The Dark Farewell (12 page)
Amy turned. It was almost as though she had been waiting for this. “That didn’t matter. After Gus was gone, it didn’t matter. He knew you respected him. He’d have liked to see you, though. I wish you’d come then: when he was still well—after you got out of the army. He used to talk about you a lot.” She said it without reproach. She was being honest, and Flynn heard her out without defensiveness.
“I should have. I meant to. I kept thinking there was time for all that. You’d think the war would have taught me that lesson.” He’d wasted a lot of time grieving. Not only grieving though, because that was maybe forgivable. He’d also wasted time feeling angry and sorry for himself. He’d hurt other people and it couldn’t all be repaired. He could tell Amy that he regretted his action—or lack of action—but it didn’t change anything. And he couldn’t tell Gus…
Perhaps he understood why Julian thought he was helping people when he let them take those dark
farewells of their loved ones.
Amy sighed and said, “I guess it’s a lesson we all need to learn a few times before it sticks.”
He understood why Gus had loved her despite their many and obvious differences.
Despite the turbulence of his emotions—and his hangover—Flynn’s appetite was not affected much,
and he kept eating pancakes as fast as Amy kept them coming, buttering them and spilling syrup on their pale faces reminding him of that big golden moon over the trees the night before.
The screen door behind him creaked. He turned, uncomfortably aware that he hoped the newcomer
was Julian.
It wasn’t. It was Casey.
“Well, you’re home early,” Amy greeted him.
He nodded and set his sample case on the table, pulling out the chair and sitting down heavily. “I
thought maybe I’d take Joan out for a drive today. Get her out of the house.”
He met Flynn’s surprised gaze pointblank.
“Well, that’s a very nice thought,” Amy said. “She’s down at the funeral parlor right now, but she
ought to be back anytime soon.”
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Casey smiled rather unpleasantly. “The old frog was stocking up on remedies for the kid last night,”
he informed Flynn.
“What remedies?”
“Bromide salts mostly.” He was enjoying himself, clearly. “Tincture of belladonna. He’s a very sick
boy, your pal.”
“What the hell is supposed to be the matter with him?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“No.” Flynn added shortly, “Should you be discussing this with all of us?”
“Now that you mention it, I guess not.” Casey smiled again. Funny how Flynn had first found Casey
attractive and his grin engaging. He thought now that though he was handsome enough, his smile had a hint of cruelty.
Casey pushed the chair back, picked up his sample case and left the room.
“Where is Julian?” Flynn asked Amy.
“He went out this morning early.”
Gathering information for the evening’s show, no doubt.
She said uneasily, “What do you suppose he meant about the boy?”
“I don’t know. He seems okay to me.” All things being relative.
She had a look on her face as though she were remembering something.
“What?” Flynn questioned.
“Oh, I don’t know.” She seemed flustered to be caught gossiping. “But the old man was closeted with
Dr. Pearson for a time yesterday. I did wonder…”
Flynn wondered too, but he realized he had already said too much about it.
Finishing his breakfast, he asked Amy if he could make a long distance phone call. She assured him
anything in the house was his to use. He waited until the coast was clear, then went into the hall and called his editor, Ellery Sedgwick, at
The Atlantic Monthly.
He told Sedgwick the massacre story seemed to be hitting a dead end, but he had a new angle on spiritualism and sleuthing.
“I thought you couldn’t wait to get back to New York?”
“I can’t. But since I’m here I need to make the trip worth my while. I simply don’t think there’s much story in the massacre. Nothing that hasn’t been covered.”
“I tried to tell you that.”
“You were right. But this spiritualism angle, well that’s new.” He told Sedgwick about the murders,
and Sedgwick heard him out in thoughtful silence.
“Well, one thing’s for sure, you haven’t been this excited about a story for a long time. I’ll be looking forward to seeing what you come up with. The spiritualism racket is still news.”
Flynn was thoughtful when he rang off.
