by David Case
Curious, I asked, “Who brought it?”
“What? Why, my dear fellow, what does that matter? Some elderly lady on a bicycle.”
I smiled, my faith in duty restored, imagining Emma the postmistress carrying out her task.
Mallory was saying, “You should have let me know in time. I’d have met your train.”
I didn’t care to detail the matter over the phone. I said, “There was a mix-up over that. No matter. I’m stopping at the Red Lion.”
“Yes? Well, I’ve plenty of room to put you up here, Ashley. Why don’t I fetch you. Noon, shall we say?”
“That will suit me.”
“Good of you to come so swiftly.”
“I hope it will prove worthwhile.”
“Rest assured.”
“Noon, then.”
I proceeded into the breakfast room, a small chamber off the lobby with sunlight on yellow curtains. The tables had white cloths and plastic flowers. I was the only one there. Presently Mabel appeared for my order. She was a trifle disconcerted that I wanted coffee rather than tea and muttered as she left, something, I think, about foreign ways. She returned soon enough with an enormous breakfast which she carefully arranged before me, all good English fare. She inquired whether I’d had my telephone call, obviously curious. I nodded and asked for a newspaper. The coffee was hideous. When she returned with the paper I told her I’d changed my mind and would like some tea. She was quite happy about this. She’d brought me the local newspaper, an amateurish weekly consisting mainly of local advertisements. The front page was understandably filled with an account of the murder. It was complete but without the gory details that might have been stressed, proving there is something to be said for a village weekly which, surviving on subscription, does not rely on sensationalism.
Mabel returned with the tea, which was good; she asked if I required anything else, then went to open the bar. Several locals had already massed in the street without, patiently awaiting opening time. I glanced through the news, relieved to find no mention of who had sent the telegram—a strange guilt lingered there—and then, in a smaller article, saw that the first victim of this madman—for surely the killer was the same—had now been identified. The name was Amos Snow. He was a brain surgeon whose home and practice were in London, and it hadn’t yet been determined—at least to the knowledge of the newspaper—why he had been in the Farriers Bar area. This, the article disclosed, was being investigated.
A brain surgeon, I mused.
A doctor.
Inspector Peal had asked if Mallory were a doctor, and I pondered a possible connection. It seemed tenuous at best. I finished breakfast and went out.
With the better part of two hours to wait, and not wishing to remain in my room, I strolled down the high street. It was a sunny day and pleasant, with the light on red-tiled roofs and cobblestones. I walked the length of the village and, crossing the street, came back on the other side. At the corner I found Melville Coots looking glum. He was standing outside the tobacconist’s, staring at the door. The shutters were down. When I spoke, Coots blinked once and then grinned.
“Get fixed up at the Red Lion?” he asked.
“I did.”
“I just came in to get my ounce of tobacco.” He nodded at the door. “I reckon Brooke won’t be opening today, though, seeing as he’s had a tragedy.”
“I suppose not.”
“Can’t blame him for that. I sure could fancy a smoke, though. Seems like a tobacconist has got some obligations toward his customers.”
“I believe they sell tobacco at the Red Lion.”
“Um. Well, I’ve an account here with Brooke, you know. That Mrs. Sinclair is fussy about accounts. Sort of mean, you get my meaning.” He squinted at me. “Not supposed to allow credit in a pub, she says. Not that it’s the money, no sir, but I wouldn’t feel right giving my custom to someone else after dealing with Brooke all these years.”
“I know what you mean.”
“You wouldn’t have any spare tobacco on you?”
“I’ve left my pouch in my room, I’m afraid.”
Coots scowled at the locked door. I suppressed a smile. I still had time to kill, and this was an amusing old man. I said, “Actually, I was just going back to the Red Lion, so if you’d care to come along? As it happens, I was going to buy some tobacco. We might even have a pint, if you’ve nothing better to do?”
