Charnel House (8 page)

Almost furtively, Wallis turned his eyes toward the dark and empty fireplace. “I don't understand,” he said hoarsely. “What are you trying to say?”

Dr. Jarvis stood up. There was nothing more he could do for Bryan now, except try to discover what had killed him. He said seriously, “Either he got his head caught in some kind of freak accident, Mr. Wallis, or else there's a creature up there, or a man, who tore the flesh off Bryan Corder's head in some sort of psychopathic attack.”

“Up the chimney? Up the chimney of my house?”

“I'm afraid it looks that way.”

“But this is insane! What the hell lives up a chimney, and tears people apart like that?”

Dr. Jarvis glanced down at Bryan's body, then back at Seymour Wallis. “That, Mr. Wallis, is exactly what we have to find out.”

Wallis thought about this for a while, then he rubbed his face in his hands. “It makes no sense, any of this. First breathing and now this. You realize I'll have to sell this place.”

“You shouldn't lose your money,” I said, trying to be helpful. “These old mansions are pretty much top-of-the-market these days.”

He shook his head tiredly. “It's not the money I'm worried about. I just want someplace to live where things like this don't happen. I want some peace, for Christ's sake. That poor man.”

“Well, as long as the ghost doesn't follow you, I guess that moving away might turn out to be the best solution,” I told him.

Wallis stared at me in shock and annoyance. “It's up the damned chimney!” he snapped. “It just killed your colleague, and you're trying to talk about it like it isn't even important. It's up there, and it's hiding, and who are you to say that it won't come out at night and strangle me when I'm lying in bed?”

“Mr. Wallis,” I said, “I'm not Rod Serling.”

“I suppose you called the police,” retorted Mr. Wallis, without even looking at me.

Dr. Jarvis nodded. “They should be here soon.”

At that moment, Jane came back upstairs and said, “Two or three minutes. They had a car in the neighborhood. I called the hospital, too, and they're sending an ambulance right down.”

“Thanks, Jane,” I told her.

“I have a gun, you know,” Wallis said. “It's only my old wartime Colt. We could fire it up the chimney, and then whatever it was wouldn't stand a chance.”

Dr. Jarvis came over. “Do you mind if I borrow a pillow slip?” he asked. “I just want something to cover Mr. Corder's head.”

“Sure. Take it off that pillow right there. It's a pretty gruesome sight. Can you think what the hell did it? Is there any kind of bird that does that? Maybe some kind of raven got trapped down the chimney, or maybe a chimpanzee.”

“A chimpanzee?” I queried.

Dr. Jarvis said, “It's not so farfetched. There's an Edgar. Allen Poe story about an ape who murders a girl and stuffs her up the chimney.”

“Sure, but whatever did this is real fierce. It looks more like a cat or a rat to me. Maybe it's starved from being trapped up the chimney stack so long.”

Wallis got up off the bed. “I'm getting my gun,” he said. “If that thing comes out, I'm not standing here unprotected.”

Outside in the street, a siren wailed. Jane squeezed my arm. “They're here. Thank God for that.”

There was a heavy knocking at the front door, and Wallis went down to answer it. We heard feet clattering up the stairs and two cops in rain-speckled shirts and caps came into the small bedroom. They knelt down by the body of Bryan without looking at any of the rest of us, as if Bryan was their habitually drunken brother they were coming to take home.

“What's this pillow slip over his head?” asked one of the cops, a gum-chewing Italian with a drooping moustache. He didn't make any attempt to touch the pillow slip or move the body. Like most West Coast cops, he had a sense of suspicion that was highly attuned, and one of the first rules he'd ever had to learn was
don't touch anything until you know what it is
.

I said, “We were surveying the house. There were some noises here that Mr. Wallis found a nuisance. My name's John Hyatt and I work for the sanitation department. This is Jane Torresino and this is Dr. Jarvis from Elmwood.”

The cop glanced over at his buddy, a young Irishman with pale gray eyes and a freckly face that was almost more freckle than face. “How come the sanitation department is working so late?”

“Well,” I said, “this came outside the usual type of sanitary investigation. This is what you might call personal.”

“How about you, Doctor?”

