by David Case
I looked at him, waiting. My host was fingering the keys but hadn’t turned them; he seemed to be meditating, and then said, “There was some brain damage. Rather serious.”
I felt a chill, a solid clunk of circumstances. Amos Snow, brain surgeon. “Of course,” I said, “you’ve had him looked at by doctors?”
“Of course. It’s hopeless, however. He’s become quite incapable of caring for himself.”
“I see. Well, it’s good of you to keep him on under such circumstances,” I replied, considering it not in character for Mallory to concern himself over a servant’s misfortune. He shrugged and turned the key. The motor started smoothly. Thinking of Arabella, I added, “I suppose you have to have a nurse for him?”
“Not really,” he said, and then as if to change the subject, muttered apologetically, “But this was unfortunate about your telegram, Ashley. A mix-up, you said?”
“You’ve not heard about the murder?”
He began to engage the lever solidly into gear.
“What? Oh, this Amos Snow affair. Yes, but—”
“No, the second murder.”
He stiffened. He had already pressed the accelerator, and now his foot pushed on the clutch so that the motor whined in neutral and the car remained stationary. His head swiveled around toward me like an automaton. “What did you say? What murder?”
“I’m afraid so. The same madman, apparently. He killed the lad who was delivering my telegram. Yesterday, sometime.”
“I see.”
He looked away and sat silently for a moment, affected far more profoundly than I’d have thought.
“Yes, it was rather gruesome,” I said, to break the silence. He nodded absently. Then, abruptly he blurted, “But see here, Ashley. I’ve made rather a mistake. I shan’t be able to put you up tonight.”
It required a moment for this to sink in. I stared dumbly at his profile. His lips were drawn back, and his teeth showed in ivory blocks.
“Silly of me, eh?” he said. “I suppose I was excited at the prospect of having the translations made. Truth is, there’s no room at the house. I’m terribly sorry.”
I was dumbfounded, then I was angry. My face had become suffused with a crimson commingling of embarrassment and indignation.
“Oh? I’d understood it was a large house?”
“Well, yes, you know, but I’ve closed off all the extra rooms. With only Sam and me—”
“And Miss Cunningham,” I added coldly.
Mallory frowned. His lips closed slowly.
“You’re well informed,” he said.
“It’s a small village.”
“Am I such an interesting topic in this wretched place, then?”
“I know her father.”
“I see. Yes. I’m afraid he doesn’t approve. Well, that’s nothing to me.” He turned toward me again. “There’s nothing between us, Ashley. Nothing that these local buffoons would imagine. Arabella helps me care for Sam.”
“If that is true, Mallory, it would greatly ease her father’s mind if he were so told.”
“What do I care for her father’s mind?” he snapped. “As I said, it’s nothing to me. Let him think as he will, I have more important concerns than soothing the outraged morality of some fool—”
“Mallory, he is my friend.”
“Ah, quite. Forgive me. Tell him, if you like. It’s the absolute truth, for that matter.”
I nodded. I almost believed him, although a sudden taunting image of his belly dancer pirouetted provocatively through my thoughts. “Well, if it’s not convenient, then,” I sighed, and placed my hand on the door handle.
“Wait. I’ve been offensive. I can put you up, certainly, but I’ll have to open another room. Suppose I arrange it and pick you up tomorrow?”
“As you like. I don’t mind opening a room for myself.”
“Oh, that would never do,” he said, in his curious way of being civil. “Only the delay—can you translate from a photographic copy?”
I shrugged.
“If it’s a good one. The content, you understand. Not the period or the age. The stylus marks wouldn’t mean much in a two-dimensional copy.”
“Yes, yes. The content.” He deliberated for a moment, biting his lip. “Let me suggest, then, that I run out to the house and fetch a copy of one of the tablets. You can begin working on it here at the Red Lion while I’m arranging your accommodations. Will that suit you?”
I turned up a palm. Tempted to refuse and to depart on the next train, I nevertheless was more greatly tempted by the prospect of examining Mallory’s findings—perhaps, to my discredit, I was tempted most of all by the possibility of determining that his discoveries were of little value and the satisfaction it should give me duly to inform him. I could imagine, pleasurably, his reaction.
“That will be satisfactory,” I said.
“I’ll return in an hour, then.”
I nodded and opened the door. The engine was still turning over smoothly like a stalking beast faintly trembling as its prey crouched at the curb. As I got out Mallory leaned across the front seat.
“I hope you’ll not think too badly of me for my thoughtlessness,” he said. He seemed genuinely concerned. “I have a great deal on my mind. Things far more important than graciousness. I’m sure you’ll understand, Ashley.”
“Of course,” I said.
He nodded, and I closed the door. He drove off immediately and hurriedly, without looking back. I watched the big car lurch as it careened around the corner. A strange, strange man. I walked back to the Red Lion.
