Prince of Darkness, page 12
Ten minutes later she surveyed her handiwork critically, and nodded.
“I’ll ask Martin to have a look at it in the morning, but that should do. You’re looking a little green. Have you any other injuries?”
“No,” Peter said, trying to ignore the various areas which Timmy’s feet and fists had contacted.
“Do you need any help getting to bed?”
Peter looked at her. After a moment the corners of her mouth turned up, stiffly, as if not used to such exercise, and she said, “I’ll send Will up.”
“Never mind,” Peter said sadly. He wondered what she would look like if she really smiled. The sardonic grimace that passed for that expression wasn’t really a smile; it never reached her eyes.
“While I’m thinking about it…” Katharine reached for the telephone by the bed and dialed a number.
“Is Dr. Martin there yet?…Yes, please. I’ll wait…. Paul, it’s Kate. Everything all right?…Good. I want to ask you something. It occurred to me that Timmy might have been prepared for a masquerade. Could you check to see whether he had any sort of disguise, a wig or a mask, tucked away? One of those thin plastic masks would fit into a pocket….”
She listened, and her face changed. “Oh. I see…No, that’s all right. Good night, Paul.”
She hung up.
“They looked through his clothing when they undressed him. Paul says he plans to burn the foul stuff.”
“No mask?”
“No nothing. Good night, Mr. Stewart. Thank you.”
“You called me Peter before.”
“A momentary aberration.”
She went out, closing the door emphatically.
Richard is himself again, Peter thought. At least she had the grace to say thanks. Damn the woman, she had a brain like a razor. She wasn’t thanking him for the damage he had incurred on her behalf; that had been pure bad luck, and she gave it precisely the value it deserved. She was thanking him for helping to restore her slipping grasp on reality.
He slid between the sheets with a muffled groan. He was going to have a few sore spots tomorrow. Damn Timmy, too….
That same keen brain of Kate’s wouldn’t miss the other implications of this evening’s fascinating performance. It had worked out fine, just as well as anything he could have engineered. Give her another day or two, to relax—and to think. To realize that, by no stretch of the imagination, could the figure she had seen on the balcony have been that of Timmy. To wonder why anything so unconvincing as Timmy had been presented at all. To begin to imagine horrors all the worse for being unknown. One more day, then a quick, hard blow straight to the core of the problem. That ought to do it.
Chapter
7
“YOU LET HIM GO?” PETER REPEATED INCREDUlously. The news took his mind momentarily off his aches and pains; Martin was rebandaging his arm, and was being unexpectedly heavy-handed about it.
“What else could I do with him?”
“I can think of several things.”
“He isn’t aggressive,” Martin said. “He fought back when you attacked him, as any animal would.”
“Attacked him!”
“Oh, you had to, I’m not blaming you. But that’s all he is—an animal, barely functioning beyond instinctive behavior. What else could I do, Peter? The state institutions are overcrowded, and pretty horrible. Volz knows how to handle Timmy. I’ve told him about the knife, and he’s promised to keep a closer eye on the poor devil. Of course, if you insist on preferring charges…”
They were in Martin’s office. Peter had driven himself to town instead of waiting for the doctor to make a house call, so that he could pick up his belongings from the Inn. Kate had indeed been thinking. She had come in with Peter’s breakfast tray and asked him to stay on for a few days. She mentioned his desire to do some reading in Stephan’s library, but neither of them was fooled by that excuse. Timmy’s downfall had convinced her, if not of Peter’s bona fides, at least of his usefulness.
“Oh, the hell with it,” Peter said. “Why should I prefer charges?”
“That’s decent of you,” Martin said gratefully. “Wait a minute, you’d better have a sling for that arm, for a day or two anyway.”
Peter started to protest and then thought better of it. He had no objection to publicity, nor to appearing more helpless than he was. Beneath his satisfaction at the way things were working out, a small ugly doubt festered. Since he hadn’t engineered the Timmy episode—who had?
“I suppose Mrs. A. is keeping quiet this morning,” he said casually.
