“Really,” she said, leaning toward him.
“So, everyone here is—you are all friends of Mr. South’s?”
“Hmm?” Miss Thompson raised her eyebrows. Her face was close to Sam’s.
“You all—you are all old friends of Mr. South’s?” Sam tried to smile.
“Yes,” she said. “We are all… old.” She smiled.
Sam looked around the room.
“Hello, Morgan!” Roberts called.
Sam turned to Miss Thompson. She was gazing at him.
“Well, it is a very nice club,” he said.
“These things are so boring, don’t you find?” she asked. “I mean, look at all these people, they haven’t an interesting thing to say between them. And South—my God, hasn’t it been long enough?”
“Long enough?” Sam asked.
Miss Thompson laughed. “Indeed, long enough. But look at them, all of them,” she said.
“Everyone seems very nice,” Sam said.
“I suppose,” Miss Thompson said. “At dinner parties like this, anyway.” She moved closer to Sam on the sofa. “I am sorry if I’m glum,” she said. “These dinners have that effect on me, I’m afraid. It is frightful of me, I am sure. I have reproached myself for it a thousand times. I suppose it’s habit. In any event, these dinners always make me feel as if I’m being mocked. As if God is tempting me to enjoy one tiny frozen moment if I can. Do you know what I mean, Mr. Morgan?”
“Yes,” Sam said. “I was thinking something like that a minute ago. Maybe it’s something about parties that puts us in this frame of mind.”
“Yes, perhaps,” Miss Thompson said. “And you, Mr. Morgan—”
“Please, call me Sam.”
Miss Thompson smiled. “You, Sam,” she continued, “are a very sensitive person to notice that.”
“I guess,” Sam said.
The maid was circulating with a tray of drinks. French took one and raised it at Sam, who nodded back.
“So, you are in love?” Miss Thompson said. She was nearly touching him.
“Excuse me?” Sam said.
“A sensitive person like you—you must be in love,” she said. She sipped from her glass.
“I—” he started. So she was one of those, a pretty girl who notices you’re attracted and assumes you must be in love with her.
“Not with me, dear Sam,” Miss Thompson said, reaching with a small pale hand as if to touch his cheek. “I did think for a moment that you might want to kiss me, but that is hardly love, is it?”
Sam stood up. “Excuse me,” he said. He thought of Alice, of the moment he had left her car the other night.
“But you must be in love to be so sensitive,” Miss Thompson said, her eyes no longer playful but mocking, flickering like candle light in a face now smoke, now ash, now pearl.
“Are you feeling quite all right?” South asked, arriving at Sam’s side.
“I’m fine,” Sam said.
“We should have a seat,” South said, leading Sam to another sofa. “You mustn’t take Miss Thompson to heart,” he added. “She has, as I believe the modern idiom would express it, issues.” He laughed loudly.
Sam was trying to look directly into South’s face but somehow caught only angles. He had never been so close to South, who smelled of wet wool and spicy aftershave; had never noticed before how pink and smooth like ribbon candy South’s skin was.
“There,” South said, settling in. “Just have a seat for a moment and let’s get you a fresh drink.” He gestured to the maid, who disappeared from the smoky room. “I think the heat and the alcohol have touched you a bit, my boy,” South resumed. “And perhaps Miss Thompson as well, eh?” He laughed.
Sam nodded and tried to laugh and tried to look directly at South, who turned his face full to Sam and smiled. His gray eyes were set deep, a moustache covered his upper lip and his black hair was graying, thinning slightly at the temples.
South lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. “So, what do you make of all this?” he asked, nodding at the other guests, squinting at Sam through cigarette smoke.
“The club is very nice,” Sam said. “I’ve never been in here before. And the people seem interesting.”
The maid appeared and handed Sam a new drink.
“Come now, Sam,” South said. “Tell me what you really think. I hardly believe a man of your intelligence has no opinions.”
Sam wanted to say, Fine, here’s my opinion: this is boring and it’s time for me to go home. “Oh, I have my opinions,” he said instead.