“Why, don’t mind if I do, sir. It’s a pleasure to talk with a gentleman what has a way with words.”
He winked at me, his face creasing like an old leather boot that has known the stirrups and polish and, though aged, was too comfortable to be discarded. Coots squinted as the sunlight struck his upturned face, and as surely as that light, a notion fell upon me. What, when all is said and done, is the body but a well-used patch of hide? Yet we use our boots and gloves far better than we use our skins. A man may pass his boots on to his son, but his body is consigned to the tomb. In our Christian world there is no respect for the leather envelope which seals our souls; we cast it into the earth to nourish worms, or into the furnace to feed the flames.
My own flesh crawled with premonition, my living fibers rebelled against predestined corruption. I grimaced. It would be far more proper to be devoured by filed-toothed cannibals; better the voracious shark than the sluggish worm, better still to be preserved for the aeons by the ancient Egyptian rites than to gratify the necrophagous scavengers of the grave. Coots said something. I saw his lips move but heard no sound. Another sound had filled my ears from within, the sodden soft sound of decay. Was this akin to the dead cries I had twice heard vibrating from barren stone? What turned my mind to timeless mummies in eternal crypts? Was it some adumbration of Mallory’s meaning that had registered unknown in my memory? Whatever, it was an eerie chill on a sunlit street, and I shook my head to drive away the fantasy. A body, after all, could not be passed on like a pair of gloves.
Coots spoke again.
This time I heard him clearly.
“Are you all right, sir?”
I nodded and smiled.
“Shall we be getting along, then?”
We walked off, Coots bouncing along beside me. There was little enough flesh on his aged bones. We crossed the street and turned into the Red Lion.
We took stools at the bar, and Mabel drew two pints. A youth in a leather jacket was playing the jukebox, but the decibel level was mercifully subdued. The two dart players from the night before, joined by another pair, were at it again, and several other customers lounged at tables. Sunlight streamed through the frosted windows, and the room presented a cheerful, sociable appearance. Thinking about the strange premonition that had come over me in the street, I felt rather silly. Coots sipped his beer and, with froth on his upper lip, drew out his blackened briar and placed it on the bar. The only tobacco for sale was a wretched navy cut, but I bought an ounce and offered it to my companion. He carefully broke the dry flat sheets and stuffed his pipe to the brim. I gave him a box of matches, and he struck one. It flared. Mabel leaned on the bar and drawled, “Do you reckon it’s true, what the inspector was saying last night?”
“What would that be?”
“About the madman attacking again?”
“It’s possible.”
Coots, still holding the flame to his pipe, raised his eyebrows. Smoke trailed past his jaw.
“Eh? Peal said that, did he?”
“He did. Right here at this bar he did,” Mabel added.
Coots turned to me with his brow still up.
“He said that, did he?”
Mabel glared at him.
“What I just told you.”
“Well,” I interposed, “he said it was possible.”
“Seems to me that would imply the work of a monster, right enough.”
“Ah, come off that monster stuff,” Mabel
told him. “Just ’cause you’ve had a bit of glory finding a dead man—”
“Not just any dead man. A proper victim.”
“Why do you suppose the inspector was asking all them questions about Mr. Mallory?” Mabel asked me.
“Oh, as he said. He’s inquiring about all the new residents. And, of course, both murders took place near The Croft, so I suppose he wondered if Mallory might not have heard or seen something. Nothing more than that, surely.”
Coots had his pipe burning well now, and the plumes of smoke spiraled upward. “The Croft, eh?” he retorted. “There’s plenty of woodland around there, that’s why. Monsters need a place to go to earth.”