“I had a few words to say to her,” Martin admitted, with a faint smile. “Of course she denies putting Timmy up to it.”
“Who else could have done it?”
“The evidence certainly seems to point to her. Still…” The doctor stepped back to inspect his work, and nodded. “Still, I was frankly surprised. She’s a genuine fanatic; really believes in all that nonsense. I wouldn’t have thought she’d descend to trickery.”
“Isn’t that one of the odd vagaries these people have? I’ve heard of séance mediums caught in the most flagrant deceit, who stoutly maintained that the rest of the phenomena were genuine.”
“I know. As you say, it’s a psychological quirk and we just have to accept it. But I think I put the fear of God into Mrs. Adams. She won’t be trying anything else.”
Peter didn’t voice his skepticism. Mrs. Adams was a tough customer—too tough, he suspected, for the mild doctor. Still, Martin had a way with him and perhaps he could be forceful when he got angry enough.
As he went along the hall, trying to keep his coat from falling off the shoulder whose sleeve wasn’t occupied, a dim little figure darted out from under the stairs.
“Oh…Mrs. Martin.” Peter relaxed. “You startled me.”
“You ought to button that coat,” she said faintly, and did so. Then she looked up at him, her hands still on his coat front.
“Mr. Stewart,” she whispered, “how much longer are you staying in Middleburg?”
“I don’t know. I thought—”
“Sssh.” Her hands covered his mouth. “Please, not so loudly. You must go away. Go away now. And take her with you.”
“Who?” Peter obediently lowered his voice. “Tiphaine?”
“No, no. No. The other one. Today, go today. Next week will be—”
The office door opened and Mrs. Martin froze.
“Oh…my dear. I see you had the same thought I did,” Martin said affectionately. “Have you persuaded Mr. Stewart to stay for a cup of coffee?”
She shook her head mutely.
“Mrs. Martin was kind enough to come to my rescue,” Peter said. “I must have looked like a contortionist coming down the hall.”
“Oh, I see. Should have thought of it myself. How about that coffee, though?”
“I’d better not. Got a few errands to do. Will I see you later?”
“Tomorrow, if not this afternoon. I’ll be out.”
“Good. Thank you, Mrs. Martin.”
At the door he hesitated for a moment, looking back into the semidusk of the hall; but Mrs. Martin had already disappeared. Timmy wasn’t the only one who was a little off. But the cause of Mrs. Martin’s distress was only too obvious, and too normal. Martin had been spending a lot of time with a younger, richer, more attractive, woman. Even without the millions, Kate’s physical attraction was enough to—
Peter stopped himself right there, none too pleased at the direction his thoughts were taking.
It was almost the end of October, and if he stayed around much longer, he was going to start liking this part of the world. The sunlight was warm and seductive, with just enough snap in the air to be invigorating. A carpet of colored leaves covered streets and sidewalks and lawns, but many of the trees were still spectacular in gold and red.
As he strolled down the street, he passed children rolling in leaf piles, shrieking with pleasure. The busy rakers were almost all black, and as Peter walked on he noticed something. As soon as they saw him coming, they retreated. It wasn’t just his imagination. One man, who had worked his heap of fallen leaves almost up to the sidewalk, literally dropped his rake and fled.
On impulse he turned right, onto a side street, instead of continuing toward the shopping area. This was a block of smaller houses, and there were fewer hired workers. Peter went on at a deliberately leisurely pace, like a visitor admiring the well-tended gardens and neat lawns. Then it happened again. The yardman, a young fellow of about Jackson’s age, took his rake with him when he retreated, but the intent was the same.
Peter proceeded, frowning. Small incidents, both of them, but they were disturbing, because they recalled other incidents and impressions which he hadn’t wanted to contemplate. That first night in Middleburg, when he had thought of it as a cat-town, pretending to sleep, but watching through slitted eyes…maybe it hadn’t been just a neurotic fancy. Maybe his busy subconscious mind had been formulating data which he hadn’t consciously noticed.