Dr. Jarvis gave a brief, twitchy smile. “It's the same for me. I'm moonlighting, I guess.”

“So what happened?”

I coughed, and explained. “This gentlemen, Bryan Corder, he's an engineer from the same department as me. He's a specialist in house structure, and he usually works on slum clearance, that kind of thing. We brought him along because he knows about odd noises, and drafts, and everything to do with dry rot.”

The policeman continued to stare at me placidly, but still made no move to lift the pillow slip from Bryan's head.

“He thought he heard a thudding noise in the chimney,” I said, almost whispering. “He put his head up there to hear it better, and well, that's the result. Something seemed to attack him. We didn't see what.”

The cop looked at his buddy, shrugged, and lifted off the pillow slip.

A white-and-gold Cadillac ambulance whooped away through the easing rain, bearing Bryan Corder's body off to the Elmwood Foundation Hospital. I stood on the front step of 1551 and watched it go. Beside me, the police lieutenant who had arrived to deal with the case lit up a cigarette. He was a tall, laconic man with a wet hat and a hawkish nose, and a manner of questioning that was courteous and quiet. He had introduced himself as Lieutenant Stroud and produced his badge like a conjurer producing a paper flower out of thin air.

“Well,” he said gently, blowing out smoke. “This hasn't been your evening, Mr. Hyatt.”

I coughed. “You can say that again.”

Lieutenant Stroud smoked for a while. “Did you know Mr. Corder well?”

“We worked in the same department. I went 'round to his place for supper one night. Moira's a real hand at pecan cookies.”

“Pecan cookies, huh? Yes, they're a weakness of mine. I expect Mrs. Corder will take this very hard.”

“I'm sure she will. She's a nice woman.”

An upstairs window rattled open, and one of the policemen leaned his head out. “Lieutenant?”

Stroud stepped back a pace, looked upward. “What is it, officer? Have you found anything?”

“We've had half of that goddamned chimney out, sir, and there's no sign of nothing. Just dried blood.”

“No signs of rats or birds? No secret pas sages?”

“Not a thing, sir. Do you want us to keep on searching?”

“Just for a while, officer.”

The window rattled shut, and Lieutenant Stroud turned back to the street. The clouds had all passed overhead now, and stars were beginning to sparkle in the clear night sky. Down on Mission, the traffic booped and beeped, and out of an upper window across the street came the sounds of the
Hallelujah Chorus
.

“You a religious man, Mr. Hyatt?” asked Lieutenant Stroud.

“On and off,” I said cautiously. “More off than on. I think I'm more superstitious than religious.”

“Then what you said about breathing and heartbeats in the house … you really believe it?”

I looked at him carefully across the porch. His eyes were glistening and perceptive. I shook my head, “Uh-huh.”

“What I have to consider is a number of alternatives,” Lieutenant Stroud said. “Either Mr. Corder died in a particularly bizarre and unlikely accident; or else he was attacked by an animal or bird that was trapped in the chimney; or else he was attacked by an unknown man or woman who somehow hid him or herself in the chimney; or else he was attacked and killed by you and your friends.”

I stared down at the wet sidewalk and nodded. “I realize that.”

“Of course, there is the possibility that some supernatural event occurred somehow connected with your occult investigations here.”

I glanced up. “You consider that as a possibility?”

Lieutenant Stroud smiled. “Just because I'm a detective, that doesn't mean I'm totally impervious to what goes on in this world. And
out
of this world, too. One of my hobbies is science fiction.”

I didn't know what to say for a while. Maybe this tall, polite man was trying to win my confidence, trying to inveigle me into saying that Dr. Jarvis and Jane and I had sacrificed Bryan at some illicit black magic ceremony. His face, though, gave nothing away. It was intelligent but impassive. He was the first cultured-sounding policeman I'd ever met, and I wasn't sure I liked the experience.

I turned back to the door and indicated the wolfish doorknocker with a nod of my head.

“What do you make of that?” I asked him.

He raised an eyebrow. “I noticed it when I first came in. It does look a little sinister, doesn't it?”

“My friend thought it looked like a werewolf.”