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The Dark Farewell
The house was empty and hushed with a funereal silence when Flynn left for the Opera House that
evening. The Devereuxs had departed for the theater earlier to prepare for their final performance while the rest of the household was at the funeral parlor viewing for Mrs. Hoyt.
Flynn took the street trolley and arrived at the Opera House in plenty of time—which turned out to
have been a wise decision. It was a full house, every one of the nearly five hundred seats filled. News of The Magnificent Belloc’s conversation with the latest victim of the “Little Egypt Slayer”, as the local papers were now terming the maniac, had spread far and wide.
Flynn listened absently to the discussion floating around him.
The stage had not been broken down from the high school theatrics on Friday evening, and before the
stage crew drew the long red curtains the whispering audience was treated to an inside peek at
A
Midsummer Night’s Dream
forest fairy kingdom. A golden lantern moon hung in the fanciful swirls and star-swept blue black night. Shy woodland creatures peeked out behind painted trees and rocks. Glowing fireflies and fairies were strategically placed about the
mise en scène.
Flynn was reminded of the evening before. There had been a kind of magic in that woodland bedchamber.
Eventually the houselights dimmed. From behind the curtains a Victrola offered a scratchy rendition
of “Angel Friends”. The audience sang along.
Floating on the breath of evening, breathing in the morning prayer,
Hear I oft the tender voices that once made my world so fair.
I forget while listening to them, all the sorrows I have known,
And upon the troubles present, faith’s pure shining light is thrown…
The spotlights went on, the curtains slid slowly open on the fairy kingdom, far more realistic and
beautiful now that the main houselights were dimmed. Julian—The Magnificent Belloc—dressed once
more in the finery of a doomed aristocrat, sat in the golden throne. He was smiling remotely as the audience finished.
Bless you Angel friends, oh never leave me lonely on the way,
For your gentle teachings ever meekly may I watch and pray,
For your gentle teachings ever meekly may I watch and pray.
Pretty ghastly stuff in Flynn’s opinion. The audience trailed off, and someone killed the magnified
rolling gallop of the Victrola.
Belloc rose and strolled to the edge of the stage.
“Good evening.”
“Good evening,” the crowd answered back like thunder.
Julian smiled one of those practiced, charming smiles. “You will not be surprised to learn a great
number of people are still under the impression that clairvoyance is a mysterious art, practiced by peculiar
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Josh Lanyon
individuals who seem to be invested with singular—even sinister—powers, which they exercise within the confines of a dark and mysterious room. The séance room.”
The audience tittered at his friendly mockery.
“These ignorant ones are unaware that many persons of considerable and various abilities have had
psychical experiences of a veridical nature, and are familiar with the power of seeing either past or future, or both, as well as events that are happening at a distance.”
He strolled casually to the other side of the stage. “Seeing the past and becoming aware of the
possibility of witnessing people or happenings at a distance that cannot be perceived by the physical sight alone should bring us nearer to a comforting realization of the unity of all life and the existence of other spheres, of hitherto unexplored conditions in which dwell those whom we have known and loved in their earth lives, and later have mourned, because the physical process called death has removed them from the limitations of our physical sight and hearing.”
The hall was silent, only the occasional cough or throat clearing interrupting the solemn hush.
“This is reassuring, is it not?”
“Yes,” thundered back the audience.
“You have all heard of the well authenticated and numerous cases which have been recorded. It
becomes evident that this faculty of clairvoyance is a natural one, and can be used under natural conditions by perfectly natural people. The séance room is merely a laboratory, a quiet place where suitable and harmonious conditions can be assured, unhampered by the noise and distractions of the outer world.”
He paused as though giving the opportunity to object. A pin would have sounded like an anvil hitting the floor in that silence.
“Tonight, this hall will serve as our séance room as we attempt to contact those who have gone before us.”
Belloc returned to the golden throne and threw himself into it with careless grace.
“We will now summon my guide in the spiritual realm, le Comte de Mirabeau. He is your true host
this evening.”