“Indeed,” South said, nodding. “Shall we start with Miss Thompson?” He thrust his upper body toward Sam.
“No, no need to start with anyone,” Sam said. He smelled liquor and damp wool. South seemed damp everywhere, hands, cheeks, collar.
“Oh, indeed there is,” South whispered. “Miss Thompson needs everyone to love her, man, woman, or child. Do you have any idea of the contempt involved in such a desire, Sam?”
“That’s enough,” Sam said. “I don’t want—”
“And Mrs. Finley,” South continued. “Over there, who looks so dreary all the time, the one who was sitting with Miss Thompson when you came in—ahh, what her husband did to her.” His voice had changed from a whisper to low and steady, as if it needed more traction in the air to move as quickly as it wanted to. “He seduced their maid, Sam, and if that wasn’t enough he made Mrs. Finley watch. Later he seduced Mrs. Finley’s sister as well, and when Mrs. Finley cried he wrote a check out, very slowly, right there in the study as she wept, and handed it to her. For the sister, Sam. To give to the sister. And Mr. and Mrs. Roberts? They have hated each other for years with an intensity I’ve not seen matched. Everything either of them does fills the other with rage, a pure, sweet rage. Think of the injustices and spite two people can inflict on each other, with all those years, all those lovely cycles of cell and atom, and think of the energy necessary to be so jovial in public. Where does that energy come from? The rage. The rage is the fuel, Sam.”
Sam tried to interrupt but could hardly open his mouth before South was speaking again.
“And, ahh, yes, what about the little old man with the absurd tufts of hair? Dr. French. A doctor, Sam, whose life’s work was stolen from him and who, in a fit, beat the thief to death with a walking stick.”
Sam turned his head sharply and frowned as South. “Excuse me?” he said.
South smiled and lit another cigarette. “Oh, no, they never caught him, so he never had a chance to confess. The heavy blonde, over there, the one who giggles and fancies herself a movie star? She did nothing to anyone, Sam, not ever. She hates herself almost too much to stand up. She’ll sleep with any man who tells her he wants her, and she cries all the next day. Why? Her uncle had her when she was eleven, many times.”
Sam looked from face to face, each lit in the party glow, each smiling back at him.
“Now, the sad-looking gentleman, whose eyes pop from his head like—”
“Enough,” Sam said.
“But don’t you want to know?”
“No. I know enough. Too much. This is—”
“Not even about me?” South asked.
Sam looked at him. “No, please,” he said. “With all due respect, Mr. South, this is—”
“Please, Sam,” South said, leaning back. “Call me Jacob.”
“Fine. Jacob. With all due respect, I should be getting home. My grandmother—actually, I think she might be a—never mind. She is very sick and I need to get back.”
“Not before supper,” South said. “We’re having a lovely tenderloin, the best in Boston.”
“I appreciate it, I just….” Sam couldn’t finish his sentence. He felt sweaty and chilled.
“Please. Stay for supper.” South’s voice held the taint of concern. His eyes were still and soft and shimmering.
“I didn’t mean to be rude,” Sam said.
“Not at all,” South said. He shifted in his seat and drank deeply from his
glass. “Do you believe in God, Sam?”
Sam frowned. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Ahh, I see,” South said. “Do you believe in anything?”
“I believe in something, I’m just not sure what.”
“Something?” South asked. “I see. Being unsure and believing are not compatible, though, are they? But you believe in something. What, then. Time? Light? The human soul?”
“Yes, fine, those. What about you, Jacob? Do you believe in God?”
“It’s a very interesting question, isn’t it, Sam?” South said. “When one asks that, one is essentially asking the person to describe the very heart of their beliefs, don’t you think? Because one isn’t just asking if the person believes in a stern-faced man with a white beard on a high throne. One is asking, in a sense, ‘What does life mean to you, and do you accept your own explanation of it.’ But you, Sam, are not sure, and therefore don’t believe anything.”
“That’s not true,” Sam said. “Just because I don’t pretend I can explain everything doesn’t mean I don’t believe in anything.”