When he roused himself from his musings, he realized that he was in a part of town which he hadn’t explored. He couldn’t be far from the center of town; it was ridiculous to get lost in a hick town the size of Middleburg. He turned right, went on a few steps—and found himself facing a big white house, built in the gingerbread style of the 1880’s. It looked like many of its neighbors, except for one thing—a sign which read “Middleburg Historical Association and City Museum.”
There must be someone in the museum who could give him directions. He turned up the walk.
On the front door another sign gave the hours: 9 to 5 weekdays, 1 to 5 Saturdays and Sundays. The door was unlocked. There was no one in sight when Peter stepped into the hall, which was furnished like that of an ordinary dwelling house except that the antique furniture bore neat labels, and the walls were covered with old prints and paintings.
A door on the right opened, just a crack, and a face peered out, a thin spectacled face crowned with an untidy coil of gray hair. Peter recognized the woman who had been introduced to him at the Folklore Society meeting. Miss…Device—that was it; he remembered the name because it had struck a familiar note, though he couldn’t remember offhand where he had heard it.
Either Miss Device needed a new pair of glasses, or she was preoccupied; it was several seconds before her thin lips cracked in a smile of welcome. She came out of the other room in sections, first an arm, then a leg modestly covered by heavy stockings and a skirt which reached three inches below her knee, then the rest of her body.
“Mr. Stewart, is it not? We’ve been hoping you’d pay us a visit.”
She looked as if she meant it; the greedy gleam in her gray eyes reminded Peter of other faces, those of guards and curators in various unpopular tourist attractions which he had had occasion to visit. The poor devils got bored, sitting around all day with no one to talk to, and when an unwary visitor did appear, they leaped on him like ghouls.
Peter sighed, but not audibly. It would be gauche and unkind to tell the woman that he had only been looking for directions. It would also be useless. He wasn’t going to get out of here without the full tour.
First he heard the interminable, dull life history of every town worthy whose portrait adorned the walls of the entrance hall. The contents of the next room were no more enthralling. The objects lovingly preserved in glass cases were just as boring as the ones he had viewed in little local museums abroad: old letters, receipts for tallow and wool and tobacco, corroded tools, patched coarse pottery.
Without Miss Device, he would have passed straight through the next room. But this exhibit, which filled half a dozen case, was clearly her pride and joy, and a blush colored her thin cheeks as she admitted that she had done the work with her own hands.
“It took me over ten years,” she said.
Peter murmured something appreciative, and gave the contents of the nearest case a closer look.
They were clever, if you cared for that sort of thing: dolls, dozens of dolls, dressed with meticulous attention to detail in the costumes of the various historical eras since the founding of the town. Bearded courtiers of the time of James I, in cloaks and ruffs; little-girl dolls in homespun gowns and caps; a court lady dressed in satin, with a diminutive lace collar and curled ringlets. Intrigued, Peter bent over the case. The lady’s curls looked like real hair, and the face, modeled out of clay or—no, something finer—wax, perhaps, was so individualistic as to suggest an attempt at portraiture.
He turned to the next case, which contained costumes of the eighteenth century—workmen in leather aprons, ladies in towering powdered wigs, gentlemen in embroidered waistcoats. These were no ready-made dolls, dressed by a clever seamstress; the figures themselves had been individually modeled and painted.
The exhibit was an impressive piece of work, and Peter said so; this time, for a change, his good manners paid an unexpected dividend. Miss Device became so flustered that she excused herself and left him alone.
Peter glanced again at the dolls. His unexpressed opinion would not have pleased Miss Device; he was brooding on the sterility of ten years spent on such a hobby. The ancient and no doubt honorable line of the Device family was ending with the conventional whimper. Once again the name struck that odd note of familiarity, but try as he might he couldn’t place it.
He had had enough of dolls and shy spinsters, and just about enough of the prim little museum. He might as well go on through the other rooms—at a fast walk—and try to sneak out without Miss Device’s seeing him.