“Will you give off that monster talk?” Mabel said sharply, and I suddenly realized she was not annoyed at something she considered nonsense; rather that she was, if not frightened, at least unnerved. Coots regarded her mildly. It was difficult to assess how serious he was. His eyes were bright, but his face inscrutable as he said, “Mind you, there’s something strange about that house, I’ll give you that. Always been an eerie old place. And since the new tenant moved in—” He turned toward me with the same bland expression while Mabel listened with her mouth agape. “I’ve had occasion, while on the course of my private affairs, to pass close by that house several times in the dead of night.” He winked. Whether this signal concerned the truth of his tale or the nature of his private affairs, I couldn’t say. “Always had lights burning there, no matter what the hour.”
Mabel was dissatisfied with this, for it was feeble gossip.
“What’s wrong with that?” she demanded. “Nothing strange about lights. It’s the dark you got to fear.”
“That’s as may be. There are those to whom the dark is a friend and a succor. But somehow it always gave me an odd feeling, seeing those windows lighted up in the middle of the night. It’s a big old house, you see, set back from the road, with trees around it. Looks strange enough in the daylight. But in the dark, with the whole building in shadows and those squares of bright light—well, it gives a man to wonder what they might be doing there.”
Mabel assumed a censorious expression.
“Ah, you’re always snooping around, Coots. Lighted windows, indeed. What’s that to do with you, eh? Sneak up and have a look in, did you?”
“I never! Me? I never looked in no windows, Mabel. I never even looked in your kitchen windows—”
Mabel appeared suspicious. Coots appeared innocent. “Still and all,” she continued finally, “it wouldn’t surprise me to hear they were carrying on to all hours out at that place. After the way he stole that nice Cunningham girl off with never a thought for her poor father or her reputation. It’s getting as bad as cities here, these days. Free love and what they call orgies and suchlike.”
“What would you know about orgies?” Coots asked.
“Well, I’m sure I never sneaked around looking in no windows to find out,” Mabel sniffed. She turned to me. “I meant nothing disrespectful about that Cunningham girl, you know. Whatever people like is fine with me. Other people, I mean. People are just different, that’s all.”
“That’s true enough,” Coots agreed. “You take this monster, now. He’s just got to be different from you or me. Simply has to be. You can’t tell me no different. ’Course, if he’s a proper monster, with fangs and bristling hair and yellow eyes, then it’s obvious.” He paused to stare at Mabel. She moved slightly away. “But just suppose he’s only a monster on the insides? How about that, eh? Suppose he looks just like anyone else on the outside, but he’s got a monster’s heart? What about a monster’s guts? Eh? Why, he’d fool you every time. You might even have served him a drink, for all you know. Lots of drinks. How would that make you feel, knowing your beer was being poured down into monster guts?”
“Leave off!” Mabel squeaked.
Coots shrugged. He turned toward me.
“I got to thinking about it after our converse last night, sir. I was keen on the monster theory, as you know, but then I got to wondering if it mightn’t be a foreigner?”
“How you figure that?” Mabel asked.
“Why, it’s plain as the nose on your face,” Coots told her. “Even if it is a monster, it could still be a foreigner. Pretty well have to be, come to that. The English don’t run much to monsters. But alien lands, disgorging their immigrants onto us—who knows? The Balkans and Africa and the like. What do we know about the way they are inside?”
“We do have a few foreigners around these days,” Mabel replied, obviously more comfortable with immigrants than monsters. “Some gypsies, too.”
“There you go.”
Coots puffed wisely at his pipe stem.
“I wonder if I should express this opinion to Inspector Peal?” he mused.
“I’m sure he’s considered it,” I said.
“Of course, it might be thought of as prejudice. Wouldn’t want to give that impression. More like postjudice, I reckon. But the more I think about it—yes, sir, I’ll just bet that’s what it is. Most likely one of them blackamoors, being as how they come from Africa. Lots of wild and savage beasts in Africa, you know. And monsters have got a lot of the wild beast in them. Have to have, acting the way they do.”
Mabel began to apprehend that she was having her leg pulled.
“Ah, black men are the same as white men,” she said.
Coots squinted.
“How you know that?” he asked.
“They just is, is all.”