“Yes, fair enough,” South said. “Religion as the great allegory, then. What your generation seems to call ‘spirituality’. Faith without discipline.”
“Ahh, yes, I see,” said Sam. “I should accept your great wisdom on the subject and be thankful for it. Ok. Thank you.”
“I offer no wisdom,” South said. “I merely offer conversation.”
The room went quiet. The candlelight hovered on still, intent faces.
“One hopes,” South said in a tired voice that surprised Sam.
Outside, the wind had increased and thick snowflakes were falling. McParland, the brim of his hat layered with snow and pulled low over his eyes, trotted up the path of the Beacon Club; through the narrow column of windows next to the door he saw the butler peering out into the night. He left the path and crouched behind a bush.
Damned snow, he thought. Nothing but a nuisance to a working man.
He stole along the front wall of the building, slipping once, pausing to brush snow from his hat and shoulders. Light from a large window just above his head spread around him. He tucked his hat under his arm and stood up slowly until he could see inside.
Soft people, he thought. All of them. Look at them, sipping and talking, warm and fat. His eyes paused on Miss Thompson’s profile for a moment. He heard a loud voice call out, laughing. Ahh, yes, he thought, there was South and next to him the young man. He watched them stand up and move slowly with the others out of the room. They would have supper now, a nice, warm supper.
He slid his hands deep into his coat pocket, chewed his lip for a moment, and sniffed. Following the curve of the wall he looked for an alley leading around back. Finding none, he realized he would have to go around the block and cut through backyards to be able to see into the dining room.
Supper was served in a small dining room with pale-cream walls across the hall from the parlor. The polished silver shone on the white tablecloth and the names on the place cards were written in fine, black calligraphy. Tired, middle-aged maids moved around the table with bowls of potatoes and vegetables and a silver platter of tenderloins. South sat at the head of the table, with Sam to his immediate right.
The conversation turned to the proper length for a woman’s skirt.
“Well, now, Miss Thompson,” South said, wiping his mouth delicately. “You will perhaps understand if we don’t look to you for guidance on the subject of young womens’ morals.”
Miss Thompson laughed. “I will indeed,” she said.
The room was quiet save for clinking and cutting, chewing and sipping.
“You’re a young man, Mr. Morgan,” Roberts bellowed. “Set us old fogeys straight, will you?”
Sam fidgeted with his name card. “I don’t see where morals enter into it,” he said.
“Here, here,” Miss Thompson said.
“Oh, please, do not begin again with your freedom,” Mrs. Finley said, as if the word had an unpleasant taste. “Such freedom will only lead countless women to misery, mark my words.”
“My dear Mrs. Finley, why ever do you take such a tone with me?” Miss Thompson asked.
“Now don’t bore our new guest with such talk,” Dr. French said, a slice of red meat hanging from his fork. “I daresay I can listen to you two have that same argument for a thousand years, if I want to. Or, indeed, I’m afraid, even if I do not. But Mr. Morgan, if you—”
“Oh, Dr. French, spare us your sanctimony,” the stiff woman in black, Mrs. Stephens, said. “And your random mathematics as well, I might add.”
“Let Morgan speak,” Roberts said, turning red then purple.
“You, arguing for someone else to speak,” his wife said.
Several people laughed.
“I take no tone with you,” Mrs. Finley said to Miss Thompson.
Miss Thompson forced a laugh. “Nonsense,” she said.
“Please, Mr. Morgan,” Mr. James, sitting across from Sam, his turnip eyes lowered in a sort of bow, said under the layer of barely restrained bickering that had erupted. “Do, sir, tell us your thoughts on modern morals. We have all lived such—such—delicate lives.”
Sam glanced at South, who was sitting back in his chair, smiling.
“Do tell us, Sam,” South said.
“Well, it’s only—I don’t think dress is a matter of morals,” Sam said. The table quieted and he was aware that everyone had turned to look at him. “How a woman—or a man, for that matter—how a person chooses to dress doesn’t tell you much about whether they are mean, or enjoy other peoples’ misery, or would steal, does it?”
“Very true,” Roberts said.
