroom, and there plain before me – it was a light, clear night, and all the eight windows stood open to the starlight and what was left of a waning moon – lay Mrs Lorriquer on the stubposted mahogany four-poster with its tester and valance. The mosquito-net was not let down, and Mrs Lorriquer, like most people in our climate, was covered, as she lay in her bed, only with a sheet. I could, therefore, see her quite plainly, in an excellent light.
But – that was not all that I saw.
For, beside the bed, quite close in fact, stood – Simon Legrand – facing me, the clothes, the closely buttoned surtout, the spreading, flaring de joinville scarf, fastened with the amazing brooch, the pock-marked, ill-natured face, the thick, black hair, the typical croupier mustache, the truculent expression, Simon Legrand, to the last detail, precisely as he appeared in the cabinet photograph of La Palma of Quezaltenango – Simon Legrand to the life.
And, between him as he stood there, glaring truculently at me, intruding upon his abominable manifestation, and the body of Mrs Lorriquer, as I glared back at this incredible configuration, there stretched, and wavered, and seemed to flow, toward him and from the body of Mrs Lorriquer, a whitish, tenuous stream of some milky-looking material – like a waved sheet, like a great mass of opaque soap-bubbles, like those pouring grains of attenuated plasma described in Dracula, when in the dreadful castle in Transylvania, John Harker stood confronted with the materialization of that arch-fiend’s myrmidons.
Voodoo Tales: The Ghost Stories of Henry S Whitehead (Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural) Page 73