“You never had nothing to do with no blackamoors, did you?”
She looked indignant.
“ ’Course not. I just heard tell.”
“What about Chinamen, then?”
“Chinamen!” she squawked.
Coots went to the toilet.
“Who does he think he is, coming that Chinamen stuff with me? Chinamen, indeed.”
I ordered two more pints. Coots returned. Mabel took a stand at the other end of the bar. I looked at my wristwatch. It was exactly noon, and through the door, gaunt in a long black robe, appeared Lucian Mallory. He smiled and conferred upon me a nod that he suffered to resemble a bow. He didn’t approach the bar but stood beside the door. I excused myself and walked over toward him. He was still smiling. Behind me I heard Mabel say, “See here, Coots, you old bugger, what’s all this about Chinamen then?” We proceeded out, and I didn’t hear his reply. I had left the tobacco on the bar.
“Well, Ashley,” said Lucian Mallory, as we stepped into the street. “It’s been a while, eh? What? Four, five years now?” He touched my arm lightly in a somewhat embarrassing gesture of familiarity. He was a towering figure, and I was obliged to peer upward into his cuneate face. The sun was very nearly overhead, and our shadows had become irregular pools flowing from our boots. His eye sockets were masked ovals.
“Four, I think.”
“Yes. Yes, four long years.”
“Long years, Mallory? I rather thought you considered time static?”
He looked surprised, then laughed.
“You astound me, Ashley. So you’ve remembered my theories, eh? I must have impressed you more than it seemed. No, that’s not right, rather you are a more intelligent fellow than I thought you in Egypt. But I know that now, of course. Had I realized your learning, I’d have been less—condescending?—in our discourse.”
I stared at him, flushing faintly. This was the man who had seduced John’s young daughter, who had the audacity to speak of condescension concerning his metaphysical and amateur concepts. I thought that I had been rather tolerant with him, actually, and started to reply sharply. Then I realized he had meant no insult. It was merely his manner. He was trying to be friendly; in his strange way he was asking forgiveness for underestimating me. A curious man, indeed. Keeping my voice level, I replied, “I’d not noticed your condescension, and if such were intended I’m afraid
it passed over me.”
He laughed again, a staccato bark.
“Ah well, it’s true that time is static. My theories haven’t changed. But we are not static, you know. We are forced by physical laws to move through constant time, and for us that motion can be long. Let us say, then, that four years is a long journey.”
“Agreed.”
“It was good of you to come.”
“Do I understand you’ve been in the West Indies all this while?”
“Two years. Haiti. A remarkable country.”
“Is that culture another of your interests?”
Mallory appeared puzzled, then smiled slightly. “It’s all the same interest,” he said. “My findings in Egypt sent me to Haiti. All things are connected, you know, and to understand one thing fully is to be led to another.”
“I should have thought the scope of modern knowledge precludes the Renaissance man?”
“Ah, quite the contrary. It’s all a muddle now, I admit, but when each branch of knowledge is extended to the limits I think you will find that they meet; that one master law will govern everything.”
“Quite possible. But surely that’s for the mathematicians to run through the labyrinth?”
“Ah, the hounds of cryptic numbers,” he replied. “Advancing the magic squares of the ancients. Mathematicians are fools, they’d rather divide than multiply and abstract rather than clarify and what do they know of common denominators? Ah well. Shall we go?”
I nodded. His Bentley was parked at the curb, and he guided me toward it with a hand on my shoulder. There was no chauffeur. I was rather surprised that Mallory should drive his own vehicle and asked, “Is Sam Cooper still with you?”
“Well, yes, he is,” he said distractedly. He opened the door for me, then closed it and crossed in front of the hood to slide in behind the wheel. It was a fine car, old and well cared for. As he put the keys in the ignition, I commented, “I rather liked Sam. Of course, I only met him the once—”
“I’m afraid you’ll find Sam changed.”
“Oh?”
“He met with an accident.”