“Can it not, though?” James asked. “Can not—for example, an associate of, say, the devil, for example, wear clothes which announce to one and all his position?”
“We are not discussing uniforms,” Ladd said, holding his fork up as if to stop traffic.
“Fair comment!” cried his tall friend Frye.
“Besides,” Miss Thompson said, “you broke the rule—no mentioning the devil.”
The blonde woman swallowed the last of her wine. “My God, every time anyone tries to talk about anything else,” she said.
“Continue, Mr. Morgan,” Dr. French said. “You were saying—about those who enjoy other peoples’ misery.” He clutched his silverware.
“I only meant that in everyday life—what you wear to work, say—there’s no morality. People should be able to wear whatever they like and not have others make assumptions about them,” Sam said.
“Really, Mr. Morgan,” Mrs. Stephens said. “I cannot imagine that you would have us believe that one cannot tell anything about a person by observing what they wear.”
“Fair comment,” Frye exclaimed.
“We can all tell a lot about you, Louisa,” Miss Thompson said. “Shall I begin?”
The maids moved around the table, clearing dishes, pouring wine.
“It’s only women who are judged on what they wear,” Miss Thompson continued, looking at Sam. “You might, perhaps, judge a man to be rich or poor, but never his morals. And how much money a man has is no real indication of his morals, after all.”
“Really?” Dr. French asked. “I rather think that, in this country, money and morals are precisely the same,”
“It’s all about sex, isn’t it?” Miss Thompson continued. “And in this country, when it comes to sex, men just are and women have morals.”
“Miss Thompson!” Mrs. Stephens said.
“Exactly,” the blonde woman said.
“The young have spoken,” Ladd said, stirring coffee in a delicate china cup and placing the spoon on the saucer.
“The young are corrupt,” Mrs. Finley said.
“Yes, but what a nice show they put on of thinking it doesn’t matter,” Mrs. Roberts said.
Her husband glared at her. “Is it your desire to alienate Mr. Morgan?” he asked.
“Cheap wome
n wear cheap clothes—short skirts and those vile shoes with pointed heels,” Mrs. Stephens said. “People today would have one believe that nothing means anything—except that which matters to oneself alone.”
“Has it not always been so?” South asked.
“No, Mr. South, it has not,” Mrs. Stephens said.
“It was not so in the war,” Mr. James said quietly. “Indeed, we died by the thousands just to prove it.”
“Not the war again,” Dr. French said. “Killing and dying is all the same in the end, whether—”
“Please,” Miss Thompson said. “Must we interrupt an interesting conversation with a newcomer to have the same discussion again and again? Mr. Morgan—Sam—you were saying. Please.”
The room was dim; the faces turned to Sam; the maids hovered.
Sam coughed. “Well—I was saying—what I don’t get,” he said, “isn’t tight clothes or revealing clothes. What bothers me is the sense everyone seems to have that the world is their living room, you know? Wear whatever you want outside—t-shirt, tank top, sweatpants, anything you want because the world is your living room.”
“Yes,” South said.
“Yes, fair comment!” Frye agreed. “Mr. Morgan has put his finger precisely on it.”
“Well done!” Ladd exclaimed.
A short round of applause spread around the table.
“And talk as loud as you’d like, wherever you like,” James said. “It never ceases to amaze me that people come to King’s Chapel, to the burying ground, and talk as if at a tavern.”
“So it is not subjective morals that are important,” South said, passing a box of cigars to Sam. “Sam has made the point. Subjective morals can only tire and dry up over time, with those that believe in them clinging to them uselessly and too often violently.”
“You would have a Godless world,” Mrs. Stephens said. “I cannot accept that.”
“On the contrary,” South said. “I would have a world that is God.”
“God?” James asked. “I have searched for God at Passchendaele. I did not find Him there.”
“Archibald. Please,” Mrs. Stephens said, turning sharply and stiffly toward him.
“A world,” South said, “in which the subjective no longer rules.” He lowered his head to his hands. “But is such a world possible?”
THE GHOST DETECTIVE: Boston Page 23