Dark of the moon - Dr. Gideon Fell 22 (11 page)

"Good heavens, no! How could I have? My room's at the front, practically over the front door. Anyway, if I'd seen something
at
the house or anywhere near it, I think I'd have had a fit. This may not have had anything at all to do with us. But I couldn't help wondering . .

"Suppose you start at the beginning. What did you see? When and where did you see it?"

"We were rather late getting to bed last night, you remember. With—with Daddy keeping us in our places, there was no talk of ghosts or anything to get nervous about. But you told that story about the young girl from Jersey City . . ."

"Is this another limerick?" demanded Camilla.

"No, dear, no;
you
remember. The girl from Jersey City! Before they put her in jail she had thirty-four husbands in three years, or practically one a month. Mr. Crandall was just beginning to speculate about what methods she used
..."

"Anybody knows what methods she used," said Mr. Crandall. "Remind me to tell
that
one to Valerie Huret!"

"Valerie'll be awfully pleased, I'm sure. Anyway! You were just wondering how she could keep one husband from meeting another—Camilla wanted to hear and I know I did—when Daddy shut you up. But it took a long time, didn't it? It must have been half-past twelve or later when we all went upstairs."

"All right. Take it from there."

Madge stood with her hand on the back of the early Victorian sofa. Her gaze roved round the library, as though seeking somebody who wasn't there.

"It must have been half-past one," she went on. "I'd taken my sleeping-pill some time before, but it hadn't worked yet. I was standing at the window and looking out: first at the front gates, and then down at the beach on the left.—Alan," she broke off suddenly to ask, "what's a gibbous moon?"

"A what?"

"In stories," said Madge, "the moon is always gibbous. To me it conveys something scary, like 'ghostly' or 'gibber.' But I've never looked it up. And is it ghibbous or jibbous?"

"Jibbous, Madge. Soft g, usually, before e and i. There's no suggestion of the supernatural. The word means convex: bigger than the semicircle, but not the full-moon circle complete."

"Well, this moon was smaller than that. Much past the full and waning, and yet with light enough to see by.

"I'm not sure when I first saw him. And don't ask me what he looked like; I was too far away to tell. It was just a man walking along the beach below the terrace, walking from west to east. He was looking out towards the harbor, with his head turned, and carrying something like a sack over his right shoulder.

"For a second or two it gave me quite a jump. But he was too far away to
hurt
me, I thought. Then I thought it was probably some stranger who had no connection with us—just there by accident" "What did you do?"

"What
could
I do? I wasn't going to yell and alarm the house; it didn't scare me enough for that. And I hate being turfed out when
I've
gone to bed, which is why I was cross with poor Camilla last Friday. I closed the curtains on both windows, with the air-conditioner going full blast. I jumped into bed, and I must have been asleep in two minutes. When I opened my eyes again it was nine o'clock in the morning, with bright sunlight to make everything normal

"I wasn't going to tell anybody about this; I haven't mentioned it until now. Then I began thinking. We said Camilla was seeing things, when she'd taken much lighter sleeping-stuff and hadn't drunk much either. Was what I saw only a coincidence too? Couldn't the man on the beach have been a part of something much scarier?"

"Frankly, the court rules against." Bob Crandall lifted an orator's forefinger. "Just for the hell of it, my wench, I'd almost welcome sinister doings and bodies falling out of walls, like the plays I enjoyed so much as a boy in the nineteen-twenties. But I didn't believe 'em then; I don't believe this now. It's all bunk, Madge! Let's talk about the young lady from Jersey City, shall we?"

"I'm
willing," said Madge.

"I'm not," said Camilla, "though at any other time I'd be glad to. Whether you believe it or not, Mr. Crandall, there's a perfectly
horrible
situation working up. What if something else happens?"

"Forget it, Camilla! And I'm afraid, Madge, you've missed the whole point about Jersey City's pride and joy. I was just going on to explain this point when Hank shut me up.

"In evaluating her case," proclaimed Bob Crandall, as though writing an editorial, "we must remember three facts: that it happened ten years ago, in 1955; that she was only twenty-two when she landed in the sneezer; and that in most states the maximum sentence for bigamy is seven years.

"She
probably got time off for good behavior; she'd have had few opportunities for her favorite sport in a women's prison. But even if the judge threw the book at her, even if she didn't get one day off her sentence, she'd have been released no later than 1962—still under thirty, ready for more and raring to go.

"What's happened to her since then, Madge? Where is she now, and how many husbands has she accumulated? That's the whole point, my girl; I could have dwelt on it with wit and eloquence. But Hank's suspicious of every word I utter; and, as you say, the son-of-a-bitch shut me up."

"Who's a son-of-a-bitch, Bob?"
demanded a loud voice. They all turned.

Into the library—into it, at least, as far as the little wooden platform with the steps leading down—had marched two young men of about the same age, height, and weight. Both wore slacks and open-neck sports shirts. There all similarity ended.

The first newcomer, though not ill-looking, had a jaw so large that the rest of his features seemed small and squeezed-up. He was not a bad sort, Alan thought, though he might do his best to seem the opposite. His right hand juggled a regulation baseball, throwing it up and catching it. From his left wrist by their straps hung a fielder's glove, a catcher's mitt, and a catcher's mask. The dark-haired young man behind him carried a bat.

With clacking footfalls the first newcomer descended and strode towards them, shoulders at a challenging angle.

"Old Bob Crandall, the People's Oracle!" he said. "Old Bob Crandall, the Watchman of Goliath! Who's a son-of-a-bitch, Bob?"

"You are, Rip; didn't you know it? Rip Hillboro, meet Alan Grantham."