John Cunningham had come into the bar while I had been with Mallory. Red-eyed and pale, he was seated at a table by the frosted window. There was a glass of brandy in front of him, and he brooded with his hands flat on the table, one on either side of his drink. Bars of sunlight passed over his forearms and, striking the brandy glass, refracted as though from a prism. He had shaved, but not well, as if he’d made the effort but had given up halfway through. I wondered how late into the night he’d continued drinking, keeping Mrs. Sinclair in the bar or perhaps taking a bottle to his room. When I went over to his table he peered up from the tops of his eyes. He nodded, and I sat directly across the small circular table.
“Thought you’d gone out to Mallory’s?” he said.
“Evidently he wasn’t prepared for a houseguest.”
“That so?”
“John—” I sought words, “I mentioned Arabella. Mallory assures me there’s nothing between them; that she’s merely working for him.”
A glimmer appeared in his red-veined eyes, a brief sharp flicker like flint struck on hope. Then he grunted.
“You’d believe that swine?”
“I’ve no reason not to.”
“Arabella told me the same thing,” he muttered thoughtfully. He raised his glass and turned it about, transforming the light patterns on the table. The sunlight fanned and faded, then again coalesced into a bar, bright and solid. “When I went out to The Croft, she seemed almost surprised that I’d suppose they were—what?—lovers?”
“Well, then? You may well doubt Mallory’s word, but why disbelieve Arabella?”
“Because she didn’t seem much interested in making her point. She just brushed it aside, treated my concern en passant, as it were. Surely, if she really was merely working for him, she’d have taken the trouble to convince me?”
His misgivings were eminently understandable, of course, but I demurred, “She’s a woman now, John. Perhaps she feels you no longer have influence on her morality. Perhaps, even, her present condition seemed so patently obvious that it never occurred to her you’d doubt her statement.”
He considered this.
“Yes, I can see that with Arabella. But why, Ashley? If it’s just a question of employment? Why in heaven’s name would she take a job wit
h Mallory? She certainly didn’t lack for money. She wouldn’t have left home for that reason. What on earth could she do? She’s no maid, Ashley, no housekeeper, what possible duties could she have?”
“People grow up, John. Maybe she just felt it was time to strike out on her own?”
“Maybe,” he said doubtfully. “It was my fault. I can understand that. She grew up faster than I realized. I still considered her a child, and she was a woman. She must have been miserable, living with me. Perhaps she saw herself growing into a spinster, eh? Spending her life caring for a helpless, aging father? Then that scoundrel, with his glib tongue—” He grimaced. “Should that make me feel better, Ashley? To imagine that she wasn’t going to him but going away from me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Um. She may well have been concerned about growing old, you know. Sometimes the young are. Her mother died so young. And she had no companions her own age at the house.”
“But Mallory is as old as you, John.”
“Not her father, however. And with his talk of immortality and eternal youth—”
“What?”
He regarded me with mild surprise.
“Don’t tell me the good Mrs. Sinclair hasn’t filled you in on the gossip?”
“She mentioned some difficulty at the vicar’s.”
“Yes. She would. I wasn’t there, of course, but I asked Grimm about it afterward. Mallory had some half-baked ideas about living forever, or not growing old, something like that. Wild enough to give Grimm apoplexy. Not that I think Mallory was serious, you know; probably just having a jest at the vicar’s expense, or else, as he did, trying to impress the ladies. Heresy, Grimm called it.” John smiled sadly. “Why eternal life should be heresy when an afterlife is divine eludes me. But then, I’m no theologian.”
He downed his brandy.
I went to the bar and asked for a pint. Coots was still seated there and proffered me a grizzled grin. The tobacco package was no longer on the bar. The youth had abandoned the jukebox to bubbling silence. I asked Mabel to give Coots another beer, and John called, “Get me a brandy, would you, Ashley?” As I glanced at him, he was staring down at his hands, and I couldn’t refuse the request. Mabel sighed and registered an unspoken reproach, then shrugged and poured the brandy. I carried the drinks back to our table, from which vantage point I could monitor the street. We sat without speaking for a while, and John drank with short, steady sips while his eyes grew ever narrower, too narrow for his broad face. I told him I’d be going out to The Croft on the morrow and that I’d find a chance to talk with Arabella.
“Mallory might well have been truthful,” I added.
John nodded. Whatever hope he fostered was forlorn to his mind. After a time he rose and went to the bar. He walked steadily, so steadily that I could tell he was expending great effort. Mabel refilled his glass without protest. There was no objection she could make, nor I. How does one offer unwanted advice to a friend? How does one know what dark dragons have slunk slavering into another man’s mind? I never had a daughter.
I heard an automobile turn at the corner and, thinking it inadvisable for John to encounter Mallory, excused myself and retired from the bar. John seemed unaware of my departure. I went out to the street. Mallory was driving, and someone sat beside him. I raised a hand, but Mallory was peering intently ahead with his predator’s vision and failed to notice me on the sidewalk. He didn’t stop at the curb this time, but turned in under the archway. I observed that his companion was Sam Cooper. Like Mallory, Sam was looking straight ahead, sitting very stiff and still. He too failed to see me. I walked down the arch after the car. This time the old stones echoed only the exhaust.
Mallory swung the vehicle around in the courtyard and quickly got out. He advanced to meet me with a large manila envelope in his hand.
“Here we are,” he said. “I brought only one copy. Not the most vital, but it should enable you to determine if you can make these translations.”