Closing his eyes, Belloc bent his head, fist against his lips as though he were deep in thought. For a long time no one spoke, no one said anything. Then he lifted his head and murmured in French. There were rustles and whispers in the theater. Flynn smiled cynically, and yet he couldn’t deny that he was engrossed along with the rest of the audience.
Belloc’s eyelids fluttered, he straightened and opened his eyes. He had a distinctly French inflection as he said, “This one has been waiting, hanging back. He does not wish to grieve you,
monsieur
, but you must relinquish hope
.
” His bright gaze stared past the footlights. “He was a soldier. His name was Christopher,
oui
? Lt. Christopher Thompson. Reported missing in battle.” Julian shook his head regretfully, and a collective sigh seemed to escape the audience. “Who is here for Christopher?”
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The Dark Farewell
An elderly gentleman rose and stood erect as possible as he gripped his cane.
“He died bravely,
monsieur
. He wishes you to know that. And he wishes you to know that he is…how you say? Adjusting well to the…er…rules. In fact, he says there are far fewer rules on the other side. Love abounds. Heaven is and will be perfect love and harmony.”
The elderly man nodded curtly. He seemed to struggle to speak, but in the end he lowered himself
slowly and painfully once more. Belloc withdrew and closed his eyes again. More mumbling in French.
“
Ah, Grand-mère. Helen. Qui est ici pour Helen?
”
Sighs and rustlings.
“She died during the beginning of the influenza epidemic.”
More whisperings.
No one laid claim to Helen, and Belloc shrugged and went on. “She wishes you all to know that the
dead do not sleep. They are alive, as you are alive. Do not forget. Do not forget them for one moment.”
Belloc subsided once more. On this evening the spirits seemed to be mostly those of soldiers and
people who died in the Spanish Flu epidemic. Belloc was sincere and fluent, but something seemed off to Flynn. Slowly it dawned on him that whatever Belloc’s attitude, Julian was nervous.
He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he knew it.
“Maggie, Cyrus says that you must take the old tonic. The pink-colored one you were accustomed to
take. It is better for you. Thomas, your dog is at Harrison Farm. Patrick says that he is happy and well again and free from pain. Martin is watching over you and the children, Louise.”
Julian caught his breath. He clutched the arms of the throne and his knuckles turned white. “David,
Paul says you…Paul says there is nothing to forgive.”
Flynn heard this with a shock of disbelief. He sat very still, barely breathing.
Belloc opened his eyes and stared blindly at the wall of audience. “The quarrel meant nothing, would have been forgotten but for a German bullet. You know it is true.”
People looked around, but Flynn didn’t move, didn’t breathe.
Belloc exhaled a long ragged breath and went on, sending messages to the mothers and wives of dead
soldiers and sailors. Flynn continued to sit deaf and unseeing. A sob tore out of the woman next to him. A middle-aged man took out a handkerchief and blew his nose.
What was Belloc saying now?
Flynn forced himself to listen again. Shook off his numb preoccupation. But there was nothing to hear or see. Belloc was leaning back in his gold throne, exhausted. His face was white and strained, harsh breaths seemed to reverberate in the elegant Opera House. He rolled his head from side to side as though in a fever.
“No.”
He sat up and glared stage left. “
No
.”
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Josh Lanyon
Mesmerized, the audience watched as he jumped up, putting the throne between himself and another
invisible presence.
“What do you want?” Monsieur le Comte seemed to have departed in a rush, taking Belloc with him.
There remained a tense, angry young man speaking to what appeared to be…a ghost.
There was a long silence. People looked at each other, moved restively in their seats.
Julian said, “You must go. I can’t do anything more for you.”
A nervous ripple of laughter flowed up and down the aisles of the darkened theater. The audience
began to whisper and talk amongst themselves. Julian glanced at them, glanced back at whatever was on the stage with him—or whatever he was pretending was on the stage. But, no, Flynn didn’t believe that. As difficult, as bizarre as it was to conceive of, there did seem to be some…presence on the stage, hiding in the painted woodland.