But the next room was something of a surprise. The contents were familiar enough, but they seemed out of place in this tidy Victorian house. Not so incongruous to the room was the figure which stood, hands clasped behind its back, staring at a particularly elegant example of a pillory.
“Hello, General,” Peter said. “I didn’t know you liked museums.”
Volz turned.
“So you’re up and about, are you? What’s the idea of damaging a perfectly good stablehand?”
He snorted. Evidently this was supposed to be a joke.
“You people amaze me,” Peter said. “Back in the old country we have our share of village idiots, but we don’t accept their iniquities quite so casually.”
“Like hell you don’t. Old Sam, who beats his wife to a pulp whenever he gets drunk; little Mamie, who sets fire to things…You just don’t expect to find the same tolerance here. Damned British arrogance,” he added, and went off into a paroxysm of grating laughter.
Feeling himself at a slight disadvantage—the old so-and-so definitely had a point—Peter joined him as he turned his fascinated gaze back toward the infernal device before him. The wood had weathered over the years, but was still intact. Rusty chains dangled from the cross bars, and the holes were suggestive, even now.
Flanking the pillory were the stocks, with holes for hands and feet instead of for the head, and an object which Peter was slower to recognize. Somehow—damned British arrogance?—he hadn’t expected to find one here. Pillory and stocks were common punishment in the Colonial period, but a ducking stool? Then he remembered that it had been used to rehabilitate shrews and nags as well as to test witches; for some reason the recollection made him feel better.
“Where’s the Iron Maiden?” he asked facetiously; and was decidedly taken aback when Volz bobbed his head at the other corner.
Peter turned. They were all there, the objects he had seen in the musty dungeons of Nuremberg and the Tower of London—the rack, the boot, thumbscrews. They looked even worse set against the clean-painted walls of this sunny room than they had in the stone-walled grimness of the fortresses.
Volz watched his face with ugly amusement.
“Why so surprised? This stuff goes back to the seventeenth century. That’s when the colony was founded. The boys brought along some little bits of home, that’s all.”
“But I thought the colony was founded on the basis of religious freedom.”
“Too much freedom,” said Volz, not so cryptically. “I can see you don’t know much history, Stewart. Thinking in terms of the Inquisition? All this stuff was part of the normal interrogation process, for criminals of various kinds. Heresy and witchcraft were crimes, sure; but we had our share of that here too, you know. Remember Salem?”
“Certainly. But I thought it was an isolated instance. The last flowering of a vicious belief.”
“No, no. Just the most publicized. Look here.”
He indicated a glass case in the center of the room. At first glance its contents were a refreshing change from the rusty horrors which filled the rest of the room. They were, for the most part, old books and documents. Peter’s attention was caught by the central exhibit, a badly executed but evocative drawing of a woman’s face. The features were uncannily familiar, from the pale thin mouth to the untidy gray hair; but the style of the drawing dated its subject to a far earlier century than the one Miss Device now graced. Yet the contrast jogged that one hitherto elusive memory. Peter didn’t need the identifying label to recall the affair, with all its ugly details.
“Elizabeth Device,” he muttered. “Good God, of course! The Lancashire Witches. Sixteen…thirty-something? Old Demdike, the head witch of the coven, her real name was Device. The whole damned family were witches. Oh, no. Don’t tell me—”
“Oh, yes.” Volz gave a hoarse shout of laughter, and one of the vile gadgets caught the vibration and whispered rustily. “Our little lady is the last descendant of one of the most notorious families in the history of witchcraft. Funniest thing I ever heard of. Especially when…” He added a description of Miss Device which, while probably accurate, was unquestionably defamatory. Peter grinned unwillingly. Volz had a mind like a sewer, but he also had a gift for pungent description.
“I didn’t know any of the family emigrated,” he said, turning back to the glass case.
“It wasn’t publicized,” Volz said dryly. “The boys—two brothers they were—denied the family. But they made the mistake of bringing along a gossipy aunt—that one—and it wasn’t long before the town found out. Those”—his nod indicated the moldering documents in the case— “those are the records of the trial.”