I accepted the envelope. Mallory waited for me to open it. I nodded at the car.
“Isn’t that Sam?”
“Yes.”
“May I speak to him?”
“There’s little point. He won’t recognize you.”
“I’d like to see.”
Mallory gave an exasperated shrug, and I walked over to the side of the car. Sam didn’t turn. He stared out the windshield. He was heavily bundled and wore gloves, although the day was warm.
“Sam? Remember me?”
No response.
“Thomas Ashley. We met in Egypt.”
He completely ignored me.
I leaned down to intercept his vision. His countenance afforded me a shock. He seemed blind; his eyes were wide open but appeared to have no focal point. His mouth hung agape, and a thin trickle of spittle ran down from each corner, dissecting his jaw from lips to chin. He looked like a hinged puppet awaiting the ventriloquist’s voice.
I winced, recalling the lively fellow chatting under the desert cliff, his quote from Churchill, his respect for Mallory. I took out my handkerchief and wiped his chin. Nothing happened. Mallory’s shadow curved up the side of the car as he approached behind me.
“As I told you, it’s quite hopeless.”
“This is terrible.”
“Yes, terrible.”
“What sort of accident was it?”
“He struck his head.”
I stared at Mallory. “That’s all? It must have been a tremendous blow.”
“Yes. He tripped and fell down a flight of stairs.”
“Where did this happen? When?”
“Here. At The Croft. Oh, I forget, some months ago. What does it matter, it’s done.”
“I’m concerned, naturally.”
“There’s nothing to be done.”
“It’s permanent?”
“Oh, yes. Quite.”
There seemed some hidden meaning in the simple words.
“You said he’d been examined by doctors?”
“Of course.”
“An expert?” I asked, and although I hadn’t intended it, the question may have sounded loaded. Mallory regarded me for what seemed an extended interval, then his eyes flicked away in their shadowed sockets. “Yes,” he said, “one of the best. In point of fact, although it’s none of your concern, it was this brain surgeon from London.”
This information didn’t immediately register.
“Snow,” he added. “The murder victim.”
“What! Is that what he was doing down here?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve informed the authorities, of course?”
He smiled.
“Ah, the authorities, those sterling fellows who confuse descriptive law with statute and mistake eternal truths for traffic violations. The authorities, of course, had already ascertained why Snow was here. I verified it, yes. It seems it was just after he’d left my house that he met with this madman. I almost said, ‘with his fate.’ Strange how the platitudes persist, eh? But it was a sorry thing. He was a competent man.” He paused, then seemed to feel the need to add, “If only he’d allowed me to drive him to the station, he would have lived. But it was a fine day, and he decided to walk. Still, I suppose, with a madman—if it hadn’t been Snow, it would have been someone else.”
I glanced back at Sam. His face was still distorted, and a renewed supply of saliva had begun sliding down from the corners of his mouth. His nostrils were flared and seemed unaffected by his breathing, which was so quiet as to be imperceptible.
“Aren’t you going to look at the photocopy?”
I nodded and opened the envelope. The text was large and clear. I ran my eyes over the runic symbols, and Mallory watched with great interest.
“Yes, I can manage this.”
He took a deep breath, relieved
.
“This isn’t a copy of the most valuable writings, you understand,” he iterated.
“I wondered why you trusted me with a copy,” I retorted, not without sarcasm.
“I’d attempted a translation myself, but the symbols seem to vary from—”
I gestured, implying the point was insignificant.
“Well then, until tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“You might ring me when you’ve finished.”
“I’ll do that.”
He hesitated.
“And, Ashley—you’ll keep the translation confidential, won’t you?”
“Confidential? Surely something like this? The object is valuable, granted, but a photographic copy—what need is there for secrecy?”
“Please believe me.”
“Well, I have no reason not to keep it confidential,” I told him. “Or did you suppose I would tell Mrs. Sinclair all about it? Let her reveal the mysteries of ancient Egypt to the village?”
He smiled. I wondered if he wished to reserve the glory of his findings for himself, or if perhaps the papyruses and tablets had been illegally exported from Egypt; even if, however unlikely, they might have been stolen from some museum. But these speculations were of little concern to me.
“Yes, I’ll ring you,” I said.
He walked around and entered the car. When he started the engine, Sam jerked as if the vibrations had reverberated up his backbone; as if he were a component of the machine, susceptible to external impulse but a void within his mind. I shook my head, deeply regretting his hopeless condition. Mallory put the car in gear, and I stepped back. He let in the clutch, and the Bentley rolled toward the arch. At that very moment, John Cunningham stepped out from the side door of the Red Lion.
5
With preternatural acuity, I saw those snorting black horses, the betrayed husband’s wild eyes and bared teeth as he lashed them on under the arch, then heard the startled cry of his wife and her lover as they succumbed to the churning coach. I cried out. In that instant I was absolutely certain that the past was to be reenacted; that John would die under those tires as had the illicit lovers under the wheels. Then Mallory slammed on the brakes. The car halted, shuddering, squatting low on the back springs. The radiator stopped scant inches from my friend.