"Grantham? Grantham? Hi, Grantham! You must be the right-wing diehard Camilla's been telling us about, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Then you'll get along just dandy with Bob. Youll get along still better with Stonewall Jackson here." Rip jerked a thumb towards his loose-limbed companion, who had followed. "He's been wanting to call
me
a son-of-abitch for almost two weeks. Come on, Stonewall; let's be natural for once. Why not call me a son-of-a-bitch and get it off your chest?"

"I haven't called you anything yet, son, though I may be workin' around to it."

"And do you take my bet, Stonewall? (Alan Grantham, Yancey Beale.) Five gets you ten I can strike you out with—no, not three pitches, but before the umpire can call a fourth ball. I'm not Sandy Koufax, maybe. But I'm good; I know I'm good, so why deny it?"

"You'll never deny it, son," said Yancey Beale, "as long as there's a horn to be tooted. Forget the five-ten; I'll take it for twenty at even money. Mr. Grantham, I'm at your service. Madge honey, how are you?"

"Look!" exclaimed Rip, working himself up. "Somebody's been acting suspiciously, and somebody's a son-of-a-bitch. That's what Bob said, and I want to know—"

"Oh, Rip!" Madge burst out. "Must you use such
language?
It's all right for Mr. Crandall; he's a privileged character. But it doesn't come so well from a young lawyer with his whole career ahead of him." She broke off. "And
you,
Yancey!"

"What's that, honeychile?"

"I'm not made of stained glass, you know! But it seems every man in the South just looks down at me and tells me not to trouble my pretty little haid."

"Have you met every man in the South, honey?"

Again Rip yelled for silence.

"Look!" he repeated. "We've got ourselves a bet here, with Stonewall Jackson taking me on for twenty bucks. The trouble is, there's no catcher. What about it, Bob? You're in pretty fair physical shape, we've got to admit . . ."

"That's been demonstrated, hasn't it?" Mr. Crandall was definite. "On Tuesday afternoon, when you and Beale were both trying to i
mpress your little blonde by ar
guing which of you could climb the side of the house by holding to projections in the brickwork . . ."

"I know!" snapped Rip. "You showed us; you just walked out and
climbed
the damn house without saying another word. All right; you can catch for us, can't you? Why not get behind the plate and stop 'em?"

"No, thanks, Bull of Bashan. Having demonstrated my fitness by one fool stunt already, I'll leave baseball to those of fewer years and less dignity. But don't count me out either. If you can find a catcher anywhere, I'll be glad to get behind the plate as umpire."

"And I," said Alan, "will do the catching with pleasure."

"You!" cried Camilla. "I never knew you concerned yourself with baseball, Alan. At Oxford I thought you played cricket."

"It was Cambridge, Camilla, and I did have a try at cricket. But my first and only sports-love has always been baseball. I was no great shakes as a catcher, admittedly. And yet how I enjoyed it!"

"Is that so, now?" Bob Crandall asked with interest. "As one who's tried both, where do you stand in the vexed argument of baseball versus cricket?"

"There's no real argument at all. I maintain, rightly or wrongly, that each side would fail at the other's game because each side would have to unlearn its own basic principles. The first rule in baseball is to let the bad ones go by; in cricket it's to let nothing go by. The baseball player on a cricket-pitch would be bowled in about two minutes. The cricketer who says hitting a baseball's as simple as hitting a full-toss would be fanned by any pitcher with a fast one and a good curve."

"Look!" Rip shouted. "Can't you people stick to one subject, any subject at all, for two consecutive minutes? About this question of somebody acting suspiciously, / was going to say a word. But I won't; it can wait; we've got other business. If you'll do the catching, Grantham, that's swell and thanks a lot. I've got a glove and a mask here, as you see, and there's another mask in the cellar for the umpire. But there's no chest-protector or leg-guards."

"I don't want any of that apparatus, thanks. Just a mask to keep off foul tips. If the umpire wants a mask . . ."

"Not
this
umpire, old socks," said Mr. Crandall. "Any foul tip will flatten the catcher before it bothers me. All right! If everybody's ready, what are we waiting for?"

With powerful gallantry Yancey addressed Madge and Camilla.

"You ladies like to go along, maybe? Or would you rather—?"

"Sit here and tend to our knitting?" flashed Madge. "There you go again, Yancey, treating us like figures in a stained-glass window! Well go with you, of course. Where do you mean to try all this?"

"The drive in front of the house," Rip answered before Yancey could speak, "will do well enough. I get it, Madge! You want to see me fan Stonewall and win his twenty bucks.
I've
got a fast one he won't like. But the Oracle of Goliath is absolutely right: what are we waiting for?"

And he strode out, with the other five trooping after him. From a table in the hall Yancey caught up a silver tray to serve as home plate. They emerged under the portico with the four tall pillars, and down the front steps into cool light.

The sanded walk or drive was still soaked from the rain, but it offered firm enough footing. Alan's car stood well to the left where he had parked it, its top now closed. The front garden on the right glowed red and purple with azaleas. Bob Crandall took a refreshed survey of their surroundings.

"You're all crazy, and I'm as bad as anybody," he said, "though you might be a good deal crazier still. At least you had sense enough not to try roping Hank into this. He's a fisherman, I know. But asking Hank Maynard to play baseball would be like asking Robert Browning to compose limericks for an Elks social. Just thank your stars he's otherwise occupied!"

"Will he stay occupied, I wonder?" asked Camilla. Her voice rose. "Yancey, where are you putting home plate?"

With the others trailing, Yancey had shambled away almost fifty yards towards the front gates. He stopped at a point just before magnolias rose at either side of the path. He put down the silver tray on the sand and stood to the right of it, slowly swinging his bat.