Lieutenant Stroud stepped back. “Well, I wouldn't know about that, Mr. Hyatt. I might like science fiction, but I'm not an expert on vampires and demons and all that kind of thing. And in any case, my superiors prefer flesh-and-blood killers they can lock in cages. I always look for the natural answer before I think of the supernatural one.”

“Well, you're a policeman.”

The front door opened and Dr. Jarvis stepped tout. He was pale and he looked as if he'd spent the evening giving blood. “John, can I just have a private word with you?”

Lieutenant Stroud nodded his assent. “Dr. Jarvis led me into the hallway, and next to the statue of the bear-lady he turned around and faced me with an expression that was even more shocked and grave than before.

I said, “What's wrong? You look awful.”

He took out his handkerchief and patted the sweat from his forehead. “I couldn't tell the lieutenant about this. He's going to find out sooner or later in any case. But I'd rather he heard it from someone else, someone who's actually there.”

Just then, Jane came down the stairs. She said, “They've almost demolished the whole bedroom and they haven't found anything. John, can we leave now? I'd give my gold lamé tights for a gin-and-orange juice.”

“Jane,” Dr. Jarvis said, “you might as well hear this, too. You were there when it happened. At least you'll believe it.”

Jane asked, frowning, “What is it? Is anything wrong?”

I took the opportunity of putting my arm around her, and giving her a protective, masculine squeeze. It's strange how a man's sexual instincts go on working, even in moments of crisis and horror. But my ardor wasn't exactly firing on all eight. And when Dr. Jarvis told us his news, my hand dropped to my side and I stood there, frightened and wooden and coldly convinced that what was happening in Seymour Wallis's house was growing darker and more powerful and more malevolent with every hour that passed.

“I had a call from Elmwood. They took your friend Bryan Corder straight into the morgue, and began a postmortem.”

“Did they find out how he died?” asked Jane.

Dr. Jarvis swallowed uncomfortably. “They didn't find out because they couldn't. In spite of what happened to his head, he's still clinically alive.”

My mouth fell open like an idiot. “Still
alive?
He can't be!”

“I'm afraid that he is. At least, the surgeons believe he is. You see, his heart's still beating. They listened to his chest, and it's beating loud and clear at twenty-four beats to the minute.”

“Twenty-four?” asked Jane. “That's not—”

“Not human,” put in Dr. Jarvis. “Not human at all. But the fact remains that his heart's beating and while it's beating they're going to try to
keep
it beating.”

It was right then that I was sure I heard someone or something whispering. It may have been one of the policemen upstairs. It may have been an automobile's tires on the wet street. But when I turned around instinctively to see who it was, I realized I was standing nearer to that damned hideous doorknocker than anything else, that doorknocker that said:
“Return.”

THREE

I tossed and turned on my sweaty, wrinkled bed for a couple of hours, and then at five in the morning I got up and made myself a mug of strong black coffee and topped it up with Calvados. It's what the old men of Normandy drink to brace themselves on cold December days. I stood by the window looking down over the wan early morning street, and I felt as if the whole course of my life had subtly and strangely changed, like taking a wrong turn in a city you think you know, and finding yourself in an unfamiliar neighborhood where the buildings are dark and tatty, and the people unfriendly and unsociable.

By six I couldn't restrain my curiosity any longer, and I called Elmwood Foundation Hospital to see if Dr. Jarvis was there. A bland receptionist told me that Dr. Jarvis was taking no calls, but she made a note of my number and promised to have him call me back.

I sat back on my floral sofa and sipped more coffee. I'd been thinking all night about everything that had happened at 1551 Pilarcitos, and yet I still couldn't understand what was going on. One thing was certain, though. Whatever force or influence was haunting that house, it wasn't anything friendly. I really hesitated to use the word “ghost” even when I was thinking about it in the privacy of my own apartment, but what the hell else could it be?

There were so many odd sides to this situation, and none of them seemed to have anything to do with anything else. I had the feeling that Seymour Wallis himself was more important than he knew. After all, it was
his
house, and he'd been the first to hear all that breathing, and he'd said himself that bad luck had been dogging him around ever since he worked at that park on Fremont. He still had that odd souvenir of Fremont, too, the bear-lady on the banister.